OrcLand: A Spark Chronicles Adventure (The Spark Chronicles) by Pat Daily

Author:Pat Daily [Daily, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boundary Layer Books
Published: 2023-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

“The relationship with time changes when you’re captive.”

—Ingrid Betancourt

Feral rolled and came up in a crouch, just as a belch of magma roared past the entrance to the side passage. She threw up an arm to shield her eyes, but it was too late. She’d lost her dark adaptation.

“Will? Will?” she whispered, then let the volume grow. “Will?”

A scuttling sound came from behind her, and she whirled around. Nothing. She was still night blind. Adrenaline flushed into her veins. She twisted her hands and arms into complex forms and shot her fingers upward. “Sunlight!”

Light blazed in the rough-hewn side passage. Three paces in front of her stood the smallest orc she had ever seen, different in ways that she’d think about later, but it had to be an orc, and orcs were evil. Servants of the Dark One, they raided villages and left only corpses and smoldering ruins behind, with only the disabled and disgraced relegated to working the market. She pulled her war hammer. “Prepare to die.”

The diminutive orc had an arm thrown up, keeping its eyes in shadow. Orcs hated bright light and preferred to pillage underground or on dark, moonless nights. Now, this small creature hissed in Orcish, gathered itself and stood erect, ready to face its death.

That’s weird. They never wait. It’s always attack, attack, attack, Feral thought.

It clenched its fists and shot them downward.

Frack! It’s a mage. Feral threw herself forward, gaining a step-and-a-half as she put the war hammer into its backswing.

“Roika!” The small orc stamped its foot, and time seemed to slow.

The word reverberated in the passage. The rock floor and walls rippled with magic. Hydraulics hidden under the actual floor pulsed. Feral was knocked off her feet. She tried to cast Protection, which would shield her from magical attack, but her Essence was still depleted from casting Sunlight. The air shimmered, and the small orc grew threefold in size. It filled the passageway. Claws as long as Feral’s arms reached for her. She struggled upright and swung her war hammer.

The thing, now giant, caught the head of her weapon as easily as one might pluck a ripe apple from the low branch of a tree.

Ruh roh, Feral thought. The enormous orc yanked the war hammer and tossed it away. Feral raised her hands to her Args to attempt to equip a weapon better suited for close combat. She backed away from the beast, but it was on her in milliseconds. A single clawed hand closed around her throat.

“Die, miner,” the thing hissed in Orcish.

Feral’s vision dimmed, and her haptics stiffened in a manner familiar, but not common, for her. I’m being choked out. She tried to swat the thing’s arms, but all she could see was a parade of red and green numbers in her Args. Poison? she thought. Her heels bumped along the ground as she was dragged through the darkness.

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