The night's sky is cloudless, bright with the glistening of stars, the mixture of starlight and the moonlight is keeping the world from pure darkness, a perfect night to lay in the grass and star gaze, looking for the constellations. The smoke from a burning village down below is starting to block the view of the moon and stars. The burning buildings making it almost smell like a campfire, you can hear the screams of fear shouting into the endless night, the crying of children, and the screeches of pain being cut off followed by hideous laughter. The lucky villagers fleeing the town to escape both flames and orcs. Barbaric beast, foul, dumb creatures with greater strength than most humans with their bulky muscular build, having skin tones ranging from various shades of green mostly. Sharp teeth and two large fangs on their lower jaw two teeth lengths from the center curving upwards out of their mouth, they also have slightly curved pointed ears. They're known to live in tribes, raid anything they come across and trade routes, and restlessness that leads to infighting and power struggles. The Orcs are mercilessly killing the villagers, leaving puddles of blood and shattered mangled bodies in their path. The few soldiers that the village had and the few who attempted to take up arms, were no match for the Orcs and were toyed with before meeting their deaths. Women, children, elders, it doesn't matter who you are to these savage creatures, just killing all that they come across for sport and their own sick entertainment.

We find a young man not even twenty yet named Dominic, he's running into his home to help his family get out before it collapses from the fire. It only took him a few moments to help get his family outside, and convincing them to go the rendezvous point outside the village while he packed some things quickly for them. However before he could make it out himself, a large chunk of the ceiling collapsed in front of the door blocking his path, and access to the front part of the house. Fire lines the walls weakening them by the second, smoke filling the air and his lungs making it difficult to breathe, the heat and anxiety making him sweat. Dominic is beginning to lose hope as he can hear the wood splintering by the second, satisfied that he got his family out at least, but he has to keep trying for them. He notices the window is still an option, as he makes his way over a partly collapsed support beam between him and the window, the beam cracks almost completely in half causing the support of the ceiling to shift making another flame coated portion of the ceiling fall down. He sighs and mumbles "Just my luck." Sliding the pack of supplies under the beam then backs up a little, he tries to suck in a breath of air but smoke fills his lungs mostly instead. He bends over, hands on his knees coughing, and cursing everything. He manages to get enough air to hold his breath and starts to run at the column, he drops down into a slide and slides under it. scraping his legs and arms on the floor in the process. He grabs the pack and gets to his feet, he see's that the flames are now surrounding the frame of the window but not the opening itself, not wanting to waste anymore time he lunges out through the window without a second thought or a second glance.

As Dominic flings through the air he ends up hitting two orcs who were running by eagerly looking for their next victim. Dominic attempts to get up and run while they turn around but ones grabs him by the pack and throws Dominic into the wall ripping the pack off it's straps in the process, making him fall onto his bottom. He tries to stand but the stinging pain that's not done exploring his body causes him to fall back down, the two orcs laugh at him while the one quickly rummages through the pack, tossing it back behind them disinterested in the supplies. The other orc began to move his arm readying to thrust his sword, Dominic looks in terror as he blindly tries to grab anything to defend himself. Unable to grasp anything he quickly glances to his right to see if there's anything he missed but instead he see's his friend. Maximus whose also his age but bigger than him in both height and build, charging right at the orcs, tackling the one who was mere seconds from stabbing Dominic. The standing orc turns and kicks Maximus off his tribe mate. Maximus tries to get up but the orc punches him, knocking him back down into the ground, the orc leans down speaking very poorly in the common language of the world "Strong like Orc but still weak Human." Maximus tries to get up again but the orc just punches him back down again. Maximus spits out some blood then grabs the orc by the arm and pulls it down to the ground with him, and they begin to wrestle for control. While they wrestle for control the orc who was originally tackled is starting to get up now, but Dominic throws his entire body weight into the orc barely knocking it over. The orc easily rolls Dominic onto his back, pinning him down by the arms and says something in the Orc language. It let's go of one of his arms and quickly grabs a dagger from it's side and raises it above Dominic's chest before plunging it down. Dominic grabs the orcs wrist with his hand trying to keep himself from being stabbed, but the orc is above him and much stronger so the effort is barely stalling the dagger from inching closer to his chest. Dominic is at this point closing his eyes, accepting his fate, he's already cheated it by escaping the house and being stabbed by the sword. The Orc suddenly goes very still, for a moment, and begins to cough like he's choking on something, Dominic opens up and looks at the orc and see's the end of a small kitchen knife sticking through the orcs throat, as the knife gets pulled out the orc immediately lets go of him and the dagger and starts grabbing at its throat, Dominic having no time but to barely hit the dagger making it slightly cut him rather than fall pointed end down onto his chest. The orc now gargling on it's own blood as it pours out of his mouth and throat unable to keep it inside of itself, the blood starting to drip onto Dominic and his clothes. The orc's body falls forward, barely catching the body before it comes crashing down onto him, Dominic struggles against the weight while he moves it off to the side off of him. He sits up, wiping some of the blood from his face, he can now see that his other friend Lela was the one holding the knife, stunned at the realization that both of his friends saved his life. Lela is hurrying over to help Maximus with the orc he's fighting but the wrestling was making it difficult for her to accurately stab it, causing her to only stab it in the shoulder pad, the kitchen knife not even being capable of going through the leathery armor. The orc turned and smacked her away, Maximus using the small distraction to his advantage by punching the orc and pushing it off him. Meanwhile Dominic is picking up the dead orcs dagger, and runs over to stab the orc while it's trying to pin Maximus down again. Dominic plunges the dagger in the side of the orc's chest puncturing one it's lungs, he lets go of the dagger and pushes the orc over to let it die while it gasp for air. A chill ran through his body at the sight, it wasn't entirely his plan but wasn't going to waste time thinking about it or how much more brutal it was than it needed to be, not like the orc doesn't deserve it though. Dominic helps both of his friends stand up and breathlessly looks at them, shaking his head regaining some air and says "T-thank you both for coming back and saving me, it means so much more than you'll ever know." Maximus rubs his already bruising cheek, opening his mouth to reply but looks down the dirt road at a small group of orcs who just came around the corner, saying quickly "We need to go while we can!" The Orcs noticed their two dead tribe mates, and let out a growl beginning to charge at the three of them with a thirst for vengeance.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Dominic, Maximus and Lela sprint off between the buildings and away from the village hearing the loud thuds and crunching of leaves in the grass from the charging Orcs behind them, Dominic mentally thanking that their village was big enough with each street full of commotion and that the other groups of orcs were to caught up in everything else to notice them killing the two orcs and being able to get away because the small group that did notice them could've been much bigger. The trio running into the forest in hopes to get out of view of the orcs and put some more distance between them. The orcs being more interested in the raid gave up chase a little more than halfway to the tree line and went back to the village to continue their raid, had they been chasing a big group of people they would've continued chasing. A short distance into the tree's when they knew they weren't being pursued, Dominic suggested that they make their way towards the village rendezvous point so they made a half circle change of direction towards the location, being mindful of roots and rocks to avoid tripping in the dark. Staying just inside the tree line from prying eyes, they continued on until they came into view of the pathway off the main road that led down into the village rendezvous along the river, unfortunately they saw a larger group of orcs rushing down the pathway launching an ambush on the meeting spot. The villagers began screaming, trying to grab their children and run for their lives yet again, but it was a giant cluster mess. People running into one another, others being trampled, the previously injured being left to fend for themselves, some even jumping into the river, the only thing worse than watching it was hearing the Orcs laughs full of delight from the ensuing panic and death as if not enough people have already died. Dominic tried to jolt forward to help the people get away and help his family but he was being held back by Maximus, Dominic was thrashing against him and shouting to be let go but Maximus wouldn't budge. Lela walked in front of Dominic and smacked him on top of the head rather hard, and gave him a look that he she only made when she was about to lose it. So he paused his thrashing and shouting, and she spoke in a scary calmness despite everything go on "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one? What are you going to do? Go down there and die with them? You don't even have a weapon you buffoon. You don't think Maximus's or my family is down there either, look at him, he's just as worried as you." He looked up at Maximus and felt like an orc punched him in the gut because there was nothing but pure horror on Maximus's face, Lela was right, drawing attention to themselves and trying to help would only get themselves killed, it would be best to wait until it was safer and look for his family, maybe his family saw the Orcs coming here and ran off somewhere else, yes that was it because they would have been really delayed. He looked at Lela and apologized to them both, Maximus released Dominic and so they ran back in the direction they came from. As they continued on the night progressively became darker, especially with the smoke spreading throughout the sky and the farther away from the orcs they got, they no longer needed to stay in the tree line to hide, or have to start worrying about night predators. Barely thirty minutes later with that time to think Dominic stopped momentarily which caused the other two to stop and look at him. "Shouldn't we circle back to the other side where those that escaped would be? Where our families would be?" Lela shook her head "Think about it, we barely saved you from two of them caught off guard by us, if we're caught we won't be able to help them, besides we don't have any supplies, and you saw the meeting spot, they could have gone anywhere." Maximus let out a deep sigh before speaking next "I don't like it either, I much rather not leave them, but what choice do we got?" Dominic did not want to agree but he couldn't deny the truth in it, he could also see the haunted look in Maximus eyes, he was shaking still and it wasn't from the cold, who knows what Lela was feeling, so reluctantly agreeing with them, and utilizing the adrenaline still pumping in their body they continued running for as long as they could. Shortly later not having the energy to run any further, and having to keep going they forced themselves to walk for a while longer yet. They came to a forest filled valley that they've explored a few weeks before, venturing into it as a route to get farther from their village and the Orcs. They followed the main dirt path seeing as the sides had thick bushes, rocks, and a few slants in the ground, there were quite a few animal paths leading from the main path, trees of various sizes to each side. They came to a fork in the road and went down the right pathway since the left led to a cave that they didn't explore last time so they didn't know if it was safe or not. While continuing on they spotted a small pathway under some tall bushes and tree's, they followed it since it was one of the least noticeable way to go, and they were in fear of being followed. They went over some fallen trees, under some tilted ones, leading around some chunks of rock that collapsed some time ago, until they came to a little clearing decently hidden away by lots of foliage but mainly hidden because the darkness. They figured this would be enough cover just for the night, or until they recovered their energy. The three of them were exhausted, terrified, and sore, they all sat there calming down lost in their thoughts, not wanting to really speak. None of them believed they would get any sleep out of fear but ultimately the exhaustion took over and they fell asleep.