“In terms of population, there were far fewer orcs who lived in the plains compared to the amount of humans that lived in the nations near the region. Even a smaller nation like Ezram easily had over a hundred thousand people living in its territory, which already numbered nearly half as much as the total number of orcs that lived in the plains.

What many failed to consider however, was that while a human nation’s army was perhaps one out of twenty of their total population, maybe one out of ten to one out of five if they conscripted just about every able-bodied adult for military service, amongst the orcs the number was closer to four out of five if not more.

Every single orc, male or female, old or young, would take up arms and fight to the last if they needed to, and such a spirit was something that most humans lacked.” - Laeviniel Al’rediad, elven researcher of history and history Professor at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, circa 673 FP.

Once the call for war spread out, Aideen was surprised by how fast the orcs gathered their warriors into a semblance of an army. The clans that lived closer to Greentusk territory as well as the refugees from the southernmost clans had arrived to the meet with their entire population, so they were the fastest to prepare for war, as their warriors gathered together immediately. Those from clans that lived further away and had only sent a delegation had immediately sent messengers to their respective tribes to muster up for war as well, while scouts were sent out to monitor the progress of the human invaders.

Messages from those scouts arrived faster than additional warriors from the other Clans, as some of the scouting orcs were junior shamans of the nature affinity, who had tamed beasts with them. Where they usually used their tamed falcons and hawks to hunt, the beasts were also perfectly capable of sending messages back to the main camp at a much faster speed than what could be achieved by land.

The prairie was vast, and that apparently gave some trouble to the invading humans, who were unaccustomed to the land and advanced with obvious caution. Despite the time that had passed, they had yet to even cross that much distance so far. Instead, they had consolidated their gains and built a wooden fort at the southern region, around the northern reaches of the Featherclaws’ territory.

What the scouts managed to report included the overall number of the human army, which seemed to have gathered at the fort as they waited for further reinforcements. The number that had gathered at the fort was around ten to fifteen thousand, while some daring scouts who slipped behind enemy lines reported the presence of reinforcements roughly amounting to the same amount a couple days travel further south.

They had also included sketches of the heraldry they saw from the human forces, and Aideen’s prediction turned out to be true. The heraldry displayed had only accounted for forces from Ezram, Theodinaz, as well as six different provinces from the Empire, with several other closer provinces conspicuously absent. Twenty-five to thirty thousand soldiers might have seemed intimidating for any individual clan to tackle, but there were dozens of clans in the prairie.

Already there were nearly fifteen thousand orc warriors gathered in the territory of the Greentusks, and by the time the reported reinforcements reached the fort, the first of the reinforcement from more distant clans had begun to arrive. By the time the scouts reported that the human army, approximately twenty-seven thousand strong, marched further north, nearly fifty thousand orc warriors had gathered in wait for them.

The reinforcements had not only been composed of orcs either. The Greentusk’s contingent of warriors, easily one of the largest at over a thousand five hundred strong, was mostly of orc-elf mixed blood hybrids, with full-blooded orcs and elves interspersed amongst their number. The clan’s static and agricultural nature allowed their population to grow larger compared to the nomadic clans, but it had not meant that they forgot their roots and their warrior traditions.

From the east also came the Clans of Grandfoot and Hightower, both clans which had a sizable population of goblins amongst their populace, as they lived on the far eastern ends of the prairie, bordering the rainforests where the goblin tribes lived. Similarly, many orc-goblin hybrids were amongst their numbers, and what they lacked in size, they more than made up with numbers and ferocity. Goblins were a far more fertile race compared to the Orcs, and the two clans were similarly great in number due to their mixed heritage.

The totally phallic codpieces they wore instead of pants or skirts elicited some chuckles out of Aideen and a scandalized gasp out of Celia when they first saw them, though.

When the scouts reported that the human army had entered the southern reaches of Clan Bloodfang’s territory, the gathered orcish horde, under the command of Orica who had been elected as the Warchief for the Horde, set out. She had chosen to set out and make her territory the battlefield partly because she was most familiar with the terrain there, and planned to make full use of that familiarity.

Over sixty thousand orcs, goblins, elves, and their hybrid offspring marched out from the north to meet the human army, barely half their numbers. Aideen and Celia had followed the army, not as combatants, but to offer healing to the injured that would likely accrue as the battle was joined. She also wished to interrogate some of the human soldiers if she could, to get a better idea of the reason for the invasion of the prairie.

Naturally, the humans had their own scouts, but maybe they had looked down upon the Clans of the prairie as mere barbarian savages, and had not taken the large horde headed their way that seriously. The human army made a temporary camp when the orcish horde was roughly three days away from their location, and waited for the horde to arrive.