The dim glow of dawn crept through the seams of Bleda's family tent. The light was cold and dusty, like the thin spindles of spiders' web. Delicate and fleeting.
It threaded through the air, across the mess of hides and furs that blanketed the ground. Everything it touched seemed softened. Finer. Like it would blow away into nothingness at the slightest breeze.
Bleda opened his eyes to the faint, pulsing ache behind his temples, the telltale remnants of a night spent deep in homemade grog. He took a slow breath, inhaling the mingled scents of earth, smoke, and sweat that clung to his skin, heavy with the memory of wild dancing and louder-than-life laughter.
His body felt worn down, the muscles in his thighs tight and sore from the hours he'd spent moving around the fires, each step an act of defiance and pride.
The ache rooted deep, a constant reminder of what the night had been: his first taste of adulthood in the eyes of his people, the first day of the rest of his life.
Even now, his legs trembled slightly when he moved, a testament to the fervor with which he'd thrown himself into every dance, every shouted chant. But it wasn't just his legs; his entire being felt fatigued, like he'd been remade by the night's rituals and reckless abandon.
Beside him lay Vyrna, her form draped loosely under the bed of furs, one arm stretched over his chest in a soft, possessive hold. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulder, a tangle of black against the pale hide, framing her sleeping face in a way that caught him off guard.
He'd found her once he'd returned to the camp. His face flushed. His heart still pounding. Nothing could have stopped him from near-on tackling her with his face and forcing his tongue into her mouth. What he'd done in the forest had left him feeling electric. Invincible.
Not even the scandalised eyes of the onlooking elders could have distracted him from the feel of her hot body against his as he pulled her into a fireside dance. In the dim firelight of the night, she'd seemed wild, fierce, her surprised laughter daring him to join her in the chaos.
Now, in the early light, there was a softness to her. A gentleness that felt unfamiliar and private. Her breathing was slow, steady, her brow relaxed—nothing like the focused, challenging gaze he remembered from last night.
The memories rushed back with startling clarity: her laughter close to his ear, the watching eyes of her squealing sisters, the feel of her weight beside him as the fires burned low and the crowd dwindled. He had felt untouchable, basking in the energy of the tribe's celebrations, the drums pounding through him like a second heartbeat, guiding him into a frenzied rhythm. It was exhilarating, the thrill of feeling each pair of jealous male eyes settling on to him, her whispered words he could barely hear over the roaring flames.
His first conquest, he thought with a twinge of pride, though that pride was softened by a strange, nervous edge he hadn't anticipated.
He shifted slightly, and a low groan escaped his lips as his muscles protested the movement. His stomach twisted uneasily. That grog really had been piss and oil…
And there had been so much of it, passed between the boys and men, filling him with a boldness he'd never quite felt before. He remembered the Shagram's voice cutting through the din, the gravity of his words mixed with the laughter of the gathered tribe, their voices rising and falling in a heady mix of celebration and reverence. The night was a blur of rituals, chants, a merging of sacred and raw, animal energy.
Bleda's gaze returned to Vyrna, watching as her fingers splayed across his chest, her skin cool against his own. There was something grounding about her presence beside him, a reminder of the things he'd gained last night—the initiation into manhood, the acceptance of the brotherhood, and now this, the weight of another person resting beside him, a silent but unmistakable connection. It was his first taste of such intimacy, and he found himself both humbled and emboldened by it, his mind turning over thoughts he didn't yet know how to voice.
Outside the tent, sounds of the camp stirring began to filter through: the crackle of early fires being lit, the quiet murmurs of others rising from their own beds, some groaning with the same hangover that plagued him.
Bleda knew he should get up, show himself as one of the initiated, prove he could bear the aftermath of the night without flinching. He was a man now, no longer the boy they'd once known, and today was his first test of that newfound title. But here, in the quiet solitude of the tent, he felt an unexpected reluctance to leave, as if the silence held something sacred of its own.
He felt Vyrna shift beside him, her eyelids fluttering as she stirred, her hand tightening slightly against his chest. Bleda's gaze lingered on her, a soft ache settling somewhere beneath the pride in his chest. It was strange and humbling to think that she had chosen him, that her laughter and touch were a part of his memories now.
He wanted to say something to her, but the words wouldn't come. Even if he'd had a tongue, he didn't know what he would say to her. Instead, he settled back, his head sinking into the fur, feeling the weight of all he'd gained and all he still couldn't quite name.
"Her father's been looking for her since sun-up." Morag's chiding voice suddenly cut through the silence.
Bleda flinched and sat up suddenly. Even though his sister was nowhere to be seen, he still instinctively bunched up his furs around his bare groin, throwing a few over Vyrna too for good measure.
Vyrna gave a moan of alarm. A soft grunt from underneath the small mountain of coverings he'd flung over her.
"You better get her out of here without being seen." Morag said again. Her voice was close, pressed up against the hanging that separated Bleda's sleeping chamber from the rest of the tent. "I'd move quickly. He just went down to the river."
Bleda lept into action. He pulled on his clothes as a prickled sweat started to bloom across his brow. Vyrna's reddening face appeared from underneath the furs. She caught Bleda's eye. He looked away sharply. Something about seeing her black irises in the light of day made him sober. They weren't dark and beguiling and mysterious, as he'd thought last night. They were just black eyes. Vyrna nervously started gathering her own discarded garments on the floor, and Bleda tied off the small trouser-belt at his waist.
He reached for the parting curtain, pulling a small slither of it aside to find Morag standing there, a sly grin on her face.
She looked up at him with mirth in her eyes. "Oh, so you did hear me." Morag said coyly. "From the noises she was making last night, I'm surprised you're not deaf as well as mute now…"
Morag shot her gaze over Bleda's shoulder. He heard Vyrna gasp a little in embarrassment.
"Does anyone else know she's here?" Bleda asked, hurriedly forming his hands to make the signs.
"Mother, probably. But she's been sleeping since the ceremony concluded yesterday."
Bleda nodded and turned back to face Vyrna. She was on her feet now. Just about dressed, and her hair falling down over her shoulders. The rings of jasper in her hair tinkled faintly in the silence.
"If you get her out now and make yourself scarce for a little while, I'm sure it will all be fine." Morag sighed impatiently.
Without warning, she strode forwards and grabbed Vyrna's wrist. She tugged the female forwards, past Bleda, and did not stop until she almost had her through the parting curtain.
"Wait! Stop..!" Vyrna called out suddenly.
Morag ground to a halt. She released Vyrna's wrist and the female spun around to face Bleda.
For a second, he was momentarily winded by the strike of her eyes. He pictured how those eyes had looked staring up at him, when she'd been on her back, underneath him, last night. She somehow sensed this memory floating at the forefront of her mind and she giggled. Bleda felt a flush rise in his face and looked at his naked feet.
Morag groaned and rolled her eyes at them both.
"I… I'll see you again soon?" Vyrna asked tentatively.
Bleda nodded quickly, a little too eager to be casual.
Vyrna snorted and covered her mouth. She looked at Morag and placed her hand back in front of her face. Morag took it in her own again.
"He was headed down to the East stream, Bleda." Morag said flatly. "If you let her father see you there, then he might just be stupid enough to believe that you wouldn't be up and about this early if you had a woman in your bed."
Bleda choked down a sound of embarrassment, following on close behind the two females as he willed the heat to leave his cheeks.
"Your sisters will lie for you, won't they." Morag said to Vyrna.
"I…I think-"
"Good." Morag answered shortly. "Get them to say you were at the goat corral all night. Say you were looking out for wolves - to keep the animals safe while everyone was dancing- or some claptrap like that. Perhaps you took a bit of the grog to keep you warm in the night, and you fell asleep."
Bleda blinked at this little mastermind in front of him. But neither he nor Vyrna challenged her. Morag flung open the tent's front flap and the light of the dawn washed over them. The gentle, delicate light of the morning suddenly burned fierce and painful in Bleda's eyes.
Morag turned and fixed Bleda in her practical stare. "Go on. Get running." She pointed her head in the direction of the East stream.
Bleda took a step to move, but Morag reached across him.
"Oh- take a soap or something…" she added, picking up something in a nearby basket. She plonked a small round pebble into his hand. Bleda looked at it in his palm with a vacant expression. "Because you're going there to wash, aren't you Bleda.." she said leadingly.
Bleda cleared his throat and nodded understandingly. He placed the small pebble of soap in a pocket and stood to attention, readying himself for the task at hand.
Morag sighed, her little shoulders sagging under the weight of her brother's slowness. "Go then! Go!"
Bleda flung himself into the early morning.
The crisp air stung his cheeks as he sprinted toward the East stream. The ground was uneven, dotted with patches of slick mud and clusters of rocks that kept him nimble and light on his feet.
His breaths came in tight, controlled bursts, though his heartbeat raced with the pulse of urgency and secrecy.
He pictured Vyrna's father like a great yellow-eyed beast, stalking through the tents, or his fierce gaze cutting through the surrounding underbrush, prowling for the one who dared defile his daughter, disturb his honour...
Every step Bleda took felt like a gamble against being found.
As the river came into view, Bleda slowed his pace. He approached cautiously, scanning his surroundings before moving closer to the water's edge. The river's steady rush was louder now, its voice both calming and threatening, as if warning him of the dangers that lurked behind him. He crouched, quickly rubbing his hands together to warm them before plunging them into the icy water. He splashed his face, each freezing drop a bracing shock to his skin, grounding him in the moment. He felt the small pebble of soap in his pocket, tugging it out and rolling it in his hands, pretending to wash. Each motion was careful and practised, his body radiating a feigned nonchalance that betrayed his inner tension.
Bleda heard the sound—a snapping branch, a quiet crunch of boots in the grass.
He froze, his hands hovering just above the water, his eyes trained on his own rippling reflection. He felt a presence behind him, close enough that he could almost feel the orc's breath, hot and angry, carried on the morning breeze. Slowly, he turned his head, just enough to catch a glimpse from the corner of his eye.
It was Vyrna's father.
The older Orc stood there, broad and silent, his powerful frame as immovable as granite, yet emanating a barely contained rage that seemed to radiate off him in waves. His shoulders were massive, straining against the worn leather jerkin stretched across his chest, a chest that rose and fell like the bellows of a forge as he stared at Bleda with a gaze colder than the river's frigid water. A low growl thrummed from his throat, barely audible but deep enough that Bleda could feel it vibrating through the air. His neck was thick as an oak trunk, a knotted column of flesh and gristle, and it pulsed with a constant, dangerous tension—as though something savage and primal were coiled up inside him, ready to explode.
Beneath his leather-wrapped wrists, his arms hung heavy, thick as tree limbs and covered in a dense mat of coarse, dark hair that gleamed faintly in the morning light. His hands gripped the shepherd's crook with a white-knuckled ferocity, his fingers curled tightly around the dark, polished wood, which was carved with brutal barbs that looked as if they'd been sharpened just for the pleasure of tearing flesh. The crook itself was scarred, chipped and splintered from countless impacts, a weapon as much as a tool. He didn't lean on it; he wielded it. Every muscle in his body seemed to hum with suppressed violence, an unspoken promise of what he'd do if he found the person who dared to cross him.
And his eyes—two pits of smoldering rage, barely banked behind an icy stare. There was a storm there, all right, a fierce, hungry storm that looked ready to unleash itself at the slightest provocation. Bleda could feel it roiling beneath that cold gaze, a force of nature waiting, just barely restrained, and he knew that if he made a single wrong move, that storm would break over him like a hammer. So he stayed silent, hands still in the icy river, trying not to breathe too hard, too loud, trying not to even blink as the older Orc's gaze bore down on him with the weight of a curse.
They remained like that, both motionless, the air between them thick with tension. Bleda looked away, feigning disinterest, and returned to his washing. His heart hammered beneath his ribcage, each beat thudding in time with the river's rush, but he kept his movements slow, steady, calm.
Vyrna's father didn't speak. Bleda felt the man's gaze bore into him, felt it travel over his every muscle in his bare back, felt it linger on every movement as though assessing his innocence, searching for a flaw, a reason to doubt the guise he'd wrapped himself in. But he gave the old orc nothing. Just another member of the tribe, washing at the river, a warrior with no secrets, no reason to fear.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Bleda sensed the slightest shift, the faintest movement that told him Vyrna's father was turning away, satisfied, at least for now. Bleda's shoulders slumped ever so slightly in relief as he felt the orc's gaze release him. He felt the slow, reluctant departure of the dangerous presence behind him.
As the sound of footsteps faded into the forest, Bleda kept his head lowered, waiting until he was certain he was alone once more. Only then did he dare to exhale, the breath he'd been holding escaping in a soft, velvety sigh. He glanced down at the round stone of soap in his hand and closed his fingers around it. He wouldn't need it now. But he was grateful for its small comfort, a piece of Morag's sharp wisdom.
After a final glance toward the woods, he rose from the riverbank and stretched his shaking legs. Morag's plan had worked, and for now, he was safe. But he knew well enough that he'd need to keep his distance from Vyrna and her family for a time. He only hoped that he could avoid further suspicion—and that her father's wrath would soon fade like the morning mist.
"I suppose you think you're off the hook now." A sudden, unexpected voice asked him.
Bleda wheeled around on his heels. His heart thumped beneath his ribcage and his veins pumped with alarm.
But Bleda let out a sigh of relief when his wide eyes settled on Fritigern. The old orc was stood beneath the shadow of a large boulder by the riverside, a wry smile spread across his mouth. The water lapped up to his waist and his chest bounced slightly as he didn't even attempt to conceal his laughter.
Bleda cursed himself. Truth be told, he'd had no idea Fritigern had been at the riverside too. His hasty, panicked approach had meant that he'd not bothered to scan the area for others; a deadly mistake in another circumstance.
Still, Bleda felt a sense of relief spreading through him. He gave Fritigern a shrug of his shoulders, as if to say 'I don't know what you mean'.
"I saw you racing down here, like a pig escaped from the pen." Fritigern said scornfully. He dipped his own pebble of soap into the water and washed away at his armpits. "Still, I think you fooled him. His eyesight's not been the best since last winter."
"Fooled who?" Bleda signed, trying not to grin coyly at Fritigern.
"Listen, we all had our doleances when we were young warriors…" Fritigern said scornfully, pointing the soap at him. "…But I have daughters too. You should be more careful next time, Bleda."
Fritigern paused, letting Bleda feel the weight of his warning. Bleda felt his cheeks heat up and he scratched awkwardly at the back of his head.
"If Vyrna lets you have a 'next time', of course." Fritigern added playfully.
Bleda's eyes widened. But Fritigern soon let out a slightly stifled laugh, and Bleda too was soon chuckling along.
"Did Cragmar have a good night too?" Bleda asked.
"He's nursing a sore head this morning." Fritigern said, striding out of the river. The water ran down his bare thighs in rivulets, spilling over the flat stones at his feet. He picked up a small washcloth draped over the boulder that had concealed him from Bleda's sights and began towelling his nethers off. "Although, he says he wants to be out and about camp by mid-morning. Wants to get himself seen by the brotherhoods, you know?"
Bleda nodded. Now The Consecration was through with, all of the newly blooded orcs of the tribe were eligible to be snapped up by the warrior bands. If a young Orc could successfully show off his skills to the Brotherhoods of his tribe, then he'd be spoken for by this time next week.
"Cragmar has a strong arm. I've never seen an Orc better at felling trees. I'm sure he'll be a sought-after prize." Bleda signed to Fritigern.
Fritigern nodded solemnly as he pulled on his loincloth. There was a heaviness in his stance. An introspection that Bleda noticed immediately.
"And what of you?" Fritigern asked quietly.
Bleda shrugged. "I can hunt better than most." He signed to Fritigern. "The Warriors… they might have teased me before, when I was just a Greenfang. But once they see me with a slingshot-"
"You shouldn't be the one begging for their approval, Bleda." The older orc cut in brusquely.
Bleda stood unsurely on his feet. He looked at Fritigern with a confused frown on his face.
"I hear what they call you. I hear what they say about your…" Fritigern lingered, catching Bleda's eye for a brief moment. "…about your tongue. About Morag. About Gormla. You don't need to kowtow to them, Bleda. You have protected your family since… since the day your father died." His voice caught, as if he had tripped over the memory of Bleda's father. Fritigern swallowed hard and faced Bleda full on. "You think any warrior in The Black Furs can say that? Come on, Bleda, you are worth ten of them!"
"So what do I do?!" Bleda asked, moving his hands in a sharp, angry way. "Turn down any offers I might get from The Black Furs? Because I'll tell you now, Fritigern, if you're telling me to wait for an offer from a brotherhood that hasn't at one time or another teased or berated me, then I'll be waiting until I'm as old as Haksa!"
Fritigern let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head as he wrung the last drops of water from his braids. "You are truly considering Caldaxico and his ilk?" His voice dripped with disdain. "They're nothing but cubs playing at wolves, Bleda."
"They hunt. They patrol the Forest."
"They strut around camp with their boasts and their tattoos, but they are picked off one by one by the demons that haunt Corvionii. So who are the real hunted, Bleda?"
Bleda swallowed hard. Fritigern's harsh words struck deep.
"The Black Furs wouldn't last a day in a real fight. You know that. And you'd outgrow them before the next moon. And when you did, you'd find yourself shackled to their small minds, their petty squabbles. Is that what you want? To spend your life chasing scraps of glory at the heels of fools?"
Bleda's jaw tightened. He wanted to argue, to defend them, but the truth in Fritigern's words gnawed at him. His hands hovered mid-sign, uncertain. He lowered them slowly, his frustration simmering beneath his skin.
Fritigern stepped closer, his broad frame casting a shadow over Bleda. His voice softened, but the intensity in his eyes burned brighter. "You asked what you should do. I'll tell you again, boy. You don't wait for them to choose you. You don't let them decide your worth. You're better than that. Better than them." He paused, his voice thick with emotion. "You're your father's son, Bleda. And if he were here, you'd already know where you belong."
Bleda frowned. He thought he knew what Fritigern was saying, but…
He signed slowly, hesitantly. "How? The Howling Blades… they're gone. No one left to invite me. Not even you. It's not a real brotherhood anymore."
Fritigern's expression hardened, his eyes narrowing. "It's as real as we make it. The Blades aren't dead, Bleda—not as long as I draw breath. And not as long as you do. You've got the blood, the fire, the skill. Together, we could bring it back. Make it what it once was." His voice grew fervent, almost pleading. "We'll find others—Cragmar, for one. He's got the strength I had in my youth, and I know he'd follow us. We can revive the Howling Blades, boy. Not just for glory, but for the tribe. For your father's memory."
Bleda hesitated, his hands still. The idea was intoxicating, but it felt too big, too impossible.
"And what if I fail?" he signed after a long pause. "What if I can't live up to what the Blades were?"
Fritigern reached out, gripping Bleda's shoulder firmly. His calloused fingers dug into Bleda's flesh, grounding him. "You won't fail," he said, his voice steady, unshakable. "Because you're not doing this alone. And because the Blades were never just about strength or skill. They were about loyalty. Brotherhood. That's why I looked out for you and your mother when no one else would. Your father would have done the same if it had been I who had died that night. That's what you already have, Bleda. You have a Blade's loyalty. That's what makes you worthy."
Bleda's heart pounded in his chest. He wanted to believe Fritigern, to let himself be swept up in the older orc's vision.
Slowly, he nodded, signing, "I'll do it. I'll join you."
A huge, fierce smile broke across Fritigern's face. "Good." He said warmly. "Wonderful! Then we should make your acceptance official."
He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a small, sharp bone knife.
Bleda's eyes widened as Fritigern grabbed his forearm, his grip firm but not unkind. He gave Fritigern an uneasy and slightly exasperated look. He'd had enough of blades and blood recently.
"Don't fret, boy. I'm not after your manhood, like the Shāgar." Fritigern chuckled. He tore a small strip of rag from his loincloth and wound it round his left hand, stepping closer to Bleda. "This mark," he continued slowly, "will show that you've been chosen by a brotherhood. That you belong."
He dragged the blade across Bleda's skin in a quick, precise motion. A thin line of blood began to up, but Fritigern wasn't done. He hatched another line across the first, creating a large cross of bubbling crimson in his flesh. But before the blood-rage could take hold of either of them, Fritigern slapped the torn strip of rag in his hand over the top of Bleda's wound.
"This is where your tattoo will go," Fritigern said solemnly, his voice heavy with meaning. "When the time comes, this mark will be filled with the ink of the Blades. Until then, it's a promise—to me, to yourself, to the brotherhood we'll rebuild."
Bleda stared at the top of Fritigern's hand, the sting of the cuts barely registering.
The mark felt unreal, and yet more real than anything he'd ever done. For the first time, he felt like he belonged—not to the tribe, not to a band of mockers, but to something greater. Something he could help build.
Fritigern released his arm and stepped back, watching him closely. Bleda held the rag in place with his own hand, feeling his quick pulse in the tips of his fingers.
"It won't be easy," Fritigern said, his voice quieter now. "But nothing worth having ever is. Your father knew that. And so do you."
Bleda met Fritigern's gaze and nodded. Slowly, he removed his clamped hand away from his arm. The bleeding had stopped already. The cuts Fritigern had given him, only superficial. Bleda looked at the red cross in his arm with a smile of pride tugging at the corners of his mouth. His hands moved slowly, deliberately. "The Howling Blades are mine now. Ours. And we'll make them worthy of the name."
Fritigern's smile returned, but this time it was softer, tinged with pride. "That's the spirit, boy. Now come on— perhaps Cragmar's up by now, the lazy toad. He'll want to hear about this!"
The two of them stepped into position beside one another. Not just fellow tribesmen now, but brothers. Bleda's chest grew rosy and warm as Fritigern placed an arm around his shoulders.
But no sooner had they both taken a step away from the riverbank did they hear the shiver of a distant scream on the air.
They both halted. Feet rooted to the pebbled ground.
A flock of ravens went spewing up into the dawn sky. For a moment, Bleda thought that perhaps he'd imagined the scream. Perhaps confused it with a caw from one of the birds dotting the pink clouds above.
But then another scream echoed through the sky.
The ring of it seemed to vibrate something deep inside Bleda. A small part of him that came from the animals. A part that was pure fear and panic and instinct.
The hair on Bleda's arms stood to attention. His gut sank to the soles of his shoes.
And then the horn began to blare.
"No…" Fritigern breathed. "Oh Raven Father, please no..!"
Bleda had only ever heard that horn once before in his life. A terrible, bone-deep wail that seemed to claw its way out of the earth itself. Trembling through the marrow of every Orc who heard it. It was not a call—it was a warning, a scream of rage and fear that tore the sky apart.
They called it The Horn of Ruin.
And the last time Bleda had heard it had been the night his father died. The last time humans had attacked the tribe.
"Cragmar…" Fritigern said shakily. He released Bleda's shoulders and ran towards the braying horn. "Cragmar!"
For a moment, all Bleda could do was watch as Fritigern disappeared into the trees at the river's edge. All of that bravado, all of that talk they'd shared moments ago about bravery and loyalty, seemed to dissipate in the ring of that terrible horn. That animal kernel inside him told him to run. To flee from the sound of that horn like the scattering birds above.
But the screams rose louder and more frequently. Each one ricocheting along his veins like a bite of poison from a deadly snake. But instead of paralysing him, they awoke him.
He was running towards the camp before he had even decided to move.
The trees rushed up around him. The river disappeared behind him.
The thump, thump, thump of his feet on the moist ground boomed inside his own head. A steady drumbeat that compelled him onwards.
His fear burned bright and white hot inside his chest. But he could not stop his feet from running. He could not turn and fly like the birds in the sky. Not even when he heard the screams become crisper and nearer. Not even when he heard the thunder of horses hooves and the whir of strange noises. Not even when he heard the sharp crackle of fire.
The first body he passed belonged to Haksa.
The old orc lay face-down in the mud. Several blue and bronze feathered arrows sticking out of his back.
Bleda looked at him with a cold detachment. The broken and twisted body on the ground looked weak and small. So unlike the Orc that had tormented him in life. But even in death, Haksa held on to his battleaxe in his right hand. Slack fingers still resting around the handle.
He'd probably tried to fight. Probably tried to rise from his bed, for he lay just outside the flap of his tent, but his age and his weakness had felled him as easily as a dandelion blown over by a summer breeze.
He didn't look real. He didn't feel real…
Bleda stumbled on, his mind a heavy and dense fog. The smell of burning timber and rawhide assaulted his nostrils. Where there had once been homes and huts, there was now a raging, burning furnace. All those furs and feathers and all the things that kept them warm in the night, now burned before him.
Through the smoke, he could see tinges of bronze. Flickers of metal, like the scales of a fish just under the water. Humans. Wearing their fine-crafted armour, just like the armour the human he'd healed had worn.
The weapons they used were strange and unknown to him too. Bright, bronze-gilded balls that exploded into fire when they flung them at the roofs of the tents. The flames they made were unnatural. Tinted a strange, sickly green. And the fires burned with a fierce chemically smell that he could compare to nothing in the natural world.
And the other other strange weapon ; The one that seemed to flit on delicate bronze wings when cast into the air, before bursting into a huge, expansive net that descended upon the nearest screaming orc. It was like they were alive. Ungodly chrome beasts, made of fused wings and metal.
Bleda had never seen weapons of this nature before. They were unnatural, almost alive, as though forged by hands that had no reverence for the earth or its balance. These were tools of domination, not survival—creations of a people who sought to conquer rather than coexist. The bronze-winged nets shimmered in the firelight, their movements too precise, too deliberate, as if guided by some unseen force. Something monstrous. Something he could not yet understand, and that terrified him more than anything else.
A flurry of men on horseback raced by. Bleda shrank back away from them, away from the strange fire-balls they held aloft and the crossbows under their arms. Until then, Bleda hadn't allowed himself to believe it. He didn't want to. Couldn't give himself into the fear that came with the acceptance.
But there they were. Pale-faced and shining with their riches. As terrible and awful as he remembered in his most dreadful nightmares.
He heard another scream nearby. A female's.
Bleda stumbled on to see one of Vyrna's sisters with her hair in the grasp of a human on horseback. She screamed with terror as she leant in the mud, arms reaching up to her tautly pulled braids. With a breath of disregard, the human reached a blade down to the female and slit her throat.
Bleda's pupils dilated as he watched the redness slip down her skin. Her face slackened and her eyes went misty. Bleda had to force himself to look away before the rage could swallow him up. He staggered behind a burning tent as a heady wooziness overtook him.
All that red. All that blood…
The way it spilled over her green skin. Like a drink of water spilling over the lip of a flagon…
He could choke on this feeling. Let it suffocate him and smother him entirely. He could feel the ooze of the blood on his own chest. Smell the coppery richness of it under his nose.
Bleda fought hard to keep himself from succumbing to it. But he was afraid. So afraid…
When he unscrunched his eyes and looked at the ground around him, he found Vyrna looking glassy-eyed up at him.
Her head had been separated from her body. Her mangled torso flung several feet away. Whoever had killed her had sawn straight through her braids with the swing of their blade. Several of them were hacked apart, the glinting metal charms she wore in them scattered around her, in the soil.
One of the hacked braids had fallen into her mouth. Open and screaming. Bleda wondered for a moment if he should reach in there and save her from choking on it…
He reached out a trembling hand to Vyrna's head. And then with frightened suddenness, he withdrew it. Somehow afraid that she would bite his fingers off if he got too close.
A coldness settled in the pit of his stomach. A deadness. Perhaps his own body wanted to protect him from what he was looking at, but he felt a hollowness inside him. Right in the very place where he had felt golden and warm as he and Vyrna had laid in between the furs in his tent that morning.
He was aware that perhaps he should be crying. Screaming with rage over her. But in the end, what moved him was the sight of her blood in the mud around his feet. And then he couldn't stop himself from retching.
From far away, he could hear the sounds of other orcs who had lost their battle with the blood-rage. Roars of unbridled fury, guttural and raw.
Bleda stumbled forward, dazed and unsteady. Too paralyzed with shock to cry. Too lost in his own battle with the blood-rage to mourn. He couldn't. Not for any of the bodies he stumbled over as he staggered on. His head pounded with the echoes of the Horn of Ruin. His stomach churned with a bowel-clenching nausea.
He passed others that he knew, lying in the mud. Other warriors that he'd known and respected his whole life, pale and spiked with crossbow arrows, or half-burned, charred corpses that hung halfway out of their smouldering tents.
He lifted his gaze, his vision swimming, to see the chaos unraveling around him. His camp—his home—was a battleground. The Orcs still standing and humans clashed in a brutal, chaotic dance of steel and flesh. In the center of it all, an orc warrior - Borug, it looked like, still in his sleeping shirt - roared in a frenzy, his eyes wild with the blood-rage. He leaped onto a human soldier atop a horse, dragging the man down with sheer ferocity, his claws raking at the soldier's armor.
The horse reared, screaming, its hooves flailing as the orc tore at the human. For a brief moment, Borug seemed unstoppable. As strong as a bear. A force of nature. But then, from the treeline, a sharp whistle cut through the air. Bleda's eyes widened as he saw the gleam of a crossbow bolt.
It happened so fast. The bolt struck true, burying itself deep into Borug's skull. The warrior's roar choked into silence, his body going limp as he collapsed to the ground.
Bleda froze, his breath catching in his throat. The humans swarmed, dragging their fallen comrade to safety, their shouts of victory cutting through the din. The young orc's body lay still. Lifeless. A fragile thing, even in the face of rage.
Bleda's fists clenched, his nails digging into his palms. The blood-rage called to him, tempting him to lose himself in the chaos, to strike back with all the fury he could muster. But his legs felt like stone, his body rooted to the ground as the scene played out before him. The forest seemed to close in, the sounds of battle muffled as if the world itself held its breath.
"Bleda! Bleda!"
Almost in an instant, Bleda felt himself snap back into place. The voice that had called to him was small and frightened. But he could not have ignored it for all of the world.
He scanned the chaos for Morag, wishing he could call back to her.
"Bleda!"
Her dreadful cry reached his ears again. And he found her. Her small face almost hidden amongst the clogging smoke and shimmering bronze.
She reached out to him from underneath one of those terrible whirring nets. Her little hands clasping and desperate.
He instantly ran to her. Heart now lodged firmly in his throat. His need to help her, to free her, was almost suffocating.
Morag's cheeks were streaked with tears when he knelt down before her. She wailed an unintelligible sound at him, her clasping hands reaching through the net and grabbing at his thin shirt.
"It's alright. It's alright." He signed hurriedly to her.
"Bleda…" she wailed again, his name the only thing she could seem to say clearly through her pain and her fear.
Bleda cupped her face in his hands and held her gaze. He stood there, looking deep into her eyes until she had calmed a little, swallowing down deep drags of breath until her small chest heaved with each intake she took.
But Bleda realised something with sinking dread as he patted himself down. He had no weapon. Nothing. No blade to cut through the net with. He'd taken nothing but a pebble of soap with him down to the lake, after all.
Panic began to tighten its grip around Bleda. He began haphazardly pulling and clawing away at the net. The rope strained against his hands until the flesh on his fingers burned.
"Bleda, please…" Morag sobbed.
Bleda was weeping now too. Hot tears of frustration running down his face as he tried tearing the net off his sister. The twines bit into his fingers like the jaws of a beast, refusing to budge. Not even when the slick red of his own blood stained the shimmering threads did they give way. The net was alive in its cruelty, its strange bronze fibers tightening as if mocking his desperation.
Morag's cries had turned into hoarse, rasping sobs, her strength drained by the struggle. Her wide, terrified eyes locked onto Bleda's, silently begging him to save her. He roared, a primal, wordless sound of anguish, and pulled harder. The threads sliced deeper into his hands, but he didn't care. He couldn't care. Not when his sister—his blood—would be dragged away before his eyes.
The humans swarmed closer, their horses' hooves pounding against the earth like a death march. One of them, taller than the rest, stepped forward. In the early light of the morning, his face was a shadow, the only part of him visible was the sneer curling his lips beneath his bronze helmet. He reached down from his saddle and grabbed the net's edge with ease, lifting Morag as if she weighed nothing. She screamed again, thrashing wildly, her bound form writhing like a trapped animal.
Bleda lunged at the man, his bloodied hands reaching for the net, for Morag, for anything. The human shoved him back with a brutal kick to the chest, sending him sprawling into the dirt.
He Bleda scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His vision blurred with tears and fury as he charged again, this time slamming into the human with all the strength he could muster. The man staggered, caught off guard, but his comrades were quick to intervene. Two more humans descended upon Bleda, one of them casting a bronze ball-net of his own.
The weapon buzzed and whirred in the air like a fat, rotund wasp. Its delicate wings flapped frantically for only a few seconds before it exploded outwards, spewing the net forth. The metallic fibers wrapped around Bleda's arms and legs in an instant, pulling him to the ground. He struggled violently, thrashing and twisting, but the net was unyielding. It burned against his skin, the bronze threads digging into his flesh like talons. He roared again, the sound raw and broken, as he watched the tall human hoist Morag over his saddle.
His voice, the voice he could never use, screamed inside his head.
Morag screamed back at him, her little voice shrill with fear. Like the cry of a feral cat. An animal trapped in a hunter's snare, unable to do anything else but scream in terror.
"Bleda! Don't let them take me! Don't let them take me!"
Bleda thrashed against his own bindings, his
roars of frustration tearing out of his mutilated mouth. He didn't care if he sounded crazed or demented. His heart cried for her. Even if his own tongue could not.
With a final, desperate burst of energy, Bleda surged forward, dragging the net with him as he tried to close the distance between them. But the humans were too many, their movements too coordinated. One of them stepped in his path, slamming a heavy boot into his ribs and sending him sprawling.
"Stay down, beast," the man growled, his voice dripping with disdain. "Learn when you're beaten." Morag's screams grew fainter in his ringing ears. The other humans formed a protective ring around him, their weapons glinting in the eerie green light of the burning camp.
Then came the blow—a heavy club smashing against the side of his head. Pain exploded through his skull, and his vision swam. The ground rushed up to meet him, hard and unforgiving.
The world tilted, the sounds of the raid growing distant and muffled. He saw Morag's small form being lifted onto a horse in his mind's eye again, her cries lost in the deafening silence that swallowed his brain.
And then the ground rose up to meet him, cold and unyielding.
And then, there was nothing.
When Bleda woke up, he felt the harsh light of the midday sun on his cheek.
His skin felt hot and taut. Like the skin of a drum pulled tight over his skull.
Pain started to creep its way into his consciousness then. A bursting pulse, right behind his eyes. He moaned, trying to bury his face deeper into the dirt he'd woken up in.
"Don't open your eyes, Bleda." A soft voice said to him, cracked with emotion.
He didn't recognise the voice, but for a long moment he considered taking the advice he'd been given. The ground was cool against his throbbing forehead. There were even some small, tickling blades of grass brushing up against his chin. If he let himself slip away, drip into the soil and become mud in the ground, then perhaps he could return back to the Raven Father that way.
But distantly, he heard the sound of the fires still roaring. He could hear others around him crying. Softly. Quietly. He could hear strange voices talking leisurely. Conversations peppered with laughter and joviality.
Bleda gritted his teeth and forced himself to get up. His hands were bound behind his back, and he had to use every aching muscle in his stomach and his thighs, but eventually he sat upright.
The first person he saw when he opened one of his swollen and bleary eyes was Mother Lorai. Her hair was matted with mud and charcoal, her expression as dead as a gutted fish. Bleda noticed that her hands were similarly tied behind her back, but she had long since stopped fighting against the bonds. Her dress was torn, one of her sagging breasts laid bare to the world.
He was trying to decide whether to look away, preserve the old female's modesty, when she suddenly spoke.
"I told you not to open your eyes." She said hollowly.
Bleda dragged his gaze off of her grey face. The strong sun made him squint, his temples throbbing as he looked around him.
And he saw why Lorai had told him not to open his eyes.
The holding pit he was in was lined with sharp spikes of timber. The humans that he could hear laughing and talking in the distance must have dug it after the raid, tearing down trees from Corvionii to fashion into the stakes they had studded all around it. And on each spike, there was a head.
Bleda's breath left his body once more as he counted each silently screaming face before him. Some he recognised, some were too bloodied and mutilated for him to know.
Cragmar was one of them. Eyes still closed, as if he were still sleeping off his hangover, just like his father had said. A hard lump of sorrow formed in the back of Bleda's throat. He had stood beside Cragmar only hours ago. Held him upright during The Consecration when the smoke and the drums had become too much for him. They could have been friends. Brothers, even. And now, he was just a taunting decoration to line this hellish pit.
And Cragmar was not the only one. Right beside him, Caldaxico and some of the others in The Black Furs. Eye sockets empty and the tusks torn out of their mouths. The wounds were gaping and raw, but not bloody. Bleda knew this meant that they'd been taken from the fallen warriors after death, for trophies most likely.
And then, he saw his mother.
The sight of her made him open his mouth in a silent scream. The pain twisting its way deep
Into his stomach like a knawing rat. He felt the grief rise like a storm, crashing through him with the force of a hundred thunderclouds. A grief that turned the blood black within him and the heart in his chest to coal.
Gormla's long, matted hair was tangled around the splintered wood. Her face, even in death, bore no trace of the rage or fear he might have expected. Instead, her expression was one of quiet resignation, as if she had accepted her fate long before the blade fell. Her eyes, half-lidded, seemed to gaze at something far beyond the carnage around her, while her lips, slightly parted, hinted at words left unspoken. The streaks of ash and blood on her cheeks only deepened the hollowness in her features, as if the sorrow she had carried in life had finally consumed her.
Bleda wished he could reach out and brush away the dried blood that clung to her chin. His chest heaved with the weight of unspoken grief. For a moment, the chaos he found himself in faded, leaving only the stillness of her face and the deafening roar of his failure. She had always been quiet, always distant, but she had been his mother. She had been flawed, weak, and cold at times, but she had been his.
And now she was gone, her life stolen and her dignity desecrated. Again. Humans had stolen her dignity from her twice in her life. The night his father had died, and Gormla had her soul stolen by the solder that had raped her, and now again, when the son she'd raised to warriorhood had abandoned her to the sword of yet another human.
Hot tears rolled down his cheek as he bowed his head, his muted cry swallowed by the destruction around him.
It was then that Bleda remembered Morag. Her little hands reaching out to him from underneath that shimmering net.
He turned sharply to Lorai. With his hands bound behind him, there was no way he could ask her what he wished to know, but still he strained and struggled against his bonds, hoping to try and break free.
"They took the young females not long before midday." Lorai said flatly, as if she had known what Bleda wished to ask. "They went south. Towards Thrakzorn's Spine."
Bleda stilled and let her words sink in. Morag was gone. They'd taken her already. Over that great outcropping of mountains that separated the Corvionii peninsula from the mainland.
He glanced over his shoulder, passing his eyes over the others that had been flung into the pit with him. Most of them were old, like Lorai. The types of orcs who wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight against the human raiders. There were one or two younger male orcs, like him, but most of them were Greenfangs a few years junior to Bleda or warriors who had passed through The Consecration maybe one or two summers before him.
Bleda glanced up past the spikes that lined the pit, trying his best to avert his eyes from looking at the heads. He could just about see the tops of the soldier's heads. Some of the men were smoking. Clouds of a woody, yellow gas rose up from their mouths as they spoke and laughed. The distant smell of it alone made Bleda feel sick.
If he followed the yellow clouds down, he could just about see the tips of their plumed bronze helmets. The bright blue feathers bristled softly in the midday breeze.
The memory of that injured soldier by the babbling brook came back to Bleda in a rush.
His helmet, bronze and blue-feathered, like the men up at the top of the pit now…
His words, his promises…
If you help me return to my men, I'll guarantee your safety. I'll order them to let you be.
A blade of dread plunged its way deep into Bleda's chest. His chest suddenly constricted. The acrid taste of guilt bloomed at the back of his tongue.
Dear Raven Father… did I…?
He paused in his desperate prayer. As if thinking the thought would somehow bring it to life. But that soldier…
The healing magic he'd used…
Bleda cast his eyes up, straight into the harsh yellow sun, as if to punish himself. And he deserved it. He deserved all the pain the Raven Father could bestow on him.
Did I do this? Is this all my fault? He silently asked. The tears ran down his cheeks. The blue sky stared cruelly back down at him. Did I lead them to us?
"Bleda… Bleda, don't give them any more tears." Mother Lorai said softly. He felt the gentle press of her cheek against his shoulder. An offer of warmth and comfort in this awful time. "Don't let them see a moment more of your sorrow."
The old female was trying to soothe him, but her kindness just made Bleda's guilt grow blacker. He couldn't tell her that this was all because of him. Because he'd wanted to flaunt his gift. Because he'd wanted to show his dominance over an enemy. And now he'd doomed his whole tribe to ruin.
The humans came for them not long after the sun had passed its zenith, the shadows of their bronze-plumed helmets stretching long across the jagged edges of the pit. Their voices came first—sharp, clipped barks of command in their strange, guttural tongue. And then, the crunch of their boots - heavy and pounding as they marched into the pit.
The soldiers descended upon them one by one, their bronze armor gleaming like molten fire in the harsh sunlight. Their faces were impassive, unreadable masks, though a few wore twisted smirks as they surveyed the broken orcs before them. They moved with a practiced efficiency, hauling captives to their feet with brutal indifference.
One of them reached Bleda, grabbing him by the shoulder. The man's grip was iron, his fingers digging into Bleda's skin as he yanked him upright. Pain exploded in Bleda's arms as his bound wrists twisted awkwardly behind his back, and he staggered, his legs weak and trembling beneath him.
"Move," the soldier barked, his voice cold and clipped.
He shoved Bleda forward, sending him stumbling into the line of captives that was beginning to form.
Bleda caught himself, his bare feet scraping against the dirt. Around him, the other survivors were being dragged upright, their groans and murmurs of protest blending with the laughter of the soldiers. His eyes found Lorai, not far ahead of him. One of the men had her by the arm, hauling her to her feet with no regard for her frailty.
She didn't fight. She didn't even flinch. Her face was ashen, her eyes hollow, but there was a quiet defiance in the way she held her head high.
When the humans had finished shoving them into a line, they began marching them out of the pit. Bleda stumbled forward, his legs still shaky beneath him. He kept his eyes on Lorai's back, her wiry frame swaying with each reluctant step. The sight of her steadied him, gave him something to focus on besides the crushing weight of his own guilt.
As they climbed out of the pit, the full devastation of the raid hit Bleda like a physical blow. The camp was unrecognizable, reduced to a smoldering wasteland. The tents were charred skeletons, their blackened frames clawing at the sky like the bones of some great beast. The ground was littered with debris—shattered weapons, trampled drums, and the bodies of those who had not been taken alive. The wolf sigil flag lay torn and trampled into the mud and Bleda realised that this was most likely it.
The woodland tribe was gone. Wiped out in a single morning, after years of fighting against or trying to hide from the encroaching humans. All of that history and lore and pride and ritual. All of that tradition of survival and honour that Shagar Othro had spoken of during The Consecration. Gone.
A few orcs might have survived. They might have escaped into Corvionii or fled downriver, but they wouldn't survive on their own. Nothing of his tribe would survive this. He was now Bleda of a tribe that no longer existed.
The soldiers shoved him forward, forcing him to keep moving. He stumbled, his bare feet scraping against the dirt and ash. The line of captives snaked through the ruins of the camp, past the charred remains of tents and the broken bodies of the dead. The air was thick with the stench of death and the acrid tang of those strange green flames, still smoldering in patches.
Ahead, a convoy of wagons waited, their wooden frames reinforced with iron bars. The soldiers began bundling the captives into the wagons, shoving them roughly inside. When it was Lorai's turn, Bleda instinctively stepped forward, earning a sharp jab in the ribs from a spear.
"Wait your turn, beast," the soldier sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. Still, he looked Bleda up and down and huffed out a cruel laugh. "I've never known a cow so eager for slaughter!"
Bleda gritted his teeth but said nothing. The soldier began to laugh at his own joke, looking around to see if anyone else had overheard him. A swinging tusk hung from a necklace around the soldier's neck. It made a tinny, clanking noise each time it knocked against his bronze armour. Bleda had to force himself to stop wondering if the tusk was Caldaxico's, or Borug's, or Cragmar's…
He watched as Lorai was pushed into one of the wagons, her movements slow and deliberate. When it was his turn, he climbed in without resistance, his movements sluggish and mechanical.
Inside, the air was stifling, the space cramped. Bleda was shoved onto a bench beside Lorai, their shoulders brushing. Four more orcs joined them in the cart, squeezing themselves on to the benches without a fight. They slipped back into silent, dead-eyed stares as soon as they had settled into their place, gazes cast to the floor. The soldiers tied each of their ankles to the floor of the wagon, ensuring they couldn't move more than a few inches.
The convoy began to roll, the wagons creaking and jolting on the uneven road. Bleda glanced out through the narrow slats, catching glimpses of the horizon. The Thrakzorn Spine loomed in the distance, its jagged peaks like the teeth of some ancient beast. But the wagons were heading east, away from the mountains, away from Morag.
Bleda clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. He wanted to scream, to tear the ropes and chains apart and run after his sister. But he couldn't. He was trapped. Powerless and impotent. He grunted fiercely, heaving away at the bonds at his feet and hands. If he stopped fighting then Morag would be forever lost to him. He'd never see her again. The last remains of his family, of his life, would be gone. His breaths became quicker and more panicked. He couldn't let this happen…Couldn't…
"Don't waste your strength," Lorai murmured beside him. Her voice was low, almost a whisper, but it carried a weight that silenced him. "You will need it. For the future."
He turned to look at her, his throat tight. Her face was lined with exhaustion, but there was a steadiness in her gaze that he envied.
"Perhaps we'll find my Jenes. Perhaps we're going to the same place he is." Lorai added dreamily.
Perhaps they would. Bleda was certainly in no position to mock or look down upon the old female beside him. Her hope of seeing her son again would have been preposterous yesterday, but now?
Could he ever have guessed all this would happen last night? When he was dancing with Vyrna and drinking his share of homemade grog?
Could he ever have guessed that the rhythmic pounding of the drums, so full of life and promise, would give way to the hollow silence of death, broken only by the crackle of green-tinged flames devouring his home?
Could he ever have guessed that his own hands, so full of pride as they raised a cup to his lips, would now be bound behind his back, useless and raw? That the same earth where he had danced would now be stained with the blood of his kin?
No. He could never have guessed. And yet, as the wagon jolted forward and the ruins of his tribe faded into the horizon, he knew he would carry the weight of that night with him for the rest of his days.