(Former) City of Kontessa, Aethera.

The old One-Eyed watched lazily as yet another city fell to the might of his Warchief, and the final objective of his current campaign of conquest. The watershed held almost a half dozen cities and over twice that of various port towns or small hamlets. Now it all belonged to him.

Smoke and ash filled the air as the cries and weeping of the former inhabitants rang out as they were pushed onwards towards the Warcamp. Some would be chosen as spoils for raid leaders or accomplished warriors. Most would be relegated to thralls, no more than labor used to pull the hulking orcish host onwards to yet more conquest.

The One-Eyed cast his eye upon the line of thralls as they were herded by. Uttering sounds of disapproval at those that past him by. None of them would do, he thought. None had what he needed. Elves, humans, dwarves, the odd leathery fishkin that populated the lakes and rivers inland of the watershed. Among the thousands that were brought forward, only a meager portion had what he needed.

Then a something prickled the back of his mind. The one thing he was looking for. Magic. One among the thralls possessed the gift of weaving the threads of magic, he thought as he went down the line studying each one as he neared the source. Then he came upon it. A boy. A small elvish boy no more than ten summers young. His old, yet firm, hand grasped the boy's tear drenched face.

He turned the boy's head side to side as his nearby parents looked on and muttered pleas to spare their young child. But his fate was sealed, the One-Eyed thought as it was now obvious that he was the one he had sensed. He let go of the boy and with a simple word he was sentenced.

"Him."

His parents cried out and sobbed as they tried to protect their boy from whatever fate was about to befall him. His own father flinging himself at the orcish guards with the fury that only a father protecting his son could muster. But it was of no use, the One-Eyed thought as he watched lazily as he was quickly subdued.

But the One-Eyed felt the prickled of spellwork at the edge of his wizened mind. He turned to the young boy and found his eyes ablaze with magic as he cried out. He raised his small hands and roaring flame shot forth, seeking to consume those that would harm his family.

Though powerful it may be to a young boy. To an old shaman with many decades of experience and training, it was nothing more than an annoyance. A simple chant was enough to keep the worst of the flames from hitting him or his cloying cloud of apprentices. Long enough to keep the young mage's ire while a meaty orcish fist sent him into unconsciousness.

As he fell, a thick cold metal pillory was slammed around the boy's neck and wrists. The sigils glowed and hissed as the power the boy once had was drawn instead into them. Keeping his gift nullified until the One-Eyed was ready.

"Take him."

His family cried and wailed as the young boy was dragged away. The family were quickly encouraged to move on as rawhide whips found backs while harsh taskmasters roared. One more, the old shaman thought. But still little closer to the task given to him by the Warchief.

The aging shaman left the scene. There would be no more, he thought as he climbed the incline to the camp. While fortunate to have this one, even if he was but a child, it still wouldn't be enough to fulfil his goal.

While he, and his incessant apprentices, made their way through the camp they passed the many goings on that was constant in camp life even while the warriors marched to war.

Thralls were being claimed off to his right. The lucky few will find kind and fair masters. Tattooed with tribal markings and even being given actual clothes and fresh food. Fewer still will find themselves fortunate to be claimed as members of their new homes and treated as such, some even becoming honored mates. Though still thralls they would be treated as such in name only as fine furs and wealth would be given to them, same as any other mate.

Most though will be treated as the thralls they are. Whipped, chained, and branded as they slaved away for the Warchief. After all, shit needed shoveling and only thralls and the dishonored were assigned the grueling task. As did many other things like keeping the beasts fed, bringing their master's food, water, or grog.

Yet there were more that were treated far worse, the One-Eyed thought as he passed a swine pen with the remains of thralls worked to death consumed by the razorbacks. Even as their former brothers and sisters in chains shoveled slop mere steps from their corpses. There are those of the host that are particularly cruel towards the conquered. Bruises and cuts lined their faces and bare bodies. Dwarves were but skeletons of their former stout builds. Elves were targeted especially, something about their natural beauty seemed to enrage some orcs and thus their features were puffed from beatings and their pointed ears were cut.

Other races all found a place. Gnomes and halflings were either used as living practice dummies to get young warriors used to taking a life, or were used as feed for some of their larger beasts. Many beastfolk either slaved away alongside the others, or were assimilated into the horde.

Centaurs bellowed and laughed to the shaman's left as they drank and ate. Little better than their goat-legged cousins as they too liked to drink and whore whenever possible. Unlike the slovenly satyrs or their shy and fearful female counterparts the fauns, the centaurs liked to brawl and fight. Which made convincing them to follow the orcish host easier. While the satyrs and even the bestial minotaurs were chained and caged until they were whipped and driven into enemy battle lines, the minotaurs acting as shock troops meant to break and scatter formations for the centaurs and worg-riders to then rundown. While the satyrs acted as skirmishers and harassers meant to keep the enemy distracted.

The shaman passed by the Menagerie as the thralls liked to call it with equal parts dread and awe. Large wooly bighorns grunted and thumped against cages just small enough to keep them agitated until battle. Fierce cats of the plains and savannahs that stalked and hunted through tall and golden grass lounged lazily until called upon.

Even a couple of mottled rocs were barely kept under control by the Warchief's beastmasters and the combined might of their cruel whips and binding spells meant to crush the bestial will to their own. The assortment of beasts matched the sheer size and reach of the Warchief's horde. Fat razertusked walruses found at the edges of cold water, to trolls found and lured out of their caves, to even mighty wyrms. The primal cousins of the mighty dragons, all the power but none of the intelligence, or draconic magic unfortunately.

Yet only so much of the Warchief's vast array of beasts and even soldiers could be brought to bear when he so desired. The centaurs only excelled on flat open ground or sparsely forested areas. The trolls were only good when it was dark or heavily cloudy or when the Warchief's eyes turned to a dwarven hold and sent them in to flush out the tunnels and mines.

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For as much as these ARE the Warchief's lands, most was instead given to the respected, and loyal, leaders of the lesser orc tribes that followed him, or sufficiently cowed vassals from the realms of man or elf to oversee in his name. The forces were much the same, while he would no doubt welcome bringing wyrms, rocs or even the odd giant to every engagement. They required constant wagons full of food and attention to keep them subservient and bent to his will.

Resources better spent on more manageable parts of the host. Even the creatures of the deep that the Warchief employed during the battle for Daele and others along the coast would be either driven off to scavenge elsewhere or would be penned and watched over in camps until he called for them.

The old One-Eyed arrived at the Wartent. Where within waited the Earthshaker, the orc that would see his name spoken in equal parts fear and reverence as his reach stretched from corner to corner of their world. He walked past the guards and entered the tent as he saw the various heads of the War Council speaking with the Warchief as many leaders of the conquered watershed knelt before him in fear. Some offered supplication willingly in an effort to avoid death and destruction by the host, some were cowed when their walls and men both fell to his might. Yet all those still living knelt and bowed before him.

"We should move east towards the mountains, the dwarves have vast wealth that wouldn't go to waste." One of the orcs suggested.

"We would be besieging them for months at a time while they cowered under the stone! We should turn our gaze to the islands north of here while we have the forces to do so." Another argued.

"Bah! Nothing but weak jungle elves, fishfolk, turtlefolk, and every manner of wretched insect and toxic plant on those islands! We should go south to the deserts and subjugate the nomads and other beasts of the sands. And sack a tomb or two of its wealth while we're there."

The Warchief listened with little attention as his steeled gaze found the shaman. With a rumble the plans were silenced and all eyes were turned to the shaman as he stepped forwards and knelt before the Warchief as he spoke.

"Is the task I have given you been completed, One-Eyed one?"

"No, Warchief. It has not." The shaman knew there was no point in lying, even if he wanted to he wouldn't dare.

The Earthshaker rumbled.

"You know the consequences of failing an order from your Warchief."

It was not a question. The shaman held out his arms as three guards marched towards him and gripped his arms and wrists roughly as the third brought over a club wrapped in uncured leather. They turned their sight to the Warchief, who nodded once and the club was brought back and slammed into the shaman's gut. Over and over was he beaten. Only the sounds of breath being forced out and the crack of bones as rough leather and wood met flesh and bone.

Twenty-seven times was the club brought down upon the shaman before the Warchief declared it enough. The guards let go of him and it took every ounce of strength in his old body to keep from passing out. The Warchief himself got up from his hide and bone throne and marched over to the shaman and brought his tusked mouth close to his ear and spoke in such a quiet whisper that few would imagine he was capable of doing so.

"I know I gave you an impossible task."

"You are the Warchief. It is only impossible if we are weak enough to make it so." The shaman croaked as blood slipped from his lips.

"Regardless, it was a task given in haste and with clouded thoughts. So your task will remain the same, but the time of completion will be more lenient." The Warchief whispered enough that even the shaman had mild trouble in understanding.

"As the Warchief demands, so shall it be done." The shaman declared as the Earthshaker let go of the shaman and turned his back to him as he returned to his throne.

His apprentices made to come to their master's aid but he waved them off. As old and brittle he may be, he was still an orc and honor demanded of him that he shoulder this pain publicly until he was safely within the privacy of his own tent and could then relent and receive proper healing. He struggled to stand as his bones creaked and cracked. Yet stand he did, and he offered as deep a bow as he could muster before hobbling out of the tent with his swarm of apprentices following.

The Warchief returned and sat upon his throne as his gaze slide across those assembled. The orc leaders knew such punishments and worse awaited them should they ever fail, and the humans were even more cowed seeing such a wizened and even respected adviser treated so harshly. Good, the Warchief thought with a feral smile.

"Lords of the watershed. I believe you were offering your supplication?"

The lords were quick to bow and scrape as they were given the go ahead. What pathetic weaklings, he thought as they blubbered and offered to him everything from the sun itself to things they believed were still theirs to offer, to things he knew full we they didn't have. While enjoyable at first to watch the weak manlings and others cower before him, he grew rather bored with it and had even begun to despise it.

You would never see an orc act in such a pitiful way. Even the most dishonored and cowardly would have enough pride to not blubber, wail, and cry like mewling infants. Even his own brother, the skulking coward he was, took his banishment with a measure of dignity.

He sighed, yet only so many of the orc tribes knew how to properly manage HIS land, and those that did, and could, were few in number and needed here with him to plan his next conquest and to keep a close eye on them. Loyal they may be, if they sense so much as a sliver of weakness then he'll be dealing with challenges to his leadership more than necessary.

So in came the weak cowards that knelt and bowed before him like wriggling grubs.

"Oh great and terrible Earthshaker! Mightiest of all calamities!"

"Most terrible and greatest of warriors are you!"

The Warchief held up a hand to forestall more of the repugnant display.

"I have realized that we are missing some of your fellow lords. They should be here as well should they not?"

The lords winced and made no move to answer him. Eventually one was forced to the front, the weaselly like man bowed and scraped more than talked.

"Oh great and mighty and terrible of orcish threats! You have slain all that once held the title that did not see you for the terrible and great and mighty of a ruler!"

The orc raised a brow.

"Did I?"

He waved a hand and a couple of the guards left to another room somewhere nearby. Nothing filled the air save for the nervous mutterings of the lords and skittish shuffling. But before long the guards returned, and they dragged along with them a man that was stripped of his seafoam steel armor, and his red hair was grimy and matted.

"I believe that you are all familiar with the former Duke? Say hello to Magnus of Daele." The Warchief declared as the lords beheld the bloody and beaten, but yet still alive and breathing, form of the Duke.

A bucket of water was thrown on him to awaken him from unconsciousness and he spluttered and hacked as his one eye not swollen over gazed around in a haze.

"Wh-what happened? Where am I?"

"You are in the presence of your conqueror and new master. As well as all of your fellow lords that have bent the knee and lived." The Warchief stated.

Magnus spat a bit of crimson tinted phlegm onto the ground.

"You are no conqueror! You are a butcher! A savage! A monster parading in flesh like a sick mockery of civilized folk!"

"Magnus! Shut up or you'll die and possibly kill us with you!" One of the nobles hissed as fear spread throughout the group.

Magnus squinted his good eye.

"Lord Halton? Is that you? I thought I recognized the smell of pond muck!"

"Insult me all you want! At least I am alive!" Said lord retorted.

"You are, but can the same be said for your eldest, Baldric?" Magnus hissed back.

"How dare you!?"

"So it was him that you sent to my walls to be gutted like bait! I wonder how many of your sons were sent to die by my hand that day! How many believed that their fathers would protect them, that they would serve in glory and die in a bed next to those they loved?! How many died upon my walls and in the mud like rats?!"

"ENOUGH!" The Warchief's voice boomed, but from the looks on his and the guards faces, it was not spoken in anger or insult.

"Are you not curious as to why you are still alive, Magnus of Daele?"

"Who am I to question the nature of beasts and savages?" Magnus retorted, uncaring for the fact he was in an orc encampment surrounded by orcs that could take his life in a heartbeat.

"You are here, because no other weakling lord of the watershed fought with even half the courage or bravery as you did. The thought to dive headfirst into the fray with your men to seek a warriors death never seemed to occur to any of them! For that you have the eternal respect of the orcish race as well as my own!"

Magnus once more spat.

"You can take that respect and bury it along with all those that have died to your bestial madness!"

"Oh but don't you wish to hear the good news, Duke?" The Warchief asked with a toothy smile.

"That you brought me here to watch you execute these bottom feeders?"

"No... not yet at least." The Warchief said, much to the fear and quick mewling of the lords.

"I brought you here in front of the other lords to inform you of a grand miracle!"

Magnus snorted derisively.

"But it is true! Haven't you all heard!? A great rift of golden light split the very air within the cathedral of Daele and absconded with all those that sought succor within! As did many of those still within the walls of the district you held before running to your supposed death."

"Even if that were true, why would you tell me?"

"I thought you didn't want to question the nature of us beasts and savages?" The Warchief repeated, to the amusement of his guards and a few nervous chuckles from the lords.

"I don't, but you are telling me for a reason so just get about it already!"

The Warchief smiled.

"I'm telling you that your people, most of them anyway, are alive and within another world."

His smile turned cruel and wicked.

"And I will find it and conquer it and your people in turn!"