If so, the activity would work to Rhonin’s advantage. Not only would the orcs’ minds be occupied by this, but there would be less of them. Surely every handler with a trained mount would be in the sky soon, on the way to the north.
Encouraged, Rhonin set a more daring pace, a more certain one—which but seconds later nearly sent him stumbling into the very arms of a pair of huge orc warriors.
They were, fortunately, even more stunned to see him than he was them. Rhonin immediately raised his left hand, muttering a spell that he had hoped to save for more dire circumstances.
The nearest of the orcs, his ugly, tusked face twisting into a berserker rage, reached for the ax slung on his back. Rhonin’s spell caught him directly in the chest, throwing the massive warrior hard against the nearest rock wall.
As the orc struck the wall, he melded into the very rock. Briefly the outline of his form remained behind, mouth still open in rage, but then even that faded into the wall . . . leaving no trace of the creature’s savage end.
“Human scum!” roared the second, his ax now in hand. He took a heavy swing at Rhonin, chipping off bits of stone as the wizard managed to duck out of the way. The orc lumbered forward, bulky, dull green form filling the narrow corridor. A necklace of dried, wrinkled fingers—human, elven, and otherwise—dangled before Rhonin’s eyes, a collection to which his foe no doubt wished to add him. The orc swung again, this time coming perilously near to severing the mage in two lengthwise.
Rhonin stared at the necklace again, a grim idea in mind. He pointed at the necklace and gestured.
His spell briefly made the orc pause, but when the savage warrior saw no visible effect, he laughed scornfully at the pitiful little human. “Come! I make it quick for you, wizard!”
But as he raised his ax, a scratching sensation forced the orc to look down at his chest.
The fingers on his necklace, more than two dozen strong, had moved to his throat.
He dropped the ax and tried to pull them away, but they had already dug in tight. The orc began to cough as the fingers formed a macabre hand of sorts, a hand cutting off his air.
Rhonin scrambled back as the orc began to swing about wildly, trying to peel away the avenging digits. The wizard had intended the spell only as a diversion while he came up with something more final, but the severed fingers seemed to have taken the opportunity to heart. Vengeance? Even as a mage, Rhonin could not believe that the spirits of the warriors slain by this orc had somehow urged the fingers to this grand effort. It had to be the potency of the spell itself.
Surely it had to be. . . .
Whether vengeful ghosts or simply magic, the enchanted fingers did their terrible work with seeming eagerness. Blood covered much of the orc’s upper chest as nails tore into the softer throat. The monstrous warrior collapsed to his knees, eyes so desperate that Rhonin finally had to look away.
A few seconds later, he heard the orc gasp—then a heavy weight fell to the tunnel floor.
The massive berserker lay in a bloody heap, the fingers still dug deep into his neck. Daring to touch one of the severed digits, Rhonin found no movement, no life. The fingers had performed their task and now had returned to their previous state, just as his spell had intended.
And yet . . .
Shaking off such thoughts, Rhonin hurried past the corpse. He had nowhere to put the body and no time to think about it. Before long someone would discover the truth, but the wizard could not help that. Rhonin had to concern himself only with the Dragonqueen. If he did manage to free her, perhaps she would at least carry him off to safety. In that, truly, lay his only possibility of escape.
He managed to traverse the next few tunnels without interruption, but then found himself heading toward a brightly lit corridor from which the babble of voices grew loud and strong. Moving with more caution, Rhonin edged up to the intersection, peering around the corner.
What he had taken for a corridor had proven to actually be the mouth of a vast cavern that opened up to the right, a cavern in which scores of orcs worked hard at loading up wagons and preparing draft animals, all as if they intended some long journey from which they would not likely soon return.
Had he been correct about the battle north? If so, why did it seem every orc intended to depart? Why not simply the dragons and their handlers? It would take far too long for these wagons to reach Dun Algaz.
Two orcs came into sight, the pair carrying some great weight between them. Clearly they would have preferred to put down whatever it was they carried, but for some reason dared not do so. In fact, Rhonin thought that they took special care with their burden, almost as if it were made of gold.
Seeing that no one looked in his direction, the wizard took a step forward in order to better study what the orcs so valued. It was round—no, oval—and a bit rough in outer appearance, almost scaly. In fact, it reminded Rhonin of nothing more than an—
An egg.
A dragon’s egg, to be precise.
Quickly his gaze shifted to some of the other wagons. Sure enough, he now realized that several of them bore eggs in some stage of development, from smoother, nearly round ones to others even more scaled than the first, eggs clearly near to hatching.
With the dragons so essential to the orcs’ fading hopes, why would they be risking such precious cargo on such a journey?
Human.
The voice in his head nearly made Rhonin shout. He flattened against the wall, then quickly slipped back into the tunnel. Finally certain that none of the orcs could see him, Rhonin seized the medallion around his neck and gazed at the black crystal in the center.
Sure enough, it now glowed slightly.
Human . . . Rhonin . . . where are you?
Did Deathwing not know? “I’m in the very midst of the orc fortress,” he whispered. “I was looking for the Dragonqueen’s chamber.”
You found something else, though. There was a glimpse of it. What was it?
For some reason, Rhonin did not want to tell Deathwing. “It was only the orcs at battle practice. I nearly walked in on them without realizing it.”
His response was followed by a lengthy silence, so lengthy, in fact, that he nearly thought Deathwing had broken the link. Then, in a very even tone, the dragon returned, I wish to see it.
“It’s nothing—”
Before Rhonin could say another word, his body suddenly rebelled against him, turning back toward the cavern and the many, many orcs. The outraged spellcaster tried to protest, but this time even his mouth would not work for him.
Deathwing brought him to the spot where he had last stood, then made the wizard’s right hand hold up the medallion. Rhonin guessed that Deathwing observed all through the ebony crystal.
At battle practice . . . I see. . . . And is this how they practice their retreating?
He could not reply to the leviathan’s mocking retort, nor did he think that Deathwing really cared if he did. The dragon forced him to stay in the open while the medallion surveyed everything.
Yes, I see. . . . You may return to the tunnel now. His body suddenly his own again, Rhonin slipped out of sight, thankful that the orcs had been so busy with their task that no one had chanced to look up. He leaned against a wall, breathing heavily and realizing that he had been far more frightened of discovery than he would have thought possible. So, evidently, Rhonin was not as suicidal as he had once imagined.
You follow the wrong path. You must go back to the previous intersection.