The Keep

As the weeks passed, more and more humans were spotted and killed. They ran into several small towns, storming into the small farming communities, and destroyed them, burning all the buildings to the ground. Men, women, children and animals all fell to the horde, and the more they killed, the brighter their eyes glowed and the more fervently they battled. They were feeding off the fear and anguish and power of battle, and the air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, clean sweat and smoke.

The Horde grew more and more confident in their abilities, picking off guards and towns as they passed them, descending on them as a wave. And still they walked north, their bodies grown hard and strong again from the abundance of food and battle. With every town they crossed, the weight in their packs grew heavier, their bodies stronger, their minds more focused on defeat. They set up camp in an area called Redridge, fortifying it and setting up guards around the area.

“This is where we ready ourself for battle!” Blackhand shouted as the clan’s set up their tents and fires. “The humans have fallen easily! They have proven themselves weak and frightened, and it’s time we made sure they knew that this land will soon be ours!” he shouted loudly, his voice strong, unwavering and proud.

Axes and swords and maces and bows were raised into the air by the men, hollering loudly in excitement. “We will march into their city! We will take what belongs to us and burn it to the ground!” He smiled sadistically, baring his large tusks, his face strong, its lines deep.

The group around Kali cried out a deafening shout, causing her to instinctively cover Lae’s ears and cast a quick look around the crowd for Grot. They had gone far enough from the portal that he wasn’t so concerned for keeping a low profile, but he still held back from the crowd, watching everything with those grey eyes.

Often times, Kali had wished that he had been born into her family, or at least clan, so they wouldn’t have to hide so hard. She missed his support at times when she was lost or concerned, and she knew Lae did as well. He was wonderful to the infant; often caring for her while Kali wasn’t able to, playing little games with her. Kali would sometimes watch the two playing, happy with the love and adoration he showed. She knew he would be a wonderful mate and father to someone one day, and she loved him for his tenderness.

She, on the other hand, had no plans for taking a mate. Staring up into her mother’s lifeless red eyes, seeing the welts on her face, staring up at her father’s angry face, the glare she often caught him giving all the women, she knew she couldn’t resign herself to such a possible life. She would care for Lae, teach her to be strong, and focus on her training. She sometimes heard the older women in her clan talking about how things used to be for the females, speaking of times where they were seen as just as strong and valuable as a male. Looking around at the males now, however, their eyes stained red, she knew it wasn’t like that now. There was something in their eyes when they looked at women that they didn’t get when looking at the males: contempt. Kali knew her father wished she was born male, and treated her as such, but she would always be a failure in his eyes.

They settled in for the night, the birds singing cheerfully as the sun curved lower to the ground, a beautiful reddish orange staining the sky. She watched it carefully as it curved lower and lower, the sky getting redder and redder. “Looks like blood…” she mused, lightly caressing Lae’s soft hair, twirling it between her index finger and thumb.

Grimmik looked at her, taking her face in for a moment before gruffly nodding and looking at the sky himself. Standing and dusting himself off, he grunted, “I’m going to get some more wood. We might be here for a while.”

She watched his back as he walked away, looking up to her mother, slowly scanning her profile, her strong jawline, her pointed green ears, her nose, her green skin, her slender neck. She had a few tiny marrs that looked like burn marks on her ear lobe and the side of her throat, her ears pierced several times over.

She then looked carefully at her nose ring, the circular piece of black metal through the center of her nose. “Will I ever get my nose pierced,” Kali asked, her voice quiet and low, not having been alone with her mother for a very long time.

“When you become a woman,” Lektu replied, her voice cold and empty of emotion, watching Kali from the corner of her eye for a moment, not moving her head, then looking back at the sky.

Kali looked back down at Lae, lightly running her finger from her forehead down her turned up nose, over her tiny little lips. “When am I a woman?”

“When you can bare a child,” she replied again, the same cold voice, not bothering to even look at Kali this time.

Kali let out a loud sigh, nodding, knowing that to push the point would be fruitless. She grabbed her axe and shield, standing. “I’m going to train,” Kali spoke, desperate for a response and not even getting a curserary glance. She stomped away, her beautiful blue eyes filled with annoyance and anger, quickly scanning for an area far enough from the group to train in peace.

Some say that children can sense when something is wrong, that they’re not used to the lies that adults tell one another, so they can more easily tell the truth from lies, and Kali was no different. She knew there was something wrong with why they were there, fighting and killing the weak and defenseless, and that there was something terribly wrong with the orcs. It was all the more apparent since the Frostwolves, the only clan that lacked the red glowing eyes, were exiled from the group as soon as they started their trek. Though Kali wasn’t close to anyone in the clan, or even knew many, she had heard stories of them and of the way their Chieftain had rejected the blood that the others drank from.

She was curious of them, more so than any other clan, but knew it was not her place to question the demands of Blackhand, the leader of the orcs, even if his right hand didn’t look fully supportive of the exile. The Frostwolf clan had marched ahead, escourted by some of Blackhand’s orcs, further north. No one was sure what had happened to them since they left, weeks ago. Kali fretted on it as she trained, thinking of her family and the land and what could possibly be so wrong with the orcs.