He stopped and closed his eyes tightly to keep from losing control and then when his gaze settled back upon Grolfir it was calm and steady. “I beat him. He was saying awful things about what he’d do to Jte and I couldn’t hold myself back. I felt his face breaking on my fists and I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop it.” Algra’s hand squeezed reassuringly against his tight muscle. “I realised what I’d done and scrambled to get away. Freddie managed to put the ring on and he…”


    “The ring has great power. It burned the mad child to nothing but ashes before our eyes.” Algra’s voice cut in so that Gregory did not have to finish. Her words were cold and clinical. A soldier’s report.


    Gregory found himself suddenly very grateful to the beautiful orc.


    “Show me where the fool was bound,” Grolfir ordered after a moment of thought. His eyes never veering away from Gregory’s.


    The words sparked a sudden rity of focus in the young man’s mind. He too wanted to know how Freddie had managed to free himself. Thest time he’d seen the disturbed boy, he’d been chained up to an iron post. Freddie didn’t exactly strike him as the most adept of escape artists and so the question of how he gained his freedom was definitely relevant.


    Without a word, Gregory nodded to the warchief and turned to lead them along the tents of Bolut’s camp to where Freddie had been shackled. What he saw when he came to the iron post made him freeze in his tracks. Torren, the young cksmith, was stood in front of the post whilst scratching his chin. He hadn’t noticed the approach of the others as he regarded what once had been a very long length of iron embedded into the earth.


    Instead of the smooth iron post, there was nothing but a badly rusted heap of iron shavings. It was as if the post itself had been almost wholly disintegrated.


    “Sorcerer,” Grolfir growled.


    “No.” Gregory shook his head. “There’s no way that Freddie could have done this. He didn’t know anything about magic. He was just about the most un-magical person you could imagine.”


    Gregory took a few steps forwards and crouched by the crumbled remains of the post. There was a strong smell of sulphur in the air close to the ruined iron. He didn’t like that one little bit. He then turned to look at Torren, who had by now noticed that he was in the presence of his master and the warchief himself. His face suddenly paled at the realisation.


    “Do you know anything that could have done this to iron?” At Gregory’s words, all eyes turned to the smith.


    “N-no! No sir. I couldn’t do this m’self if I wanted to. I forged that post. It was a simple job. Used the same stuff I forged this shield from.” He quickly stepped inside his own tent for a moment before emerging with a perfectly fine looking iron shield. He looked over the metal to see if there were any signs of sudden decay when a thought urred to him. “Unless…”


    Torren stopped himself as the ramifications of his train of thought suddenly became clear. The many sets of eyes resting upon him suddenly made him be very nervous to the point where he lifted his shield up to his nose.


    “Torren, what is it? It’s alright if you made a mistake.” Gregory meant it. Though he would have been somewhat shocked if that had been the case. Torren might have been a little bit of a shy klutz but it was obvious that he knew his trade well.


    “Master it’s…” he hesitated yet again, ncing nervously to the warchief.


    “Speak boy!” Grolfir suddenly bellowed and made half of those in attendance jump with fright.


    “I remember I have seen something like this before. I’d got this chunk of metal jammed in a frame I’d worked up for a cart. Couldn’t budge the thing. So I went to Valise and she had this potion. It just ate through the metal so I could get it out. When the chunk broke free it looked a bit like…” He nodded toward the rusted scraps of the metal shaft.


    “Valise. The witch? Where is she?” This was spoken by a member of Grolfir’spany. An orc whom Gregory had seen sitting upon the high table in the orc’s feasting hall.


    “She was with me the whole time. She couldn’t have done this.” Gregory turned to Algra for support.


    “He speaks true uncle. I was with them. Before she arrived at the tent she was in the middle of camp ying with her bottles,” Algra quickly affirmed.


    “The witch must be brought before us regardless.” The orc elder quickly interjected.


    This was getting out of hand. The looks upon some of the faces of the surrounding green giants suggested that perhaps a witch burning might be in order. Valise had told him that the orcs were wary of her alchemical talents. If suspicion was cast on her then it would be difficult to wash away, especially with mistrust already thick in the air. Gregory’s thoughts naturally turned to what could happen to the beautiful woman whosepany he’d been enjoying only minutes before. Human ves were treated decently overall, but he didn’t like to think what would happen to one that took to freeing potential murderers.


    “No.” Gregory finally found his voice again. All fell silent as he stepped up to Grolfir. The orc elder beside him seemed somewhat stunned that a human would dare challenge his words. Still, Gregory stood firm. “This is my fault.”


    The tension in the air thickened and only Grolfir and Algra remained silent. The beautiful emerald skinned woman stepped up to Gregory’s side and ced a hand upon his shoulder. He turned to look upon her to find her dark eyes seemed angry and that anger was focused upon him. Being stared at in such a way by any orc would have sent chills up the spine of any human but Algra managed to put her own uniquely vicious edge to her gaze.


    “You are not at fault.” She quietly but firmly stated.Text ? owned by N?velDrama.Org.


    “The hell I’m not. I forgot about the damn ring! I left it out there for anyone to pick up. I got too distracted. Then when I could have pulled the thing out of Freddie’s hand I didn’t. I sure as shit didn’t let him go, but he couldn’t have done this without me.