Becoming the Orc Chieftain

by E. M. Hardy

  “Isiah is not with me right now,” Kurdan shot right back, holding up the rifle as he awkwardly aimed down its sights. “More importantly, you need to pull your friend to safety. I might not be able to save you all again in time, especially now that I do not have the element of surprise.”

  The three vehicles stopped a respectable distance away, their passengers quickly opening the doors and using them as shields as they pointed their own weapons at Isiah. One of them, however, waved his companions down while barking orders. As one, the new arrivals lowered their weapons, though none of them stepped away from their cover.

  “Friendlies! Friendlies!” shouted a voice that Kurdan vaguely recognized but couldn’t quite place. Eddison, however, recognized the voice quite fine.

  “Mister Hunter!? Kurdan, put that gun down, it’s Isiah’s dad!!” The man shouting the words removed his helmet and his sunglasses, revealing the familiar face of Isiah’s father.

  Kurdan held his weapon up a moment longer, just in case. Eddison’s earnest pleas and the nonthreatening way the new arrivals carried themselves convinced Kurdan to put down the rifle. He did, however, put himself between the new arrivals and Isiah’s friends—just in case.

  Seeing his son put down the weapon—as well as Eddison’s injured form—Bradley Hunter ordered one of his men to follow him with a trauma kit right before he walked briskly toward the scene.

  Kurdan stiffened, every instinct in him telling him to fight back as the he-man furiously stomped his way toward him. Kurdan fought back the urge to punch the man as he closed in, then found himself caught completely off-guard when Bradley Hunter swept him up in a massive hug, tears flowing freely from the man’s closed eyes.

  He had seen this happen many times through Isiah’s eyes, but it was the first time that the orc had ever experienced a hug himself. His gut clenched as an indescribable feeling wormed its way up his spine, though he found himself not disliking the feeling entirely. Before he realized what he was doing, he found himself hugging the crying man back.

  “Oh, thank God. Congressman Blevins reached out to me with a call, telling me his son Charley called him up, babbling about seeing you get all shot up by a Golden Sword terror squad. I thought… I thought I lost you already, son. I was ready to bring bloody murder to all those bastards, to put those animals in the ground, make them pay… for… harming… you?”

  Bradley Hunter halted mid-speech as his eyes focused on the scene of carnage before him. Shattered heads, torn limbs, punctured chest cavities—and a son wearing bloody, shot-up clothes.

  “Yes,” Kurdan’s gravelly voice rumbled from Isiah’s lips as he loosened his embrace and gently pushed Isiah’s father away. “I believe this will require some explaining.”

  Chapter 32

  “Your weakness, your defect is known to me—and now I announce it to all! KURDAN THE BARREN! I CHALLENGE YOU FOR THE POSITION OF OVERCHIEF!!!”

  Isiah almost stumbled at the ruckus greeting him as he stepped groggily out of Kurdan’s cabin. Cagros’ ritual was not kind to the mind, body, or soul. He felt like he had been shoved into a blender and spat out after a good hour or two of being chopped into pulp. He also felt something distinctly off about Kurdan’s body, more so than the night before.

  He squinted at the puffed-up orc standing a few meters away, sporting all sorts of weird patterns drawn on his skin with mud while holding the crown of a huge battleaxe as its handle rested heavily on the dirt. Dozens of other orcs ambled up, some curious about what was going on and others downright livid at the upstart chieftain. Even a couple of human slaves going about their errands slowed down, wondering what the early-morning shouting was about.

  “Who are you again?” Isiah blurted out before he could control himself.

  The orc scowled angrily, his green-and-brown face darkening at the insult. “Is your brain as defective as your loins, Kurdan? Do you not remember the threats you hurled my way?”

  “No, seriously,” Isiah continued, tightening his hands into a fist as he palmed the orcbone dagger strapped to his belt and slid its tip into his palm. “I find it not worth the time or the effort to remember upstarts that forget their sense of gratitude. I also tend to forget the ones that fail to remember their place in front of their betters.” Isiah tightened his focus, remembering what happened with Urgan the night before.

  The challenging chieftain snorted as he eyed Isiah—or rather, Kurdan—up and down. “I see that the rumors were indeed true. You are weaker than when I last saw you. Even your own body betrays you. Ashen hide, thinned muscles, blackened tusks… you are well on the way to killing yourself, Kurdan the Barren.” The orc straightened back, slung his battleaxe over his shoulder, and beat his chest loudly. “LISTEN WELL, KURDAN THE BARREN AND FORGETFUL! I AM GUNAAK OF THE BLOODFIST TRIBE! I CHALLENGE YOU FOR THE POSITION OF OVERCHIEF OF ALL THE ORCISH TRIBES! ANSWER ME NOW, OR FOREVER MARK YOURSELF AS A COWARD AND A WEAKLING!!!”

  Isiah glanced to the side, shifting uncomfortably. Borba stood to the side, saddened by the sight before her, while Alyon and Bartholomew wore worried, pensive expressions on their faces. Kurdan was bad, yes, but they knew that he still held the humans in much higher esteem than any other orc in the tribe. They didn’t know what would happen if some other orc took over and overturned everything that Kurdan did to make the human slaves indispensable to orcish society.

  Gnadug and Urul burst from the crowd, but they were too late. Gunaak had issued the challenge twice already, and there was no way that Isiah could back down from such a public call-out without obliterating Kurdan’s authority. It would have been nice for Isiah to consult Kurdan on what to do, but the orc was nowhere in his mind. Whatever Cagros had done, it had split Kurdan’s consciousness away and left Isiah in his body.

  Isiah, however, had been ghosting Kurdan long enough that there was only one answer to such a challenge. “I accept,” he said plainly as he plunged the dagger into his palm—releasing the blood locked within his body.

  Gunaak roared with all the might and fury he could muster as he leaped forward, his battleaxe ready to cleave into Kurdan’s weakened body. He rushed ahead, confident in the knowledge that Kurdan was not the orc that he used to be. Yes, Kurdan’s warning had saved the Bloodfist tribe from a Fleshripper attack that would have decimated it. Kurdan’s weakened state, however, was the perfect chance for him to step up and take his position for himself. Besides, there was no way that the tribes would obey the orders of an impotent orc that couldn’t even sire a brood of his own.

  Gunaak, however, found his knees inexplicably buckling from underneath him. His arms followed suit, and his massive battleaxe dropped to the dirt as his hands fell limply to his sides. He tried roaring out, tried calling the bloodlust to give him the power he needed to press the attack. Nothing came out except a strangled choke as his body refused to obey his will. He pushed, pulled, tugged, and raged with every ounce of his will, but nothing happened. The orc could only fall to his side as even his knees found themselves sapped of the strength they needed to keep him upright. He stared down and saw a network of blood threads crawling all over the ground. Those threads wrapped around his legs, and they seemed to pulse as they drew blood away from his body.

  By the time Isiah was done exsanguinating Gunaak, the opportunistic chieftain was nothing more than a dried-out husk of flesh and bone.

  Isiah kept his face flat and neutral as he watched the stream of blood that flowed from the dead orc into his wounded palm. When the deed was done, he flexed his palm; rotating it this way and that as he marveled at it. He had simply aimed to replicate what he had done the night before, when he planted his blood into Urgan’s body to tear it apart from within. Cagros’ blessing, however, made the whole task far easier than he remembered. His blood sang as he willed it to obey his will, and he encountered no resistance when he slipped his blood into Gunaak’s body. In fact, Gunaak’s own blood began singing in obedience as his blood wormed its way into the orc’s body. Guna
ak’s blood obeyed his every desire without so much as a hint of resistance, easily merging with his own blood as the vital fluids came into contact with one another.

  All he had to do was pull, and Gunaak soon found himself emptied of life-giving, life-sustaining blood.

  Isiah closed his eyes in satisfaction as Gunaak’s blood rushed into his palm. He felt the familiar surge of strength flow into him, just like with Urgan. The best part was that he didn’t even need to shove his face into a wound to drink his fill of blood now. No, he just willed it to flow into him—nice, clean, and orderly.

  Everyone who witnessed the brief spectacle paled. Orc and human alike stepped away from their Overchief, suddenly worried about getting on his bad side. He looked deceptively weak, his muscles much thinner than they should be. His skin was ash-grey instead of mottled green and brown, and his tusks were sickly black instead of vibrant yellow. By all accounts, Kurdan the Barren looked like a frail orc that had been weakened by the realization that he was defective. Instead, Kurdan the Overchief magically exsanguinated a much-stronger chieftain that should have easily stomped him into oblivion.

  “Cagros the Bloodletter has given me his gift,” Isiah spoke out loud to everyone that had witnessed the fight—or more accurately, the execution. “This blessing of his has changed me in ways that I have yet to fully grasp—including the fact that he has taken things from me as payment for his blessing. One thing I am sure of, however, is that these gifts all serve a greater purpose. My children, my orclings… for the power to make sure that your orclings will grow strong and plentiful.”

  Isiah was making this all up as he went along, though everyone was too shaken by Gunaak’s dried-out shell to really pay attention to the little tells that gave away his improvisation.

  “The time for pure brawn, for nothing more than mindless brawling and endless infighting, is over. By the blessing that Cagros has bestowed upon me, by the authority he has given me through this gift, I hereby put an END to these stupid, impulsive, and ultimately self-destructive challenges.” Isiah cast his baleful gaze upon the other chieftains as they pushed and shoved their way to the front of the crowd, only to gape at the sight of Gunaak.

  “Chieftains!” Isiah roared, causing the chieftains to twist their heads toward him in thinly-disguised contempt. “The mantle of Overchief is not some title that is meant to be stolen and passed around to whoever can kill the best. It is not about glory, prestige, position, or even power. It is a responsibility, a duty, to strengthen the peoples that count on you. The warrior who will throw his life at whoever needs to die, the forager who braves the forest to bring home game, the farmer who toils every day to grow crops for the tribes, the woodsman who chops down trees, the researcher who unlocks the secrets of the material world, the shaman who guides us in the ways of the blood, the priest who heals our injuries—the Overchief is responsible for strengthening EVERYONE under his watch.”

  The remaining chieftains winced as they realized the full impact of what being Overchief meant.

  “And none of you—none of us—will accomplish anything if we are constantly plotting against one another, overthrowing one another for petty, selfish reasons. No, if you must channel your ambitions, then you must do so in a way that ensures you have the strength, wisdom, and foresight to ensure that you can meet your responsibilities. I will not have your people—OUR people—suffer because of these stupid games! We need something better than these stupid challenges, a system that will do more than create chaos each time the leadership is challenged. We need something different, something better than all this!”

  Isiah slammed his foot on the ground in frustration while willing his excess blood to splatter in a crimson fountain around him. Everyone in attendance scampered away, unwilling to expose themselves to the deadly blood that had so easily ended a strong, healthy orc chieftain in a matter of moments. A few brave chieftains, however, stood their ground even as Kurdan’s deadly blood rained down upon them—along with a blind but mesmerized priestess that was unwilling to tear herself away from what was happening before her.

  Isiah recalled the blood back into his body, save for the blood that had soaked his chosen councilors. He cast his gaze upon them, upon the four bloody figures who stared solemnly back at him. Torgan, Chieftain of the Woodfall Tribe. Zorag, Chieftain of the Rockfall Tribe. Kargan, Chieftain of the Bonegnasher Tribe. And Alyon, Priestess of Galena and Overseer of the Humans. Isiah took the sight in and smirked as the solution clicked into place. “Yes. Yes… something like… like a Blood Council.”

  Chapter 33

  Isiah groaned as he came to. Visions of the Council stirred around his memories, from the confused faces of the chieftains as he explained the sharing of power to the strange, disturbingly clinical way the priestess had studied his proposals. All these ideas and more swam around his mind as he settled down for the third night’s Sleep—all without a peep from Kurdan.

  Isiah found himself thankful for the fact that a blinding white light slammed into his eyeballs as he opened his eyelids. That kind of light was artificial, from an old fluorescent-style bulb, and he sagged in relief as he realized he wasn’t stuck in Kurdan’s body.

  The straps binding him down to his bed, however, weren’t as comforting.

  Isiah blinked the grogginess away, swiveling his head left and right to get a better bearing on his surroundings. He was in a bare room, painted concrete surrounding him while two dome-shaped cameras discreetly watched over him from their respective corners. One of the walls held a large mirror—no doubt a two-way mirror—and Isiah’s blood chilled as he realized he was being held prisoner in a secure facility of some kind.

  His cold blood quickly boiled as he began drawing on blood for strength. Something was wrong, though. His blood reacted far easier to his call, surging from all over his body. His muscles, his bones… they felt different as well. He gave himself a cursory internal review, checked the status of his body, and widened his eyes when he discovered he was less human, more orc on the inside.

  No doubt about it, his skeleton was now orcbone. His muscles and skin were not as tough or as substantial as Kurdan’s, but it was a far step above the body he was used to growing up. He even had two hearts beating one after the other as they pumped blood all over his body. The biggest giveaway, however, was the fact that his skin was no longer the pale ivory that marked his mother’s Korean heritage. No, his skin was the color of freshly-laid concrete, with mottled patches of darker grey scattered all over. Where the green-and-brown markings of orcish skin would help them blend in with the forest, Isiah’s rough, ashen complexion would help him blend in with the concrete jungle.

  Whatever he looked like now, it would appear that Cagros had made good on his promise of regenerating Isiah’s body. Isiah could only hope that the orcish god was able to do so in time for him to save his friends.

  The door to the room opened gently as Isiah stirred. He stiffened as thoughts of ghoulish experiments and secretive black sites flitted through his thoughts. He tugged harder at his restraints, pushed his twin hearts to the limit so that he could rip out the restraints at their anchors if need be.

  His efforts ground to a halt when his father’s face poked through the door, followed by the rest of his friends. Olivia, Abigail, Bernabé, Hasan… even Eddison, who limped along on a crutch while sporting a medical gown that barely hid the bandages all over his stomach.

  “Dad?” Isiah said aloud, unable to hide the fear in his voice.

  Bradley Hunter kept his face flat, neutral—the face that he wore whenever Isiah knew that he was in real trouble with his normally-playful dad. “Isiah? Is that you? Or are you still…?”

  “I… yeah, it’s me, dad,” Isiah blurted out after only hesitating for the briefest of moments.

  Bradley’s severe expression flagged, replaced by a wave of relief that sent his shoulders drooping from their formerly alert, distrustful state. “Oh, thank God, son. After what Kurdan said, I was wor
ried that you might never come back.”

  Isiah’s brows shot up as he realized what his father was saying. “You… you talked to Kurdan?”

  Bradley nodded. “He briefed us on everything that went down, on the deal you made with this… this thing pretending to be a god.” Isiah winced as he saw his father frown, and he knew that he was going to have to do a lot of explaining about his deal with Cagros the Bloodletter to his very Christian father. Bradley then pointed to the gang. “They filled me in on the rest.”

  Bernabé shrugged helplessly, while Abigail and Olivia smiled weakly in response. Hasan, however, nodded gravely to Isiah. “If it weren’t for you, for Kurdan, they would have taken us all. And I can tell you right now that I—and probably Olivia—would probably feature in one of those sick execution videos that the Golden Sword releases every now and then.”

  Bradley sighed, shaking his head. “Our intel was off… way off. The GS did everything they could to make us believe they’d pull an attack on another major city like New York or even DC itself. Instead, they went for a hit on a city in the middle of nowhere. And even that was just a cover for taking the daughter of Senator Winters hostage.” His eyes slid over Hasan for just a moment, as if he wanted to say something else, but he quickly moved on and returned his gaze back toward his son. “It’s a mess, all of it… but at least we have it contained now; I made damn well sure of that.”

  Bradley’s face darkened, deadly intent roiling off every pore of his skin. It lasted only for a moment though, as he cleared his bloodlust and shook his head. He approached Isiah’s bed and slipped in a key into the restraints holding Isiah down, causing them to drop off one after another as he finished his business. “Sorry about this, son. I did everything I could to explain to my superiors that you’re not a threat. And since they already know, I even brought in your friends to help ground you when you wake up. Frankly, however, I can’t blame my bosses when I try to explain that my son was transformed into… what, a half-orc?”