Page 50 of The Orc Chief's Baker
Brovdir could not decide if he was more amused or disgusted as Sythcol grimaced. He flinched as he swallowed down the mysteriously crunchy soup.
Then he looked back down at the messages the warriors had been sending and asked absently. “Any word from Karthoc?”
Brovdir shook his head.
Sythcol nodded, brows furrowed. “I have a bad feeling about it. We should be getting more updates from them.”
“Rendid sent one yesterday.”
“Yes, and all it told us was that he’d separate from Karthoc to fetch the western clans,” Sythcol muttered. “Six hundred warrior orcs delivered here by winter’s end... there’s just too much to do.”
“Orders for me?” Brovdir asked cautiously.
“Just stay on top of your warriors and keep hunting,” Sythcol demanded before sighing raggedly. “Last we heard, Karthoc still had Ergoth with him. If the male was capable of all this”—Sythcol stretched his hands out to indicate the stacks of scrolls and papers on the desk—“then he’s capable of anything. Even slithering into Karthoc’s ear.”
“No. Ergoth couldn’t,” Brovdir insisted. Karthoc had never trusted Ergoth. He wouldn’t fall for the male’s tricks.
“We should have kept Ergoth here.” Sythcol laced his fingers together as he thought. “We could have locked him beneath the Rove Tree. Then we could have questioned him.”
Brovdir opened his mouth to respond, only to have his stomach plunge.
“He has something to do withallof this. I just know it.”
Brovdir sucked in a hard breath as the odd sinking feeling intensified.
“Brovdir.” Sythcol rose to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t know.” The sensation of falling made his hair stand on end. He clenched his jaw, flexed his muscles.
Sythcol looked up just as a bird swooped in and landed on his shoulder. The messenger robin tweeted brightly as Sythcol removed the note from his leg.
It was all Brovdir could do to keep standing. Why had he suddenly gone sodizzy?
Andcold?
“This is . . .”
The shocked tone from Sythcol caught Brovdir’s attention just as the male yanked a scroll out from the sleeve of his robes and spread it out on top of the messy desk. The map of Rove Wood was clear, and Sythcol used a charcoal pencil to mark down the location of the new crack that one of his warriors had just sent in.
Cracks that always led to new sinkholes.
“Fades,” Sythcol gasped as he scribbled down calculations Brovdir couldn’t understand. The map was littered with angles and numbers and dark blots where sinkholes had already formed. Where deep chasms were still dangerous and churning. Many grew larger by the moment. So far, no one had gotten hurtwhen the ground broke open and sucked everything above it into the depths beneath.
But it was only a matter of time.
Sythcol drew lines across the map from three different cracks to a single point.
A very large point.
Dangerously close to Oakwall Village.
And suddenly something deep inside his mind...screamed.
“That’s... odd.” Sythcol pulled out his notebook and scribbled notes as his brow furrowed. “It’s not following the usual pattern.”
Brovdir could hardly spare a grunt in response. The sensation gripping his veins was growingstronger.Like pouring cold water over his flesh. The intensity increased with every passing moment. His skin prickled like he’d just been caught in a spider’s web. A web that wastuggingon him.
Tugging toward the depths of the Rove Woods.
