Scant hours later
“It’s been hours,” moaned Urist. He, Kain and Humaan gathered around a campfire, one of about seven. Night had fallen and despite it being spring, or indeed perhaps because of it, it was cold enough to invoke the old Dwarvish saying of, “fuck its cold”. Dwarves are not known for there clever wordplay.
“I know, okay?” said Humaan. Urist had been going on along these lines for what must have been three quarters of an hour and his patience was starting to wear thin. Where were they though? They were less than a few days travel to their destination, if the weather held out, and they needed to get moving. He looked over at Kain, who was rolling his eyes at nothing in particular. He supposed he’d given up rolling his eyes at Urist quite some time ago. Or maybe he was just rolling his eyes for the hell of it. It was hard to tell.
“What’s the plan, anyway?” asked Urist, suddenly. Humaan started. It was a good question, one he didn’t have the answer to. Why were they going to this port? Word had gotten around that two large armies were on the move, heading in this direction, but what the hell sort of excuse was that to go? They were going to get sandwiched between two opposing forces, a meagre pâté between two slices of thick bread. He didn’t like it.
And what the hell was pâté anyway? He couldn’t recall ever having heard the word before. Another troubling development.
Urist watched Humaan mutter to himself for a while, disconcerted, and then repeated his question. Humaan started once more and looked up at him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s something we’ll need to discuss when they get back.”
“With or without Kogan?” asked Kain.
“It doesn’t matter. With or without him, we’ve been dicking around on this continent long enough to garner at least a bit of attention, and we need to figure out how to put it to use.”
“I guess,” said Kain. “I’m not sure how much respect we’ve gather, overall. I don’t think people would care about us if we weren’t almost all Dwarves.”
“Well we’ve got to do something,” said Humaan. “It’s why we’re out here.”
“I know,” replied Kain. “And I’m sure we will. I just can’t think what.”
Ryan walked up behind them. “Tagged another deer,” he said, conversationally, as he sat down. “It’ll be ready soon.”
“Well, we won’t starve,” said Urist. “Hey, have you seen the others? They back yet?” Both Humaan and Kain groaned, then looked dumbstruck as Ryan said “Yes. They just got back”.
“When?” asked Urist.
“’Bout ten minutes ago.”
“Okay then,” said Humaan, standing up. “Let’s go.”
Kogan was still slightly dizzy from the ordeal, but there was no doubt that the axe was a masterpiece. He could feel the energy flowing through him as he grasped it, and, though it did not say anything, nor seem to have anything resembling dwarven intelligence, there was something there, intelligent, animal. Overall, he was quite pleased. Workerdrone was discussing with Barbarossa and Bardbeard what exactly happened in there, but all they could agree on was it was bad, but not their biggest priority right now. Humaan walked into light of the fire.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“Well,” replied Kogan distractedly, turning the axe over and over.
“Something troubling happened,” said Barbarossa. “We’ve got an indication it stems from a Dark God, and why they’d want to help us is beyond me. We thought maybe Workerdrone might have an idea, having died once before –“
“I still don’t think I did,” interrupted Workerdrone. “I just blacked out and woke up later. Nothing else.”
“And so nothing,” finished Barbarossa. “But right now it’s a moot point. We need to get to this port as quickly as possible.”
“But why?” asked Humaan. “Doesn’t the Warlord hold a grudge against us?”
“Yes,” said Barbarossa. “But I feel he’ll have forgotten. Regardless, Bromrek has told us that at least one of the armies has a hefty amount of dwarven shock troops. We can sneak in, and if we sneak in, we make it back to our homeland. Remember? They’re probably going to launch an attack on the mainland, and I want to be there when they do. We could be able to find a way to end this, once and for all.”
“But, then they’d be in control of our homeland. We can’t let –“ began Humaan, before Barbarossa grabbed him.
“Listen to me. Everyone we know back there is dead. Our race is now endangered, so I’m willing to let a different bunch of human asshole move in if it means that the Goblins don’t win.” Relaxing a little, he let go of Humaan. “And we’ll kill the Warlord afterwards, just to make sure.”
Humaan was shaken, but nodded.
“Okay then. We’ll move out tomorrow. Feel free to get off your face tonight, tell the lads that, but remind the Humans that they’ll have to deal with their ‘hangovers’.”
Humaan nodded, still slightly off centre. He moved off.
“That was a bit harsh,” said Vilien. Barbarossa chuckled.
“You’re one to talk. I mean it though. We’re taking back out homeland even if it means a century of guerrilla warfare.”
“Don’t say that,” said Vilien. “You know how things seem to work around here. We’ll be stuck hiding in the jungle with stupid facepaint for 200 years if you say that.”
Barbarossa grinned.
Sitting under a tree, just out of the firelight, Tamunshin stared at nothing.
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Topic: To venture north, into Hell: Othtar Noloc, world at war (Read 106454 times)