Inheritance

Month 2 – Week 1

Kron – Horde Territory – The Hive

He knows!

Was it bad that Kron’s first reaction to that thought was to drag Carrith out somewhere where no one would hear him scream and silence him forever?

No! Do it! The little voice of the berserker insisted in his head. Keep Dara safe and wear her enemies’ intestines as laurels of your victory.

Yes, it’s bad. Idiot. The rational part of his brain insisted. Other Orcs would definitely start looking at Kron as the possible cause if Carrith suddenly disappeared.

But you could bathe the Hive in bloOOood! No one could stop you! An image of a bloody battlefield within the hive filled his thoughts with broken mangled bodies and Kron felt his stomach lurch.

“Thank you Carrith.” Kron forced his mind back to the present and clapped his friend – was‘friend’ the right word? Yes, Carrith could be counted as a friend for this warning. He clapped Carrith on the shoulder. “It would have been awful if I had done that.”

Running to his patrol’s camp a little way off from the main entrance, Kron removed his cloak and rolling it into a ball, stuck it in his pillowcase. Now that he had removed the source of the human smell from his body, it quickly dissipated. Just to be sure he doused himself in a rather strong dose of Orcish cologne that he only owned because Kerim had rather liked it and he hurried to the Hive’s library.

Hours and hours later, an exhausted Kron was able to read the two words which had been written on the note his human had left him; “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Dara.” He whispered into the still, musty air of the library. But she couldn’t hear him, and he couldn’t go to her and say it to her face.

In a stroke of orc brilliance – brilliance for Kron at least – he realized that it was possible for him to write a note back to her. It wasn’t necessary for him to speak or understand with any fluency. Human and orc languages had the same grammar and structure, even most of the same sounds; it was only the written words that were vastly different. All he had to do was compose his message and use an Orc to Human dictionary to translate...

Another long interval had passed before Kron had mastered the human alphabet well enough to make his writing legible, but at last, he was satisfied that his hand could pass for that of a native. His message was complete. But he couldn’t just leave it on the rock and hope she found it. His hard-wrought message could be blown away by the wind or damaged by any number of water sources.

He had a remedy for that, didn’t he? In his room, which he rarely used for anything other than storage, was a lifetime’s worth of plunder. From human settlements which had encroached on Orchish territory on the far side of the mountains, to caravans of tax money bound for the Matriarchy, to loot stolen from fellow Orcs of nearby hives. Kron had a wealth of jewelry, gold, and accumulated parcels that he had never bothered to open.

There was also an amazing selection of message cases. He chose a small one of the kind that was intended for protecting personal letters over long distances. Its last message lay within still, long undelivered, the intended recipient may never know that the letter was ever written because Kron had killed its carrier and stolen what little goods he had on him.

Tossing the leftover paper on the table near his bed, Kron stuck his letter carefully inside the case. He also chose a bauble to go with it. There was a lovely little chain of gold and ivory which would nestle deliciously between those two breasts of Dara's.

With satisfaction, he sealed the case with melted wax, but he had no signet ring. He was relieved to discover that his patrol cloak pin was just the right size for the job. Each patrol group had their own symbol. Kron’s patrol, his group, the six-member team lead by Krol of Greybloods, Krol the Stormbreaker of Amerst Hive, were the Wild Tempest patrol.

Their name was a nod to the terrible storms that would rage on the rocky mountain faces where they worked and lived. They were also so named because Krol had magic. Storm magic. It was a requirement of the Wild Tempest Patrol that it’s members be capable of magic so they could learn to help control and reduce the mighty storms that raged against the Hive’s sturdy gates.

Kron was the only member of the team that did not have magic. At least none that he was aware of. He was…he was an…exception. But he still wore the insignia that made him a junior member of the team.

The stylized cloud whipped with lines of wind shooting bolts of lightning and dotted with tiny raindrops squished coldly into the hot wax. He held it there for a few seconds before pulling it away and looking at the indentation in the wax. It wasn’t the best. But it would do. It even had his name, clan, and patrol around the edge so if she could read Orcish runes, she would know his name.

It almost looked like a title. A valorous title of some great adventurer. Kron Iron Fist of the Wild Tempest Patrol.

Tomorrow, Kron would deliver his first letter.