Born a Monster

Chapter 76

Burning Hill

When Uruk fall to death, they are burned, if only by their enemies. To avoid discovery, we needed to march an entire day away to the north. We returned when we saw the smoke rising from what had once been a village.

The red axe flag was still in attendance.

“The necromancers are gone.” Achmed said.

Dina spat. “Probably back to Hattan”

.....

“They are not our quest.” Philecto said, pointing down at the village. “Our quest is there.”

“Idiot! If we let them raise another army of ghouls, we won’t survive to complete our quest.”

I cleared my throat. “I have a personal grievance against the necromancers, but I agree with Philecto. If the army moves, we need to follow or precede it. If it breaks apart, we have a chance to finish this once Rakkal is alone.”

“Now, when they are away from the army, now is the time to strike!”

“Achmed, they are still Uruk. Warriors. In addition to whatever death magics they possess.”

Achmed spoke rapidly and much. Awta’s translation was simple. “Put it to a vote.”

“Fine.”

Achmed and Rina wanted to pursue and end the necromancers. Dina wanted to raid the hospital, to reduce enemy numbers quickly and perhaps safely. The others wanted to remain on Rakkal.

Achmed cursed us for fools and idiots, and doomed us to live with our brains for the rest of our lives, and then turned his head to spit. But he did not chase after them alone.

Colorful and poetic, the curse was, but it held no actual power.

The burnings, I am told, took two weeks.

The goblins were herded off to the southeast the first night, while small bands of Uruk continued to arrive, both God Hand and Black Fist.

Two hundred humans, clad in red, arrived the third day.

On the fourth night, a detail was left behind to care for the wounded and the dead. The living headed almost due west.

If our own food stores were any indication, they needed to. The land was all but clear of forage, the wildlife hunted to the edge of extinction.

A day’s travel west, and the army disbanded. They were in the heart of Black Fist lands. A great number of units spread out to the south.

Rakkal marched toward Montu’s Glory with his human escorts.

“At last.” Philecto said. “He heads towards the area we prepared for. Our quest nears completion.”

“I look forward to a bath.” Rina said.

So we made good time towards Montu’s Glory.

We met Cantiope and Mentelome, our centaur scouts, on that second day.

#

“Hail and well met.” Philecto greeted them.

“Indeed.” Said Cantiope.

“We notice that Rakkal still lives.” Mentelome said, thrusting her spear butt into the ground. “We also notice that messages are being dispatched that the Black Fist and God Hand clans are now formally one clan, the Red Tide.”

“Well, technically, our domug allies noticed that.” Cantiope said.

“Do you have a copy of such notice?” Philecto asked.

Cantiope handed one over.

“This is – not what I would have expected Rakkal’s seal to look like.”

“Its not.” Said Mentelome. “Harkulet, voice of Rakkal.”

“Sounds Furdish to me.” Cantiope said.

“Hobgoblin.” I said. “I’ve seen him in dreams.”

“You seem to learn an awful lot in your dreams.” Awta said. “An awful lot that you don’t tell the rest of us.”

“Has it been relevant before now?” I asked.

She squinted at me.

“The city is just...” Cantiope said.

“They are being as humans do, sometimes.” Mentelome said.

Cantiope looked away toward the horizon. “You’ll see for yourself.”

It looked horrible. Instead of a wooded hill, or even the wood lot, a hill of stumps overlooked the farmland. The crops were coming along nicely, and looking almost ripe for harvest.

“Has anyone been keeping track of the days?” I asked. “How long is it until the week of harvest?”

Philecto shrugged. “If nobody else, our allies in the city should know.”

Our scouts had given us a trade pass, which the crew assured them would get us past the gate.

“That would work better if we had trade goods.” Faraj said.

“With coin provided by our bank,” Philecto waved a hand towards me, “we can purchase surplus from the farms.”

“Except that coin was all taken when I was captured.” I said.

“Shall we pretend to be mercenaries looking for work?” Faraj asked.

The Uruk guarding the gate didn’t ask what we had to trade, barely talked with Philecto at all.

“Hardly the attitude one expects from a victorious people.” Dina said.

“They’ve just killed their neighbors and relatives.” Philecto said.

“And a smattering of innocents.” Rina said.

From the traffic on the streets, all but a handful of the humans native to Montu’s Glory had survived, the rest of them replaced with surly, reluctant Uruk. Or maybe it was the sun, causing their sensitive eyes pain.

“There.” Awta said, locating the Drunken Eclipse Inn. “There are our baths.”

The Uruk matron didn’t like the looks of us, but she liked our coins well enough.

Those who could pay for their baths took them. I understand they were pleasant aromatic things, the warm water mixed with jasmine oil.

I got to sit in the hallway, making certain nobody tried to steal anything. Honestly, it didn’t seem anyone else was using the inn.

Still, it beat sleeping on the cold ground.

I’d need to get that layer of blubber back, but there were other things that would just have to take precedence.

There was an abandoned stable nearby, home for rats (none of them sentient) and spiders. The hay was... Well, let’s just say that I’m glad I have adaptions to keep me from getting sickness from rotted food.

It was plentiful, and even at half its normal nutrition, it was better than nothing.

It was near dusk when the town started making sounds of waking up, and I scurried back to the inn.

#

Breakfast for the merchants consisted of loafs of dark brown bread, freshly churned butter, and slices of ham onto which were piled eggs scrambled with onions, peppers, and sliced spinach. Ale and beer flowed freely.

Playing the role of the servant, I enjoyed my boiled water and slice of toasted bread. I policed and washed dishes. In the kitchen were a backlog of other dishes, pans, and utensils. Between calls for my service from my “owners”, I made a dent in those piles.

Whose job was this normally?

But then the crew arrived, and the mood went from partying to a more quiet and animated discussion.

Someone had done much better than my crude map of the temple.

Kyle and Phoenix led the briefing, while Peretta just looked pleased with herself.

“You may ask.” She told me.

“You seem very satisfied.” I said.

“I found my bookend. It isn’t even properly warded or trapped.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

.....

Philecto rubbed the beginnings of a mustache on his upper lip. “If you two could pay attention?”

“Do we have a route, then, or are we discussing the plusses and minuses?” I asked.

“Have you decided on a route?”

“It’s your lives, you should pick the route and I should just shut up about it.” I snapped.

Setting the System to know I’m missing sleep doesn’t count as a night’s rest, nor does it feel like it. It just sets the System not to annoy me with Sanity and Serenity damage as it leeches away. Normally, I was okay with it, but I hadn’t adapted to my new status.

Things that had come easily were suddenly hard again, as though I were learning them for the first time. And I’d endured that for two weeks. I guess it was just having sacrificed so much, and then being so useless here at the end annoyed me.

Awta translated my words, and suddenly all the Kathani were arguing and cursing over the map.

Philecto sat back in his chair, held his mug out in my direction. “Tea, if you please. This may take a while.”

There was no tea, so I filled his tankard with boiled water, with just a splash of mead in case it hadn’t entirely purified.

“Surely they had coffee?” he asked.

“Not where I could smell it.”

“Hrm.”

It took twenty minutes for them to reach a decision. Awta translated, explaining the route we the heroes or assassins would take, and the reasoning behind it.

Achmed had pointed out that we would need to stop by the magical laboratory to destroy it, thus delaying efforts to track us with ritual magic.

I thought he was being overly optimistic, but not all truths need to be spoken.

“On that topic, what are our plans to escape the city?”

“This door here leads to a courtyard with the storage house across the way. We exit here, load up into a cart, and just drive out the front gate as merchants.”

#

It was too simple, too easy. Things were absolutely going to go wrong.

I took care of dishes, managed to locate the coffee pot and the unground beans.

Chopping dried beans with a knife or cleaver? There are easier tasks, and I would certainly have cut myself if not for my scales.

I missed many of the details by doing so, and my first pot of coffee was pronounced woefully weak.

Toward the end of the night, though, the discussion wound down. Word arrived via orcish child that there was a mandatory spontaneous celebration planned for tomorrow, when the great Rakkal was returning in victory.

Kyle presented options. “So, tomorrow night, when he’s still tired from the trail? The morning, when we might catch him asleep?”

“Let’s plan for morning.” Philecto said. “Even the most stalwart of warriors doesn’t sleep in plate armor if they can help it.”

“Okay, then.” Kyle said. “In the daytime, there are guards here, and here...”

Rakkal did not arrive that night, but the next.

The torches were soaked with oils that made them burn red. I didn’t see much, as it was also critical that I not be seen. But the unmistakable KTANG noise of armored hoofsteps came, accompanied with screaming, even cheering voices.

Both humans and Uruk greeted him as though he were the god of the sun, an eternal protector who would bring to them the empire that Montu’s clergy never could.

I saw soldiers embracing family and friends, some of them to vanish from the procession into the crowd.

Night-blooming jasmine flowers and sunflowers alike were thrown into their pathway to be crushed underfoot.

And when the last of the human soldiers had passed, the crowd, jubilant, began dancing and brawling in the streets. The worst of the fights were broken up by orange-and-red clad guardsmen, but for the most part, the raucous noise lasted well past dawn.

“We will postpone our attack until tomorrow.” Philecto decided. “The town watch is alert, and looking for weapons.”

He moved a vase of flowers to his windowsill, a sign to the crew that such a delay had happened.

“It is wise.” Awda agreed, when I relayed the decision to her.

And so we left with the following dawn, clinging stealthily to patches of well-lit street. We advanced just off the main road, one block to the left.

We had stories for the town watch, but they were only seen toward the end of our journey.

“That sounds like combat. Combat with actual weapons.” Faraj said.

Soon the rest of us could hear it as well. Bows were strung, blades and spear given a final check, one last prayer from the Qatab recited.

I tightened the straps of an oaken small shield to my left arm, a gift from Philecto. In my other hand, I wielded a kitchen knife.

Geralt would have been proud of my lack of armor.

In the courtyard before the fortress-temple, Uruk wearing the colors of their villages fought with those wearing the crimson red that law required.

Achmed hung his head. “So much for catching Rakkal without his armor on.”

“Come.” Urged Philecto. “To the side door.”

#