Inheritance

Month 1 – Week 3

The Hive – Horde Territory

Talking. Human speech.

They were definitely violating the treaty. There shouldn’t be any humans for leagues yet…he thought. But he was here for a reason. Some force had guided this meeting as he never would have come here if not for his diversion. Maybe he should listen to what they had to say…

Falling into a stealthy crouch, Kron followed the two men who had trespassed in his domain to discover their reason for being there. Farms. The Matriarchy was extending a farm into Orc territory. Maybe. They had other plots that the Matriarchy was looking at. For a person exiled, a person who must have been condemned to death if they were to be farming here, violating the treaty with the Orcs.

Kron felt a kinship for this unknown person. A person who, much like himself, was scorned by their peers for their very nature.

This was interesting. What else could he learn from these humans? And did he really owe the Hive anything? Was one farm such a horrible thing? By the time he turned home for the evening, he had so much to think about.

Orcs weren’t farmers in the way that humans were. The Hoard’s razor-backed boars, bred for the more arduous landscape on the far side of the mountain range, would tear through the delicate greenery of this landscape and ravage it beyond recognition. And the vegetables they did cultivate were aggressive and hardy, needing no real tending to flourish over any native plant, but there wasn’t the same variety of the human crops.

Just another glaring difference he’d discovered in himself now that he was effectively exiled. Before, Kron never would have thought twice about the differences between human and Orc produce and livestock. While farming was an honorable occupation within the Horde, it was one entirely without glory. No one ever won a war with seeds.

How would warriors defend the hive if they were starving?

No one ever won a war without seeds.

It stopped Kron into stillness where he had been moving briskly along the outside perimeter of the wall. The wind blew chill down this side of the mountain range, just as it always blew uphill on the other side. A moderate gust that pushed his spirit outwardly questing with curiosity even as he set his back stubbornly against the force.

“Boy, if you’re so damned interested in what’s out there, why don’t you go down and see?” Krol’s knowing grin greeted Kron’s questing eye as he looked around to see who had startled him from his reverie of self-discovery.

“What?” When had he returned to camp? A jolly chuckle that ended with a coughing rasp followed by throat clearing was his first answer. The older Orc shook his head, pulled out a cigar from an inner pocket of his cloth-lined leather vest, and lit it. Kron was beginning to suspect that the human paraphernalia that his patrol used so naturally had not been gotten in the usual way of stealing from and killing the owners in raids.

“You’ve been staring wistfully towards the human village since you were assigned to me. And even more than usual since you got back tonight. If you want to go see what it’s all about, go take a look around.” He made a little pfft sound as he tried to spit out a stray bit of Tabaco and after a few tries gave up in annoyance to pluck the strand off his tongue. “Just don’t tell them you are from this Hive. Wouldn’t want them thinking that we have gone soft. Those vermin would be all over the mountain if that was the case.”

With another of his almost crazy-sounding chuckles ending with a fit of coughing Krol walked away, the winter snow crunching under his fur-lined boots. Following his passage, Kron’s gaze fell on the homey, yet sturdy little cluster of tents the patrol had erected. They were nestled on the leeward side of a large boulder and backed on one side by the trunk of a huge fallen tree. Snow and ice were strewn haphazardly around in patches and slides as much of the stuff near the camp had been melted and crushed by the weight of many feet.

A large cloth, water-resistant through some process Kron could not fathom and was too stubborn proud to ask about, served as a tarp over the encampment. There were about twenty Orcs in and about it, laughing rowdily as they drank, gamboled, traded, or went about other mundane tasks. Brox busily sharpened his ax, while overlooking something in a large pot cooking over the fire.

Krol was settling himself down into the group that was gamboling and getting far drunker than they should be while on patrol. Carrith was rummaging through his pack getting ready to fleece the drunkards in some kind of trade. Krol had already had to intervene once since Kron had joined them to prevent the young Orc from having his head removed in his sleep by someone who had sobered up and realized he’d gotten the short end of the deal.

A pile of wood shavings surrounded Deneb as he whittled a piece of dry wood into an intricate work of art. Half the reason Kron had set his tent up by his lonesome self away from the camp was that wood shavings, rock dust, and metal filings from Deneb’s art projects managed to get into everyone’s bedrolls despite the fact that they had separate tents. He had started to suspect that one of his patrol members thought it was funny to watch everyone squirm and complain at Deneb.

The only other member of the unit who actually took his job as seriously as Kron did, was Jonk, sitting off by himself keeping watch. Thankfully he was not facing inward to watch the goings-on of the others but facing out as was proper when standing watch. Though it would have been a little more proper if he had gone on patrol like he was supposed to. Kron narrowed his eyes wondering if the Orc had just beat him back to camp, or if he had skimped on his duties.

Stop it. Kron scolded himself. It wasn’t his place to make that assessment. He had to remember to not let himself feel familiar with these Orcs. Their opinion of him could hold the key to his life or death. One bad word from Krol and the High Chief would gladly execute him despite the Hive Queen’s desire to breed more Berserkers for battle fodder.

Tiredly he grunted to Jonk and trudged over to his separate tent. Krol had offered for him to take the empty place in camp left by the recently deceased male Kron had replaced after the battle, but he knew that the others probably appreciated his decline of the offer. Wouldn’t do for the berserker to have a fit and murder everyone in their sleep. Allowing himself a brief snorting smile around his tusks at the fact that at least one person was not afraid of his blood rage, he shook more wood shavings out of his bedroll.