Fortress Al-Mir

Dakka leaned back in her chair, taking a long drink from the hardest ale served in whatever shithole she found herself in. She tried to project an air of casual disregard as she carefully watched the faces around her.

The lizardman with his distinctly inhuman facial features was the hardest to read. His tongue flicked out of his face, tasting the air as his beady yellow eyes looked over his opponents. In contrast, the little fairy girl couldn’t be any more open as she sighed over and over again at the pasteboard cards in her hand. Dakka kept thinking that it was an act, but the fairy lost hand after hand.

The other two, a dark elf with unnaturally gray skin—unnaturally for most other species anyway—and a fellow orc, were much easier to read. Right now, she was reading that the orc didn’t like her all that much. Possibly because of her size, probably because of the large stack of silver she had in front of her that used to be in front of him.

Dakka tossed half a dozen silvers across the table, raising the stakes to the point where the fairy let out a long groan as she threw her cards away. It would have been easy to bait the fairy with a lower bet, but at this point, Dakka was just trying to spare the poor thing from losing any more coin.

The orc across from her, on the other hand… When it looked like he was about to fold as well, Dakka rolled her eyes with an exaggerated scoff. With an angry grunt, the orc tossed in the remainder of his silvers. Too easy. The dark elf folded while the lizardman tossed in a few of his rather sizable pile of coins.

Dakka spread her cards on the table. A fairly bad hand, all things considered. The orc let out a guffaw, throwing his cards next to hers while reaching for the pile of silver, only for the lizardman to lash out with a hasty claw.

“Not sso fasst,” the lizardman said, carefully setting his cards down.

A grin spread across Dakka’s face. A grin that only widened once the orc turned a furious expression her way. She might have lost the hand, but reading the lizardman was a victory all on its own. Mostly because it took away the orc’s victory.

She didn’t care about the money the lizardman was sliding over to his side. It wasn’t like it was her money. She just cared that the orc was upset. He pissed her off. Now that his pile was completely gone, Dakka stood, dumped the remainder of her coins into her pouch, and waved.

“Thanks for the games, boys. Was a… productive afternoon.” After meeting everyone’s eyes, lingering on the orc’s just a moment longer than everyone else, Dakka turned and left the fine establishment.

She headed down the road, moving alongside the harbor, though a street removed from the seaside, and continued along until she found what she was looking for. A narrow, deserted wynd between two of the rundown wooden buildings of this district. Dakka took the backstreet, stopped halfway through it, and leaned up against the wall.

It didn’t take long before a certain, silverless orc rounded the corner. He paused, startled at her simply waiting there, but quickly balled his hands into fists.

“Tell you what,” Dakka said as he approached. “I have a few questions I want answers to. In exchange, I’ll hand over… let’s say ten of your hard-earned silvers.”

“Scared without your lizard friend here?” he spat. “He won’t be coming to your rescue this time. My boys are watching him.”

Dakka laughed. She had never met that lizardman before. It might have looked like they were conspiring together to ruin this orc. “Should have brought your boys to back you up. Honestly thought there would be at least three of you.”

“Don’t need anyone to teach a runt like you a lesson.”

Dakka’s eye twitched as she ducked his punch. He was wide and obvious. The orc was two heads taller than she was, around the upper end for male orcs. But he wasn’t a fighter. Not a proper fighter, in any case. Not a raider.

Sidestepping another punch, Dakka rammed her fist into his stomach. His knuckles slammed into the side of her head, snapping her neck to the side, but she rolled with it, shimmying around a haymaker. Grabbing hold of his shirt and outstretched arm, Dakka stepped forward, wrapping a leg behind his leg. With it, she lifted him up enough to slam his back down onto the hard flagstone ground.

Dakka kicked her boot into the side of his head once and his shoulders twice as he tried to use the wall to pull himself back up. Bringing her fists together, she hammered down on his head, knocking him down once again.

Grabbing her axe in one hand, Dakka swung straight for his neck. It bit into the wooden wall behind him, sending splinters flying past his face as it stopped just a hair from the side of his green skin.

The orc panted, wide-eyed and sweating. His gaze was off in the corners of his eyes, looking at the edge of the blade without turning his head, as if afraid that even a small movement would have it slice into him.

Dakka grinned. Rearing back, she spat a wad of blood off to the side. “That kind of talk is why you’re silverless,” she said with a grin. Blood was probably staining her teeth. She could feel a little warmth on the side of her head where he had hit her. She might even be bleeding there as well. Dakka expected it to add to the intimidation factor. “Now you’re going to answer my questions. Understand?”

He didn’t answer, too focused on gripping the side of his head where Dakka had kicked him.

“Now,” Dakka said, leaning down. “Tell me everything you know about the Duke and his elf.”

Ilya did not meander through the streets, gawking at the compact buildings, stone structures, the fancy fountain in the middle of a stone plaza, or even the hundreds upon hundreds of people that somehow both fit and lived in such a relatively small space. Exploring wasn’t exactly the word she would use for what she was doing despite what she told Arkk. While she didn’t know exactly where she was going, Ilya moved with purpose.

She had never been this close before.

In the past, as a child, Ilya had dreamed of coming to this city and valiantly rescuing her mother from the Duke. It had been nothing more than that, dreams. Leaving her home alone or even with Arkk on some crusade had always sounded like madness. Now they were here. Ilya, Arkk, and a completely random and unrelated orc. It still sounded like madness that they were going to do anything, and yet, things had changed.

Ilya didn’t know where to go, but she knew her destination. She figured that finding it would be easy. All she had to do was follow the wealth. From the district where the majority of the demihumans and beastmen lived to properly maintained wooden buildings and on to stone buildings. When Ilya started to see actual glass in the windows of the surrounding buildings, she knew she was headed in the right direction.

Much to Ilya’s irritation, she found herself stopped before she could reach what she suspected was her destination.

At first, Ilya thought it was a canal. Water filled a relatively wide trough of stone bricks at the end of the street she had been walking on. Walking alongside it, Ilya quickly discovered that it was not just a canal, but a moat. The moat didn’t fully encircle the land beyond but only because part of that land stuck out into the ocean. On the opposite side of the moat was a walled land. Maybe even as large as Langleey Village—the main area including the Baron’s manor, church, and workshops anyway, not the full farmland. There were only two ways across, aside from swimming, and both had guards positioned in front of closed gates.

Walking around for a few more minutes, Ilya came across just what she needed. A three-story building, tall enough to see well over the wall on the other side of the moat. It was right up against the mountainside, which provided the perfect cover as Ilya scaled the wall, finding handholds and footholds in the wide grooves of the stonemasonry.

Ilya pulled herself onto the slanted rooftop made of shale shingles. She took care not to go over the peak, keeping her body firmly on the side that faced away from the moat and walls.

That was it. That had to be it. It looked idyllic. A wide open and frankly beautiful vineyard sat beyond the walls, merged with some kind of park-like garden. It stretched on, wrapping around a truly massive, opulent structure in the center of it all. A veritable castle.

The Duke’s manor. Though, calling it a manor implied that it was somehow on the same level as Baron Langleey’s manor and it absolutely was not. Power and prestige permeated every aspect of the construction. The grounds covered the majority of the promontory, jutting out into the sea. The fine building at the center of it all was covered in smooth white stone, not at all like the whitewashed church back in Langleey, where the washing had to be reapplied every few years to keep it gleaming. Here, the stone itself was white. An arching dome made of long panels of clear glass occupied a plot of land about as large as the Langleey church while a high tower at the other end of the keep overlooked the ocean.

Between the moat, the wall, and the wide vineyard, it was as if the Duke were keeping an arm’s length from the unwashed masses of the city he presided over.

People were wandering the grounds. A few guards patrolled the walls and Ilya’s sharp eyes spotted a few more posted in the tall tower but the people on the grounds and in the gardens appeared to be regular people. Gardeners tended to the vineyard.

Others meandered about as well, though not workers. Most were women, dressed in fine robes and gowns. As far as Ilya could tell, they were simply wandering about, enjoying the gardens and the company of each other. Interestingly enough, they weren’t all human.

Arkk had mentioned in the past, hearing tales from the various travelers to the village with whom he loved to talk, that demihumans weren’t often treated well within the Duchy. Ilya hadn’t necessarily believed it. Certainly, no one in Langleey had treated her poorly. Then again, elves supposedly got off lightly compared to some of the more monstrous species. Cliff was evidence enough for her. The way all the demihumans had been shoved off into one little corner of the city, a particularly poor and unkempt corner at that, spoke volumes.

Yet, demihumans were wandering the grounds. They wore fine clothes, no less, not the clothes of serfs or workers. Ilya spotted a dark elf—easily identifiable by her red eyes and long yet more rounded ears—two harpies, a dryad that looked like a walking tangle of bark and vines, a pair of werecats, an orc that, based on the heights of those around it, was even smaller than Dakka, and one other monster that Ilya couldn’t decide if it was a water elemental or a particularly well-formed slime. Of course, there were elves as well. The vast majority of the women wandering the grounds were elves.

There were almost no humans aside from the guards.

Ilya watched from the roof for hours, eyes moving from elf to elf, trying to spot anything familiar on their faces. The people in the bailey meandered about, wandering into the manor and back out. Was that the same orc as before? A werehound joined the small group of beastmen, excitedly running around and annoying the werecats at the same time.

What were all these women doing, just lounging around? Ilya wasn’t sure that she understood. Maybe she just didn’t want to understand, not wanting to think of what it might mean for her mother. If her mother was even there.

Ilya didn’t want to think about what it might mean if her mother wasn’t there either.

The sun started to set before Ilya began to stir. She had been watching the manor grounds all day. It was well past time to meet up with Arkk and Dakka. If she delayed much longer, they would probably start panicking.

Just before she could begin climbing down from the roof, however, she heard a loud squawk from the manor grounds.

One of the harpies took off in a sprint, wings flapping. Kicking off the ground with her powerful legs, the harpy launched into the air, much to the alarm of the guards on the walls. Crossbow bolts started flying through the air. While the guards were targeting the harpy in the air, the bolts came down everywhere, forcing everyone on the ground to rush for cover in the safety of the manor.

The harpy did not get very far. It wasn’t even the crossbows that got her. The harpy banked under a volley of bolts, then, as the guards were cranking back their crossbows for another shot, the harpy headed straight over the walls.

A lattice of thin blue lines encapsulated the entire manor, bailey and all. A pair of robe-wearing guards stood in the tall tower at the center of the compound, crouched around a glowing light. Ilya couldn’t see what was glowing from her angle, but she had seen that same light before when Arkk tried to do rituals. The manor had magical protections.

After running into the lattice, the harpy seemed to pass out in mid-air. Her wings, still spread wide, caught the air but the harpy made no effort to stop her tight spiral as she crashed into the ground behind the wall. Ilya winced, wondering if the harpy had survived. She could only barely see the bird-woman, but what she could see wasn’t moving.

Ilya’s eyes were drawn up to the manor where people were once again running out. Guards from the walls made it to the harpy first, but Ilya wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. How could she? Her eyes were locked on a tall, graceful elf striding across the bailey.

An elf with long, silver hair, silver eyes, and sharp ears.

Ilya sucked in a breath.

That was her. Her mother. Alya. She reached the harpy and started saying something to the guards. Even though she was practically yelling, Ilya’s sensitive ears heard nothing while she was focused on her mother’s face.

She looked… well. Healthy. Her skin was as flawless as Ilya remembered, with no sign of bruises or abuse. Her arms weren’t scrawny sticks of skin and bone. Although Ilya wasn’t listening to her words, she had a strong voice as she shouted at the guards. It… wasn’t what Ilya had been expecting. In all her nightmares, her mother had been chained up in a deep dungeon, shackled to the walls, and fed little more than barley water. In the better nightmares, Ilya and Arkk charged in with a sword and bow, chopping down guards as they worked to free her.

In her focus on her mother, Ilya completely missed someone else approaching the guards and the fallen harpy. It wasn’t until he grabbed Alya by the waist that Ilya took notice.

He was short, especially next to Alya, with large bulging eyes like those of a frog. Dressed in the finest clothes that Ilya had ever seen, he wore a velvety black and red lounge jacket with particularly bright red lapels. Every finger on both his hands was adorned with gold bands and colorful gemstones. A large blue and white striped shield emblem hung proudly off his chest, surrounded by filigree while a winged lion stood on its hind legs in the center.

Duke Levi Woldair.

It had to be him. Ilya had never seen the man before, but the moment she put her eyes on his slimy grin, she knew it had to be him.

Ilya’s hand moved to her back where her mother’s bow was locked in its clasps. He was right there. Right in front of her. Standing out in the open. From her elevated position, it would be too easy to end him right now.

Before she could fully unclasp her bow from her back, her movements made it scrape against the shale tiles of the roof. Ilya froze solid at the noise, not daring to move. Even though it had been a faint scrape, it sounded like thunder to her sharp ears.

The humans across the moat didn’t react in the slightest as they continued to speak to one another. Her mother, however, snapped her gaze up. She looked around for just a moment before her gaze landed on Ilya. Her eyes widened for a bare instant before narrowing into a thin glare. She kept her gaze on Ilya long enough to mouth a single word.

“Leave.”

As soon as she said that, she adopted a forced smile and leaned down, whispering something into the Duke’s ear. Whatever it was, the Duke let out a laugh and waved off his guards. One guard, who Ilya now realized had a loaded crossbow aimed at the harpy’s head, pulled back as two others moved to grab the harpy by the wings. They dragged her off toward the manor.

The Duke followed and Ilya’s mother fell in line just behind him, putting herself between Ilya and the Duke.

It was another hour, well after sunset, before Ilya dared to climb down from her perch. Neither the Duke nor her mother returned from the manor. Most of the others Ilya had seen over the day remained inside as well. Only the guards stayed out, returning to their posts around the walls and towers. After the excitement with the harpy, they remained on alert, but that slowly died down.

Ilya drifted through a haze as she made her way back to the Primrose. She couldn’t believe what she had seen.

Ilya clenched her teeth, fingers digging into the palms of her tightly clenched fists. Her mother was protecting the Duke? Why? And that glare… The first time she saw Ilya in fifteen years and she glared? Ilya couldn’t understand it. In all her worst nightmares, she had never seen that reaction. She had been prepared to find her mother battered and broken, used and abused in ways that Ilya didn’t even want to think about. And yet…

“There you are!”

Ilya blinked, realizing that she had made it back to the Primrose. Dakka sat at one of the tables, a half-burned cigar in one hand and a spread of pasteboard cards in the other. The orc dropped her cards on the table, face down, and scooped a rather large pile of coins into her pouch as she stood, much to the disappointed looks of those she was sharing a table with.

“You look like shit,” Dakka said, picking up an orc-sized flagon full of beer from the table and marching right over to Ilya. “Drink?”

Ilya stared at the orc for a moment. Alcohol wasn’t her favorite thing in the world, beer even less. Yet, right now… She reached out and took the tall mug. Tipping it back, she started drinking and didn’t stop until there was nothing left.

For some inane reason, people around her let out a laughing cheer when she finished.

“Damn,” Dakka said as Ilya shoved the empty mug back over. “Don’t know what happened to you, but I might have some good news to cheer you back up.”

“Good news?”

Dakka glanced around, dropped the flagon on the nearest table, then motioned toward the stairs up to the second floor. “Not here.”

“Right…”

Ilya followed after Dakka, feeling everything she just drank slosh around in her otherwise empty stomach. She hadn’t eaten anything since morning, having stayed up on that rooftop all day. About halfway up, she thought she might wind up sick, but managed to steady herself before continuing. It helped that Dakka clapped a hand to her back, steadying her.

“So,” Dakka said as they stepped into their room. “It turns out the Duke has a lot of monsters in his… collection.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“Noticed?”

Ilya shook her head as she slumped onto the bed, motioning with her hand for Dakka to continue.

“Well, he has many elves,” Dakka said, sounding a little less certain of her supposed good news. “Word is that he treats them very well.”

“Oh.” Ilya might have been happy to hear that earlier, but now? Did the Duke treat them well enough that her own mother would trade her for his company? She felt nausea welling inside her at the thought.

Or maybe that was the alcohol.

“If that doesn’t cheer you up,” Dakka said, hesitating a moment as she watched Ilya. “The Duke holds monthly parties at his manor where he shows off his collection to all the important people in the city.”

Ilya blinked, looking up while slowly shaking her head. “Is that supposed to make me happy?”

“I thought that, with you and Arkk planning on pretending to be some important people, you might make it into his manor for one of these parties.”

It took a moment for the words to hit her, but when they did, Ilya sat up straight. She nodded her head, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “Yes. We could get in and I could ask…” Ilya trailed off, a lump forming in her throat.

“In addition to parties, I hear he auctions some of them off on occasion.”

“Auctions?” Ilya said, nose wrinkling.

“Disgusting, yeah. The Duchy officially has a bounty on any slavers. Apparently owning slaves isn’t against any decrees.” Dakka shrugged as if the notion didn’t bother her much. It was just the way things were. “With your goal, however…”

Ilya’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Right, we just need to,” Ilya said, standing, then she looked around. She squinted, the room was dark, but it was obvious that only she and Dakka were inside. “Where is Arkk?”

Dakka shrugged. “No idea. Haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“He was the one who insisted we be back before sunset.”

“I was back,” Dakka said, tone implying that she had been the only one to follow that particular plan.

“Oh no. I feel like he’s gotten himself into another mess…” Ilya said, staggering over to the window. “I hope he hasn’t made anything explode.”

“Or anyone.”

Ilya grimaced. Memories of the orc chieftain’s grim fate were too much for her, making her lean over the windowsill.

She ignored Dakka griping about the waste of good beer.