The Orc's Tale

  THE ORC'S TALE

  Jonathan Moeller

  Description

  Kharlacht is a young orc of Vhaluusk, betrothed to Lujena, the daughter of the cruel shaman Narrakhan. But to become a full warrior of Vhaluusk, Kharlacht must survive his blood quest…a perilous mission chosen by the tribe’s shaman.

  And Narrakhan wants him dead.

  To survive, Kharlacht will have to use his wits, and overcome magic darker than he can imagine…

  The Orc's Tale (Tales of the Frostborn short story)

  Copyright 2013 by Jonathan Moeller

  Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC

  Cover image copyright Dtopal | dreamstime.com & Andreicu88 | Dreamstime.com

  All Rights Reserved

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  The Orc's Tale

  The old orcish shaman cut the sheep’s throat.

  Blood sprayed across the altar, the animal thrashing as its life drained away. The shaman flipped the sheep onto its back, opened its belly, and began to sift through the entrails, murmuring incantations as he did so.

  Kharlacht gripped his spear and watched, taking care to conceal his distaste. He disliked omens, he disliked consulting the spirits, and he hated Narrakhan, the old shaman.

  But the customs of the orcs of Vhaluusk were clear, even if Kharlacht had chosen to follow his mother’s religion instead, and so he stood in silence with the tribe's elders as Narrakhan rooted through the sheep’s entrails.

  He refused to shame himself in front of Lujena, Narrakhan's daughter.

  "Behold!" said Narrakhan, brandishing the sheep's liver. "I have spoken with the blood gods, and they have answered!"

  The old orc hobbled closer, bloodshot eyes narrowed, his sallow, green-skinned face scored with countless lines. Kharlacht did his very best to keep the disgust from his face. Narrakhan stank of congealed blood and rotting meat and strange herbs. And Kharlacht did not care for the cunning glint in the old shaman's eyes.

  He suspected that the blood gods often said what Narrakhan wished them to say.

  "You go now upon your blood quest," said Narrakhan, his foul breath washing over Kharlacht's face. "Succeed in your quest, and you shall have the right to bear a warrior's sword, to stand proud in the assembly of our people, and to take a wife. Fail, and you shall be banished and outcast forevermore." His thin lips twitched in a smile. "If you survive."

  Kharlacht did not look away. "I am ready. Tell me what the blood gods would have me do."

  Narrakhan turned away, thrust his hands skyward, and began to shout. "Long ago, the princes of the dark elves ruled these lands and enslaved our people with cruel blades and crueler sorcery. Yet our fathers were valiant and true, and drove the dark elves from our homeland. But the ruins and tombs of the dark elves remain, scattered like bones across our land."

  Kharlacht's heart sank, and he realized what Narrakhan intended.

  "A day's journey south of here, in the mountains," said the old shaman, pointing at the peaks, "stands the Tower of Bones. It was once the home of a terrible sorcerer-lord of the dark elves. Now it is empty, save for the urvuuls and the bones of their victims."

  Narrakhan smirked, and Kharlacht saw the pleasure in the old wretch's face.

  "And to you, young Kharlacht, to you the blood gods have given this honor," said Narrakhan. "This is your quest. Go to the Tower of Bones, claim a sword of the dark elves from its depths, and return to the village." His smirk widened. "And then you shall be accounted a man of Vhaluusk, and take your place among the assembly of warriors!"

  Kharlacht took a deep breath. In the past five years, Narrakhan had sent a dozen young orcish men to the Tower of Bones.

  None of them had returned.

  He wanted to plunge his spear into the old shaman's chest. But the eyes of the elders and the warriors were upon him, as were Lujena's. His gaze strayed to her, and she shook her head in denial, face tight with fear.

  "Or," purred Narrakhan, "refuse, and forever be a landless exile, doomed to wander far from home and hearth. Choose."

  Kharlacht looked the shaman in the eye. "I will go to the Tower of Bones, and I will return with a blade of the dark elves."

  "Of course you will," said Narrakhan.

  ###

  Later Kharlacht met the shaman's daughter in the woods outside the village.

  Lujena looked nothing like the old man, with her long dark hair and flashing dark eyes, her skin the color of a forest in summer. Nor did she share Narrakhan's capricious nature and devotion to the cruel blood gods of the orcs. Like Kharlacht, she had been baptized, turning from the blood gods. She had embraced the Dominus Christus's teachings about the weak, and she had kept many widows and orphans of the tribe from starving to death.

  "This is madness," she hissed. "Father is trying to get you killed."

  "I know," said Kharlacht.

  "He's afraid of you," said Lujena, "afraid that if you become a warrior, you'll raise your voice against him in the assembly and he'll lose his prestige. That's why he sent the others to the Tower. They never returned, and no one dared go after them." She gave a sharp shake of her head. "He gives the young men who follow him easy quests, so his supporters can fill to the assembly of warriors. Those who oppose his cruelty, he sends to die." Her eyes glittered with dampness. "He is sending you to die."

  "Then I must succeed," said Kharlacht, taking her hands in his. "I will return where they did not."

  "Why?"

  "Because the others did not think for themselves," said Kharlacht. "They believed whatever Narrakhan taught them. I do not. My mother taught me to use my head, and so I shall."

  "You proud fool," said Lujena. "No man, whether orc or human or elven, can overcome the creature that lives in the Tower of Bones." She started to shake with anger and fear. "You're going to die, and..."

  "Stop talking," said Kharlacht, and pulled her close and kissed her. She protested, but not for very long, and then melted into the kiss.

  "I could not bear to lose you," whispered Lujena when they pulled apart. "The way Father looks at me...I know he plans an evil fate for me. He is afraid of you, Kharlacht. Afraid of what you might do to him. If he kills you..."

  "He will not," said Kharlacht. "I will go to the Tower of Bones and return. And when I do, when I take my place as a warrior of the tribe, I will ask for you as my wife. Let the old charlatan scheme and plot all he wants then."

  "He's not a charlatan, Kharlacht," said Lujena. "He has magic. I've heard him speak to demons in the night." She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. "But if anyone can brave the Tower of Bones and return...you can, Kharlacht. Return to me."

  "I shall," said Kharlacht, lifting her hands to his mouth and kissing them.

  He would return, he vowed. He would.

  But he could not shake the feeling that he would never see her again.

  ###

  By ancient custom, only warriors bore swords. But the orcs of Vhaluusk had many enemies, and men and women alike carried weapons. Kharlacht equipped himself with his spear, a short bow and quiver of arrows, and a pair of daggers. His pack held food and tools, and a waterskin hung from his belt.

  And then he left the village, taking the ancient road into the mountains. His enslaved ancestors had built it at the bidding of the dark elves long ago, and the stones remained flat and level despite the centuries. The
foothills grew steeper as he climbed, the trees thinning to tough bushes and scraggly pines.

  And then, after hours of climbing, he came to the Tower of Bones.

  A ruined fortress rested on a mountain spur, all tumbled walls and towers of bleached stone. A single white tower, two hundred feet tall, rose out of the ruins, untouched by time and the elements. The angles and lines of the tower were strange, alien, and looking at the structure made Kharlacht’s head hurt.

  The Tower of Bones.

  A sorcerer-lord of the dark elves had once dwelt there, and his lingering magic protected the Tower from the elements.

  Kharlacht hefted his spear, took a deep breath, and strode towards the Tower. Silence hung over the ruins, save for the moaning of the mountain wind. He passed under a ruined archway, picking his way over the fallen stones.

  A shape emerged from behind a pile of rubble and walked towards him.

  It looked like a cross between a child and a lizard, with gray, scaly skin, a long slender tail, unblinking yellow eyes, and a crimson crest upon the top of its head. The creature wore ragged furs, and carried a heavy club in one clawed hand. Kharlacht had never seen such a creature before, but he recognized it from the tales. They dwelled in the tunnels of the Deeps, raiding the surface from time to time to steal plunder and slaves.

  A kobold.

  "So," said the kobold in orcish, its voice a hissing rasp, "another boy come to die." It laughed. "The twelfth in half as many years. You orcs seem eager to throw away your useless lives."

  Kharlacht shifted his spear. "And I suppose you slew them?"

  The kobold laughed, exposing its fangs. "I? Not I! No, no, that pleasure is reserved for the great one that dwells below the Tower. And its master, of course. You are a puppet dancing on unseen strings, child. Your bones shall join the others lying within the Tower."

  "The great one?" said Kharlacht, watching the kobold. The creature seemed relaxed, almost friendly. "What great one?"

  The kobold grinned a hideous, jagged-tooth grin. "Why, the urvuul, of course! When the dark elves still lived in the Tower, they conjured it, set it to guard their treasures. The old masters departed long ago...but the urvuul still lurks below the Tower. Fools come to steal the old masters' treasures...and then the urvuul feasts."

  "And what of you?" said Kharlacht, circling to the side. The kobold followed suit, club still dangling from its hand. "What do you get? I have heard that kobolds enjoy the taste of orcish flesh."

  "There is nothing finer," said the kobold. "But, alas, we would not deprive the great one of its feasts. No, we merely enjoy the pleasure of watching fools like you go to your doom...heedless of the fact that you are nothing more than a puppet."

  "Or," said Kharlacht, "you're only talking to distract me, while another kobold circles around that pile of stone to jump me from behind."

  He had the distinct pleasure of seeing surprise ripple across the kobold’s lizard-like face. Then the creature sprang forward with a howl, club raised for a deadly blow. A second kobold, this one wielding a stone-headed axe, raced from behind the pile of broken rubble.

  Kharlacht spun, caught the first kobold’s blow on the haft of his spear, twisted, and lashed out. The butt of his spear sent the first kobold sprawling. But then the second kobold was on him, and Kharlacht jerked back, just avoiding the axe's jagged stone edge. He stabbed with the spear, but the kobold stepped inside the spear's reach, snarling.

  Which gave Kharlacht the opening he needed to snatch a dagger from his belt and drive it into the kobold's belly. Blood spurted from the wound, and the kobold doubled over, howling in rage and pain. Kharlacht stepped back and swung, the point of his spear ripping across the kobold's throat, and creature toppled.

  But the first kobold swung its club, knocking the spear from Kharlacht's grasp. He dodged back, ducking beneath the next blow. The kobold kept coming, snarling. Kharlacht wrenched his remaining dagger free, and the kobold laughed, as the blade didn't have anything like the club's longer reach.

  So Kharlacht threw it.

  The blade buried itself in the kobold’s shoulder, and the creature bellowed in sudden pain. Kharlacht threw himself forward, tackling the kobold, his skin crawling at the feel of its cold, scaly skin. He seized the dagger from the kobold’s shoulder.

  "The urvuul will devour you!" spat the kobold.

  "Perhaps," said Kharlacht, "but you will not witness it."

  He drove the dagger down. Then he rose, cleaned his weapons, and looked at the Tower. What had the kobold meant, with its talk about puppet strings? He knew that Narrakhan had sent him here to die.

  But how had the kobold known that?

  Something else was happening here, something Kharlacht did not understand.

  But there was nothing to do but to press forward.

  He picked his way through the ruined fortress, watching for more kobolds, and arrived at the Tower's base. Sorcery might have preserved the Tower's outer shell, but it had done nothing for the interior, which had long ago collapsed into rubble. Some stone stairs still clung to the walls, but the rest of the Tower was a hollow shell, a lifeless skeleton.

  The Tower of Bones, indeed.

  But the stairs also spiraled down into the earth.

  And the urvuul lurked below the Tower, the kobold had said.

  Kharlacht pulled a torch from his pack, lit it, and descended into the earth. The stairs ended in a corridor with floors and walls of white marble. Bones lay scattered across the floor, and the rotting corpse of an orc rested just beyond the stairs.

  Even through the rot, Kharlacht recognized one of the young men who had gone to the Tower last year on his blood quest and never returned. Had the urvuul killed him? Or the kobolds? It looked as if he had been stabbed by dozens of spears, wounds that...

  Kharlacht frowned.

  Wounds exactly the same size as the dozens of small holes dotting the wall.

  Beneath the layer of bones, carved stone tiles covered the floor. Some bore the sigil of a dark elven warrior in armor, while others had the image of a globe. Kharlacht reached out with the butt of his spear, pressing against one of the tiles with the warrior sigil.

  Nothing happened.

  Then a loud click.

  Hundreds of razor-edged spikes exploded from the wall, filling the corridor. After a moment he heard another click, followed by a grinding noise, and the spikes retracted into the wall.

  The sorcerers of the dark elves had enjoyed their devilish, dvargir-built machines.

  Yet if the sorcerer-lords had hidden their treasures down here, they must have had some way of passing the trap. And they had been proud, those sorcerer-lords. They would not have stepped upon their own symbol.

  But they thought of themselves as lords of the earth...tyrants who had trampled the world underfoot.

  He pressed the butt of his spear against one of the tiles carved with the image of a globe.

  Nothing happened.

  Kharlacht took a deep breath and stepped upon the globe tile.

  Still nothing happened.

  He worked his way across the bone-strewn floor, pausing only long enough to pick up a ragged cloak and cover the dead orc’s face. Then he kept going, moving from globe tile to globe tile. At last the corridor ended, and Kharlacht saw another flight of stairs going down, deeper into the earth.

  More bones littered the stairs.

  Down he went, torch in one hand, spear in the other. The air was cold and clammy and carried a curious stench. At first Kharlacht thought it rotting flesh, but it was...wrong.

  More rancid, somehow.

  The stairs ended in a lofty hall, its vaulted ceiling supported by thick pillars. Sarcophagi rested in niches along the walls, their lids carved with stern stone images of dark elven sorcerer-lords. Kharlacht kept well away from them. Sometimes curses rested upon the sarcophagi of wizards, maledictions to summon up spirits to slay any intruders. And sorcerers had been known to cheat death, after all, their corrupted souls taking the bod
ies of the living for their own.

  A gleam of metal caught his eye, and atop the dais at the end of the hall he saw treasure.

  Gold coins and goblets and gems lay heaped against the wall, reflecting the light of his torch. But the arms and armor drew Kharlacht's eye, the gleaming swords of blue steel, the polished cuirasses, the helms and shields and gauntlets. No smith of the orcs could match the metalwork of the dark elves, and the old swords were treasured heirlooms.

  Some said they could even wound creatures of sorcery.

  A greatsword lying upon one of the steps to the dais caught his eye. It was forged of fine blue steel, its edges shining with the keen light of a razor's edge. Kharlacht gazed at the weapon in wonder and drew closer, intending to put aside his spear and reach for it...

  Wait.

  The urvuul.

  Why hadn't it shown itself? Dusty bones surrounded the sarcophagi.

  Something had killed the owners of those bones.

  Kharlacht looked left, and then right, waving his torch back and forth.

  Then the realization came, and Kharlacht looked up.

  He almost screamed.

  The urvuul hung from the ceiling, directly over the piled treasure. It looked almost like a great black insect the size of a horse. But most insects did not have black, leathery wings, or barbed tentacles that coiled and uncoiled restlessly. Or red eyes that watched Kharlacht with something like malicious amusement.

  He threw the torch to the ground, gripped his spear in both hands, and braced himself.

  The urvuul did not move.

  Kharlacht blinked and started towards the treasure pile. The urvuul's grotesque head rotated to follow him, but still the thing did not move. He remembered what the kobold had said, how the urvuul was bound to guard the treasure. Perhaps the sorcerer that had summoned the creature had commanded it to guard the gold...but had neglected to give it any other instructions.

  "What would you do," muttered Kharlacht, "if I took something from the pile?"

  And to his surprise, the urvuul answered him in a melodious feminine voice. Strange to hear such a sound come from the misshapen horror.