Page 15 of The Outcast Orc (Claimed by the Red Hand #1)

15

QUINN

The shaman didn’t live in a timber structure like the other orcs. His dwellings were in a hollowed-out cave system carved into the side of the bluff. It seemed like a naturally occurring space, but it was lavishly decorated with intricate carvings and strange symbols painted across the lintel. Some in chalky white, some in yellow ochre…and some clearly in the russet brown of dried blood. “Kneel for Taruut, you savage,” the shaman’s man barked, prodding me behind the knee with the butt of his spear.

I folded involuntarily to the ground, landing hard in the packed dirt, as Bess quickly knelt beside me. A curtain of small, painted bones strung together covered the broad opening—hundreds upon hundreds of bones—and they gave off a sifting clatter when the shaman came through. He was borne on his sedan chair by his team of four strong orcs, who placed him at the front of the opening, then stood with their hands resting on the hilts of the long knives at their hips.

At home, the shaman dispensed with the feathers and jewels in which he’d greeted us earlier, but his blind eyes were the same unsettling pale jade. He whiffed the air and said, “Well, if it isn’t the humans.”

The butt of a spear jabbed me in the kidney. “When the shaman speaks to you, you reply. Taruut the Wise, we are unworthy. ”

That was gonna bruise. I repeated the phrase, keeping my eyes planted on the ground at the shaman’s gnarly feet.

“Don’t punish their ignorance,” Taruut said. “I may have picked up plenty about humans and their ways on my Great Journey, but these two have yet to learn much about orcs. Now, if you see this one coming at me with a handy rock, feel free to cave in his skull.” He chuckled…though I kind of doubted he was joking. “But humans are too fragile to withstand much discipline—so save it for deliberate infractions.”

I risked a glance back at the orc with the spear…who was eyeing me like he was eager for me to pick up a rock and give him a reason to punish me.

“You will learn our ways soon enough,” Taruut said. “What’s left for me is to learn why you are here. Tossing the Ivories only told me of the one called Archibald. His purpose is clear…but yours is still shrouded in mystery. For now, the Slumbering Whale is just about ready to rouse. Let’s get the stink of the slavers’ tent off you.”

The guard was only slightly less gentle when he shoved me with the spear butt and told me to get up and walk. If I ever had the chance, I’d be sure to return the favor—though I was careful to avoid eye contact while I tried to memorize his face. Contrary to Marok’s opinion of me, I’m not stupid.

We were hustled through the bone curtain and into a huge cavern. About half of the rock formations were natural, while half were carved into chunky, fantastical shapes of animals and faces. Nothing like the effete statuary of my last employer, which was delicate, gilded, and indistinguishable from the art in any other lavish estate. But what the orcish statuary lacked in finesse, it more than made up for in scale and abundance.

Not to mention horror.

Fortifications artwork was all about symmetry, prettiness, and polish. But the carved figures in the cavern walls looked like they could tear themselves free at any moment…and eat you alive.

The forbidding entrance chamber branched off into smaller tunnels and the floor sloped down, leading us deeper into the earth. “Orcs weren’t made to live underground,” Taruut told us. “We are green, like the moss and trees and grasses, not stony gray like the dwarves and their gnomish cousins. But when the Earth offers you Her treasures, you’d be a fool to turn them down.

“Hurry, now,” Taruut instructed his porters. “The Whale is running early today—I can smell it. She’ll spout soon.” Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ve got the best nose in the village. With age comes infirmity…but also its own kind of power.”

I hurried along after him before Spear-Butt could prod a fresh welt into my back.

The tunnel was long, lit only by the occasional oil-burning lantern. What sort of fat might be smoldering, I couldn’t say. But it smelled worse than a flatulent ox.

“Sulfur,” Taruut called back. “Farts of the earth.” My skin prickled as I wondered if he’d just read my mind. Could he smell what I was thinking? Weirder things had happened. Hell, a week ago, I’d thought orcs themselves were nothing more than fairytales.

The smell thickened, as did the atmosphere, by the time the tunnel let out into a deep grotto. The large chamber was embellished, but not as aggressively as the entrance. The earth itself had done most of the sculpting here, twisting the living rock into strange and haunting forms. Stalactites dripped from the ceiling and the walls glistened with subtle striations of color. Despite the flickering of at least a dozen lanterns, the room was dark, and moist…and surprisingly warm.

In the center of the room was a bowl-shaped divot with a few inches of water on the bottom, maybe three times as wide as I was tall.

And to one side, on a pallet, was the limp body of Archie.

Immediately, images of him being sacrificed in some profane orcish ritual sprang to mind—rituals culminating with his blood painting the antechamber and his bones dangling from a doorway. But then he coughed, and shifted…and a young orc blotted his forehead with a damp cloth.

Taruut’s carriers set down his litter in what looked to be a customary spot, before a table spread with food and drink, and a curious stick with a curved tip—which the Shaman immediately picked up and used to scratch vigorously at his back. “Ahh…much better. Now, if there’s anything on you that can’t get wet, set it off to the side. Then go stand in the Bowl of the Whale. Don’t dally. She’s almost nigh.”

Neither Bess nor I had anything of value to speak of. I’d lost my good boots and belt to the slavers, not to mention my whip, hunting knife, and whatever else would fetch them a few pennies. But I toed off my crude shoes and began to strip off my shirt.

“Leave it on,” Taruut said—how did he know ? “It stinks like a slave cage.”

The guards herded Bess and me down into the stone depression and left us standing in the ankle-deep water. It was warm—again, surprisingly warm. And after two days’ marching to leave the goblins behind, it actually felt good on my tired feet. I was flexing my toes gratefully when I noticed the first bubbles. Just a few, initially. But then, before I knew it, the surface of the water was roiling harder than the stew cauldron in the mess hall. A warning tremor danced across the soles of my feet, but my mind caught up with it a split second too late.

A blast of steaming, sulfurous water knocked me off my feet. It was so powerful it filled my nose, ears and mouth. Hell, I think even my ass got a thorough clean-out, right through my trousers. The water shot high, to the top of the cave—then hit the ceiling and rained down on us in huge, fat drops. By the time I realized I wasn’t drowning and found my footing again, the blast fizzled to an abrupt stop, leaving nothing behind but a pair of spluttering wretches, the hollow sound made by a chorus of plinks and plunks….

And the rasp of thin laughter. “Oh, the looks on your faces,” Archie wheezed.

“Save your breath, young one,” Taruut told him. “I still sense the Plains of the Ancestors beckoning all around you.”

“Huh—your ancestors, or mine?” Archie murmured as his eyelids fluttered closed.

Bess’s clothes hung from her like sodden rags, and my clothes were no better. But, I had to admit, even with the lingering traces of sulfur, I smelled a heck of a lot better than I had since, weeks ago, I strode out through the Fortifications’ walls. This “purification” I’d been vaguely dreading since I’d heard about it in the village square was nowhere near as sinister as I’d feared.

Taruut raised his head and inhaled deeply. “The Great Whale sure packs a wallop. Too bad I can’t see your expressions—but you certainly do smell more reasonable. Now…let’s get on with the purification.”

My stomach sank.

The grotto of the geyser held many small offshoots. The guards prodded us into a chamber about the size of Marok’s house, with waist-high stone shelves in the walls carved from the natural rock. A massive brazier lit the room, but also filled it with a haze of smoke and the smell of smoldering herbs. Taruut’s litter was deposited before a ledge stuffed with boxes and bottles and bundles, and his bent fingers moved over his collection of herbs and trinkets, relearning their places.

“Off with the clothes,” he said, and since Spear Butt was obviously eager for a reason to give me another bruise, I quickly complied, making sure to keep my eyes off Bess. If it was hard for me, it must be twice as bad for her. It was warm in the room—even stifling—and my clothes were drenched. Still, removing them made me feel vulnerable. Like I was putting all my tenderest parts on display—and giving a very delicate target to some bully with a spear.

It didn’t help that the guard glanced down at my nakedness and smirked around his tusks.

“Now, then.” Taruut hefted a pale, fist-sized stone in his hand. No…not a stone. A porcupine skull. “Get up on the bench and we’ll see how much bad energy you’ve dragged into our village.”

Whatever I thought “purification” would involve, it definitely wasn’t this. Over the next several hours, Taruut piled us with various charms and sprinkled us with pungent herbal tinctures. He waved bundles of twigs in complicated gestures and drew patterns in the smoke from the brazier with a red-painted femur.

There were no words involved. He didn’t pray, not like the sanctimonious clerics in the Fortifications prayed while they skimmed money from their congregations’ tithings. But his motions were all guided by some internal impulse and carried out with great purpose.

Eventually, he sagged back in his sedan chair and said, “I have done all I can do. Stay here until I send for you, and clear your minds of the sour influence clinging to your spirits.”