The air in the Slag Crown was a physical assault—a thick, acrid smoke from a hundred forges, a gritty haze that coated Seraphine's tongue with the taste of coal and scorched metal. The rhythmic clang of hammers on anvils was a relentless, brutal heartbeat. This was a world of substance, of sweat and slag, and she hated every particle of it.
Her ethereal existence as the Host had been clean, precise, and untouchable. Now, she was horribly tangible. The sharp stones of the path cut at the thin soles of her silk slippers. The stench of blood, stale ale, and unwashed Orc clung to her like a shroud. And beneath it all, a cold, gnawing emptiness coiled in her gut. The Curse of the Sieve, her sister's parting gift, was already taking its first, cruel bites.
Two hulking Orcs blocked the path, their scarred, greyish skin decorated with crude bone trophies. Their tusks were yellowed, their eyes small and intelligent, like a boar's. They looked her over, not as a diplomat, but as an exotic cut of meat.
"Lost, little spook?" one of them grunted, his grip tightening on a notched axe heavy enough to crush a skull.
The other grinned, a wet, unpleasant sound. "Maybe she's a gift. Warlord's been in a foul mood. A pretty thing to break might cheer him up."
Seraphine did not flinch. Fear was a useless emotion, a flaw in the programming of lesser beings. She straightened to her full, regal height, the tattered remains of her finery a stark contrast to the grime around her. Her voice, when she spoke, was not loud, but it cut through the din of the forges like a shard of ice.
She used the formal, archaic Orcish she had memorized from a thousand hours of observing this miserable world. "Does the honor of the Slag Orcs now lie so low that its sentries bar the path of a petitioner seeking parley? Or has the Bonebreaker's clan forgotten the rites of strength?"
The Orcs blinked, their brutish confidence faltering. The words were a shock, but the ancient formality weaponized etiquette, a flank they were utterly unprepared to defend. It was a language of chieftains and honor-duels, not for a slip of a demoness in ruined silk.
The first guard's sneer tightened into a suspicious scowl. "You speak the old tongue."
"I speak the language of power," Seraphine corrected, her gaze unwavering. "Now, take me to your Warlord. Or I will find him myself and tell him his hounds have no masters."
The second guard shifted his weight, his axe suddenly feeling heavier. Their simple world of threats and violence had been complicated by rules they were sworn to uphold. He grunted, a sound of grudging respect, and jerked his head toward the heart of the encampment. "This way, spook. But make one wrong move, and I'll use your spine to pick my teeth."
Seraphine offered him a smile that held no warmth. "I would expect nothing less."
***
The audience was not held in a throne room, but in the roaring heart of the Orcish war effort. A massive, open-air forge pulsed with heat, the air shimmering as warriors hammered glowing steel into the crude, effective shapes of their weapons. Presiding over it all was Warlord Grummash Bonebreaker. He was a mountain of scarred muscle and iron will, his focus entirely on a newly forged axe head he held up to the forge-light, inspecting it for flaws.
He didn't look up as Seraphine approached, flanked by her reluctant escorts. He finished his inspection, grunted, and only then turned his flat, intelligent eyes on her.
"A spook," he rumbled, his voice the grinding of stones. He tossed the axe head to a waiting smith. "A whisper on the wind. I know your kind. You deal in lies and shadows. The bones of my ancestors remember the poison of demonic promises from The Sweeps. I have no time for ghosts."
Seraphine met his dismissive gaze without a flicker of doubt. This was a performance, and she was the star. "Ghosts don't feel hunger, Warlord. And they don't bleed." She gestured to a tear in her sleeve, where a graze from her landing had left a smear of dark blood. "I am very, very real. And I am here to offer you a pact, not a promise."
"Pacts with your kind end in ash," Grummash snarled. "I trade in steel, not words."
"Then let my first words be a gift of steel," she replied. "A free sample of my value. The Silver Coalition's Argent Lions legion prepares to march on this pass in three days. But their new repeating crossbows, the ones that chew through Orcish shields, are not with them. They travel with a lightly guarded supply convoy, two days behind the main force, through Whisperwind Canyon." She paused, letting the impossible detail of her knowledge sink in. "The lead wagon is marked with a painted white hawk. They believe you have no scouts that deep in their territory."
Grummash's eyes narrowed. The information was too specific, too precise to be a simple guess. It was a secret that could save hundreds of his warriors and turn a guaranteed defeat into a crushing victory.
Seeing the flicker of avarice in his eyes, Seraphine pressed her advantage, pivoting from tactics to his soul. "You fight a war of attrition you are slowly losing, Warlord. You trade Orc lives for every foot of slag you hold. Your strength is undeniable, but it is a hammer against a fortress wall. You can chip away at it for a generation, but it will still stand."
She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a seductive, conspiratorial whisper. "I can be the rot in their mortar. I will be your eye in the sky, your whisper in the enemy's ear. I will tell you which of their captains is a drunkard, which garrison is riddled with dissent, where their supply lines are weakest. I will not offer you survival, Grummash Bonebreaker. I will offer you glory. I will make you the Warlord who shattered the unbreakable legions of men. I will give you a kingdom."
Silence descended upon the forge, the rhythmic hammering a distant echo. Grummash stood motionless, the firelight playing across the deep scars on his face. He was weighing the soul-poison of a demonic pact against the cold, hard certainty of a losing war. His gaze drifted past her to his warriors, to their dented iron shields and crude axes. He looked at the faces of the young Orcs, their eyes full of fire and a future that would likely end on the point of a Coalition spear. His pragmatism, the very quality that had made him Warlord, won the battle in his mind.
He turned, snatched the heavy axe he had been inspecting from the anvil, and slammed its flat back down onto the iron block. The clang was a deafening, final note.
"A whisper is just air," he growled, his eyes locking onto hers. "Show me it has teeth." He bellowed a sharp, guttural command in Orcish.
Two warriors emerged from the shadows, dragging a prisoner between them. The man was human, battered and bruised but still defiant, his torn surcoat bearing the silver-and-blue of the Coalition. They threw him at Seraphine's feet.
"A gift to seal our pact," Grummash announced, a cruel, predatory smile splitting his face. "He was the scout for their next attack. Your first piece of intel. Show me what your 'power' can do to him. Make him scream our victory to your watchers."