2

Frushkul snarled, snatched up a short sword, marred from long past battles, from his kit within the tent, but he didn't bother with securing it to his person; rather he took it in one clawed fist, while the other held his barb-braided whip. There was no time to properly prepare for battle. He could already hear howls from inside the camp itself. Why hadn't his lookouts sounded the alarm sooner?!

"Stupid worms, the whole lot of them!" He hissed between gritted teeth and looked down at the slave woman who was staring towards the gaps in the tent flaps with the scent of fear rolling off her. A trance overcame the woman's senses until Frushkul's hideous, deformed face filled her view as he crouched on his heels before her, "Stay put. Stick even yer nose out there, I ain't doin' shrakh ta save yer bloody hide. Whatever's attackin' might not be so gen'rous as I am. Got it?"

The sight of the woman cowering made a little spark of disgust fill the orc's stomach. She had no fire in her, no bite, no sense of self-preservation it seemed. She was exactly the kind of slave that suited Thaurband; the kind that submitted to her fate before it was even sealed, that wouldn't fight back or try to escape.

He hated her kind; such a weak, pathetic thing, and valuable for it; perhaps, valuable enough for a trade...

He could see the clench of the woman's throat bob as the human tried to swallow whatever lump had formed there. Why she wouldn't speak, Frushkul couldn't tell, but all that mattered to the orc was her compliance. But, despite the silence, she nodded obediently, eyes wide and terrified.

Only just satisfied, Frushkul leapt upright as another cry from his orcs caught his attention, growing louder as if approaching his tent. A rush of wind at the fringe of the tent flaps parted them just enough for both, he and the woman, to spy a massive black shape loping at breakneck speeds towards the tent. Dragging along at the flank of the shadow came the source of the screaming, a misfortunate orc, before the dark, amalgamated form launched into the air, clearing the tent and crumbling pillars in a single bound.

The woman yelped and shrank into a ball, covering her head with her hands as if expecting it to slam through the tent ceiling at any moment, while Frushkul rushed towards the opening, half turning to look up for the assailant as he exited, but whatever it was had disappeared into the black shadows of the night, taking its screeching victim with it.

Before Frushkul had the chance to survey any further, he was unceremoniously blasted back into the tent by an explosion from the fire pit at the center of the camp.

The orc, who had screamed the first alarm, was also the first to be snatched.

A huge mass of shadow, which had at first descended upon them like a strange fog, swept across the camp in one blindingly rapid movement. The shadow grabbed the alarmist as it went, then disappeared back into the black of night. It was only then that the remaining orcs realized another of their crew, the orc Frushkul had maimed only moments before, had been killed as well; not by bleeding out by the former's inflicted wounds, but by a perfectly aimed hole torn through the side of his throat, like an arrow had been shot through with such force it had either exited the other side, or...

"Invisible arrows?!" One of the orcs wailed. He had been joking when he brought up the gossip of the half-wraith ranger! No one had actually thought those rumors might be true!

No one had a chance to confirm nor deny, as a whirring sound above them caught the group's collective attention; a glint of light caught on the edges of a canister of some sort tumbling down through the air, landing right in the heart of the fire they had been huddled around. The glass cracked open immediately upon impact, spilling a strange fluid substance. Then fire concussed outward in a blast.

Those closest to the explosion were thrown on their backs by the wave of force that struck them. Splatters of flaming goo engulfed one unlucky slaver; metal and glass shrapnel peppering any in the vicinity who wasn't fully armored. And finally, a cloud of smoke swallowed the whole of the camp like a giant maw. Even orcish eyes, with such heightened sensitivity in the dark, could not pierce the black of the ash plume.

Those left standing had only their ears upon which they might defend themselves.

The familiar voice of the orc who had been snatched rang out briefly, screeching for help somewhere beyond sight before it cut into an undoubtedly bloody gurgle.

A cackle to the camp's southern flank had them whirling to face their attackers, only for another slaver to get sent crumpling to the ground, jaws split in a silent howl for a bolt had burrowed through his jugular and lodged itself directly into the vertebrae of his neck.

So much for invisible arrows.

Those remaining who had not been lit ablaze by the explosion or only had minor injuries listened to the cackling that seemed to circle them, and as the wind briefly picked up, they saw it. A huge silhouette, the dark mass from before, stalked between the smoke and ruins of stone; hunting them. It seemed, to them, to be the unmistakable shape of an orc, astride some great beast, one they would assume to be a warg — the biggest they'd ever laid eyes on.

Its eerie, unblinking eyes of the mount seemed to glow with the ice-cold chill of the moon, mirrored by the gaze of the rider sitting on its back, but the figures themselves were as untethered as mist; pure black but intangible. Flames danced, pouring smoke from the bodies of their companions writhing on the ground, and in a blink of the light, the silhouettes of beast and orc had disappeared.

"Tha' was — THA' WAS THE WARG-RIDER!" Panic swelled among the living.

"Gulkoth can't be real!" One of the slavers let out a shrill hiss, eyes darting around, trying to spy exactly where the figure had disappeared. "There's no way he's real!"

The orc who had told the tale of just such a warg-rider was among those cooking alive by the flaming pus-like substance from the canister. Though unconscious and unable to confirm or deny the claim, it seemed his words had left a permanent mark on the last few standing.

"Nar! It couldn'ta been! Tha' THING weren't no warg!"

The slavers, huddled in worry, were inclined to agree with the doubtful statement, but if it wasn't a warg, then what was it?!

The beastly silhouette was vapid, almost ethereal like shadow and smoke trailing as though affected by a wind that didn't exist on the same plane of reality as flesh and blood. It might have looked like the shadow of a warg, if not for the massive spines that seemed to sprout down the length of its back, like some sort of demonic crest. It moved with the silence of night itself, the glow from its eyes, like terrible, ice-cold dots of starlight that pierced even through to the souls of its prey; if orcs had souls to be pierced that was. And the scent that the creature left in its wake seared the lining of the orcs' sensitive noses; it was not the smell of an animal, but rather that of something far older and wilder. It was the scent of the land itself, with all its hatred and malice for the destruction wrought upon it by orc-kind, distilled to a perfect poison.

"Shrakh!" Another orc whined and tried to flick a gob of flaming ooze from his boot toe; if he and his fellow slavers died here, how was his blood brother supposed to know who to take revenge on?! "Wot'd this 'Gulkoth' want with us?!"

A loud crack split the bated breath they all held, and the slavers turned to witness their boss, whip in hand, emerging from the smoke opposite the silhouette. He snarled at his underlings, nostrils flaring at the scent in the air, noting how it burned not just for the flame, but the scent making his merciless eyes water. It was a scent Frushkul knew all too well.

"Get up ya piss-wet cowards!" Frushkul roared, cracking his whip at the other slavers' ears, but only a handful of his crew remained amidst the carnage of the explosion.

And another one suddenly dropped to the ground, howling in pain at a bolt that had appeared in his gut from the darkness.

It was useless to threaten them. His underlings were slavers because they were only just better than slaves themselves; some were failures when it came to combat, others too fresh from the vats to be anything more, most had never seen a true battle, and none beyond their leader had experience with fighting off an ambush.

Their attention turned dumbly to their fallen companion, who croaked one final breath, began to vomit, and went limp; but Frushkul sneered, ears kept cocked at the sound of thundering paws rising as their attacker charged in once more. The hit-and-run tactics weren't about to fool the lead slaver — he had only a fraction of a second to leap aside to dodge a deadly maw of teeth snapping down upon him.

Frushkul's maneuver managed to save his own neck just in the nick of time, but the huge, black wargish shade snatched up whichever unfortunate orc was still in the path of its charge. As quick as it rushed by, it slipped away into the smoke, as if it were just as formless, but not before Frushkul slung his whip after its rider. The beast charged onward, dragging away another unfortunate victim, but with one swift pull, Frushkul tore the rider from its back.

The length of corded leather lashed around the rider's arm at the same moment another canister left his hand. The interference sent it bouncing harmlessly off one of the corpses littered around the fire without cracking. At the same moment, the rider slammed into the ground with a pained grunt, its vaporous form wavering at the impact.

"Seize tha' scum!" Frushkul roared the order.

Hoping that the tide was turning in their favor now with their leader at their backs, Frushkul's two remaining slavers didn't hesitate to pounce at their eerie assailant.

However, it was not as defenseless as it might have seemed, even lying prone in the rubble of the ruins. Tendrils of ebony smoke coiled and leapt like serpents from the figure's form before the slavers could strike, engulfing their eyes and faces in a constricting grasp.

The slaver underlings let out confused cries as their vision was snuffed out, like a candle in a sealed room, leaving them entirely blind and groping for anything they could sink their claws into — including each other. In a panic, the slavers found each other in their sightless bumbling, and they struck without mercy until both fell dead; each foolishly hacked to pieces by their own ally.

But it seemed Frushkul was just beyond the reach of the wisp-like snakes of shadow which dissipated, even as they struck, inches from his flat, scarred nose.

He heaved upon the whip, still wound around and digging its barbs into the rider's arm, pulling the rider off balance as it tried to leap upright and regain its footing. Through the tension in the whip, Frushkul could feel the rider's flesh beneath the barbs tear, and scent orc blood in the air; proof beyond a doubt, that this was no wraith as its appearance and supposed name might suggest. It was all a con, just a magic trick, nothing more, to sow fear and chaos and make easy pickings of witless worms.

For that revelation, the last slaver felt assured of the rider's mortality. If it could bleed, it could die for killing off his crew and interfering with his plans!

But as the rider did manage to right itself, despite Frushkul's attempt to throw it back to the ground, the figure seemed to freeze. Its bright, glowing gaze of ice-blue fire would have pinned Frushkul in place if it had been a weapon.

The slaver might have even sworn those eyes widened at him, as if in shock.

"Wait!"

Frushkul didn't even hear the cry, for the blood rushing in his ears. He launched himself forward, taking advantage of the figure's hesitance, to ready his gnarled short sword at the ready. He was mere inches from ramming it through the shadowy entity's gut, when it whipped its own weapon, a crossbow up to intercept his strike.

At the same moment, their weapons became interlocked, Frushkul shifted to twist his weapon free, but the figure met his maneuver almost as though predicting how he would move before he had even decided it himself. The crossbow was forced down, taking with it the menacing tip of the sword, opening Frushkul's defenses; it would only take one strike.

The slaver pushed onward relentlessly, using the last free weapon he had to close the distance; his head.

The crown of Frushkul's skull connected with his opponent's nose with a sickening crunch, causing the shadowy figure to roar in pain, cry out again, and stumble back a few steps.

"I SAID WAIT, YA DAFT BASTARD!"

Frushkul was deaf to the plight, a haze of rage filling him. He grabbed at the hilt of his sword and swung it to fling the crossbow tangled on it away, ready to charge again, until he saw the smoke that made up the visage of his enemy melt away like ice before a flame; until he saw the face that had been hidden behind the black coils of shadow that had given his enemy an otherworldly appearance; until he recognized the orc behind the façade.

Frushkul's unscarred ear pricked forward, his dilated pupils tightening to pinpricks, and his shoulders tensed like a caragor waiting to spring into a hunt. His unwelcoming hiss did not return the rider's sudden change in demeanor, "I thought I told ya I nev'r wanted ta see yer bleedin' face agin, Snake-Tongue!"

***** Translations: *****

Shrakh - Dung
Nar! - No!
Shrakh! - Dung!

***** Author's Note: *****

Don't want to wait for more? Read chapters as soon as I finished writing them on my discord! Link in my bio! If you are enjoying WTAWTAW, please consider leaving a comment! It really makes my day to hear what my readers think!