The Heavenly Host

No, actually she was rubbing the harness and buckles against him. She wanted him to take them off. Tal Gor shrugged and began unsaddling the D’Warg. She stood relatively still and let him take of the saddle, the bags and holders and then the harness. He was sorting the pieces together, wondering where to store them — he guessed with the warg gear — when Schwarzenfürze just started wandering off toward the camp.

“Where are you going?” Tal Gor asked in vain, since there was no way she could answer him. He shook his head and gathered up the gear, or as much as he could easily carry, and lugged it off to where they stored the warg gear. He hoped the D’Warg would not eat any of his tribe while he was stowing the gear.

It took him two trips to lug all the gear and stow it with the warg tack. He had not heard any screaming, so he assumed she had not eaten anyone, or worse, farted. He looked around the camp but could not see her. He walked up to Soo An. “You didn’t see where Schwarzenfürze went, did you?”

His sister said nothing, but gave him a big smirk and then pointed behind him. He turned to see that she was pointing at his tent. He headed over there and raised the flap. It was especially dark inside for some reason; and then he saw why.

Schwarzenfürze had entered his small tent, knocking everything over. She was currently sprawled over his bedroll along with most of the rest of the interior, apparently sleeping! Tal Gor raised his hands helplessly. What was he going to do? There was barely room for him in the tent! Now that Schwarzenfürze had taken it, where was he going to sleep?

∼

“My Lord?” Zelda asked, approaching Tom as he prepared to leave the staging area.

“Yes, Zelda?” Tom asked his steward with a smile.

“If you have a moment, this is Völund, the Smith of Doom,” Zelda said, introducing a short individual, meaning about six feet tall, who was somewhat hunched over, walked with a substantial limp, and did not have wings. Therefore, he was not a D’Orc, nor even an orc, although, he was almost ugly enough to be an orc.

“Völund, a pleasure to meet you.” Tom nodded at the smith.

“Likewise.” Völund shrugged and stood there.

Zelda stood for a moment waiting for the smith to say more, but apparently he had nothing more to say. Interestingly, he did not seem particularly awed or impressed by Lord Tommus. Tom was getting used to people being slack-jawed at the sight of him. In this case, however, Völund just stood there chewing tobacco or something similar. He appeared to be on the verge of spitting it out on the floor.

“Uhm,” said Zelda, shaking her head. “Völund here is in charge of making all our weapons and armor, but at the moment, more importantly, he is also in charge of the mint.”

“The mint?” Tom asked, puzzled.

“Yes, the mint,” Völund stated, and then said nothing more.

“You mean like a coin mint?” Tom asked.

“Yep,” the smith replied.

Zelda sighed and continued, “Naturally, once Mount Doom shut down, the metal founts solidified, and in fact without access to Midgard, the Planes of Orcs, we had no huge need of coins — ”

“Now we do, so we do,” Völund interrupted, “and the founts are starting to run again.”

“Yes,” Zelda finished. “So Völund is seeking your permission to start minting new coins. He proposes to use the same denominations as before, but to replace the coin’s head with your portrait instead.”

“Uhm, okay.” Tom was not sure what to say.

“It will be much more efficient for trading with orcs and such,” Zelda said. “Right now, lumps of metal and gems are very imprecise payments, and we can’t be sure we are getting an accurate value for our treasure.”

Tom nodded. “That actually makes a lot of sense. They will take our coins in Midgard?” He was starting to like saying “Midgard” instead of “Planes of Orcs” or “Planes of Men.” It was much more efficient and he would not accidentally sound racist when talking to different groups.

He had never thought about it until he had heard the D’Orcs calling Astlan and the other planes “the Planes of Orcs,” but it did make sense that the term “Planes of Men,” as the wizards used, was hugely condescending and racist to all the other races and species living there. Not to mention the women. He wondered suddenly if there were tribes of Amazon women who referred to Midgard as the “Planes of Women.”

“Definitely. Foreign coins are never a problem. Every large merchant has an assayer, or has basic skills as one and can measure volume and weight to verify the density of a coin, and thus the value,” Zelda noted. “Actually, it’s a skill most orcs learn early on. Since you can only carry so much loot from a city, you want to take the most valuable coins.”

“Back in the day, at the height of the Doompire,” Völund said, “our coins were more valuable than those stupid tokens the Courts issued.”

“The Doompire?” Tom asked.

Zelda shook her head, indicating it was not that important. “That was a slang term for the Empire of Mount Doom, as it was known for several thousand years. It was not an official title.”