‘Another story!’ cried the grubby, little
orc child.
Wurgoth smiled down on his grandson. He’d
had lots of them but this one was his favorite.
Young but clever.
‘Calm yourself Ori. I’ll tell you one more…
Long ago, before even I was born, there was a battle. The first battle ever
fought by the reunited tribes.
Five tribes were there. The ‘Broken
lancers’ the ‘Blood-bottlers’, the ‘Meat-drippers’, the ‘Flesh-lump-eaters’ and
the ‘Bone-crunchers’. All led by their chiefs…
All except our tribe. Chief Orestes had
gone to slay the dragon and left his most trusted general: Aurelius in command
of his army.’
Ori sat up. ‘That’s not true! Chief Orestes
did lead his army into battle!’
The bald headed Wurgoth smiled. ‘Yes,
you're right but he wasn’t there yet.’
Repositioning his aching bones in the
sturdy, wooden chair, the old orc continued.
‘The four chiefs of the other tribes met
with Aurelius and each one bowed to him and took his instruction without
dissent.
Each of the five mighty armies was divided
into two parts and the ten divisions were lead by a chief or general.
Aurelius the wise lead one of the Broken
lance armies and the mighty Bodan the other. Each commanded a hundred and fifty
men. Boden though, like the other chiefs and generals obeyed Aurelius’ orders
without question.
Each of the ten armies divided themselves
around Khajag: City of the Blue prince Narcissus.
A magical barrier prevented living
creatures from passing through an evil, magical barrier of lightning.
Each leader was allowed to decide upon their
own plan of attack but they all knew that they answered to Aurelius.
On his signal the battle was started. Some
of the groups attacked from distance with arrows. Some tried to topple the
spindly towers that housed the magic. Some even charged the lightning field!
Aurelius was cleverer though. With shields
raised, the majority of his division advanced upon the shimmering blue field of
energy. A smaller group fired arrow upon arrow at the two figures atop the
tower, preventing the evil Black-cloak from using his foul magics on the
advancing orcs.
The Dragon-borns fired crossbow bolts but
Aurelius’ men held their shields together so no bolts could penetrate.
When they got to the crackling energy
screen, they halted and thrust their long spears through.’
Wurgoth clears his throat as he sees his
little grandson’s eyes start to droop.
‘The Dragon-borns were no cowards. They
wanted to fight and so they advanced. They passed though the energy shield to
get to our warriors. They were seemingly unhurt but this didn’t surprise
Aurelius. In fact Aurelius smiled, for now, in the open, his Broken-lancers
outnumbered the spread thin troops of the Dragon.
The battle was furious and unrelenting. Orc
and Dragon-born alike died by the sword and spear. Aurelius though had superior
numbers and the Dragon-borns had no reinforcements because they were fighting
battles on all sides.’
‘And then what happened?’ Asked the young
orc in awe.
‘Then?’ Wurgoth smiled. ‘Then, when only a
score of Dragon-borns were still standing on our side of the magical barrier,
Orestes appeared as if from nowhere atop the tower nearest them and struck the
head clean from the shoulders of the Black-cloak there.’
‘Where did he come from?!’ squealed the
little orc.
‘Well, that’s a different story but his
actions caused the magical barrier to fail. Aurelius took advantage of the
momentary confusion and charged through. He and his men killed every
Black-cloak and Dragon-born they encountered but more importantly, they broke
into the nearby towers and killed each mystic powering the barrier. Soon the
disciplined Dragon-borns had to break formation and as soon as they did that, they
were lost.’
The old orc pulls himself to his feet and
kisses his grandson on the forehead.
‘Many orcs died in that battle but it was a
great victory. The tribes reunited. Thereanthor’s son killed and enough treasure
found to provide all the weapons needed to fight the coming war. Your great,
great grandfather fought that day. He was barely more than a boy himself but he
always said it was the proudest day of his life.’
The little orc’s eyes were now nearly
closed, ‘Was wise Aurelius ever a chief?’
‘No my grandson. Never a chief but instead
he became so much more. He became the Chief of chiefs’… ‘But that’s also
another story’.
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