[The Z]

“Run as if Gruumsh himself were chasing you! Tell Erudish that my party has found and is engaging the blasted mage who stopped our advances on the southeastern front. Tell him that we are being overrun by lupines and do not know who is leading them. Speed is the most important thing. Now GO you maggot-bellied codpiece!” barked Zadrk.

The runner sped off into the woods, fearful of being beaten by either of his superiors for ineptitude as well as becoming a wolf’s next meal. The Black Orc watched him clamber off without subtlety, armor rattling, and crushing branches then turned to face his current crisis.

Mentally, he berated himself for not acting upon his suspicion of the rogue ‘orc’ that now appeared to be leading half of his men to the slaughter like a butcher and his cattle, but at least he had eventually figured it out, unlike his comrades who were either complaining about the vast amount of wolves that had materialized from the shadows or about to be blown to pieces by a few well-placed fireballs. They were not just wolves; they were assassins that leapt from the dark and ripped the limbs from their enemies.

But fear never entered his mind, not for a second. Black Orcs feared nothing as they only knew two things and were only good at those same two things: how to make war and how to die in the heat of battle. They were the quintessential children of chaos and if the Drow wanted to contest that title they would have to fight for it. As he readied his now extremely underhanded party to flank the imposter and whatever surprise that lay in the clearing, the combat began – orcish cries of surprise were lost beneath the reckless sound of a roaring fireball.

Despite his troops’ training, they still couldn’t grasp some of the simplest concepts in the game of war. Clearings were always traps and any idiot who decided to wander through one either deserved to die or was setting up an ambush. Not that a common orc understood the term ambush, but then again, most orcs never lived past the age of thirty – usually they were killed by an enemy or by a stronger orc. But Zadrk didn’t care. His job was to keep the troops from fighting – one of the strengths of Black Orcs. With their savvy, strength, and smarts, most of their less intelligent brothers were fiercely loyal. Whether they were loyal through fear, or loyal through respect, he didn’t know. But again, he didn’t care.

He was still fuming at how mindless his comrades had been to follow the rogue ‘orc’ despite the fact that he, himself, had taken awhile to see through the disguise. Though the imposter may have looked, smelled, and sounded like an orc, it certainly didn’t act like one – especially one in Erudish’s clan. The half-orc had explicitly stated that unless a retreat was ordered, any fool who chose to run would be hunted down and flayed like a rabbit. Regular orcs were dumb, but they knew not to cross their warboss, especially one of his prestige. Even though he’d only been alive for a few short months, Zadrk had been briefed on the Erudish’s background and it had earned his respect - but not his fear.

Times like these made him glad to be a Black Orc and not a common one. He had enough sway to hold groups together without fear of mutiny and he was not one to blunder into avoidable mistakes because of boneheaded thinking that came all to easily to his cousins. The thought of returning to the mage with a two-handed sword in hand was an appealing one indeed. Zadrk had been created to tear the cities of Man to the ground and he ached to prove to his enigmatic makers that he was well worth the price. To him, nothing else existed but savage, brutal war and it had been far too long since he'd reaped its bitter fruits.

The party soon had rounded the clearing and was at the northern edge. The scything sound of an ice storm greeted his ears and he grimly knew that few if any orcs would leave the battlefield with their lives. As long as they died in battle and not in weakness there was no wrongdoing in being slain. At the moment, all Zadrk wanted to do before he was killed was clutch the deceiver by the throat and choke him until his blood tainted the ground. If he succeeded, he could die knowing that one less pathetic being of the upper races existed. The time to strike was ripe and with all the cruelty he could summon to his body, he rallied the party to charge.

“Do not fear death! Da’Nogra awaits our corpses in the afterlife! Fight the humans! Tear their skulls from their faces! Chaarrge!!! RAAAAGGH!!”