Anything to stop this blather! We'll be rotted to skeletons before this bunch agrees on whether snow falls down or up!'
Sunbright untangled his legs to rise, mumbling, 'On the tundra, it sometimes blows sideways-Ouch!' Knucklebones slapped his leg to keep his attention focussed.
The shaman stood a long time with his hand out, indicating he wished the speaking stick, but many people were heard before he got it. Finally grasping it high, he stated, 'Come dawn I begin packing. The next dawn I leave for Sanguine Mountain. I ask those who took the blood oath to follow me to… follow me.' He handed the stick to someone, and plunked down.
If Knucklebones expected that thunderclap to still the audience, she was disappointed. Shouting erupted louder than before. A dozen hands grabbed for the stick. Tears flowed. At some taunt, Magichunger whirled and punched a man. A brawl erupted among the hotheads. Folks cheered and booed.
Crawling around the fire, Sunbright spoke in Forestvictory's ear. The woman, big all over with forearms like hams, requested the speaking stick and got it. She held it high and shouted, and gradually the brawl subsided. Men and women untangled, rubbed bloody noses with skinned knuckles. In the hush, Forestvictory proclaimed, 'Sunbright has suggested we need a trail chief to oversee the journey. I volunteer unless someone else wants the chore. No? Then I too will pack at dawn, and leave the next dawn. Anyone who goes with us must be ready.'
She relinquished the speaking stick, and more people spoke, some passionately, some with anger, some calmly. There was wrangling whether the blood oath applied, but as more tribesfolk said their piece, it seemed the oath was enough to move them. Many agreed to go. A handful, led by Magichunger, held out, but when asked what they intended to do instead, gave no answer.
'Is the tribe to split then? Such a thing must not be!' a woman began to wail.
Sunbright gestured, took the stick, waited for silence. Finally he said, 'So some will go, and some will stay. It makes my heart heavy to think the tribe may split, for together we are strong, singly we are weak. Yet I would ask one thing. The path we travel will be dangerous. We might meet orcs, renegade soldiers, bandits, marauding animals, monsters-anything. I think we should elect a war chief to oversee our defense. And for that task, a hard and thankless one, I suggest Magichunger.'
For the first time, silence followed a proclamation. Big, broad Magichunger rubbed his nose, scratched blood from his red beard, glared at Sunbright across the smoky hut, and spat, 'You don't fool me. It's a trick so I'll go along.'
'No trick,' said Sunbright. 'You're our best fighter, after Blinddrum and Thornwing, and by tradition neither of them can be war chief. I know we've never been friends, and you resent my barging into the tribe, but most of us will leave. It would be a great boon if you helped. Certainly we can use your scrapping smarts and good right arm, and those of your friends.'
The burly man looked for a trap, or some way to rebut the gentle request. 'As war chief,' he grumbled, 'I lead the fighters in skirmishes? And when attacked, everyone must do as I say until the enemy is beaten off?'
Sunbright nodded, as did older folks recalling times of war. Magichunger turned, and muttered to his friends. They grumbled, fretted, and argued while the rest of the tribe waited. Finally Magichunger turned, rubbed his nose again as if embarrassed. 'We'll go,' he growled.
Walking hand-in-hand under desert-bright stars, Knucklebones said, 'You were very clever in there, Sunbright.'
'Not so clever,' he said. 'Just desperate to get my tribe off this ash heap. It reminds me of the worst corners of the hell I almost didn't escape, but at least then I left my enemies behind.'
'What?' The part-elf looked up, but his hawk's face was only a silhouette against stars. 'What do you mean, enemies?' she asked.
'Barbarians hold grudges forever, Knucklebones. From before birth even, for we're born into feuds going back to the day New Man rose from the ice. Some spend their lives plotting revenge, and will throw their lives away getting it. With us wild folk, the heart often overrules the head.
'Magichunger will always be my enemy. And his friends and family too. I must beware his knife in my back, awake and asleep. Many others don't like my new customs, or new twists to old ones, and for us to survive will take magic, I fear.'
'Why fear?'
'Magic is taboo. A fear of magic runs strong.'
'But you purified their drinking water! Everyone saw it, and appreciated it.'
'I 'blessed' the water, I did not bewitch it. Not for my own gain, mocking the gods' power, but acting for the good of the people. That's why I said a shaman's no good without a tribe to work for.
'And now I'd have us cross our ancestral lands. I don't know… the grasslands-prairie-is stronger than the tundra, but the life drain happens there too. We may need magic to survive, and… I don't know what I'll do.'
'You'll return to your mother's hut and sleep,' the thief said, standing on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. 'Then we rise and pack to embark on a new adventure!'
Chuckling, Sunbright hugged her off the ground and kissed her soundly.
Chapter 12
Toch swung his club backhanded and smashed Kab across the snout. Tumbling down the hillside, rolling in dust, the wounded orc sprawled to a halt, clutched a blood-spurting nose, and slobbered, 'What that for?'
The larger orc wasn't finished. Toch crabbed down the slope, raised his obsidian-studded club, and thumped Kab repeatedly.
'No noise, I says! Quiet, I says! But you, you burp at wrong time and chase off game!'
Toch vented his anger with more blows. Other orcs squatted on their heels and picked at stones, or scratched lice, careful to avoid catching hell. Kab wailed and howled and screamed, thrashing limbs, as Toch beat and kicked every inch of the orc's gray, warty skin.
Finally Toch's arm tired, and he threw the club down in disgust. With filthy, cracked nails he scaled the slope again, plunked his tusked jaw atop the rise, and glared at the world. The goats had bounded up to higher slopes, out of reach. Toch was so hungry he could eat rocks. Perhaps he should beat Kab more, tenderize the meat, then eat it. It would teach the others to follow orders and maintain silence on the hunt. He hoped a female gave birth soon. Baby orcs made excellent stew, and he could keep it all to himself. That was one good reason for dragging along females. They were always pregnant.
Stomach growling, Toch stood on the hummock under an overcast sky, and tried to guess which way to go next. Like many Icebeast Orcs, he was tall, almost six feet, with long limbs and hands that could break bones. With the approach of winter, gray hair thickened on his hide like a mountain pony's. His head was a rat's nest of lank black hair, but he still wore a steel helmet and a tattered smock of stout gray wool that retained the faded sigil of the One King, a red hand with fingers splayed. The paint had mostly cracked off.
He remembered, vaguely, belonging to the One King's army. How the chief orcs had said they'd be well-fed, have huts and villages instead of wilderness and badlands, how they'd live among humans and share their wealth as long as they didn't kill anyone. Details were fuzzy, but he remembered fine food: fresh-killed beef, apples from orchards, wriggling eels from stocked ponds, even real bread such as orcs could never bake, and whole barrels of wine that made his head spin and his feet crazy. He licked gray lips at the memory. Life had been good under the One King. Lots of food, steel weapons, not much fighting, plenty of naps, fires under roofs at night.
Then it ended. They claimed the One King was dead, burned by a dragon, or overrun by enemies. Or that he'd gone to sleep in the catacombs. Or that he'd shunned the orcs because they didn't work and fight and kill enough to suit his bloodthirsty ways. Or that they were too quarrelsome for his ideas of peace. Memories were muddled in his dim brain, but the One King had been good.
Now he was chief of a troop in the Dementia Range, a hard life even for orcs. The land was difficult to cross, either naked rock or stunted cedars and heather and gorse, impossible tangles that forced the orcs to game trails or open spaces. The troop had done well raiding around Ascore and Sepulcher and Cantus. Too well. Men and dwarves banded together to root the orcs from the forest, even sending hated war dogs. Toch's troop retreated to the
