Chapter 8
Kof
Had the larders been depleted? I couldn’t tell. But the deer head was on salt, awaiting Ul-Rott’s pleasure. So the quartermaster hadn’t disposed of it.
It worried me. In his warnings about the tainted meat, Quinn had seemed so sure of himself. Then again, he always did.
It all came down to Eli. He’d traveled more than any of us. And he hadn’t noticed the spread of any sickness.
Then again, Quinn had claimed the malady took time to make itself known, and the Lost Clan only stayed in one place until the light of the next full moon.
I’d need to think on it.
The next day, once a night of turning the problem around in my mind yielded nothing, I sought out Archie’s opinion. He could contradict himself in the space of a single sentence and still make perfect sense. I didn’t really understand it. But his perspective always shed light on things.
I found Archie crushing herbs in the apothecary. All of the tables had been lowered to accommodate Taruut in his chair, which meant anyone else would need to stoop to use them. But they were the perfect height for the human.
Archie wore a simple linen tunic, the type of thing you’d wear under your armor, and a pair of loose-fitting trousers he’d cut off just below the knee.
His feet were bare. He says the caves are hotter than a sweaty ballsack at the height of summer.
But I notice he wears a silken scarf Droko gave him under his tunic anyhow.
His coppery hair was tucked behind an ear, threatening to fall into his eyes. It had grown since he got here. Human hair grows fast.
An array of tools were within easy reach—including several knives.
He greeted me with, “Just in time. There’s a stubborn pile of seeds in that mortar that could use your attention.”
Not a command. More of a suggestion. Yet another way humans were so different from us.
I took up the pestle and began to grind. The seeds released a smell like green grass and pepper. It was good work—mindless and repetitive—and I took care not to leave any hull unbroken.
“You don’t have to do it that fine.” Archie took the powder, then handed me a string of tough, leathery pods to be broken open.
I twisted one until it split and dumped the contents into a basket. “Where you are from, how many meanings are there the word fine?”
“Well, there’s fine as in the opposite of coarse. And fine as in adequate. And, of course, the fine you pay for violating some ridiculous morality statute that no one ever abides by—”
“What about when there’s something wrong…but you say you’re fine.”
“I’ve never said that to you, have I?”
No, but he often claimed to be fine whenever Droko managed to offend him. In fact, he said it very loudly. With a dangerous edge to his voice.
I shrugged.
Archie turned to a pot simmering on a low brazier where herbs steeped in wine.
He strained it into a bottle through a bit of cloth, stoppered the bottle, and gave it a shake.
“For all that we speak the same language, you greenfolk can be surprisingly tone deaf. Think with your ears for a change instead of your nose. It’s not always what you say, but how you say it. ”
He took the pips from me and slotted them among the other medicinal plants, then cast the pods onto the flame, where they smoked gently and filled the chamber with the sweet scent of earth.
Then he handed me a tray filled with all the various concoctions he’d just created.
“Come along, then, and help me in the infirmary, and I can puzzle out why you’re suddenly in need of a human interpreter.
” He waved a hand toward a stockpile of jars.
“And bring that pile of remedies I’ve been slaving over with you. ”
Archie truly had been hard at work. His compounds filled dozens of the huge clay vessels.
It was more than I could carry alone, but the young guard stationed in the hall wouldn’t make anything of our conversation.
The thing about Grok is he’s dumb as a rock, the men always said.
But he would do as he was told without asking any questions.
Grok and I hauled the jars along behind Archie, who carried just a single bottle.
The infirmary was at the end of a long, winding passage hewed into the stone by underground rivers long gone.
The walls gleamed with moisture and the floor sloped down.
The passage opened into a broad room with a natural basin in the floor.
If the caves were hotter than a sweaty ballsack at the height of summer, the infirmary was a ballsack in a stewpot.
The stone slabs surrounded the basin had been put there by Taruut so he didn’t have to stoop down to tend the wounded on the ground.
Initially, Archie had tried to pad them out with rushes to make them more “comfortable,” but the plants quickly grew moldy in the damp heat.
One slab held a warrior who’d been gutted by a hobgoblin in the recent battle—he was unlikely to pull through, but you never know.
On another lay Ulka…shivering as though she was on a long guard duty at the height of winter.
I thought orcs didn’t get sick.
Archie approached the slab and uncorked his potion. “Okey doke, hope you’re thirsty—”
“You again?” Ulka snarled. Her words were slurred. “I want the shaman.”
“And as I’ve so patiently explained, Ul-Rott wants him just as much as you do…so you’re getting me. Now, open wide and take your medicine.” He spoke brusquely, but lowered the flask to her mouth with great care.
“Tastes like goblin piss,” Ulka muttered.
And then…something clicked. Back at the feast, the goblin slave—his flagon was so familiar to him, it was more like an extension of his arm.
Just like Ulka and her bow. He’d never once dropped it—until then.
I scanned the chamber, but he wasn’t there.
Of course not. No one would deem a slave worthy of the attention of Droko the Mystic.
“Izzat you, Kof?” Ulka’s voice was weak. “C’mere, come closer.” She gestured for me, and her hand was sure. For a heartbeat, I thought that Archie’s potion must be working. But then she began to shake even harder than before.
I didn’t want to go anywhere near her. I couldn’t stand the sight of a proud fighter brought low without so much as a single blow from an enemy. But we were old friends, even if it was so long ago I didn’t quite remember. And so I approached her.
Ulka said, “How many days and nights you must have stewed in these caves while your empty eye socket festered. I don’t know how you could stand it. Someone should slit my throat so they can carry me out and toss me on the pyre.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped. “You could be fine when you wake up tomorrow.”
Fine, as in adequate? Or fine, as in a word I chose because I didn’t want to say what I truly meant…which was that Quinn’s notions of tainted game were haunting me. And that if Ulka went to sleep, I wasn’t so sure she would wake up again.
Ulka’s head lolled as she shivered. I thought maybe sleep would take her after all, but then she said, “Remember when you convinced me to let you put your hands up my shirt?”
I had no memory of this. Not even a glimmer. Luckily, it didn’t seem she expected a response. She went on, “I thought we’d eventually marry. But when you went into Taruut’s caves, you never came out again. It was for the best. I had a good husband. Strong and proud.”
Her husband had fallen in battle many years ago. “He was a capable warrior,” I agreed.
“Besides…you’re not the same as you were, anyhow.”
I’d had enough of dredging up the past. But Ulka’s malady saved me from having to say so. Her breath hitched and she went rigid, back arching up off the slab like her strung bow. Her body twisted painfully, then collapsed back on the stone.
I figured she was unconscious. But her words were clear enough when she spoke again. “I know where this curse came from.”
Did she? If our best hunter backed up Quinn’s ideas about the tainted meat, the quartermaster would surely take notice. “Tell me.”
“The human,” she said. I was so sure she was agreeing with Quinn, it took a moment for me to realize she wasn’t talking about him at all. “Those strange markings all over his body—him so eager to touch the chieftain’s table. Anyone can see he’s cursed.”
She blamed Eli.
“He’s not cursed.”
“But those markings—”
“They mean nothing. If the human truly carried some vile magic, wouldn’t the entire Lost Clan be riddled with sickness as well? I saw no signs of it among them.”
“Mark my words, Kof. Pretty soon I won’t be the only one laid out like a felled animal.”
“Where Archie can see to your treatment,” I told her. She scoffed. I said, “If the human brought the sickness, then a human can cure it.”
Ulka rolled onto her side and put her back to me. “You’ve changed,” she said, then went silent.
I followed Archie to his chambers, ruminating on Ulka’s words. If tell of this supposed “curse” got back to Ul-Rott….
I glanced at young Grok. He was busy digging something out from under his fingernail and showed no sign of having heard the accusation at all. Besides, he seldom left the caves. I sent him back to his post and followed Archie into his apothecary.
Archie stepped into the center of the chamber and turned dramatically to face me. “I knew something was eating you—I just didn’t know what. Spill it, Kof. Tell me all about this new human. And don’t leave out a single thing.”
What was there to tell? Not much Archie didn’t already know. I told him the human traveled with the Lost Clan and was covered in tattoos. He’d acted as flagoner for the feast. And that was all.
Archie raised an eyebrow. “That’s all?”
“What more could there be?”
“You tell me.”
I realized I hadn’t mentioned him trying to steal a knife from the larder. But really, who could blame such a small, weak human for wanting to defend himself?
Archie said, “If you’re so keen on the human, maybe you should buy him.”
“He’s not a slave,” I said quickly.
“Ah. My mistake. Because one always encounters a half-dressed human serving a group of orcs of their own free will.”
“Eli has no brand.”
“Eli, is it?” Archie smiled knowingly. “I’m told the Lost Clan has no leader. If that’s the case, there’d be no brand to mark him. But there’s always a strict chain of command where orcs are concerned. There must be someone calling his shots.”
I very nearly denied it—the Lost Clan has never had a leader. It was not just fact, it was tradition. But then I remembered something Eli had when I asked about his master. Pilgrim didn’t send me.
Which made me wonder if the Lost Clan was truly as leaderless as they made themselves out to be.