Chương 12: Blood Drunk

"Turns out the fuckers do have culture after all," Tarkin spat, along with a generous ball of blood.

"A shame it doesn't elevate them in the slightest," Talia replied, wincing as she tested the injury to her knee. Asgar was the only one standing. He wasn't unhurt—when was he ever? —but all his limbs still worked, and that was better than could be said for his companions. They'd encountered more greenskins on the way back out of the Haunted Hills, and it had been more than they could face. Their flight had been gruelling, with Asgar playing hammer and anvil both as he'd smashed his way through the ambush.

He'd gained two more levels from the constant fighting of the last hour as they'd run from ambush to ambush, driven deeper and further into the canyon, and that slow trickle of strength from Avarron was all that kept him standing. He'd kept his companions alive by the strength of his arm, but he'd only led them from bad to worse. A lesson there, if he could heed it. He looked around at the arena, for that is surely they now stood in. A stone basin thirty yards across, granite cliffs ringing it in.

Orcs scuttled over the surface, leaping from cave to cave, shaking their primitive weapons in glee and jostling each other for the best positions to watch from. Occasionally, goblins were thrown down from the top when they made a nuisance of themselves. They didn't survive the fall.

"Horruk Sil'Nartheksi," a voice boomed out, silencing the basin immediately.

"Intiilna Vaash Uunt Seblikaskiil." A new figure emerged to stand atop the central cliff. Asgar had been expecting simply another, bigger orc. That seemed to be the way their world worked. Leader dies? Find the biggest guy to replace them. Effective or not, it was good enough for Asgar—he'd kill anyone they put in front of him, and their strange form of governance gave him an easy idea who to aim for. But no, this new figure was different. Slight of frame, rangy even, but she towered over the orcs around her.

She must have been all of twelve foot tall, meaning her lean-looking muscles could probably still crush an adult warrior with ease. There was also a presence about her that Asgar was beginning to recognise. She was chosen. Not by Avarron, but perhaps the orcs had their own primitive deity that they worshipped? If so, it had certainly given aid. She might not be a match for Lady Valentia, but Asgar felt overshadowed when he beheld her power. He gritted his teeth. A class then, perhaps, but he was no scholar.

Didn't matter. Steel sharpens steel. She gave her speech, cowing the crowd before hyping them up again with words none in Asgar's party could understand. When she pointed to Asgar in the centre of the arena and barked out a command, three big orcs dropping to the base of the cliff and striding into view, he finally understood her intention.

"We're to be sport then," Talia said, hissing as she repositioned herself, pulling a fresh bowstring from inside a waxed pouch and working on re-stringing the useless weapon.

"How are you feeling, lad?" Tarkin asked.

"Angry," he muttered through his teeth. His jaw was flexing, every muscle straining under the weight of holding it all in. His soul was alight inside his chest, Avarron's blessing reacting to the foul taste of the orc chieftain's power from above.

"You?"

"Rough as a badger's arse," the veteran growled.

"This will be mostly on you, I reckon." Asgar rippled his grip on the orcish axe he'd scavenged as the three orcs stalked forwards.

"Good." Blood Rage activated.

"More!" he roared to the heavens as the last body fell.

"Antaam Srithmak'aar. Horruk!" Four more orcs leapt down, and these wore better armour, with blue warpaint covering their faces and feathers woven into their braided hair. Their heavy impacts jarred Asgar as they landed: little tingles up his spine. They scraped their great tusks with their weapons in a savage salute, spread hugely muscled arms wide and then charged his way. He ran to meet them. His axe deflected the first strike, fist coming up under the leading orc's chin.

It was lifted off its feet by the blow, and he was spinning aside from its companions before it even hit the ground. Axe a blur, teeth bared in a sick grin, Asgar made a mockery of the orcish arena. Here was a site of their greatest triumphs. How many chieftains had been crowned in its basin? How many war-leaders and heroes had earned infamy beneath these same cliffs? A place of notoriety, of legend, where orcs by the thousand would visit and gain inspiration for their future wars.

And here, beneath the sight of several hundred orcs and a representative of their very god, he smote them down with ease. The crimson curve of his axe severed an arm, the appendage spinning up into the air. It sprayed snot-coloured ichor as it corkscrewed above them, like the fireworks at the Santinalia festival Asgar had attended one year in the nearest town. The memory nipped at Asgar, but the blood rage kept it repressed. Drowned it out beneath the pounding lust for battle and death.

He reeled back, arm dripping red from the lucky strike of one of his opponents. He flicked the arm, and was pleased to see it respond. He did the same with his other arm, and his legs, too. A full-body wiggle. The two remaining orcs eyed him warily, flopping like a fish on land as he was. Their mistake though. He'd just been checking his limbs were listening, and they were. Then he let them speak. His legs roared, propelling him forwards. Both arms joined the chorus, axe whipping forward in a throw, end over end.

It clanged ineffectually off the heavy plate the first orc wore, but the power was enough to stagger it, and Asgar had already forgotten about the weapon. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. He was on the second creature in a heartbeat, hands catching the wrist that thrust his way, slipping around the lunging blade and bringing his elbow up in a vicious strike.

Cartilage crunched in the creature's nose, soon followed by a snap as Asgar broke its wrist over his knee. He caught the brutal sword as it fell from senseless fingers, reversing the grip and slamming it home into the creature's neck. He tore it out as he spun, alongside the rest of the orc's throat, blocked the returned throw of his own axe from the first orc, then closed in on it.

They exchanged a few sloppy strikes—the orc because it was unskilled, and Asgar because he was beyond caring about technique by this point—and then Asgar broke through his guard. The arena was filled with the sound of pained roaring and flesh tearing, and soon enough Asgar was standing alone in the centre again. A goblin high up in the crowd giggled, pointed at Asgar with a small knife and mimed drawing it across his neck. Asgar growled, then threw the severed head of the orc he'd just killed.

With the blood rage pounding away, his strength was drastically enhanced, and the head whipped through the air like it was loosed from a sling. The goblin was knocked from the shoulders of the orc it stood upon and slammed into the cave wall behind. It didn't emerge. Avarron tried to intrude upon his game with his silly notifications, but Asgar was having too much fun! He wouldn't waste time with words when there was slaughter and blood and flavour and joy still out here to be had.

Colours ran as Asgar spun, roaring up at the rocky stands above, soaking in their approval. They loved him, those orcs. They hated him, they feared him, but he was giving them a show they'd never forget, and they loved him for it all the same.

"Come on you bastards!" he cried.

"Show me something real!"

"Fucking Pits," Tarkin muttered somewhere off to one side.

"Lad's lost his marbles."

"He's just trying to scare them off," Talia argued. She was wrong, but Asgar wouldn't waste time correcting her. God, was she wrong. He didn't want to scare them off. He wanted them to keep coming! He wanted more of the green-skinned barbarians, more of their iron and their fangs and their glinting, ink black eyes.

"Fuck that," Tarkin shot back.

"He's not just a sandwich short of a picnic, Talia. He's screaming at orcs! In common!" Asgar ignored the buzzing of flies in the background, his focus on the real enemies. The ones that mattered. The queen orc. Orc chieftain-ess. Orcy woman. God, it was hard to think through the blood. The big orc woman was staring at him with unnatural focus, a cruel smirk on her lips. Tarkin was wrong—she did understand him. Asgar could tell. Her smirk was too wide, her eyes dancing too much to be unaware of his demands.

And she answered them. Raising both arms high, she uttered another guttural command to her army, and they followed without hesitation. A veritable stream of the beasts slithered down into the basin, and by the time the flow stalled, there were more than a score advancing his way. Asgar turned back to his companions with worry. His blood pounded in his ears, his body light and lethal still. But they were frail and mortal. They would die to this number.

"Ah bollocks. I'm no good for that," Tarkin hissed, slithering back to prop himself against a boulder. He had a short sword drawn and held steady at his shoulder, but what was a small stabby thing like that worth in the face of dozens of ferocious greenskins? Talia had more to say, at least, and it was in a language that Asgar and the orcs both understood. An arrow hissed through the air, black fletchings trailing across his vison to bury themselves in the neck of one of the most eager orcs.

"Eyes front, Asgar!" she called.

"If you fall here, who's going to carry us home?" He snickered. Good to have friends. But he did as she bid him, and by the time his eyes settled on the advancing orcs, all thoughts of his companions had trickled away, lost in the raging bloodfroth of his mind. Too many. If he fought them alone, he'd die here for certain. He charged anyway. Swing. Blood arcing away from him. Duck, spin, sway to one side. Parry. Headbutt. Blood in his eyes. Spin and slash, slice and cut. Heavy chops.

One two three, happy little woodpecker. Orcs falling, a man laughing, a woman screaming. Asgar fell backwards and rolled, coming to one knee. His breath sawed in and out of his parched throat, chest heaving like a bellows. Half a dozen bodies lay strewn about, a couple more with arrows protruding from throats, chests and eyes. Still wasn't enough though, another dozen remained, and Asgar was injured now. Not that it would stop him, but the holes they'd put in his legs and stomach would slow him down.

He could feel the life leeching from the little puncture wounds even now. A rip in one arm from a sword, a neat little gouge through his side from a spear… It all added up, in the end. That reality only fed the blood rage. Each wound tried to bank the fire in his chest, but the mere thought of giving up here set the flame to roaring higher once more. Tarkin gasped and struggled against an orc trying to end him while Talia frantically knocked arrow after arrow.

The thought of his companions—fuck it, his friends—dying here only further enraged him, but rage alone didn't win battles. That was only half of it. That's what these orcs didn't understand. Ferocity would only get you so far, would only buoy you on until you met someone, or some thing, more ferocious. That thing stared down at Asgar now, confident in its superiority. Superiority born not of strength, but numbers.

She could send a hundred of her warriors down to exhaust Asgar, to kill his friends, and think nothing of it. He felt the anger bubble up from his chest into a roar that drowned out the frantic grunting of Tarkin and the panicked breaths of Talia. It silenced the excited snorts and bellows of the orcs around him, even dimmed the yammering and raucous yelling from the goblins and orcs above. The scream shredded its way from his very soul and out of his throat, leaving all eyes on him as he stood. Fine.

If she wanted a final show, then she'd have one. Avarron had blessed his slaughter so far without exception. Let him witness a glorious one to end things. Hallowed strike limned his axe in a blue glow, and he swept it forwards, carving a crater from the chest of the orc in front, bursting apart its fellow by its side, and leaving a glowing trail hanging in the air as the sky roared with him.

Asgar threw himself back into the fray, hacking through orcs with wild abandon until he reached Tarkin, and the corpse that sprawled across him. Asgar reached down, wrenched the corpse off his friend, then flung it behind into the group of enemies following after his mad dash. He followed the body, crashing into them with a roar and another hallowed strike, his soul feeling the strain now. Less than it had last time he'd fought though. Perhaps he'd levelled in between.

He remembered unimportant notifications that he'd ignored some twenty dead orcs ago. Must be closing in on his next level after that now. What was he now? 14? And that meant… Asgar emerged out the other side of the meat grinder, covered head to toe in dull green ichor and splashes of his own blood. He reached Talia, watched her pull an arrow from the orc in front of her and slip it onto the string, then shoot over his shoulder. She was fine on her own. He turned back upon the few remaining orcs.

One final strike empowered by his god's fervour left him with precious little power remaining, but it did the bloody work required. Once again, Asgar was surrounded by blood and corpses, the lone figure standing victorious in a foreign arena. Blood rage pulsed rhythmically behind his eyes, but he let it fade for now. It barely cost him to sustain or activate now, so better to think clearly before this final confrontation. As it faded, the notifications he had been ignoring flooded to the forefront of his mind.

Avarron blesses your slaughter. Level 14 achieved. Avarron blesses your slaughter. Level 15 achieved. New class skill achieved.