Zensuon: Crystal Age

Of Orcs, Elves and How they Kill Each Other

Where our orcish duo travels deep into elven woods to try and find battle and maybe come out with more.

Nuraka was used to tracking in snow and stone, and so this terrain was a different affair. The footprints were like that of the humans that might come into his territory, but smaller. The elf scouts were likely used to these woods and knew where to step, but they still had to step. Nuraka could only get a general direction, and even then he wasn't sure.

So why was the orc so feverishly trying to push into the woods?

Because that's where war was. If you were an orc, you wouldn't even have to ask.

Orcs were known as omens of war. That's not only because they appeared in almost every grand war across history, but also because they sought it out.

Conflict. Battle.

The calmest lives orcs could live were when they were occupied by elusive prey or powerful predators in their territories. So much so that they didn't have time to go out of said territory and find something else to kill.

They heard noises, and better yet, they saw bodies. Orc bodies, elven bodies. All lying on the ground, dead.

Nuraka and Gurog looked up, and they could see arrows flying from the tree up ahead. The arrows were shot toward an open valley surrounded by the dense trees of the elven forest.

Gurog saw countless of these battles in Redriver. It was the same formation as now. Elven scouts were shooting from their trees, while the elven warriors were pressing back the orcs. Because, if no one physically stops them, the orcs could charge right into elven lands.

Of course, the elven ground troops mostly consisted of half-elves. Gurog respected them more, since they were stronger than elves, and fought with swords and shields. He was also wise enough to know that was not the only reason they were down there. They were used as fodder while the elven archers and occasional elven shaman (that came for particularly large orc invasions) were up in the trees. He respected the half-elves even more, because even when the elves and their shamans aimed arrows and spells into the fray, the half-elves kept attacking, even if sometimes the shots and spells hit them as well.

Gurog also understood why the battle, from an outsider's perspective, seemed a mess. With some orcs attacking through the dense trees, and others through the valley. Orcs were not known for flanking, splitting apart forces, thinking about tactics or the like. For them, charging was the norm.

However, the fact they charged where their chief said they should charge and were easily split into smaller forces, could sometimes cause surprising outcomes.

For example, if in a large orc group, the chief would be in the front, but in the back, you'd have a weaker orc than him, but stronger than most around him. We'll call him Orc B. Orc B could then decide to suddenly command the nearby orcs that were out of earshot from the chief to follow him. Persuading other orcs was easy, as long as Orc B knew the masterful art of threatening to crush them to a pulp if they refused. Orc B could then decide to take an entirely different route with some of the tribe (mostly to avoid having to face the chief for what he's doing) and end up making a circle right back into the battleground. Thus, the orc chief and Orc B in this example could inadvertently flank and surprise the elven tactical procedures with their random assaults.

Of course, since the orc's attacks were random, they were as likely to surprisingly succeed as to horribly fail, and would usually average on being rather straightforward attacks on the elven forces. Even if history showed that the orc attacks mostly failed, it didn't discourage the orcs themselves.

Especially because most of them had no idea what history was. The word or the past.

Gurog, however, had the voices of the spirits with him and knew all of this. He also knew another fact, all of these battles lacked one crucial thing: Nuraka and his crystals.

Which was two things, but for Gurog, it was one. The will of Kurog.

Whether Nuraka was aware of this or not when he ran into the battlefield, charging in rage, was unknown to Gurog. What was important to the shaman was keeping the warrior alive, and so, the shaman joined in as well.

Skirmishes, no matter how small they are, always take more time than you feel they should. The chaos of battle, even if various tactics are arranged, has too many variables to be something as swift as a claw to the windpipe or an axe to the head.

And this was a rather large battle.

One of the smaller tribes at the edge of Redriver has grown bored, hungry and big from the battles they won. Thus the chief must have decided to go on a full tribe attack.

Of course, the chief was always at the front of every assault, which meant he was already dead. That alone didn't stop the attack, not even halt it. The chief was there to lead where to attack. Once the orcs have a direction, all else is taken care of.

As Nuraka moved into the battle, there was an underlying shift in tone that not only the elves felt, but the orcs as well. The greenskin was larger than the browskins, he wore stranger clothes than them, had two large glowing rocks strapped to him, and most importantly, each of his swings spouted fire and lightning into the air.

Nuraka didn't understand how he did that. How it happened could be best described as the greenskin 'remembering the feeling' of doing this before. Nuraka wasn't smart, but he was intuitive, it's what kept him alive, and what kept him the strongest throughout most of his battles.

That, and of course, luck. Which now shone on his back with each strike, rendering the plate mail and iron shields of the half-elves useless and as crushed as their bodies with each swing.

The elves didn't bring either mages or druids (or shamans as Gurog would call them) this time. This was supposed to be another battle by an outlying group of orcs, nothing special, the high command said. The scouts became nervous, and through tactical signalling, they started to focus fire on the rampaging, fire-wielding, orc.

However, they were already too late. The elemental fury that Nuraka held cut down the trees they sat on, brought them down to the forest and started burning it.

Orcs burned as well as elves and half-elves. Gurog had to use his share of healing from the back to ensure Nuraka wasn't riddled with arrow holes while Gurog was using his 'fellow' orcs as cover.

At the end of the day, Terra was starting to drop away from the sky and twilight covered the sparse, remaining forest around them. The shouts of orcs raising their weapons (, well, the half-elves' weapons, but being dead they won't need them now) into the air. Nuraka was now the new chieftain.

At that moment, Gurog knew what Kurog wanted him to do.

It was time to meet the Grey One.

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Story Image by:

https://www.deviantart.com/bohemianweasel/art/Battle-Under-the-Trees-Elves-and-Orcs-611492131 

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