The screams on the battlefield had quietened, though the odd moan still pierced through the fog that continued to gather as day became night. A few battle orcs wandered the killing fields, finishing off those who remained alive, while the rest began the march on in pursuit of the fleeing horde. There would be no rest that night, not while a man still breathed air. They would see them all put to the sword. Remorseless, pitiless, these were the ideals they embraced, matched only by their insatiable lust for blood.

Of the orcs who lingered on the killing fields, only one was not engaged in annihilation. His sword was sheathed and he knelt beside man after man, digging through their purses and other belongings. There was little of worth—a few coins and rings that might have value—but the orc had no interest in them. He was not possessed of a lust for shiny baubles as his human cousins were. These things were of no consequence for someone who had put his faith in the gods to carry him to the greater beyond on the wings of savagery.

His name was Bijshk, Second Born of Buuwl the Fourth Sectatrian, Killer of Men, Ravisher of Women, Singer of Lamentations. He fervently believed in the new age the gods had promised. That they were harbingers of doom for all those—men and elves—who had cast their less favored cousins from the warmer and sweeter domains of the earth. Leaving them only hollowed out mountains, frigid and unwelcoming, or deserts where nothing could grow and no water could be found.

The privations his kind had suffered had made them unbreakable and unforgiving. They would see themselves triumphant, standing upon the bones of those they had vanquished. They would wipe the world clean and make it anew in the image of the gods. Those who had summoned them forth from the hidden darker places where they had waited until their time was upon them.

It was now. Bijshk exulted in the triumph of all his brothers.

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