ORCS: Army of Shadows Read Free Page B

linger.” He jogged away.
    Their target had been well chosen. Being comparatively small, the garrison was a mite easier to overcome than some of its better manned counterparts would have been. And its location, just beyond the outskirts of Taress city, meant it was conveniently isolated. Not that they could afford to ignore caution. There were likely to be patrols in the area, and reinforcements could be quickly summoned.
    Outside the fort’s broken gates the last of the raiders were scattering. Donning various disguises, they left in wagons, on horses and, mostly, by foot. The majority would head for Taress, taking different routes, and melt into the capital’s labyrinthine back streets.
    Haskeer grumpily declared that he wanted to make his way back alone. Stryke was happy to let him. “But mind what Brelan said about the curfew. And stay out of trouble!”
    Haskeer grunted and stomped off.
    “So, which way for us, Stryke?” Coilla asked.
    “Haskeer’s going that way, so…”
    She pointed in the opposite direction.
    “Right.”
    The course they chose took them through a couple of open meadows and into a wooded area. They moved at a fast clip, anxious to put some distance behind them. At their backs the fort burned, belching pillars of black, pungent smoke. Ahead, they could just make out Taress’ loftier towers, wine-red in the flaxen light of a summer’s evening.
    Not for the first time it struck Coilla how much Acurial’s rustic landscape differed from that of Maras-Dantia, the ravaged land of their birth; and how it so resembled their adoptive world of Ceragan.
    “I’m sorry,” she said.
    Stryke was puzzled. “About what?”
    “Losing the star you trusted me with, probably to Jennesta. I feel such a
fool
.”
    “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I lost the other four to her too, remember. Who’s the bigger fool?”
    “Maybe we all are. We were betrayed, Stryke. It must have been somebody in the resistance who took the star I had.”
    “Could have been. Then again…”
    “You can’t mean somebody in our band.”
    “I don’t know. Perhaps an outsider took it.”
    “You really believe that?”
    “Like I said, I don’t know. But from now on we keep things close to our chests.”
    She sighed. “Whatever. Fact is we’re still stuck here.”
    “Not if I can help it.”
    “What d’you mean?”
    “I aim to get the stars back.”
    “From Jennesta? From the whole damn Peczan empire?”
    “There’ll be a way. Meantime we’ve got our work cut out riling the humans.”
    “Well, we struck a blow today.”
    “Yeah, and the orcs of this world are waking up. Some of ’em anyway.”
    “Wish I had as much faith in them as you do. The resistance’s gaining a few new recruits, true. But enough for an uprising?”
    “The more the screw tightens, the more we’ll see joining the rebels. We just have to keep goading the humans.”
    It was nearly dusk and shadows were lengthening. With the curfew looming they upped their pace some more. The edge of the city was in sight now and lights were coming on. Patrols were a real possibility as they got nearer, and they had to move with stealth. They crossed a stream and began skirting a field of chest-high corn that waved in a clement breeze.
    Neither spoke for some time, until Coilla said, “Suppose… suppose we don’t get the stars back. If we’re stuck in this world, and whether it has its revolution or not… well, what’s here for us? What place would we have?”
    It was a thought that plagued Stryke too, although he was careful not to voice it to those under his command. His mind turned to what he would lose if they really were trapped in Acurial. He pictured his mate, Thirzarr, and their hatchlings, kept from him by the unbridgeable gulf that separated the worlds.
    “We’ll endure,” he replied. “Somehow.”
    They turned their eyes skyward.
    There was a light in the firmament, bigger than any star. It had an ethereal quality, as though it were