by Sam Ferguson
The orc lashed out with a savage right handed swing that forced Halsten to leap back and then step off to the side to escape the sword’s reach. The orc came in slowly, methodically. Its left arm hung straight and limp at its side, but otherwise there were no signs of injury. The commander moved elegantly, spinning and twirling as he worked his sword. Halsten had to maneuver quickly to parry each blow with his large sword.
The Varvarr prince stumbled over a stone in the earth, but managed to keep his footing enough that he didn’t fall completely. Still, his stumble cost him an opening to strike back at the commander, and it gave the orc the confidence to press the attack. Halsten found himself backing away once more and barely able to keep up with the furious strikes and thrusts coming at him now.
He took a shallow cut on the left shoulder, and then his rage boiled to the surface once more. Halsten deflected one more swing of the commander’s sword, and then he came in with a series of his own strikes. A chop to the side, then a thrust at the chink between the orc’s waist and right thigh, and next a sideways slice toward the orc’s good arm. None of these landed on their marks though, for the orc was as adept at defense as it was offense. Halsten pressed the attack though, knowing that sooner or later, the orc’s right arm would tire.
Halsten hefted his sword up and feinted toward the orc’s head, but then shifted and brought his sword level to his side and came in with a hard swing at the commander’s left shoulder again. This time the plate mail did nothing to stop the onslaught. A burst of liquid red painted the side of the orc’s armor and splattered onto Halsten’s tunic and right cheek as the orc’s left arm fell to the ground.
The orc howled in pain and hurried back a few paces to regroup. It was gasping for breath, jaw clenched and sucking air through its teeth as its angry gray eyes glowered at Halsten.
The Varvarr prince moved in slowly, not about to let his guard down. When it came to orcs, there was no telling whether an injury like this would disable them, or provoke them into a fury not unlike the Varvarr Bloodlust.
In this case, it appeared to draw the energy from the orc commander. As the blood flowed out of the gory stump, the orc slowly sank to his knees. True to what Halsten had come to expect of orc courage, however, the commander held his sword tightly and composed himself for a strike if given the chance.
Some warriors might have kept their distance at such a time, knowing that the blood loss would eventually end the fight, and thereby allowing them to avoid risking fatal injury only to speed along the inevitable.
Halsten moved toward the orc.
As soon as he was within striking distance, the orc lunged for him with a sudden burst of strength. Halsten dropped his sword in a block, catching the commander’s and pinning the point to the ground. The Varvarr prince then released his sword with his right hand and slammed the orc commander in the face with a savage hook to the jaw. Then bone cracked and the left tusk fell from the orc’s mouth. The orc stumbled to the ground and was breathing heavily now with its jaw hanging limp.
Halsten didn’t prolong his enemy’s agony. He kicked away the orc’s sword and then with his left hand he brought the great sword up in a high-arc overhead chop that came down and connected with the orc’s neck.
The corpse fell to the ground in a bloody heap.
Just like that, the Varvarr Bloodlust left Halsten and his body felt heavier than it had before. He shivered somewhat in the night as he turned around to survey the battlefield. The fight was over. He could see his men standing proudly, cheering for the victory and praising Akuhn, but he couldn’t distinguish the words they were using. His vision became slightly blurry, but not so much that it kept him from walking.
Samek was the first to approach him.
“Well fought,” Samek said.
Halsten nodded.
Samek held out his hands and Halsten realized that Samek had found his axe and knife. Halsten stuck the end of the great sword in the grass and took his weapons back, placing them carefully on his belt with trembling hands.
“That is a mighty prize,” Samek said, noting the great sword.
Halsten put a hand on Samek’s shoulder. “It is yours.”
The Varvarr prince then walked back through the field toward the village. Along the way he counted the dead. There were easily sixty orcs slain in the field. There were some twenty Varvarr who had fallen. Thirteen men and seven women. It was a sad thing to see so many of his kinfolk murdered at the hands of marauding orcs, but he took comfort in seeing that all of the Varvarr who had fallen were part of the night watch, and none of the orcs had made it into the village proper. The orc who had made it closest to the wall was the first one that Halsten had slain. All the rest had been pushed back.
Halsten dropped to his knees as he reached the stone wall and prayed to give thanks to Akuhn for her gift of strength and protection.
When he had finished, he returned to his father’s house.
As he approached, he noticed a small pile of bodies slumped on the ground near the village’s main fire pit.
Halsten felt a thick knot twist in his stomach when he saw the locks of silver hair sticking out under the green arm of an orc.
He ran to the jumbled bodies and pulled two orcs from the top.
Jarle was there, lying face down upon the back of a large orc. A gash in the back of his head was bright with blood. An arrow protruded out from his side, and a series of three slices ran along the back of his right shoulder.
“Father!” Halsten called out as he knelt down and rolled Jarle over.
Jarle’s nose was broken, bent to the right with a cut over the bridge and a dried smear of blood ran down from the gash and mixed with the white moustache. Halsten shook his father.
“Wake up!”
Jarle’s eyes sprang open and in an instant a sharp blade was up next to Halsten’s throat. Jarle took in a deep breath, and then seemed to recognize his son. He pulled the knife back and then held out his left hand.
“Get me up before the others see me in disgrace,” he said.
Halsten pulled his father up. He wanted to hug the man close, but Jarle would never have allowed that.
“Can you walk?” Halsten asked.
“Of course I can,” Jarle snapped. He reached a hand up to the back of his head. His face soured and then he pulled his hand back around with a bit of fresh blood on the fingers. Jarle grunted and then rubbed his fingertips together and gestured to the east by sticking his chin out in that direction. “They came in from this side, after the battle had started.” He stopped before explaining and looked around for a bit and then pointed to his home with his left hand. “Come on, the others are coming outside now. I don’t want to be seen bleeding like this.”
Halsten helped his father into the house and then locked the door. “Samek will tell the others what happened,” Halsten said, as if that would relieve Jarle of his duty to talk to the others after such an attack.
“Just get me patched up as best you can. I’ll get some clean clothes and a cap to hide my head.”
Halsten frowned. “Should I call for the healer, I am sure he would…”
“No,” Jarle replied. The old chieftain looked around and grabbed his waste bucket from the end of the bed and promptly retched into it.
“I should get the healer,” Halsten pressed.
“A chieftain should be seen to only after all of his people are taken care of,” Jarle replied. “Besides, I have had worse bumps on the head. Remember, I once had to clear a trio of ettins from a nearby cave. If you think orcs can hit, you should see the power an ettin wields!”
Halsten let the matter go. He knew his father would never listen to him anyway. He went to a small chest of cedar on the other side of the house and pulled out new clothes.
“Make sure to give me long sleeves,” Jarle said as he began pulling his clothes off. “I don’t have any water to wash with, so it’s important to hide the dirt and the blood.”
Halsten nodded and found a lo
ng-sleeved black tunic and some fresh trousers. He then pulled out a conical hat topped with a plume of horse-hair, a rather expensive item that his father had taken as a prize from a defeated Tarthun warlord. It was large enough to cover the wound on Jarle’s head, and also regal enough to help add to the appearance Jarle wished to present to the village.
When Jarle was fully dressed, the two left the house. Jarle was in front, of course, as was proper for his station. Halsten emerged behind him and quietly closed the door.
As Jarle began to speak to the others who had assembled around his home, Halsten tuned the words out and looked for Agatha and Sarkis. He found them two rows into the crowd, Sarkis sitting atop Agatha’s shoulders. Halsten smiled and went to his family. He and Agatha embraced, then Halsten reached up to take Sarkis onto his shoulders. He turned and watched his father address the village.
“Though we grieve for the loss of our brothers and sisters, we can rejoice knowing that they died honorably and shall be allowed to hunt with Akuhn in the Great Beyond.”
The crowd did not react vocally. Neither man nor woman cried, such was not their custom. Death was taken in somberly, without demonstrative outbursts. More than that, the Varvarr truly believed that their honorable dead were now in a better place where they would be allowed to hunt game side by side with the great Wolf Goddess. Still, Halsten knew the fallen, and he knew their families.
This would not be a night soon forgotten.
As he thought about the ramifications of the attack, he let his eyes wander out toward the stone wall. There would be many corpses to bury. His kin would receive proper burials, while the orcs would be stripped of their arms and armor and then tossed into a large pit to be burned. As he thought about the work ahead, he noticed something moving beyond the wall. He thought it a trick of the night at first. The shadow seemed formless, as if cast by a cloud covering part of the moon, but when Halsten looked up, he saw only the clear night sky.
He looked back to the wall, but the form was gone.
“Take Sarkis,” Halsten said. Agatha shot him a look, but took their son down and set him on the ground.
Halsten’s hand went to his belt and his eyes scoured the wall again for several moments. Finally, when nothing stirred, he relaxed and brought his arms up to fold them across his chest.
“The orcs tried to take us by surprise, but they have failed!” Jarle shouted. He held his hands out to the side and let the words hang on the air for a moment. He then opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly he twitched and his eyes narrowed and his arms slackened. His eyes then shot open wide and he looked directly at Halsten. He stepped forward once and then fell face-first to the ground.
Two arrows were protruding out from his back.
Halsten’s eyes went to the wall, and there he saw the same shadowy form.
“Goblins!” Halsten shouted. He pushed his way through the crowd and ran for the assassin. The wiry form turned and bolted from the wall, slinging its bow over its shoulder. Halsten was fast, sprinting and leaping over the wall in a matter of a few seconds, but the goblin outpaced him. The Varvarr prince’s feet pounded the soft, mossy ground as he gave chase.
He ran nearly to the woods, and then something caught his eye from the right side. Halsten turned just in time to see a goblin coming up from the grass, bow in hand and string pulled back. Halsten stopped and dove backward as the goblin loosed his arrow. Halsten reacted by throwing his axe while still in mid-flight from his sidelong leap. His axe struck true, the shaft wobbling slightly as the blade came to rest in the goblin’s bare, green chest. The creature let out a strange cry and then staggered to the ground.
Halsten hit the ground and tucked into a roll, which was a smart move because the first goblin had already turned around and fired. Fortunately, the arrow stuck in the ground and missed Halsten.
Unfortunately, he had only a knife and was twenty yards away from the goblin, who was already nocking another arrow. Halsten could see the beady eyes glinting in the moonlight. Its yellow, sharp teeth became visible as it curled its dark green lip upward into a smile. The goblins were the opposite of the orcs in many ways. Where an orc had large teeth, as well as tusks that jutted out from the lower jaw, a goblin’s teeth were short and sharp. An orc was an even tone of green, or sometimes brown or gray; a goblin was more animal-like, with a lighter green underbelly and chest and a darker green, gray, or brown back. The body itself was wiry and lean as opposed to an orc’s body which was almost always heavily muscled and thick. Then there was the temperament.
Orcs had honor. They would meet upon the battlefield and fight with zealous devotion. Goblins cheated and sneaked about, just as this one had. Likely it had somehow learned of the orc raid and used the opportunity to strike at Halsten’s father just for its own glory. Jarle had survived the orcs, and the injuries they had given him, but Halsten already knew that his father had succumbed to the goblin’s cowardly assault. Another thing about goblins, they used poisons on their blades and arrows. Something an orc would never do, for poisons were not honorable.
Halsten stared at the grinning goblin now and waited. The bow string snapped forward and Halsten twirled to the side. The arrow was fast, but Halsten evaded easily. The second arrow was already on its way however, and Halsten barely ducked beneath it as it whistled just a few inches over his head.
The goblin readied his next shot.
Halsten stood and threw his field knife at the goblin. It twirled end over end, but ultimately it failed to kill the goblin. It was a knife meant for skinning, not throwing. The balance was great for its intended use, but as a missile it was not perfect. The knobby handle slammed into the goblin’s shoulder and then the knife fell to the ground.
The goblin sniggered through its teeth, sounding somewhat like a yipping canine of some sort. Then it pulled back on the string and let the next arrow fly.
Halsten didn’t think about his next move. He didn’t dodge to the side or hunch lower to the ground. He just stood there, his eyes fixed on the grinning goblin. Somehow, his left hand shot up and caught the flying arrow mid-way down its shaft, stopping the poisoned point just two inches from his forehead.
The goblin’s grin disappeared and it squealed in frustration as it reached for another arrow. Halsten bolted for the goblin that had tried to surprise him from the side. Two arrows sailed by the Varvarr in the time it took for him to reach the corpse. He dove forward and then tucked into a roll as he snatched the dead goblin’s bow in hand. As he came up, he set the arrow in his hand to the string and then fired back at the goblin who had slain his father.
The arrow caught the beast in the neck. The goblin shrieked in pain and dropped its weapon, reaching up to clutch at the shaft protruding from its throat. It gurgled and sputtered as it danced about, turning this way and that in the moonlight.
Halsten then retrieved his axe and took in a steadying breath.
“To Hammenfein with you!” Halsten shouted as he hurled the axe at the goblin. The blade spun furiously, whistling through the air until it burrowed into the goblin’s head with a loud schlak! The force of the blow threw the goblin through the air to land a couple of feet behind where it had been.
Halsten then retrieved his weapons and dragged the two goblin carcasses back to his village by the ankles.
The orcs bodies would be dealt with honorably, by throwing them in a pit and consuming them with fire. The goblins however, they were different.
Halsten was going to impale the bodies on thick wooden pikes in the field facing the direction they had tried to flee to. They would be left there to rot and whither in the sun or torn apart by the scavengers, whichever happened first.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kamal crouched low in the grass, peering through the long blades and watching the people hastily throwing their belongings into long canoes. There were some older men, and a few boys that had not yet reached their teenage years, but for the most part there were just women on the shore of the Inner Sea.
To Kamal’s right were three dwarf scouts, bedecked in leather armor that would allow them some degree of protection while they crawled around in the grass. On his left was Reu. The dwarf chieftain watched the Tarthuns through the grass.
“You sure your father won’t mind?” Reu asked in a whisper.
“I hadn’t planned on telling him,” Kamal replied bluntly.
“This is a scouting mission that could lead to death,” Reu pressed. “I have known your father a long time. I don’t think he would be pleased.”
“Then I suppose you shouldn’t tell him either,” Kamal replied.
Reu shot Kamal a sly grin and then winked a bright blue eye at him. “Silence it is then.”
The dwarf chieftain and Kamal had grown quite close over the last several years. They had first been introduced during one of the harvest times, when the Krilo paid their debt to the dwarves with their share of grains, fruits, and other food items. Kamal’s father always oversaw such transactions personally, and had started taking Kamal along after the boy’s twelfth birthday. Reu, who had lost his own son a few years back to the Tarthuns, took quite a liking to Kamal and the two had begun a friendship that had helped bring the two peoples even closer together. Reu taught Kamal about their battle strategies, while Kamal often explained the more peculiar Krilo customs and beliefs. Neither had the slightest intention of converting the other to their own ways, though. It was a respectful exchange of ideas and knowledge without guile or ulterior motives of any kind, which was precisely why both individuals had come to appreciate what the other culture had to offer.
