Matabar

Book II. Chapter 7 - "Larr'rrak"

Chapter 7

Zbig was leading the way, with Percy Kenbish and Fedor Polskih alongside him. Even though the latter—despite wearing lightweight city shoes—moved through the forest with surprising ease, never getting snagged on roots, never stumbling over hummocks, and never tumbling into any ravines, the former fared poorly even in his stout work boots that had supposedly been made for just such rugged “terrain.”

Ardi admired their considerable bravery instead. Even he was on edge because he knew whom they were about to be dealing with—and that was after all the misadventures he’d been through over the past year in the Metropolis. Percy and Fedor, on the other hand, had been living utterly ordinary city lives in a provincial capital.

“We couldn’t have just left them with the soldiers?” Ardi whispered to Kralis beside him.

Zbig and Saveliy had moved to the side, acting as scouts in case the Shanti’Ra or Shangra’Ar broke their word and tried to capture not just the governor’s son, but a whole band of Cloaks as well. Granted, they probably wouldn’t have succeeded in taking that “prize” alive, but… Well, it was a good thing that the orcs—especially those who respected the “paths of the ancestors”—thought of their given word as sacred.

“Their task is to destroy the object in warehouse number four before anyone sees it,” Kralis replied directly this time. “Including the soldiers.”

Ardi shook his head. He didn’t even bother asking what exactly was in “warehouse number four” at the Delpas loading station, for the simple reason that Kralis—the Gardener—likely didn’t know either. That was the nature of their work…

He stepped calmly and carefully across a bed of fallen leaves, not making a single sound. It was as if he wasn’t even there at all. Despite still wearing his own city shoes, Ardi’s heel didn’t crack a single dry twig, the hem of his jacket never so much as grazed the various shrubs, and each of his movements flowed into the next so fluidly that, from a distance, the youth’s silhouette just melted into the greenery.

Only occasionally would Ardi extend a hand to touch the rough bark of a spruce, to run his fingers over knobby birch bark, or to brush a maple trunk or a resinous pine burl. The mixed Delpas forest reminded him of the Alcade.

“Eternal Angels, Ard,” Kralis sighed after ten minutes of silence. “The moment I take my eyes off you, I forget there’s even anyone beside me.”

Ardan remained silent. Both Shali and Ergar would probably have turned away in shame at the sight of their student. In his childhood, Ardi had not only been able to silence any sign of his own presence, but also hear everything in the forest that he’d needed to—he’d have known exactly where prey and water were, been able to read any orc tracks, and then he would’ve slipped away here and emerged there, at his quarry’s flank, more unseen than a noonday shadow.

But life in Evergale and the Metropolis had covered his hunting skills with a thick layer of rust—one that would have taken more time than he currently had to scrape away. In the past, he certainly would have spotted any orcs in advance, long before a heavy paw sank into a burrow hidden under gray moss.

Zbig’s hand twitched toward the straps of his revolvers for an instant, but he froze and raised his hands just in time. Percy and Fedor did the same, clearly feeling out of their element. Ardi, however, caught the distinctive, musky odor of orc sweat, which was reminiscent of a dog driven to exhaustion on a walk—a heavy, clinging smell.

Along with the first orc, who was holding Zbig at gunpoint with an old military rifle, a few more of his tribesmen emerged from the trees. Ardi should have sensed them a bit earlier as well, but he chalked it up to life in the Metropolis, which comforted him well enough.

One couldn’t expect to spend nine months surrounded by fuel oil, diesel and factory smog and not lose some skills. Especially since the capital had demanded entirely different abilities from him.

“We have come-”

“The shaman will only speak with you, half-blood,” growled the orc who had stepped out first, cutting Kralis off. “Tell the others we won’t harm them if they don’t do anything stupid.”

Ardi looked into those dark eyes and let his gaze slide over the massive tusks and fangs jutting from the orc’s square, brick-like jaw. The steppe orcs were taller than their city-bred kin, but not as massively muscled.

Although, when it came to orcs, saying “not as massively muscled” sounded a bit absurd. When the bicep of even the most unremarkable orc exceeded 85 centimeters, it was enough to make anyone uneasy. Especially since, unlike their urban cousins, steppe orcs didn’t care much for clothing.

Like their ancestors, they wore roughly-stitched leather pants with the seam on the outside, and across their chests hung necklaces of teeth and fangs from enemies they’d slain, as well as crossed bandoliers. Due to this, the Cloaks—Percy and Fedor included—could fully appreciate their monstrous muscles adorned with countless scars and tribal tattoos.

“He said-”

“I know the steppe orc tongue,” the Gardener interjected, a chill in his voice mingling with nervousness. Kralis’ heart was pounding faster than it had a few minutes ago. “Darius, Zbig, Saveliy—get over here. You civilians stand between us.”

Ardi was only briefly surprised that the man knew the language of this Firstborn race. It made sense that a Cloak like Kralis, especially given his post, would know it.

The orc holding them at gunpoint grinned broadly. “His heart sped up, but I don’t smell fear on him… a fine shorty. His teeth would look good on my larrik.”

That last word had no direct translation into Galessian, the language used in the Empire, but it was what orcs called the necklaces they wore.

Kralis, of course, did not miss the orc’s words, and he shot the brown-skinned giant a very nasty look, but held his tongue.

Ardan stepped forward. He didn’t even think to lower his staff or shut his grimoire—which, naturally, made the orcs tense up.

“Hand the stick and the book to that mortal, half-blood,” the same orc snarled, raising his rifle to his shoulder. In his enormous paws, the hefty weapon looked like a toy gun in a boy’s hands.

“No,” Ard replied calmly.

The orc let out a guttural snarl and jerked his head toward the Cloaks. The other orcs stepped forward, but immediately halted when Ley symbols flared to life beneath Ardi’s feet, merging into the outline of a seal. The orcs, of course, had no idea it was simply the basic version of a Universal Shield.

“That is a bad idea, orc,” Ardan added, striving not to let any emotion—anything other than the bravado he projected—creep into his voice.

The growl in the orc’s throat dropped even deeper. “The agreement was to speak with your shaman, not to walk into your camp unarmed,” Ardan reminded him, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Or do the Shanti’Ra steppe orcs not honor their own word? Or maybe you’re afraid of a few shorties?”

The orcs—all but the one aiming the rifle at them—slung their firearms and drew knives that could have passed for human sabers. Beating their chests with their fists, they began to exhale air in resounding gusts.

“Ukh, ukh,” came the deep sounds from their throats, reminiscent of a woman’s breathing during fierce labor pains.

“We are not on a hunt, brothers,” their leader hissed through tightly-clenched fangs. “Pay no heed to this half-blood…”

They continued to pound their chests and huff sharply for a time, but eventually, they sheathed their blades and took up their rifles again.

“You speak well, half-blood, but I hear your heart. There is fear in you,” the orc said, turning and spitting noisily on the ground. “A Matabar would not be afraid. A Matabar would already be fighting me in a Larr’rrak. Just like the one whose seed you grew from did.”

Ardan felt the knuckles of the hand gripping his staff crack.

“Half-blood,” the orc repeated with unconcealed contempt.

He swung his rifle and slung it over his shoulder by the strap. “Follow me. The Shanti’Ra are true to the paths of our ancestors. No one will harm you.”

The orc turned his back to them. He didn’t walk at their side. He didn’t remain behind them. He turned his back to them. Among orcs and Matabar, that was considered the ultimate display of scorn and disdain. To turn your back on a potential enemy meant you didn’t consider them a threat. The chieftain of the Shanti’Ra had done the same back when Ardi hadn’t been strong enough to defeat him during their Larr’rrak.

The rest of the orcs did exactly the same as their leader, casually stowing their rifles and striding deeper into the woods without even checking if the Cloaks were following them.

Kralis touched Ardan’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be so harsh with them, my colleague,” he began. “You need to be calmer. The stakes are too high to-”

Ardan shrugged off the Cloak’s hand with a rough jerk of his shoulder and, feeling his gums ache as nascent fangs pressed against them, he growled through clenched teeth, “Please, with all due respect, do not speak to me right now.”

Without looking back, Ardi walked on, leaning heavily on his staff and breathing just as heavily.

In… Out…

Just as Guta had taught him.

He strove to maintain his composure and hold back the snow leopard clawing to break free. That snow leopard was roaring and raking its paws against the bars of the impregnable cage that had been erected in Ardan’s mind. Cold, sharp claws slashed and tore at the bars forged with his will, but each time, they sprang back into place.

This wasn’t the time to become a beast. Not the time to don the hide of a Matabar. To get out of this situation—to end things as quickly as possible—Ardi needed a cool head. A thinking head, not one searching for a chance to pounce on the enemy.

Even if enemies whose faces—no, muzzles—still sometimes visited his infrequent nightmares were right there, taunting him.

They walked through the forest for about ten more minutes until they emerged into a clearing where a stockade stood in the center. It was simply a ring of logs roughly hewn with axes, staked upright in the ground, bound with ropes, and sharpened to points at the ends, looking like a circle of giant spears. Each log was as thick as a human body, ten meters tall, and they were mostly made out of conifer trunks—those were best for such things.

Ardi glanced around. Hundreds of firs and pines had been cut down, and just as many deciduous trees.

Orcs might value the nature of their steppes, but once they found themselves in a forest, they treated it no differently than humans did. If they needed something, they simply took it without a second thought. That was exactly why the Matabar—though they’d maintained close ties with the orcs—had never allowed them up the mountain. Matabar never felled a living forest. It was considered wrong. You could only use wood the wind had already brought down.

The lead orc waved a hand, and a few deep roars sounded from a watchtower, followed by heavy footfalls on the other side of the wall. A bar was lifted from the “gate,” and several dozen enormous orcs heaved the gates open in either direction, creating an opening wide enough for the procession of guests to enter.

“Keep that medallion on you, Mr. Kralis,” Ardi whispered as quietly as possible, but loud enough for the Gardener to hear him. “And at the first sign of trouble, send the signal immediately.”

“You don’t trust the orcs?” The man asked in surprise.

“I don’t trust the Shanti’Ra.”

Once they were inside, Ardan didn’t relax for an instant. He noted every detail, listened to every sound, memorized every nuance of scent. Orcs were emerging from tents cobbled together out of poles and the bushy hides of Shaggiers. Some carried rifles, others axes and knives. They bared their fangs, growled, hurled insults, and laughed—doing everything they could to intimidate their visitors. It was all just to affirm their dominance and belittle those for whom they felt nothing but contempt and hatred.

Ardan kept a white-knuckled grip on his staff. If anyone made the wrong move, if he heard the click of a cocking hammer… he would unleash every spell in his arsenal, draining his accumulators dry. Because, by the Sleeping Spirits and Eternal Angels, in the very depths of his soul, he hoped it would happen—that one of the Shanti’Ra would give him even the slightest reason to doubt that this was a parley and not a simple ambush.

But intimidation was as far as it went.

The orcs stayed by their tents, content to amuse themselves with trying to scare the Cloaks. The black-clad operatives of the Second Chancery weren’t overly impressed, but Percy and Fedor began to reek of the acrid scent of fear. Especially Percy. It wasn’t because Fedor was any braver, but because he simply didn’t carry the kind of cut on his soul that the red-haired man did.

One could only imagine how he felt as he found himself in the lair of those he had openly called animals fit only for a pen. And right now, Percy secretly dreaded that if that fact got out, he’d never leave this place—he’d remain here forever, trapped behind the log walls of the orc camp.

Finally, they approached the largest tent, whose entrance was decorated with…

Ardan clenched his jaw until it creaked.

The hides forming the vestibule, which served as a means to keep out the cold in winter and hold in the cool in summer, were not hung on poles, but on the easily recognizable, gnarled bones of a Wanderer.

“Only the half-blood goes inside,” the orc leader growled. “The rest of you wait here.”

“That wasn’t part of the-” Kralis objected.

“We agreed to talk,” the orc immediately cut him off, demonstrating his grasp of Galessian and showing that he knew Kralis understood Orcish in turn. “But we didn’t agree on how we’d talk, shorty. Only the half-blood goes in, or there will be no talk at all.”

Zbig’s hand visibly twitched (apparently, he too understood the steppe orc dialect), but the Gardener stopped him at once with a sharp motion of his open palm.

“What say you, Ard?” Kralis prompted.

Ardan only shrugged and looked the orc in the eye… and the orc immediately glanced aside. No surprise there. After all, Ardan had spent almost a year living in an orc household—albeit in the distant capital—and those with an impressive musculature tended to have tongues that were just as impressive. Very long tongues…

“If I don’t return in ten minutes, then…”

“Then I’ll contact the Blacksmiths,” Kralis finished Ardi’s sentence for him, making no attempt to hide it.

The orc merely snorted and pulled the hide curtain aside. Leaning on his staff, Ardan stepped inside and, after a few paces, passed through the vestibule.

The interior of the enormous tent was a circle of bare earth. In the center was a fire pit ringed with bones. There were human bones and orc bones there—thanks to his work with cadavers, Ardi could tell at a glance.

Over the fire hung a simple iron pot, inside which an herbal brew was boiling, its smell vaguely reminiscent of a berry concoction. Off to one side of the fire lay a heap of hides that served as the shaman’s bed. There was also a wooden rack draped with strings of bone beads. It was crowded with skulls etched with symbols and a few tanned leather scrolls were scattered about as well, also marked with symbols. And, essentially, that was it.

Orcs didn’t put much stock in things like “personal property.” They kept only what they needed to live and to move from one camp to the next, following the Shaggiers and the seasons of nature. They roamed the steppe much like their kin, the wolves.

“You and I, mountain brother,” said an orc who was stirring the embers under the pot with a knife.

He looked almost exactly as Ardi remembered him. Gray-skinned, elderly, with wispy, nearly transparent hair drawn back in a braid. His body was mapped with yellowed scars and dark, pigmented blotches. He also wore a patch over his left eye and had a stump in place of his left hand. Those were the things Cassara had taken with her.

He wondered how her fight with the Shanti’Ra shaman would have ended if not for the strange bracelets on the vampire’s wrists…

Noticing what his guest’s gaze was focused on, the orc ran his fingers over his face and stump. “She-Who-Walks-Through-The-Night took her due,” the shaman rasped without much regret.

His voice sounded like a broken old cracker being crunched—stale and flavorless by now.

Pointedly ignoring the hunters’ greeting, Ardi approached the fire and seated himself beside it in the same posture as the orc. He’d read enough of Atta’nha’s scrolls and heard even more of his great-grandfather’s stories to have a decent grasp of orc and Matabar customs.

“So that’s how you begin a conversation, mountain bro-”

“We are not brothers, orc,” Ardan interrupted him, barely holding back the icy flame seething in his chest. “You are no brother to me. I am no brother to you. We share no common paths. And if not for necessity, we would not be meeting again.”

The shaman’s one eye did not register any emotion. In fact, it reflected nothing at all besides the flicker of flames dancing among the glowing coals.

“We would still have met, young Speaker,” the orc countered calmly, in that familiar, crackling timbre of an old man’s voice. Hunched, with withered limbs nearly devoid of any muscle, he still appeared untroubled—if anything, he seemed to feel quite the opposite. “We are bound by blood. You and my chieftain—your paths are entwined more closely than you think. You began your Larr’rrak, but did not finish it. The time will come when the Spirits bring you together again to conclude what was started. When the time of the Great Songs arrives, you will meet once more. It will be your third meeting. And your Larr’rrak will be completed.”

“I’ve heard that nonsense from your chieftain before, orc,” Ardan said, and no one would ever know how much effort every word cost him, each one scraping his throat like a snow leopard’s claws. “And if we cross paths again, then-”

“Then what?” The shaman suddenly snapped, and his one eye—deeper than Blue Lake—nearly drowned Ardi’s mind in it. Just in time, as Skusty had taught him, he envisioned the cold Alcade peaks. Puffs of frost escaped the shaman’s mouth, though he paid them no heed. “I spoke to you the words of our ancestors, and you brushed them aside. Just as you brush aside your blood. You walk like a human. You wear human hides. You practice their false art. But you know nothing of the Matabar. Nothing…”

Ardan couldn’t hold back. It was likely that no one could have. He had already endured far too much. The tip of his staff was thrust into the shaman’s chest, and around them both, ribbons of ice began snaking through the grass, a cold wind making the tent’s hides flap like frightened birds’ wings.

“Don’t talk to me about the Matabar, orc! Where were you when the blood of my kin was being spilled in the mountains? Tell me! Hmm? Where were the Shanti’Ra? Where were the steppe brothers of my ancestors?!” Ard knew he was saying all of this only because he wanted to hurt the orc. To wound his precious “paths of the ancestors”—in truth, Ardi didn’t care. He didn’t care about that distant past or why the Shanti’Ra had never come to help. “You sit here in your steppes, doing the humans’ dirty work, hiding behind whatever excuses you hide behind to justify your own existence. Because you know… you know… that if you even slightly step out of line, you’ll be annihilated. And there will be no more southern steppe orcs, no more Shanti’Ra. So don’t you dare, orc. Don’t you dare tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. And don’t you dare even think of saying my father’s name.”

Ardan closed his eyes.

In… out…

He moved his staff away from the orc’s chest.

In… out…

He shouldn’t forget to keep a cool head. He couldn’t forget Skusty’s and Atta’nha’s teachings. However swift and strong a hunter’s paws might be, his head and the mind that lives in it are always swifter and stronger. He couldn’t give in to the instincts of the snow leopard when what was currently required of him were the cunning of a squirrel and the wisdom of a wolf.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on the blood of the Matabar when his only hope lay in the blood of the Galessian.

But the orc didn’t seem the least bit affected by the harsh truth—however right it was. He merely turned back to the fire and fixed his gaze on the flames once again.

“You’re right, Speaker. We did not help you. We left you to be torn apart by the human tribe,” the shaman murmured, poking at the fire with a stick, his voice lower than the hiss of coals

. “And perhaps that’s how we earned the curse of the Spirits. Perhaps we ought to have forgotten that our mountain kin didn’t come down from their peaks when it was us who were being beaten and stabbed. When our trails were defiled. When it was our—not your—keening that tore the heavens. Perhaps we should have risen above ancient grudges. Perhaps-”“Don’t lecture me about the disunity of Ectassus, orc,” Ardan cut him off. “You’re not my professor and this isn’t a lecture.”

“I am merely pointing out that each of us lives with our own pain and resentment and-”

“It’s not your place to point anything out to me!”

The shaman jerked his head in Ardi’s direction, but still did not look at him. He continued to stare into the fire. “I can hear the snow leopard roaring with rage in your heart. It is speaking right now. It, not the Matabar, Speaker—nor even the man. What speaks within you is the unfinished Larr’rrak, and so the Spirits will contrive to see it finished. They will see your heart’s thirst for blood quenched, and your mind opened to that which is now hidden from it.”

Ardan shut his eyes again.

In… out…

“I came here to offer you a deal, orc,” Ardan said slowly, struggling to rein in the snow leopard trying to burst out. “You stand aside and allow the Army to deal with those who are holed up at the loading station. In return, the Army promises to grant you free and unhindered passage back to the steppe.”

The shaman stirred the coals in silence for some time, watching sparks coil in their chaotic dance.

“You speak, but you don’t even hear what you’re saying, Ard,” the shaman said, pronouncing his name easily and without any emotion. “‘Promises to grant…’ ‘stand aside…’ Look what this unfinished Larr’rrak is doing to you. It’s eating you from the inside. Driving you mad. Filling your heart with malice. Why would we willingly subject ourselves to such a fate? Why would we invite unnecessary suffering? And as for granting us passage to the steppe… these lands are our lands. We are free to come and go as we please. If the invaders try to hinder us, blood will be spilled—ours and the invaders’ alike.”

“They’ll slaughter you.”

The shaman gave him a crooked smirk. “Perhaps, if you were a pureblooded Matabar, you’d know it’s better to die on the path of your ancestors than to live after having strayed from it.” The shaman set aside the stick and, leaning on a bone staff, struggled to his feet, rattling the dozen bone necklaces that served him as a larrik. “We will not leave this place, Ard, until Shangra’Ar blood is spilled and our thirst for it is quenched. And we will not listen to invaders who come to our land and tell us how to behave on it.”

This was more or less exactly what Ardan had expected to hear. The Shanti’Ra would never have agreed to the terms put forth by the Army and the Second Chancery—which, of course, both organizations surely knew.

How convenient.

If the orcs agreed and withdrew back to the steppe—good, fewer problems to deal with.

If not—that was fine too, because it would create a rather handy precedent that, at the appropriate moment in some indeterminate future, could be used to justify a punitive expedition of any scale and degree of bloodiness.

And the shaman, of course, understood that as well.

And if he understood it, then…

“Why did you agree to talk at all, orc?”

“Narg is my name,” the orc introduced himself, giving him a clearly shortened name—essentially acknowledging Ardi’s skill as a Speaker.

“I don’t care what your name is,” Ardan couldn’t help but say. “I’ll have forgotten it by this evening.”

The orc flinched, and for the first time, his single eye showed an emotion other than calm. The symbols on his bone necklaces glimmered, and the staff in the shaman’s hands vibrated slightly.

“You overstep with your impudence, Ard!”

Ardan was on his feet faster than he could realize what he was doing or where he was. “Go on then, orc,” he spat, his grimoire flying open in his hands and the accumulators on his fingers glinting. “Give me a reason.”

But his words had exactly the opposite effect. The shaman calmed in an instant, and his necklaces and staff went still.

“The unfinished Larr’rrak… Can you not see what it’s doing to you?” The orc walked over to his wooden rack without turning his back to Ard, and took a leather scroll from it. “We cannot leave with our thirst for blood unquenched. But if we quench our thirst, then the Shangra’Ar will want to quench theirs. And then we will do so again. And then they will do it again. Thus will a Great Song begin between our tribes—because that’s how they always begin. In the past, to avoid Great Songs between tribes, we would appeal to the King of Ectassus. But there is no Ectassus anymore. No one to arbitrate for us. And humans… humans are humans, Ard. They are strangers to our paths.”

“Why are you telling me this, orc?”

“Because you are half-Matabar. And the Shangra’Ar passed through your lands. That means you have the right to take part in our dispute. To take part in the Larr’rrak.”

The orc tossed the scroll to Ardan. He caught the leather bundle in mid-air and unrolled it, squinting to read the harsh, crooked script of orcish runes.

“The Shangra’Ar will fight the chieftain in a Larr’rrak so as not to beget a blood feud. Whichever chieftain wins, his tribe will be victorious before the spirits, and the loser must leave.”

“It’s a trap, Ard. If our chieftain comes here, the humans will kill him. To them, he’s more valuable than the man the Shangra’Ar are holding prisoner.”

Ard rolled the scroll back up and flung it to the ground at the orc’s feet. “Give me one good reason why I should risk my life over your squabbles, orc. Because honestly, I don’t see a single one.”

The orc turned and gave him a partially-toothless smile. It was somewhat mocking, a little proud, quite triumphant, and only slightly sentimental. “Because bloodlust doesn’t yet fully command your reason, Ard. And because you know that in our tribe, there are children who are innocent. And there are tens of thousands of other orcs who are also not to blame for what happened between us. And it is they who will suffer if you leave things as they are and show me your back.”

Ardan remained silent. Anything he said would have been a lie. It would have been a lie to say he didn’t care about the Shanti’Ra children who could fall victim to punitive expeditions or a clan war with the Shangra’Ar. And it would equally have been a lie to say that he did care.

Sleeping Spirits!

How complicated everything was…

“In any case, I’m not a chieftain and…”

Ardan stopped short. Because, in reality, of all those present, he was the only one who technically held that title. Thanks to a legal formality, as the sole official representative of the mountain tribes of the Alcade, he had automatically become their chieftain.

Chieftain of no one and nothing.

But chieftain nonetheless.

Which meant…

“What are you really after here, orc?”

The shaman stayed silent.

“I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that you drove the Shangra’Ar into the ore and lumber station at the exact moment I was set to arrive from the capital. And I don’t believe it’s pure chance that you apparently arranged a duel of chieftains ahead of time.”

The shaman just waved a hand. “Your thoughts are tangled in the black clothes you wear, Ard. Not every event has convoluted causes. Sometimes, things happen simply because they must happen. Because such is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Ardan listened to the rhythm of the orc’s heart, but it never once faltered in its steady beat. The orc was not lying. Either that, or he was lying so masterfully that Ardi couldn’t hear it. And something told the young man that the latter was the correct option.

“If I defeat the Shangra’Ar orc in a Larr’rrak, will you withdraw to the steppe and leave Delpas and Presny alone?”

“Believe me, Ard, we like being here no more than humans like having us here.”

“Don’t speak to me in Fae riddles, orc. I know the rules. I can ask a question three times.”

The orc’s face grew more severe, but he still answered. “Yes, Ard. We will leave.”

“Very well,” Ard nodded. “Then let’s go to the Shangra’Ar.”

Ardan, who frankly didn’t care what the Shanti’Ra shaman might do, pulled his bandanna back up over his face, turned, and headed toward the exit. Behind him, he heard a low, threatening growl, but he paid it not the slightest bit of attention. If investigating the “Spider” case had taught him anything, it was that as long as someone needed something from you, then no matter how you behaved or what mistakes you made, nothing would happen to you… at least not until that need had passed.

Pushing aside the hide curtain with his staff, Ardi met Kralis’ gaze.

The Cloak was puffing nervously on a cigarette and fiddling with the medallion in his hands, periodically glancing at his watch. Seeing his colleague emerge, he relaxed a little. “You had a minute and a half left,” the Cloak said, tapping a knuckle against the watch face.

“Mm-hm,” Ardan grunted indistinctly.

The Gardener shifted his gaze from the young man to the shaman, who had summoned one of the orcs over. “Damn it, man… I really don’t like what I’m seeing right now,” Kralis exhaled a cloud of smoke and sniffed. “A summer cold, curse it… Did you manage to negotiate something?”

“I did.”

“And? Care to elaborate?”

Ardan snapped his grimoire shut and let it hang back on its chains. “I’ll have to undergo a Larr’rrak with a Shangra’Ar orc.”

“What? Undergo a Larry… or however you pronounce it… You said it was like a law or something.”

“I said there was no direct translation,” Ardi corrected a shade more harshly than usual. “It’s law and a custom, and also what they call those who remain in the Great Songs and… a few other meanings I can’t recall offhand.”

“Suppose so…” Kralis drawled. “And what meaning does it have now?”

“It means I’m going to fight an orc.”

Kralis’ eyebrows nearly touched his hairline. “Fight?” He croaked. “An orc? My dear colleague, you might be as tall as a lamppost, but you’re just as skinny. And fighting…” Kralis pointed a thumb over his shoulder, right toward several orcs who were carrying whole elk carcasses on their shoulders. “Fighting them? That’s suicide.”

Ardi, instead of answering him, just gave his staff a little flourish. As far as he knew from the she-wolf’s scrolls, one could use one’s own weapon in a Larr’rrak. That was why Hector had used his knife, and the Shanti’Ra chieftain those strange axes. A staff could be a weapon, couldn’t it?

“By the Eternal Angels, let’s just go with the backup plan,” Kralis said, waggling the medallion. “We’ll turn everything in there to dust and-”

Kralis cut himself off. While they could do that, if they did so, along with the bloody mess, so many assorted problems would also spill out that in the end, they would lose far more than they gained.

Kralis cursed under his breath and hissed to himself, “I think I’m starting to understand why the capital offered you so much money.”

Yes. Ardan now also understood that you didn’t get half a year’s pay and a hefty bonus just for a “simple chat.”

The other Cloaks, seeing but not hearing the tense conversation, closed ranks and advised Percy and Fedor not to stray from their side.

In fact, their advice came in handy a few minutes later.

The orc who had conferred with the shaman returned with a group of two dozen of the biggest, most muscular of his kin he could find. Each weighed no less than a quarter ton and stood around two meters and thirty centimeters tall. These hulks stood out even among the other Shanti’Ra, and Ardi was certain he recognized some of them from last summer. And judging by their self-satisfied expressions—and the bullet scars—he wasn’t mistaken.

His hand tightened around the wood of his staff once more…

“Let’s go,” the orc leader called out gruffly, and the procession moved out of the camp.

The shaman walked behind the leader. Again, thanks to Atta’nha’s scrolls, Ardi had learned that a shaman wasn’t exactly a figure of any official importance in a tribe, but at the same time, he was seen as a spiritual guide and wise mentor. In other words, orc customs allowed the shaman to earn respect and recognition if he proved himself worthy of them, but did not grant those by virtue of the title alone.

A history professor back at the Grand would probably find this to be an interesting, unspoken social contract that eliminated any chance of a power struggle between the chieftain and the shaman. But Ardan, truth be told, couldn’t have cared less at the moment.

He simply walked behind the orcs, trying not to let the sight of so many bloody, mangled bodies—which, along with the dead Cloaks, they had buried out on a nameless hill in the steppe—slip back into his memory.

He didn’t manage that very well.

But Ardi tried.

He tried it just as desperately as he tried not to think about his father.

He didn’t manage that at all.

***

The loading station looked like a typical industrial facility. There were a handful of elongated warehouses, which looked similar to oversized barns. There were also two iron cranes running on diesel engines and some empty fuel barrels waiting forlornly for disposal on a partially-rotten, riverside pier. The ground had been made as flat and hard as dusty cardboard by countless feet. Ardan also spotted a central control tower with some loudspeakers and a tangled web of Ley-cables stretching from one steel pylon to another and… that was about it.

There were, perhaps, a couple of little shacks off to one side—none too neatly knocked together from charred boards.

There was no fence around the station because there was simply no need for it… usually. From the north, a pair of railway tracks led into the facility alongside a wooden platform. A little off to the side, there was a long clearing with drag marks—some of the freight had clearly been hauled in by horse.

That was it.

One of the Shanti’Ra orcs stepped forward, and immediately, a shot rang out from the roofline of one of the warehouses. A bullet struck the ground directly in front of the orc.

The Shanti’Ra hefted their rifles and axes, but held their ground. The Cloaks prudently stepped back, dragging the civilians with them.

At first, nothing happened. Then the doors of one of the nearest warehouses slid open. Of course, it had to be the doors of warehouse number “4,” where the object of such interest to the Crown was located.

Out of the structure spilled a few dozen orcs. The northern tribes differed from the southern ones by their more subdued skin tones, which were not as bright as their southern kin. There was no green or rich brown skin here, more like a pale, swampy hue or the color of old copper. They were a little shorter and not as heavily built, but at the same time, their tusks and fangs appeared larger and sturdier.

Professor Kovertsky would surely have proposed a theory that the differences in appearance between the northern and southern tribes were due to their environment and diet.

The leader of the Shangra’Ar was a swamp-skinned orc who was about two meters and ten centimeters tall and weighed roughly two hundred kilos. Despite seeming almost average when compared to the southerners, he still looked like a hulking machine of death made from pure muscle and primeval ferocity.

Without a hint of doubt on his broad face, which had been disfigured by scars from claws and knives, he dragged a young man who was now barely resisting by the hair. He looked to be twenty years old, maybe a bit older. Compared to the orcs, he—skinny and short, his clothes in tatters and his body covered in bruises—looked even more puny than he actually was. The orcs, by contrast, looked only bigger and stronger next to him.

The northern orc twisted his arm back and flung the moaning youth forward. The captive flew a good meter and a half through the air, leaving behind a trail of bloody spatters and clumps of torn-out hair, then hit the ground and rolled until he came to a stop. He was quietly sobbing and not moving. He likely couldn’t move at all.

Ardi’s eyes swept over the young man’s injuries and he felt a twinge of respect. The governor’s son hadn’t given in without a fight. Both his arms had been broken, his knees shattered, most of his teeth knocked out, and his nose shifted to one side—clear evidence that he had resisted to the very end. But the forces in play were unequal. Just as they had been unequal for thousands of years between Ectassus and Gales.

“You can take him now, Cloaks,” the Shangra’Ar leader boomed in crisp Galessian. “That meat is of no use to us.”

Kralis gave a slight nod and Zbig and Saveliy quickly stepped forward. In utter silence from all sides, they reached the barely-breathing aristocrat, lifted him up, and carried him back. Seeing the aristocrat’s bloody, mangled legs twist unnaturally—each time the broken bones tore at muscle, the aristocrat groaned—the orcs, southern and northern alike, had vicious, self-satisfied, predatory grins spread across their faces.

“I can see, old fang, that your chieftain hasn’t answered my challenge,” the Shangra’Ar orc said, spreading his arms wide. In one of his hands, he gripped a curved bone knife. “Or is there nothing left of the paths of the ancestors in him? Perhaps he’s afraid of us? Perhaps he’s a coward?!”

As one, the Shanti’Ra stepped forward and bared their fangs, but at the faintest chime from the shaman’s beads—strung with the skulls of beasts and… humans—the Shanti’Ra stepped back again.

“You-”

“Speak to me in Galessian, southerner,” the swamp-skinned orc snarled. “I won’t dirty the tongue of my ancestors on an unworthy tribe.”

The shaman narrowed his eye at him, and Ardi once more recalled his history lectures, where political fragmentation and disunity within Ectassus, along with a lack of technological progress, had been cited as the main reasons for the fall of the Firstborn kingdom.

And it seemed that in five hundred years, not much had changed. Even within the Empire, the various Firstborn tribes still didn’t exactly see eye to eye.

“You agreed to a Larr’rrak,” the Shaman said, this time with no trace of a growling accent. “And a Larr’rrak will take place.”

“Have the spirits robbed you of your wits in your old age, you broken-fanged wreck?” The northerner guffawed. “I agreed to a Larr’rrak with the chieftain of these lands. And I don’t see him here. So I’m glad you paid us a visit, but you can crawl back where you came from and tell the shorties that we know about their artillery. And if they want to spill blood, far more will spill than they think.” The orc flashed his fangs and pounded a fist against his chest, producing a boom like a drum. “Orak han-da!”

And all at once, several dozen northern orcs pounded their chests in unison: “Orak han-da!”

Percy and Fedor were trembling like autumn leaves, and one could hardly blame them for it. When several dozen hulking brutes bristling with swollen muscles are thundering a war cry, it burrows into your hindbrain and hammers at your very bones. At least that’s how it felt to Ardi.

“Rakrarz,” the shaman broke in, cutting the chant short. “You came here through Antareman. You shed blood in the foothills. So a Larr’rrak can take place with the chieftain of the Matabar.”

“The Matabar?” Rakrarz grinned broadly. “The last chieftain of the Matabar set off down the paths of the Sleeping Spirits over twelve years ago—may his name never be forgotten. He set off because of you southerners.”

Rakrarz slammed his fist against his chest again, but this time, it wasn’t just the northern orcs who joined him—the southern orcs did as well, including the shaman.

“There are no more Matabar, southerner. There is no one left who could claim the lands of Antareman as his own. Enough of this empty talk. Go back to where you came from, and we will spread word that among the Shanti’Ra, there is no one left who honors the paths of the ancest-”

“We are joined by the Chieftain of the High Snows and Ice,” the shaman interrupted him yet again, which now made the Shangra’Ar orcs step forward—interrupting an orc who was not your kin was a grave sign of disrespect. “The Hunter of the Mountain Trails.”

The shaman had spoken these words in the steppe orc dialect, but it was perfectly understandable to the northerners.

Rakrarz’s gaze flicked over the group standing opposite him and lingered briefly on Ardan’s figure.

“A half-blood who sold himself to the shorties?” There was clear derision in the Shangra’Ar orc’s tone. “Did you drag that piece of meat along with you, old fang? Looks like I’m right—the spirits have taken your wits after all, before they take your name.”

Percy and Fedor exchanged glances, then, just like the orc, they looked toward Ardi.

“How very helpful,” Ardan whispered, tugging the bandanna down off his face—it no longer served a purpose anyway.

“Just a reminder, gentlemen,” Kralis half-turned toward the two engineers. “You signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Crown, the breach of which is punishable to the fullest extent of the law… except neither the fact that you breached it, nor your current whereabouts, will ever reach your families, who will bury empty coffins.”

But Percy and Fedor were so stunned that they simply nodded awkwardly, blinking in mute shock.

Leaning on his staff, Ardan stepped forward and stood next to the shaman.

“Half-blood,” Rakrarz spat on the ground, and the other northerners followed suit… and even a few southerners. “Get back to your people. Your blood stinks worse than a cesspit. The ancestors and spirits don’t know your name.”

“Maybe your ancestors don’t,” Ardi shrugged, and reaching under his shirt, he drew forth Ergar’s fang, letting it catch the light. “Mine do.”

“How can I know that’s the Fang of the Keeper of the Mountain Trails, half-blood?” Rakrarz growled. “Your rotten blood isn’t covered by our laws. Even if you swore by the paths of ancestors you don’t have, your word isn’t trusted here or anywhere our paths exist.”

Ardan sighed. Milar hadn’t been far from the truth with his musings on the Tavsers and the Conclave. On one side of the divide, the Empire’s citizens were being stuffed with intolerance toward the Firstborn; on the other, the Firstborn were being filled with intolerance toward humans and the Empire.

It was often done with the very same underlying messages, just wrapped in different pompous packaging.

“Let’s just get to the point and-”

“Shut your mouth, half-blood,” the orc spat again. “Your very existence profanes the paths of the ancestors, and I curse the day when the Chieftain of the Matabar took that rotten scum—the human female whose filthy ass you crawled out of, the one with a gap between her legs wider than the Antareman gorges—and-”

Something dark, viscous and hot slashed across Ardi’s heart. He recalled the sorrowful gaze of his mother, in whose depths the tears had never fully dried, always threatening to spill out whenever she looked at the distant Alcade peaks.

Ardan stepped forward. His staff struck the ground with a dull thud and he locked eyes with the orc—with those two dark pits, where the iris had gradually merged with the pupil to form black abysses. Ardan stepped up to their brink. He seized his will and, inhaling it into his words, unleashed the torrent of rage he’d been holding back for the past few days.

Rakrarz trembled. His consciousness tried to resist. The silhouettes of wolves whirled before Ardan’s mind, but he swept them aside with a roaring mountain torrent.

And when Rakrarz’s mind finally lay open before him, Ardan uttered words infused with his will: “Do not breathe.”

The northerner’s eyes went wide. He opened and closed his mouth, but couldn’t draw in air. It was as if his body had simply forgotten how to do so. He clawed at his throat, but could not suck in a breath.

Ard, feeling an unfathomable weight pile onto his shoulders with each passing instant, didn’t break eye contact or release his hold on the orc’s mind. He felt his own blood streaming from his eyes and nose from the sheer effort of bending the will of one whose True Name he did not know.

But he didn’t let go. He didn’t let go until maintaining the link became simply impossible.

No more than a couple of seconds passed, but to Ardi, it felt as if he’d just fought the Star-born werewolf or the Blue Star Mage all over again. Gasping for breath, leaning his full weight on his staff, he wiped the blood from his eyes and nose.

Rakrarz let out a loud gasp that sounded like the struggles of a drowning man who’d just broken through the surface of an icy lake and got back to his feet. All this time, the northerners had been keeping Ardi at gunpoint, and the Shanti’Ra had had their weapons at the ready in turn. No one said a word.

“A Speaker,” Rakrarz wheezed, rubbing at his scratched throat. “A half-blood and, on top of that, a descendant of the Traitor—the reason for why the Lord fell… Could the spirits have fashioned a more loathsome creature than you, you rot-blooded filth?”

Ardan, after catching his breath, straightened up and then smiled rather distantly. He recalled a childhood from long ago, and a certain sheriff who had climbed a mountain. “To you, orc, it’s Corporal Ard Egobar, Junior Investigator of the Second Chancery,” Ardi said, flicking the blood from his hand to the ground. “You agreed to a Larr’rrak, orc. To be honest, I don’t have the slightest desire to fight you. It would’ve been simpler to outwit your thick skull. But you just had to say what you said. So come on. Let’s do as your ancestors demand,” Ardi remembered Skusty’s teachings and allowed himself a smile. “Or are you afraid? Afraid of me? A half-blood? Maybe you’re the coward? Maybe the spirits know neither your name nor your ancestors’ names?”

In response, the Shangra’Ar, after tossing their rifles to the ground, unsheathed bone axes and knives and stepped forward. They bared fangs and tusks, pounding their fists against their chests.

Rakrarz merely rubbed his throat again, then flung his knife blade-down into the dirt. “You want to fight me, blood of the Traitor and an ape-woman?” The orc growled. “Fine. I’ll help grant your wish, rotten blood. I’ll snuff out your worthless life and correct the mistake the spirits made.”

Ardan had already raised his staff when the orc pointed to the ground. “I’m not even surprised, rotten blood, that you don’t know your own ancestors’ customs. But a duel between chieftains or their champions is fought either with weapons or with flesh. And I demand a duel of the flesh.”

Ardi truly hadn’t known that. Atta’nha’s scrolls hadn’t been able to tell him everything about everything, so all his life, Ardi had assumed a Larr’rrak was fought the same way Hector had fought his against the Shanti’Ra chieftain.

“What’s this? I hear your heart quickening, half-blood,” the northerner sneered again. “So, which of us is the coward, then? But don’t worry, I don’t blame you. I only blame your father, who, in the dark, couldn’t tell a woman apart from a whore—a whore with a hole between her legs wider than the Antareman gorges, whose filthy ass you crawled out of—him alone do I blame for-”

Ardan knew he was being provoked. The orc wasn’t stupid. He’d seen his opponent snap, and presumably understood that Ardi lacked the strength to invade his mind again. And so he was goading him anew, trying to force conditions favorable to himself for the fight.

“Corporal,” Kralis spoke up. “That creature has talked itself into a few decades in the mines. We’ve done what we could. Let’s head back and let these scumbags explain themselves to their spirits when they meet them in a few minutes.”

Ardi closed his eyes. He could simply turn around and leave. Then the Shangra’Ar—and the Shanti’Ra as well, who were waiting for a signal from their advance party—would be pounded by artillery that would leave nothing behind but scorched earth and boiling blood bubbling atop shreds of flesh.

Rakrarz was stronger than him. Much stronger.

Ergar had taught him not to fight an opponent like that. Skusty had counseled that, in order to defeat such a foe, you had to fight on ground where you held the advantage. But in a Larr’rrak, Ardi wouldn’t be able to use trickery or magic. He would be alone, one-on-one with the northerner.

Except…

He was tired. He often told himself he wasn’t, but in truth… it wasn’t easy. Among the humans, he got to hear “Firstborn half-blood,” and among the Firstborn, “human half-blood.” He was a stranger to both worlds, and if there was one thing they shared, it was a hatred of Aror.

And Ardi wasn’t going to prove anything to anyone with this. He wasn’t going to explain himself to anyone. They wouldn’t understand him anyway. He didn’t even really understand himself.

But he just knew.

He knew for sure.

If he turned and left now—left it all as it was—then he would never again have to ask himself whether he was a man or a Matabar. Because only the man would remain. And Ardi did not want to make that choice. Certainly not now. Not here. And definitely not because of some swamp-skinned orc with a foul mouth.

Ardan lifted his staff and after driving it firmly into the ground, he bent down and took off his boots. Then he shrugged off his jacket, pulled off his shirt, and neatly folded them atop his boots.

All the while, the orcs simply stood there, watching in silence, and Rakrarz smirked smugly.

Once he was down to nothing but loose linen pants, Ardan stepped forward. Unarmed. Still bearing traces of sickly thinness. He was half a head shorter than the orc, one-third his weight, and a quarter of his bulk.

And only a fool would think that an orc’s size made him slow or clumsy. No, not at all. Hundreds of years ago, a single orc could easily handle three heavy Galessian knights, reducing them to crumpled, blood-soaked heaps of metal.

The only thing Ard could count on in this fight was his one trump card: the orc expected nothing from him. Which meant that, if he could use Guta’s grappling at the right moment, it could be over before the orc could do to him what his ancestors would’ve done to those knights.

There was no signal, no elaborate words or rituals. A Larr’rrak didn’t work like that at all.

He and Rakrarz locked eyes, and then they both charged straight at each other.

In just a few bounds, the orc covered a good ten meters and, after shamelessly drawing back a sledgehammer fist, he hurled it in a wide arc straight at Ardan’s head. Thanks to Alexander, Ard knew that you should never do that—those were the kind of punches only saloon drunks would throw. But the orc didn’t care for the science of pugilism. He had been born strong and mighty. He hadn’t needed to learn how to fight.

Unlike Ard.

Ardan ducked under the blow, then, as Guta had taught him, shifted his weight onto the leg closest to his opponent and, dropping to the side, wrapped his arms around the orc’s broad knee—it was broader than some people’s waists. Straining the muscles of his back and thighs, Ardan pulled toward himself and to the side, trying to topple the orc.

When the orc fell, Ard would roll over the giant’s leg, grab his ankle and break that joint, then—while the orc was still paralyzed by pain—cross his own ankles behind the orc’s knee and, using those same back and thigh muscles, break the knee as well. After that, after depriving the orc of his leg, all that would remain would be to chip away at him and wear his opponent out. Then, when the moment was right, he’d be able to slip behind him and lock the orc’s neck in a chokehold—no matter how mighty an orc was, he couldn’t fight without air.

It was a perfect plan, one that would have made not only Guta, but also Skusty proud—perhaps even Ergar himself.

Only the orc did not fall.

To Ardan, it didn’t feel like he was trying to lift a mere leg off the ground, but to uproot an oak with all its roots. He yanked once, yanked twice, and only then realized what had happened.

He simply felt someone grab him by the hair and haul him bodily upwards—and then a boulder hurtling down a mountain slammed into his chest.

***

Kralis watched the lanky youth yank the orc’s leg once, then again, after which the orc simply hoisted his opponent up by the hair and, not even loosening his grip, he drove his fist into the young man’s chest.

The youth flew back like a flung stone, accompanied by the sickening crack of bones breaking, landing over a meter away. Clutched in the orc’s fist were strands of hair and bits of scalp.

Bloodied and gasping, the corporal collapsed to the ground, gulping soundlessly for air but unable to inhale. The orc was obviously taking revenge for what had happened earlier—for something Kralis, who had seen plenty of things on the Armondian border, still couldn’t comprehend.

“Bloody hell,” the Cloak swore, motioning Zbig toward his holster and reaching for the medallion himself.

“Don’t.”

The shaman’s clawed hand gripped his shoulder. By that time, the Shangra’Ar fighter had already reached the wheezing corporal. The orc grabbed him by one leg and one arm, then simply spun around and flung him nearly five meters away. The impact knocked loose the few scraps of air the youth had managed to suck in.

“He’s going to die!”

“Watch, human,” the shaman said, indicating his tribesmen with his hand and then the orc with his stump. “Watch closely, because the Larr’rrak hasn’t even begun yet.”

The Shanti’Ra shaman balled his fist up and, pounding it against his chest, sharply and resonantly exhaled a deep breath. Just like a woman in labor.

“Ukh,” he grunted from his gut.

“Ukh,” the other Shanti’Ra orcs echoed.

“Ukh, ukh, ukh,” their voices resounded, merging into the unified beat of tribal drums.

The shaman, fingering his glowing prayer beads, was already whispering words in a language Kralis had heard only from old archive recordings.

The language of the Matabar.

***

To Ardi, it felt as if a gravel-laden truck had run over his chest, and then something indescribable had scooped him up and tossed him into a cement mixer.

He couldn’t draw a single breath. He couldn’t even think about breathing. He couldn’t even think at all. And so he clung to the one thing that pierced the darkness forged from pain.

“Look, chieftain, look at what he has done to your land.”

And in the darkness, silhouettes began to spin. Silhouettes of orcs with dull, lusterless skin.

He saw how they’d hurled logs for sport at a pregnant bear as she’d tried to hide in the thicket.

How they’d felled moaning cedars that hadn’t yet shared their stories with the long-awaited guests—guests from whom they’d expected no such treachery. They’d felled them for no reason except to make their campfires smell a little sweeter.

He saw a number of orcs arguing over which of them was stronger dam a mountain stream with stones, cutting a herd of ibexes off from the water—and below, in the forest marshes, many trees and shrubs would soon wither from the drought.

Birds had shrieked in fear and beasts had scattered in a panic, not hunted to sate their hunger, but tormented for sport, just to prove their mettle.

And he also saw a family. A family of simple mountain laborers—northern orcs, in fact. They’d survived as best they could. Yes, they’d had to lay railway tracks down through ancient stones, but they’d never taken more than was necessary.

Ardan saw how they’d carefully raised pigs and chickens. How they’d tended to a small garden. And how a little orcling, after finding a sick fox kit in the plateau forest, had brought it home. He’d nursed it, fed it, and he’d loved watching the mountain eagles and falcons soaring over the cliffs.

And then the orcs came.

Rakrarz came. He was saying something. It seemed like he was asking them to blow something up. To break something. To cause a rockfall—perhaps by destroying one of the peaks to block the road. But the orc family refused. And then the silhouettes were replaced by blood and pain.

Ardan saw the little fox kit try to save his two-legged friend, his friend who smelled of wolf. He saw the kit sink his teeth into Rakrarz’s leg, only for the orc to simply crush the fox’s head and then hoist the orcling aloft and—in front of his dying mother—pull the child apart, tugging his limbs in opposite directions.

Ardan didn’t know which of them screamed louder: the mother, watching her child be torn asunder, the orcling, shrieking in pain and terror… Or Ardan himself.

All he knew was that, at some point, their screams were drowned out by another sound. But not a scream.

A roar.

***

Kralis, who was watching the northern orc plant his foot on the already-battered chest of the corporal, could practically see that the young man’s bones were about to give way for good.

“Damn it, Zbig, shoo-”

He didn’t finish that sentence. An invisible hand clamped down over his mouth, and at the same time, it forced him ramrod straight, paralyzing his entire body. In exactly the same way, it immobilized the other Cloaks and the civilians. All of them stood frozen like statues.

The Shanti’Ra shaman continued to finger his bone beads, and along with him, the deep “ukhs” of the steppe orcs’ chest-beating chant echoed on.

All Kralis could do was watch his colleague die. Watch… and do nothing.

And then something changed. The orc, who a moment ago had been smirking with blood-drunk glee as he’d ground his heel into the corporal’s chest, suddenly recoiled to one side. It was as if something had stung him or caught him off guard so unexpectedly that instinct had overridden all reason.

The orcs fell silent. Their fists hung expectantly in the air.

A broad, satisfied smile spread over the shaman’s face. Kralis shifted his gaze to the youth from whose chest the orc’s foot had been removed. Except he no longer saw his colleague anywhere. Lying there, half-buried in the ground, was someone else entirely.

Someone… who did not belong to the ranks of men.

Something had dug its claws into the earth and, like the roots of a plant, was drawing something unseen from the ground. And that unseen something made the caved-in chest arch upward. Thin arms bulged with inhuman, corded muscles that were more beastly than anything. From an elongated jaw, fangs nearly the length of a finger jutted out. The pupils narrowed into slits, and the amber irises turned blue.

With a convulsive movement, something halfway between a man and a snow leopard sprang aside and landed lightly in a horrific posture. It was horrific because a human body should never, by nature’s own design, assume such a position.

Digging its claws from both its hands and feet into the earth, belly nearly brushing the dust, it stretched itself out along the ground and sniffed the air noisily through flared nostrils.

Rakrarz backed away and, wiping the smile off his face, uttered a single word: “Larr’rrak,” he said, pounding his fist against his chest twice, then spread his hands and bent his knees slightly.

For the first time since the fight had begun, he looked serious.

***

This was not like that time in the steppe, when Ardan had watched from the sidelines as the Hunter he’d mistaken for Ergar had fought. Nor was it like what had happened with Lorlov, when he’d given free rein to his dark impulses. And it certainly wasn’t like that time with the Star-born werewolf, when Ard had lost himself and mistaken the Firstborn District for the mountain trails.

No.

He knew perfectly well who he was and what he was. Where he was and why. Only the unnecessary thoughts fell away. Unneeded impulses. All vacillation and doubt.

He felt the soft earth beneath his claws, smelled the scents of blood and sweat, and everything else that the surrounding forest so generously shared with him. With every hair on his head—not fur—he felt the breeze swirling over the river.

No.

This time, it felt exactly as it had back then, in the Menagerie.

Ardan-the-Hunter pushed off from the ground and assumed a stance more comfortable for himself. Straightening up on his leg-paws, he sniffed the air again and spread his arms—his forelegs—to either side. Just as Guta had taught him.

What stood in front of him was not prey at all. It was an orc. Ardan-the-Hunter didn’t remember very well why he was fighting this stranger. All he knew was that he mustn’t lose.

What was his name again?

The orc lunged forward.

No, don’t get distracted! Ergar had taught him not to get distracted during a hunt.

The orc moved fast. Very fast. His quick, albeit massive, legs barely touched the ground. He zigzagged as he ran, very much like a wolf coming after game.

But no wolf, not even the swiftest among them, could compare to Shali, who could change the direction of her claw swipes in mid-air just as easily as she could do so on the ground.

Ardan-the-Hunter let the orc close the distance, then, as the lynx had taught him, he arched his entire body, letting a clenched fist, not claws, swish past him, and he unsheathed his claws. He raked them along the orc’s ribs, where the muscle was thinner and the bone closer.

The orc groaned, and Ardan-the-Hunter sprang away, widening the distance. Keeping close to the ground, as Ergar had taught him, he pushed off with both his forelegs and hindlegs. Leaving deep furrows in the soil, he landed behind the orc and, flexing the talons of his fingers, drove them into the base of the orc’s spine, where, once again, the muscles were much thinner.

Feeling his claws scrape a vertebra and hearing the orc cry out in pain, Ardan-the-Hunter didn’t, as Guta had taught him, try to hoist his prey up, tearing it from the ground. He wouldn’t have had the strength. He knew that. Which was why he used a different lesson.

As Ergar had taught him, he bent his elbows and fingers slightly, then drew his claws from the small of the back up to the orc’s shoulders. Blood spattered across his face, but Ardan-the-Hunter paid it no heed. As the orc was still screaming in pain, Ardan-the-Hunter was already slamming an elbow down onto his spine.

The orc collapsed to the ground. He was writhing as prey does when it can’t move because the hunter has broken its bones and torn its tendons apart.

Ardan-the-Hunter circled around the orc. He eyed him with interest. He was so big and fierce. Far stronger than him. Maybe even as strong as Guta himself. It would be interesting to see if he could get up. Maybe they could fight a bit more? As a child, Ardan-the-Hunter had sometimes sparred with other hunters. He’d never enjoyed it, but he hadn’t ever run from a fight, either. He was curious to see how other hunters fought on the trails.

The orc scooped up a handful of dirt and flung it at Ardan-the-Hunter’s face, but he could see every movement of his opponent ahead of time. The orc was too slow. Back when Ardan-the-Hunter himself had been so slow to fight back in his childhood, he’d spent weeks afterwards covered in claw, fang, and tail marks from Guta, Ergar and Shali—not because they didn’t love him, but rather the opposite.

Ardan-the-Hunter took a short step back and, allowing the orc to get to his feet, stepped in again. The orc’s sweeping blow was telegraphed from far off, so all Ardan-the-Hunter needed to do was dip low and, pinning his elbows to his sides, pull them back and then drive both his arms straight forward with all the force he could muster.

His claws struck the wounds he’d made at the very start, sinking deep into the abdominal muscles, and then—as Guta had shown him—Ardan-the-Hunter pushed off the ground with his hindlegs.

The orc, gurgling blood, screamed again in agony, and Ardan-the-Hunter, shifting his weight onto his opponent, straightened his leg-paws. His heels slammed down on the orc’s knees with a powerful stomp. There was a distinctive crunch and the orc crashed to the ground. Ardan-the-Hunter, still not withdrawing his claws from the orc’s belly, ended up on top.

The orc…

This wasn’t a mere opponent. Or prey. Or another hunter. No, he knew a different word for this. He’d heard it before. From someone else. It had been spoken in a cave that resembled a temple, or a temple that resembled a cave.

This orc had come here to pillage and kill. He’d come to inflict pain. He’d come as an…

Enemy.

Yes.

That was the word he needed.

This was his enemy.

Ardan-the-Hunter ripped chunks of muscle from the belly of the enemy who writhed in pain, but could no longer move. He shook them off his claws, then clasped his hands together above his head and brought them crashing down onto the orc’s skull. Guta had taught him that such a blow was how you finished a fight. But Guta and the other bears were far stronger than Ardan-the-Hunter. So one strike wasn’t enough.

A broken nose, knocked-out tusks, and split lips—that was all Ardan-the-Hunter achieved at first. So he clasped his clawed hands together again and brought them down on the enemy’s head once more. Then again. And again. And again.

The body trapped between his hindlegs convulsed. A pool of thick, dark blood started spreading across the ground. The bones in the skull cracked. Teeth and tusks spilled from the orc’s mouth, embedding themselves in Ardan-the-Hunter’s hands.

And he kept hitting, and hitting, and hitting. Until the skull bones caved in. Until the eye sockets collapsed. Until all that muddy, swamp-green skin now more closely resembled the color of boiled beetroot.

Beets…

He wasn’t allowed to eat beets.

He…

Ardan-the-Hunter shook his head.

No.

No.

That wasn’t right.

He wasn’t a beast.

He wasn’t a hunter.

He needed the orc alive.

He needed to deliver him to the Second Chancery for questioning. They needed to know why Rakrarz—that was the enemy’s name—had wanted to blow up a mountain peak and destroy the railroad still under construction. And also why he’d killed his own tribesmen and pinned it all on the Shanti’Ra.

Ardan-the-Hunter shook his head again. No, he should kill his enemy. Finish the hunt.

He raised his clasped hands again. He raised them, but did not bring them down.

***

Ardan looked down at the bloody mess. A still-breathing, bloody mess. He could feel the urge, the insistent buzzing at the edge of his hearing. He could feel how dry his lips had become. And how his hands trembled.

Just one blow.

One last blow…

And the orc would go to walk the paths of his ancestors. For all he’d done. And all he’d said.

Ardi, panting heavily, shook the blood from his hands and, struggling to his feet, backed away. No, he didn’t want to make this choice either. Not now. And not over this northern orc.

In the total silence that had fallen, he returned to his clothing and, not caring about the blood—both his own and the enemy’s—he endured the pain in his chest and indeed throughout his entire body, and dressed himself, then picked up his staff. The moment he did so, he felt something pour out of him and into the staff embedded in the ground. It poured forth, leaving Ard, then instantly dispersed somewhere into the earth.

Thoughts for tomorrow.

Limping and holding his dented chest with one hand, he approached the shaman. “This one is mine,” he said in Galessian, clearly referring to the orc who wasn’t moving. “We’re taking him with us.”

“It is your right, Ard,” the orc replied in a slightly different tone and with a very different look than before.

“I-”

“Corporal,” Kralis interrupted. “Why do we-”

Kralis didn’t get to finish that sentence either. The orcs on both sides roared and brandished their weapons. And those who’d been standing near Kralis drew knives and axes and pressed them to the throats of a stunned Kralis and the other Cloaks, who hadn’t even had time to move.

“You interrupt the Chieftain?!”

“How dare a human speak in the presence of the Chieftain?!”

“How dare he not lower his eyes?!”

Ardan clenched his staff and looked at the shaman. “Have you lost your minds?” Ard said quietly. “This is an attack on a Second Chancery officer.”

The shaman raised his hand, and the orcs fell back.

“Your prize, Ard. Do with it as you will.”

Ardi turned back to Kralis. “Have this orc delivered for interrogation, please. He might know something about the incident in the mountains.” And then, raising his voice so the Shangra’Ar orcs could hear him, Ardi added, “Because it was he who treacherously murdered the Shangra’Ar family who were working on the Alcade railway.”

Kralis’ eyebrows shot up again, but instead of replying, he just gave him a mute nod.

“About the warehouse-”

“To hell with it, Mr. Kralis.”

“But I haven’t even said-”

“To hell with all of it,” Ardan cut him off. “Do whatever you want. I’ve fulfilled my part of the deal. I trust you’ll have my check sent before I depart. Goodbye.”

“And how will you get home without-”

“I’ll take your car. I’m sure you won’t mind.”

Limping, teeth clenched against the pain, struggling to draw breath through the wheeze in his chest, Ardi hobbled back toward the forest.

Passing between a pale, trembling Percy and Fedor, he meant to say something to them, but he accidentally caught their eye. Ardi was too exhausted to keep his Witch’s Gaze in check.

He saw their thoughts. Images clothed in meaning.

“Beast… That’s not a person… That’s a rabid beast…”

“If he comes near my sister again, I’ll shoot him, and to hell if they execute me for it.”

“And I apologized to this beast?”

Ardan sighed and looked away.

“Ard,” the shaman spoke up behind him, talking with a heavy accent but in perfectly fluent Matabar. “We will let the Conclave know that the Matabar still live, and that their Chieftain lives as well.”

Ardan froze, turned slowly, and answered honestly. “As I already said: do what you want, it’s all the same to me.” Then he shifted his gaze from the motionless, barely breathing orc to the shaman and back. “But yes, we truly will meet again, old fang.”

No one tried to stop him from leaving. The muffled thudding of fists against chests coming from behind him was the only thing he could hear after that