[Kalinda]

12th Brightening of Winter, Era XIII Post Fractum

Morning

They arrived just as the darkening made way to the brightening. They had marched across the mountains, through fields that were covered with snow, had destroyed one or two small settlements on the way there, for fun, because it was in their nature – or maybe because they had simply been hungry. They had received word that their own kind had taken the city over and that much of its previous inhabitants were dead. They’d also realized that the human Empire would send its soldiers as soon as the news spread. The new masters of Paxia would need support, and the orcs of Paxia were willing to give that support. They’d change the world forever.

They were just marching through the woodlands, closer to the city where the soldiers, the West Wardens and the Legion were standing, attempting to lay siege to the now orcish city. There were more than two thousand of them, black and green skinned orcs, all armed. On their way through Vortex and the surrounding areas they had captured humans, dracons, dorins, halflings, ratta and a few giants that were carrying tree trunks and large rocks that they would use as weapons. Those that were trying to defend Paxia against the orcish horde would soon find themselves caught between two groups of enemies, without an easy way to escape. They’d soon curse the brightening they had been born.

Messengers were sent to Paxia so that the chieftain would know that help was on the way, that those that had shattered the chains of slavery had come to join them, that not all the orcs in Vortex were cowards that wore clothing made by humans and claimed to be civilized citizens of the Empire. Some of those messengers would likely not make it, the West Wardens would find out that something was going on before too long – maybe they had already found out – but did it matter? There was no way they would be able to stop the inevitable.

Old magic was at work. The orcs felt a call that was stronger than all the laws of the Empire, stronger than anything else in the world. It was their blood that was calling out to them, half buried memories, remnants of the past, the awareness that they had never been meant to be slaves to the human Empire or the vysstichi underground. They were meant to fight, to murder, to kill, to steal, to rape, to take whatever they wanted to take.

They’d fight with all they had. They’d paint the sky red with blood.