Awaken: Book 1 (Chronicles of Ghost Company)

by Shawn Muller

  “I said teach me the axe dance, you green dummy.”

  “Green dummy?”

  “Man, are all orcs deaf? Yeah man, I want to learn to fight with the axes like you, man.”

  “Orcs are not deaf, and no, I will not teach you or any other human the Dance of Axes.”

  “That sucks, man. How ’bout just showing me some moves then? Like I get an axe and me and you just throw it out there and like spar.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  “Man, you guys are thick. Give. Me. An. Axe. We. Fight,” I said.

  “I do not care for your attitude, human.”

  “Really? You scared of me? That why you don’t wanna fight. Dude, you suck.”

  “I am not afraid of you, small man.”

  “Liar. You are. If you aren’t, let’s spar then.”

  “You are testing my patience, human.”

  “Testing my patience,” I mimicked

  “Enough! Get an axe I will teach a lesson you soon won’t forget!” he bellowed at me, causing everybody to turn and face us.

  “Chill man, we can spar now, dude,” I said, holding up my hands.

  I slowly backed off before turning around and walking up to Dominic by the weapons. He just stood there cleaning his armour while I picked up two training swords.

  “Don’t hurt him,” was all he said to me as I smiled at him.

  I arrogantly swung the swords over my shoulders and sauntered over to where the orc stood. He was taller than me by a few centimetres, and much wider. Like all orcs, he was very muscular, and probably just as strong. He was armed with two practice axes and simple leather hide armour. I approached and saluted him before taking guard. He stood there just looking at me.

  After a few moments I stood up straight and asked:

  “Dude, you lose your balls to fight? You scared again?”

  With that, he launched himself at me with a snarl. I just managed to deflect his axes with my swords. He drove me back with wild, powerful overhead chops. All I could do was block them with my swords. He drove me to my knees, pounding away now with just one axe that I was just able to block. His clan mates were cheering him on, and he took that to heart and tried to end it with a huge downward stroke onto my head. I rolled to my right, and came up just as he lost his balance as his axe missed everything. I dropped to my knee again as I brought my right sword up and poked him in his family jewels. This brought a cry of surprise and pain and laughter from his peers. I stood and smiled at him as he turned around, really mad at me now. He threw himself at me and once again, I barely managed to fend off his axes with my swords. I managed to land one or two counter thrusts while he landed a solid blow to my left side, definitely bruising a rib there. We broke off the fight briefly, both of us panting slightly.

  “C’mon, dude. I thought you orcs were tough. I fought this girl once who was tougher. At least she didn’t have balls I could hit,” I said.

  The orc started to breathe more rapidly and his strokes became more powerful, within a few seconds, his eyes turned a slight blood red and he gave an almighty bellow. I was about to witness my first berserker. Man it was scary. His attacking speed doubled, as did the power of his strokes. I immediately began see why a berserker was a fearsome opponent.

  I began to battle to keep up my defences. He simply bashed them aside and he began to land some telling blows. But, in doing that, he left himself open as well. Soon I was able to land some counter blows. This seemed to enrage him further. I swear his entire body increased in size. By now I was almost running backwards to stay out of reach of his axes. His swings became bigger and wilder and he lost all structure with his attacks, simply relying on bashing his way through my swords. It was time to end this. My arms were beginning to hurt from the shocks of the axes hitting the swords.

  I waited until he once again took both axes above his head to bring down on me. I stepped into his defensive ring, dropping my swords so that I could grab him by the front of his armour. I head butted him as hard as I could on his chin and followed through by moving my right leg around the back of his body, using his own backwards momentum to drop him to the floor. Before his arms were even coming down beside him I dropped down on top of him with my knees on his midriff and punched him square on his nose, knocking him out cold. The training area was deathly quiet - all the orcs looked down at me as I slowly stood up. I could not read their faces, but I could sense they were not happy with this.

  Dominic walked up behind me and pulled me away quickly.

  “Get out of here before they mob you,” he hissed into my ears.

  Grinning, I took his advice and calmly walked back to the keep, looking back over my shoulders to see a very angry Babar staring at my back with hatred in his eyes.

  I followed Dominic to the resident healer to check out my ribs and to sew closed a gash on my forehead that was caused by me head butting the orc. I was sitting on a bed while the healer was busy sewing me up when both Prince Marcus and Jeroch stormed into the rooms, nostrils flaring as they tried to calm themselves.

  “Have you lost your mind? Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed, or to start a war between us and the orcs?” Prince Marcus asked me.

  “No, sir, I was not,” I replied.

  “Cut the formalities, Bob. You had better have one very good explanation for your actions. I have a very angry orc Warchief outside my office who is demanding your head!” Jeroch shouted at me.

  “I do have that explanation. And I will be very happy to give it to you, but not now.”

  “You better give it to me now,” Prince Marcus hissed.

  “With all due respect, Prince Marcus, no.”

  I felt the healer tense at my words as he pulled the gut tighter than normal, causing me to wince.

  “I suggest you start explaining yourself before you do more than wince when I start with you,” Jeroch threatened.

  I simply looked up at the healer who quickly tied the gut off before beating a hasty retreat out of his own room.

  “Don’t threaten me with crap like that,” I told Jeroch. “One thing that you as a nation need to learn is that information is power. And with that power you win wars, whether they are friendly games or full-out warfare. So, before we discuss anything, I want to be one hundred percent certain that I wouldn’t be over heard by a spy. Sir,” I ended snapping back at Jeroch.

  I gingerly pulled my shirt back over my head and strapped chest where the doc had treated me for a cracked rib, before facing the prince again.

  “So, can you guarantee that we won’t be overheard by anybody?” I asked him.

  “Follow me to my private chambers,” he replied.

  We left the healers’ rooms and made our way to the prince’s private wing. Along the way, Prince Marcus stopped a servant and whispered something in their ear before we carried on to his rooms. We were there within minutes, and waiting for us was Sizakel and Queen Canderson. We exchanged quick greetings before entering the main foyer of the prince’s private room. Servants bustled quickly to open the heavy storm shutters to let in the warm sun and to fill goblets with spiced wine or ale for us. Soon they left us as we followed Prince Marcus into his study. He waved for us to sit while he made small talk with the queen. He looked like he was waiting for something or somebody to join us.

  We did not have to wait long as Smoothie gently knocked on the study door and entered when asked to. He bowed low to the queen and prince then politely nodded at the rest of us.

  “Smoothie, seal us in,” was all Prince Marcus said.

  Smoothie clapped his hands together and started an incantation. He walked to the door and raised both hands at it, his voice changing pitch often with the words spoken. He turned and walked to the windows behind the prince and repeated the gesture and words. He then walked the perimeter of the room, his right hand stretched out next to him almost touching the wall. Once he had completed the walk, he clapped his hands together again and closed his eyes briefly. I felt a faint breez
e blow over me before disappearing. Smoothie looked up at the prince and nodded.

  “Start explaining. Nobody can hear you now, Bob, and it better be worth it,” Prince Marcus said.

  “I take it that everybody here is part of your planning council?” I asked Prince Marcus first, who nodded his agreement.

  “It’s simple, Marcus. I needed to know what the orcs are capable of when berserk,” I started.

  “Surely you have some idea from talking to us, or from the two orcs who have joined your company?” Queen Canderson asked.

  “You have two orcs in your company?” Jeroch asked.

  “I should have more by now. And hearing how somebody fights is different to seeing it yourself. And no, the orcs in my company are not berserkers. Like I said earlier, information is power. Now that I have some knowledge on what to expect, I can expand on my part in the battles.”

  “And what exactly is that?” Prince Marcus asked.

  “The way I have seen this battle go is that the orcs will be the main heavy infantry force, with the elves being more a skirmishing force and the humans the filler in between. Whoever has the strongest orcs, wins. Am I right?” I asked everybody there, and all nodded in agreement.

  “Seeing as magical warfare is not allowed, that puts Prince Owyne out the equation, making it a simple strength of arms contest. So how do we beat them? By taking away their main fighting force. Even by halving the amount of orcs Prince Owyne can field against us gives us the advantage. Babar will be leading those orcs because Queen Vickerson is too pregnant. By making him focus on me and not on you, Marcus, gives you the advantage on the battlefield. My plan was and still is, to piss him off enough that he sends some of his troops after me, hopefully leading them himself, and if we are lucky, all the orcs will be after me and not facing you,” I concluded.

  “You’re insane! You want two hundred berserk orcs after you?” an astonished Jeroch asked.

  “If it helps Marcus win, then yes. But don’t you worry about me. I will deal with them. You just deal with the rest of them.”

  “You play a risky game Bob, and you put yourself at great risk,” the queen warned me.

  “Not only that, but you are putting my honour at risk too. Should this fail Bob, I will be forced to rescind your rights to command. Tread well my friend,” Prince Marcus said, looking me in the eye.

  That ended the meeting, each of us leaving the study with some thoughts about the battles ahead, and the possible consequences thereof.

  It was a warm, sunny morning when the entire entourage of queens, princes, leaders, and military commanders left the port of Doorengaan for the battle plains. A huge flotilla of warships sailed gently westwards, enemy and friends side by side for now as we made our way to our various base camps. I was once again onboard Admiral Demorgain’s ship as we made our out.

  By noon, we began to tack north-west towards Prince Marcus’s staging area. I had earlier asked Smoothie to relay a message to Thackeray to meet us there so that we may also take our place in the magical spell for the games. By sundown we were drifting at anchorage off the western shore. We would wait until the morning to dock before meeting up with the army a few kilometres inland where we would wait for the final spells.

  Spread out throughout both armies were wizards wearing bright yellow sashes. This indicated that they were like umpires in a sports game, making sure that we all played by the rules. They also ran the coordination of the spells and made sure that both armies started and ended the fight at the same time, making sure that no side had a time advantage over the other. It seemed that any group of fighters that operated separately from the main army had to have at least one of these wizards with them at all times. I sure hoped that the wizard assigned to me was fit enough to keep up.

  Midmorning, the sun was up and blazing away at us as we approached the encampment. It started as a pleasant walk from the docks, seeing as somebody forgot to bring enough horses, but all too soon I was eating dust and sweating heavily under my armour. Something I just could not get use to yet. The prince and Queen Canderson had arrived a few hours before the rest of us and had probably already changed into cleaner, cooler clothes. I, as had many millions of soldiers through all the ages, on all the worlds and as billions more would continue to do, marched on.

  Max met me at the perimeter with a cool drink of water from a water skin. He then quickly led me to our camp, slightly off the main camp, more or less north of it. I was pleased to see that the training received was being used.

  The company had erected a temporary fort, made from wooden stakes and earth walls, surrounded by a trench filled with wooden spikes. Sentries were posted around the walls, patrolling in full combat gear. Inside the walls the tents stood in neat rows along the walls, with the main cooking fires in the middle. The men and woman not on duty were keeping themselves busy by cleaning their equipment, or sharpening weapons.

  Deez spotted me first and called out,

  “Attention!”

  Immediately everybody dropped what they were doing and stood, ramrod straight. I looked around with a smile and saluted them. The entire company saluted back before crowding around me to welcome me back. I made my way to an upturned barrel from where I could address them.

  “It’s good to see all of you. Well done on the fort, boys and girl.” I complimented them as they chuckled about the added correction for Pivara, the only female soldier so far in the company.

  Many of the men already regarded her as a sister and all were very protective over her, even if she could out-duel most of them.

  “As you all know, we are about to take part in the wargames between Prince Marcus and Prince Owyne. By tomorrow, we would have the spells completed and then it’s go time people, time for the Ghost Company to earn their keep. We have all trained long and hard for fights like this, so we are prepared, and we will kick their arses. All I ask of every single one of you is simple - give your best at all times. We fight together, we die together, and we drink together. We are a brotherhood for life!”

  The men cheered at this as Max opened up a keg of ale to celebrate the first battle together.

  “Enjoy the ale, guys, because tomorrow we move out and ride like hell!” I hopped off the barrel and joined Max at the keg for a quick mug of ale before heading off to my tent to change.

  After changing into something cooler, I gathered my sub-commanders for a quick meeting.

  “What happened to your head?” Deez asked. I quickly explained what happened with Babar and the orc.

  “He is a bad orc to make a foe with Bob,” Kimba said, shaking his head.

  “I can see why. But we all know the plan. And meeting him actually played nicely straight into it. I take it all our preparations are done?” I asked Titanius.

  “For now yes. We head straight to the rendezvous point from here where the orcs and most of us will finish the welcoming.”

  “Good. And are our spies in place?”

  “Yes. I have made contact with them. They reported that the army is similar in size to what Prince Marcus has and that they too will leave tomorrow or the next,” Thackeray reported.

  “Excellent. And Kimba, you didn’t have any difficulties?”

  “No, Bob, all of them were very eager to join us. As soon as the games are finished, I will assess them and see who is suitable to join us. Um, Queen Canderson, she didn’t object did she?” Kimba asked.“Not at all Kimba, she doesn’t know it yet. But she has some idea, though. Just relax. All will be fine. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to meet with Prince Marcus now,” I said.

  “Gentlemen,” Prince Marcus said to begin his meeting with his various leaders. “Tomorrow begins yet another wargames. This one I intend to win. For too long we have lost against my brother and his ‘allies’. However, no longer, we have our own allies, our own friends and elite soldiers. We will win this battle. No excuses! We have all prepared long and hard for this and we need to work as a team, one complete unit to win this. You all know your
part in the strategies. I expect them to be carried out to the best of yours and your men’s abilities. All last-minute details we will hash out now for there will be no time tomorrow. By first light, the wizards will be performing the spells, leaving us enough time before noon to be underway. Are there any questions?” Prince Marcus asked the men seated around his planning table.

  “Yes, sir, I have a few,” I piped up first.

  “Go ahead, Bob,” the Prince said.

  “Do I have permission to be the first to receive these spells so that my men and I can leave ASAP?”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “Another thing, I heard that we are all to have a wizard on our team to observe the rules? Who is my wizard? Will he be able to keep up with me?”

  “I do not know the wizard, but I am sure he will know how to ride a horse.”