Throne Hunters Book 3, Chapter 17

The three orcs actually glanced at each other.

Harald spread his arms, that visceral joy arising within him. There was no moral complexity here. No debating what he should do.

Here in the dungeon, might made right. Here it was kill or fall to the enemy. Here one got to exert themselves to the utmost, in a crucible of the Fallen Angel’s own devising.

He wanted them to come at him all at once. He wanted them to give him their best. To come bellowing and die screaming as he unseamed their bodies with -

A warm glow washed over him, a grounding hum of comforting stability. He felt the bloodlust die away, wither on the vine, and he came to himself, blinked out of that state of violent arousal.

The orcs gathered themselves, blades raised, but before they could spring forward Harald gestured and the Goldchops burst forward. They spun like molten meteors and passed through the three orcs before they could do more than swing futilely in defense.

Blood, severed limbs, ruptured skulls, and they went down in a pile from which he couldn’t quite determine which piece belonged to which orc.

“You still with us, Harald?”

Sam, halfway out the trapdoor, face ashen at the sight of the massacre.

“Yeah, yeah.” He passed his hand over his face. The orc that he’d cut in half lay steaming at his feet, the necrotic energy still darkening the edges of its shorn muscles, blackening the exposed bones. “Thanks.”

Sam visibly forced herself to swallow, and climbed up into the slaughterhouse air. From behind came the reaver hobgoblins, and Harald was partially gratified, partially horrified at how each one slowed at the sight of the dead orcs, their deeply set eyes flicking over to him as if seeing him anew. Looks of sobered respect entered their pugnacious features, and one by one they moved to the side of the room until Wirmas entered last.

“Well, well,” said the albino boss. “Looks like you’ve not lost your touch, Praetor.”

“Hard to lose when you’ve got a Masterwork Artifact with you,” allowed Harald. The stench of blood was thick in the air, humid and dense and close. “Let’s collect the scales and move on.”

Wirmas gave a curt nod to the reavers, who opened a heavy door and led into a broad corridor. Sounds filtered in toward them from the depths of the keep. Distant hammering, raucous shouts, the sound of a camp.

“Up ahead is the main yard,” said one of the reavers. Harald was having a devil of a time telling them apart. “The main body of the troops are quartered there.”

“How many, you reckon?” asked Wirmas.

The reavers glanced at each other, as if silently conferring.

One shrugged. “Thirty?”

“Then they’re ours. Let me through.”

Harald collected some sixty Silvers and hurried after.

Wirmas led them down the hallway to the great archway at its end, and then out into the open air.

The green miasma pressed down upon them, so close it wisped across the high points of a shattered tower, turned the sentries up on high into ghosts.

The camp was about the same size of Wirmas’ former base. A mass of tents and barrels, guy ropes and tables, weapon racks and sleeping rolls.

Scores of hobgoblins were busy at camp activities. Some sat in groups around neatly built fires set in holes excavated into the stone floor. Others gathered around water barrels. Some lay sleeping, arms crooked over their eyes. Others ate standing or seated at rough plank tables.

They all turned in surprise as Wirmas emerged into their midst, his arms outstretched.

Harald glimpsed this from the back, peering from between the massed ranks of the reavers.

“Listen to me, everyone!” Wirmas’ voice had that familiar crackle, that resonance of authority that Harald now knew to be lethal to hobgoblins. “I am King Wirmas, your new boss. All of you are now my servants, and under me will find more loot, glory, and victory than you’ll know what to do with.”

The reavers filtered into the square, and Harald noted the stares of the new hobbos, all of them taken aback by the size and ferocity of the new troops.

“All of you up there, come down.” Wirmas pointed at the sentries, some of which had half-heartedly raised their bows. “You all, come before me. Kneel!”

Slowly, like turgid waters, Thrukor’s camp obeyed. The closest approached, hesitant, fascinated, and knelt. More came in from behind. Sentries descended from their posts. Rank upon rank knelt before Wirmas, who stood with his hands upon his hips, golden cloak hanging rakishly to his calves.

“What is this?” A new voice, outraged and trembling with anger. “Who dares? All of you, up! To arms! Weapons! What is this madness?”

Thrukor, come to lose heart and faith in his own kind.

The hobgoblin boss was a mass of scars, his face puckered by old wounds, his frame stout and his armor practical. He strode out of a red tent, tossing a chicken bone aside as he did, and then stopped to gape at his entire warband paying obeisance to a stranger.

“The day has come,” called Wirmas. “Where you are revealed to be weak and of no account. My condolences. Your soldiers are now my soldiers. And they are the better for it.”

And the hobgoblins began to change.

There had to be some thirty, thirty-five of them kneeling with their heads bowed, and as one they began to grow, their backs to broaden, their shoulders rounding with muscle, their necks corded. Their dusty red skin darkened, their armor blackened, their ranks thickening.

“Fuck me,” whispered Thrukor hoarsely.

“In due time,” said Wirmas. “All of you. Up.”

Thirty-five reavers rose like a dark forest of implacable warriors. They stared with dour fealty at their pale king.

“Good.” The pleasure in Wirmas’ voice rippled. “Now. Kill Thrukor.”

The back rank spun about and fell upon their former boss, who roared and drew his scimitar, but it was over before he could do more than slash once. The reavers seized hold of him, overwhelming him swiftly, and cut him down.

Sam moved closer to Harald, taking hold of his arm.

“Good, good,” said Wirmas again, then canted his head to one side and glanced back at Harald. “Praetor. What now?”

Near fifty reavers turned at the question to stare at Harald.

The sight was intimidating. They all loomed. Harald didn’t fancy his chances against them, even with the Goldchops.

“I told you. It’s Harald. And now we move on. We’ve fifty more reavers to recruit, and then we’re going to get to work harvesting scales.”

“Perfect.” Wirmas smiled his grin of translucent fangs. “Where’s the next closest camp?”

“Murgash’s camp is that way,” called one, pointing.

“Vorlax is over that way,” called another.

“Lead on to Murgash,” said Wirmas, rubbing his hands. “The night is young and I’ve a mind to crush more dreams.”

The reavers filed out of the court. Such were their numbers that Harald and Sam had to wait for what felt like a long time before they could follow.

“This is…” Sam sought the right words. “I don’t know. Like nothing I expected in the dungeons.”

“Thank you, by the way. For back there. Your Beacon. It brought me back to myself.”

Sam nodded mutely and kept her arm looped through his.

They traversed more of the ruins. A maze of shattered rooms contained within a large shell of a keep, over a bridge to a series of ledges that led down and down into the murky depths.

The last ledge opened into a large courtyard in whose far wall opened a formidable archway flanked by brightly burning torches. A dozen hobgoblins stood before this with pikes, their armor gleaming dully in the gloom and firelight. By the time Harald stepped down into the courtyard and saw what was going on, Wirmas already had them kneeling.

“Are we even needed?” Sam stared, fascinated, as the new soldiers became reavers. “Could we just send them on ahead to bring back scales?”

“I trust Wirmas, but…” Harald studied the distant boss who was lecturing his new troops, his voice thick with self-satisfaction. “I think it best to keep an eye on him.”

“He’s your Servitor,” said Sam. “He can’t work against you.”

“No, but maybe he can forget the spirit of my commands, obey just the letter. I don’t know. I want to keep close.”

The reavers passed through the archway, Wirmas safely ensconced in their center, and even as Harald and Sam shuffled after from the back he could hear the echo of Wirmas’ shouted commands.

Murgash’s camp fell just like Thrukor’s, though Harald didn’t see it happen. Too many backs formed a wall he couldn’t squeeze past in time to witness the conquest. There was some fighting, but it ended quickly. By the time he emerged into the enemy camp he saw a handful of dead orcs thrown against a far wall. Murgash had been torn apart like Thrukor, and another warband was theirs.

“Most esteemed Praetor,” gurgled Wirmas, near drowning in delight. “I mean, excuse me, Harald. My authority is stretched as far as it will go. A hundred reavers now are ours to command.”

Harald couldn’t even see them all. Murgash’s camp was a warren of rooms, many with their walls partially battered down, but everywhere he looked he saw massive, crimson hobgoblins studying him with unfriendly eyes.

If Wirmas were to die, he realized, there was no telling what the reavers might do.

“Command them all to obey me whether or not you’re present,” said Harald, trying not to sound nervous. “Tell them that I am their greatest war chief.”

“Harald, you sound scared,” said Wirmas. “You have nothing to fear, I promise.”

“Even so.”

Wirmas turned and repeated Harald’s words, his voice echoing through the low-ceilinged warren of rooms.

“There,” said Wirmas. “Though once I am dead or dismissed my authority will disperse. I would not count on my orders being obeyed for long.”

“My worries exactly,” said Harald. “But enough. We’ve got our reavers. It’s time to hunt.”

“Vorlax?” asked Wirmas.

“Vorlax,” agreed Harald. Sam was collecting Silvers from the dead orcs and nodded when she was done.

Their forces no longer counted as a warband, but now moved as a small army, a great mass of muscled bodies that picked their way through the ruins with single-minded purpose. Wirmas strode in their heart, and this time Harald made sure to stay close at hand in case he needed to give the hobbo boss fresh orders.

Their force was crossing along a broad walkway when a challenging shout came echoing from close by. Harald twisted about and saw an orc band some twenty strong emerging from a distant keep. They pointed excitedly and began to race down a steep ramp toward the visible reavers.

But more reavers kept emerging into view.

The orcs’ charge quickly lost momentum and then came to a stop.

The reavers formed a line five wide at the base of the ramp and twenty deep. They carried their customary longbows, and these they now raised at Wirmas’ command and nocked with black feathered arrows, drawing the fletching to their backswept ears.

“What the fuck!” roared the lead orc, his amazement winning out over his outrage.

“Loose!” shouted Wirmas.

A hundred clothyard arrows flew at the orc warband which turned to flee. They were slain where they stood, hit with such force that they were carried off their feet to hit the stone slope and roll as much as the arrows that pincushioned them would allow.

And like that twenty orc berserkers were slain.

“Good,” called Wirmas. “Bows away. Up we march.”

The reavers proceeded up in the neat martial order that all hobgoblins possessed. They stepped over the corpses. Harald and Sam hurriedly snatched up the Silvers, shoving them in their pouches, each pocketing some sixty brightly gleaming scales.

It was hard to tell time in the dungeon. The green glowing mist never really changed. Had they been down here half a bell or two?

Soon enough their front reached the edge of Vorlax’s domain. Sentries posted in a high tower blew a warning horn but the note was cut off when a rain of arrows slashed up through the belfry.

Their reavers stood before a ruined gatehouse, twin stubby towers flanking a great archway filled with a badly repaired portcullis of rusted iron. Bonfires blazed fitfully at the base of each tower. There was movement behind the arrow-slit windows, and then arrows lanced out to fall into their numbers.

“Take the towers!” yelled Wirmas, and the reavers leaped to obey.

They rushed the old portcullis and simply leaped upon it, one after another until the weight of their numbers proved too much for the wretched and warped iron. The mass of it collapsed inward with a great metallic scream, and the reavers picked themselves up even as their fellows raced past them, bifurcating to cut left and right and enter the base of the towers.

But they suffered their first losses. Defending arrows dropped some five reavers, even as a lean troll appeared at the top of a tower, a great cannister arrow nocked to his bow.

“Wirmas!” Harald pointed. “Take him out!”

“Arrows!” shouted the hobgoblin boss. “Up there!”

The back ranks nocked and loosed, but the troll was too swift. His bolt fell amongst the massed ranks and detonated, sending heavy bodies flying.

But the hail of arrows forced him into hiding, and archers remained wary and ready. The troll tried to rise up one last time, but a storm of arrows drove him back into hiding.

Fighting was taking place inside the towers. Harald could see flickers of movements through the arrow-slit windows, could hear screams, bellows, shouts of frustration.

“Main force incoming!” shouted a reaver posted by the fallen portcullis. The remaining forty or fifty reavers passed through the gate, Harald and Sam carried along, and up ahead was another broad stone yard, flanked on both sides by steps and low walls that faded into the green mist.

Vorlax had brought the war to the invaders, but his force was too small. Harald studied the distant boss with something akin to horrified sympathy; this leader was gaunt and tall, and his fury was visible on his weathered rust-red face.

The battle was fought with the discipline and precision of the hobgoblin race. Rear ranks loosed arrows as the front charged. Harald ducked and sidestepped bolts that came too close, Sam’s Shield of Valor floating overhead to provide cover, and watched as the two forces clashed.

It was some fifty reavers against almost as many hobbos. Vorlax clearly led an unusually large band.

But Wirmas pressed close to the front, and where his baleful influence fell, the enemy grew weak and slow.

Which was a terrible combination when matched with the reavers’ might and speed.

It wasn’t a battle, Harald realized. It was butchery. The reavers cut down their foes with precision and barely controlled fury. The arrows did the most damage, but it took two or more to stop a reaver altogether. As soon as it started the battle was over, the reavers rolling back the enemy, overwhelming them, and then falling upon the archers who dropped their bows and formed a wall before Vorlax.

Arrows began to fall upon the defenders. Harald glanced up. The tops of both towers were crowded with reavers.

An arrow took Vorlax in the throat, and when he fell the survivors dropped to their knees. Only Wirmas’ scream of command stopped the reavers from hewing them apart. The dozen survivors were rounded up and brought to him, whereupon Wirmas recruited them to his force, replacing his fallen with fresh soldiers.

Harald and Sam stood to one side.

He felt slightly numb.

Wirmas ordered the scales to be collected and brought to him. The reavers performed with the same precise thoroughness, and soon Wirmas approached, a cloak wrapped around the mass of scales to form a bulging sack.

“Esteemed Praetor, your most humble servant, Wirmas, is proud to present you with this booty.” The albino hobgoblin set the sack upon the ground and allowed it to fall open.

A mass of Silver Starbursts poured forth.

“That’s… that has to be… two hundred? No. Three hundred Silvers?” whispered Sam.

“Are you pleased, Harald?” Wirmas’ tone was mocking. “Or is there perhaps room in your heart for a few more scales? My reavers have told me of another boss camp not far from here. A certain Maldrek thinks himself powerful. We could disabuse him of the notion.”

“Right,” said Harald. “That would be… great. Thank you.”

Wirmas bowed. “If I lived, I would say it is only to serve.”

He barked a command, and a reaver picked up the cloak, balled it back up, and slung the mass of scales over one broad shoulder.

The next few hours became a blur of brutally executed mass combat, all of it tinged with green mist and fought through ruined rooms, along treacherous walkways, in archways or amidst campgrounds.

Harald and Sam trailed after. Occasionally he caught sight of Shadowpaw moving in the periphery, taking down a hobgoblin sentry, and the sight always warmed his heart.

Because slowly, surely, he realized he was coming to hate Wirmas. No matter that the boss obeyed his every command to the letter. It was the Servitor’s unending sarcasm, his mocking politeness, the fake obsequiousness. After each victory his language became more flowery, his manner more deferential, and Harald’s sense of control over the situation more tenuous.

It was as if the massacres had taken on a life of their own.

And no doubt it was Sam’s influence, too. Without her he might have embraced the carnage, strode at the forefront and taken part in the killing. But with her there he felt himself, and was painfully aware of her horror. No matter how many deaths they saw, she never ceased to be taken aback by the acts of greater violence, the brutality of the assaults, the scale of the killings.

He’d originally intended to wipe the entire 16th Level clean, but after who knew how many bells he called an end to the assault.

“Are you sure, Praetor?” Wirmas seemed genuinely taken aback. “Have you grown tired? I could ask my reavers to fashion a palanquin of some kind and carry you from battle to battle.”

“No. Enough. We’re done.” Harald drew himself up. “We go back to the portal.”

“Very well.” Wirmas bowed low. “Return we shall.”

They retraced their steps, and who knew how much later finally saw the portal appear around a corner. Sam exhaled in relief.

Wirmas drew close.

“Before we’re quit of this place,” whispered the hobgoblin, “do you want me to order the reavers to kill each other? You’ll reap their hundreds of scales, and allow them the ultimate honor of serving you in death as well as in life.”

Harald stared in shock at Wirmas. “You’d do that?”

“Of course, Harald.” Wirmas’ lips parted so that his fangs gleamed wetly. “Anything and everything for you. What is the worth of hobgoblin lives if they can furnish you with a few more scales? We’re not even real, are we? Slaughter us like livestock. You can do it yourself, if you like. Work your way down the line, cutting each throat as Sam collects the scales.”

Sam covered her mouth with her hand.

“No,” said Harald hoarsely. Because there was logic to what Wirmas suggested, but also horror, true horror. “Command them to leave. They’ve… they’ve served us well. They can go now.”

“You’re sure?” Wirmas quirked his head. “How curious. How strange. Perhaps you’ve grown fond of them? Fond of me? Has my service pleased you, Harald?” Wirmas stepped in close. “Are you grown fond of me?”

“Dismiss them, Wirmas. That’s an order.”

Wirmas leaped back and fell into a deep bow. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Reavers! Flee from here! You are discharged from your service!”

The huge hobgoblins who stood massed to one side turned to stare, quizzical, and then, without protest, without a word, simply scattered. They ran back along the ledge, passed through narrow doors, and in moments were gone, all hundred of them.

“There,” said Wirmas. “Gone from sight -”

Harald banished Wirmas back to the Cosmos. The pale hobgoblin disappeared and was gone.

“Thank the Fallen Angel,” shuddered Sam. “I couldn’t stand another moment with him.”

“Agreed.” He stared at the sacks of scales that had been left at their feet. “You go on ahead. I’ll toss the sacks through.”

“You sure?”

“Shadowpaw is still here somewhere.” Harald smiled grimly. “And I’ve the Goldchops. I’ll last a few moments more.”

“All right.” Sam moved up to the portal, then glanced back at Harald. “I understand how what we did was clever. But I didn’t like it, Harald. Not at all.”

Before he could answer, she stepped into the portal, and was gone.