“No duel, little man?” asked Great Jules.

“I have brought two friends, and you have two friends as well,” I pointed out. “The odds are still fair.”

“More meat for my servants,” shrugged the ogre. He seemed unconcerned. He really shouldn't have been. He crossed the room with a stride, and that was when I unleashed the power of fire breath on him.

The pale giant was engulfed in flames and reeled back in pain. I jumped forward, stabbed him with Shatterspike, then jumped back to the door while covering myself with my shield. Great Jules' wolves surged forward snarling and growling. One tried to bite into my leg, but I blocked with my shield, the other went straight for my throat, but missed, and I shoved it back into the room. Jim tore into the beast's side with his halberd, and Beldrak conjured a levitating ball of flames and rammed it into Great Jules.

The ogre doused his flaming clothes and now brought his axe down on me. I blocked the blow with my shield, spat fire at the giant again, and opened a deep wound on his arm.

All three enemies were focused on me now, as I was the only one they could reach. I stood in the doorway, blocking it with my shield and my armoured body. The point of Jim's dangerously glinting halberd wasn't ever far either, and when a wolf tried to go around me, the tiefling tore into it viciously.

Blow by blow, stab by stab we wore down Great Jules and his pets. My shield arm was numb, and bruises covered me under my armour, but never once were our enemies able to wound me seriously, while Jim and I drew blood with every jab we made. Beldrak worked his magic relentlessly and set the ogre on fire again and again. Great Jules was a big, tough brute, but even he had his limits. When I spat fire at him for the third time and followed up with a savage thrust, his scream of impotent rage became a cry of fear and pain, then Jim put the glimmering point of his halberd through the giant's throat, and the ogre collapsed into a pile of trembling meat.

The wolves lost heart, seeing their master's demise, one of them drew back into the room whining, and licking its wounds, the other, the braver or more desperate beast leapt and sailed through the air over the head of Jim and me. That did not save the wee critter. The moment it touched the ground, we were already piling onto it, even Beldrak forgoing his magic this time in favour of his hammer. The wolf died with its guts hanging out, its skull shattered, then we streamed into the room, and finished off our last enemy.

“This potion of fire breath was a very useful thing,” I said cheerfully as we rummaged through the ogre's belongings.

“And it was even free,” agreed Beldrak. “Pity there was only one in that well.”

“Pity the other well held poisonous fume instead of a vial,” I laughed. “Poor Erky... I wonder if he arrived in Sheepsford safe and sound.”

“He had enough bad luck in Oakhurst. If his god has a little mercy left in that cold ruby that is rumoured to be his heart, he won't subject the poor sod to any other misadventure.”

“Gods have no mercy for mortals,” said Jim shaking his head. “The best we can hope for is that they forget about us.”

We found a few hundred silver worth of coins, and a strange, long sword, that had a curious, slender blade. Jim declared it a rapier, a “pretty awesome” one too, and took possession of it immediately. He explained that while the weapon was rarely used on the battlefield, it was the best sword for duelling. Since our daily sparring was yet to take place, Jim set out to illustrate the point, but of course, rapier or no rapier, I won again. It was like that since we met, he almost always beat me when it came to grappling, and I almost always proved to be better when it came to swordsmanship. Though in the last month Jim started to practice a trick, that could turn the tide in his opinion: he bound a dagger to his tail and tried to score on my legs with it. In time, it would be probably a useful trick, but as of now, his surprise thrusts were still slow and easy to avoid.

After a few minutes of fencing, Beldrak had enough.

“We still have a whole fort to explore, have you forgotten? Save your strength.”

So we went forward again, into the tunnels we had already seen yesterday. We did not meet a soul. It seemed that Beldrak was right about the greenskins, we did bleed them dry. But the wizard was still wary and became jumpier and jumpier as we advanced. He became especially tense when we found doors barricaded or walled off.

“As I suspected. The orks are not the only ones living here. What's more, they were afraid enough of the other tenants to wall themselves off like that from the lower levels.” He turned to us. “We will have to take prisoners again and find out everything the greenskins know. I want to know what are we facing before we take apart any of the barricades.”

But taking prisoners was easier said than done. The orks were terrified after we killed so many of their comrades, and did their best to evade us. As they were on their home turf, and there were only a few remaining, it took hours before we could at last find and corner two of the remaining orks. They pulled back into a storage room which had no other exits. Jim and I went in and kept them occupied until Beldrak could put them to sleep.

As it turned out, we had an obstinate and a talkative prisoner again, the latter being called Thibaud. He spoke better Common too than any other ork we met before.

“How many of you have remained in the fortress?”

“We are the only ones that are left here, and François with his two bodyguards. And some raiders had not come back yet. Maybe they won't come anymore but return to our tribe in the North instead.”

“Is François your priest? Your shaman?” asked Beldrak.

“Yes, he is. He shut himself into his lair, and said he will summon the patron of the tribe to deal with you.”

“That sounds ominous,” I interjected. “Where can we find François?”

The stubborn ork, who refused even to tell his name, started to scream in his own language. Judging by the tone, he wasn't expressing a very favourable opinion about his comrade. Thibaud hung his head and took the verbal abuse in silence. I moved to make the other ork shut up, but Beldrak gestured me to let the greenskin be, cocked his head, and listened to the stream of orkish swearing with great interest. He used the spell again that allowed him to understand every language.

“Ork swearing is so unimaginative,” he pronounced the verdict after our prisoner run out of breath. “Or at least this fellow here is. Dwarven has so much more variability!”

“You are biased in that regard,” I pointed out. “Have you learnt something of import as well?”

“Nothing we didn't know before. Thibaud, will you please go on? We would like to know where to find François and his bodyguards.”

“I... I... I don't have to tell you that!” he shouted. But we all saw the pure, primal fear behind his defiance. And he had every reason to be afraid.

“Look, my boy,” sighed Beldrak. “We have already killed how much, twenty? thirty? of your kind. Do you think your life matters to us? Unless you tell us what we want to know, you are not going to leave this room alive. But before you die, we will beat you senseless a few times, and probably even cut out a bit of flesh here and there. My friend Jim here accumulated quite a bit of experience over the last few days about torturing orks.”

“Talk, and we will let you live,” I offered. “We will give you food and water too. You must be thirsty, isn't that right?”

The other ork started to scream again, and this time Beldrak did not stop me. I broke the greenskin's nose, knocked out most of his fangs, then wadded his mouth.

“Well,” said Jim cheerfully. “My dear Thibaud, now you see how a human works. Methodical, thorough, but no passion. No talent. A tiefling can do so much better. Should I show it to you?”

Thibaud sang like a little bird.

To be fair, I liked the old, upstanding Jim better, but this new Jim was undeniably more efficient. It was a little unnerving though, seeing how savage and unscrupulous he became in these last few days. He was almost as bad as me now.

We never found out whether or not François was really able to summon the patron of his tribe, or that was only wishful thinking on his part. When we found the secret corridor leading to his workshop and barged in, he was still in the process of drawing a pentagram onto the floor with blood, salt and chalk, and we did not intend to let him finish. Beldrak immediately dropped one of the bodyguards with his sleep-inducing spell, while Jim clinched with the other. I raised Shatterspike to cut down the ork who had to be François, but he looked into my eyes and said one word.

“Flee.”

I understood it, even if he spoke in Orkish, and before I knew what I was doing, I turned around and fled. I ran more than ten paces before I was able to stop, and even then, I had to force myself to return into the workshop where my friends were fighting for their lives. François woke the bodyguard whom Beldrak put to sleep before, and now both warriors were trying to corner Jim, while the two magic users faced off each other.

Before the ork shaman could send me away again with a spell, I threw a javelin at him and pierced his thigh. Even my uninitiated eyes could see how his enchantment unravelled, as his magic escaped from his formula. Trueanvil, on the other hand, finished his spell and put François to sleep.

“I am out!” the wizard shouted at me. “You deal with the rest.”

We succeeded beating one of the bodyguards into unconsciousness with our shields, but the other did not survive the ordeal. It was a bloody and hard fight, both Jim and I were left with bleeding wounds this time, but all of our enemies were made harmless: one died, and the other two were tied up like ham. That taken care of, we carried our new prisoners to the room where we left the two others. Now, that the threat of François was neutralised, we had time to finish the interrogation of Thibaud.

“What were you so much afraid that you built all these barricades and closed yourself off from other levels?”

“I wouldn't say afraid. We were taking reasonable precautions because the lizardfolk lives down there. How do you say it in Common? Troglodytes, that is the word.” Thibaud now that his life wasn't in danger anymore seemed almost glad to talk to us. As if we were having a pleasant conversation between old friends. I couldn't help but pity the poor boy for his delusions.

“They came up all the time before, you know? Raided our supplies and all that. Great Jules loves... or I mean loved fighting, but it became bothersome even for him to deal with all that. So he ordered us to build the barricades. Even so, the troglodytes wouldn't let us be in peace. They were always hunting for lone orks, outside on the mountainside. They eat the ones they catch,” he finished in a whisper. Seemingly even mentioning the topic made him uncomfortable.

“Oh no, poor orks, you are not the most savage and cruel branch around! Must be really hard for you.” Beldrak's voice was all vitriol.

“It's not like I asked for this life, you know!” shot back Thibaud indignantly. “I would have liked to go to a fancy magic university like you, learn history, languages and spells! Live in a plump city, have a nice house, and a market nearby to tend to my needs. But you and humans pushed us out to the frozen North, and even here you encroach. If we didn't raid the colonists moving here, they would push us even further, until we wouldn't have anything but snow and ice!”

“Spare us your grievances,” I sighed. “We don't care. What about the well?”

“What well?”

“The one in the big rectangle-shaped hall. We tried to measure it, but it was too deep. Can something come up from the lower levels through that?”

“I suppose. But it never happened as far as I know.”

We had some other trivial questions like that and received answers, but we did not uncover anything significant anymore.

“So what should we do with, you know?” I asked at the end. “Hm, Thibaud, what do you think?”

“You could let us go?” he chuckled nervously. “We could give you our word, that we return to our tribe, and never come here again.”

“I am afraid that won't do,” Beldrak shook his head. Then he turned towards me. “You asked before, whether people in the Misty Hills kept slaves. Well, this far north, away from civilisation, they do. There are never enough hands to work in the mines. We should take these four back to Blessingdale and sell them.”

“I thought you opposed slavery on moral principles,” I teased him.

“I do,” Trueanvil answered earnestly. “But these are orks. As I see it, we either make them slaves or kill them. I don't particularly like killing prisoners, not even orks. So, slavery it is.”

“The shaman will be a tough nut to crack,” mused Jim. “He could commit a lot of mischief if our attention slipped.”

François gave him a glare. He clearly understood Common well enough.

“We won't let him sleep,” said Beldrak. “If you can't sleep properly, your magic quickly becomes unreliable.”

We loaded up ourselves and our prisoners with as much potato we could carry and started back towards Blessingdale. The three ork warriors clearly understood their predicament because they made a point not to make any mischief. The shaman, though, simply did not care. He remained defiant, threw away any package we made him carry and tried to make a run for it multiple times through the day. In the night we kept waking him every hour whenever he has fallen to sleep, to break him at last. But François was made of steel and showed no sign of cracking. So the night of the 5th of November went by.

While we broke our fast on the 6th, François used one of his lesser spells, levitating a small knife to himself. But Jim caught the blade in the movement, and then beat the ork shaman severely.

François seemed subdued for the rest of the day, but he was really just pretending, biding for his time. At night, when Jim and Beldrak went to sleep, the bastard tried to set our tent on fire with small flames burning in his palm. I caught him, and as his hands and legs were still bound together, I had no problem subduing him and gave him a good thrashing. I hoped that this would, at last, convince the ork to stop trying, but this was not to be. The very same night, under Beldrak's watch, François cut the ropes binding his hands on a sharp rock. We caught him in time again, but I was fed up with his antics. I told him to swear on his patron to not to cause any mischief for us, and when he denied, I cut his throat and left him to bleed out on the ground.

The 7th of November went by without further complications thereafter, and we arrived at Blessingdale with our remaining prisoners a few hours after nightfall.

PubliusDeciusMus

After one of my editors came up with this cool title for the chapter, I was debating to rename Jules to Maximilien, and François to Georges, after Robespierre and Danton. In the end I decided that it was too much work for too little fun. Instead, I was hopefully able to cut down on the number of typos! Well, one can dream. Publius Decius Mus certainly could, we have the word of Livy for that.