The Heavenly Host

“It appears everyone in the wargtown is completely passed out. In place, not even in their beds or sleeping blankets. A few are, but most seem to have fallen off benches and stools and gone to sleep.” He shook his head. “The smell of stale glargh and piss is really bad. It almost masks the stench of the wargs.”

“Is it standard orc procedure to allow everyone to just pass out with no guards or fortifications?” Gastropé asked, indicating the openness of the town. Anyone could just walk up and come in, as the dwarves had just done. His brow furrowed. “We have soldiers marching through their tents, and still no one has woken up.”

“It is not standard, as far as I know,” Seamach said, also frowning. “Although they’ve been known to let their guard down at some very serious celebrations.”

“Hoy there!” came a voice from the direction of the town gates. They all looked in that direction to see the gates being pulled into their day positions. A man, apparently human, was walking towards them. “Don’t be pilfering the wargtown or there will be hell to pay!”

“We won’t be taking anything. We were simply investigating why there was no movement,” Trevin called back.

The man arrived shortly. He was wearing a rather tacky and stained town guard uniform and had not shaved in some time. “Aye, they all went on a bender yesterday afternoon and really never stopped until they all passed out. ‘Twas a real pain for the folks who wanted to reclaim their wargs and such. They made do, but I suspect there will be some reckoning of payments at some point.”

“Is this normal?” Trevin asked.

“Nah, most of them ain’t got the kind of money you need to get this drunk,” the guard said, shaking his head before spitting.

“So what was different this time?” Maelen asked.

The guard squinted. “Well, from what I gather from those who returned to town before the others passed out, there was this large blonde woman and her associates who came to hear the tales of the D’Orcs from the day before. ‘Course, they didn’t want to talk to a human, not until she whupped Meat Maker, but then she bought them glargh all afternoon and listened to their tales.”

“And then they passed out?” Elrose asked.

“Nah, that’s when a few did return and I learned what was up. But the rest, they kept drinking on their own coins, presumably. Once an orc is drunk, it’s hard for them to stop until either their glargh or money is gone. It’s either that or pass out.”

Seamach snorted and gave Captain Ehéarellis a knowing look.

“So the D’Orcs and orcs who came to town the other day — were they any trouble?” Trevin asked.

The guard shook his head. “Actually not. They were much better behaved and better organized than the majority of hunting parties coming through town. No drinkin’, no fights, no rowdiness or noise. They just bought what they needed and then left.”

“Left? Which direction did they go?” Maelen asked.

“As I heard it, they didn’t go any direction.” The guard pointed off east-southeast. “They came from there. They left through a big fire.”

“A big fire?” Seamach asked, puzzled.

“A hole in a giant bonfire they started,” the guard said.

“A portal to the Abyss,” Gastropé said. Jenn nodded in agreement. The two of them had been through more than enough of those things for a lifetime.

The guard shrugged, only knowing what he reported.

Elrose shook his head. “Well, the good news is that they didn’t cause any problems.”

“But what foul scheme have they cooked up?” Captain Ehéarellis said.

Trevin nodded. “I want my people to run some forensics on the town, the markets they visited. See if we can get any signs, perhaps residual signals that we can read.”

Elrose nodded. “That does seem prudent.”

“Maybe if we get lucky, they’ll come back,” Seamach said. Jenn and Gastropé gave the elf looks of disbelief.

∼

“Great,” Darflow Skragnarth said hollowly.

“What?” Lesteroth Garflog asked his commander.

“That fellow there” — Darflow pointed down the hall to a fiend who seemed to be hightailing it out of the fortress — “has brought us new orders from our glorious Queen of Darkness.”

“Didn’t she just send orders last night for a recon job?” Lesteroth asked.

“She did.”

“And the new orders?”

“Full-on assault, eliminate all the D’Orcs and their new ruler,” Darflow said with a sigh.

“Seriously?” Lesteroth said in shock. He grabbed the missive from his commander’s grasp and scanned it. “Abyss! She is really serious this time,” Lesteroth said with a very surprised look on his face.

Darflow shrugged. “She is sending in reinforcements. Given that we only have about a thousand demons left, I am both shocked at her generosity and pleasantly surprised.”

“Agreed. Doom has twice our numbers, and now somebody is driving the pyrotechnics.” Lesteroth pointed out to the stormy, rumbling volcano. “If she is sending reinforcements, she must be serious this time.”

“So,” Darflow said, shrugging, “we are to wait for the reinforcements to arrive. I wonder what sort of reinforcements she is sending?”