Page 3 of The False Shaman (Claimed by the Red Hand #2)

DROKO

I set out for the Red Hand Clan without so much as a word from my father. He was too busy smoothing out his new alliance with Farya’s clan to worry about a third son he’d likely never see again. My mother gave me several things: a feather from the shaft of her old battleaxe, a bit of carved horn from the buck I’d felled on my first hunt, and some final words of encouragement.

“Remember, my Little Fearless One…not so little anymore. You serve your clan. And there can be no higher purpose.”

It was her blessing to do whatever was necessary, even if it meant I had to sacrifice myself to protect my clan. This was more than just a mission for me—it was my undoing and chance at redemption all at once.

I left without fanfare or adulation—as seemed fitting for the third son of the Two Swords Clan. I left my swords behind, since no shaman would need cold steel when he had his visions to guide him. And I left my proud armor behind as well, wearing only my practice leathers. Because what fool would dare strike a shaman?

But most of all, I left all my hopes and dreams behind. My brother had made off with not only my new home and my betrothed…but the life that should have belonged to me.

The trail between the territories of Two Swords and Red Hand was trampled flat by the tread of scores of soldiers, and one very large horse. A week ago, the road was filled with enemies and the dirt was soaked in brown orcish blood. But now, not even a scavenging raccoon lingered.

“Look at it this way,” Crespash said. “You weren’t satisfied as third son. The position of Shaman is a big step up for you.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. A shaman was not only the spiritual leader of the clan, but the advisor to the chieftain. Definitely a higher status than I’d ever aspired to. The only problem?

I didn’t have a prophetic bone in my body.

“Here’s a thought,” Crespash said. “Why don't you try crapping out a prophecy? It's not like shamans really have any special powers. They're just convincing liars.”

“That’s heresy,” I said.

“Among orcs? Maybe. But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not an orc. All I know is, you’d better have your story down by the time we get to the Red Hand Clan. The purported honor of Two Swords depends on it. They’ll decapitate you where you stand if they figure out you’re a fake.”

True enough.

“There is darkness coming,” I intoned in my most serious voice. “It will cause trouble for the clan. A problem—a big one. So…we should keep an eye out for it.”

Crespash stared at me for a long beat, then said, “That’s got to be the worst prophecy I’ve ever heard. Listen to me, third son. Here’s how it’s done.”

The goblin drew himself up, squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, and lisped, “The wind shall whisper tales of forgotten places and times, and the creatures of the dark shall stir from their slumber. Beware the coming of the full moon, for it will bring a reckoning to test the mettle of even the stoutest warrior.”

“What reckoning?”

“Huh?”

“What reckoning?” I repeated. “Is it another clan? Or dissent from within? Or maybe some ogres have decided to—”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if anyone would dare question the shaman.”

I considered his words. “The chieftain might.”

“Then claim that the mists of fate have hidden that part of the prophecy from you and shuffle off to consult with the ancestors.” Crespash yanked a pouch of dried apples from my belt, tipped the contents into his gummy mouth, then scooped up a handful of pebbles and dumped them into the empty bag. Once he’d swallowed the apples—and it took him several tries—he said, “Everything shamans do is shrouded in secrecy. Lucky for you.”

Lucky. Sure. I’d never get to wade through the battlefield with a sword in each hand.

He rehung the bag from my belt and gave it a heft. The pebbles clattered inside. “Granted, you’d be better off if your own venerated spiritual leader had given you a pointer or two. But if the Red Hand shaman took no acolytes, trained no one in his arts…who among them can say exactly what a shaman does or doesn’t do?”

Maybe all of this was true. But since when had Crespash ever tried to steer me right? “If you’re hoping to make a fool out of me—”

“I might be an asshole, but I’m not an idiot. If they find you out, what would become of me?”

He had a point.

There was still a long trek ahead of us. As we trudged through the muddy forest, the slave began to collect pieces that could be part of my shaman’s paraphernalia. Anything that looked like it could be vaguely mystical was fair game. Overhanging branches, upturned stones, rotting strips of wood—you name it, Crespash stuffed it in our packs.

By the time we approached the eastern gate of the Red Hand Clan’s village, my belt pouches were heavy and my satchel was laden with fluff, oddly-shaped rocks, an assortment of leaves and flowers, and innumerable random bones.

He even found an impressive tree branch, filled with gnarls and whorls, which he tied with feathers to create a staff—since, according to him, every great shaman must need a staff.

It was no sword. But it was better than nothing.

Soon the village loomed ahead of us, and I felt my confidence waver. Crespash sized up the pair of guards at the gate. Voice low, he said, “Just remember. They’re expecting an adept of your height and your age, with the same flecky eye coloration and the same out-turned tusks. There’s absolutely no reason for them to think you’re anyone other than who you say you are. Act cryptic and you’ll do just fine.”

I knew things were bad when Crespash offered a word of actual encouragement.

I might be no shaman, but my station as a chieftain’s son served me well. I approached the sentries with my head high, not giving the guards any reason for suspicion. I gave no sign of the relief that flooded me when the guards reflexively took a knee as they pounded their chests and said, “Praise Ul-Rott.”

The chieftain’s name might be different, but my reply was as reflexive as blinking grit from my eye. My hand fell to the hilt of my blade as I said, “My s—”

Had I really almost answered, My swords are his?

I was supposed to be a shaman, not a warrior.

And my hand rested not on a sword, but the hunk of gnarled wood we’d scavenged from the woods.

“My staff,” I managed, “is his, for the glory of the Red Hand.”

The guards rose, but didn’t open the gate. Not until a big orc with honor guard markings painted on his cheeks in white clay shoved through from the other side and demanded of the sentries, “You would keep the new shaman waiting? You’re lucky he hasn’t cursed you already.”

The guards’ postures grew a lot more deferential…though I was under no illusion that the one they bore any respect for was me.

The honor guard did not just fold to a single knee. He knelt fully, bending forward until his tusks brushed the ground. A posture of total subservience. “I am unworthy of your blessing.” He canted his head slightly and asked, “Erm…your name?”

“Droko.”

“Droko the Sage,” he finished loudly. Crespash had the good sense not to snort. “I am Gorgul, second in command of the honor guard. And it is my great privilege to serve you.”

Gorgul rose and quickly summoned a few of his lieutenants to march us through the village. Red Hand orcs stopped in the center of the walkways and bowed their heads, making room on the cobblestone paths for us to pass. I was aware that more than one pair of eyes regarded me with curiosity, but thankfully, nobody accused me of being a fraud.

Yet.

The Red Hand village was situated at the foot of a stony bluff, and it was toward this natural wall that Gorgul led us. I expected a dwelling. There was none. Back home, the shaman of the Two Swords clan lived in a grand stilted lodge. It was decorated with signs of his rank, perfumed with incense and the smell of exotic herbs and spices, and surrounded by all of his acolytes and slaves–while the shaman of the Red Hand clan apparently lived in…a cave.

The entrance was hung with a curtain of bones–scores of the tiny things, small and off-white in color, some chalky and brittle, some smooth and shiny. Fingerbones, most likely. And there was no telling what we might find beyond them.

I paused at the curtain, wishing I’d spent more time in the shaman’s lodge. Or, frankly, any time at all. At least then I would have some idea what to expect.

Gorgul paused too. He and Crespash and I all stood there looking at each other…and I wondered if my ruse would be uncovered by something as minor as my ignorance about how a shaman should walk through the door.

I steeled myself to be called out…and humiliated…and run through with a vicious, obsidian-tipped spear. But instead, Gorgul averted his eyes and said, “Forgive me, Droko the Sage. Taruut the Wise was a powerful shaman—but he was too old to walk. We carried him everywhere—so we have no order in place for a shaman who can use his own two feet. Who should lead the way? Command it, and it will be so.”

“You know the way,” I said. “Proceed.” The word even held the ring of authority.

I supposed being the third son of the chieftain was at least good for that.

Bones clattered as Gorgul pushed the curtain aside and led me into the dimness of the cave. I’d expected it to be cool. But the air inside was warm and damp, and the smell of sulfur blotted out every other scent.

The slender cave mouth soon opened into a wide, low chamber. Our guide picked up a lantern and shone it at the far wall. It was covered in carved niches that glinted with crystals, powders, jars of strange liquids, and bundles of herbs and feathers.

Back in the longhouse, despite my parentage, I’d only been allowed to keep what would fit in my footlocker. Clothing and weapons. A whetstone and some coin. And a few precious books from the library my father never bothered to visit.

Here, though, the walls were lined with trinkets and tools.

Not one of them familiar.

Thankfully, nobody stopped me on the spot and tested me on the items’ arcane uses. Gorgul led us past the carved niches and farther into the caves. His sandals slapped the stony floor as he strode forth like the soldier he was. When he spoke to point out the various hallways, the caves picked up his voice and amplified it, so it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The passageway branched, and branched again. A labyrinth. And now that we were past the entrance, it looked as though the work had been done not by mallet and chisel, but by nature. The walls were smooth and glistening, striped with different shades of dun and gray. The ceiling undulated overhead, sometimes low enough to make out the pointed daggers of rock aiming down at us, sometimes too high to see at all.

He paused before an archway etched with cryptic symbols in chalky white and brown blood. “These were the personal chambers of Taruut. We only entered to help him into his chair. And even then, we kept our eyes averted. They are yours now.”

It was dark, but still I could make out shelves full of more useless junk—jars of mysterious powders and liquids, and strange symbols hewn from bone and stone. A carved sedan chair was pushed against one wall. A sleeping pallet was cut into another, padded with hides.

An old man’s room.

I tried to imagine growing so old as to need such things. I had always presumed I would fall in battle. Most likely against this very clan. As I grappled with the bizarre turn my circumstances had taken, a scent teased at the back of my tongue. Beneath the sulfur, the air was thick with an unpleasant odor—a combination of resins, herbs, and smoke. I’d noticed that right away. But there was something else. Something darker….

“It was a few days before we realized Taruut was not just meditating,” Gorgul admitted.

Of course. The smell of death.

Gorgul seemed as eager to leave this chamber as I was. He turned smartly and led the way down another branch. “Heated waters run beneath the caves.” He showed us into a cavern where a brazier burned low, barely enough to see by. Smoke gathered at the ceiling. A bowl-shaped depression filled with water took up most of the room. “A few times a day, the Great Whale spouts. Never the same hour…but Taruut the Wise could sense the tremors of the Whale and know when the eruption was coming.”

The stone floor was slick and wet, and moisture dripped from the stalactites.

“The Whale spouted just before you got here,” Gorgul said. “It will be some time before she spouts again.”

The guard led me through various chambers, far more than I would have expected to find beyond the bony curtain that covered the fissure in the rocky cliff face. All of them were filled with dubious trinkets. Most of them smelled of disuse. There were such great stretches of twisting passageway, so many offshoots and nooks, that eventually they all blended together…until we came upon the archway leading to the shaman’s private rooms again.

I was eager to be rid of my guide, but instead of saluting me and heading off to do whatever he normally did, he cleared his throat and said, “No doubt you’re wondering why I neglected something so important in your tour.”

What was he going on about now? “You tell me.”

“The crypt.”

“The crypt,” I repeated, in the tone my father used when he wanted to watch an opponent squirm.

It apparently worked. Gorgul shifted his grip on his spear—telltale nerves—and said, “Taruut kept its location secret, so we haven’t been able to….” He winced.

“Your shaman hasn’t been laid to rest?” I demanded, shocked.

“There was no one here to perform the rites.”

I wasn’t sure which part was worse. That the old shaman hadn’t been given to the pyre like a proper orc, or that I was now expected to see him off.

Gorgul said, “Taruut’s body lies in state in the village square. The honor of sending him on his next journey is yours.”

Spewing a prophecy, I could handle. But the funeral rites of an honored shaman would give away my utter lack of shamanic skills in no time. “Surely the honor should fall to someone from his own clan.”

“You are Red Hand now,” Gorgul said firmly. “But of course, no one would expect you to prepare the body yourself. If your goblin is not up to the task, you have Taruut’s slave at your disposal.” That might work. If I got something wrong, I could always blame the slave. “Do you wish to see him?”

I made an impatient gesture, and Gorgul led me deeper into one of the innumerable tunnels we’d toured before. Lantern high, he passed a pair of guards and pushed through a stout iron gate. It was the first chamber we had encountered that was not filled with superstitious nonsense. The room was nearly empty, in fact….

Other than the practically naked human male shackled to the far wall.

My eyes went immediately to the sweep of his pale belly, bared for all to see. Utterly vulnerable. I blinked and looked away, but the sight of the tender, smooth flesh had seared itself into my mind, and I was unprepared for the strength of my reaction. In a deliberately bland voice, I asked, “What is he being punished for?”

Gorgul seemed surprised. “This is no punishment. He’s just a slippery one, is all.”

Slippery? A cascade of images came to me, unbidden. That smooth, pale belly, oiled and pliant. The sweep of his thigh. The fragile throat that was currently hidden by the tall collar….

Surely a shaman wouldn’t have such thoughts.

I’d need to watch myself.

Projecting as much boredom as I could manage, I said, “Those neck irons seem like overkill. Get rid of them.”

“As you wish, Droko the Sage.” Gorgul gestured toward the other guardsmen and they immediately set to work removing the bonds. “You are the shaman.”