Chapter One: The Sleelcrusher

“Orc: member of the urukidae family; green, large humanoid with simian-like heavy jaws and boar-like tusks. (…) While most of them prove to be intellectually underdeveloped, some orcs actually reach the level of the most intelligent humans.”
(“The Modern Bestiary” vol.1 Sentient Races, 205)


“And then Darkness spawned her brood: vicious trolls, crafty goblins and foul orcs. They spilled over the land like a dark tide, defiling and slaughtering like the mindless pawns of a greater evil chess master they are, never knowing light.
(…) Shall you ever meet one of those beasts, slay them. It shall be an act of mercy, for it will free their soul of the dark and break the chains they in their blindness cannot even perceive.”
(“On the Creation of Species” vol. 2, 30)




It had to change.

Khardur realised it first when he was but a youngling, not even allowed to wear any piercings. It was not the matter of piercings that was bothering him, though. Piercings were, on the whole, rather irrelevant. No, the problem lay somewhere different.

It seemed that whenever some crazy necromancer or some under-dressed dominatrix decided to take over the world, the orcs were the one who got the short end of the stick. If only it would happen less often! But no: once there was a lot of them, really a lot, then you got some sickly-looking fellow, who would start a war and orcs cheerfully went and got slaughtered, because said fellows had no idea about strategy. (Sometimes the orcs didn’t even have to take part in the battles to have humans trying to slaughter them. It was enough that some sorceress in black lipstick made herself a throne out of sculls.) Said evil overlords and ladies also tended to be busy with some king’s daughter or son, instead of learning how to plan a campaign. Well, sometimes it was a peasant’s son or a merchant’s daughter, but in general it was some human with parents—dead or living, it didn’t matter. Sooner or later they did pop up. Khardur had heard of only one mysterious halfing orphan that stopped an invasion of an evil sorcerer.

After long and mature deliberations, combined with as long and serious conversations with shamans, and some less serious, but nevertheless long conversations with adventurers, Khardur arrived at the conclusion that it was all due to a misunderstanding of cognitive nature. An orc when they would hear the word “dark” would generally think of an old forest (without those pesky elves, mind you. You couldn’t have a proper dark forest, if elves lived in it. Instead you got a sort of a shiny sparkly thingummy that pretended to be a forest.) A human (and most elves), when they would hear the word “dark”, thought of demons, monsters and BDS&M. So, essentially, orcs thought they were fighting for proper dark forests without bloody elves in them, while instead they were fighting for some idiot’s right to whip his or her sex-slaves. Sometimes, it was fighting for some demon’s right to tear the fabric of reality, destroy every bloody thing and then plunge everything into a never-ending downwards spiral of chaos. Khardur wondered how said demons wanted to plunge anything into chaos, if everything was destroyed. Presumably, they didn’t know either.

Now, Khardur was not stupid. In fact, he reconed he was quite smart. Possibly, he was even very smart. And since he was smart, instead of starting heaving speeches now, Khardur set out to become more powerful. Power was the most important thing, if you were an orc. Now acquiring some was not as easy as one might have suspected. However, if you were in possession of a working brain (not letting other kids hit your head, had really helped), you could plan things. And once things went according to plan, you just set about fighting and killing, preferably in a spectacular way. In Khardur’s case you also did your best to find out about other races.




Ten years later, he was powerful enough (and knew enough to make the head of a stupider orc burst). He had earned himself a sobriquet: Steelcrusher. It was a good story—a story he was proud to tell, but it was also an asset. He was the Steelcrusher, because he’d managed to break a warhammer with his own hands. (He broke them in the process, but still. Anyway, it was either he did something or his head was getting crushed. On the whole, he preferred having broken fingers, which didn’t tend to be lethal, to a crushed scull that did tend to be quite terminal.) And as Steelcrusher, he became the leader of his clan.

And as Steelcrusher, he started working to make sure the orcs survived, no matter how much the humans developed. At first, it was slow and pain-stalking: it required him to convince hot-headed young morons and equally hot-headed old morons that the times changed and they had to think or the humans would beat them. If they wanted to still be proud and strong warriors they had to make sure that they wouldn’t end up as proud and strong antiquities.

On the whole though, he’d have been happier if keeping up with the times did not involve wearing suits. On the bright side, the dwarf ambassador seemed to think the same. He didn’t look particularly good in the suit either, even though his red beard looked well-groomed and had been braided in what dwarves considered to be a formal manner. Of course, it might have been the braided beard, it might have been the way his eyes glared from under the bushy eyebrows, or it simply might have been that suits just didn’t look good on dwarves. The elves sent a woman, who was doing a very good impression of a male peacock and that not only because her dress was a shimmering-blue green with a train that did resemble the said birds tail, but also because she had the air of self-important egotism. Humans invented suits, so the Secretary for Human and Non-Human Relations seemed perfectly content; although exactly why Khardur couldn’t fathom. He’d have rather pulled out ever single nail in his hands than showed himself with such a ridiculous waxed moustache and with hair that looked as if they had been glued to your head with something very shiny.

“Ladies and gentleman,” started the human, “we have gathered here to discuss a new peace treaty.”

“Well, it’s rather obvious what should be in it, isn’t it?” said the elf, ignoring Khardur. “Orcs and dwarves should agree never to attack us and disarm.”

“Disarm?!” the dwarf nearly chocked. “No dwarf will agree to stop carrying his axe!”

Khardur looked at the woman coldly. Well, she’d mostly get a good look on his jaw and his fangs, but it was even better than a cold look.

“Call me a primitive savage,” he said in accentless common, which quite effectively proved he was neither primitive nor savage, “but it seems to me that if we disarm, you will have no problems killing us out. I’m afraid my lowly brain cannot comprehend how a piece of paper will protect my people.”

“You dare to insinuate we would attack somebody with whom we signed a peace treaty?!” the elven ambassador demanded.

“There was the matter of the mine in the Avallean mountains,” the dwarf said. “The one near Grot.”

“That was a hundred years ago!” protested the human.

“Dwarves and elves live long,” reminded the dwarf.

Khardur shrugged.

“Most orcs don’t live up to fifty,” he said. “But we do write down every noteworthy fight there’s ever been.”

“You can write?!” the human, dwarf and elf cried in unision.

“Only in orky,” Khardur replied matter-of-factly. “Common is too difficult for your average orc.”

“Well, obviously,” huffed the elf. “You wouldn’t be able to master proper-…”

“Proper writing doesn’t have so much squiggly bits,” Khardur said. The dwarf nodded sagely.

“My grandma would agree,” said the human.



The party was in all manners inappropriate, Khardur and Gerwulf, the dwarven ambassador, agreed. You weren’t allowed to quaff beer; indeed there was no beer at all. You didn’t get anything with more kick either, just fizzy wine. The food wasn’t proper: small canapés.

Apparently, it was elven cuisine. Well, obviously, if you couldn’t make proper food you’d say it’s cuisine, which was probably elven for “mock-food for suckers who aren’t elves”. And there was the matter of suits – how on earth was one supposed to enjoy anything while looking like a penguin?

Andariel, the elven ambassador, seemed to be enjoying things, but she was talking to other elves. The Secretary for Human and Non-human Relations, Mr. Richard Grey, was introducing his wife to some dwarves.

“’umans are funny, lad,” Gerwulf sighed conversationally.

Khardur nodded, looking at Mrs. Grey. She was fashionably dressed; that is her dress concealed that fact that she had breasts and hips, though you could guess she had never been gifted in those parts anyway. But even while trying to give off an impression of masculinity, the clothes somehow managed to be very feminine. It was somewhat puzzling, but of course humans weren’t orcs and didn’t value the straight-forward approach as much.

“You’ll ‘ave to get married,” continued Gerwulf. “All amabassadors ‘ave to. I mean, I’m getting married next week.”

“Congratulations,” replied Khardur. “Am I invited?”

“Everybody is,” Gerwulf said darkly. “Even the press. At least nobody will tell me to get ‘appropriately dressed’. That means you can wear your armor and bring one weapon.”

Khardur’s grin made a waiter suddenly remember he needed to go to the toilet.

“Anyway,” Khardur said, changing the topic. “Where are the little chocolates in golden wrapping? Aren’t they obligatory?”

“We’ll get them after eight,” Gerwuld answered.

They didn’t get to continue their conversation about the importance of serving chocolates on time, because the Secretary for Human and Non-Human Relations wandered towards them, his spouse by his side.

“Good evening Gerwulf,” said Mr. Grey and nodded politely at Khardur. “And Mr. Khardur. I’d like to introduce my wife to you. This is Jean. Jean this is the orcish amabassador, clanleader Khardur Steelcrusher.”

Mrs. Grey smiled politely and extended her hand. Well, at least she knew about orcs and kissing anything. And so they shook their hands and said they were pleased to meet each other.

“I heard that some of the world’s best cooks are orcs?” inquired Mrs. Grey in spirit of wifely small-talk.

“Well, we certainly think they are,” Khardur said.

“I’m sure we’ll get a chance to try some,” Gerwulf added. “By the way, I hope the stains washed off?”

“Oh, yes,” Jean Grey replied. “Luckily, the sauce wasn’t very fatty. I hope the tablecloth is well again too?”

“Naturally,” Gerwulf said. “As you said, the sauce wasn’t very fatty.”

Mrs. Grey nodded. It didn’t seem like she found it at all strange that an ambassador had any
idea how his tablecloth was. Khardur had no idea if he had any tablecloths, but than the orcish embassy wasn’t ready yet, so he didn’t think it mattered.

“I always wondered why orcs wear such long hair,” mused Mrs. Grey, looking at Khardur or rather one of his braids – very thick black braids. Khardur’s hairdo looked pretty much like that of a good schoolgirl. Of course, it didn’t look schoolgirlish on Khardur, but one has to try hard to achieve that effect on a huge muscular green man with sharp tusks.

“Mainly to make fun of all those who are too short to grab it,” replied the orc.

“Really?” asked Gerwulf.

“Not dwarves,” Khardur added thoughtfully. “One shouldn’t make fun of people whose axes are level with one’s knees.”

“Or teeth with one’s groin,” contributed Gerwulf.



The negotiations were moving forward. Rather slowly, but without accidents. That is Ambassador Andariel val Qu’essa did not threaten to blast Ambassador Gerwulf Blackmountain into the nearest forest (which was apparently 200 km away) after he named the sixth battle elves and dwarves fought. There seemed to be no end of those. Neither did Khardur threaten to defenestrate her after having tied her legs over her head. And certainly Mr. Grey didn’t have to threaten to let the reporters in and let them interview all the ambassadors. Absolutely not.

“Ahem,” Andariel said, adjusting her hat. It was a very flamboyant affair – with fathers enough for at least four big birds. “As I was saying, we, elves, as higher beings, understand that lesser races need their toys and will not ask you to remove them.”

She looked at Gerwulf and then at Khardur with a wince.

“We, orcs, as the higher race understand, that puny little weaklings like elves are afraid,” Khardur replied slowly. “So we will not wave our weapons at you.”

“We, dwarves, as the endarkened race, agree with the oricsh ambassador,” Gerwulf said.

“And, we, humans,” Mr. Grey said rolling his eyes, “as the race with most common sense, will keep copies of this treaty in every public library, embassy, etc. etc. and will shove it under your noses whenever you start fighting again.”

They all looked at themselves as if each of them were tempting the other to say something nasty. Finally, Khardur decided this was being damn silly and childish.

“I wasn’t really going to throw her out,” he said. “I mean, I knew she wouldn’t blast anybody.”

“Um… It was a bit obvious, wasn’t it?” Andariel asked, sighing. “I shouldn’t have made my hands glow.”

Mr. Grey sighed heavily; of course one expected an orc to be quarrelsome, but elves generally attempted to convince everybody they were above such trivial things like quarrels. You’d think it would stop them from fighting whenever they got near an orc or a dwarf, but no—they cheerfully went and got themselves provoked.