The sun was finally dipping below the horizon, ending the twilight and bringing on the night. A chilly wind arrived as if to send the weary and well practiced orcs back to their tents, soothing their aching muscles with its passing. For the better part of the afternoon the orcs had been practicing parade drills along with their normal training, as well as being subjected to a carefully crafted sermon from the camp chieftain.
A tired, war weathered captain took a seat on the sofa in his private tent. His attendants had already set alight the stove in the back, and after quickly giving it a glance to ensure the piping wasn't tampered with to leak smoke into his tent as he slept, he settled in. The day had been spent drilling his men under the watchful eye of the commanders and the camp chieftain. It took enough of his energy that he could hardly manage the effort to light his pipe. The word was, the higher ups had their eyes on his men. Whatever that meant, good or bad, he meant to see his men through this war. He owed them that much, even if he could never show it.
Captain Enaro Red-eye let out a sigh and scratched at the patch over his left eye. It was beginning to bother him again, but he had bigger things to worry about. He knew his men would follow him to distant hellscapes and back, but a part of him dreaded that he could never express how much that loyalty and brotherhood meant to him. To do so would invite ruin, opportunistic and ambitious orcs from within the camp or within the blood lord's legion as a whole would see such talk as weakness and use it as an excuse to "remove" him from his position, likely in a spectacularly bloody way.
A gust of wind from the entrance shook the old orc from his thoughts.
"Captain Red-eye, I heard you sent for me?" A slender silhouette stood in the entrance to the captain's personal tent. A hand on her hip and the playful tone in the figure's voice spoiled the formal nature of the question. She knew nobody sent for her, and she knew the captain was aware of this fact.
"Foolish woman, close the tent! I sent no such call for you." Captain Enaro smiled through the harsh words he spoke to the woman before him. The orc woman made a show of bending over too much as she fastened the tent closed, showing off the sheer night dress she wore to attend to the captain. Or at least, the bottom part of it, and everything underneath.
"Perhaps you didn't, but I heard the call of my captain's heart on the wind. How could I ever refuse when my own heart beats madly like a battle drum to answer your rhythm?" Ahmalia Jisriva stepped into the light, a wide smile from tusk to tusk complimented the playful glint in her eye.
Red-eye nearly choked on his pipe when he laid eyes on her. The dress Ahmalia wore was luxurious, form fitting, and showed off enough of her pale green skin that the captain knew exactly what was going through the thoughts of every man she had walked by on the way here. At least, he was pretty certain of it.
"Wind as my witness, woman! You're lucky the goblins didn't see you walking around in that! Did any of the soldiers approach you?" He questioned with a hoarse voice, embers of desire in his eyes threatened to outshine the coals in the stove heating the room.
"No, my captain. They would never, they know better than to declare any desire outwardly for the lover of the most promising captain in this realm." She chuckled as she walked behind the sofa and began to massage her captain's aching shoulders. He let loose an indecent noise as she worked all the knots and tension from out of his upper body. All save for one pain in the old orc's face that flared like an invisible spike to the skull.
"Shall I reapply your salve, my lord?" She kissed the bald, grey skin of his forehead. He grunted permission as he nodded, unfastening the thick leather eyepatch over his left eye. While Ahmalia went to fetch a rag and some salve from a small box in the back of the room, she called back to Red-eye, who blinked a few times as he revealed the reason for his namesake. A viciously wounded crimson eye peered out into the room, its share of sight blurry from being closed most of the day. Thick black veins pulsed in a sinister rhythm all around his eye socket, the longest few snaking around the side of his skull. If it weren't for their subtle throbbing the blackened veins could easily be mistaken for some kind of tattoo blackened against the ash grey skin of their afflicted host.
"You're running low, shall I fetch more salve for you tomorrow? We have plenty in supply at the moment." She stated matter-of-factly, and Enaro had no reason to distrust her words. Ahmalia was the quartermaster for the camp, so if anyone knew the status of medical supplies in the storehouses, it was her. Medicine, food, travel rations, camping supplies, cookware, almost anything the camp needed was under Ahmalia's charge. Anything but weapons, that was reserved for the officers in charge of the armory specifically.
She was less than thrilled at the idea of having one of the most critical parts of supplying the camp taken from under her nose, but it was an order direct from Chieftain Aggrin. The justification was something about maintaining blessings on the weapons and armor, so it was to be left to the shaman circle. Ahmalia thought it had more to do with her relationship with Captain Red-eye and the potential the commanders saw for mutiny in leaving the weapons in the hands of a lesser officer's mistress.
Ahmalia took the clean rag and lightly coated it with salve, then took a seat on Enaro's lap as she began to apply it to the grisly blackened scars and veins around his wounded eye. Regardless of what the chieftain and the snarling hounds nipping at his heels thought, Ahmalia knew where true strength and conviction lay. Her loyalty to the battle hardened captain was just as strong, if not stronger, than the bond shared by him and his men. One forged in blood and battle, the other forged in bloodwine and the fires of passion.
"Hold still, you flinch like a fussy prowler kitten!" Ahlania whispered into his ear, even as she made a point to shift around on the captain's lap.
"Make haste, then. All your moving around causes me to grow impatient!" Enaro tried to still the mischievous woman's movements by holding her hips, achieving the exact opposite effect when she felt his grip at her waist.
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"Now now, be patient! Relief will come sooner than you think." Ahmalia slowed down her teasing, concentrating on applying medicine to the intimidating, curse scarred eye more seriously now. When the scars were thickly coated and the captain's eyelids well numbed with cream he let out a sigh of relief.
He received a deep kiss from his impromptu nurse as she fastened the eyepatch back over the cursed old wound, a relic of a battle fought long ago against the elves. Enaro did not hate the elves like many of his kin did, hells beyond he didn't even particularly hate the goblin slaves other than the individuals that made the choice to join the legion. Weak though they were by nature, the goblins still had their roles to play, and if Red-eye were in charge he would have liked to see both races join with the orcs by choice, rather than forced servitude.
In fact, this was one of the ideas he and Ahmalia kept closest to their hearts. They knew in their hearts that the way Lord Hieras and his cult ran things in orc society was wrong. It was set up to be brutal, exploitative, and cruel beyond measure. If the two of them knew anything other than this society, they would have no trouble calling it evil, but as it stood all they could conceive of was the need for a change. For this night and many others like it, they took solace in knowing they could share at least that feeling together, nobody else could know of their radical idea for it would mean heresy and nearly immediate execution.
Of course, they also shared other feelings as well, with the lovers quickly falling to trading blows in a different sort of battle that raged loudly through the evening and well past midnight.
---
"Captain Enaro! Captain Enaro, I come bearing a message! C-Capt- AH!" A lowly goblin herald made the mistake of running his message from the side of the bed that saw the orc captain sleeping on his left side, blinded by the eye patch, he made to grab the small being. His goliath hand finding purchase around the goblin's face. After sitting up and seeing no weapons ready in the messenger's hand he relaxed and let the goblin go.
"My apologies, your message?" The captain allowed his practiced mask of cold hatred to slip for a moment in his half awakened state. He hoped the goblin would be too surprised to notice.
"R-right, t-the Warchief has called an emergency meeting. Several goblin patrols have missing members in their roster, including the shaman circle. Notably, out of the orc squads, the Wound Carvers are missing their lieutenant, Bre'zom. You are to be present as soon as possible, with or without formal dress. You are to come without Quartermaster Jisriva." The goblin gulped, his stiff frame plainly betraying a rising urge to run away in a dead sprint out of the tent.
"That last part was truly included in the message, was it?" Enaro growled through his teeth to the messenger, shaking so hard he came close to dislodging the feather from his cap.
"Y-yes, my lord!"
That meant there were spies watching Ahmalia. He would have to put one of his own trusted men on her to keep watch. If there was trouble it would be the perfect opportunity for sowing distrust, or for outright assassination, among the ranks of the orcs. It was the last thing they needed, but this was how things were done in the Blood Legion.
Enaro pulled an open front robe from his bedside and quickly slipped it on, tying the sash tight enough to keep the garment closed as he got out of bed. He went to a large trunk on the other side of the tent and withdrew five coins. He handed two to the messenger.
"Your payment for successfully carrying out your duty" He then handed him a third, "payment for my hasty awakening, my apologies if your nose is bruised" and then he put two more into the goblin's palm and gripped his wrist firmly, pulling the small creature up in the air to the old orc's yellowed tusks, "these last two are payment for another job I am about to give you. If you deviate from it in any way, I will take all of your payment back from you, sever your limbs, and hang you in the slave camp with these coins shoved into your ears, your eyes, and nailed to your tongue."
The pathetic creature's ears drooped as tears ran down his cheeks
"Yes my lord, yes my lord, I'll do as you say! P-please, I swear it, I swear it! Name it, anything, a-anything!" he struggled in the iron grasp of his captor.
"I want you to go to the Houndhill barracks, do not stop to talk to the guards except to say you carry an urgent message from Captain Enaro Red-eye. Find an orc in a black uniform with a storm marked into his arm. You'll know him when you see him. You will tell him Captain Red-eye requests for him to fetch red heartwood arrows" He glared into the messenger's tear filled eyes, ready to repeat the words as many times as needed.
"Houndhill barracks, storm tattoo, h-h-heartwood arrows! As you wish, my lord!"
"Red heartwood arrows, you must be precise, little mist-kind!"
The goblin quickly gasped and repeated the exact message, correctly this time. Enaro gently let the goblin back to the ground, dusted off his tunic, straightened his feathered cap. Then the orc smiled at him and patted the messenger's shoulder.
"Good boy, now off with you. I have a meeting to attend" The goblin turned, ran to the tent flap, skidded to a stop, turned back and bowed. Then pocketed his earnings and took off in a sprint down the hill towards the direction of Houndhill barracks. He disliked having to threaten goblins like that, but he had to throw his weight around to ensure they did not attempt to go behind his back, especially if there was someone plotting against him.
Ahmalia sat up, a frown on her face, finally ending her ruse at being asleep.
"You know we won't improve our reputation with the goblins if we keep behaving so menacingly to them." She got up, hugging her captain from behind. Her warm breasts pressed against the soft fur of his robe as her smooth hands ran lovingly across the grey skin of his chest.
"Some day we will make all of this right, my dearest. But I still have a part to play, despite the painful nail driven through my heart every time I have to perform it. Did you know? The goblins have a superstition. They say when those hyssop plants they keep in their hovels bloom like flames, there is war on the way. There is talk that they bloomed in just such a way recently"
He turned around in Ahmalia's grasp and held her close, unsure how many such tender moments they would be able to share in the future.
"We will have to make good our preparations sooner than expected. I will send Herlou to keep you safe in your storehouse, I have reason to believe we're under watch"
"Your pet assassin? Do you really need to? I know how to defend myself just fine, I'm as much a warrior as any of your men. My father taught me the ways of combat himself!"
"All the more reason to give you a blade in the dark to guard your shadow. You know the ways of war, his art is that of death itself. He will think of all the dishonorable means the war council might employ against you, and some even they would not think of. I cannot lose you, do you understand? You are my heart" He kissed his woman deeply, she returned the kiss and leapt up, hooking her legs around his waist.
"They'll need an army to tear me from your arms. My captain, my love, my blood red arrow." Ahmalia punctuated every title with a kiss, especially the last one alluding to an old orcish legend. "If you should perish, I will take the heart of the one whose blade took you from me, then bring it with me to the canyon of bones when I meet you in death"
The impassioned orcs fell together in a mess on the floor for a time, finally breaking their embrace only because duty compelled them to their stations.