Ellen hadn’t been pulling Percival’s purse strings when she said how much money a tor-cat was worth. Everything about the giant feline was worth silvers and golds. She knew she could have waited for him to finish skinning the cat and then come back and gathered up the leavings, but that would have been foolish.

He could have damaged things, not realizing they were valuable. Not to mention that if she had waited some of the more delicate organs would most likely go rancid; which would have been a true shame.

Anyway, she liked him after a fashion. She was willing to split her cut with Stroz. Well… not split, per say, but she promised him a crafted item if he lent her his bag.

Percival had only asked for one cloak out of the fur, but she thought she could probably make three full sized cloaks and perhaps one for something Finos’ size as well. Or she could make Percival the cloak he requested and a new bedroll for Stroz, since those imps took his last one apart.

She smiled. The kid needed a new bedroll. The first task was to tan the hide, something none of her companions would enjoy. The stink alone was terrible.

Her smile dropped into a frown. I can’t tan the hide while we are trying to sneak up on orcs. They aren’t particularly smart, but that doesn’t make them stupid. They’ll smell us from a mile away. It was unfortunate, but she would still be able to begin working on Percival’s necklace, so it wasn’t all bad.

Ellen sat on her bedroll and pulled out a set of tools wrapped in sheef wool that had been carded until it was so fine it felt like silk. Not that she had ever owned silk. Her grandmother said she had owned many silk dresses, but after her homecity had exploded all the silk worms had mutated and began to spit acid; silk had become even rarer than it had previously been.

I think… I’ll make a free spinning design inside an outer latticework. It was very difficult. First she would have to carve the latticework onto the surface of the fang, and then she would have to use her tools to separate the inside of the fang from the first layer of intricate work. Given the size of the fang, she imagined that she could probably put in a few layers of free floating lattice before putting the spinning bead in motion.

It took Ellen five nights and four days in the saddle to finish the fang, a night and a day to make the setting and the following morning to make the neck tong.

When the piece was completed she looked at it with a smile. A completed work always made her happy. The fang was warm in her hand and seemed to hum with a pleasant murmur.

“Is that mine?” Percival walked up behind her.

“Yep.” She handed it over readily. Her projects were only interesting until they were finished. When she was younger she would just throw them out or leave them behind. Her mother had saved many of them and then taken Ellen with her when she sold them so that Ellen understood how valuable her creations were.

Percival placed the necklace around his neck. “It’s warm. Is it supposed to be like that?”

“It’s probably just warm because I was holding it. Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh… okay.” He held it up so he could look at the intricate design. “Whoa! How did you get that bead inside?” He tilted it to one side and then the other, “How do you have so many layers spinning inside? Are they connected? They don’t look connected, but they aren’t rattling against one another.”

Ellen chuckled lightly, “The bead is part of the fang, I didn’t put it there, it was already there. As for the rest, it isn’t connected, it should spin freely, but I’m not going to tell you. It’s a trade secret.”

“Whoa. This is pretty cool.” He tucked it into his tunic so it wouldn’t be damaged. It looked very delicate.

As he was fiddling with his new accessory, Ellen gripped his shoulder, “Do you hear that?”

Percival strained his ears and looked in the direction she gestured toward. Many people who had not been to the great plains of the Northern Kingdom were under the mistaken impression that because the area was plains, that meant you could see everything that happened there. This was not the actuality of the area. Things were not as transparent as that.

Though the grasslands stretched on for miles, the grasses themselves were a range of sizes. In some places they were quite tall. They would have to be, after all, tor-cats did hide in the plains. There were also gentle slopes. It was nothing even remotely similar to the hills of the south, but it did mean that a man surveying the plains would get the impression that he was seeing far more than he actually was.

Had Ellen been alerting anyone else to the sound, they would have been confused. The group was generally aware of the height of the grasses; after all they were traveling through them, but had yet to experience the slopes. Percival however, was quite experienced with this land.

“There is movement.” He strained his eyes, “I-I believe it could be a patrol of orcs.” Percival glanced toward Lizzy. Would the best thing be to stand by her side in case we come upon them? Or to deal with them before they have a chance to endanger her?

Ellen called up to Kegar, “I think I saw something, but it’s likely nothing. Percival and I are going to check it out.”

Kegar didn’t even look up from his argument with Lizzy. It seemed that every day they would have quiet arguments that tensed everyone up.

Percival and Ellen handed the reigns of their mounts off to others before slipping into the grasses.

“How far do you think that is?”

“It could be quite far. It’s hard to judge distances, but the movement was subtle.”

“Why did you think it was a patrol? It could easily be a herd of kreas or bison.” Kreas looked like feathered bison, they had beaks and horns but were gentle and hard to rile up.

“No. I saw the glint of metal. It may not be orcs, but it is definitely humanoid.”

Soon the familiar chinking sound of chainmail caught their attention. These orcs were in heavier gear than the orcs they had found before on the crossroads. Those had been outfitted for stealth and these couldn’t care less. Those orcs were speaking in their own language; to Percival’s understanding, he could only assume they were telling fart jokes as they marched. They laughed and took turns speaking their gobbledygook of a language before making a farting sound, either with their lips or with their arms or hands.

It was undoubtedly stupid, however it gave Percival pause. These were a group of friends, laughing and having fun together. It was something beautiful to him, something he had always longed for. Camaraderie.

That thought hung over him like a dark cloud as he pulled some caltrops out of his pouch and scattered them in front of Ellen and himself. When the orcs charged, they would be in for a terrible surprise.

He leveled his hand crossbow at a pale blue orc who was in the back of the group. Ellen gestured that she would take the yellow orc, or at least, that’s what Percival hoped she was trying to indicate. He resolved to begin learning Broden’s hand language. Having a universal hand language, something like the common tongue, would make these kind of covert missions much easier.

However, there was nothing to be done then. Percival counted down from three with his fingers so Ellen could see and then fired. His bolt pierced the blue orc’s back just as her arrow pierced the back of the yellow orc.

There was no time to catch the falling orcs, nor to prevent them from exhaling their death gasps. As one and then the other orc collapsed to the ground, the others from the group whipped around drawing swords, axes and halberds. Plates of steel covered their vital organs on their chests, preventing similar attacks. Chainmail coifs would make slashing at their throats harder as well.

As Percival was reloading his crossbow, Ellen drew back three arrows and let them fly. Purple energy swirled around the tips, guiding them to the eyes of three separate orcs. They would need to thin out the orc ranks as much as possible before the orcs could close in on them, close combat would give the orcs a significant advantage.

His bolt reloaded, he shot one of the orcs, but in his haste, he missed his mark. Instead of killing the orc, his bolt glanced off the chainmail coif. However, the blow was still intense and so while the orc wasn’t killed outright, he did go to one knee, gasping and trying to breathe.

A sludge green orc with a halberd clambered through the high grass toward Percival. His eyes were focused on the human and not losing him, which meant he didn’t see the caltrops underfoot. His leather boots had steel plates on the top so that taking a pike butt wouldn’t break his foot, they did not have anything on the bottom. This meant that he shoved his foot straight down on a three inch spike. The spike was long enough to go totally through the orc’s foot and out the top of the boot, the barbs on the spike meant that when he pulled his foot up, it did not lift off the spike, but rather dragged the piece with him, doing more damage to his foot.

The orc wailed in pain, but tried to move toward Percival even still. Percival frantically reloaded and shot the orc in the face with his crossbow. They were so close that the bolt went through the back of his helm and into the knee of another orc.

A red orc tackled Percival from the side. They rolled on the ground, thankfully not among the caltrops, both trying to get the upper hand. The orc’s mailed glove slammed into Percival’s jaw making him go slack for a moment. Pain exploded in his head and stars bloomed in his sight.

The orc sat on his chest, gloved hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing. Percival’s hand twitched at his side, struggling to find something to use against the orc. His knife was trapped under the pressure of the orc’s thigh, but his bag of caltrops wasn’t.

He grabbed one and plunged it into the orc’s arm. The orc howled in anger, but kept his grip. Percival pulled it out and tried again, but he was getting weaker and when he struck a metal plate, it just skittered off. Once again he tried, this time he came from the back and struck the orc in the kidney.

He must have nicked an artery, because a spurt of blood shot out of the orc and the orc collapsed to the side. Percival pushed him off and sat up, rubbing his throat, he was just in time to see Ellen put her hand on two orcs’ heads. Purple energy swirled around her hands and the orcs screamed. Their screams tore from their throats, their eyes rolling up in their heads before they collapsed to the ground.

“Uh… didn’t know you could do that.” Percival climbed to his feet.

Ellen blushed, “Damn, I was hoping you wouldn’t see me do that.”

“Why? It was pretty cool.”

She crossed her arm over her chest, “Because I’m trying to be mysterious.”

Well, that’s cowbra manure. He didn’t know why she was trying to hide, but it wasn’t just to be “mysterious”.

A lightning bolt struck the grass near them.

Percival jumped back, “What in the hells?”

Katrina pushed back the grass revealing an orc smoldering on the ground. “You missed one.”