Still and despite all that I have written here, I do have happy memories of my childhood. Yes, I was hated by almost everyone I knew. Indeed, I broke more bones and spilled more blood growing up than most humans do in a lifetime. Yet I knew nothing else, and life, for all its disadvantages, is better than the alternative.
And my mother did love me kindly, as is demonstrated by how rancidly she spoiled me at an early age. For every time I shamed Brekazog with my weakness, there would be a dozen trips out into the wastes on our own, playing sister and brother.
Our favorite game was one of our own devising, although to us it was no game. The legends all said that the First Ork disappeared from the tent of his family one night when he was old, never to be seen by them again. But other tales told of orks in deadly crisis saved only by the appearance of a hoary but mighty old ork, a gaffer with more wrinkles than hairs, who strangely had no belly button. The First Ork, some maintained, still roamed the wastes, looking after his children, and from time to time he would come to their rescue with his wily tactics, wisdom, and subjugate their enemies with boundless cruelties. The full tale of the First Ork was kept from us children until the day of our maturity, which only made him a figure of more fascination for my sister and I.
Believing the tales that said the First Ork still walked the wide world, my sister and I would often go searching for him. We kept long watches on grim afternoons, scouting for lone orks making their way over the bare rock and fields of ginny grass. If we ever spotted solitary ork tracks out in the wilds, we would follow them. Most often, these tracks led to solitary Targalak wandering from camp, but once they led us to a different end entirely.
We were eight when this particular expedition to find the First Ork took place. We set off into the wastes at a march, passing grand tors scoured by sandstorms, and fording a muddy brown stream eating its way through the broken lands.
Mounting a cliff on the far bank, I discovered a hole in the rock big enough to swallow a warg and its rider whole. But the mysteries of the pit stretched beyond its size. The sides of the thing were lined with deep, three branched gouges, and its bottom was lined with bones. I gazed, wondering at the slaughter that must once have happened here. Brekazog saw me stopped and staring. She looked over my shoulder at the pit below and said, "Must be a crying spider hole."
"A crying spider?"
"Father told me about them. They're spiders the size of an ork, bigger sometimes if they're really old. They dig pits in the rock, and then cover them with a thin web. The web gets covered with sand and dust and soon enough it looks like the ground around it. When something walks on the web, it falls through into the spider's pit and that's that," Brekazog finished.
"Why's it called a crying spider?" I asked.
"Sometimes, when it is really hungry, it'll make noises like a woman crying. Father said he's even heard stories of crying spiders calling out ork names to get someone to come and investigate and fall in the hole."
I said, "That's madness! Animals don't speak Ork."
"Well that's the story father said he heard."
"How would a spider even have the throat for speaking a language like ours?"
"I don't know," Brekazog said, "but that's what father said he heard."
I was suddenly jealous to think of all the things that father was telling Brekazog that I was not deemed worthy of, and with two hearts beating in my chest, it can be difficult to keep emotion in check. I lashed out with, "Father's gone idiot if he thinks that's so."
"Father's not an idiot!" Brekazog said and gored the air with her tusks.
"Spiders don't talk!"
Brekazog stood strong. "Maybe when they eat an ork they can read what's in his head, or the language is in his blood or some such! We speak Ork and we eat ork, don't we?"
"Yes," I said.
"Maybe the language is somehow carried in the flesh or something, I don't know. But all I'm telling you is what father said!" Brekazog stomped.
I had upset my sister. Curious to think that I had been exasperated with father, and yet it was Brekazog whom my words had injured. I looked down on the pile of bones, and again considered the size of the hole, and the dimensions of the spider that must have raked it out of the raw rock.
"This is an old spider hole, right? That spider's dead and left, right?" I asked.
"Or perhaps it outgrew it," said Brekazog.
The thought of a spider so large and old that it required a hole bigger than this one struck me hard. "We'd better move on, right? The First Ork will not bring himself to us, will he?"
Brekazog smiled, but lingered a moment at the lip of the hole staring down.
An hour beyond the stream, the rock gave way to dry earth cracking for water, and endless roiling hillocks of ginny grass. Here began the Fields of Ozlu, which stretch on farther than ork or man can say. The tales of the kaers speak of the ork explorers marching endless months across them, and meeting strange tribes to whom even the memory of the existence of the stars has been lost, so long have they dwelled beneath the tent of clouds in the dimness of the wastes.
Though no wind stirred the air, the blades of ginny grass undulated in great waves, as though beckoning us forward. We plunged into the field. I remember the flat snap of the blades breaking under my foot, and the purple ooze that welled forth at the break point. I picked one up and used the sharp end to pick at my tusk. There was still some animation in it, and for the next few minutes it waggled back and forth in my teeth like a baby snake until finally growing stiff and still.
I noticed the tracks in the field before Brekazog did. Someone had passed by perpendicular to our own path. I could tell from a trail of broken ginny grass blades that stretched straight and sheer from my left to the right. Given the sparse welling of blood by the grass-stumps, our prey did not pass by long ago. I observed a few footprints in the dust as well. Whoever it was moved at no great pace. I followed the tracks a few steps, and discovered a great gob of black pooling on the earth. Our prey was an ork, and a wounded one.
Brekazog noticed the trail and followed me close. "Is it an ibus?" she asked.
I pointed to the footprints and blood and told her no. "An ork, and an injured one at that... One who did not walk from our camp, unless he came around a long mile."
Brekazog said, "The ork is no Targalak then."
"Seems not," I agreed.
"Not the First Ork either," Brekazog said.
"Why not?" I asked. "The First Ork bleeds like all the rest of us, doesn't he?"
"Who could injure the First Ork?" asked Brekazog.
Feeling upbraided after our discussion of the crying spider, I would not concede any point to my sister. "A slorg could," I said, and Brekazog nodded. We'd heard stories of the First Ork battling slorgs and being injured by them. In some cases, he was even defeated by slorgs during the hunt.
Brekazog continued, "Okay, but who else could?"
And I began weaving tales. Humans in their iron skins might have ambushed him for the slave markets. Perhaps he was protecting some doomed ork from raiders. The First Ork was our ancestor, but not one of the gods. He could bleed a gash like any of us. "But whoever passed by here could be the First Ork, and if he is, he is injured and in trouble."
"Do you think he might need our help?" Brekazog asked.
"Oh yeah he needs our help," I replied eagerly. Long had I dreamed of this day. Breka and I shared a smile before setting off at a trot in the direction of the tracks.
It was not long until I noted a humping black speck on the horizon. I pointed, and Brekazog looked. "That's an ork," she said.
"Aye," I agreed, and we broke out into a run. I still remember the flood of energy into my limbs as I sped on beside my Breka, her smile wide and hair raveling as she ran. If it was the First Ork, we'd be heroes. We would bring him back to the tribe, and they would welcome him with a feast befitting the founder of our race. And father, I thought, would be so proud of Brekazog and I. The idea of a hint of praise from father set my legs afire despite my deep hatred of running.
We were not long in catching up with our quarry, even though he had sighted us, and was limping away as fast as his injuries would allow. When we closed to a quarter mile, he reeled about to shout, "Stay back! I'll cook you alive and then slice you into roasts I will, you come one step closer!"
He raised a pair of bone daggers against the darkling sky, and let out a barren, hollow bellow that would have frozen one of you humans to death with its chill. Brekazog and I stopped to consider. The bellow, the ork's bravery, all suggested that this was indeed the First Ork.
While paused in thought he shouted, "I have left your lands now let me be! And think not that these injuries are so grave that I cannot steal the life from you as I stole the crown of your chief!"
He stole the crown of a chief. That was considerable. It was just the sort of escapade the First Ork would get up to. "Still," said Brekazog, "he looks awfully young to be the First Ork. He should be wrinklier than my toes after a swim."
"Aye," I agreed. "We could just ask him if he's the First Ork."
Brekazog said that was a good idea, and I raised up a shout, "Hello! Are you the First Ork? My sister and I are looking for him!"
Silence was his response. He lowered his knives, and I saw his shoulders slump forward, as though the ork had just been relieved of a heavy burden. He actually sat, and put his head in his hands for a moment. We let him be.
After a time he rose again and shouted back, "How old are the pair of you?"
I looked at Brekazog and she yelled, "We're eight!"
A chuckle reached us from across the ginny grass.
The ork dusted himself off, and made himself stand every inch of his height despite his injuries and said, "If you seek the First Ork, then look no further!"
Brekazog and I flat-out ran over to the ork. We grabbed him by the waist and yanked him this way and that in our affections, not taking the time to notice his youth, or injuries, or the fact that the best of his weapons were made only of ibus bone. It was the First Ork, and we would be the heroes of the Targalak for bringing him home.
We were all questions at first. "What was the world like when it was young?" I asked.
"Empty as your stomach after a week with no food," the ork said.
"Do you like it better now?" asked Brekazog.
"Largely yes. Though as you can see from my injuries, I have issues with some of my ungrateful children."
Brekazog looked at the oozing wounds in the ork's thighs. "What bastards could have done this to the founder of our race?"
"You know, I'm glad you asked that question. I tried to explain to this tribe that I was the First Ork, and they just wouldn't believe me. I told them all about stuff from long ago, like how I invented the first sword and such. They didn't care and wouldn't listen," he said.
"Is that why you stole their chief's crown?" I asked.
He turned and patted me on the head. "That is exactly why I did that. My my! You are a smart little one aren't you? Thin perhaps, but smart as an eagle. I like the both of you," the ork said and took both of us by the tusks in a gesture of friendship.
My hearts beat like I was running a race. The First Ork thought I was smart.
Brekazog, always more practical, looked to the ork's wounds. "This is from an arrow, is it not?" she asked.
"Aye," the ork nodded. "They had an archer there I'd a been proud to call my child had his arrows not been aimed at me."
"We must get you back to camp. You need food and drink and rest."
"Camp?" he asked.
I nodded. "It's a few hours march, and you'll see how we Targalak honor our founder. For you, there will be meats ripe and fresh, and more blood wine than you could drink in a lifetime."
"Really?" asked the ork. "My lifetime stretches back to the birth of the wastes..."
"Well maybe not that much," I said. "I was just speaking creatively before. But there will be enough blood wine for a fun night."
"I look forward to the hospitality of the Targalak then," said the ork. "But the march is a few hours you say?"
Brekazog and I nodded in unison.
The ork turned his head at that. He looked at the both of us, and then scanned the horizon for a long moment while Brekazog and I were left to wonder at his hesitation. What could he have against the Targalak? We had been taught we were the best tribe among all the orks. There was food and fermented blood at camp. What more could one ask for? Finally, the ork said, "Even though your camp is so close, I would rather spend the night here."
"That doesn't make any sense," I said broadly. "At camp we can eat, and our kaer can tend to your leg wound."
Breka agreed. "Camp will be much more comfortable for one of your age than spending the night out here. You could sleep in a tent instead of under the stormy sky-"
"And it might rain!" I chimed in.
"My brother is right. It could might rain, and then you'd be soaking wet miserable."
"No one likes to be wet," I observed.
Brekazog said, "Ginny grass makes a poor bed. Always slithering and writhing beneath you. It'd be impossible to get to sleep."
The ork let us exhaust ourselves with objections, then said. "You tell me that the Targalak are orks who will recognize me for who I am, yes?"
"Oh, they'll all know you're the First Ork," I averred, though even then when I thought of how I would prove this to father and the rest, no arguments other than this ork's word came to mind.
"Then I want to meet them at my best. I am a fast mender. By tomorrow, my thigh will be healed and I can meet my children looking the ork I am."
Brekazog and I put our heads together. Our mother would be exceedingly worried we had not made it home. I said, "But the rest of the tribe will be thrilled to think that some accident may have killed me."
"The rest of the tribe does not want you dead," Brekazog said quickly and unconvincingly.
The ork overheard us and said, "The rest of the tribe wants you dead, my smart one?"
I nodded. "My mother was to kill me when I was born, but she didn't."
The ork said, "And the kaer-"
"My mother ripped him in half and ate him."
The ork laughed at that. "Torn asunder, eh? Well, she must love you very much."
"Aye, she does," I said. "She says I am to be chief when father dies."
"Your father is the chief then?"
"Yes."
The ork looked at me long then. I should have sensed the menace in that look, but I did not.
I would never learn from this ork what the end of his plot was to be. But I was a loathed heir. There were many moves he could have made.
I was too excited to have found the First Ork to see the threat in his eyes. I was but eight years old, my reason was not yet in full bloom. I said, "Mother will be worried about us, but think of how excited she'll be when we return tomorrow, and with the First Ork!"
"Every ork tribe will know the Targalak are the finest orks then!"
And so our excitement carried us off into danger. We told the ork that we would gladly spend the night here with him in the fields, and then act as his honor guard on the march back to camp. "Wonderful!" the ork said clapping his hands.
It was a hungry night, as none of us had any food, though Brekazog and I did have full water skins which we gladly shared with the ork. He guzzled the water greedily, saying "Many thanks youngling. I have not stopped for drink in many days."
Brekazog and I made what camp we could for the ork, pulling up the bolj worms by their tails and tossing them away to clear a space to sleep untroubled by the wretched things. I remember the way they would plop when they landed, wriggling wretchedly in the clear air, but wholly unable to move.
We sat in the small bowl of dirt we had stamped out, and Brekazog asked the ork to tell us of one of his favorite adventures before we went to sleep. Brekazog said, "Mother tells us a bedtime story every night before we fall asleep, and you are always our favorite ork to learn about."
The ork said, "Fine, but after that, my fine young prince and princess, you must go right to sleep. No dillying or dallying! I need my guards rested for tomorrow's journey."
We both nodded quickly. I enjoyed many stories of the First Ork from my mother. I could not imagine how enjoyable a story would be from his own lips.
"Will you tell us of your battle with the first slorg?" asked Brekazog.
"Or the defeat of Maarg the Biter?"
The ork greeted both these requests with derision, finishing by saying, "I've never considered myself much of a fighter actually."
"But no ork can defeat you!"
"Bah!" he said. "We orks put too much faith and trust in our swords and strength. I mean, when you could sweep away whole armies with your blade, like I could, you begin to seek fresh challenges. So I've begun using my wits to get by in the world.
"For example, let me tell you of the time I pretended to be a doctor and bilked a tribe of all their gold.
"It all began when I found a camp of orks just outside the Urta-Koi Mountains. I spotted it from the foothills, and as I approached orks slept around what was clearly a campfire, yet no smoke or flame was seen. I walked nearer, and as I did so, no one rose to meet me. This awoke my interest of course."
"If there were orks in trouble, you wanted to help them, right?" I asked.
The ork looked at me for a moment before saying, "Oh yes. I wanted very much to help those orks. Unfortunately, they were beyond all help because they were very dead."
"That's too bad," I said. I'd been expecting the First Ork to help someone in this tale, because that was my expectation for what he would do for me amongst the Targalak.
"Four bodies so charged with millpox that their skin was a field of carbuncles weeping foul yellow pus. The four were all mostly dead, so I immediately began going through their things. Nothing. They had not so much as a dented spoon worth a halfpenny. Still, being hard up myself at that time, I took the food, packs, and water they had, and made ready to go."
Brekazog said, "You weren't worried about catching the millpox?"
The ork shook his head. "I had the millpox when I was a boy, and you can't catch it twice."
"You were a boy?" I asked. "I was taught that you were born a full adult."
"Excellent question my smart one. I simply call my boyhood that time before I created other orks for company. Never having been a boy is one of the few regrets I have of my long life. It seems such a delightful time. I would have enjoyed it I think," the ork said before continuing.
"In any event, the blankets caught my eye before I left. They were of human make. You know of course that the humans come to trade with us orks at the Broadmere River. There, they come with jewels and gold and silver and metal weapons, and we bring them hides and jerky and slorg skulls. But the most common item our race brings to trade is other orks.
"The humans that meet us at the river are of all kinds, and some I had heard it said that some of the humans will trade disease-infested blankets at the river, hoping to start a pestilence among us. It seemed to me that this is what happened here.
"This hatched a plan in my mind. I decided that I would leave the blankets where they would be found by some nearby tribe. Orks not wasting anything, the blankets would be taken to the camp where they would likely spread the millpox. I would then arrive with an elixir which I would claim would cure the disease, and charge them an arm and a leg for it. Desperate to live, the tribe would fork over what treasure they had to me, and I would leave with it before they discovered my elixir did nothing."
Brekazog laughed low at the plan. I found it deeply unsettling to hear the First Ork would carry out a scheme so malicious, so human, on his children.
The ork continued, "Things went much as planned. An ork-boy herding some ibuses found the blankets, and took them back to his tribe, a group of unfortunates I would later learn were named the Ugforz tribe, First Ork pity them the day they met me."
"You swear by yourself?" I asked.
"If you were the First Ork wouldn't you? I'll not swear by the gods that's certain, the crowd of bastards... Where was I?" he asked.
Brekazog said, "You were pitying the Ugforz the day they met you."
"Ah yes," he said. "The Ugforz soon had millpox running through their tribe like rot through a week old hunk of meat. I waited until the sickness had seized a strong hold among them, and then I appeared. I told them that I had a dream that the gods sent down poisoned blankets to kill orks, and I Kaer Uluhak had come to save them from this disaster. I had seen the gods work such maliciousness before, and I would not cease until I had laid their scheme to ruin.
"I told them that I had made a potion which would, over the course of a fortnight, cure anyone afflicted with the disease. (Although they may at first appear to get worse as time went on. This was proof of the medicine working.)
"Unfortunately, the potion was very dear. It included many rarefied ingredients acquired from distant lands at great cost. As such, I would require compensation of the Ugforz tribe to replenish my stocks so that I would be ready for the next time the gods tried such an intrigue.
"They poured drink into me. They fed me their ripest meats. They gave me gold for the elixir, and ibuses and wargs to carry it. I left them my entire stock of healing elixir, which was really just mud mixed in clay pots with water, the taste soured with so much bolj worm offal that my patients had to fight to keep from vomiting it up, but I figured no one would think medicine that did not taste foul could work. Soon, I told them I had another vision, one in which a distant tribe had likewise been stricken with disease by the gods, and I would have to ride forth to once more save orks from death. The Ugforz fools gave me a parade as I rode out of camp with the wealth of their tribe strapped to my new pack animals."
"What happened to the Ugforz?" asked Brekazog.
"Last I heard, they had been so weakened by the millpox that a rival tribe ground them into extinction. I am sure that my hollowing out of their material resources did not help matters either, but such is the way of the wastes," the ork said. "Now off to bed, both of you, or I'll not come to visit your tribe tomorrow."
Brekazog flopped over and almost immediately began snoring. I saw the ork stare at Brekazog, and then at me, as I still sat up. "Down with you my smart one. You'll need your rest for tomorrow's feastings."
I stretched myself out, then I lay down and closed my eyes but sleep did not find me. I felt nauseous, though I had not had enough food to think I might throw up. Was the First Ork such an ork? And Brekazog and I had invited this disaster to visit our tribe?
The First Ork acted like a rogue raider, or a tribeless dastard. Yes, the law of the wastes was survival, but to hear he destroyed a tribe without a thought was deeply troubling to me. The father of all orks should help his children, not feed upon them. Though I kept my eyes shut, I could not sleep for thinking of what this meant for my race, for who we were.
So it happened that I was awake when the ork tried to kill Brekazog. I heard my sister gasp and opened my eyes. By the faint light of the cloud-hidden moon, I saw the ork with one arm tight around my sister's waist. The other clenched a knife, and was at Brekazog's throat. The both of Breka's young arms held the ork's bone-blade a palm's width away from her neck. The pair grunted quietly as they struggled.
I gazed on them, still thoroughly gulled. The first thought that crossed my mind was what had Brekazog done to upset the First Ork? A moment later, all the dice rolled into place, and I saw that this was not the First Ork, but some worthless slorg-shit outlander not worth the skin that kept his blood from leaking out, but I would fix that soon enough.
I scrambled through the dust to the ork's side, put my hands around his throat, and began to throttle the life out of him. The ork elbowed me in the ribs. They snapped with pops, and the blow knocked me back a few feet.
The pain fed my anger, and I felt the frenzy rising inside me. It was then I saw the steel knife Brekazog had taken from Duzmeg glinting in the dirt. Brekazog must have drawn it, but lost her grip.
As I raised the knife, a slorg spirit rode me. I again came up behind the ork, but this time I slid the knife between his ribs- One-two! Puncturing first one heart, then the other. The ork immediately slackened his grip on Brekazog, who now broke the ork's forearm sharply, leaving it hanging at a harsh angle.
Frenzy took the two of us, and we began mangling his body in earnest. Brekazog gnawed open his stomach and began rooting about in his offal like she lost something there while I cut countless new holes in the ork's back. Our destruction of the body continued until we fell asleep, exhausted from the frenzy. We awoke the next morning black with the ork's blood, and but for my ribs, unharmed.
We bound up the scattered pieces of the ork's body with his own guts, and prepared to take him back to camp. Ork tribes always needed more food, and we would not let this scoundrel's flesh go to waste. Frankly, we would improve his lot by eating him. He would at least now be part of a tribe.
As I cut a final strip of intestine to finish tying a knot, Brekazog said to me, "I would like my knife back."
I had been using the fine steel knife the whole morning to prepare the body for transport without thinking twice. Since the moment I picked it up to slay the ork, it had not left my hands. It felt natural there. Regrettably, I passed the knife back to my sister, saying "It served us well last night, did it not?"
"Aye," she nodded and smiled.
The march back to camp was not an easy one. A full-grown ork can weigh easily twice as much as your average human male, and Brekazog and I were but eight years old. She was stronger than myself to begin with, and with smashed ribs I was not the help I would have liked. Despite the pain, I was able to carry the ork's legs on my back, tied there with ropes of his own viscera, the knees hooking over my shoulders to keep the weight balanced.
I walked back to camp with pride. I had saved Brekazog's life after she had done the same to me so many times before. I had shown my sister that I was not as useless as the rest of the tribe said. We were a team, and I was her partner.
Mother greeted our return with relief, and pride in her son and daughter for bringing home an outcast to thicken the tribe's stews. When telling the tale of the ork's slaughter, we left out the bit about thinking him the First Ork. We didn't discuss it, but we both realized how foolish it was to think that this garbage ork might have been the first and greatest of us. Even at eight, we would have been embarrassed, and so we left it out. Our searches for the First Ork dramatically fell off after this. We would not again go looking for the First Ork until our tribe was driven into the vale of Nugvul, and we met the kaer of that holy shrine.
As for the ork we slaughtered, his exact plans are obviously lost to me. He played the First Ork for a pair of younglings he met in the wastes. Why would he do such a thing? Why not try to kill us outright? He might have planned to hold me hostage. He would then send Brekazog back to father, demanding food and gold in return for my release. Or he might have sent Brekazog back to Gnarlash, demanding the same for my speedy dispatch. Or he might have managed both, and seen which offer was the sweetest.
Perhaps that is what started the deadly struggle between Brekazog and the ork that night. The ork like as not was trying to restrain Brekazog, rightly seeing her as a more perilous threat than my own willowy frame. Brekazog gave more fight than he was expecting, providing me the space to finish the ork. Whatever the ork's plans, I will never know for he is dead and buried in the meat of my own flesh.