Bloodraven (78 page)

Bloodraven knelt, lying Yhalen down carefully beyond Wartooth’s limited range and ordering Vorja to sit and guard.

The warlord glared up at him through sunken, bloodshot eyes, mouth working spasmodically as bloody foam spumed upon his lips. No words got past the labored breath, but the accusation that blazed in his gaze was clear enough.

“The blame lies with you,” Bloodraven said softly. “You chose the wrong prey and you die with your mistake.”

He slid an exquisitely crafted dagger as long as a human’s forearm from Wartooth’s belt, tested the fine weapon’s balance and stuck it into his own—a small enough theft that he felt no remorse for.

Rising under the warlord’s seething glare, Bloodraven hefted his sword and with one powerful slice, cleaved Wartooth’s head from his shoulders. He wiped the blade on the tunic of the headless body before sheathing it, then took up Yhalen again before bending to snatch the head by the hair.

The majority of the surviving clan had gathered beyond the mouth of the buried village. They were dazed and aimless, slowly beginning to take stock of themselves. No few, Bloodraven thought, had fled into the forests and might still be fleeing, the thought of vengeful human magicks lending them strength.

An ogre warrior would face down a mountain troll, well aware of imminent death, if honor were on the line. The bravest of them still quaked at threats from the spirit world, though. The supernatural and the mystical unknown were the terrors that plagued their nightmares, and all from the lifelong teachings and threats of the clan shamans. Wrathbone’s bitter fireside tales would work for Bloodraven now.

More so with the shaman dead mere feet from the spot where he’d condemned the human witch to a slow, torturous death.

A few ogres on the edge of the gathering saw him coming. He doubted they even realized it was Yhalen across his shoulder or the head of their war-chief dangling from his hand. They merely recognized him and remembered the accusations made against him by ogres now dead. He walked to the edge of them and stopped, waiting for the tide of attention to spread his way. The clan shifted, both the angrier and calmer heads among them moving to the forefront. Accusations and threats trembled on their lips moments before he flung Wartooth’s head to the ground at their feet.

Ogres moved back from the tumbling head, less appalled by the grisly nature of it than the meaning of his gifting them with it. Recognition of the victim began to permeate the surviving clan, and ogres pushed against each other to get a look at the dead-eyed glare of their warlord.

“You did this?” one of the elders spat at him accusingly. Bloodraven bared his teeth and nodded.

“I finished what human magicks begun.”

A clamor of outrage spread. He heard weapons clearing sheaths, accompanied by just as many unsettled whispers. It was hard to see how many had gathered here, but he thought there were perhaps three or four dozen alive. More still in the woods and scattered in the vicinity of the village. The clan had numbered in the hundreds. Half dead was an optimistic estimation.

Bloodraven did not reach for his sword, instead swinging Yhalen off his shoulder to cradle in his arms in such a way that they could see and recognize his bloodstained face. It was a terrible risk, and if he miscalculated the depth of their fears, he and Yhalen would both die here. The only consolation would be that their deaths would be swift and without the theatrics of Yhalen’s attempted execution.

“Will you risk raising the wrath of a human sorcerer again?” he asked simply and they froze.

“Wrathbone did his best to kill this witch and failed. Wartooth ordered the execution and died and how many of the clan with him?”

Bloodraven cast his eye meaningfully over the destruction that had been wrought, then turned back to meet the mob’s gaze.

“What honor in sacrificing the rest of your lives following in their steps? Why risk black magicks and curses that will follow you into the afterlife?”

A murmur of unease went through them and those with drawn weapons were urged not to advance upon Bloodraven by those with healthier superstitions.

“There’s a curse upon this place,” he said, jerking his head towards the wreckage of the village. “A human curse, that will follow you to the grave if you hinder those of human blood that seek to sever ties with the clan. Slave or half-blood. Think well before you spill more human blood and spread the word of this when you seek a new home.”

A new home? The cry went up, but it was weak and uncertain, pierced with fear and grief. Almost everything they had was gone, under the rock that buried the village, but ogres, at heart, were nomadic.

Moving the clan from this place and finding another home would be no great hardship. If there were enough of them, enough hale warriors, they might even bully their way into the village of another, weaker clan. It was their way.

They would keep the terror of what happened today with them. It might even spread, hindering the seasonal forays into human lands, perhaps even casting some small bit of doubt into the mistreatment of human slaves. If nothing else, it would keep them off his trail on his way back to Elvardo’s vale.

He turned on his heel, giving them his back. Trusting Vorja to warn him of approach, trusting as well that they still reeled too much from the terrors of the morning to have truly taken stock of the losses suffered. That they had yet to realize how many of them, of their blood relations and comrades, were not among the standing. He hardly wished to dwell upon it, or on the fact that the greatest losses were among those who had
not
come out to revel in the spectacle of birds feeding upon living flesh. They hadn’t been his enemies, the majority of the clan. Not a family, as such, for full-bloods held little sympathy for their halfling brethren. But they’d been familiar faces and familiar voices that he hadn’t set out to still forever. He shuddered and pushed the thought aside, for to dwell on it would cripple him when he couldn’t afford to be hindered.

He reached the edge of the wood where he hoped the surviving halflings had gathered, and found that Kredja had indeed spread word. It was disheartening to see so few. Less than twenty ogr’rons—not counting those he’d already sent out to carry the message to the halflings of neighboring clans. He knew all their names, save the infant. Aside from Icehand, these frightened half-bloods
were
family. They understood. They’d endured the same ridicule and suffering, growing up small and different among a harsh, unforgiving people.

“Is this all?” he asked when he stood among them.

“All I could find,” Kredja said softly, staring like the rest of them at the still figure in his arms.

“Is he what they said? A witch? Did he do this?” Glag Rootcarver asked nervously. They would have heard the same rumors, held the same suppositions. Their superstition was no less than their full-blood brethren.

Bloodraven stared the shorter ogr’ron in the eye, and then swept the rest of them with his gaze.

“Yes.”

They murmured in fear, shifting back. He growled at them in frustration, understanding the distrust but not able to abide it with all that was at stake.

“It wasn’t his nature until they tore it out of him. Who among you wouldn’t strike back if what was

done to him were done to you?”

“None here are witches.”

“And a good thing for the clan,” Bloodraven snapped. “For who with power would endure what we have all our lives if there was magic at hand to right wrongs?”

They murmured at that thought, some of them perhaps dwelling upon the implications more than others, the most browbeaten and abused of them probably having wished such destruction upon the clan more than once in his life. Still, he feared for Yhalen among them. Feared what, in their distrust, they might do.

“Without him, what reason have they to leave us alone? They won’t follow us or harass us in our new home if they fear that which protects us. He’s no danger to you if you don’t give him reason to be.”

In his right senses, Bloodraven added to himself. If the madness was still upon him when he woke, Bloodraven dreaded having to deal with that. But he would, knowing full well that sometimes broken things could not ever be properly mended.

“Human magicks would protect us?” one of the more timid ogr’rons asked doubtfully.

“Do we not have human blood in our veins?” Bloodraven asked and they shifted, never before considering that human blood was a benefit to them. Such as they had only ever been condemned and humiliated for that claim, or killed outright at birth if they were too small and too pale or possessed of small round ears instead of tapering tall ones.

“We go to
Fah’nak Gol
.”

He expected a reaction to that and got it in widening eyes and cries of despair. They had all heard rumors of Elvardo’s vale. It was known as
Death in the shadows
—the shadows of the mountain, where those foolhardy ogres who went seeking spoils or glory were never heard from again.

“We’re invited,” Bloodraven spoke, calling above the clamor. “Only those who venture in with spoils in mind invite the wrath of
Fah’nak Gol
and its master.”

“You’ve seen him, the wizard of
Fah’nak Gol?
”

“Human.” Bloodraven shrugged. “And not to be trifled with. But he’s given me leave to take you into his valley, which is vast and green and fertile. The place where we’ll build our village is far from him, and the surrounding wood is abundant with game. And we’ll have the protection of the witch of
Fah’nak Gol
, and of this one.”

They were uncertain. They feared. They had lost many of their own in the destruction that Yhalen had brought about. But death was no stranger to them, and they would accept it and move on as they always had. None of them could have survived otherwise.

“I’ll go,” called Fruhk, the smallest and weakest of them. Half lame from the childhood beatings of larger ogres, scarred from their cruelties and spat upon by the proudest of the full-bloods, still he stepped forward and declared his intent. “Death is death, whether it be by the hand of a warrior or by magic. I would chance it to live in village of our own, all equals.”

Kredja stepped forward, babe in arms. “Daldetjka birthed this little one and threw her out afterwards, too small and pale for her liking. I would have her grow to adulthood instead of dying at the cruel hands of larger children, as she surely will if she stays with the clan. I’ll go as well.”

With a female and the weakest of the males declared, the others began to assent, until they were all agreed. Sixteen males, two females and one babe. A pitiful showing, but better than none at all. More would hopefully follow, those who had fled to the woods and those who the ogr’rons he had sent out would bring from neighboring clans. Not the army the human king had wished, but then Bloodraven had always known that there were too few of them to match the imaginary force that the humans dreamed of.

They’d brought with them what supplies they could gather without attracting unwanted notice.

Bloodraven bid them go out and pilfer what weaponry and armor they could from the dead in the field.

They would need it for the journey to Elvardo’s valley.

He clothed Yhalen in oversized trousers and tunic while he waited, doing his best to protect him from a cold the human had little tolerance for. Yhalen endured his handling without stirring, and Bloodraven thought it was perhaps not only the blow from him that kept his human asleep, but the great usage of magicks. He recalled Yhalen drained and tired after a great healing, and what he had done this day went far beyond that.

He brushed blood-stiffened hair from Yhalen’s face, smoothing his knuckle across a smooth cheek.

There were no injuries upon his body. A great deal of dried blood, but no hint of what wounds had leaked it. Even the worst of the damage that Bloodraven had beheld while Yhalen had been tied to the execution rack on the field was entirely gone. Little wonder with the life energy that he had taken from the clan and the surrounding wood.

All this time and he had never suspected such power dwelled within so fragile a body. He doubted Yhalen had known. How could he have and endured the collar or any of the things that came with it, all that Bloodraven had forced upon him? That he’d never used that power on Bloodraven, except for the touch of healing, was curious. But he had little enough doubt that if Yhalen woke in the same state as he’d been before Bloodraven knocked him out, the oversight would be remedied.

The solution to that came skulking towards him from out of the woods. A small, pale figure, clothed in scraps of painted leather. The shaman’s albino slave, bereft of his twin for the first time Bloodraven could recall. The other was probably dead under tons of rock. This one came tentatively and held out an offering of what Bloodraven had requested. A gathering of the herbs that Wrathbone used on Yhalen to quell will and magicks.

Bloodraven sat the albino to the task of crushing the herbs and rolling them into the little balls that Wrathbone had used, watching the process and listening to the explanation of which plants to use and a suggestion of dosages. Finally, when the pale human had created a dozen or more little aromatic pellets, Bloodraven instructed him to put one in his own mouth, just in case something poisonous had been slipped into the mix.

If there had been too much hesitation or fear in the doing, Bloodraven would have doubted. But the albino only let out a tired sigh, then put one of the little pellets into his tongue and swallowed it down.