“It is not the professional army geared up in good equipment and supported by their people that you should fear. What truly deserved fear is an enemy where every man, every woman, old or young, would take up arms and fight you to the last breath, all without a second thought.” - Caius Sextus Magnus, former Grand General of the Elmaiya Empire, best known for his campaigns to subjugate the Western Isles.

“As I see some of you could tell, this is a map of north-western Alcidea, That is, the region which encompasses this prairie you all call home,” said Aideen after the orcs calmed down and the murmurs amongst them came to a halt. The map she unraveled depicted most of the north-western corner of the continent where the prairie lay, along with parts of other nations near it. “This map is based off my travels before I visited the prairie, so expect it to be six years out of date.”

The Kingdom of Posuin was to the south-west, separated from the prairie by the swamplands, while the smaller nations of Ezram and the Holy Kingdom of Theodinaz were depicted on the lower side of the map. The rest of the map was dominated by the Clangeddin Empire, which the map had not even managed to fully depict other than parts of its western and northern reaches, as well as bits of the central region.

“What that map depicts… is it… correct?” asked one of the biggest orcish chieftains in the crowd somewhat tentatively. As a warchief he was all too aware what the size disparity between nations might mean, and the map depicted the Empire as at least several times the size of the plains as a whole, which was not comforting in the least to him. “Is that empire… truly so large?”

“It is,” said Aideen with a grim nod, which caused a renewed round of worried murmurs and discussion amongst the gathered chieftains and shamans. Their worry was understandable, as simply based on the size, the Empire was clearly far, far larger and stronger than all the clans put together, which naturally had some of them question whether it was even worth offering resistance against such a juggernaut. “Not all is bad news, however.”

“The Empire is not a unified whole, or at least, not as unified as it might seem to an outside observer,” said Aideen as her words drew the attention of the gathered orcs back to her. Using a slender wooden stick, she then pointed at the different provinces within the Empire as she continued. “Each region of the Empire is in many ways its own smaller sovereignty, which answers to a greater entity in the Empire itself. It’s not too unlike your gathering of clans, to be honest, if you had a greater leader to answer to.”

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“That said, I have reason to believe that the invasion you have encountered might be more of an independent action taken by only some of the Empire’s forces, rather than all of the Empire as a whole,” she added. “While it is a bit too early to tell, and you might well have only faced the vanguard, the heraldry that you have encountered were limited to forces from here, here, here, as well as here,” Aideen pointed at various regions on the map as she spoke, pointing to four Imperial provinces as well as Ezram and Theodinaz.

“Why do you think that this is an independent action on their part, human?” asked another of the orcs from the gathering, a wizened shaman from their looks, with a voice that was mostly curiosity with a hint that he sought for reassurance. “From what you pointed out, some of their forces came from pretty far within their lands.”

“Two reasons, mostly,” replied Aideen as she nodded to the orc shaman’s question. “For one, you might have noticed the absence of forces from these three regions in particular,” she said as she pointed to Caeropa on the map as well as two other provinces next to it. “They are far closer to the prairie than some of the other provinces whose forces were spotted in the forces you encountered, which was odd to say the least, unless they had not participated at all. If this was a joint effort by the Empire as a whole there was no way they would not participate.”

“And the second reason?” asked the same orcish shaman as he pondered Aideen’s words and found that it made some sense, though he was not familiar with how humans did things. Next to him several of the other orcs also nodded as they thought about the same issue and found themselves in agreement with her argument.

“The Empire had its pride. In fact, you could say they had too much pride,” said Aideen rather nonchalantly to the gathered Orcs. “If this invasion was something they intended and persecuted with their full force, there was simply no way that they would bring in forces from other nations, much less smaller nations like Ezram or the Holy Kingdom.”

“We understand what you meant, I believe. Our thanks, Everlasting one,” said the orcish shaman that had asked the questions as Aideen concluded her hypothesis. While the orcs might not be familiar with human culture as a whole, what Aideen said were concepts they could understand easily enough, much like how each orcish clan would have their own pride, and were unlikely to call upon much weaker clans to join them in a battle for benefits. “I believe what you intend to say is that there is likely not that many humans who came to invade our lands, yes?”

“I believe so, at least, from the circumstances and evidence we have, elder,” replied Aideen.

“Then there is only one thing to be done with these invaders, do you not agree, my brethren of the clans!?” yelled the orcish shaman as he suddenly raised his voice to address the rest of the gathered chieftains and shamans. “As the Elder Shaman of the Hardstone Clan, I call for war! War until we remove these invaders from our lands!”

“As the Chieftain of the Bloodfang Clan, I call for war!” added Orica as she aped the orcish shaman’s cry at the top of her voice.

“As the Shaman-Chief of the Grimclaw Clan, I call for War!”

“War! War! War!”

“WAAARGH!!!”