2k words
***
“Well, yer left half is fine, but the right looks like a giant blueberry. You!” she suddenly barked, pointing at the nearest orc. “Bring me my waterskin, the blue one in me tent. Move yer ass!”
The orc scurried off like a frightened housecat. He looked just as imposing as Mazkha, but she was the warboss’s sister. She practically spoke with his voice, and it showed.
The orc returned holding a waterskin the size of a backpack, passing it off to Mazkha. Before he could ask of its contents, she leaned him forward and pressed the leathery texture against his shoulder. The cold bit him right to the bone, and he could feel the ice cubes moulding to his body, and it took all his will to stop himself from crying out.
“Easy, little knight, easy, pain is just weakness leaving the body, like me old man used to say. The cold helps the swelling, ya just have to let it.”
“Is it broken?” he asked, wondering if letting an orc treat him was really a good idea after all.
“I if it was, you’d know better than I. Don’t feel out of place,” she added, pressing her large fingers into his muscles. “All things considered, you got pretty lucky.”
“How can you tell?” he asked. “Orc and human bodies are vastly different to one another.”
“On the contrary, our anatomy ain’t all that much different,” Mazkha said. “Two arms, two legs, standin’ upright, we’re pretty compatible all things considered…”
He wasn’t sure if she meant that last bit in reference to his injury, or something else. For a few minutes longer she continued to hold the cold waterskin against his back, the width of her hand able to keep the most harmed area covered. After the initial sting, he could feel the pain falter, the knots of muscle yielding away.
“So then,” Mazkha asked, breaking the silence. “What brings you all the way to our camp at this hour? Don’t you got any doctors over your side? Or do you just miss me already?”
“I quarrelled with the Captain just a moment ago,” Roderick explained. “Thought it best if I went for a walk for a while, clear the air.”
“Quarrelled about what?” she asked. He deliberated on what he should tell her, but didn’t see the point in withholding information. If the orc’s intentions were to betray them, they would have done so during the raid, rather than come to the defence.
“So your own commander chews you out because you helped defend your boyz?” Mazkha scoffed. “Tell me he was jesting with you.”
“I wish that were so,” Roderick replied, leaning into Mazkha’s hand as she adjusted the icy waterskin against his bruise. “Yet perhaps I was also in error. When you shave it down to its core, I disobeyed an order, that cannot be denied.”
“And who’s the greater fool? The one making the wrong decisions or the one who follows them? You should kill him.”
“Excuse me?” Roderick scoffed. “Kill him? He’s just as much a son of Sigmar as myself, I cannot murder a brother, what would that say of me?”
“That you had the guts to do what had to be done, a’course. Takes a lot of that to take out one of the big boyz in your warband.”
“Like you did with your father?” Roderick asked.
“Naturally,” she replied in a heartbeat. He had said it like a slight, but Mazkha took it in her stride. “Though I have to point it out, I weren’t the one who killed him.”
“True, but the sword is just at fault of killing a man, as the hand that held it.”
She grinned down at him. “That’s very good, little knight. I like that. Alright, you got me, I’ll split the blame down the middle with Morg’, fifty-fifty. I could use the credit anyway, not many of the boyz believe I had anythin’ to do with killin’ the last warboss.”
“That must get under your skin,” Roderick remarked. From what he knew, an orc valued nothing more than their reputation for being the bloodiest of the bunch.
“On the contrary, I prefer my brother get all the attention. If any of these tosspots start getting’ any funny ideas, it’s him they’ll go for first, not me.”
She continued to keep the cold waterskin on his skin, ordering a fresh one when the ice began to warm and melt.
“So what’s the story with you and that staff?” Mazkha continued.
“There is no story,” Roderick replied.
“Oh, give me a break with that. “You walk around with it every time I see you, and you casted some… strange invisible magic on that Chaos boy. What kind of non-wizard does all that?”
“Wizards carry staffs, and I’m no wizard, and this is no staff.”
“Is that right?” she asked. “Well, if it ain’t no staff, what if I just plucked it from you right now, just to confirm yer story?
“You’d lose the hand.”
“Ha! You really know how to chat up an orc, don’t ya? C’mon, little knight, we might as well take the time to get to know each other. I saved ya life tonight, ain’t that worth a little truth?”
Roderick relented, brushing his hair from his face.
“Very well. I said that I’m not a wizard, and that is entirely the truth. This staff, it’s not mine. My friend – he’s a true wizard – was supposed to safeguard it, but he took his own path a while ago, and I’ve only recently become its keeper.” He kept the true details of his mission to himself, as the secrecy was his one true defence remaining.
“But how’d ya use it before, if you ain’t a magician?”
“That, I am not sure. I simply… willed it to command me, and it did.” That at least, was a half-truth, and a much more diplomatic way of saying I can control the will of others.
“Yeah, the Green does strange things to yer head,” Mazkha said, seeming to believe his story.
“The what?”
“The green! Oh, right, you humies call it the Winds or somethin’.”
“I’m surprised you know about the Winds of Magic,” Roderick noted.
“You know, for a species who are so short, you sure like to look down on others,” Mazkha remarked. “We aint’ just big dumb green beasts, you know. Well, some of us are, I’ll admit, but that’s just generalisin’.”
“I only meant to say I’ve never heard of an orc spellcaster before.”
“We’ve had a few shamans in our Warrrgh’s from time to time. They usually don’t last, though, the last one, I don’t know how he did it, but he shot some kind of red beam out of his eyes till his ‘ead exploded, took out a whole group of boyz with him. We stopped lookin’ for shamans after that. Too unstable for our likin’.”
“I hear that,” Roderick muttered, remembering the moment Wilfred had pass the relic into his keeping. He’d been resistant to the idea at the time, but now that he’d used it, felt its powers flow through him. If he could thwart Bael without even crossing swords with him, it could prove a valuable asset when it came to relieving Marienburg.
“Well, I think you’re as good as you’ll get for the time bein’,” Mazkha said, lifting the waterskin away. Gone was the ache in his shoulder, Roderick giving it a stiff but not unpleasant roll. “The colour will get worse for a few days, but you’ll live.”
She allowed him to stand, Roderick collecting his discarded tunic and armour. Mazkha was unashamed, her yellow eyes tracing up an down his torso, her scrutinisations making him feel a little self-conscious. It was hard to tell if she was just checking him for further bruises, or if there was something more to her examinations.
“You have my thanks,” Roderick said, turning away as he pulled on his tunic, only facing her once he was covered up.
“The pleasure was mine,” Mazkha replied cheerfully. “You’re not headin’ off, are ya? There’s plenty of meat to go round, stay for a spell. Pun definitely intended.”
He chuckled. “The night is late, and I’ve been fighting through most of it. We’ll talk more on the march tomorrow.”
“Your loss,” she chimed, grabbing hold of a jug sitting beside the firepit. She began to drink from the mouth, Roderick smelling the tang of alcohol on the air. It seemed the raid had left the orcs more excited than tired, more of her riders breaking out the grog at her command.
She waved him goodbye, and he shook his head in mock outrage, turning for the bridge. He felt refreshed, but not just because of his healed shoulder. Mazkha certainly had an interesting outlook on the world, and she was a companionable enough person, even if she was a patricide. He wondered what had driven her to such lengths as to murder her own kin, but the inquisitiveness seem to go both ways. He’d kept a tight reign on what he’d told her, but even then, she knew more than Wilfred would approve of. Were the old man here he’d be given a right scolding. He’d have to be careful in what he said in the future.
-xXx-
They were rid of Cassel not long after first light, the men packing down the camp with all due haste. Most had complained of nightmares, or noises in the dark, even though the watchmen had doubled in number since Bael’s warband had been driven off, and no more of the foe had been sighted since. That, and the combination of knowing that the former residents of Cassel had mostly been cultists, Roderick couldn’t blame them from wanting to put as much distance as soon as possible.
Roderick lazed in his saddle, not a stranger to living off few hours of sleep, but begrudging the tiredness all the same. Catching any shut eye came hard with all the clopping of hooves and boots around him.
The road trailing north parallelled the river as it flowed to the north, cutting two cleared spines through the woodland. Edouart told him that his countrymen called this place the Murky Woods of Arden, and though it was truly gloomy by night, in the day it was like a canvas, the shining sun the brush at which the colours of the leaves bloomed to life, splotches of red and orange dotting about the untapped wilds. Its beauty was not as grand as the lands of Altdorf, but they were no less a gorgeous sight.
“We should send out scouts ahead of the march,” Von Kessel said, when the army had stopped for a rest by noon, and the heads of all three bands, Morgoroth, Edouart, and Von Kessl, all gathered to discuss their next steps. Roderick was invited to his tent too, along with Kessel’s other confidants. “If there’s one Chaos force out here, there could be many, and I should like to avoid another confrontation in the night.”
“Beyond us are the Contreforts,” Edouart added in. “Brettonian castles dot the land as much as the hills, the land will be well patrolled as we swing our path east.”
“We should keep hoofin’ it north for a lil’ while yet,” Morgoroth said, his deep, gravelly voice felt in Roderick’s chest. “I hear there’s dragon’s off roostin’ in the mountains, and this time of year they get to huntin’.”
“We are more than thirty leagues ahead of the foot of the Pale Sisters,” Von Kessel said. “That’s more than enough distance between us and the wyrms.”
“If you can see them peaks, they can sees you,” Morgoroth replied. “I ain’t scared of a fight, but I ain’t too fond of gettin’ roasted like a stuffed humie. Another couple leagues, I say.”
“Roderick?” Von Kessel asked. “You ever face a dragon before?”
“No, never,” he replied. “But I agree with the warboss. Their eyes are sharper than an eagle’s, we’d do well to keep a distance.”
Morgoroth looked annoyed that Kessel wasn’t taking his words to heart, huffing in annoyance.