“Can’t stop for too long,” Persh’al wheezed, clapping Cabrus on the shoulder. The skinny orc grunted and stepped forward.
A round of gasps and startled, choked coughing rose behind them.
“Ah.” Fegri peered at the line of orcs stumbling through the portal into the in-between. “They’re not as dumb as they look. Keep moving, children! We’re following the blue one.”
Tittering, she hobbled off behind Persh’al and Cabrus, eyeing the black smoke spewing from geysers in the nonexistent wasteland between worlds.
Cheyenne turned to wave the others forward, and the thin line of orcs became a frightened, trembling group of them on the other side of the boulder. “Gotta keep moving. Stay close.”
The orcs supported each other through coughing fits and wheezing breaths, but the sight of the dead nothingness around them and the black fog creeping across the in-between in thick tendrils got them all moving quickly.
Yeah, that’d light a fire under anyone’s ass.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Cheyenne and the rest of the refugees caught up with Persh’al, Cabrus, and Fegri fairly quickly. The two orc women jumped at everything that moved, but Cheyenne forced herself not to snap at them about it. Anything I say right now is only gonna terrify them even more.
She hurried to the other side of Persh’al and glanced at Cabrus, who stared at the shifted non-landscape with wide eyes. Behind them, Fegri muttered to herself, squinting at everything and letting out the occasional sharp bark of laughter.
Leaning toward the troll, she muttered, “You know, I think we might’ve overlooked one important detail in all this?”
“Oh, yeah?” Persh’al warily scanned the twisting fog around them. “What’s that?”
“We’re not going back the way we came.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Going through that portal in Grimmer is gonna spit us out at a reservation.” A tree half a dozen yards on their right groaned in the eerie silence. The sound cut off abruptly when a puff of black smoke wafted in front of it and took the dead thing somewhere else in the in-between. “Isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Persh’al, I cannot show up at a Border rez. The FRoE’s gonna recognize me and start asking way more questions than I can reasonably refuse to answer.”
“Relax, kid. We covered that part.” Persh’al slipped a small vial out of his pocket and wiggled it beside his hip before secreting it away again. “Not as fancy as the nalís L’zar gave you, but it’s powered by the same thing.”
Cheyenne frowned. Nightstalker blood in a vial. Cute. “From Corian?”
“Yeah.” The troll darted a quick glance at Cabrus, who might or might not have been listening as he staggered forward and tried to look in every direction at once. “The second we’re out of this place, I’ll use it, and we’ll pop right back into the warehouse. Only room for two, though, yeah?”
“Right.” Can’t let any first-time Earthsiders slip into a nightstalker portal cast by a blue troll. Nobody wants to deal with that fallout.
“We’ve been walking for a long time,” Cabrus croaked.
“I heard there was supposed to be monsters.” Fegri cackled behind them, making the skinny orc jump.
“Nothing’s supposed to happen here,” Persh’al replied, “as long as we keep moving.”
“It does seem a little less eventful,” Cheyenne muttered.
“Nah, that’s because you’ve done this. Recently.” Persh’al turned and raised a hand toward the clustered refugees shuffling along behind them. “How we doing back there?”
Every orc making the crossing looked at him with glowing yellow eyes, but no one said a thing.
“Good enough for me.” The troll cleared his throat and peered through the fog. “Maybe Nu’ek had it right the whole time, shippin’ us to Grimmer for a crossing with a lot less action.”
“Huh.” Cheyenne frowned at a sickening wet, slithering sound coming from the right. “Might be a good time to knock on wood.”
“Oh, sure. Let me just go find some real quick.” Persh’al snorted. When he glanced ahead again, he broke out in a grin and pointed. “Hey. Doorway.”
“That’s it?” Cabrus gulped. “That’s the other side?”
“Sure is, Toothpick.”
“What?”
Persh’al nudged the skinny orc’s shoulder and shook his head. “Term of endearment. Hopefully, you’ll learn something about it when you pop out on the rez. Check it out, everybody! This is our stop coming up.”
A chorus of whispered voices rose from the terrified refugees, and one of them started crying softly.
Cheyenne frowned at the doorway. They don’t know what’s waiting for them after this. It’s gotta be better than what they’re leaving behind, but a Border rez isn’t worth tears of joy.
“Just keep moving,” Persh’al added.
A clicking growl echoed through the nothingness, rising mere yards in front of the crossing party. The black, gelatinous shape gyrated in the air, and Persh’al halted the line.
“Shit.”
Some of the orc women screamed. One of them darted away from the group, but Cheyenne grasped the orc woman’s wrist and yanked her back in. “Stay together! That’s the only way we’re gettin’ outta this.”
She summoned crackling black orbs in both hands, but before she had a chance to let loose, Cabrus blasted the growling black shape with a thick column of green fire. The in-between beast shrieked and wobbled like a mountain of Jell-O, then burst into a million fragments and blew away on the next gust of source-less wind.
“Decent aim.” Persh’al nudged the skinny orc with his elbow. “You weren’t kidding.”
Cabrus grinned until he remembered what they were doing here and why. “We keep going, right?”
“Yep. Everyone to the doorway. That big ol’ rectangle of light in the middle of nowhere. Come on. Hurry it up.”
The terrified refugees pushed forward in a single mass. Cheyenne turned and scanned the streaks of black smoke drifting across her vision. I know there’s more where that came from.
“Hey, kid.” Persh’al waved her forward as the group passed him and booked it to the doorway. “Any particular reason you’re standing there wasting more time?”
“It can’t be just one.” She turned and headed toward him.
“Sometimes one is all you need. Don’t be ungrateful.” He nodded at the doorway. “We’re lucky this time.”
The orc women screamed again, the men shouted, and
