[originally published August 3, 2025]
Orlaa the Shaper looked out on the barren vista and sighed heavily.
A blood debt should only have to go so far . . .
She turned back to the location that Callista had chosen to set up camp. There were two very old, very decrepit huts that had been crudely constructed from clay and it was there that her sister-in-arms had begun clearing and preparing a fire.
“Did you build those yourself?” she asked bemusedly.
“No,” the other replied. “I just lived in one of them for almost six years.”
“How delightfully coarse,” Orlaa observed.
“It was fine. There were goats to herd and a large vegetable garden to tend and horses to ride,” she said, gesturing to the areas where once a small paddock and a larger corral had been. It was from the remnants of these shelters and fences that Callista had gathered the firewood. “And endless days of fighting and training. Training and fighting. All in preparation for the Black Mountain.”
“How delightfully mind-numbing.”
“We also meditated, you ugrukh,” she shot back at the sorceror, laughing as she called her uppity kinswoman an orcish expletive for about the dozenth time today. “We prayed to the spirits of earth and sky until we became as one and communed with the souls of our ancestors in peace and harmony.”
“How delightfully tribal. Anyway . . .”
“Anyway.”
“Where do you want the tower to go up?” Orlaa asked.
Until Callista, Orlaa had never met another half-orc named Armageddon who had not come from Mulmaster. When Callista showed up on the Company training ground one spring, the recruiter had sent her to see Orlaa straightaway, as the new arrival shared the same surname and was also of orcish descent, so the mercenary soldier simply assumed a connection.
It had been quite a surprise for both of them that there was such a connection Orlaa’s ancient sire had been Turbran Armageddon, and Callista’s had been Severin Armageddon, brothers who together had run roughshod over the north more than a century ago. Orlaa knew of the broad outline of this lineal history from the archives of her family. She had just never thought she would ever meet one of her presumably long-lost, distant cousins. Especially not like that!
It was an auspicious beginning to a long and fruitful partnership. They had complimented each other quite well. Where Orlaa provided strategic expertise to their endeavors, Callista provided the tactical acumen to implement their plans on the battlefield and elsewhere. The culmination of their careers had been the campaign waged against the Wailing Tower in 1376 DR. Six hand-selected mercenaries from the Company of the Broken Blade had made the assault, including Callista and Orlaa Armageddon.
The fighting had been terrible. And the horrors that dwelt under that place . . . Orlaa shuddered at the recollection.
Her cousin’s broad shield had intercepted more than one fatal blow directed toward the sorceror in battle. Her commanding presence had also intercepted more than one angry fist directed toward the sorceror from their aggravated companions. In sum, Callista was well-liked among those in their Company and well-feared by those who were not.
At the Wailing Tower it was Callista who had stepped in front of the Karatoeba without hesitation, taking the full brunt of the creature’s onslaught. It was Callista who had engaged Ragnard the Oathbreaker in single combat with a wild and reckless abandon. Orlaa knew she would have been eviscerated, obliterated or incinerated ten times over but for the heroics of her cousin.
After a career’s worth of friendship and exploits, all her kinswoman had asked for in return was for Orlaa to raise a tower for her in the middle of the Vaasan wastes. It wasn’t much to ask for at all, really. Not from her. She was Orlaa Armageddon. The Shaper. It was in fact no challenge at all.
Callista pointed to a carefully chosen spot on a defensible rise. Orlaa nodded.
And so it began.
* * *
Orlaa reached into her enchanted satchel and began drawing forth the most wondrous of items, one after the other, which she laid out neatly before her.
The very first of these were folded and interlocking things of bronze and wood and bone. She set six of them on the ground, evenly spaced, and began to utter the twisted words of sorcery that had always made Callista particularly uneasy. The six piles suddenly sprang to life, expanding into large, faceless, humanoid forms. At a further command, the automatons came to attention, waiting for their mistress’s next instruction. Orlaa nodded to herself agreeably.
The next items were small bundles of cut timber in various dimensions, neatly arranged, and which fit comfortably in the palm of her hands. At a word, they, too, suddenly expanded into their correct sizes. Then came cut stones that grew into larger proportions. Then other prepared materials that would also go into the edifice’s construction.
Last of the items to be withdrawn were many intricately made hand tools. Oddly, none of these had been magically shrunken like the other items. The sorceror withdrew each reverentially, closely inspecting them before presenting them to her automatons.
After reviewing all of the arrayed things one more time, the arcane engineer closed her eyes, clapped her hands and barked out her order— “Begin!”
The automatons sprang into action and Callista watched in amazement as the animated constructs began the process of moving and placing large blocks of cut stone, or building scaffolding out of the stacked timber, or any of a handful of other tasks. They moved at speed and with great strength, appearing to perform the work of sixty men, rather than that of the six they numbered.
As they went, Callista noticed that Orlaa would occasionally wave a hand here, another hand there, as if providing directions to her workers even though her eyes were shut tight. The sorceror otherwise did not move.
After nearly two hours, Callista asked her cousin “Are you okay? Can I make you a place to sit or something?”
After a moment of silence, the sorceror replied through half-gritted teeth.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? It’s no problem.”
“This isn’t as easy as I make it look, you know,” Orlaa grumbled, suddenly showing strain on her face with the initiation of their conversation. “It’s not like ‘orcing’ around swinging an axe all over the place— Me Callista, me big warrior! Me smash!”
“Oh, yeah?” Callista snapped back in irritation. “I’ll show you ‘orcing’ around— Me Orlaa, me big brain! Me run mouth!”
“Callista!” the sorceror growled. “Do you want me to finish this or not?!?”
The orcish warrior quieted herself rather than risking truly distracting her cousin as she worked. The last thing Callista wanted was for the project to literally come tumbling down over a little bit of needling.
In another two hours, the tower was complete.
* * *
Orlaa wiped the sweat from her brow and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
In just over four hours Orlaa had completed weeks, if not months, of building. It had instead taken weeks of careful planning— perfecting the design, calculating the volume and number of building materials, recalibrating and fortifying her automatons for the intensive labor. It had all been a wild success on the very first attempt. The sorceror wondered what else she might be able to accomplish, how much grander she might scheme . . .
Thoughts for a different day, perhaps. The project was completed to her satisfaction, which far exceeded anyone else’s expectations. She looked at her kinswoman with great self-regard waiting for an assessment.
For her part, Callista Armageddon looked at her cousin with mouth agape, then to the tower, back to her cousin and back to the tower again, unable to find the words to express her astonishment.
“Who’s the ugrukh, now?” Orlaa exclaimed. Ugrukh!”
* * *
The half-orcs watched as the automatons cleared away the last of the rubbish, gathered up the tools and replaced them one by one into the satchel and then at last compacted themselves down into their starting forms, whereupon Orlaa herself dropped them into the magical shoulder bag.
She turned to her cousin to say her farewells.
“So, that takes care of that!” the sorceror announced, clapping her hands together back and forth as if wiping away some imaginary dust or dirt. “ We are square, as you have said. I do not think you received the better part of the bargain, but a deal is a deal.”
“Know this, my sister— the foundations and walls of your tower are shielded by many enchantments. They are also warded by the very spirits of earth and sky that you revere so highly. That last touch was the only tricky part of this whole thing. It was not the name of Orlaa that convinced them to dwell here,” she mused aloud, smirking to herself. “I told them it was the holdfast of Callista, daughter of Dazulka. I did not need to tell them any more.”
“Won’t you stay any longer, Orlaa. There are so many memories to share again, so many new stories to tell.”
“I think I’ve enjoyed the Vaasan steppe enough for one lifetime. I’m not riding and sailing back, either. I’ll be stepping sideways through space and time to get home.”
Callista gave her a confused look in reply.
“Teleportation.”
The two embraced in a final parting.
“Next time you’re in Mulmaster, look me up,” she said, beginning to cast her teleport spell. “We can go out and look for some trouble. I’m often quite bored. Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!”
And with a final flourish, the sorceror had departed.
Callista regarded the silence for a moment, then headed toward the tower. It would be a few more weeks before Gareth would arrive with the wagon train, even with her clan to guide them along the path. It was too bad that Orlaa would not stay for the long celebration that would christen the newly made tower. There would be much feasting and dancing and dark Armageddon stout to enjoy. Of course, Torvaagh would also be there.
Callista sighed. Orlaa was well known to her clan. She had come to stay with them for a season to meet all her long-lost kin and record their doings in her journals, but in the end did not last with them for quite so long . . . Orlaa and Torvaagh. Their passion had burned as briefly and intensely as the Vaasan summer It had not ended well, and Orlaa took her leave then much as she did now, quickly, and by magic.
“Oh, well,” Callista thought aloud. “Time for me to get to work, now.”
