As the messenger awaited audience with Maren, Malakaus and his orcs were hard at work. They had set field smelters to melt the unused equipment into ingots, which they’ll transport back to their tribal homes once the job is complete. Many of the warriors returned home aside from Malakaus’s own riders and a few men who volunteered to join his warband. They were excited for future battles, wishing to bring home wealth and prestige against the humans. Though this was a good attitude to gather forces, Malakaus knew he would need to curtail this one sided hatred.

Unlike previous orc warlords, plunder and conquest was not Malakaus’s only desires. He was not gathering an army to steal from the humans. He wanted to retake the lands of his people and ideally create a proper civilization for the orcs, one that can work with their neighbors instead of being constantly at war. Though even this was a naive thought. Malakaus would know it well; he he saw how peace had broken his people.

[hr]

The Black Star Mountain. A large mountain range consisting of at least seventeen peaks to the north, protecting the kingdom of Elrad from northern invaders. While the mountains were not controlled by the kingdom, they had brokered a peace deal with the indigenous mountain people who lived there, the orcs. In eras passed the mountains were a hotly contested area fought for by humans and orcs for many years, and this peace treaty was the first of its kind. Created when King Aeryn was on the throne, it brought a new age of prosperity to the orcs.

The orcs have always been a transient people. Even when they weren’t warring with the humans they competed with each other for natural resources like game, foragable food, and water. And that’s if they weren’t fighting for personal reasons such as honor or revenge, or engaged in wife raids. It wasn’t until one clan, the Clan Blodskal, was able to use multiple victories to form a large coalition of clans to create the first tribe, the Red Fist Tribe. Amassed as a large horde he subjected various clans as well as the humans who lived nearby, forcing former enemies into uneasy allies in order to bring a stop to his reign. It was through this unconventional alliance that the humans allowed the orcs to settle into the Black Star Mountains, in order to give them a home where they could grow their own food, raise their own beasts, and no longer need to fight one another. Sure initially the mountains were inhospitable and full of dangerous predators, so treacherous not even the bravest explorers would risk climbing through it, but for the orcs they saw it as a chance to challenge a cruel fate and make something great. And great it was.

The Black Star Mountain was rich in mineral goods, like coal, iron, and precious gemstones. The mountain also grew the indomitable Blackwood trees, hardy wood as tough as steel. The various clans pooled and shared their talents together to spread the knowledge of animal raising and husbandry, medicine and alchemy, smithing and carpentry. Within ten years the five tribes of the Black Star Mountains were able to form a civilization. But just as quickly as they started they began to fall. They grew complacent with peace and despite the discoveries they did not make any improvements. They never bothered to grow stronger. All they did was eat, stockpile basic weapons and armor, and indulged in the comforts that could be bought with gold. So it was no surprise that when the humans marched their armies to the Black Star mountains after a series of disaster, the orc’s new home was gone.

That brutal year was known as the Four Curses. The first curse was a plague that sickened the orcs in charge of the forge. A disease known as Black Lung infected many who worked with iron and flames, even affecting family and friends who don’t work the forge. They grew weak, had trouble breathing, and many suffered for days before ending their own misery. The next curse was famine. With many orcs too sick to care for the fields or animals food became sparse. The indulgence of the chiefs and upper class didn’t stop however, as soon the lower class orcs began to starve out and die, resorting to desperate measures to survive. 

This created the third curse: Betrayal. The once united orcs were divided as the poor warred against the rich, the indulgent were attacked by the moderates, and where even families were torn apart literally and metaphorically in order to just fill their own stomachs. The greatest of the betrayals, that the King of the Black Star Mountains, sold out his own people for human gold, brought the final curse that destroyed the orcish lands: Conquest. The Kingdom of Elrad sent soldiers and knights to annex the Black Star Mountains, killing or capturing orcs who tried to fight back. Weakened by the previous curses and armed with crude weapons that could not break the properly crafted manmade steel, the humans took the mountains with little to no difficulty, a pitiful effort by the once warlike orcs.

Malakaus was a child when he saw all of this happened. He remembered his stepfather poisoning himself with alcohol to numb the pain from the Black Lung. Malakaus remembered joining the fight pits at the tender age of seven to earn money to feed his family. The memories of how Malakaus went from fighting in arenas to the streets as he joined a gang to raid houses and strongholds for food, and only to find books. Instead of turning them into kindling, it created a flame in his heart as his homelands were burned by the fires of war. Though this experience Malakaus learned the follies of the previous chiefs, warlords, and kings, and aimed to change. That’s why when the Orc King Yamarik Jawk tried to flee with his treasures, Malakaus personally made sure to melt his precious gold into slag and brought the king to be lynched by his own people. There was no nation for the orcs under such a selfish lord. Malakaus didn’t care to try and keep the orcs together if it meant perpetuating the lazy and corrupt. He was going to create his own kingdom from the ground up.

And so began Malakaus’s ambition.

[hr]

Malakaus finished his new [url=https://i.imgur.com/7vYISU0_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium]axe[/url]. It’s Blade had more mass which meant greater heft was needed, heft that Malakaus could easily give thanks to his sheer strength. For a mortal man such a weapon would be considered a greataxe and need two hands, but Malakaus could swing it with one. It even had a trick, though Malakaus would save that for later. For now he wrapped the handle to have a better grip as he started working on his new armor.

[color=00a651]”I wonder if Maren has heard my message yet.”[/color]