The sun was setting on the battlefield, the blood staining the earth reflecting the crimson sky. The death of the orc warriors had been as vicious and inevitable as a crocalyal swimming into a sheef pond were only a few young shefherders stood guard. Orcish arms had been separated from orcish bodies; both by steel, claw and spell. The trolls were nothing more than foul smelling ash, putrefying the earth beneath them.

Broden had, for the first time, fully transformed into his totem animal the lion. The laws of physics seemed to have checked out while he did so, because the solidly built, two hundred pound dwarf had transformed into an eight hundred pound lion. He had not mimicked the filthy, stained pelt he carried with him. Rather, he had transformed into the almost mythical beast that hunted the hotter scrublands and plains in the south. His pelt had shimmered in the light a tawny yellow, his mane a brilliant rose gold. He had been majestic. His majesty had not been tarnished by hunt, but rather burnished by the blood in his claws and the death in his paws.

He had torn through the camp, from the back to the front, slaughtering all who lifted a weapon against him. His fierce attack focused on the flank had routed those that were already engaged with the rest of the group so that the levee of Pode destroyed the orcs with the ease of shooting domesticated cowbra in a barn.

Strozazand cracked his neck, some scales that had broken through his skin receding. “I guess we should behead the chieftain and head back?” His eyes rested on the orc corpse with trepidation. The chief was significantly larger than any of the other orcs; broader than Broden and taller than Cole. Even in death, the chief was imposing.

In all the tales Sir Wilbur had told them about hunts or battles, it was always the king or prince, or leader of the group who, if not dealt the final blow to the leader, at least took the creature’s head. Often, if the offender was of high enough intelligence, they challenged him to single combat. It was both the privilege of leadership and the responsibility of it.

Cole glanced at Kegar. The dwarf made no move to take the orc’s head. “It seems like something the leader should really do.” He murmured before adding louder, “I have a sword, why don’t I take care of it?”

Finally noticing his “head” pun. A half hysterical burble of laughter escaped Stroz’s lips before he clamped down on it. In all the battles the levee had faced, and all the fights he had been in as part of Pode militia, nothing had prepared him for the gore of this slaughter. It was overwhelming in its magnitude. They, a band of twelve, had not only fought and killed, but butchered an army of orcs.

The levee of Pode had singlehandedly killed all the male orcs of all the tribes that roamed the plains. Had the army of the Northern Kingdom been here in their stead, the army, not the orcs would have been slaughtered. Shandra’s mind whirled like one of the mini tornadoes that sometimes appeared when Katrina was enraged. She had always known herself to be powerful and intelligent, but surveying the carnage… she had to wonder, What is it about Pode that has made us all so powerful? It was such an intriguing idea that she made it her new area of study.

Cole placed one boot on the orc’s chest while resting his other on the ground to give himself the leverage he needed to cut through the thick neck. Even with his considerable strength it took two blows to cut through all the sinew and bone.

With distaste he picked up the severed head. “Ellen, do you have an extra sack or something to wrap it in? I don’t want orc brains or goop on my clothes.”

Ellen nodded, “With my things, sure.” She chuckled over the corpse of an orc, “Without me, you wouldn’t have half the tools you need.”

Stroz smiled and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a bloody smear in its wake. “Without you, we wouldn’t know what we were missing.” He crouched by a body and began stripping its gear, pocketing coins and other small valuables while setting the bulkier gear like weapons and armor in a pile so he could determine if its value was worth its weight later.

Ellen laughed again, “You’re like an old campaigner, Stroz. Stripping everything from a field of battle.”

He shrugged, seeming to have recovered from his earlier burble, “Kegar promised me money for the bone tower and he didn’t deliver, all I got was that weird bone spike off the top. And I only got that because I refused to leave without something. Who knows if that’s going to be worth anything. If this king tries to back out on his payment, I want to get something out of it. My horde can’t remain barren forever.” Frustration bled into his voice.

Cole replied, still looking at the head in his hand with distaste, “Don’t you mean ‘we’ want to get something out of it?”

Stroz grunted thoughtfully while pulling a breastplate off an orc. “Well, I suppose I’ll share with Mary and Katrina, after all they didn’t have a choice, and Ellen is helping me strip the bodies so of course she’ll get some. But what do the rest of you care? You would leave the money on the ground, so you can’t be interested. Anyway, I’m the one, with Ellen’s help, doing all the work.”

Kegar jumped in, “We are a team! You can’t take all the spoils for yourself when we killed them together! Cole and Katrina ransacked the room in the keep alone and they were going to share the money from that! How can you be so selfish?”

Cole raised an eyebrow at Kegar. He hadn’t considered the need for him to share what he had found. I suppose though it’s true. If I want people to share with me when they find something, I need to be willing to share with them when I find something. His shoulder lifted and dropped in a almost imperceptible shrug, shrugging off the entire mental argument and deciding to simply share whatever treasure he discovered.

Lizzy pulled a bandage tight on Percival with a disgusted sigh. He had received the slash preventing her from being skewered, something Kegar had not noticed at all. Lizzy had noticed that Percival had stuck by her, like he had been hired to do, preventing her from dying almost a dozen times. Kegar said I didn’t need Percival because he would take care of me, protect me, but he wasn’t anywhere near me. He didn’t even have Köttur stay by me. Her fury burned into her movements, making them harsh and jerky. Unfortunately, making her anger sear Percival a great deal and touch Kegar not at all. But Percival suffered through her ministrations while giving no indication that he noticed how firmly she was wrapping his wounds or how quickly she was pulling bandages tight.

When she finished, Percival stood with effort. His attempt to make it seem effortless only emphasized how stiffly he rose, “I think he is willing to share if we help, is that right Stroz?”

Stroz nodded, “It’ll go faster too.”

Broden, having finished changing back into a dwarf, began taking the stripped orcs and tossing them into a pile. The process that had brought him back to his natural form would make any self respecting, mundane alchemist or would be scientist have kittens. Not only had Broden released six hundred pounds into somewhere, but he also was restored fully clothed, or as clothed as he ever was, with his weapons and miscellaneous pouches all in proper order. Even the wounds he had suffered in lion form seemed to have been tended to. Not with a bandages like Percival, but more likely with some magical spell or divine intervention.

Shandra, whose thoughts had been moving so fast, nearly anyone else would have collapsed in exhaustion, shook her head, clearing the light mental exercise before she began a magical ritual. It was a rather tame ritual, as far as magic went. She took a piece of orc flesh, so the spell would target orcs, and stared at it while gesturing and murmuring archaic words. The ritual would, when it went off, remove the orcs from their belongings. In theory it sounded wonderful, in practice… less so. The orcs that hadn’t been stripped by the time she was done were reduced to a pile or puddle of sludge, their goop dropped on the stacked corpses. Unfortunately, they were dropped onto the pile, so their viscous nature splashed when they hit the corpses, spraying anyone nearby with pureed orc.

Fortunately, this ended the argument over loot.

Ellen, who was only just managing to not vomit, grunted, “I hope the female and young weren’t planning on coming back for their dead.” Her skin was a distressed green shade.

Faute, who had not lifted a finger to help, cut in, “I hope they do come back and see! Filthy animals! You saw what they did to those villages. What if that had been Pode?” While others were releasing themselves of their breakfast, she seemed completely unperturbed.

“First off, it couldn’t have been Pode. Look what we did to them. If all of Pode had been here… Second, while it was terrible, yes, it’s no worse than what humans, dwarves, and lizardfolk have been visiting upon each other for generations.” Ellen replied, attempting to reason with a child she knew better than to try with.

“Well, we’ve had good reason!” Faute snapped back.

“There is always a good reason, but never an excuse.”

When the bodies were finished being stripped and they were loaded up to carry as much of the spoils as they could, they made their way back to Mary and Katrina. Kegar had forgotten not only his order to kill the captured orcs, but also that there had been captured orcs with all the commotion of the battle. Because of this, he didn’t think to question them on their prisoners and no one else remembered or cared. They were weary from the ferocity of the battle and eager to head back to Capita. If they weren’t feeling at ease with their group, they were at least secure in the knowledge that the orcs had been put down, the chief slain. There would be no more delay. The king would send the knights and clerics to Pode to destroy the corruption of the bone spire before it could rise again and destroy their homeland.