IDWTBTHQ Chapter 96 - Let them eat Cannibal Cake

In an improvised camp in the middle of the Caligare Forest, Blueskin was busy listening to his lieutenants complaining about all sorts of petty problems, something which made him really wish to reach Medelan as soon as possible.

He had greatly underestimated the logistics involved with keeping a force made up of more than thirty thousand orcs on the move.  Before departing he had made the Rantul Matriarch turn hundreds of wild animals his hunters had captured into Rantul hybrids that would act as both cattle and bag carriers for the army, and he had thought that they would have been enough to keep the soldiers fed for the whole journey, which he had thought wouldn’t take more than three weeks.

As it turned out, he had been far too optimistic.

The army was much slower than he had anticipated, as its humongous size coupled with the difficult terrain they had to cross hindered its advance to the point that they were lucky if they managed to make twenty kilometers each day, less than half of the speed the oni had expected. And as a result four weeks had passed and it’d still take at least another two weeks before they would reach their destination while the food reserves they had would last only for another couple of days.

Because of this, Blueskin had tried to find a way to keep his soldiers fed. Numerous foraging parties were constantly sent out to procure more food but that wasn’t nearly enough, so the oni had to get creative about other food sources. For starters, all soldiers guilty of something were punished by being turned into food for the other soldiers, but as of lately the orcs had learned how to behave, resulting in a much less steady supply.

Because of this Blueskin was really stressed off, and to top it all off his officers weren't really helping the situation. Instead of trying to put the soldiers in line and procure more food, they seemed to just come to him with a seemingly endless amount of complaints. It was all “the troops are thirsty, we need to find water”, or “a group of soldiers have ended up in a ravine and they can't get out”, or even “a big tree suddenly grew tentacles, grabbed two orcs and then ran away while cackling evilly”.

Blueskin shook his head in disgust, and then proceeded to shoot an annoyed glance at the officers before him, who were still listing all sorts of accidents and other unpleasant events.

“That's enough!” The oni finally cried once his patience ran out, causing everyone around him to immediately shut up. “It's your bloody job as officers to keep the troops in line and solve these kinds of problems! If you can't do that and keep wasting my time, that means you’re not an officer but just a bag of meat!” His voice turned as cold as ice. “And we all know what use we have for meatbags, do we?”

The silence of the crowd was almost deafening as the orcs and ogres in the crowd nodded in unison, fear clearly showing on their faces. They knew from experience that the Blue Terror wasn't exaggerating, as two officers had already been devoured by him this week.

The Oni looked around, pleased by the scared atmosphere he had managed to create.

“This is how a leader should be!” He thought. “A steady hand to keep the underlings in line and punish those who fail or disobey to make an example for the others! No pussying out or acting too soft! That's how you keep a society working efficiently!”

“Good.” He said out loud. “Now, if anyone else has some problem they want to tell me about, speak up and hope that I also consider your problem to be important, because otherwise you’re going to end up as tomorrow’s breakfast. And as for everyone else, get back to your units and solver your problems yourself. Also, get ready to depart tomorrow morning. I want to increase our pace, and those who slow us down will also be used as food. Tell this to your orcs.”

Again, no one doubted the truthfulness of his words, and they all slowly started backing away, eager to put as much distance as they could between themselves and their annoyed leader.

No one tried to argue with him, or gods forbid challenge him to a fight for dominance, as it was orc custom. After he had absorbed the power of the dragon the Oni had become just too powerful and even the strongest ogres were now completely harmless in front of him.

The Oni smiled and relaxed a bit. There was nothing like remembering just how fucking OP he was to improve his mood. Besides, apart from some minor hiccups here and there, things were actually going great for him!

Not only was he stronger than ever and his rule over the orcs and the Caligare Forest rock solid, but he was also about to conquer a whole kingdom for himself. And there couldn't be any doubt about his success, since he had actually used Turemalac's power of prediction to test different plans and come up with the perfect one. Sure, the strain from making so many predictions in a row had almost killed the Piraca, who was now in a catatonic state from which no amount of threats, shaking or beating seemed able to wake him up, but that had been well worth it, as the final plan had a 98% chance of success.

The oni smirked. It was rather ironic that the main contribution for this success didn’t come from the flashy power boost he had got from eating the dragon, but rather from the memories he had absorbed from the human telemancer. Not only had he been forewarned of the forces that would wait for him in Brettholz, but the information from one specific memory had also allowed him to come up with a plan to deal with whatever the humans or the goblins could throw at him.

The anticipation of his victory filled him with excitement, which in turn made his reproductive pseudopod instinctively grow. A quickie right now would have been just perfect to celebrate and lift his spirits for good, but sadly  Tiny-Sneaky wasn't in the camp at the moment, as she was busy scouting the territory ahead, and his other lieutenants were far too ugly to be really satisfying. For a brief moment he considered using Anak'si, but he quickly discarded that option as well. The Arachne was certainly beautiful enough but she lacked the physical means for a proper shag, and Blueskin wasn't in the mood for settling on anything less.

Besides, she was particularly whiny today, as it always happened when Blueskin ripped off her legs. He didn’t know why she got like that everytime it happened, since she knew perfectly that the legs would grow back —hence the need to rip them off regularly  to make any escape attempt impossible— but despite this she was still insufferably sad for days.

“This sucks.” He thought, as his mood darkened. “The first thing I'm going to do after I conquer the humans will be to make myself a real harem. One with actual women and not ogres in a drag!”

And having found something nice to fantasize about, he spent the rest of the evening imagining what the members of his future harem would be like, and what he'd like to do with them.

In a corner of the orc camp, Anak'si was crying.

That in itself wasn't something unusual for her. In her previous life it had been one of her best tools to manipulate other people and she had even learned how to shed tears on command, but this time it was different. Somewhat ironically, now that she was actually crying for real she would have rather put on a strong face since showing weakness in front of her captors filled her with shame, but despite that she couldn’t stop. After the Oni had ripped off her legs once again, her pain and fear had overwhelmed her.

She kept silently weeping for a while longer, until she felt completely emptied out of all emotions. This feeling of numbness was a blessing compared to her usual state, but she knew that it wouldn’t last, so she immediately tried to distract herself somehow. She didn't have many choices in the department of entertainment, but luckily she did have at least one activity that would keep her mind occupied: taking care of Turemalac.

She didn't really like the Piraca, who had never been much company — he was either insufferable and bitter or cowardly and dejected depending on whether or not the orcs were paying attention to him— but at the same time he was a fellow prisoner and pretty much the only company she had. Because of this when the continuous predictions he was forced to make had started taking a toll on Turemalac's health, Anak'si had started taking care of him for fear he would die and leave her completely alone. She made sure he ate and slept enough, made blankets for him out of her web, and so on. And oddly enough, this self-imposed duty had somehow grown on her, giving her purpose and filling her days with something other than despair and regret.

“Hey Tury!” She said in a rather forced cheerful tone while approaching the Crimson Terror. “How are you doing? Are you feeling better now?”

The Piraca didn't answer, nor did it show any sign of acknowledging Anak'si presence at all. He was sitting on the ground completely motionless, staring into space with a vacuous expression on his face.

“Uhm... Tury? Can you hear me?” She asked again, tapping his shoulder.

Again, there was no response, and Anak'si started getting worried. Turemalac had been in that catatonic state for hours now, ever since the Blue Terror had forced him to make a long series of predictions in a row. Normally such a strain would just make the Piraca faint, but this time it seemed as if something had broken inside of him. Apart from the rhythmic movements of his breathing, he looked more like some kind of creepy stuffed animal than an actual living being.

“Turemalac! Please answer me!” The Arachne pleaded, her voice growing thick with despair. “Don't leave me alone! Please!”

Again, there was no response and Turemalac just kept staring into nothingness. Confronted with that lack of reaction, Anak'si felt despair growing into her chest.

“Goddammit!” She silently cursed. “Is this what awaits me as well? Just working myself to death for that blue piece of shit?” Tears started flowing down her eyes. “I can't go on like this! I want to go home! I want my mom and my dad! I want my old life back! I don't care if I will be fat and ugly again, I just want this nightmare to end!”

She started weeping again, utterly ignored both by the Piraca and the ogre guards who were napping around her. She went on for a while, sinking deeper and deeper into her depression... until, all of a sudden, she sensed a familiar presence approaching the orc camp.

She immediately looked up, her sorrows momentarily forgotten. The presence she was feeling was rather similar to that of Nero's, her defunct Deathstalker bodyguard, but it was more faint and slippery. It was the same one that had followed the Blue Terror for weeks but had disappeared after the latter had killed the dragon.

And now it was back.

The arachne wondered who it could be. It certainly was a spider or some sort of arachnid because otherwise her powers wouldn't have worked, but apart from that she had no real clue about its identity. However, if she were to trust her gut instinct she would have said that it wasn't just an animal that happened to wander nearby, but rather an intelligent creature keeping an eye on the Oni.

A small spark of hope lit up inside of Anak'si. If this creature was spying on the Blue Terror, then it probably was an enemy of the orc leader, and if that was the case then the Rantul Matriarch could try to ally with it and escape from this orc camp!

The only problem was how to make contact with it, since she couldn't move from there and the creature didn't seem intent on approaching her. She had already tried using her powers to lure it closer, but all of her attempts had failed and she hadn't tried anything else for fear of possible repercussions if she was caught.

However, right now she was well past the point of caring. She had to do something to try and save herself, no matter how little her chances of success were, because otherwise she would soon lose her mind.

She immediately started racking her brain, searching for a possible solution, and one immediately dawned on her: writing a message for the mysterious observer to read. Sadly, as soon as she thought of it, she also realized that this plan had two rather serious faults: first, she didn't know how to write in the local languages, and second she didn't have a way to deliver her message.

The first problem had a rather easy solution. While she couldn't write she could still draw, and if the observer was as smart as she thought it was, then it'd be able to understand some simple drawings.

The second one, though, was rather more serious. She couldn't just leave the drawings where she was, as they'd likely be discovered by the ogres and there was no guarantee that the observer would come to inspect her resting place after they left anyway. She couldn't even give the message to anyone else, since all of her possible allies within the camp, the Brain Spiders and the Rantul Hybrids, were kept well away from her.

So what could she do?

She started looking around, trying to find something to help her. As she did so, she saw her legs, which the Blue Terror had ripped from her body sooner that day, lying on the ground a few meters from her.

From her position, two of the spider legs laid in the rough shape of a bow.

Anak'si smirked, as an idea suddenly flashed in her mind. Maybe she did have a way to deliver her message.

Night had fallen on the Caligare Forest and darkness had enveloped everything like a coat. The stars and the red moon shone in the sky, but their light seemed too feeble to reach the ground, which was pitch black except for the few bonfires of the orc camp.

This suited Arag perfectly, as his chitinous skin blended flawlessly with the shadows, making him basically invisible. Still, he didn’t let confidence blind him, and he still exercised a lot of caution, focusing himself on not being discovered.

He was hiding in the bushes at the edge of the orc camp, coldly observing everything. There were many orcs gathered there —about thirty thousand, ten thousand more than the Goblin General had anticipated— but Arag wasn’t really worried about that, as those raw numbers alone wouldn’t be enough to defeat the goblin-Vex forces, not without a proper battle plan that would catch them by surprise at least.

So Arag’s job was to discover what the orcs were up to, so that Trakk could prepare for it.

Sadly, this wasn’t an easy task, since the camp was too large to infiltrate it during the day and eavesdrop on what was being said during the strategic meetings. Trying to capture and interrogate the orc soldiers had also proved fruitless, as they didn’t seem to know or care about what their leaders were up to. The only other option left was to ambush one of the ogre officers, but that was easier said than done not only because they were much stronger and more dangerous than their lesser brethren, but also because they were never alone, being always surrounded by their underlings. Still, it didn’t seem as if Arag had any other choice, so he was keeping an eye out for the right opportunity to try and capture one of the ogres.

As he kept observing, he started thinking about how to increase the odds in his favor. While there were a lot of officers here at the main camp, maybe he would be better off trying to ambush one of the patrols that scouted the territory ahead, who were less numerous and more isolated. The trade off was that the orcs and ogres in those patrols would be much more on guard, but at the same time if Arag was lucky then something could happen that would offer him the opportunity to strike. After all, the Caligare Forest was a really dangerous place, and you never knew what manner of predator was lurking in the shadows…

All of a sudden, something small and fast flew right past Arag and landed on the ground behind him, causing the spider goblin to reflexively crouch and unsheathe his dagger. He remained motionless, scanning the area around him to find any potential threat, but he couldn’t see or hear anything.

He was, however, still fully alarmed, and he remained still for a few more minutes, until he was completely sure that he was alone. Only then he slowly stood up, still watching around for anything out of the ordinary.

As he did so, he saw a thin, long object protruding from the ground, which seemed to be some sort of arrow.

He gazed at the orc camp in order to see who had shot it, but he couldn’t see anyone with a bow or any other ranged weapon. So, with slow and careful movements, he approached the arrow in order to inspect it.

The arrow itself was… rather peculiar. It had a silver shine to it, as if it was draped in webs, and there was something that looked like a piece of fabric tied around it.

Arag waited for a moment, and then, using the point of his knife, he cautiously touched the arrow. Nothing happened, so after a few more seconds the spider goblin grabbed the arrow and took the fabric from it.

The fabric itself was incredibly silky and light, and had the same silver shine as the arrow itself. Arag unrolled it quickly, and saw that someone had somehow embroidered it with some rather crude drawings.

Those drawings showed a chained woman with a spider torso, almost certainly an arachne, being abused by orcs. Then a nondescript humanoid figure appeared and freed her from her chains, and then the two shook hands and started killing the orcs together. The final picture was one of the duo standing triumphantly over what looked like the body of a huge, blue-skinned oni.

Arag looked at the pictures for a while longer as his mind raced. The message seemed to be quite unequivocally a proposal of alliance against the orcs from the Pale Matriarch, but if that was true then it implied that the arachne not only was aware of his presence but also knew his exact position, since she had managed to aim the arrow precisely where he was hiding.

Upon realizing this, the spider goblin’s first instinct was to just consider the mission compromised and run back to Goblinia with the information he had obtained so far. However he hadn’t survived so long just by following his instincts, so he forced himself to calm down and carefully consider his alternatives before taking a final decision.

First off, there was the matter of whether or not the alliance offer was genuine or not. It could have been just a bait to lure him into a trap, but somehow Arag doubted that, since it was kind of too subtle for the Blue Terror and the other orc leaders, who usually seemed to prefer more direct and brutal methods. Had they known of his presence, they would have simply hunted him down. So it was far more likely that the alliance offer was actually real, and coming from the Rantul Matriarch herself.

Sadly, this scenario also came with a whole bag of problems.

Since the Blue Terror always kept her close and she could easily eavesdrop on everything the Oni and his lieutenants said, the Matriarch likely possessed a lot of useful information about the orcs' plans, but there was basically nothing Arag could offer her in return. While he was confident that he could manage to sneak into the camp by himself in order to speak with the Arachne, freeing her and getting her out would be next to impossible, so he wouldn’t be able to give her her freedom, nor he could make any real promise about the future, since Trakk would be the one taking any definite decision. Even lying to her wasn’t really an option, because due to her powers there was the real risk that she would be able to detect a lie from the spider goblin, and for the same reason he also felt reluctant about trying to kill her right after getting the info he needed, since if she picked up hostility she could scream and alert the orcs of his presence.

So, in the end, he was restricted to just two options: either ignore this alliance proposal and run away, like he wanted to do at first, or gamble on the arachne’s willingness to help him in exchange for nothing.

He spent a lot of time trying to make up his mind. Many hours passed and the bonfires in the camp slowly burned out one after another as the orcs went to sleep.

When nothing but embers remained, and the only sound coming from the camp was the snoring of the slumbering soldiers, Arag finally came to a decision.

He hoped it was the right one.