a short story by Sean T. Collins, 1/4/25

How it started. Can’t say I remember much of what happened after, but how it started? Yeah, I can tell you that. It was me, Kyle, Bryan, Eustace, Jenny, Eleanor, Tom of course, and it was cold. We were in the Green Dog, which was our regular then, and we were a couple drinks in, all of us. Bryan was smoking his pipe, it was new, he was showing it off like. Eustace had such a thing for Eleanor and all of us knew it but her. Kyle and me, we were talking about that year’s Games. Kenny, he owned the place, he had the fire going strong as he could, but we were still all bundled up. Jenny tied her hair back so she could lean in toward the candle on the table, even. It was cold. 

I think it was Jenny who noticed first because I saw her turn white as a sheet while the rest of us were still having a laugh. There was a lull in the noise and then we heard the sound of footfalls, and they were heavy like, and you could hear the scrape against the wood floor.Then I realize it had gotten so cold because the door had opened — like I said, we’d been drinking, things weren’t coming to me quickly — and I turn to look.

He was man height — peasant, not aristo, I mean, but still taller than all of us. He had on a scratched grey chest plate and dark leather armor, which you could see was ripped and stained black in a bunch of places. Ears like a bat and skin the color of, you know, an old bruise, that purple-yellow flesh tone. Big red eyes the size of a human’s mouth. Teeth the size of human fingers that stuck out even with his mouth shut. He had these big bony feet with hard yellow toenails that scraped against the ground when he walked, just these big grippers slapping the floor. When there’s an orc in your regular, you notice these things. Makes an impression like. 

Tom, he didn’t say much on a night out usually. He stands up and he says, and I mean loud, “What do you want?” 

So that kills whatever conversation was left in the place. 

The orc doesn’t even look in Tom’s direction, just sits down at the bar. Then he goes, and I’m not gonna do the voice so you’re gonna have to imagine it, he goes: “I’m here to test the hospitality of the halflings, renowned in story and song.” 

Everyone starts Tom looks real angry. Jenny’s scared as hell, you can see. Eustace is just staring into his drink. 

The orc sighs like. “I am unarmed and I wear no sigil,” he says, real tired like. “Would you turn a poor traveler away?”

Kenny behind the bar, his bald head is gleaming with sweat now, and it’s cold like I said. He looks over to Tom who I can see give him this little head-nod back. 

It took him like three tries but finally Kenny gets out “What’ll it be.” 

“Ale,” the orc says. “Keep it coming. Cut me off after a few if it makes you feel safer, I don’t care.” And Kenny pours him an ale just like that. The orc takes this big long sip and lets out this ahhhh sound only it’s more of a hiss when he does it. Like I said, I can’t do the voice.

I’m watching this so close that I don’t even notice Tom get up. Next thing I know he’s sitting down next to the orc at the bar. Now normally if he does this people know what’s coming, but this orc, he’s new, what does he know.

“Hey friend,” he goes. Tom’s tall, four feet, and he’s all muscle. He’s not scared of this guy. “Hey friend. You a veteran?”

“Aye,” says the orc and takes another drink. 

“I’m a veteran too,” Tom says. Kenny starts to say something and Tom just shoots him a look and he shuts up again. “What campaign, brother?” 

“Azh Khabad was my last one,” the orc says. He’s just staring into his drink, like Jenny.

“Yeah, that was a lot of people’s last one,” Tom goes. “Especially on your side.” The orc just grunts and drinks again. “Where’s your sword and sigil at, brother?”

“Lost ’em,” he says. “In the last campaign.”

“Gotcha,” Tom goes. Then he kind of tilts his head and looks right at the orc and says in this weird loud voice, “Threw them down in the retreat, this one did.”

The orc lets out another one of those hiss-sigh sounds again, puts down his beer. “Yes, I threw them down,” he says. “They would avail me no more.” Finally he turns and looks at Tom, those red eyes, you know. And he says “Why do you stare? Have you never seen a soldier weary from war?”

“I’ve seen plenty, brother.”

We’re all exchanging nervous looks now, and Eustace is whispering something in Eleanor’s ear. Eleanor reaches out and grabs Jenny’s wrist and Jenny jumps and her beer falls over but Tom and the orc don’t notice.

“You’ve killed people,” Tom says. Eleanor squeezes Jenny’s wrist tighter and tilts her head towards the door. I look around and see a lot of folks looking in that direction.

“Probably I have,” the orc says. He’s turned back to his beer already. “But what soldier hasn’t?”

Tom’s drinking an ale of his own now, I didn’t even see him order it or Kenny give it to him. It’s like it materialized in his hand. “Totally fair,” he says, “totally fair. I know I have.” 

He pauses and takes a drink. Eleanor is dragging Jenny toward the door, fast, that’s the last I saw of them that night.

Tom puts his mug down. “But you served an evil cause, brother,” he says, staring right at the orc.

“Probably I did,” the guy says. He takes his own drink, then he moves his head real slow to look back at Tom. “But what soldier hasn’t?”

So Tom, man, he does not like that. He slams the mug down and yells “Those who follow the One True King!” After that you don’t hear a sound in that room except people heading for the exit.

The orc doesn’t miss a beat. “My Lord said he was the One True King. And where I come from, when he speaks, you don’t argue.”

Tom’s just getting madder now, you can see the flush creeping into his face. His fists are all balled up like. “So you were forced into war, is that it?” he asks the guy. “You were forced to fight? You were forced to kill?” All that kind of shit. 

The orc says “No. No, I wanted war. I wanted to fight. I wanted to kill. And when the time came I enjoyed it. But that time is over now. I’m tired.” He starts looking around the room as he talks now. “And I will harm no one so long as I am within these walls, as long as no one tries to harm me first.”

Now Tom, he only gets madder now for some reason. “Oh I’ve tried to harm you already, brother,” he says. “Your armor — you’re a Wolfrunner, yeah?”

And he goes, “Yeah.”

“So you were there,” Tom says. “You were there on the Plain of Sellema when the Paladins of Frodost brought the Early Dawn.” Me and Kyle and Bryan and Eustace had heard this one before and we all kind of looked at each other like. 

The orc goes “I remember the Plain of Sellema, yes.”

Tom’s, well, he’s not the smiling type the way he used to be but you can hear it in his tone of voice now and then and you could hear it now. “So, the vampire knights burning in their thousands, the trolls turned to stone that we used to build a monument to our glorious dead. You remember that, brother?”

The orc’s getting quiet. “Yes.”

“You remember the Werewolf Legion? One second they were rampaging through our front lines and the next they’re just a bunch of naked men on a battlefield. You remember how that ended? Remember them falling to the Silver Axes of Nar-Gurru?”

He doesn’t wait for a response this time. “You know who was in the Paladins of Frodost? Can you guess, brother? I’ll bet you can guess. Go ahead, take your time.”

Another hiss-sigh. He turns and looks Tom right in the eyes again. “You?”

“That’s right!” Tom is crowing now like. Me and the boys are up on our feet, real quiet. “I was one of the halfling paladins who slaughtered your Dark Armies, brother. It wasn’t personal, it was just that all those vampires and werewolves and trolls needed to go.” He gets up in the orc’s face. “Sometimes people just need to go, would you agree, brother?”

“Like the people of Sellema?” he says back. “That was not our doing.”

Tom’s says, “They made their choice. You don’t get to volunteer to be one of the Black Sword’s slaves. That’s just not an option for people to take, unfortunately.” 

Bryan whispers to me “He’s drunk” and I’m realizing suddenly he’s right. 

The orc finishes his drink and goes “What’s done is done, I suppose.”

“Almost,” says Tom.

He must have gone for his gem at that point, it was hard to see from my angle, but the next thing I know his arm is on the floor. His whole arm! The orc just bit it right off at the shoulder. Tom, he passes out, and his face lands right in the palm of his own hand, I swear on the Great Tomb of Atar.

There’s blood everywhere now, and I mean everywhere. A candle on the wall sputters and goes out from the spray, that level of blood. Kenny drops behind the bar and that’s the last I see of him. Most everyone in the bar is making a run for it. But me and Eustace and Kyle and Bryan, well, we just kind of collectively decide we’ve gotta do something about this. We’re pissed about Tom and we’re all drunk. 

And it’s the weirdest thing. The orc, he looks at us coming, Tom’s blood is all drooling and dripping from his mouth. And he goes “Hello, friends. Is any among you a veteran?”

We’re embarrassed like. Only the Wielders could serve in the High King’s army, and only Tom was a Wielder. On the other hand look where it had gotten him. 

So when no one says anything, the orc just says “That’s good. Very good indeed.” 

What were we supposed to do? 

I go first and I bring my mug down hard on his bruise-colored head. The black blood stings on your skin, I didn’t anticipate that even though I knew it was the case, you learn this stuff. Kyle goes in swinging, Bryan too. Eustace I think is backing out but then I see he’s reaching behind the bar for the club Kenny was afraid to use. He grabs it and swings hard, right into the orc’s face, which just explodes. Like I didn’t know you could do that to a living thing’s face and have it still be alive afterwards.  

It took a long time. Like I said, I don’t really remember much.

Anyway they erected a statue to Tom at the Old Bridge, and the orc they fed to Kenny’s pigs, on account of it was his place that got busted up and this was his getback. But all Kenny did was serve the orc a drink so I don’t feel bad his pigs got sick and died after that. Serves him right like. 

The deputies cleared us of course, since orcs aren’t people and you can only murder people, something like that. Bryan has been fine since except for his marriage. I haven’t talked to Kyle in a bit. Eustace did something that Eleanor isn’t speaking to him anymore, don’t know what that’s about. Jenny’s fine, and me and her have been going together since harvest, and we have a new regular. Anyway it’s funny you asked about this, because I just had the craziest dream where the orc says — well, that’s not important. I don’t think about it that much anymore is the main thing. That war ended a long time ago now.