The Heavenly Host

“Were any of the wargs brave enough to approach a female D’Warg?” Tal Gor asked.

“No, they were too frightened of the D’Wargs. But a couple of the D’Warg bitches did manage to force themselves on male wargs.”

Tal Gor laughed. “It figures! They’ve been stuck with the same partners for thousands of years!”

Tal Gor and Fed Tal finished saddling their D’Wargs and walked with them out to the staging area.

The staging area was about a thousand feet outside of the town. Zerg and Fed had marked off an area after the first wagonload of supplies had come back from the city. Nagh Felwraith, one of the D’Orcs, had stayed behind to help guard the supplies. D’Orcs were so new to the people of Murgatroy, they did not feel they would need too many guards to defend the supplies. Especially with a pack of twenty snarling and slobbering D’Wargs a thousand feet away.

While saddling the D’Wargs, Fed Tal told Tal Gor that the orcs in the town had been more wary of the D’Wargs than Zerg. Or they had been up until he began winning too many drinking games. Naturally, neither Fed nor Zerg had mentioned that D’Orcs could not get drunk on glargh, ale, wine or anything else. After about a dozen orcs passed out, and a good number of the onlookers had lost more money betting than they’d spent on drinks, the wargtown orcs finally realized that Zerg and his infinite glargh-gut were a bigger threat to their wallets than the D’Wargs were to their hides. Fed Tal showed Tal Gor his now-rather-stuffed money pouch.

Tal Gor had laughed and clapped his friend on his back. “So while we were in town spending Lord Tommus’s treasure, you were out here making money?”

Fed Tal was quite tipsy by this point and simply gave him a wide grin, as if he had been caught eating warg droppings.

As they approached the staging area, they shifted their direction to come up beside Vespa, who was manipulating a large abacus.

“So what’s the total haul?” Tal Gor asked.

“Very impressive!” Vespa said. “We may want to come back here for more supplies at some point.”

“Given that you are paying in gems and chunks of precious metal, I am pretty sure you will be welcome!” Tal Gor said with a grin.

“I am sure we were taken advantage of, but we are in a hurry,” Virok commented drily as he walked by while arranging items for transport through the gateway.

“Did you get all of what you needed?” Fed Tal asked.

“A great deal. We managed to get a dozen and a half barrels of glargh, six barrels of ale and two barrels of wine. We also picked up two large sacks of ground salt, three sacks of cornmeal, four sacks of ground wheat and five sacks of oats.” She paused and looked up from her abacus, grinning. “The D’Wargs are going to be excited for us to make wargmeal for them.”

“I thought the Abyss was a desert? Where do you get water?” Fed Tal asked.

Vespa grinned. “It is. You were paying attention to our stories last night!” Then she mock frowned. “And apparently sober enough to remember them! As for the water, now that Lord Tommus has returned, the storm clouds and rain have returned to Mount Doom.”

“Lord Tommus made it rain in the Abyss?” Tal Gor asked, awed.

“Indeed he did. His power is as described in the legends. Glorious days lie ahead!” Vespa said before looking back to her abacus. “However, for this celebration, we will be using x-glargh, oats and meat to make the wargmeal.”

“Lucky D’Wargs!” Fed Tal pounded his fist into the palm of his hand.

“They are.” Vespa chuckled. “As far as inventory, we also got a case of large snake eggs and two cases of chicken eggs. A cask of sodium bicarbonate, that was a nice find! Or so I am told. I have no idea what it is,” Vespa said.

“It can be used for several things, but for bread, it makes it bubbly,” Fed Tal said.

“So you will not want to use it in Schwarzenfürze’s wargmeal!” Tal Gor joked, and they all laughed.

“In any event, there are a dozen other sacks of things: potatoes, turnips, ginger, beets. I won’t bore you with the entire list,” Vespa said.

Virok came back and nodded to Vespa. “We are set, commander. Whenever you and Tal Gor are ready, we are ready for Lord Tommus.” Vespa looked to Tal Gor.

“I am ready. My brother Bor Tal has a fire started over there.” He pointed to the far side of the staging area, away from the wargtown. Quite a number of orcs were watching them from the town, obviously curious as to what they were up to. Given that the wagons that had brought the barrels had left and the orc they had rented the other wagon from was returning with it to Murgatroy, there was no obvious way for them to transport their goods.

Tal Gor went over by the fire and stared into it while reaching for the summoning stone. As he had done yesterday, he cleared his head and began a ritual chant that calmed his mind and let him reach out to Lord Tommus over the link, using the fire as a bridge. It was surprisingly easy.

Lord Tommus, we are ready, Tal Gor thought through the link.