Swordmage

EIGHTEEN

28 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One

Five severed heads stared sightlessly at Mhurren, arranged in a gore-spattered line across the steps of Bloodskull Keep. The half-orc chieftain sat next to the head of Morag, fuming with a black fury as wild and deadly as anything that had ever come over him on the field of battle. Two Bloodskull warriors lay dead by his own hand not ten feet behind him, killed because they had somehow failed to notice the appearance of the gruesome tokens on Mhurren’s very doorstep. When he thought about it rationally, he had to admit that it was a feat of no little stealth and daring to deliver such a message to the Bloody Skulls. But at the moment, Mhurren was strongly disinclined to think about anything rationally. He wanted to kill and kill again, to find someone to serve as the object of his wrath and beat the life out of him with his bare hands, to bludgeon and hammer until bone broke and flesh pulped under his naked fists. And until he knew that he could master his rage sufficiently to keep himself from falling on his own warriors or tribesfolk, he simply sat motionless on the steps and stared out at the cold, cloudwracked dusk dying out over the barren hills of Thar.

It was the sheer insult of the thing that truly enraged him. Not only did the Hulburgans refuse to accord him the least measure of respect, they dared him to come try their strength. To kill the messengers was not entirely unexpected; it was always a possibility, one reason why Morag had asked to go and speak for the Bloody Skulls. It was a fine way to demonstrate a fitting indifference to death. Granted, it was a little unusual for humans-normally so fearful and cautious-to provide such a clear and unmistakable answer to Mhurren’s demands, instead of hours of empty, wandering words. But to send the severed heads back and so scornfully display them on the steps of his own keep showed such contempt for Mhurren that at first he’d wondered if perhaps the Red Claws or the Skullsmashers had captured Morag and his band and killed them to declare their rebellion against his rule.

The message Mhurren’s warriors had found with the heads answered any such suspicions. It was written on a piece of parchment, rolled in a small leather tube, and jammed into Morag’s mouth. The Red Claws would have carved their words into the dead faces of his warriors. The Skullsmashers couldn’t have managed any words at all. Mhurren looked down at the scrap of parchment in his hand and scowled. He could read well enough, having learned the skill from a human thrall who’d survived a few seasons in bondage. The harmach’s response was simple and to the point:

I will not pay a single copper piece to a beast-man brigand. Any orc I catch within thirty miles of Hulburg will be treated exactly as these were.

— Harmach Grigor Hulmaster

Mhurren crumpled the parchment and slowly stood. He took a deep breath and decided that he was the master of his anger. Then he turned around to face the Skull Guards who watched him silently, the warriors who stood at their posts by the gate-two newly summoned to the task, of course-and Sutha and Yevelda, who also waited for him to speak.

“Send for the keepers of the skulls,” Mhurren said. “Morag was a mighty warrior and a wise subchief. His skull should rest in honor. Let the skulls of the others be treated honorably. They were good warriors all, and it was no fault of theirs that the humans acted with such treachery.”

“I will see to it,” Sutha said. She was intelligent enough not to ask about the two guards Mhurren had killed. Whether they had really earned their deaths through a lack of vigilance, Mhurren could not say. But he had said it and killed them for it, so now he must act as if it were the judgment of Gruumsh himself. Sutha understood that without being told. The two gate guards would be discarded with the keep’s rubbish, to be gnawed upon by whatever scavenger came along.

Mhurren’s eye fell on one of the orcs who had been summoned to replace the previous guards. “Buurthar, come here,” he commanded. “You are a skillful tracker. Tell me, how could someone bring five heads to our doorstep without being caught at it?”

The warrior nodded and came down the steps. He squatted by the first of the heads, frowning as he studied the nearby ground, and slowly moved along the whole line. Then he dabbed his fingertips in one of the blood-spatters and held them to his nose, inhaling deeply before opening his mouth to rub a small smear over his thick tongue. Having fixed the scent in his nostrils, he circled the area, following the unseen trail. Not all orcs had noses as keen as Buurthar’s, and Mhurren could never have managed it-a weakness of his human blood. After a short time the tracker returned to the castle steps, still frowning. “I have read the ground, Warchief, but the tale it tells makes no sense to me.”

“Then tell me what you can, Buurthar. I will not be angry with you.”

“I hear you, Warchief.” Buurthar moved around to a confused series of splatters near the last head in line, the one on the lowest step, and pointed with the tip of his spear. “Here all five heads were dumped together on the ground. Emptied out of a sack, I think. The creature who set the heads where you see them carried them one at a time from this spot. It was a big cat, like a red tiger-look, here you see where it stepped in blood and left a paw print. But it was not a red tiger. I know their sign and scent well.”

“An animal carried the heads in a bag and dumped them here?”

Buurthar shook his head and motioned for Mhurren to follow him. “This is the part that makes no sense to me,” he said. He led the chief and the others about fifty yards from the keep, into the barren, rock-strewn ground a little way off the cart track leading to the gatehouse, and pointed again to the ground. “The blood-scent, the cat-scent, the paw prints… they all stop here, right at this spot. If the creature had carried these heads any farther, I would smell it. It is as if the creature simply appeared right here. It is not natural.”

“Nor is it natural for a tiger, or something like it, to carry heads in a bag and line them up neatly when it finds the right spot,” Mhurren muttered. “You can go, Buurthar. I cannot ask you to track ghosts.”

The warrior struck his spear to his hide shield and trotted back to his post.

“The harmach had some sorcerer with a spell of shapechanging deliver Morag’s head to us,” Sutha said quietly. “Or he had one of his infidel priests summon some sort of invisible cat-demon to perform this task. It is not hard to explain.”

“Explaining it is not the problem,” Yevelda corrected her. “There were two messages sent here, my chief. The first is the one you saw on the steps of the keep. The second is that the harmach commands magic or magical allies to deliver it. If he could arrange for some monster to appear fifty yards outside your walls, he could arrange for that monster to appear inside your walls. Or perhaps in your bedchamber, to murder you in your sleep.”

“I understand it, Yevelda,” Mhurren said.

He turned on his heel and stalked back toward the keep, his mind filled with thought. Before Glister, he already would have had his warriors mustering for the march to Hulburg. But if he began his march, and Kardhel Terov told him to cease, then Mhurren would appear fatally weakened in the eyes of the Bloody Skulls. He would have to make sure that the Vaasan lord would make no effort to restrain him before he told his subchiefs and warleaders to send their spears south. The notion of asking for permission to make war against Hulburg and avenge the mortal insult given to the Bloody Skulls made him seethe with anger, but that was the price he had paid for Vaasa’s aid. If he hadn’t agreed to do as the Warlock Knight bade, Mhurren had no doubt that Terov would have elevated some other chief of Thar to dominance, and the Bloody Skulls would now be another tribe’s weaker allies. If he could not run free, well, then he would make sure that no other wolf sat closer to the master’s table than he did.

Mhurren passed through the gate and turned aside into the stairs that led up to the keep’s eastern tower. These chambers had been given over to the Vaasan warlocks who remained with him to provide his army with its newly found battle magic. Human guards in fine black mail bowed to Mhurren when he approached. “I am not to be disturbed,” he told them.

“Yes, Warlord,” the guards answered. They grounded their halberds to the floor.

At the topmost floor of the tower, Mhurren came to a door, struck it twice in deference to the human custom, and entered. “Avrun!” he said in Vaasan. “I need your speaking magic.”

A fair-haired Vaasan sat behind a small desk, poring through a thick tome. He looked up at Mhurren, slowly stood, and offered a shallow bow behind a cool smile. “Of course, Warlord. I presume this is in reference to the return of your envoys from Hulburg?”

“I want you to tell Terov that the Hulburgans killed my messengers. I march against Hulburg tomorrow at sunset with all my strength. I mean to raze Hulburg, kill all its men, and take its women and children for thralls. The harmach will rue this day before long, I promise you.”

The Vaasan wizard nodded. “Give me ten minutes to prepare the magic, Warlord.”

Mhurren waved his hand in assent, and the human quickly and efficiently began to make ready his ritual. From shelves along the wall he took a variety of arcane implements-tall candlesticks of wrought iron topped with fat yellow candles, jars filled with strange liquids, a skull made of some reddish crystal. He arranged the candlesticks in a five-pointed star, lit the tapers with a magic word, and sprinkled drops from the jars around the candlesticks. He sat down cross-legged on the floor in the center of the candles and used another minor spell to suspend the crystal skull in the air over his shoulder. Finally Avrun opened his heavy tome and read a long passage of some sinister gibberish while Mhurren paced anxiously outside the circle.

The wizard finished with his chants and made a small gesture to the floating skull. The rosy crystal began to glow with a ruddy light. “Kardhel Terov,” he intoned. “This is Avrun, speaking for Mhurren. Hulburg slew his envoys and sent back their heads. Mhurren marches tomorrow night to attack and raze Hulburg.”

Mhurren shuddered at the crawling sense of sorcery filling the small room. For a long moment nothing more happened, and the orc chief wondered if the spell had somehow failed. But then Avrun grunted and straightened, and the crystal skull began to speak. “I am Terov,” it said. “March on Hulburg, crush their defenses, but spare the town until I arrive. I need it. You will be well satisfied with the ransom they pay.”

“Ransom is fine, but Harmach Grigor must die for the insult he gave me!” Mhurren snapped. “I warn you, Terov, it will have to be a rich prize indeed if I find Hulburg helpless before my horde!”

The candles around the Vaasan mage abruptly guttered out, and the small crystal skull sank down in the air. Avrun reached up and deftly caught it in his hand and shook himself slightly before climbing to his feet. “I am sorry, Warlord, but the magic of the sending ritual only allows me to send a single message and receive a single answer. Fellthane Terov did not hear the last thing you said. It would take me some time to make ready another one.”

Mhurren growled and waved his hand. “No matter. I heard all that I needed to hear. The rest can wait for now.”

“Shall I have my Warlock Knights make ready to march?” Avrun asked.

“If you have been told to remain close to me, then you will,” Mhurren answered him. “I go to Hulburg to put my steel at the harmach’s throat. And then we will see what ransom he can pay that will satisfy me.”