Bron carved several javelins to aid in hunting. The food supply he and Rhunal had brought was running lower. He was quite skilled with a javelin now and landed a strike against a hare that day. After setting up camp, he was reminded how dangerous these lands were. Howling interrupted his meal. Glowing eyes circled his camp, sharp teeth snarled at him from the gloom. And finally, they charged in. Bron’s hatchet and spike both tasted blood several times before the courage of the wolf pack failed. Despite the victory, he resolved to act more carefully. He’d made camp on flat ground. Too easy for predators to approach.

Brondulf was greeted that morning by a cloudy, rainy day, the type to make someone moody and unobservant. He was traveling towards the orc homelands, but didn’t know exactly how far it was. He hadn’t been able to ask his unwelcome guest how close he was. The missing sun almost got him into trouble. The shadow that passed over him was dimmed. But he felt the rush of wind over him.

He attached his shield, which was now permanently locked to his left arm’s metal sleeve, and heard a loud screech in his ear. He ducked, raising his shield. A powerful claw slammed against it, knocking him off his feet. Scales and wings swooped over him in his peripheral vision. Scrambling to his feet, he caught sight of the creature, preparing another dive. A wyvern, smallest of dragons, but bigger than a horse. Against a single man with a hatchet? It might as well be an elder dragon. Bron had kept to rough, rocky country. He looked around for any bit of cover. He probably couldn’t take the creature on even if it landed, but he stood no chance while it held the skies.

His salvation beckoned, the rocky entrance to a small cave, too narrow for the creature to enter. Bron didn’t even consider his options. He took off running towards the entrance. A rush of wind and the roar of the wyvern pursued him. Gripping one of his javelins, he listened for it to come closer. The shadow was over him when he turned with the javelin in hand. A quick rotation, a snap throw at the creature, filling his vision.

The weapon smashed against the creature’s scaly belly, failing to penetrate, but halting its dive. The wyvern wavered in the air, beating its wings to regain altitude. Brondulf lunged through the cave, halted at the entrance, and waited for the creature’s next move. Several times, the wyvern hovered low over the cave, flapping its wings. It seemed it wasn’t hungry enough to force an entrance. He stopped seeing and hearing the winged beast eventually, but Bron waited an extra hour before he left.

After leaving the cave, he was even more wary as he kept trudging north. But that evening, a sign of his destination appeared. A small fire, and a pair of orcs sitting around it. Even as he spotted their fire, those glowing eyes of theirs found him. But they made no move towards him. They watched for a while, and eventually, he saw one of them wave a hand in his direction. They were inviting him to approach. 

Bron was wary, but he couldn’t keep wandering blindly. He was looking for the home of the orcs. It would not go well if he couldn’t even approach two of them. The orcs had adopted the language of the humans, having no speech of their own. He hoped that his encounter with that first orc wanderer would not become the standard interaction.

They were both armed, seemingly as wary as he was, but kept to their seats around the fire. One was bearded, with the common black hair of their kind. The other had hair the color of charcoal. This younger of the two spoke first. “Why are you here, human? Some kind of crazed trader? Crafter? Seeking to make great wealth among primitives?”

Their somewhat antagonistic greeting immediately concerned him.

One of them laughed, showing off a cracked hammer. “Fix this for me. Hammered too hard.” 

Orcish humor was always hard to read. “I’m not a trader. With a missing hand like my own, not much of a crafter either.”

The orc shrugged. “You’re human. Clever enough.”

 He showed them his wyvern-battered shield and its bent spike. It barely survived one glancing blow from the creature. The one with charcoal hair noticed his hatchet. Despite its small size, it was a fine, sharp weapon.

“Not much of a weapon for one your stature.” Bron said. It was concerning how much the charcoal-haired orc liked the look of the weapon.

So he proposed a trade. These ones had several crude blades with them. A large amount of steel in each. For one of those chunky cleavers, he would trade the hatchet. He even offered to take the axe-head and place it on a longer haft. After all, a long axe did not need a massive axe-head to be lethal.

After settling the deal, he asked them about the grey-haired orc chieftain, Araldur. “With the grey hair, he is probably a past chieftain.”

They laughed uproariously. “If he isn’t burned. You can find him in the earth.”

This response confused him. They noticed, but didn’t stop their brutish laughing right away. “All orcs with grey hair are dead.” 

“Well, if I can’t find this Araldur, the city of monsters should be past your orc kingdoms. It is supposed to be even further north.”

“A city of monsters welcomes a human? We don’t trust that place. Tales of war between the orcs and that city. Myths. Quiet for a long time. Instead, the chimera attacks get worse every year. We don’t have time to worry. Not about some strange city.”

The orc with the charcoal hair pointed at a distant hill. “Pass that, you’ll see the kingdoms. Hills among the mist. He shook the long axe Bron had made for him. Good fortune, human. You may be challenged to a duel. More likely the closer to the warchief’s land you go. The center of our land.”

“I already fought a duel.” Bron said ruefully. “I lost. It won’t happen again.”

“Better not. You are an outsider. A duel may not be a friendly one.”