Lich for Hire

Chapter 383: A Grudge Ten Generations Old

Even where holy light holds dominion, darkness finds its way in.

In a small border town on the edge of Lyon's territory, a gaunt orc in rags hung bound in a dungeon cell.

Under ordinary circumstances, Lyon prohibited torture as an instrument of interrogation. But this was an orc. In the Lyon Empire, orcs did not count as people. Every law in the empire was built on the premise of human supremacy, and that premise had consequences.

Beyond that, Lyon had fought several wars against the orcs, which made this particular orc's appearance in the desert deeply suspicious. He had been found half-dead, so dehydrated he was nearly mummified by the sun, and still they had thrown him in a cell.

They needed to know where he had come from and what he was doing in the desert.

If they could wring useful information out of him, that would be a serious accomplishment. The people of this border region, who hailed from towns recently absorbed into Lyon, were in a particular hurry to prove their loyalty.

Most residents of these newly incorporated cities were natives of the desert. Under Lyon's usual policy, an extended educational program would have gradually reshaped them into proper Lyon citizens. But Lyon had too many other problems at the moment, and the newly appointed High Inquisitor had taken a different approach from his predecessor.

Where the previous High Inquisitor had balanced firmness with flexibility, the new one had embraced extremity. The teachings of the Lord of Dawn were being propagated with a fervor that left no room for gradual conversion. The result was that the desert people could now recite the prayers by rote—but recitation and genuine faith were very different things, and the internal difference showed.

The pressure for results, however, was immediate. Recitation wasn't enough. Small-scale "mutual oversight" campaigns had taken hold: if you thought your neighbor lacked sufficient devotion, you would report them to the Tribunal, and a priest would arrive to examine whether they harbored heretical or seditious tendencies.

The examinations tended to produce the expected findings. A few weeks was nowhere near enough time to produce genuine converts. After several rounds of reporting and subsequent examination, these cities had become hotbeds of restless anxiety. The signs of instability were unmistakable.

The heavy defeat on the battlefield had added fuel to the situation. Some among the desert population had begun to openly wonder whether a return to dwarven rule might have been preferable.

A rebellion broke out, but was suppressed quickly. Lyon's paladin forces couldn't beat the githarks, but they had no trouble with domestic insurgents.

The rebels were purged. What followed was a period of even more acute suspicion, with everyone scrambling to establish their own loyalty before someone else established it for them.

An orc in a dungeon was a convenient opportunity. Get him to confess to being a spy, hand that confession upward, and everyone in the chain could claim a share of the credit. No one expected a reward beyond a few nights of sleep that didn't involve worrying about being reported to the Tribunal.

They had brought him in and given him a few strokes of the lash, then stopped. He looked far too close to death. If they killed him, the credit would only be worth half what a live prisoner would fetch.

One of the guards said to the other, "He's barely breathing. Should we give him some water first?"

"Go ahead. I'll check his belongings for anything useful."

The first guard went over and poured two mouthfuls of water into the desiccated orc. The orc stirred, and his faint voice emerged: "Meat. I want meat."

A slap landed on his face before he could finish. "Meat? Even I don't get meat every day. You're a prisoner. You get nothing, not even stale bread."

Several more slaps followed, leaving one side of the orc's face swollen. He didn't cry out. He just let his eyes drop, as if afraid to look at them directly.

The guard walked back to his partner, rubbing his stinging palm. "Anything?"

"Nothing worth taking. An empty water skin, and not a single copper coin. Just this."

A book emerged from the orc's pack, wrapped carefully in oilskin. It was heavy, thick, and clearly old.

"The title is... Introduction to Divination Magic? I've heard of diviners somewhere. Is this a spellcasting manual?"

The two guards opened the book. The individual words were legible, but the sentences they composed dissolved into incomprehensibility. The diagrams were worse: elaborate patterns that made the eyes swim and left a faint dizziness after only a brief look.

The orc, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "Put that down. It is a family heirloom."

"A family heirloom? Can orcs even read this? Your heads are too thick."

"It's obviously stolen. He stole it and ran off, then collapsed in the desert once he ran out of water. That's gotta be it."

The two guards talked it over between themselves, building a tidy narrative around the prisoner's guilt. In their confidence, they missed the fact that the ropes around the orc's wrists had come loose.

The orc's body seemed to have contracted slightly; the loops at his wrists and ankles could now be slipped free without effort. He had been sitting still, letting them believe he was still bound.

The guards kept leafing through the book. One of them was too rough.

With a faint tear, a yellowed page developed a rip that ran most of its length.

The guards exchanged a glance of mild alarm. Damaging the loot might cause them to be reprimanded. Still, they could blame the orc—that was what they were thinking until sudden darkness befell them.

The candles in the dungeon had gone out simultaneously. One of the guards fumbled for a flint and got a candle relit. Then he screamed.

In the light of the flame, he saw his partner lying in two pieces. The orc who had been half-dead moments ago was bent over what remained of the man's neck, eating.

The surviving guard's legs turned to jelly. He scrambled for the door on hands and knees, and found he couldn't move. He was sinking into his own shadow as if it were quicksand.

Soon, only his head remained aboveground.

Thus immobilized, he watched the orc finish off his partner and leave behind nothing more than a bloody skeleton.

The orc belched with visible satisfaction. His withered, slack body had filled out entirely. The musculature that emerged was dense and sleek—the kind of build that, had it been visible from the start, would have warranted chains rather than rope.

But it was too late for that now. The orc walked up to the guard, blood still staining his mouth, and said, "Earlier, you mentioned you'd heard the name before. Where?"

"Name? What name? Please, don't kill me! I'll get you out. I swear I'll get you out!"

The orc shook his head. "I'm not leaving. I'm looking for the author of that book, the Elden Lord. You've heard of diviners, haven't you? That means you know something."

"If I tell you, will you spare me?"

The orc extended one hand, took hold of one of the guard's ears, and tore it off. He put it in his mouth and chewed.

The guard screeched in pain, hoping to summon reinforcements, but the sound seemed trapped within the walls of the room.

"Talk, or I'll eat you alive. I promise you'll still be conscious when I reach your heart."

The guard broke. "The diviner I know about banished the whole of the Unholy Kingdom. He's not in that book. It's a different person."

The orc's hand closed around the other ear. "His name?"

"Megaman or something—he's a lich! He's at the top of Lyon's most wanted list!"

"That's all? Do you know where he is?"

"No. Somewhere out at sea, probably. After he banished the Unholy Kingdom, it was replaced by the ocean. He must have gone there for some reason. You'd have to hurry. If he's roaming, you'll miss him. I can get you out of the city fast. No one would know, I swear—"

The orc snapped his neck. Then, almost as an afterthought, he pulled off the remaining ear and ate it too.

When he was finished, he wiped his hands methodically, took the ancient book, and stored it carefully away.

He hadn't been lying when he called it a family heirloom. It was, but it was no treasure. It was a reminder, one passed from generation to generation, so that none of his bloodline would ever forget the debt that needed settling.

Many years ago, his family had held genuine standing. They were respected nobility in the orc empire.

Then they had encountered the author of that book, a man who called himself a diviner. He had taken everything the family possessed through deception, then used them to manufacture a conflict with the imperial court. The adult men were executed. The women were pressed into military service. The children were enslaved.

Generations passed. His bloodline thinned. Ten generations later, only one descendant yet remained: the young orc standing in this dungeon.

He had started life as a slave. When Lyon invaded, he had been thrown into the front lines as expendable infantry—and had somehow come back with several Lyon paladin skulls to his name. That performance was enough to restore him to civilian status and his original name: Kalgore Kruman.

The name meant a warrior of strength and endurance, and Kalgore Kruman had never given anyone reason to doubt it.

The day the slave brand was removed, he left. He had no attachment to the orc kingdom: he had been nothing but property. With the brand gone, there was no reason for him to remain.

He took the book, the only thing the family had preserved across all those generations, and began his journey of revenge.

He was looking for the Elden Lord. Failing that, the man's descendants would do. Someone's blood would answer for what had been done.

He had no idea where to start, so he walked and asked questions. He had advanced to legendary rank somewhere along the way, quietly, without anyone noticing.

He wasn't entirely certain what his abilities amounted to. He could manipulate shadows, turning them into extensions of himself, weapons, passages. The ability let him move through terrain without leaving traces, which had served him well crossing through the mountain ranges and into Lyon's territory undetected.

Then he reached the desert, and encountered a problem he hadn't expected.

This was his first time leaving the orc lands, and his first time seeing a desert. He had not understood that you could walk for days without finding water.

The golden expanse had dazzled him and then weakened him steadily. If years of slavery hadn't conditioned him to endure hunger and thirst at levels that would break most people, he would have died out there.

These two Lyon guards had the misfortune of finding him. They had thought themselves lucky.

Kalgore Kruman put the book away, and spoke quietly to no one in particular. "The sea? I've never seen it either. Might as well, I suppose."

His body dissolved into shadow and vanished.