“Yes, commander.”
“Your guards will be whipped! The fires, they-”
Golgren shook his head. “No whipping.”
The officer grunted. “The Grand Khan commands. I obey.”
Something near one of the campfires made Golgren forget Barech’s presence. Three warriors stood peering and pointing at one of the scorched areas. The trio seemed to be arguing among themselves about something they spotted in the burned patch.
Striding past the hand’s commander, Golgren confronted the three. The warriors quickly struck their fists against their breastplates and retreated several steps so that the Grand Khan could have an unhindered view of what had so interested them.
There was writing in the burnt area. To be precise, it was clear that the tendril had drawn a symbol in the ground. It was a curved line with two tiny dots on the right side of it.
His brow furrowed, Golgren moved to one of the other campfires. As he came around to the scorched area there, he saw that, as with the first fire, there was a symbol carved in the earth.
But not the same symbol. That one was either a triangle missing one side, or perhaps a symbol representing a mountain, such as those looming nearby. In the gap where the missing side of a triangle would have been, an arched pattern that reminded Golgren of a wing had been artfully sketched.
“They are all different,” whispered Idaria, suddenly at his side again. “It is a message, I think.”
He saw immediately what she meant.
Golgren hurried over to the first campfire to have emitted a tendril. There, yet another drawn symbol awaited him. The Grand Khan went to the second campfire, where, from the angle of that drawing, he had a fair idea where to find the next symbol.
In all, there were twelve of them, each distinct. They had been etched very clearly and in an obvious sequence, so there would be no mistaking their meaning. There was only one trouble.
It was no language that Golgren could read.
He looked to Idaria, who had followed in his steps. On her face there was a look as unreadable as the symbols.
“What does it say?” he quietly asked. “Do you know?”
The elf frowned. “I do not know what it says. It is an older language than mine.”
“An older language?”
“Yes.” Not at all to his surprise, she added, “I think … I think it is a variation of High Ogre.”
A message. A message in High Ogre surely meant for him. But Golgren had no idea how to read it. He bared his teeth in a humorless grin and turned to one of the nearby warriors.
“Bury it. Bury all of them.”
The warrior grunted. He and several others began covering over the symbols.
“My lord,” began Idaria. “Should you do that?”
“I cannot read that message. I will not leave it for my enemies.” He did not mention those enemies by name, but she surely knew that chief among them were the Titans, who likely could read the symbols.
Idaria said nothing. Golgren’s decision was always final. As Barech joined them, the Grand Khan hid the signet in his fist.
“My lord, I-”
A fierce, steaming wind rose up, tearing through the encampment near where the Grand Khan and his companions stood. There was no question in Golgren’s mind that the gale was as unnatural as what had happened with the flames.
With that in mind, he suddenly glanced back at the campfires. There, where most of the symbols had been covered over with dirt and, in some cases, heavy stones, the wind struck hardest. The dirt was flung into the air, blinding several ogres.
A moment later, the rocks went flying too. Two warriors were struck hard, one in the head. That ogre fell to his knees. The rest fled.
Golgren stepped into the furious wind. His eyes slitted, his mane whipping back, he went to the nearest campfire.
Swept perfectly clean, the symbol there pulsated like a red-hot coal. Golgren looked to the next one and saw that it was clear and burning bright too.
Whoever or whatever had sent the message wanted it to be seen, regardless whether the one for whom it had been meant could even understand it. And regardless whether leaving it visible might prove even more dangerous for him.
The half-breed’s eyes narrowed again. Unless the last was exactly what the message intended.
IX
As Golgren marched in one direction, Khleeg marched in another. Despite his trepidation at being far from the lord that he had sworn to protect, the ogre officer was also eager to reach the area where the Nerakans were said to have crossed the border. There would be much fighting, much bloodshed, but he was very confident in the combined might of the ogre hands that would stand against the humans. The Black Shells would be crushed, their females wailing their deaths for years.
Behind him, the hand marched with all the precision of a Solamnic army. Khleeg beamed, for the Grand Khan had presented him with the finest warriors yet trained. He could only imagine that they were as fine, indeed, as the armies of the High Ogres.
It was three days before he would reach his counterpart, Khemu. From there it would take another three, maybe four days to Angthuul. Fortunately, the Nerakans had chosen a place not all that far from Garantha, perhaps because they had the misguided notion they would be able to easily conquer the capital without the ogres rallying to prevent them.
Already, Khleeg could see the crushed and bloody corpses of Skolax G’Ran littering the battlefield. It would be a glorious ogre victory, one that would, in many ways, bring honor to his master. Khleeg was aware of Golgren’s background, of the slaughter by the Nerakans of the village where the half-breed had been born. And the death of his mother. Each Nerakan the officer managed himself to slay he would dedicate to the Grand Khan.
One of the subcommanders rode up beside him. The other ogre was not quite as adept with Common as Khleeg, but he spoke it well enough to exclaim, “Dust! Many riders approaching!”
Straightening in the saddle, Khleeg looked around, but could not swear to what he saw. A heavy force was indeed moving at a rapid pace toward his. He frowned, wondering if somehow the Nerakans had managed to bypass Khemu and the others.
A horn sounded from the oncoming dust cloud, and its notes were familiar ones. Some of Khleeg’s concern evaporated. As he squinted, the figures began to define themselves into exactly what he knew them to be: ogres.
“Khemu’s hand,” he announced to the other officers. “Why here?”
“Neraka?” suggested one unhelpfully.
Grunting, Khleeg continued to eye the approaching force. He could clearly make out the banner of the Grand Khan, the severed hand clutching the blood dagger. However, of Khemu, there was no sight. Instead, as the riders approached, Khleeg noticed another ogre leading the hand, one he recognized.
“Rauth.” A subcommander. Had something happened to Khemu?
Something else worried Khleeg. There seemed fewer warriors than there should have been, and those that did approach appeared to have fought in some great battle only recently. Again, his fear rose that Neraka had intruded deeper into Golthuu than previously believed. Rauth would have the answer.
Khleeg made an estimation and thought that about two-thirds of the original hand marched toward him. Such a heavy loss surprised him. The Black Shells must have had a large force.
To his surprise, one warrior broke from the front ranks of the other hand. The ogre shouted at the top of his voice, and the only reason that Khleeg did not at first understand what he was saying was because the warrior was speaking Ogre, not the Common to which the officer had grown accustomed.
“Drakuth bakiin!” the lone figure cried over and over as he suddenly brandished his axe. “Drakuth bakiin!”