She didn't like the place and breathed slightly easier as Qorrg, Krusk, and Yddith began making their way back to where Jozan waited impatiently. They compared observations and estimates, concluding that there were at least a dozen guards on the women and children, possibly twice that many, judging from the traffic going in and out of the barracks.
"I'd like to spring a surprise attack on them," suggested Alhandra, "but there's one big problem." She looked meaningfully at Jozan. "I've been beside Jozan when he tried to be stealthy, and there is no possible way for him to succeed."
She saw the cleric redden for a moment before he responded in protest. "I've actually thought about that," Jozan admitted. "I think I can move part of the way up the hill and invoke silence before we clamber up the steepest part of that slope."
Everyone nodded, realizing the wisdom in Jozan's plan to create an area of silence around the five of them. They would watch from the outcropping and continue to reconnoiter the camp until they saw enough of a disruption in routine to allow for a full-scale ambush.
This time, the plan worked as the group anticipated. Alhandra watched Jozan mime the compass points of the sun and breathe the Celestial word, "Pacis."
The sky shimmered and a translucent membrane was visible for a moment, descending around the group like a semi-visible dome. The silence spell covered their advance up the hill and they could see the camp and hillside clearly with very little chance of being seen themselves.
They watched three orc guards address the beefy orc in the center of the action, though they couldn't hear anything that was said because of Jozan's spell. They saw events unfolding in a bizarre pantomime. The orc in command sent the guards into the dark mineshaft. They returned shortly with a human prisoner and forced him to lie prone in front of their leader. The orc directed the guards to grab a human woman from beside the stream. They removed her from the chain of enslaved women and children and brought her to the leader, shoving her to her knees beside the prone human from from the cave. The orc stepped between the two, pushing them apart with his knees, then kicked the male on the side of the head. The blow forced the man's face into the ground. The woman opened her mouth wide, though no sound could reach the heroes, and she crawled toward the orc in useless supplication.
In agonizing silence, the heroes watched the orc interrogate the woman, but they could only see her shake her head in the negative. Each denial from her caused a blow against the man. The orc kicked him, punched him, cut him, whipped him, and even struck him with a stout stick.
The sadistic sideshow was so infuriating that the five were tempted to rush in without agreeing on a plan. Alhandra sensed Krusk nearing the point of rage, but couldn't speak with any of the others to coordinate the plan because of the silence invoked by Jozan. She spoke the words, but no one could hear them. Nor did they notice an object moving toward them that might have been a snake except for its rocklike skin. They failed to sense a writhing appendage approaching them, an ugly column of filth and flesh that resembled an elephant's trunk with unnatural, hornlike protrusions thrusting out of the wiggling flesh.
The silence worked so well that when a second appendage joined its mate and wriggled around Qorrg's legs and the triangular ends of the mysterious limbs punctured his ankles with their prickly spines of sharp cartilage, no one heard Qorrg's cry of agony. Qorrg mouthed inaudible cries as the thorny, bonelike protuberances dug into his skin wherever they touched, and the tentacles began to drag the orc down the hill toward the semi-obscured entrance to a cave.
Alhandra had just decided to draw a battle plan in the dirt when Krusk lost all patience.
When the sadistic orc pulled the woman up by the hair and ripped away what was left of her torn clothing, the barbarian passed his limit. Krusk had already hurdled the rock and was racing toward the center of the camp when he saw the kneeling man try to stand and grapple the commander. One of the smaller orcs kicked the human below the belt, causing the man to double over and vomit. Then, while the man was still helpless, the running, charging, screaming Krusk watched the other guard smash the handle of his longspear over the man's head. The spear cracked at the same time as the man's skull. Both the broken shaft and the unconscious human dropped to the ground.
The orc commander didn't even notice Krusk. He was holding the helpless woman in front of him and trying to kiss her. The terrified woman spat on her tormentor and tried to break free, filling Krusk's mind with images of his mother being ravaged by the orc warlord who sired him. His eyes glowed with red rage. His greataxe danced through the bodies of the guards, spraying blood in wide arcs and leaving crumpled, howling victims in his wake.
The screams of his guards immediately drew the commander's attention. The orc threw the woman aside without a thought. He grasped his urgrosh by the center handle and moved to intercept the barbarian.
Krusk heard Yddith yell a warning to watch out for the orcs approaching from each side, but he refused to pay attention to the stirgelike threats on his flanks. Instead, he stopped and ducked as the big orc thrust his double-headed axe at him with massive forehand and backhand moves. As soon as the second thrust passed over his head, Krusk rose to his full height and buried his own greataxe in the large orc's midrift, yanking away flesh and entrails as he danced away from the expected counterattack. Instead of an attack, however, the large orc howled and dropped his prized weapon. With both hands trying to stuff his organs back into the wound, the powerful orc yelled for his subordinates to kill the intruder.
In response to the order, Krusk felt a longspear prick his right shoulder. At the same time he became aware of a spearhead entangled in his chain shirt. He tried to focus on the commander, but a fresh squad of soldiers rushed up to cover their commander's flanks. Krusk also saw what was becoming a familiar green glow appear on the ground in front of them.
Krusk glanced behind him for a moment and saw Yddith rubbing a pork rind that she had removed from her provision bag. A green light washed over her hands and the pork rind as she stared malevolently at the orcs protecting their commander. When Krusk turned back to the guards, he saw them scrambling to find footing. The ground around them had become as slick as butter. One after another they fell and slipped away down the slope, one howling from the pain of a broken arm. The field was open for Krusk's vengeful attack.
Krusk relaxed his arms, dropping the greataxe to a low angle. Then he took a sudden stride and swung the weapon with an underhand motion. The full width of the blade buried itself in the big orc's rib cage. Krusk cursed joyously in the Orcish tongue as he felt the heavy blade crunch through bone and flesh. The large orc collapsed, nearly chopped through at the waist, and crumpled at the feet of the screaming woman he had assaulted.
With their commander dead, Krusk had no trouble picking off the remaining guards one by one. He motioned for Yddith to free the slaves. A moment later she was searching the dead guards for the key to the manacles. He briefly wondered where the others were, but was too busy slicing up guards to think about their absence.
Jozan and Alhandra had not abandoned Krusk intentionally. When Krusk first hurdled the rock, the movement caused them to turn their heads in his direction as though they were connected by string to the half-orc's body. It was only as they watched Krusk leaping over the rock that they caught another movement in their peripheral vision. Turning to that movement, they were stunned to see Qorrg being dragged across the rocks toward the partially concealed cave entrance. At first, they thought a giant snake had snared him. Then, they realized that the rocky appendages trailed out of the mouth of the cave. Immediately they chased after Qorrg's captor. When the silence spell dissipated, they could hear Qorrg's screams as he struggled against the monstrous tentacles.