189 Chapter 189
I see that there is a person insulting LOL, I THINK THAT IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO PUT IN ALL THE CHAPTERS THAT THIS STORY IS NOT MINE AND THAT I LEAVE THE DISCORD AND THE ORIGINAL USER OF THIS WORK, AT NO TIME HAVE I SAID THAT IT IS MINE, READING COMPREHENSION FOR HIM GOD'S LOVE.
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"Sweat on the training field saves blood on the battlefield." Neia said as she watched her orcs take up their positions. A few days was all they had, and it wasn't much, but she noticed something important about tribal warriors as they crawled on their bellies on top of two hills while a third group made camp openly on another. Fires lit up the night on that one, their presence was obvious, just as it should be.
Tribal warriors grew up training, but it was a matter of routine over discipline, and individual excellence was carried forward to an absurd degree. Exposed to unit discipline for the first time, they only ever responded in two ways.
With an almost religious conversion like fervor that had them begging for more time in the line…
Or…
They rejected it completely, preferring to stand only for themselves and their own strength.
She lay on her belly atop the quiet hill and watched while the unit disobeyed orders and lit up fires for cooking. Thalren crawled over to her, and watched the little group do as they always did. "You knew." He half accused.
"Do you think I can make the whole world dance to my tune at will?" Neia asked and hummed a few bars to emphasize her sarcasm. "No, I just gave them an order and let them make their own decisions. They dismissed my worries and warnings, and that is on them. At least there aren't many, and this will be a good object lesson for the survivors."
Thalren waited, the rest of the more compliant tribal members waited, and true to form it did not take long for a group of Stone Spitters to find the outlying orc position.
The air was warm over Neia's skin, privately she wondered, 'Is this because of my body's change, or was it always like this?'
The tribe of stone spitters surrounded the hill, unaware of the orcs who lay on their bellies on the more distant position. The orcs on top of the surrounded hill reacted with the indiscipline which Neia knew typified tribal thinking. A chance for personal glory, status, and the proof of one's strength trumped any amount of reason. They began to taunt the stone spitters to come up, and the stone spitters, with their big, broad bodies, dared the orcs to come down.
It was almost like a mockery of real battle, taunts and bravado, everyone working themselves up and denying their private fears.
Neia looked over to Thalren, "Carry word to the rear, remember, I want as many stone spitters captured alive as possible, so do not engage their… what passes for an army. Ride to their settlement, capture it while they're here. I will see you after."
The orc chief grunted and crawled away, not daring to stand up until he was descending the far side of the hill, and leaving his Queen to her plan.
Stone spitters continued to trickle in over the course of the evening, and all she did… was wait.
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Thalren's host of orcs rode like mad over the hilly landscape. Their small cavalry force was augmented by orcs who specialized in martial arts that enhanced strength and stamina, allowing them, for a time at least, to keep pace with horses, and in this much at least, it was possible to get to their destination.
The stone spitter settlement they targeted was the most important in the area, having the oldest legacy, the strongest warriors, and the prickliest of reputations, they negotiated and fought viciously, and were the greatest of the relatively weak stone spitter numbers.
They were also completely unprepared for the attack of Thalren or his orc forces arriving with the coming of the sun. The tribe was not even properly awakened when their watch caught sight of the coming attack, and by the time he did… [Orc Blow], [Lesser Strength]. The martial art enhanced his range and power, so when Thalren threw the little club, it split the skull of the watch before he could raise the alarm. The wall of the settlement was low, and the cavalry force put their horses up to it, then simply jumped up to the lightly guarded position, breaking in with battlecries that brought the whole settlement into chaos.
The fight was as short as it was brutal, the ranged stone spitters were scattered among their little earthen huts, and with no rocks ready, they were quick to surrender, with the bulk of them herded into the center. In total there were, to his surprise, over four thousand families.
The chief of the stone spitters was dragged before Thalren, he shuffled along, his great bulky wide body and thick muscles a testament to his experience, and that it took three orcs to handle him and draw him close proved his strength. Still, he was cast down to his knees.
Stone spitters had unusual faces, two eyes, but no real 'nose', just a small dot-like hole with a flap over it that opened and closed. Their mouths were round and funnel-like, with lips largely absent, in his view. They were hideous, their bodies ran the gamut from gray to brown stone colors, and they had thick, long fingers well suited for collecting stones and breaking them down into ammunition for later use.
"You are chief here?" Thalren asked.
The stone spitter grunted, "No. I am chief's son. My father is chief, he is away dealing with your people who come to our land. When he returns, you will die."
'Not the chief, no, that makes sense. He would go with his warriors. Still, impressive figure, he probably would be a good chief one day.' Thalren thought and nodded, then crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"My Queen is dealing with your father. If you are lucky, he will impress her." Thalren retorted, and the eyes of the stone spitter widened as a human's might have.
"Your Queen?" He asked.
"Huntress of the Wildlands is now Queen of Orcs. Her people cast her out, no longer wanted her. She is ours now." He said with pride.
"Father was nearly killed by the Huntress. We lost twenty spitters to her, not many kill spitters from afar. Are they mad?" He asked, aghast at the idea of dispensing with an effective warrior. "Or are you lying?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"She was sentenced to die for her mercy. She is here now, bearing dragon's blood in her veins, you will see, as will your father. She will be here soon. Then when he surrenders, she will be Queen of Stone Spitters." Thalren replied with gusto, and the various orcs cheered while the stone spitters could only sit, confused, concerned, and full of doubt.
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When the sun was nearly up, Neia rose and went to give orders to the rest of the orc tribes. A core of them held the hill as rallying points in the event of a problem, the rest however, made the long circuitous route to positions just barely out of stone spitter range.
The stone spitters were still caught up in the drama with their 'captive' orcs atop the hill. Twice each side had tried to take the other, and twice both sides had retreated. 'It's no wonder humanity survived, too many of our enemies keep brains in their biceps.' She rolled her eyes and waited for the light to come up. 'If Thalren did his part, this will go smoothly.'
The rising sun brought horror to the stone spitters' camp, which suddenly found that there were thousands of orcs on either side of the hill, and orc banners raised on the hills beyond.
The orc drums began to sound, and Neia mounted up a horse to ride over the open ground toward the stone spitters' camp. Her orcs at her back were watching her with worried faces, her hands held high overhead, she bellowed out.
"Queen of Frost, Neia Baraja, comes to treat with the Stone Spitter chief, if he does not come out, then I will come to him in my manies!"
The stone spitter dismay was evident, a non-orc was unexpected, the titles even less so, and it was not long before the call was answered with the arrival of a stone spitter of considerable enough size that he was eye level with her even while on horseback.
He had a long, heavy gait that threatened the earth beneath his feet and carried him quickly to her place between the two forces.
"I know you." He said when he came close, "You look not the same, but I know you." He said with surprise. His step became careful, or perhaps simply 'polite' without the swaggering bluster of a tribal chief.
"I'd have a hard time forgetting someone your size." Neia said with a cocky little smile on her face, "Things have changed, and I'll spare you the details. Those are my orcs up there, and I'm not going to let you kill them."
"Orcs and stone spitters fight, it is how we always were. They are here, you are here." The chief clapped his meaty hands together. "We fight."
"If you believed that, you wouldn't have come out to talk." Neia said and pointed toward his home. "Go home, and I will not attack, fighting here, far from where your women and children can see you, this is not a glorious end. Go back to your village, if you can fend us off from your walls, your women will be proud, your children will admire you, and you will gain great fame." She appealed to his vanity at every turn, and she could see him getting puffed up as he imagined the victory celebration.
But he was not a complete fool.
"You will strike our backs before then." He said.
"I give you my word that no member of Rock Fist will be harmed while leaving this hill. We will follow you to your home, but until you face my army, we will not hurt you. Is the word of the Huntress not good?" Neia asked and opened her arms at her sides.
He groused a little, but gave a small nod. "Yes. Huntress spared my son. I must trust the word of the life giver."
"Then go. Take your people home, we will fight, if you wish, when you face my army at home." Neia said, and they parted ways.
The passage of time was tense, and lengthy as the orcs formed up in a long, broad line to give the impression of greater numbers than they had, the stone spitters continued their withdrawal from the hilltop, grateful at least not to be surrounded or ambushed, and she could feel them relax with confidence as they drew closer to home.
But Neia's smile lit up like the sun in the sky when their shouts of consternation went up, once they saw the orc banners raised over the walls of their home.
Neia rode forward again. The orc drums began to resound. "Chief of Rock Fist, your home fell in the night to Thalren, inside, your families, your children, your future lies bound beneath my warriors weapons. True to my word, there would be no battle until you faced my army. You are 'facing' them now."
The orcs who occupied the village stood up along the low walls, leaving the stone spitter forces trapped between their own walls, and a much larger army of orcs, most of whom were fresh and ready to fight.
The stone spitters formed themselves up into a circle, warriors darted their eyes left and right, unsure of what to do, where to go… their courage hanging by a thread.
"What are your terms?!" The stone spitter chief shouted back.
"Call me your Queen, and your families live, you live, give me your loyalty, lives, armies, and become one. Bury your enmity, and help me seize all of the Abelion Hills! Kneel, give me your oath, and I give you back everything I now have taken, or have the power to take. Rule on, but in my name." She yelled back over the distance.
The moment hung, tense, uncertain, one stray rock, and a massacre would begin… 'Don't be a fool…' She prayed to the gods she no longer loved.
And then he emerged from among their numbers, jostling his way through, the chief crossed the divide and went down on one knee.
Neia rode over to him, remaining on her horse, she held out the back of her hand. "Chief of Stone Fist is yours, Stone Fist is yours. Queen of Orcs is Queen of Stone Spitters. But… Do you truly want it all?"
The sheer scale of her ambition was not lost on him, or any of those who heard her speak openly of it, the breadth of it all brought home the infinite possibilities. But there was also the immediate concern of not being wiped out.
"Yes." Neia said, "Things are changing in this world, my former home, it isn't home anymore. If I have a new people, I want the best for them, and for that I have to stop the things that hurt them… I spared your lives in the past, so you may trust me now. I will never betray those who have not betrayed me. Come, let us go into your village, feast your lives, let me toast your courage and honor, and lay out the future I have in mind."
He kissed the back of her hand, then when she clasped his and hauled him to his feet, she gestured toward his village. "Stone Fist word is good." She shouted, "Open the gate!"
Prickled by the praise, and relieved to be alive, they headed toward the village where Neia planned next on how to more fully win their hearts before changing their world again, and behind all that… she planned her next campaign.
