Urzog didn’t know how much longer his luck would run for. Against all odds he had escaped from the lion’s den and had been running from their grasp, one step ahead of them at every turn.
If the gods weren’t already poised to kill him, they surely would be now. Maybe the bounty hunters sent by the divinely brain-dead and zealous Inquisition were part of that. Though perhaps divinely brain dead was an exaggeration, they did actually send some people who seemed competent this time and didn’t need to catch him in his sleep to take him. Cowards.
At least he had his few possessions back and with him now. They’d been easy enough to find in that damned dungeon after he knocked out the guards and dashed the brains out of a few more. His poleaxe, his armour, his pack, and his pouch with everything still left inside. Everything safe.
Getting out of the city from there wasn’t too much of a challenge. The guards all seemed to be busy looking got some other group of poor fucks the Inquisition was rabidly obsessing over. Hopefully, for their own sakes, they got out too, not many could withstand the “interrogations” like he could. Either way, it didn’t matter to him now, they’d be on their own.
But it wouldn’t hurt to take a sip of his beer for them.
He slowly raised his mug to his lips and tasted the underwhelming Southern beer. It was remarkable just how shit it could get after going south of the Litholian Mountains. North it was fine and deep with the taste of the land within, the hills and the forests and the lands where everything he was once resided.
He let that sip become a little deeper.
The world outside the inn was cold and wet, the night bringing rain and winds unlike the last which should make travelling a poor choice, giving him the opportunity to stay here, by the warm hearth for the night. It’d been far, far too long since he’d been able to do that. To let the chatter of people and the muted sounds of the weather outside surround him and fade into the background as he drank his beer and ate food.
If only I hadn’t gone to that fucking city for some work. There’s nothing but pompous nobles and merchants in them.
Hestari’s blessings from of the hearth again softened that feeling but not by much. Hell, it was pleasant to be able to accept it as a divine blessing and not have some narrow-minded zealous hounds of the Patriarch try to torture him into thinking otherwise even when they both worshipped the same god as the king of kings. Those those fools couldn’t interpret Yaawha’s words properly, seeing his word as being the one god literally and falling over themselves to say that the other gods did not exist or were just daemons or were spirits without any spark of divinity. They could not think of it instead meaning that Yaawha’s role as the king of kings also included being king of all the gods, all the other gods who had shown themselves across time and given birth to children, undeniable facts towards their divinity and existence. A fact that made him even more mighty than the Cathos clergymen could ever make him with their own rhetoric. A kingdom where the ruling Fourteen Emoran gods and their minor family, the mighty Neuhderland deities and spirits, the ancient Urbad and Cudeshian pantheons, and many others beside lived under Yaawha.
He let himself chuckle softly to himself. Perhaps in another life he could have been a priest with that rhetoric and passion.
But his days always had to get worse, always. He just had that sort of horseshit luck that came with having Caeru’s back always turned to him.
The door groaned open as the smell and sound of the rain and howling wind entered the inn with a group of dogs in toe.
The dogs wore leather capes over their bodies and heads while the unmistakable slight jingling noise of mail armour followed them. The god damned mercenary hounds had found him.
Or perhaps not?
They looked around, almost seeming to sniff the air as they searched for a suspicious face. Urzog tried to keep his head down, using his position on the table behind that of a large gaggle of travellers to blend in as best he could. Having green skin however limited how well that actually worked.
But, maybe due to their tired state, maybe due to his best attempts to stay hidden, maybe both, they didn’t walk to him. Instead, they walked up to the counter, threw off their hoods and started to talk to the old satyr behind the bar. Presumably to get shit drunk off of the piss water the man offered as beer. Though that’s exactly the swill mercs deserve.
Sure enough a few mugs of it were passed over with a bowl of pork rinds and they turned around right towards Urzog’s table.
Not tonight Caeru…
He slowly put his hand to the fork on his plate and drew his poleaxe a little closer.
They continued to walk further, still happily chatting with each other as they haplessly walked towards their target that they’d been tailing for days.
Maybe Caeru had given him a little bit of luck by having the Inquisition hire mercs who were so easily distracted by beer.
With a loud thud, the four of them sat down on the bench opposite him, briefly looking over to him as they sat their mugs down and paused.
He saw their eyes flicking between each other for a second, all of them realising who was sitting in front of them.
“Do we know you?” The red-haired man opposite him asked whose little brown eyes portrayed all the intelligence of a mut.
“I don’t think you do,” Urzog grunted bluntly.
“No, you seem awfully familiar…” He murmured, almost for show it seemed, “I think us boys heard saw some stuff about you in- oh… Do you happen to know Uribhafen? Maybe been there?”
The little smirk across the man’s face made him want to snap already and cut that expression off his face.
Instead, Urzog took a long drink from his beer before setting it down gently and moving his hand back to his fork. “I know it. Who in the Empire wouldn’t?”
“Avoiding the question Orc?”
“It’s a little stupid to ask it when the road we’re on comes from there. What about it?”
“Well, you see, we’ve been told about this man. Yey high, covered in scars, green skin, a thoroughbred orc. A real nasty one too that escaped from some very important people with a good pile of money.”
“How much?”
“Wha-“
Urzog rolled his eyes, “How much’s the bounty?”
“One hundred Groschen for getting it alive and nicely tied up.”
Urzog whistled, “Must be quite the valuable orc.”
“Well, you know the church, they don’t like sinners running around, do they?”
“Certainly not…”
That stupid smirk started to spread across the merc’s face as his hand slipped to his belt. “See, just I think you’re that sinner orc we’re meant to get. What do you say about that?”
Urzog chuckled slightly, the man’s nostrils flaring a little as he did, “I think they should have paid more and got some better hounds.” He said as he grasped his fork and stabbed in straight into the stupid fuck’s eye.
Urzog felt it go through to the man’s brain as he howled with pain, stumbling backwards before falling to the ground.
The effect was immediate as the entire inn erupted into chaos and the sound of swords sliding out of their scabbards rippled around the small space above that of the screams. He jumped out of his seat and grabbed his poleaxe and readied himself.
Urzog was surrounded with a long poleaxe and nowhere to go as three hounds bore their weapons at him.
“Overconfident, aren’t you lot?” He growled, “Want to scamper away?”
The answer came via the woosh of a sword sweeping up to his chest. A clumsy attack that he caught with his weapon, holding the blade in place as he rammed the spike into their gut straight through a weak point in the mail before withdrawing.
Another strike dove in to his left, a distraction as proven by the other man jumping over the table to try and flank him as his comrade tried to cover him.
He swung with the axe head into the man’s side, trying to sidestep away from the strike. But it was only partially successful as the sword grazed his arm and the poleaxe embedded itself into his assailant’s side.
Hopefully he kept that clean…
But there was not much time to dwell as in one final desperate act, the flanking man tried to drive Urzog through with his bastard sword, leaping forth with all the speed they could muster.
The force of his charge served to be his downfall as the butt spike of Urzog’s poleaxe was whipped around to intercept their neck, the delicate flesh splaying open as blood sprayed from it.
For a few brief moments, they tried oh so hard not to choke on their own blood before it flooded their lungs, their arms flailing around and trying desperately to dislodge the spike. But alas, it was to no avail as their struggle slowly dissipated like the life inside them.
He didn’t think the innkeeper would let him stay after that. So, with a sigh he downed the other men’s beers, put on his pack and a fistful of the rinds, and walked out, disappearing into the stormy night. Hopefully not to be troubled again for a while.
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