Some time later, I awoke again, this time far more composed. While I slept, the memories and skills of Huruk's mind had filtered into my brain: I knew who he was - who I was, now. I knew where I was, I knew both major dialects of orcish (grey and mountain), I could speak the Common tongue of the Lowlander humans ... sort of, and knew enough goblin to curse, demand submission and 'where to the latrines' ... again, sort of. I looked over at where a sword lay on a chest, in a fine leather and bronze sheath, attached to a belt of much rougher material. I reached up and clasped at the large tooth, roughly set in gold and soldered to a silver chain around my neck, a trophy from a time that a younger Huruk ... that I ... slew a young green dragon. The meat fed the tribe for a month.
I stood up, and stretched, finding my balance. My new limbs were strong and fit, with sinewy muscles toned from swinging sword and shield, of climbing mountains and swimming rivers. I flexed my fingers, and knew the best way to hold a sword, and the best way to skin a deer.
I remembered growing up in a war camp, of raiding and fighting and killing until the blood flowed behind my eyes, and I wanted to throw up, but the remnants of Huruk exalted at the deaths of his enemies. My enemies.
I shook my head, and my long, lank hair brushed against my shoulders. I was Huruk now. Yes, I was still me, but I was him, too. I remembered living my life in Australia, a boring suburban geek with a wage-slave job ... and I remembered living as a chieftain's son, then a chief, after my father died battling another clan.
I was me, and Huruk, and as time went on, there seemed to be less and less separation between the two.
Huruk of the Stonegrinders is the name I am known by in this world, I reasoned. I'd better get used to it.
I ducked under the tentflap, and stepped into the camp, blinking in the morning light as I shrugged a vest over my shoulders. Around me bustled the six hundred souls of the Stonegrinders, from the hunters returning with deer and rabbits, to women and youngsters cooking and maintaining gear, to the priests huddling around their campfires. The mountain air was brisk, and apart from the ever present scent of unwashed orc, rotting garbage and poorly dug latrines, it didn't smell too bad.
And if nothing else says I've been shoved into a new body, that does the trick.
One of the tribe's women, a distant cousin of about fifteen hurried over and handed me a bowl of venison stew, with wild onions and turnips. I grunted appropriately and sat down by a fire to eat.
"So, you finally woke up, did you?" grated a semi-familiar voice, and I didn't bother turning around.
"Benefits of being chief, Garog," I said between gulps of stew, "I get to sleep in while you do all the hard work."
"Bah," complained the other orc, slumping down on the log next to me, and passing me a roughly-carved wooden mug of goat's milk, "If I were chief, you'd have to drag me out of that tent, I'd have so many women filling my blankets!" A hefty orc who was three inches taller than me, Garog was a long-time battle comrade and hunt-partner of Huruk ... of mine. Even by orc standards, his features were rough-hewn and craggy, his teeth yellow, pitted and crooked. He was rather more successful with orc women in his (somewhat limited) imagination than in reality.
Of course, that didn't count the slaves, who didn't really have a choice in the matter, or any females who happened to be in a camp or settlement our band raided. A large part of me, the civilised, liberal human, was horrified, sickened and enraged by the way orcs in general, and Huruk and his kin in particular, lived their lives. For the part that was a grey orc, it was perfectly natural for the strong to take advantage of the weak, and that taking captive or conquered women was the right of the conqueror.
I resolved to split the difference between raging through the camp, freeing slaves and smiting rapists, and diving in to the debauchery, enslaving and rapine myself, and put it aside for the moment. There was no point being killed for insanity before I had a chance to do my job: long term, civilising the orcs would save more lives and prevent more people losing their freedom. That didn't mean I'd be dragging a collared orc girl to my bed anytime soon.
"As if any of them would have you," grinned another tribesman as he took his seat across the fire from us. Bar was more slender and, to my remaining human sensitivities, more handsome person than any other orc in the camp, due to having a human mother, a survivor from a raid on a Lowland settlement twenty years before. Needless to say, his mother was long dead, and he had suffered a fair amount of ridicule and contempt for his 'weak' human blood. Half a decade of being one of the toughest, smartest warriors in the tribe had forced all but the most reticent of detractors that he might be half human, but he was all orc. Unlike Garog or myself, his hair was cut short, emphasising his pointed ears and thick, muscled neck.
"I could out-wench you any day, runt," growled Garog, half rising to his feet, but I placed a hand on his arm to restrain him, and he sat down only half reluctantly. This sort of posturing, ribbing and semi-fighting was fairly normal in an orc camp, and it wasn't unusual for several fights to break out during the day. As long as no one was killed or maimed, it was more amusing than alarming. If there were casualties ... well, depending on who you were, it was either still amusing, or rage-inducing.
Orcs and discipline didn't go together well. That was something I had to change ... somehow.
"We're going out scouting today," I pronounced, and their attention turned to me. The three of us had been virtually synonymous for some years now, since I beat both of them in a brawl when we were younger. I was stronger than Bar and a better fighter than Garog, and the three of us made an impressive team, as far as orcs go. That meant, generally, they'd back me, until I showed enough weakness to justify stabbing me in the back. So far, that hadn't happened, so my word was law ... apart from the priests.
Largely, the chiefs of grey orc tribes were battle-leaders and figureheads, with the high priests of the various gods doing most of the actual work of planning and organising the people. It was generally a good system, as chieftains were better at fighting than thinking, and were happy to leave the skull work to the clerics.
Either I had to change that, to break their hold on the tribe, or I had to coopt them.
The three of us finished climbing the rise, and were greeted by a panoramic view. The Stonegrinders lived in the Highlands, a sparsely populated region of harsh mountains and fertile valleys. Snow from the higher peaks melted into rivers fed by underground sources, and mineral springs warmed the sheltered dells. Orcs, goblins of varying breeds, a few ogre and giant clans, as well as a few hardy human tribes lived mostly nomadic lives, with a few groups occupying valleys and hill forts, eking out a primitive pastoral life, with one eye on their crops and herds, with the other on watch for raiders. Beneath us was the upper Underdark, mostly occupied by kobolds, goblins and some other barbaric folk, as well as the usual monsters. There were stories of dwarf kingdoms and drow holdings deeper down, but no one had delved that deep in recent memory.
By fantasy standards, it was fairly typical. Every couple of centuries, the population would grow past the limit of the Highland's resources, and would eventually boil over into the Lowlands, where the resulting horde would burn and pillage for a few years, until the 'civilised' nations managed to get their acts together, muster their armies, and drive us back into the hills. In between mass incursions, raiding parties sortie down to burn farms and ambush merchants, bringing back goods, slaves and, supposedly, glory.
Also typically, it was a brutal, senseless cycle, with the orc, goblin and other monstrous folk being doomed to endlessly repeat the same, sad tales. Life in the Highlands was dirty, brutal and short.
I turned my gaze northwards. More specifically, the Stonegrinders were one of six orc tribes who lived, traded and fought in the same general region. Three tribes were smaller, with one barely being two hundred hardy souls, while the Hearteaters were around fifteen hundred strong, occupying a ruined fort built untold centuries before by some ancient empire, probably human in origin. The Hearteater's holdfast guarded a fertile valley, where their slaves grew crops, forged weapons, wove cloth and brewed mead. The other tribes traded slaves, raw materials and booty from raids for wheat, finished weapons, tanned leather and cloth.
It would have been a good system, if the Hearteater's chiefs and high priests didn't encourage their people to lord it over the other tribes, bargaining unfairly and demanding obeisance and tribute. Although better than nothing, their craftsmen were poor, their farmers unskilled, and their merchants greedy. Instead of enriching all the tribes, the Hearteaters were a drain on the region, using their numbers and fortified position to intimidate and bully the rest.
I raised a hand to my forehead to shelter my eyes from the early morning sunlight, once again cursing the orcish eyesight that, while making us deadly night fighters, made daytime travel an annoyance. As soon as we have the industry, I'm making sunglasses, I promised myself.
"Don't know why we're lugging ourselves up here," grumbled Garog.
"Because I had a thought through the night," I exaggerated, still working to turn my borrowed memories of the layout of the region into something my human understanding could work with. I need a pencil and paper ... or at least some slate and chalk. Hell, I'd take a lump of charcoal and some stretched hide.
"A thought," explained Bar, grinning at our mutual friend, "Is like your brain burping, and ideas coming out. I don't suppose you're all that familiar with the process," he quipped.
The larger orc growled and swiped at Bar with a clawed hand, which the half-orc dodged.
"I need to tell you both something," I said seriously.
"Huruk, you've very pretty, but we both prefer the females of the species," joked Bar. Garog just grunted, and waited for me to continue.
"Last night ... I had a dream. I dreamt that Ilneval came to me." Their interest picked up: generally, grey orcs were more pious than their mountain kinfolk, who lived both atop and under the higher peaks to the east. Bar had a greater interest, due to Ilneval being his patron, as god of half-orcs. Garog, although a worshiper of Gruumsh, still had respect for the war leader of the gods.
"Illneval is dissatisfied with the way orcs live," I explained, and I was met with mild confusion. Of course, being raised in the tribes, they had little understanding that there was any other way to live. "The lives of orcs matter little to the world, unless we come together as a horde to threaten the Lowlanders. Then we are like a flooded river, violent and dangerous, but a danger that will pass." I pointed at a snow-capped peak in the distance. "The god wishes us to become more like the mountain: deadly, solid and permanent."
Still, they both looked confused. I sighed. "Step one is uniting the local tribes, and knocking the Hearteaters off their throne."
Garog laughed, an ugly, barking sound. "Now why didn't you say that in the first place! Any plan that starts with kicking a Hearteater in the balls is a plan I can get behind!"
Bar shook his head. "What he said."
Alright: I've got my first two followers. They're bloodthirsty barbarians, and would stab me in the back the moment they think it would be in their best interest, but it's a start.