Chapter 73: Chp.27: Assassination
While the fierce battle was taking place on the border with the territory of the fairies, there was much more tranquility at the military camp of the ogres. Since it was known that the fairies would be busy for the day, the soldiers were sure that they would not be attacked and could therefore rest a little for one day. Even the chieftains felt the same way, and in fact they had allowed the soldiers to do as they pleased. The ogres had therefore begun to enjoy themselves: some limited themselves to sleeping, others laughed and joked, others even built a ball with some pieces of leather and started playing with it. It was nice, even for just one day, not having to worry about the war.
"At least for one day we can rest easy" Ostar grumbled watching the scene from one of the chieftains' tents. "It's the only good thing Volgor has brought us"
"You should stop frowning about that. What's done is done now" Hoortar told him without even looking up from what he was reading. "Feeling over it won't change things. Take comfort, at least we'll get that idiot out of the way"
Even if they had done nothing to stop it, or at least nothing concrete, Volgor's actions would have a major impact on the ogre army and Ostar and Hoortar were obviously concerned. The loss of a third of their soldiers would have serious consequences in future battles. Therefore, both Hoortar and Ostar, who being the chieftains of the two strongest remaining tribes were practically the leaders of the army, couldn't help but be concerned.
The death of Volgor and most of the soldiers of the Bolvek tribe could have far-reaching repercussions beyond the war with the fairies. Ogres were warlike by nature. Up until this point the army had stuck together because they had a common enemy, but mostly because there were three main tribes of similar strength. This would ensure that none of the three would attempt to attack the others using the war as an excuse, since in that case the other two would unite against it. The same was true outside the military as well: it was what kept the three great tribes from being constantly at war. While there had been occasional skirmishes among them, there had never been any real conflict as occurred among the smaller tribes.
But now, with Volgor and nearly all of his soldiers dead, the Bolvek tribe would lose its strength. Without her strength, it would have been quickly conquered by one of the other two after the war with the fairies; this would inevitably lead to a full-scale conflict between the other two main tribes as well. Assuming that Hoortar and Ostar didn't try to kill each other now that Volgor no longer existed as a 'third part' in the situation.
The relations between the two ogre chieftains were cordial, but also highly hypocritical. Both would gladly have seen the other fall. Now that Volgor was dead, if either of them died as well, the other would be the only level diamond ogre left; basically, he would become the king of the ogres. Who would have missed such an opportunity?
And so, now Hoortar and Ostar were constantly watching each other's backs. Even though they were chatting quietly in the same tent as if they were two good friends, what they were actually doing was keeping an eye on each other. This would be very problematic in future battles: if there was anything worse than having an ally whose allegiance you doubted, it was having an ally you knew for sure was going to backstab you.
"Tomorrow we'll have to move camp" Ostar said to make some conversation. "We are too exposed here without a third of our army"
Hoortar nodded. "I thought about it too. What do you propose?"
"I was thinking about the small plateau to the south. It's easy to defend even with far fewer soldiers"
"Mh. You could be right. Present your idea to the war council tonight, so the chieftains will vote and decide whether to follow it or not"
Ostar rolled his eyes. Hoortar's words were obviously false: the voting among the chieftains was just a cover. In reality it was the two of them, as chieftain of the two most powerful tribes, who chose for everyone. The others would vote what they would choose. This was another thing that could become problematic in the future: if he and Hoortar disagreed on something, then the decision would stall. Ogres were very selective with their voting: you could only vote yes or no. When Volgor was still around, he might have agreed with either Ostar or Hoortar, with no third choice; therefore, in the end the decision would be made, since the votes would always be two against one. But now, without Volgor, the voting would have ended one by one. Which would have paralyzed the whole army.
Ostar waited for Hoortar to speak for almost a minute, then snorted: "Do you know that you are really boring? You could at least force yourself to make conversation"
"I have work to do. If you have nothing important to tell me, I must beg you to shut up or leave" Hoortar replied without even looking at him.
Ostar felt anger build up inside him. He wasn't as hotheaded as Volgor, but he certainly wasn't willing to tolerate such offensive behavior towards himself. He was held back by the thought that perhaps Hoortar was aiming to purposely enrage him so that he would attack him and he would have an excuse to kill him there. So, albeit with some anger, he ignored his pride and walked out of the tent.
As soon as he was gone, Hoortar let out a chuckle. "That kiddo… for a moment I really thought he was going to attack me" he murmured, drawing a long dagger from the sleeve of his robe. It was a finely decorated dagger, clearly made by fairies and stolen or looted from one of the corpses some time ago. It was filled with runes and enchanted with different spells.
Hoortar was not stupid. He knew Ostar was aiming to kill him. And because of that, he too was planning to kill him.
The best defense was the offense. Hoortar knew Ostar would never stop no matter how much precautions he took; therefore, the only way to sleep peacefully was to get the rival out of the way. Furthermore, this would have allowed him to obtain total command of the army and consequently of all the ogre tribes. Even if he was old, he certainly wouldn't have disdained to become the king of the ogres. He hadn't thought that possibility was feasible until now; now that Volgor was no longer a problem, he certainly wasn't going to miss the opportunity.
Of course, he had no intention of killing Ostar in front of everyone. Assassination was a major taboo in ogre society. If you wanted to kill someone, you had to do it in a fair duel. However, Hoortar didn't want to face Ostar: since they were both level diamond warriors, he would have both chances to win and lose. If he lost, he wouldn't just die, but his tribe would come under the command of his rival. He wasn't willing to risk it.
On the contrary, he could use other tricks. One of them was self-defense, as he had just tried. If Ostar had attacked him first outside of a duel, he would have been entitled to defend himself. Using the dagger he kept hidden, he could win. And if, hypothetically, things went badly, he could simply run out of the tent and accuse Ostar of assaulting him. In this way, Ostar would have made a fool of himself and would have been forced to challenge him to a fair duel to preserve his honor, but Hoortar could have asked for time to recover from his sudden attack and use that time to think of another plan.
Another obvious method was poison. Pouring some into Ostar's food would be easy. Unfortunately, however, Ostar wasn't a fool: he had started drinking from his canteen and eating only the food from his dimensional bag ever since Volgor had announced his decision to leave. Trying to poison both of these things would have been nearly impossible.
That left him with one last method: to have someone else do the killing. Ostar was a level diamond warrior, but his strength was only of value when he was awake and able to fight; at night, when he slept, anyone equipped with a dagger could have slit his throat. Hoortar had only to send a soldier loyal to him to kill his rival; even if captured, this loyal soldier would have carried a vial full of poison which he would have used to kill himself, eliminating any evidence against his chieftain.
"I'll put this plan into practice tonight," Hoortar muttered to himself. "I will send Forton. He is good and faithful to me. For him it will be..."
Suddenly silence fell upon the tent; there was a pop, then the sound of blood slapping against the walls and the thud of a body falling to the floor, and then nothing. The guards outside were suspicious of this and called for their chieftain; hearing nothing, they opened the tent door and found the headless corpse of Hoortar sprawled on the ground. His blood was scattered all over the tent, as if his head had literally exploded. "Chieftain!" the guards exclaimed as they entered, but immediately after that a gigantic blaze appeared out of nowhere and hit them full on.
The guards weren't ready for that sudden attack and therefore their strength level wasn't very high; they were incinerated instantly. Soon after, the tent caught fire. Immediately all the nearby ogres stopped having fun and ran to see what was going on. Ostar, who still hadn't gone far enough, was somewhat surprised when he saw the flames, not understanding what was happening.
While the ogres scrambled to put out the fire and alert the rest of the army fearing it was an enemy attack, someone was quietly slipping away unseen. The ogres ran past him without realizing he was there beside them. Without any effort, he walked out of the army camp and walked quickly into the forest.
He ran throughout the forest and within a few hours he reached the point where the battle between the fairies and the ogres had taken place not long ago. There Haku and his siblings were already collecting all the corpses. They too didn't notice his presence, at least until he reappeared in sight and said: "It's done"
Haku looked up: "Darbi! Great job" he said. "Were there any complications?"
"No, with invisibility it's super easy to get in and out of the ogre camp" Darbi replied. Of course, he had been the one who had infiltrated Hoortar's tent and killed him. Hoortar was off guard and thanks to his invisibility hadn't noticed his presence; therefore, he hadn't used his mana to fortify his body. A single well-aimed blow of the tail on the nape of the neck had been enough to make his head explode and kill him instantly. Then with a simple rune of fire he had burned his tent, and then left undisturbed while the ogres were concentrated there. "You know, the other level diamond ogre was there too. I could have killed him too"
"Well, I'm glad you didn't. He'll serve us as a scapegoat" Haku said. "By now, Sarpa's road is almost completely cleared. We just need a few more tweaks to complete our part of the deal. Then we can finally leave"
Darbi nodded satisfied. Even though he knew the outside world would be even more complicated, he couldn't wait to leave this forest, which had become terribly monotonous by now. "Did we get enough food?" he asked, referring to the casualties of the battle.
Haku shook his head. "Unfortunately this time the booty is meager. Since there are not many victims among the ogres, we got mostly these little fairies" he replied. "In total, the number of deaths is about 800 for ogres and 7,000 for the fairies. Combined, that's just 670 tons. We still have 330 left to reach our goal"
Although after their assault on the city the ogres had carried away all their stores stored in stores, they were few since most had been carried away by soldiers for war. And since they'd had to leave the dead bodies of the victims behind, they didn't get a large amount. In total, the provisions they had taken from the city were just 2 or 3 tons. Basically, they were nothing.
Darbi was a little discouraged. Even though 330 tons was a rather small figure compared to the initial 7,000, it was still quite a substantial sum. Even hunting constantly it would take them a while to get enough prey.
Haku reassured him: "Don't worry, very soon thanks to the dear Sarpa there will be another battle, and we will have another loot"
"I thought you didn't want to meddle any further in the war between ogres and fairies" Darbi said.
"Yeah, but I was hoping this battle would guarantee us all the food we needed, but it didn't. We'll change the plan a bit then. I already have some ideas in mind" Haku replied. "However, regardless of who will win or lose, we will obtain a lot of corpses. And then, finally, we will leave"
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