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"Punishment"
The curfew klaxon blared on across the snow-blinded slum canyons as Thrall’s Revenge piled back into its guild hall. As the gang settled in, a low, murmuring unease filled the room: Horse’s rite of loyalty had gone wrong, but not as it ever had before. Horse had failed, but even Kelkar, the gang’s leader hadn’t killed their target. Kelkar, the gang’s chief evangelist, second only in true-believership to Balthos, had hesitated.
The orcs clumped together in pairs, locked in quiet, urgent discussions, glancing over shoulders at Horse, slumped miserably against the hall’s back mud-brick wall, and at Kelkar, brooding silently in his corner at the front.
The orc Reltir looked around suddenly. “Balthos,” he said loudly. The others looked at him, then around. Balthos was absent.
“He still has time,” said Ulkat, but as he said it, the curfew siren died, leaving a tense silence in its wake. “Crap,” said Ulkat.
Kalga glanced at Kelkar. “He said his blood would be on….” The orc trailed off. “On your hands,” he finished faintly. Kelkar grunted.
Ulkat stood and turned towards his commander. “What did he mean?” said the orc. “What did Balthos mean that his blood would be on your hands?”
“I assume,” said the oldest orc quietly, “that he intended to leave, and if, thusly homeless, he was caught outside during a curfew, he would blame his death on me. The bastard made his own decision.” He narrowed his eyes at Ulkat, staring the other orc down.
“And what did he mean when he asked where your loyalty lay?” growled Ulkat. The rest of the gang moved uneasily away from the two, towards the back of the room.
Kelkar glanced at Horse. He quickly glanced away, but it was enough. Ulkat looked at the young bull, a look of quiet fury on his face. “I see,” said Ulkat.
“Why didn’t you kill her?” whispered Reltir raspily to the bull.
Horse shrugged miserably. “I couldn’t,” he whispered back. “She hadn’t done anything to us.” The orcs looked uncertainly at one another.
Ulkat turned back to Kelkar. “The bull failed the rite of loyalty,” he growled. “Orcmar is for orcs, right?” he added. “It’s not for humans. And no matter what oaths Thrall made to whom, however many centuries ago, I don’t think it’s for bulls, either.” He glanced back at Horse, a sudden glint of cool hatred in his eyes. Horse’s face slackened into despair: Ulkat had always been friendly.
Kelkar stood. “The bull failed the rite of loyalty,” he said quietly. “There must be punishment.” He pulled out his wand, and pointed it at Horse.
Alkar looked sadly at Horse, but looked away as his eyes met Horse’s. Alkir grabbed his friend’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“Up,” growled Kelkar, motioning with his wand. Horse stood. “Walk,” growled Kelkar, and Horse walked hesitantly, disbelievingly, to the door.
“It’s a curfew!” cried Alkar. “At least let him stay until he can leave without dying!”
“I’m going with him. If I come back alive, you will know that Thrall’s blessing is on me,” said Kelkar meaningfully. He glanced at Ulkat. “If not,” he said, “so be it.”
* * *
The orc prodded the terrified bull ahead of him through the dark canyons. The snow was easing up, although its flying flakes still deadened the silence.
“Stop,” whispered Kelkar. The canyon’s wall was shallow, and a nearly-climbable pile of jagged stones rose against it. “Up,” prodded the orc.
“Why we haven’t been found out by the Council yet?” hissed Horse.
“I don’t much care,” said Kelkar stonily. “Up.” Wordlessly, the bull began climbing.
The top was flat, and wide. Horse paused as he crested the rubble pile, catching his breath and looking back in wonder at the darkened slums below him. Kelkar clambered over the cliff’s edge, and stood up. “Walk,” he growled. Horse turned and walked away from the canyon.
A hundred feet along, another cliff dropped, sheer and steep. Horse inhaled and stared out in wonder – it was the Rocktusk district, freshly dusted in snow, streetlamps glowing and windows warmly lit.
Kelkar stood at the cliff’s edge next to Horse, staring off over Rocktusk. His eyes were distant.
“Look down there,” he said quietly. “Look at their perfect little houses, living on the land that once belonged to us. How many of them are orcs? Not many,” he answered himself. “Its mayor is, but he’s a race traitor. Even his name sounds human.” Horse glanced at the orc warily. The wand was still pointed at him.
“I joined Thrall’s Revenge when I was twelve,” continued Kelkar. “I was a beggar down there in Rocktusk before that. The week before I joined I’d been sitting in front of a store, a dress store. I figured if women could afford to walk out of there covered in cloth that sparkled with the light of the moon itself,” and the orc’s eyes softened into what might have been an echo of youthful wonder, “they could afford to give me a few coins for dinner. Apparently they couldn’t,” he growled, his face hard again. “One of them, I remember her – she was a wretched dwarf. She went back into the store in a fury when I asked her for spare change. A few moments later the store’s owner came out with a stick, and beat me to within an inch of my life, told me to never panhandle in front of his store again. He was an orc,” he finished quietly.
Horse stared at his captor. It was the most the orc had ever spoken to him. The bull waited silently and uncertainly.
“I joined up with the Revenge. What an attractive credo it had,” continued the orc. “Orcs are an ancient and proud race, and Orcmar is their birthright! I believed it with all my heart,” he said. He glanced at Horse. “Most of the others? They’re not believers. They’re in the Revenge because it’s the family they don’t have, it’s food and protection. They don’t really believe. Reltir… he does. But only a little, now.”
“Balthos…” started Horse.
“Balthos is an idiot,” spat Kelkar, “a dangerous, power-hungry brute of an idiot. He doesn’t believe in what the Revenge believes. He hates you because you’re a threat, and because you wounded his pride. Conveniently, you’re not an orc.”
“Huh,” said Horse, bemused.
“Balthos would have killed his own mother for bread or money,” continued the other. “He doesn’t care about orcs, or about us. He is deaf to the cries of our ancestors – strength and honor,” he said, and paused. “Strength, only. Honor means nothing to that orc.” He accented the word.
The orc turned towards Horse. “Strength and honor,” he said. “I never should have let you live, I never should have invited you into the Revenge.” He raised his wand, aiming it between the bull’s small black eyes. “You ruined everything! On your knees,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Horse knelt, and the terror had returned to his face.
“Orcmar is for orcs,” said Kelkar quietly, fiercely. “I believed it, with all my heart – until you joined. Until honor forced me to honor Thrall’s oath to your family. Until a bull came into our clan of orcs and was accepted. Until tonight, when you failed the rite of loyalty to our credo, when you refused to kill an old woman in cold blood because she hadn’t done anything to you!” The orc’s eyes flickered with hot fury, and, it seemed, agony. “And you were right,” he hissed violently. A flicker of flame sputtered out of the tip of the wand. Horse flinched. Kelkar paused, narrowing his eyes. “Orcmar is for the honorable,” he said quietly. “Not all honorable are orcs, and not all orcs are honorable. Refusing to kill that old woman took honor.”
He blinked, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a limp brown bag – the Revenge’s guild bank, normally locked in a box in Kelkar’s brooding corner. He tossed the bag to the ground in front of him. A few coins, the guild’s whole savings, clinked inside it. “Ulkat will take over the Revenge,” Kelkar said. “The rest of them won’t understand.
“There is no honor in revenge,” he said distantly, as though in a trance. The wand wavered and began to flicker. “There must be punishment.”
“But–” stammered Horse, staring in terror at the wand’s fiery tip.
“Not you,” said the orc. And he raised his wand to his temple, and then he smiled, and then he fired. Horse cried out, and the body of Kelkar the almost-honorable orc collapsed to the ground.
The slum canyons were as dark as they had been. The lights of Rocktusk flickered for a moment, and then shone on.
End of the Revenge Cycle
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