“It is pure folly to expect different people to value the same things you do.” - Slobodan Escavic, Elmaiyan Philosopher.

“Who is this Orica?” asked Andromarche with a hint of curiosity mixed with worry in her voice. From what Aideen said she could guess that whoever it was must have had some notable influence amongst the greenskins - orcs, she hastily corrected herself in her mind - that other clans would back down when she made her will known.

“She’s the current Warchief of the Bloodfangs, and yes, that title is exactly what it sounds like,” said Aideen with a smirk in reply to the woman’s probing. “More directly related to your situation, Buraq was one of her favorite nephews, so she was mightily impressed that you beat him.”

“Impressed and not wanting to gnaw my bones instead?” asked the female knight with obvious doubt.

“Like I told you, very different people, and different values,” said Aideen with a chuckle. She could understand Andromarche’s doubts, as it wouldn’t be odd to have in anyone who was told what she had been told, especially given the limited knowledge they had of the orcish tribes. “If you do go with Orica and the Bloodfangs, you can expect to get challenged into fights often, but that’s more out of respect and interest than anything. Heck, wouldn’t be surprised if it made you popular among the younger males too. Buraq was one of the better warriors amongst them.”

“That… is a lot to take in,” said Andromarche after a moment of hesitation where she tried to gather her thoughts. “And they wouldn’t butcher and eat me just because I’m human?”

“They don’t eat humans, that’s just slander I commonly heard when I passed through the northern regions of the Empire,” explained Aideen patiently. It was perhaps more difficult to get rid of ingrained beliefs that had been spread for generations like that even when confronted with evidence than to learn new things, but such was the way things were. “Honestly, a lot of those old stories are probably just from people who had the misfortune of having their village raided and saw all the hulking tusked orcs and thought of them as monsters and the like.”

“And those raids were because?”

“Lean times. Supposedly it was only the southern clans that bothered, and they mostly raided for food and livestock than anything,” said Aideen, as she too had investigated about the orcish raids in her years living in the prairie. “For what it’s worth, the orcs would kill you if you fight back and get in their way, but that’s probably about it. As a society they abhor the idea of harming non-combatants, which was part of why they didn’t consider your army as an army but more just a horde of animals to be hunted, honestly.”

“Ah. Those villages which were raided by the forward scouts,” said Andromarche in understanding. “I recall hearing someone from that group boasting about it.”

“Yeah. The orcs are big on fighting in melee, especially in what they consider a proper battle,” explained Aideen to the female knight. “On the other hand, arrows are what they use for hunting animals. That some of your archers shot their way was seen as another insult, and the result, you saw for yourself, didn’t you? Most anyone around here knows how to use a bow.”

“We were so foolish that we never even considered that when we marched,” said Andromarche in a bout of self-depreciation. “I did notice that there were an unusual amount of bows in the villages we passed, but the commanders just said it was to be expected from savage hunters.”

“Well, they paid for that underestimation in blood,” said Aideen. “Did they really expect a culture that hunts so often would not have a lot of skilled archers? What arrogance.”

“I told my Knight-Commander the same thing, but he dismissed it,” said Andromarche with a touch of schadenfreude in her voice, though Aideen noticed how the woman looked guilty almost afterward. She probably thought poorly of herself for feeling some elation from how she was proven correct over her now most likely dead commander. “How many of the… expedition even survived?”

“Somewhere between five or six thousand I’d guess, though a number of those might well be lost in the prairie. We pretty much accounted for all the rest.” replied Aideen to her query. “There’s around two and a half dozen of you that the orcs kept alive out of respect, around two-thirds of all they picked out, but some already perished of their wounds.”

“What’s about that? I mean why would they take us alive just to let us die from the wounds we took?”

“Another part of their culture, I’d say. They gave you treatment, but nothing magical. It’s something they reserve for respected warriors who had been their enemies,” said Aideen in explanation. “The way they see it, if you survived on your own with just that treatment? You’d be a strong one worthy of respect. While if you die instead, that meant that the respect they had was misplaced. Like I said, they’re a very different people.”

“I see…” said the female knight as she pondered the remaining options available to her. She knew that there was no returning home to Lavinja, if there was even a County of Lavinja to go home to. Given the dire straits of the County’s finances, Andromarche was uncertain if the County would survive the fallout from this failed expedition.

Leaving to strike off on her own in the wide prairie? Even if the orcs allowed her to - which according to Aideen they would - she saw no real future there either. Despite her training as a knight, she knew that she was not suitable for eking out a living on her own in the wilderness, much less for the long term, on a land she knew next to nothing about.

That pretty much left staying with an orcish clan as an option, something Aideen mentioned that they would gladly accept, despite her lingering doubts about the matter. It would be difficult, she thought, to get used to living among such a different people, probably on her own to boot, but what other options did she have left?