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Gorek hated to cook.

He was a full-blood orc, with a half-tusk that nearly reached his snout and skin as green as the chieftain. Gorek stood a head taller than a human, and his strong arms and tilted features had proper battle scars. His musk warned foes of his approach, and he could cleave with sword or axe with equal skill. He wore the mismatched chain armor of his fallen foes with pride. He saw himself as a warrior born to one day lead his clan.

But Gorek, more than any other warrior of the Broken Tooth Clan understood how long to roast a goblin to bring out the richness of the muscle, the savor of the fat. It was an instinct for him, something he understood the way he understood timing a parry with his sword, or the best ways to crack different bones for their tangy marrow. He did not know how he could tell with a glance which roots made stews savory and which made good crunching on a hot day’s hike through the grasslands south of the Dragon Spike Mountains.

He just knew.

Among the Broken Tooth — and woe betide those who mocked them as the Broken Teeth, for a broken tooth was the sign of a warrior but to have all teeth broken was the sign of a useless orc — every orc took his or her turn to cook when out on a raid. And every member of Gorek’s raiding parties grinned when his turn came. They slobbered and drooled and pressed Gorek for early food. To eat when it smelled right to them, not when he knew it was ready.

Gorek always made them wait. He settled for serving nothing less than his best. He hated to cook, but a future chieftain had to devote himself fully to every task. And so no orc ate early. Not sneaky little Rekaa who tried to tempt him with her strong legs and lewdly sharp teeth. Not even mighty Chieftain Pawk, so tall some said he had troll’s blood, and so strong that others said his father was an ogre. But the chieftain’s skin was the proper deep green, and Gorek thought his chieftain merely the largest, toughest orc born east of the Dwarfmarches. His many scars proved his fitness to lead, whatever his bloodline.

And even the chieftain waited until Gorek declared a meal ready.

Gorek liked to pretend this was because the chieftain feared Gorek’s wrath. But he knew the truth — the chieftain was merely patient enough to wait until the meal would taste best. The chieftain’s patience was how the Broken Tooth triumphed over the humans at Green River in the south. How they kept the cursed elves confined to their Wailing Forest in the east.

The great grasslands of the west belonged to the orc clans. The Broken Tooth, the Shattered Spear, the Bloody Blade, with the scraps being split among the foundlings — the ones that called themselves clans, but lacked the orcs or the nerve to stand their ground when a major clan drew near. The foundlings lived on the sufferance of the major clans, largely so they could be conscripted when wars spilled more than their usual quantity of blood.

And the war between the Broken Tooth and the Shattered Spear had raged on these many months now, with both sides pressing foundlings into service.

That night there were even foundlings among the Broken Tooth raiding party where Gorek brewed a stew of gazelle and butter beans in water he had boiled with pungent roots and the fat of three gophers.

Two dozen Broken Tooth warriors lolled about and watched as the half-dozen remaining foundlings flared their flat nostrils and hunched closer to the stew pot. Their first night in the presence of Gorek’s cooking and the temptations of the stew’s aroma called to them after a long day’s run for a brief but bloody fight.

Gorek could hear his clan cousins mutter to each other, and knew they gambled on his patience.

Gorek had more patience than any of them. Well, no, Gorek had to admit that was not quite true. The fire in Gorek’s veins brought anger and violence as swiftly to his thoughts and the pound of his heart as it did to any of his kin.

But the chieftain had shown him the power of patience, and Gorek sought to be chieftain himself one day. So he clamped his jaw shut and growled at the foundlings to keep their distance.

Still they crept closer to the blazing cook fire. Those half-dozen orcs with their hides so pale green they might have had goblin blood. Those orcs whose names Gorek would not bother to learn, would not speak of once they died the most honorable way they could — in service to the Broken Tooth Clan.

Gorek hefted his axe, a beast of double-headed black steel and iron wood.

“The first of you in splitting range gets his tongue in the pot. Along with the rest of his head.”

“Chieftain gone,” rasped the closest, with his teeth like blunted needles and his skin unblessed by a single scar. “You be chieftain. Strong. We support.”

“Support,” the other foundlings echoed, soft, so their words would sound like wind through the wild grass and not carry over the crackling fire beneath the stew pot.

“Feed us. We follow.”

“Follow.”

Gorek snorted hard enough to spew snot on the rasper.

“The foundlings need a lesson in loyalty,” he said loud enough for his clan cousins to hear. “Who wants to work up an appetite?”

Four of the Broken Tooth orcs pulled themselves to their feet. Three of them were females, which meant the foundlings were in for even more pain than they would find on the battlefield. And they knew it. They started drawing the daggers that were the only weapons foundlings were allowed in camp.

Gorek raised his axe, intending a blunt-sided lesson of his own for the rasper, but the chieftain called out of the darkness, “Weapons down or face me.”

The foundlings dropped their daggers and fell to the ground, cowering. Gorek set his axe down, but left the handle leaning against the pot to show his readiness to defend the stew. The other orcs eased back down to the more comfortable spots of grass.

Chieftain Pawk stepped out of the shadows, flanked by Ulk and Berk, his splinters — his most-valued clan cousins. The chieftain stood near the fire, arms folded across his chest in the pose of bringing news.

“Met with Harek,” said the chieftain, “leader of the Shattered Spear. Convinced him we need to stop killing orcs and get on with killing elves.”

“Elves taste better anyway,” said Gorek, and the chieftain laughed, which made sure everyone else laughed too.

“You would know, Gorek,” said the chieftain, and though any compliment from the chieftain was good, Gorek lamented that a warrior’s joke got taken as a cook’s. “Harek agreed, but we’ve sated the land with so much green blood that neither clan could stand alone against the Bloody Blade. And we must assume the Bloody Blade knows this. The Broken Tooth and the Shattered Spear need to unite under one leader.”

The Broken Tooth orcs cheered, none louder than Gorek. What orc could stand against Chieftain Pawk?

“But Harek lacked the honor to fight me alone. He demanded proof of leadership through the skills of our clan.”

Chieftain Pawk grinned, emphasizing the half-tusks jutting up at both ends of his mouth. His many scars looked black in the firelight.

“I agreed, and said that the better chieftain is the one who best feeds his clan.”

Gorek got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“So each clan brings a meal to the meet, tasted by both leaders and their splinters. Better meal wins.” Chieftain Pawk turned and thumped Gorek in the center of his chest. “And nothing they can do could match our Gorek.”

Gorek felt a fleeting desire to cut off his own head and add it to the stew pot.

“Gorek,” said the chieftain, turning to face him and thumping him on both shoulders. “Leave at dawn. You have one week to gather what you need. Win their orcs to our clan and I will name you my splinter.”

Not every splinter became a chieftain, but every chieftain was once a splinter.

Gorek thumped his chest and cried out, “For the Broken Tooth!”

The cry was echoed around him and he called the orcs to eat.

#

By the time the sun crested past the tallest trees of the Wailing Forest the next morning, Gorek was already awake and running east across the grasslands, axe in his hands, bow and pack on his back, sword and quiver at his hips. Leftover gazelle stew sloshed in his belly. His mismatched chainmail jingled with each stride of his heavy boots over every rise and dip of the grasslands. His nose flared, seeking a hint of what he needed first — for the powerful reek of the great spiral horned goats.

By noon he found their trail, bending north, which meant they were close enough to the tree line to feel safe from the talons of a hungry roc, should one fly forth from the Dragon Spike Mountains.

That meant Gorek was inside the elvish patrol lines now. He might be spotted. Attacked.

Death in battle was an honorable death. But Gorek could not afford it. Not now. Not when his chieftain, his very clan, needed him. If Gorek failed, the Broken Tooth would become Shattered Spear. All glory they had won, lost. All songs they had sung, less than the mutter of the wind. Better still than foundlings, but only by the edge of a sword.

Gorek would have been wiser to slow his pace. Perhaps ease further back into the grasslands and return only to check the route of the goats. But Gorek gambled on the elves as his clan cousins gambled on his patience. The elves might have been smart enough to know that a lone orc posed no threat. That a lone orc unmolested had no reason to return. That a lone slain would bring a raiding party — sometimes even a war party — to investigate.

And if there were any elvish patrols in the area, then they must have been smart enough to conclude that the single running orc did not concern them.

But elvish hunters were another matter.

The sun was no more than an hour from setting past the Dwarfmarches when Gorek caught his first sight of the spiral-horned goat flock. Forty, by his count, from the meanest buck as tall as Gorek’s chest, with horns as long as spears, to the youngest doe, barely old enough to breed.

Gorek needed two goats. One as seasoning and one as bait, with the second one alive if he could manage it.

Gorek dropped down into the tall wild grass. It smelled different here. And not because of the goat urine. The amber stalks around Gorek had ridges of nut brown berries at the top that had a rich smell, warm and mouth-watering. Gorek grabbed a handful and cut them free with his axe, then shoved them down into his bag.

He added another handful for good measure.

But then he heard the goats bleating. Agitated. He crawled closer, covering perhaps half the distance as he recalled it from his last view.

Gorek drew up onto his knees. He slipped his bow over his shoulder and drew an arrow from his quiver. Arrow in hand, he parted the tips of the pleasant wild grass for a look. The goats gathered closer together. The great bucks circling. Smelling something on the wind, but Gorek was downwind of them. And how they could smell anything on the wind over their own reek was beyond–

Movement. Closer to the trees. A face rising up above the grass, brown as the odd grass berries, pointed at the chin and ears and nose. Hair golden as the grass.

An elf. But a lone elf?

Fire burned through Gorek. Sang songs of violence through his arms, his shoulders. Begged him to loose an arrow at that face. To scream and charge with his axe held high. That he could chase the goats down again. That and elf would season better than a goat. Tension sang through his legs, which readied to spring without checking with Gorek.

Gorek clamped his jaw tight, felt his tusk dent the flesh by his nose along the scar it left there early in his childhood. His first scar, and the only one not earned in battle. Gorek knocked his arrow and waited.

Movement to the elf’s right. Company then. Still Gorek waited, watching the two and looking for a third.

Just the two. And they moved no closer. Not yet. They waited as Gorek did. But they waited for the goats to forget what they had heard or smelled. For the goats to relax their guard.

Soon the bleating soothed instead of warned. The flock began to spread out again, dining on the grass berries at the tips of the stalks. Gorek nodded absently at their choice and popped a grass berry in his mouth as he watched the elves. The berry tasted dry, but sweet and nutty.

The elves spread themselves out further, one approaching and one hanging back. One hanging back. An archer?

Gorek crouched and crawled closer to the tree line, giving him a better vantage point on the still elf while the other moved closer to an older doe, who dined alone close to the edge of the flock.

Gorek knocked his arrow again. The moving elf drew closer to the doe. Closer.

The moving elf hurled a net over the doe.

Gorek shot his arrow at the face of the still elf.

The doe screamed. Half the flock bolted. The bucks turned toward the elf with the net.

Gorek’s arrow struck true. Dropped the archer. Gorek drew another arrow.

The closest, biggest buck charged the elf. He gave a cry like an eagle diving, but Gorek had heard that cry before on the battlefield. A call for aid. The elf was busy binding the net. Relied on his partner to drive off the buck.

Gorek held his shot.

The elf dove aside at the last instant. The charging buck missed. Other bucks began to circle. The elf came up with one of those long, thin elvish swords in one hand. Again that cry for aid.

Another buck charged, and again the elf dove aside. Why not slash the buck? Discourage the others? Gorek would have split one of them to…

The elf held up his empty hand and chanted. The hand glowed green and every goat stopped bleating. Even the bucks raised their heads. They began to stampede away.

No!

Gorek shot the elf in the back.

The elf was still breathing when Gorek reached him, but those breaths were shallow and labored. The elf cringed when he saw Gorek, and Gorek shook his head.

“You aren’t worth killing. Stupid way to hunt.” Gorek kicked the elf in the head until confident that the elf wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.

He went to check on the doe. Alive, intact, and bleating her fear. Good. The net proved more useful than Gorek expected. Woven from green vine rope, it had a section that unwound, meaning it could double as a harness and leash. They hadn’t meant to kill the doe, but to bring her back so they could kill her at their camp, after her fear had had plenty of time to work its way through her system and properly flavor her meat.

That impressed Gorek. Showed more appreciation for the finer points of cooking than he expected from elves.

Still, Gorek grimaced at his situation. He wanted two goats, and now he had a live goat and a dead elf. And a live elf, but that was no use to him. Gorek kicked the unconscious elf for good measure, then riffled through his possessions. The weapons were too thin and weak to withstand orcish use. But the rope was strong. Good. The elf also had some of that ridiculous bread they loved so much, but it was wrapped in wide, strong leaves that seemed to keep even that bread fresh.

Gorek took the leaf wrappers, then tasted the bread for good measure. Light and airy on the tongue, like a lemon-flavored breeze. Gorek spat it out. A candy for children, not fit food for a warrior.

Gorek glanced over at the dead elf with his arrow sticking out of its face. Now there was food for a warrior. Eyes, a heart, and a liver to wrap in those leaves for the feast, along with blood to collect in the elf’s water skin. And chunks of thigh to roast later for Gorek’s own dinner on his trek.

Elf meat was not ideal for the meal he had in mind to serve the chieftains. The flavor of elf would not mix as well with the tastes of the main course, but the fleeing goats were not likely to stop running until some were close to death. Gorek could not risk the time to hunt them down again. He would have to count on spices to make up the difference.

Gorek looked at the dead and unconscious elves. He sighed at leaving so much food behind, but Gorek would have more than enough to carry before his journey’s end.

#

Nightfall on the second day saw Gorek binding the feet of the bleating goat to keep her from running off as he made a small camp at the foot of the Dragon Spike Mountains. The highest peaks of the range gave the mountains their name, tall and narrow like spikes on the tail of a great dragon. But down where Gorek made camp, the foothills were still green and grassy thanks to runoff from the melting snows high above. The acacia trees with their yellow blossoms rustled in the winds blowing in from the east, and the earliest of the night birds greeted the rising full moon with long, trilling songs that were matched by the hums and chirps of insects.

On impulse, Gorek caught a score of the insects, large brown beetles. He cut the heads from their tiny frames to kill them, but left their long, round thoraxes intact. They would provide texture for his important dish.

Gorek glanced up the hills to where the mountains began. He could not see quite as far in the twilight, not until the moon rose high and provided light as useful to orcish eyes as the high sun was. Still, he could see enough to estimate that the smallest of the rocs likely had their nests no more than an hour’s hike and climb from his encampment. If he released the doe at sunrise, he should have time to find that nest before its roc caught the fleeing goat and returned.

Orcs knew well the movement and habits of rocs. Everything that lived in the plains had to. No predators grew larger or more dangerous than the greatest of the rocs. A great roc could challenge even a young dragon.

And the rocs bred when the acacias bloomed yellow. That nest should have at least three eggs in it. More if other rocs had not raided it. Rocs generally laid as many as a dozen eggs in hopes that one would live to hatch.

If Gorek could steal a roc egg, he could provide a feast that none could match.

But rocs were day hunters, and this was an excellent spot for prey animals to graze. That meant that the night hunters might patrol it. Mountain cats or bears. Gorek could not afford to sleep this night. He had to keep a small fire going to warn the predators away, and hope it didn’t draw the attention of some local foundling tribe.

Pathetic as the foundlings were, they were still orcs. If a pack of them came for the doe, even Gorek might not survive them.

So Gorek sat with his back to an acacia and his axe across his crossed legs. The goat bleated softly to his right, a sound that could not have been much louder than the night birds, but stood out as though it might draw even the great rocs high above down from their slumber.

He tried to focus on his plans. The ideas for the roc dish he would make, with those ground golden grass berries, a handful of carrots and beets, and a sauce blended from the choicest bits of elf meat mixed with the blood. He tried to consider what else might add savor, keep the wood smoke taste of elf from overpowering everything but the roc.

And he kept smelling the sweetness of the acacia trees. Inside the open blossoms he could see small white flowers with tiny bunches like soft nuts. He stood to pluck one and taste it. Rich and sweet and thick, like honey with a complex floral taste.

Gorek collected handfuls of the blossoms and stuffed them into his pack.

Just then the goat began bleating in fear. Its hooves trying to run against the bindings that kept it where it stood.

Gorek flared his nostrils, but could smell nothing over the acacia and his own musk. He stood over the goat, hefted his axe in one hand, shaded his eyes against the fire, and searched the darkness.

Nothing.

He bellowed a challenge at the night.

And a cougar screamed back at him.

Gorek could see its silhouette now, high in the acacia tree above him. Bigger than any mountain cat Gorek had seen before. On its hind legs it might have stood as tall as he did. He raised his axe high and roared, “This one is mine. Find your own.”

The cougar pounced down at him, claws wide and screaming.

Gorek gripped his axe two-handed near the head and swung the handle upward to meet it.

The beast was heavy, but Gorek was strong. He diverted the path of its pounce so it slammed onto the ground beside its prey and rolled to its feet out of striking range.

Gorek had once caved in a human warrior’s chest with such a blow from the handle of his previous axe, after the head had come free during a fight. But this mountain cat moved and held its body as though all of Gorek’s might had been a meager inconvenience.

And then it spoke. Not the cry of a cat, but perfectly passable orcish, which was a language made for growling.

“Why the handle?” the giant cougar said. “Why refuse the blade?”

“You aren’t my enemy,” said Gorek, who readied his axe just in case. “And I don’t want to eat you. I just don’t want you to eat my goat.”

“I must eat. And the goat is too much for you.”

“The goat is bait for a roc. I wish to raid its nest.”

The mountain cat growled, pondering.

“I know the closest roc’s nest. Feed me tonight and I will take you there. You may have the egg. I will take the hatchling. We will both feed well.”

“Agreed,” said Gorek. He would rather have had the hatchling, but he had the feeling that arguing with a talking mountain cat would not end well for him.

“But I must eat something now. You must feed me if you wish my help.”

“I have my rations. Dried goblin and gazelle meat, with mixed root vegetables. I also have some leftover roast elf that I was saving for myself.”

“I smell something better. Something fresher. Something bloody.”

The elf bits. Eyes, heart and liver.

“I need that meat for–”

“Give me bloody meat or we have no deal.”

The mountain cat’s eyes flashed red in the darkness.

“Agreed.” Gorek dug through his pack and fetched out the heart. “Heart of an elf hunter. An archer. Taken from his corpse not two days past, and preserved in his own leaves.”

Gorek tossed the heart into the air and the cougar caught and ate it in a single bite.

“I still hunger,” it said.

“I have given you bloody meat. I have kept our bargain.” Gorek hefted his axe. “Tomorrow you will feast on hatchling or tonight you feast on my axe blade.”

The mountain cat coughed a chuckle.

“Agreed.”

#

Gorek had no trouble staying awake with a giant cougar pacing not three strides from where he sat at the base of an acacia tree. The goat had long since passed out from terror, but as the dawn approached it began to rouse as though fear had driven it past unconsciousness and through to sleep.

The mountain cat agreed to wait up the hill and downwind until Gorek released the goat and got it fleeing, bleating as it went.

And the moment it started, Gorek ran up the hill toward the mountain cat. It did not wait for him, running and leaping ahead of him.

“Swift now,” it called back. “The rocs fly faster than your legs can climb.”

And Gorek did his best to keep pace with the swift mountain cat. Together they ran past the point where the green of the hills turned brown and the slopes grew steeper. Past the point where they grew rockier, and Gorek had to shove his axe into his belt at the small of his back, because he needed both hands on the dry, reddish shale.

Up and up they ran and climbed as the sun rose higher in the sky and the only odors Gorek’s nose could detect were dust and dirt and rock, saving for the occasional rough scrub bush or snarl of evil-looking grass.

Gorek’s stomach gurgled that he had not fed it enough for this much work. His eyes dragged at his lack of sleep. His arms and legs felt stretched and sore in ways that they should not have, not so soon. Or at least, that they would not have had he rested properly last night. His lungs worked hard, and sweat built his musk to levels it only usually reached in battle.

And Gorek had gone much further than an hour up the mountainside.

“This is the closest?” He called to the huge cougar.

“Closest with a hatchling,” it answered.

Gorek swore about talking cats and their own agendas.

But at last he reached a large outcropping, where the cougar waited. It licked its chops, and the moment Gorek hoisted himself onto the outcropping — before he even let his eyes examine what awaited him — he glared the great mountain cat down and drew his axe.

“A fine little warm-up,” Gorek growled. “But my muscles are loose and ready now, in case I must name you enemy.”

The mountain cat gave that coughing laugh again.

A soft screech answered.

Gorek looked and saw a great nest built of fallen branches from acacias and baobabs. It smelled of old blood and offal gone foul, a smell that clung to Gorek’s tongue and persuaded even his stomach that perhaps food was not so important right now.

And raising its head just above the edge of the nest was a baby roc. Its feathers baby soft and fuzzy brown and not entirely filling in around its pink face and neck and soft-looking yellow beak. It had a white fuzzy crest at the base of its neck, and two wings no longer than Gorek’s arms. The whole hatchling could not have been larger than he was.

“Two eggs and one hatchling,” said the mountain cat, weight in its words. “Which is mine and which is yours?”

Gorek furrowed his brow at the question. Moved the head of his axe between his body and the mountain cat.

“Which is mine and which is yours? Say.”

“We had a bargain,” said Gorek, his words reflecting the anger beginning to heat his veins.

“And so we do. And so I demand a third time. Say which is mine and which is yours.”

Was this a chance to alter the deal? Hatchling meat would be a delicacy no orc could ever have tasted before. This could be the opportunity to…

Gorek shook his head to clear that line of thought. A chieftain had to know which deals to keep and which to betray. And this was a deal to keep.

“An egg is mine. The hatchling, yours.”

The mountain cat pounced on the hatchling and it shrieked a piercing squawk that deafened Gorek. The hatchling fought back though, pecking even as the great cat clawed and bit at it.

Gorek ran for the nest, where the two eggs lay forgotten beside the struggle. Each egg was fully the size of two grown orc heads, colored a grass green and speckled with dark blue spots.

On an impulse, Gorek took his axe and cleaved one of the huge eggs, spilling green and yellow yolk around a half-grown hatchling and filling the air with the smell of stale milk and fresh meat.

Gorek cleaned his blade on the nest and shoved his axe back into his belt at the small of his back. He snatched up the other egg. It was heavy. Heavy as a stone twice as big. Gorek pulled back three steps from the struggle where the mountain cat clearly had the upper claw. The hatchling was woozy and wobbly, and the mountain cat barely looked as though it had noticed any of the pecking.

Gorek tucked the egg into the elf-net, which he then secured to his shoulders. His ears rang, and he could hear the hints of the struggle near him, but more than that he could smell two kinds of blood over the reek of the nest. Which meant that at least some of the hatchling’s efforts had struck home.

But Gorek did not wait to see the end.

He scrabbled back over the edge and left the mountain cat to its fate. He slid down no more than thirty paces down the rough red mountainside before another sound made it past the ringing in his ears.

It was the cry of a much larger roc.

Much larger.

Gorek saw its shadow in the sky, and realized that the each wing of the roc had to be as long as two or three times Gorek’s height.

Gorek froze in place. Exposed in his mismatched armor, but not near enough to any of the scrub bushes to hide among them. He had to hope that stillness would help. And that the egg he had stolen lay safely inside the net at his belly. And that the sounds and smells of the struggle — and perhaps the odor of the broken egg — would draw all the roc’s attention.

When the roc’s next cry came, Gorek realized that his hearing had been returning, because this one tried to deafen him again.

The roc dove down at its nest and the mountain cat feasting within.

And while it was busy Gorek fled down the mountainside as fast as he could manage.

#

After Gorek’s escape, he slept the days away and travelled at night, maintaining the loping run that his people used for speed across great distances. He twice thought he saw signs of a raiding party — too much dust rising up in clouds — but they might have been herd animals rather than foundlings or worse.

But Gorek took no more risks. He slowed and stayed low and evaded to give as much space as he could to any such groups. And he ran south for the Drakeblood River, where the clans were to meet and match their best dishes.

On the cusp of dawn on the seventh morning after Chieftain Pawk gave Gorek his orders, Gorek arrived at the Drakeblood River and found gathered there the whole of his clan on the north bank. That should have been a sight for the ages. That should have meant five or ten thousand orcs whose fires lit up the night like day and whose war drums would shake the very mountains to their core.

But fewer than two thousand orcs waited for him. And a like number looked to encamp themselves across the river, here where the red waters flowed slow and smooth through their narrow channel. This was why they had no choice but to combine. The Bloody Blade still held numbers enough to sweep down on either clan and wipe them out.

But together, they would be a force to reckon with. Together, under the leadership of Chieftain Pawk, perhaps they would even conquer the Bloody Blade. Perhaps they would then subsume the foundlings, and unite all the orcs of the great grasslands under a single clan.

But if that were ever to happen, it had to happen now. It had to happen with the Shattered Spear joining the Broken Tooth. And that meant Gorek had to win.

Gorek ran like a messenger past the outer sentries, past the outlying camps and clear through to the center of the force, near the edge of the Drakeblood, where the river’s iron smell fired the veins of all who camped near it. There he knew he would find the chieftain and his splinters. And there, Gorek was right.

“Here he comes,” shouted Ulk as Gorek stumbled to a halt.

“Hail, Gorek,” called the chieftain, thumping his own chest in salute. “What have you brought for our meal?”

But Gorek had ideas and approaches to that meal swirling through his tired head. How he would prepare this meal, and what it would finally consist of had been all he could think of as he ran long grueling hour after long grueling hour for the sixth day in a row. With not enough useful sleep since before the venture began. And now little details swam this way and that, any one of which could affect the final taste of his handiwork. Gorek could not even answer his chieftain without first determining some of the answers.

“First tell me if all I requested has been brought.”

Half the orcs in earshot hissed in their breaths, and the others leered, hoping to see the chieftain strike Gorek for his impudence. Chieftain Pawk narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice to a growl.

“All of it, now answer my question or I will serve you to Harek over a spit.”

“I have fetched my chieftain the liver, eyes and blood of an elf hunter, preserved in their own special leaves. But those are mere garnishments. The main course is the egg of a roc.”

Gorek reached into the elf net and held the egg up above his head. The orcs around him cheered, even the chieftain.

And the egg cracked.

Gorek dropped the egg to the ground, but the cracking continued. All around him orcs reached for weapons, but Gorek raised his axe and yelled, “No one touches it but me or the chieftain.”

The latter he added only to preserve his green skin.

Inside the roc egg, the hatchling continued to peck its way out into the world, and moments later it made a hole big enough to stick out its head and see the wide world about it for the first time.

And the last time, because Gorek brought his axe down and cut the hatchling’s head from its body.

“Free up a cooking fire,” shouted Gorek. “Bring me the ingredients I listed. And tools. And pots. I will need hours to do this right.”

#

At dusk on that seventh day, the orcs of the Broken Tooth laid down a bridge across the Drakeblood. Fifteen maple logs formed it, and it was steady and wide enough for four orcs to fight comfortably, if it came to that.

And there, in the center of the bridge, Gorek got his first look at Shattered Spear Chieftain Harek, who, for all his muscle, was the widest orc Gorek had ever seen. Harek looked as though someone had squished an ogre down and painted it proper orc green. Or perhaps stretched a dwarf to twice its height, but Gorek would never have said that aloud with the Shattered Spear in earshot.

But Chieftain Harek’s splinters, they did not look like proper orcs at all. Their skin was pale as a foundling’s, and they were skinny enough and had large enough ears that Gorek thought they shared ancestors with goblins.

And that Gorek would have been willing to say aloud, because while both of them looked quick and vicious, Gorek believed he could take either or both of them. If it came to that. Not that Ulk and Berk would give him the chance. Those two proper orcs would split those pretenders as swift as they could draw their huge swords.

The Shattered Spear offered up their dish first, prepared by a female orc with strong enough legs and sharp enough teeth to remind Gorek of Rekaa. She brought forth half-skill bowls full of thick looking soup along with a dark, dense bread.

As the official Broken Tooth cook for this contest — and Gorek tried to think of what winning meant and not the title itself — Gorek got a share of the meal that he could taste the best they could provide. But he got no vote. The decision lay upon the chieftains and splinters.

The soup blended three kinds of Drakeblood river fish, hard to catch and even harder to make palatable. Unless properly handled the river fish would taste of the river’s iron tang, and no orc believed in tasting iron save at the end of an enemy’s weapon when that orc’s time has come.

The soup smelled of blood, goblin blood unless Gorek was mistaken. A mouthwatering aroma. And as he drank it down he tasted the three kinds of river fish without any of the iron tang. Instead all three fish were chewy enough to satisfy the tusks, but distinguished themselves in lightness of texture. Gorek compared them in his mind to dwarvish and gnomish lungs.

The overall taste was lacking in Gorek’s opinion. It relied heavily on the goblin blood, and showed no understanding of subtlety. But the bread had a proper toughness and tasted of both grains and muscles. Gorek had to confess to himself that this was a fine meal for a warrior. It filled the belly, pleased the tongue, and fired the blood for battle.

Gorek knew that his meal was rarer, but was it better for warriors? He didn’t know.

But it was Gorek’s turn to fetch his meal while the chieftains and splinters spoke in low voices.

He brought it forth on fragments of roc egg shell. Tangy chunks of roast roc meat, glazed with the complex honeyed taste of acacia, served with thin slices of elf liver which had been warmed to body temperature and drizzled with elf blood which had been thickened with the nutty flavor of ground golden grass berries. Surrounding them all the more common root vegetables of the grasslands, carrots and turnips, but they had been roasted with both the glaze and the blood for more flavor.

Spicy, sweet and full-bodied, providing enough sustenance for a long run and enough fire to fight a skirmish on arrival. At least, Gorek thought so as he nibbled his own meal, particularly enjoying the roc meat. Heavier than cow in texture, but an angry taste that seemed to bite back against the tongue and urge the diner to fight.

The deliberations ran on. The cooks were dismissed as the chieftains and splinters argued among themselves. The cooks were called forward and had to recount exactly what went into each dish and how it was obtained.

Then the cooks were dismissed again, to stand at the edge of the Drakeblood and wait while the deliberations continued.

Finally the chieftains came together, and cried out as one: “Victory to the Broken Tooth!”

On Gorek’s side of the river all the orcs echoed the cry and whooped with victory. A moment later, the formerly Shattered Spear clan joined them.

And when the initial moment passed, Chieftain Pawk called all to silence.

“In light of this glorious day,” he called in a ringing voice, “I name a new splinter to walk by my side and stand at my back.”

Harek stood straighter, and even as full as Gorek’s stomach was he felt it begin to sink. Did they cut a deal? Was the contest a sham?

“Let all acknowledge my new splinter,” called Chieftain Pawk, “and hear his words as my own when I am absent. I name … Gorek!”

And a cheer went up from Gorek’s side of the river, and loudest of all was Gorek himself.

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