“Boss… Are you sure about this?”
Curash sighed, quickly checking his surroundings to ensure none of the Red Dawn mbers were listening in. Even with his high focus and passives, one could never be too careful.
He hadn’t survived all these months leaving things to fate, after all.
“I told you this day would co, Trod,” Curash whispered, turning his attention back toward what would soon be the living grave of those he was temporarily forced to call his people. “You don’t have to get your hands dirtier than they already are if you don’t want to. Golrim’s ssage said he has enough people prepared, you could sit this one out.”
Trod stood there, pondering his next course of action as he scratched at his chest. Knowing the orc could stand there and ponder for hours at a ti if the mood was right, Curash went back to analyzing the unique trees in front of him. Golrim’s ssage had said to wait for a sign, but he could only pretend to scout ahead for so long before the Red Dawn would grow restless. He knew from past experiences if he left them to their own devices for more than a few hours innocent people would die.
“To the end, boss,” Trod finally said, his deep, rumbling voice touching Curash’s heart and making him smile.
“To the end, Trod,” he nodded, blinking as a figure stepped out from behind one of the trees. Curash was intimately familiar with many different races, but he’d only ever seen one other mber of this race.
Her serrated smile still infiltrated his dreams every now and again.
“Dkack chun doc,” the pointy-eared warrior called out, speaking in so tongue that sounded harsh and clunky. Thankfully, Curash didn’t need to wonder what that ant, as the strange man wearing what looked like armor made from bark and leaves of all things pulled an arrow out of his quiver and fired it at the ground in front of Curash’s feet.
Nodding his thanks, Curash bent down and retrieved the arrow, pulling the note off of it. As expected, he recognized Golrim’s handwriting in an instant.
“What’s the plan?” Trod asked, licking his lips as he watched the forest-dweller vanish amongst the trees once more.
“Difficult, as usual,” Curash sighed, lighting a match and burning the missive just to be safe before shooting the arrow back into the forest. “I need to find a way to lead the Red Dawn into the freaky forest they already know contains battle-hardened warriors that happily kill those who set foot within their borders. Because why would any plan Golrim cos up with ever be easy?”
“You can do it,” Trod grunted, encouraging as ever.
“I have to. We’re finally finishing these monsters off. It’s what we’ve been biding our ti for these past few months.”
Trod fell into position behind him as Curash led their way back to camp, his mind awhirl with possibilities. Just because he was capable of bypassing lie-detecting abilities didn’t an his lies didn’t have to be convincing. The Red Dawn were a fickle bunch, and getting them to do anything without dragging their feet was difficult enough.
Luckily, the vast majority of them had the sa driving motivators. It was all about choosing the right arrow and applying just enough pressure.
As usual, Curash returned to find camp in near utter turmoil. There was a reason he rarely brought Trod with him when he went scouting, and this was it. Without at least one of them keeping watch, things tended to get…
A tad wild.
One side of camp seed to have devolved into an all-out brawl between five of the mbers, as each of them did their best to puml the others with their fists. Unfortunately, they’d had the sense to leave weapons out of it, which ant the worst that would happen would be so heavy bruising and maybe a knocked-out tooth or three.
By now he’d managed to kill off most of the more stupid ones, which was both a blessing and a curse. It ant that of the thirty-eight mbers of the Red Dawn that remained, most of them were actually pretty smart when it ca to self-preservation.
The dical tent was on fire for God-knew whatever reason, and rather than try to put it out, a few mbers were cooking what looked like the dead bodies of their latest mounts over the flas. That got a slight smile out of Curash that was quickly wiped away. He’d gone through a lot of trouble destroying their stocks of food and making it look like it had been another mber that was responsible, which gave him all the excuse he needed to let the Gods ‘judge’ that mber the other day.
Naturally, the Gods had found him guilty, and his arrow had punched straight through the roof of his skull, killing him instantly. None of the mbers of his little band of murders had ever stopped to consider Curash might be so skilled with the bow that he was able to accurately land shots even if he fired directly up into the sky.
“Round ‘em up, Trod,” Curash ordered, being sure to keep his face hard and cold as he slowly looked around camp. Already a few mbers had realized he’d returned, and they were quickly making their way over to him.
“BOSS’ BACK!” Trod bellowed at the top of his lungs, his powerful voice shaking the very ground and sending distant animals bolting away. Imdiately, the five mbers fighting one another called it a draw, spitting out blood and rolling their shoulders as they retrieved their weapons and fell in line. Half of the mbers roasting their mounts cursed and tossed them aside, while the orcs simply dug into the mostly raw at, not perturbed in the slightest. Orcs didn’t actually have to cook any of their food, but most enjoyed doing so for the added flavor.
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Curash waited for everyone to gather before him, not even needing to pretend like his impatience was all an act. He’d been forced to deal with these murderers and monsters for months now, and finally, he was going to be free of this task.
He had a few choice words for Golrim once this was all said and done.
And maybe an arrow or two.
Once the last of the Red Dawn got there, he began. “Earlier today, I witnessed a strange sight. It would appear Golrim’s new friends, and the wood-huggers of the nearby forest, have gotten into sothing of a disagreent. There was a small border skirmish, and now, the wood-huggers have reinforced the border they share with Golrim’s new people. Anyone want to take a guess what that ans?”
Silence stretched out across the crowd as nobody was willing to be the first one to speak up and risk angering him. Curash had used that excuse perhaps one too many tis back in the beginning of this whole charade to kill off a good number of mbers over the first couple of weeks. Holding in his sigh, he continued.
“It ans their backs are exposed!” he roared, hefting his bow and pointing off toward the forest. “They’ve pulled their warriors to the front, but they certainly haven’t done the sa with their food and civilians! And I know you all know what that ans!”
“We’re going on a raid?” Grube finally chid in, looking hopeful. Grube was a forr torturer that had worked for one of the larger gangs in their kingdom. Despite his small stature and unthreatening appearance, he was incredibly fast and could gut most people like a fish before they even got the chance to gasp.
“Yes!” Curash grinned, doing his best to channel his inner bloodlust. Thankfully, that wasn’t all that difficult, as all he had to do was imagine finally shooting an arrow in between the eyes of each and every mber of the Red Dawn standing before him. “It’s been nearly a month since our last raid on the others, and now that the town doesn’t even exist anymore, it’s ti we found new prey!”
Curash waited a beat to see if anyone was going to once again bring up the fact that he'd forced them not to rush in and attack the fresh-faced warriors Golrim had sent over to help the citizens of the town leave their fragnt in the first place. That order had been so unpopular, three mbers of the Red Dawn had attacked him all at the sa ti in an attempt to finally overthrow him, despite knowing how deadly he was.
Even for him, it had been a close fight. While he was still rather skilled with hand to hand combat, his true worth shone when he could snipe from afar.
Thankfully, the announcent that they’d finally be going on another raid after all this ti, and one on a poorly defended target at that, had exactly the effect he’d been hoping for. The few dozen remaining mbers of the Red Dawn began hooting and hollering, clanging their weapons together and cheering as they imagined all the goods they could plunder and people they could kill.
It took every ounce of Curash’s willpower not to start firing arrows into the crowd one after another.
“When do we attack?” Liza asked, the beastkin flexing her claws and all but slobbering on the ground as she no doubt imagined getting to sink her fangs into so poor screaming victim. She was a Berserker, and one of the most horrifically violent fighters Curash had ever seen. Unfortunately, she also had a surprisingly keen intuition, which had kept her safe from his wrath all this ti.
“Now!” he shouted, raising his bow up high and causing everyone to begin cheering even louder. “To the forest!”
Curash grinned as everyone turned and began all but sprinting toward the forest that they’d marked as off limits since almost day one. He’d gotten a few of their dumber mbers to venture inside in order to ‘test’ and see if it had grown any safer, but it had been months since the last person had tried.
“Rember, in and out, we have to be quick!” he shouted over the screaming, getting a handful of nods in return from those not quite so far gone into their own bloodlust just yet. “We don’t want their warriors to co back and attack, so move fast everyone! In and out, like you’re shiving so poor sap!”
That got a lot of laughs, and Curash nodded to himself as he slowly fell to the back of the pack beside Trod. In their excitent, only a couple mbers even noticed he was no longer leading the assault, and the few that did most likely assud he was just running battle plans past his second in command.
“You know what to do, Trod,” he whispered, knowing he couldn’t risk talking about the plan even now.
“Trod will do what he does best,” Trod grinned, lumbering along and showing off his tusks that would put so boars to sha. “Grab and smash.”
“Grab and smash, Trod,” Curash agreed, watching as the treeline finally ca into view. “Grab and smash.”
Despite how much he’d riled them all up, their reckless assault did still falter a little when they hit the treeline and the marauders in front slowed down, carefully watching around them for any sign of the wood-huggers. Yet after a minute or two of no arrows flying out of the underbrush or raining down from the canopies, they went right back to cheering and began rushing forward once more, banging their weapons against the trees and slashing through branches as they ran. Curash and Trod were two of the last ones to enter, and as Trod roared and went to punch over a small tree, Curash stopped him with a raised hand.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he muttered, seeing the look of understanding in the orc’s face as he slowly lowered his fist. “Acting is one thing, but let’s not do anything we can’t take back.”
“Acting?” Crube asked, the small man suddenly popping out from behind a tree and surprising him. Curash cursed at the realization he must have doubled back and allowed the far larger and louder mbers to lead the charge. “What do you an, Curash?”
Before Curash could co up with a convincing lie, Trod’s hand shot out, attempting to grab the man by the skull and crush him. Crube was far too quick for that, however, whipping out his daggers and turning into a living maelstrom of slashes. Trod grunted as he withdrew his hand, frowning at his three missing fingers.
“Well, isn’t this interesting,” Crube grinned, flicking one of his daggers and catching it as he raised an eyebrow in Curash’s direction. “I’d thought this was a little too good to be true. What exactly are you hoping-”
A crossbow bolt burst through the front of Crube’s throat, halting the man mid-question as his eyes went wide. His daggers fell to the forest floor as Crube desperately tried to stop the bleeding, but the bolt had gone straight through the artery and out the other side. In monts, he was lying on the ground, dead.
Curash blinked as a familiar face materialized out of the bark of a tree, the beastkin’s fur blurring and turned brown to flawlessly match with his surroundings.
“Waltz,” Curash grinned, happy to see one of the few friends he’d made in prison still alive. “I’m glad-”
That was all he managed to get out before the beastkin raised his second crossbow and fired it point-blank at his face.
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