After the Uproar

Two things were bothering Hodges.
The first thing made him happy that he didn't have a working stomach, because if he did it would have been occupied by butterflies right about now. The fire of the moist cave he and his troops were using as a camp-site illuminated the sand and soil that he knew held the tiny, innocent bones of the very first human children to grace the planet.
Most had been shifted. He didn't know where, and it baffled him. They had not been taken to the catacombs underneath Utgarde Keep. Tomorrow, or later today, he was going to lead a group into the Keep itself, to see if they were there.
The very first humans. His ancestors. His origins. And they were buried beneath the sand. Unwanted. It sent a chill down his spine. The other ones didn't appreciate the enormity of what they were in the presence of, that they were just inches away from poor, poor infants who had only experienced the glory of birth and life for... days? Before someone strong and dominant came along, and... ended them.
But musing about ancient history wasn't the only thing on the Corporal's mind; Hodges was concerned about another matter. He flicked through the notebooks he had smuggled out of Vengeance Landing again. It had been a clever ploy to tell the apothecaries that they were his notebooks, and they were to go straight to the Chieftain. Apothecaries were very protective of their research, but they also tended to be quite fearful of orcish authority.
He hadn't even been snooping. Inside the lab, the bookshelves and reagent racks were a mess. It was just a good job that nothing had been set alight. He had even helped with tidying some of the scrolls, tomes, and notebooks away. And that was when he had stumbled upon... these.
"Ogre Resistances." It had been recently used.
"The Plants and Fungi of Draenor." It too had been written and read within the last few weeks.
"Social Studies: Epidemics." This one was older, but flicking through it, a lot of excited notes had been scribbled on the margins.
He had tried to inform Sergeant Shra of it, but the Tauren had been busy giving a troll a rather cold speech on the ways to treat friends of the clan. It could have been nothing at all, and he really didn't think the apothecaries were that stupid. They had, back at the Landing, seemed quite flummoxed, and they were very, very emphatic about how they were trying to help. True, a few had uttered complete disdain, and none of them had a clue about how to appease the baying mobs, but those were not the characteristics of genocidal maniacs.
But it was still there. Had he just stuck his neck out for...?
He gave a bitter sniff, and looked across to the sleeping forms. He couldn't see Rowka. Did she hide even when she slept? He scoffed at that. He really did.
He'd felt kinship with the apothecaries. It reminded him of the old factions back home. Even in a living Lordaeron, they were those who always felt wronged by the military. It was a distinctly Lordaeron type of relationship. "Bah bah bah, stop making it harder to get things done!" Everyone wanted everyone else to stay out of the way.
It was still hard to fit inside of this clan. But they, at least, had shown maturity. Well, most of them. The Daggers had been the sane ones throughout the whole bloody protest. He had only shouted a few times, and Hodges could get his point across quickly. Protesters irritated him, apothecaries infuriated him, and his clan... well. He could rely on them.
They had shared his bemusement at the whole ordeal, but they'd stuck by. Naudiz and he, at the front gates, scowling at anyone who looked like they were about to do something uncouth. Shra and Neehlare to the sides, ready to summon their elementals. Rowka somewhere within the crowds, ready to stick daggers into the more dangerous sorts. It had been a good operation. They didn't come very often. Or rather, they didn't back home. There was always bureaucracy.
He laid the notebooks to one side. As soon as his Chieftain returned, they'd to him. But for now, they had some bones to pick...
Category:Story