After the feasting, the chief handed Ren a bowl of an odd mix of herbs and roots. Ren smelled the concoction, it was horrific. He fought the urge to gag and spoke.

“What is that? And just… why?”

“It is not a pleasant thing to be done. If you wish to know of the orks, you will see our histories. If you drink this, we can work together.” Chief pushed the bowl into Ren’s chest. “So drink.”

With a hesitant gulp, Ren took up the bowl and closed his eyes. He refused to breathe as the thick and slimy potion ran down his throat. Regardless, he tasted it anyway. It was rancid and tasted like death.

It took a long few minutes before his head began to spin, and the world began to warp. Cella tried speaking to him, but he was unable to articulate what he was experiencing. He fought to keep his balance before Cella allowed him to fall over onto her. His weight being supported by her, his mind fell too.

–

Tunkor rested under the shade of a lesser tree. Since leaving the grove he always got an odd sense of wrongness from the trees. He tried to rest within their shade to make his mind come to understand the lesser trees. The man beside him stood tall, for a human that was. Short brown hair, and a beard. The human inspected the tree they layed under, touching its bark.

“What are you doing Rurik?” Tunkor asked.

“The trees grow tall and reach towards the sky. It’s admirable, isn’t it?” Rurik looked into the sky and reached towards the sky while squinting.

“Ah, human talk. No, trees are trees, and this one is a lesser tree too.” Tunkor looked at him, confused.

“An ork wouldn’t understand, trees reach into the sky and grasp at the light. They’re born of earth and water, yet they look towards the heavens above!” Rurik stared into the clouds and watched the heavenly fire above.

“You’ll burn out your eyes doing that!” Tunkor shook Rurik’s shoulders as the human looked into the sun, his eyes a tight squint.

Rurik stood, and with his mind’s eye looked at the energies around him. It was a trick of men, not one of orks.

Tunkor stood under the tree’s shade confused.

Rurik sturred the energies of the world and imagined the heat of the sun. The energies swirled around him. He had little to no control over the energy around him, yet it moved to the small intent of will that Rurik held onto with all of his heart.

Like a small whirlpool, the energies came to a central point. Within his mind, Rurik imagined the sun. Its beauty, its life, and its power.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Tunkor stood up rapidly, “Rurik! What are you doing?” He watched as the human did what was forbidden. The greatest law of the Tree Mother, the seventh and greatest law spoken to every ork at their birth. He watched as Rurik usurped the order of nature.

Tunkor grabbed Rurik’s shoulder as the human began to fall over. “Why? You know touching such power is forbidden!”

Rurik smiled. “Ork-brother, men are not orks, I am not bound to your laws, no oath have I sworn. No nature of yours is mine. My nature is that of men, the will to power. To become greater, stronger, and more than I was born as.”

“You will be an outcast! They will never allow you back, not as you are!” Tunkor fought with the emotion in his heart. The feeling of betrayal by his man-brother, and his desire to hide what his brother had done.

“Will you tell them? Will you betray me, brother? Will you shun me for being who I am? I will become greater, I will become something revered by all. Do you think using a little bit of magic is a sin? Wait until you see what I will do in my lifetime brother.”

“To do as you do is to throw away the ways of the world. Those who do as you do usurp nature and the world itself. You break the will of the world with your own will! Even if your willpower is small, the greater will of the world is still damaged when you enact your will to perform magic! Humans never seem to understand this.”

“You’re mad, using magic does not harm the world. If the fabric of the world was so uneasy, then your orks who are born with tremendous magic within you would fall straight through it!” Rurik mentally probed at the energy around him again, trying to pull enough energy together to show Tunkor how wrong he was, but Rurik was too weak to use magic again so soon.

“Leave brother! You are the mad one, it is a mercy to you that I do not tell the others and have them cast you out! Go now, so you may preserve your dignity.” Tunkor stood his chest level with Rurik’s head. His body was twice the size of the novice magician’s.

“You’re a bastard. I should've known you wouldn’t accept me. One day you will regret casting me aside. I do not sin greater than the trees when I too look into the heavens. I should think a tree worshiping green-hide would understand.” Rurik turned and walked away from Tunkor who stood tall until his man-brother was out of sight.

When Rurik was gone, the great behemoth wept. His brother had damned himself, and he had nearly thought to give in to the crime. He had thought, even if it was for a brief moment, that he could hide what he had known Rurik was slowly becoming.

Tunkor stayed beneath the lesser tree for many hours. He dwelled on the sin of mankind, their desire to become more, their desire to take power.

It was with a heavy heart, and reluctant steps that he left the tree. It was time enough that the sun had begun to set when he returned to the fires of this kin. There they questioned after the missing Rurik, and so Tunkor spoke the truth.

The orks hung their heads, whilst the men and women of the camp looked at each other with knowing glances. This did not go unnoticed by the orks.

The orks knew that the humans knew, and so a rift began growing between the two. It was many moons and many suns before the conflict came to a head. The night when an ork warrior brought a feast to camp, and yet the humans sat in solitude from them, instead they ate meager berries and roots that their gatherers had harvested.

Three days later, the humans again withheld from the feasting. The tension between the groups came to a head as their leader confronted the humans.

This was the night when it all had changed, and it was where men were damned. Mankind had chosen themselves over a connection with the earth and the orks. Two men challenged the chief, and so they were killed. Men stand no chance in combat with orks, even those men who lived and hunted beside orks for generations.