“Knife,” Bloodraven demanded softly of him, hardly giving Yhalen time to take the sheathed weapon from his own belt as he snatched at it. Bloodraven stuck the thing in his boot, then shrugged off his pack and heaved it at him. He staggered under the weight of his own pack and the heavier one that Bloodraven had carried. He arranged it as best he could, foreseeing a miserable day ahead if he had to play beast of burden for the duration of their journey until camp. It was only reasonable, though, if they were already within the boundaries of Bloodraven’s clan. It had been surprising kindness of Bloodraven’s part to risk shouldering the brunt of the burden for so long, with discovery so much a risk.
“No word from you.” Bloodraven bent and grasped his chin, the strength of his fingers brooking no argument. “Meet no gaze. Jump when I tell you, hear?”
“I remember,” Yhalen said, his sourness at the role overshadowed by fear of what was to come.
Bloodraven nodded once, satisfied, and began striding down the slope. One hand stayed on the hilt of his sword while the other touched passing trees for support on the steep way down. Yhalen followed in his wake, his shoulder already complaining of the strap biting into it and his back very likely to join the chorus in short order.
Soon enough he picked up the sounds of rustling in dry autumn leaves, and downslope saw the movement of figures. Bloodraven paused for a moment, squinting through the trees, then unexpectedly he raised his voice and called out a sharp ogre word. Immediately the movement froze, and a trio of broad faces stared upslope, trying to discern the origin of the call.
Bloodraven started walking again, a casual nonchalance to his stride that Yhalen sensed was all artifice. After a moment there were yells from down the slope and the figures moved to meet Bloodraven. Yhalen made no efforts to keep Bloodraven’s pace, content enough to hang back unobtrusively at the prospect of meeting strange ogres. But as the figures approached, he saw that they were no taller than Bloodraven himself—shorter in fact—and not so ideally proportioned. Halflings, like Bloodraven himself. Two males and a female. The female was the largest of the three, at least by girth. The other two were broad of shoulder and hip, more like their full-blooded brethren than Bloodraven. But their ears were smaller, their faces held more of humanity and their skin paler than the darker green tones of true ogres. They possessed crude weapons, stone mallets and knives, and no armor. Gatherers, Bloodraven had said, and unable to win the sort of equipment that warriors boasted.
They spoke in the ogre tongue, and Yhalen only caught a word here and there that sparked recognition. Bloodraven clapped a hand on the shoulder of one of the males in an act of familiarity.
Yhalen drifted to a stop a half dozen yards upslope. If they noted him, the halflings paid him no heed, attention fixed entirely upon Bloodraven. If Bloodraven had ever spoken so many words at once before, Yhalen hadn’t heard it. He spoke earnestly now and the halflings listened with wary expressions, ears twitching now and then in agitation, eyes white-edged with nerves. Perhaps there was an argument of sorts going on, for the occasional harsh gesture pierced the conversation and the speech was full of guttural growls and sharp exclamations. But then again, the ogre language was filled with such sounds.
He wondered—if he sat down, if they would take offense? But soon enough, one of the ogr’ron males departed, hurrying off through the woods as if he had purpose. Bloodraven gestured at Yhalen without glancing at him and sharply said an ogre word that Yhalen did understand.
Come.
Reluctantly, Yhalen shifted the weight of the packs and moved to follow Bloodraven, passing the 219
curious golden stares of the other two ogr’rons. It was hard going, burdened as he was, but thankfully the way led down slope. They heard a rustling in the leaves once, and Bloodraven calmly turned that way with a hand on the hilt of his sword. It was only the dog, though, returned from her ranging to assure herself that they were still well. Bloodraven called for her, a short sharp word, and she came padding up, burrs in her coat and specks of blood on her muzzle from some small animal she’d no doubt had to ferret out in a nest of briars.
Bloodraven put a hand on her thick neck and told her, probably as he’d instructed Yhalen, to behave. She looked up at him with intent brown eyes, considering the command.
Yhalen hurried to keep up when Bloodraven started off again, wanting very much to ask once more what sort of welcome they might expect. Wanting assurances that Bloodraven had yet to give that they would not be met with hostility and slow death. He wanted that knife back badly, no matter that against a full-blooded ogre it was next to useless in his hands. His other talents weren’t reliable. Aside from which, he still shivered at the thought of intentionally using them against reasoning beings.
Soon enough they reached a break in the forest. Beyond that was a stretch of flat earth that bled into a wall of rocky cliffs dotted with the dark openings of caves. Yhalen saw the ogres before he saw the lower camp. Dozens of large figures going about their daily business at the foot of the cliff, only looking up as Vorja barked at a group of smaller camp dogs.
Eyes swung their way and big bodies tensed, uncertain of who approached. When they saw Bloodraven and Yhalen they relaxed, not especially threatened by the sight of one halfling and a staggering human slave. There was more chance of animosity from the dogs, which were growling and barking at Vorja’s casual approach. She would take them down if they tried her, Yhalen felt certain, for they were half her size and underfed. Bloodraven snapped at her and she held back, her ears twitching as she growled low in her throat.
Other ogres began drifting out from beyond an outcropping of rocky cliff and Yhalen saw the edges of tents sheltered in what might be a very large canyon beyond that outcropping. Large enough to hold what Bloodraven claimed to be the strongest clan in the northern reaches.
Warriors came out to meet them, and grunted surprise when they were close enough to recognize Bloodraven. The gathering grew—a forest of towering, armed bodies that crowded about them.
Yhalen’s hands were white knuckled, fisted about the straps of the packs as his breathing went harsh and rapid.
Stay close to Bloodraven
, instinct screamed. Stay near his one source of protection amidst these ruthless people.
But he hadn’t the weight or the strength to resist the bodies that shoved him aside in their efforts to bark questions at their long lost son. He fell once, under the impact of a hip against his shoulder and scrambled back to avoid being trampled underfoot. He gained his feet, and stood there with the packs on the ground next to him, trying to control the fear that curled in his gut. They would smell it, they would descend upon him if they knew how deeply afraid he was of them. No matter if he had all of Elvardo’s dark powers, he’d still tremble in the midst of true ogres, having been broken thoroughly by their kind upon his first encounter.
The gathering began to shift towards the cliffs, heading down a well-trodden path towards the sheltered canyon. Yhalen was forgotten, with even Bloodraven not bothering to look back towards him.
Vorja had disappeared to prove her dominance over the clan pack. Yhalen wondered—if he simply melted into the woods, might they forget he’d ever been there? It was a tempting thought, but he doubted good would come of it. So he took a great breath, forcing some semblance of calm, then shouldered the packs and followed along in Bloodraven’s wake.
The closer he got to the cliffs, the more details he began to notice. Narrow paths had been hacked out of the cliff face, leading to each of the cave openings. Most of the caves had strings of beads or bone hanging at their mouths. Some had crude symbols etched into the stone surrounding the caves.
There were a great many of them, and they seemed natural rather than hand-hewn, which made him curious as to how deep they ran within the foundation of the cliffs.
A child ran towards him, large and lumbering, and he froze, recalling all too vividly the cruelty of the children of the previous ogre clan. But this one was more interested in finding out what the commotion was and pounded past him towards the canyon. Around the bend of path, protected by a relatively narrow mouth made up by two outcropped wings of cliff, was a wide gorge that might have ran a thousand feet into the depths of the mountain.
There were tents of all sizes along the walls, as well as pens in which animals were kept, and multiple large fire pits over which food was in various stages of cooking. The rare crudely constructed 220
wood structure, alongside tents for smithies and leatherwork—with human slaves helping with the skinning and tanning—were outside behind the main tents. There were open spaces where warriors sparred and children gathered to watch. It was a teeming community of ogres, hundreds and hundreds of them. And all of them were slowly turning their attention to the arrival of a halfling war leader that they had most likely thought dead.
Yhalen edged along, against the border of tents where the chance of getting trampled at the outskirts of the gathering crowd was less likely. He had lost sight of Bloodraven altogether, the halfling swallowed up in the sea of taller figures. He caught sight of other ogr’rons hanging around the edges of the crowd, yet not cowering in the dark spaces beyond it like the human slaves did, their tasks momentarily forgotten in the face of this disturbance.
There was a stilling of the gathering as broad faces turned towards the cliffs. A crudely carved set of steps led upwards to a particularly large cave mouth, decorated with hanging strips of dyed leather and hundreds of dangling beads and bone. A massive figure had emerged, tattooed and scarred, with rings of gold from the tip of his tapered ears to the fleshy lobe. There were strands of silver in his black hair, but nothing in the solid build of his body suggested that this ogre was anything less than physically hale. He stood for a moment, surveying the crowd below, while several ogre warriors barked up explanations—perhaps as to why the clan was in such agitation.
When he moved down the steps towards the place where Yhalen judged Bloodraven to be, ogres moved out of his path respectfully. This ogre was most probably the clan warlord. What had Bloodraven called him? Wartooth. Wartooth, who was a blood relation to Bloodraven’s rival and Yhalen’s personal nightmare, Deathclaw.
The crowd shifted enough that Yhalen got a glance of Bloodraven, standing unharmed and straight before the approaching warlord. For a moment, Wartooth stood, staring down at the halfling two heads shorter than himself. Then his arm swung out, a backhanded blow with a closed fist that rocked Bloodraven back on his heels. Bloodraven kept his feet and shook his head to shake off whatever pain he felt. He straightened, shoulders going back, amidst the awakening noise of a crowd scenting blood.
Yhalen shivered as dread settled in close behind the fear in his gut. It was a familiar fear of late that all Bloodraven’s plans would be torn asunder by the uncompromising ferocity of his people, but no easier to deal with for its familiarity.
Bloodraven took another blow to the other cheek, and he staggered back a step, blood beginning to trail down from the side of his mouth. A dozen ogre voices were bellowing to be heard above the crowd. A warrior with a great deal of silver in his braided hair stepped to Bloodraven’s side, speaking loudly to the warlord. Yhalen thought he might have seen the grey-haired ogre before. Perhaps in Bloodraven’s little raiding party.
A hand grasped his arm and he hissed, twisting about in a panic. But they were only human fingers and easily shaken off. He stared with wide-eyed breathlessness at a raw-boned human face, thin with malnutrition. Adorned with a dirty beard and roughly hacked blonde hair. He knew this face too, and was shocked to see it. He had assumed Vorjd was long dead.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Vorjd said.
His voice was hoarse and heavily accented, and his pale blue eyes widened as an outcry surged up amongst the gathering. Dozens of ogre eyes turned their way. Arms lifted and fingers stabbed towards the two humans—towards Yhalen, since Vorjd had shrunk backwards into the shadow of the tents.
Bloodraven raised his voice for the first time since Wartooth had confronted him, barking rapid ogre words that Yhalen had no hope of comprehending. He made a move forward, but was stopped as the edges of the ogre crowd began surging towards him.
He stood frozen in his tracks, terror befuddling thought and reflex. A hand with fingers the size of an infant’s arm grasped his elbow, wrenching him off his feet. He caught a flash of a twisted green face—sharp yellowed teeth and eyes filled with bloodlust—before another huge hand grasped his other arm in an attempt to yank him away. Something wrenched in his shoulder and he screamed, a rag doll stretched between two monsters with yet more bearing down upon him.
A harsh voice bellowed something, and the mob stilled, snarling and agitated. Another bellowed command and the ogres fighting over Yhalen dropped him reluctantly as they turned to look at their warlord, who was barking short commands to the crowd. Wartooth finished and turned, began to climb the stairs. The most decorated of the crowd separated to follow him, Bloodraven in their midst.
He hesitated only once, speaking a word or two to the silver-haired ogre that had come to his defense—then, without a glance at Yhalen, he continued following in the warlord’s footsteps.