Becoming the Orc Chieftain

by E. M. Hardy

  His breath settled upon the bloody orb, forming a shell of coagulated blood on its exterior. Unable to take the strain, Cagros collapsed on boneless knees—taking great, big gulps of air.

  It was then that another figure stepped out of the shadows. A feminine woman materialized beside the still-panting Cagros, one dressed in floating garments, including a blindfold that loosely covered her unseeing eyes. She held a scale in one hand and a rod in the other as she stepped gracefully toward the fallen god.

  “Cagros,” whispered the Just and Merciful as she came to a stop.

  “Galena,” rasped the Bloodletter as he slowly stood up, doing his best to recover from the shameful display she found him in.

  “I was surprised that you allowed my faithful to establish a temple in the seat of your power,” Galena said, her face a mask of calm as she took in the scene before her. “I am even more surprised that you allowed me to see… this.”

  “You can blame my two champions here,” Cagros grunted, not bothering to wipe away the sweat dripping from his brow. “I figured they would bring about a little Chaos into the world to give me strength. I just didn’t expect just how much Chaos they’d be unleashing.”

  Galena smiled thinly, her lips slanting slightly upward. “On the contrary, I believe their actions with the tribes reflect more Order than Chaos, especially this human you’ve stolen from the gods of another world.”

  Cagros chuckled at Galena’s words. “Nosy little goddess, aren’t you?”

  Galena straightened up, turning her sightless eyes upon her fellow deity. “Be careful with these games you play, Cagros. As much as I love the humans under my care, I want nothing to do with the humans you are cavorting with. The rules exist for a reason. Take things too far, and you will bring disaster upon our world.”

  “Bah,” Cagros huffed as he waved her away, returning his focus to the ball of blood floating before them. “I only altered the fate of a single human, and I’m keeping a close eye on him. It’s not like I’m tearing open the fabric of reality in their world and coming through to claim it as my own. Even I am not as stupid as to openly defy the gods watching over that world.”

  Galena shifted uneasily beside Cagros, something that the Bloodletter noticed. “What?” he barked as he turned his attention back to the goddess.

  “The other gods have been watching,” she finally admitted, tightening her grip on the scales and scepter she held in her hands. “And they have grown envious of your champion’s success, of the sudden surge of power you gained from what Isiah and Kurdan have accomplished. They may be contemplating… borrowing your idea.”

  Cagros’ eyes widened, then a wide grin split his face into two. “Really now?”

  Galena hesitated, gauging Cagros’ reaction, before sighing in defeat. “Please don’t tell me you planned for this to happen.”

  Cagros laughed out loud as he shifted his attention back to the sphere of blood floating before him. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. After all, who am I to complain about all the Chaos that those idiots will unleash? If I’m lucky, one or two will overstep their bounds and gain the attention of the gods of Isiah’s world.” Cagros continued laughing, fatigue forgotten, as he finished the task of splitting apart the merged souls into two unique beings.

  Chapter 31

  The world reformed around Kurdan, filled with screams and shouts of anger. One vaguely familiar voice rose in defiance, followed by two loud pops and more screams, before Kurdan fully regained his faculties.

  Death surrounded Kurdan’s consciousness, wrapping around him and tugging at him. The orc, however, shoved Death back—Cagros’ blessing giving him the power to do so. The formless tendrils of Death recoiled, almost in surprise at the sudden burst of life. Realizing what was happening, Kurdan held Death at bay while he split his attention toward himself.

  A dead human body, one torn apart by bullets bursting through its soft innards. Kurdan scoffed at its frailty. The bullets used to kill Isiah, to rip him apart, would only pass through an inch of orc flesh. It would barely dent the bones of an orc, much less break through with enough force. The flying wads of lead would merely glance off the skull and spine of a true orc. And even if such weapons pierced through the flesh and tear through an organ, a true orc would need only to focus for a few moments to repair such small points of damage. The injuries would be easily repaired, especially if they are inflicted without a god’s blessing or a mage’s enchantment.

  Kurdan went to work, still riding high from Cagros’ blessing.

  He focused on the cage surrounding Isiah’s vital organs. He reshaped Isiah’s bones, turning them from fragile, easily-snapped twigs into brutally rigid pillars of toughness and durability. He sealed up the hole in Isiah’s skull and reinforced his spine, ensuring that the manling would have a better chance of staying conscious from his injuries. He then went to work on the ribs, strengthening and widening them to provide better protection for the organs contained within.

  With the pillars and cages of orcbone in place, Kurdan moved on to fixing the life-sustaining organs pierced by the flying strips of lead. Brain, lungs, kidneys, liver, stomach, intestine—he reformed and restored all those damaged by the bullets. He took one look at Isiah’s single heart and huffed in disgust. If he was going to fix Isiah’s body, he might as well go all the way and make it better. He reshaped Isiah’s body, pulling from Cagros’ blessing to form a second heart for the manling. It would sustain the blood he needed for the rest of his modifications as he went about restoring Isiah’s broken and battered muscles.

  And finally, he moved on to the skin. The pale organ was so easily torn, so easily damaged, that Kurdan simply couldn’t tolerate it. He pulled at the last dregs of Cagros’ blessing and used it to reshape the skin. Isiah’s yellowish skin darkened into grey ash, soaking up in the colors of the dirty concrete beneath him, as Kurdan shaped his skin to his liking. He wanted to go further, transform it into the tough, leathery hide that shielded orcs from the elements, but he could already feel Cagros’ blessing running out. He poured the rest of the blessing out into the skin, reinforcing it as much as he could.

  The world began to reform around Kurdan as the last of Cagros’ blessing petered out. He settled into Isiah’s body, driving the twin hearts to pump out boiling hot blood as he reignited the spark of life within the manling’s body.

  There were enemies to slay, to rip asunder, and Kurdan was raring to see just how far Cagros’ blessing would go in the heat of battle.

  ***

  Abigail whimpered as she clutched Eddison’s limp form. Her boyfriend had stepped up, attempting to shield everyone from the masked men threatening them with their guns. All he got for his efforts was a bullet in the gut and leg. They seemed to be after Olivia and Hasan, but they were taking no chances: they were pushing and shoving everyone to get back into the van. She was the last one out, refusing to leave her boyfriend to bleed to death in the middle of the road. The gunmen shouted at one another in Arabic, seeming to confirm that they had their primary targets. One of the gunmen raised the butt of his rifle, preparing to slam it into Abigail’s face, when a sickening crunch pulled everyone’s attention away from whatever they were doing.

  There, behind the masked gunmen, stood Isiah—alive and whole once again, though looking strangely pale and ashen. His face was contorted into a mask of absolute rage, his bloody clothes hanging in tatters, as he pulled his bloody hand away from the chest cavity of one of the gunmen. The gunman choked, spitting out blood from his ruptured lungs, as Isiah unceremoniously shoved the dying man toward his comrades. Three of the clustered gunmen fell back, pushed to the ground by the gunman with the gaping wound in his chest.

  The two remaining gunmen raised their rifles at him, ready to finish what they started, as Isiah leapt forward. He bowled over one of the gunmen, rolling with him to the ground. That gunman’s neck was contorted at a disturbingly sharp angle as Isiah bounded away from his corpse, leaping once more
toward the other gunman. The terrorist managed to fire off three rounds, one of them slamming into Isiah’s chest right before he brought two fists down upon the man’s head—popping it like a melon as it imploded into his neck.

  Isiah—or rather, Kurdan—didn’t even acknowledge the wound in his chest. Not that he needed to since the flesh around the wound was already closing itself up. His body spat out a chunk of lead, torn and deformed as it had slammed into an orcbone rib that had absorbed the impact. Not surprising, considering that lead is a lot softer, more malleable than thrice-burnt Halewood. That, and the meager amount of gunpowder propelling the tiny projectile could never match the amount of force that an orcish arm could store within the fibers of treated Poison Creeper vine.

  Abigail gaped as Isiah turned his attention toward the three remaining gunmen still reeling from the impact. She watched as he bent over and picked up the rifle, studying it with a scowl. He shook his head in apparent disgust as he pointed the gun at the three men and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Kurdan scowled with Isiah’s lips as he examined it further, not knowing that he needed to flick off the safety before it would fire. One the gunmen was already on his knees, tugging at the pistol strapped to his waist. Kurdan saw this, grunted in disgust, and threw the rifle at the gunman—shattering both the wooden butt of the gun as well as the jaw of the man taking aim with his pistol.

  Isiah took too long though, for the other gunmen already had their pistols out and aimed at him. Kurdan didn’t bother bracing; he ran headlong into the barrels that cracked and spat out chunks of lead. The gunmen kept squeezing the triggers, emptying the eighteen rounds within the magazines of both pistols. Eight missed, some dinging off the concrete and others slamming into a couple of trash bins and abandoned stalls. Ten bullets found their mark: six in Isiah’s chest, two in each leg, one in his throat, and another in his shoulder.

  None managed to penetrate more than an inch into muscle, save for the bullet to the throat. It just ripped through the flesh and pinged harmlessly off the bone. Kurdan choked a bit as the bullet interrupted his breathing, but he just snorted the excess blood from the injury and didn’t bother fixing the torn flesh. No, he was too busy charging straight toward gunmen, who were just now realizing that something was off even as two of them reloaded and one drew a knife.

  Kurdan reached one of the gunmen first, leapt, and slammed a closed fist down into the crown of his head, crumpling the man into a boneless heap as his skull cracked and his neck collapsed with the force of the blow. The last gunman knew that this boy, this demon, was not going to die to their meager guns. He uttered a prayer on his lips, reciting a verse from the Quran that was twisted and corrupted so that fanatics like him could justify their butchery, and reached underneath his vest.

  Before the gunman could unlock the trigger though, Kurdan rolled with the momentum of his earlier attack, spinning into the last remaining gunman and knocking him down into the ground. During the spin, Kurdan grabbed the man’s elbow and yanked—pulling it out of its socket in a shower of blood and torn ligaments as he flung the man’s corpse away. The would-be suicide bomber went into shock before he could even understand what happened to him—much less reach under his vest with his other arm to trigger the bomb strapped to his torso.

  Kurdan shot back up, wielding the torn limb like a club, ready to bash it over the one remaining threat and any other threat that wanted a piece of him.

  The driver in the van did not share in the desire of his comrades to die that day. He did not wear the bomb vests that would guarantee death before capture, nor did he have any desire to prematurely give his life up for a mythical paradise awaiting them in the afterlife. He expected an easy snatch while others fought to their last breath, creating a distraction while taking down as many of the infidels with them as they could. Simply put, the driver knew a lost cause when he saw one. He stepped down on the gas, gunning away from the disaster as quickly as he could. In his haste to escape, he didn’t even notice the muffled thud and splat of a severed arm denting the van’s rear.

  Yes, his team had failed to secure the daughter of Senator Winters and the son of the traitor el-Asmar, but he would have quite the tale to tell to his superiors—especially since he had captured it all on the camera mounted on the masked helmet he had strapped on right before he conducted the raid.

  ***

  Everyone in the gang stared dumbfounded as their friend knelt beside Eddison, inspecting his leaking bullet wounds. They were doing all they could to keep their attention focused on him and not on the grisly remains of the men around him, some of them literal pieces of meat on the pavement.

  “I am going to try and do something about that,” Kurdan said gruffly to Eddison through Isiah’s lips, nodding at the bullet wounds he suffered.

  Eddison started, his attention having wandered away toward the bloody remains of the six gunmen. He wasn’t alone in doing so; Abigail, Bernabé, Hasan, and Olivia were all trying their hardest to avoid looking at the carnage, each reacting differently to the scene before them. Other people began popping out of their shelters, craning their necks out of windows and doors as they tried to comprehend what was going on in front of them.

  “Sure,” Eddison said through gritted teeth, “Not like bleeding out all over the place will help me out here.” He forced himself to look back at Isiah—or at Kurdan, who was currently taking control of Isiah’s body. The supposed orc spoke with his best friend’s voice, but the sound that came out was far graver, somber… and deadlier.

  Kurdan grunted in assent and brought his attention back to the wounds. The bullet in the leg was good, nothing more than a flesh wound that passed through the meat of the thigh. The blood only dripped out, which meant that it was a wound that could wait. The injury to the gut, however, was more dangerous. The blood was pouring out copiously, leaking through Eddison’s hand as he pressed it tightly upon the wound. Kurdan was not sure if Eddison would survive his injuries long enough for one of the healers to reach him.

  Then again, he could copy what Isiah did with Urgan—except this time, he would be looking to close an injury instead of forcing one open.

  Kurdan stood up, approached the nearest chunk of dead gunman, and began patting his body down. He found the knife he needed and returned to Eddison, doing his best to remember what Isiah did at the time. He knelt down beside Eddison, ignoring the glare that Abigail shot his way as she put herself between him and her boyfriend.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she spat out, jutting a hand out to bar his progress.

  Kurdan stared in confusion at the she-man for just a moment. He followed her gaze and huffed in disgust as he saw her glaring at the knife in his hand. “I’m going to split Isiah’s palm open, draw out his blood, send it into this manling’s body, and use it to seal the wounds that may or may not kill him before your healers get here. They might not make it in time, considering the fighting going on.” Kurdan nodded toward the fighting a few dozen blocks away, additional gunshots and explosions ripping through the air. “Now get out of the way… Abigail, was it? Yes—get out of the way so that I can try and heal your mate my way.”

  Abigail bit her lip, unsure of what she wanted to do. Eddison helped her decide by laying a weak hand on her shoulder and giving her an even weaker nod. “He doesn’t have much life left in him,” interrupted Kurdan as he impatiently shoved her aside.

  Abigail and Eddison grimaced at Kurdan’s rudeness, but all that was wiped away by the shock of seeing their friend plunge the dagger deeply into his palm. It wasn’t a cut, it wasn’t a slice, it was a powerful stab right into the flesh… and the steel dagger actually warped after penetrating nothing more than an inch into the palm. Kurdan twisted the blade in further, his face scrunched up in annoyance as he viciously wiggled the dagger around.

  Soon enough, a steady stream of blood began pouring out into his palm. Everyone’s eyes widened as the pooled blood swi
rled before forming little tendrils wiggling out in the air. Without as much as a word of warning, Kurdan slapped his fist into Eddison’s belly—eliciting a yelp from the downed boy as the blood wormed its way into his wound.

  Kurdan focused intently on the wound, pouring every ounce of will he could into controlling the blood. He sifted through his memories, through Isiah’s memories of the night with Urgan. He recalled the way that the manling coaxed his blood out of its mortal shell, to answer to his will, to obey even the most unnatural orders.

  Slowly, surely, Isiah’s blood responded to Kurdan’s call. He willed the blood to probe deeper into Eddison’s body, to enter the broken veins leaking blood and to cover the ruptured flesh of punctured intestines. He willed his own blood to coagulate, to harden, right before he killed the blood. Eddison’s body would still detect the intrusion, rebel against the violation of blood that didn’t belong, but it would not react as violently as it would against living blood. It should at least buy enough time for Eddison to reach one of the healers, who would seal the wounds for good.

  The gravest of injuries addressed, Kurdan turned his attention to the leg wound. He used Isiah’s dead, hardened blood to stifle the bleeding, to Eddison’s relief. The pale manling nodded his thanks, and Kurdan nodded back as he pulled away from his task.

  Kurdan stood up in a rush, turning his attention toward the three black vehicles speeding toward him and the others. He picked up one of the attacker’s guns and held it up before Eddison. “Show me how to make this weapon ready to shoot,” he commanded. “We might have enemies incoming, and I need a weapon to help me kill them faster.”

  Eddison gulped as he raised his arm to hold the gun, but Abigail swatted his shivering hand down and clucked with her tongue. She grabbed the gun from Kurdan, flipped the safety off, and handed it back to him. “I’m surprised you don’t know how to flip off a safety switch. Isiah should know this stuff,” she bit back, still suspicious of the orc occupying her friend’s body.