Page 41 of Agor the Merciless
No one answered him. No birds called, no leaves rustled, no one spoke. Agor walked back and forth, his feet making paths in the grass. His hand went to his sword and pulled it free.
“You fought beside me for years. We crossed from our world to this one together. We battled humans side by side until peace came.” He kept turning as he talked, watching the trees for movement. “We shared meals and plans. The horde trusted you. What changed you? Did power matter so much? Every orc gets old, every orc loses strength over time. Even I will grow weak one day. But we accept this and teach the young ones what we know.”
The clearing stayed quiet around him. It drove him mad, because he knew the old mage was watching and listening, enjoying the show, essentially.
“My mate suffers from your curse. She did nothing to hurt you. She never even met you. A human who tried to build a new life with us. She fights for every breath while your poison runs through her blood. You attack the weakest among us because you fear facing me. You hurt a human instead of bringing your grudge to me directly.” Agor spat on the ground. “A true warrior doesn’t hide behind magic and tricks. If you have any honor left in your body, come out and face me now. Just you and me, as men, with blades or fists.”
The quiet lasted for another minute, then the mage’s raspy voice came from somewhere above. The orc captain looked everywhere but couldn’t see him.
“Why should I, captain? I enjoy watching you fail.”
Agor moved into a fighting stance and gripped his sword harder. The metal felt cool in his hand as he breathed the heavy air that seemed to push against his chest. He raised his voice at the unseen speaker who talked from all directions.
“You want to watch me fail? You want to play games? I will break apart this mountain with my hands. I will search every cave and crack until I find where you hide. Stone by stone, if that’s what it takes.”
No answer. Agor waited, tension building inside him, but saw no movement anywhere. The tree trunks didn’t move, the dirt under him stayed firm, and the healthy patch of weeds and shoots seemed harmless enough as he stomped on it. He took a breath to shout again when the view in front of him began to change. The air moved like heat waves without warmth. The edge of the forest became less clear, the dirt and plants beneath him started to blur and fade. Agor blinked as his skin tingled from the magic in the air. When he looked again, the woods had disappeared.
A stone wall now stood where trees had been moments before. It rose so high that Agor had to look up to see the top. He touched the stone to make sure it was real. The wall went left and right as far as he could see, with steps cut into the middle that led up to a cave halfway to the top. A gnarled silhouette stood at the entrance with a staff in hand.
Grak the Bitter looked down at them from the cave entrance. His skin had turned a darker green as he’d aged, and his eyes sat deep in his face. His clothes hung loose on his body. He was not as big as Agor remembered, but the staff he held gave off light that came from the life he stole from the land and from Zoe.
“So serious, captain. Always rushing into battle, always thinking with your fists instead of your mind.” He tapped his staff against the stone. “Come up here, then. Climb to me and beg for your human’s life.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Agor the Merciless wasted no time, raised his sword, and with a roar, he started up the stone steps. He heard heavy footsteps pound the earth behind him, and when he glanced back, he saw his two grunts rushing toward him, weapons drawn. They had left Durnak and Lyra to join the fight. He waited for them to catch up, and then the three orcs charged forward as one, their breath struggling in the dead air.
Grak the Bitter watched them from above, his thin mouth stretching into a smile that showed broken teeth. He lifted his staff and drove it into the dirt with both hands, pushing it deep into the earth. The wood sank a quarter of its length, and the glow from the top spread into the rock and soil.
The steps began to move. At first, small ripples, then larger waves, as something pushed up from underneath. A hand broke through – not an orc or human hand, but a twisted thing made of packed mud, with roots for fingers and bones showing through gaps in the soil. More hands followed, then arms and heads, as bodies pulled themselves out of the ground.
The creatures stood on uneven legs, dirt falling from their forms as they moved. Their faces had no real features, just holes where eyes should’ve been and jagged cracks for mouths. Some had animal skulls pushed into their mud heads, others had roots and sticks poking through their bodies. They smelled worse than the rot of the dead forest – a mix of old meat left too long in the sun, and wet soil from deep places where nothing grew.
“Kill them!” Agor ordered, not slowing his run up the steps. The climb was steep, and the faster he ran, the farther the top seemed.
The first monster lunged at him, arms outstretched. Agor swung his sword into its middle, cutting it in half. Mud splattered his chest and face as the creature fell apart. He pushedthrough the remains without stopping, but where the pieces hit the ground, they began to pull back together.
One grunt swung a heavy axe that took the head off another mud creature. The second grunt stabbed a third monster through its chest with a spear. Neither attack stopped the things for long. The headless one kept walking, and the one with the spear stuck through it grabbed the weapon’s shaft and pulled itself closer to the grunt who’d attacked it.
Now two creatures blocked Agor’s path. He kicked the first one down, watching it tumble and break apart. The second grabbed his leg with root-fingers that dug into his flesh. He grunted at the pain and brought his sword down on its arm, freeing himself.
“Captain, there are too many!” one warrior shouted.
Agor turned to see his grunts surrounded. Five or six creatures pressed in on each orc, grabbing at them. The orcs fought hard, breaking the monsters into pieces with each blow, but the parts just pulled themselves back together and kept coming, while the orcs were more and more depleted. Agor felt it, too. The longer the battle stretched, the weaker he was. A mud hand grabbed his ankle from behind. He looked down to see the creature he had cut in half earlier, now whole again and climbing after him. He kicked it away and continued up the steps, only to find three more blocking his way. He roared and swung his sword in a wide arc that caught all three creatures. They broke apart, pieces of mud and bone raining down the steps, but already they were reforming. Every monster he destroyed simply made more as the pieces became new creatures.
Blood ran down his leg, fresh scratches marked his arms from creatures he hadn’t even noticed attacking him. Sweat poured down his face and back as he fought, his muscles burning with effort. Below, one grunt went down under a pile of mud monsters. He screamed as they covered him, digging into hisflesh and tearing him apart. The other grunt tried to help but couldn’t break through the wall of monsters between them. The captain turned back to his climb, cutting down two more creatures that rose in front of him. His sword felt heavier with each swing. His breath came in gasps. The steps seemed to stretch on and on before him, and Grak the Bitter still watched from above, laughing. This was endless and fruitless, but he didn’t know what else to do. Three creatures grabbed him at once, one on each arm and one around his waist. He struggled against their grip, but more piled on, their weight pulling him down to his knees. He broke free from one, only to have two more grab onto him.
The second grunt screamed below as monsters pulled him to the ground. Now both warriors were lost under piles of moving mud and roots.
Agor fought on, but it was getting to the point where he could barely move. He hadn’t felt so overwhelmed in his life. It was as if his experience as a warrior on the battlefield and as a captain leading a horde counted for nothing. The monsters kept coming from the earth, endless as the dirt itself. His arms grew tired, his sword blows came slower, and blood from a dozen small wounds soaked into his clothes. This wasn’t a real, fair battle, it was a trap designed to wear him down until he could no longer lift his weapon. Grak didn’t want him dead quickly. He wanted him exhausted, drained, and hopeless before he finished him.
Still, Agor fought. He would not stop until his body gave out. But with each monster he smashed, each step he tried to climb, the truth became clear. He couldn’t win this fight. He blinked through the sweat and blood that ran into his eyes, and stopped for a second to look up at Grak. The mage’s thin body leaned on his staff, his wrinkled face twisted in a smile. Agor remembered how Grak had once been strong and respected, how he had stood tall among the horde. But the fear that drove him to dark magicwas always there, the terror of growing old, of losing power, of being forgotten when he died. That fear had turned him into this bitter creature who stole life from others to feel strong again.
Maybe he could use it against him.
The captain lowered his sword and stood still as the mud creatures moved around him, their root-fingers reaching for him. Instead of fighting, he threw his head back and laughed. The sound echoed off the stone wall, loud and mocking, exaggerated to a degree. He did his best to sound genuine when his two grunts had just died, their bodies rolled to the foot of the stone wall, and his raider and young mage were nowhere in sight.
“Is this the best you can do, old man? You were once a great mage, feared by humans and respected by orcs. Now you hide in a mountain and play with dirt and bones.”
