Derthag had been well enough to worry about his warg, so Ygdri’s job was all but done already. Mutt would deal with the mount and the unusual orc maid would hardly need Ygdri’s paltry skills on a veterinary level. Instead, the orcish doctor could do nothing but stare down a group of confused ‘umies that held crossbows like religious icons. Did the white-skins really think that the green-kin would assault them in such a fashion? More importantly, did they really think that the green-kin would have dismounted and stopped if the intent was assault? 

Soon enough, the white prince they had been guarding was able to calm down the little defenders. Soon enough, the sons and daughters of Malish or Mudflap or whatever the place was called were lowering their weapons and only dreaming of piercing the orcs with their stares: as opposed to various farm-tools and crossbow bolts. Not that Ygdri feared being skewered by such puny weapons. She had her shield, and her shield wasn’t going to be broken by something as meagre as a peasant-lords shiv.

Kolach gave the order to prepare to move again, and Ygdri felt glad to be rid of the humans and their ilk. The entire lot of ‘em had given her the eebie-jeebies. It was like seeing a female orc was some culture shock to them. Did they think that orc-brats just popped out of the ground like magic? Someone needed to have a serious talk to some of them it seemed. She got a giggle out of the mental image. [i] ‘Sometimes, when a male and a female get bored, they put the sword in the scabbard and a brat comes out.’[/i]

‘Least that was how things were meant to go down. Somewhere along the lines, a bunch of moron old men thought that instead of getting a mutual agreement going on between a woman and a man, they just started trading the woman around like cattle. Ygdri’s face grew sour at the thought of her intended ‘place’ amongst the lofty realms of orcish politics.

Fuck politics.

---

Soon enough, Ygdri was awaiting the next phase of Radush’s plan was starting to come into effect. The Chosen would play a vital part again in dealing with the next major threat: a mage. Sure, there was some other crap about dealing with the ‘umie pricks and their horses, but the important task was the mage. Shit would hit the fan if the mage started lobbing fire balls or calling up lightning storms, so it would be up to the chosen to deal with any mages and their tricks.

Ygdri was seated for the second time that day upon a warg that seemed very unlikely to cooperate with the bulky orc woman. She wasn’t the sort who dealt with the beasts often, but sometimes a plan involved her lying back and thinking of stabbing a mage in the face. She wished that her pipe wasn’t so damn long now; she could kill for a smoke while riding the beast. Even then, there was the problem of losing the thing in the thump of a hard ride.

[i]I need to invent some sort of mini-pipe thing…Disposable too…Maybe I can wrap some weeds in a leaf or something?[/i]

Thoughts of revolutionising smoking forever were discarded when she spotted the first problem that the chosen would be busy: namely, a golem that managed to smack Kolach onto his flat, armoured ass. Ygdri’s face curled up in a mix of sympathy and annoyance. If Kolach came into her tent later, expecting her to rub an ointment on his sore arse-cheeks, he would have it shoved up his pucker instead.

Kolach was getting manhandled, and Ygdri was trying to turn the warg towards the golem when help stepped in. The man who took charge was the bestial grey-skinned orc Ushgar. Ushgar had been making a name for himself recently: being the biggest orc inside the chosen by a long margin and being the only person as good as her with a shield. The difference in style between them meant that they hadn’t competed for a title or anything yet, but the idea of a scrap tickled her.

That was, until she saw the brutish orc go toe-to-toe with the golem. Ushgar fought hard and took some heavy blows, blows that would have broken bones on anyone else. For every blow Ushgar took, he gave one back. Soon, the golem had taken a few blows that seemed a bit more cosmetic, and now Orthaug was leading some other orcs into a counter attack on the golem.

Ygdri made a bold decision. Her companions could take on the golem; the chosen had a different job. Ygdri smacked the flank of the warg, willing it into action. She needed to find the source, or more of these golems might start popping out of the wood works. Ushgar had taken far too many hits to happily shrug off, and fighting another would put the group at a major disadvantage.

The warg jolted forward, and Ygdri was forced into holding laying close to the beast and letting it go about its work by its own accord. She had no real control, and just hoped that it would hunt the mage quick, instead of some deer or some shit.

Thankfully, Mutt had trained this one as well as all the others, and it feasted for the company’s enemy’s flesh…at the moment. The beast’s nose had caught onto a few scents in the mist, and soon the doctor was staring down five ‘umies. Four of them were soldiers, wearing furs and holding axes, yet the one in the middle was something altogether more important: a mage.

“Found ya, piggy.”

Ygdri’s grin was visible through the fog: broad and vicious and hungry for war. She was an orc, through and through and now she was hungry for blood. The human warriors recognised her as a threat, but she was already rolling off of the back of the warg. She was on her feet by the time the first one charged. She slammed frontline into his gut and then slammed her elbow into the back of his neck while he doubled over, winded. A sickening crack told her all she needed to know: her blow had severed his spinal cord with an efficient snapping of the bone. Her doctor’s knowledge was more than enough to deal with one man in a single blow.

The other three circled around her, surrounding her in a semi-circle that kept her away from the mage, who concentrated on the golem or perhaps on another spell. She couldn’t let that happen now, could she?

The semi-circle closed in, and the humans began jeering. One commented on her being an orc, while another mentioned her being a woman. Same old crap, everywhere she went. Every battle was either ‘I’ll kill you’ or ‘I’ll rape you.’ Same fucking shit, every time. Each one of the fuckers who ever levelled the threats against her soon ended up dead. These three would be no exception.

Ygdri was drew the Falchion in a single movement as the first human lunged in with an axe. She parried the blow but didn’t counter as she instead stepped away from the thrust of a spear. Last up was a swordsman, who jabbed at her left side and found every thrust hitting the shield in her hand. She was waiting for something, the humans just didn’t know what.

They soon found out. The warg that had so recently been dismounted had swung around the group and leapt upon the spear wielding warrior. The two other men panicked, and Ygdri surged forward, bringing her Falchion over her head and slamming it into the skull of the axe-wielding human; embedding the blade several inches into his skull. The Falchion, embedded into the axe-human’s skull as it was, was quickly discarded, and Ygdri could do little more than scoop up the dead man’s axe, and lob it at the mage before he could do anything more to interrupt her combat, or summon more golems to mess with the chosen.

“Die you magic using-whoreson!”