As the distance between Adam and the knight closed, Adam was shocked to see hatred boiling in the knight's eyes.

In previous fights, Adam had seen disgust or anger from the humans. When Ironblood captured humans in the past, the captors sometimes showed sadness or even arrogance. But hatred was new. Humans had been dominant over orcs for so long that they lost their hatred against orcs. Orcs were sport for them, even if humans were killed or injured in the fighting, that was simply the way of life. Hatred meant an acknowledgement of equals.

Focusing on the knight’s emotions was the wrong use of Adam’s attention. He brought his shield forward and blocked his view of the knight’s eyes, putting everything he had into the shield blow. When he and the knight clashed, they clashed hard. The sounds of screaming metal filled the road. As the rest of the humans started to surge around them, Adam pushed into the knight’s sword arm.

Without another arm to balance, the knight started to tilt his body to stay in balanced. It was a bit late. Adam's force pushed the knight's sword side back and threw him off balance. The other human soldiers, paused when they saw this.

However, a couple of soldiers had already slipped though and engaged Dax. Adam had been distracted by the knight's hatred and unknowingly accelerated, leaving a gap between him and Dax. The humans widened this gap. Dax tried to stab and shove his way forward, but the humans held tight.

Adam looked between the church ahead of him and Dax behind him. He paused for a second. Then, he started retreating to regroup with Dax.

Seeing Adam move back, the knight suddenly pulled back a step.

“My god! Give me strength!” He raised his sword and roared, louder than any sound Adam had ever heard a human make before. Adam would later be ashamed to admit it, but he flinched.

The psychological effect was powerful. For a moment, all the human soldiers fought with more vigor.

But then the knight's attack plinked off Adam's shield with hardly any force at all. Like it was wielded by a child. The blow was so weak Adam assumed it was a feint and prepared for another blow, but none came.

Tentatively, Adam pushed forward. It wasn't meant to be a lethal blow but the shield hit the knight, who promptly crumpled under the weight. The situation was so incredible that Adam hesitated for a second.

In that time, the other soldiers behind the knight rushed forward and covered the downed knight. Unlike the knight, they were fighting with a new vigor that made their blows rain heavier. But underneath the pressure, Adam could feel something off. The humans were pretending to be strong. Their blows were not calculated strikes by seasoned warriors, but rather full-strength pounding by novices.

He looked over to Dax, and saw that despite the early bravery of the humans, they were getting pushed back. Where he should have been pressed, he was doing the pressing. Humans were falling back even against lighter strikes.

Something about the humans' morale was different. This wasn't the confidence that Adam was used to seeing on the battlefield. This was a sort of desperation that turned cowards into fighters. They were even weaker than the villagers that Adam was used to fighting. They were easy to fight.

Soon the orcs had pushed the line back to the steps of the church. Up close, the church wasn’t much. It was made of stone, but there was nothing fancy or complex about the construction. The decoration consistently mostly of moss growing from the sides of the building.

As he and Dax got closer to the church, the soldiers started more intensely defending every step. It might have been protecting the last stronghold, or it might have been religious fever, but they were fighting harder.

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Still, none of the humans were willing to take huge risks against Adam’s shield and Dax’s spear. After thinning the human ranks, Adam roared and charged at the church door. Humans sprang out of the way as if dodging a charging bull. His shield hit the door, which immediately splintered. Looking through the broken remains of the door, he saw cowering women. He saw crying children. He saw a few terrified soldiers holding spears in his direction. But no grain.

With the door of the church broken, the humans became frantic. To protect the women and children, they began to take bigger and bigger risks. Dax started to land killing blows but in exchange, both Adam and Dax took small nicks and cuts.

Taking one last look around the church, Adam said, “Dax, no grain. We have to get out of here.”

—

Greenbough was leisurely strolling through the town. The human army that had challenged him was an unorganized mess. None of them remotely resembled the soldiers who had fought at camp Greenbough or even camp Ironblood. They were green and wet behind their ears.

What Greenbough could commend them for was their bravery. Even after Greenbough tore through their ranks, they stayed in formation. In an idle thought, Greenbough reminisced about the orcs previously under his command. If only they had been able to do that.

Something ticked in the back of Greenbough's mind as he thought back to his warriors. Looking in front of him, his head started racing with rage. How dare the humans attack camp Greenbough? And destroy all that he had been building for years? And leave Greenbough, an ancient orc, to travel from camp to camp, like a wandering warrior?

Slowly, Greenbough's eyes turned red and rather than break the human line for the town, he stayed behind to slaughter. It wasn't until the last of the humans had fled or were dead when his thoughts cleared. He was no longer green, he was bathed in blood.

Greenbough shook his head as he started walking towards the town. The sense of urgency that he had previously felt when Yav lured the knights away was gone. Instead, he felt an inner calm. The sort that he would get after a hard duel or training.

As he walked through the streets, a thin nagging strand started to appear in his mind. Adam, Dax, and Max were nowhere to be seen. That was fine, they could always be replaced. But more importantly, he felt as if he had missed something important.

Greenbough knocked down a couple of the human houses and looked at the now desolate street. He could hear sounds of fighting quite close to him, but he didn't feel any need to join the fight.

Closing his eyes, Greenbough sat down in the middle of the street. There was something that he had forgotten about. His plans had overlooked some critical detail and the only way to rectify that was to go through the plan again.

He thought back to when the original spark hit him. The wagons that he had seen at camp Greenbough were an addition that wasn't present at the previous battles. At first, he had assumed that they were a way to carry humans or weapons, like the oxen carts that humans sometimes used. However, when he retreated to camp Ironblood, he realized that they were carrying something far more important. They carried food.

Greenbough had once had ambitions to become a chieftain. An orc that led a clan instead of just a camp. After becoming an ancient orc, he had set about building his camp. He hit on reality a couple of years later when he realized that the location for his first camp didn't have enough resources to support more than a hundred orcs. So he moved, drawing closer to the fertile lands that were also closer to human settlements. The proximity gave his warriors plenty of training opportunities, and the camp grew nicely. Everything was well, until the human army came.

Here, Greenbough snapped out of his trance. The human army would be moving, they wouldn't store their grains at a static location like the town. The humans weren't moving the grain from the village to the town, they were simply moving the grain out of the village.

It’s still in the wagons.

Greenbough rushed to the outskirts of town. In the back of his mind, he expected to fight against the bulk of the human army. But the humans never materialized. It wasn't likely that the soldiers had gone to chase after Yav or even fight against Adam's group. There was something wrong here but Greenbough didn't look a gift horse in its mouth.

Rather, he approached a wagon and lifted the flap. The wagon was filled to the brim with grain. For a second, Greenbough was struck by how much grain the puny humans had managed to gather into one place. Then, a look of glee emerged from within him.

Greenbough went to one of the smoldering campfires and used the embers to light the end of a branch. With his makeshift torch, he walked up to the original wagon and held the flame to the canvas covering the grain. As the fire sputtered to life, and he moved on to the next wagon. Within a few minutes, he stood looking at a dozen wagons, each in varying stages of burning down. It was done.

Perfect.

A smile crept across his face as he began to trot back towards the town.