Orcs of the Prairie, Part 1
A long column moved along the prairie.
About a hundred meters behind it, a Humvee crept along at an easy pace, towing a cargo bed. The slaves riding in back craned their necks and stared around as if the whole world were new. The ones I had put in the vehicle were the pick of the lot — the ones who looked as if they would sell well. A tall, heavy-boned man in his middle years. Two women, one blonde, one red-haired.
The big-framed man had taken a spear wound and was burning with fever. From the merchant who sold him, I had heard he was a foreigner captured in a battle somewhere to the south. Of the women, the blonde had belonged to a noble house and been sold off once tuberculosis took hold of her. The redhead was half-human, half-cat. Catfolk blood had left her ears pricked and alert, but her back was a lattice of whip scars — earned, by the look of them, for fighting back. Those wounds had infected as well. The fever had climbed until she drifted in and out of her senses. In any ordinary market she would have commanded a steep price. With her life hanging by a thread, I had bought her for a pittance.
The cabin was quiet. Out of boredom I thought about speaking to the ones in back, then let it go. They were stock to be sold anyway. Learn their stories and familiarity follows, and familiarity would only get in the way of what I meant to do next. I was hardly dreaming of some revolution to remake this other world. What would be the point?
So I turned my eyes outward and quietly took in the prairie rolling away to either side.
"Peaceful. Can't complain."
The road the column traveled was a continental lifeline, driven straight through the heart of the land. No one knew who had built it, or how, but roads like it ran everywhere across the world of Gaia, piercing region after region. Along them, merchants and trading companies had exchanged the goods and labor of every land for ages.
Centuries of habit had, inevitably, grown an industry around that traffic. Shopkeepers opened stalls for those who passed, the stalls gathered into villages, the villages swelled into cities, and some of those cities bound themselves together into nations.
Of course the roads did not draw only travelers and merchants. Bandit packs and gangs of highwaymen rose just as naturally to prey on them. And sometimes a road drew blood-hungry beasts and monsters as well.
On a hill overlooking the road, Red Fang — a warrior of the orc tribe, hunched low atop his wolf — looked down at the Central Continental Road as it ran on beneath the slope. At the far end of it, a column moved in a line like a trail of ants. The corner of his mouth curled, the axe resting easy in his hand.
"Luck's with us today. Sand Wind!"
Behind him another orc rode up on a wolf that snarled under its rider. The one they called Sand Wind.
"High Warrior Red Fang! Speak."
"Are the warriors ready?"
"Waiting. The moment you give the word, we sweep those bastards away."
"Good. We hit them when they pass through Sand Canyon."
"Understood."
"All of you. Move."
At the order, Sand Wind wheeled and drove his wolf down the hill. Across the slope he was riding toward, orcs by the hundreds sat their wolves, spears and blades in hand, eyes full of killing hunger.
"Warriors! We move! Sand Canyon!"
These were fighters worn thin by dozens of battles. They did not raise their voices. But every one of them understood, and every one hauled the reins at his wolf's neck hard to one side. Slowly, the pack of hundreds broke into a run toward the north.
The Modric caravan. Among the mounted mercenaries at its head, a shaggy one yawned.
"Haaaawn. This contract's dull as dirt."
"Hey. Don't say things like that. You'll jinx us."
"What? I'm just saying it's nice."
"Even so. And bandits turn up around here now and then. Don't forget that."
"Oh, that. When I was in Ballad I asked the innkeeper, and he said he hasn't seen a single mercenary in months who actually ran into bandits."
"That so?"
"I'm telling you. They've either cleared out for somewhere else, or some party of adventurers with real skill caught them and wiped the lot."
"If that's the case, then we're lucky."
That was when the mercenary captain, sprawled atop a wagon farther back with a longsword propped against one shoulder, spoke up.
"Hey! Quit the chatter and watch your surroundings. There's a rocky hill up ahead, so stay sharp before we reach it. Could be an ambush."
The answers split.
"Yes, sir. I was about to."
"Oh, come on, Captain. I already looked into it while we were holed up at the fort. Not one soul around here has run into bandits. So quit worrying and—"
He never finished.
A low, sharp note cut the air. Ping. An ordinary ear would have missed it. Marcus, captain of the Marcus Mercenary Company under contract to the Modric caravan, did not.
"Crossbows! Take cover!"
They never had the chance to react. The shaggy mercenary was turning to say it was nothing when a bolt slammed into his chest.
Thud.
"Guh!"
The heavy quarrel punched through thick leather armor and then some, knocking the man clean off his horse. He hit the ground in a heap.
"Ambush!"
The shout was still in the air when arrows began to fall from the top of the rocky hill. Ping! Pip-pip-ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Dozens of bolts dropped onto their heads. The mercenaries threw their shields up and drove their horses in tight against the rocks.
Thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud-thud.
"Aaagh!"
"Watch out!"
"Agh! My arm!"
Horses screamed and reared. Men and mounts struck by the bolts shrieked, thrashed, and toppled sideways, legs kicking. The mercenaries veered aside, snatched the crossbows slung at their horses' flanks, and shot back.
"Up top!"
Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! Bolts flew the other way. Captain Marcus, still on the wagon, covered his head, swung onto the horse tied alongside, and pressed himself in against the rocks. The caravan hands leapt down to hide beneath the wagons, or snatched up whatever goods were at hand and held them over their heads.
"Who the hell are these bastards!"
"Sons of bitches!"
"You said there weren't any bandits!"
Marcus shoved his head up between the falling bolts and saw who was shooting.
"Damn it. Orcs!"
Orcs. Humanoid monsters that lived in barren country — prairie, frozen waste — and made their living by hunting and plunder. They were classed as monsters, yet their civilization had long since outgrown the mere tribe, and some counted them as near-humans. Set beside the savages of the Dark Continent, they were hardly the lesser culture.
Under the assault, Modric, master of the caravan, cast about for Marcus.
"Hey! Marcus! Do something! We're going to die out here!"
"Damn it. Orcs weren't in the plan. Those blasted Drail bastards. The orcs run wild out here and they don't even bother to sweep them. What the hell are they doing!"
A single orc could outfight a seasoned mercenary. Orc hunts, as a rule, were work for an army with a proper order of knights. A mid-sized company hired to escort a caravan was no match for them head-on. Marcus took the situation in and raised his voice so the whole column could hear.
"We break off at full speed! Get ready!"
At their captain's word the mercenaries dodged the bolts still dropping from above and drove their horses into formation at a rush. They took the front with Marcus at their head. Others vaulted onto the wagons and snarled at the drivers until the teams steadied.
"Pull yourself together, you bastard!"
"You want to die here?!"
"Pull the reins!"
Marcus checked that they were ready and roared.
"All units, charge!"
He led, and the mercenaries bellowed as they kicked their horses into a run.
"Waaaaaah!!!"
"We die if we have to!!!!"
"Uwaaaaah!!!!"
Hooves and wheels thundered as one. Wagons and horses tore through the canyon together.
Sand Canyon. A mountain of rock set between desert and prairie, golden soft sandstone, with a passage through the middle wide enough for wagons. Over hundreds of thousands of years the wind had weathered a corridor straight through the heart of the great stone mountain. I eased the Humvee along, staring at the living grain of that wind in the passage walls.
"Would you look at that."
One hand on the wheel, I pulled out the smart pad with the other. It would not connect to any network, but calling up a designated map was no trouble. I took a bearing and a distance off Damascus and tried to fix where I was. Hm. Somewhere around Baghdad, in Iraq. If that was right, I only needed to drop a point on a suitable spot near Baghdad. I put the pad away, hooked one arm over the window, and took the wheel again with the other, unhurried.
Then the little bells hanging at that wrist suddenly shivered. Tiring, tiring, tiring, tiring, tiring. A cold thread slid down my back. Why is the Coward's Bell going off? I jerked my head up and scanned overhead. Canyon walls climbed on both sides, and through the long slit between them hot sunlight poured down into the cut. An ambush. Don't tell me.
The hesitation lasted a heartbeat. I called Units One, Two, and Three at once.
"Get the slaves into the Humvee. Now!"
The three answered without understanding any of it and simply did as they were told, hauling the slaves up and shoving them into the back seats and the trunk. The male slave in the second row seemed to catch on. He looked at me and asked.
"An enemy raid, sir?"
"Don't know."
"I'll move to the cargo bed."
"What?"
Ten slaves newly bought, plus the three ISIS slaves I already had. Even crammed in, they would not all fit. A few would have to stay in the cargo bed behind, and I had been about to pick the worst wounded for that when he volunteered. The man who had barely lived through a long slash along his flank. They had sutured him in Damascus and were holding the wound down with antibiotics, but until just a few days ago the fever had him out of his mind. He was in no state to be moving.
"I'll go to the rear. Two of them can ride in my seat."
He was a big man. He was not wrong. Shove them onto the floor and all three might fit.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"You'll come out ahead selling those two rather than me alone."
He said it that way, but his eyes said something else. Born to it. There are people for whom stepping in front of the weak and shielding them is simply natural. Very few of them. A rare breed, hard to come by these days.
"I don't know about that. Seems to me selling you alone would leave me more than those two."
"Give me anything I can cover myself with. A pot, whatever it is. I'll keep myself alive."
He means it. There was no time to argue. I thought about slamming him back into his seat, then changed my mind. Slave trader or not, I was going to be a generous one.
"Fine. Put those two in your seat. Lay them on the floor and three will fit."
"Thank you."
Half-broken himself, he packed the wounded slaves into his place. While he did, I drew a long, bulky thing from the magic pouch and set it in front of him.
"This ought to do."
"Th-this is glass, isn't it? A crossbow will smash it. A pot or something would be better..."
"It's not ordinary glass, so don't worry. It'll stop a crossbow easily enough."
The word POLICE was cut into the transparent reinforced plastic. The man with the riot shield nodded, as if he believed me. He climbed alone onto the cargo bed with the shield. I dropped back into the driver's seat and took the wheel — and that was when the first scream rose from the caravan ahead.
Goddamn it. A bad feeling never misses.
I floored the accelerator in the same breath.
Vrrrrrrrnnnn~~~~~!!!