Chapter 8 – Part 17

“You’re a f’testing idiot,” Baruk said as he walked through the hallway to his office. Grullik jumped up from the rickety chair that he’d been sitting in. “Follow me.”

The young half-orc smoothed his long mustaches, adjusted the two battleaxes on his belt, one edged with silver, the other with cold iron, and followed his superior into Baruk’s office. “Commander,” Grullik said, closing the door behind them both as they entered the office. “I didn’t spend your time, I went on my off time, and I – ”

“Oh shut up,” Baruk said, dropping his weary bones into his chair. Grullik stood stiffly until Baruk waved for him to sit. “You’re one of out better trackers,” Baruk said. “Tenacious. You don’t give up. You’ve found some good deposits out in the wastelands.” Baruk paused to glare. “And you’re a seventeen year-old punk with no dragonmark that has no business leaving our compound without security backup.”

“Commander, Dancing Orphan killed the hag, and I’ve been asking you for months to check out the collapsed case that we found,” Grullik said, making his words in a rush. “I figured you’d be cool if I –”

“Oh shut up,” Baruk said. Grullik shut up immediately. “We have narstones and dragonshards to collect, not wild goose chases in collapsed sand pits.”

“Not totally collapsed,” Grullik said, pulling something out of his shirt and setting it carefully on the desk.

Baruk stared down at the worn stone disk. No, not stone, metal, and not a complete disk. It had been damaged, long ago. Its surface was pitted. But the metal had no rust. It felt warm to the touch, as if some magic yet held.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Grullik said. “But it was old, inside of a corpse’s hand. Or at least I think it was a corpse, pretty far gone.”

“Some people say dragons and fiends warred here millennia ago.” He caught Grullik’s befuddled blink. “That means thousands of years.”

“It was really old,” the younger half-orc said. “I think it’s a religious symbol. Maybe when the druid is done with the ceremony, we can ask him.”

Baruk pursed his lips. “Or we can ask Dancing Orphan,” he mused, thinking about what Delegado had said about the headband.

“So I did good?” Grullik asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Baruk told him. “Let’s go to the ceremony first.”