Chapter Text
It was late summer, and for several months I had been living in the deep forest, trying my best not to burn it down around me.
I was nineteen. Infantile by elf standards, and still quite young even for one of mixed human parentage. I had alienated my elven mother and her family several years before, thinking to live in the city with my late father's kin. But "half-elf" was a label that gave no hint of the peculiar birthright I would eventually discover, and so the dull years of adolescence dragged on, punctuated only by the unexplained fires which seemed to erupt in my vicinity.
It was the increasing violence and frequency of these which had driven me far into the wilds beyond town, fleeing both my guardians' superstitions, and a bench warrant from the city guard. My days were spent hunting game, and gathering brush for shelter — along with plenty of water to soak it down as a precaution. My nights were damp, but I slept soundly, and woke each day blissfully free of concern for my future.
I was proud of my quick adaption to the outdoor life, and fancied myself a natural survivor. I learned to make snares, and fashioned a bow and arrows which I thought rather good, though nothing like the fine elven longbows I'd been trained to shoot as a youngster. My sodden campsites were mostly secure against combustion, and the only fires I saw were intentional, struck with ordinary flint.
One warm and pleasant evening, under a beautiful full moon, I found sleep unexpectedly difficult to achieve. Nothing was obviously amiss, but I felt compelled to sit up from my bower, and try to cast my senses out into the forest. Long minutes passed fruitlessly, but then a pair of clues were delivered by a chance turning of the wind: a faint whiff of smoke, and the barest suggestion of a drum.
The Boneclaw tribe had arrived.
***
In the days which followed, my vigilance spiraled rapidly upward. I saw no obvious sign of my presumed neighbors, but this only served to heighten my apprehension. I began to roam farther from camp, seeking a key to unlock this mystery. As I searched, my imagination spun endless possibilities, friendly and fiendish alike. Either would be preferable to this uncertainty, I was convinced.
One morning, returning from an overnight reconnaissance, I found the print of a large foot within the outer perimeter of my camp. It had been well covered, but my constant soaking of the area had softened the earth, holding just enough trace for my limited tracking ability to detect. The print was barefoot, larger than my own, and clearly did not belong to an animal. Furthermore, the attempted concealment proved both intelligence, and intent — the maker of this track was a hunter, and I had become the quarry.
If you've never lived in rugged circumstances, it may be difficult to understand just how insistently my bed of pine boughs called in that moment, despite the immediacy of the danger. But those who've slept upon bare earth — or on a ledge of rock, or wedged into the crook of a tall tree — know that comfort is measured on a sliding scale, and that a bed of damp pine is far better than none at all. Still, there was no hesitation as I turned away from camp and its amenities, plunging into the undergrowth with as much haste as the need for stealth would afford.
During my time in the wild, I'd done well for an untrained teen living alone. But that didn't make me an experienced tracker, and so the hunter's identity was still unclear to me. Offhand I knew that a large, barefoot hominid print most likely meant orcs. But there were other possibilities — bugbears, ogres, and gnolls to name just a few. And from what I recalled, few of them hunted alone.
So I ran, deep into the forest. Sleeping little, I traveled day and night as fast as I dared. I could not spare time to hunt or fish, so my diet was reduced to berries and nuts, plus the few strips of dried meat I carried for emergencies. This situation more than qualified.
I evaded pursuit for nearly five days. With each running step, my sense of belonging to the world of men seemed to further erode. I shaved my head with my hunting knife, hacking off the long, red locks to leave hanging from a branch as a taunt. Of clothing, I kept only my moccasins and a simple binding around my waist and loins. For warmth, I covered myself with ocher clay from the bank of a stream, then for camouflage added charcoal and ash from an oak felled by lightning. And each night, the moon waxed fuller overhead.
On the fifth night, just as the full moon reached its zenith above me, I heard the drums again, as I had weeks before. But this time there was no turning of wind — in my panicked flight, I had in fact closed the distance between my former camp, and that of my antagonists. Escape had become irrelevant.
I stopped running. The reversal of fortune turned my empty stomach, and the shocked pounding of my heart was loud in my ears, louder even than the drumming barely a mile ahead. The full weight of my exhaustion fell upon me.
For nearly a week, I had somehow managed to ignore both fatigue and near-starvation, but now they rose up redoubled, like a debt long overdue. Fate would not be cheated. My resistance crumbled, and I watched like a bystander as my body started moving again, walking toward the sound of the drums.
***
I walked steadily toward the encampment. A breeze from the north drove an unexpected chill across my cooling skin, cutting through the layers of ash, charcoal, and clay with which I'd camouflaged myself. The sharp sensation lifted some of the fog from my senses, and while exhaustion still hung like a weight upon my shoulders, I nevertheless began to perceive my surroundings with renewed clarity.
The drumming was now very close, and very loud. Between its pulses, I could discern voices, deep and rough, chanting in time to the pounding rhythm. I smelled wood smoke, and alongside that, an even more compelling aroma — food. The smell of cooking pulled me forward like a physical force, hastening my steps as I drew nearer to the source.
Light from the huge fires soon became visible through the trees, and instinctual caution slowed my pace. I knew that pursuit must now be close at my heels, but understood as well that a camp like this would be guarded. Ducking into a thicket, I cast my eyes furtively into the trees around me.
Amongst their privileges, elves enjoy remarkably good eyesight, and see with clarity even in near-total darkness. My own vision had not been highly praised by elven relations, but was still exceptional compared to the humans I'd known. I was able to see the outline of several large figures, ranged throughout the woods around their camp.
Visible only in silhouette, the sentries were tall and broad, armed with axes and spears. But their postures were idle, and their attention seemed to be on the revels behind them, from which they had been excluded by duty. Getting past them would not be difficult.
I crept through the underbrush, silently enduring the wrath of countless thorns and nettles. Finally the guarded perimeter was behind me. I rose cautiously to my feet, and approaching the treeline was rewarded with my first clear view of the scene beyond.
What I saw, turned out to be orcs. The largest orc tribe I'd ever seen -- but then, it was also the first orc tribe I'd ever seen. Later, I would learn that the Boneclaw were actually very small as tribes go, a fact which probably helped events to unfold as they did.
There was a large central pit, from which an enormous fire rose into the air. Circling it were a dozen or so massive individuals, dancing and brandishing weapons which glinted menacingly in the flame's heat-shimmering glow. Another dozen powerfully-built orcs were pounding on drums as large as themselves — some actually much larger — keeping time and chanting in perfect unison.
Surrounding the largest fire, were several smaller pits upon which food was being cooked. Despite the strangeness of the scene before me, and the knowledge that I was now among sworn enemies, my only thought was of the meat turning slowly on a spit, barely twenty paces from where I stood. Sizzling, aromatic fat dropped into the fire with each rotation.
I paused a moment, to reflect that my life would momentarily be forfeit, and that I seemed to be sincerely fine with that.
Then I stepped out of the treeline, walked up to the fire, and began to eat.