Black Metal: The Orc Wars Read Online Free PDF Page B

as he took off at a run towards a low ceilinged building near the ruined larder.
    Ma-Gur quickly followed, but the larger orc had difficulty keep up with the smaller and faster scout. The two orcs reached the building just as three other warriors who had also heard the call arrived as well. With the quiet understanding so common to their race the five orcs spread out to surround the collapsed building. Once in position they converged on the center as they again heard the cry.
    Ma-Gur and another warrior reached the source of the sound, which was coming from underneath a pile of collapsed mud wall that was being held down by a broken support beam. Ma-Gur and the warrior strained their muscles as they lifted the massive wooden beam. Okada and the other two orcs quickly began digging away the crumpled pieces of the wall as they heard the cry again.
    They found a young orcish boy who had been pinned down underneath the crumbling wall. He was crying because it appeared that his leg was broken. With firmly set jaws the five warriors paused a moment to look at the boy. Unfathomable expressions played out over their faces, and then left as quickly as they came as their faces hardened once more. Okada reached out to hold the boy, firmly bracing him as another warrior grasped the boy’s broken leg. There was a moment of silence, then it was broken by a loud cracking noise and the boy’s yelp of pain as the orc set the bone.
    The five warriors emerged from the smoke. Ma-Gur was carrying the boy, whose small arms were wrapped tightly around the big orc’s stout neck. The rest of the assembled orcs watched without comment, knowing better than to ask about the other children. Yet even the boy was only meant to live a short time. For as Ma-Gur walked on the boy’s arms fell slack, the shock of his leg and massive internal injuries just too much for his young body. The large warrior gently laid the body upon the ground, and walked on with downcast eyes.
    The bodies of the small handful of orc warriors chosen to be left behind to defend the village lay scattered about the entrance of the settlement. Their bodies were hacked and bloody, many of them were riddled with strangely beautiful arrows. There was blood on a few of their weapons, which meant that at least they hadn’t died alone.
    One of the living orc warriors yanked an arrow from a body and held it out to Okada to examine. The scout looked at it for a moment, then broke the arrow in his hand in disgust.
    “Elves,” he spat as he threw the pieces at the torn ground.
    “And men,” stated an orc who came out of the smoke with a few other warriors behind him. Over his shoulder was a body, which he unceremoniously dumped on the ground.
    It was the corpse of a human male, a warrior by his armor. It appeared that before his body was buried and partially burned that he had worn a white surcoat. A well-known symbol of the men of Iithsul, religious zealots from a country far to the south.
    “What are templars doing this far north?” asked one of the warriors.
    “They most likely came at the behest of the Dalarns. Some of them escaped last spring when we sacked the city. Those limp-wristed pixie loving elves were probably scouts or something for the templars,” cursed another orc.
    “Who were likely the only people who would aid the Dalarn survivors,” Okada mused as he looked at the destruction surrounding them.
    “I knew we should have run them down when we had the chance, too busy setting fire to the place,” grumbled one of the orcs. His comment was answered by a handful of snorts and grunts, the closest expressions to laughter that most orcs made once reaching adulthood.
    The group of warriors were interrupted from their subdued reverie as they heard the heavy footfalls of the majority of the horde tromping by. The remaining orcs quickly fell into step with the rest as they moved towards the back of the village.
    What used to be the grandest, by orcish standards, building in