A Soldier's Life-Chapter 283: The Chronicler

Chapter 283: The Chronicler

The mud hadn’t firmed up by the morning, and the horses struggled to walk. I ordered everyone to dismount and walk them, and we fared little better than the horses, sinking to mid-calf. Baldo sat upright in his seat, confused as to why the stupid people were walking in the mud. Raelia was still disappointed in me for letting the orc boy go, not talking to me at all.

As we had feared, the bridge was gone—swept away in the night. The broad stream we’d crossed two days before had swollen with fast-moving, muddy water. We were forced to remain on this side, picking our way along a treacherous slope of wet stone and tangled roots.

That’s when Mateo’s horse lost its footing. The creature slipped with a sharp cry, hooves scrambling in the slick mud before it triggered a small landslide. Rocks and soil cascaded down, taking the horse with it and vanishing into the brown waters below. For a long moment, I thought the horse would be lost—but it surfaced downstream, flailing, and managed to haul itself onto a gravel bank. It stood trembling, drenched and smeared with river silt, but alive.

We scrambled down to it as quickly as we dared. The horse was favoring its front leg badly. I knelt beside it, hands checking along the joint and tendons. “A sprain,” I muttered. “Deep, but no bones broken. It won’t carry weight like this.” Mateo swore under his breath.

We had a choice: burn one of our few healing potions or let the horse limp the last miles to the city and hope there was a healer with skill enough to set it right. Either way, we were slowed.

From there, it was a cautious and miserable trek back to town. The orc auroch-processing town of Dewmire had not escaped the effects of the torrential rain. A large section of the town had been washed away, and it appeared that much of their production capabilities had been impacted. We didn’t stop to help clean up the mess, instead moving onto the muddy road toward Adorechi.

A few miles down the road, the surface began to improve. With Mateo’s horse lame, we couldn’t ride fast enough to cover the last twenty miles. It turned into a long, slow journey, but late in the evening, the walls of Adorechi came into view. Square stone towers dotted the walls, but the city didn’t seem particularly impressive to me. The map stated the population was ten thousand, but the halo of farms surrounding the walls might comprise a significant portion of the city, or perhaps the Caliphate was just being generous with its census.

I knew this city had sprouted up because a dungeon was not far from the walls. If I remembered my conversation with the orc healer correctly, it was called the Silent Tunnels. It was a four-room dungeon with an interesting quirk: there was no sound anywhere. You needed to communicate effectively with your delve team without talking for success. It allowed four people to enter and was reasonably tame as far as dungeon monsters went. We were not planning to detour to it.

As we approached the gatehouse, a tall, tattooed orc walked out to meet us. His black hair was braided into a long ponytail. He wore soft leather armor but made sure his arms and neck prominently displayed his tattoos. His dark-gray eyes narrowed at our group, and he asked something in Orcish. Raelia translated, “He wants to know if we are here for the dungeon and wants to check our adventurer’s medallions.”

“Is that normal? Checking the identity of adventurers?” I asked.

“I just became an adventurer recently,” Raelia said tersely. She turned back to the orc. A brief conversation between Raelia and the elite orc continued before she informed us, “He checks all adventurers entering the city. This is Warlord Drutha, and he rules Adorechi.” While making eye contact, I bowed my head slightly, a sign of respect but not deference in the Caliphate. Best not to anger the local warlord.

“Tell him we are here to escort Cleric Glasha on her expedition to look for an ancient battlefield,” I told Raelia in Elvish, but she didn’t need to translate. The warlord barked a laugh and spat on the ground.

“Wasting her time, that one. Been ten years, and she hasn’t found a trace of the Last Battle.” He waved dismissively at us, his curiosity satisfied without even confirming our identities. He turned his back on us as he entered the gates and climbed the stone steps to a tower. Two guards approached us to check and log our medallions before we were allowed to enter the city.

Blaze whispered, “Why was the city lord out here to greet us?” He had caught enough of the conversation to pick up that Warlord Drutha ruled Adorechi.

“Maybe he can’t stand his wife and kids and is just trying to get away for a bit,” Mateo offered, in good humor. “That is what my dad would do when he had a spat with my mother, or when I was being particularly difficult.”

I ignored Mateo’s comment, and my thoughts shifted to the cleric and the job. “We will see if the cleric can heal Mateo’s mount. If not, we’ll see to getting him healed. Raelia, get directions to the Adventurers Guild.” After a brief conversation with the guards, Raelia obtained directions through the small city.

As we walked through the city, I thought it felt much simpler and smaller than other cities. The absence of a sewer system left the city with a lingering scent of waste. The buildings were predominantly wooden but varied in condition from poor to new. Several structures were undergoing renovation. The most disconcerting aspect was that only orcs walked the streets. We didn’t see humans or other races about. The orcs considered themselves superior to other races, yet they allowed free trade in the Caliphate. Was there something different about this city?

The Adventurers Hall was one of the rare stone buildings in the city, and once we had the horses settled and they had received their apple bonus for getting us here safely, we entered. A pungent scent assaulted us, a strong skunk smell. Benito started sneezing uncontrollably. “Ugh, what is that! It reminds me of the time I tried to capture a skunk. I smelled like that for a month.”

I recalled the orc cleric saying something about the dungeon taking away your hearing and assaulting your other senses with its creatures. I tried to remember the dozens of rooms in various dungeons we had talked about. “I think it is from a dungeon creature—a type of giant stink beetle.” Benito grunted and got his sneezing fit under control.

We received many curious looks from the occupants of the hall, most of which were directed at Baldo. Almost everyone in the common room was an orc, except for two humans playing a card game at one table and a lone elf brooding alone in a dark cloak at another. I nodded at Raelia, indicating she should go talk to the elf while I approached the clerk. She frowned, but moved to obey with Baldo happily following her.

The wrinkly old orc clerk was missing a tusk, but there was a hint of her past athleticism in her movements. She didn’t speak Elvish or Telhian, so I handed her the job posting. She read it and called over a younger orc, who rushed out of the hall. I thought he was going to get the cleric for us.

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I then spent a few minutes miming that we had finished the other task and wrote a note for the baker about the fate of his parents. I only mentioned that they had succumbed to disease or poison in their food, and the locals had burned their bodies. Finished, the old clerk dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I went to sit with Raelia and the elf to wait.

Raelia introduced the demure elf, some of her annoyance gone. He was wearing loose clothes under his cloak and clearly resting. “This is Kaeryn Chaeven. He has been delving into the dungeon with his group over there.” Raelia indicated the two humans and three orcs playing cards.

“Eryk Marko of Fortuna’s Chosen,” I introduced myself, offering to shake wrists, which he did. His forearm was thin and his hand lacked grip strength, so I assumed he was a mage.

He arched his eyebrow at Raelia. “Traveling with a Telhian?” There was a lot of implication in his words.

Raelia narrowed her eyes at the elf, her voice sharp with conviction. “He’s no Telhian—and he’s one of the finest warriors this continent has seen. More than that, he’s a good man. His principles run deeper than most, and overshadow his ignorance.”

I think she just defended me. She flushed when I made eye contact with her.

After the awkward eye contact with Raelia, I questioned the elf. “Why are there so few non-orcs in the city?”

Kaeryn grinned. “Because there is nothing here but a shitty little dungeon. And I mean that literally. The floor of the third room is covered in bat shit.” He toasted me with his mug and drank.

“Then why are you here?” I asked.

“We are escorting him.” He pointed at one of the orcs playing cards. “Torgan Baneshield, son of some warlord, trying to prove his worth to his father. We are taking him through the twelve dungeons in the Caliphate so he can petition the Supreme Cleric to delve into the Warlord Dungeon.”

“I heard the local dungeon is not that difficult. Why are you still here?” My tone was inquisitive. The elf drank and seemed to decide he liked me well enough to answer.

“We have completed it three times. Torgan needs some seasoning, and we are working on our teamwork.” He grinned. “Also, the final chamber usually gives a major essence in the reward chest. It is about the only thing worthwhile in this city.”

I nodded, pretending to be impressed. I had to remember essences were rare, and collectors were even rarer outside the Telhian Empire. The messenger the old clerk sent had returned, and following him was a light-green-skinned orc with brilliant red hair. I guessed it had to be dyed, as I had not seen any other orcs with hair matching the flaming color.

“Our charge has arrived,” I said, excusing Raelia and myself from the elf’s company.

I caught the cleric’s attention and motioned her to a large table in the corner. I got Blaze’s attention and he rounded up the others, who were playing darts with two orcs—or a version of darts, as the target was not what I knew. I thought Benito had money on the game, as he grudgingly handed over a large copper when he was called away.

As we sat around the table, I studied Glasha. She was on the younger side, but maybe she kept herself young with magic. The warlord had mentioned she had been searching for a decade. Her fiery hair was messily braided, with strands sticking out, and she wore worn leather clothes, reminiscent of pre-colonial Native Americans from Earth. “Are you Glasha?” I asked in Elvish to confirm.

“I can speak Telhian,” she responded in amusement as she looked our group over. “I can speak nineteen different tongues and read most of them. Yes, I am Cleric Glasha Mistborn. Which one of you has the earth magic?” she continued eagerly.

“That would be me,” I admitted.

She looked surprised. “What spells? And what range can you sense?” she asked, but her expression showed doubt, perhaps because I dressed more like a warrior than a mage.

“Earth speak. And out to about twenty-five feet,” I responded. Her face lit up, and her eyes showed she was excited and deep in thought. I had shortened the distance to someone with an earth affinity around thirty-three, rather than revealing my true ability.

“Much better than I expected,” she mumbled to herself. To our group, she said, “The contract begins when we leave Adorechi. I would like to leave tomorrow.”

I hedged her enthusiasm. “We have a lame horse that needs tending, and we are curious about what exactly you are looking for and what dangers we might need to prepare for.”

She waved her hands unconcernedly. “I have some minor healing spells if the injury isn’t grave. As for dangers, there are a few: wild bull aurochs are aggressive, and then there are giant vultures, but they wouldn’t attack a large group, and there have been reports of a basilisk from the nomads traveling through the area.”

“Is that all?” I replied sarcastically. Basilisks were eight-legged lizards. Surprisingly, they were not fast with their eight legs, and relied on their magical gaze to petrify man and beast alike. Once frozen in the gaze of a basilisk, you were as good as dead, turning to stone in ten heartbeats. The basilisk would consume their sculpture, turning the statue back into flesh within its stomach. The only way to return a companion to their flesh was an alchemical potion brewed from the beast’s stomach acid. I did not have the alchemy recipe for that brew.

The cleric dismissed my concerns with a shake of her head, her red braids swaying with the motion, “The area we are searching is mostly grassland. We will be able to see anything coming long before it reaches us.”

I didn’t like her nonchalance about danger. “You still have not told me what we are looking for and why you have found no trace in ten years of searching.”

Excitement lit up her eyes again. “The final battle between the orcs and Titans. Although, between you and me, the orcs were joined by humans, elves, and dwarves alike. It broke the chains of our oppressors and pushed the Titans into hiding. They never recovered.”

“How do you know the battle was fought here? It is a big planet,” Blaze questioned the cleric.

She sat up straight as she lectured us animatedly. “True, true. And the battle was fought over five thousand years ago as well. I have traveled to the libraries in Esenhem, Keisinia, and Tegairosia, reviewing ancient scrolls and tomes. Unfortunately, only the elves preserved their books well against time. I am certain the battle took place on this peninsula. I am gradually narrowing down likely terrain features that match vague accounts in books and songs. Now I am looking for ancient weapons of the Titans buried with time.”

I could have inquired if she was aware of the Atlantium ruins being uncovered near Macha, but I didn’t want to stir that pot at the moment. “To what end? What good will finding the location of the Last Battle serve?” I asked. Blaze nodded at my question.

“I am a chronicler. I record the history of the Boutan Caliphate for those who come after me. But what of what came before? What can we learn from past heroes and fallen kingdoms? Maybe one day we will be in the place of the Titans, fighting for our survival.”

“If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it,” I replied.

“Oh! I like that! Can I use it in my next writing?” Glasha said excitedly.

“Fine,” I shook my head disinterestedly. Another scholar out for knowledge’s sake. Maybe I could put her in contact with Favian? I wondered how the old man was doing after Caelora. “Mateo, show her your horse. If Glasha can heal it, we will depart in the morning.” I paid for everyone’s rooms and secured my own before getting a few hours of practice in the dreamscape.

The following morning, we gathered outside the Adventurers Hall. Glasha was riding a stout white pony bareback. I noticed Adorechi’s warlord watching our departure from one of the gate towers. His scrutiny was disconcerting, but at least we had no plans to ever return to this city. The place we were searching was fifteen miles north over wild terrain, and I hoped this would be a quick and uneventful expedition.

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