Becoming the Orc Chieftain

by E. M. Hardy

  One of the Fleshripper hunters cried out when she saw this orc. She screamed in fury as she beat his head in, whaling away with her club and flecking dead skin away with each raging blow. This orc was an Axe that had led a Stonefist raiding party into Fleshripper territory a few months ago. She remembered this orc because he had shouted out orders, waving his battleaxe to encourage his own orcs in the attack. The Fleshrippers had won the battle that day, but not without suffering heavy losses of their own.

  The Fleshrippers came back to life now that their rage and fury had a target. They would not rest until the cowardly attack inflicted upon them was paid in blood. They would make sure that every Stonefist they found would not only be harvested for skin and bones, but would be made to suffer in pain for as long as they could manage.

  After all, they weren’t called the Fleshrippers for nothing.

  ***

  Kurdan chuckled to himself as he watched the battle rage below him.

  There, on the clearing in front of him, fought warriors from the Goretusk, Fleshripper, and Stonefist tribes. They bellowed in anger as they clashed against one another. Axes carved through the air, blunting their edges as they sliced through tough orcish flesh and bit down into tough orcish bone. Clubs made from orcbone cracked and snapped out, the force of the blows battering the sensitive nerves hidden within the protection of spines and skulls. Both left orcs injured and vulnerable to wicked daggers, which were plunged repeatedly into vital organs until the victim was too far gone for blood magic to heal.

  Kurdan watched all this chaos unfold from the top of a ridge, obscured by thick foliage. His own orcs, those of the Boneseeker tribe, were positioned right behind him. First were the Pikers that stood at attention, holding their long Halewood pikes upright. He had drilled discipline into them, teaching them how to maintain formation while thrusting their spearpoints as one. All this while they stoically suffered blows and curses rained down upon them. These were the ones that had learned how to tame their bloodlust, to control it in a way that allowed them to fight as a cohesive unit. They were his pride and joy, the fruits of his rigorous training.

  To the side of the Pikers stood the Berserkers. These were the orcs that could not harness their bloodlust and would always give in to the rage when the beatings and the curses came. He gave command of them over to Gnadug, his Axe, who repeatedly bled them and broke their bones every single day. The human slave-farmers were able to provide enough food to supply the entire tribe now, along with building up comfortable cabins and mending broken tools. All this left the orcs with much more time to train their bodies. This allowed the Berserkers to grow in strength and fury, spending every waking moment they could boiling their blood and practicing their killing blows. They were the culmination of orcish fury, ready to carve and cleave anything that stood in their way. If the Pikers were the anvil that could hold the line against their enemies, the Berserkers were the hammer that would slam down on the anvil—crushing anything and everything in between.

  And on the other end of the spectrum were Kurdan’s elite Snipers, four orcs in all. These were the orcs that had broken through during training as Pikers. They not only cultivated the discipline needed to fight in formation, but they were able to tap into a colder, more focused form of their bloodlust. It was the kind of bloodlust that let them better perceive the world and better coordinate their reflexes—the perfect combination for orcish crossbows. These were the runts of the tribe, not quite able to match the physicality of the others. They were just strong enough as orclings to avoid being culled with the other weaklings and rejects, but they never ascended the ranks because of how weak and scrawny they were. If his Snipers proved themselves this day, it would give Kurdan the proof he needed to preserve future generations of weaker orclings. That, and he hoped to harness their cold bloodlust in a way that would help with other non-combat duties, like in the research programs.

  However, his combined forces would not be enough to go up against the Goretusk tribe in a straight-up fight. The warband they had sent out was just a portion of the tribe’s strength. The Goretusk still had a few hundred warriors to defend their borders. Even if Kurdan managed to win a fight against the Goretusk, the other larger tribes like the Stonefist and Fleshripper would pose a mortal threat should he commit his forces to battle. He needed some way to neutralize them all at once, ensure that they would never be able to muster up enough strength to hurt him.

  Isiah’s false-flag operations were just what he needed.

  Goading the Stonefists into attacking the Goretusks was the easiest part. His snipers and scouts travelled deep into Stonefist territory, right on the border that it shared with the Goretusks. They then set up ambushes that wiped out Stonefist hunting parties down to the last orc. They harvested the skin and bones, leaving a trail of corpses near the border they shared with the Goretusks. Enough dead hunters, and the Stonefists committed themselves into assembling a huge warband that battered itself against the Goretusk ranks.

  The Fleshrippers were a trickier matter. They were not as eager for glorious battle as their bigger rivals, so Kurdan had to be more creative with them. Kurdan approached the other minor tribes near the Fleshrippers, warning them of an imminent attack by the big tribe. They all ignored his overtures, threatening to kill him should he intrude upon their territory again. They changed their minds when they learned what happened to the Sunshatterer tribe.

  Isiah taught Kurdan about this thing called ‘propaganda,’ how choosing the right words can manipulate men and orc alike into believing what he wanted them to believe. His messengers were quick to spread the word on how the Sunshatterer tribe fell. They detailed the violent fall of the Sunshatterers, how every single orcling was slaughtered for their hide and bones, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the Fleshrippers accepted those that surrendered. The chieftains of the minor tribes blustered in front of Kurdan’s messengers, exaggerating their strength and ability to repel the raiders. That bravado faded the minute his messengers left the villages though, with chieftains quickly gathering up their orcs and orclings to flee the oncoming warband.

  And while that Fleshripper warband chased shadows, Kurdan’s own Pikers and Berserkers assaulted the Fleshripper village. The hunters, breeders, and orclings left behind were no match for the well-trained, well-equipped force under Kurdan’s command. They slaughtered them all down to the last orcling, harvesting their skin and bones. Isiah was strangely silent during this period, not offering commentary of any sort even as Kurdan sniped down a fleeing she-orc and her orclings with his crossbow. He remained silent as Kurdan chopped up their limbs with his axe and flayed their skin with his knife, severing tendons and pulling out the bloody bones for later cleaning.

  He imagined himself in a similar situation. What if some other tribe attacked the Boneseekers first, catching him totally unprepared? He saw himself pulling away his orclings. They would be ready to fight—a given, considering they would come from his seed—but he would not allow them to die fruitlessly. If such a situation came to him, he would not follow the example of the she-orc he killed. No, he would command his orclings to run, to flee, to strengthen themselves to fight another day, while he threw himself at his attackers. Each moment bought for his orclings would increase their chances of successfully running away.

  He felt sorry for the mother he had to kill.

  Kurdan grunted at that memory and shook the thoughts out of his head. Isiah was infecting him with his human empathy. It annoyed Kurdan, and he shoved it aside as brutally as he could. He needed the Fleshrippers to rage in fury. He needed the bones and the skins for weapons, especially in the next phase of his plan. He needed to weaken his enemies and strengthen his allies if he wanted the Boneseekers to carve out its place in orcish history. He needed to kill their entire tribe, down to the last orcling, if he was to clear a path for the future of his own orclings.

  Once they finished hunting down the last Fleshripper survivor, they burned out the vil
lage and proceeded to lay the trail for their deception. They brought along a Stonefist captive, one that led the hunting parties they ambushed. Kurdan impaled the captive’s hearts with his dagger before laying out Fleshripper corpses around his corpse, creating the illusion of a warrior who was cornered and slain by his enemies.

  The result of Kurdan’s deception lay before him: three different warbands all engaged in a massive free-for-all, drunk on their lust for blood. He counted on that bloodlust to keep them blind as he raised his spear, signaling his orcs to move out to crush the tired, blooded, and worn-out mass of orcs before him.

  That day heralded the end of what scholars would later call the Warring Tribes Period—as well as the beginnings of the First Orcish Era.

  Chapter 19

  “The hell is wrong with this nutcase?”

  Isiah snarled as he shrugged off another savage punch to the face, his eyes glued to the agitated gangbanger in front of him. His pals huffed behind him, tired beyond words as the gangbanger’s tattooed arm shook with fatigue—and a lot of fear hidden behind bravado. Deciding enough was enough, he shoved his hand into a pocket and pulled out a switchblade that hissed out of its handle with a press of a button.

  “Woah! Hey, easy!” said one of the banger’s pals. “Put that away! You cut this white boy up, bleed him out, and the cops’ll be all over the place. And you know they know how white meat loves to play things up when one of their precious little piglets bites it!”

  “Tell that to this fool!” shouted the ganger, not taking his eyes off Isiah. “Shit, we’ve been whaling on the little runt for over half an hour now! Druggie must be high on Flakka or something the way he’s just taking it all and asking for more. Well, I’ve got more to give, so come on, make my—”

  The ganger’s eyes popped out of their sockets as Isiah’s arm shot forward in a blur and grabbed his hand with unnatural strength. He couldn’t even budge his limb, much less break away from Isiah’s rock-solid grip. The ganger expected the crazy little boy to snap his hand or throw him around, like something out of a kung-fu flick. Instead, the boy slowly walked into the knife, burying it to the hilt in his gut.

  “That feels better,” growled Isiah through gritted teeth, reveling in both his pain and the panic in the ganger’s eyes. “So… much… better.”

  The gangers halted their pretense and just gawked, first at the ganger’s blade and at Isiah’s crazed grin.

  “Aw, hell. Miss me with that shit, I’m out!”

  And with that, the gangers tripped all over themselves as they put as much distance between them and the masochistic druggie begging for them to end him. After a few more moments of squirming, Isiah let the ganger’s hand go as he bolted off after his friends.

  Isiah slumped down on the alley’s dirty floor, lying back with the switchblade still buried in his stomach. He spaced out, staring at the overcast sky as his blood began pulling out the damaged flesh, patching it over with coagulated blood that morphed into whatever type of cell was needed to repair the injured organ. He didn’t even need to consciously think about healing himself anymore. He had been training so rigorously the past few weeks that his body simply learned how to fix itself on its own.

  “This tantrum of yours is unseemly,” grunted Kurdan within Isiah’s thoughts, shattering his moment of pain-induced peace. “It will not bring back the orcs and orclings I killed, nor will it convince me that what I did to the Fleshripper tribe was unneeded.”

  Isiah said nothing, thought nothing back to Kurdan as he continued staring at the sky. This went on for a few more minutes before Isiah replied. “I know,” he thought back, cutting off Kurdan just as he was about to break the stalemate and go into another lengthy lecture. “I know that the Fleshrippers did the same thing to the Sunshatterers, and that this is normal for your kind. It’s just that… it’s just that I cannot help but feel that it is wrong. Those orcs in the village, the orclings running around? They were just civilians.”

  “First off, there are no civilians in orcish society,” Kurdan said. “We are all trained from birth for battle, from the forager rooting around for edibles in the ground to the breeder patting her swollen belly as she waits to give birth. That might change one day, when orcish society is like yours. Maybe one day, we will have specialists who don’t need to fight for the survival of the entire tribe. Until that day comes, every orc you see will be more than willing to tear your head off given the chance.

  “Second, the false-flag operation that you planned out required no witnesses. You argued that no Fleshripper should be left alive to report back to the warband. The historical examples you collected all relied on the victims being ignorant of the truth. Those orclings, those breeders, needed to die, and it was your idea.”

  Isiah winced at the painful truth that Kurdan hurled his way. He shut his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth as he digested Kurdan’s words. It was one thing to be an armchair general, pondering about the grand strategies of war from a detached point of view. It was quite another to ride inside the skull of someone who shoots bolts into the backs of fleeing children before skinning and deboning them.

  Isiah inhaled deeply, relishing the strain he placed upon his expanded lungs. He blew out a breath in frustration, pulling himself up and shaking out of the funk he found himself in. “Okay. I’ll admit that what happened with the Fleshrippers was partially my fault. I came up with the idea to slaughter every last orc to cover up the attack and pin the blame on the Stonefists. Right… can I ask for a favor, though?”

  Kurdan grunted in annoyance, though the grunt was deeper and more drawn-out than his usual grunts. Kurdan wasn’t really annoyed, but curious and trying to cover it up.

  “I hate it when you do that,” interrupted Kurdan, breaking Isiah’s thoughts.

  “Hey, you do it to me all the time. It’s just fair that I read up a little on your thoughts as well.”

  Kurdan barked out a laugh within Isiah’s mind, causing the boy to smile softly as he brushed away what dirt he could from his clothing. He even pulled the blood out of his clothing and back inside his body—after disposing of the impurities it had picked up, of course.

  “Very well. What is your favor?”

  “Can you establish the foundations for a school?”

  “A… school? You mean, like the school you attend most days?”

  “Yes,” replied Isiah as he walked out of the alley and unto the street. He had decided to cut classes that day, skip out and just walk around the seedier, run-down parts of town looking for trouble. He still felt a stab of guilt whenever he thought about the annihilation of the Fleshripper village, but this train of thought helped revitalize him somewhat.

  “The three great tribes in your forests have fallen. Your tribe now stands tall above the rest due to your superior weapons, training, and agriculture. Your researchers are discovering new things almost every day, and that’s only from tinkering with the natural resources of the forest around you. You will be able to establish the safety and security they need to keep exploring the world, discovering new things.

  “I want you to create a school that encourages this learning. Train your orclings to fight, but train them to think as well. Make it so that they’ll grow up appreciating the world around them. They will start seeing the world differently even as they swing their clubs and axes, train with the pike and the crossbow.

  “And then there’s the fact that you can convince the next generation of orcs to think the way you do. You may bully the adult orcs into obeying your will now, but what happens when you’re gone? The slaves you have now, the slaves you’ll take in the future, what will befall them when your successors go back to the old ways? The schools will ensure that your way of thinking will survive long past your own life.

  “You could even bring human children into these schools, train them to sharpen their minds as well. You’ll then create a new generation of followers that will support your way of thinking when they grow up—giving
you a stronger support base to counter the traditionalists that would betray everything you’ve been working so hard to build up.”

  Isiah sat down on a bench while he monologued to Kurdan, who remained silent during his impassioned plea. He watched people pass by, from hipsters with their awkward attempts to stand out to haggard, stressed-out moms pulling their bawling kids behind them.

  “You’re forgetting something,” thought Kurdan with a hint of accusation mixed in with it. Isiah sighed and shook his head as Kurdan picked up on the sentiment that Isiah wanted to hide from the orc. “That part is for my own selfish desire,” Isiah replied. “I see no merit in openly sharing that to you.”

  “And yet the idea is in the back of your mind, as clear to me as if you thought it out aloud,” countered Kurdan. “You want me to establish a school so that I won’t have to slaughter the orclings from the Stonefist and Goretusk tribes. You would have me spare the spawn of enemies that, given the chance, would have gladly skinned and deboned every orcling in my tribe.”

  Isiah’s heart skipped a beat, frightened that Kurdan would shoot down his suggestion because of mercy—a weakness that the orc had frowned on ever since Isiah first knew him.

  “You’re right,” Kurdan said. “I see no merit in that line of argument. However, your earlier arguments do strike me as reasonable.” Isiah felt Kurdan’s pleasure roll into his mind, and he was sure the orc was grinning within his mental space. “Very well. You will have your school, and I will open it up to the orclings from any tribe—including the ones I will take from the Goretusks and the Stonefists. They will see things my way, learn what I tell them to learn, or they will be harvested for their organs.”