Chapter 8 - Part 5

Iron Orphan found himself feeling oddly relaxed. The Tharashk outpost was bristling with weapons and soldiers, and Foallus was watching him like a hawk – albeit a hawk with a pleasant demeanor, but this was nothing compared to the tense stress that he had been under since he’d entered the Wastes so many weeks earlier.

Ois was anything but. She still wore the human woman guise, marked with the scar that never left, no matter what form she took, but she kept her eyes on the floor, and her fingers clasped and unclasped around her sword hilt. The Tharashk soldiers considered her the lesser threat, however. The ones passing by stared at the warforged and whispered to one another.

“I’m not sure what you mean about lattices,” Foallus said. Orphan had taken him for a wizard, but apparently Delegado’s cousin’s spells were inborn things, not from study. Orphan’s headband gave him a greater understanding of Foallus’ magic than Foallus had.

Of course Foallus could summon bolts of lightning that could fry demons, and Orphan could not. Foallus was a doer, not an understander. It was a very orc-like trait, the warforged decided.

“Structures of magic, waiting to be tapped,” Orphan explained. “Sometimes magic is there, just waiting to be ordered. And sometimes it’s already ordered, but it needs shaping.”

“But you aren’t a spellcaster,” Foallus asked, curious.

“Hm, no,” Orphan said. He tipped his head, trying to get the entire conversation that was going on behind Baruk’s door.

“He’s a monk,” Ois said suddenly.

Orphan turned to stare at her in shock. Foallus reacted first however, with a suaveness that belied the orc side of his family. “My Lady, may I ask who you are, to be plucked from the Wastes by one of our best hunters, and his warforged…monk?”

“I’m someone who found something,” Ois said. “I found what I was looking for, and I wish I hadn’t. So I don’t think I fit in here, do I?” Her eyes were rimmed red.

Orphan was shocked by the raw emotion in Ois’ voice. Even for what she had been through, she seemed so despondent, very different from the confident paladin.

The door to Baruk’s office opened, and Delegado emerged, laughing at something the Tharashk commander had said. “Hey Orphan,” Delegado called out. “Let’s you and me show these fellows how to wipe out some fiend-worshippers, eh?”