To Kill a War Leader Pt 12 - Honoring the Fallen

This is the first thing I've written in a while. It's still alittle rough, but I hope you enjoy it. As always, comments are welcome and appreciated.

-Wayne     

   Valsh had kept her preserved while I was gone. Shortly after I came back to his hut, we traveled through a portal back out into the jungle. I built a litter to drag her back to the village. All the while my anger with Na'Guk grew. I dreamt of bathing in his blood. It's not that I was planning on settling down with Shala, or even that I was in love. She was innocent in this and her death was unnecessary. The Green Mountain Tribe were not to blame. We shouldn't have even fucking been there. That's what fueled my fire. Na'Guk was a rabid dog who was only going to get more of his people killed for no goddamned reason.

        I don't think Valsh and I said five words while he was with me. After the litter was made he opened a portal back to his hut and left me alone in the jungle with Shala's body. I was gone for a day, and we had spent most of a day making the litter. I figured dragging her through the jungle would have added at least a half a day to my trip back, so I made camp with plans to leave at sun up. Valsh told me his spell would fade shortly after the sunrise, so I covered her with the hammock she had brought with us to keep the flies off of her. I sat a vigil by the fire, but nothing approached her remains.

        The next morning, I started my hike back to the village pulling the litter behind me. Valsh had put me about a half day's hike out, so by the time I broke the tree line the sun was at mid-day. I heard the call go up from the guards at the wall and Shala's group of huntresses met me half way to the gate. They offered to take up the task of carrying her, but after one look in my eyes, they bowed and moved away.

        I pulled her all of the way through the village to her hut. Once I had her inside, I moved her onto the bedding where we had spent that first night. I knelt beside her until Valsh arrived with another orc. She was old, probably older than Valsh. He touched my shoulder and said, "Tole, this is Manua. She will prepare Shala for her funerial rite. We should go."

        I got to my feet and nodded my head in deference to Manua. She returned the nod and went to sit by Shala's body. When Valsh and I passed through the door, she began to chant and sing. I could hear an occasional break in her voice as she sang. I looked at Valsh with an unspoken question on my face.

        "Huh? Oh, she is Shala's mother. She is singing the tales of Shala's honor and prowess to the gods and will ask they allow her into The Hall. Tradition demands that she sing for a day at least without food or sleep. When she is done, the village will gather for the ceremony and then a feast will be held in Shala's memory. After that is done, I am certain Na'Guk will order the attack take place within the next three or four following days."

        "Never gonna happen," I spat.

        A few steps later a memory pushed its way to the front of my anger. In my mind I saw the dinner in the Great Hall about a week before. Na'Guk had left through a hidden door in the back wall of the room. That needs to be investigated, so I left Valsh's side with a promise that I would be back soon. He gave me a suspicious look, and I simply replied with a smile. Well, I thought I smiled. Valsh looked at my face and said, "Do not do anything stupid."

        "Who? Me? I'm the fucking poster child for rational action," I replied as I broke from his path.

        The Great Hall was used for damned near everything, so it wasn't very heavily guarded. I stepped inside and took a quick visual estimate of its size. The place was about forty feet wide and sixty feet long. I thought it looked bigger than that, so I went back outside and paced it off. Forty feet wide was pretty much dead on, but the outside was closer to seventy.  I walked around behind, but there wasn't anything that looked like a path leading away from the back wall.

        Interesting. Must be a small room in the back.  I'd bet stairs down into a tunnel. Why would an "honor in battle" leader have a bolt hole?  I'll have to check that with Valsh.

        The War Leader's hut was about twenty feet away and at a slight angle. I paced it off, stomping my feet to try and hear if there was any hollow space below me. I didn't hear anything, but a few minutes later one of Na'Guk's guards came around the corner of the hut to see what I was doing. He bowed up and snorted at me. I just smiled, waved, and turned and left for Valsh's hut. I saw him shaking his head as he went back to where he'd been.

        So, there is something down there and apparently it's guarded.  Interesting.

        I made my way back to Valsh's hut running some scenarios for putting Na'Guk in a hole in my mind as I walked. I must've looked pissed because no one stopped me or even spoke to me the entire way across the village. There were even a couple of Na'Guk's guards who side-stepped me as I passed. Maybe having a reputation as a jungle demon wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

        I walked straight into the hut without knocking or even announcing my arrival. I went straight to the keg on the shelf in the back and drew up a mug of that fruity beer he kept on hand. Valsh tried to ask me a question a couple of times, but I waved him off while I drank. After I had taken a couple of good pulls on my drink, I grabbed some cheese off of a plate and sat down on a pillow. I took a bite of cheese and washed it down with the fruit beer. Maybe it was the stress of the last few days or maybe I finally snapped, but a thought that those words just flat don't belong together crossed my mind and kicked over my giggle-box.

        It took me a couple of minutes and another drink or two to be able to shove the madman back into his box in my brain. Once I settled back down, Valsh asked me, "Where did you go? You did not start any trouble with Na'Guk did you?"

        "Relax man. I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid. His day is coming, and it's gonna be soon. Just not today. I do need some information though if you have some time to talk."

        Valsh drew himself a large flagon of beer and grabbed some cheese. He came to sit on a cushion nearby and said, "If it will keep you out of Na'Guk's way, I will talk all day. What do you need to know?"

        I spent a few minutes describing what I discovered about the hidden room in the Great Hall and my theories about the buried tunnel. I told him about the guard coming to see what I was doing and my conclusion that there was a guarded tunnel running to the War Leader's hut from the Great Hall. The whole time Valsh sat nodding.

        "There is a tunnel. Na'Guk had it put in so that he could leave the festivities without having to walk through a crowded room. That was when I first began to suspect that there was something wrong with my War Leader. I suspect there are more secret ways under the village, but as you said, they are guarded. I have not been able to confirm my suspicions. Surely you are not thinking of using them to gain access to his hut?"

        I lowered my mug from my mouth and looked Valsh in the eye. All mirth was gone from my voice, "That is exactly what I am thinking. I can't open a portal, and I can't walk in through the front door.  That leaves sneaking in somehow. I'd be willing to bet that there's one, maybe two guards at most in the tunnel. It would be best if I can find a way past them. If not, I'll make their deaths as silent and as nasty as his. Angry gods sometimes smite anyone in their path. Besides, if they're all gonna commit ritual suicide anyway, what does it matter?"

        The rest of my day was just kind of grey and boring. I drank and slept, if you want to call passing out sleep, and I dreamt. One dream was of the battle against the Green Mountain Tribe. Dozens of Valsh's people lay in the kill zone in front of that cliff with those goddamned poisoned arrows sticking out of their bodies, and Na'Guk ordered more to their deaths. In the dream I snapped and killed him in front of everyone and then was killed myself.

        Another dream was of Shala. She was alive and living her life; because, I had acted sooner and put Na'Guk down before the scouting mission. She and Valsh talked of how I had died attacking him in the Great Hall during the feast. His guards had cut me to pieces, but not before I had put twelve inches of steel through his brain.

        The last dream was of me standing over Na'Guk's body in his hut. His face held a look of shock, and I was covered in his blood. I was panting from the exertion of the things I had done to his body, but I still felt like I hadn't done enough. There would never be enough. I reached into his torso and grabbed his heart...

        Valsh shook me awake. Well he was holding me up in the air by an arm and shaking me. Never a good idea to touch me in my sleep. There was a red welt on the side of his face that was shaped a lot like my right foot. "You kick hard for such a small creature," he said. "You were talking in your sleep, so I thought I should wake you."

        "What time is it?"

        "it is near sun up," he said with a sigh. "There will be food at the cook fire soon. Manua should finish her pleas to the gods by midday, and then we will begin the funeral ceremony. There is work to do first, and you have a role to play. Wash your face and then we will go get some food."

        There was a communal breakfast in the same part of the village where the party had been the night I met Shala. The food was very good and plentiful. The mood, however, was decidedly less festive.

        While I was eating several of the huntresses stopped by and brought me food. One put a wreath of blossoms around my neck. They smelled like shit, but I thanked her. After the last of them had passed by I leaned over to Valsh and asked, "What the fuck was all that?"

        "You were the one with her when she was killed. The wreath is to show that you were close to her. Shala had apparently told her team that she was quite taken with you, but any fool...except the one sitting next to me...could see that. If you are finished eating, there is one more task that falls to you and me. Shala's team of huntresses will have gathered the fuel, but we must assemble and sanctify her funeral pyre."

        It honestly had never occurred to me that they would burn their dead, but after Valsh mentioned the pyre, I realized there was no burial ground in or around the village. Makes sense if you live in a jungle full of predators. Graves would be hard to keep safe from the animals.

        The pyre was not what I expected it to look like. I expected it to look like what I'd seen in the movies. You know. A big pile of logs stood on their end and lashed together to form platform to lay the body on. Then the whole thing is ignited and burns until the fuel is exhausted. Come to find out, if you don't build those just right so that it burns all nice and even, they can and will dump the corpse out of the fire. Then you've got a problem.

        This one was basically a brick enclosed fire pit with steel grating for the deceased to lie on with the fire burning below them. Each brick was engraved in orcish symbols that I'm sure were very significant to their beliefs. Valsh lifted the grate and set it aside, so we could begin to stack the wood. We built several layers of wood laying it in alternating directions. After each layer, Valsh would stop me and he would say a prayer over the wood. Each prayer brought a slight glow from the piles of logs.

        When we were done, Valsh looked at me and said, "Lay your wreath on the top. It will accompany her to the Hall, so her spirit will remember you."

        I laid it out in the center of the wood and left my hand on it while I thought about her. If there are gods on this world that look after the dead, take care of her. If I find out otherwise, you'll answer to me.

        I lifted my hand and Valsh put the grate back over the wood.

        He brushed his hands together to knock the dust from them and said, "The funeral will be at sundown. We should have just enough time to get cleaned up and eat something before it begins."

        I looked at Valsh like he was out of his damned mind. We'd just eaten breakfast. Then I looked at the sky and saw that the sun was well past midday. We'd been stacking that wood for hours and time had slipped away from me. As we turned to leave, Manua stepped around the corner of a hut and walked to us. She laid her hand on my cheek and then went to kneel by the pyre and began to sing again.

        At just after sunset the tribe had gathered around the pyre. From the looks of it they were all there. Valsh had told me that they would be arranged so that those who knew Shala best would be closest and it would spread out from there. He had also told me that there would be no conversation, and man it was creepy how quiet this many orcs can be.

        When we stepped through into the center of the crowd, one of the huntresses handed me a torch. I really didn't want to take it. This should have been the right of one of her friends, but Valsh had told me the other function of the wreath was to designate the "Flame Bearer" who would light the pyre and send her body to the Hall to rejoin her spirit.

        I took the torch and walked to the pyre. There was an opening in the side for the torch to be inserted into the wood pile. It felt like it took a long time for the fire to catch, but once it did, Valsh's magic took hold and the flames leapt into the sky. When they did, the entire village roared as one. The sound of it shook my body.

        I looked to the sky and found myself wishing her a speedy and safe journey. Just remember what I said. I've faced scarier things that an orc god.

        I turned away from the fire to return to Valsh's hut. As I passed through the crowd I felt a tear slide down my cheek for the first time since I buried my wife back on Terra. Huh. That's interesting. Ok Na'Guk. Time to die.