by E. M. Hardy
“Nope,” Isiah replied while shaking his head. “Dad got her to change her mind. She was just scared, you know. She didn’t really mean it.” He allowed a wry smile to form on his lips just then. “And yes, she’s making them rolls on Friday. A huge batch of them for all of us—you included.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Hasan, pumping his fists while forcing a smile on his face. “She can rag on me all she wants if that’s what it takes for your mom to whip up more of those bad boys for game nights!”
Isiah smiled, focusing on Hasan’s cheer while ignoring the pain that he tried and failed to hide.
It was at that moment that a tray of poorly-made mac-and-cheese spilled over Hasan’s head.
“Oops,” remarked Charlie Blevins, “Lost my footing there. Must have stepped on terrorist in training or something.” He plastered a patently fake expression of horror on his face. “Here, let me help you out. Oh, oops again,” he said as he dropped his soda right on top of Hasan’s head—but not before Isiah flashed his hand to catch the can mid-air.
“Careful there,” said Isiah as he narrowed his gaze and brought himself nose-to-nose with the belligerent boy. “You might accidentally fall down and get a fork in your eye. Maybe in your trachea. Did you know that you could bleed out in as little as a few minutes if a carotid artery is sliced open?” Blevins tried to hide his paling face with bravado, but Isiah didn’t give him a chance. “The fork could run up lengthwise if you’re unlucky enough. Then it would only take a few seconds for the human brain to start shutting down from the massive blood loss. Fun fact to learn, no?” Isiah’s grip on his fork tightened, and Blevins shot a nervous glance down at the implement of his impending doom.
Isiah felt a friendly hand rest on his shoulder, cautioning him about doing anything reckless. He didn’t bother turning around to see who it belonged to, nor did he care. His entire world was comprised solely of Charlie Blevins, Kurdan’s grunt of approval a distant echo within Isiah’s mind.
The bully finally mustered up enough courage to push Isiah away, chuckling nervously the whole while. “Yeah,” he said through gritted teeth, “Funny how accidents can happen.” He then turned his attention behind Isiah, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Like how certain individuals might suddenly find themselves under the attention of ICE. A call from a concerned citizen can go far, you know, especially in these trying times where our enemies attack us in our homes.” His grin widened as his eyes bored into Hasan’s. “Especially when it comes to terrorists pretending to be refugees, possibly passing information along to their camel-humping friends back home.”
Isiah narrowed his eyes, wondering what Blevins was getting to, when Hasan barreled past him and punched Blevins squarely in the face.
“YOU!” said Hasan, the normally shy and reserved boy transformed into a purple-faced ball of rage covered in baked macaroni. “You’re the asswipe that keeps reporting my dad to immigration!”
Blevins laughed maniacally as he fell back, reveling in Hasan’s misery. “And you show your true colors, terrorist scum,” he mocked, grinning despite his split lip. “I’m proud that I’ve done my part to help this great country of ours. Maybe if I had reported Bishr el-Asmar sooner, homeland security would have been able to prevent the attack on Lorain.”
“You MORON!” screamed Hasan. “They killed my grandfather, my grandmother, and two of my uncles! I watched their corpses drop to the floor when the GS riddled our family home with bullets! And you have the BALLS to tell me to my face that my dad is HELPING those murdering pricks!?”
Hasan had Blevins by the collar now, his spit flying over Blevins’ face as he poured his rage out. Blevins remained unconvinced as he wore his mad grin and stared at Hasan as if his rage was the sweetest, most addictive narcotic in the world.
Isiah’s rage, however, was nowhere near as tame as Hasan’s.
Blevins’ goons acted just as belligerent and defiant as their ringleader at first. They were so sure of their position, of the righteousness of their actions, that they clustered fiercely around their leader. As Isiah listened to the exchange between Hasan and Blevins, however, his menacing grimace morphed into a huffing, wide-eyed expression of pure hatred. The muscles of his body contracted tightly into bundles of concentrated power as he forced his heart to pump blood as rapidly and as powerful as it could. His lips curled unnaturally high as he hissed air into his furiously contracting lungs, demanding as much air as he could burn to supply his rapidly-peaking bloodlust.
Blevins’ goons traded looks with one another before glancing at their boss. One goon stepped back, his fear getting the better of him. He was quickly followed by a second and third goon. Soon enough, all of Blevins’ supporters had stepped back a healthy distance from their still-grinning ringleader. Who, by the way, was blind to anything but the fuming form of Hasan, who was trying desperately to stop himself from pulling Blevins’ face into the concrete.
It was all cut short when an elderly teacher rushed into the cafeteria, searching for and finding the disturbance that the cafeteria staff called in.
“You brats again?” groaned Mister McDonald as he narrowed his eyes in frustration. “I am getting sick and tired of having to break up your fights, you know that? His flippant tone changed, however, when he saw Hasan covered in baked mac menacing Blevins, who in turn sported a split lip. “Right, this changes everything. All of you, to the principal’s office. Now.”
Isiah fought hard to swallow the snarl that wanted to escape his lips. However, he knew deep down inside him that Mister McDonald could not afford to show favorites—not at this time. The old teacher knew of Blevins’ actions, but he could not ignore the fact that Hasan had assaulted him.
Which was unfair. Blevins had assaulted Hasan many times in the past, who bore the wounds that came with such encounters. However, the son of an influential congressman could get away with so much more than the son of a nobody immigrant who managed a grocery specializing in Halal foods.
“Weak,” muttered Kurdan in Isiah’s mind. “You should just end this Blevins once and for all. He cannot hide behind his father’s authority if he is dead.”
“If I do that,” countered Isiah, “Then I will quickly follow him in death, or something very close to that.”
Kurdan laughed a cruel, mocking laugh. “Then end him in secret. You humans are soft, weak, like you mentioned earlier. A dagger to this ‘carotid artery’ you mentioned would kill him quick enough. Just find a place where you can do it where no one can see you, and you eliminate this threat to yourself and the adopted tribe you call your friends.”
The idea played within Isiah’s mind all the way to the principal’s office. He found himself smiling at the thought of watching Blevins bleed out like a pig, confusion on his face as he choked on his blood while the world slowly went black around him. Kurdan smiled along with Isiah, reveling in the fantasy that played out within the boy’s mind.
Chapter 14
Kurdan crouched low, his eyes locked squarely on the force of a hundred-odd orcs silently jogging toward his village. What if his orcs failed to contain their bloodlust? What if they discarded their spears and jumped in for a brawl with their clubs, axes, daggers, and fists? What if the group on the other side of the ridge, the one led by Gnadug, could not wait for his signal to attack? What if they thought he was a coward for his weapon of choice, and they no longer decided to follow him? Or worse, what if they decided to leave him to his fate? What if—
Kurdan bit his tongue savagely, drawing blood. He swirled the blood around his mouth, drawing more from the wound to calm his anxieties down. He twirled his tongue around the blood before swallowing it and commanding his body to repair the damage. He then inhaled, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Thinking about plans and considering the various factors that went into them was taxing enough on him. But this waiting? This waiting was the worst of it. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to abandon these plans that Isiah had helped him
form, to give in to the bloodlust and just rush down the Goretusk raiders intruding into his territory.
But no, this was something he had decided long ago when he had made his pact with Isiah Hunter.
The moment came, and it was time for him to act. He remembered the way that Isiah’s blood boiled with frozen fury. It was not the hot kind of bloodlust that would swell muscles and infuse them with power and fortitude. No, Isiah’s bloodlust was far colder, more calculating. Kurdan drew himself into that trance, carefully controlling the flow of blood to focus on his heart, lungs, and brain.
The world slowed.
Each heavy step of the raiding orcs took a small eternity to hit the ground, striking up dirt and pebbles that arced leisurely in various directions. The Axe leading this raiding party turned around like a floating cloud, shouted something that came out deep and illegible to Kurdan’s hypersensitive ears. The Axe was probably shouting out commands to his raiders, telling them to slow down and spread out as they approached Kurdan’s village. Maybe he was mocking Kurdan for keeping his slaves alive, and that they would have so much fun taking and tormenting those slaves. Perhaps the Axe was boasting about how he would take Kurdan down in single combat. Or that Zazug, the Goretusk Chieftain, would reward the Axe for bringing in the envied breeders of the Boneseeker Tribe.
None of that mattered after a pointed bolt made of thrice-burnt Halewood pierced the Axe’s skull and sent him toppling dead into the dirt.
Blood riding high, the cold world settling around him, Kurdan ignored the shocked expressions of the orcs—both from the raiders standing gobsmacked in the middle of the ridge and the orcs hiding beside him in the bushes. He quickly pointed his crossbow to the ground, inserted his foot inside the stirrup, and pulled with all his might at the tightly-drawn string until it locked into place.
Normal bows should not work for or against orcs. Simply put, they did not possess enough power to harm orcs. Even the finely-crafted bows of the elves were minor inconveniences. Yes, they could penetrate an inch into the ropy flesh of orcs after penetrating their thick hide. However, they could never penetrate orcish bones nor do enough damage to put an orc down for good. Orcs would simply pull out the arrows and command their blood to heal the minor wound. Only arrows enchanted by mages would do more than annoy an orc. Even then, such arrows were so small, so fragile, that they could only hold a miniscule amount of magic.
On the other hand, orcs never had the desire to try and create bows of their own. Bloodlust consumed every higher sense they possessed in the heat of battle, engorging muscles to the point where they trembled with power. Even if they could master their bloodlust long enough, any regular bow would break if an orc drew the string with his full power. It was not uncommon for orcbone weapons to break upon the flesh and bone of exceptionally powerful and blood-crazed orcs. What more a fragile little bow with its thin limbs and even thinner drawstring? No, it was far better for them to embrace the power of their bloodlust, to charge headfirst into battle and rip their enemies to shreds.
Kurdan, however, held a weapon that would change all that.
The treated Poison Creeper drawstring was strong enough to withstand Kurdan’s mighty pull. The Orcbone stock held the force of the draw at bay, with an equally tough Orcbone trigger handling the brunt of the drawstring’s force on a single point. The sharpened bolt was made from Halewood, soaked in a bath of very specific salts that Isiah called “borax.” The bolt was then dried out, its point filed sharply prior to three cycles of baking and cooling over three days. Intricate joints carved out of baked Halewood held the entire assembly together, preventing the limbs from snapping out of position. These intricate joints were drawn from Isiah’s research on his people’s oracle, what they called Internet. Kurdan spent weeks practicing on common wood before even trying on their limited stocks of thrice-burnt Halewood.
The base materials that formed Kurdan’s crossbow and its accompanying bolts came from the efforts of the elderly human slaves. The fear of torment and the desire to see another day pushed them hard to discover new things. This was why they had taken to Kurdan’s strangely-structured ‘research programs’ with zeal. They listed down even the most trivial of findings to the orcish chieftain, no matter how insignificant it seemed at first. Hubert noted what happened when he found one of the children gorging on Rawcrow berries playing with a supposedly poisonous vine that should irritate human skin. Another elder took note of a strange kind of salt that tasted surprisingly sweet and metallic. He brought a few samples in for review, and Isiah noted its properties, listed it down on his oracle, and came back with a few potential applications of the strange salt. Yet another elder noted that the wooden ladle he used became discolored when he used it to scoop out some of the strange salt. He was so surprised he accidentally dropped the discolored ladle into the fire. The handle of the ladle immediately charred as it was exposed to the heat. The parts that were caked with the borax though, they didn’t burn. No, the wood only darkened as it was left into the fire. When the flames died out, that elder fished the wooden implement out and studied it. The resulting wood was frail, easy to cut with a sharp edge, but it was extremely resistant to breakage. This was especially so at points following the grain, which could take a ridiculous amount of force before breaking. It would begin to split and splinter after a few solid whacks, but the first few hits? No, those shards would take everything they threw at it—even a pissed-off orc slamming an orcbone club into its point.
These innocuous observations would have gone unnoticed if Kurdan had not threatened, bullied, and cajoled the humans to keep a log of the things they noticed around them. They would never have discovered their unique properties if they had not spent every waking moment tinkering and experimenting with their findings, learning all they could about their properties. Without these elderly humans, he would not be holding a crossbow that felled three of the raiders from the Goretusk tribe with solid spikes of wood driven through the bone of their once-impenetrable skulls.
The raiders eventually overcame the confusion caused by the ambush and the subsequent loss of their Axe. One raider pointed at Kurdan’s hiding place, screaming for her comrades to rush the sniper putting them down one by one. Kurdan made sure to put his next bolt through her brain, but not before the rest of the Goretusk raiders took up her cry of alarm. They surged in a mass of roaring and raging fury toward Kurdan’s position, scrambling up the rocks with the intent of reducing him to a pulpy mass of flesh.
Once the raiders had committed themselves into a blind charge toward Kurdan’s position on the ridge, Kurdan momentarily set down his crossbow, picked up a carved animal horn, sucked up a huge lungful of air, and blew into it as hard as he could. The blast echoed above the already-deafening roars of the Goretusk orcs, audible for nearly a mile around Kurdan’s position. The orcs beside Kurdan popped out of their light cover, their long spears held aloft.
Kurdan had selected these 42 orcs for their discipline, for their ability to suppress their bloodlust long enough to hold formation. Kurdan had spent weeks drilling into them the need to hold their ground, to resist the temptation of their bloodlust to charge into battle with roars on their lips and blood on their mind. This was why they had maintained their positions and kept thrusting down with their heavy Halewood spears.
The thrice-baked tips of the spears pierced the hide and flesh of the raiders trying to make their way up the ridge, keeping them pinned down while Kurdan picked them off one by one with his crossbow. The spears may not be as durable as he wanted them to be, fraying after a few strikes and vulnerable to being slashed. They did, however, do the job of puncturing clean through orcish flesh and bone. Coupled with plenty of replacement spears and their elevated position, Kurdan’s Pikers were able to effectively hold their position above the raging, frothing horde of orcs below them.
The only problem was that orcs are a stubborn race. A few holes in their arms, necks, and lungs would not deter them for long. Even puncturing a
heart was not enough to push them out of the battle for good. A second heart kept pumping hot, red blood inside their body, ensuring that those who survived their injuries long enough would come back roaring for more. Enough spears stabbed into vital organs, however, would kill an orc—especially if they lost both hearts or found a spearpoint inside their eye sockets. Kurdan and his spear-wielding orcs whittled down the attacking force down to about 90, but they still outnumbered Kurdan’s warriors two to one. It would only be a matter of time until enough orcs scaled the ridge to overrun Kurdan’s position.
That was when Gnadug’s orcs came screaming out of their positions, catching the Goretusk raiders completely off-guard.
These were the orcs that could not hold back their bloodlust no matter how badly Kurdan berated and humiliated them. They could not hold a line and stab out with disciplined thrusts, calmly retreating and rearming when their spears eventually broke. No, they would always break formation and rush forward in a mad frenzy of fury when they were taunted enough. Gnadug was the only orc in this group that contained the discipline that Kurdan needed. The big orc, however, was more valuable as a second leader than just another spear beside Kurdan. He successfully kept his orcs hidden, far enough from the ambush site to keep their blood simmering at an acceptable level. With Kurdan’s horn blast, however, that dam of self-control had given way to unbridled fury. They sprang up from their hidden positions, rushing toward Kurdan’s position.
And so they crashed into the backs of the frenzied Goretusk raiders, the vast majority of them obsessed with the annoying orcs that poked and prodded them from their perch of safety. Gnadug’s bellow of rage and fury rose above the melee, his massive battleaxe cleaving through the arm of a raider that tried futilely to dodge the blow.
Kurdan pulled the last of his thrice-baked Halewood bolts out of the ground, nocked it into the groove of his crossbow, and sent it hurtling into the brains of another orc. His ammunition exhausted, Kurdan slung the crossbow unto his back and picked up the spear hidden in the grass beside him. He let his cold bloodlust go hot, his muscles swelling with power while the world around him sped back up to its normal pace.