Hungry Heart - Book #2 - Ch. 20 (Patreon)

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen / Chapter Fifteen / Chapter Sixteen / Chapter Seventeen / Chapter Eighteen / Chapter Nineteen 

Chapter Twenty – Guarded By Destiny

They were nothing but three heads gathered over the tome in search of answers. Toru didn’t know what Duril was looking for, and he watched the ant-like symbols on the yellowed pages just because Sog did the same. He secretly hoped that the orc was as unknowing of the significance of those symbols as he was, but he couldn’t ask directly.

“Not-Orc knows the signs?” Sog asked as he bumped heads with Toru in an obvious effort to stare more into Duril’s face than the other.

“I do,” Duril said. “You two can care for Varg and Claw while I’m trying to find a clue about what we can do to save them.”

“What if the book doesn’t tell you how to save them?” Toru questioned.

“Then we’ll search for the answer somewhere else,” Duril replied promptly.

Toru stole a look at Sog. The orc was licking his fingers, probably in search of the last remnants of those terrible mud cakes, but his face was all scrunched up in thought, which meant that he was concerned about the situation being as serious as it was.

“Come, Sog,” he said curtly and grabbed the orc by the arm to drag him toward the sleeping shapes of his friends.

Duril needed his quiet to focus on the mysterious words, and the least the two of them could do was to stay out of the way. He took in, for a long moment, the healer’s hunched shoulders and the way he stood there, perusing the text with his warm and clever eyes, realizing all over again why he loved him.

He turned away and knelt by Varg’s side. The wolf’s skin had turned green completely, and a pair of tusks peeked from under his upper lip. Toru touched them briefly.

“All part of the tribe, now, all part of the tribe,” Sog said and nodded thoughtfully.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Toru asked.

“Yes, yes, Sog saw, orcs can become, all blood and bones and skin,” the orc replied.

“How? And why?”

Sog stared into his eyes. His ugly face seemed lit up with intelligence, and his eyes shone. His horde might have thought of this creature as someone that could be overlooked, neglected, treated as nothing but a slave, but Toru began to understand what made Sog different from his brethren. Even if what he knew of fate made it seem as if only chance had brought together Sog and Duril, it must have been more than that. Toru seriously doubted that many orcs could take pride in being as clever as this one, no matter how bad his table manners and strange way of speaking were. When he had fought the orcs before, they had all seemed to him just a mass of mindless creatures, bent on spilling blood and nothing else. Maybe Sog was better now that he no longer had a horde to mistreat him and walk all over him, while he was made to believe that it was there, at its bosom, that he belonged.

“Orcs are not humans,” Sog replied to his question and nodded again.

Toru snorted. “That’s not hard to miss. Sure, they’re not humans.”

“They make orcs out of mud,” Sog continued, ignoring him, “and they make orcs out of blood.”

“Who are they?” Toru asked. Perhaps he had hurried too quickly to believe Sog to be an orc who had succeeded in climbing out of the well of stupidity that held his entire kin. Except for Duril, but Duril didn’t count because he wasn’t an orc-orc, he decided quickly.

“The gods of war,” Sog whispered and looked around.

The bubble that had protected them before was gone now, gone like Demophios, and the wind whispered to them and carried the putrefaction that the horde was turning into. They needed to save Claw and Varg and make a run for it. This place was turning into nothing but pestilence through and through.

“Everyone’s already dead,” Toru said without thinking.

“No, no, no, not dead,” Sog denied and shook his head rapidly. “They’re just sleeping.”

“Varg and Claw are just sleeping,” Toru said and touched Varg’s forehead, searching for a remnant of warmth to convince him that his friend wasn’t gone. “But the rest,” he pointed around, “they’re done for.”

“Sog and Not-Orc save the horde,” Sog said with emphasis. “Silly tiger can sit and watch.”

Toru growled under his breath. “Who are you calling a silly tiger? You’re silly.”

“No, you’re silly.”

“Just shut up,” Toru muttered, annoyed already. “Duril needs quiet to understand the signs.”

At that, Sog nodded solemnly. If it were about Duril, he didn’t hesitate to obey, as long as it meant that he could help the healer.

***

Duril could hear Toru’s and Sog’s quarrelling not far from him, but it didn’t bother him. “Elidias, Agatha, Demophios,” he whispered while leaning over the page, “if you can hear me, wherever you are, lend me your wisdom. We need it more than ever.”

He caressed the pages as he turned them, but nothing that he hadn’t written or read already from before appeared in front of his eyes. If the tome remained silent, what choices did they have to save Claw and Varg? They would probably have to carry them out of the desert to a place where they could be cured, but did they have the time that would take? And Sog, he would surely become desperate over hearing that they would leave the horde behind, as good as dead.

Duril grimaced as a sting in his palm suddenly pierced through him. He stared at it, at the thin red line that welled up across it, and then closed his fist. A tiny drop of blood fell on the page. He was about to reach for a small cloth inside his bag to wipe it off, but then he froze.

His blood blossomed on the page, turning into a drawing, first of a black stalk, and then of a full-fledge plant with a flower at its top. The flower bloomed with speckles of red, and ended with a full crown of a deeper shade of crimson.

“Toru, Sog, you should see this,” he called out.

The two stopped their fight immediately and rushed to him.

“Was this flower here before?” Toru asked.

“No,” Duril replied. “I felt the cut on my palm stinging all of a sudden and when I closed my hand, a drop of blood fell on the page. And then this happened. I believe this is a sign, don’t you think?”

“Could it be the cure you’ve been looking for?” Toru asked.

“Sog knows this flower,” the orc intervened.

Duril and Toru both snapped their heads toward him fast. “You do?”

“Yes. It is guarded by destiny,” Sog said with importance, happy, without a doubt, to impress them with his knowledge.

Duril grabbed the orc by the shoulder. “Then we must find it. Can you take us to it?”

The corners of Sog’s eyes fell. “It is guarded by destiny,” he insisted.

“What do you mean by that? Speak clearly,” Toru commanded.

Duril was eager to learn the same thing, but he knew Sog had his own way of talking, and they needed to have patience.

Sog pointed toward the sky. “The destiny decides when and where its flower blooms.”

“Great,” Toru commented. “It wasn’t enough to have old witches talking strangely, now Sog is one of them, too.”

“Does the flower appear only when it rains?” Duril asked, remembering some of the things he had read during their short respite in Shroudharbor.

“It’s not the rain, it’s the wind that tells you,” Sog continued. “He speaks the tongue of destiny.”

“Well, then tell us what he says,” Toru demanded impatiently, grabbing Sog by one arm and shaking him.

“He says you’re a silly tiger,” Sog said and shook his arm free.

“Sog,” Duril said reproachfully, “can you tell us where to find the flower? It is the key to finding a cure for everyone.”

“Sog must listen.” The orc turned on his heels and walked a fair distance from them. Then, he plonked down and sat there, head in his hands. “You be quiet!” he yelled shortly after that.

Duril made a sign for Toru to remain silent. The tiger snorted and looked away. Then he began speaking in a low, quiet voice. “Duril, you know that you cannot save them.”

“The horde, you mean?” Duril whispered back.

“Yes. Look at them, does anyone look alive to you?”

“We’ve been through many strange things. I don’t dare to not believe anything at the moment. And Demophios said that the horde would find their saviors in us.”

“He meant you. Only you. And I think he might have flaked now and then,” Toru insisted. “I mean, look at him, all lost right now in all this sand. If he was so clever, he should have known not to disappear like that.”

It made sense that Toru was upset by the wise snake’s disappearance. Duril didn’t have an answer for him, and he didn’t dare prod at such a recent wound. For all the bickering between Toru and Demophios, it was clear as day where everyone’s loyalties stood. The young tiger knew how to tell right from wrong and good from bad, and he must have known for a while now that Demophios was truly on their side.

“I must try,” Duril said. He hadn’t dared to look around much. The sight of all those unmoving bodies was enough to shake his faith in the purpose the old serpent had sketched for him in so few words.

Toru didn’t appear to agree but didn’t contradict him outright this time. Sog jumped to his feet and shouted victoriously, “I know!”

Toru patted Duril on the shoulder as he stood. “I’ll go find this flower. Varg and Claw need it. You stay with them.”

Duril nodded. “Please take care, Toru. I couldn’t bear--”

He didn’t dare to finish the words. Their path was dangerous, peppered with enemies at every corner, and while he didn’t have the same sense of foreboding as before, he didn’t want Toru or any of them, for that matter, to let their guards down.

“I’d come back to you if I were in pieces,” Toru assured him.

That was all he needed to know. Toru held his hand in his for a moment and then he marched toward Sog who was already jumping up and down with excitement, talking to himself.

***

“So, orc, where is your flower?” Toru asked.

“Come, come, Sog will show you,” the orc gestured for him to follow.

Toru’s eyes fell on Sog’s back, and his heart softened. The red lashes crisscrossing that leather-like skin were still oozing, and even if the orc didn’t seem bothered by them, it didn’t mean that they hurt less than they looked. Sog had done that for him without thinking twice, and Toru felt chastised even without anyone saying anything to him.

“Duril will give you something for those,” Toru said out loud.

“What?” Sog asked, half-turning toward him.

“For the blessing marks left by the sun on your back,” Toru replied.

Sog threw him a lopsided grin. “Later, later, first the horde.”

The poor thing, he still believed that all those dead orcs could be saved. Toru didn’t have the heart to contradict him, not this time. Later, he would probably kick and shout, and Toru would have to drag him away from that appalling sight, but for now, Sog needed to ride on that wave of hope that still carried and guided his steps.

“What did the wind tell you?” Toru asked, curious about Sog’s impressive ability to know what the wind of the desert said to anyone with the right ears to listen.

Sog shook his head. “Come, come, tiger. No time to chit-chat.”

Toru shrugged. He didn’t like talking mindlessly much either, not when Varg and Claw needed that flower that had to be the cure for their current affliction. He winced as he stepped on bodies. Sog didn’t appear to mind. Orcs had to be used to the face of death so much they wouldn’t be bothered by a thing like that.

Toru didn’t know whether he should admire Sog for it, or pity him. These orcs, they were Sog’s people, and yet he didn’t spare them a glance as he walked in front, muttering under his breath things only he could make sense of. That had to be how he kept his hopes high, ignoring what was not his to change for now.

Or ever, Toru thought but didn’t say it, not in front of this orc who shouldn’t have cared less if someone like him got blinded by the sun or suffered a worse fate.

A slight unsettling sensation gripped him as they walked away from the sea of putrefying bodies. They were leaving it quickly behind, as Sog was fast, and his long legs could take him far seemingly without any effort. Toru was a bit annoyed by how he had to increase his pace only to keep up with the orc.

“Is it far?” Toru asked.

“Quiet, silly tiger, quiet,” Sog whispered, “we must hear the wind. It keeps telling us.”

“Maybe he tells you,” Toru muttered and looked behind. “Aren’t we getting too far from Duril and the rest?”

Sog waved both arms above his head like he couldn’t be bothered with such things. “We’ll walk and walk until we find it.”

“I thought the wind already told you where it is,” Toru accused. “Your horde might not have enough time for us to scurry the desert to and fro as your ears fool us into doing.”

“Sog and silly tiger move fast,” the orc argued. “We’ll find the cure by the time the sun sets. But first, we need to fight destiny.”

Toru had an increasingly strange sensation about what or who Sog called destiny. Something told him that it would involve using his strength and will to fight again. Only that he would have liked, for a change, to know what he was going against. “Sog, what is destiny?”

“Destiny has claws, destiny has teeth,” Sog chanted.

Ah, so it had to be some sort of animal, Toru decided. “How big is it?”

“It goes round and round and round,” Sog replied promptly.

“I didn’t ask you about its shape,” Toru insisted in an irritated voice. “And what do you mean, it goes round and round?”

“And round,” Sog completed the sentence.

Toru was about to give the half-witted orc a piece of his mind when Sog suddenly broke into a sprint. He appeared to have a definite destination in mind now as his entire body cut through the air like an arrow speeding to its target.

Toru ran after him, decided not to let the orc out of his sight for one second. Even if Sog had proven to be a good ally, who could say what these fickle creatures would do from one moment to another? They came from a different stock, not having anything in common with humans or shapeshifters. That they were made by malevolent gods of war was no surprise to him. They belonged to the violence that bred them, and their hearts worked in violent ways, too.

“Here, here,” Sog repeated, gesturing for Toru to follow him closely.

He stopped and crouched and then, with what looked like anxious caution, he lay on his belly and stretched his body taut.

“What are you doing?” Toru asked.

Sog hushed him and gestured for him to do the same. He obeyed, all the while mumbling unflattering words that involved a certain orc with only half a head.

“Can you hear it?” Sog placed his head on one side, pressing his ear against the ground.

Toru did the same, but for a while it seemed that nothing but the desert wind spoke at that hour. However, as he focused on any sound that could be set apart from the noises around them, he began to hear it. It was a low din, buzzing to a tempo, and it took him little to realize that it came from more than one creature. He frowned. More than one creature? The sound multiplied, reverberating through the ground, suddenly clear and coming from so many different places.

“Bees?” he asked, holding his breath.

There weren’t many things that scared him, and he wouldn’t start to feel scared now, but there was something about bees that made him want to find a path that took him around them if possible.

“Destiny,” Sog said solemnly.

“They sound like bees. You don’t know what destiny means,” Toru shot back at him.

“Yes, Sog knows. Your destiny is finished once you see.”

Despite the orc’s strange speech, Toru understood as much. Whatever those bee-like creatures making all that noise were, they had to be deadly, and Sog meant exactly that. “How are we going to fight them? And is the flower in there?”

“Many,” Sog confirmed. “Many flowers filled with sweet nectar. Destiny loves the nectar.”

So they were bees. “We will have to make them leave so that we can get the flowers.”

“They guard the flowers. They won’t leave,” Sog said with certainty.

“Oh, they’ll have to leave because Varg and Claw need those flowers,” Toru replied.

“And the horde.”

“And the horde,” Toru agreed, although it wasn’t like him to lie like that. “What does your kin do when finding a beehive like this?”

As much as he wanted to rush in there, tear away a few flowers and make a run for it, Toru knew that he shouldn’t be that rash. If he’d been alone, he would have done it, and laughed later for the sake of a dare, but now he was no longer alone. Whatever the way of fighting destiny, as Sog called the beehive, he had to put his head to work, like he had done that time with Demophios. A jolt pulled at his heart as a sudden desire to ask the old snake for his take on the situation overcame him. But no, Demophios wasn’t there anymore, and Toru only had Sog to help find a way to fool those bees into finding a different home.

“We don’t go against destiny,” Sog replied to his question. “Orcs are not dumb like tigers.”

Toru raised one hand and slapped the orc one time, short but firm, upside the head. “If you’re so clever, how do you say we should take the flowers from these bees?”

“Sog doesn’t know,” the orc complained, suddenly not so sure of himself.

“Then you’ll have to listen to the dumb tiger,” Toru said with satisfaction.

“Sog listens to the dumb tiger.”

No time for putting the orc in his place, Toru decided, although his hand itched. “I need to think first. How about you think, too? These bees are here, in your home. Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never dealt with them? Ever?”

“Sog is not stupid.”

“Only a coward,” Toru provoked him. “Were there any stupid orcs that ever tried their luck against the bees?”

Sog thought for a few moments, licking his upper lip and smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth time and again. “There were,” he finally said.

“And what happened?”

“They died.”

Toru was starting to think that he couldn’t place too much hope in any help coming from Sog’s knowledge of how to approach the savage bees buzzing right under their bodies. That meant he really needed to use his head, and as much as he disliked to count on something that wasn’t what he usually depended on, this time, he had no choice.

He straightened up and then sat with his legs crossed in front of him. How did Duril, Varg, and Claw find it so easy to be clever? It was like their words flew out of their mouths in strings of pearls of wisdom while Toru preferred to open his mostly to eat.

“Are you thinking, tiger?” Sog asked.

Toru growled. “I would only if you didn’t bother me all the time.”

“Sog thinks that we should put a hole into their home and find their queen.”

“Put a hole in there, and right away, destiny will come out to eat our faces,” Toru said promptly. “And how do you plan on finding their queen, just by stuffing a stick into their hive?”

Sog sighed. He seated himself by Toru’s side. Each time Toru moved a hand or a leg so that his body didn’t become numb, Sog did the same, and if he hadn’t had a serious look on his face when he did so, Toru would have thought the orc was imitating him just to spite him.

The problem with thinking was that it didn’t come easy, not to him. When he had fought Demophios, at least Toru had been engaged in a battle of sorts, and thinking had come to him naturally. But this sitting around, all idly and thumb-fiddly, didn’t help.

“We should blast a big hole and destroy their entire hive,” he said.

“But then we will destroy the flowers, too,” Sog countered right away.

Toru felt rightfully deflated. “Do they always live underground like this?”

Sog nodded.

“Are you hungry, tiger?” the orc asked, suddenly, pulling him away from his thoughts.

“Even if I was, we don’t have time for dinner,” Toru replied, although his belly growled to contradict him that very moment. “We must find the flower for the cure and go back to Duril fast. Plus, are you going to fry something and make a lot of smoke--”

Even as he said the words, Toru realized something. He remembered the words of the humans who had taken care of him as a young cub at that place where they kept all the strays. They used smoke to chase away insects of various kinds. Could smoke work on bees? Toru didn’t know, but it was an idea.

“Sog, do you know how to make fire?”

The orc puffed out his chest. “I’m the Grand Chief’s cook,” he said with pride. “How couldn’t I know how to make fire?”

“Then starting making one.” Toru had no idea how Sog would manage that, without any wood around.

It appeared that, just like Duril, the orc carried many things on himself. Around the cloth that covered the lower part of his body, hanging down to his knees, Sog had a wide belt, and from it, he began taking out all kinds of astonishing things.

Toru watched him as he got to work, drawing a circle in the sand and creating a small place for the fire. He couldn’t tell what exactly the orc was doing, but after some cussing, mumbling, and prancing around, right in front of them, a tiny flame began to burn.

“We need to have enough smoke to chase them away,” he told Sog.

The orc nodded and pulled his dagger from his belt. Then, he stabbed the ground, right where earlier he and Toru had listened to the unsettling buzz of the bees. Toru then watched in disbelief as Sog put his hand right into the flame and pinched a small fragment of what kept it burning. He didn’t have time to say a word. The orc pulled out his dagger and dropped the still burning fragment, now letting out a thin thread of smoke, through the hole dug into the ground.

He quickly covered it with his palm, and Toru heard how the buzzing increased.

“Now who’s the dumb one?” he asked.

Sog shrugged and grinned at him. However, the following moment, his face scrunched up in pain. Toru could only guess why that happened. He pursed his lips and gathered all the fire base into his palms. “Move,” he shouted at the orc and Sog lifted his palm right away.

Toru saw the angry bee coming straight at his face but closed his eyes. He felt Sog grabbing his hands and placing them over the hole. Soft bodies and stinging needles crash against his burning palms, but he resisted the urge to pull away. Sog helped by holding his hands down and using all his body weight to keep him there.

The sole bee that had gotten away was buzzing around them. “Keep your eyes closed,” he yelled at Sog.

“It will be just a little sting,” Sog drawled softly, “just one. Come to Sog, little bee, show how his destiny will be.”

“You are just so dumb,” Toru cussed at him. “Leave it alone, maybe it’ll go away!”

“No, no, she needs to bury that needle in something, or she won’t leave.”

“We’ll take care of it. Just swat it with something. I can keep my hands here by myself,” Toru said quickly.

The buzzing stopped. “Too late,” Sog said softly, and Toru felt his leathery hands move away from his.

The ruckus under his palms died away, as well. Toru opened his eyes to find Sog fallen to the ground, one of his eyelids swollen and covering the eye entirely. He hurried to him and shook him although his palms were aching with a dull pulsing pain. “Sog, don’t you dare go to sleep now! Don’t you have a horde to save?”

Sog mumbled something, so Toru had to lean in to hear him.

“You hurry… take the flowers… go back… don’t bother with Sog…”

“Like I’d leave without you after all the insults you hurled at me,” Toru said through his teeth.

He hurried back to the hole Sog had made into the ground with his dagger and began to scoop handfuls of sand. The hole was getting bigger and bigger, but he was in too much of a hurry to care. He growled as he managed to make a wide enough entrance into what must have been the bees’ home until only a few minutes ago. He crawled inside and began searching the walls. Soon, his hand wrapped around soft stalks and he began to pull at them, his fingers shaking from too much impatience. “Easy,” he said to himself, “let’s get these to Duril.”

He threw stalk after soft stalk outside onto the ground. How many were enough? He decided that all of them would be about right, so he held himself by the edge with one arm, while he extended the other to continue the plunder. From not very far away, he could hear the buzzing coming back, which meant that he was pressed for time and needed to work faster and faster. He grabbed crowns and leaves, hoping to get as many as possible, while the ominous sound of the bees returning told him that he had no more time left.

He pushed himself up with the last strength he had and then brushed sand into the hole. It went through, but as Toru could see by now, the large enclosure built by the bees wouldn’t be so easy to fill. The flowers he had gathered lay in a pile not far from him, and he needed to be careful not to push them inside with the sand and destroy all his hard work, as well as any hope that Varg and Claw would open their eyes again.

“Damn bees, damn destiny,” he said through his teeth and continued to push as much sand inside as he could.

“Get out of the way, tiger.”

Toru didn’t have time to feel happy upon hearing Sog’s voice. The orc was pushing a large boulder which he must have found who knew where, and Toru hurried to help him. Together, they covered the hole just as the ominous sound of the bees arriving was growing the loudest.

They both laughed and leaned with their backs against the boulder.

“We won,” Toru said. “And you’re alive.”

“It takes more than a little sting to put Sog to sleep forever,” the orc said proudly.

“You’re tough and brave,” Toru admitted solemnly. “I thought you were just a hungry silly orc.”

“I am hungry,” Sog admitted.

From time to time, Sog seemed to become aware of his own person and stopped talking about himself like he was someone else. Toru couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked to him like Sog was finding himself more and more during their latest adventures. Maybe his destiny wasn’t to be stung to death by a hive of angry bees, after all.

“I’m hungry, too,” Toru said. “But we will eat later. Now let’s gather all these flowers and get them to Duril. He must be worried sick, thinking that we had to fight some kind of monster, when all we did was run away from bees.”

“They were scary,” Sog stated. “But they make a delicious soup.”

“Do you make soup out of bees? You don’t know what good food is,” Toru retorted.

“Sog knows all the good soups and stews.” The cheerfulness was back in the orc’s voice. “He’ll make one so good that silly tiger will lick his fingers clean.”

Right now, he was so hungry he would have eaten bee soup along with the bowl it came in, but he wouldn’t let himself think of food too much. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said with a smirk and pushed himself away.

He took off his shirt and improvised a basket from it to place all the flowers inside. Sog limped by his side as they started walking.

Toru could barely wait to reach Duril and give him the flowers. He would have a laugh once Varg opened his eyes again. He’d tease him so much.

He only noticed that Sog was behind him a few good feet when he realized that he could only see his shadow ahead of him on the sand. Sog was still walking, but the sun’s blessing, the bee’s sting, and carrying that boulder from who knew where, must have taken their toll on him.

“I’ll carry you,” he said and grabbed Sog, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Thank you, silly tiger,” Sog said in a whisper and fell asleep right away.

Toru didn’t care. At least he’d have a break from hearing about stew for a while.

TBC

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