Chương 36: Vol 1. An Amiable Conversation: Part 3

"Somewhat," Morton admitted. He scratched at the grey in his beard, his eyes narrowing slightly as he rummaged through the bottomless box that was his memory.

"Although I'll be honest with ya', back in my homeland, we ain't ever thought they were real. Nah, they were just in stories and, uh, games. I remember when I was a kid, some of my neighbours—the Atkinses and the Smithleys—they were real nerds. I'll tell ya', constantly down in their basements playin' that D&D game. They would sit around a table covered in all these papers and little painted guys scattered across a cardboard land.

And they would roll oddly shaped dice and argue about spells and attack damage or whatever for hours upon hours. If I recall correctly, you fight orcs in that. I could never get into it, if I'm bein' honest. Not my type of thing." Korra's ears rose.

"Your people believed orcs were imaginary?" Morton shrugged.

"Well, yeah."

"And you portrayed them as enemies?" Morton hesitated.

"More often than not."

"Guess you aren't from the outer islands, then," Korra mused.

"I'll be honest, I got no clue what that means, but yeah, we thought orcs were all imaginary. Elves too. I ain't ever heard people talk about elves so much until I got here."

"Interesting." Korra looked down into her tea, watching leaves slip through the strainer and settle at the bottom. She would have to get a servant to go out and fetch her some new ones.

"Our orcs are quite real. I learned that in a way that was far more intimate than I would have preferred."

"How so?" Morton asked. Korra traced the painted rim of her cup with one sharpened claw, circling it again and again with no discernible purpose. Any amusement in her visage had dissipated, replaced by a grimace that bared her fangs in a way that silently communicated discomfort. Even her remaining eye seemed to lose focus, looking not at Morton but behind him. In her mind, the wall was not there. It was the distant shore. Ghastly. Uncanny. Morton shifted in his chair.

"Are you all right?" he asked softly. This made Korra bare her fangs even more, this time in a fit of pique.

"I do not need you to ask me that," she growled.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, miss," Morton said with a nod and a tip of his hat. Korra clasped her paws together and fixed Morton with her remaining eye.

"The orcs, they are brutes, pure and simple. No honour. No civility. I doubt a single meaningful thought passes through their heads. No, for an orc, there is not much to life other than hitting, pillaging, and killing. They originate from the outer islands, but eventually, they began to build boats. Seroth alone knows how, but they did. Crude things—broad-bellied things—they were, made from mismatched timber and yet large enough to cross the Zereth Ocean.

Soon, they were making landfall upon the mainland and even the islands surrounding the capital."

"Not much thought in their heads, but they figured out shipbuildin'?"

"Do not mistake cunning for intelligence, Morton."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Morton said with a wry smile.

"At first, the crown treated them as any old bandits or scattered raiders: simply not worth the time and money. If the noble families wished to deal with them, that was their prerogative. By the time anyone understood the true danger of these demonic beasts, they had burned three coastal villages and seized an island fortress: Fort Queen Tamerus.

"That name—I do not know whether you know it, Morton—but it once belonged to a great landmark, a treasure to Avion. I distinctly remember seeing old paintings of it as a cub: grey stone walls rising from black cliffs, banners snapping above the ocean, and Queen Tamerus herself standing at the gate with a spear in one paw and the severed head of an enemy in the other. It had a long history. I do not know if I already said it, but it existed before Avion was even unified.

Tamerus herself belonged to one of the ancient houses, one of those that no longer exist. But that is a story for another time." Her clasped paws tightened.

"My unit was sent to take it back. I distinctly remember getting on the boat at the port. We were all cramped below deck, and for two days, we survived solely on the dreadfully dull taste of expired hardtack. There was a young guardswoman, I remember. She complained incessantly about the quality of the hardtack. She said it was harder than a headstone in a graveyard. I remember scoffing at her complaints. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"I guess that she was lower nobility, merchant class, or the like. Pampered beyond compare. I went up to her, a scowl across my face and a harsh boom in my voice. I told her that a daughter of respectable blood would eat what she was given and thank Seroth that she even got to eat that day. I even brought up my royal blood to rub it in, telling her that even though I was of royal blood, I did not complain the way she did. She called me 'Lady Hard-Arse' under her breath. That irritated me, but I did not show it.

I promised myself I would have her disciplined upon our return—that I would make sure of.

"I felt my body weaken from the lack of nutrition, but I still did exactly as I was commanded, like the dutiful daughter I was. We expected a quick landing, where we would be met by disorganised resistance from mindless brutes. It would be swift, quick, easy—an honourable victory in taking back an important strategic landmark from before the unification of Avion. Afterwards, we would receive praise from Queen Nevereth that we would replay in our heads until our deathbeds."

"Let me guess," Morton said.

"They weren't as stupid as ya' thought?" Korra's clasped paws tightened.

"No," she said begrudgingly.

"They were not."

"Upon getting close to our destination, there was an… eeriness to the land. Morton, I have never been a woman easily fraught, but that place… There was something about it, almost like a divine hand trying to reel me back like a fisherwoman."

"I like to call that your 'shit ain't right' sensor," Morton said.

"Apt name. But as we drew in, there were abandoned fishing boats arranged around their ships in a highly funereal fashion, and dead animals and floating wreckage were scattered across the murky water. Thick billows of smoke obscured the shoreline. There were crude markers in the shallows. And as we got closer, the boat quivered to and fro. There had been hidden stakes deep within the water, and their sharpened points pierced right into the hull of the boat.

The captain manoeuvred the sails just in time, and we skittered onto land. From there, we charged forward, down the ramps and into the muddy soil below.

"We struck swiftly, but the others were quickly overwhelmed. The archers fired from crude fortifications, and burning oil was launched downhill. I remember hearing the violent screams. I turned and saw a guard whom I respected greatly writhing on the ground as her fur burned away and her skin reddened and bubbled. That sent ire through me. More and more orcs were emerging from tunnels and tree coverings.

"With quick wit, I rushed over to a guard who had been wounded tremendously by an orc. I ducked beneath his hammer and drove my blade into his chest. He roared in wrath, but I twisted, then sliced, and he tumbled backwards, his guts spilling upon the ground. I called out to several other frightened soldiers. I reminded them of whom we were fighting for. Morale was restored in an instant, and as an officer fell, I took the reins, and we forced a path towards the fortress gate.

I had imagined that my first kill would feel important, that it would fill me with pride. All it felt like was something warm, wet, and terribly easy.

"But I was confident in my abilities, and we continued to push the orcs back. Several of my sisters fell, but many more orcs fell. We followed their shameful retreat down a narrow corridor. The deeper we followed them, the less hurried their retreat seemed to become. In my mind, I foolishly assumed it was exhaustion, and we kept marching forward.

"Then I heard the gate slam behind the rearmost of our soldiers. The sound travelled along the corridor with intense vigour, and I remember quite distinctly that it made my ears flicker. We attempted to turn, but there was scarcely any room for our blades to move, much less for us to reorganize our line. Our shields caught against the walls. Tails were crushed beneath each other's boots. We were almost like a rat king, so cramped together that none of us could move without pulling another sister with us.

"Horns—painfully loud horns! —reverberated from both ends. One of the orcs looked at me, then gave me a demonic smile. All I could think was, 'Fucking bastard!' They had trapped us, baited us—they had studied us."

"Still reckon there wasn't a thought in their heads?" Korra ignored Morton's comment and continued.

"My sisters were getting their tails ripped off. They were being beaten into a pulp and squished like berries. I looked to my right and saw a young guard—oh, by Seroth's love, I do not even remember what her name was—but she had mocked me on the voyage. She looked fraught, very fraught. Her whole body was quaking.

"The orc in front of her was aged, one-tusked, and scarred. He wore multiple pieces of stolen Kharani armour that he had wrought and melted together to fit his gargantuan frame. I had seen him earlier. A dishonourable thing, he was. He had feigned death and thrown sand. If there was a dishonourable way of fighting, then this orc knew how to do it.

"He held his sword high, ready to finish the young guardswoman. The pads of my feet carried me forward posthaste. I blocked the killing strike but left my other side exposed. I saw the weapon only as a flash of rusted iron.

"Then half the world became white.

"I did not know what had happened. My head was spinning. I was disoriented. Slowly, I lifted my gauntleted paw and put it against my face. I could feel squishy blood filling my socket. I kept trying to blink the blood away, but more and more of it kept coming. Even after I understood that my eye was now nothing more than a gooey mess of white and crimson, my body continued trying to blink the blood away—as useless as that was.

"The corridor had lost its shape. It was now a jumbled mess of vague forms. Orcs seemed to leap towards me, yet remained impossibly distant. I thrust at one but struck nothing. Growling, I tried again and again—still nothing. I could not hit them. I attempted to brace myself against the wall and nearly fell onto my arse because the wall was farther away than it appeared. Every sound seemed to come from this way and that, from above and below."'Listen here, you foul scum!' I said.

'I will not take this dishonourable and cowardly display lying down!'

"I had no idea whether any of them understood me or were listening, but I proclaimed, 'In the name of House Seran, I order you all to kneel and allow me to throw you into your graves!'

"I fought all the orcs around me in a daze and made my way out. By the time I emerged, the fortress was engulfed in brilliant flames, and I was the only survivor of my unit. I limped back towards the ship. My vision was blurry. It looked so close, yet so far away.

"I fell into the mud, and everything went dark."