Chapter 46: The Hall Of Warriors

Greg stands up from his seat and walks towards us, his clothes flapping lightly around his wrists and feet as he moves.

The movement attracts Jakin’s eye, who says, “Ain’t that… What’s his name? Met him escaping from Ginerbe, I think…”

“Greg.” Boaz supplies.

“Aye, that’s the one.” Jakin nods. “What in God’s name is he doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you guys.” Greg notes dryly, now standing in front of us. “It’s not exactly as if this is a popular tourist destination.”

Jakin claps Xiltroth on the back. “Xiltroth here joined the group not long after we last saw yeh. Then, well, the war. Wasn’t a safe place left in the five kingdoms for us, so we left them. Happened to set up camp not too far from here. Found out about the orcs and came here to make sure the first meeting was a friendly one.”

“The war is affecting everyone, it seems.” Greg nods in understanding. “I was on the warfront myself, with those of my group that survived. After a while, I realised that I didn’t have any reason to be fighting. I don’t hate the demons or beastmen, and neither do I have any debt or loyalty to Stalia. I left, heading east and then north. Getting through Xin was… difficult, but I managed eventually. Didn’t realise there was a desert up there, but I found myself uniquely equipped to survive it. Ice magic is great to beat the heat.”

Jakin curiously raises an eyebrow. “Aye? The heat may be one thing, but I hear there are no plants or animals living in the desert. How’d yeh manage to find food in a place like that?”

“It’s a long story, perhaps for another day.” Greg shrugs.

A large shadow looms over us. “Are you gonna keep yakking, or can we get to business? Utak says you need a room for the night.” Greta says, looking vaguely angry and threatening.

“Yes, of course.” I quickly turn to face her. “What would be suitable payment?”

Greta rolls her eyes in annoyance. “What you got?”

“Well, I noticed that some of your furniture got broken. Jakin, Boaz, do you reckon you can fix them?” I ask.

The twins cast an evaluating gaze over the pile of broken wood. “Aye, we can.” Jakin nods. “We’d need some spare wood, though. A lot of that’s too broken to use.”

“Hmm…” Greta grunts, mulling it over. “Have a lot of firewood. Could spare some. That do?”

Jakin nods. “So long as you have a few logs that are long and thick enough, it should do fine.”

Greta considers for a few moments. Or maybe she’s glaring at us, I’m not entirely sure. “Furniture pays for room. Need pay for wood. After fixing furniture, you clean up all the broken wood left over and mess you make fixing. Take it to firewood pile out back. Can use as kindling.”

“Seems like we have a deal.” I agree, holding out my hand.

She takes it, her unarmoured hand almost as large as mine covered in a gauntlet, and I can feel the crushing strength of her grip even through the metal as we shake on it.

“Right. Well, if yeh’ll show us to the firewood, we’ll get started on that.” Jakin nods.

With Greta leading Jakin and Boaz to the wood storage, it left Xiltroth, Heather and I alone with Greg. Precisely the situation I had been trying to avoid.

“So…” Trails Greg. “Can’t help but notice your party is really diverse. Most people tend to stick to their own race – something about everyone being at war with everyone else at some point in history.”

“History is history.” I shrug. “The people who fought them are dead. Their causes have been long forgotten. I judge people by their own actions, not by their ancestors’. If others want to live in the past, then that’s their mistake to make.”

“I hear you. Everyone would be better off if the war never happened, but everyone seemed to be of the opinion that it was inevitable.” Greg sighs.

I nod in resignation. “Guess humans are just warmongers. Always seem to be starting wars.”

“What do you mean?” Greg tilts his head. “Sure, the three kingdoms retaliated rather strongly, but the demons are the ones who started it.”

“No we didn’t.” Xiltroth, who had been listening silently until now, interjects. “It was the humans that sacked Vaaslav city and forced us into a war.”

“Huh? I hadn’t heard about anything like that.” Greg looks at Xiltroth quizzically. “And, well, I knew some people pretty high up. I would’ve known if something like that happened. No, the demons raided and destroyed an elven village, Willowheim and the three kingdoms moved in retaliation.”

“It happened.” I state, raising an eyebrow. “We were in the city just over from Vaaslav when it got destroyed. The people were pretty enraged, trust me – we had to leave pretty quick once the news arrived, or chances are we would’ve been mobbed. You sure about that village?”

Greg considers for a moment. “I think so. At least, as sure as one can be without seeing it themselves.”

“Sure you weren’t lied to?” I wouldn’t put it past the kings, lying to the ‘heroes’ to ensure their cooperation.

“You can lie about a lot of things, but not about a whole village.” Greg nods. “Too easy for people to see the lie for themselves. Met some elves on the warfront who had joined the army after seeing the wreckage themselves… Those eyes don’t lie.”

And Greg wouldn’t lie about something like this, certainly not to protect the kings or their reputation. We never trusted them enough for that.

“Well, the implications for that are nasty.” I note.

“You don’t think that both were framed to cause the war, do you?” Xiltroth frowns.

“Unfortunately.” Greg nods. “That does seem likely. Some other group did this.”

“Can’t we tell people? Stop the war?” Xiltroth asks, frustrated.

“Wish it were that easy.” I shake my head in resignation. “Chances are all the kings have caught on to it by now, too. If not, they may as well get rid of their information networks, because they were just upstaged by some people chatting in a bar. But war is like a massive boulder at the top of a hill. Hard to get rolling – there’s always some sane people trying to stop wars from starting – but once it is, you can’t stop it. You either get flattened or get the hell out of its way.”

“And rather than the ones who caused it, it’s the common man, the soldiers and the peasants, who take the hardest hits from the warfare. Honour, justice, for king and country, that’s what the songs speak of.” Greg agrees bitterly. “To ‘protect the ones back at home’. They’re all lies that the upper class spout so they have willing soldiers. Don’t get me wrong, there’s also some people higher up who believe the same thing. People who understand the truth of war, but believe that there is no alternative.”

“There’s always an alternative.” I curse. “If, rather than immediately declaring war, both sides communicated, it’s possible they might have noticed the discrepancy before they reached the point of no return and both sides could have united against the true culprit. But it’s too late now. As I see it, the war can only end one of four ways: the most obvious being that one side or another is defeated.”

“Alternatively, a treaty could be brokered before that happens. Seems unlikely with public opinion as it was before I left, but the war wears on everyone.” Greg shrugs. “Maybe one or both sides eventually realise that it would be worse for both of them if they kept fighting.”

I nod. “That, or one of them simply runs out of resources and can’t continue, and they negotiate because of that.”

Greg pauses in thought for a moment. “I can’t really think of anything else. Well, apart from the fighting part I’m not that familiar with war. What’s the last one you thought of, Aaron?”

I shrug. “This is a world of monsters and magic, right? Maybe something extraordinary will happen that nobody’s expecting that somehow stops the war.”

“Heh.” Greg chuckles, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, I guess given all that’s happened to me, it might not be too farfetched after all.”

“But enough about the war.” I sigh. “It sullies the mood, and it’s far out of our hands – and sight, for that matter. We should find a lighter topic of conversation.”

The room is as simple as one might expect. Obviously, Greta doesn’t have any beds fit for centaurs, so Heather has to make do with sheets and straw pillows on the floor. Still, she assures me, she had slept on far worse when roaming with her tribe. Fortunately, with many orcs having even larger statures than humans and most beastmen, their doorways are similarly larger, large enough that Heather can fit through, although she still has to stoop down a bit.

It had been a long time since we’d stayed in an inn, so it felt a bit strange leaving the room in the morning to find plenty of people already up, eating, drinking and talking.

Greg notices us entering the room and gets up, seemingly having been waiting for us. “Morning.” He greets. “Have any plans for the day?”

“Nothing concrete.” I reply in the negative. “Maybe explore the city a bit.”

“I have to return to my village.” Utak says. “Let chief know what happened.”

I nod and shake his hand. “It was nice to meet you. We’ll probably see you every now and again when we pass through the village on our way back to camp or from our camp to here.”

“Look forward to it.” Utak smiles, before turning towards the counter. “Greta, I’m heading home. Thanks for the room.”

“Anytime.” She waves. “Don’t be afraid to visit when you around.”

Utak nods in reply and heads out the door.

Turning his head from the door back to us, Greg says, “Well, thought you might be interested to visit the orc equivalent of an adventurer’s guild. You used to be adventurers, after all.”

“I still think of myself as an adventurer, even if I don’t work for the actual guild anymore. It’s more of a lifestyle than a job.” I reply, shrugging. “Anyway, yeah I’d be interested in seeing this…”

“Hall of warriors, they call it.” Greg supplies. “Had a bit of a rocky start, I hear. Orcs enjoy fighting, but only if the fight is challenging. It was hard for them to incentivise battle-hardened fighters to take care of a few stray wolves that were attacking a village’s livestock, for instance. They thought it was beneath them.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” I nod in understanding. “Historically speaking, they only started the transition from a tribal society to a civilisation some three hundred years ago, from what I know. Wouldn’t surprise me if they still kept most of their values from that time.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about their history, but yeah.” Greg shrugs noncommittally. “Their solution was to reward success with tokens they could exchange for goods and services – basically, money. The warriors still don’t like fighting weak enemies, but they do like being able to get things they need, so they put up with it for the most part, although there’s still a few stubborn guys who refuse to fight easy battles.”

My eyebrows raise in surprise. “Money? As far as I’ve heard and can tell, this place uses a barter system.”

“For the most part.” Greg nods. “The tokens are fairly recent. You could say they’re right at the beginning of a transition from the barter system to a monetary system – if it catches on, that is. Sure would make things easier if it does. The barter system’s fine when both parties have something the other wants, but if you don’t have what they want or the skills to get it, it can end up in a long, painstaking chain of trades to get what you want, and chances are you’re taking a loss somewhere along the line.”

“Yeah, having to rack my brains to figure out what to exchange for every little thing would quickly become tiring… I like it much better when things are simple and clear.” I agree. “Anyway, we’re just going to have a quick breakfast first. We should have enough for an extra, if you haven’t eaten yet.”

Greg shakes his head slightly. “I’ve already eaten. I’m used to getting up before sunrise, and haven’t had enough time to get out of the habit yet.”

“No problem.” I nod.

“Thanks for guiding us, this city is like a maze.” I say to Greg.

We stand in front of a relatively large building. There’s no signage, but the presence of the horned skull of some huge beast mounted above the door clearly marks it apart from the other buildings around.

“No skin off my back.” Greg shrugs. “Fair warning though, orcs, especially the ones here, value strength highly. Outsiders like you and I, they’ll test to make sure you’re worthy of taking the quests here.”

“No problem. We can take hits, or deal them if necessary.” I reply.

“I’m sure. Just… yeah.” He says lamely.

“No time like the present.” I mutter, pushing the door open.

The ruckus from inside spills out onto the street for a moment before the attention of those inside shifts to us and much of the conversation abruptly cuts off.

“These the outsiders?” One of them growls. “Shiny armour, but small. How can these ones be good warriors?”

“Want to fight this small one to find out, Urbok?” Greg steps inside.

Urbok’s mouth twitches into a slight grimace. “These ones are warriors, not wizards. Not the same.”

“The only difference it would make is whether I would kick your ass – or light it on fire.” I step forward and raise my hand, a small orb of flame flickering above it. I close my fist around it, letting it dissipate. “Pretty sure I could do both.”

Urbok chuckles, although it sounds a little bit forced to me. “It take more than fire to intimidate me, outsider. You have to prove your strength before you join us on these hunts.”

These words are met with scattered growls of approval in the room.

“Simple, then.” I nod. “You know how to arm wrestle?”

“You think me a fool?” Urbok scowls.

‘Yes.’ I leave the thought unspoken, saying instead, “Let’s do it then, you and me. Your table should be fine, yeah?”

Urbok sneers, sitting back onto his seat and placing his elbow on the table, his thick green arm bulging with muscles.

I walk over and sit opposite him, taking off my helm and setting it down between my feet before locking my eyes impassively with Urbok as I set my elbow on the table. “We’ll have to use our left arms.” I state. “Broke my right in a fight recently and it hasn’t fully healed up yet. We’ll need someone to count us down, too.”

As far as I’ve seen, orcs are on average significantly stronger than humans. And as a warrior, Urbok should be on the higher end of the scale among orcs. Still, I’m not overly worried.

Urbok scowls but switches arms, grasping my hand firmly while another orc slowly counts down to the starting mark. The attention of near everyone in the room is on us, and our own eyes are locked with each other’s, Urbok’s a fierce glare, and my own is resolute, determined… Confident.

Never once have I let up on my training – excluding recently, with my arm being broken. To be honest, apart from hunting for food, keeping watch, various maintenance and camp tasks, there isn’t much to do around here. I can’t exactly take part in any of my hobbies from earth; those being reading, games and such. Nor have I picked up any new hobbies since I got here.

So, in general, if I have spare time, I spend it training.

“GO!” The mark is called by the orc, and we immediately start straining against each other. A glint of surprise runs through Urbok’s eyes when he isn’t instantly able to slam my hand onto the table and he redoubles his efforts, the muscles in his arm bulging and his veins standing proud from his skin as the orcs surrounding us shout and cheer on the show.

Our hands tremble, and my arm slowly starts to dip towards the table. “I’m glad,” I manage to grunt out through the strain, “that you weren’t just posturing. You really are strong.”

“Just give up.” He grimaces, beginning to pant slightly.

“Not… Yet.” I grunt in reply, starting to circulate my mana. Our hands start to creep back towards equilibrium to the excited shouts of onlookers as his eyes widen.

He throws his shoulder into the push, but still isn’t able to stop his hand’s descent. A few moments later, with a slightly pained grunt, his knuckles hit the table.

We loosen our grips and I shake out my arm, taking a deep breath. I have won, but it put considerable strain on my arm. The doctor would probably have something to say about me exerting myself so much while I’m still healing if he knew.

“You are strong.” Urbok admits. “But the others? They must be tested too.”

Boaz and Jakin are naturally next because of their diminutive size, facing off against two other orcs. Well, despite their shorter stature, dwarves are actually of similar or even greater strength than humans, and unlike me the twins are in the prime of their youth. And while we don’t exactly speak about our past, they have mentioned they used to be in the army – meaning that they have been training themselves for a long time.

They win, of course.

“What about you, demon? Can those twigs you have for arms even lift a weapon?” An orc approaches Xiltroth with the obvious intent of humiliating him, but before he can lay his meaty hands on Xiltroth he is forced to frantically backpedal as a knife appears at his neck, Xiltroth taking none of his nonsense.

“Never mind! My bad.” The orc touches his neck with a finger to make sure there isn’t a mark, and retreats with a foul expression.

As for Heather, she looms over even the tallest of orcs and has enough bulk in her lower body to give them pause. Perhaps they have some knowledge about animals, or perhaps it’s simple instinct, but they unanimously give her rear a wide berth, and leave her out of their ‘tests’. Probably for the best, as I doubt her upper body is as strong as her lower body naturally is.

Once all the orcs were done with ‘making sure we were strong enough’, we are finally able to head to the bar. Behind it stands an orc with greyed hair and a chipped fang. “What sort of jobs are available?” I ask.

He glances over us. “Always lots to do here. You new, so I tell you how things go here. Lots of beasts and monsters near the city – bad for people moving between here and villages. Bring me their heads, and there will be a reward. Stronger beast, bigger reward – simple.” The orc starts explaining, seemingly not having the same inclination to look down on us as some of the other warriors here.

“You bring back the meat or useful parts, I buy them from you too. Too many bronze horns lately. Good if you could hunt them. Those the simple things, always the same.” He shrugs.

I nod in understanding. “And the more specific, urgent things?”

“Howling heard near the village to the east, has put the villagers on edge. A couple livestock went missing not long ago.” He says seriously.

“Livestock?” I question. “Are those the same type of livestock as they have in the village west of here? Those things looked like they could take on most monsters by themselves.”

“Same ones.” He nods. “And they can.”

“Werewolves?” Jakin guesses quietly, and Greg flinches in response.

“Sure as hell hope not.” I reply. “Could be some sort of wolf variant as well. A pack could probably take down a lone beast without any trouble if they worked together.”

“Still, if there are werewolves near here, we need to know as soon as possible.” Greg scowls. “Greyguts, I’ll look into this one. I’ll take them out if I can, or get back here as soon as possible if I can’t to let you know so a hunting party can be organised.”

“Hope it doesn’t come to that.” Greyguts shakes his head grimly and puts his arm forward. “Strong arm, thick skin, Greg.”

Greg grasps Greyguts’ forearm and returns the farewell before heading out of the building with a quick stride.

“He’s going alone?” I note questioningly to Greyguts.

“Mm.” He grunts in reply. “Always does. Still, while some cry that his magic isn’t in the spirit of a warrior… He’s strong. Gets the job done. Enough for me.”

“Besides,” He gestures to the room full of musclebound orc warriors, “Many like to fight alone or in small groups. Two, maybe three. You… five? To our eyes, this is strange.”

“Where we come from, it wouldn’t be odd to see groups of eight or ten adventurers working together.” I shrug. “The whole point of a party is to have people with different skills so they can cover up each other’s weaknesses.”

“There’s wisdom in that.” He nods pensively before snorting slightly. “And it says something of the wisdom of orcs that we ignore that.”

I shrug. “Anyway, is there anything else?”

“Always more.” Greyguts grunts. “Heard from the north village a week ago. Goblin sightings, people were worried about their food or tools getting stolen. Want someone to track them down, take them out.”

“A week ago?” My eyebrows furrow. “Surely someone has already started looking into this.”

“One.” He nods. “Few days ago. Shouldn’t take this long. Hope he just found a woman in the village, but…”

“Only one? In a week?” I say, taken aback.

“Goblins are weak.” He shrugs. “It is no proud feat for even a child to kill one. Most think the village will be fine even without our help. Think the one who went is lazy or weak for taking so long.”

I look him in the eyes. “Was he?”

After a moment, he shakes his head. “No. I think this is not a cave of goblins. Goblin tribe, maybe. Could be trouble for the village.”

At this point, Jakin nudges my elbow. “Are yeh sure we should be taking on something like this? Yer arm still hasn’t healed.”

“True enough.” I move my broken arm around a bit, getting a feel for how it’s going. “Doesn’t seem too bad, but it’s better to be safe wit these things. Still, it’s not like they’ll have armour. I should be able to do just as much damage with magic as I would normally do with my hammer. Worst comes to worse, we’ll just turn it into a recon mission.”

Jakin shakes his head, smiling wryly. “Yeh’ve got a love for trouble, don’t yeh?”

“We’re adventurers; it’s what we do.” I shrug.

“Guess so.” Jakin agrees with a sigh.

“Any other thoughts on this?” I turn and ask the others.

Boaz speaks up first, saying, “Yer call.”

“I think we should.” Xiltroth says. “Even if these warriors don’t care for it, the people in the village will be grateful, and by extension the big chief. It’ll go a long way towards proving our goodwill here.” I nod along at his points.

“I agree, not to make them like us,” Heather says disapprovingly, “but because they need our help.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Xiltroth denies firmly. “Of course we try and help people when we can, but sometimes we have to weigh the risks and advantages, make sure we don’t get in over our heads. The facts are that we would be going into a place we don’t know, to fight an unknown number of enemies that we’ve never fought before with practically no information, and our best fighter isn’t able to fight how he usually would. Before committing we need to think about the worst case scenario, how probable that is, whether and how we could survive that, and – although we hate to think about it in such a way, which is why we never mention it directly – whether the outcome is worth the risk. I was simply putting forth another advantage on top of the commonly assumed one for us going.”

“It didn’t sound like you were saying that,” Heather rebukes angrily, “It sounded like -”

“Calm down, Heather!” I interrupt her as I subtly slide myself physically between them, suddenly becoming very aware how much force she could very easily bring to bear upon me at a moment’s notice. “Xiltroth agrees with you, he just has difficulty conveying his emotions to others. Trust me when I say that there’s a lot more going on inside him than it appears, and he is actually a very empathetic person.”

Her eyes flick between us for a tense half-moment before she sighs. “Fine. I trust you.”

My body relaxes slightly. “Okay. Good. Thank you. We’re all in agreement then?”

At everyone’s nods, I turn back to Greyguts. “Then we’ll look into this goblin problem. Could you give us directions to this village in the north?”

“Sure.” He grunts in reply. “North.”