I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 858: Filthy Elf

The jagged ridges of the Iron Crags rose out of the burning red dust of the eastern wasteland like the rusted ribs of a petrified leviathan.

The sky above the territory did not know the pale, sterile blue of the western valleys. Here, the heavens were stained the color of dried liver and bruised plum, choked with perpetual sulfur fumes and fine volcanic particulate that drifted down in steady, gray sheets.

The air tasted of hot brass, roasted marrow, and the subterranean acid of volcanic vents that ran through the earth’s deep fault lines.

Tharaxis descended through the turbulent thermal currents with the majestic, unhurried arrogance of an apex predator returning to familiar hunting grounds.

The primordial dragon’s massive, pearlescent white scales did not gather soot; the ambient heat simply sheared off his skin in shimmering, translucent waves.

His long, sinuous body coiled through the cloud bank, four massive talons tucked against his underbelly, his ancient golden eyes fixed on the black stone crater looming in the valley below.

There sat Krogar-Zun.

The ancestral stronghold of the united orc clans was not an arrangement of delicate towers or polished marble colonnades.

It was a brutalist scar, quarried straight from the throat of an extinct volcanic caldera.

The outer walls rose fifty spans high, assembled from colossal, interlocking basalt slabs bound with pourings of molten slag and banded with sheets of crude, hand-beaten black iron.

Watchtowers rose from the jagged ridges like broken teeth, tethered to the main citadel by iron suspension chains whose links were each thicker than a full-grown draft horse.

In the red-dirt clearing of the central war ring, the dragon’s arrival was met with immediate, chaotic pandemonium.

War-beasts, colossal, six-legged razor-boars and horned dire-wolves shrieked and tore at their tethering stakes, their instincts completely overwhelmed by the draconic aura pressing down from the sky.

Orc handlers shouted harsh, guttural curses as they hauled back on heavy iron chains, digging their armored boots into the crimson dust to keep the beasts from trampling the leather tents.

Along the high parapets, the warning horns did not blow a standard sentry call.

They tore through the sulfurous air in short, frantic blasts of a triple cadence.

The iron alert for an airborne disaster.

Tharaxis flared his scales fifty paces above the flagstones.

The concussive backdraft of his deceleration struck the courtyard with the weight of an exploding siege shell.

Red dirt, canvas awnings, and loose timber barrels tumbled across the perimeter palisades, clattering against the iron walls.

The dragon’s heavy talons met the basalt bedrock with an earth-shattering crash that sent radial fractures spider-webbing across the ancient stone, grinding hundreds of square yards of rock into powdery gray flour.

From every vaulted archway, barracks entrance, and trench, armed orcs poured into the ring like a black tide.

Heavy, two-handed broad-axes were wrenched from leather back-slings.

Serrated iron cleavers rasped against whetstones, and massive black-iron halberds were leveled in a bristling hedge of jagged steel.

Their skin ranged from mottled swamp-green to deep obsidian black; jagged, protruding tusks dominated their jawlines, and their broad chests heaved with bloodthirsty, instinctual defiance.

Before the first war-cry could leave a throat, Grom Zor-Grimmarch stepped onto the crest of the dragon’s neck.

The High Shaman raised his ancient wooden staff toward the dark clouds. The silver wire wrapped around his sweeping tusks flared with a brilliant, pale luminescence that cut through the drifting volcanic ash, casting an undeniable ancestral light across the courtyard.

“Lower your iron!” Grom’s voice did not travel on the wind; it struck the ears of every warrior with the resonant, physical weight of an earth-tremor. “Stand down your lines! The delegation returns to Krogar with our honor restored and the blood debt repaid in full!”

The sea of snarling warriors stilled. The halberds dipped fractionally, the bared tusks slowly concealed behind heavy lips as the vanguard recognized the white war paint and runic staff of their clan’s spiritual father.

Skarl Gor-Voidgaze dropped from Tharaxis’s broad shoulder, his heavy iron greaves slamming into the dirt with a bone-jarring thud.

His forest-green hide was coated in white dust, his serrated tusks jutting aggressively as he barked commands at the logistics handlers who hovered near the edge of the pit.

“Clear the cranes!” Skarl roared, shoving a stunned sentry out of his path with a casual swipe of his massive arm. “Secure the hoists! Move, you dung-eaters, before I use your ribs to reinforce the pallets!”

Behind him, the heavy-lifting cables engaged.

Lowered smoothly from the dragon’s broad back came the sealed transit pallets, carrying the colossal wooden containers harvested from Caeloria.

The heavy iron latches released with pneumatic hisses, revealing the wealth secured from the Elven Council.

Bundles of intact Moon-veil roots pulsed with soft, nocturnal luminescence; thick crystal carboys sloshed with pure elemental saps; dense ingots of refined starlight ore hummed with localized gravity; and thirty sealed glass canisters held the sacred, crimson fluid harvested directly from the sacred tree.

The old orc warriors leaned over the wooden crates, their nostrils flaring, inhaling the sharp, pungent tang of uncorrupted reagents that had not entered Krogar’s borders in over two seasons.

Then Ren Ryzard stepped to the edge of the dragon’s flank.

The swordsman held an iron chain in his right hand. With an effortless flick of his wrist, he dragged the former Queen of Caeloria off the scales and hurled her down into the red dust of the courtyard.

Morvana struck the stone hard.

She had no breath left to scream. The coarse gray wool tunic she wore was caked in dried mud and black grit, torn open at the shoulder to reveal purple bruises left by her cell chains.

Her golden hair was a filthy, matted rat’s nest, hanging across a face that was hollowed by exhaustion and pale with the sickness of a severed mana core.

The heavy iron suppression collar around her throat hummed with steady, lightless runes, choking her meridians into dead silence.

She tried to push herself up with trembling, dirt-encrusted hands, but her arms gave out, her cheek pressing into the dry, sulfurous dirt.

The silence that fell over the orc ranks was sudden.

Every eye in the courtyard locked onto the woman in the dirt. They saw the remnants of royal silver embroidery on the hems of her torn sleeves.

They saw the delicate, elongated ears that marked the high lineages of the First Sun.

A single, guttural sound broke the stillness. It began deep in the chest of a veteran warrior, a low vibration that spread across hundreds of throats until the courtyard shook with a deafening, unified roar of naked, bloodthirsty hatred.

“The elven bitch!”

“The butcher of the emissary!”

“Tear the ears from her skull!”

Spit, loose gravel, and curses rained down upon the fallen queen. Morvana curled into a tight ball, her fingernails clawing at the stone, her teeth chattering so violently that they clicked like dice in her jaw.

Jack Kaiser stepped off the horned crest of Tharaxis’s skull.

He did not jump, nor did he hurry. He compressed the ambient air beneath his boots with a casual, microscopic output of kinetic mana, descending through the smoke-filled air as if walking down an invisible flight of stairs until his black boots settled lightly into the crimson dirt.

His dark wool coat fell straight, the empty left sleeve pinned neatly against his ribs. His white hair caught the dull, crimson glare of the sky; his heterochromic eyes swept over the snarling mob without a single trace of interest.