De'Vas Chronicles Book 4: Chapter 2

Ash dug through the packs at his feet. He found something that looked like beef jerky, took a sniff, and then waved it at the three orcs kneeling before him.

“What is this?” he asked.

“W-w-wolf meat, sir,” the female orc answered.

He frowned, and the orcs before him seemed to turn a paler shade of green. They had mostly given up trying to fight him after he blew away their leader with a Bolt. Though the one who had dangled the slave collar did try to jump him when his back was turned. He met the same fate as his leader.

Ash’s eyes drifted from the orcs to the two corpses on the ground not far, little wisps of smoke still coming off them. He took another sniff of the dried meat.

“I’m sorry it’s not up to your standards, sir,” the female orc stated as she knelt lower.

One of the male orcs looked up, a hopeful smile on his face.

“We can go hunt something for you, sir. It won’t take us long, and we’ll have enough meat for a feast,” the orc said, his smile now beaming.

Ash just gave the orc a deadpan look.

He kept the hopeful smile on his face until the female orc grabbed his head and pushed it to the ground.

“Idiot!” she hissed as she forced him to bow.

Ash took a bite of the dried meat. He would compare the taste and texture to chewing on an old belt and would rank it as the second-worst thing he had ever eaten. The time Bo attempted to make tamales would always hold the number one spot.

He chewed on his breakfast while organizing his thoughts. The three before him were valuable sources of information, which he desperately needed.

Ash picked up a stick and tossed it to one of the male orcs, who stared at it on the ground as if it were a venomous snake.

“Take that stick and draw a map of the surrounding area on the ground,” Ash demanded.

The orc gulped, grabbed the stick, and started creating the map. Ash then focused on the other two.

“I have questions, and I recommend you answer them truthfully,” he said, his eyes darting back to the corpses.

“Yes, sir,” both of them said.

Ash pulled out his cellphone and scrolled through his photos. He found a picture of Haylee from one of the bi-weekly meetings of business leaders in District 114. She had a bright smile and wore a red dress that made her look stunning.

“Have you seen this otterkin woman?” Ash asked as he held his phone before the orcs.

They stared at it, dumbfounded for a moment, and he cleared his throat to get their attention back on track.

“Umm…no,” the male orc answered. “I’ve never seen an otterkin in the Markal Forest. Not enough rivers for their kind.”

Markal Forest.

Ash made a mental note of the name, then moved to find a picture of Selena. He already knew he didn’t have one of Ella, which he regretted now. He hoped Bo’s girlfriend was safe.

Finding a picture of Selena was harder than Haylee, given their rocky relationship, and he had to scroll for a bit. Eventually, he found a photo of one of the District Bosses’ meetings with Cleo and all her vassals standing behind her. He zoomed in as much as he could, but it still showed him, Cleo, and Selena in the image.

“What about this unicorn? Have you seen her?” he asked.

This time, when he showed the photo to the orcs, their eyes widened. A spark of hope entered him that they had seen Selena.

“T-That’s the Nightmare Queen. You’re standing at the right hand of the Nightmare Queen,” the female orc said, her voice quivering.

Ash sighed.

“Yeah, I am. Cleo’s not important right now, what is important is if you’ve seen the unicorn beside me in this photo.”

He saw their eyes widen when he said ‘Cleo’, but both orcs just shook their heads while staring at his phone. He turned his gaze to the one working on the map and saw he had finished, though a bead of sweat was running down the side of his face.

Ash stood and made his way over to take a closer look at the map. The crude drawing mostly depicted forests surrounding them, though there was a corner with what looked like child drawings of cages in a fenced-in area.

“What’s this?” Ash asked, pointing at the cages. He knew it was nothing good. “It looks like the only settlement on your map.”

The orc refused to meet his eyes.

“The slave hunter camp, my lord. Since the disappearance of your Lady, some of her former vassals have removed her decree on the practice,” the orc answered. “The camp is the closest thing to a settlement in the Markal Forest.”

My Lady? Also, did he refer to me as Lord?

The odd question first made him think of Faylen, and he was wondering how this orc knew about his wolfkin lover. Then his sleep-addled mind connected the dots.

He’s talking about Cleo.

“I really need a cup of coffee…” Ash said, rubbing his eyes.

The orc was silent for a moment.

“What’s coffee, my lord?”

Ash stopped rubbing his eyes and stared at the orc.

“You don’t have coffee here?” he asked, only to see the orc shake his head. “Oh, I’m going to kill that damn dragon!”

All the orcs turned and looked at him at the outburst. When he met their gaze, they quickly looked away.

“We’re by the remains of Cleo’s Queendom?” he asked, getting his brain and the orc back on track.

“Yes. The Markal Forest is the southern border of the Nightmare Queen’s former territory. North of these woods are the remains of her Queendom, now merely feuding states. Past that are the remains of the Kingdom of Everwood.”

I doubt that it’s a coincidence that Victor rifted us here.

The stone dragon words played back in Ash’s mind. About how he and someone else had seen potential in him. That Victor promised not to kill him. Those words, combined with where Ash and the girls had been, made him very suspicious of a certain fox.

“Tell me everything about this slave camp. Who runs it? Do they have magic? How many people?” Ash demanded.

He mulled over what the orc had told him as he went to the dead orcs’ packs and pulled out a cloak he had seen in it. The thing was an ugly brown, but it had a hood. Something he figured he would need eventually, given the fact that his appearance was odd on…Vas.

“What are your names?” Ash asked the orcs as he donned the cloak.

“I’m Eva,” the female orc said, pointing at herself. Then gestured to the two male orcs. “That’s Joel and Ken. The two you—”

Ash waved his hand and stopped her. He didn’t care about the two dead slavers. He wasn’t even going to bury them after all. He turned back and faced the group of orcs before him.

“Okay, you’re going to lead me to this slave camp,” Ash said, doing his best to add an edge to his voice. “Try anything and you’ll end up like those two.”

The orcs nodded their heads once and began to stand. Ash stopped Joel and made him carry the packs of the two dead orcs, along with the giant sword. If video games taught him anything, it was not to pass up on loot. He looked back at the small shelter he had stayed in for the night.

My scent is probably all over that.

“Wait one second,” Ash told the orcs.

He pulled an animal hide from the pack he had given Joel and then fished a piece of charcoal from the remains of his fire. He did his best to copy the map Ken had created, then added a small warning for the girls and his plans. Then he placed it inside the small shelter.

He doubted they would find it. His aerial fight with Victor probably put miles between them. Still, he wanted to use every chance he could to find Haylee, Selena, and Ella. He just hoped the slavers hadn’t found them first.

He tasted bile in his mouth at the thought of the slave camp. It dredged up memories of Sero’s meat-packing plant and the horrors within it. The camp would probably be the biggest threat to the girls in the area, and the most likely place to find information on where they could be.

They began leading him through the forest, massive trees towering over them. He felt like an ant scurrying along the ground underneath these giants, small and insignificant. Ash frowned at the thought of what kind of creatures would call these woods home, the apex predators. Monsters like the kraken came from Vas, just the same as paranormals.

As if to add weight to that thought, his gaze landed on a large tree with deep claw marks in its trunk, some twenty feet in the air. The deep gashes were already being healed by new growth, showing their age, but the sight did send a chill down his spine.

He caught Eva looking at him with a side glance, her freezing when their eyes met. Ash lifted his hand and pointed at the healed gashes in the tree trunk.

“What caused that?” he asked.

Eva turned and looked up at the tree. Her brows furrowing as she examined it.

“Just three claw marks,” she replied. “So it’s most likely a behemoth.”

Ash grimaced.

“So monsters of that size are common here in Markal Forest?” he asked.

Eva gave him an odd look at the question, which he returned with a hard stare.

“Monsters are usually deeper in the woods. They don’t like to venture near the Kingdoms, and we’re near the forest’s edge. That’s why it’s mostly younger trees and new growth here.”

Ash blinked and looked back at the massive tree beside him.

This is considered new growth!

He wondered if Eva was trying to trick him and was about to press her on the matter, but then he noticed her body language. She would only meet his eyes in darting glances. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, and she was fidgeting with her fingers. The orc woman was terrified of him.

“Tell me about behemoths,” he asked, fairly certain Eva wasn’t lying to him. “We don’t have any where I come from.”

Eva still gave him an odd look, but agreed.

“Big, with long claws that they use for digging their burrows in the stone mountains. Thankfully, they’re solitary monsters. Though they go into rut every few years, and the males become aggressive.”

Great…