He lifted his axe and brought it down directly over the neck of the boar. The animal didn’t even have time to squeal before it collapsed to the ground, and hot blood spurted from the cut. The dying animal kicked its legs a couple of times, jerking in its death throes.

Warsgra sent a prayer for the boar’s spirit up to the mountain Gods as the final breath left the animal’s body, and it fell still for good.

Not wanting to let anything go to waste, Warsgra dipped his hand to the wound of the dying beast and allowed his palm to fill with the hot fluid. It warmed his skin, and, before it got the chance to cool, he brought the blood to his mouth and drank deeply.

He gave a grunt of pleasure. That was good. The blood would fortify him, and he needed fresh meat for the journey ahead.

Warsgra straightened, and with one fist—the one not holding the axe—he pulled his long, wavy brown hair away from his face. Though he was standing at the base of the Great Dividing Range, the mountain range that ran almost all the way through the middle of Xantearos, he wore only shoulder protectors, a loincloth, and thick, animal skin boots. He’d grown up in this environment his whole life and didn’t feel the cold.

The thought made him growl in irritation. He was going to have to travel with other folks soon. Their puny bodies and need for multiple layers made this trek even more of a chore. He’d have preferred to take only a few more of his own kind, the Norcs, or even go it alone, but this was how peace had remained among the other folk living on the Western coast, and he didn’t want another war breaking out. While he might have the brute strength so lacking in the other races, he appreciated that they had their skills. The Elvish could be cunning, and some of them even had magical abilities, though they were no longer allowed to use them, and the Moerians were dangerous fighters, skilled on horseback and with a weapon of any kind.

No, it was better that he swallow his pride twice a year so they all worked together. The crops weren’t enough on this side of the mountain range to keep everyone fed, and while he was happy hunting and eating meat for every meal, the women and children of his clan were not.

Even worse than traveling with the other races who lived on this side of the coast was meeting with the humans a little beyond the midway point of the Southern Pass. As much as he disliked the Elvish and Moerians, he despised the humans. They needed to send multiple amounts of their number just to make it halfway through the pass, and by the time they met with him and his clan, they were exhausted and terrified. They were a pitiful sight to behold, and he still didn’t understand how they’d managed to keep hold of most of the Eastern coast all these years. Yes, their numbers were great, and their ability to build and design far surpassed his kind, but every time he came face to face with one, all he could think was how he’d be able to crush them with a single blow from his fist. He was grateful that his interaction with them only ever needed to be limited to exchanging goods. If he was forced to travel with them for any amount of time, he imagined he would struggle to hold back his natural instincts to crush them.

“You’re prepared for tomorrow’s journey?” asked his clan mate, Jultu Rockrider, as he strode toward where Warsgra stood over the now dead boar.

Jultu was as big as Warsgra, but his family was less important among their kind. Warsgra’s family had been around in the early days of the Treaty, and Warsgra and his ancestors had fought hard to make sure they were the leaders of their clan. Other clans of Norcs lived across the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, but Warsgra’s was by far the largest and most powerful. The area given to the Norcs during the Treaty was known as the Southern Trough, and Warsgra’s clan’s position at the entrance to the Southern Pass was the most highly sought. The mines the Norcs worked were rich with coal in this area, and, carved out of the mountain side on both sides of their camp, was evidence of their work. No other clan would be stupid enough to challenge Warsgra, however. He would crush them in an instant if they tried.

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Warsgra straightened. “I am now. Are the bison ready for the morning?”

“Yes, and the carts are loaded with coal. We just have to hope the Elvish and Moerians arrive by sunrise.”

“They will.” He snorted. “Or they’ll have to travel alone.”

“You know that isn’t how things work, Warsgra,” he warned. “Don’t break a treaty that’s a hundred and fifty years old just because you have no patience.”

Warsgra shrugged. “I have patience. Just not for their kind.”

“There’s a reason we all came together, remember. It wasn’t so long ago that our kind was almost wiped out by the mountain Gods. Don’t disrespect them by making light of their powers.”

Warsgra knew of their powers. His great grandfather had almost been killed during one such journey, and the tales of how he’d survived had raised his family name to what it was today.

“It’s not the Gods I make light of, it’s the people I’m due to travel with.” He sighed and lifted his hand in defense. “Okay, okay. Relax, Jultu. I won’t do anything to jeopardize things. I’ll smile sweetly and be nice.” As though to demonstrate his ability, he pulled his full lips back and exposed a line of strong white teeth.

Jultu lifted a bushy eyebrow. “You look more like you’re thinking of a big meal than being friendly.”

He burst out laughing and smacked his naked thigh. “Aye, or a good young female to bed.”

His clan mate joined the laughter. “That, too. When are you going to choose yourself a wife, Warsgra? People are talking, and everyone wants a good wedding. Plenty of time to get drunk and have sex.”

The weddings of his kind took place over a week, and most people couldn’t remember their own names by the end of the celebrations.

The smile fell from Warsgra’s lips. “I have no wish to get married. Especially not if it’s only to give the people an excuse to drink wine and fuck. The last thing I need is some woman thinking she has a hold over me, or even worse, little rugrats crawling around.” He pounded his fist to his massive chest. “I’m keeping my freedom.”

“You’ll end up old and dead, and with no one to continue your name, if you’re not careful, Warsgra.”

“But people will sing songs of my strength and courage for generations to come.”

“Even great heroes can be forgotten,” his clan mate warned.

Warsgra snorted. “Then they weren’t that great.”

He set to work with his axe, gutting the boar to be spit-roasted, and then hunks of meat would be wrapped in cloth to take on the journey. Several other members of his clan would be coming along in the morning, helping to drive the carts loaded with coal which the bison would pull. Because of the location of their home, already at the base of the Great Dividing Range and only a matter of hours from the Southern Pass, they didn’t have as far to travel as the Elvish or the Moerians. The Elvish lived farther south, in the Inverlands, where the temperatures were cooler again. And the Moerians preferred the warmer climes of the north, where the Vast Plains stretched, allowing them to run their horses and hunt the animals that ran alongside them. Their rivers held gold, which they brought in exchange for grains from the humans, and the Elvish brought with them diamonds, mined from the most Southern point of the Great Dividing Range. It seemed crazy to him that the humans would exchange things that could be eaten for things that simply looked pretty when hung around their scrawny little necks, but it seemed humans valued beauty above full stomachs.

He looked across his homeland. The houses were created from rock and animal skin, and fires burned outside most of them to keep away unwanted visitors during the night, and keep the inhabitants warm. Living under the shadow of the mountain range made the Southern Trough a hard land to live on, but it was their land, and any complaints instantly made them look weak. Weakness was not an attribute welcomed among the Norcs. Weakness got members of your family killed, and other Norcs didn’t want weak members to breed yet more weak stock into their population.

This time tomorrow he would be leaving his homeland behind, something that filled him with mixed emotions, and Warsgra didn’t do emotions well.

He just had to wait for the others to arrive.