David Dalglish - The Prison of Angels

“It’s not supposed to be this easy,” he murmured.

Antonil clapped him on the shoulder.

“If there’s bad days, then there’s allowed to be good days,” he said.

“If you insist.”

The archers had begun to join the rest of the men still flowing into the city, and Antonil went with them. Tarlak remained on the outside, watching. Something felt wrong in his gut. The orcs wouldn’t have abandoned the city, and he doubted their numbers would decrease so dramatically. More troubling, the city showed too many signs of orcish occupation. All along the walls were crude paintings, signifying allegiance to their tribal lord. From various wooden poles hung flags made of tanned hide. Their distance was too great for him to see, but he knew such decorations meant the orcs considered this land to be theirs to keep and defend.

So why such a pitiful defense?

His feelings of being cornered, of being trapped, led him to glance behind him, and it was there he saw it.

“Oh shit,” said Tarlak.

Smoke rose in great plumes from the south. Their camp.

Tarlak slammed his hands together, ripping open a portal to take him to the camp’s outer edge. Leaping through, he prepared his magic for a fight. But when he stepped out, there was nothing for him to kill. Only wreckage remained. Their tents had been smashed and ripped, the tent poles snapped. The cattle they’d brought for slaughter were in pieces, intestines ripped open and left for the swarms of flies that had already begun their feast. Worst were the wagons, and feeling himself in a dream Tarlak slowly approached. Every one of them was aflame. Corpses lay about them, throats cut, limbs broke and bodies savaged. Perhaps a hundred had remained behind, tending the animals, preparing the food. They hadn’t stood a chance against whatever force descended upon them.

The wizard shook his head, the pit in his stomach growing.

“I hate being right,” he said to himself. “Damn it, Tarlak, you know you’re allowed to be wrong for once. At least once.”

But not this time.

In the ruins of Kinamn the three gathered to discuss their options while the rest of the soldiers scavenged the city for anything useful.

“We’re fucked,” Tarlak said. “Righteously, magnificently, pants-rippingly fucked.”

“So eloquently stated,” Antonil said, sitting opposite him, a small fire between them. The sun had begun to set, but without tents, the army would have to make do with sleeping under open air or bunking in one of the many filthy homes that remained standing within the city walls.

“Truthfully stated as well,” Sergan agreed. “Whoever set this trap showed more cunning than I’d ever give an orc credit for. I looked over the bodies of the thousand left behind, and they were all runties, weak by orcish standards. They were just there to provide distraction so the catapults could get their shots in. Brutal, but efficient. Without Tarlak’s help, we’d have lost hundreds of men.”

The three fell silent, thinking over what they’d seen. Antonil in particular looked ashen in the face, taking the ambush far worse than the others.

“What do we know of their commander?” he asked. “What orc outsmarted us so easily?”

“Far as I know, Trummug still rules the bulk of the orcs, and has since Veldaren fell,” Tarlak said. “But our news from the east is pretty sparse. If Dieredon were around I’d ask him, but he’s never mentioned any major upheaval, at least not to me.”

“I checked all the flags and banners,” Sergan said. “Plenty of drawings written in blood, and most carry the same sign. It’s not Trummug’s, I know that. Instead, they all show this…”

He picked up a rolled piece of leather beside him and unfurled it. It was a flag, half the size of a man. On its dull brown surface was a symbol drawn with blood, though faded by the sun: two triangles adjacent each other, both pointed upward.

“What are they supposed to be?” Antonil asked. “Teeth? Eyes?”

“Normally I’d suggest the standard lack of artistic skill in orcs,” Tarlak said. “But I saw that drawn on the walls of the city as well as many of the buildings. Whatever it is, it’s the symbol of their new warlord. Sadly, your men were so eager for a fight they didn’t leave any orcs alive for us to question. Hopefully next time you might order them to be more careful.”

“I’ll make sure we get prisoners,” Sergan said. “My gut says we’ll be encountering raiding parties from here on out. This new commander was biding his time, waiting until the right moment to hit…and with us out of food and supplies, now is definitely the right time.”

“Enough of this orc,” Antonil said. “We’ll find him in time, and when we meet on the battlefield, we’ll crush him. For now, we have larger problems to deal with, specifically the fate of our campaign. What are our options?”

“Options?” Tarlak asked. “Just one. We turn back toward Ker and march as fast as our feet can carry us. We don’t have the food for a campaign. They slaughtered our livestock, torched our wagons, and then ran for the hills.”

“The orcs fled here in a hurry,” Sergan said, shaking his head. “It’s not quite that bad, but close. We’ve discovered various stockpiles left behind, and while I doubt anyone here will enjoy the mystery meats, nor want to know what they are, at least it’s still food. No one will be starving for a few weeks, not if we tighten our belts.”

“A few weeks?” Tarlak rolled his eyes. “Where exactly will we go in a few weeks? If Veldaren is guarded at all, we won’t be able to siege it. If we’re harassed on our way east, given even a slight delay, we’ll start leaving a trail of bodies. We can’t do this.”

“We can,” Antonil said. “We don’t go to Veldaren. We go to Angelport instead.”

Tarlak rubbed his eyes.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes,” Antonil said, glaring. “Their boats and walls have kept them safe. We can liberate their surrounding fields, barter for food, and given time, restock with supplies from the west until we’re ready to march north.”

Tarlak could hardly believe what he was hearing.

“Antonil, my king, you have to understand…this campaign is lost. Those orcs hit us exactly where it hurt the most, and if you think a besieged holdout of a city will be able to support thirty thousand additional men…”

“This campaign is not lost!”

Antonil stood, jaw trembling. Immediately he looked away, as if embarrassed for his outburst.

“It’s not,” he said quietly. “I won’t turn us around. I won’t retreat back to Mordan as such a colossal failure again. Thirty thousand men, outsmarted by brute thugs, and sent running with a mere thousand dead runties to our names? No, we strip Kinamn of every shred of supplies, then hurry toward the coast.”

“And if anyone tries to stop us?” Tarlak dared ask.

“I hope they do,” Sergan said, drumming his fingers atop the handle of his ax. “Because anyone trying to stop us will have food on them. We can make it to Angelport, I’m certain of that. Our men haven’t given up yet. To many, this was still a victory, and I have no intention of convincing them otherwise. Tarlak, you’ve summoned food before. That’s why we didn’t starve when we fled Veldaren ages ago. Can’t you do the same now?”

Tarlak sighed, felt in one of his hidden pockets of his robes.

“I don’t have enough topaz,” he said. “Not for thirty thousand. I can maybe feed our entire army for a day, maybe two.”

“That’s two days more than we had before,” Antonil said. “Don’t lose faith on me, Tarlak. Without you, we’re lost.”

Tarlak chuckled, and despite it all, he put a smile on his face and tipped his tall yellow hat.