Chapter 13 #2
I take another drink as the movie opens on Uzrirgard before the war.
It doesn’t look much different from what I saw from the ship when I arrived.
Green valleys, crystalline rivers, and thick forests across the rolling landscape.
The cities are a lot smaller. They rise from the ground, buildings of stone and metal that blend with the natural world.
The movie shows orcs working in fields, forging weapons, and raising families.
Then human settlements appear. I didn’t realize there were ever human settlements in Uzrirgard, but they bring technology, medical equipment, and communication devices.
The movie shows orc and human children playing together, then marriages between the species.
The babies born from those unions look as orcish as the king beside me.
“We tried to coexist with them at first,” King Lix’tuk murmurs beside me, his voice rough before he downs more grog. “We were foolish to have done so.”
Human settlements expand. They clear forests for farmland, reroute rivers for factories, and dig massive mines that scar the earth. Orc leaders express concern. The movie shows diplomatic meetings that devolve into shouting. The first drums of war beat in the distance.
Then the humans attack. Armies pillaging and ransacking orc cities.
Orcs are caught by surprise and murdered in the streets, even the women and children.
Some are captured. Taken to camps where they’re tortured with whips and devices that make the whip seem merciful.
The movie doesn’t shy away from the horror.
I have to put my drink down because the gore makes me a bit queasy.
“That’s… awful,” I say, swallowing hard.
“It gets worse,” King Lix’tuk warns.
The battle scenes are brutal, but the tide starts to shift. Orcs raze the human settlements in Uzrirgard. When the humans continue to send ships filled with soldiers, the orcs mobilize and sail across the sea I flew across to get here.
Then it’s the humans who are unprepared. Orcs march on human cities with fury that makes the streets run with blood. To my surprise, orcs don’t murder the women and children. They load them on caravans and send them to other settlements, showing a lot more mercy than the humans ever showed them.
The battles continue. Human cities fall.
Settlements get razed. The human soldiers who throw down their weapons are executed for their cowardice, with King Lix’tuk personally overseeing them.
Many are whipped before they’re beheaded, with the orcs calling it vengeance for what happened in Uzrirgard.
“We were not always so kind,” King Lix’tuk rumbles. “The story is meant to favor the orcs. Propaganda, like I said.”
More battles are waged. King Lix’tuk, or at least the younger version of him on the screen, is a warrior who is unmatched on the battlefield.
Propaganda, perhaps? He cleaves through legions of humans, their weapons completely ineffective.
Glancing at the scarred king beside me, I can tell it’s embellished.
But considering some of the books I’ve read, it’s not far from the truth.
As the war continues, orcs conquer more land. They take some prisoners. They continue extracting their vengeance, even when they’re not on the battlefield.
But humans aren’t ready to admit defeat. The movie shows humans poisoning the water supplies in Uzrirgard, releasing a virus that makes orc women infertile. There’s anguish. Despair. Orcs coming to terms with the fact there may never be another generation.
“That almost broke us,” King Lix’tuk murmurs. “It certainly broke me.”
King Lix’tuk is shown rushing home, because his wife has been affected by the virus.
It doesn’t explain why until she sits up in bed, obviously with child.
Then the baby is delivered, and it’s stillborn.
King Lix’tuk grieves on the screen. Beside me, the real one’s fingers tighten around the neck of his bottle until I wonder if the glass will shatter.
When I glance over at him, a single tear is rolling down his cheek. I didn’t even realize orcs could cry. The sight makes something ache in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, not sure what else to say. I feel tears dampening my lashes as well.
“It was a long time ago,” he growls, downing the last of his grog and opening another bottle.
Zrogmul is shown, except in the movie, it’s a mighty fortress.
No damaged stone. No broken or rusted metal.
All the orc standards outside look to have been recently constructed.
Inside, King Lix’tuk commands his armies, no longer joining the fight personally.
The actor looks to have aged ten years, but only a few months have passed.
“You still had a war to fight, even when you were mourning your child,” I say, my brows pinching with anguish.
“Wasn’t just my child I was grieving,” he says. “I know you can’t understand orcish, but I’d just lost my wife, too.”
“Was it the virus?” I ask quietly. I’ve never heard of the virus killing anyone, but I only heard one side of the story.
“Not directly,” he replies. “But it might as well have been.”
He doesn’t elaborate, so I don’t pry. I turn my attention back to the screen, watching as the virus sweeps across Uzrirgard, crosses the border, and begins infecting the wolf shifters. The movie doesn’t focus on them much, but it shows them joining the war, fighting alongside the orcs.
“We called for their surrender, once we had allies, because there was no way they would ever defeat us both,” King Lix’tuk explains. “But the humans had another trick up their sleeve. More death to unleash on the world.”