40
The war drums beat with a mad fervour, throbbing the night air with pulsing intensity. Row upon row of orcs clapped and stamped to the rhythm, punctuating the end of each cycle with a guttural ululation.
The Salamander curled around an orc shaman’s neck, watching the proceedings below. The raised platform they stood upon was the epicentre around which all the orcs were gathered, lit by roaring bonfires on each corner. Gremlin slaves scampered back and forth, dragging wood from the surrounding jungle to keep the fires stoked high.
Suddenly, the drumbeat stopped. The imp started at the abrupt silence and yawned noisily. The orc shaman hushed him and slipped a morsel of flesh into his mouth, stroking the Salamander’s head with affection.
A groan cut through the silence behind them. An elf was lashed to a crosspiece, his hands and feet cruelly bound to the wood. His face was swollen and covered in crusted blood, but his worst injury was a large square of raw flesh on his back, where a piece of skin had been removed. Behind him, another orc was scraping the skin with a serrated rock, removing any residual traces of fat, flesh and sinew.
The elf croaked desperately, but his throat was too parched to form words with any meaning. The orc shaman lashed out with a foot, kicking the elf in the stomach. He choked and hung against his restraints, gasping like a fish out of water.
A whispering began from the mass of orcs below. The crowds parted, revealing a procession entering the encampment. There were ten orcs; large, muscular specimens whose grey skin was painted with red and yellow ochres. Their weaponry was primitive yet fearsome; heavy war clubs that were studded with jagged rocks.
Yet they were not alone. Another orc walked behind the others, dwarfing them in size. His skin was a pale white and his eyes glowed red in the firelight. He walked with easy confidence, accepting the awed looks from the surrounding orcs as his due.
As the group approached the platform, the elf began to cry out, struggling against his bindings. This time, the orc shaman made no move to silence him. Instead, he kneeled, bowing his head deeply as the albino orc climbed the platform, leaving his bodyguard below.
The albino orc lifted the shaman to his feet and embraced him. As he did so, the crowd roared in approval, stamping their feet until the platform shook. Even through all the noise, the elf’s desperate cries could be heard as he pulled at the leather straps that held him in place.
The cheers died out as the albino orc walked over to the captive elf. He lifted the prisoner’s face and peered into it, grasping the head as easily as if it were a grapefruit. Then he released it with a disinterested grunt.
The elf was silent now, as if resigned to his fate. The crowd watched with baited breath as the white orc was handed the piece of skin, now stretched out on a palette of wood. As he lifted it to the light, a pentacle could be seen tattooed on to the white orc’s hand, the black ink contrasting starkly with his pale skin. His fingers were tattooed as well, the tip of each fingerpad embossed with a different symbol.
The imp was lowered to the ground by his master, who stepped away and bowed low once again. The albino orc extended his hand, pointing his tattooed palm up at the sky. Then, with a deep and booming voice, the orc began to read from the skin.
‘Di rah go mai lo fa lo go rah lo . . .’
The pentacle on the orc’s palm began to glow a searing bright violet. Threads of white light materialised, a twisting umbilical cord between the shaman and the Salamander. The invisible bond that held the two together unravelled, then snapped with an audible crack.
‘Fai lo so nei di roh . . .’
But those were the last words the white orc spoke.
An elven arrow whistled through the air and speared his throat, spurting hot blood across the platform. More arrows thudded into the ranks; long, heavy shafts that were fletched with swan feathers. The orc shaman roared, but without his demon he was powerless. Instead, he rushed to the side of the fallen albino orc, trying to stem the blood that gushed from his neck.
Another hail of arrows fell, sending the orcs into disarray, milling about aimlessly as they brandished war clubs and bundles of javelins. Then, with a brassy knell, trumpets sounded from the forest and a great crowd came charging from the trees, screaming their battle cries. But these were not elves that came stampeding out of the darkness . . . they were men.
Men wearing heavy plate armour, armed with broadswords and shields, fearlessly plunging into the heart of the camp. They gave no quarter, hacking and stabbing at the orcs in a whirlwind of steel. The encampment was transformed into a charnel house, the ground thickly coated with entrails, bodies and blood. Behind them, hail upon hail of arrows flew overhead, peppering the orcs with deadly accuracy.
The orcs were no cowards. They waded into their assailants, crushing helmets and breastplates with blows from their clubs as if they were made of tinfoil. It was a desperate, vicious melee. There was no skill or tactics here – death was decided by luck, strength and numbers.
Orcs roared their defiance as the men’s blades rose and fell. Each flailing smash from their clubs sent men flying, shattering their bones to leave them crippled where they fell. The orcs fought on through the storm of arrows, snapping the shafts from their bodies and hurling them defiantly into the faces of the enemy.
The abino orc’s bodyguard carved a wide path of destruction, sending scores of opponents to their deaths. Their strength was unmatched as they ducked and weaved in the firelight, using their studded warclubs to lethal effect. They rallied other orcs behind them, bellowing orders as they took the fight to the enemy. Somehow, the orcs were now winning.
But then something stirred in the jungle, a dark mass that had been waiting just out of sight. What at first had appeared to be tree branches became antlers, tossing and jostling as they charged into the clearing. It was the elves, sitting astride giant elks, full-chested beasts with strong legs and sharpened antlers. They wore no armour, but wielded the bows that had blackened the sky with arrows not so long ago. The foremost elf held a great pennant that streamed behind them, made from green cloth with gold stitching. The broken arrow it depicted rippled as the elks stampeded over the shattered bodies on the ground.
They hit the orcs like a battering ram, the antlers impaling the front ranks and hurling them overhead. Arrows whistled into skulls and eye sockets as the elves fired nimbly from the backs of their steeds. The men cheered and followed behind, stabbing the fallen orcs who had been trampled under the charge.
The tide had begun to turn again, but it was far from over. The orcs surrounded the platform, a last knot of resistance that would not surrender. They hurled their javelins into the foray, great shafts of wood with sharpened ends that cut down elk and elf alike.
The men put up their shields, one row kneeling and the other standing to provide an interlocking wall that was two rows high. The elves sent their elk back into the trees and fired their arrows from behind the wall, arcing them over the top to fall on their enemy with practised ease. It was a deadly war of attrition as the missiles on both sides took their toll. But there could only be one outcome.
It took dozens of arrows to take down each orc, but die they did. They fell, one by one, twitching and bleeding in the dirt. At last, the albino orc’s bodyguard made a final, desperate bid, charging at the enemy. They barely managed ten steps.
On the platform, the orc shaman pawed at his lost Salamander, desperate for the mana that might give him a chance to live. Realising it was useless, he drew a knife and crawled towards their captive elf, perhaps hoping to gain a hostage.
As he lifted the knife to the elf’s throat, the bows were raised once again. The arrows whistled for the last time.
Fletcher woke with a start, his body soaked with cold sweat.
‘What the hell was that?’