Cearbhail:

I'm so disappointed with this chapter. You know, when I started it, I had some image of that war in Season 2 of Magi. The one where the mages were fighting the Fanalis. I wanted my battle to be just like that. It fell short, but I guess I just have to make up for it later. Anyway, I did well enough, I guess. I tried to go back and rewrite it, but that came out even worse so I put it back to where it normally was and shrugged at it. Oh well. Enjoy this chapter, I guess.

[Orgruunum]

Falling from the sky. It's quite the rush. The wind. The ground rushing to meet you. The deafening sound of the air blasting your ears as you fall as fast you can towards the ground. Remember our toboggans of war? We hit a rough patch and ended up flying in the air. Problem is, we kept going up until we ran out of speed. Then we fell. And now we're falling nearly a mile towards the grassy plains of High Rock. Luckily for us, we're built for such hard drops. Orcs are machines of war. Nothing else.

I closed my eyes as I flew through a low cloud. I felt the cold drops of water on my skin, which felt nice. I looked away from the growing village over to the rest of my squad. They were falling just as I was. They were roaring a challenge to the ground as they slipped their weapons on their backs. The only one among us not screaming was the 14 year-old shaman girl with her little staff. I turned my head back to the ground to see that I was just about to impact. I clenched my teeth and readied my boots for impact.

"Feather." I just heard a whisper in my head. And then… I was gently touching the ground. Me and the rest of the squad. I looked at the ground for an indication that I was dead and standing over my crushed body, or perhaps a mini crater where my boots touched down. Nothing. Not a sign as all. My squad looked around too. They were confused as much as I was.

"Are we dead?" One of the younger soldiers, a 13 year-old just growing in his tusks asked as he looked around.

A flash of movement drew me to look up at the sky. That shaman girl was standing on top of the war toboggan as he rode it to the ground. She looked like one of our snowboarders with how she stood atop it. It wasn't falling fast though. It was gently floating towards the ground like a feather caught in a breeze. The girl nodded a welcome to us. She landed the war toboggan right in front of me, jumping off it as it touched the ground. "You abandoned the toboggan." She declared as she reached in for her alchemist potions.

"So did you." I said back to her.

"Had to make sure our stuff got here." She replied, grabbing two small wands, sliding them into her belt. "Have Bretons to kill now?"

I nodded and turned to face the squad. "Ok, everyone. We will kill these Bretons. Today, we shed so much blood the Bretons will never return."

My squad nodded to me and they started forming up around me. I eyed the girl and waved her behind me. "You will watch the rear of the formation."

She huffed and crossed her arms. "And let you get blown up by artillery fire?" She shook her head. "I was told to hold the front."

I shrugged and waved her forward. "By all means, die first." She grunted and walked in front of me, not saying a word further.

We could see the smoke building from here. The war was definitely in that direction. I didn't need to give any orders, no screaming to form up. We were trained for any battle situation. These Bretons were nothing like we had faced before. Well, we have faced them before. Know what the outcome was? We got stuck living in a closed settlement up on top of a mountain. Only permitted to live because they didn't see the reason to commit more lives to killing us off. The war would have cost them too much, and us everything. And when an Orc has nothing to lose and everything to gain… you don't find out. You're dead.

We sprinted as fast as we could to the smoking village of Grastuurgein a mile away. As we raced, we could see surviving toboggan squads racing to catch up with us. Some of the squads were ahead of us and were already setting up blockades near the village. The village itself was under heavy siege, and yet… no Bretons were advancing. They were hitting the village with nothing but magic. The village looked horrible. Every building was burning, every field a char. Smoke as thick as midnight flooded our vision as we rolled into the town. Only through our little shaman girl were we able to see at all. She gave us some sort of thing that let us see souls. What a weird vision. But the Bretons were using this same method to find and kill us. I say… why not use it against them?

As we waded through the thick smoke, I could see Orcs walking around in circles. I could feel the quakes through the ground as heavy cannon fire landed all around us, throwing the city into thicker smoke. "Men, get those fans set up!" I heard the voice of Chief Bumbumdi scream out as he coughed.

"Bumbumdi!" I roared out and walked over to him.

He looked around blindly for me as I walked up to him. "That you, Unum?"

I grabbed him by the shoulder, nodding to him. "I'm right here, old friend." I said to him as I led him through the smoke. "100 of our finest are advancing on the two towns now."

"That's great to hear." Bumbumdi replied. "We lost our battlement in the first hour. The soldiers here are untrained and disorganized for this type of assault."

Looking around through the blinding smoke, could I really blame them? We didn't have the resources to train for this kind of attack. Blah. Magic. I hate the stuff. And I should have guessed that the Bretons would have a few tricks up their sleeves. I nodded to Bumbumdi, just barely able to make out his face just a few feet from me. "Get the men to advance to the wall. I have a little surprise for the Bretons." I turned to look back at the shaman girl. "You understand magic warfare, correct?"

She nodded. "This is child's play. I will make them suffer." I guess the granddaughter of the shaman mother would be the strongest of the litter. I hadn't known she was the shaman mother's granddaughter until I heard her speak. The last time I had talked to the tyke was when she was in diapers. I could remember the scream though. Sounded the same to me. Screaming for her bottle, screaming as she flew down the side of a mountain in a toboggan… all the same to me.

I reached for my greatsword, unsheathing it from its custom slot in my armor. "Everyone, listen up!" I screamed through the smoke to my squad and the squads forming up around us. Even the village was catching wind of my speech. "The Bretons have declared war on us. If we let them get away with it, they will push us back to our mountain. We will not allow that. They will do whatever they can to hurt us, but we will not let them prevail. They will shoot fire; we will breathe it. They will shatter ground; we will jump past it. They will blind us; we will find them with our noses. They will raise the dead; we will return them to their deaths. They will hit us with everything they can imagine… and we will throw it right back at them. They are soft like cattle; we are armored like the soldier ants of Hammerfell. And while we may be small in number, we will match every hundred warriors with steel and blood, the hard working spirit, the ferocious tenacity for survival that our family has lived with since we were first born into this world. And we will claw, we will spit, and we will tear flesh from bone, limbs from sockets. And if we die, we will do it with one last push, one lash slash, one last Breton to shower the ground with. Let this be the day that the world remembered why they feared the Horde!"

The entire village went from a silent hill to a thunderous roar of war. I began to wonder what the Bretons thought of this town. Did they think the Orcs would sit silently and wait for them to advance? Did they think we would sit here and wait for destruction? Or did they expect us to march out to them, to bring the fight to them as they had brought to us? I do not know. But as I started marching through the smoke, I noticed the village marching beside me. They had their weapons unsheathed and we thunderously marched through the thick smoke. We pounded our swords on our armor and shields as one, creating the sound of hell marching upon the Bretons. Our screams were like listening to hundreds of dying soldiers wailing for one last battle. And I had to wonder what the Bretons were thinking. Were they shitting their pants as they listened to us approach? Did they try to prepare for the horde that was about to descend upon them? Did they even care? Or had they fled when they first heard us cry?

Our squad's little shaman was already hard at work as she walked beside us. The smoke behind us seemed to travel with us, pushing through the village, keeping up covered in a constant black. More shaman sisters were doing the same from further down the line of Orcs. I smirked as I saw the tall wooden posts that represented our current wall. It was unfinished but finished enough that we could defend our town pretty well. The wall had sections opened up so that we would pass through until the rest of the wall was completed. So, as we walked over to the wall, we split up enough that we could walk through the posts and outside the town. As soon as we did, the shaman sisters waved their hands. The smoke blasted forward, spreading out towards the waiting Bretons.

There was a loud clap of thunder and the smoke was suddenly gone. The smoke just blasted away like the thunder was a loud wind that blew it all away. When I could finally see in front of me, I could see a few camps of Bretons lined up. They were dressed in skimpy leather and elk masks with feather necklaces. Wait… what Bretons were these? These were not the Bretons I normally knew of.

"Briarhearts…" One of elk-masked Bretons shouted. "kill the Orcs."

When I said that we'd fight through fire and jump through sinking ground, I was being dramatic. But as I saw the bulking Bretons forming the front of their lines, I knew that I would soon have to live up to that pledge. The Bretons all lined up as my army had until we were one giant line. Only, the Bretons lining up in the front were a mere six, while we were nearly 70, including five shaman sisters. I don't know why my heart pulsed as badly as it did. Perhaps there was something in these new Bretons. They smelled different… Nordic. Like some type of Breton hybrid. And the six standing in the front smelled wrong: dead wrong.

The six Bretons standing in front all roared a challenge equal to our own. Fire roared behind them, as if they had summoned a volcano behind them, a sheet of magma surrounding their comrades and cutting us off of advancing. And then the ground started to shake, splitting apart as more magma rushed up to consume us.

"Full charge!" I roared and charged full of rage and adrenaline. Remember when I said that adrenaline was trained out of us through constant battle? I've never battled with earthquakes spewing molten rocks in my face before. This was a first, and I was ready to face it to the death if I needed to. I charged through the splitting ground as the bulky Bretons started shooting giant shards of ice at us. I heard one of my Orcs grunt as a giant pillar of ice slammed into his steel armor, breaking through the steel plates and exploding out his backside. He stepped forward a few more times before his legs gave out and crumpled to the ground… lifeless. What a waste.

I eyed my first Breton as I raised my greatsword. Pillars of ice slammed into me, but shattered upon hitting my orichalcum armor. An older armor from the original creation of Orsinium passed down from father to eldest son until it reached me. It was stronger than any set of armor ever known. All the chiefs have their own set of orichalcum armor, and some lucky brats inherited their armors from their ancestors. The kid that was now joining the feast with Malacath was not fortunate to have his own orichalcum armor. Plain steel would do nothing to protect him from Breton magic. Mine did. The magma I trudged through was not hot enough to melt this armor. The ice was not cold enough to freeze this armor. And their puny weapons made of bones would only chip and sunder upon hitting.

The bulky Breton in front of me eyed me as I brought my greatsword down on him. He spun with speeds of a demon, dodging the weapon as if he were made of some liquid. As quickly as he moved out of the way, he stuck his arm out and I was met with a sudden wall of wind that was strong enough to pick me off my feet. I didn't fly far and I landed on my back. But I rolled right back onto my feet. I was met with a barrage of fireballs. They exploded all around me, but my orichalcum protected me from sizzling. I protected my face with my gloved palm as I stood there, accepting the pelting for what it was.

As I stood there, thinking of what to do, a giant breeze of cold washed over me. Just as quickly as the first began, it was gone. And standing off to my left was the girl assigned to our squad. She stood proudly as she raised her staff to the bulky Breton with a type of bright red orb sitting in a hole in his chest. The Breton didn't say anything, he just stuck his hand out at the girl. Next thing I knew, there was a battle of magics. The Breton would fire something at her, and she would either divert it or match it with something of equal strength. I took this time to pull out my bow and arrow. I normally don't deal with these things, but seeing as the Breton was surrounded by a lake of magma growing around his feet, I doubt a simple charge would do anything right now.

I pulled an arrow back. It was an orichalcum arrow, so it would fly true no matter what. I took an aim at the elk mask's eye slit and let the arrow fly. There was a sudden gratifying jerk of the Breton's head as he took the hit. He stumbled and fell off his little island. He fell into the puddle of magma behind him and I watched as his body burned. Only five left. My Orcs were quickly handling them. These Bretons were something else, but against two berserkers with orichalcum… they were no match at all. I turned my attention to the army of similarly dressed Bretons waiting for us up top of the hill.

I readied my greatsword. The Bretons looked down at us with indifferent eyes. One of the surviving bulky Bretons turned to look back at their army. "Call upon our Wise Woman." Wise Woman? What was that?

And that's when I saw perhaps the ugliest thing ever known. It was like what would happen if you took a nightmare's version of a Breton woman and slapped a beak on her face with some feathers and bird talons instead of hands. I looked at the creature as it slowly stalked its way over to us, its beady eyes glaring as she looked down at us. "My children." She squawked. "Let your mother take care of this."

The Bretons with the holes in their chest were quick to jump out of battle. I had lost maybe two Orcs throughout this whole ordeal. I raised my greatsword as I looked at the woman. "Don't run from us. We'll gladly kill you all if you attacked at the same time." I roared the challenge to the creature.

She looked down at me. There was no movement. I was suddenly buried up to my head in the ground. I could feel my orichalcum screaming a protest of some kind. I don't know what was happening, but my Orcs were all charging in at once, even the shaman sisters. With one clap of her hands, my army was thrown off their feet. They flew so far through the air that they all crashed near the walls of the town. The only one that hadn't been thrown was the granddaughter. "You have attacked our sister tribe. They have called to us… the Reachman for help." The creature called to us. "And we have answered their pleas. So now, you will pay for spilling Breton blood." The creature called as she waved her hand. The ground turned into a wave of rocks as it rolled away from her over to us… and more importantly me. I was still buried to my neck in the ground.

I watched in horror as the wave of rocks rolled right into me. Of course, it never made it to me. The wave was met with a similar wave of fire. Both cancelled each other out with a loud explosion of rocks that rained down on us. I tried to snap my head back but I didn't have to. I could hear the clanking of the old bat's cane staff as she walked up to me. And as she walked in front of me, I could see Orsinium's Shaman Mother. She was still the weathered old bat I was just talking to earlier today. Too old to be out and walking, I would say that much. But the fire in her eyes as she walked in front of me to face the creature told me that she was not the feeble old woman I thought her to be. She was still an Orc, and Orcs loved a challenge. This might be hers.

The sky above us, still covered by some purple sheen was suddenly darkened. As the two ladies stared each other down for the few seconds while they pondered how they would attack, or whatever they were doing, clouds began to form overhead. Lightning began to flash. Then I felt a drop of water land on my forehead. More rain started to fall, more quickly now. The ground around me started loosening up and I was able to shrug my shoulders out. I kept my eyes on the two old women as they continued to glare at each other. There seemed to be some sort of bubble that had formed around the two of them. As the rain fell, it was diverted away. Any lightning that flashed only illuminated the bubble surrounding them. I focused on pushing myself out of the quickly softening ground. As soon as the next flash of lightning called, the two women started their fight.

The creature stuck her hand out, blasting a large spear of ice out her palm. Our shaman mother replied by sticking out her hand and receiving the spear of ice. As soon as it made contact with her hand, the spear returned to water and flowed past her without making contact. Next thing I knew both women were moving. They were running around in a circle, both as agile as an eagle taking flight. Jumping in the air, flying around their tiny bubble. Soon, they turned into blurs flying around in circles. I'd see flashes of fire and ice as the blurs flew around each other. What the Oblivion is going on? What kind of fight is this? Where is the tearing flesh from bone?

As I finally pulled myself from the ground, with the help of several Orcs helping pull me out, I turned to look at the granddaughter of the woman now fighting the ugliest bird ever known. The girl hadn't taken her eyes off of the fight going on inside the bubble. "What is going on inside there?"

She didn't take her eyes from the bubble but did answer me. "They're fighting, duh." She replied with a scoff, shaking her head.

"Obviously. Who's winning?" I replied, crossing my arms as I turned to look at the so-named Reachmen staring down at us. They had their weapons ready, so I readied my own greatsword in case they charged us.

"Who do you think?" She responded harshly, giving me a look that told me that she didn't believe her grandmother was walking out of this alive. She nodded to the Reachmen looking down at us. "We should finish this before it becomes harder to win."

The Reachmen seemed to come to the same conclusion. I could see them lining up with bows, already drawing them back. "For the Reach." One of the chest-hole Reachmen said.

My Orcs were still getting themselves settled after being tossed around the battlefield. I turned to look back at them. "For the hell of it!" I said as I raised the greatsword over my head. I charged straight for the Reachmen with the glowing hands. The granddaughter right behind me, and the 13 year-old squad member of our team covering her.

The Reachmen all reacted to me charging for them. Anyone loading an arrow turned to face me. Next thing I knew, there were arrows flying at me. I smirked as I covered my face cover with my armored arm. I heard the arrows ping off my orichalcum armor. I didn't look back to see if my two partners were still covering me, but I did glance back for a second to see them. The boy was wearing orichalcum like me and he had jumped in front of the girl and taken the arrows for her. She looked pissed off that he had done that, but didn't say anything above that. We had more pressing matters to attend to. Killing these Breton hybrids.

I looked ahead. That chest-hole Breton waited for me, two makeshift axes in his hands. He spun them around with a fluid fury that I'd never seen before from any warrior, even our own. You know, I might come to respect these warriors. If they had lived next to us instead of the weakling Bretons, I think we could have lived in peace. Until the war that would have killed one of us off anyway. And what a glorious war that would have been. If only our two armies had some sort of unifying method, an even greater enemy to fight instead of ourselves. I think the two of us could pull that off. The magical men of the Reach and the blood spillers of High Rock. Imagine the carnage we could unleash. Looking at the Reachman in front of me with the glowing axes, I didn't hesitate to slash at him. He would have expected no less from someone like me.

As soon as I brought my greatsword down on him, he parried the attack and stepped off to the side. As he parried my attack, I felt his other axe slap my armor, which was met with unbreakable resistance. As soon as he parried my attack fully, I was met with a flurry of blows to my armor. Each one pathetic in the long run since my armor was invincible and had no detectable weaknesses or exposed parts. We Orcs are just that good at what we do. I let the man test out his axes, but each was pathetic and drew a yawn from me. I watched as the granddaughter and the boy raced to fight the archers. The boy would cover her back from people with swords and axes while she did her magic stuff, and she in turn would protect him from archer fire. It was heartwarming to see such young love bonding over blood.

I turned back to the Reachman 'slashing' at me. He was waiting for me to attack him. So, I thought I'd do just that. And when I went to move my arms and my legs… they didn't move. I pulled as much as I could but my body refused to move. I drew my eyes to the Reachman, growling. "What did you do?"

"My axes are wrapped with Burden." He replied. "With each strike, I coated you with fifty pounds of weight. You're so heavy right now, you can't move." He smirked and walked towards my face. "Say goodnight. If I pull off this helmet, your head will be exposed enough that I can cut it off."

He tugged at my helmet, pulling it off with some difficulty. He dropped it and it fell from his hands like a meteor. It slammed into the ground heavily enough to create a massive crater. He smirked as he reached for his own helmet made from some sort of elk with tusks. He pulled it off, showing me a face that looked like a Nord's smothered in red war paint. "It was an honor to face you." He replied and brought his axe up.

There was a blinding light. It wasn't some light at the tunnel; it wasn't my life flashing before my eyes. No, it was a bright flash from the skies. It drew my eyes from the stunned Reachman up to the sky. Everyone had stopped their fight to gaze up at the sky, where a giant floating elf seemed to stand there. "Citizens of the world…" The voice began to say, and I knew that our fight had just become so much more interesting.

Cearbhail:

Ok, so... who saw that coming? Orcs versus the Reachmen? I bet no one saw it coming since they live so far apart. When the Bretons ran away, they called for help from the Reachmen. They're so strangers to fighting and war. To be honest, they're like the magical version of Orcs in my opinion. Thought it would make a great match up, as well as... well... you'll see later on.