Chapter 23

Day 29:

John jerked awake, snorting sometime after nightfall. Inside the room it was pitch black, but his Sight allowed him to see the worgh females and pups clustered around him. Their own sleeping noises ceased when his did. Heads came up, both adults watching him warily. Keeping his movements slow and obvious, he held a hand out for each to sniff. To his surprise, a pair of tongues, like large-grain sandpaper scraped across his palms after a few minutes. He tentatively gave neck scratches before staggering to his feet.

The animals didn’t run away at that, so he decided to try offering some more food. He didn’t have much left, but if he could get their help, the worgh would enable him to hunt almost anything edible in the area. To his chagrin, they all ignored his grub, even the pups. He snacked a little, to show it was okay, but they were apparently not hungry.

“Okay.” He told them quietly. “I’ve gotta go check something out. You want to stay here?”

Their whines when he tried moving deeper back through the ruins were an obvious “no”. So, he scooped up the little ones and made a sort of nest in his now mostly empty knapsack. They stirred at his touch, but quickly fell back asleep when placed with their pack-mates. Motioning the mothers to join him, he went back to the open door. They trailed behind, but didn’t let him out of their sight. It took some jockeying to get them through the opening while he used the lever to winch the door closed again. More dog-like whines and some scratching showed how little the worgh liked being underground.

The light stone helped, but the animals were still reluctant to follow. It was only their obvious concern for the young that kept the mothers from deserting or killing him. He searched for quite a while to find the opening to Dard’s tunnel, since he had to check both sides of the hall. He zig-zagged his way back down the slope, and found the small entry right where the floor became level again. It was camouflaged by an irregularity in the wall, and he nearly walked right by. Plus, it was barely tall enough for the dwarf himself to use. John had to duck uncomfortably low to traverse it.

His lower back was aching badly by the time he reached Dard’s underground lair. The tunnel was mostly straight, which meant he traversed basically the same path from the day prior, but below the surface this time. There were two doors, both closed, but only one had any kind of mechanism to open it from his side. He searched for a long time, looking for another catch, running his fingertips along the rough stone walls, even the floor and ceiling with no results. Disappointed, he finally gave up and readied the Tooth before activating the one door’s lever.

The metal vibrated silently in his hand as the stone slab shifted slightly. He hooked fingers into a shallow depression and pulled. The rock swung freely, making no sound as he opened Dard’s secret trapdoor. Immediately, the screams, cries and menacing laughter accompanying grunts and the sound of blows filled the air. Both worgh adults crouched low, slinking forward. John quickly slipped the pack from his shoulders, setting the pup-filled bag on the floor behind them. He drew out both axes and tip-toed toward the noise.

The ceiling rose as he walked into Dard’s now-cold forge. Broken and discarded tools lay on the floor. Two large bins, filled with coal were tipped over, spilling the black clumps and dust. Coal dust. Something niggled in his brain when he saw the fine, dark powder. At the other end of the room, a display counter, empty now ran from one wall almost to the other just before a large opening with stairs beyond. Another low doorway broke left. He stuck his head in that one, and confirmed it was Dard’s private quarters, with a bed and table, both smashed to pieces. If he’d had anything else, it was no longer present.

John followed the noise, and worghs across the dusty floor and up the stairs. At the top of a single flight was a landing, with more leading upward to the left, and another, wider set descending ahead of him. He could hear fainter sounds from the ones leading up, but what came up the stairs ahead was much louder. He crept down slowly, until he could see into a long storeroom. The scene inside turned his stomach, but he forced himself to remain calm and form a plan.

Bags of various foodstuffs and barrels of liquid lay in a disheveled mess. Three orcs dominated the room. Each had a half-naked woman sprawled on a pile of stores in front of them. Two orcs were slightly offset, facing the walls left and right. The left woman was a battered mess. Her eyes were swollen shut, and blood dripped from her nostrils. Her clothing was shoved up around her neck, and bloody bite-marks dotted her chest. The orc rutted atop her crying form with cruel abandon. To the right the woman was face down, completely still. Her arms dangled limply, but her head was turned the other way. That orc raped her standing from behind.

Beyond those two, a third had his victim lying on a large barrel. His hands were wrapped around her throat, choking while she beat with her hands and feet uselessly against his arms and chest. The orc was tormenting the woman, letting up slightly so she could attempt a shuddering gasp before squeezing again. Her tear stained face was ashen and her struggles were weakening. This one’s back was to John, so he mentally marked him for last.

It was only on a final scan that John noticed the room’s other occupants. Two other green-skinned males, much shorter than the orcs and bearing more lizard-like features, instead of the orcs’ porcine ones, but with large, floppy ears were holding torches and knives. They were taking turns poking two additional women who cowered in the corner. Every begging squeal they elicited made the ... goblins? Laugh shrilly. The foursome was buried in the corner to John’s right, nearly out of view.

John would’ve waited a moment longer to be sure, but the worghs didn’t pause. Both slipped into the room and attacked the goblins from their rear. Two powerful mouths closed, one on the back of a neck, the other on his partner’s upper leg. Their lunges pushed the goblins to the floor right in front of the last two women. They savaged their prey viciously, making the smaller creatures howl in pain and fear.

Cursing to himself as they entered, John leaped at the orc on his right. He slammed both ax blades into the orc’s spine. The Tooth especially bit deeply, punching through the bone and nerves to gash internal organs as well. John planted a foot on the orc’s ass to wrench the weapons free. He spun and did the same thing to the orc on what had been his left. That one was only just beginning to realize something was going on when both hatchets popped his back into thirds as well. Both yelled in confused pain as their lower extremities stopped working. The one that had been standing fell forward, then slid to the floor when the pile and woman failed to keep him in place. The other flopped angrily, doing a push-up to roll onto his back. The woman he lay on weakly pushed at him.

John didn’t stop there. He’d entered the room substantially outnumbered. While a help, the worghs had targeted the weakest foes, leaving the three strongest for him to handle. He supposed he couldn’t really blame them, since they’d already seen him take down three other orcs. Even if he did have help the last time. Still, the change in ambient noise alerted his final opponent. The orc’s body spun, following his head as he turned to face this new challenger. His heavy hand snatched at the iron-headed, spiked mace dangling from his belt on the opposite side. John’s double strike slammed into that arm. The Tooth severed the orc’s elbow almost completely, while Gentle Breeze sheared his tricep muscle and broke the bone beneath.

The orc shouted in pain, but continued spinning and lunged to knock John over. Blood squirted from the ruined arm as it waved limply, splattering everyone nearby. He yanked the mace from its thong with his off hand and swiped at John’s head. John’s partial block meant the metal club only grazed his temple. Still, it was enough to make him see stars, lay his skin open and drop him to one knee. He struggled to regain focus and rolled away from what he assumed would be a follow up death blow.

When he regained his feet a few seconds later, and a few yards farther away, he found his foe still spinning in place. The woman the orc had been choking had jumped onto his back. She held onto the handle of a knife stuck into the orc’s ear with one hand, and his armor’s collar with the other. The crazed rapist was clearly disoriented, smacking his own back and shoulder with his mace in an attempt to dislodge her. John prepared to strike the first opening he got when one of the previously wounded orcs managed to wrap both arms around his ankles from his position on the floor.

John managed a decent break-fall but the third orc used his hands to pin one of John’s arms too. Then the orc bit the ever-loving crap out of his forearm. Luckily, or sort of anyway, it was John’s left arm. He flipped the Tooth around and slammed her spike into the back of the gruesome creature’s bony head. The razor-sharp metal punched right through the orc’s spine and up into the lower brain-stem. The wider portion unhinged the orc’s jaw as John’s foe slumped dead.

“Fuck!” John spat as he kicked his feet free.

The other injured orc didn’t want to let John’s legs go, but a near miss from the Tooth convinced him to duck involuntarily. That was enough for the soldier to scramble away. Right into the path of the worgh females who were finished with their original prey. The two animals flowed around him, one on each side. The one closest to John’s tripper clamped her teeth on that one’s face and tore the skin loose. The other worgh put her jaws to the disoriented, spinning, still-upright orc’s lower leg. She pulled, tearing his calf and Achilles tendon.

That orc probably didn’t really understand what happened, but he tripped on one of the loose bags. He ended up sprawled face down on the floor, which gave the woman time to get her grip back on the knife’s handle. She pulled the blade free then thrust it into her rapist’s throat and sawed his windpipe open. Blood rushed out, soaking the supplies on the floor.

The sudden quiet, broken only by the women’s crying made John shake his head as he struggled to his feet. He put the flat of the Tooth’s blade against his throbbing arm.

Can you burn my skin without catching my whole arm on fire? He asked.

... Yes, I supposed that might be possible. Why? The Tooth sounded really curious.

That motherfucking orc bit me! I don’t want it to fester. Can you cauterize it?

Place me on the wound. She instructed him.

He did, and a piercing flash of ... heat? Cold? He wasn’t really sure which, shot up his arm. But when he pulled the Tooth back, an ugly, red burn mark scored the recently punctured skin.

Thanks. He told her, sheathing both blades.

My ... pleasure. A wink impression accompanied the snark.

The woman had continued cutting until the orc’s head was completely removed. With a scream, she shot-putted the orb into the nearest wall. It rebounded limply to land on top of another pile of partially torn bags. Brown flour, not nearly as fine as what John was used to, but still identifiable spilled from the fabric. John pulled the Tooth back out and looked from her to the spillage.

If I left you on something flammable, could you light it on fire at my command? He asked, heart racing.

I should be able to. She confirmed. Why?

Because coal and flour dust is really, really flammable. Explosive even.

Oooh! That sounds fun!

Laughing at her excitement, he put the ax away to approach the now weeping woman. The only sounds were all the women crying, and the worgh feasting on the orc and goblin remains.

“My name is John.” He told her, rasping. “We need to get you out of here. I know the way, will you come with me?”

She blinked up at him. “A way out? There’s no way out! They’re all over the town!”

“Yeah.” John agreed. “But they don’t know about the tunnel I used to get in.”

There was a gasp from the corner. “A tunnel? Where?”

John turned. “In Dard’s forge. Will you come with me?”

Eyeing the worgh uncertainly, the two women nodded. He turned back to the first one.

“What about you?”

She calmed herself and stood. “Yes, I’ll come with you.”

She retrieved the knife’s sheath from the orc’s corpse and fastened it to her own torn garments. John meanwhile moved to the final two women. The one lying face down was dead. Her face and neck were a ruined mess. The other flinched when he drew near, so he motioned for the two who hadn’t been raped to give the woman a hand.

“Go through to the back of the forge area. You’ll see the open door. Would one of you bring the pack that’s there back here?”

They nodded their agreement and slipped up the stairway. The knife-wielding woman faced him.

“What do you intend to do?”

John gestured around the room.

“I’m going to use this to make a bomb.” He told her. “Can you grab some food for all of us, and go with your friends?”

The woman sniffed. “I am not your servant!”

“I didn’t say you were,” John agreed, “but if we’re going to get away from these guys, I don’t have nearly enough food for all of us. I’d like to create a good enough distraction, so we can escape without them figuring what happened. Will you help?”

“What kind of distraction?” She asked, checking various markings on the disheveled bags.

“Well, if I can get enough of a cloud going in here, and lure some more orcs we should be able to make an explosion. That will hopefully occupy their attention long enough for us to get away.”

“What cloud are you talking about?” She asked, hefting two bags to her shoulders.