Warp Token 2 Word Update

2k words. Thank you all for your patience.

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“Big sister, aye,” the orc said. She apparently decided that her place was sitting right next to him, the giantess crossing her muscular legs and landing on her rump in a way that would make Brettonian Ladies scoff in disappointment. At around eight feet tall, she had to incline her head a little to meet his gaze, so massive that she rivalled his warhorse in terms of muscle mass. “And you’re the knight, ser Roderick, yeah?”

“It’s just Roderick, I’ve no titles anymore,” Roderick corrected. “So then, you have much family in this tribe of yours?” Roderick asked, craning his neck so he could meet her eyes.

“Let’s get one thing right off the bat, human, this here ain’t no tribe, it’s a Warrrgh Best not go sayin’ otherwise to any of my brothers, they might not take it so kindly.”

“I’ll pass that along. So you’re related to most of these orcs?”

“You think my old man sowed his field and fertilised it too?” the orc chuckled, raising fingers the size of sausages to make air quotes. “He had a reputation for taking whoever or whatever he wanted, aye, but even so, Morg and I were his only blood, least that I’m aware of. We orcs don’t make distinction between family ties, not like you lot do. I’ve fought beside these oafs all my life, each are no less a brother than Morg is.”

“You’ve been with this tribe– Waargh, a long time then?”

“Long enough to know that Morg’s a stubborn little git,” she replied. “His thick skull shields his brain from swords and ideas alike, and he has as much. cunning as a goblin runt tryin’ to mount a squig in heat. Don’t mistake me, I love him to death, but he’s a right pain in the arse when it comes to thinkin’ before actin’. Till today, only one person in this Warrrgh has ever made him change his mind once he’s set on somethin’.”

“Who’s that?” Roderick asked.

“Me,” she answered. “I had to rough him up when we were babes just so he would open his ears to me, but you…” She flashed him a toothy grin, offering up the drink a second time. “You just waltz in, shove aside that other blithering human, and take us into your cause. That took guts, little knight, and a strong gut needs a strong drink to her stiff and steady.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works,” Roderick chuckled, but he took the mug regardless, the orc smiling as she passed it over. The bubbling foam was too thick that he couldn’t see the actual drink, but the ride over had been long and hot, and truth be told he could use something to calm his nerves. Calling a bluff against an orc wasn’t something you did every day.

He took a tentative sip, the mug almost as large as his head. Passing it down his throat was like trying to swallow burning oil, Roderick contorting his face as he breathed out a lungful of tangy air.

The she-orc laughed at him. “It’s good to see one of you’s ain’t so prissy to pass up a good drink! Don’t go on sipping it, grog’s nothin’ like that piss these Brettonian’s make, get it in your belly and keep it there.”

Roderick managed a stronger second attempt, then set his mug down. At least there would be no chilly sleep for him tonight, his stomach felt like a smouldering furnace.

“I think you give me too much credit,” Roderick said after a pause. “This is not the first time your Warrrgh’s fought alongside humans.”

“True, but Morg’s never led us far beyond these borders. We’ve strayed into the elving forests to the east, even across the mountains to Tliea out south. But up north, to the Empire, he’s kept that off limits. Too many humies and dragons and not enough plunder, he says, and we got a good deal with the Brettonians goin’ here, and I can’t deny that. Even his predecessor was wary of headin’ out in the Empire’s way. It aint’ like we couldn’t find success in raidin’, but once your Lords and Counts and whatevers rally yourselves, your numbers ain’t nothin’ to scoff at. Morg knew that, even before he became warboss.”

“How does that work, exactly?” Roderick wondered. “I would guess you don’t all gather round for a vote.”

“Only the biggest and strongest orc gets to become warboss,” the orc replied. “If one of the boyz thinks he can take on the boss, then he bloody well goes and tries. Whoever wins gets control of the Warrgh, and the other dies.”

“What if no one challenges the warboss?” Roderick asked. “Say he falls in battle, or dies from old age?”

“Old age?” she asked, tilting her head as though he’d just posed a riddle. “Ain’t never heard of that happen. Orcs aren’t meant to live into our elder years, not like your lot, we kill and kill until we find something that’s strong enough to kill us first.”

“That’s so sad,” Roderick muttered. “Would you rather not live to see a new age, raise children of your own, perhaps?”

“Me? A wife?” the orc asked, pointing at her chest with a finger. “Hah, there’s a good one. I ain’t like most of me sisters, kid, I got the blood of a warboss in me, killin’s what I was made for doin’, and that’s what I’m gonna do. It’s a simple life, and it keeps me busy. I aint’ leavin’ it anytime soon.”

“And how did Morgoroth come to be the warboss?” Roderick asked, steering the subject back on topic. “I assume he challenged the last one?”

“Their one on one was a glorious thing,” the orc said, her eyes glazing over as she stared into the flames. “Two orcs at the peaks of their strength, their axes swinging so hard the weapons broke before they did. You only have to look at Morg’s missing eye to see the first scar he took. There was a savagery to it ain’t seen the likes of ever before,” she added, her lips lifting in a warm grin. “Our old man always loved talkin’ whenever he was killin’, but he had nothin’ to say when Morg finally got the better of him.”

“Wait a moment,” Roderick said. “Your father was the last warboss? And your brother slew him?”

“Aye, though I helped a’course, it was my idea in the first place. Morg needed a little convincin’, naturally, you don’t raise up against someone like our da’ without a few words of encouragement, but in the end we got rid of him once and for all.”

“You’re a patricide?” Roderick asked, sparing a glance at her brother. “Both of you?”

“Don’t give me that frown, human. If you think us orcs are savages, you ain’t seen nothing like our old man. Absolute wretch, even for warboss standards.”

“I’ve had disagreements with my father,” Roderick said. “but never to the point I’d kill him. What did he do to deserve that?”

She was not smiling anymore. “That is a rather boring tale, human, and you’ve piqued me interested too with your little speech earlier, that I just can’t bring myself to bore you with it.

She might have been inhuman, but he was privy enough to know he’d touched sensitive ground, Roderick filling the silence by taking a fill of more meat and grog. “Forgive me, I did not mean to intrude on your personal matters.”

“Bah, sod on your apologies, no offence taken,” she replied, waving her hand in the same dismissive way that Morgororth did. “Let’s change the subject, eh? You’ve fought orcs before, ain’t’cha? How many kills you got under that belt o’yours?”

“I don’t keep a habit of keeping count of my foes, lass, that train of thought is for people obsessed with death.”

“Take a rough guess then.”

“I suppose… hundreds,” he replied, giving her a curious look. Was she genuinely curious, or did she have some ulterior motive behind this line of questioning?

She seemed to sense his confusion. “Don’t go thinking I’ll take offence, human. Killin’ orcs ain’t nothing to shove under the rug. Go on, go on, give us some details,” she urged. “Regale me with your battles with hundreds of my brothers, little knight, I promise I won’t take offence,” she said, placing a hand on her heart.

“Very well,” he replied. “I’ll tell you my war stories, if you’ll tell me your name.”

“It’s Mazkha,” she replied, leaning on one hand as he began to recall his wars from years past.

-xXx-

Ironsnout did not grant her death, even when the electrical currents of the warp fried the fur off her limbs and boiled the blood inside her veins, and it seemed that it would only continue until the very life was shocked out of her. He had prolonged it, controlling the shocks through his mechanical suit somehow, making sure to prolong her consciousness so she didn’t pass out too quickly. When her vision at darkened until the sweet release of nothingness took her, it was only a moment before she woke again, and in that moment she had wished she had died.

But no, she lived, although the pain was so excruciating she thought it would given time. Her arms and legs twitched without her input, as though there were still electricity coursing down her limbs, yet she was somewhere else, somewhere dark and dirty, underground would be her best guess.

It even hurt to blink, but she forced her red eyes to open anyway, and her vision was not much better. She could feel rocks underpaw, and every breath through her mouth tasted like dust, and her cracked teeth made a sandy, grating sound when she moved her jaw. Using her nose was a little better, as long as she took shallow gulps. Her nose was swelling with what must be a bruise.

She felt like she’d aged fifty years as she feebly attempted a stand, and each strain was like moving with a pack of rocks on her back, and she could only manage a knee after several minutes. By then she could here them, the soft murmurs and the even softer sounds os claws scratching on stone, and she wondered if that was Ironsnout on his way, or maybe his clanrats, come to take her back to mellifluous Lord Gnawdwell. This could be an offshoot all the way back in Skavenblight for all she knew, who knew how far they could have transported her, or how long she’d been out of it.

Perhaps it would be easier to lay back down, and by Sigmar and the Horned Rat both, she wanted to do that so very badly. Despite her strong of victories, she had been finally bested, all her friends were dead or gone, and she didn’t even have her dagger. Nor did she even have her leather bandoliers and pouches, or her sling and loincloth. Ironsnout had made her naked during her reprieve into near-death, and the notion made her feel sick.

Where are you, Rick-rod? She thought, slumping onto one arm, thinking of his face, how he’d held her that night, before the battle at sea. His warm arms, the gentle rise of his chest as his heartbeat thumped inside it, what she wouldn’t give to be there instead of here, in Ironsnout’s lair.

It took her a few minutes more to work up the courage and the strength to continue her efforts. She had to crawl over to the wall to use it as a brace, but she soon got to one paw, then the other. Each stretch of her limbs brought back the pain of Ironsnout’s warp-suit, but if he really was coming back for her, she wasn’t going to be laying down when it happened. Her pride had been destroyed after their fight, but there was enough of it left that she would not accept his plans for her. She would never go back to Skavenblight, and if that meant taking her own life, then so be it.

When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she found her suspicions correct. Cave walls of rock and soil boxed in her surroundings, except for one side, where a barrier of wooden planks surrounding the outline of a door. It was a cell, and she was on the wrong side of it.