Chapter 36
After leaving the Wood Elf settlement, Lilith brought Rowan to meet Auriel — and only then did he learn she'd be coming too. His confidence promptly went through the roof.
"So what's the plan?" he asked, eager. "Are we going straight into the Howling Tusk Tribe and tearing the place apart?"
The three of them walked toward the edge of the forest, trading the occasional word.
Neither Lilith nor Auriel looked especially tense; going by their expressions alone, you'd have guessed an easy scouting run, not an infiltration of enemy territory.
Rowan, on the other hand, could barely contain his excitement.
Lilith shook her head. "There's no detailed plan yet.
I need to understand the tribe before I decide how to hit it.
" Spreading a plague, for instance, meant first mapping their food supply, their water sources, the ground around the camp.
She glanced at him. "You've been developing in this region for a while.
You must know something about the Orc territory. "
Rowan unfolded the Seer's map and pointed to its northern section. "Only what my mentor told me — I've never seen it myself. Apparently this land wasn't always barren. It turned this way after the Orcs settled here—"
"That's enough." The region's history could stay in the region's past.
The trees ahead were thinning. "Put on your concealment gear."
Auriel and Rowan donned the grass-green cloaks the Seer had provided.
The garments blended passively into the surrounding terrain, like a chameleon changing its color, and dampened the wearer's aura besides — though not as thoroughly as Lilith's Wraithveil Robe.
Get close enough and you'd still sense them.
Soon the forest opened up: the southern edge of the Verdant Forest. They'd passed several Wood Elf defensive positions on the way, and countless traps hidden among the trees, all of it waved aside by Rowan's presence.
"This is it," he said.
Lilith stepped forward and looked out past the sparse vegetation.
A sheer cliff fell away in front of her, a drop of more than a hundred feet down rock worn almost perfectly smooth — nearly nothing to grip, a miserable climb for anything that couldn't fly.
An ideal natural barrier. And beyond it, an enormous sweep of dry, withered grassland.
The Barren Plains. Orc territory.
Cold moonlight washed the desolation. Cracked, hardened earth; vegetation reduced to scattered clumps of yellow grass shivering in the wind; small points of fire glimmering in the distance — Orc campfires.
Even the air out there was dry and lifeless, a stark contrast to the moisture and vitality of the forest at their backs.
"Desolate," Auriel said quietly, her expression sharpening as she studied the plains.
"Is that the Howling Tusk Tribe?" Lilith hadn't expected their main encampment to sit so close to the border.
Orc civilization ran along the same lines as the Goblins' — violent, primitive, brutal.
But where Goblins hid underground, Orcs had no reason to hide from anything.
They feared few creatures alive and built right out on the open plains, raising rows of tents from timber and hide.
The main camp had grown watchtowers on top of that, plus wooden palisades, defensive stakes, and regular patrols.
"The plains offer almost no cover," Auriel said. "Approaching the main tribe directly will be difficult." She was right — the wooden walls did little to block the defenders' sightlines, and anything crossing that open ground would be spotted long before it reached the camp.
"I think we should get me into Elite Rank first," Rowan said, studying the distant camp.
"With Lilith's resurrection abilities, we might be able to hit them head-on.
The Howling Tusk Tribe only just unified the surrounding clans through civil war — they were merely an Elite-level faction before that.
Their strongest warriors may still be weakened.
A direct assault isn't out of the question. "
Lilith gave him an exasperated look. "By that logic, your mentor should have gathered every Wood Elf elder and assassinated the Orc leadership before the war even started."
Rowan had no comeback for that.
She took the map from his hands. "The Howling Tusk Tribe is enormous. A settlement that size can't feed and water itself from the Barren Plains alone." Her finger swept the surrounding region. "We target their supplies."
"Cut off their food and starve them out," Rowan nodded.
An oversimplification, but Lilith let it slide. "The main camp ahead is their forward position. Smaller Orc settlements are scattered east and west of it." She traced several locations. "Those satellite tribes are our first targets."
Rowan studied the map, thinking. Auriel offered no objection at all — she seemed content to let Lilith run the operation.
"Let's go."
At the cliff's edge, Lilith called on Bone Magic.
The rock trembled, and thick bone spikes pushed out of the cliff face one after another, assembling themselves into a crude staircase down the vertical drop.
She descended first, Auriel and Rowan behind her, the pale steps gleaming under the moon and creaking softly beneath their weight while the night wind tugged at their cloaks.
At the bottom, the ground was hard and dry, rasping faintly with every step.
For all its name, the Barren Plains looked more like desert than grassland — the earth rose and fell in long waves, shallow ridges and depressions everywhere.
Which suited them fine. The broken terrain offered far more cover than they'd counted on.
The three set off toward their first target without wasting a breath.
Orc society ran on a rigid hierarchy. Whenever a powerful tribe rose, the smaller tribes around it were forced into submission, and those subordinate settlements lived little better than slave camps — surrendering food, laborers, and warriors to their masters, even giving up their women to breed the next generation of soldiers.
They stayed trapped that way until one of them grew strong enough to overthrow the tribe above and take its place.
It was with those settlements that Lilith's campaign against the Howling Tusk Tribe would begin.
They moved fast through the darkness, leaving only faint trails of dust. The deeper they pushed, the harsher the land grew — animal bones and broken weapons littering the ground, long stretches of earth stained dark with dried blood, the air carrying a foul blend of Orc musk and old gore.
Half an hour or so brought the first satellite settlement into view.
Nothing like the fortified Howling Tusk camp: a handful of ragged hide tents around a central fire, inhabited by Orcs visibly thin and underfed.
At this hour most had stopped working, and only three guards remained awake.
Apart from the crackle of the fire, the place was unnaturally quiet.
Rowan sniffed the air and grimaced. "What is that smell?"
Lilith's eyes had already found it — a wooden handcart near the tents, piled with hide sacks. Tightly sealed, but dark red blood seeped through the seams and dripped steadily onto the ground. Cargo bound for the Howling Tusk Tribe, no question.
"Food," she said, and a pleased smile crossed her face. "This is where we start."
Rowan looked at her. "What are you planning?"
Lilith's smile turned cold.