IM AN ORC?

Far to the east, beyond the settled hills, the Ember Warrens waited.

Keth did not ask for food until the quarry had gone quiet.

Zira cleaned the raw skin beneath the broken chain while Grummok's workers piled stones over the tunnel crack. The scaled warrior sat on a quarry block with his hands open in his lap, as if he could not yet trust them to remain free.

"The Court calls the Warrens a forge," Keth told them. "That is not what they are. They are homes. Deep tunnels cut around old heat vents. Many clans live there. Kobolds, scaled folk, stone diggers. The Court found the black metal beneath the oldest vents and made the clans choose: mine it, or be chained to it."

"How many are held?" Ruk asked.

Keth's eyes lowered. "Enough that counting stopped helping."

Nym came down from the quarry rim with a thin bundle of torn cloth in her hand. She had been following the Court scouts' path above ground while the workers sealed the crack.

"The retreat horn was not only for the scouts," she said. "It called a runner from the east. I found his trail and lost it at a cave mouth beyond the quarry ridge." She handed the cloth to Ruk. It had been cut from a larger map. A black line marked the cave route. At the bottom, someone had written two words in charcoal.

*Listening camp.*

Zree listened to the air around the cloth. Her expression tightened.

"There are more prisoners nearby," she said. "Not in the Warrens yet. The Court is collecting people before moving them east."

Ruk looked at Keth. "Can you walk?"

The scaled warrior rose. His knees shook once, then steadied.

"I can fight."

"You do not need to prove that yet," Ruk told him. "You guide us."

Grummok stepped in front of Ruk before they left the quarry.

"You are taking too few," the Alpha said. "The Court has tunnels, prisoners, and now scaled fighters in chains. I send another squad."

Ruk looked at the quarry. At the workers. At the sealed crack. Grummok was right about numbers, but more bodies could make a rescue harder if the camp was built around a seam wound.

"Keep the squad ready," Ruk said. "We scout first. If the camp is large, Nym sends a signal."

Grummok grunted. He did not like the answer, but he accepted it.

"Bring the scaled one back alive," he said. "We need his people more than his corpse."

Keth met the Alpha's gaze. "That is the first useful thing you have said to me."

Grummok's tusks showed in something close to amusement. "You will fit in badly."

The cave mouth lay beyond the ridge, concealed behind a spill of loose stone. Keth led them through it with no light. The scaled warrior knew the smell of the tunnels, the change in the air, the way heat moved through the rock.

Ruk felt the seam before he saw the camp.

It had been cut open along the tunnel wall and held apart by three hollow-metal stakes. Behind the stakes, a wire cage stood in a natural chamber. Six prisoners sat inside it: two kobolds, a human woman, an orc youth, and two scaled fighters with chains through their backs.

The false note did not scream here. It whispered.

It threaded through the captives, encouraging their fear, pulling small pieces of their awareness toward the seam.

Keth stopped at the edge of the dark.

One of the chained scaled fighters looked up. Recognition crossed his face.

"Keth," he rasped. "They broke you."

"Not enough," Keth replied.

Four guards watched the chamber. Two wore Court gray. Two were kobolds in soot-stained mining gear, each holding a black-metal baton with pale lines running through it.

Keth's claws flexed. "They are not guards. They are miners. The Court puts the baton in their hands and tells them their families live because they obey."

Ruk looked at the kobolds. They did not look eager. Their eyes were fixed on the cage, not on the tunnel entrances. One was young, no older than Lenna. The other had a burned patch across one cheek.

"We take the Court guards first," Ruk murmured. "The miners get a chance to put the batons down."

Nym nodded. Sorn had already disappeared into the upper shadows.

Zira moved close to the wall, preparing a barrier around the cage. Zree crouched beside her, listening for the link between the three stakes. Karg and Grasha waited in the rear, prepared to break the chamber open if silence failed.

It failed when one of the kobold miners turned.

He saw Keth.

His baton rose, but his hands were shaking.

"You should not be here," the young kobold whispered.

"Neither should you," Keth answered.

The Court guard beside him struck him across the face.

"Raise the alarm."

The kobold did not move.

Nym's knife left her hand. It buried itself in the Court guard's throat before the man could reach the signal bell. Sorn dropped from the ceiling behind the second gray coat, put a hand over the guard's mouth, and dragged him into the dark.

The chamber erupted.

The older kobold swung his baton at Keth. Keth caught the blow on his forearm, grimaced as pale energy bit into his scales, and tore the weapon from the miner's hand. He did not strike back. He broke the baton across his knee and threw both pieces aside.

"Your family where?" he asked.

The miner stared at him.

"Lower forge," he finally answered. "They took them below."

Keth looked at Ruk. That was answer enough.

The false note flared from the stakes. The cage wires tightened around the prisoners' arms and throats.

Zree pressed both palms to the ground. "They are tied to the mining batons. When the batons break, the cage pulls harder."

"Then we take the stakes together," Ruk said.

He placed the artifact against the nearest hollow-metal spike. Its pale lines tried to climb his arm. He found the true boundary voice beneath the chamber floor and held it close.

Keth took the second stake. The broken chains on his back had left wounds, but he wrapped both hands around the metal and pulled with a growl that became a roar.

Grasha and Karg took the third.

"Now," Zree called.

All three stakes came free.

The cage collapsed inward.

Zira's barrier caught the black wires before they could strike the prisoners. Clear light from Ruk's artifact flooded the chamber. The false note broke apart, leaving only the frightened breathing of people who had been forced to listen to something cruel.

The human woman crawled out first. She grabbed Zira's wrist.

"There are more below," she gasped. "The lower forge. They are building a cage big enough for dozens."

Nym looked at the kobold miners. The young one had fallen to his knees, hands over his ears.

"What is your name?" she asked him.

"Pik," he whispered.

"Pik, you know the way to the lower forge?"

He nodded.

"Then you decide now. Help us find your family, or run and tell the Court we are coming."

Pik looked at the broken baton. Then at the older miner. Then at the prisoners being cut free.

"I will show you," he said.

The decision opened something in Keth's face. Not relief. Not yet. But the beginning of it.

Ruk looked into the deeper tunnel where the forge lay waiting.

The Court had built its power on people who believed they had no choice.

He intended to give them one.