Christie Golden: Rise of the Horde

He could stand it no longer. Quietly, Durotan sat up, his ears straining for any sounds to indicate that anyone else was awake. He heard nothing, and after a long minute, he got to his feet and began to move slowly toward the entrance.

It was a long, slow progression in the darkened tent. Sleeping children of all ages and sizes were sprawled everywhere in the tent, and one wrong move could awaken them. His heart racing with excitement at his daring, Durotan stepped carefully between the only faintly glimpsed shapes, placing each large foot with the delicacy of the long-legged marsh birds.

It seemed to take an eternity before Durotan finally reached the flap. He stood, trying to calm his breathing, reached out—

And touched a large, smooth-skinned body standing right beside him. He jerked his hand back with a surprised hiss.

“What are you doing?” Durotan whispered.

“What are you doing?” the other orc shot back. Abruptly Durotan grinned at how foolish they sounded.

“Same thing you are,” Durotan replied, his voice still soft. All about them, the others slept on. “We can either keep talking about it or do it.”

Durotan could tell by the size of the faint shape in front of him that the orc was a large male, probably close to his own age. He couldn’t place the scent or the voice, so it wasn’t one of the Frostwolf clan. It was a daring thought—not only to do something so forbidden as to leave the sleeping tent without permission, but to do so in the company of an orc not of his own clan.

The other orc hesitated, the same thoughts no doubt running through his head. “Very well,” he said at last. “Let’s do it.”

Durotan reached out again in the darkness, his fingers brushing the hide of the flap and curling around its edge. The two orc youths pulled back the flap and stepped out into the frosty night.

Durotan turned to look at his companion. The other orc was brawnier than he, and stood a bit taller. Durotan was the largest of his age in his clan, and unused to others being taller than he. It was a bit disquieting. His ally in mischief turned to look at him, and Durotan felt himself being assessed. The other nodded, apparently satisfied with what he saw.

They did not risk words. Durotan pointed to a large tree close to the tent, and silently the two headed for it. For a moment that was probably not as long as it felt, they were in the open, exposed to any adult who chose that instant to turn his head and see them, but they were not spotted. Durotan felt as exposed as if he were in bright sunlight, so powerful was the moon’s glow reflected off the crystalline snow. And surely the sound of the snow squeaking beneath their feet was as loud as the bellow of an enraged ogre. At last they reached the tree and sank down behind it. Durotan’s breath misted as he finally exhaled. The other orc turned to him and grinned.

“I am Orgrim, line of Telkar Doomhammer, of the Blackrock clan,” the youth said in a proud whisper.

Durotan was impressed. While the Doomhammer line was not the line of a chieftain, it was well known and honored.

“I am Durotan, line of Garad, of the Frostwolf clan.” Durotan replied. Now it was Orgrim’s turn to react to the fact that he was sitting with the heir to another clan. He nodded approvingly.

For a moment they simply sat, reveling in the glory of their daring. Durotan began to feel the cold and wetness seep through his thick hide cape, and got to his feet. Again, he pointed at the gathering, and Orgrim nodded. They carefully peered around the tree, straining to listen. Surely now they would hear the mysteries for which they both hungered. Over the crackling sound of the huge bonfire and the deep, steady beating of the drums, voices floated to them.

“The shaman have been kept busy this winter with the fever.” Durotan’s father, Garad said. He reached down and petted the huge white wolf who was drowsing by the fire. The beast, its white coat distinguishing it as a Frostwolf, made a soft crooning sound of pleasure. “Soon as one of the younglings gets cured, another falls ill.”

“I am ready for spring, myself,” another male said, standing and tossing another log on the fire. “It’s been harsh with the animals, too. When we were preparing for the festival, we had a hard time finding clefthooves.”

“Klaga makes a delicious soup from the bones, but she refuses to tell us what herbs she uses,” a third said, glaring at a female who was nursing an infant. The female in question, presumably Klaga, chuckled.

“The only one who’ll get that recipe is this little one when she comes of age,” Klaga replied, and grinned.

Durotan’s jaw dropped. He turned his head to stare at Orgrim, who wore a similar expression of stunned dismay. This was what was so important, so secret that the children were forbidden to leave the tent to listen to it? Discussions of fevers and soups?

In the bright light of the moon. Durotan had no trouble seeing Orgrim’s face clearly. The other youth’s brows drew together in a frown.

“You and I can come up with something more interesting than this. Durotan.” he said in a low, gruff voice.

Durotan grinned and nodded. He was certain of it.

The festival lasted for two more days. During the daytime and at night, when the two would sneak out together, they challenged each other to different contests of skill. Racing, climbing, strength, sure-footedness—everything they could think of. And each defeated the other almost as if they had planned on taking turns. When, on the last day. Orgrim loudly called for a fifth challenge to break the stalemate, something inside Durotan made him speak.

“Let us not perform common, ordinary challenges,” Durotan said, wondering where the words came from even as he uttered diem, “Let us do something truly different in the history of our people.”

Orgrim’s bright gray eyes gleamed as he leaned forward. “What do you suggest?”

“Let us be friends, you and I.”

Orgrim’s heavily muscled jaw dropped. “But—we are not of the same clan!” he said, in a voice that indicated that Durotan might have proposed a friendship between the great black wolf and the mild talbuk.

Durotan waved a dismissive hand. “We are not enemies,” he said. “Look around you. The clans come together twice a year and there is no harm in it.”

“But … my father says it is precisely because we come together so seldom that the peace is kept,” Orgrim continued. His brow knotted with concern.

Disappointment colored Durotan’s words with bitterness. “Very well. I thought you braver than the others, Orgrim of the Doomhammer line, but you are no better than they—timid and shy and unwilling to see beyond what has always been done to what is possible.”

The words had come from his heart, but had Durotan calculated them and honed them for weeks, he could not have chosen better. Orgrim’s brown face flushed and his eyes snapped.

“I am no coward!” he snarled. “I back down from no challenge, you upstart Frostwolf!”

He sprang on Durotan then, knocking the smaller orc off his feet, and the two pummeled each other until the shaman needed to be brought in for healing and lecturing on the inappropriateness of fighting in a sacred space.

“Impetuous boy,” scolded the head shaman of the Frostwolves, an ancient orc female they called “Mother” Kashur. “You are not too old to be beaten as a disobedient child, young Durotan!”

The shaman who tended Orgrim muttered similar displeased sounds. But even as blood streamed freely from his nose, and as he watched the shaman heal a wicked gash on Orgrim’s brown torso, Durotan grinned. Orgrim caught his gaze and grinned back.

The challenge had begun, the final challenge, so much more important than races or lifting stones, and neither was willing to admit defeat … to say that a friendship between two youths of different clans was wrong. Durotan had a feeling that this particular challenge would end only when one of them was dead … and perhaps not even then.