Chapter 5.1: Tracking

Before we start off this chapter, I’d like thank my FIRST KO-FI supporters! Whoo! Thank you to an anonymous supporter and Boomhauer!

I was dreaming.

It was a memory from when I had just entered the war.

Back when I was still fresh and inexperienced.

That day, I was hiding in some bushes on the side of a dirt path.

We were laying in ambush.

I knew right away that this was a dream.

This scene from my past has been coming back to me in my sleep a lot lately.

“Hey, guys, what kind of woman would you like to marry? To take as a wife?”

Bullfit asked us while we were hunkered down behind the shrubbery.

He had a deep, gnarly scar on his neck, stretching from the bottom of his left ear all the way to the edge of his right clavicle.

He had been severely injured in a prior battle.

Had his head been split from his shoulders, there would have been no way he’d be here right now, fighting alongside us.

But thanks to his hard Orcish skin and thick muscles, he got off with only a torn carotid artery.

Even for an Orc with boundless vitality, the wound would have proven fatal if not properly treated.

However, even grievously wounded, his fighting spirit hadn’t been extinguished in the slightest.

He kept on fighting, squeezing out every last ounce of his strength, turning the situation around and getting revenge on the one that had sliced his throat.

But most importantly, he made it out alive.

He told this story over and over again in the village’s taverns, painting it as a heroic tale of hardship and survival.

Well, it wasn’t that far from the truth.

He was a brave man.

A true Orc Warrior.

“A strong-willed woman.”

Big Den was amongst the largest of us.

Orcish recruits tended to fight more with brute force and less with skill.

And when it came down to a fight, size equaled strength.

The bigger you are, the more wounds you can take and keep on fighting.

The bigger you are, the heavier the weapons you could handle.

The way he rampaged, swinging around his gargantuan two-handed club was the embodiment of Orcishness.

He was the most promising of our generation, having gone through several battles without even a scratch.

“Yeah, a strong-willed woman would be nice. Ah, a female human knight would be good! Someone like the Great Warlord’s wife.”

Donzoi was missing the ring and pinky finger on his left hand.

Wide, dark splotches of scar tissues covered his body from head to toe, remnants of severe burns.

His first ever time on the battlefield, he had the misfortune of running into a wizard, who promptly sent torrents of red-hot flames his way.

Had there not been a pond nearly, he would have died, incinerated.

He’s carried a water bag everywhere he went ever since, hanging it on his left wrist, behind his shield.

Out of all the warriors our age, he was the most prepared.

He thought of and prepared various countermeasures based on the enemy’s race, and often kept various knick-knacks attached to his belt, like smoke bombs and fire bottles.

More than once, his ingenuity and creativity saved the troops’ lives.

“I getcha. The Great Warlord’s wife has already given birth to three children, hasn’t she? And she stills resists him. How nice. I still remember when he raped her in front of all of us…”

Boulder was our captain.

He was a Red Orc, his face bearing a cross-shaped scar.

His arms were a size thicker than the other Orcs’, which made him monstrously strong. He was extremely proud of his superorcish strength.

Born from a Dwarven woman, he was dexterous and used a bow in battle.

Composite bows designed for Orcish strength were monstrously powerful, so much so that an arrow launched from one could impale a horse to a tree or take down a flying wyvern.

He got promoted to Captain thanks to his smarts, but just because he was born a Red Orc, he thought he was different and special.

I thought he was kind of an arrogant asshole.

“I really want to get ahead in life and find myself a wife…”

And me, I was the most skilled swordsman among us.

At the time, I wasn’t anything special.

I was the smallest out of all of us. A plain, green, regular Orc.

Sure, I wasn’t the best out there, but I wouldn’t hold them back either.

“Yeah, no shit. We all want a wife, idiot.”

“Huh? You wanna go?”

“Shh, they’re coming… Everybody quiet.”

At Boulder’s command, everyone fell silent.

After a while, I heard hoofbeats coming from the distance. They seemed to be marching at a fairly slow pace and trying to silence their footsteps, but they couldn’t fool or sharp Orcish hearing.

We waited patiently for them until they were close enough.

Until we could hear the horses’ ragged breath.

And then…

“GRAHHHH!!”

It was time.

We sprung our ambush and charged down at them.

The enemy had 5 mounted knights and 30 men on foot.

It was a whole company.

35 of them and only 5 of us.

We were completely and utterly outnumbered.

But the thought of retreat never once crossed our minds.

A fierce battle ensued.

…Big Den lost his life that day.