Part Thirty-three
Beryl was busy with dealings with the Rangers and did not need Dale and Duma to remain, but Dale did not want to leave the Vale with Tsuki still alone with the Wizard in the tower, so he suggested they join one of the tours to see what the Men were saying about this place. Duma went along, in his disguise, but it seemed unnecessary, as Dale stood beside him entirely clothed in black, but for the bit of his shirt that showed from beneath the collar and sleeves of his velvet doublet. Elves were not the first thing people supposed them to be, especially as both had Orcish bows; Dale's bow was the only weapon he did not manage to conceal somewhere on his person.
Dale was very quiet. Even when some people turned toward the rear of the tour group to question them, he did not answer. Duma did not want to speak to the strange people, but he feared Dale's silence would force them to fight. "We are two Vale Elves come from our wandering to learn of the war in this region, as we were in the east earning Orc trophies during that time," he told those who questioned them, attempting to make his voice sound like Beryl's when using Common Speech.
Dale was remembering why he often went to taverns and got very drunk and then ended up dancing on tables and eventually servicing Men he did not know. Normal folk made him very uncomfortable. He was on edge of madness, being in this tour group, with common Men with their women and children and even others from the south in strange robes.
The group was led by a woman from the settlement outside the Vale, which opposed to the Wizard's Vale, was called Wizendale. Her tour group was assigned a Ranger as escort, to make certain they walked only in safe areas and did not interfere with Ranger business. She went through rehearsed retellings of the history of the Vale and sometimes asked the Ranger to speak to the group to tell them what Rangers knew of the war and those involved.
They went into various halls where artifacts and artists' renderings of the Vale, soldiers and devices were displayed. "Now, do not be alarmed as you enter the next Hall," the guide said.
Of course, several women screamed as they went through the door. Inside the hall there was a stone statue of an Orc posed as if in attack. There was a real Orc sword in the stone hands and a few pieces of armor on the statue's body. Duma snarled at the rendering as they joined the others inside.
Their guide laughed merrily. "We call this fellow Ugluk. The Dwarves who visited made him for us..."
"Ugluk is a Westerner name and that statue shows a deformed Northerner," Duma hissed.
"Cartoon of an Orc, made by Dwarves. They make the sort they fight most," Dale said.
Duma drew away from Dale slightly and looked hard at him. Dale's voice sounded strange, almost like signing.
The guide continued, showing them the remains of a furnace used in the Orc's underground foundry, which actually was entirely a Wizard-made blast furnace and not the sort Orcs would make on their own. She then pointed out some ink drawings showing how the Vale had looked previously, with its thick defensive ring wall carved from the stone of the mountains and the large chambers within the wall for housing the army and its armories and even a kennel for wolves.
The group was led outside then, and gathered around a tree beside the stone building, or most thought it a tree. Dale had a rather strange feeling that he did not get around other trees, and the more he looked at the tree, the more it seemed like a very large person, standing very still, with its arms pressed to its sides and skin like bark.
In an instant, a deceptively branch-like arm was extended toward Duma. Women screamed. Duma stood still and trembled. Dale looked steadily at the Treeherd and sang to it, not out of madness, but because singing was the way he had first learned to communicate with the world. He sang in Vale Elven and explained that he and his companion carried no axes.
The hand was concealed at the Treeherd's side in another moment, and then it spoke. Its voice was deep and strangely accented, but mimicking Dale's Vale Elven quite clearly. "That is a dialect I have not heard in quite some time. Forgive me, Elves of the Valley, I believed I senses some Orcishness about you."
Dale removed his hood to show his ears and hair and then made a bow. "Our line has been much abused by Orcs in our wanderings, to the point where those of us who yet survive may carry some Orcishness as one carries a wound that will not be healed. Even so, be assured, we have not forgotten how to sing or the proper rites for felling trees when in need. Perhaps it would have been better for us if our forefathers had never come so far west and we had remained along the Great River."
"You would not have escaped notice of Orcs there, I am afraid. There are times when even my kind must get up and join battle, even if it means carrying Orcish arrowheads in the skin, if we want there to be a safe place for things to grow in the future."
"I am quite willing to take on more battles if it means others do not have to fight," Dale said, and smiled slightly.
"You have not by chance seen any females of my race in your wanderings? I think if they remain they are fewer than Dwarf wives."
"No, but I have not wandered so far in my life. Have you heard word of the far east? There are two Eastmen about and they may recall tales of those lands. We can but only ask them."
"Yes, though I do not have much hope that they will have found any Treeherdress."
"I will ask them," Dale promised. "For now, I think we are distracting the tour, so, good to have met you. My name is Dale Maple."
The Treeherd made a bellowing sound that must have been laughter. "That is a lovely name for any creature!"
Dale glanced at Duma for a moment and then looked again to the Treeherd. "This is Duma Yrchelen Mapleseed."
"Hmmm, I see...I see..." the Treeherd said, "An appropriate name. My name would distract the tour for longer than Men can stand, if I gave it fully. Here they are content to call me Broadbough."
Dale bowed. "Broadbough. I promise you have nothing to fear from Vale Elves, but Duma is very young. If you see him misbehave, please give him a sound thwap across his bottom. I should not want him to anger you through misunderstanding or lack of education."
"It will be no trouble to keep a watch on your young one, Dale Maple. I will remember he is a Vale Elf and not hurt him too much if he does misbehave."
"You have my thanks."
The guide had lost influence over the tour group, as all were staring at Dale and Broadbough, not understanding the foreign speech they used but awed that they were witnessing a conversation between a real Elf and a Treeman. Many of the people in this group had never even seen a real Elf at close distance and believed only now that they saw Dale's pointed ears and heard the lyrical speech that flowed from his mouth. It seemed magic to them, that Dale could converse with this giant living tree that was to them a creature out of legends told less often than those of Elves.
Dale bowed to the group. "Pardon," he said using Common speech and then pulled his hood over his hair again."
The guide called for the group to listen and explained to them that Broadbough was something called a Treeherd and that his kind had joined the war defeated the Wizard who formerly lived in the Vale. She began telling them, as they walked on, how the Orcs had cut down all the old trees that had been in the Vale for their war machines and they had made the delvings here, to house their foundries and breeding pits, and the mines to feed the foundries. The Treeherd's had dammed the river and flooded the Vale and tore up the ring wall and thus filled the pits with sediment and debris.
"And yet somehow it still smells of Orcs," Dale whispered as he looked down into one of the pits.
Dale passed by the edge and Duma peered down into the pit. The hollow was filled with water up to three or four yards below the ground level and if there was stone or earth below that water, Duma could not see, as the sun at its present angle showed him only the reflection of the sky above on the water and not its depth. He could smell Orcs too, and he did not think it was an old scent.
They came to another pit, this one had a low rail built around it, to keep people above from falling in. Below there seemed only darkness and depth, as if all the water and debris they spoke of had now settled into deeper places. Along the sides of the pit and winding downward they could see the remains of catwalk and scaffold made of wood and sinew by the Orcs who had lived here.
Duma was certain he smelled Orcs, and when he looked down into the depths, he thought he saw movement. He wanted to go down, but did not want Dale to notice.
But then, Dale did not seem likely to notice. Since leaving that Treeherd, Dale seemed quiet again and often looked toward the tower. Duma guessed he was watching for Tsuki to come from the tower and only pretending to follow a tour. Duma waited until the group looked toward the next attraction and then hopped over the rail and into the pit.
He landed lightly on a catwalk; he had never been so heavy as an ordinary Orc of his size. He had not understood until recently that this was because he was also an Elf. He was lightly built and fast and thus running along the decaying catwalk or leaping a gap to the next section of scaffolding presented no challenge. Duma was rather pleased with his own progress, for he had never really know himself to have this ability, because Orcs did not usually move in this manner. He could remember that when he was frightened he moved very fast, but he had never questioned why that was before.
Duma stopped, perched on a piece of bare scaffold, and snuffed the air. There were certainly Orcs somewhere near. Now he could hear them, the mixture of Gobin dialects that was fast becoming one dialect with redundancy of words for certain objects. Duma pushed his hood and scarf from his head so that his ears and dark, braided hair could be seen. He lifted his cloak over his left shoulder; he had cut a hole in it so that he could fasten his quiver while keeping his cloak closed in the front, but now he did not need to hide his clothing or his scars...or the flail on his belt.
Duma looked down and perceived the faint shift in light that meant the Orcs were up to something with fire. He could hear voices saying that an Elf was running down into the pit. Duma winced as he realized they though him an Elf and fell from the scaffold, but he caught it again with his hands and used his grasp to swing himself to the side tunnel where the Orcs were. He could see them clearly, drawing bows.
"Does the glare of the Yellow-face reach so deep that you do not know an Uruk when you see him?" Duma asked. "Is Marduk-Chieftain here as well? There is a messenger here, if the Chieftain will see him."
There was some communication in gesture between the nearby Orcs and one of them ran off. Two others approached. Duma did not move or speak. He had said enough to assert himself as an Orc, but he did not wish to start a fight. He kept his eyes low, but open enough to see the position of the other Orcs.
"He looks strange."
"Is it Nimrod's pet? They are saying he is Death-Shadow's own spawn and that he was among us all the time, hidden by Nimrod the Fool who gives our females away to Elves."
Duma hissed and clacked his tongue stud against his teeth. Things would be bad for him here, if all Orcs believed as these two did now. It was not his own doing that Dale had spawned him or that Nimrod had been the one to overpower him and had kept Duma's strange appearance his own secret.
Dog came loping through the tunnel then. He looked as if he had been swimming. Duma had heard that Westerners had insisted other Orcs cross rivers and go into water, but he had only been forced into water by Elves. Still, he knew the Westerners were correct. Water itself was not dangerous to Orcs, as many had believed.
He stopped near Duma and rose onto two legs as he sniffed at him. "I must wash with soap if I am to stay among them and learn their mission," Duma said quietly to Dog. "How has it been for you?" Duma knew that before he had left the other Orcs Dog had been telling stories about Men who gave each other pleasure in turn and females that showed their nakedness for money and other strange customs he had witnessed when traveling through a Man settlement in disguise. Duma wondered if Marduk had learned that Dog offered himself to other pets in exchange for like favors.
"My Master is very busy with the females. He keeps me to track and search and lets me go find others to play with, so long as I return to do his work again." He squinted. "Is that a treasure My Master paid you?"
Duma turned the ring he wore so that he diamond was on the underside of his hand. "Not this one." Duma saw Marduk coming, with some of the other Orcs, ones that served him longest or most loyally.
When he came to Duma he stopped and looked him over. Marduk put a hand to Duma's throat then and pushed him against the tunnel wall. "Do they know you are here?"
"No," Duma rasped.
"You speak words now."
He could speak better if Marduk did not squeeze his throat, but Duma thought it best not to say this aloud. "Yes," he whispered instead, "Yes, My Chieftain."
Marduk released Duma and gave a sharp nod. "You are certain they do not know you are here?"
"They did not see me go, but if they see me leave, I thought of an excuse. I will say I saw a rock I wanted. They will believe, because they have seen other rocks I carry."
Marduk was satisfied by this answer. "Have you learned their mission yet?"
"No," Duma admitted, "But I might if I stay with them."
"Maybe you want to stay with them so they will give more gifts to you?" Marduk removed the flail from Duma's belt and studied it.
Duma was not sure what he should say. Marduk had also given him gifts in return for behavior he desired from Duma. Certainly Marduk did understand Orc custom. His plan relied on Death-shadow being convinced that Duma was his, and so he must understand Dale equipping Duma.
Marduk tossed the flail back to Duma, who returned it to his belt. "Come with me," Marduk said.
Duma followed down the tunnel and at the far end he saw a large chamber where many Orcs were engaged in some manner of breeding ritual, but it was not precisely done as he had seen before. Then Marduk drew Duma's attention to the walls and the torches lighting them. There were faint markings on the cut stone wall of painted runes and figures.
"This is where my breed were spawned," Marduk said, "Those who spawned us made these markings under the direction of the Wizard. It tells how to make the most strong Orcs of my breed with the least effort."
Duma gazed at the wall in flickering torchlight. It was true. The figures and runes presented simple instructions for Orcs to follow. This was the place the Wizard had overseen the spawning of his army. The directions made it very clear how the old way of breeding worked, rather, the way the Wizard's method worked. Instead of saying that the thin seed should mix with the thin, the instructions specifically said that only those big soldier Orcs the Wizard had brought down from the tower and those like them should spill their seed over that which was thicker.
"You understand?" Marduk asked Duma. "You are a smart Orc? I will not be here much longer. Even if you betray me, even if Death-Shadow himself comes down here and torches the pits, we all know how it works very well now. We will do it again wherever we stop. You understand? The females did not appear until after my breed was made by the Wizard. My breed can spawn male or female. These instructions for making the most fighting Westerners are also instructions for making the most females. When we have females enough, we will not have breeding pits for Elves or Men to plow and torch, we will have the females among us and protect them. We do not need Wizards. We Orcs know how to do it and we have females."
"But, Marduk...Chieftain...what happens then to the Orcs who are not male or female?"
"What do you care? You are not like them. Nimrod was a fool to keep a male for his pet. He could not breed with you unless he ordered you to take him like a pet!" Marduk laughed loudly, thinking this very funny.
Duma forced a snicker. It might have been funny, if they had not been speaking of him. "I am male," Duma said then.
"Yes. Elf's-cream is male." Marduk laughed again, more quietly.
"Duma," Duma said. "Elf-scream is a pet name. I do not make a good pet. My name is Duma. It means...Delving."
"Is that the thing that has been made dug into, or the one that does the digging?" Marduk asked.
Duma smiled. "Exactly."
Marduk did not seem to get the joke, and Duma did not want Marduk to feel mocked, because he did admire Marduk. He was large and strong and his hair formed tight even clumps, thus he looked impressive, and he seemed rather smart besides. He was not what Duma would call kind or generous, but he understood how to get what he wanted, even if it sometimes meant assigning privileges rather than using force or intimidation.
"I have been both. That is why it is a good name," Duma said quickly. He changed the subject then. "Did you find some stones with writing on them?"
"I read your messages. Have you learned more?"
"Yes, but nothing that tells me their plan. Their customs are still strange to me, but I understand they do not fully trust me yet, and they are too smart to speak of their plans..." Duma thought of mentioning that Kato seemed important to the others, that perhaps he played some part in completing their mission, but Duma was not absolutely certain this was true and Kato had seemed kind to him, so he kept the theory to himself. "They speak in Elven often. I will try to learn some of it and make them trust me."
"Why did they come here?"
"I know that...that there is a Wizard in the tower and that, I think, he is The White."
"The one that rides a fast white horse and converses with Halfling, Elves and..." Marduk spat, "Trees."
"I saw one. It is up there. A tree that moves!" Duma whispered.
"Stay away from it." Marduk paused, seemed to be distracted by some part of the breeding going on around them, then looked toward Duma. "But, this place, is not their goal?"
"They spoke only of stopping here on their way, but then, when they arrived...many things were said in Elven, but...I think that The White desired to speak with Tsuki, that is the one...with the two swords, who knows Wizardry."
"Uses Death-shadow and is used in turn."
That was the best way to say it for Orcs to understand, Duma thought. "Yes. He is in the tower now with the Wizard, but I do not know why. The others are definitely making plans to continue the journey, roughly east from here, I think."
"A dangerous Wizard. He was prisoner here and rescued by an eagle." Marduk growled. "Used to be Grey."
"The one that slew the pit demon?" Duma whispered.
Marduk shrugged. "I heard of something like that. You would know. Happened in the mines."
"I wonder what the Wizard wants with Tsuki."
"You find out. That Wizard worked with the trees! Not many of my breed escaped!" Marduk growled and drew his knife. "But we grew in numbers again, like trees, with seed spilled across the land. We will be strong!"
"You will be just like Men or Elves...without Lords who are not your kind, and having females..."
Marduk put a hand to Duma's right shoulder and put weight into him. His knife blade touched Duma's left arm and made a new cut. Without thinking, Duma shut his eyes and lifted his left hand to push against Marduk's arm. He heard Marduk hiss and opened his eyes.
Marduk's right arm was bleeding, just a little, but Duma had done it. The diamond ring had cut Marduk. "I..."
"You fight back," Marduk said. He sheathed his knife then held Duma still with both his hands and bowed to lick the blood from his arm. Duma shivered and his upper lip twitched. He wanted blood.
Marduk took his hands from Duma and left him shivering with bloodlust. Marduk put a finger to the small cut on his arm and then lifted it to his mouth to taste his own blood. "You taste like an Orc, and your blood is dark."
Duma knew this was true. He had seen himself cut before. He may belike an Elf in some ways, but he had been spawned in the old way and his blood was dark. He was definitely an Orc, even if he was also an Elf. The scent of blood and the breeding pits seemed overwhelming to Duma, at that moment. He clutched his wounded arm and panted shallow breaths. "I need to leave here."
Marduk laughed quietly. He took a step in toward Duma and spoke to him, "Do not betray me. You are an Orc. If you learn Death-shadow's plans and help defeat our enemies, then I will give you Ugarit."
"Ugarit?" Duma rasped.
"I have protected her, kept her fresh for future use. She is still small now, but perhaps given just a month...Orcs grow fast."
"Learn Death-shadow's plan and help defeat our enemies," Duma repeated.
"Yes, and you get Ugarit, assuming you are truly strong enough to keep her." Marduk touched the flail on Duma's belt. "If not, if you betray me, I will find you and feed you to my females!"
"I understand, Chieftain." Duma turned and walked quickly from the breeding chamber, trembling slightly with want for blood. He saw Dog in the tunnel and the Mine-dweller came sniffing after him.
Duma shifted his hand from his arm and licked the blood from it. Even though it was his own, it eased the sudden crazing the scent had caused. He turned his ring then and licked the blood from it. Marduk was right, he did taste like an Orc.
Duma retied the scarf over his ears, drew up his hood, and pulled his cloak closed at the front. "I will bite you if you do not stop sniffing at me like that," Duma warned.
"Do they let you have females when you are up there?" Dog asked.
"I never asked for one," Duma replied honestly.
"Did you ever have one before?"
"Once."
"What was that like?"
Duma hissed and stopped walking. He looked into the darkness ahead. "I found her screaming for death less amusing than other Orcs seemed to and stopped."
"Maybe they would let you...Duma...you look like an Elf now. They might at least let you look."
Duma shrugged and walked from the tunnel. His experience with such things involved so much subjugation and begging for death that he really had no desire for it. Ugarit? What did Marduk think he would do with Ugarit if he had her? Make more freakish Yrchelen?
The word meant, Beryl had explained, something like 'Orc-Elf', but more literally it could be read as 'foulness of the stars'. Beryl said that when Elves said something was 'of the stars' or 'a star' it was almost always euphemism for 'of Elves' or 'an Elf', and in their language, the word for Orcs was the word for foul. Beryl claimed that he had invented the term Yrchelen for one who was partly Orc and Elf. It no doubt made clever plays on words if one understood Elven culture.
Climbing out of the pit with a stinging cut on his arm, Duma was not well disposed to their whole starry lot. But then, he was not certain he was well disposed to Orcs either. He would just rather not be a thing that was not one or the other.
Only Fei and Gwindor seemed in the house when Duma entered. They asked if Dale was with him, but Duma only said that he needed to go to the water closet, which was what they had taken to calling that chamber of relief, as the ranger had called it.
Duma took his bag from his cot on the way there, and once inside, made water pour into the basin to wash his wound and ripped some fabric from one of his spare shirts to make a bandage.
When Tsuki finally came from the tower, he found Dale waiting outside. Dale was, actually, crouched at the bottom of the steps. "You know these King's guards don't move or speak unless you try to enter the tower without permission?"
Tsuki glanced at the guards then walked down to Dale.
"You know anything about Treeherds?"
"Only legends."
"Anything about females of their kind?"
"No," Tsuki replied.
Dale stood and looked for Broadbough. He was not near the same building where Dale had spoken to him before. He scanned the Vale and saw the large tree-like creature standing near one of the pits.
Dale tipped his headto invite Tsuki to follow and walked toward broadbough.
Tsuki held out some rolled paper. "The White let me have these. They are pages from a tome that told the history of Orcs, so far as the Wizards that altered and bred them, and how Orcs were made, but the White burned the rest of the pages and only judged it safe for me to take these."
"A Wizard that burns books?"
"He says sometimes there is knowledge which should not be shared because it was gotten by evil means or there is too much potential for misuse. I am not certain I agree. I think if it is done, and evil works gained knowledge, we who came upon the knowledge but did not do those evil things owe it to the victims to use that knowledge for the best."
"What kind of evil works are you talking about?"
"Well, for example, an Elf would likely think cutting up the body of a fallen companion blasphemous, but it may be true that dissection of bodies helps healers to learn more about internal organs and in the future save other lives by performing surgeries."
"Cutting up dead bodies is terribly distasteful, but maybe if someone said it was well with them that their body be examined after death to further knowledge, then that would be right."
Tsuki nodded, "And if a madman murdered people and took careful notes on the organs he found and their placement and all the things he did to them, and a student healer found the notes and used them to understand how bodies work and became a great healer, would that be right?"
"No! That is saying that murder and defilement of bodies can have a positive result, and if you say there is any goo din it, then what is to stop people from doing it?"
"Well…would you prefer that victim's death bring no positive result?"
"I suppose I would."
"And where would the boundary be, exactly, between purposeful study of the dead and…?"
"Right where you kill the person for the goal of learning what their innards are like!"
"Well, there must still be an awful lot of…grey area…"
"You mean like brains?"
Tsuki's jaw fell slack and he was speechless.
Dale growled. "Some things I have done are just evil, Tsuki, I am waiting for you to realize that."
They came upon Broadbough then, and he moved slightly to regard them both. Tsuki had yet to see a Treeherd, that he knew of, but his reaction was mainly one of calm study, which did not displease Broadbough. "Your young one went down into a pit and came up with a wound on his arm."
Tsuki did not understand, as Broadbough used the Vale Elven dialect entirely rather than Dale's usual Elven which was merely accented and spiced with Vale Elven.
"There are Orcs down there," Dale said. "I have been smelling them here all day. I do not think it is a matter of newly-spawned Orcs from a previous breeding pit, but Orcs that have found a way in from below. Though, there may be a breeding pit there now. How often do the Rangers go down and check for reopened chambers?"
"The Rangers do not enter the pits."
Dale shook his head. "Am I the only one who understands how to fight Orcs?"
Broadbough made an annoyed sound.
"I meant…understands their nature and manner of reproduction enough to prevent their numbers growing, rather than just meet their attacks."
"You and the Wizards."
"These Orcs will most likely leave when I do. After that, have the Rangers go down and seek warm moist chambers that are not submerged. Plow up any earth or mud there and make fires. It will kill the Orcs that are yet to spawn."
"Hmmm."
"I know it is not the most honorable way to kill, slaying those who have yet to live and attack, but what else would you do? Wait for them to be spawned and attempt to raise them as good citizens? They wake wanting blood and intent on seeking their own kind. It is instinct."
"Hmmm, I will tell the Rangers what you have said. You go to your young one."
"My young one."