A taste of blood

First Sergeant Sian’dur was not pleased, and unlike the dark hissing moods of the Farseer, she chose to express her discontent very loudly. Kazimierz found her on a clear, flat region of the valley, overseeing a gaggle of young orcs and trolls as they tried their various hands at archery.

“No! Wrong! The bow is to be held straight!” she barked, without a whisper of the heavy accent typical of the Darkspear. She wore heavy leathers despite the heat, and seemed not to suffer for it; the toweringly tall troll still slipped between the lines of archers like an angry, corrective tornado. At a burly orc who seemed better suited to the front line than the skirmishers, she violently readjusted his fingering on the arrow; at one of her darker-skinned kin, she all but kicked his legs to adjust his stance.

“Feet in a line to the target! Are you all deaf?” she bellowed, performing the same correction to another nearly-trembling orc. “Next one of you vulture-snacks that doesn’t maintain proper stance is my sparring partner for a week, understand me?”

A rough chorus of “Yes, First Sergeant!” erupted nervously from the assembled archers. As Kazimierz approached, Sian’dur whirled around, fury etched in every line of her harsh-drawn face.

“YOU! You are late,” she shouted, and her eyes took a maniacal glee as she looked the orc over. “No equipment! Spirits around us, you are a stupid one, aren’t you? Well, I-“

Kazimierz gritted his teeth and interrupted her. “First Sergeant, I am not your ward!” he yelled, and a part of him that he didn’t like to admit existed reveled in the troll’s shock. “First Sergeant, I am recruiting any students you may spare for a tracking run around Razor Hill,” he hastily continued, displaying Shrikha’s badge and wary of the bubbling rage in the hunter’s eyes.

“Very well!” Sian’dur snapped, and eyed the silent row of aspiring marksmen evilly. “You!” she barked, and pointed at the hulking orc she had corrected before. “Get over here, worthless. This shaman owns you until you get back, understand?”

The big orc nodded, and Sian’dur shoved him towards Kazimierz. “Bring him back with all of his limbs, and you can tell Shrikha we’re square. Now get out of my sight!”

Kazimierz and the aspiring hunter saluted and fled, not stopping until they were an order of magnitude past the normal ‘out of earshot’ range.

“Your instructor seems…volatile,” Kazimierz ventured, motioning his new comrade to follow as he set out towards the valley gates. The big orc snorted.

“’Volatile’? She’s gone fiendish on us for the last few days, all hot temper and shouting. Hits a lot harder now, too-last ‘sparring partner’ she had is still lying in the medic’s tent,” he replied in a dark voice. “Word is she got rejected for promotion over some personal issue, and she’s been taking it out on us. ‘Course, no one here has been stupid enough to say that anywhere she could hear.” The hunter crossed his arm over his chest in salute. “Meschak, of the Bladewind clan. Suppose I’m at your service.”

Kazimierz returned the gesture. “Kazimierz, son of Ro’al. My blood is of the Lightning's Blade.”

Meschak nodded. “So what do you command, shaman? My bow is yours, it appears.”

“I spotted a spy, a human, near Razor Hill. Stoneguard Har’kel bid me to handle it-his soldiers are spread too thin, he says,” Kazimierz replied, kicking their pace up to a loping run. Meschak followed with no hint of complaint. “Do you know where the First Sergeant came from, Meschak? She does not sound or act like a Darkspear.”

Meschak shrugged, heavy feet thudding dully against the orange dust of the road. “I think she was a Frostwolf fosterling-she said something about it a while ago. Before she went crazy, ‘course. Seems they picked up a few refugees from the Second War and brought them along with them when Doomhammer and the Warchief reunited the clans.”

Kazimierz nodded, his idle curiosity sated for the moment. They made their way to Razor Hill quickly, and it was not yet noon when they could pick out its looming silhouette on the horizon. They swung wide to the east of the town, and Meschak began scanning the sands for signs that would indicate an intruder. It was slow work, and Kazimierz felt a little useless as the hunter stepped forward and scanned across a patch of ground, repeating endlessly.

“There! Someone’s been laying here,” Meschak finally said, his voice breaking the rush of the desert winds. “They’ve been careless…yes, there’s a trail, heading east of here.”

Kazimierz grinned unpleasantly, pulling his axe from his back. “Let’s follow it.”

The hunter nodded, and they followed the trail. The spy, or scout, or whatever it was had not been entirely clumsy-the trail wound its way across a number of bare rocks and other obstacles. Each such measure took a little time to overcome, but Meschak’s skills at tracking were well-honed, and by sunset they had followed the trail all the way to the coast. In the distance, smooth stone gleamed, quite out of place amongst the sandstone of Durotar-granite imported from Stormwind or Lordaeron, no doubt.

“They’re crazy,” breathed Meshak. “Building a fortress in our land? They know we will not let them go unchallenged.”

Kazimierz nodded, growling under his breath. The humans were hard at work even now, hoisting blocks and mixing mortar. It would not take them long to complete the walls, and then they would have a formidable beachhead. As his trainers had taught him, Kazimierz began to get a rough count and categorization of the enemy. It was a grim sum-the humans had scores of workers, hundreds of infantry, and they would be extraordinarily difficult to dislodge once they settled.

“Can you lead us back to this location, Meshak? We cannot allow these rats to dig in on our soil!” Kazimierz asked, and the hunter nodded confidently.

“I can do that. Ready to go?”

The two orcs hustled back to Razor Hill, blood in their thoughts.

Stoneguard Har’kel had problems now. The sighting of human spies, once so comfortably unlikely, was now confirmed-confirmed and with the added bonus of a main force digging in at the coast. The situation of his soldiers had not, however, changed substantially-there were still quillboar pushing at the western borders, still centaur running rampant throughout the lands westward. However, there was an option now: a small patrol, come back from Sen’jin…a night raid would, if not outright solve the problem, at least delay the humans until a proper counteroffensive could be launched. Six against several hundred was poor odds, of course, but sneaking around and causing trouble was an orcish tradition, albeit one that many would like buried.

They’ll have the two scouts besides, Har’kel considered. It should be enough for some sabotage and perhaps a special message…

Kazimierz and Meshak stood in the darkness, waiting for their reinforcements to show up. They had exchanged small talk, and minor family histories: the Bladewind and Lightning’s Blade clan had been fairly close before the demonic influence arrived on Draenor, and they had discovered a few common relatives.

Their chatting was interrupted by the heavy tread of armored boots and jingling mail, and a familiar face appeared out of the darkness.

“Kazimierz. Good to see you again, friend,” said Marzena Brightaxe, and she saluted crisply, banging a fist on her soot-blackened armor. “My squad is ready to move. Are you?”

Kazimierz nodded, unsurprised to see Marzena in a leadership role. As the daughter of a Kor’kron, she had been taught more and faster than most of her peers, and the notched polearm she carried so lightly was rightly feared by the enemies of the Horde.

“Throm-ka, Brightaxe. We are ready.”

Marzena’s face twisted into a savage grin. “Show us the way." They set out on a quick march, covering the ground much more rapidly now without the burden of tracking.

“I’ve never fought a human before,” Marzena mentioned casually, killing time as they walked. “Think they’ll be better than centaur?”

Kazimierz made an indistinct noise, a sort of verbal shrug. “Maybe. They’re quite a lot smaller, but that would make them harder to hit. Must be something to them, though-they did fight back the Old Horde in the Second War.

“Petty, stupid rivalries defeated the Horde then, Kazimierz. Warlock scheming and backstabbing, all of it. We will not lose in such a manner again,” she declared, garnering murmurs of assent from her companions, who were fanned out behind them: orcs and Darkspear all, armor-clad and toting a variety of well-used weapons.

Kazimierz was in no mood to argue history, so he grunted his assent and concentrated on running. Soon, the lights of the human’s fires appeared, dim and distant at first but soon showing as beacons in the night. Marzena raised a fist, calling silently for a halt.

“They sit and watch the fires dance,” she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “They’ll not see us until we’re upon them. Walk softly until we are near. Understand?”

The soldiers softly muttered affirmatives, unsheathing and otherwise readying their arms. Marzena waited a moment…another…and then motioned forward with her free arm. They crept towards the nearest fire, where a dozen humans talked and ate and drank, until there were a mere ten yards from them, with adrenaline burning in their veins. Marzena suddenly straightened from her crouch and charged, braid flying behind her. Kazimierz rushed in behind her, axe thrumming with the might of the earth, and they came upon the humans as a blood-mad reaper, the ancient battlecry of the orcs echoing from their lips:

“Lok’tar ogar!”

Victory or death…