Chapter 194 Thanks to Torbayne

That would be Sal, later leader and prophet of the orcs on the continent of Lordaeron.

At this point, at less than ten years old, he was nevertheless almost the size of an adult human man, with even broader shoulders.

Every move he made, every cry he uttered seemed to be made for battle, he was built by the owners of this place to the standards of a killing machine.

In the face of the mountainous roar from the crowd, Sal threw the stick in his hand to the ground and raised his hands to keep yelling his name along with it.

Unlike those orcs, he had nothing but the thrill of battle in his eyes, pure enjoyment.

He genuinely wanted to be a powerful gladiator, not to escape to freedom.

For at the moment his world was here, his life was here, everyone he knew was within the walls, and Blackmore, Lord of Dunhold, was his father.

Noticing Jace staring at the orc without any excitement or thrill, Grid asked, “What’s wrong with you? Do you recognize this orc?”

“Do you remember that orc shaman we met at Red Ridge?” Jace asked.

“Of course I remember, how could I forget!” The dwarf looked back and forth for a moment after he finished and asked, “Is he here?”

“I don’t know.” Jace said, “But I told him that the son of the Frostwolf chief was alive and well and right here in Dunhold, so he let me off the hook. This little orc, could be the son of that Frostwolf Clan Chief.”

“So do you really know, or are you just blinded by accuracy?” Grider asked again.

Jace said, “How could I really know, didn’t the lords here start buying and hunting orc slaves all over the place a long time ago, I thought to myself that if that little orc was still alive he might be here …… so he kind of indirectly saved our lives.”

Grid looked at the castle in the distance and glanced at the massive walls behind him and said, “Maybe that orc priest is dead down here, I am not able to think of how a single orc alone can feel his way into this castle.”

“Not that I’d want him to die here.” Jace said.

Grid tsked and said, “That guy beat us both up so badly, he deserves to suffer a bit! Orcs are all the same. But this orc at the moment, this little kid, I do see something different in him.”

He looked down towards the arena below, where the young Sal had been taken away from the center.

“He seems to have been raised by humans, right? Speaks human, moves like a human, fights like a human warrior. But the humans are not destined to accept him, and the orcs won’t take him as one of their own. Did you see the way the older orc warriors looked at him? No different from the way they look at human guards, the orcs don’t see him as one of their own kind at all. I say, he’ll be in for a treat in the future.”

Grid was right, Sal at this point just thought of himself as a fast growing human who lived in a human castle, grew up on the milk of a human nanny, was educated by a human adoptive father, trained by a human, spoke a human language, and possessed a human language.

As an eight year old he knew a lot, but not enough, he still needed time to figure out who he really was, where he was going and what he was going to do.

It’s just that Jess knows that both identity, life goals, and values can easily change with a variety of factors, but race ……

This is something that Blackmore may or may not have recognized, but at least he must have felt he could control Sal.

The practice matches in the arena lasted until midnight, and there had been a lot of people who came to watch, besides some travelers who came here to rest their feet, there was also no shortage of nobles and merchants.

Jace saw that some were able to travel higher up through bridges and passages in the walls guarded by the guardian earth to get a better angle on the game without having to jostle for position with the lowly spectators crowding each other.

But given the size of this so-called practice match, even though it’s cheaper for this kind of program, the revenues all add up to probably no less than the main event.

After all, all sorts of passersby, as long as they weren’t so poor that they couldn’t eat, were willing to find a chance to come in and take a look at the orcs for a long time.

To put it bluntly, this place seemed to be the only zoo in the entire Lordaeron continent. By the middle of the night, Grid had been shouting until his voice was hoarse before he finally had his fun, and the gloom that had been accumulating since he had departed from the city of Otterland before had dissipated with him.

From the snowy mountains, Jess suspected that he was a bit of a “near country bumpkin”.

It was also a relief to see that Grid was able to find a way to get some of this depressed feeling out of his system.

Rising the next morning, Jace stepped out of the inn to see a pale blue mountain shadow at the far end of his vision, hazy and unreadable, like a dark cloud in the distance.

Grider was already standing there, looking in the same direction.

“What are you looking at.” Jess asked.

“Eagle’s Nest Mountain.” Grid muttered, “I’m finally back!”

“That’s Eagle’s Nest Mountain?”

“Yeah.” Grid said, “We’ll just have to make our own way the rest of the way, I just asked around and there are none going to Cintron, so maybe all my kinsmen have gone back to the Eagle’s Nest mountains!”

Jace set his eyes between the mountains and a river that spread out across the plains before him, and saw an unbroken stretch of primeval forest stretching all the way to the far east.

“Are there trolls in this forest?”

“That’s thanks to those Tolbeen, this isn’t troll territory.” Grid said, “But just in case, we can’t let that make us careless.” Jace looked into the distance again and roughly estimated the distance, at first glance it didn’t seem far, but if the path through the forest didn’t go well, it could take 3 days to get there.

“We’re running a little short on time, Grid. You figure it’s already the 20th today. Even if we arrive at Eagle’s Nest Mountain the day after tomorrow if everything goes well, we’ll stay two or three days and head immediately to Southsea Town in order to arrive …… by January 5th Honestly, I’m even a little skeptical about whether it’s enough or not. Maybe we should rent two horses or something in Talonmere when we go back to speed things up a bit, or we’ll need to spend a lot more money to find a new one if we miss the ship.”

Grid said, “There’s no need to stay two or three days, all I need to do is show up at a dinner party and let them know that Grid Thunderfist isn’t dead. And, I’m going to take that Griffin Knight’s warhammer back to his kin, brother, or comrade in arms and tell him that I kind of did my part to avenge his death for him.”

Jace nodded and said, “But don’t forget about Quilty Danny.”

“Ah yes, Quel’Dani.” Grid scratched his head and said, “Quel’Dani is north of the Eagle’s Nest Mountains, but our city is south of the mountains, which means we’d need to go around the mountains, which would take another day or so… Indeed, Jace, I didn’t list Quel’Dani in my plans before, and we’ve been delayed a bit longer in Dalaran.”

“So you’re still looking for a job that lasts until the night of the 13th?” Jess asked.

“Don’t mention it!” Grid waved his hand and said, “I had a pretty good chat with that boss. But if it’s true that I can be cured of my problems in Quel’danny, Jace, there’s a much quicker way to go back to Southsea Town, remember what I promised you when I asked you to come to Cintron?”

Jace’s eyes gradually brightened. “Of course I remember.”