IM AN ORC?

The Court had already begun the next move.

Ruk caught the rider before he fell from the saddle. The man's legs had gone weak beneath him, but his hands still clutched the reins as if letting go would mean the quarry attack could reach him.

"How many?" Ruk asked.

"Six at first. More in the tunnels. They came out under the quarry road, all scales and claws. Not kobolds, not any kind I know. The patrol put down three. The others dragged the dead back below."

"Grummok?"

"Holding the quarry entrance with two squads. He sent me when one of the things had hollow-metal in its back. He thought you would know what it meant."

Ruk looked at the group around him. The river ruins behind them, Halven bound beneath Grasha's watch, the rescued prisoners wrapped in blankets, the broken engine plans in Zira's care. The Ember Warrens lay far east. The old quarry stood north of their route, close enough that the Court's movements could not be ignored.

"Brek and Lenna take the prisoners to Reed Market," he ordered. "Halven goes with them, watched every step. Send word to Grummok that we are coming."

Lenna looked at the eastern map pages tucked under Zira's arm. "And the Warrens?"

"They wait until the quarry is secure. If the Court has opened a tunnel route under our territory, it becomes the first problem."

Nym came to stand beside him. "The rider said the creatures dragged their dead underground. They do not want evidence left above."

"Then we take evidence from below," Ruk said.

They reached the quarry before the next sunrise colored the eastern clouds.

The old quarry cut deep into the low hills, a stepped wound of gray stone where Black Tusk workers had once taken building rock for the stronghold. Torches burned along its upper rim. Grummok stood near the main descent with a spear in one hand and a shield strapped over the other arm. The Alpha looked older than he had when Ruk first knew him, but age had not made him smaller. It had made him heavier, more fixed, like a standing stone no storm had pushed aside.

He saw Ruk come down the road.

"You took your time," Grummok growled.

"I was stopping a river engine."

The Alpha's mouth twitched. "Then I forgive you half the time."

Grasha walked past Ruk and clasped Grummok's forearm. Their history filled the space between the movement and the release: old rank, old fights, old years when neither of them had expected the clan to become what it was now.

"Report," she said.

Grummok led them to a tarp laid over the quarry floor.

Beneath it lay one of the scaled creatures.

It was smaller than a full-grown orc, but built low and dense, with a long tail and heavy claws. Bronze-green scales covered its back. Its face had a narrow snout, sharp teeth, and a ridge of small horns above the brow. A black-metal spike had been driven through the flesh between its shoulder blades.

Zira knelt beside it. Her hand hovered over the wound without touching.

"The spike did not kill it," she said. "It was alive when it was placed. The metal changed the muscle around it. Forced it to keep moving after it should have stopped."

Zree listened to the spike. Her amber eyes hardened.

"It carries a false note. Not a full anchor. A signal shard. The creature was being guided by it."

Grummok looked at the dead scaled fighter, then at Ruk. "They sent slaves through my tunnels."

"Or prisoners," Nym said. "The Court uses people who can hear. It may use anyone it can turn into a tool."

A sound came from the quarry wall.

Three taps.

Then another three.

The workers along the rim raised their weapons. Karg stepped forward with her axe. Sorn faded into the shadow cast by the quarry crane.

The taps came again, deeper now.

Ruk felt the boundary sense dip beneath the stone. The quarry seam was not old like the highlands, but the excavation had exposed it. The Court had found another weak line and driven a tunnel toward it.

"They are below us," he said.

The quarry floor broke open.

Stone burst outward in a spray of dust. Two scaled creatures climbed from the crack, both carrying black-metal spikes in their backs. Behind them came a third figure, taller than the others, its scales dark red and its arms wrapped in iron chain.

The tall creature stopped when it saw the dead body beneath the tarp.

It looked at Ruk.

Then it spoke in rough Common.

"You kill our scouts."

Ruk lowered the artifact but did not raise it.

"Your scouts attacked our patrol."

"They were taken," the creature answered. Its eyes moved to the hollow-metal spike on the corpse. "We were taken."

The chains around its arms pulled tight. Pale light woke along their links.

The creature screamed and lunged.

Karg met it in the center of the quarry. Her axe struck the chains around its wrist and threw sparks. The creature's claw raked across her shoulder, opening the coat Zira had just helped mend. Karg drove her knee into its stomach and pulled it away from the chain light.

The two smaller scouts came at Grummok. The Alpha's spear took one through the thigh. The other leapt over the shaft and reached for his throat. Grasha intercepted with a short, brutal swing that knocked it sideways into the quarry wall.

Ruk went for the crack.

The boundary sense showed him what the Court had built below it: a tunnel running east, narrow and recent, full of wrongness. More spikes waited in the dark. More prisoners, perhaps. More people being pushed toward a place they did not choose.

A pale line flashed beneath his boots.

Zree grabbed his coat. "The tunnel is trying to open a thin place under the quarry. They want you to chase them."

The tall creature broke from Karg and threw itself toward the crack. The chains on its arms burned bright, pulling it downward.

Ruk caught it by the shoulder.

For a moment they struggled at the edge of the hole. The creature's claws cut grooves in the stone. Its eyes were wild, but not with hatred. With fear.

"Let me go," it snarled. "The chain will take me if you hold me."

"Then stop fighting me."

The creature froze.

Ruk drove the artifact's clear light into the chain links. The false note bucked against him. He pushed past it, found the creature's own living presence underneath, and held the true boundary voice beside it.

The chains cracked.

One link broke. Then another.

The pale light vanished from the metal.

The creature fell backward, gasping, and stared at its freed wrists.

From the tunnel below, a horn sounded.

A retreat call.

The remaining scaled scouts vanished into the crack. Sorn moved to follow, but Ruk raised a hand.

"Not yet. The tunnel is trapped."

The freed creature looked east through the quarry opening.

"They take us to the Ember Warrens," it said. Its voice shook with exhaustion. "They make the deep clans mine black metal. If you go there, the Court will know."

Ruk looked at the broken chain on the quarry floor.

"They already know," he replied.

The scaled creature lifted its head. "My name is Keth. I can show you the way."

Grummok stepped closer, spear still in hand. "Why should we trust you?"

Keth looked at the dead scout, then at the ruined chain around his arms.

"You should not," he said. "But you should use me before the Court turns every scaled clan in the Warrens into this."

The quarry wind moved across the broken stone. Far to the east, beyond the settled hills, the Ember Warrens waited.