We sailed the river for the next two weeks, only docking at free folk villages and towns to resupply. There was nothing to do in the first few days, so for the most part I meditated and exercised. In the evening we played cards. Sometimes, when I wanted to be alone, I sneaked up on the deck where I smoked and observed the stars. The wondrous beauty of the night skies filled me with calm. It gave me hope that everything we experienced had some purpose, even if we were too small to grasp it. Some nights Julia joined me and despite me being more of a hermit, I enjoyed her company. We smoked and talked for hours. She wasn’t hostile anymore, quite the contrary. She dropped her guard and she let me see her in a whole new light. A humorous, passionate woman, who despite what had happened to her, knew how to laugh. She spoke of her grandfather, whom she admired and loved. She and him had a deep bond and she felt closer to him than her parents. He fell in the Battle of the Yellow Valley fighting Orcs when she was twelve years old. She also told me he had been with her, on the island, encouraging her to keep going. Was he a figment of her imagination caused by heavy trauma or was the eternal part of him truly there – who knows? She thought it was the ladder and I agreed. Some days she seemed detached and I knew she wouldn’t come to the deck.
Otho and Atia seemed to get closer. At first I found that annoying, as I sort of fancied Atia. But then I remembered how lonely Otho must have felt, so I let it go and – in my mind – wished them well. I missed Marius, as he was still on the other ship! Sometimes I would see him and he’d wave to me. Other times he’d grab a spear, pretending he’s aiming for me. And we’d both burst into laughter!
By the second week I became fidgety, which didn’t escape Tiberius’s eyes.
“You look nervous. Bored, are we?” he asked me one cloudy afternoon.
“Very much so.”
“Life of a sailor doesn’t suit you, Antonius. Follow me.”
He led me down the deck to the corner where he slept, next to a large chest. He opened it and gave me a thick book.
“It’s about the Great Orc invasion, written by Trajan Marcus. He was a Knight of the Cohort who fought and lived through all the three major battles.”
Immediately I perked up and thanked Tiberius. In response, he waved his hand and smiled. We went back up the deck. He joined Julia, Flavia and Cecila in playing cards and I walked to the stern of the ship. Only one sailor was there, at the helm, steering the ship. He was an older man and he seemed bored out of his mind.
“I won’t bother you, I’ll just sit here and read in quiet. It's too dark below,” I said to him.
“Not a bother at all! I’m losing my mind steering this wooden barrel! You know, back in Megalopolis I used to be an eagle-master! But then I fell to some gambling debts and had to sell my birds. Bloody dices! Anyhow… I won’t bother you with it… But… Can I ask you a favor, young Vetulonian?”
“Of course!” I answered with a smile.
“Read to me. It will pass the time faster.”
And that I did. I read to him every day until we parted our ways.
The book began with the early life of the author, Trajan Marcus, and how and why he joined the Cohort. When the invasion started he was already knighted, a legionary in the Second legion.
Now where Orcs came from no one knew. Some Vetulonian historians speculated they were descendants of some of the Ancients. Supposedly they tempered their blood with elixirs, deforming their bodies in the process. But the elixirs made them stronger and more resilient than an average man.
The Orcs lived in the most inhospitable area of Helena, called the Badlands. It was an ill country composed of gassy swamps with little to no sun.
After Vetulonians arrived to Helena, they followed the advice of the locals and stayed clear of the Badlands. In time, the Orcs morphed into a scary story that parents told their misbehaving children. “Stop it or the Orcs from Badlands will come and take you away!”
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
But then, some thirty years ago, the great Orc invasion began. The first reports came from the Dwarves. Their northern lands were being raided by foul looking men for whom they only presumed were Orcs. Neither Vetulonia nor other realms took these claims seriously, a grave mistake! Everyone assumed the Dwarves were making up wild tales with the attempt of getting aid fighting the well-known northern bandits. But after a year or so, half the Dwarvenlands were occupied by these terrifying foreigners. Refugees flooded Vetulonia. Only then did the leadership of the Cohort realize the Dwarves were speaking the truth. General mobilization of Vetulonia followed and letters of warning were dispatched across Helena. But before Vetulonia and the Dwarves could raise an army, the Orcs spread all the way to Porosia and Sodomir. The situation was dire and there was lots of blood.
The first battle between a joint Dwarf-Vetulonian army and the Orcs happened by the Yellow Valley, at the southern border of Dwarvenlands. Our army mustered a force of fifty thousand. Forty thousand infantry, ten thousand cavalry. The Orc army counted one hundred thousand infantry. The fighting was fierce. Although the Orcs didn’t posses cavalry nor did they fight in an organized manner, they still proved to be a formidable opponent. They combated with never before seen fanaticism, without any fear or reason.
Trajan Marcus was in the first line when two armies clashed together. He described the awful smell of these creatures, how he soiled himself, and how deafening the noise was. By the end of the day, our army lost fifteen thousand soldiers, but managed to obliterate the Orcs.
The second battle was fought one hundred leagues north of the first one, in the thick Dwarven forests. This time the odds were higher, sixty thousand of us against one hundred and fifty thousand Orcs. The terrain didn’t allow for any heavy maneuvering, so the fighting was even more ferocious. The battle lasted two whole days! By the end, our armies prevailed, although with heavy casualties – twenty thousand dead.
The third battle wasn’t so much of a battle, but a series of skirmishes fought throughout the Dwarvenlands. It took a whole year and a half to cleanse the terrain of these vile creatures.
While all this was happening, Porosia managed to repel the Orcs and chase them back to Badlands. In time, Sodomir was liberated as well, with the help of Megalopolis and their eagles.
Trajan Marcus went into great details of every battle. He also described physical attributes of Orcs. They were three heads taller than an average Vetulonian. Their skin was creamy gray and their eyes were dark with a bit of red in them. Their noses were quite small and perky, their lips white as snow. They did have hair, long and dirty. They were dressed in simple fur clothes, although some did wear armor. Their iron weapons were well forged though, a surprising fact indeed. Their round shields were also well made. They talked a language no one could understand. Even when captured, they would rather die than reveal anything of themselves.
At the end of the book Trajan Marcus entered a Vetulonian sage order. The massacre he’d seen and had committed himself – scarred him for life. He sought answers by drinking the Elixir and meditating. He found it very hard to justify the slaughtering of female and children Orcs during the third “battle”.
The lands must be cleansed! was the motto. And he agreed. Orcs couldn’t be reasoned with and they stopped at nothing. But when he slit the throats of women and children and even some men, he saw the same fear as he would have seen in his fellow countrymen. Orcs, although vile, were still sentient creatures who needed our hand in help. Not our sword at their throats.
Before he died of a lump a few years later, he tried to persuade the then current Lord to send a mission to Orcs with the intent to establish some form of relationship. Trajan argued Orcs should be cleansed of their ill ways and relocated to more hospitable lands. Vast land parches of Helena, even the lush ones, were still empty due to the Long Winter and the deaths it caused. But there was no political will for such adventurous antics. The last paragraph of his book was:
“And so I failed. My end is near, that much I do know. I’m writing this book with the hope people will read it and continue my mission of helping those we call evil. Everything flows, nothing remains.”
I closed the book and sighed. It was a sunny day and the warmth felt good.
“Gods! I enjoyed this!” said Numitor, the Megalopolis sailor to whom I read every day.
“It does make you feel pity for Orcs,” I sighed again.
“I was ten years old when my father said goodbye to me and left to fight them in Sodomir. He came back, thank gods. But many didn’t. But yes, it’s true what you say, it’s hard not to feel some sort of pity for them. This wasn’t an invasion, no… It was a migration motivated by despair.”
“If I become Lord of Vetulonia one day, I’ll try to fulfill Trajan’s wishes.”
“Then I wish you’ll become the Lord one day, my young Antonius,” Numitor laughed.
We parted the very same day I had finished the book. The ships docked in a small free folk village and from then on we were on foot again. Numitor hugged me goodbye and thanked me for the everyday read. I wished him well.
Our next stop, the Dwarvenlands, was two weeks of walking away.