Fight for the Broken Land Pt. 02

There was no describing of Damoran's relief but it was far from over. Enemy soldiers were running now but Damoran knew it would not be enough if they would not reach the Raz-ul and other leaders. Just when he could see Raz-ul and the black priest a heavy green smog covered them all.

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Sir Elliot Dome was a balding old man who was as much a politician as a soldier. He stood in front of Damoran and right next to him, the magistrate of the North was screaming at the far younger cavalry commander. And Damoran listened to it all with a stone face not saying a word.

The accusation from the magistrate seemed to be as endless as was his rage. Finally, Sir Elliot stepped in,

"Please, George, calm yourself down and let the man explain himself. And Damoran, could you be kind enough to tell me if you understand anything about the command chain on the battlefield?"

From Damoran's perspective, the matter was simple enough. The plan had required the maximum amount of secrecy and he had decided that apart from him and Kilroy no one needed to know the actual plan. Of course, he did not know what Kilroy had told to his closest commanders but it was not relevant anymore. The maneuver had been secret long enough and perfectly timed on the battlefield. And a fight against an overpowering enemy had been won.

"Won? Won you say?" screamed the magistrate again to Damoran's explanations and stormed on,

"You risked our entire cavalry on a suicide strike and you let the enemy leaders flee from us."

While this was all true Ser Elliot wasn't nearly as agitated as the magistrate was. He remembered his own thoughts from the same morning. Seeing the huge numbers of Bara-Ur troops had made him sure that he and his men would all be corpses on this grass-filled valley at the end of the day. He hadn't been able to see any sort of strategy or tactics that would have saved the day for his troops and in his opinion this half-human half-orc had saved them all.

"What about tomorrow? Bara-Ur might still have twenty thousand men and they have time to re-group themselves. Not to mention they have a weird mage huffing and puffing green smoke out of his arsehole!" the magistrate ranted on as he was not able to hold his temper down.

Damoran looked at the magistrate with a stern look and started to explain himself,

"Tomorrow, when the battle comes we will have a huge advantage. Kilroy and his troops can be trusted even if you refuse him from this council. And then there are the slaves. Earlier today I released all the imprisoned slaves with one condition. They are to return to the Bara-Ur slave units and..."

The magistrate could not listen to it anymore and exploded again,

"That is a war crime! You let the enemy go without consulting your superiors! We will have to fight them again tomorrow!"

Ser Elliot was able to see where Damoran was going and once again asked George to calm down. This gave Damoran a chance to continue,

"My condition to the slaves was that when they return they will spread the word that we will not fight them. Our real enemy is the regular troops of Bara-Ur. If the slave units lower their arms we will just simply walk past them. Even better some of them may want to fight with us."

The magistrate's expression told Damoran and Sir Elliot that he did not buy it at all. But what mattered was that Sir Elliot thought that it could work. Then a messenger out of his breath interrupted their meeting and suddenly nothing was the same anymore.

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"Battleaxe? Are you sure?" demanded Raz-ul from the messenger. But the messenger was sure. There had been no hesitation and no time was needed for any considerations. The chieftain orc turned into the black priest and to his other captains,

"Didn't our spies tell us that he is an exceptional swordsman? Why would he choose the battle axe?"

The thin Percy stepped up,

"It is a well-known fact that the half-breed's father always fought with a battleaxe."

Everyone, and especially Raz-ul thought that Damoran must have gone mad. Battleaxes would only favor the bigger and stronger of the fighters. And it was no secret that on the field, Raz-ul liked to use a heavy battle hammer. A hammer was not that far off from the axe. When even the black priest seemed lost at what would this mean Raz-ul decided it would not mean a thing. When the time would come he would crush the half-breed and get on with his campaign.

The priest had suggested the ploy and it was simple enough. Strictly thought it would not be a final duel in its original meaning since neither army had the upper hand and neither would promise to dismantle itself no matter the outcome but it was worth a shot. The priest's motivation was clear enough; the battle earlier that day had once again made it clear. As long as they were fighting against the Andurian anything could happen. So why not try to appeal to his pride?

Furthermore, the Bara-Ur sorcerer had a spell in mind he could use to ensure the outcome and Raz-ul was as big and strong as an orc could get. They had made sure that both camps knew the story of Raz-ul's grandfather and Damoran's father fighting each other so they knew Damoran could hardly refuse without being labeled as a coward.

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As soon as Seth heard there would be a duel of champions from each army he hired two of Damoran's trusted soldiers and sealed himself into a secluded tent at the edge of their camp. The soldiers were supposed to stop anyone from entering the tent and for the sake of their lives, they should stay out as well. They were certain that Seth had entered the tent alone but during the night they could still hear creepy voices discussing in some long-forgotten languages.

The amount of respect among Damoran's soldiers towards him could not have been higher. It seemed that apart from the magistrate of the North there were very few such men who did not understand that Damoran had saved them all. And on top of that when the opposing leader, the infamously big and strong orc Raz-ul had invited him to duel there had been no hesitation.

"But why the battle axe? Doesn't it give Raz-ul the upper hand? asked one of his trusted captains from him as they were dressing Damoran for the battle.

"It served my father well enough. Now it will serve me," told Damoran with determination. The captain nodded thoughtfully. He had been with his commander for such a long time that he had to question his judgment on it. In his opinion, with the sword, Damoran could very well be the best that there had ever been. And he had never seen him fight with the axe.

When the dawn came two delegations gathered around a natural cradle of land in the middle of the valley. The tall grass had been cut down where it hadn't already been trampled down by the previous day's fighting. Both sides approached with caution and many of the men had been left far behind to form the frontlines of their armies. But still, there were more than a thousand lucky ones who would be allowed to witness the fight.

Sir Elliot was not there as he wanted to be ready if the other army would make some unexpected move against them. But the northern magistrate was far too curious that he could have passed on the opportunity to see the spectacle.

Damoran stared at his opponent from the other side of the fighting pit and was certain that there would not be any sort of trickery by Raz-ul's army. The look on the big orc's face told Damoran that he wanted this fight most probably more than he did. And it made sense. If he wins the legend could carry him all the way to the overall victory over the government's troops.

Damoran had not seen Seth the whole morning but at the first thought of where his grey companion could be Seth emerged right next to him. Only he wasn't Seth. Or was but then again not at all. Under his grey hood, his face seemed to be his own and several others simultaneously. Even his voice echoed in a strange tone making it almost incomprehensible.

The black priest and Raz-ul followed with great intensity what was going on.

"Is that a mage by him?" asked Razul.

The black priest had expected something like this. He had noticed on the battlefield yesterday that his misery spell did not work the same way it had done earlier. The sight of another spellcaster explained it to him but it also made him uncomfortable.

"Can you figure out what they are doing? Is it something I should be aware of?" Raz-ul inquired. For a while the priest was silent but then he answered,

"If I'm not mistaken it is some sort of an ancestor spell."

The purple orc fighter was suspicious to hear about a spell like that and asked the priest if they could do something similar.

"Perhaps. But we don't have the time. And it would require that my ancestors would be willing to help me to reach out to your ancestors. And they in turn should be willing to help you. And who knows what giving such help back to the mortal world will cost them beyond the great curtain of life?" answered the priest. Raz-ul could see that the priest was not certain if their ancestors would have answered the call at all.

"Then do your own work wizard and let's get it over with!" he barked with irritation.

"You remember what to do after I cast the spell?" asked the priest. The orc looked at the frightened slave next to them and nodded,

"I know what to do."

And moments later Damoran and Raz-ul were facing each other in a ring. Damoran could see a huge amount of blood on Raz-ul's face and even his eyes were all red. He wondered what it could have been but clearly, it had made Raz-ul even more dangerous. The purple warrior was lusting for blood.

The priest had done something in front of Raz-ul and then suddenly the orc had jumped on the poor slave right next to them. Biting the veins of his neck open and spraying his blood all over himself.

"Calm down son. Focus on the fight!" said a friendly and somewhat proud voice inside Damoran's head and the battle-axe in his hand could not have felt any more familiar than what it did. It belonged in his hand. Then his opponent charged at him like a raging bull.

Huge swings of the Bara-Ur leader's axe were aimed at Damoran and he used all his dexterity to evade and parry. The audience around them had a hard time believing what they saw. The purple orc was huge but Damoran could not be considered small either. And the way the half-breed moved his nearly 7-foot frame was just extraordinary. Like a gymnastic athlete, he danced around his foe making jumps and spinning kicks in the air while dodging Raz-ul.

In a frenzy, Raz-ul counterattacked with his axe and several times it swung by so close to Damoran's body that the audience thought he had gotten him. Now and then the axes clang into each other and it was easy to see that where Damoran was able to use uncanny skills with his weapon Raz-ul trusted more brute force.

They were an even match for each other and the longer the fight went on the more they were panting. If Damoran had thought that he could wear the big brute out of breath he was now learning that Raz-ul was extremely resilient and fit. And if Raz-ul had thought that he could crush Damoran with sheer strength and bloodlust alone he was likewise disappointed.

Then Damoran's defenses failed for a fraction of a second and he had to pay the price. He had encountered the sideways swing of Raz-ul's axe but the orc had used a faint attack and striken past Damoran with his weapon. But only to crash his huge body elbow-first into the side of Damoran's head.

Damoran rolled a long way back and fell to the ground. Losing his axe while flying back. Raz-ul roared a gruesome battle cry and the audience held their breath as they saw him jumping into the air and launching a huge final blow with his axe from high above.

At the last moment, Damoran was able to roll away from it. His head hurt and his vision was tunneling down into darkness but he figured that he just had to move. Away or to side it did not matter as long as he didn't stop. Raz-ul's axe clanged into a stone in the ground and the audience gasped for air in unison.

Without his axe Damoran jumped and rolled and despite all the odds managed to avoid all of Raz-ul's blows. His vision was returning. With a glance, he registered the axe of the Andurians at the peripheral edge of his vision and a strange calmness fell into him.

For a moment he was somewhere else. The audience did not chant his and Raz-ul's names anymore but something completely different. And the purple foe in front of him looked different. In a haze, he saw how the old bruiser Raz-Modan jumped on Grok and Grok answered by falling backward. Throwing his opponent over him with his feet and then rolling on top of him. Crushing his neck with his axe at the end of it.

"Do it, son. It will work!" a friendly voice encouraged him. Only he didn't have the axe like Grok had had in the vision. Raz-ul wasted no time and charged at him like a maniac. With a last-second sidestep, Damoran aligned himself in the angle he wanted and then they were rolling. In the midst of their combined somersault, Damoran's hand swept the earth and found what he was looking for. The axe of his father was again in his hands and only a blink of an eye later he was on top of the dying Raz-ul.

Kilroy stared at the fight mouth open. He had seen the ending once before. This made it only more impossible to believe what he had just witnessed. All the audience around them roared with excitement.

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The duel had practically ended the enmities between the war parties. When Raz-ul had been killed the black priest had just vanished into the crowd. In the confusion of it all the remaining leaders of Bara-Ur forces decided it was better to surrender or flee.

A month after the great victory there was a celebration ball at the palace of the nation. The capital was full of joy and heroes like Sir Elliot Dome, the northern magistrate with his clans, and Damoran, the son of the orc general Grokon were openly celebrated by the people.

Almost everyone worth mentioning was there. The highest officials of the government, the richest merchants and business owners, and the old noble houses. However, the orc families of the East were missing. Damoran had asked for them to be invited but the general superintendent of protocol thought it would be unwise to start mingling with the orcs.

Privately, he did admit to Damoran that they had helped to restore the peace, stability, and overall credibility of the current government but it was not his place to make such huge adjustments to the diplomatic customs. The government leaders were equally reluctant to make the superintendent change his mind so the orcs had not been invited.

Damoran's father-in-law had been removed from his office as the state secretary. Many fractions of power considered that he and several other leaders of the nation before the war had failed to recognize the scale of the threat from Bara-Ur. For those who plotted in the shadows to maximize their power and wealth the war and its aftermath had been a welcomed opportunity.

Damoran was not at the party and some even inquired if the famous, and unmarried, cavalry general was going to attend. They got their answer in the middle of the evening when the large doors of the ballroom opened and Damoran strode in.

Only that he wasn't dressed for the ball. With his father's great battle axe on his back and the one-eyed orc chieftain Kilroy by his side, he led a whole squadron of his soldiers into the ballroom.

The drunken party had difficulties comprehending what was happening. Damoran's mystified grey companion conjured up a huge wooden ruler's throne in the end of the room. It seemed to grow straight from the floorboards and the unexpected demonstration of magic caught the attention of all those who had somehow managed to miss Damoran's entrance.

Nearly half a year earlier Damoran had looked into one green eye in the middle of the night and made a pact that was formed more out of necessity than from his personal desires. After the failed meeting with the elders, he decided not to leave the East without the help of the orcs. No matter the cost.

He had broken into the house of Kilroy in secrecy and talked to him alone. The old one-eye had asked him what would Damoran do if he still refused to help. Damoran had answered with respect and truth that he would kill him and try his luck with the others. Surprisingly, after seeing the lengths to which Damoran was willing to go Kilroy had agreed to help. But with one condition - Damoran would have to seize the absolute power at the end of it all. And make the land a better place for both the orcs and the men.

And true to his word Damoran made the people of the ballroom declare him as the sovereign of the state. Some of the nobilita tried to flee but Damoran's soldiers occupied all the exits and did not let them. Taking their turns, everyone knelt and pledged their allegiance to their new ruler. Damoran, the First of his name, from the house of the Andurians.