03- The Apostles of Doom Page 35

  Tal Gor surveyed their party. Zargvarst was first generation, born here on the Orcan Plains during the Desolation forty-nine hundred years ago. Having been ascended at the Doomalogue in Astlan, he knew where it was. He was accompanied by four of the twenty D’Orcs that had hunted with him. On the orc side, Tal Gor was bringing his oldest brother and only sister, Bor Tal and Soon An; his brother Fel Nor was staying behind to continue his work with the tribe. Lob Smasher, the youngest of the tribe’s elders by several years, Fed Tal from the hunting party and Elgrid Rage Wracker, one of their best warriors, were joining them as well.

  They had five D’Orcs, six orcs, and ten D’Wargs; one D’Warg for each orc and four to carry supplies and equipment. All D’Wargs were fully barded for battle. The orcs and D’Orcs were also bringing their full battle regalia, but for travel were not fully armored. They would be fully armed and armored when they approached other tribes or when they were in hostile territory. They wanted to present as impressive a front as possible to the other tribes to better to make their case.

  Tal Gor gripped his shaman staff tightly. He’d installed his summoning stone and bound the staff to himself, along with its mana pool. The bindings had taken him a bit of time, given that he’d never seriously tried to do such rituals on something he planned to actually use.

  He looked towards Schwarzenfürze, who seemed quite happy to be getting out of camp. She didn’t like sitting still, nor did anyone in the tribe like her sitting still. Apparently, when well fed, sitting still caused problems with her digestion. The results were, predictably, extremely unpleasant.

  He had been nervous about carrying his valuable staff on D’Wargback thousands of feet off the ground; fortunately, the harness had both a holding cup and a long but detachable tether between the harness and staff, along with a wrist strap for him to use. Dropping a sword or scythe that was replaceable was one thing, but a magical staff crafted by Völund the Smith? It was, frankly, worth more than his life.

  “Are we ready?” Zargvarst asked.

  The others variously announced their readiness. Tal Gor affirmed, “Aye,” and his watching family and the other tribe members saluted them. Tal Gor mounted Schwarzenfürze, settling comfortably into the saddle. His butt was finally getting worn in after the hours of flying back from Murgatory and a few practice sessions trying to use his staff as a weapon from D’Wargback.

  “Set.”

  “Mounted!”

  “Let’s go!”

  The confirmations that everyone was ready came one by one. As soon as everyone had acknowledged their readiness, including growls from the D’Wargs carrying supplies, Zargvarst lowered his hand, signaling their launch. The D’Wargs started running down the cleared space on the plain, flapping their wings and rising into the air one after the other, the D’Orcs launched themselves straight up. The assembled tribe cheered as they all took to the air and got into formation.

  Tal Gor and the rest of the orcs waved down to their families and friends below, and then they were off, heading north. Fierd was now fully above the horizon to their right. Tal Gor grinned. He loved flying; it would be so cool to have wings like a D’Orc. Who knew, maybe if he served Lord Tommus faithfully and brought victory and glory to the Doompire, he might someday be ascended to D’Orchood. He knew from talking to drunken D’Orcs at the celebration that they wanted to add to their ranks.

  It was, of course, pure hubris to think that he, a crippled, barely trained shaman, could ever aspire to the ranks of the greatest orc legends, but looking at his staff and suppressing a grin, he seemed to have made a good start. He just needed to not screw up. That was the thing; he had never really been a success at anything. His greatest success had been in contacting Lord Tommus and that had been pure coincidence, not any skill of his own. Hell, he hadn’t even discovered his totem yet.

  Horrgus had been exceedingly vague on how one actually acquired, or, he supposed, revealed or discovered one’s totem. So he had no idea how to acquire an animal spirit guide. He was pretty sure he needed to do that in order to become a full-fledged shaman. Again, his drunken master had been extremely unforthcoming on that.

  So what was he supposed to do? Wander around until some dead animal spirit walked up to him and started following him around? Or, he guessed, leading him around, because that’s what totems did. At least he thought they did that; again, Horrgus was not the ideal person to learn from.

  Obviously, he could ask some of the other shamans working for Lord Tommus, but talk about humbling! They were his peers; they were not supposed to be his teachers. In some ways, he very much envied Rupert and Fer-Rog, who were learning from someone he suspected was one of the great orc shamans. Although Ragala-nargoloth was no slouch either. As far as he’d been able to tell, both Beya and Farsooth had been shocked and impressed by her ability to smoke cigars and drink glargh while in a trance. Now, that would be a skill worth learning. Of course, he’d already had more than enough experience with one drunk teacher, so even though Ragala-nargoloth was clearly far better than Horrgus, he was pretty sure Farsooth or Beya would be better teachers.

  Except, he couldn’t ask them. It would be too humiliating. They assumed that he was a full-fledged shaman like them. He had carefully avoided referring to himself as an apprentice shaman. Which was probably not a good idea, given that he was now likely in over his head and doomed to fail.

  Doomed to fail? He chuckled. He was certainly doomed. Hopefully, he was doomed to success with Lord Tommus. He shook his head. He needed to find something else to think about on their long journey or he’d be riven with anxiety and depression about his own natural shortcomings.

  Zargvarst had done measurements using the stars last night. He had said that the heavens were a bit off after more than four thousand years, so he wasn’t precisely sure where the camp was relative to the Doomalogue, but he had rough idea. He said that it was literally impossible to miss the Ring of Doom, as he called it, as it was visible for more than fifty leagues. In any event, he suspected they were between two hundred and fifty to three hundred leagues from it.

  Based on his trips to Murgatroy, Tal Gor estimated that a loaded D’Warg could probably travel fifty leagues in a half day; a hundred if they did not stop. However, the orcs needed to eat, drink, relieve themselves, sleep and resupply, so they were planning on camping. While D’Orcs outside of Mount Doom didn’t have to sleep, they’d all gotten back in the habit, so were planning to do some sleeping. The D’Orcs would, however, stand watch since, again, they did not have to sleep. Neither Tal Gor nor his brother and sister had complained about that. Like everyone in the tribe, they regularly took turns at watch, and it was not fun.

  Actually, they hoped they would be spending their first night at one of the semi-permanent tribal camps surrounding Mount Orc, assuming they could locate people they knew before it got too late in the evening. Tal Gor had at first suspected Mount Orc to be the Doomalogue; however, according to Zargvarst, it was too close to where he believed the tribe currently was. Unfortunately, the maps he had from Mount Doom were seriously out of date, particularly since orc tribes didn’t spend a lot of time in one location. Even the semi-permanent tribes around Mount Orc moved every decade or so. They stayed within the region of course, but they relocated to fresher hunting grounds and grazing land.

  Tal Gor shrugged. He was pretty confident that someone at Mount Orc would know the place Zargvarst was taking them and would be able to give them better directions. Lob Smasher had spent quite a bit of time around Mount Orc and so knew many of the tribal leaders in the region, so obtaining hospitality and directions should not present a problem.

  Mount Doom: End of Second Period

  “Good morning, master!” Tamarin greeted Tom as he exited his bedroom into the sitting room.

  “Good morning, Tamarin!” Tom smiled at the buxom genie in her blousy pink costume. “I’m heading to Nysegard, of course; what are you up to today?”

  Tamarin shrugged. “As always, I am at your co
mmand, master. If you had nothing for me to do, I thought I’d spend the day in the library.”

  Tom nodded. “Excellent. I’m just going to be taking oaths. I am sure you will find the library much more interesting.”

  “I could spend decades at a time there.” Tamarin shook her head in amazement at the library. “I was just going to browse, but if there is any research I can do for you, I’d be glad to do so.”

  Tom frowned and shrugged; he couldn’t really think of anything. That would be a good idea, though; to get Tamarin, Vaselle and other mana wielders to research things that could aide them. He’d just been so focused on all things Nysegard that he hadn’t been thinking about longer-term strategy. Erestofanes had told them there were tons of magical resources.

  Tom’s eyes widened. “I just thought of something!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes, master?” Tamarin asked enthusiastically.

  “Remember the council meeting where we discussed trying to D’Orc shamans and other great warriors?” Tom asked.

  Tamarin’s face lit up even brighter. “I do. The library must have documentation on the D’Orcing process. They would have written it down!”

  “Exactly. I have no idea why I didn’t think of this sooner, but it clearly seems like the best option.”

  “I will get on it right away. This is exciting!” Tamarin clapped her hands and gave a small hop of joy.

  “Thanks!” Tom said.

  Ithgar, Ten Leagues from Olafa Horde Camp: Early Third Period Local Time

  “This is fun. Very weird, but fun!” Fer-Rog told Rupert over their “shaman” link. Rupert thought of it more as a demon link, since he and Fer-Rog had created it at Mount Doom to help them practice shape-changing. However, Beya had shown them how to speak over it when distances intervened; since then, when they used it for talking, he thought of it as a shaman link.

  “I know; it feels really weird to be flying but not flapping one’s wings,” Rupert agreed. “I feel bad that Bathesheeva has to lug me around.” He rubbed his D’Warg’s neck, feeling the rumble of pleasure in her throat.

  “True, but I am sure they appreciated being out of Doom and the Abyss as much as everyone else. Don’t you, Tartevahst?” He bent down and hugged his D’Warg.

  Both Rupert and Fer-Rog were traveling in their orc forms; it was part of their education and training. Also, as they encountered other tribes, explaining D’Orcs was going to be interesting enough, but a straight-out demon like Rupert? So they were traveling in their orc forms: Rog and Rugog. Obviously, Fer-Rog was Rog and Rupert was Rugog.

  Fer-Rog had wanted to call himself Fer-Ocious, but Beya had said that sort of name would get his head smashed in, so he’d decided to simply use Rog. Rupert had always just gone by Rupert, so he wanted to keep the name similar so there would at least be a chance he’d know who people were talking to when they addressed him.

  This morning at dawn they had launched their quest for the Ithgar Doomalogue. Hespith Fowl Breath, the first generation D’Orc squad leader for their journey, had been unable to get a lock on their location due to overcast skies last night, so they were heading to Orcopolis to get some maps for her to look at. Many things change in over four thousand years: rivers move, cities fall. In particular, they needed something to not only show where the Doomalogue had been, but more important to Hespith, where they were relative to it.

  Beya thought they should be able to reach Orcopolis by late afternoon; plenty of time to get a good campsite in the city before the best ones were picked over. It was a bit odd, but apparently in Orcopolis there were camping grounds that were similar to inns. Travelers rented a space to set up their tents, and the campsite owner supplied clean water, communal fire pits and wood for them, as well as waste disposal and bathing and toilet facilities. Basically, an inn where you brought your own walls and beds. Rupert had thought this quite odd, but then what did he know? He had never actually stayed overnight in an inn himself.

  Freehold: Early Third Period

  “You want me to do what?” Hilda asked incredulously, setting the half a biscuit ring with schmear that she’d been about to take a bite of back down on her plate. She then reached for her Bloody Tatiana to wash down the shock.

  “Yes, I know it will be tricky, but we do think that Talarius’s steed, War Arrow, will be able to help us track him down in Nysegard,” Stevos explained again.

  “Yes, but you want Danyel and me”—she gestured at her assistant standing nearby—“to just march into the Rod’s camp and liberate a winged horse?”

  “And the barding as well. We are likely to face a lot of Unlife, and War Arrow will need her armor.”

  Hilda closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. She finally opened them and looked at Stevos. “And you’ve talked this over with the others? Particularly Moradel? Iskerus is already paranoid enough after losing Excrathadorus Mortis, and Danyel.”

  “Not to mention the fact that the Beggars Guild is apparently still pestering him about his rogue priestess,” Danyel added with a laugh.

  “What?” Stevos asked.

  Hilda shook her head, indicating it was no big deal. “I’ve had a few run-ins with the Beggars Guild; I healed a number of them against their will when they wouldn’t stop bugging me. So now the guild master is convinced that Iskerus has a rogue priestess and is marching out there every day to see what he’s doing about finding her—meaning me.”

  “From the way you described it, I am assuming you used healing combat on them?” Stevos asked with a grin.

  “Not on the first one, just the small group that accosted and threatened me if I didn’t un-heal the first one,” Hilda said.

  “They are really starting to get annoying though,” Danyel said. “We see them lurking around the city, spying on us when we are out.”

  “Do they know where you are living?” Stevos asked.

  “I don’t think so; I’ve chanted up a storm of misdirection rituals around the inn that are targeted towards people with nefarious intent,” Hilda said.

  “Currently, the inn and tavern here are rated the safest in the city.” Danyel grinned.

  Hilda nodded and said, “I’ve also given Danyel an amulet to chant over to make himself unnoticeable whenever needed, particularly when coming and going from the inn. I am doing my own chants as I enter and leave. However, about the city, I let them see me. I have no problem with healing a few more. I just don’t want them bothering Danyel.”

  Danyel shrugged. “I am a soldier, and I am armed. Beggars aren’t stupid.”

  “Still, you need to be careful. If they gang up enough, that could be a problem,” Hilda told him.

  “Well, with all your recent practice with unnoticing and misdirection, you should have no problem getting into the Rod’s camp and liberating War Arrow,” Stevos said with a grin.

  “Okay, so tell me this. Assuming I get him out of the camp, how do I get him to Fort Murgatroid?” Hilda asked. “I can’t just take him through Tierhallon.”

  “We have a bunch of Saintly Gates at Fort Murgatroid,” Stevos replied. We’ll just create an endpoint somewhere nearby.”

  “Oh, and all those priests out there”—she gestured to the surrounding army—“won’t notice that?”

  “We won’t keep it open that long. Simply long enough to get War Arrow through.”

  “Ugh,” Hilda sighed. “You do realize there is a lot that could go wrong with this, yes?”

  Stevos shrugged with a smile. “I am pretty sure the illustrious Saint Hilda, Patron Saint of Espionage, can handle it.”

  “You are so very not funny,” Hilda said.

  Etterdam, Nart Command Tent: Fifth Period

  “This is not going to be pleasant,” Ragala-nargoloth remarked, looking over the map they were using to chart their mission to the Etterdam Doomalogue.

  “For the alvar, you mean?” Nisvel Crooked Stick, Leftenant of the 8th Regiment of Doom clarified.

  Ragala-nargoloth looked at him, surprised that there could be
any confusion. “Obviously. That volcano, those mountains belongs to Lord Tommus. The alvar may currently be occupying the area around it, thanks to their treachery four thousand years ago, but it is his property. It is well past time that we reclaim it for Lord Tommus.” She stuck her cigar back in her mouth.

  Chief Hellfiroth Bowel Slicer snorted. “We have not had the aerial capability to get our forces over the Strait of Death before.”

  “That has changed,” Ragala-nargoloth said to the assembled leaders. She looked to Nisvel. “Given that we are going into hostile territory, I think we should requisition additional forces.”

  Nisvel, her D’Orc commander, nodded. “I agree. I will request them from Arg-nargoloth.”

  “If I happen to run into him, I will second the request,” Ragala-nargoloth said. One of her apprentices, Teg Death Screech, snickered when she said this. She cut him off with sharp glance. Teg, like most of her apprentices, had a very prurient mind. Although, to be fair to the boy, they’d both had the same lewd thought.

  The Inferno: Late Third Period

  Gadius turned from staring out the main viewport on the bridge as Barabus and Temerlain came through the hatchway leading to the cargo deck where the searching rituals were being performed. Sir Samwell and Chancellor Alighieri, who had been engaged in some obscure debate of Oorstemothian constitutional principles, also turned. Captain Cranshall rotated his command chair to face the two new arrivals.

  Barabus was shaking his head “no” in response to the unasked question.

  “No sign of Talarius here either,” Temerlain told them.

  Sir Samwell appeared to do a double take, clearly surprised at their lack of success. “Are you absolutely sure? I would have wagered anything that your knight would be there.” He pointed out the view screen to an active volcano, surrounded by storm clouds, in the distance.