Orc laid in the damp and dark press of a ship's hold overfilled with disease and misery and orcs who remembered nothing of ships or the sea. No sunlight reached his place. No meals marked time's passage. Just the rhythm of groaning planks and rolling up and down and side to side, and down and up and side to side. Some days passed, or weeks, or months, and these he measured by his forefinger and thumb overlapping around his arm.

When contagion came only the worst were taken above for fresh air, so he was always below at the tub's bottom suffocating in filth and vomiting and crawling over orcs to get to the gunwale's portal and vomiting on them and on his hands and dragging his knees through it to queue standing because there was no room to sit, with elbow over nose and spots in his sight and the deck heaving and him heaving, and finally his turn at the gunwale to vomit but blissfully for the air smelled only of salt and birdshit and it cooled his sweating face and he leaned over the [cannon]'s long throat with his cheek against its blessedly cold iron and he could see the sea marching past tinkling like the [brigadier]'s table glass and he could hear orcs abovedecks shouting words she'd taught him but said in an accent he'd never master. Then a man floated past beneath him, red faced and wet faced but breathing clean air, fingers sliding over the hull and through the dribbling vomit of five hundred orcs, and he became smaller and smaller in the cold clean blue water and he vanished between the waves. Orc felt other orcs lean against him and grasp at his shoulders and arms and he heard them begging for their turn at the gunwale. He envied the man.

Another [sailor] splashed into the water and passed astern. Orc watched him go. Their eyes met. He saw the man's fear. He wanted to reassure him. Drowning was terribly slow, yes, many times the sea would fill his lungs and his body would expel it, many times his head would dip and his limbs would surge and resurge to clear it, but eventually exhaustion came. True exhaustion. Nothing left, not even a single stroke. And he would go. Many had gone that way. Even children. It is nothing new, he would say, there is nothing to fear. Oblivion isn't so bad. We've all been there before and we're all going back. Orc would squeeze through the portal and show him how easy it is to die. Easier than living. Easier than months, years, decades of being sick. Let the sea take him. Slower than a snapped neck perhaps, but faster than thirsting and hungering and vomiting every lifegiving thing in a wretched stink of bitter acid.

A third [sailor] tumbled overboard and plunged into the bowwave's foam. The orcs abovedecks who knew nothing of ships or the sea must have figured out how to get where they wanted. Now weak blows on his back replaced the grasping and begging. He vomited again, but it was more the motion of a vomit and nothing was produced. He left the gunwale and crawled back to his place.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A long eared three toed tusker called Ogaz laid in his way. Before the sickness Ogaz had sat knee to knee with him to talk or back to back to sleep. After the sickness Ogaz always stood to give Orc enough space to lie down, and sometimes he stood to give Ogaz enough space to lie down.

Ogaz made space when he heard him coming. Orc laid on the deck and listened to the bilge slosh below. The stench of it was enough to send him back to the gunwale, but he was too sick to move.

"Orc hearing Glad Nizam today?" said Ogaz.

He said nothing.

Ogaz toed his side. "Listening to Ogaz, Orc? Glad Nizam's making new speech of new beginnings, of big new home with room for all orcs settling, big new city for all orcs. Greenskins and tuskers and longhorns and orcs. All brothers now. Even scaler Orc is brother. Even sows and shorthorns are brothers."

He said nothing.

"Is good speech. Big longhorn hears firsthand from Glad Nizam, tells Ogaz. Orc should listen to big longhorn tell."

"Ogaz should let Orc die in silence."

Ogaz chuckled. "Orc's thinking boat's bad. Orc goes to camps and sees what he misses living with soft women before he talks of dying."

The deck heaved and Orc saw the tusker's eyes get big and he saw him put a three fingered hand on his stomach.

"How's queue at gun?" said Ogaz.

"Long." Orc closed his eyes and flung his arm across them. "Getting longer."

Ogaz exhaled long and loud. "Maybe Ogaz dies too."

Orc rolled onto his side and reached into the space between the deck and futtock to touch the [alpenstock] hidden there. The old dwarf hadn't given him much choice. In the pit he'd rendered a dozen such wounds to the skull and chest. Either was enough to slay a man. But dwarves weren't men. Perhaps the dwarf’s daughter knew something he didn't. Perhaps her father was already healed. Orc took refuge in that thought. He knew it was a lie.

The deck pitched suddenly and the bilge sloshed over his hand and the stink of it made him retch. He wiped his hand on his pant leg and he wondered when it'd end.

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> Gained Item: [Da's Alpenstock].

> +1 Renown: ...ain't nobody known then who he'd maimed and what he'd nabbed from them stinking beardlings... (5/10).