Chapter 77

Upon recognition the convoy was just flagged past the gate and we pulled up in the central courtyard of a two storey complex where a lot of Mages and Yr’ch were bustling about moving various objects, including Loegrian and Veda defence grids, into pre-planned positions. I could also see, in the distance, Athena’s Yr’ch village being placed onto new foundations in preparation for her followers to move in.

“Your people move swiftly,” Crnnch noted.

“We hope to save as many Yr’ch as we can. Speed is of the essence, though not until we can defend ourselves here,” I replied.

“Understandable,” he nodded as Athena, Roxanne and Esnurr approached.

We all intoned our greetings in our various ways.

“Welcome back and well done,” Roxanne replied. The Yr’ch only had eyes for Athena.

“Easy enough,” I replied. “Hopefully we found a lot of new stuff for the Seers to translate, thanks mostly to Karkol here,” I nodded.

“I would very much like to know what is written in the hidden documents we found,” Karkol added as Athena greeted and blessed her new handmaids.

“We’ll get right on it. You can help if you wish; we may need someone who is versed in your culture to aid in the translation, as words often do not convey the entire meaning to an outsider,” Roxanne nodded.

“I ... I would be honoured.”

“Go see our Seers, they’re over there,” she pointed. “Get them to send you to our main camp and the research tent they use.”

Karkol simply gave a bow of respect and hurried off to where the Seers were preparing to do a gestalt scan of the planet.

Crnnch was busy with Tenklar sorting out a series of patrols in the area when a soft cough interrupted him.

“Do you remember me?” a young Yr’ch woman asked.

“You are Seekta, Ar-thenna’s senior handmaiden, are you not?” he replied with a question of his own.

“I am, though you clearly do not remember me from Nansack.”

“I am sorry I do not ... hold. Were you the woman who addressed me when the Inquisitor first arrived?” Crnnch asked thoughtfully.

“Indeed I was. I’m surprised you do remember; we were ordered to use our pheromones to keep you confused and compliant.”

“It worked,” Crnnch chuckled. “I remembered your voice, not how you looked.”

“I’ll have to work upon that,” she smiled. “I have prepared quarters for you in the main building; your mother requested such.”

“Thank you.”

“I will escort you when you are ready,” she replied with a graceful gesture that had his chest tightening with suppressed emotions.

Five minutes later he was walking alongside Seekta towards the complex as she suddenly reached out and took his hand.

“I have watched you for a long time now, Crnnch.”

“You have?”

“Indeed I have and I have it in mind to make you mine.”

“You do?”

“I do, for it is my belief if I did not ask, you would not notice me,” she answered with a smile.

Athena watched, though not with her eyes, as Seekta, her handmaid, sought out the Seeker and smiled as the girl finally got Crnnch’s attention. ‘Nice when a plan comes together,’ she thought.

“John, I want your team to start trying to open a dialogue with various survivor groups as and when the Seers find them,” Roxanne ordered. “Currently we can’t bring them here, though it’s my intention to expand the perimeter here down the river away from Draenor and put together the settlement for Athena’s people.”

“Yes, Mage Roxanne,” I replied with a formal bow.

“Take some of Athena’s Yr’ch with you to speak as well; I suspect having them with you might just convince some at least that we aren’t taking over.”

“Good idea, I had the feeling some weren’t talking to me because I wasn’t an Yr’ch.”

“You can ask Crnnch to ask Tenklar if he’ll ferry you around. In the meantime the Seers are going to do a scan, plus we hope they’ll take out the Klarven when they do, but that still needs any implanted bodies destroyed.”

“Hope they get them all, otherwise it could be a menace to their society for years.”

“Aye, you have the right of it there,” she replied as I felt the Seer group begin their scan and extermination mission.

It took nearly half a day before the Seers finally finished, looking somewhat (and unusually so for them) exhausted.

“We got the Klarven,” Jemima announced. “But there are several large groups of armed forces still out there who will need to be dealt with, including one run by a bunch of what they call TechnoYr’ch. They still have control of an industrial complex which includes a cloning plant, weapons factory and nanite build plant making their modern weaponry. Also, there is no sign of any Higher Powers on the planet in stasis or otherwise.”

“Wonder where they went,” Roxanne replied with a frown. “Beog was nowhere near strong enough to take any reasonable number of them out, plus the planet’s still here which suggests it wasn’t violence.”

“We don’t know. I rather doubt Athena does either.”

“I don’t and all the reasons you gave are valid, Roxanne,” Athena replied as she approached.

“Perhaps there’s something in those old records John retrieved,” Roxanne replied with a shrug. “In the meantime, we need to reduce that group of TechnoYr’ch to impotency as I don’t want them running loose and destabilising your society.”

“I agree. They’re the biggest menace here, other than a return of the Vultoqi.”

“Right, Lady Seers, get some rest, we’ll make plans in the morning. John, you have your orders, Crnnch says it’s OK to borrow Tenklar and his crews after their rest period. Try not to start any local wars or feuds,” she finished with a chuckle.

“I’ll prepare a plan,” I nodded and headed off to sort things and stand the teams down for a rest period.

The following morning, my team, along with some Yr’ch from Athena’s settlement who fought alongside the Mazdani, as well as a squad from the Unbroken, commanded by Birry, were disembarked from Tenklar’s weapons platforms. They now advanced together as we approached the original Orc safe retreat we’d enquired at after our first look around in Draenor after the Vultoqi retreat.

The Mages were scanning every dead body we saw and occasionally disintegrating one infected with Klarven eggs, until finally we came into sight of the barrier that had been raised to keep the Vultoqi and Klarven out.

Finally I nodded to Whirric who was in charge of the Athenian Yr’ch to go forward and introduce himself, whilst the Drow cloaked and prepared to deal with any surprises.

“We wish to talk,” Whirric stated. “We can offer you supplies and medical aid with the blessings of Ar-Thenna.”

“You are traitors. You betrayed the Yr’ch!” came a call from the barrier.

“We betrayed no one. It was not us who built the portals to permit the Vultoqi and their creatures here. That was the old Yr’ch regime under Sarkal,” Whirric replied calmly. “It was not us who sacrificed good Yr’ch in the pits of abomination or who rounded up any they thought suspect.”

“Why should we trust you? You have non-Yr’ch with you!”

“Who do you think enabled us to fight the Vultoqi and win? Certainly it wasn’t Beog or Sarkal ... or even the TechnoYr’ch who denied our armies the weapons they needed to win and instead created their own armies to enslave the Yr’ch.”

“I was a TechnoYr’ch!”

“Then you know I’m talking the truth!”

“You mentioned food?” came another question after an awkward pause.

“Yes, with the blessings of Ar-Thenna.”

“For food, we can talk.”

“We’ve managed to open a dialogue with six of the fifteen surviving enclaves,” I reported back to Roxanne. “None of the ones who talked would permit us access, but are willing to take food and medical supplies as well as talk to us. All appear to be wary of anything to do with Athena. The remaining nine either ignored us or, in the case of two of them, fired upon us when we drew up.”

“Good work, we’ll arrange for regular drop offs at the ones willing to talk and let the rest stew whilst we bring up the Yr’ch numbers here and gradually expand,” Roxanne nodded.

“We’ll need regular scans to kill off any Klarven outbreaks from implanted bodies. We destroyed all the ones we detected, but we can’t be or go everywhere,” I added.

“Aye, that’s in hand. Our most pressing problem is that TechnoYr’ch enclave in what we would consider to be South America. Seems we’re not the only ones putting out feelers and trying to gain allies, though they appear to be running into the same problems as we are, but are looking for violent solutions as they have already attacked one surviving settlement and robbed them of resources.”

“How powerful are they?”

“About a hundred thousand strong and very well equipped with the more modern of the Orc weapons, plus they appear to have upgraded their detection systems to prevent us using drones to target them.”

“Tricky, plus we don’t want to kill off more of them, not really.”

“Which is why I’m sending in the Shayetet Kheshig along with the Athenian Yr’ch to neutralise them and keep them from expanding. Arch will be briefing you later today when the other commanders get here,” Roxanne noted.

“How are things on Vultoq?”

“Stalemate, we don’t dare expand and they can’t crack the outposts, hence a lot of minor spoiling attacks from the Vultoqi whilst we think their leadership think things over. Plans are in readiness to start bringing the Yr’ch back home once we have things sorted here. A lot of their city hordes are reaching their ten-year lifespan which has Crnnch worried as he doesn’t have the Yr’ch-power to take much in the way of casualties in a major battle.”

“No way we could expand the lifespan?” I asked.

“No, it’s deliberately built-in to prevent planetary revolts as all the cloning plants were here on Draenoric, so even if they broke free, they had a maximum of ten years before it was all over, except for military coups by the higher ranks, though even then they had to remain loyal to the regime here or wither on the vine.”

“And the only surviving cloning plant we know of is held by the TechnoYr’ch in South America?” I mused.

“Yes. We’ll hopefully be bringing to an end the Higher Power’s desire to remove the partially-souled Orcs from existence,” Roxanne nodded.

“Well, that’ll probably be the easiest as I’m damned if I know how we’ll defeat the Vultoqi as yet,” I shrugged.