Chain around my leg
Kellek nodded, but he was not really listening. The Freeborn woman opposite him poured some of the Imperial Roseweald out onto the wooden table between them, prattling about the fine quality of herbs straight from the Spice Garens of Feroz. Her eyes roved over his face as she tried to judge his mood. He was breathing slowly and rhythmically, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and she was trying to work out what that meant.
What it meant was that he was desperately fighting the urge to kill her, to take her herbs, and to run for the woods. It was taking almost his entire will to stop himself acting on this instinct, to ignore the frenzied, terrified voice just over his left shoulder that only he could hear. Run, it said. Take the herbs and run, run, run.
"I think, Faria, that this is not the best time for this discussion." he said forcing his voice to stay even, doing his best not to betray the rage and terror surging through his blood.
She opened her mouth to say something, and something shifted inside him. The shadows in the tent rolled in like stormclouds and for a moment he was in two places at once. One Kellek sat at the bargaining table negotiating the purchase of herbs. The other stood in freezing water up to his chest, the green canvas of the tent replaced by a rough rock surface just above his head. The waters were rising, and there was no way out. There were other orcs here as well, orcs he could barely make out, trapped in the water with the air running out and the absolute certainty that there was no way out and nobody to remember how they died. For a moment he knew their names, with a cold and detached clarity, and then it was all gone and he was only one Kellek again.
He jerked, suddenly, knocking his goblet flying, and the vision was gone. Faria i Padema i Riqueza looked concerned. Her worry gave him a flash of irritation...
... and just like that it roared through him. Blood burning rage, bone-deep hate, stomach-churning loss and fear and sorrow, and a desperate, impotent thirst for vengeance that he could never slake. He knew these were not his emotions, but he could do nothing to control them. He launched to his feet, tossing the trestle table to one side as he stood, scattering crimson herbs and moeny in all directions.
"Where were you?" he bellowed. "Where were your people when they were selling out children like sheep? Where were you when they left us to drown in the mines because it was easier to buy more slaves than rescue them?"
It felt good to say it. The detached part of him, the part full of clarity, recognised that this was not just the power of the ancestors in him. This was his own rage, his own hate, his own despair, his own need for answers. He'd been blind to the truth, before the magic and the drumming had opened them and made him look directly at things he had tried all is life not to see, to hear clearly the voices he had tried all his life not to hear.
Faria fell back, terrified. Kellek felt rather than saw Mord and Sakkia closing in, grabbing him, pulling him back. If they had not been there, he would have killed this woman - this woman he had known for twenty years.
"Where were you when we were born in darkness, and worked until we dropped, and died in darkness, and we were throw away like so much forgotten rubbish?" he howled. "Where were you?"
His rage collapsed in on itself, turning into a ball of all-consuming sorrow that pulled everything into it and let nothing else escape. He collapsed, and his friends caught him.
He heard Mord calmly and politely telling the Riqueza merchant that it was really not a good time, and perhaps she should come back in the morning. She nodded, pale faced, clearly scared, and backed away. As she lifted the tent flap, the rhythmic thunder from the fighting pit became louder for a moment, each beat of the drums like a nail driven into Kellek's temples.
When the human woman was gone, the madness went out of him. He slumped back down on the bench with his head in his hand. Sakkia sat on one side of him and Mord on the other, body to body, and none of them said anything for quite some time.Overview
This season both Imperial Orcs armies are resting in Casinea. While the Summer Storm resupply and recover from their recent engagements against the barbarian orcs, the Winter Sun are engaged in much more esoteric pursuits.
During the Autumn Equinox a powerful enchantment was lain over venerable general Mor'gur. A spontaneous Day magic ritual created by the Skywise, and woven by the magicians of Urizen, using the inscribed skull known as Defiance as a focus, it is intended to make it easier for the orcs to hear their ancestors.
During the day the soldiers of the Winter Sun drill and practice and maintain their weapons, their armour, and their tents. At night they gather together to tell stories and meditate on the nature of worth and those who have gone before. Many seek communion in impromptu fighting pits, or make the pilgrimage to Anvil to use the pit built there long ago by the first Imperial Orcs. The nature of the magic used, drawing as it does on the realm of Day, is often at odds with the ceremonies of the orcs and the shaman. Loud drumming, dancing, and fighting are ideal for getting the blood pumping and drawing the attention of the ancestors but they are anathema to the rationality and calm of the realm.
Still, the magic of the Day realm has a resonance for focus, and most importantly for revelation and clarity. Although, it must always be born in mind that receiving a revelation , seeing with absolute clarity, is not necessarily a comfortable or comforting experience.