“Out of the myriad races, it was the orcs and the humans who devoted themselves to mastering the bow. If you were to ask which of the two were superior archers however, there was no question to be had there. The orcs are by far our superior, and it does me no shame to admit it.” - Yelsckol Nibor, famed grandmaster archer from the Kingdom of Posuin, circa 408 VA.

Dagna of Clan Bloodfang had been a hunter all his life. He was one of those trusted to hunt the myriad beasts and animals that inhabited the prairie and support the Clan by bringing home food for the others to eat. Although his mother and several of his siblings that he knew of were warriors, Dagna was content to be a hunter and to contribute to the Clan that way.

It was perhaps a less glorious and honorable undertaking compared to those who formed the front line of defense when the Clan was in need of steel and blood, but it was a respectable life regardless, to provide for the many. His thinking was further reinforced when he took one of the human adoptees from the captives as his mate and had children with her, as he found joy and fulfillment in providing for his family.

That said, what most people misunderstood about the culture of the orcs in the prairies, people who still lived in tribal clans and had not been disturbed by the so-called “civilization” for ages, was that there was very little difference between what an orc would be doing in peacetime, and what they would be doing in a time of war.

Every orc in a clan – other than those who were too young, pregnant with child, or too old – could be mobilized into a fighting force with a fierceness that shamed many professional armies.

As a hunter, Dagna had not joined the front lines of the battle. That was the place of the warriors, those who donned armor and fought in melee for the sake of their clans. His place was behind them, where he could bring the most out of his own weapon of choice. The very same bow he used to take down various prey in the prairies in order to feed his family and clan.

There were notable differences between the bows used by humans and orcs. The humans generally categorized their bow into hunting bows and war bows based on their draw weight. Bows with draw weights approaching half an average adult’s weight or more were called war bows, and those which were lighter called hunting bows.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Amongst the orcs, there were no such distinctions.

Not only were the orcs physically stronger than humans – an average orc were roughly the same height as a human, but broader of shoulder and more powerfully built – but the prey they hunted in the prairie included massive beasts like the great Thunder Lizards amongst others. For a bow to even be able to effect such a great beast, it would have required far more power as well as heavier, sturdier arrows than anything a human used.

Orcish bows were massive, brutish things typically taller than its wielder, made of sturdy yet flexible wood at times as thick as a human arm with strings made from highly durable sinews and tendons of the very same great beasts they hunt using them. Even the lightest of orcish bows used by the hunters easily matched the heaviest of human warbows.

Dagna himself was known to be one of the strongest amongst the hunters of Clan Bloodfang. He wielded a massive bow nearly half again as tall as himself, its shaft as thick around as a human arm, with a draw weight of nearly two hundred kilograms. The arrows he used were as thick as one of his fingers, heavy and sturdy, tipped with metal arrowheads, an honor he was granted as one of the best of the hunters.

He easily shot through the chest of a human knight who happened to make a move to attack his human wife at the frontlines fifty meters away. The hefty arrow pierced through the steel breastplate on the human’s chest, into his flesh, broke his bones, shredded his organs, then went out his back and pierced through the steel plate located there as well.

The arrow even had enough force left to pierce through a second human – one that had less armor than the first – before it was stopped by the shield of a third. Even then the impact was hard enough to wrench the human in question halfway around to the side and nearly twisted his arm, while the arrowhead went through the shield and stopped close to the human’s helmet.

Andromarche took the time to give him a brief glimpse and a thankful nod before she pushed off the human she was fighting to the ground using her shield. Then she used the rim of the shield to smash her opponent’s helmet repeatedly even as the man struggled beneath her, one of her feet stepping on the knight’s sword arm and keeping it in place.

Once she struck the helmet hard enough to bend the visor further down than it ought to be and present a gap she considered wide enough, she flipped her grip on her sword and stabbed down with it, right into the gap she just made. The blade went through the knight’s left eye, then deeper into his brain and only stopped at the back of his skull.

She gave it a couple shakes to further scramble up his brain before she pulled the blade out and moved on to the next opponent.

Running along behind her and the rest of the warriors from the various clans were their hunters, who used their bows with great effectiveness as they fired arrows directly into the throng of the human army. Those further behind arced their shot to land them in the center and rear regions of the human force, their heavy arrows doing far more damage than the effort the human archers made in retaliation to the one-sided bombardment.

Those human archers never stood a chance.