Prince of Lies - James Lowder [86]
"Hey, pig-snout," someone snarled, grabbing the back of Vrakk's coarse cloak. "You deaf as well as ugly? I said give me a hand with this heretic."
The orc turned slowly. The young man's imperious tone had announced him as a priest, even before Vrakk saw his dark robes and sour, sanctimonious grimace. "Call me General," Vrakk rumbled, slapping the insignia on his leather breastplate. "Or sir."
"No priest of Cyric will ever call an orc sir" the young man snapped. "And no orc should be a general in the service of a holy city like Zhentil Keep." He yanked a woman forward by the hair and pushed her at Vrakk. "Take her into custody."
The woman fell to her knees, dark hair streaming around an olive-skinned face. This was no Zhentish woman, but a trader from Turmish or one of the other southern lands. In her slender hands she clasped something, desperate to keep it away from the priest. "The patriarch," she began tearfully, "he said we have until sundown to destroy our holy symbols. Please, I am leaving this very day with a caravan to my home in Alaghon. I have permits approved by the church and the nobles. My god will not understand if I desecrate his image needlessly."
"She right." Vrakk pulled the woman to her feet with one meaty, gray-green paw. "That what Mirrormane say. I not so deaf I not hear that."
The priest shoved a large sheet of paper right up to the orc's snout. "The proclamation says all holy symbols not issued by Cyric's church are to be destroyed."
Vrakk realized then the priest was not going to be bullied, so he let a practiced facade of doltishness slide over his features. His mouth hung open just enough to show his dark tongue, and a line of spittle drooled around the two yellowed tusks jutting up from his lower jaw. "Uh, me not read Zhentish," he lied, fixing beady red eyes on the priest in his best vacant stare. "Can only do what Mirrormane say, and he say let 'em alone until sundown."
The Turmish merchant took the cue, sliding unnoticed into the crowd as the young priest focused his anger on the orcish Zhentilar. "Why are you still allowed to wear a uniform?" the cleric demanded. "I thought all your kind were put to work repairing the bridges."
He was right; most of the orcs and even the half-orcs in the Zhentilar had been given the inglorious task of laboring on the twin bridges crossing the Tesh. Vrakk was a war hero, though. His loyal service to Lord Chess and the city had gained him an exemption from that insulting work – even though the church had pushed for a ban on all nonhumans in the Keep's military.
"Me too stupid to work on bridges," Vrakk muttered, turning his back on the sputtering priest. "Gotta go check merchant permits now."
The orcish soldier tried his best to swallow his anger, but it burned in his throat like a ball of flaming pitch. He'd been a good soldier, a tireless defender of the Keep and the Church of Cyric. Orcish souls meant nothing to the Prince of Lies, though, and his minions had done all they could to drive them out of the city.
As he went about the dreary task of checking the guild licenses and merchant permits in the marketplace, Vrakk found himself snarling almost as much as the priests scouring the stalls for contraband – that is, until he came upon an old man setting up a rickety puppet stage at the market's edge.
"Here you are, my good fellow," the gaunt man chimed as he handed Vrakk his city permit.
"Show been checked by priests?" Vrakk grunted.
The puppeteer bowed broadly, swirling his mottled cloak and flourishing his broad-brimmed hat "Last time I was in this fair city," he chirped. "Stamp's on the back of the permit. A bit weathered, but that can't be helped, not when I've spent the last annum traveling the world, you know."
Vrakk handed the man the tattered