32. The Tower of Sympathy

When he arrived at Compassion, ten Xalyas were crowding the destroyed palisade and the trench, scanning the swamp. Sashava limped down the slope, and Tsu stretched his neck from the gate, not daring to leave the sick. On the broken trunks lay the body of a swamp orc, with one of Lumon’s arrows stuck in its heart.

Dashvara let out a curse and hurried to the ground.

“How many?” he asked aloud.

“About twenty,” Lumon answered without taking his eyes off the corpse. “They came, tore down the palisade by scaring a borwerg, and left.”

“And they sure did a good job tearing it down,” Zamoy sighed, irritated. “I think our wood supply is going to go through the roof. Tell me, how are we going to repair all this damage?”

They had no more trunks left. But they weren’t going to leave a gap right in front of the barracks. Sashava was still several steps short of joining them when he began to rant:

“Cut the broken stakes, sharpen them, and plant them between the two outer trenches. Zamoy, Makarva, Boron: take down a piece of the platform. We’ll use it as a defensive wall. Alta,” he barked. “Get on the horse and ride to Rayorah. Tell the federates we need more logs.”

All of them became active, and Dashvara approached Sashava. A dangerous glint shone in his eyes, and Dashvara guessed that this was the typical situation where the Grumpy’s mood became almost as black as the bottom of a well.

“I spoke with Dignity’s people,” he informed him calmly. “Apparently, the same thing happened to one of their patrols as to the captain’s. This green cloud could be caused by plants. And, obviously, the orcs are…”

He paused when he heard Latish’s hoofbeats receding; Alta, who must not have slept much, was riding hard to the west. Dashvara looked at the bag hanging behind the saddle, and as he had feared, saw that it was still bulging. He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. He could only hope that Tahisran wouldn’t have the idea to talk to Alta… otherwise, he was in for quite a shock, and he could already imagine him falling off his horse.

“They are preparing an assault,” Sashava murmured, completing Dashvara’s sentence. “I knew it. That cloud of smoke had to be provoked. Damn orcs,” he growled. “I don’t know if that means they’re getting smarter or dumber. Hey, Dashvara,” he said suddenly, as Dashvara was already walking away to get an axe. “Go to Sympathy. Ask them if the same thing happened to them.”

Dashvara opened his mouth to protest: those from Sympathy were real nutcases. Approaching their tower was more or less like entering a camp of sanfurient wolves…

Sashava hissed.

“Dash?” he growled, “Go.”

Dashvara sighed but nodded, biting his lips.

“I’ll go put on the chain mail.”

Half an hour later, he was walking briskly north across the meadow. Normally, they never strayed from the barracks alone. But given the situation…

On the way, he was relieved to see that the northern palisade was still in good condition within the perimeter of Compassion. He would have liked to meet a patrol before he reached the Sympathy tower, but it was daylight, and in daylight, the only ones watching were those who stood guard in the watchtower and barracks. He jerked up when he heard a cry in the swamp, then realized it was a bird. He huffed, laughing at himself.

All you need is to die a week before you get out of this pit. What could be more typical: you get excited about a near future that is more attractive than your present, and you distract yourself to such an extent that the future ends up being darker than the night.

He approached the barracks without the tower watchman giving any warning. Obviously, the Sympathetics were not worried about visitors from the west of the palisade.

I’m walking into a nest of vipers. Thanks, Sashava…

Gathering courage, Dashvara continued forward, and finally, a man leaning against a wall of the shack saw him. Dashvara hurried to greet him.

“Compassion greets Sympathy,” he said in a firm voice.

The Doomed man carried a spear. He laid it back on the ground and bowed, squinting, as if the sunlight did not allow him to see his visitor well. He’s acting like an orc, Dashvara thought with a shudder.

“Sympathy,” the Doomed man replied in an apathetic voice, “greets Compassion. What do you want?” he added more sharply.

“I’m here to ask if any of you have suffered any illnesses lately.”

The Doomed man was chewing on something and did not answer immediately. Then he gave him a devilish smile.

“A disease, huh? Maybe. Are your comrades sick?”

“A few,” Dashvara replied. It wasn’t wise to specify how many: the Sympathetics were capable of taking advantage of the opportunity to try something crazy. They had known the Xalyas had a donkey for a long time, and it… bothered them.

The silence dragged on. Dashvara huffed, impatient.

“In fact, we suspect that the swamp orcs are using a new weapon to attack us, by making us fall ill… with toxic green clouds.”

The Sympathetic nodded slowly.

“I see. Yeah, we suspect that too.”

“Is that so…” Dashvara cleared his throat. It was clear that Sympathy had also suffered the consequences of this mysterious plant, and obviously, they had suffered quite a bit because, if there had only been one or two cases, this Doomed would not have been so reserved.

He tried to listen for sounds coming from the shack, but a more hostile look from the Sympathetic alerted him.

“Well,” he said. “So, let’s hope nobody decides to attack us now, huh?”

“Is that a threat?” the Doomed immediately snapped.

Dashvara rolled his eyes, increasingly alarmed. He would have liked to have run into a slightly more subtle Doomed, but was there even a Sympathetic who could carry on a normal conversation with a sajit?

“No way,” he assured. “The threat here is the orcs. The danger comes from there,” he added, pointing east. “Let’s not forget that, eh?” He greeted him. “Good day to you, friend.”

“’Day,” the Doomed man replied.

Dashvara was tempted to go backwards so as not to lose sight of him, but that would have been too obvious a way of showing that not only did he not trust him but that he feared him. But who doesn’t fear an unpredictable beast? He turned to walk away.

No sooner had he taken a step than the alarm sounded in the Sympathy Tower, sudden, frantic… appalling.

Dashvara turned abruptly to the palisade. The watchman on the watchtower shouted:

“ORCS! And a borwerg!”

The Doomed of Sympathy let out a roar of alarm and flung open the door of the shack. A foul odor wafted out and hit Dashvara like the breath of a sick dragon. It smelled like death. How many dead bodies were in there? Horror flashed across Dashvara’s face as the watchtower alarm continued to sound.

But what kind of alarm was that? Dashvara snarled, exasperated. Orcs were coming, all right, but how many?

What does it matter as long as you’re away from here when they arrive? he thought.

He was about to walk away when the Spear Doomed came out, his expression reflecting genuine despair.

“Compassive! Help me get them up.”

Dashvara stared at him for a few seconds.

“All of them?” he stammered, his throat tight.

“Not all are doing so bad,” the Sympathetic assured. The alarm seemed to have loosened him up a bit.

A small, depressed voice in Dashvara’s head translated his answer as “not all of them are dead”.

Oh, boy, this is taking quite a turn…

He shook his head but rushed inside the shack. What he saw there was far more terrifying than he had imagined. Men huddled in total prostration amidst several unmoving bodies… With his heart suddenly revolted and on fire, he went back out to return what little he still had in his stomach. He didn’t think he would ever see a more horrible scene than this.

The Sympathetic’s hand shook him.

“Compassive! By all the demons, if you don’t help me, maybe we’ll all die,” he growled.

Dashvara passed a hand over his mouth in a daze.

“Think about it, Doomed,” he breathed. “If they can’t stand up on their own, how will they fight?” He paused for a moment. “Where’s your horse?”

The Sympathetic spat eastward, eyes glued to the palisade.

“The horse is gone,” he answered. “We sent Grimi for the doctor. But he didn’t come back. If I catch him, I kill him.”

“I see,” Dashvara murmured. He tried to hide his tremors, but to no avail.

The shouts of the orcs and the footsteps of the borwerg could already be heard clearly. They were going to use the same technique they used at Compassion, Dashvara realized. But this was going to be different. He could feel it. At Compassion, they had run into ten armed and healthy Xalyas. If they saw that there were only three men left standing at Sympathy…

The tower watchman had decided to stay where he was. Maybe he wasn’t even able to move. In any case, they had no chance of getting out of there alive by fighting.

“Why don’t you run away?” Dashvara asked.

The Doomed man frowned.

“I’ll ask you again. I have friends here, Compassive. You run, if you dare.”

Dashvara raised an eyebrow. After all, the Sympathetics weren’t as unsympathetic as he thought. They could die among their own kind. Even among the most brutal of them, some had a shred of honor.

Dashvara took a deep breath and exhaled:

“Good luck, Doomed.”

He ran straight west, but then the Doomed of Sympathy blocked his path. He was indignant.

“I thought you were better than us!” he protested. “You’re going to abandon us? If Sympathy falls, Compassion will fall.”

Dashvara watched the tip of the spear a span from his chest, cursed the Sympathetic with all the fervor he could muster, and finally, a wave of cold anger overcame him.

Thank you so much, Sashava. You have sent me to my death.

He looked the Doomed man in the eye just as the borwerg was tearing down the fence. They both looked back and saw how the orcs were scaring the beast into destroying the trunks. A dozen of them advanced directly towards them. It was no longer time to run.

“Thank you, Sympathetic,” Dashvara grunted.

“You’re welcome, Compassive,” the other replied.

One had to admit it: the Doomed of Sympathy was not trembling. He was standing in front of the door with the spear. Dashvara saw him pull out an explosive ball and light it. His eyes were as round as plates, and he looked at the ground a few feet in front of the orcs: the Doomed had placed a good amount of explosive material there.

“Can you do it?” Dashvara gasped, drawing the swords.

“I can,” the Doomed man nodded.

As soon as the first orcs passed by, the Sympathetic threw his projectile. And it hit its target. The explosion was sudden and tore Dashvara’s eardrums. Five orcs were dead and two were injured…

Effective, Doomed. You have earned my esteem a bit.

Amidst the screams and smoke from the explosion, Dashvara rushed toward the three remaining orcs. He wrestled with one of them while his companion impaled another with his spear. While the swamp orcs carried more sophisticated weapons than the milfids, they were not as strong, though still as fast. Their weapons were, for the most part, stolen from the corpses of the Doomed. Once disarmed, orcs were no less deadly: their feet had huge claws, their mouths had sharp teeth, and a slimy, sleepy substance enveloped their hands, allowing them to climb anywhere… or to incapacitate their prey.

He got rid of the creature as quickly as he could, and together, he and the Sympathetic beat down the third orc and finished off the wounded. Immediately afterwards, Dashvara squinted to try to see through the smoke. The palisade was completely destroyed. The borwerg and the remaining orcs were running… towards the swamp.

Eventually, a sepulchral silence fell over Sympathy. Dashvara exchanged glances with Sympathy, turned his eyes to the palisade, and then lowered them to the bodies.

“Did you use all the explosives?”

Not answering, the Sympathetic only grinned and went directly to the barracks.

“Everything is in order!” he announced, his voice hoarse. “Sympathy is still resisting.”

Dashvara felt genuine compassion for this man who seemed so determined not to abandon his companions. At that very moment, the tower watchman landed on the ground and ran towards them. He was only a kid… he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Dashvara gritted his teeth in indignation. Who the hell would send an eighteen-year-old to the Border?

Well, on second thought, Dash, the Triplets have been here since they were seventeen…

“Sympathetic,” Dashvara said to the older man, before the watchman joined them. “Don’t you think someone should go warn about what’s going on here?”

The Sympathetic shrugged.

“I guess I was a fool to trust Grimi. Elf!” he exclaimed, calling out to the watchman who came huffing and puffing. “Go to Rayorah and tell the federates to send a doctor and more reinforcements if they don’t want to lose a whole platoon of Doomed. Tell them to hurry up. Tell them we can’t hold on anymore.”

It couldn’t be more true. Unfortunately, it was already evening, and Dashvara bet that when the young elf arrived at Rayorah, the federates would simply tell him they would go the next day… if they bothered to come at all. Dashvara predicted a hellish night in the Tower of Sympathy. He sighed and approached the palisade. The trunks had been crushed even more than at Compassion. With what was left, you couldn’t even make a two-foot fence.

“Now you can run away, Compassive,” a voice behind him said.

Leaning against a log, Dashvara did not even bother to turn around. A muffled groan drew his attention, and he saw, on the other side of the palisade, an orc’s body dragging itself eastward. He was injured, probably from the borwerg, and his companions had abandoned him.

As soon as he saw the Sympathetic rush out, Dashvara hurried after him. The orc had a large splinter of wood stuck in his side.

“Wait!” Dashvara growled as he saw that the other Doomed was about to finish him off with his sword.

“Wait? What for?” he replied, surprised.

Dashvara kicked the orc, turned him around, and stepped back, just in case.

“You, orc,” he said, pointing his sword at him. “You speak the Common Tongue?”

The orc’s eyes were dilated, and his teeth were showing.

“No,” he replied.

“No? Then how did you understand me, you idiot?” Dashvara laughed with a grimace.

The blue orc’s lips stretched further, but he did not answer.

“Tell me, orc,” Dashvara resumed as the Sympathetic glared at him in confusion. “You are not behaving as you normally do. You don’t normally attack towers. Why are you doing it now?”

The creature growled.

“We kill you.”

“Yes, we understood that. But I thought you preferred cow meat to sajit meat.”

“We kill you,” the orc repeated. “And reward us. Me speak Common Tongue, so you not kill me, eh?”

Dashvara looked at the Sympathetic out of the corner of his eye. He looked as puzzled as he was.

“Reward?” the Doomed of Sympathy repeated in a bark. “What reward, vermin? Answer, or I’ll gouge your eyes out before I kill you!”

The orc stirred.

“You not kill me,” he insisted. It was not easy to guess some expressions on such a strange face, but there was no doubt about it: he was scared to death.

Dashvara sighed.

“You have to be more delicate, Sympathetic. Let me ask the questions, will you? Let’s see, orc. What’s your name?”

Keeping his lips closed, the orc looked at him.

“Uh… Well, I’ll just keep calling you orc, then,” Dashvara decided as the Sympathetic snorted. “We get that you want to kill us. But, you know, the Federation has no shortage of slaves or criminals. You can kill a Doomed man: another will come to replace him. So your reward is nothing more than a fleeting ray of sunshine in the middle of your foggy, disgusting swamps. Well, I don’t know, how about you leave us alone for a while and go hunt borwergs, what do you think?”

“Borwergs bad,” the orc spat. “Borwergs just for stinky…” There he uttered a word that Dashvara did not understand, but he assumed, by deduction, that he was talking about milfids.

He took on a sympathetic look.

“I know, it must be very hard to live with these monsters. But you people are swamp orcs. You don’t want to get out. So why bother us, uh?”

“Reward,” the orc said as if he was talking to a fool.

“Yes, but who might give you the reward?” Dashvara muttered. He was beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t just run away from Sympathy at once and go home. However, what the orc said next left him stunned:

“Naskrah.” He spat. “Them tell us, the orcs, kill you. Then we free. For that, we kill you in towers. Why else? We don’t like to kill like…” He spoke the unpronounceable name of the milfids again and continued in the Common Tongue: “And you don’t either, eh?”

“You free?” Dashvara echoed. He shook his head vigorously. This was unimaginable. “So someone is threatening you? Someone who is not an orc?”

“Not an orc, no. We kill you for eating grass eaters. But not today. Not an orc,” he repeated. “Naskrah. You not kill me?”

Dashvara stood for a few seconds staring into the eyes of the wounded orc. It was a repulsive creature that did not hesitate to kill any being that crossed its path to get food. Some said they were sajits, others classified them as monsters. At the moment, Dashvara didn’t find him much less sympathetic than the Doomed next to him. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Keep crawling,” he advised him.

“Not kill?”

“Not kill,” he confirmed. He put his sword away and took a step back. “Just one more question. What is that plant that makes green smoke?”

The orc’s eyes sparkled, mischievous.

“Naskrah smoke kills. They set traps. We do not.”

“Who are these Naskrahs?”

The orc had started to crawl down. He simply repeated:

“Naskrah.”

It’s okay. Naskrah. And now I’d better get back… Dashvara turned his back on the creature and walked back to the fence. No sooner had he taken a few steps than he turned with lightning speed and roared:

“Sympathetic! Stay away from him.”

The Doomed was preparing to kill the orc. He wasn’t going to stop, Dashvara realized.

“If you kill him, I’ll kill you, I swear,” he warned him coldly. “I told him we weren’t going to kill him, and we’re not going to kill him. Back off, Doomed.”

The Sympathetic did not back down, but at least he stopped.

“You’re totally nuts.”

Dashvara felt a devious smile stretch his lips.

“I am Compassive,” he replied. “Come on, don’t waste any more time and get busy fixing the palisade as much as you can. This time, I’m leaving for good.” He paused and gave the Doomed man a cold look. “Unless you intend to stop me.”

The Sympathetic shrugged his shoulders.

“Clear out, Compassive.”

Dashvara took a few steps back, nodding, sabers still in hand.

“If you kill the orc before he reaches the edge, I will kill you,” he warns him.

He had moved about twenty paces away from the palisade. He sheathed his sabers and suddenly felt a great weariness come over him like a sinister wave. He added aloud:

“Good luck, Sympathetic. Give boiled water to those who are still alive. And if they all die… come to Compassion with the elf.”

He didn’t wait for his answer. He took off running southwest, away from the fence and toward his home. Soon after, he had a coughing fit and swore through his teeth, forcing himself to keep walking. He would get there at night. The sun would soon disappear. As long as the milfids don’t get the idea to go out too early tonight…

This story about a reward obsessed his thoughts all the way home. Who were these Naskrahs? They must be intelligent creatures to have been able to communicate with the orcs. And they must be powerful creatures, or even numerous enough to force the orcs to do what they wanted… Didn’t that orc say that its folks were being held prisoner by them in some way? But how? And why? What were these Naskrahs looking for on the Border? Did they intend to take it over?

Well, go ahead, you can take it, but please wait a week, just one damn week before you do it… Dashvara sighed. If they really did die before the Brothers of the Pearl got them out of there, he was going to spend the last few seconds of his life cursing the swamps like never before.

The sky darkened, dusk passed, and night fell on him, accompanied by the usual night cries and distant howls of borwergs. He continued to walk in the dark. At least there were no clouds to hide the stars, and he could still see a little where he was walking. Soon he saw the light of the Tower of Compassion, and he moved toward it the same way a frightened rabbit moves toward its burrow. There were no sounds of bells. Good. Maybe that meant everything was in order. Just maybe.

He was barely fifteen minutes away from arriving when he saw a torch shining not far from the fence. He squinted, trying to make out the face in the bright light. When he did, he relaxed suddenly. It was Makarva. With Boron. Had they gone out to look for him?

He felt exhausted, but that didn’t stop him from running to his companions. The latter finally saw him and hurriedly approached him.

“Dash!” Makarva whispered, horrified. “Eternal Bird, you are covered in blood?”

“It’s not mine,” Dashvara appeased him. “What are you doing here?”

Makarva opened his mouth and confessed:

“We were watching for your return. Was there an attack in Sympathy?”

Dashvara rolled his eyes.

“Take a guess.”

Makarva tilted his head to one side.

“Bad news, huh?”

“Particularly bad. Let’s get back home. I’ll explain it to you all in the barracks. How are the captain and the others?”

Makarva and Boron exchanged gloomy looks.

“The same as before,” the first said.

Dashvara breathed in without answering and started walking toward the barracks next to Makarva and the Placid. The latter was unusually dark, but who wasn’t on that damned night?

When they arrived at Compassion, Dashvara found that the palisade had been repaired quite effectively. At least to stop the orcs, of course; not the borwergs or the brizzias. Maltagwa, Lumon, and Arvara were outside on the platform. The first two were hiding their nervousness well, but the Giant kept closing and opening his fists and didn’t even seem to realize it.

“We dug another ditch over there,” Makarva told him as he walked forward, “between the palisade and the shack. It’s not much use, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Yes, it’s better than nothing,” Dashvara agreed, his voice muted.

If he had not seen Rowyn that morning, he would probably not have felt so discouraged. His annoyance almost outweighed the fear he felt.

He greeted the three Xalyas standing guard and entered the barracks. No one was asleep, he noticed. The only one with his eyes closed was Sashava, but when he entered, the Grumpy opened his eyes as if he had not slept a wink. He looked at Dashvara for a few seconds.

“So?” he finally asked.

Dashvara grasped his goatskin and took a long sip. Finally, sensing the growing impatience, he took a deep breath and said:

“Brothers, we have a problem: it is likely that we will die tonight.”

His eyes raised to the shocked faces of the Xalyas then turned to the mournful expression of the captain; in a firmer voice than he would have thought himself capable of at that moment, he told of the hecatomb of the Sympathy Tower.