When Penelope opened the door, the guards had straightened up at the arrival of a member of the public. That is to say, their heads were up and they were looking at her. One was paused in the act of investigating a nostril. Penelope, realizing she had gotten the drop on them, exploited her advantage.

“Are these Lord Kairon’s prisoners?” she demanded, “I wish to interview them on his behalf.”

Petty officer Nose Picker grunted. “On Lord Kairon’s orders? You haven’t shown me any vellumwork.”

Penelope invented quickly. “He said I wouldn’t need any for a simple interview.”

Two of the guards scoffed at her.

“You can always go check with him in person.” She was gambling on their laziness.

“Yeah, ok,” the one in charge said, “it’s not like they’re worth anything. He hardly keeps any prisoners at all.” He got up, looking around the room for the first time.

“What in Ogg’s Sixteen Pleasures happened in here?!” he bellowed. Penelope had noticed the mess when she had walked in, but this obviously wasn’t the normal state of affairs.

Next to the entrance was a puddle of armor and broken mannequin. Swords and spears were strewn about, originating from a toppled weapon rack. Shards of pottery littered the floor under a plank of wood with only one end affixed to the wall. It rested on its single anchor at a leisurely angle.

“I want this room neat and orderly on the double!” the orc barked. The guards were awake and moving busily. “And I want my spear in my hand now!” He held out a hand. A spear was picked up and thrust into it with a hasty “Yes sir!”

He gestured to Penelope to navigate the lively chaos and left towards the cells, employing his spear as a walking stick as he did. The other guards remained focused on their pressing engagements.

When they entered the room, the guard took notice of the gate which was slightly ajar. He bellowed, “There’s supposed to be three of them!”

Ignoring Penelope, he made his way to the gate.

“They didn’t break out,” he said forensically. His hand went to his waist.

“I’m missing my keys!” he hissed. Penelope could tell he didn’t want word to get out.

She stepped in.

“What do you mean that there were supposed to be three of them?” she asked in a conspiratorial tone.

It didn’t sink in immediately, so the guard just looked at her, angry and confused.

“The gate was unlocked and the one is just lying here!” His words were emphatic but quiet as escaping gas.

“And I just see you, me, and him,” she said, pointing to Salander, “who know right now.” Realization dawned like a new sun.

“Ok, ok,” the guard said eagerly, “yeah, there’s three of them in there.” He’d been thrown a lifesaver.

“You can go, quietly, and find the other two. They’re still detained,” she whispered to him, “just not where we’d expect them. Right?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I think it’s about time I go off duty. Right.” His brow furrowed. “Right?” Accusation hung at the end of the question mark.

“There are three prisoners in these cells,” she said innocently, “and I don’t know anything about any keys. I’m just here to talk."

He nodded with a grunt. He hesitated by the door, then clearly made up his mind and strode away.

He’s too worried about being found out. He’ll tell the other guards I can be left alone in here, she reasoned. It stood up to her logic, anyway. Back to her earlier problem.

“Where’s Chicken?” she asked the depressed heap on the cell floor. “Who was the third prisoner?”

“I don’t know,” he said, answering both questions at once.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” she asked. He just scoffed at her. She had never gotten anything but grief and silence from him before, so right now he seemed not so much different, just tired.

Nevertheless, frustration bubbled over. Frustration at the trial, frustration at her people, frustration at life. She sat against the bars in a huff and put her head in her hands. It helped a little. She stopped short of screaming.

Instead, she just said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Salander stirred. “You need to get out of here?” He propped himself up to look at her. “These are your people. Why do you need to get out of here?”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Because I’m not an orc.”

“I thought you were lying. You really believe that?”

“Of course,” she said, uncertainty setting in, “Could you really believe I’m an orc?” She thought of her own aversion to violence, her weird ideas, and the little things that set her apart from her tribe.

Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “I’m absolutely certain of it.”

Silence passed between them. Penelope’s mind turned. Salander could look at her and see her as a conniving, untrustworthy, power-hungry green menace.

“You’re certain I’m an orc?”

She couldn’t help Chicken. He was out there somewhere. Maybe safe, maybe in danger. But she had more personal concerns. She began formulating a plan.

****

The kobolds of Very Small Numbers strained against the hot rock in a desperate attempt to shift it. The failure for slacking was immediate motivation with a hot poker by one of the devilish goblin overseers. Only a few days into subjugation under orc control and the kobolds had accomplished nothing but make a pile of rocks in the western edge of the tribe’s land. The only kobold to think about the ramifications was Auntie, who was excused from physical labor due to age. While teams of kobolds and goblins toiled in the sun, she sat in her bivouac under more direct supervision.

The Bloodboil orc sat cross-legged in the room, his head almost touching the ceiling. He had been taking his breakfast of bird eggs and jerky in the shade when he asked, “You’re the medicine woman?” She hadn’t had anything to eat and was trying not to watch the food.

“I am,” she said coldly.

“You got an important job,” he said. His tone implied he was explaining a foreign concept.

She opened her mouth to say, “yes, it’s quite important,” but he cut her off.

“Don’t say anything. I’m telling you what your job is going to be,” he said curtly. “There are a lot of slaves out there.” He gestured to the wall. “Tough work being done. It’s hard on a body, at least for you lesser races. I don’t want work to stop, but I don’t want to have to call in more prisoners.”

A darkness stole over Auntie. She could see where this was going.

The orc continued, “All the pieces need to work together. And they’re going to work, medicine woman. They’ll work until the point they can’t work no more. That point can be later,” here the orc took a bite of food and said with a full mouth, “or it can be sooner.”

With the vigor of a forced march, she began to prepare for patients. She laid out simple bed rolls and took inventory of her medicines. She was low on the distilled small beer she used to clean wounds and the poppy plants she sometimes used to make a feel-good draft. She began to stoke a fire.

The first one was dragged in while she was boiling reclaimed fabrics. A goblin dropped the weak kobold on the floor of her hut before stepping back outside without a word. She checked the kobold where he lay, being unable to move him herself. Scorch marks were on his back and the inside of his knees. No major damage to the skin under his scales, but it looked painful.

“Can you make it to the roll?” she asked not unkindly. Luckily he was conscious and painstakingly crawled onto a pallet.

She started giving him cool water when the orc, who had been watching intently, spoke up.

“What’s wrong?”

Auntie was still focused on the kobold as she said, “It looks like heat exhaustion. He’s favoring his right arm, which is likely muscle strain. I don’t feel any breakages.”

“Turn it out.”

She ignored him at first, still giving water to the patient who could barely move, and said defiantly, “He needs bed rest and cool water.”

At this she heard the quiet but commanding sound of a blade being drawn.

“Turn it out. I saw it crawling. It’s had its rest and water, now turn it out.”

The injured kobold’s eyes grew wide as it looked up at her. He was imagining the same thing as her. Despite the close quarters, they both knew a determined orc couldn’t be impeded for long. Auntie put the spoon back in the water jug and began helping him up.

When the patient was gone, the orc said, “Remember this, medicine woman. They leave when I say they leave. Either on their feet or on their backs.” He put his blade away. “Like I said, you got an important job.”

While Auntie worked to restore her tribe’s rapidly waning energy one kobold at a time, within their overlord’s constraints, she would think of Chicken and Salander before uttering a silent prayer.

****

Far away in the city of Hurraggh, the prayer got lost. Instead of encountering the intended person in the designated location, it was faced with Nondescript Lizardfolk Prisoner A. Upon this discovery, the prayer got frustrated and resigned, quoting unfair working conditions and poorly organized management.

Unbeknownst to the prayer, however, Nondescript Lizardfolk Prisoner A was merely a guise being adopted by Chicken. He was assisting Nondescript Goblin Prisoner B, who he knew was really his friend Amerigo also in disguise. They were carrying a heavy pot through the streets of Hurraggh in a bid to avoid being stopped, in accordance with that most ancient of prohibitions against interfering with people doing a hard job.

There had been no dice with the gate. They were closed and neither of the escapees wanted to risk being noticed, whether by loitering or by asking the gate guard politely if they could leave. They started wandering, looking elsewhere for means of escape. With the occasional break in a back alley out of sight of the public, they were getting to see the sights. Chicken had never seen anything like Hurraggh, but he hadn’t yet had a chance to take it in.

The first thing he noticed was that the buildings were made of stone instead of patchwork cloth and leather. He could see that their rigid structure allowed more space inside. They were as tall as he height of three orcs, stacked, and he could see people on the second story through another amazing invention he learned were called windows. These were smaller doors cut into a wall which allowed in air, dust, and bugs.

Around the outside of the city, which the pair quickly discovered when they tried to leave by going straight in a random direction, were the walls. They were made of stone as well and were almost twice the height of the other buildings. Proving to be unscalable by Chicken, the two eventually turned back towards the center of the town.

While they stopped by a self-filling water trough for Amerigo to dampen himself, a voice called out to them.

“You two! What are you doing?”

It was an orcish woman, bejeweled with fine metal piercings and small polished skulls about her body, and her black hair cinched into a loop above her head. She had a stern look on her face, and fists on her hips.

“I’ve been watching you carry that trash bin all around these streets and I’m absolutely certain that garbage is only collected on alternating Gruesdays.” She had an air of smugness to her, sickly satisfied to have found someone doing wrong so she could yell at them.

Chicken and Amerigo shared a panicked expression. Amerigo shrugged, wide-eyed.

“I want to see who is responsible for you,” she said with the authority of a battle axe.

This street-side dressing down attracted the attention of a guard, who began ambling over. Being on the lookout for a kobold and a gnome, he noticed what the prayer from earlier could not.

“Those are the prisoners I’m looking for! They escaped their cells!”

Reacting to the guard’s squint of recognition, Chicken’s hindbrain responded before the guard could get out three words.

By the end of the first sentence, he was grabbing Amerigo’s hand.

Before the guard could dot his second exclamation point, he was pointing futilely at twin clouds of dust and a gently wobbling heavy jar as the kobold sped the gnome into the maze between buildings.

We hadn’t gone this way before, he thought when his brain caught up to recent events. The buildings were closer together and the alley was darker and dirtier. Probably because we couldn’t fit the pot this way, he concluded. After a zig, a zag, and a second zig just to throw off their pursuers, he slowed and let Amerigo catch his breath, who doubled over and had to put an arm out to stop himself from falling as he heaved air.

Chicken looked up. This building was taller than the others. It went right up to the top of the wall. In addition, the alley was less than an arm span wide.

He pulled Amerigo’s attention away from surviving. “Look at that,” he said, pointing up. “We could climb this easily.”

Amerigo, keeping his eyes on the height, gestured firmly to the negative. A commotion came from towards the center of town.

"I think this is our only way out,” Chicken said impatiently. He grabbed Amerigo’s wrist and pulled him to the wall.

“Just do what I do.” Having lived in the craggy wastelands his whole life, Chicken had a few tricks for sticky situations. He put his hands against the wall and his feet on the other. With some effort, he walked his feet up the other.

It looked stupid, but it worked.

Amerigo watched Chicken arch-walk up the alleyway walls. I could never do that, was his first thought. His second thought chimed in, alerting him again to the trailing orcs, so he tried doing what he just watched Chicken do.

Putting his hands on the wall, he took a breath. Then he stepped up on the wall.

Three steps in, he froze. The sounds were getting louder.

Punctuated with grunting, Chicken called down words of encouragement, but they fell on deaf ears. Amerigo just couldn’t do it.

No big deal. Everyone needs at least a couple chances on their first try. He got down, closed his eyes and took a deeper breath, and then tried again.

Three steps in and he froze. Again. Something psychological prevented him from going any further. His calves froze when he tried to move them. He strained against gravity while staring at the ground.

Chicken was already halfway up the wall when the guard and a small rabble entered the alleyway. Amerigo locked eyes with the lead orc, which startled him. He lost his concentration and fell hard. The orcs made straight for Amerigo.

This was difficult due to the narrow alley, so the orcs had to make their way single file, each of them brushing their shoulders against both walls.

Chicken watched the oncoming orc with horror. They were going to take his friend and, in his single-mindedness, he was halfway up a wall with no quick way down. No quick way down that would improve our situation, he amended.

Amerigo looked to the other end of the alley. More orcs were coming, flanking the two escapees. He was trapped. He was going to be taken back to the cells, his future resigned to manual labor in this dry hell miles away from his precious reef. It was over.

“I think it’s time,” a voice boomed, vibrating the walls and startling the orcs, “for a spiritual uplifting.” Amerigo recognized this voice. It was as refreshing as cool currents, and twice as powerful.

Wind started whipping through the alley. Clouds formed in the air like ink dripped in water. The orcs stopped. They watched as Amerigo’s robes flapped about him chaotically, and he began to lift off the ground. Even Chicken stopped to see what was happening.

Amerigo felt weightless amidst the suddenly lively air. He was in the center of a vortex which came down from the heavens and was working with extra gumption to counteract the steady persistence of gravity. His feet slowly left the ground with a smile plastered on his face.

The orcs braced against the wind, covering their faces with their arms and trying to stay upright. The effort of levitating Amerigo was, by the same coin, also trying hard to knock over his pursuers.

As Amerigo ascended to Chicken’s level, he reached out a hand. He took it and let go of the wall. The kobold also felt weightless.

Inch by inch, they endured the whipping wind to climb ever closer to the edge of the wall. They could hear shouting below but could no longer make out any words. In a moment that stretched on forever, they reached the edge, and all at once the wind died out.

Amerigo hit the walkway at the top of the wall bodily. Chicken almost didn’t grab the ledge in time. He dangled loosely, realizing all too well that the slow climb had a short return trip.

With Amerigo’s help, he also wound up on solid ground.

“What,” he gasped, “was that?” He gulped calm air, letting his legs and arms rest for a moment.

Amerigo grinned and pointed up. Then he clasped his hands in prayer for a short time.

Mentally pocketing his skepticism for later, Chicken glanced below.

“They know how to get up here faster than we did,” he said flatly. “So now we need to get away. Unless you can do that again, we’re looking for something to get us back down the other side.”

A moment’s searching yielded Chicken a selection of weapons.

“Any luck?” he called to the gnome. He was pulling the lid off a fiber basket. He looked up at Chicken and gave a thumbs up. The thing was full of a long piece of rope.

“They’ve got these combat hooks,” Chicken said, holding up what looked like the question mark version of swords.

When the guards on the wall arrived, they found their hook swords looped around the walkway slats with rope tied to the hilt and leading off the exterior of the wall. Chicken and Amerigo were already lost among the craggy landscape.