Further up the road, a member of the elite Seagull Guard was drinking with an Ur-orc Deathbloom, both with their helmets off and sharing their rations. The Seagull Guard had a piece of Dormorian blackbread in his mouth, while the Deathbloom had his lips around a flask of Mirithian ale.

“What are you two doing?” cried B’carmna. “Fraternizing like that, when the grim Lord Khyr is on the verge of total victory once he obtains the True Circlet!”

“I no longer obey Lord Khyr,” the Ur-orc said. “I consider my oath of falty absolved and my loyalty transferred to a committee elected by my unit.”

“For my part, I have foresworn the Grey City and its Wizard-King,” the Seagull Guard said. “They would throw my life away for their own gain.”

“I don’t think a final all-out assault on the Dormorian Grimgate to distract Lord Khyr while the True Circlet is destroyed is throwing your life away,” B’carmna said.

“Oh no?” said the Seagull. “Marching into impossible odds to give someone else a chance to survive? You tell me how that’s fair, at war’s end.”

“The war will end, with total victory for evil, if you don’t remember your duty!” said B’carmna.

“Bollocks,” the Deathbloom said. “Do you think we Ur-orcs, or even the Unterorchen, want to have our lives thrown away at the last minute either? When the Deathly Horde swept the Grey City clean, was it Lord Khyr there getting slaughtered? No! And now he expects us to go on as if we hasn’t all lost brothers, sisters, lovers in the defeat?”

“What of the True Circlet, then?” said B’carmna, desperate. “If Lord Khyr attains it, he will-”

“He will what? He don’t do nothin’ we don’t do for him.” The orc spat on the ground. “You ain’t all-powerful if no one listens to you, that’s for damn sure.”

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