Free War in Tethyr by Victor Milan, Walter (CON) Velez

the cleric asked despairingly.
    "Yes," she said. "Besides, some poor soul may need our help."
    "Oh," he said. "Oh." And he twitched the flanks of his ass with a little green-leafed twig he'd picked up for the purpose, urging the creature to follow Zaranda, who'd set Goldie into a rolling lope.
    "That was manipulative, Randi," said Goldie, who wasn't really exerting herself at this pace. "And you say I'm bad."
    Zaranda frowned briefly, then shrugged and laughed. "It was easier than debating with him," she admitted. "At least this way I'll know where he is."
    Their only contact with the Zazesspur road had been Zaranda's side trip into Ithmong. As one of only two major east-west routes through Tethyr, it was well maintained and relatively easy faring. For that reason it also attracted much attention from brigands. Zaranda therefore kept her train to the back roads, despite the fact some were scarce better than wagon ruts or goat tracks.
    They were on a somewhat better stretch of road here, a country lane that showed signs of having been improved in the past by being metaled with streambed gravel. Still-hawk rode protectively thirty paces in the lead, longbow ready in his hand. Then came Zaranda, with Farlorn to her left, and finally Father Pelletyr, ass trotting furiously to keep up, cleric and beast alike grunting softly in time to the impacts of its sharp little hooves.
    A round mound of hill rose to their left. A lone pecan tree sprang from the top, its roots gripping earth just on the far side of the crest. As the road bent around the hill's base, the clamor of excited voices grew louder, and then the riders beheld a crowd of angry peasants wielding sticks, farming tools, and the odd wolf-spear, confronting a lone figure that stood at the base of the lordly pecan.
    Powerfully built, with short bandy legs, the lone figure wore a gray cowled cloak despite the day's warmth. In either hand it clutched a short, heavily curved blade. With these it was fending off the halfhearted thrusts and blows of such mob members as sporadically worked up the nerve to close with it.
    "Slay the beast!" peasant voices urged from the back of the mob. "Slay the vile thing!"
    Stillhawk slipped from the saddle and let his reins drop. Well trained, his bay would not move from where it stood unless it were threatened or summoned. He nocked an arrow. Farlorn frowned.
    "Something about that shape I mislike," the bard murmured. His yarting was slung across his back. "And the cast of those blades-"
    The cowl fell back to reveal the hideous tusked face of a great orc-an orog.

6
    "Stand back!" the orog roared in guttural but clear Common. At the crown of his pumpkin-shaped head, he wore a steel skullcap polished to a mirror finish. "Can you not see that I serve Torm?" With the taloned thumb of his left hand, which still clutched his scimitar, he hooked a chain hung around his neck and drew forth a great golden amulet. On it, the upraised gauntlet of the god was clearly visible.
    "Lies!" the peasants cried, their voices like raven calls. "Deceit! It's a trick! Kill! Kill!"
    By reflex Stillhawk drew back his string. "No!" Zaranda screamed.
    The ranger loosed. The arrow hummed to strike the tree a mere handsbreadth above the orc's sloped skull.
    The impact rang as loud as a hammer blow. The crowd fell abruptly silent, staring upward at the black-fletched shaft as it vibrated with a musical hum in slow diminuendo.
    The orog's small bloodshot eyes never wavered. He seemed to be gazing raptly at the Torm medallion.
    "The unsanctified beast!" Father Pelletyr said in a shocked whisper. "Amazing his claw doesn't burst into flame from contact with a holy object! Of course, Torm is a most warlike god. Perhaps he has less sense of the niceties…"
    "And perhaps we oughtn't leap at conclusions, Father," Zaranda murmured, "lest we find them illusions, concealing an abyss." She nudged Goldie forward with the gentle pressure of her knee.
    The crowd turned their heads to