by E. M. Hardy
“A passable effort,” murmured Kurdan in his mind. “You could almost intimidate an orcling with your challenge.”
“What the hell was that!?” thought Isiah as he exhaled sharply, releasing as much tension as he could out of his system.
“A challenge,” replied Kurdan nonchalantly. “I already said so earlier.”
“No, smartass, what did you do to me?”
Kurdan growled in Isiah’s thoughts, and Isiah was sure that he and the orc were going to get into one of their fights. Fortunately for Isiah, Kurdan simply grunted and dismissed Isiah’s hostility.
“A challenge,” he explained, “involves drawing as much bloodlust as you can and channeling it to whoever you want to dominate. If the challenged withdraws, then you gain standing within the tribe while humiliating the challenged. If the challenged accepts, then you fight for dominance; victor wins, loser dies.”
“DIES!?”
“Yes,” huffed Kurdan. “Such is the way of our challenges. Though to be honest, your weakling human mindsets would only result in minor injuries, like a few broken ribs and a damaged leg or two. You do not have the ferocity to see a real challenge through to the end.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Isiah, pouring as much snark as he could into the thought. “I really appreciate the support.”
“I was hoping they would at least have the slightest bit of courage to attack first,” said Kurdan. “You could have taken the blows while your allies finished them off from the side. You were the most viable to draw their attention since you could more easily recover from your resulting injuries.”
“Wow,” thought Isiah. “I didn’t know you thought of me so highly.”
“At least compared to those weakling tribemates of yours,” sniffed Kurdan with contempt.
That’s when Eddison and the rest of the gang walked up beside Isiah. “Balls, Zeyah, I didn’t think you could make Blevins chicken out like that,” chuckled Eddison, patting Isiah on the back.
“Eh. I already ate a few knocks today; a few more wouldn’t hurt.”
“‘A few more wouldn’t hurt’ he says,” mocked Bernabé, nudging Hasan with an elbow. “Maybe he got a couple of hits on his head, huh?”
Hasan said nothing as he studied Isiah from afar.
“Zeyah,” said Hasan. “You alright?”
Isiah turned to face Hasan, surprised at the concern he saw etched on his friend’s face. “What do you mean? Of course, I’m alright.”
“I saw what Charlie and his goons inflicted on you this morning. You don’t just shrug off that kind of damage. Are you sure you’re alright?”
Isiah laughed it off, doing his best to hide his worries about how Hasan noticed the discrepancies. “It looks worse than it actually is,” Isiah said, waving off Hasan’s concerns. “Like I said, Charlie’s bite is worse than his bark.”
“If you’re done sniffing each other’s butts and pissing testosterone all over the place,” deadpanned Abigail, her brow furrowed with annoyance, “then can we get out of here? I don’t like the way people are staring at us.”
Isiah looked around and noticed the crowd that had gathered around them. Students gawked while pointing fingers and whispering to one another. Some were even laughing off to the side while pointing fingers and mimicking Isiah’s earlier face-off with Blevins. Isiah’s temper flared up, angry that these people were treating him like some sort of sideshow.
“C’mon,” said Eddison, sharing Isiah’s irritation at the onlookers. “Let’s get outta here.”
Chapter 06
Kurdan crouched silently within a bush, the thick foliage hiding him even further as it blended into the patterns of his camouflaged skin. Twenty other orcs lay in wait behind bushes and branches of their own, all waiting for Kurdan’s signal to attack. Kurdan could almost smell the bloodlust in the air, the eagerness of the orcs to pounce and launch the assault.
Except Kurdan never gave the order.
He watched silently as the covered wagons trundled on and the songs of the caravanners faded into the trees. When they made it a good distance away, he got up from his bush and twirled a hand over his head and waved backward—signaling his orcs to fall back to the camp. The orcs closest to him stood up and repeated the gesture, spreading it quietly to the other orcs. They withdrew and jogged back to a clearing where they sat down around logs of their own.
“What is the meaning of this!?” thundered Urgan, huffing with barely-controlled rage. “Our prey was right in front of us, and you had us retreat like cowards!” Kurdan ignored him, which further enraged the already-livid orc. “Did you not hear me, chieftain? If your courage has fled you, then perhaps it is time for someone else to lead this raid! Then maybe we can get something done—”
Urgan never finished that sentence, since Kurdan spun around and backhanded him with a meaty fist. The complaining orc staggered back and growled, reaching for the club strapped to his belt.
“Close your mouth before you further embarrass yourself, Urgan,” said Dulug as she continued sharpening the edge of her axe with a rugged piece of scrap orcbone—all without even so much as batting an eye at the sudden outburst of violence. “Considering this is your first raid, you should be thankful the chieftain hasn’t separated your stupid head from its shoulders.”
Kurdan held up a hand, quieting Dulug. “Tell me,” he said in an uncharacteristically quiet and controlled tone as he addressed Urgan. “Did you notice anything strange about that convoy I let pass?”
“What?” barked Urgan, rubbing the side of his face that Kurdan brutally backhanded.
“The caravan. Tell me what you saw, heard, smelled. Leave nothing out.”
The orc continued rubbing his jaw, but he did as he was told. He stared at the ground as he delved into his memories. “Four wagons. Eight drivers. Twelve horses. With our superior numbers and our overpowering strength, we could have taken them easily enough.”
Kurdan stared blankly at Urgan and opened his mouth, ready to rage at the orc for being so stupid. He shut his mouth though, and the other orcs studied him with curiosity as he seemed to withdraw into himself. He grunted, shook his head, and spoke once more with that unnervingly even tone that he had been using more frequently over the past week.
“What did you hear? Again, leave nothing out, for even the smallest details can mean a successful raid and one that ends with every single one of us dead… or a complete failure that ends with our heads mounted on pikes scattered around their roads.”
That last part caused Urgan to raise his head in alarm—along with a half-dozen other orcs who shared Urgan’s anger but did not have the courage to voice their own opposition to his decision. It was Urgan’s turn to fall silent, his brows furrowed in concentration. His eyes shot open, and he inhaled sharply as he suddenly made the connection.
“Clinking,” he said, breathlessly. “I heard clinking and jangling. I also smelled more sweat than six he-men and two she-men should have produced.” Urgan turned toward his chieftain with wide eyes. “It was a human trap.”
Kurdan nodded. “Yes, it was. By the amount of sweat I smelled, I guess there were about eight humans hiding in each wagon. That would have meant forty humans in total, each ready to turn any ambush around in their favor. And with the number of horses drawing those wagons, how low the wagon’s wheels sank into the soft earth, I am also guessing those humans were heavily armed and armored.” Kurdan straightened up and shook his head. “We would overpower them with our ferocity, no doubt about it. Only forty humans? We would tear them to shreds if they were just using regular arms and armor. If they brought along enchanted equipment, then they would probably be able to kill three, maybe even five of us if they managed to catch us completely off guard.
“And that is assuming they don’t have a mage or two hidden within their ranks. Those armed guards would hold us off long enough for their mages to make quick work of us with their spells. Things would get even worse if they have a pala
din among them.”
Kurdan did not want to admit what would happen if that were the case. Humans were weak and frail things, even their mages. However, even a single paladin could do a lot of damage if the orcs could not rush the paladin down fast enough. Mages were powerful enough. An orc could only survive for so long when subjected to unrelenting flames, freezing gales, blasts of lightning, and jagged shards of rock. A paladin was not as destructive, but the blessings of their god give them the strength and speed to overpower an orc. He had been one of the few lucky survivors in a raid that had gone awry, where a paladin masquerading as a trader had blasted apart the orcs rushing into it.
Urgan flinched as Kurdan approached him. The brash challenger knew that he had made a grave error in judgment, especially since the other orcs stared at him with naked hostility in their eyes. If they had jumped into the trap, then their entire raid would have turned into a gigantic failure even at the very first engagement. Even those that originally shared his doubts now turned on him, joining in with the more experienced raiders who understood Kurdan’s intentions. He was prepared to receive the thrashing he had rightfully deserved, swearing to improve himself, to never make the same mistake again, and to ensure that his next challenge to Kurdan’s rule would be a successful one.
Kurdan laid a heavy hand on Urgan’s shoulder. The orc steeled himself, expecting the chieftain to use his grip as leverage to continually knee him in the gut. He had seen other orcs do the same thing, and he unclenched his waist so he could more easily flow with the blows.
The blows never came though. Kurdan simply gripped the younger orc’s shoulder as he stood beside him. “Learn from this experience, Urgan. If you have ambitions to lead the tribe, ambitions to take my position, then make sure you can win that battle before you bring the entire tribe down with you.”
Urgan stared slack-jawed at the chieftain’s back as he walked away from the rest of the raiders. Even Dulug, the she-orc who had rebuked Urgan’s brashness, could not believe what the chieftain had done. Not only did he walk away from such a blatant failure of judgment from one of his raiders, but he also gave advice to an orc that so obviously had designs on Kurdan’s position. That was something unheard of in orcish society, where threats to power were ruthlessly pummeled into the ground. Every he and she-orc in the raiding party gawked first at Kurdan’s receding back, then to one another—utterly confused about their chieftain’s strange actions.
***
“See? No need to bash heads in all the time when a word or two can fix the problem right up.”
Kurdan grimaced to himself before spitting into the grass beside him. “I have seen how your classrooms work. I can understand the benefits of teaching. I am even starting to comprehend this concept you call ‘patience.’ It does not mean, however, that I have to like any of it.”
Isiah mentally shrugged. “Take that dude you just chewed out earlier. What’s his name? Hurgen?”
“Urgan.”
“Yeah, Urgan. See how easily he submitted this time around? It wasn’t like the issue with the extra food. Beating him down with his mess-up works fine, sure, but turning it into a learning experience? That not only got him to shut up real quick, but it’ll also make him more useful to your tribe.”
“No it won’t,” interrupted Kurdan within his mind. “It will make him smarter—help him learn.”
“Knowledge is power,” Isiah said.
“No, it isn’t. They are two very different things. Just because you know something does not necessarily mean you have the power to do something about it.”
Isiah went quiet for a while before thinking out loud. “Yeah, you do have a point there.”
A few more moments passed in silence, with Kurdan and the other orcs idling in the camp some ways off the road they had set their ambush up on. He was resting, wiping away the dirt and sweat from his body, the result of his vigorous training. Other orcs were busy wrestling, their spectators silently watching and judging their performance. Two couples were also busy rutting off to the side, blowing off excess energy in their own way. Kurdan planned to do some rutting of his own, maybe go for Dulug again. It wouldn’t hurt to increase his chances of impregnating her.
Kurdan was amused by Isiah’s squeamishness about mating. The manling was chock-full of lust, fantasizing about the two females within his pack, and yet he did not make a move on any of them. Instead, he would pick up his slate and watch other couples as they rutted while he—
“HEY!” shouted Isiah within Kurdan’s mind. “That was ONE time, and you were so quiet that I forgot that you were there!”
The chieftain chuckled to himself, attracting a few questioning gazes from the other raiders. They quickly turned their eyes away though, not wanting to challenge the actions of their strange, new chieftain.
“You humans are so amusing in the way you hide your impulses,” Kurdan thought to Isiah. “Your love of violence, your desire for sex… it boggles me why you would bother pretending to abhor these things.”
“Oh, shut it,” grumbled Isiah. “I’m the one who’s wondering why you orcs are so in love with the idea of killing and mating so openly.”
Kurdan shrugged. “Killing eliminates threats. Rutting creates the next generation. Is it really so hard for your supposedly impressive human brain to comprehend something so simple?”
Isiah groaned, exasperated by Kurdan’s nonchalance. “If only life was as simple as you make it out to be. Though if you guys kill each other as much as you do, then I guess you really do need to keep churning out babies just to keep your numbers stable.”
That left Kurdan in a thoughtful mood, remembering the thousands of humans he had seen within Isiah’s hometown. What disturbed him further was that it was one of the smaller towns—the equivalent of a minor human settlement in Kurdan’s world. If that was one of the smaller settlements, then Kurdan couldn’t even begin to imagine the millions of humans residing in these things Isiah called ‘metropolises.’
Kurdan’s thoughts were cut short though as Urgan and his scouts returned to the camp, breathing heavy with excitement.
“We have another one—and you might be pleased with what we have found this time around, chieftain.”
***
Kurdan and the other orcs followed Urgan and his scouts as they led the rest of the raiders to their quarry. Nearly fifty humans walking along, following behind two open-top wagons. 18 he-men, 15 she-men, two of them driving the wagons, 11 manlings, and the most troublesome of the group: two masked priests. Many of the humans wore ragged clothing, clutching a few meager possessions while stumbling along the road on tired legs. Urgan and the other scouting orcs did not see any human soldiers guarding this convoy, nor did they see any other group following this one.
The chieftain could not believe his luck. It was a rare enough treat to pounce upon guarded merchant convoys bearing their goods to and from the human settlements on the border. But an undefended group of humans in such great numbers? Kurdan had never experienced such a thing in all eight raids he had been given the privilege of joining.
“They,” gulped Isiah, “They look like refugees.”
“Refugees?” inquired Kurdan, keeping his thoughts to himself as he studied the convoy and formulated a plan of attack.
“Yeah. You said it yourself before that most groups passing through this road only do so under heavy guard. Like that one convoy that passed by earlier, the trap? These poor guys, they’re just walking right up armed with nothing but the clothes on their back.”
“They do have priests, though,” thought Kurdan. “Those two will be trouble if we don’t deal with them right away.”
“What are they going to do? Talk your ears off? Put you to sleep with sermons?”
“These can do more than that,” Kurdan growled his thoughts to Isiah. “The blood magic that fuels our strength? The same magic that healed your body in your world? That was granted to orcs by our patron god, Cagros the Bloodlette
r.” Kurdan sniffed as he brought his attention back to the two priests walking alongside the humans. “I will not let my guard down until I know what god those two serve and what blessings they can call down.”
Isiah went quiet for a moment, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts. “Kurdan… is it possible to let these people go?”
The chieftain huffed, then growled. “I am willing to learn much from you, Isiah Hunter. I am not willing to let go of such a valuable prize because of your feelings of pity and sentimentality.”
Kurdan ignored whatever else Isiah wanted to say, shoving the teen’s arguments into a corner of his mind, and focused his attention back to the humans. One of the priests—the she-man—went closer to the he-man priest and appeared to mumble something into his ear. The he-priest stiffened and started to peer around himself when the she-priest tugged at his sleeve. He snapped to attention and looked straight ahead, mumbling something else to the she-priest. He then separated from her and went to one of the wagon-drivers, who called a stop.
“What are they doing?” whispered one of the orcish raiders. Kurdan slapped the head of the orc, silently telling him to shut up. He wanted to get them in a more advantageous position, to encircle them to prevent any of the humans from fleeing. However, that chance was lost as the wagoneers unhitched their horses from the wagons and pulled them away from their loads. It then became clear to Kurdan that the she-priest had sensed the orcs hiding in the foliage and had warned the rest of the caravan.
“GO!” said Kurdan, rising from his position and leading the charge. “Move fast! Don’t let any of them escape!!”
A split-second later, twenty other raiders got up from their bushes and roared as one—rushing the convoy from the side of the road. The humans shrieked and began running away from the fear and fury rushing toward them. The wagoneers pulled up as many children as they could on their mounts, three to a horse, and galloped at top speed as soon as they were ready. Kurdan cursed, realizing his raiders would not be able to catch up to them. He instead focused on the humans that fled on foot—along with the two priests that stood their ground.
