Grak: Private Instigator (Orc PI Book 1) Page 14

  This caught me rather off-guard, since I hadn’t even known about ANGST until I took this case.

  Megalomania does wonders for one’s lack of clarity.

  “You will not interfere with our plans to bring down the city!”

  This guy had just started talking, and I had already heard enough.

  Cleanly shaven, rejecting both the wisps of hair atop the head typical of gnomes and the coiffured browline, the small, hairless gnome’s angry scrunched face accentuated his bulbous nose so much that it was a wonder the protuberance didn’t throw him off-balance, pitching him face-first into the slime.

  I laughed at the mental image, my voice full and loud.

  “Do not laugh at me, fool! Your death will be slow and painful!” The gnome flailed his little arms in a wild, angry frenzy, a frustrated windmill unable to generate sufficient power to be of use.

  If I hadn’t known better, I’d guess he was being assaulted by a cloud of blood-sucking swamp flies.

  I laughed some more.

  “You will show me the respect I deserve!” he screamed, his crumpled face turning a deep scarlet-indigo.

  With his mounting frustrations, his giant nose transformed into a purple rutabaga.

  Convulsions wracked me as my chest heaved and spasmed with laughter.

  The gnome grew so angry that his mouth opened and closed without making a sound, like that of some land-locked fish.

  “Careful, now, or that root vegetable might pop right off your face!” I managed over an upswelling of more laughter.

  “You…!” He raised his fist threateningly and charged forward.

  With a lurch and a look of utter surprise, the gnome slipped on the slick, algae-laden floor. Landing with a crack, his head smacked the ground unpleasantly and bounced up as his body jerked spasmodically and then lay still.

  “Idiot,” I growled.

  Although in this case, IDIOT made perfect sense.

  And not the gnomish kind.

  I tested the manacles, pulling on their cold metal surface with gradually increasing force until the metal cut deeply into my skin.

  Nothing.

  The bindings were no normal metal, for I would have broken them.

  Why did going to the bathroom have to be so difficult?

  31

  Was I in ANGST’s headquarters?

  If so, ANGST were a rather depressing lot—although, to be fair, prisoners usually don’t see the best parts of any facility.

  Unless I gnawed off my arms and legs, my most viable option at this point appeared to be to wait. I could wait for Idiot, my unconscious host, to wake up from where he lay knocked out on the floor. I could wait for Idiot’s friends to arrive to wake him and beat me silly. Or I could wait for my friends to figure out that I had disappeared while trying to use the restroom and hope they could find me.

  If ever there was a noble beginning to a quest, it was seeking a lost companion who had disappeared in the bathroom.

  Bards would sing the tale for ages to come.

  The ugly bald gnome on the floor moaned.

  Sadly, he was not dead.

  The slop pooled all over the ground must have cushioned his fall.

  At least he did not seem to be wearing a spectralphotometer.

  Those things were rough.

  Anything that could blast through my hide was a weapon to be reckoned with only after employing lots of reckoning.

  Idiot’s feeble groans must have triggered some alarm, or, more likely, his bubbly personality must have been missed, because I heard a pack of footsteps running toward the top of the stairs.

  As I had expected, the worst outcome was the one the macroverse gifted me.

  A giant centipede of charging gnomes clambered down the stairs, arms, legs, and eyebrows thrashing wildly in their hurry to reach the basement.

  “Everything alright, Clebo?”

  In the gnomes’ headlong rush down the stairs, I doubted they could have heard his reply had he been able to make one.

  “Clebo!” another yelled urgently upon seeing his body sprawled on the floor.

  Using their superior gnomish intellects, the pack must have known something was seriously wrong, because no one would willingly lie down in that muck.

  “Clebo’s out of commission,” I said, my voice a rough growl full of command. “I suggest you turn around and head back upstairs before you join him.”

  I really did not have much other than bluster, but they didn’t know that.

  “Kill the orc!” shouted a pink-robed gnome as he pointed one hairy-knuckled finger at me ferociously.

  “Kill the orc!” chanted the others.

  These guys certainly knew how to stick together.

  If I hadn’t known better, at first glance, I might have thought the gnomes were gathered together for some kind of maniacal pep rally.

  I was unfortunate enough to be the opposition.

  It was not every day that someone was killed by a rabid pack of gnomes dressed for a rainbow-robed slumber party.

  Today was my lucky day.

  Except it wasn’t.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my long years, it’s how to survive.

  That often means not playing fair, because the enemy seldom does.

  Case in point.

  It also means being prepared when you don’t know what you’re preparing for or even when you’ll need to be prepared.

  Even though I did not have sleeves and I could not reach the magic pouch at my waist, I did have one trick up my sleeve.

  Or, to be more precise, my mouth.

  Game time!

  With a flick of my lower jaw back and forth, I yanked on my upper canines with my other teeth.

  I was rewarded with a satisfying pop! as both upper canines unhinged backward.

  Baring my fangs, I yelled, “Gora!” at the top of my lungs.

  The command word was lost amidst a resounding explosion that filled the small room with a hailstorm of nanoshot.

  Simultaneously, the room was filled with clouds of blood.

  Ain’t weather grand?

  Releasing my teeth from where I had held them clamped tightly between my jaws, I snapped both canines back in place with tongue and tooth.

  I hoped there were no more gnomes, because I was plum out of surprises.

  32

  The problem with contingencies is that other people can have them too.

  Gnomes, even gnomes without the entire baffling array of Paratechnological devices typical of those in Alyon society, are far more likely than most to have contingencies.

  Gnomes have contingencies for contingencies.

  That have been contingencified.

  So, when about half the group of gnomes I’d blasted to bloody pulp popped up from the ground like a coterie of vampiric prairie dogs at the smell of blood, my groan was one of realized expectations rather than dismay.

  Though I was chained and unable to move, the joy of growing violent anticipation filled me as I waited to see what gifts my hosts would shower upon me. The brief but interminable moments building before their response passed like an entire season of waiting to see what surprise gifts would be bestowed on the holidays.

  Would it be a blood sacrifice?

  A maiming?

  Perhaps a visitation by an unforgettable terror?

  Who knew what delights would soon be granted by the half-dozen or so frenzied gnomes coming to their senses after their shields, arcane armor, and sheer spite pulled them through the mangling cloud of minuscule bullets that had torn their group asunder?

  As giddy as a child, I waited for my gifts.

  And gifts they gave.

  I was blasted back against the wall so hard that I blacked out. I woke up long enough to realize I had bitten the end of my tongue off, only to be blasted into unconsciousness again.

  I don’t know what the gnomes’ rain of destruction was comprised of, because I was out when it was unleashed in all its glory, but I do
know what it did.

  When I came to, blood pumping down my chin and over my chest in scarlet waves, I saw a group of slack-jawed gnomes thinking they had just made a mistake.

  A big one.

  Covered in ash, grit, intermittent flames, blood, and I don’t know what else, I grinned.

  I agreed.

  The super-geniuses had been kind enough to blast away the wall behind me.

  Although the eldritch chains were still attached to my arms and legs, they were no longer holding me to the wall.

  This was, I decided, most fortunate.

  It was almost like the macroverse was regifting the tide of woe it had just bestowed upon me for me to then graciously offer to others.

  Which, in the spirit of giving, I did.

  Grabbing the chains looped about my wrists, one to each hand, whirling faster than Cretus’s promises as he flung me through the firmament on his airfoil, I leapt forward into the gnomes’ midst and let loose a beatdown of cataclysmic proportions.

  The gnomes quickly discovered that a giant, enraged orc swinging magical chains at them so fast that he looked like he was trying to take off and fly through the air while smacking them down was the very definition of deadly.

  I discovered that magical chains make surprisingly effective weapons.

  These, I would be keeping.

  But only after I had smashed these meddlesome gnomes to mush.

  When I finally had finished my grim work, I understood why the floor was so nasty.

  33

  For a secret lair, the ANGST gnomes’ hideout left much to be desired.

  In fact, if I had not known any better, I would think this was just a normal house.

  As I walked up the stairs, I noted a decided lack of anything secret or ANGSTy about the place.

  In fact, the place looked like a random bachelor pad in need of a good cleaning—not quite as much as the basement, but some organization and decluttering would do this place wonders.

  Food boxes and drink cartons were piled high in a central entertainment chamber where the gnomes partook of whatever activities terrorists bent on the overthrow of society enjoyed.

  My guess was charades.

  There were several other rooms on this floor, including a kitchen that looked to be as ill-used as the common room, a dining room that looked to have only been used to store unwanted items, a doorway off the entertainment room leading outside, another set of stairs going higher up into the home, and a bathroom I refused to enter for fear of where I might end up.

  Not hearing any further signs of occupation, I quickly swept the rooms for items of interest, by which I mean I made an even bigger mess in already messy rooms.

  There appeared to be absolutely nothing of interest even to my astute Orcish senses.

  I did not wish to attempt to interface the building’s Abstract for fear of some calamitous reaction. I would leave that to the Home Guard when they arrived. I was confident in their ability to extract information from the place even after I had turned it over like last year’s mulch.

  Upstairs was even less exciting. There were a few bedrooms with tangled sheets and mattresses strewn across the floor. Personal effects were carefully arranged in the trash and dirty clothes were scattered throughout the rooms.

  ANGST certainly were a messy lot.

  They were doing entropy proud.

  Walking back downstairs, I gave what I had observed some thought.

  These observations led to a few possible conclusions. Maybe the gnomes wanted their hub of activity on Alyon to be so normal as to be undetectable. Blending in, they could launch their nefarious plots without risk of discovery or reprisal.

  Or maybe this wasn’t their lair.

  Maybe this was just a place a few of them were hanging out.

  Perhaps to watch a Wizarding match.

  The food and drinks certainly gave that impression.

  In fact, my apartment did not look much better after a match.

  In which case, their lair really was somewhere else.

  If this was not their main base, then there were more anti-negentropy gnomes loose in the city. This also meant that the gnomes’ primary base of operations could be anywhere.

  And far more dangerous than this one.

  I would hate to be locked in that dungeon.

  34

  Finally satisfied that I was not going to find anything of worth or interest inside, I left the ANGST messpool to call Kordeun and Yocto to let them know I was safe. More importantly, I also needed to ask the Home Guard to sweep the building for useful information that my diligent, if slightly lacking, investigation might have missed.

  Opening the door, I looked out upon a vast chamber filled with a warren of homes packed on top of one another like cells in a honeycomb.

  This was not the Undercity.

  I must be somewhere in Alyon’s gnomish district of the Undermount across the valley from home.

  Worse than my stay in the dungeon, this also meant that Cretus might find me to offer a ride home.

  I cringed.

  If the manacles had not already been blown off the walls, I might have gone back to the dungeon.

  Accepting my fate with a deep breath, I shut the door behind me, glad to put all those troubles behind, and noted the address placard on the door: -3.14. There were other numbers after those initial ones, but I could not remember any reliably past the third digit.

  I hoped this would be enough to direct the Guard to the appropriate suite in the gnomish warren.

  That settled, I turned to find my way down from the precipitous heights I had found myself unexpectedly perched upon.

  The ground was a long way down.

  Before I could take a step farther away from the door, I felt my insides churn and drop.

  Something was amiss.

  And it was not the fact that I had missed a meal.

  Or needed to utilize the facilities.

  Simultaneously, in what was almost as big a surprise as being teleported to a dungeon while going to relieve myself, I was propelled into space as a concussive boom! tore through the air in an exploding wall of heat and pressure.

  As I flailed through the void, arcing across the vast chamber like a giant green cannonball, I looked over my shoulder to see the gnomes’ flat detonate in a geyser of liquid flame.

  Evidently, my discovery of their lair and disposal of its occupants had triggered another contingency.

  Tumbling through space, I hoped I did not have any more surprises in store.

  At least now I did not have to figure out how to get down.

  Speaking as fast as I could, I blurted only partially intelligibly, “Abstract, alert Home Guard to terrorists in Undermount warrens. Home -3.14.”

  I had done all I could.

  The polished stone floor reached up to catch me in its obdurate embrace far faster than I would have imagined possible.

  With a jolting thud!, I hit the ground and knew no more.

  35

  When I finally came to, I decided that I should have stayed in the dungeon.

  I could not move.

  Everything felt broken.

  My body was trying to mend itself around fragments of irregularly shattered stone.

  How long had I been out?

  It could not have been too long, because I could hear the sounds of excited voices.

  I must still be in the cavern.

  I had to get up to help!

  I struggled.

  “Calm down, ya oaf! Ya’ll just end up hurtin’ yerself more.”

  Kordeun?

  How had he found me so fast?

  “Kordeun is right. Settle down, Grak. All will be well soon.”

  What was Yocto doing here?

  Had he come to help?

  My mouth was dry. My tongue was about as cooperative as a dwarf asked to leave a bar. I think I managed to open my mouth, but I would have had as much success trying to fly as speak.

  “You’re all
right, Grak. Just relax.”

  I assumed Yocto was reading the look of confusion on my face, but I could not tell. Everything was still dark, and I was constrained.

  I couldn’t even move my face.

  Was I still buried under rubble?

  Then why would they be talking to me so casually?

  “Listen ta Yocto. Tha doctor’ll be in soon ta explain ever’thin’ t’ya.”

  Doctor?

  I felt fine. I just couldn’t move.

  “I’ve buzzed her. She should be in shortly.” For someone I had only just met, Yocto was being very generous.

  The same held for Kordeun.

  Why would they hang around?

  They must be as desperate as me.

  Or more so.

  Being that nice was impossible.

  I tried to wait patiently, but, truth be told, I had no choice. If I wasn’t buried under an avalanche, I might as well have been.

  Eventually, the door opened.

  “Good afternoon, Grak. How do you feel?

  “Don’t answer! I know!”

  She laughed!

  My doctor laughed at me!

  If I could have spoken, I don’t know what I would have said.

  Here I was, trying to save the city, and some doctor was having fun at my expense.

  What gave her the right?

  Just because she gave her life to help others did not make her any better than me.

  I did the same thing.

  Sorta.

  I took a deep breath.

  This was no way to convalesce.

  I had to relax.

  To heal.

  Kordeun snickered. “He looks about as comfortable as a goblin caught pilferin’ a dragon’s egg.

  “Right after tha dragon comes back ta her lair.”

  I did not look like a goblin!

  “You give him too much credit. He looks more like a statue of a lump of feces.”

  What was Yocto calling me?

  I seethed.

  These yokels were taunting me while I could very well be on my deathbed!

  And to think I had just thought of them as friends.