Kora

She nudged the steaming meat closer and waited for a response.

((Nudge, nudge))

Kora

The odds had shifted, now there were two of them.

Kora chewed her slab of meat slowly, thinking.  She liked to think when she was happy, and warm meat in her belly made her happier than anything else.  Thinking at other times was often just a chore.

The new arrival was sitting beside Willow the Magic Maker, the two of them talking back and forth in the common tongue.  Kora understood common better than she spoke it, but despite being relatively proficient for an ogrillon she was still just that - a proficient ogrillon.  The rapid flow of sibilant sounds between the two creatures was challenging, and Kora knew she couldn't chew, think, and try to decipher their words all at once.  So she sat back on her haunches and continued her chewing and thinking, watching the thin creatures out of the corner of her eye.  The new one caught her gaze and raised it's hands, showing it's lack of weapons for defense.  Then it gestured toward the tree trunk.  Kora followed the direction of the pointing finger and spotted a blade embedded in the bark part way up the tree.  The implied command in the gesture was clear, but she was still processing this new addition to their little group and had not yet fully decided whether she would follow it's commands or club it to death.  She grumbled and went back to her chewing and thinking as the two humanoids restarted their endless stream of words.

Two of them. 

Now that she could compare them to each other her best guess was that the first was female, although her breasts were small and didn't hang or swing nicely at all and her scent was faint.  The new one must be male, though he didn't look all that different from the female in Kora's eyes.  The most important point was that they were now two and she was still only one.  She could still club them both and be on her way, but the woman-thing, Willow, had made fire for her.  The taste of roasted meat on Kora's tongue right now came pretty darn close to offsetting her worries about these magic-making tiny things murdering her in her sleep.  Her situation still warranted some consideration though.  There had been no actual evidence so far that the new thing could make magic - that might mean he'd be less harmful if he got angry.  Perhaps Willow needed a mate, and since she was clearly so physically unattractive with her up-high breasts and almost no muscles or body hair to speak of Kora understood if she might want to ingratiate herself to this male.  The ogrillon rumbled again, deep in thought.

The last thing to consider is whether these creatures would lead her back to Bagronk.  Kora wasn't sure how she felt about that - on the one hand, she could always give them to the orcs and they might pay her a shiny coin or two.  On the other hand, in her time traveling with Daren she'd started to like the idea of leaving the Orc City.   She'd had no idea where they were going but, frankly, she had already decided that she liked it better than the cesspool they were coming from.  She'd been born in an orcish city, and until the past weeks had never known any other environment.  Here, on the road, the air was fresh and clean.  There were trees and grass and although they were stunted and unhealthy compared to the verdant forests in other parts of Locessa, to an orgrillon who had seen very little of either in her life they looked beautiful.  There was less food out here, but when found the meat was fresh instead of rancid, and the hunting itself was fun.  But most of all there were no orcs to taunt you and beat you at their whim. 

A thought occurred to her suddenly and Kora let out a long, low growl.  What if they were planning to take her back to Bagronk as a deserter and collect a reward themselves?  What if the orcs had sent them?  The two humanoids' seemingly incessant chatter actually ceased for a moment, both of them were looking at her.  Kora realized her teeth were bared and her hackles up.   She stared at them for a moment and reviewed the facts; she'd never seen them before in Bagronk, they were small, they were broken.  They would actually fare far worse than her in that town and since smaller humanoids were supposed to be smarter it seemed to make sense that they would be going away from the Orc City.  Maybe back to their land of magic that smells like sweet thngs. Maybe.....

A vivid memory suddenly flooded Kora's brain.  A small but significant moment in her childhood that had involved a human and the gift it had given her.  It was one of the few pleasant memories she had, the best actually. She was surprised that she'd not thought about that gift for some time.  The ogrillon perked up and smiled.  Maybe these humanoids would take her to their land, maybe they could be the key to her finding another Gift. 

Through with thinking, and for now also with eating, Kora rose and wiped the grease from her immense hands on her shapeless leather wrap.  As an afterthought she used any remaining residue to slick back her coarse mane of hair.  She pulled the remaining haunches of roasted orc meat over and set them beside Willow and her male, who's chatter had ceased once more and who now were looking at her with most peculiar expressions.  Kora reached up and effortlessly freed the small blade from it's sheath of oak trunk, handing it carefully to the male.

"It night, " she announced in her gutteral rendering of the common tongue, "we sleep one then one then one for watching for bad things.  Morning come.  We go.  Away from Bagronk. Yes?"

She nudged the steaming meat closer and waited for a response.

Chakros

The numerous pillories outside the barracks, as usual, were full.  Symbols painted next to each offender proclaimed their crimes.  Most infractions were relatively minor derelictions of duty, which left the penitents strong enough to at least bemoan their condition.  Insubordination brought the worst punishments, as evinced by the symbols next to several forms that hung limply from their restraints.  Lok’Saug, it seems, runs a disciplined unit, Chakros thought, and then snorted to himself.  If that idiot was even half as intelligent as he was brutal, he might command more than arrow fodder for the proper army.  Chakros spat, partly at the idea and partly on general principles, on the head of the nearest offender.  There’d be fewer deserters, and I’d be out of a job.  I’d be stuck inside this thrice-cursed cesspool of a city with the likes of this one.  It was then that the wheel caught his eye.

The wheel had been hoisted high, exposing its occupant to the elements.  Today, the trickle of rain was just enough to keep the blood from crusting where it coagulated, leaving rust-brown streaks down the length of the support pole and blotches in the soft mud underneath.  Countless wounds pockmarked the body, some started no doubt by the captors and others by the carrion birds.  A human, or what’s left of one.  Bones pierced the mangled flesh from the inside, allowing the limbs to be woven through the spokes at odd angles.  Judging by the the blotches in the earth, the widening areas of rot around the wounds, and the sun-bleached, dessicated bone, Chakros estimated the creature had been there for several days.  The crows that danced atop the body squawked at the newcomer.  They should have picked him clean by now.  Must be the clerics have been working on him, too.  Wonder what the poor bastard did to deserve that.  The crudely painted sign around it’s neck -- the colour of the paint closely matching the rust-brown colour found elsewhere -- showed a crescent moon.  Viilse, Chakros thought.   A spy.  Spirits above, they actually found one.  And here I thought Lok’Saug was just a paranoid, dumb brute.  Turns out I was only mostly right.  The murder collectively scattered as Sarx landed on the support pole.  The weight caused the wheel to rock unsteadily, eliciting a ragged breath and piteous moan from the erstwhile human spy.  

“Fresher than your usual, old friend,” Chakros called, indifferently surprised that the creature on the wheel was, in fact, not dead.  The clerics know their craft, I guess.  Sarx hissed in reply, quirking his head to watch his prey.  

Though the crows had taken care of one of the man’s eyes and the other was covered by a swollen, purulent wound, there could be no mistaking the hiss.  The human struggled ineffectually in what Chakros interpreted as panic.  A feeble, barely audible plea escaped the man’s lips.  

“Kill you?”  The half-orc chuckled.  “You’re the captain’s now.  He’s a jealous orc.  I take away his toy where someone else can see me, I’m the next one getting played with.”  Chakros cast his gaze up and down the street.  Overcast though it was, the sun still kept away all but those that could not avoid it.  There was at least one ogre about that might report the death of the spy on the wheel, not that Chakros had been even remotely tempted.  “Don’t think I’d like the view from up there.  Cheer up, though, Sarx might nibble on something vital.”  As Chakros turned to leave he found himself watching the ogre which now squelched dully through the muddy street.  Something about the way it had stood when he had glanced up the street, looking up toward the wheel....  No, must be my imagination.  “Sarx, take care you don’t nibble on anything vital.  Wouldn’t want to see you up there either.”

The commander’s quarters lay at the back of the warren of buildings that served as barracks for the Spears of Casnilax.  Lightning bolt hangings were everywhere, reminding Lok’Saug’s troops that they were favoured of the storm god.  The audience chamber was no exception, adorned in even more symbols than was typical.  The High Guard had lightning painted upon their breastplates and cheeks, and held ceremonial spears that had been fashioned to demonstrate the commander’s devotion to his professed faith.  Fool wouldn’t give half a toss about Casnilax if he didn’t think it got him in good with Othot-ki’ir.  He grovels like the general is the god himself, not just his servant.  At least Lok’Saug practices the same mewling he expects from his own men.  Somewhat to Chakros’ surprise, he was marched into the hall immediately upon his arrival.  As he neared the commander’s raised dais, he understood why -- in addition to the numerous High Guard and the usual toadying “advisors” stood an orc whose cloakpin identified him as an aide to none other than General Othot-ki’ir himself.  In the middle of the dais, upon a throne that Chakros supposed was intended to be awe-inspiring, squatted Lok’Saug like a corpulent frog.  

“Scout!  You are late, worm!  You were ordered to present yourself immediately!  Explain why you should not be lashed to death for failing direct orders from your commander!”

Inwardly, Chakros rolled his eyes.  How about because you need me for something, otherwise I wouldn’t be here?  He dropped his gaze and took a knee nevertheless, doing his best to sound remorseful.  “I beg the commander that I came as soon as I was summoned.  The commander must know I would throw myself upon my own blade rather than disobey his most urgent of orders.  If I am late, it was Durzu that took his time looking for me.”

This gave the commander someone else to focus his dominance display on, and someone that he did not immediately need -- or more accurately, judging by the messenger to Lok’Saug’s left, someone that General Othot-ki’ir did not immediately need.  “I will personally crush his manhood with Thunderbringer if he has dared defy his commander,” he growled, shaking the giant mace that never left the orc’s side.  Chakros grinned.  Most likely, it would come to nothing.  If he was lucky, Durzu would get some payback for his interruption back at the Skewered Maiden.  The commander continued.  “For your lateness, scout, you will forfeit your leave and be assigned additional duties in your commander’s service.”  Chakros had guessed that was going to happen anyway.  “You will also forfeit your last week’s wages.  If it has been spent you will pay the difference with your worthless hide.”  Chakros looked up involuntarily in surprise, a growl already on his lips.  A quick mental calculation told him that Durzu might have the last laugh after all -- that five gold would have made all the difference.  Lok’Saug grinned and barked in laughter, a throaty dare.  “You have something to say, scout?”  The commander leaned forward in anticipation.  

With effort, Chakros dropped his gaze back to the commander’s feet and shook his head.  He heard Lok’Saug open his mouth to say something else, until a shift in the stance of the general’s aide told him something passed between the aide and the commander.  

“Rise, scout.  Because your commander is merciful, your punishment will be delayed until you have carried out your next duties.”  Lok’Saug sounded unmistakably disappointed.  Chakros doubted the stay had anything to do with his commander’s mercy, and more to do with his commander’s obsequious fear of his superiors.  He studied the aide for a few moments, thankful for the reprieve nevertheless.  The commander continued.  “You have the great honor to stand in the presence of J’kesh, representative of High General Othot-ki’ir.  You will answer his questions and show the proper respect, or I will flay you alive.”

Chakros bowed as instructed, and this time the respect was not feigned.  Whatever was going on, it must be important to command the attention of the High General.

(JD)

Tethran

Tethran stared at the giant... thing as it reached for him. He was sure that was something like hunger in its eyes, and he already knew it ate people. Or at least, things with arms. He qualified in both respects, at least for the most part. Although the pain in his shoulder felt like it was unlikely that the plural was still going to be accurate.

Then, the small girl behind it sat up and shouted at it. Then followed with a halting speech in some guttural language that Tethran guessed was orc speech. The big ogre stopped, and then reached for him much more slowly, picking him up - one handed - and dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. He winced a little as he shifted, having landed on a rock. At least it felt like it. Tethran winced a little as he stretched out his leg, feeling the warmth of the fire wash over him like bathwater. He gingerly tested the rotation of his shoulder, trying to find the point where the pain was worst. The short answer was "everywhere".

The girl picked nervously at her dirty tunic, finally seeming to come to some conclusion about the situation. "I have no idea why you're here, or who you are. I'm not even sure how I'm alive... or even who - or what - that is. But.." she turned her eyes to him, smiling a rueful little smile, "My name is Willow. And I hope you speak common, because my Orcish isn't too good.". Tethran gingerly tried to move his arm. "I speak common. A damn sight better than most, if I want to." He looked over at the ogre-thing, which was chewing on its arm again. As he looked over, the thing made a territorial rumbling noise, clutching the arm closer. It sounded like a large, only slightly more articulate version of what his father's family dogs used to do with beef bones. He raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, your arm, big guy. All yours. But any chance I could get my knife back?" He pointed at the handle of the kukri which was still stuck in the tree, 9 feet in the air.

He turned back to Willow. "As for what I'm doing here? The answer's simple. I haven't eaten in at least a day or so. I smelled something cooking, and saw something looked like a flashing light this way. Thought someone might have some food or something that I could beg for. Or steal." He shrugged. The girl's bright blue eyes turned back to the fire for a few moments. For some reason, in the silence, Tethran felt obliged to continue talking. Willow smoothed a strand of dark hair behind her ear as he winced a little more and tried - and failed - to look stoic about the pain in his leg. At least it wasn't numb, he thought to himself.

"I've been foraging around this bloody forest for a week or so." After a personally-directed snort of derisive laughter, he made an expression that was equal parts smirk and sneer. "At least now I know why those damn dockhands laughed when I said I was going to seek my fortune in Gilden."

He brought his grey eyes up to meet the blue that were now on him. "If you have a sling or a bow around, I could try to do something about food. Because if you're anything like me, you're almost hungry enough for roast arm of who-the-fark-knows to actually smell pretty good." He privately hoped the smile that accompanied his words was reassuring rather than manic. He tested his shoulder again. "Preferably a bow. Something tells me throwing things is going to be painful."

Willow

She smelled something cooking.  Something fatty... like.. bacon.  Images of bacon, eggs, toast, and her aunt's delicate, celadon teacups holding steaming, fragrant green tea flickered across her mind. She shifted, stretched a bit and then flinched as something hurt. Why did she hurt so much? It's not like her aunt's beds were lumpy or... 

Something snapped, then crashed and she startled the rest of the way awake. The creature was still there.. but now sitting in front of the fire, holding a piece of meat, and looking up into the air.  Willow looked up, too... and her bright blue eyes widened. There was a rather ragged half-elven man, hanging by one arm from a tree on the other side of the fire. A bloodstained bandage was tied around one thigh, and he looked rather like she felt... stunned and hurt.

Unsure if moving was such a grand idea, she struggled to sit up and groaned, stiff, and pain shot down her arm from her shoulder. The half-ogre? glanced at her for a second before looking back at the man, and it? he? she? reached over to grab him.  Willow flung out a hand--"No!" She didn't know who was more surprised, the half-elf or the ogre-thing-- they both stared at her, and she swallowed nervously. "Ah... don't hurt him.  Help him down." Willow repeated the phrase in orcish (at least she thought-hoped! that's what she said), and to her own surprise the large one sighed heavily, put down her meat and reached up to pluck the man from the blade he had stuck in the tree trunk and dropped him in a careless pile on the ground by the fire.  Pulling the meat back with a soundless growl of possession with one hand, the creature pulled out a large hammer-like weapon from a pack with the other and pointedly set it down in plain view of them both. 

Willow nodded as if she thought everything was just fine, and looked at the newcomer. Pushing tangled black curls back from her face, she looked over at the man. She tugged her own torn, bloodied tunic, trying to give herself time to think, but her brain was still sluggish.  Finally she gave up, and blurted the words out.  "I have no idea why you're here, or who you are. I'm not even sure how I'm alive, or who... what that is.  But..." she paused, and smiled ruefully, "My name is Willow. And I hope you speak Common... because my orcish is really not that good."

Razg

Seated at the bar on two stools, one to each arse-cheek - the only way he could fit - the massive, bronze-skinned ogre known to most as 'Razg' or 'You Hopeless Goon' listened in contemplative silence to the roaring laughter that shook The Skewered Maiden, chasing seething Chakros out the door. Most assumed Razg was still quite some mental distance away from working out the first joke, and would join in a few hours after it had finished.

After a few more moments of deep thought, Razg rose from his seats with a perilous creak and banged on the bar in friendly fashion to get the cackling innkeeper's attention.

"I buy turn," he rumbled at the orc, pointing back at the booth which Chakros had not quite managed to reach."I pay you ... three coin."

The innkeeper began to protest until he remembered that good old Razg couldn't count to save his life, and that there were actually seven coins lying dwarfed in that enormous palm. Besides, what with all the mirth and mockery still going on, it was likely going to be hard to encourage anyone else to go near a half-orc's leavings - even if he didn't technically get around to leaving her ...

"Okay, Razg," the orc grunted, sniffing and then pocketing the coins (ogres have only a finite number of places to carry things, and even orcs have limits). "Since you're a good customer and all, you can have her for three. But if you break her, you bought her, got it?"

"I got it," decided Razg ponderously, blinking his beady yellow eyes a few more times, and then shuffled around on the spot until he was in no danger of breaking more expensive furniture, thumping his way across the taproom to the curtained alcove where the soft human meat was still waiting.

The human did not move as the hulking, stinking ogre loomed before the curtains, nearly too big to fit through the doorway at all. Her dark eyes were still half-closed, languid and apparently resigned or oblivious to her fate, but closer, more careful attention warned that the deeper glint in those eyes was neither drugged nor truly quiescient: it was alert, watchful, calculating.

"Annieke, it's me," he mouthed at her as he shouldered past the curtain, sketching a quick sign in the air, and she visibly relaxed at the sight of it, unresisting when he 'pushed' her down onto the floor of the booth.

"Thank the Gods," she hissed up at him. "This was a terrible idea. Whoever told you Lok'Saug has a kink for squishy humans might be right, but he hasn't been in here even once - probably gets his own brought to his place."

"Not that I'd be very happy to switch with you, Annieke, but Lok'Saug is giving us all the shits at the moment, trust me. I haven't even got near that paranoid pissdrinker, and Esser was finally too careless - they got him last night."

"Viilse! They got him?"

"Still staked out by the commander's 'office' now, getting picked at by those ugly vultures. Not to mention the birds. Whimper a bit here, could you? I don't want to end up pegged out next to him."

Annieke, ever the consummate actress, struck up a medley of strangled groans and muffled wails of anguish. He'd heard far, far worse in the meagre months he'd been spying here, but at such close range it made all the hairs on his ugly body - gods, when will they finally give me mine back?! - stand on end.

"It's getting too dangerous for any of us to stay here," he whispered to her under her agonised cries. "From what I'm hearing, there's a few more who're going to take Lok'Saug a bit more seriously now that he's actually found one of his ex-imaginary spies. It's only a matter of time before he gets some of his scouts to poke around further afield, and they will find base. I think he'll soon start bringing some mages in to give him a hand here, too. Then we're really screwed."

"I'm screwed if I don't make myself scarce tonight," she muttered back, breaking up her performance with a choked note of despair that made his skin crawl further. "Multiple times, I imagine. I know what you've all been saying behind my back since I volunteered, but I don't actually have a thing for greenskins, and two blushing goblin boys were enough."

He couldn't smile. He knew why she still felt able to joke, and he knew she was wrong. "I brought you a knife, Annieke. I hope it helps ... somehow."

"What do you mean, a knife?" Her dark eyes flared. "I thought you'd come to get me out of here!"

"How?" he asked - a single, blunt, lethal syllable.

For a moment she opened her mouth as if to scream, shout, protest. Then she simply reached out and took the orcish knife he'd removed from his rear loincloth binding and proffered to her. The look in her eyes suggested she was considering using it on him.

"You always were a stone cold monster," she told him in a low, loathing murmur, a voice that trembled not so much with fear as with the suppressed urge to murder. "You belong with these animals."

The smirk that spread across his lips would have been no less twisted on his real face than the ogrish one he wore. "To be honest, Annieke, in all my minglings, I've had a very hard time telling the difference between the people of Gilden before and after the fires from the sky. I'll leave it completely up to you to strike a blow for our monsters or theirs, shall I?"

He climbed off her and left the booth when she didn't stab him, hearing her start sobbing behind him. He couldn't tell whether she was just in character or not. One rarely could with Annieke.

The Skewered Maiden was still full of hooting, jeering laughter for that uppity half-orc weakling who'd been sent out with his tail between his legs. Initially ignored amongst all the general ongoing merriment, Razg stomped across the room from the curtained alcove to pound his meaty, polymorphed fist forcefully down on the bar counter, hard enough this time to split the timber and send mugs flying - making the innkeeper yelp in angry consternation as one landed on his foot, and causing the no-longer-chuckling ogrish bodyguards to hulk up menacingly to him.

"Youse is just sellin rag dollies," he growled across the bar at the innkeeper in the sudden silence, ignoring the other ogres. "Even urd not want dat one. I go Skittikut's place - goblin make more squeak."

Paid for by a half-orc, who were the weakest of the weak; turned down by an ogre, who often made do with convenient livestock if time and needs must. Annieke was getting some seriously bad press for the Skewered Maiden today. Perhaps at this rate they'd just go ahead and kill her.

Let it never be said I don't try to take care of my colleagues, he thought with savage dark humour as he lumbered back out into the essentially unchanged streets of Gilden. He was dying to get out of the city - as Razg the Ragpicker and as Torallen Sallinger alike - but there was still someone else he had to find and have words with first ...

Chakros

The sign outside had proclaimed this particular tavern The Skewered Maiden.  Inside, it was essentially the same tavern Chakros had found anyplace else in the city.  The city was, in Chakros’ estimation, largely the same city as any other city in the Lands, stinking with the refuse of its inhabitants.  He wondered idly if the refuse of orcs, of gnolls, and kobolds stank any less than the refuse of the humans, dwarves, and whatever else had lived here before them.  Sewage was sewage, and most everything smelled the same when it was carrion.  His friend Sarx would attest to that.  

Chakros drained the mug and wiped his mouth, never taking his eyes off of the languid female.  Something about the way the thin linen curtains hung over the opening to her booth, obscuring the lower half of her naked form while leaving the top exposed, had stirred him.  Perhaps it was simply her weakness demanding to be mastered.  Perhaps it was his human half that was attracted to the soft, unhaired flesh.  He decided he didn’t care.  He had slaked his need for food and drink, and he could come up with no reason not to finish the progression.  After all, what was his pay and time off for?

“Is that one drugged, or just passive?” he asked, sliding the mug across the bar.  He swallowed the last mouthful of black that supposedly been the tavern’s best ale, grimacing appreciatively at the aftertaste.

“Does it matter?” the orcish bartender replied with a grin.  “You can have her for ten.”

If Chakros’ mouth had been full, he would have spat out the contents.  “Ten?!  Are you soft?  Two!  She doesn’t even look like she would put up a fight.”  The two ogres at the end of the bar swiveled their heads in unison, regarding Chakros cooly.  They turned back to their oversized mugs indifferently, but Chakros knew that this was no longer a private conversation.  To himself, Chakros snorted.  Ogre guards.  How original.  

The orc cast a forlorn look into the booth and sighed heavily.  “Seven.  If you wanted to fight for it, you wouldn’t be looking at that one.”

Chakros glowered.  “Four.  I can get any woman in the street for three.”

The bartender frowned, clearly unimpressed. “Humans like that are harder to find these days, and they don’t last too long when you do find ‘em.  If you like it soft, you’re going to have to pay.  Seven, or be off to the street with you.” 

Chakros didn’t like the emphasis that the orc had put on the word “soft”, but was used to derision from his stronger kin.  Fortunately he knew how to use it to his advantage.  “If humans are so weak, then I’m not paying top price.  Five is all I’ll pay for a worn-out piece of meat.”

Now it was the bartender’s turn to glower.  The orc nodded -- just once, and sullenly.  Chakros took that as a victory as he began to count out his coins.  Behind him, the door opened and closed.  The bartender turned his attention to his new patron and, presumably, an easier mark.  

Chakros slid his coins across the bar and started toward the alcove when he heard his name called.  He whirled, annoyed at the interruption.  It was Durzu, one of the orcs in his unit.

“There you are, scout,” Durzu stated, sitting down at the bar.  “Commander’s looking for you.  Said for you to report right away.”

“Lok’Saug?  What’s he want?”

Durzu shrugged.  “He just said to find you and for you to get your half-breed ass back to barracks doublequick, and he didn’t give a shit what your half-breed ass was doing and that it was an order.”  The orc’s eyes searched up and to the right as he recited, likely verbatim, what the commander had said.  Chakros didn’t doubt that the commander couldn’t come up with any more creative insult than “half-breed”, and therefore had to use it twice.

Chakros spat.  “I’m supposed to be on leave.  I just came back.”

Durzu snorted derisively.  “Explain that to Lok’Saug when the enforcers come for you.  They’re pretty understanding.”  The orc shrugged again.  “I’m just the messenger, scout.  Do what you want.”

And you’re enjoying the message a bit too much, Chakros thought.  He turned to the bartender.  “Give me my money back, I need to go.”  The bartender met Chakros’ gaze, and then turned away without acknowledgement.  “Hey!  I said, I want my money.”

The fingers that tapped him on the shoulder could only belong to one of the ogres from the end of the bar.  They were both on their feet, crowding him against the bar.  One of the ogres, and Chakros guessed the smellier one, shook its head.  

“Og say no money back,” stated the other ogre.

Chakros’ eyes narrowed.  “I paid for the female, but now I can’t use her.  Your bartender owes me five.”

The ogre called Og shook its head again.

“Og say you can not use her is problem of you, not Master Shazzag.”  Not-Og held one meaty index finger out straight.  “Og say go priest, fix...problem,” it added, letting the finger droop.

Chakros glanced at the bartender, who was absorbed in drawing a mug of black for Durzu, who was himself apparently absorbed in anticipating the sludge.  The shit-eating grins on the orcs’ faces made it clear the absorption was feigned.  

The ogre called Og pointed at the door.  “Og say you go now,” stated the other one.  It paused, and both ogres loomed over Chakros, their matted manes brushing the ceiling beams and making it clear what Chakros’ alternative was.  Not-Og flexed its fists and sneered.

Chakros snarled and turned to leave, the laughter that erupted chasing behind.  I need to get out of this city, he thought.  Out there, I’m the strong one.  The moment it pleased me to do so I’d have your stupid, hulking mass staked to a tree.  You’d beg me to kill you before long.  He pushed the door wide, letting the grey light of the cold, rainy day flood the room behind him.  Chakros squinted briefly at the contrast between the tavern and the outdoors, but his half-breed eyes adjusted quickly.  Behind him, the laughter was cut short by a shout of discomfort.  The tougher they think they are, the sooner they beg for death when Sarx begins working on their soft parts.  

A hollow hiss sounded from the alley next to the tavern, and Chakros immediately turned toward the familiar greeting.  A bone-white bird regarded him with eyes the pale blue of drowned corpseflesh, set in a hairless head of mottled black and red.  The deathly rasp sounded again, and Chakros grinned.  Just because I was interrupted doesn’t mean you have to be.  “No, you finish your feast, Sarx.  Don’t linger there too long, though, someone might try to put you in a stew.”  The vulture emitted a series of short, sibilant noises that Chakros thought might be laughter.  Sarx swallowed another hunk from the maggot-ridden corpse over which he stood, spread his death-black wings and leapt into the air.  Chakros squinted up into the drizzle, momentarily jealous of his longtime companion’s freedom as he watched the bird’s lazy, wheeling climb.  

A rivulet of rain collected at the back of Chakros’ neck and ran down inside his leathers.  He shifted his gaze back to the street, toward the barracks and wondered at the nature of his commander’s urgent need.

(JD)