Five years ago
"Chief Korchag said wait here, little cubs," the warrior said, kicking Hakiri back into the tent with the other children. She lay gasping on the ground, holding her side, feeling a cracked rib and then pushing herself up before she could even catch her breath before the others decided kicking her was a fun game. No cub of the Bloodfang Clan survived childhood if they let anything as insignificant as a broken rib keep them on the ground.
The Bloodfangs were fighting another column of knights from Lastwall, who marched bolding into Belkzen to make war on the tribes. The warrior guarding the tent, the one who had kicked her, was named Maharg. He had been left with the cubs because he was a bootlicker who did what Korchag told him to, no matter how dishonorable. He was the kind of orc who would rather live than rage, and the cubs how the others treated him. Lower than a human, even, for humans were at least worthy foes. So Maharg watched the cubs while the true orcs of Bloodfang ran under the stars to fight their enemies.
The trumpets sounded, too close, and the roar of the Bloodfang charge. Hakiri opened the flap of the tent, and saw Maharg watching the ridge. She could hear the clash of arms and see the orange glow of fire behind the hills, and then she saw steel glinting in the starlight. The knights had sent another column to take the Bloodfang in the rear. Just as she realized it, Maharg grunted, an arrow appearing in his chest. He began to draw his axe, but another arrow struck him and he fell.
The thunder of hooves on the ground was racing closer, and flaming arrows arced across the sky towards the camp. Hakiri clenched her teeth and watched as they fell, some falling harmlessly to the ground, others landing on tents, setting fires. The cubs and the elders, mothers and other necessary weak could not stand against them, and though it shamed her, Hakiri ran. Darkness was the orcs' friend, too, as well as fury and their stonehard souls.
*
The next night, she found the warriors of the tribe, left to rot at the ford where they had been ambushed. She took what weapons she could carry from the dead, and followed the stars that wandered westward. She shed no tears for the fallen, but set her heart to survival. Vengeance would come, but not until she was stronger. To the west was a place that was called Freedom Town in the language of humans. As she understood, it was a kind of tribe for those who had no tribe.
*
Freedom Town wasn't quite what she had hoped, and it hadn't lived up to its name. She sat in the small cell and waited for the rat. She had tried to find a place here, but they said she was too young to be a fighter. They said they couldn't trust her to fight other orcs, as though every orc were somehow of her tribe. She gave no sign that she understood their words, but set about proving them wrong, until one said that an orc girl with no tribe had no honor. Him, she killed to prove her honor, and the others she had to kill to defend herself.
"So you've got at least an orc's sense of honor," the rat said. Marshall Oswald, the rat, had broken up the fight and thrown her in this cell. "And I could use someone who fights like you. Where is your tribe?"
"Dead," she said, and told him her story.
"You'll do," the rat said, and opened the cell.
