The Good Ork

Chapter 9: Exile

The defining fact of my life has been my propensity to injury. I had a broken arm at birth, broken ribs from the Night of the Double Raid, and that was far from my final injury. I am not a terrible fighter, but I am so prone to hurt that in any altercation, I must devote more of my energies and strategies to remaining unstruck than defeating my opponent. As I write these words now, my hands appear as two spiders creeping across the page. I have broken my fingers more often than I can count, on occasions both dramatic and mundane. Missed sword blows have sent my hand into the armor of my opponent, snapping fingers. A dropped stew pot shattered my fist. After three decades of this, my hands are gnarled roots which I thank whatever gods may be that I am able to still write with, even if my script does look like someone tied a quill to the bill of a chicken and bid it write.

Pride leads me to emphasize my injuries are not due to a complete lack of skill. My father never trained me. He trained Breka until she wept, but never spent an afternoon instructing me in anything until I was an adult. The meaning of his neglect was obvious.

His lieutenant Tarbug taught me much. He came to me on sweltering afternoons, when a thick haze settled over the wastes, and even the blades of the ginny grass seemed to wilt under the weight of the heat. I was an able and eager student. I know how to use sword, bow, and knife. I can fight naked or with armor and shield, and know the best tactics for both. But Tarbug's instruction could not teach my bones to hold fast under a blow, nor my flesh to abide under a blade's bite. I was a scrapper more than a warrior. Not a bad fighter, but far from the best. My sister however, did develop a reputation as a fine fighter.

My reputation was that I was underhanded, and never met the fight I couldn't cheat. It was a reputation which I will admit was not wholly undeserved, and it troubles me, but the truth is that if I was a more honorable fighter I would also be dead. When I think back on my years, it is clear to me that it is better to be disgraced and alive than honorable and dead. Furthermore, I have done other deeds in my time. Righted wrongs, freed slaves, healed feuds, and killed the enemies of my people both on my blade and at my order. Had the thews been stripped from my bones for a new flesh feast, I would not have done those things. And the balance of those deeds must outweigh my dishonors. Mustn't they?

While my sister and I had survived what would come to be called the Night of the Double Raid, but countless other Targalak had not. My father-chief set out that night to find the Kitboog camp and slaughter a number of them, avenging the murder of Bakrot, his wife, and son.

However, the Kitbooga's new chief was a nimble tactician. He anticipated my father's raid in response to the slaughter of Bakrot's family. Some even say he provoked it. On the Night of the Double Raid, he ordered the Kitboog camp struck and marched the tribe into the desert. He then ordered all his warriors out to attack our camp, leaving the safety of their own young and old to distance and the desert.

This boldness forced my father's raiding party into an impossible position. Raiding parties travelled light, without extra provisions or water. The Kitboog camp was an afternoon's march from our own. Why pack more than a bite and guzzle of water?

My father arrived at the site of the Kitbooga's previous encampment and found it deserted. The tents had been struck and the stores taken. The tracks said that the Kitbooga had let out for the desert. My father faced a choice. Set out after the Kitbooga and face the following day amongst the hot sands without adequate water, or turn home. He decided on the latter, hoping that the murder of Bakrot's family had been a parting shot, retribution before the Kitbooga left the Fields of Ozlu forever.

Upon returning to camp, my father learned of our present disaster. The Kitbooga raiders had completely outnumbered the Targalak left to defend the old, the young, and our meager possessions. The Kitbooga attacked from all sides at once, completely overwhelming my brethren. They slaughtered and stole and raped and abducted, slinking away at first light with dozens of our dead piled high on wargs, and dozens of our living in chains.