Frostborn: The Broken Mage by Jonathan Moeller Page A

draw closer around him. 
    “Deep orcs,” he said. “We have walked into an ambush.” 
    Gavin frowned as he looked around. “Won’t…they be able to hear us talking? They have sensitive ears.”
    “Aye,” said Arandar, “but I doubt they understand Latin, and we’ve been speaking Latin the entire time.” 
    “We could strike first,” said Kharlacht. 
    “They are too widely dispersed,” said Morigna. “They have us in a circle. We can break out in any direction, but the others will attack us.”
    “Perhaps they’re not trying to ambush at all,” said Calliande. “Maybe they’re just trying to hide until we go past. The dvargir may have frightened them into hiding.”
    “The battle was one or two days ago,” said Morigna. “Why are they still lingering here?”
    “To loot the corpses, perhaps?” said Jager. “The dvargir had better weapons and armor than anything the deep orcs have.”
    “Then why haven’t they looted the bodies already?” said Ridmark.
    “We could just walk out of here,” said Calliande. 
    “And into the trap?” said Morigna. “Because I am certain this is a trap.”
    “As am I,” said Arandar. 
    “Then we spring the trap,” said Ridmark, considering the possibilities. Clearly there had been tribes of deep orcs living in Khald Azalar for decades, perhaps ever since the Frostborn had defeated the dwarves. If the deep orcs had lived for years in Khald Azalar, then perhaps they knew some of its secrets. Maybe they even knew where to find Dragonfall. “Or we ask nicely if they will let us pass.”
    “What?” said Morigna. 
    “Deep orcs of Khald Azalar!” called Ridmark in the orcish tongue, his voice echoing off the ceiling. “Hear me! I wish to speak to you in parley.” 
    No one answered him.
    “Have you lost your mind?” said Morigna in Latin.
    “Maybe,” said Ridmark, switching back to orcish. “Come forth and parley! Else we shall pass through, and if you try to bar our way, we will fight you!”
    For a moment nothing happened, and then a gaunt, spindly figure appeared from behind one of the dwarven houses, a deep orc dressed in armor fashioned of leather and bones, a long spear in his right hand. The veins in the strange heat-sensing organ pulsed as the deep orc’s eyeless gaze turned towards Ridmark, and his nostrils flared. 
    “Sunlanders,” said the deep orc in a hissing, gargling voice. “Humans from the sunlight lands. You should not have come here.”
    Ridmark had never heard a deep orc speak before. 
    “Probably not,” said Ridmark, “but it was necessary.” 
    “You slew our kin,” said the deep orc, and more deep orcs appeared from behind the houses in utter silence, weapons in hand. “You slew our kin near the Gate of the West.”
    “Your kin,” said Ridmark, watching as the deep orcs moved in eerie silence, “tried to kill us. We merely defended ourselves.”
    The deep orc let out a gargling laugh. “Yes, there is that. Who are you, human?” 
    “You can call me the Gray Knight,” said Ridmark. 
    “I am the First of the tribe of the Silent Ones,” said the deep orc. “You are intruding in our realm.”
    “Your realm?” said Ridmark. “This is Khald Azalar, the city of the dwarves.”
    “The dwarves died long ago, slain by the great cold ones,” said the First. “Have the dead need of a city? The cold ones slew the dwarves, and the shining Swordbearers of the sunlit lands slew the cold ones, so the city of the dwarves now belongs to us.” His eyeless face twisted in a snarl. “Or it did.”
    “The dvargir, then,” said Ridmark, gesturing at the black-armored corpses. “They have come to take Khald Azalar from you?” 
    “The shadowed ones?” said the First. “They often come here from Khaldurmar, seeking slaves to sell in the markets of their city. Sometimes they kidnap Silent Ones. Sometimes we slay them.” He waved his spear over the carnage. “The shadowed ones often come. But others have come since