Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [93]
I recalled the advice a seasoned adventurer once gave us. We met him in a tavern in Neverwinter. He said, "If you ever want to commit suicide easily, tell an Uthgardt you're a mage."
But I suspected they had a still lower opinion of liars.
"I am a mage," I confessed. "My name is Arklow of Ashabenford."
I turned my eyes to the barbarian above me. As he moved his head out from behind the sun, I realized that he was very young, probably barely fifteen winters. His scars told me that at this young age he had seen more combat than I had in my thirty. In his eyes, I saw an odd mix of revulsion and something else. Curiosity?
"A mage? We've saved a mage, Thluna," said the other barbarian. "Sungar will skin us for this. He won't be happy that the shaman healed him before some of our own."
"He was the most badly wounded, and he fought fiercely against the orcs," replied Thluna, "even if he is a mage."
I filled in the appropriate adage- -the enemy of my enemy is not my enemy-but I detected a strange undercurrent to Thluna's voice that made me suspect there was more to it than that.
"Arklow of Ashabenford, I am Thluna, son of Haagravan, of the Thunderbeast tribe. That is Garstak."
Thunderbeast. I'd never heard of that tribe before, and I was happy for that since the most famous tribes were generally those who raided civilized settlements. Somehow, though, the name made something click in my mind. There were mountains visible in the distance, and I knew they were among the northernmost of the Greypeaks. I turned and looked behind me, and I saw an expanse of dry, dead earth stretch off to the horizon. There was some shifting snow but not much. The area seemed almost devoid of weather. I knew the name of the place we were cutting through to get to Evereska. It was a dismal, little-visited corner of Faerun civilized men called the Fallen Lands.
* * * * *
Once I was ready to walk again, Thluna and Garstak let me dress. They did not return my spellbook or staff, and for the moment I didn't ask for them. They led me through the Thunderbeast camp, a hodgepodge of portable dwellings of animal skins, filled with a selection of stocky barbarians, all male and mostly wounded in some way or another, and all looking at me with fear and contempt. They took me before their chieftain, Sungar Wolfkiller.
A fiercely bearded man, probably younger than me but looking decades older, Sungar was slighter than many of the Uthgardt but still an imposing figure. He had a huge gash across his cheek, fresh from the battle. Apparently the tribe's shaman had yet to get around to healing his wounds. He clutched a huge battle-axe in a single hand, a weapon so heavy I expected few men could even lift it. The forgery looked almost dwarven, but in a human's size. I wondered where it came from. The chieftain thanked Thluna and asked them to leave us alone in his tent.
"Mage," he addressed me. "We Uthgardt despise your magic. It is a terribly distasteful thing to talk with you through that magic device of yours." He pointed at my amulet.
"I understand that," I said. "I thank you and your tribe for saving my life. I owe you everything. I owe you enough to leave your company immediately.''
"Normally, that would be the best you could hope for, but…" His eyes drifted to the ground. "Circumstances are not normal.
"We are far from the rest of our people and farther still from the bones of the beast that watches over our tribe. We set out into this dead region to battle the orcs. Our tribe generally embarks on such a campaign every two or three winters as a test of our mettle. This is Thluna's first time and my seventh. I believe I have seen almost everything of orcs a man may encounter. Thousands have fallen to my axe, but I have never seen anything like the orcs we battled last