The powerfully built Orc looked upon his temporary companion’s nervous backwards glances with moderate amusement, a novelty for his kind. In truth, he expected such a reception, for it was not in any way unwarranted. The rather twisted thing was that the reputation of the Orcs came from the majority taking hostile action against other races, which made the reputation a fair one. What fewer humans, and other races, knew, was that they had not drawn first blood. Naïve, warlike even, the first tribal groups of Orcs were purged in vicious campaigns. Only the strong, and the bloodthirsty, survived.
That was the irony. The reason Orcs raid, and kill, and why they value killing over everything else, was that humanity became their greatest selection pressure. Those who were now butchered in droves by Orcs… their ancestors had created the monsters.
Norak took some time to appreciate this fact as he walked along, paying scant attention to the land around him. It didn’t really bother him that things were that way. Just one glance at a smooth pool of water told him he was built for little but war. The gods made the humans, and the humans made the Orcs what they were. It all came to what it needed to be, and he wasn’t one to question it, the humans could hate him or fear him if they wished, they were comparatively nothing to him.
The thing that interested him the most, other than the metal-man who he was most likely going to kill, was the large beast the black one rode. Horses tasted delicious when stewed properly or spitted… or even eaten raw if you preferred. Norak couldn’t understand why you would ride upon your dinner, unless the human’s legs were defective? The Orc was fairly confident he could outpace the beast, even with four legs it may be able to sprint faster than him… but it would tire and he would not. His fingers itched at the thought of wrestling the creature to the ground and feasting on it. He licked his lips.
Soon, the landscape changed, and the small group came upon their ultimate destination. The Rocky formation known as the Point of Origin, a region even the relatively uneducated Orc knew of. Unsurprisingly, a number of other individuals were waiting for them, and even the Orc was taken aback by the sight of some sort of winged woman being accosted… or perhaps aided, by a Dwarf. The tall figure over to one side (and in actuality the centre point of the world…) caught his attention for only a moment before he started surveying what might soon become a field of battle.
The Goblin was showing signs of being an ally of the knight, and his weapon was clearly a problem. Crossbow, though of a design the Orc hadn’t encountered, despite fighting countless battles. If he made a move, he would die first, an axe lodged in his fragile body. He wouldn’t expect the ferocious speed of such a large foe, an easy kill. Slowly, so as not to draw attention to a potentially hostile action, he pulled his axe from its leather thong and hefted it in his right hand, looking around intently as if expecting a trap. A reasonable response, they could hardly blame the Orc for arming himself when everyone around him was armed, and expecting the worse. Everyone was busy taking a long time to get to the point, so the Orc took it upon himself finally to close some distance on he who seemed the most likely to have brought them here, the tall one all alone with an aura of importance about him.
“You have us, you brought us here with your voice, now use it, speak.”
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