A Problem of Orcs

‘Thence ill-favored creatures,

Elves and giants, orc-neas,

Came into being… '

—Beowulf

Niki had never seen an orc before. She was taken aback by the grayish, mottled-green skin; the huge, hulking outlines of their bodies, and the massive tusks and fangs that protruded from their mouths. But the pointed ears looked a lot like hers, though more pronounced. Though she had been raised among humans, her half-elf heritage couldn’t be hidden without maiming her ears, and so her human mother had simply instructed her to wear her hair long. Sometimes, when the strands parted, people commented on the unique shape before she could cover them again.

She’d heard stories about orcs—tales of murder and revenge and conquest. That was why the orcs had to be driven off when they came too close to men’s lands, and the vassals at Hedegaard Keep had, upon receiving reports, mounted their warhorses and rode out to rout and put down as many of the horde as they could.

When orc patrols were seen, the lord’s men never hesitated, and they brought back gruesome trophies.

The stories were best told at night by a fire, but during rests between playtime she’d swapped half-heard stories with the other children at the Keep—the stories always had a dark but thrilling edge that fascinated them. The stories of knights overcoming entire patrols on their own were sung in the Great Hall, even by those vassals who had been there for some of them.

Strange that the thing separating her from being a regular human being was also shared by these grotesque creatures. Her ear points were more subtle, thankfully, and easy enough to conceal, but unmistakable. She’d never imagined orcs sharing such a feature.

She couldn’t comprehend everything, but it gave her a cold sense of disquiet.

As far as she knew, she was the only person the orcs had taken prisoner—the rest were dead, wounded, or driven away from the Keep. The only other captures were bags and parcels of dry foods, bolts of cloth, and some tools and weaponry. The orc bandits had also taken two carts—she’d used to ride them into town with some of the staff occasionally—to transport the goods. Each cart was pulled by one of the lord’s horses. She’d managed to keep them calm; the horses were not trained for war, only transport and easy riding, and that might be the only reason she was still alive. The orcs didn’t seem patient enough to win their trust or temper them.

Of course, if she hadn’t been in the stable, helping the stable hands give the horses their food and water, she might have been able to run away in time.

Dawn had finally begun to show faintly. Taking an old road, under a thick canopy of trees, it took a little longer for the morning to glimmer through the leaves. Niki could see ahead of her much better, but she could also see the rough, leathery creatures that had abducted her and their heavy weapons. To distract her, she kept her attention on the horses and carts, mindlessly petting a flank or checking a wheel to avoid their grim visages.

They continued all morning, stopping to make her feed the horses and give them some water, and allowing them a little rest. They also ate some of their contraband, nearly a quarter of it in less than an hour—apples and berries, salted rabbit and poultry, deer and cheese and thick creamy milk, and barrels of cider and beer. She was too sick in her stomach, and her hands too shaky, to try to eat.

No one offered her anything.

In the late afternoon, they brought her and the stolen goods to a camp set near the foot of a steep rock face protruding with boulders and overgrown with moss and brush. Blackened metal grates over outdoor fires cooked pots of food or plain meat on the bone. Several tents were set up, and from the looks of the stacked crates and half-emptied bags piled outside them, they’d been here a while. Hideously large dogs or wolves slept in some tent entrances or paced outside and barked excitedly at them. She couldn’t properly contain the horses, who’d never encountered wolves nearly as tall as themselves, and much larger in body.

She was commanded—by a harsh combination of indistinguishable yelling and hand gestures—to stay near the carts, while the orcs unloaded the plunder and met in the larger tents. She heard bits of rough dialogue—it all sounded like arguing to her—and caught some orcs putting away the items. She had to assume the bandits’ share had already been taken at lunch. She didn’t see them receive any allotment of the rest.

In the later evening, Niki was taken into one of the large tents. Several orcs sat on the floor, on skins and furs, but a large, old orc—darker than the rest, wearing a thick, metal band around his head—told her to approach.

At first, Niki froze. She’d understood the command, dry and gruesome but in her own speech. When she hesitated, the older orc repeated, “Come here,” in its gravelly, ancient voice.

She slowly approached what she assumed was the king or chief, hands gripping her smock tightly, head ducked low.

“You are elf?” the older orc said.

She shook her head stiffly.

The older orc conversed in their aggressive language with another in the tent. Then it said, “Show me.” He pointed at her head.

She pulled back her hair—possibly admitting her natural enmity. Orcs and elves had often warred in the past, though living among men she didn’t know much about it.

“Half-elf,” said the elder. “Mother or father?”

“Father,” she said.

He stood up and said raggedly, “I am Carguk. Orc-lord of the Dugorim. These—” he indicated the others in the tent, “my Buomaugh. Good soldiers.” Glaring into her with his piercing beady eyes, he said, “Your name.”

“N-Niki,” she stammered, “of Hedegaard Keep.”

Ulf, Hedegaard’s lord, had been her uncle. He had never acknowledged her as his niece, never spoke directly to her, even after her mother’s death. Niki’s mother had engaged in whoredom with a forest elf in her youth—all Niki was permitted to know about her father. But she’d been allowed to keep her mother’s rooms and many of her possessions, if not her title. She missed that tepid kindness now, surrounded by these brutish creatures.

“You know the meaning, ‘Nee-kee’?” the Orc-lord said.

“I don’t know.” While she had a ‘proper’ name, Yanne, daughter of Olfa, her mother’s pet-name was what she had always been called.

“Elvish,” said the Orc-lord. “Poor Elvish. Man is worse than Orc, speaking Elf tongues.”

She said nothing.

“Elves and Orcs share lineage,” the Orc-lord said. “Long ago, the same ancestor—the only reason they spared you.” Then, “You may stay. You are like us.”

She met his gaze and said, horrified, “No, I’m like my mother. I’m like my father.”

“You are like the men?” it said. “You were treated the same?”

“I was—mostly.”

“And elves? They take you in?”

“I was never—I never got to know them.”

“Men see lack of blood,” the Orc-lord told her, “and Elves. But Orcs—we see the blood, even one drop. You are like us.”

He said more, in his heavy, halting speech, all of it beyond her understanding as she tried to reconcile what had happened. But she gathered that she was being dismissed ceremonially.

Two Orcs—huge and brutish, even among their own kind—flanked her.

“Uloth,” the lord said, pointing to the one on the left; at her right, “Bashuk. They give you their tent.”

Feeling like a prisoner, yet escorted like a guest, she was walked to a small tent, one she would expect was not big enough for one orc. Yet there were two sleeping mats, accompanied by a shared low, backless seat, pottery, and other personal items. From the tent posts, simple doll-like figures made from straw hung on twine.

Bashuk said some command, pointing at the interior of the tent.

Niki dropped onto a rug of animal skin. They left her alone. She dug her fingers into the soft skin and fur—bear, most likely. A great accomplishment for a hunter or knight—yet she imagined an orc didn’t flinch in battle even against a wild bear.

At some point, they brought her food on a thin wood board, in well-used tin—the same food they had just stolen. It was the same food always sent to her mother’s room. From the same kitchen, hunted or purchased by the same staff that served Ulf of Hedegaard.

Not knowing, perhaps, how much she could eat, they had erred on the side of caution and gave her enough to last for days—a salted shank of deer meat; half a chicken, eggs, and other ingredients cooked inside; both cider and beer. She swallowed down what she could. As she’d not eaten all day, she managed to consume more than usual at one meal.

She drank more of the beer than she would have normally because she wanted to fall asleep and forget everything. But at some point, after sunset, they nudged her awake and made her come outside, growling, and gesturing and moving her along. Groggy, head, and eyes cloudy, Niki put together that they only wanted to show her around.

She’d never been told the orcish peoples made fires, or cooked food—or that they used tools beyond weapons and lived in tents. She’d never heard of young orcs, but now she saw a few as they walked. The females were harder to spot, being about the same size and proportion as the males, but the chests sagged more among the “women.”

Of course, they spoke harshly and were physically imposing, and fearsome, but they also spoke, and had names, and made things. The stories the knights would tell, about slaying entire groups of traveling orcs—how much were embellished? Did the knights even know what they were doing?

Everyone they passed stared, but when her guides explained things, there seemed to be immediate acquiescence, though some continued perturbance. But there were no objections. Apparently, the lord’s decisions were final. And a little bit of a point to her ears was proof enough.

. . .

The ceremony was quick and held in the Orc-lord’s hall tent. The Orc-lord had assembled eight of the tribe, four on each side, and directed her to stand in the middle in front of him. Everything he said was in orcish, and every chant answered by the other participants was orcish. Only at the end of his speech did he say, “You are like us. Same blood. Very deep, it is the same.”

She recoiled as they all unsheathed daggers or hunting knives and cut across their wrists—letting the blackish blood pool in a wooden bowl that was passed around to each. Even the Orc-lord cut his hand and let his blood drip into the mixture.

She was given a knife.

“Sis-ter,” came a rough, barely understandable voice behind her—not from the Orc-lord but one of the warriors present. “Cou-sin.”

She didn’t make any noise. Tears came, as she pressed the blade against her flesh, across the forearm, and let it sink into her skin—let it start to twinge before she pulled the blade across the arm. A red line appeared. As the blood continued to build, she felt a sting of pain, too late. She didn’t cry as she held her arm out to let the blood fall into the bowl.

The Orc-lord made each of them step forward and announced their names. Two she already knew. The others were Shelur, Uloth, Shagdub, Shamog, Durz, and Lagakh. To her, they were just sounds, but already she was seeing distinctions between them. The names weren’t necessary.

The Orc-lord introduced her to the eight: “Urzulg.” She didn’t know what it meant. But she never knew what Niki meant, either.

They took her outside and showed her to the entire tribe.

. . .

Wrist still wrapped in a bandage, though it had healed a long time ago, she followed the others in the woods, across a shallow trickle of a stream. Covered in a layer of muddied clay, even her into the strands of her hair, and to the nibs of her ears, she blended in well with the forest and her brothers who walked ahead of her. They were hard to keep up with but without her dress, her shoes, a walking cloak—all the usual amenities—she moved quickly and made up the distance. She was dressed like an orc—male, female, they all wore a few modest pieces of cloth, and the armor they made for themselves. She didn’t know how to make her armor yet, and she didn’t fit any of theirs, so for now she wasn’t weighed down at all.

There were five of them in total. She wasn’t nearly as strong as any of them, but everyone contributed to the tribe, so Urzulg had to go on hunts too. Already she could wring a rabbit’s neck and shoot with a bow.

“Ghob-uloth,” the leader said. “Mog, Bashuk sharog. Bolar grak murzush.”

“Xurukk,” they all answered. One of them had picked her up, so she could see over the ledge ahead, where the valley was filled with grazing deer. “Sunuguk!”

-Ulfim.