Shaman Mul the Silent’s Journal

Tenth of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

On this day, as I stood deep in the wreckage of a Jeweled Cities wagon train, I have learned two things. Why Orcs fight, and why humans fight.

We orcs fight because the fire races in our blood and beats in our hearts. We taste the stink of battle and some part of us exults in it. We savor the killing for the sake of the killing. Not even my training as a shaman, with all of the instruction on how to preserve and protect life, nor the gift of knowledge from my Patron from Beyond the Shroud, in all of its horrific glory, can change this. I licked blood from my teeth, mine or my foes I couldn’t say, and howled my glorious victory to the heavens above.

I saw Aris heave his meager breakfast onto the bloody ground. I saw Tam shaking like a leaf in the wind. I saw men pray, weep, and stare at nothing. I saw others walk away from the killing ground, holding companions on their shoulders, only to crumple like a burning page as soon as they reached camp. They do not enjoy the killing as we orcs do. They have no desire to dance upon the graves of their foes, or heft the horns of ale to the sky at the victory feast. So why do these humans fight? They fight for more than just themselves. They fight so others need not risk the clash in the bleeding places. More than just that, they kill so that others do not have to. They take these scars onto their minds and souls, the sights that can not be unseen, the nightmares that will haunt them forever, all so that those the love and honor can live and grow untainted.

I stare at my battleax and wonder if it is a reflection of me, or if I am a reflection of it.

Aris Cretu’s journal

Tenth of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Nineteen of us went out, nineteen of us came back. Not all of us were unhurt, but thanks to Shaman Mul the Silent’s efforts, none of us died. Sgt. Gork has another new scar, but Tam is fine. We captured a half dozen crates of food, which will keep us fed for the next week or so.

I still can’t keep any food down after a fight. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad one. We all have some sort of post-combat shakes or rituals. I cannot help but think of some of the older songs, of their laments of war. If Koroc is right, and they were writ around the same time as the Seminal War, then I can see where their sorrow comes from. I have fished off of Armageddon Reef, and it is one of the most haunted places I have ever seen. I have spent only a single day and night ashore there, riding out a storm. Just past the dunes, I could feel the ghosts of the dead staring at me. Staring out from the sea-side cave where the boat’s crew was sleeping, I could see the massive craters of the God’s Footsteps where they marched back and forth across the ruins of a long-dead city. I will never forget the song Lady SiDabolo taught me that night, as we stared out across the place where millions of souls perished.

If there’d be any glory in war / Let it rest on men like him / Dead men who never came back. [2]

Chronicler Vian’s Log

Twelfth of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

The first reports are starting to filter in from our Ur-handers and Warlady Elder Vuggie’s scouts. They are an almost uninterrupted string of successes marred by two separate flaws. One is the handful of warbands that got too aggressive or stayed in contact with the foe for too long. Ironbark Company lost another sixty men when Sgt. Urlan’s squad got bogged down raiding an enemy encampment. Sgt. Nibar's and Sgt. Ardennais' squads were drawn into the growing melee, along with their attached scouts. They managed to fight their way clear and broke contact cleanly, but left quite a few men dead in the snow. The other flaw are the squads that haven’t reported in. Some of them, like Sgt. Gork’s squad, had indicated that they were moving south, and so are probably out of easy contact range. Other squads were probably wiped out entirely however.

I can only expect our casualties to climb as the Armies of the Jeweled Cities become better organized around dealing with this new (for them) form of war. And when they do start to climb, then we will have to adapt again. This war will not end quickly, which is exactly what we wanted. It also means that we will leave many of our number behind, buried in the ground here. We are committed now, and there can be no turning back.

Aris Cretu’s Journal

Fifteenth of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Sgt. Gork has had all of us learning to use some form of ranged weapon for upcoming raids. He claims that we got lucky when we hit an undefended section of the Jeweled Cities’ supply train, and that we need to be able to pick off sentries before we hit the next one. I’ve been learning how to use a light crossbow that we captured in the last raid, and I’m decent with it. I don’t think I could simply pick off a sentry though. It feels too much like murdering a man in cold blood. Then again, this is war, and fair fights are for suckers when lives are on the line.

Shaman Mul the Silent has been moping since the last battle. It’s almost as if she found out something about herself that she doesn’t like. Tam has tried to cheer her up, but hasn’t had any success. Sgt. Gork is worried what she will flake out the next time we go raiding, but I don’t think so. He wasn’t there when the Fiesty went off the deep end and became the Silent. She’ll pull through this, but I’d better offer my shoulder for her to cry on, just in case.

Shaman Mul the Silent’s Journal

Fifteenth of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Aris has offered his shoulder if I need one to cry on, and an ear if I need to talk. Bit ironic, the last one, as I haven’t said a single word aloud in almost a month. But I could read the sentiment in his mind, know the concern he feels for me. How can he know that every time I fight, I have to either lose myself in the roaring song of the blood-lust or listen to the dying thoughts of each and every one of my victims as I cut them down? Even now, the camp is awash in voices, thoughts, and emotions that only I can hear. Tam and Gork offered the same thing, but I turned them both down. Gork only wanted me fit to fight, or at least able to survive walking on a battlefield so that I could tend the other wounded men and orcs. A laudable intention, but one that would cloud his perceptions. He wouldn’t understand why I am the way I am, or at best would understand… and bury it under the need of the rest of our little warband. Tam was full of awe, spiced with touches of hero worship and perhaps lust. I don’t want to break her Illusions, nor indulge her fantasies. I think I will take Aris up on his offer. He was the only one whose concern was genuine, and who may be willing to understand.

The sun is well set now, and the moon is high in the sky. It was Aris’ songs, the Old Tongue cast aloud to the wind, that first set loose the power that lies within me. And it is he that put it best when I explained to him about how I have been speaking without saying a word, and what it means to me. He said that I have an extra set of ears and lips, and it’s just a matter of learning how to use them. And he was correct, far more than he could ever know. I have experimented aiming my mental ‘ears’, and found a peaceful balance between the cacophony of ‘listening’ to everything and everyone and the deafening ‘silence’ of aiming them at nothing at all. My mental ‘mouth’ is much the same, and I am learning how to aim it. In time, I will know how to speak to more than just one person or everyone within ‘earshot’ of me.

I have so much to thank and curse Aris for. He set in motion the sounds and actions that made me what I am today, the Blessed and the Cursed and the Bound. But I now know that there is so much more out there to learn. I may no longer be safely ignorant, and that fact in the end may indeed consume me. But nothing is boring any more in these interesting times. And if I no longer fit here in Westmarch or Glacierheart, then the whole world lies before me. A glorious blue-green jewel in the vast void for me to explore for the remainder of my days.