I ran with the others, keeping up as best I could with the chainmail weighing me down. I wished I’d had a chance to train in heavier armour, and if I survived this, I was going to make sure Shave let me practice more.

  I took stock of my surroundings as we approached the woods on the other side of Slowbend. The camp was slightly southeast of the town, and the woods were northeast, across the stream. There were two cobblestone bridges that crossed the stream, but the town had no walls or natural fortifications.

  It was just a village with thirty or so houses made of wattle and daub, with painfully flammable thatched roofs and weak wooden doors. If the orcs made it through to the woods, I doubted there was much the villagers could do.

  Even though this seemed like just a straggling group of orcs, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was better to be safe than sorry.

  When we entered the forest, Shave took the lead. Everyone around me had taken up their preferred weapon, and I got the sense that we weren’t planning on fighting in a tight formation. There wasn’t going to be a shield wall today. That was probably why they let me take part.

  A horn sounded, a rising pitch, and the lieutenants gave a distant whistle.

  “Fan out!” Shave ordered, and the five men in our squadron spread out. Ticks, who was beside me, cast me a glare, then gave his axe a quick flourish and adjusted his shield. On my other side, Romance held his shield and short sword at the ready.

  At that moment, I wished I had a shield of my own, but there was no time to doubt. I kept in position, which wasn’t difficult. We paced through the woods side-by-side, making a thin line one man thick. The other men kicked aside shrubs and thornbushes with their leather gaiters, but I only had boots, and I had to step lively. I made myself another promise. If—no, when—I survived this, I was going to find some gaiters of my own.

  We were awfully quiet as we passed through the woods. I glanced at Romance and asked, “Have you ever fought orcs before?”

  “Five times? No, six,” Romance replied. “They’ve been making a few more incursions down south lately. Rumor is, they’re trying to open up a new front. It’s only been small batches so far, but it’s bound to get worse.”

  “Are they strong?”

  “They’re the weakest creatures. They’re the backbone of the armies from the Bane-lands.”

  “Not goblins?” I asked. Goblins were always supposed to be the weakest.

  “You’ll find goblins in the mountains. They’re weak, but they’re less twisted. Less malleable to the effects of vorghul.”

  “I don’t know what that means—”

  “Keep quiet,” Ticks snapped. “And pay attention.”

  I fell quiet for a few seconds, keeping my head high and my eyes peeled. The canopy overhead was thick, but thankfully, the trees seemed normal. Green deciduous leaves, thick trunks. There were a few pines scattered about, but not too many—not enough to make traversing the path impossible.

  So I didn’t incur any more of Ticks’s wrath, I kept my voice soft when I asked, “How do we know how strong the orcs are?”

  “Shave has high Perception, and he got himself a knowledge Skill for [Insight]. He can see how powerful all our enemies are…at the cost of one Presence.”

  “Won’t that mean he can’t resonate any other Skills for the rest of the day?”

  “He’s our sergeant. We’ll protect him.”

  “Most orcs are the equivalent of Irons, anyway,” said Shave, armed with his own spear and shield. “But it doesn’t hurt to check for greater threats.”

  “Does everything in this world get ranked?”

  “All non-magic creatures stay at Copper-equivalent their entire lives. But orcs were created with magic. They’re stronger than the average man. Now listen to Ticks and be quiet.”

  I nodded furiously and tightened my grip on my spear. If only we could just pick up the pace.

  And then I heard the fighting, and I took that back immediately. Metal clanged, Dupes screamed in my own voice, and the coppery scent of blood wafted through the woods. A horn sounded, but this time, we didn’t change our positions. An orderly formation was our greatest strength.

  Beneath it all, a gurgling sound ripped through the woods, which often pitched up into a screech and made my gut curdle. Was that from the orcs?

  When the first orc burst out of the forest, I barely noticed. It hit farther down the line, and a different Dupe cut it down with a precise and measured sword swipe. We continued onward, and I couldn’t get a good glimpse of its body without glancing over my shoulder, which I refused to do. If I took my eyes off the battle, that could be the end of me.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Finally, Shave took off his helmet. Similar to other resonance skills I’d seen, a shimmer of air enveloped his head. After a few seconds, he pointed a finger outward. “Thirty orcs ahead, spaced through the trees. They’ve broken through the 5th’s lines and are coming toward us now. All Irons.”

  I couldn’t see any sign of the other battle, but after a few seconds, I stopped looking. Shave pulled his helmet back on and retreated to the rest of the line, and we surrounded him. But just because he’d used his Presence didn’t mean he was useless, and he took a fighting stance beside me.

  Just in time for orcs to pierce through the woods.

  I was about to break formation and step back but my training kicked in. I stepped forward, pulled the cowl of chainmail up over my head, then lifted the point of my spear. I caught Ticks glancing at me out of the corner of my eye, then a small nod from him.

  It was like skiing over a jump. If you got squeamish, if you bailed, it would be worse for you than if you made the leap head-on.

  Before today, I wasn’t sure what orcs were going to look like. Just humans with another coat of paint? Was I going to get cold feet about killing them?

  But the moment I saw them, those doubts flew out the window. There was no thought in their eyes, no fear in their expression. Just hunger. It was impossible to codify. I just knew that there was something deeply wrong with them.

  They had spindly limbs and papery, beige skin that hung off their body, creating jowls. Their heads were long and skinny, and their eyes were black beads with pinprick yellow pupils, and from a distance, they seemed more insectile than anything. Most had ponytails of black hair, and they wore tattered garb beneath their rusty, mismatched armour. One charged straight toward me, probably identifying me as a weak link. Red blood stained its face, and its lips curled back into a snarl, revealing yellow fangs.

  “Come ‘ere, yelloweyes!” Romance shouted beside me, pounding his pommel on his shield.

  I lunged forward, driving my spear at the nearest orc. It wielded nothing but a crude, rusty sword, but it still knocked my spear aside. It was still an Iron, after all. Or Iron-equivalent.

  The orc was trying to get close to me, to get within striking distance, but I brought my spear up and deflected its sword. My eyes went wide and my heart began racing, and for a half-minute, I worried only about staying alive. Using what I’d learned, I protected myself. The orc’s blade carved notches into the haft of my spear, but nothing hit me.

  As I fought my orc, the chaos of battle rang out. There weren’t many foes, and they must not have been expecting to stumble upon us. The 5th was dealing with most of them, and we were picking up the stragglers.

  Still, Romance shifted to fill a gap in the line, and Ticks pushed forward, his eyes blazing and his axe cleaving. Shave moved to support a different soldier, and soon, I found myself on my own—facing down the orc that had singled me out before.

  Either they thought I could defend myself, or they figured I didn’t stand a chance. Ah, the perks of being an Atoning.

  I blocked a heavy strike from the orc with the haft of my spear, which knocked me onto my back. Its sword pressed against the wooden shaft, and despite its thin arms, it was stronger than me. My elbows buckled, and its sword drifted dangerously close to my throat. The tip poked at my adam’s apple.

  My eyes flicked side to side furiously, but everyone else was preoccupied. This was up to me.

  Gasping for breath, I tilted my spear and let go of it with one hand. The orc’s sword slipped off, grating down the shaft and shearing off a ribbon of wood.

  But I was free. I punched the creature in the nose, and it screeched in pain. “Man-filth!” it snarled.

  I jumped up to my feet, then rammed my spear into its head. I was hoping it was the sharp end, but in the chaos, I’d lost track. But it was the blunt side of the spear, and the orc’s head only slammed back into the ground. Just my luck.

  As I spun my spear around, trying to get the sharp tip pointing the right way, the orc slid a rusty blade along my calf as it crawled forward on all fours, and I hollered out in pain and fell forward.

  “I’m gonna give you an extra breather in your chest, sameface!” the orc snarled, rushing over to me like a monkey, dragging its sword through the mud. The sudden urge to not have that blade in me screamed louder than the twinge of pain in my leg.

  Spinning around, I gripped the spear near the top, holding the pointy end forward, and drove it into the orc’s chin. It pierced the beast’s mouth, and, shouting, I drove it farther until it pierced the beast’s brain and smashed out the other side. A spurt of cold black blood caught me across the face. I wiped my eyes as I staggered to my feet.

  My heart was racing, blood was dribbling down my leg, and there was an orc’s corpse at my feet. I hadn’t been expecting it to talk, but something about its voice had filled me with chills. Almost like it was imitating words rather than speaking them with a conscious mind.

  All around, the battle was calming down. Dupes cleaned up the last of the orcs over here, and I couldn’t hear any sounds of combat from farther down the line. I leaned on my spear, panting.

  Shave sprinted over to me and said, “Levi! Are you injured?”

  “I—” I looked down at my leg. “Just a gash, sir. Not horrible.”

  “Only thegns and Ealdormen are ‘sirs,’ ” Shave reminded me. A few other Dupes ran over. Some stared at me like an amusing oddity, but Romance shook my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but notice the corner of Ticks’ lips curl up. Once he caught me looking, he quickly scowled.

  Commander Galliard trotted through the woods on his horse, and he called, “Victory! We are victorious! Gather their Presences, and return to camp!”

  I glanced at Shave and asked, “Gather their Presences?”

  “All sergeants are equipped with a weak siphon,” Shave said. He reached into his pack and retrieved a small stone pillar. It was about a foot tall with octagonal sides and runic carvings all over it. They were an older form of writing than in the manuscript I’d purchased, and they were just different enough that my Dupe mind couldn’t make them out.

  He pressed the pillar onto the chest of the fallen orc and the runes of the pillar activated. A moment later, a sphere of misty white glass emerged at the top of the pillar. He said, “Lucky. Not all basic orcs will drop a Presence. Take it. You killed the orc, so the Presence is yours.”

  I limped over and picked it up. It was about the size of a marble, but its edges were delicate and reminded me more of an eggshell. “What does it do?”

  “Consume it,” Shave answered. “You crush it in your hand. It refills your Presence instantly, and expands your own Presence well slightly. By a fraction. It’s not much, but if you kill enough orcs, you’ll gain enough Presence to reach Iron.”

  Without a second thought, I crushed the little orb between my fingers.