T Lain - City of Fire

She ran the fingers of her free hand over her tunic, fingering a few of her component pouches. Naull knew the cut of the pouch belts helped accentuate her modest curves and she was surprised to find herself flirting.

He’s my partner! she thought, a little embarrassed, but she smiled at the fighter anyway.

Looking down at her, Regdar answered her smile with one of his own. His close-cropped goatee sometimes gave him a violent, even evil look, but now it nearly made Naull laugh out loud.

“If I have time for it,” he said. “I figure I’ll be a king and you’ll be my court wizard… or jester. Depends on if you ever get better at this spell business.”

He let go of her hand and raised his arm in mock defense as Naull swiped at him again.

“I guess I’m getting used to this ironmongery after all,” he teased as he nimbly avoided another blow. He caught her wrist, lightly, on the third. “C’mon,” he said, his voice serious again. “It isn’t over yet.”

Naull straightened at the change in his voice and she nodded.

Back to business, she thought.

“You’re right. Best not wear the crown till they make you king.”

It took the party less than another hour to track the orc leader the rest of the way to his lair. Ian was right—the orcs settled in after their first few raids and looked comfortable. They laired in a small valley in the woods, a dell with good tree cover and caves in the northern side. If there were guards, they weren’t there now. Perhaps the leader called them in when he arrived ahead of them. Night lay full upon them, and the party moved in a tight, quiet mass.

“Whew!” exclaimed Early. “The smell!”

“Shut up!” Regdar hissed. Early’s voice sounded loud in the still darkness. “Everyone, hold up.”

Ian crouched near a tree, running his pale fingers up and down the trunk. In the gloom, Naull saw his bright eyes follow his hands, then his whole face turned upward. He pointed and her eyes followed his finger.

Trebba, moving gracefully and silently over the leaf and twig covered ground, came up to Ian’s tree and began climbing. The woman moved slowly at first, but seemingly found the going easier than she’d expected. Within a few seconds her black shape disappeared over the object in the tree. A few seconds after that a knotted rope slid down the trunk and into their midst.

Early grabbed the end of the rope and steadied it for Ian. The elf climbed it nimbly and soon he was gone. Naull wondered if she should follow, but at a sign from Regdar, Early and the rope slid up against the tree trunk, putting it between them and the dell.

Ian and Trebba returned after a minute or two, and the party huddled behind the tree.

Regdar turned to Ian and asked, “Could you see the lair?”

“Yes. They’ve cleared away a lot of the trees and brush down there. We missed a path they use to bring in their loot; it’s in the southeast corner. Their leader knows the area well enough he didn’t have to head for it,” the half-elf explained. “They’ve got a rough barricade on it, but I guess they anticipated success. Most of it’s been cleared away. Near as I can tell from here, they have a couple wagons filled with junk lying on the road now. Two or three strong orcs could move them, but not quickly. It looks pretty muddy down there.”

“Trebba?”

The woman shrugged and said, “Ian saw more than I did. It’s dark down there. We’re all going to need light if we’re going in. I don’t know as much about orcs as our ranger here—” Ian snorted at the compliment as if it meant nothing, but he didn’t interrupt—“but it’d be simple to place a few traps or alarms on the likely approaches. Even sharp sticks covered with leaves’d give ’em some advantage.”

Ian added, “Orcs like nasty little foot- and spring-traps, coated with their own feces or whatever poisons they can find. They’ll be unpleasant.” He waved his hand in a broad arc. “I’d expect they’ve got surprises littering the slopes all the way in.”

“Why? I thought you said they ain’t watching out,” Early asked. He pointed to the platform above their heads. “No guards. Most of ’em went out on the raid, right? They ain’t worried about anybody finding their camp, you said.”

The half-elf answered with surprising patience, “Just because they don’t expect anyone to find their nest doesn’t mean they haven’t prepared.”

“Right,” Trebba filled in. “Step on a caltrop or spring a rope trap and you’re going to make noise. Whatever we do, Regdar—” she turned to the fighter—“we’d better be careful.”

“And we’d best get going,” Ian urged. “That leader’s pretty steamed, or he will be. He’s had a little more than an hour to think about what happened to him and his warriors, and he’s going to realize he got away because there just weren’t enough of us to take him. He’s either going to want revenge or he’ll want to get out of here quick.”

“How’ll he plan revenge? I doubt he’d know where to find us.” Naull asked.

“He doesn’t have to find us,” Regdar answered. “Orcs don’t like even fights.”

“He’ll try to take revenge against the village,” Trebba added, dread in her voice.

Early’s eyes widened and the big man cursed.

“He’s not in any shape to do anything tonight,” Naull cautioned. “We could wait until morning.”

Regdar shifted uncomfortably as Trebba and Early nodded. Ian didn’t look happy, either.

“What?” Naull asked. “Am I missing something?”

The ranger and the fighter exchanged glances.

“He won’t try to get revenge tonight, no matter what,” Regdar said slowly, “but he might try to get away.”

Naull started to say that was fine with her, but both Trebba and Early jumped in.

“Get away? No!” the dark woman said.

“With all that treasure!” Early cried.

Both had their points, Naull conceded. Trebba wanted revenge for Yurgen, and Early, along with Regdar and Ian, it seemed—wanted what they all thought was the better part of their payment. Their contract with the village was fifty gold apiece, plus any of the humanoids’ loot they could recover. Even modest estimates put the potential treasure at well over a thousand gold pieces, based on what they’d heard about the earlier raids. The wizard got a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Surely,” she said, “we could at least wait until morning?”

Shrugging, Regdar looked down at Ian. The half-elf delivered the bad news.

“These orcs have been here a while. It would be just like them to have dug out a few more exits from their lair. It’s a long time till dawn. If the orc leader thinks we’re on his trail, or just doesn’t want to hang around now that we’ve wiped out one of his war bands, they could slip out a tunnel we know nothing about.”

No one in the party looked particularly happy with the thought of following the orc leader into his den in the middle of the night, but Naull was particularly unhappy about it.

“I really don’t have much more in the spell department,” she said again.

“Chances are good,” Regdar answered, “that there aren’t many orcs left in there. Like Ian said, an orc leader’s going to want to keep his warriors close. He probably took nearly all of them out on the raid.”

The fighter didn’t sound like he’d convinced himself of that, but Naull looked at the faces of the rest of the party. They’d lost a comrade and didn’t seem in the mood for rational thought.

“All right, then. What’s the plan?”

Ian could see the best in darkness, so he was to head down the slope first. They chose to approach the lair from the southwest, mainly because it looked like the easiest way down, except for the path past the wagons. No one wanted to go that way. If there were any guards, they’d be there. To the north were the caves themselves, and the slope became a cliff that way. They had no doubt that with ropes and Trebba’s assistance they could climb down and perhaps surprise the orcs from above, but since orcs could see in the dark and they couldn’t, they’d be more likely to be spotted and shot full of arrows before they could retreat.