Kaille shook his head as he pushed another headless orc off one of the platforms.

“Bloody things weren’t supposed to come for another few months” Bitterness shakes his voice, since he was caught off-guard like many of them and weren’t able to make the necessary preparations like cutting the bridges and setting traps up.

Because of that, their usual death count of fewer than ten had become thirty two in less than an hour of fighting.

That was three quarters of their fighting force; only eight trained members remained. The rest of the villagers were children, women or healers.

It was a rule that the women would be forced to stay in the main house in the event of an attack, because men can die and the village only needs one to repopulate, losing a woman loses an entire lifeline of potential warriors in the years to come.

Thus out of the thirty two all were men.

For some, this was a shining light in the darkness; since only twelve healthy men remained in a village with over thirty women.

However for some, like Kaille, it meant love was not an option anymore, he would have to consummate with another, something he oddly minds now that he has been with Layenna.

Thus it would be one of many problems that will arise from the aftermath of this battle.

Another problem was that they were not numerous enough to fight off another attack next year, if the orcs would wait that long.

Beheading another orc with his blood encrusted sword, he has a quick glance at the tusks, determining the age of these to be in the usual young adolescence of ten years.

The orcs had always been doing this; sending a raiding party of their plentiful offspring when they were in their first years of adolescence, to prove themselves men by killing enemies in combat.

Usually it would happen in the late fall, to reduce the orc population for one and because it was the rainy season, affecting the bows somewhat.

However they had attacked too early; it was only the end of spring now and none were expecting the attack, much less with the hooked ladders.

Usually the orcs would be forced to climb the trees in droves, but this time they had had the ladders.

But even with the ladders, many orcs had fallen and had finally been forced to retreat in fear of annihilation, luckily.

Peering around, at a rough guess they killed slightly more than eight hundred of them. To anyone else that seems a huge number, especially when only thirty died their side.

However to elves, that was a disturbing ratio; for orc women gave birth in the dozens and the orc villages had a lot more women than the elves, as well as being a lot more fertile.

One elf was easily worth a few hundred orcs, due to the difficulty in breeding and also the training given.

Kaille was only forty six; a mere adolescent in elf years, but that was thirty one years of battle, thirty one years of killing orcs incessantly.

The orcs that came were wet behind the ears and raring to kill their first elf.

Gritting his teeth in anger, he beheads another few orcs, viciously kicking their corpses off the side while holding a small bundle of six heads by their longish hair.

It was unfair, unfair how they were outnumbered, unfair how they were constantly attacked and slowly killed off due to superior numbers. It was simply unfair.

He wanted revenge, he wanted to kill orc women, reduce the number of orc children, massacring them in their crude huts before burning the babies alive.

Reaching an orc with his arrow embedded in its throat, he slices off one of its ears before beheading it and chucking it over the side. That ear was proof of his kill.

The work continued on with a furious vengeance for two hours, with the help of the rest of the village.

Children unceremoniously heaved dead orcs off the platforms while the mothers carved off the heads, showing and teaching their children the proper way to do it.

Layenna made eye contact with Kaille from a distance, grinning maliciously from ear to ear as she holds an orc one of her own; her own kill.

Soon the platforms were empty of orcs and everyone transferred fearlessly down to the ground, almost wanting the orcs to return, methodically working their way from one edge of the village to the other, beheading and marking kills.

He was in the midst of wrenching his sword out of the side of an orc’s particularly thick neck, going for another chop, when the soft crunching sound of footsteps in the distance caught his attention, and not only his.

Eighty three pairs of eyes looked to where both the orcs had come and fled, only to see the human, still in a white t-shirt and light brown shorts, waltzing up without a care in the world.

Shock registered on most of their faces, especially Kaille when he had seen an axe embed itself in the man’s face, before the rest of him was trampled carelessly by the horde.

Although he’d seen the man turned into a pincushion for arrows, being trampled by a horde was a slightly different matter.

And to walk away from it harmlessly is most bizarre.

Ignoring the looks of shock, the man sauntered up to them, only to stop and stare back at them, slightly out of disgust Kaille believes.

He says something unintelligible, pointing at the crushed corpse of an elf, which had a group of elves around the vicinity, beheading dead orcs instead.

Kaille, unused to such a show of compassion towards dead elves cocked his head.

From childhood they were taught to not care about dead elves, only to care for dead orcs.

“Make sure to count your kills, not check whether this or that survived” His father used to tell him and the other children in lessons.

At first, they had all found it werid, but like the children out hacking apart orcs right now, all they felt was rage…no grief, just rage towards the orcs as well as a cold calculative thought embedded in his mind:

One thousand orcs for every dead elf.

They can attend and bury their dead once all their killers lay down in the ground with them. That is what all thought in this village.

The man however, seemed to have a different approach to things; he walked up to the corpse, kneeling by it and closing its eyes in silence.

Kaille thought the man was definitely strange, almost crying for dead elves rather than thirsting for the blood of living orcs while maiming the dead for trophies of war.

But then again, this man was ‘human’, something Veinor, his father did not seem all that comfortable being around.

Though Kaille remained interested with the human’s strange customs, in the process noticing it was his older brother being looked upon.

He shrugged his shoulders coldly, vowing to kill a thousand orcs for him before burying him with honor, since one elf is worth a thousand orcs.

Finishing his strange ritual, the man continues to do so for the rest of the corpses on the floor, starting with an orc.

No one was having that. He can do his strange things with the corpses of dead elves, but he does not play around with their enemies, only they get to defile and destroy their corpses, if only to sate some anger.

Veinor himself walked up to the man, putting a hand on his shoulder and quite forcefully moving him away from the orc.

They began to speak in fervent tones…

…

“Seriously, you’re not going to let me pray over a dead body? I’m a priest, that’s kind of what I do…” The man looked utterly confused towards Veinor as he shook his head violently.

“Those are the corpses of our enemies, they are to be mutilated and carved up for winter” He states emotionlessly.

The man’s eyes grew somewhat before slowly nodding, not quite in understanding. “But what about the elves? Why do your people not mourn them?” He asks wide eyed.

“Because grief is weakness, only rage will fuel us through the hard times to come, only rage will keep us fighting. Also, if need be we shall carve up the dead to help us survive, having grief for them would make survival impossible in the harshest times”

“You’d eat your own kind? I mean orcs was bad enough but elves too?” The man just looked shocked, jaw dropping to the floor.

“Can you see any animals? Can you hear any birds? No, because there are none, all taken away by the orcs when they came to this land. There are only two things to eat in this place…them and us” He states matter of factly, unperturbed by the concept of cannibalism. “It is our way of life, nothing more, nothing less”

“Right! Kura was definitely correct, Aegi!” He looks up into the sky shaking his head morosely. “I’m going to be off now, so could you point me to my book which I seemed to have dropped around here somewhere” He starts peering round, seemingly anxious to leave.

“Ah your book…” He spends a few moments talking in elvish with the people around him, to which they all seem to chat quite merrily with him.

Their eyes are all filled with hunger as they speak, thinly veiled for many are not used to lying.

Finally he seems to have an answer. “I believe someone found it a while ago, taking it to my house” He smiles and points to the large house carved in-between four trees.

The man shakes his head with a sad sigh.

“Look, if you’re playing around and just want to use me as an unlimited food source, I really don’t have time for that. Plus, there’s a Reaper looking for me, so being around me is probably not a good idea” He looks directly into Veinor’s eyes, piercing the thin veil of lies.

Maybe I should just knock him out and ignore him, but this man is strange, having a Reaper after him wouldn’t be too impossible to believe. Plus that book was devil’s writing, a dark language whatever it is indeed.

...If I kept him here, we’d have an unlimited food source, but that possibly meant danger, enough to wipe us out.

He quickly shares the information with the rest of his village and with a small internal debate while they mutilate the orcs, they decide to let the man go, most already fearful of him, and quickly believing his claim however absurd it may be.

Plus many attributed his arrival to be tied to the early massacre.

Turning back to the man, Veinor sighs. “The orcs took it”

“Thank you” He bows. “Though to your benefit I don’t taste that nice, trust me, I’ve eaten enough of myself and I still don’t enjoy it” He chuckles darkly as he begins to walk away.

That disturbed Veinor somewhat; eating one’s own flesh while still living, a disturbing concept indeed.

…

Kaille, seeing the man beginning to leave, quickly jumps towards his father.

“Please father, allow me to escort him to the orcs, so that I may kill them all” He says in a mix of desperation and anger.

Others, the remaining archers, race their way towards Veinor, and soon all eight circle Veinor, asking to escort the man so that they may find and kill the rest of the orcs.

Veinor thinks on it deeply, before allowing it.

Kaille jumps in joy on the inside at this, however he knows the reason why they’re being allowed isn’t because of revenge.

It is because inevitably more of the men will die on this mission, leaving more women to Veinor, a concept Kaille was raised and fed upon, but now doesn’t feel so strongly towards due to Layenna.

The men, all quite knowledgeable of the situation simply do not care, for rage is their mistress and death is their lover.

Veinor calls after the man telling him of their escort, to which the man reluctantly nods his head, shaking it afterwards with a sigh, knowing that this trip will not be an easy one.

Kaille rushes to his tree house, dropping the small pile of fourty ears in an empty jar, sealing and placing it on a shelf beside rows and rows of ear filled jars.

Having one last look around the place, he begins out, only to be caught by Layenna.

“Don’t die on me, for I’m still not with your child” She looks lovingly towards him.

That strange feeling rises up in his chest, one that he must ignore for the sake of survival if he must.

With a long but deep kiss, which his body reacted too before his mind was made up, he leaves her, heading down and waiting for the rest.

Soon the escort is ready with almost a hundred arrows each and they all set off at a leisurely pace, songs of death and war blurting from their soft toned voices.

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Author's Corner: Hey, guess it's a bit of a strange chapter for youse since these elves are not exactly your normal kind!!!

Anyways, hope your enjoying it and more will come, be ready for some massacre :D

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD