Altos Dugin's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Altos crouched at the edge of the eastern road, four days out of Gorrus's stronghold. The trees had thinned. Bare ground lay ahead, the only path east toward Ragnok and his brother. Gorrus had let him go for a reason. Somewhere on this road, an ambush waited. Altos knew it in his gut. But he could not see it. He had no way to scout the path before he walked it. Smoke drifted from a hollow to his left. He followed it low through the brush. A fat orc knelt over a cook-fire, stirring a pot. A cleaver hung at his belt, clean of blood. The orc froze when Altos stepped out, axe raised. "Don't," the orc said. He lifted both hands. "I'm the cook. Gruk. I feed them, that's all. My cleaver's only ever cut meat." "Then talk," Altos said. "There's an ambush on this road." Gruk's shoulders dropped. He glanced east, then back. "There is. I've been trying to learn it myself. I want to know where it's safe to hide when the fighting starts." He wiped his hands on the torn apron. "They set a war machine past the ridge. A cart with iron barrels. It throws poison arrows fast as rain. Kragath commands it. You step onto the open road, it cuts you in half before you draw." Altos lowered the axe. "Where does it point?" "Straight down the road. That's its weakness." Gruk drew a line in the dirt with one finger. "It's heavy. Slow to turn. Come at it from the side, along the ridge, and its barrels can't catch you." "Why tell me this?" "Because if you kill it, the camp scatters. Then there's a place for me to hide." Gruk shrugged. "That's worth more to me than you are dead." Altos climbed the ridge in the gray light. Below, the war machine sat in the road. Iron barrels bristled from a wooden cart, arrows racked beneath in bright rows. Kragath stood beside it, poison spear in hand, eyes on the open path. He waited for a man walking straight into the barrels. Altos came from the flank, as Gruk had said. He was among them before Kragath turned. "Wrong road," Altos said, and buried the axe in the cart's frame. Timber split. He heaved. The machine tipped and crashed on its side. Barrels snapped. Arrows spilled across the dirt. Kragath thrust the spear. Altos took the shaft on his haft and drove his shoulder into the orc's chest. Kragath went down hard against the broken cart. Altos did not stay to finish him. He ran east down the open road, the ambush behind him in ruins. The war machine was wrecked. But Kragath lived, and now he knew Altos's face and his route. The right hand of Gorrus would follow. Altos had cleared the road home. He had also made himself a hunter's mark for every mile that remained.