Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 15 - Rites (Patreon)

Makit.

That was her name.

Never before had that been important to Ok’tarik.  She was a work-slave, after all.  Unimportant.  Weak.  She should have remained nameless.  But looking at her sleeping form, Ok’tarik couldn’t believe she was any of those things.  In fact, instead of a desire to loom over her and rule her life, he wanted only to protect her.  To shield her from harm and the circumstances of her nature.

He’d heard dragons speak of love.  He’d even used the word himself.  But until he met Makit, he never really understood it.  He still didn’t.  Not completely, at least.  His orcish nature warred with something else within him, threatening all the while to strangle his emotions and replace them with domineering aggression.

And part of him wanted to let it.

It would be so much easier than wrestling with feelings he didn’t understand.  But he also clung to them.  He needed them.  He needed her.

Following those emotions came some uncomfortable thoughts.  Most of them concerned his previous mates, most of whom he’d never really gotten to know.  The vast majority remained nameless in his mind, and he wouldn’t even recognize them if they presented themselves before him.

But even more troubling were thoughts of his progeny.

He’d fathered hundreds, if not thousands, of children over the years.  Then, he’d promptly forgotten them, each and every one.  He had no idea where they were, or if they’d even survived the brutal orcish childhood. 

He wished he knew, though.  He wished he could find them.  Track them down to ensure that they were protected and set up to live a productive life.  Perhaps he could even train them.  He could watch them grow into powerful warriors who could carry on his legacy after he was gone.

Ok’tarik had no idea why those thoughts had taken root in his mind.  He’d never before cared about his offspring.  And yet, he couldn’t escape the notion that he’d somehow failed.  At what, he had no idea, but the feeling persisted nonetheless.  It gripped his heart and squeezed his soul in a way that made his stomach churn with formless anxiety.

The worst of it was that Makit had no such thoughts. 

Why did that matter?  She was just a work-slave.  Being thoughtless was one of their defining characteristics. 

Ok’tarik rolled over, then sat up, running his fingers through the soft fur of his sleeping pallet.  He remembered killing the beast of its origin.  An ursine creature with six legs and claws like swords, it had pushed a young Ok’tarik to the limits of his abilities.  And yet, he’d emerged, battered and bloody, but victorious.

For a long moment, he just sat there, luxuriating in the softness of the fur while trying not to think of the work-slave he’d taken the night before.  She had been willing enough, but was that simply a symptom of the power discrepancy?  Did she have the mental capacity to understand the emotions coursing through him?  Did she even know the definition of love?

Of lust?

Of attachment?

Ok’tarik didn’t know the answer, and he was too frightened of the implications to give the subject the thought it deserved.

He was an orc.  A chief unlike any other.  He’d spent the past months fighting the other leaders, establishing his dominance.  He’d demanded their unquestioned obedience, and miraculously, some had bowed their heads and accepted him as their superior.  Most had resisted, and he’d dealt with them accordingly.

As wasteful as it was – as much of a tragedy as it would prove to be – it was necessary.  Orcs, especially ones who’d reached their level of power, rarely accepted their inferiority.  By their very nature, they would not be ruled.

Not unless forced, which was Ok’tarik’s mission.  He had accomplished it, one dominating battle after another until fear put them all in line behind him. 

So, why was he worried about a single work-slave?

He’d desired a mate, and she was there.  That was all that mattered.  His every instinct said as much.  And yet, he did care.  He dwelled on it, minute by minute, until he knew that, if left untended, the thoughts would drive him mad with unanswered questions. 

So, he pushed them aside and rose. 

His ship had been refitted and rebuilt with a much larger cabin.  The work-slave shipwrights had invested the entirety of their power into the massive construction, enchanting it with spatial runes that not only allowed it to carry an enormous army, but gave him a cabin fit for his station. 

From the outside, it only seemed to be a hundred feet wide, but the interior was at least ten times that size.  Perhaps a hundred.  Ok’tarik wasn’t great with numbers.  All he knew was that it was the size of a true palace, complete with a throne room and dozens of sleeping chambers for his lieutenants. 

But his sleeping quarters were the largest, and they’d been decorated with thick furs, trophies from his many conquests, and the hides of powerful beasts. 

It was the envy of all who saw it.  But in the flickering torchlight, Ok’tarik saw it for what it was – crude.  Primitive.  Savage.  Fit for an orc, but not for someone like Ok’tarik who’d learned the definition of beauty and craved it for himself.  He wanted delicate arches.  Tall towers.  Paintings.  Golden bridges.  Sculptures depicting the majesty of orcish kind.

In short, he wanted what the dragons clearly took for granted.

If he had requested as much, his tenuous grasp on Agmar and the orc population would have been severed.  They didn’t understand a concept so ambiguous as beauty.  It was foreign to the orc mind.

Except for Ok’tarik.

It was a curse and a blessing.  A double-edged sword that cut against his identity and set him apart from his people.

As he dressed, donning a ceremonial loincloth made from the hide of a spotted beast, Makit finally awoke.  Without saying a word, she scurried away, disappearing into an adjacent hall.  Ok’tarik wondered if he would ever see her again.

His heart hoped so.  His mind dreaded it.

He completed his preparations, then stepped free of his sleeping quarters.  The connected hall was decorated in the same manner as his chambers, which meant hides and bones over the ship’s wood and iron construction.  He ignored it, his bare feet quiet against the cold deck.

And then, he emerged into dancing firelight. 

Orcish eyes were more than capable of piercing the atmosphere of night, and Ok’tarik’s even more so.  However, the ship’s deck had been lit by hundreds of flickering torches.  More importantly, dozens of powerful warriors stood in a semicircle surrounding the door through which he’d just exited.

In unison, they slapped their chests with open palms, then let out a collective roar that shook the ship.  A moment later, it was answered by millions of other voices, gathered on the cliff face of Agmar itself.

Every orc in the city had come to see his departure.

Not out of respect.  Rather, out of fear.  Out of an inability to veer away from tradition.  Out of rote repetition.

They knew the Rite.  They knew what it meant.  But they couldn’t comprehend the significance, save that they recognized it as important.

Ok’tarik knew, though.  The Rite was beneath him.  It should not have been necessary.  But the Father of All had set the precedent so long ago that years failed to convey the scale.  He had performed the Rite, and in doing so, had united all of orc kind.  He had led the first exodus and, presumably, he had managed to gain a foothold in a newly integrated world.

Or that was what the orcs had been taught.  That was what Ok’tarik wanted to believe.  But he knew just how unlikely that was.  Stripped of all power and treated like a virus in need of extermination, the orcs were unlikely to have survived, much less thrived. 

Such was their fate.

Ok’tarik wanted to change that.

He needed to.

It wasn’t just his mission.  It was the reason he’d attained sapience.  If the other orcs saw into his mind, they would have declared him a messianic figure.  A true savior of their people.

Or they would have tried to kill him.

With orcs, it could go either way when it came to how they reacted to novel ideas.

A shaman stepped forward.  Jkar.  One of the most powerful of his kind, and certainly the strongest in Agmar.  He wore a headdress of clattering bone and decorated with a crown of fangs from powerful beasts.  His staff was the femur of a large, long-legged creature native to the Ruins.  He’d killed the thing only a hundred years before – a feat worthy of commemoration. 

To the top, Jkar had affixed dozens of orcish tusks.  A symbol of his dominance as much as it was a focus for his power.

The staff thumped against the deck, rhythmic and foreboding.  When he drew to within a few feet of Ok’tarik, he stopped.  The surrounding orcs began a wordless chant, and after only a few cycles, the ones on the cliff joined in. 

Tens of millions of voices, all chanting in unison.  Perhaps even hundreds of millions.  No one had ever bothered to count, and in that respect, Ok’tarik was no different than any other orc.

Numbers were unimportant.  There were always more orcs.

Jkar looked him up and down.  Ok’tarik felt his appraisal like a slap in the face, and his every instinct screamed at him to grab the smaller orc by his scrawny neck and show him who was in charge.

He pushed those ideas aside.

The appraisal was a necessary part of the ceremony.

Finally, Jkar growled, “Acceptable.”

Then, a half-dozen other shamans stepped out of the crowd.  They were even smaller than Jkar, and they clearly looked upon him as their leader.  Such was the nature of shamans.  They were more cooperative than any other orc, working together to empower the leader.

In this case, that was not their role.  Instead, they each carried clay bowls filled with a white substance made from bone ash and a sticky paste whose origin Ok’tarik had never investigated.

They reached him in short order.  He watched as the first dipped his fingers into the bowl, scooped a glob of that semi-liquid substance, and raised a trembling hand to Ok’tarik’s chest.

He started at the sternum, tracing his fingers down Ok’tarik’s torso and leaving a white line behind.  It branched out into two separate directions, encircling his waist before the contents of that shaman’s bowl were spent. 

The others stepped forward in turn, painting intricate lines across Ok’tarik’s naked torso, down his legs, and on his face.  In the firelight, each line glowed orange, flickering with otherworldly illumination.  For his part, Ok’tarik remained entirely still, even as he felt ethera swirl around him.  It wasn’t harmful, but his every instinct told him to ruthlessly quash the flows of energy.

Or take them for himself.

He could have.  The shamans were strong, but they couldn’t stand before someone like Ok’tarik.  They had technique, but he had raw power.  And in his experience, that was all he needed.

The entire process took only a few minutes, but it was still enough to test his patience.  Especially with the orcs continuing their rhythmic chants, which made his heart beat a little faster. 

Finally, the last shaman stepped away, leaving Ok’tarik alone in the center of the ship.

Jkar raised his voice, “You will perform the Rite of the Hunt.  Do you accept?”

“I do,” was Ok’tarik’s simple response.

Jkar hefted a simple, iron dagger.  It was old, with a jagged blade and a bone handle.  Reputedly, it was the weapon wielded by the Father of All.  It shimmered with power, but he knew it wouldn’t aid him in his endeavor.  As far as anyone had ever seen, its power was limited to preservation of the metal.  No corrosion had ever touched its surface, and none ever would.

“The Father of All wielded this weapon on his first hunt.  So too shall you carry it.  Go.  Hunt a worthy beast and return with a proper trophy.  Should you fail, do not return.”

“I accept these terms,” said Ok’tarik.

Jkar handed the dagger over.  Ok’tarik took it, then shoved the weapon into the waistband of his loincloth.  The painted markings on his torso shimmered even more vibrantly.

Then, without another word, he set out.  When he left the ship behind, he didn’t use the gangplank.  Instead, he stepped onto open air and continued on his way.  A trail of glittering ethera followed him. 

Ok’tarik’s eyes remained trained on his destination.  The core itself was only a pinprick on the dark horizon, but he knew that surrounding it were the rings of the Ruins.  There, he would find his prey.

He intended to kill a wyrm.