Page 5 of Orc's Pride

I get far away enough that I stop hearing his feet stomping after me. Slowing down so I can quiet my own footsteps, I creep along a more overgrown part of the forest. It’s hard to navigate and ends in me having to throw myself through an entangled set of bushes.

Thankfully, it gives way though to a small part of the forest that is clear from brush.

My hand subconsciously comes up to pat the letter against my chest. Still there. Good.

I sag against one of the trees closest to me.

Maybe now would be a good time to pull out my map and see how far I need to go to get back to Malik.

Just as I’m about to reach into my pocket, I hear the tell-tale sounds of footsteps coming my way. My heart rate spikes up, causing me to stumble away from the tree and run in the opposite direction.

Whoever—or whatever—that is, isn’t going to get me.

Pushing through another part of overgrowth, I feel sharp branches slice through my hands, stinging while blood runs down my skin.

Damn it!

Suddenly, the world around me falls. My body is pitched forward, the ground leaving me as I step onto a pile of leaves. The hole under me opens up, swallowing me whole and dragging me down into the dark abyss below.

3

Pitha

“Shit!” Gor bellows, yanking his mount away from the barrage of arrows flying at us.

The rest of my troop scatter, going off in different directions while the arrows sing through the trees, landing with hard thunks against the trunks behind us.

Grabbing my machete, I pull the cording from around my wrist and attach it to the hole at the hilt, spinning the blade over my head. Arrows skate off of it, pieces of the wooden shafts raining over me.

My mount is long gone by now, hopefully with less injuries than the arrow sunken into its hind. Replacing them is a pain and a half, I’d much rather it run away than continue to be pelted with arrows.

To the left of me, I hear Gor slash through the underbrush, clearing a way back towards me. “Come out, you bastards!”

As the arrows let up, I dive through a patch of shrubs to keep cover over me. With a twerk of my wrist, I catch the handle of my machete, letting it come to rest against my thigh. With the cover of the trees overhead, it makes it difficult to see much, other than slight movement.

Dark elves are masters at moving among the shadows. Keeping to places where even my eyes can’t reach. The only thing we have up against them is our brute strength. Not one species on this planet can compete with that.

Breathing in the earthy scents of the forest, I move through the trees. I spot a dark elf, crouched low to the ground with a bow in hand and an arrow pointed ahead of him. It’s hard to keep quiet with my big body, but I manage to sneak behind him and grab a fist full of his hair.

He lets out a yelp, the arrow flying off his bow and shooting through the trees.

“Fuck!” I hear Gor snap.

Hopefully that didn’t hit anything vital.

I slam the dark elf down onto the ground, crushing his head with my fist. It splits easily enough, the meat and juice from inside of his skull coating my fingers in a thin layer of slim. The feel of it makes me smirk in satisfaction. One down, a few more to go.

Behind me, I hear a soft rustling. With my other hand, I throw my machete towards it, watching as the blade cuts through brush easily before hitting something on the other side. A garbled groan fills my ears, following the sound of a body hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Two down.

“Tie them up,” I hear Gor demand on the other side. “That’s the last of them.”

Pulling away from the dead dark elf, I shake my hand clean and move through the vegetation to retrieve my machete. I find it embedded deep into the chest of another dark elf, this one still breathing with eyes wide and staring up at the canopy.

“Oh?” I pull it out of the bastard’s chest, watching the blood pool from his wound and his mouth. He chokes on it. “Still hanging on, I see. How unfortunate for you.”

His eyes slide over to me, widening more. It’s always entertaining to me when dark elves realize they’re far more outmatched than they accounted for. Orcs get a bad reputation for being brutes, sure, but we are more than capable of organizing and overtaking just as much as they are.