The man said nothing, though it was as likely from fear as courage. Stryke drew back his blade again.
“Wait!” Pepperdyne yelled, pushing his way forward. “What the hell are you doing, Stryke?”
“This is band business. Stay out of it.”
“Since when was it your business to slaughter unarmed prisoners?”
“You’ve a lot to learn about orcs, human.”
“I thought I’d already learned that you were honourable.”
That seemed to give Stryke pause for thought, but he didn’t lower his sword. “I need to know where the bitch’s taken Thirzarr.”
“You’ll not get anything out of dead men.”
“Force is all their kind understands.”
“My kind, you mean. And isn’t that what humans say about orcs?”
“We do understand it,” Haskeer protested.
Pepperdyne jabbed a thumb at the dead prisoners. “Not working too well here, is it?” He turned back to Stryke. “Let me try. Come on. I’m one of their kind; maybe they’ll open up to me.”
“Why don’t you keep your snout out of this?” Haskeer said. “You’re not in this band.”
“He’s proved himself,” Coilla told him. “I say we give it a chance.”
“Here we go again.”
“And what’s that mean?”
“You’re backing him. Again. Seems to me you should be siding with your own, not outsiders.”
“ We’re outsiders, you idiot! Everybody shits on us, curses us, hates us. You might think of that when you’re busy judging. Jode’s suffered as much as we have, in his way.”
“You’re talking about a human. They’re more shitters than shat upon, I reckon.”
Jup burst out laughing. “Sorry.” He tried to sober himself. “But… shitters? Shat upon? You outdo yourself, Haskeer.” He started laughing again. Several of the privates joined in. He made a better fist of composing himself. “Coilla’s right. Maybe Jode could make ’em talk.”
Haskeer was seething now. “You too, eh?”
“What have we got to lose? If it doesn’t work we can move on to cutting off a few of their fingers or toes or…” He glanced at the pair of alarmed prisoners. “Failing that, Stryke can finish ’em.”
“What is it you want, Stryke?” Pepperdyne asked. “Information or revenge?”
“There’s a lot to be said for revenge.”
“My people have a saying: ‘If you go out for revenge, build two pyres.’ ”
“I’ll build a hundred,” Stryke replied coldly, “a thousand…”
“Make the biggest for Jennesta. But you won’t learn where to find her from dead men.”
Stryke slowly lowered his sword. “Try. But be quick.”
“Thanks. Might be better if you all left us. I think you’re making the prisoners nervous.”
Stryke snapped an order and everyone retreated to the other end of the clearing, Haskeer mumbling unhappily as they went. Pepperdyne crouched by the two remaining humans and began some earnest talking.
The band settled down to wait.
Stretched out on the compacted earth of the clearing, Haskeer said to no one in particular, “How do we know he ain’t plotting with ’em?”
“What?” Coilla said. “When did you swap your brains for horse shit? Jode’s trying to help.”
“Yeah, we know how helpful humans can be.” He looked sharply at Standeven, sitting nearby, making him fidget uneasily.
“You’re full of it, Haskeer. You should wise up about who our friends are.”
“Friends, Coilla? Are you trying to tell me that-”
“You’re bruising my ears!” Stryke declared. “Give it a rest, you two.”
Haskeer and Coilla fell into aggrieved silence.
The band quietened down too. Pepperdyne carried on talking with the prisoners.
The orcs were just starting to get restless again when one of the perimeter sentries, Gant, called out to them. The second scouting party had returned.
It was led by Dallog, who had the tyro Pirrak at his side. Wheam walked alone, further back. But what caught everyone’s attention was who the scouts had with them; a party of dwarfs, three of them youngsters.
Spurral stood. “Isn’t that Kalgeck? And those kids who got us the map?” She ran towards them, Jup and some of the others close behind.
Kalgeck, with whom she had suffered captivity by the Gatherers, rushed forward to meet her and they embraced. The children, Heeg, Retlarg and Grunnsa, gathered round too.
“Am I glad to see you,” she told them, speaking in Mutual, the universal tongue. “Are you all right?”
Kalgeck nodded. “We managed to get to one of our hideaways. It was close though. We ran into some human soldiers, like those over there.” He pointed at the captives with Pepperdyne. “They would have killed us, except some of that other bunch with all the different races came along. Who were they?”
“We don’t know,” Spurral admitted. “Not exactly.”
“Anyway,” Kalgeck went on, “they protected us. They sort of sprayed fire at the soldiers and scared them off. Then they told us to run and hide.”
Coilla looked thoughtful. “Interesting.”
“Heads up,” Jup said. “Here comes Jode.”
Pepperdyne arrived, clutching a small piece of parchment.
“Luck?” Stryke asked.
“Some. It didn’t take much for them to see the light. They know roughly where Jennesta’s gone, but not why. One of them drew this.” He handed Stryke the paper.
It was a roughly drawn map, showing a cluster of islands, with one island, set apart from the rest, bearing a cross. The only other thing was a rudimentary set of arrows indicating the compass points.
“So it’s east of here,” Stryke said. “But how far?”
“They weren’t sure, but thought it was a couple of days’ voyage. So not too far.”
“Why not compare it with the map we’ve already got?” Spurral suggested. “The one these kids found for us.”
“Just about to,” Stryke told her. He fished it out of a pocket.
They unfolded it, laid it on the ground and compared the two.
“There,” Pepperdyne said, pointing to one corner.
“Yeah,” Stryke agreed. “They match, more or less.”
“We know about that island,” Retlarg announced.
“Do you?” Coilla asked. “How come?” All three children started to clamour. She held up a hand to still them. “Kalgeck? You know anything about this?”
“Yes. A couple of the elders were with us for a time when we were hiding. We heard them talking about it.”
“What did they say?”
“The humans, those soldiers, they were trying to find out where the island was. They took away some of our tribe to make them tell.”
“What’s so special about it?”
“It’s where your kind live.”
“What do you mean?”
“He means orcs,” Spurral said.
The youngsters all nodded vigorously and chorused agreement.
Pepperdyne, who had picked up enough Mutual to have a sense of what was being said, looked taken aback. “There are orcs in this world?”
“Why not?” Coilla reckoned. “There seem to be plenty of races here, just like in Maras-Dantia.”
“This is all about Jennesta’s scheme to create a slave orc army, isn’t it?” Jup put in.
“Orcs wouldn’t let her,” Coilla declared.
“Unless they’re a bunch of pussies like that lot in Acurial,” Haskeer contributed.
“How likely is that? They’d wipe the floor with her.”
