At first, Max was confident that Adam would find some trick to trip up the knight and take him down. After all, he was their leader. He had all the ideas.

“Get him, Adam!”

But it turned out the knight was the one bringing all the tricks to the table. From a distance, Max could see what Adam couldn’t. The knight was angling his sword downward and crouching ahead of every shield bash, making Adam work harder to execute every move.

“Should we step in, Chief?” Max asked, trying hard to keep the worry out of his voice. He could see Adam sagging against his own fatigue. All it would take was one mistake for the knight to slice Adam's neck open. The chief gestured towards the fight.

“Max, you use a shield - tell me. What is a shield for? Before anything else, why do you carry it?”

Max watched the fight for a few more seconds before his eyes lit up.

“Adam! Back up! Make some room for yourself!”

—

Still in the fight, Adam heard Max’s advice and scoffed to himself.

Make room? I’m barely hanging on as it is - he wants me to give the knight room to take full blows?

—

“He doesn’t see it,” said Max. Max watched as the knight landed a lucky blow on Adam’s leg. It didn’t slice far enough to get past the heavy leather and draw blood. But it made Adam stumble, regaining his balance a second late and almost losing his nose from the knight's next swipe.

“He doesn’t. Why don’t you go join in? Give your leader some time to breathe,” the chief nodded.

Max didn’t need to be told twice. He hefted his shield and sprinted towards the battle. As he got close, he angled his feet to the side and slid between Adam and the knight, pushing the armored enemy back a few steps in the process.

Adam was exhausted, but his oxygen-starved brain still understood an opportunity when he saw one. With the space Max had provided, he made a short but powerful charge at the knight to finish him off.

He was astonished when Max stepped in the way, absorbing the charge with his arm before Adam had got up to speed.

“Back off, Adam. Take a break,” Max turned around and snarled.

Adam looked back at the chief, confused. The chief nodded and motioned him back. Disengaging from the fight, nearly collapsing as he reached the safety of his leader and squad.

“Does your word mean nothing? You swore, Orc,” the knight held his sword aloft for a strike if needed, and glared through his visor at the chief.

“You won your prize, human. Now fight. We might be merciful with you, as well,” the chief waved his hand towards the captive villagers, now being herded away from the fight and towards safety by Dax and Luke. Max held his place for a moment.

The knight nodded. He wasn’t the match for five orcs, even without an ancient orc present. Any chance at life was a better deal than he could have expected.

Negotiations complete, the knight lowered his sword and made a thrust. But the point of his sword barely found Max’s shield. As he moved forward for the blow, Max faded away, angling his shield to dissipate the remaining force from the knight.

Just as Adam had predicted, the knight took full advantage of the increased distance, stepping in with wider and stronger blows. Each strike flowed into the next. The knight nearly spun towards Max as he slashed, re-slashed, and stabbed from a dozen angles. But against Adam’s expectations, this didn’t seem to do anything at all. Max’s shield ate up every slash like they were driven by nothing more than a child’s strength.

“Is that all you have, Knight?”

Max was enjoying himself.

Adam’s jaw went slack as he watched the fight, until he suddenly realized what was happening. Max was using the distance to plan.

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The longer strikes were stronger, but there was a split second between the knight’s footing changes for each and the actual impact. In that time, Max was anticipating the angles of the strikes and changing the angle of his shield to deflect them. Not opposing force with force, but instead using his reflexes to let them flow off.

With each strike, the knight would have to shift his weight back to recover his sword and stance. And after only a few dozen strikes, the difference began to show.

He was pacing himself before, Adam thought. Now he has to follow Max’s pace. Max is making him do the work.

The knight was visibly flustered now and Max began to exploit his advantage. As he deflected the knight’s blows, he started to slip down the sword strikes at the same angle, pushing back at the knight.

He’s making him deal with the force at angles he’s not ready for.

Now that the knight couldn’t control the pacing and flow of the fight, his strikes were starting to become slow and soft. After a dozen or so more exchanging, the knight lost his footing. It was just a moment, but long enough for Max to blast him off his feet with a well-aimed shield bash.

The knight tried to stagger back to his feet, only to have his knees buckle under him. He looked up at Max defiantly.

“Finish it, orc,” but before Max could even look to the chief to see what to do, a voice boomed out from the road entering town.

“Hanlin, wait! Orcs, halt your attack!”

—

How did I not see them coming? Adam had been engrossed enough in the fight that he had missed the approach of the incoming human troop. No, more than a troop. This is a small army.

As line after line of humans marched into town, Adam realized that there were hundreds of them. Many more than a simple town would usually garrison.

More importantly, more humans than the orcs could hope to defeat.

The humans formed in ranks facing the orcs, and from their numbers emerged a familiar leader - the knight from the battle a few days ago. Whether by magic or alchemy, his wounds were closed, but no amount of healing could reattach his arm, and he looked oddly off-balance as he pointed his sword towards the orcs.

“Release our people, orcs.”

The chief grunted.

“I have released them already. Your friend was just providing us with some sport as we waited for you.”

The one-armed knight walked closer and looked at Max’s opponent for confirmation. He got a simple nod in response. The town was almost entirely vacated.

“Good. That makes this simpler. Men, charge!”

The knight had made a few crucial tactical mistakes, Adam noted. First, he had approached much closer to the orcs than his men were willing to follow. Second, a knight without a shield had little way of stopping the advance of a battle-hardened ancient orc. And third, it was hard to order an army to attack when they just watched their leader slammed into the ground by an orc that towered over them.

“I’d be willing to trade us leaving for your lives,” the chief smiled. Adam could have sworn the chief’s eyes glinting in glee. “Tell me - are human oaths more powerful when made in groups?”

—

“We didn’t even raid. How can it be a raid without loot?”

Sam, as always, could be counted on to say what others were too afraid or wise to say. He had been whining for the better part of an hour, moving from mumbles to grumbles as they got further and further from the dangers of the human town.

“Raids aren’t always about looting,” the chief said. “We took something different from the humans today, Sam. This raid was about fear.”

They were a safe distance from the human village now. Obscured by the cover of the woods, the chief called a stop and the orcs began to shed what little baggage they had brought and sprawled out on the ground.

Luke began distributing some bread and cold meat, negotiated as an afterthought to go along with their safe passage away. Sam had only stopped whining about the lootless raid a few times. Each time, he would recount the shock and confusion on the face of the human who was tasked with making the enemy’s lunch.

“The humans we fought today, especially the defeated knights, are daunted. They’ve lost twice now. When they attack again, you will find their attacks weak. They will probe. They will not charge,” the chief bit into some jerky and continued. “But that blade has two edges. When they conquer their fear, they will come back with greater numbers. And greater caution.”

He turned to Adam, “Adam, do you know why you lost? Do you actually understand?”

“He was better at fighting than me,” Adam said sullenly.

“Then why did Max do better? Is he better at using a shield than you?” the chief chucked a piece of jerky at his head.

Adam looked at Max.

“It’s OK to say it,” Max said. “I’m really not as good as you.”

Adam looked down at the dirt for a few moments before realizing, “I tried to fight like him.”

“That’s it. You tried to fight like a human, not like an orc. You fought at his range, in his way. He didn’t thank you, but he should have. You let him have every advantage he asked for.”

The chief stood up and grabbed Adam’s shield, then rushed and bashed into a tree. The whole trunk shook and groaned against his force. It stayed rooted, but barely.

“From a distance, an orc can multiply their strength with momentum. From a distance, he can see the tricks and quickness of a human and counter them,” he got up close to Adam, to the range the knight had fought from. “Here, he could smother your force. He could stab where he wanted, he could do what he wanted. He could make you tired, fighting his way, instead of you wearing him out fighting your way.”

Adam nodded.

“Max, you did well. You saw. You fought like an orc, and you won like an orc,” he turned to Max and put his giant hand on his shoulder. He then turned to Adam, and hit him lightly on the head with the edge of the shield. “While this idiot wore himself out thinking he was a human.”

There was a momentary silence as Adam tried and failed to hide the embarrassment on his face. The woods were quiet for a bit, and then, for the first time in a long time, the chief started laughing.