《The Merchant Adventurer》Mightier than the Sword

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Hissglarg smelled human. And orders were very clear about humans. They were to be eaten. Not the crunchy face-parts, no, no. Those were to be saved for identification, of course. But all the rest was fair game. Like all Orcs, Hissglarg loved human meat. Of course, he had been bred to.

It was a silly trait, one that evolution would never have put up with. All Orcs really needed to survive was a constant diet of the deep minerals they had been grown from. But when Alston Dimsbury set out to do a job of Evil Wizarding, he didn’t leave it half done. No matter what they needed to live, Alston had decided that his Orcs would have a proper lust for the flesh of mankind. What did he care for the delicate processes that formed the natural world?

This was all well and good (especially for Dimsbury’s vanity) but human meat played hell on an Orc’s digestion. In fact, nothing about an Orc’s digestion was very good. A single Orc, left to its own devices, could eat rock and soil all day yet fail to extract enough nutrition to survive. And so this odd, created species dug and quarried and filtered and smelted and refined. They excavated vast underground complexes, not for pretty jewels or shiny metals, but for dinner.

Hissglarg held the barely sputtering torch close to the ceiling and sniffed the air. Yes, this time to the left. He sucked the air and scuttled forward. Strictly speaking, Hissglarg didn’t need light. Born and raised underground, the feeling of the rock under his claws and the scents of minerals, warren-mates, and intruders were all he needed to navigate his way through the most tortuous of underground passages. He could never get lost. He would just follow his own smell back the way he had come.

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Orcs carried the torches because of something the-one-who-spoke-the-human-tongue had told them. Hissglarg couldn’t remember the exact words right now, especially with the intoxicating smell of meat so close. It was something about humans liking light, that if they were lost in the dark they would come right toward it. (It was close enough, what Samga had told his fellow Orcs was, “Keep the light in their eyes. They are easier to catch that way.”)

As he stepped out into the junction, he thought he saw something move to his left. But he when he turned to look at it, brilliant light flooded the passageway. It was so brilliant he thought it was that most abhorred of things, the sun. But what would the sun be doing underground? Hissglarg covered his eyes and cried out in pain. Then he threw his sputtering torch at the source of light. The light faded. In the returning darkness, he saw a fat sack of human meat scrambling along the ground after a lantern. Ah, dinner! thought Hissglarg.

The entree on the ground turned and looked behind Hissglarg. Its eyes went wide and it shouted something in the meat-tongue. Hissglarg did not understand what it said, but he looked behind him anyway. And there, to his surprise, was more meat. This one held a sword in its shaking hand. It was younger and thinner than the one on the ground. In fact, it looked kind of stringy. But Hissglarg would eat the sword too. Metal was tasty and good for you. The Orc grabbed the shaking metal blade in one of his taloned hands. Tears streamed down the boy’s face, but he did not run.

Then there was a thud-clink and blackness closed in from around the edges of Hissglarg’s vision. The Orc collapsed to the floor unconscious.

Relan blinked the tears back from his eyes and saw Boltac standing over the collapsed Orc with a heavy coin purse in his right hand.

“Why didn’t you stab him?” Boltac demanded.

“What did you hit him with?” Relan asked, still shaking and trying to change the subject.

“Money. About 150 gold pieces. Mightier than the sword,” Boltac said with a wink.

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