We wounded and fragile crew mounted the lip of the vale and looked down on the land huddled by the mountainside. Black peaks dusty with snow rose to our left. To the right, the hills slumped slowly into a green plain until somewhere beyond the horizon, they met the Broadmere River and the edge of the Linden Empire. Those were the lands of the Jelki, who had hunted us hard to the vale, who had slaughtered the great Ukdun, an ork who gave her life that the tribe might survive and I might write the words you read now.
Brekazog said, "We should turn right. We passed herds of ibuses in those foothills. They will attract Jelk hunters, or perhaps even herders who tend the flocks."
Shuklug stood tall and said, "No way. We have only just escaped the Jelki and now you would remind them we lurk near their borders. The Sacred Band will answer for whatever Jelki we slaughter for the feast, and you would bring them down on our head to the crashing doom of all. No no no Brekazog. Chief Grimdush may be our father, but his wisdom is not yet yours. We should go left. There in the mountains we will find ibuses or the lone ork exiled from his tribe and scratching a life out among the rocks, an easy kill."
Brekazog said hotly, "Easy? Who wants to do what's easy? I'd drink the hot blood of our foe and you speak of what is easy!" Brekazog smiled at the rest of us. "Those of you whose mettle is not up to the test should feel free to go with Shuklug to murder some old hermit in his sleep. I would cut the throat of a warrior and have some scars to show for it. I may or may not have our father's wisdom, but I'm certain sure I have his bravery. The coward's way is to the left."
Shuklug's tusks gored the air and he shouted, "Coward! You would call me coward!"
"I would and do!" shouted Brekazog, beginning to gore the air as well.
They were on the road to a slorg-frenzy which would leave one of them dead on the slopes of Nugvul. A new ork of the Targalak would make a poor meat indeed for the feast. I slid between them and looked pleadingly into Shuklug's eyes.
I said, "Brother."
It was the first time I had ever addressed him or any of Gnarlash's brood with such familiarity. His eyes glassed over at the sound of it, and I saw the slorg-spirit which had threatened to overtake him receding in his irises.
In reply, he said simply, "Yes brother?"
I said, "We will need your strength against the Jelki. Do not waste it here fighting with those who would be your family." The words tasted of hesitancy in my mouth. Gnarlash had longed for the death of me and my sister, and had done much to bring it about. That, however, was Gnarlash. This was her son. We shared the same father. Some of my blood was his, and we had let our mothers dictate our relationship for us.
We were told to hate each other, so we did so with gusto. Hate is a useful emotion, a fact humans deny in word but approve in deed. We orks have no such illusions.
But hate did not have to be the only bond Brekazog and I shared with Shuklug. There was another way. And I said, "Imagine how strong the children of Chief Grimdush would be if we stood together?"
"The Jelki will piss themselves at the sound of our names," said Brekazog.
"And the Targalak will grow and prosper under our leadership," I said.
"Our leadership?" said Shuklug.
This was dangerous territory. I was dressing myself in borrowed clothes, but the necessity of the moment called for it. I thought of the chiefly dignity of my father, and tried to put myself in a piece of it. I said, "When I lead the tribe, do you think that I will leave you humble in the dust? No brother, I will raise you up. You will be a lieutenant, and wear a black cape of slorg-skin."
This was a tense moment. Shuklug looked at me with full eyes I could not read. Then he lunged forward, arms out.
Shuklug embraced me. Hard.
My shoulder shrieked in protest, but I ignored it for the moment, and hugged Shuklug back with my good hand.
The moment ended when Duzmeg, the son of Glug the Coward, approached with these words, "You will never live to be chief of the Targalak, for I will kill you in a duel within a fortnight."
Brekazog roared at Duzmeg, "And do you think he would stand alone? He is the right chief, and can take a champion! That, will be me. I will crush your bones into powder after goring out your hearts with my tusks!"
Shuklug released me and said, "Thrazog will not stand alone! In blood I may be less a relation than Breka, but no less in spirit! I will not let you sully Thra's flesh with so much as a scratch."
"Revenge is the right of every ork," hissed Duzmeg through gritted teeth. "He has ruined my face and taken my eye-"
"Back down, coward," I said haughtily.
"Who is the coward? I am have the will to fight standing on my own two feet while you cower behind your brother and sister who are no better than humans."
Brothers and sisters. We had become family fast.
But the insult cracked Shuklug. He rammed into Duzmeg, pounding him with his fists and shouting, "I'll have your other eye you afterbirth!"
Brekazog followed suit. I was dazed for a minute, watching my siblings pummel my enemy in my stead. It wasn't much of a fight. Shuklug snapped Duzmeg's jaw before he could even raise a fist, and Brekazog swept his feet out from under him. The black spackles of Duzmeg's blood freckling the gray rock roused me out of my daze. There was no point in killing Duzmeg over all this.
I hobbled to the writhing pile of bodies and feebly tried to pry them apart, to no avail. I grabbed Shuklug, but he turned to choke Duzmeg and knocked me to the ground. My body failed, so I tried words. Holding my gasping shoulder I said, "Targalak! The Targalak need their ork-men, and Duzmeg is brave!"
But they could no longer hear my words. The frenzy was on them. Duzmeg's body shook as they ripped it apart with their tusks, his guts tumbling down the mountainside unwinding as they went.
Huffing through black and bloody lips, Brekazog and Shuklug sat to recover with the body of Duzmeg as their pillow. Izgub appeared over the body and said, "I see that Duzmeg is an ork of parts."
"Shut up Izgub," I said.
"Why? My words can't hurt Duzmeg anymore. Nothing can. In death, he has become invulnerable." I said nothing, and Izgub began singing the dirge for the fallen Duzmeg, who whatever his flaws were, was not a coward like his father.
This was the first time someone had been killed in my name, though it would not be the last. It struck me hard. I had not wished Duzmeg dead, but dead he was.
Fate served him barren feed that day. The death of Duzmeg was not my fault. I wished him no ill at all. In fact, I rooted for him to salvage the reputation of his family from his father. Yet he was killed by my brothers for insulting me. I did not want it, I tried to stop it, and I certainly had no intention of dropping flaming sap on his face. Yet he lay on the mountainside and he was dead. All too often, circumstances take control of our lives, dictating who will live and who will die. Again, I feel no guilt for his death, and bear no responsibility for it. Even his father Glug would agree with that.
Baliktuk, who had no part in what took place, came up to the three of us and asked, "Are your heads on straight?" Shuklug and Brekazog were shaking as they came down from the frenzy, but nodded.
Baliktuk said, "We could just go back and use his body for the feast..."
We all frowned at him. The suggestion was a strange one, but Baliktuk had been raised strangely. No doubt Duzmeg, who died honorably if early, would be a part of the night's feast. But returning with no flesh but his would set an ugly precedent and speak poorly of our foop. No, it was decided that we would press on and find some Jelki to rob of their flesh.
We marched down the mountainside and through the hills below. The clouds were thin that day. Harsh sunlight reflected off the glimmering rocks hurt our eyes. We spread out over valleys and hills, searching for any footprint or trail. I tried my best to move fast, but could tell the others were slowing their march for my sake. No one said anything of it, a kindness which struck me hard at the time.
Baliktuk was the first to notice anything. He held his fist in the air as we mounted a green hill in a side-by-side line. The grass was cool against the soles of my feet. Walking upon it was a pleasure, so unlike the snap of ginny grass, and hard dried earth of the proper wastes. Izgub said, "What is it?"
The rest of us shushed him. Baliktuk pointed to the ground and all fell to their bellies except me. I kneeled and then flopped forward, hoping to spare my shoulder. It did little good, the pain becoming a constant companion against which I could grit my teeth and do little else.
Baliktuk scuttle-hunched to the lip of the hill, and as he did so I heard it. Voices. Distant and willowy on the wind, but distinctly orks. Baliktuk crawled on his elbows and peered over the edge of the hill, then ran back to us as fast as his legs could carry him.
Baliktuk whispered, "There are two orks wearing the armor of the Sacred Band below."
At his words we all fell silent. We had wanted to take revenge on the Jelki, but if there were two of the banded here, the rest could not be far away. It was their law. I looked at Brekazog and she looked at me.
Finally she said, "What are your commands, chief-to-be?"
I was completely uncertain. Indecision knotted my gut, and the gazes of all my fellows tightened it further. What I wanted was to lie down and give the constant pain in my shoulder some respite. But pleading injury, though common among humans, is not the ork way. I finally asked myself what my father would do in a like situation. There was no doubt on that score. He would create a plan and come home with enemy meat.
I said, "There are two of them?"
Baliktuk nodded.
"And did they see you?"
"Impossible," Baliktuk said.
"So it will be an ambush. Find rocks, then shadow them, and take them from the rear as they walk through the pass into the next valley." Izgub, Shuklug, and Brekazog all sprang at rocks and bolted out ahead of me. Baliktuk lingered. I told him to go on, and that I would be along shortly. Baliktuk simply smiled and said, "I find myself somewhat lame as well," and walked bent over due to the gruesome injury inflicted by his mother. It had not bothered him earlier, I remember.
Soft as the wind, we shadowed the two Jelki. Had they but turned, they would have seen us, but they did not. They entered the defile that led from this valley to the next, and we ran up the sides of it to pelt them with rocks from the heights.
I felt at that moment a kind of confidence I'd never before experienced. No one second guessed my position as leader, let alone my plan, and for the first time in my life I thought I might make a chief worthy of the name.
Brekazog gave me the position of honor and a rock, allowing me to be the first to surmount the hill and throw a stone on our prey.
I raised my eyes over the lip of the hill.
The Jelki marched past a pair of pickets that greeted them with a salute, fingers raised to the brow while standing straight up at attention. It was a human greeting, and the first time I had seen it.
Beyond the pickets sprawled the camp of the Sacred Band. Tents of azure and scarlet and purple spilled skyward, some twice the height of the tallest ork I had ever seen. I wondered at the purpose of a tent twice the height of an ork. Flags and banners twirled in the wind, each decorated with an armored fist and a naked blade. Some dozen troops practiced their strikes, seeming to duel against invisible opponents. Horses grazed on the fine grasses of the valley, neighing and shaking their manes, apparently content to simply be a horse, and be alive. The sight was martial and majestic, and struck me to the toenails with fear. I flopped back down the top of the hill and motioned to the others to get back. Brekazog would later tell me I looked so pale that she thought for an instant an arrow might have pierced one of my hearts, but that she could see no wound.
I whispered what I saw to the others, and they cautiously peeked over the top, returning as chagrined as I.
I rested my shoulder against the hill, getting some relief from the pain. The others clustered around me and I said, "We will hide in the next valley over until nightfall. When it is dark and late, we will fall on the two pickets with rocks and crush their skulls. We will bring them and their armor and their weapons back to the vale for the feast."
They nodded each and every one. There was no talk of turning back. No talk of giving up. No talk of finding easier prey. Each one of us understood we were writing the tale we would tell in the firelight at the Targalak camp, the scent of roasting meat filling our nostrils, and the eyes of our families locked upon us, the heroes of the day and new orks of the Targalak. This story might even have legs enough to follow for the rest of our lives, and so courage at its highest pitch was called for.