Chapter 5: Orc Hunt

You’re probably expecting me to wax poetic about fate or journeys or maybe even get philosophical about the nature of monsters or Orcs.

Not this time. There is nothing even remotely poetic about the Malkin.

We usually divide the intelligent races of the world into three types. The first is the mortal races such as Elves, Dwarves and Humans. The second is the magical races, mostly Angels, Demons, Fey and the greater Nocturnals. The third one is the Malkin. The name “Malkin” refers to the numerous savage races such as Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls, Gnolls and their kin. They have one thing in common, and that is their hatred for anything that is not a Malkin. When one of them looks at one of the mortal races it sees one of three things. Something to be made into a corpse, something to be made into a meal, or something to be made into a toy. Most of the time it is all three, the order is unimportant to them.

The biggest Malkin threat in the southlands is the Ash Peak Orcs. They are holed up inside the Ash Peak, an active volcano near the border of Reolve and Rhaetia, and a short distance from the silver woods of the high elves. There are hundreds of caves dotting the mountain, some of them too hot for humans to survive, others are filled with choking smoke and steam or toxic gasses. These caves can be lethal to the mortal races, but the larger and tougher Orcs, can thrive in such an environment.

To make matters worse, some of the caves are quite large and expansive, and the natural defenses of the mountain have made it nearly impossible for anyone to clear the orcs out. The kingdoms have all but given up on clearing the mountain and instead can only react to the raiding parties that come down and pray that the volcano will kill them one day. After some time, more than orcs began to flock to this mountain, turning the residents of the Ash Peak into a true Malkin horde.

The worst problem, however, is when the mountain “erupts”.

Every generation, the Malkin horde gathers and sends an army instead of raiding parties. The army sweeps down a random direction and loots, pillages, and destroys everything in its path until the army becomes too weakened or bored to continue. Then the survivors bring whatever loot and slaves they can back to their home. It was later found out that this was not only a way to bring resources back to the mountain, but it was also used as a way to cull their own population so they don’t begin to turn on each other from overcrowding.

The last eruption was the most damaging in history, a rousing success for the orcs that nearly became the end of the Silver Wood. This was around 17 years ago. The new generation should be mature now.

With the success and gains from the last eruption, this next one should be the largest in history.

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2 Days After the Test

30 km South East of the Stone Fox Fortress

Thane

Thane brushed his hand against the trunk of a tree and looked around. He found the markings easily enough so the third game trail should be around here somewhere. He heard that this one was abandoned when the dire beast took up residence in the area and might be harder to find than the previous two. The others had spread out and were helping him look.

He took a moment to wipe the sweat off of his forehead. Even though it was autumn he wasn’t used to tracking and traveling while wearing armor. His father’s armor that had been in storage for so long was now finally getting used for the first time in years. The twins wore lighter leather armors, with Mahs having a few metal rivets and plates for extra protection, but Sara had no visible metal to reduce the amount of noise and glare to help her keep out of sight. There was at least one metal plate under the armor to cover the chest that Thane knew about, and possibly more. Kisha was armored similar to Thane with a solid breastplate and a few metal plates at points over the rest of her body.

Thane checked a second tree, there was another marking but still no sign of the trail.

“Seriously!?” he heard Mahs shout from a short distance away. When Thane ran over to him he found him leaning against a tree using a stick to scrape a large amount of feces off of his boots.

“Oh, you managed to find the game trail before me. Good job.”

“Yeah thanks.” Mahs replied irritated.

Thane called the others over and he looked down at the trail. “Hm, you stepped in something fresh.”

“I noticed.”

“That means that the animals are starting to come back to this area. The trail is still overgrown, but it’s beginning to get flattened out again. So keep the river to our right and we should come to the place where Gryssel hunted the dire boar.”

The four began to walk towards the site they were directed to. Kisha dashed ahead several meters and Sarah began to make idle chatter as they walked, “So the boar scared all the animals away and since they are coming back this area should be safe again right?”

“Safer than it was anyway. Remember we’re looking for signs of Orcs, so don’t be thinking there's nothing dangerous here.”

“Of course, unlike my brother I tend to stay alert.”

Mahs gave her a quick glare as he kicked his boots on the grass and dirt trying to clean them off as they walked.

“So what exactly are we looking for, Thane?”

“He said we would know it when we saw it.”

“Agram’s breath,” they heard Kisha exclaim from ahead of them, “That is an understatement.”

They all ran up to Kisha to see what she was talking about and saw that she was right. This was supposed to be the area where Gryssel had killed the dire boar, and as soon as they saw the battlefield, it became apparent why dire animals were called walking disasters. What used to be a wooded area now had only a handful of trees left standing. There were dozens of trees that had been completely uprooted and knocked over, some of them broken off like twigs a meter or two above the roots. There were even a few massive boulders that had been torn out of the ground and rolled over.

It took a moment for the quartet to recover and Thane spoke up first. “According to Gryssel, some orc scouts were drawn to the noise and attacked him as he was preparing the beast’s corpse for transport. I’ll look for signs of orcs, you two keep an eye out and see if there is anything around here, Kisha can...do that thing you do.”

“Talk to trees?” asked Sarah.

Kisha ignored the jab, “I will go commune and see if I can learn anything.”

She left for a quiet area in the middle of the destruction and sat down to meditate. Thane began to search for any signs or trails around the edge of the battlefield.

“Sister, you seem in a bit of a foul mood today.” said Mahs. “Could it be because your rival did a bit better than you in the tests? Or could it be because it has been harder to get some time alone with him instead of easier like you thought?”

Thane heard Sarah give an irritated “hmph” and wondered if Mahs was doing this on purpose. Enhancing his senses didn’t just affect his sight, and even from this distance he could hear the siblings perfectly fine. It didn’t take long for him to find where Gryssel had burned the bodies of the attacking orcs. He confirmed from the remains that there were four bodies. Three of them were orcs, and one much smaller twisted skeleton.

“The part that concerned me” Gryssel had told him, “Is that there was a goblin runner among them. I couldn’t tell if it was enslaved or working with them voluntarily, but it began to run as soon as the fight started, so I shot him first. I didn’t have time to investigate whether he was trying to escape, or deliver a message.”

The tracks were almost two weeks old now, as far as Thane could tell the Orcs came from the direction of the river. Between the autumn rains and the time that had passed, he doubted he could get any useful information by trying to follow the traces left behind by the Orcs.

“Thane, I found something over here, “ Sarah shouted. Thane quickly ran over to where she was and saw a rather gruesome scene. There was dried blood that had splashed on the rocks and the remains of a deer were tossed around the area. It looked like the deer was exploring the abandoned area and ran afoul of something. The torso was missing but the head and legs were spread out over the area. “So what happened?”

Thane walked from piece to piece, looking at each one as well as a small bit of frayed rope before speaking. “Something killed the deer. It looks like they kept the torso for meat and cut off the rest to make it easier to tie up and carry. The head...” he pointed at the severed head, “had its horns broken off after it was killed. Not cut off, they were snapped by something fairly strong. This was definitely the Orc’s doing because...“ he pointed at one of the severed legs, “that one was cut a bit high, the others were cut at the knee, but this one was cut above the thigh, and the thigh meat was eaten right off the bone. It bit through the meat raw through the skin and fur. What else besides a Malkin would do that?”

It looked like the torso was picked up and carried away towards the river. The tracks were only a day old and would be fairly easy to follow. “Go grab Kisha, we have a trail.”

Kisha joined the others and had something to add. “I think they are upstream. The water has a taint in it. Something has been using the river as a refuse dump. It's nothing dangerous or noticeable yet. The river is large.”

She was right about the size of the river, Reolve had often been referred to as the River kingdom, and the river they were next to was one of the largest in the country. Mahs unrolled the map he was carrying with him and spread it out on one of the fallen trees. “Let’s see, there is the village we spent the night at, so we should be about here.” He pointed at a spot on the map next to the large river marked “Davian River”. He traced his finger along the river and then a few lines surrounding it, “These lines mark changes of elevation, this should be the start of the Davos Canyon.”

“Are they actually in the Canyon? Or just a bit upstream?”

“We’re about to find out.” Thane began to check his gear, if they were sending out scouts or hunters this far, that means he could run into an orc at any time. “Make sure you’re ready to fight, we don't want to be caught off guard.” He loosened the straps holding his weapons in place and made sure they could all be drawn easier. He had only a single longsword at his belt this time, but he carried a larger greatsword and bow on his back. Since there were goblins involved, there might be other types of Malkin as well. On the off chance he ran into something larger like an Ogre he wanted something a bit larger and heavier to attack with. For now, he completely freed his bow and carried it in his hand as he walked to the river.

Once they turned upstream, they didn’t have to walk far before they saw the first sign of the Orcs. Sarah noticed first and they all backed away from the river and hid behind a group of rocks and trees and watched them approach. Just like Gryssel had encountered, there was a group of four. Three large orcs and single goblin. The Orcs were a head taller than Liam and much more muscular. Their skin looked rough and green and their face was an ugly mix of something resembling a human and a wild boar. The noses weren’t exactly pig like, but they were turned upwards with the nostrils facing out, and two large tusks curled up from their lower jaw. They had never seen orcs before, but they had watched Castor take out a small group of stray goblins, so the short, gangly, green thing with pointed teeth didn’t come as a surprise to them. The Orcs, however, were much larger and tougher looking than expected.

Thane pulled out an arrow as the green skinned Malkin drew closer. “I’m going to get that goblin, Mahs and Kisha, hit the orcs with a strong spell as soon as I fire, try to keep it as quiet as possible. Sarah, get ready to clean up.”

Sarah nodded and began to creep along the tree line parallel with the river. Thane stayed crouched and silent, waiting for the four Malkin to draw closer. With a quick silent step he peered around the edge of a tree and aimed for the goblin. It scurried around on all fours for a moment climbing to the top of a rock where it tilted his head and began to sniff the air.

Nice of him to expose himself, Thane thought before releasing the arrow. The goblin was killed almost instantly as the arrow pierced its chest causing it to fly backwards at the feet of the surprised orcs. As he pulled out another arrow, Mahs was on his right, condensing and freezing water into a sharp icicle, and to his left Kisha was gathering earth and stone into a magical spear of her own. When the spells were fired, Thane followed with a second arrow. The spells took down two of the orcs, sending them flying backwards like the goblin had before. The third Orc gave out a grunt of pain and looked down at the arrow buried in his chest. A second arrow was fired by Thane and sunk into the Orc’s chest an inch from the first. The Orc staggered back and refused to fall, instead giving out a scream of rage as he scanned the trees looking for the assailants.

“That’s tougher than I expected,” Thane drew back the third arrow and changed his target, and instead of aiming for the center mass of the brute…

The orc locked eyes with the small man who was aiming a bow at him. He opened his mouth to give another scream but was stopped short. The third arrow pierced him in the center of his head, passing through his snout and bursting out the other side. Once the orc crumpled to the ground, Thane gave a few quick signs to Sarah, who was close to where the orcs fell. She nodded and looked down the river. When she didn’t see any movement she crossed her hands in an X. Nobody was coming after that orc screamed.

Thane came out from his hiding place and jogged down to the Orc bodies by the river. After confirming that all four of them were dead he salvaged his arrows and examined the body of the orc that he shot. The skin was thicker and bones denser than he expected. The first two arrows managed to crack the ribs but not penetrate into the organs. The arrow through the sinuses managed to be a fatal injury to the orc, but Thane wondered if an arrow to a thicker part of the skull would bounce off as well. Certainly a cracked skull and the damage inflicted by the impact would prove to be fatal eventually, but how long could an orc fight until it collapsed from it?

“Mahs, did you bring the crossbow?”

“It’s still with the horses back at town. It’s a bit heavy to just be carrying around.”

“You’re probably right, but it looks like normal bows can't quite hit with enough force. We’ll have to change our aim, guts or limbs.” He looked at the corpses penetrated by the magic spears. “How many times can you fire off that icicle?”

“Four or five, make that 6 if I can recover the mana I already spent today.”

“About the same for me.” said Kisha.

Thane began to think. The Orcs were showing signs of organization. The scouting team of three orcs and one goblin was the same that Gryssel said he ran into. If the goblin was there to run and report trouble while the orcs fought, it would seem like whoever was sending out the scouts had a bit of intelligence too.

“Let's keep an eye out for more patrols and see what's ahead. Our job is to end the threat if it is a small group, or give a detailed report on positions and forces if it is a larger group. It’s starting to look like it might be the latter, so be prepared to retreat.”

They continued up the river, and the ground became a bit more inclined, and they reached the mouth of the canyon where the ground by the river remained fairly flat, but not far from the river the land shifted up in a steep incline. The four stopped all seeing the same thing in the distance.

“Smoke. Probably a bonfire. They are definitely inside the canyon.” Thane looked ahead and could see a point where the river made a turn. He couldn’t see too far ahead as the rocks and trees in the area blocked vision. He looked up the rising canyon walls, trying to find some sort of way up to take a look from above. From where he was standing the height of the canyon wall was only a few meters, but as it approached where the smoke was coming from, the height was over a hundred meters. The walls were a harsh slope covered with rocks but not much in the way of cover, and they were just steep enough to be dangerous.

“The mountain wanted to embrace the moon, but the river said ‘No’” Mahs recited.

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on, don’t you remember that story when we were kids?”

“We can talk about it later, right now we need to figure out what to do. We can’t just go blindly walking in when we don’t know how many there are, or if they have any lookouts. And at some point they are going to realize that the four that left the camp aren’t coming back.”

Thane looked back up to the canyon walls, “We need to find a way to get up and scout out-”

“Found it.” Sarah interrupted pointing to the left side of the canyon. “Where it gets steep there, I see a few caves with a bit of an overhang. It looks like it's flat enough in front of the caves and it looks like a good place to stay out of sight and take a look. If we can get that far.”

Thane saw where she was pointing and mentally traced the path it would take to get there. It was completely exposed, if they took that route they would have to pray that the Orcs never looked up.

“If it’s just Thane and I, I can keep the two of us concealed for a few minutes. We should be able to get there unnoticed as long as the path holds.”

Sarah seemed confident and it seemed like the best option. At least it was better than running blind into whatever was waiting for them up the river. “All right, we’ll go ahead and you guys wait here. Send a signal if things go wrong and we’ll all retreat back to…”

Mahs seemed concerned about the pause, “What’s wrong?”

“...the town. These Orcs are only a couple hours walk to the nearest town. Why is it that nobody has seen them except for when Gryssel met a group by coincidence? Why haven’t they attacked the town or any travelers? When we asked we heard about a few hunters and fishermen that went missing, but nobody there knew anything about Orcs and they are this close.”

“So you think the Orc leading them doesn't want to be found out and is doing his best to stay hidden? That doesn’t sound like an Orc.”

“Exactly my point, it might not be an orc at all.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out once we get a good look at their camp,” Sarah interrupted, “There is no use thinking about it now, lets go.”

The first part of the ascent was a sheer slope a bit too steep to climb normally, Sarah was already crouched down with her hands linked and facing upward to give Thane a boost. He gave the others one last instruction, “If things look bad, shoot a signal and run back to town, we will meet you there.”

He ran and placed a foot in Sarah's palms, and used her arm strength to boost his jump to the point where he would reach the top of the ledge. Once he pulled himself up, he braced himself and lowered his hand, grabbing Sarah and pulling her up after she jumped.

“Try not to get too far away once we are concealed, hold my hand if you have to.”

She gave a smile as she cast the spell, something that Thane wasn’t entirely convinced was aimed at him and then disappeared. Thane looked at himself and noticed he was still visible. “Did it work?”

“Yes, it only interferes with how others perceive you, it doesn’t affect your own senses. She felt her pull on his arm and they began to walk forward, Thane kept his eyes low watching Sarah’s concealed feet form footprints in the dirt.

They climbed slowly for a few minutes, and the base camp of the Makin was starting to come into view. It didn’t take long to reach their destination where they found a second ledge as high as the first. “Same as before” the invisible Sarah said, she slapped the wall for emphasis knocking loose a few small rocks. Thane aimed for the spot where she slapped and they used the same climbing technique as before. She tossed him up and he reached his hand down, slapping where she needed to reach. He somehow managed to grab her and pull her up without being able to see her.

Once they were in the cover of the cave, about two thirds up the slope, she released the illusion and laughed. “We always did work well together.” She was breathing heavily and looked a bit pale.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, it was tough to keep that going on two people, I’m going to rest a bit. I think I need a break before using mana again.”

Thane looked around, the area they were in was fairly flat and a large rock near the edge provided a bit of cover. He peered over the edge into the canyon below, it was over 100 meters down a steep incline to reach the bottom and Thane could see the Orcs below him. He didn’t expect what he saw down there.

This wasn’t a raiding party or a base camp. This was a village. The orcs had cast nets into the river to catch fish, there were a large number of wood and dirt huts scattered around. The large bonfire in the middle was cooking a few hunted animals, as well as a pair of human hunters who had the misfortune of encountering one of the roaming patrols. There were also several thick logs around the edge of the village that were being chopped and sharpened. The beginnings of fortifications were being constructed.

Thane sharpened his senses and scanned the village trying to get a count. There were several small goblins running around, but thankfully he saw nothing larger than an orc.

Sarah crouched down next to him until their shoulders brushed together and looked down. She was still recovering and had to ask, “How many?”

“Around a dozen, maybe fifteen goblins. Thirty to thirty-five orcs, no sign of a leader, I think it is in that large hut in the center.”

“Can we fight that many?”

“No. Plus we don’t know if there are any more patrols out, so there could be more.”

“Damn, the Baron’s bounty only applies to Orcs we kill, if we just report on the situation our pay is much smaller.”

“We aren’t really hurting for money right now. It’s not worth the risk unless we can think of a way to kill fifty Malkin with just the four of us.” There was a bit of movement from the central hut and the chances of them being able to pull off a successful attack dropped even further. It was definitely an orc but… “Grey Orc.”

A Grey Orc, sometimes called a Wart Orc or a Mottled Grey Orc was ugly, even by Orc standards. They were a mutated Orc that had thick, lumpy, grey skin that looked like a solid layer of warts over its entire body. The thick hide made it very difficult to injure, most blades would just sink into the lumps of flesh without drawing blood. Thane had heard that the thick skin made it difficult for the Orc to move. It seemed true as every move the Grey Orc made was awkward, from the way it walked to the way it poked at the meat over the fire. The skin would be thinner at the joints but...

“That must be their leader.”

It was at that moment when Thane heard the deepest voice he had ever heard address him, “Little man...”

Thane turned around and looked towards the back of the cave. He hadn’t noticed it earlier because it had been completely silent and motionless the entire time they were in the shallow cave.

When it stood up, Thane couldn’t help but wonder how they missed it. With massive strides it quickly closed the distance between them.

When Thane stood up from his crouched position he found himself face to stomach with the largest man he had ever seen.

The man was easily three meters tall and covered in muscles. He was wearing pants stitched together from animal hide but was exposed from the waist up. There were dozens of scars that criss crossed his chest and arms, and there didn’t seem to be a single hair on his body, not even eyebrows.

The monstrously large man looked down at Thane with a face that seemed to be devoid of all emotion. He repeated himself and continued. “Little man, the grey one is not the leader. Their leader is far more dangerous.”