by E. M. Hardy
“NOW!” roared Kurdan, leveling his spear downward as his blood boiled with the need to inflict violence upon those who would dare challenge his rule. The orcs around him took up his call, lunging forward from their defensive positions and falling upon the Goretusk raiders while Gnadug’s orcs pressed them from the rear. “FALL UPON THEM! LET THEM KNOW THE FURY OF THE BONESEEKERS!”
***
Many orcs were busy looting the dead and hacking their bodies apart. First were the skins and bones. Tough orcish hide could be dried and cured into usable leather, while the nigh-unbreakable bones were ground down to form tools and weapons. Then followed the scalps, ears, fingers, toes, penises, clitorises—all these would serve as trophies and grim warnings against other orcs seeking to invade their territory.
“Urk,” complained Isiah in Kurdan’s mind as he pushed down the figurative bile climbing up his figurative throat. “Do they really need to chop off the genitals? I mean this whole business of treating your own dead as raw resources is nasty enough, but the dicks and pussies too? That’s just sick, man.”
“First, I am not a man,” countered Kurdan, “Second, stop your whining; it is pathetic.”
Kurdan’s attention shifted, however, when he noted an orc staring wide-eyed at his chieftain.
“I can’t believe it,” panted Urgan, not even bothering to hide his lolling tongue and trembling limbs. “Your plan worked. Your stupid, cowardly plan actually worked.”
Kurdan cuffed Urgan on the back of the head, earning him a weak but menacing growl from the contemptible orc. “Watch your tongue,” growled Kurdan back. “You are panting like a tired little orcling, and I have more than enough energy to rip that tongue out of your mouth.”
Urgan snapped out of his reverie, rubbing his neck where Kurdan had smacked him. “I meant no disrespect, chieftain,” he said before pausing and reconsidering his words. “Well, I did mean some disrespect. But this… this changes everything.”
Kurdan cast a sideways glance at the panting orc, his eyes sparkling with wonder and disbelief. “We tore apart an entire Goretusk warband down to the last orc—all without suffering a single dead on our side. It is… it has never been done before!”
Urgan was not the only orc shocked by the unexpected outcome. Upon hearing Urgan’s gushing, dozens of other orcs paused their bloody work to join him in staring at their chieftain.
“Urgan speaks the truth,” growled Gnadug. The big orc had scowled with annoyance when Kurdan had explained the ‘plan’ to the tribe. Now, however, he wore nothing but a broad and humbled smile as he joined in on the conversation. “Never in the history of our tribe have we fought and won against a warband without taking an equivalent number of losses. This warband should have broken us, left so many dead that the next warband would simply stroll in and claim our land for their own. This is an achievement worthy enough to be immortalized as legend.”
Kurdan grunted in satisfaction, crossing his arms as he basked in the praise. “Woah there, big guy,” warned Isiah within his mind. “I think it’s getting crowded in here with how big your ego is getting.”
“Ha!” replied Kurdan in his own mind. “And why shouldn’t it? This is a great victory for myself and for the tribe, and it is exactly what I needed for advancing my plans.”
Kurdan, however, did not gloat for long. He dropped his arms and hung them on his hips, scowling as he surveyed the scene before him. “And that’s the problem,” he said as he switched his attention from Isiah to Gnadug. “The Goretusk may have suffered a great defeat this day, but I can guarantee that it and the other larger tribes—the Stonefist, the Fleshrippers—they will always be a threat. We will never be truly safe from further warbands if we continue to remain a weak and tempting target for them to plunder.”
He eyed his orcs carefully as every single one of them listened to his words, forgetting their desire to gather trophies for themselves. “You have seen the fruits of my will, of the changes I wrought. I have many other things in mind, plans that I will set in motion. You will find these plans unsavory, unpleasant, and unseemly. I DO NOT CARE. The simple truth is that I will destroy everything that weakens us and holds us back from obtaining the power we need; power that will allow us not just to survive, but to thrive.” He shot a pointed look at Gnadug, who grunted and crossed his arms in defiance. He did not, however, challenge anything that Kurdan said, which was good enough for him.
“Obey me! Follow my will, and I will show you a world that no orc has ever seen before!”
Chapter 15
Slam.
Suspended. He and Hasan were suspended for an entire week while that prick Blevins got off scot-free. Those slimy teachers had only seen the split lip and the woe-is-me act that Blevins had thrown around when they were in the office. Nobody thought to note the baked macaroni covering Hasan, or maybe even question the three dozen or so students that had witnessed the whole thing. Worse still was how Mister McDonald was sent on sabbatical ‘to further his education,’ they said. He wouldn’t be back for another month. At least he was getting paid for his leave.
Slam.
Olivia had caught the whole thing on camera, and she let the school keep her phone as evidence. The stupid idiot believed the principal when she said everything would be alright. Funnily enough, the staff conveniently ‘lost’ the phone to a thief that had broken into the principal’s office later that night. If they had that footage, if she had kept it, it would have been enough for Senator Winters to crucify Congressman Blevins in the public’s eye. But no, Olivia just HAD to play by the book.
Slam.
What stung Isiah the most, however, was how his parents had grounded him for that entire week. They said they believed him, that they understood why he did what he did. They added, however, that they had to abide by the terms of the suspension lest his punishment got even worse. That’s not trust! That’s cowardice!
Slam. Slam! Slam!! CRACK!!!
The punching bag rocked high up in the air, the carabiner holding it up to the ceiling of the basement groaning in protest. Isiah didn’t let up though. As the bag swung back at him, he willed his blood to burn even hotter—directing every ounce of rage and fury he could into his waist, thigh, and calves as his leg shot out to intercept it. The sandbag rocked with the force of the blow, careening sharply away from his kick.
A bone in his leg throbbed in pain for just a moment, but his raging blood commanded the nerves to wash the pain away and fix the fractures that formed up as a result. He instructed his blood to focus more on the bones of his body, reinforcing it before he subjected it to further abuse.
“Good,” rebuked Kurdan in Isiah’s mind. “Keep pushing the breaking point of your bones and muscles. But stop numbing the pain. You need it, for it will tell your blood what it needs to fix.”
Isiah uttered a low curse as he craned his neck and focused back on the sandbag. The sharp crack of a savage kick bounced around the small basement, and he winced as he broke his shin once more. He bit his tongue and willed his blood to flow, this time without numbing the pain. He tracked the breaks, isolating them in the tibia. Its bones ground together as he sealed the cracks with coagulated blood. That blood then collected the microscopic shards of bone buried in his flesh and pulled them into position before sealing them in place with more coagulating blood.
“But still,” thought Kurdan as he studied Isiah’s healing and breaking of his own body. “Blevins is nowhere near as strong as you are right now. You could very easily set an ambush for him, just like the one you helped formulate against the Goretusk.”
Isiah ignored Kurdan as he continued working on the sandbag, this time switching up to devastating knees and elbows that left visible indentations on the sandbag’s leathery exterior.
“I know you dream of his death every moment you can,” Kurdan said. “You imagine yourself tearing out his throat and pulling out his windpipe with your bare hands. You even think of castrating him, taking his genitals a
nd holding them in front of the schoolyard for all to see.”
“Those dreams are just that: dreams,” said Isiah out loud, not caring to silently think his thoughts to Kurdan. “There are bigger fish out there, stronger than I am, and they would get back at me for murdering a congressman’s son. First in line would be his father, who would no doubt hire some other thug to make me disappear.”
“You humans are confusing,” Kurdan snorted in disgust.
“Yes, we are,” replied Isiah as he unleashed a savage backhand on the sandbag that cracked a bone in his forearm. He winced and focused the pain so it guided his blood to the fractures. “Yes, we freakin’ are.”
Isiah remembered Kurdan’s battle with the Goretusk raiders. The numbers seemed so small, so insignificant. He remembered his research on the wars of history, where tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of warm bodies clashed against one another in battle after battle. Compared to the blood and violence inflicted there, a small crowd of orcs butting heads with each other didn’t sound so impressive.
And yet in Kurdan’s head, through Kurdan’s eyes, Isiah had felt the raw violence of it all. It had been all clinical at first, when Kurdan had picked off his targets one by one with Halewood bolts. Even Kurdan’s use of his spear had felt tight and controlled, a thrust here and there when he had the opportunity. All that had changed when Kurdan and his orcs jumped down to join the melee. The frenzy of the blood, the bellows of rage, the lines of pain drawn when his flesh was sliced open, the dull pain of his broken bones, the itch of nerves being made whole again…
If there was anything Isiah did not appreciate about orcish toughness and regeneration, it was how long it took for them to kill one another. The melee was a painful, drawn-out affair, where orcs needed to repeatedly bash each other to bits to make sure they stayed down and dead. Isiah had even seen one of the sniped orcs stand up and fight even with a bolt sticking out of her head. She was sluggish, uncoordinated, and didn’t seem to know what she was doing. She was, however, savage to the end.
“WOW!”
Isiah spun around, his blood flashing hot at the intrusion. He was still locked in his training regimen, lost in his memories of Kurdan’s battle, and he was not able to hide the snarl on his face as he whirled around to face his younger siblings.
Soo-Young stood starry-eyed at the bottom of the staircase, her mouth a wide “O.” “That was so cool, oppa,” cried little Soo-Young, clearly amazed by the antics of her older brother.
James was less impressed, however. His brows were creased in concern, his lips a flat line of disapproval. Isiah never liked that about James; the little runt was far too perceptive for his own good.
Isiah inhaled deeply, slowing the blood in his body while chilling the fury it inflicted upon his mind. “What are you two doing home this early?”
“School’s out early today,” answered James, his curt reply clouded with suspicion. “I picked up Sue here and we went home together. Say, when did you start training on your own? You took every chance you could to skip out when dad calls us to hit the bag.”
Isiah really hated how perceptive his brother was.
“Just blowing off some steam,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as sweat poured down his brow. “Still pissed off about how I ended up grounded while that gigantic ass is walking scot-free, smug as an ass could be.”
“Hey,” James chided, shifting his eyes toward Soo-Young. “You said ass,” the little girl said, giggling to herself. Isiah just rolled his eyes in exasperation.
James, in the meantime, walked toward the punching bag and gave it a good push with one hand. He could barely move it. He leaned into it with both hands, bracing himself with his legs. He managed to push it a few inches before he huffed out and let it swing back into position—narrowly avoiding the big bag as it swung ponderously on its carabiner.
“Whew,” huffed James. “When did you get so buff, bro? I can barely move that big hunk of sand, let alone making it fly as high with nothing more than a kick and a punch.”
Stop being so perceptive, you little nerd, thought Isiah to himself. “Eh,” he said instead. “I’ve been working out.”
“You’ve been working out,” James repeated as he inclined his head and shot a penetrating gaze at his older brother. He studied his older brother’s physique. Isiah was not lean or scrawny, but neither was he buff and rippling with muscle. James was making a connection here that Isiah didn’t like, so he decided now was a great time to cut the discussion short.
“Yeah, I’ve been working out,” he blurted out. “And now I’m hungry. Anybody else want some ramen?”
Soo-Young was playing with the sandbag, slapping it around and trying to make it move as high as her older brother did. Talk of cheap, unhealthy, and delicious ramen, however, caught her attention right away. “Me!” she shouted as she bounced away from the sandbag and made her way up the stairs. James leveled another suspicious gaze at him, but he eventually relented with a grin on his face. “Fine. You get a pass this time. But make mine extra spicy… with a slice of cheese on top.”
Isiah grinned, thankful that his younger siblings were so easily bribed into silence with a bowl of steaming, hot noodles.
Chapter 16
“Hmm,” Kurdan hummed to himself as he watched Borba walk beside Gnadug, leading him into her hut. Kurdan thought that Borba would have been more responsive to his overtures for rutting after the victory against the Goretusk. Instead, she had pushed him away. ‘I tire of you,’ she had said, and turned her back on him. She had then begun sending the rutting signals to Gnadug, approaching him openly and directly. It was rare for a progenitor orc to approach his or her offspring, but Gnadug was a fine specimen of an orc. He could not fault Borba for seeing if she could squeeze even better offspring from him.
No, Kurdan noticed that Borba had been avoiding him for the past week—even before the Goretusk raid. It would not have been strange if their rutting had been the casual kind, for pleasure alone, but Borba had set her sights firmly on birthing their shared offspring. She had focused solely on his seed during this period, not the seed of any other male. Now she was brushing him off, outright rejecting his propositions.
Kurdan had taken it in stride, at least in front of the other orcs. Privately though, it stung him how Borba had dropped him so abruptly. He would not beg her to rut, of course; he would not stoop that low. Still, he held out hope that she would at least have waited until she gave birth to his brood of orclings. Now that she mixed with Gnadug, he would not be entirely sure how many of her next batch of screaming offspring would be his or not.
He shrugged. No use thinking about it, for there were many more she-orcs lined up to take his seed each night. If Borba wanted to get more seed to add variety to her offspring, it was up to her—even if the rejection hurt him more than he let on.
His thoughts lingered about which she-orc he should take into his hut that night when Alyon and Bartholomew walked in.
“Chieftain,” they said in unison as they announced their presence to him. Alyon inclined her head while Bartholomew nodded his head briefly and sharply while crossing his arms.
“Good. You are here. Now we wait for Shelur.”
Bartholomew’s frown deepened into a grimace.
“You have something to say, he-priest?” challenged Kurdan, raising his lip in disdain at the priest’s defiance.
Bartholomew almost took up Kurdan’s offer, his mouth ready to spew a complaint. A warning glance from Alyon, however, silenced him. “No, chieftain. I have nothing to say.”
“At least you are starting to learn your place,” Kurdan grunted, taunting the priest to see if he would rise to the bait. Bartholomew’s face reddened with restrained fury, but he choked his pride down and turned to focus on an empty spot on the ground. Alyon breathed a sigh of relief, no doubt worried about the trouble that Bartholomew narrowly avoided.
A moment later, and his fist threw open the fla
ps of Kurdan’s hut. She was responsible not only for overseeing the tribe’s day-to-day tasks like hunting and foraging, but was also partially responsible for watching over the slaves as well. If Alyon’s duty was to check on the affairs of the humans, Shelur’s duty was to make sure that the humans were in line. “Chieftain,” she said blandly, wondering what Kurdan wanted with her. When she saw the two priests, however, her neutral expression immediately turned sour as she grimaced in annoyance. “What are these two doing here?”
“These two,” Kurdan said as he casually pulled up a tree stump serving as a tall table, “are here to discuss the crops that the slaves recently harvested.”
Shelur opened her mouth, about to say something, when she thought better of it. It pleased Kurdan to see that even stubborn orcs like Shelur were slowly coming around to his pragmatic way of thinking. Kurdan pulled out a flattened piece of tree bark along with a piece of charcoal. Shelur looked on with interest while Alyon, and Bartholomew shot him a curious glance. They all clustered around the tree stump Kurdan used as a table as he beckoned them closer.
“First,” he said, turning to Alyon and Bartholomew, “How much can you expect your people to harvest?”
Bartholomew cupped his chin with a hand as he thought to himself. “Not much,” he admitted. “We’ve only managed to clear and plant crops on eight acres of arable land out of these forests of yours. We’ve started with the wheat, barley, and potatoes that we were transporting when you, uh, when we were brought into the tribe.”
“Enslaved,” interrupted Shelur, “when we enslaved you.”
“Yes,” Bartholomew ground out with clenched teeth and shut eyes. “When you enslaved us. Thank you for correcting me.”
Shelur just grunted. Kurdan was not sure if she picked up on the man’s sarcasm or if she just didn’t care. “Probably the former,” commented Isiah within Kurdan’s mind. “You’ve been hanging around me and my pals long enough to pick up sarcasm. You orcs are way too straightforward that it hurts.”