Storm and Stone Ch. 01

The sullen stranger opened his brown eyes to the warm dawn and marked the start of his fifth day in a mobile cage. He brushed a lock of his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and looked around. It was bad enough that he woke up on a bed of hay that reeked of animal droppings, but the scent was made worse by the rain that fell and blew through the bars of their open-sided cages. My jeans are junk, he thought.

The same situation played itself out in all of the cages behind them in their prison caravan. He stank, the cage stank, they all stank, and the rain only mixed the odors into a wonderfully putrid concoction that threatened to overcome their senses. The stranger almost growled in anger when further insult was added and he was forced to sleep on cold, wet hay, but the presence of the armored riders that flanked each wagon held him in check. The lump on the back of his head still hurt from when he had tried to speak when he awoke on the first day. He had tried to ask one of the prisoners, one who looked to be a bald, wrinkled gnome in rags who wore glasses that enlarged his eyes to comic proportions, where he was. In the moment that followed, the stranger mistook the look of fear on the tiny humanoid's face to be directed at him. The stars that erupted in his vision when the butt of the soldier's sword connected with the back of his head disabused him of that notion in short order.

*********

"No talking! 'Nother word and I'll gag ya like those elf bitches and their friend," the human soldier warned him.

While the stranger wondered, through the pain, why the man sounded like he was from the UK, he did not speak again. Over the days that followed, he learned through observation that... while the accents from that region had made their way here, the concept of The Queen's English most certainly had not. Their diction was far from that of his friends across the pond that he frequently gamed with online. It left him puzzled as to how it was even possible.

*********

That brought his thoughts around to his fellow captives and he still found it difficult to believe it all. The elf bitches and their friend, as the guard so delicately put it, consisted of three coal skinned elves: two females and one male. He could see through the holes in the rags they wore that their bodies were lean, toned, and slight of build. Their matte black skin made their eyes glow even in full daylight. They all possessed lustrous white hair, but the male kept his short, and their ears were a far cry from the exaggerated interpretation that anime had brought to the fantasy genre back home. They were only marginally longer than a human's ears, and tapered to the expected point. The three unfortunates could not have spoken if they tried, nor could they do much else... except maybe stand. They had been gagged with some sort of metal plate that covered the lower half of their face and bound in irons that completely immobilized their entire hands. A thought struck him, maybe they're mages. Had it not been for the others among the captives, he would have dismissed the notion of magic without further consideration. It made sense, though it made him wonder exactly what kind of world he could be on where magic existed and elves, dwarves, gnomes, and... orcs lived. Oh yes indeed, a dwarf and six orcs shared the cage with him as well.

The elves, the gnome, and the dwarf - with his bald head, tattoos, and a ridiculously long and intricately braided black beard... they were what he would expect them to be if he found himself on a fantasy world such as this. Then again, no one could have expected that a world like this existed.

The orcs, however, were much larger and their faces looked far more human than he could have ever anticipated. Shocks of coarse, black or in some cases, gray or graying hair hung wild about their heads and square-ish faces. Some had beards; others had only stubble to indicate that they preferred to shave. Their noses were wide and somewhat flat, rather than the porcine depictions he was accustomed to back home. The rich olive green skin and the tusks put further consideration of human kinship to rest, however. Contrary to how the tusks were typically presented in Earth literature, these orcs did not have a forward jaw, so the massively enlarged canines curved out from between the lips and up until the tip reached about a quarter of an inch below the peak of the cheekbone. He also noted that they were easily a third as wide as they were long. The stranger idly wondered whether any teeth were sacrificed by evolution to provide the extra space, since the jaw was not abnormally extended.

Judging from the height of their torsos, the stranger guessed that they might be 8 feet tall or more when standing upright. Their great size and chiseled musculature conveyed their great strength well. Any lingering doubt was washed away by the size and thickness of the short chains that hobbled them and left the orcs unable to fully stand.

They were also more intelligent. Much more intelligent.

The stranger saw the first hints of that intelligence toward the end of the first day when their eyes met as he shamelessly studied one of the orcs while caught up in his initial amazement. The creature studied him right back with the same critical appraisal in its gray eyes. Along the way, he also caught random looks and knowing glances that were passed among them. Clever too, he told himself.

The man was about to have another look at his remaining cage mates, two humans who looked to be of Mediterranean stock, when a hard bump in the road bounced the back of his head off of one of the bars. Pain blossomed from the point where the soldier's hilt struck him, and he hissed aloud in an attempt to bite back a curse as he clutched his head and rocked.

Goddammit man, he chastised himself, you just had to go into that fucking cave, didn't you? Now look at the mess you're in. Fuck, that hur...

A heavy thump in the distance reverberated through the cage and interrupted his mental rant before it could gain traction. The captives all sat up, curiosity evident on their faces. The strange human turned to look through the bars at his back for the source of the noise, and before he could complete the turn they all felt it again. This time it was accompanied by a loud crack from deep within the ancient forest and frightened birds took to the sky en masse. The road they were carted down was flanked on both sides by primeval landscape of truly massive, but recognizable, hardwoods and he noted the complete absence of evergreens. Mighty oaks rose wider and taller than any he had ever seen on Earth. Among them, huge elm, ash and maple trees all vied for supremacy. The stranger was certain that if he looked close enough, he might even pick out a few pecan and walnut trees scattered here and there as well. Myriad vines and even Spanish moss hung from the forest canopy, and the stranger idly wondered just how old the forest was as the thump acquired a rhythm and seemed to draw closer. A lone deer darted out of the woods and bolted down the road ahead and the stranger cursed the day he took up spelunking when all hell broke loose.

It started with a bloodcurdling roar from far behind the tree line. Trees trembled and shook as something barreled toward the road. The rhythmic thump gained more speed and all eyes were locked on a point at the edge of the forest, just ahead of the caravan. The ancient wilderness belched up a great, gray-skinned monstrosity so huge that the orcs looked like dwarves by comparison. The beast held an oak the size of a telephone pole in one hand, and hurled it at the point squad of the caravan. The squad scattered to avoid the tree and the road was left blocked by its bulk. By now, the orcs had begun to cheer and chant something, a name... Kord.

Holy hell, they know that thing! Am I really about to get rescued? the stranger wondered.

The moment the monster released the tree, it broke into a dead run again and slammed its broad shoulders into the lead carriage. When the carriage tumbled off the road and landed upside down against a tree, a cheer began from the prisoners in the back of the caravan and spread forward. When the stranger turned his head to view the commotion, his eyes were drawn to a stream of orcs in heavy black armor that poured from the forest at the rear of the caravan and engaged the rear-guard. More orcs stormed from the woods ahead of the caravan and the captors found themselves trapped between two waves of angry green monsters.

Somehow, the living gray siege-engine was forgotten in the first moments of the orc surge. That minor oversight was corrected when the creature ripped apart the cage that contained the stranger and the immobilized elves. The beast quickly found himself confronted by three armored soldiers. The men attacked, but their swords could barely manage to score the creature's outer hide. The wounds did cause pain, however, and the hulking creature roared again. With a mighty backhand that moved faster than it ought, the men were permanently removed from the battle.

*********

The stranger found himself suddenly released from his prison, and before he could collect his wits, an orc thrust a black short-sword into his right hand and bellowed a mighty war cry. The human could not understand the orc, but he knew what that cry meant. He looked down at the blade in his hands and considered his time as an SCA fighter, it was lighter than even the rattan weapons he was used to, but appeared to be made of steel. Hmm, he thought, this just might work.

"Fuck it!" the stranger said, and bellowed his own war cry before he charged into the fray.

The orc who armed him chuckled at the small human's enthusiasm, but that chuckle died in his throat when the man's first opponent died much faster than he should have. These were skilled warriors of the Vaszul Empire, not some puffed up jailer from the average city-guard, but the strange human had an unorthodox style that took them all by surprise. The soldier opened with a thrust at the stranger's gut, but the blade found only empty space; the man had evaded to the soldier's right. The stranger's sword-arm was already raised and he rewarded the soldier for his effort with a high-outside parry across the visor of the soldier's helm. The unusual attack surprised him long enough for the stranger to use the momentum from the bounce to carry the blade into an overhand strike against the back of the soldier's right leg that practically ignored the plate greaves he had on and nearly sheared his leg off at mid-thigh with the follow through. It didn't end there, and the human brought his arm up into a counterclockwise circle as he stepped left and struck out to the right with the sword; the blade took the soldier's head from behind before he could finish the fall from his maimed leg.

"Holy shit, I did it!" the man shouted.

That got the attention of a few other troops and the stranger quickly found himself surrounded by heavily armored men. The fight was on.

"Fuckin' figures." he muttered as they went on the attack.

*********

As Captain Grokan tag-Gurog nug-Trazzak surveyed the chaos, he noted that all was well. His forces had dispatched or captured most of the soldiers, but a handful still resisted. His keen amber eyes were drawn to a strangely dressed human who fought without armor and he fought like a demon. What started as three-on-one had escalated to six-on-one and the stranger fought as though his opponents stood still.

The six had him surrounded, yet could not score more than shallow nicks and cuts against the speedy human. When they finally tightened around him, the stranger lunged forward and shoved the guard directly in front of him with his left hand while he flipped his blade upside down in his right and made a seemingly blind stab directly behind him with his blade. Surprisingly, to the orc, it struck home in another guard's gut and the human spun and gave the blade a vicious twist before he withdrew the weapon.

The orc captain was impressed with the human's opening move, but the man's speed and strength left him spellbound. The strange man immediately spun around and bounced the flat of his blade off the face of the helm of the guard he'd just pushed. Once again, the stranger harnessed the reverse momentum. This time, he took a two-handed grip and brought the blade around to parry a thrust, and to the orc's surprise, the strength of the blow knocked the guard's weapon from his grasp. The stranger again used momentum, this time from the follow-through, to whirl the blade in an overhead circle and brought it back down to bear in a deep, diagonal slash across the same guard's face and put him down.

With four left, the captain watched as the stranger again spun to face the subject of his previous abuse. He never stopped moving and kicked the man square in the chest, then drove his sword through the chest of the man beside him less than half a breath after. In the blink of an eye, he had wrenched his sword free and made a full spin to deliver a slash that put the target of his abuse out of his misery and marked the stranger's second beheading of the day.

The orc's eyes went wide and his jaw threatened to fall from its hinges when the bewildering human dropped his sword and offered the final two a feral grin, then started to... take off his pants?

*********

The stranger had noticed that his remaining opponents wore no headgear. He had long ago realized that they were too slow to keep up. With just the two left, it was time to have some real fun. He grinned at the asshole he now recognized as the one who bashed him in the head his first day. The stranger threw his sword to the ground and ripped the buckle from his belt. It separated into a pair of brass knuckles that he slipped onto each hand with wicked glee.

"Let's see how you feel about bashing innocent strangers now, fuckstick..." the stranger growled.

He launched himself into the first soldier and wrapped him up at the waist. Before the bewildered fighter could comprehend why he was being hugged in such a manner, he was hoisted onto the stranger's shoulder and slammed to the ground with such force that his vision was overtaken by a flash of white light and sparks and left him unable to breathe. Then the punches came. The stranger sat astride the soldier's waist and began to hammer his target's face with savage abandon. Every twist of his torso brought two blows, a backhand followed by a haymaker. The soldier thought that his attacker had ran out of breath when the stranger paused in the assault on his ruined face, but quickly realized it was only so he could shift his attacks lower. The helpless soldier could only grunt in pain as every blow left huge dents in his armor and cracked or broke still more bones.

The soldier's partner raised his weapon to stop the onslaught by this insane human, but thought better of it when he found the eyes of every idle orc in the chaos suddenly locked on him. The captain shook his head slowly and patted the crossbow that hung from his hip. The soldier sighed and tossed his sword to the ground, then tackled the human off his battle-brother, who could only watch in broken horror as the stranger gave his compatriot a one handed shove from atop him that sent the soldier sprawling. The savage human delivered a bone-crushing punch to the newcomer's cheekbone and dragged him to his feet by his hair while blood poured from the wicked cut left by the brass knuckles on his now-ruined face.

*********

It may have made sense now, but the orc captain was stunned nonetheless. The stranger had pulled a pair of cleverly hidden brass cesti from his belt and proceeded to brutalize the first man. Captain Grokan had never seen such raw speed and power exhibited by a human. It was not enough for him to cut down four skilled assailants like they were children. No, this stranger tossed heavy-armored opponents around like toys. Such was the case in the tackle; the stranger shoved the second guard off him like he weighed nothing. The great orc could not hide his surprise when he watched the stranger hoist that same guard into the air for what he thought was going to be a back-breaker, but instead lifted him into an upside-down bear-hug and hopped. When the man failed to land on both feet, and instead dropped into a one-legged kneel, everything made sense. The stranger dropped the soldier straight down onto his extended knee, and the man screamed in agony when his left collarbone was annihilated. Then the orc watched as the stranger dumped his prey onto the ground with all of the consideration one would give a stone in the road and turned away to catch his breath.

*********

"Payback is a bitch, ain't it? Bash a man for talking again, motherfucker" the stranger growled as he rose up and kicked the screaming man again for good measure. The screams rose in volume.

The stranger looked up from the fight and drew a deep breath, then exhaled as he took a quick look around. It was over. Whatever the purpose was here today, the attackers had succeeded, and he had managed to help. He hoped that would count for something, as he had no intentions of going back to a cage, especially now that he was aware he could fight back. A big orc with a long black beard and wild hair down his shoulders to match, dressed in lightly gilded full-plate armor now strode toward him from the fringes of the battlefield. As the massive creature reached him, the stranger thought he might need to lean back just to look the orc in the eye. This one looked to be a bit bigger than the others and he estimated the orc at nearly 9 feet tall. The orc offered up a gauntleted hand to the stranger and a big smile split the toothy maw. The human hoped it was a smile, anyway. At this angle it was difficult to tell. The stranger looked at the offered hand for a brief moment, then tucked the knuckles into his pockets and returned the greeting. It did not surprise the man one bit that his entire hand was swallowed up by the orc's meaty paw.

The orc spoke first.

"I'm Captain Grokan tag-Gurogg nug-Trazzak. Thanks for your help against the Vaszul, stranger. I don't think I've ever seen a human so fierce, nor one who fought so strangely. Come to think of it, I've never seen one so uniquely clothed, either. From where do you hail?"

An orc who speaks clear English, imagine that, he thought. The stranger also noticed the minor slur from the tusks, in the orc's speech. Another surprise was that his voice was smooth and well-formed, not all gravelly and ragged. Orcs from Earth fantasy were not very bright and were also quite savage as a rule, so the intelligence he spotted earlier and civility on display here by these creatures was refreshing. He offered the captain a nervous smile when he felt his neck pop from the stretch of peering up at the orc's face.

"Fuck, but you're tall. My name's Arawn Stonebrook but you can call me Rawn as long as you don't put me back in a cage, and you are quite welcome. About that fight, though, I... didn't... really expect that little bit with the sword to work. I use some of that style in pseudo-re-enactment contests with wooden weapons... real armor, though. The rest was improvisation... those guys were just so slow. That blade is really fucking light, by the way. Anyway, I didn't want to die, so I gave it a shot. As for my home... judging by the beautiful stars you have in the night sky here, I'd say it is somewhere very, very far away. Earth and the Sol system might not even be in the same galaxy as... uh...."