Takarn put his troop on leave for the rest of the day and ran up to Khans Hill.

He heard footsteps behind him and wheeled around to find Mivnev following him up the winding dirt path.

He ignored her and ran up toward the arena.

Once there he joined the veritable sea of orcs that had crowded in to see the coronation of the next Khagan. All the good seats were taken, that wouldn’t do, that wouldn’t do at all.

Takarn walked with a purpose, he wasn’t some fucking pedestrian orc, he was a Bogdan He would get better seats.

He walked right to the edge of the arena, it was a circle with a diameter of 100 metres, ringed with a roughly cut fence made of wood.

Takarn walked directly to the fence and looked around, there. He found a group of two orcs wearing a pains wolf crest sitting o makeshift seats made of cut logs. He walked directly up to them and loomed over their sitting forms.

“You, orc, I requisition your seats in the name of Khan Kelshar.”

“You fucking what!” Said a smaller orc in a whiny voice as he jumped to his feet in outrage. His larger friend stood behind him to back him up. He turned to check if Mivnev was still on his flank, good, 2 against 2 are good odds.

“I said.” He said while getting in the smaller orc’s face. “That I’m taking your fucking seats!” He said as he head-butted the orc in his oversized nose, he fell to the ground and Takarn jumped on his back and forced his face into the mud. He kept it there till the bubbles stopped.

He turned to see what became of the other orc just in time to watch Mivnev slip a knife under his ribs. He died with a small surprised sigh.

“Hahaha!” Takarn laughed haughtily as he sat down on one of their new seats and rested his feet on the corpse of the large orc, Mivnev stood beside him and joined him in laughter. It just wouldn’t do to let the Khans have all of the fun. He thought then he shut up and watched as the fight began.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

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Khan Kelshar POV

He examined the stands as he waited for the battle to begin, truth be told he didn’t actually want to be Khagan, too much work. But he would make damn sure that the other Khans wanted it. If they wanted this position, they would have to bleed for it.

He kept examining the stands until his eyes rested upon the form of Takarn and that female Ataman, standing over the corpses of two orcs.

He chuckled to himself as he turned to the other Khans. That boy, can’t go a day without causing trouble. He thought.

The other Khans, like himself, were outfitted in their war gear, but unlike him most of theirs was leather, it pays to be the oldest Khan.

They carried no weapons, none were allowed in the battle for Khagan, all you could take into the ring was yourself and your will.

And he would be testing both today.

The horn rang and Kelshar charged toward Khan Belog, spear tackling him into the mud before he had a chance to turn.

He straddled the prone orc and rained down armoured blows upon his face. Ha, I’ve been waiting to do that since I met the bastard! He broke the stocky orcs nose, and felt his cheek bones crumple beneath unrelenting steel.

Yes! This was why I came to the kurultai! He was broken from his revelry as a pair of strong arms wrapped around his next and began to squeeze.

Kelshar tried to reach them and pull them off but they were too far away from his arms, he struggled for another minute before his vision began to go black.

In a fit of desperation he slammed his back into the ground repeatedly until the grip relented, he rolled over onto the ground to catch his breath before he saw an armoured boot heading for his face. It impacted with a heavy blow and the last thing Kelshar saw before he entered unconsciousness was the prone form of Khan Dagorlad lying next to him.

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Takarn POV

Takarn jumped to his feet in outrage as he watched Khan Sheera stomp Khan Kelshar into unconsciousness.

She kicked him while he was down! That was bad form in orc culture, and as Takarn had said, bad form can get you killed.

He walked angrily to the largest knot of people wearing Khan Sheera’s wasp crest and was greeted by the sight of many Khan Kelshar warriors already harrying them.

Takarn walked up and grabbed the nearest orc by the shirt and punched them into dream land, spraying blood and teeth over the other soldiers.

This finally caused a verbal brawl to erupt into violence, Takarn revelled in it smashing fists and elbows into any orc bold enough to wear the wasp crest of Sheera, soon all semblance of quarrel was gone as the other clans joined the fight, for one thing was true.

It wasn’t a true Orcish kurultai without a riot.