The Orc's Gambit

“I’ve got a plan.” Declared King Victor, as he entered the castle’s planning room to find his top soldiers stood around their war table. The human King pushed aside two of the soldiers to see the figures on the map. Small wooden columns of green, red, and blue colour were littered about a geographically inaccurate map of the Kingdom. 

“What would that plan be, sir?” The soldier’s captain asked. King Victor moved the blue pieces, which represented the soldiers of his kingdom, into a formation resembling an arrowhead. The green pieces, which represented the elves, were all arranged in a single straight line to the west, while the red ones were scattered about the board randomly.

“We form our units like this. With the way the elves are positioned, we should have no problem cutting through their army.” The King smiled, confident that his plan was unbeatable. “Then we have our orc allies in red come from behind. While we are piercing through the elven line, they will adopt a position like this,” King Victor moved the green pieces to surround the arrow formation he had made with his blue pieces. “And that will allow the orcs to move up here, and then the elves will be crushed between us.”

“An excellent plan, my King. May the gods be with us in this battle.” The soldiers around the table agreed that this was a great plan and was not likely to be beat by their elven enemies.

In lands East of Victor’s Kingdom, was a nearly identical castle, with a nearly identical room, with a nearly identical table. The soldiers in this room had slender builds and long ears, and beardless faces with hair that reached the waists and hips of some of the men. They wore little armour, opting for clothing that would allow them swifter movement rather than greater protection.

In the Kingdom of Elves, a man in a fine green cape entered the war room. “I’ve got a plan.” He declared to the men gathered around the war table. It had a map of the area, identical to the one King Victor had, but with green, white, and black pieces, in similar positions as what was shown on Victor’s table.

“My king!” Declared the tallest soldier in the room. All others quickly turned to kneel before their king, before rising at his request. The elven King Valareth approached the table to demonstrate his plan. 

“I have no doubt the humans will try to break through our formation. They should form their soldiers something like this,” King Valareth created an arrowhead formation with the white pieces. “And they will advance on our position like this, attempting to pierce through our line.” King Valareth moved his pieces identically to King Victor’s demonstration. “Unknown to them, this will allow us to swarm around their formation and cut into their forces. If the orcs come up from behind us, we will sound the horn that will call upon our dragon friend Galthazar to help us. Though Galthazar is opposed to hurting humans, he will have no problem incinerating the orcs, allowing us to continue our attack.”

“What an excellent plan, my king!” The tall soldier declared. “And those humans are sure to flee if they see Galthazar approach! At the very least, I think they will be demoralized and won’t fight at their full strength.” There was no end to the admiration the tall soldier held for his King’s strategic brilliance, though it may also have stemmed from his risk of imprisonment should he fail to adequately worship his king.

“Soon, the human kingdom will be ours.” King Valareth had the utmost confidence in his undefeatable plan. He had yet to lose a battle against the humans, and he would not let this be the first time.

Elsewhere in the lands, the opening of a canvas tent was forced open by a tall, muscular, and brutal man. If there was a way to violently enter a room, the orc King Varaz would do so every time. Within this tent was a war table, with several chess pieces atop it. The pieces were composed of black stone, pale crystal, and oak wood, each taken from a different chess set. The wooden pieces were scattered around the place, while the black pieces were set in a line in the east, and the crystal pieces arranged as a loose clump on the west. Only the 

“I’ve got a plan.” The cockney accent and guttural voice of King Varaz silenced his soldiers' discussion.

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Asked the one-eyed orc in the room. It seemed the scar over his blind eye was ready to reopen into a wound whenever frustrated, and after discussing this matter for longer than his patience allowed, he looked as though he was on the verge of bleeding.

“The humans are going to approach the elves with an arrow’ead formation.” King Varaz approached the table and arranged the pieces accordingly. “This means that, when the humans approach, the elves will come at them from the sides of the arrow’ead. The humans want us to come in from behind to put the elves between us and the humans, making it an easy slaughter for us. But the elves ‘ad a dragon that they were sure to use, which is why I sent Karnesh’s team to kill the big bloody beast in its sleep two weeks ago. The elves will sound their ‘orn or cast their magic or whatever it is they do to summon the dragon, but it won’t work. This is going to make them panic, get flustered, and make them easier for us to kill. At the same time, the humans might be worried about what’s going on and they’ll panic too, but less so than the elves. Regardless of whether the elves or humans win, the survivors will be easy pickings for us. While all that’s ‘appening, we’re going to have siege teams attack each castle. We’ve kept most of our camps ‘idden from the humans and the elves, so they ‘ave no way to predict ‘ow many of us there actually are out there. The siege teams will attack each castle and bring back both kings alive, and we shall sacrifice them to our Lord of War, Dalbolg, to earn his blessing.”

“Wow.” The one-eyed orc was stunned. “I’m impressed, Varaz. I never thought we’d make it this far in the war. When you said we’d ally with the humans I thought it was you were a fool, but you’ve been playing everyone like a war drum.” He knew Varaz was a planning type, but he never thought he’d see this level of tactical genius from him.

“Dalbolg has blessed me with a gift of strategy. We must continue to do good by him so that our future generations will live without fear of any elf, human, or dwarf. It’s us orcs who are meant to rule these lands.” King Varaz scratched his bald head. “Declare this strategy to everyone who will be involved in the attack.”

After a few days had passed, the time for action had come. The human army formed themselves as planned and marched towards the elves. The hearts of soldiers from each army raced, waiting to see who’s gambit would defeat all the other parties and emerge victorious. Of course, the humans were certain of their victory, and the elves were sure of their own victory as well. The orcs were more than certain. They knew that their victory was absolute. King Varaz had planned in such a way that the other forces couldn’t have possibly predicted, and even if they improvised well enough, Varaz could twist any setback to his favour. The humans and elves never stood a chance. It was quite fitting that they were represented only by pawns on the orc’s war table.

The humans soon met the elves. A human commander tried to shout out, offering the elves one last chance to back down, but the elves ignored it as if they couldn’t hear the man, and to move any closer would invite battle. Seemingly devoid of other options, the human army charged forward, piercing through the line arrangement the elves had established. But the elves had accounted for this in their plan, and swarmed around the sides of the human formation to cut away at them from the outside. This prompted an onlooking group of orcs to give the signal to their army, letting them know it was time to join the fray.

The orcs came in and enveloped the elves. The elves were now sandwiched between orcs and humans, prompting the elven commander to retrieve his horn. He blew it, alarming the human army, but nothing else happened. He blew the horn again. Nothing. He blew once more, and again and again, frantic and desperate for his unbeatable dragon ally to show up. The blowing sporadically overpowered the clanking of metal and yelling of insults between the armies, until eventually an arrow flew through through the elven commander’s horn and ripped through his mouth. The elven commander fell from his horse, staring at the broken horn before him and wondering where the dragon went.

The elves' morale fell just as their commander did. Although they kept fighting strong shortly after their commander was killed, over 10 minutes had passed without the faintest sign of the dragon Galthazar. The elves were losing hope, fearing that the worst had happened to their dragon friend before they even knew. In a moment, the whole of their army lost faith in their king and his strategy. They could hardly believe that their undefeated king was finally defeated, and felt worse knowing he was defeated by humans. With many thoughts racing through the minds of the elven soldiers they could hardly keep up with the fighting that surrounded them, and in short order they had all been slain.

Elated by their apparent victory, the humans began to celebrate and cheer until the orcs came trampling over the field of corpses to approach. The humans at first had assumed the orcs wanted to celebrate with them, but the orcs still held their weapons and did not bear expressions of friendship or elation, but instead had the same hostile look they had during the fight. Their faces had not shifted since the battle began, as if the orcs thought they were still in battle. A human commander called out to them.

“You need not look so angry, we just won! The elves will surely flee from our Kingdom now, and for your aid, we will-” The commander was interrupted when hit in the face with a rock thrown from an orc’s sling. Several other orcs pelted their human enemies with rocks from the slings they carried, and the remaining humans realized what was happening.

The orcs formed a circle around the human army, and with them surrounded on all possible sides by enemies, escape wasn’t an option for them. As the orcs drew closer, they used their swords and axes to hack and slash at the human forces, and eventually, they were as defeated as the elves. Just as King Varaz had planned.

The siege of the human and elven castles was unexpected by both King Victor and King Valareth. Both castles were far enough apart that neither could plead desperately with the other for aid. The orcs began their attack by firing upon each castle with a barrage from their mobile trebuchets, and once the walls had been beaten down and the enemy forces were scrambling to form a strategy, the orc soldiers abandoned their trebuchets and marched on foot to meet their enemies. Many of the elven and human soldiers were away from their castles for the earlier attack, and neither group had counted on there being this many orcs within either side of the Kingdom. The soldiers that did remain at their castles fought as hard as they could, but ultimately, they too were defeated by the orcs.

The orcs took King Victor and King Valareth, along with several elven and human soldiers, as prisoners to be sacrificed to their war god. The remains of both armies were kept in the dungeon below the human castle until the sacrificial altar had been erected. In the many days that they were confined to the dungeon below the human castle, Victor and Valareth found themselves able to make peace with each other, at least while they had a common foe. During one warm night, while the humans and elves were wrestling and squeezing out what little entertainment they could while imprisoned, King Victor spoke with King Valareth.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “And I’ve got a plan.”