Half-Orc Redemption Read online

  Half-Orc

  Redemption

  Book 1 of the Half-Orc Saga

  Luke T. Barnett

  www.luketbarnett.com

  Copyright

  Half-Orc Redemption

  Copyright © 2017 by Luke T. Barnett

  All rights reserved in all media.

  Cover art by Darko (Paganus on 99 Designs)

  Map illustrated by Donovan Sherer

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locales and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to people, places, or events is purely coincidental or fictionalized.

  Published in the United States of America 2017 by Amazon.

  Thanks for reading!

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  Table of Contents

  Map of the Wildlands

  Prologue

  I. Plainsman

  II. Rage

  III. Beauty

  IV. Wood

  V. Capture

  VI. Many Words

  VII. Questions

  VIII. Travel

  IX. Few

  X. Honor

  XI. Galantria

  XII. Gift

  XIII. History

  XIV. Dwarvenhome

  XV. Mission

  XVI. Orc

  XVII. Snow Place

  XVIII. Little One

  XIX. Sickness

  XX. Fate

  XXI. Broken

  XXII. Traitor

  XXIII. Mara’s Tale

  XXIV. Ascent

  XXV. Tower

  XXVI. Grot

  XXVII. Onslaught

  XXVIII. Fall

  XIX. End

  Deleted scenes

  Translations

  Note from the Author

  Map of the Wildlands

  For my Lord and Savior

  Jesus Christ

  to whom belongs

  power, glory, dominion, and honor

  forever and ever. Amen.

  Prologue

  The sound began early in the morning, long before the sun spread its warmth upon the cold, rigid mountaintop. The occupants of the tower did not become aware of it until it came close to their abode where they could hear it over the wind that often rages at so high an altitude. It disturbed their reverie near sunrise, rousing them from their places of worship or from their beds of blood and bone and summoning them to the door of their tower to see a figure nearby, bent over, and hammering away with some unseen tool in the darkness just before dawn. All of them were equally baffled as much as to where this person had come from as to what this person was doing.

  Finally, the high priest of the tower took his ceremonial robe upon his twisted form and stepped out into the cold, harsh weather. The sound of metal tapping against metal repeatedly shifted his vision from that of the normal pre-dawn light to that of a much clearer sonar outline. Not that he needed it. Many a time he had walked these steps, bringing a sacrifice to offer; a young virgin, innocent, filled with life, ready to be tortured and burnt as a sacrifice to his god, all the while still being alive and conscious of every searing sensation. He delighted in it so each time he performed the ceremony. The many screams from the many sacrifices over the years filled up and rolled around inside his darkened mind, filling him with pleasure and setting his blood ablaze.

  Now, as he approached the cloaked figure, he noticed its feminine form and delighted that he might have yet another young woman’s horrified screams to fill his blackened heart. But first, he desired to satisfy his curiosity. And so, looking upon her with eagerness, he addressed the woman in a questioning tone, unable or unwilling to prevent his drool from spilling forth.

  “And just what you think doing, female one?” he asked in a poor excuse for the common tongue.

  The cloaked figure ceased its chiseling long enough to speak, giving an answer the twisted creature did not expect.

  “If I do not carve a path for him, how can the destroyer come?”

  The feminine figure then resumed her work, chiseling a shape into the face of the step over which she was hunched. The high priest was not dismayed, only stunned, momentarily. Coming to himself, he chuckled and even managed a scoff at the woman’s bizarre statement.

  “Destroyer?” he quipped. “What say you? You insane, you. Marked and brought by Grot. Too close, me think. Get mind touched-“

  His speech faltered, his words choking him as she turned to face him. Her face was as pale as a ghost. There was some great, unseen power coursing through her. He could not see it, but he could sense it, and more fully as she stood. It was as a pillar of light, its essence so pure, it would surely consume him if he dared get too close. He backed away.

  “What…what mean you? What destroyer?”

  “Their blood cries out and the Godking has answered. One of your own will come and reap his judgment. But you will not live to see it. Every tear and scream that you have caused shall now be returned upon your own head. So says the Godking.”

  The power began to emanate from her as if reaching out for him. His spirit of fierceness and ferocity melted within him. His legs became weak with fright. Her face became clearer in the aura of a growing light. He smelled smoke and the sweet aroma of burning flesh. But it brought him no pleasure. He heard screaming and, with eternal horror, realized it to be his own as the flames consumed his body. In his last agonizing moments, he watched helplessly immobile, as the tower he had built, the greatest monument ever to his god and master, leaned towards him as the very mountaintop and steps he lay upon began to unnaturally bend.

  I. Plainsman

  “It was many moons ago that they came to this land, the creatures known as orcs. I am Urik-Sha’al, Warrior of the Sun, son of the Father, and tribesman of the Great Plains of Sylrin. The Great Plains are the lands of nearly endless grassy plains that spread many leagues in every direction. So isolated is my home from the world beyond that the existence of such creatures was unknown to my people until the day they set cursed foot upon the plains.

  They were hideous. Dark-green skin covered their towering forms, which were usually slightly hunched. They stood a good six feet tall at their smallest adult, their intensely muscular bodies topped with the massive makings of a head that looked more like someone had stretched some green face-skin over the skull of a gorilla and then added stringy, black hair and jagged, uneven tusks for ferocity.

  They came with great wooden wagons, most unstable, and not well built, and a great many large weapons whose shapes seemed to reflect the monstrous nature of these beasts. They entered in an unsettled portion of the plains and though they may have seen a few of the tribes on the horizon as they traveled through, they continued on, apparently uninterested in such un-worthy forms of life. I watched them as they entered and I secretly followed them in order that I might know these creatures that seemed to have come from the depths of the earth. Wretched though they seemed, they brought along with them a good many women and children, showing at least some form of family structure. One child in particular, however, caught my attention from the first.

  The youth trailed the last of the wagons, bound in chains and struggling to keep pace with the mighty contraption that constantly threatened to pull him to the gr
ound. I realized if that had happened, his kin would have given no care and he would have been dragged for the entirety of their journey.

  They at last settled not a league from the waters of the dividing river, very close to my tribe. And so I was assigned to watch them in secret, as I had done, should they ever raise arms against the seven tribes of the plains. My tribe, the tribe of Sha’al, had wanted to greet and trade with the creatures. They seemed at least intelligent enough for such things. But I advised them against such actions, having seen the way they treated the youth in chains.

  As they settled, I noted their skill. With most things, it was rough and un-honed. Their tents were thick logs set at uneven angles in the ground and draped with animal hides and cloth not at all trimmed, but rather torn in places and shabby at the edges. Their weapons possessed jagged, shards of metal for blades and hafts made from wood that was naturally crooked or warped. Everything they put their hands to, they did so as an animal attempting to pass itself off as human. But their strength was undeniable. What tasks took many skilled men of the plains, took only one of these orcs and though they had just arrived midday at their destination, their camp was settled before dusk.

  They assigned much work to the youth in chains; too much, by my assessment. As I looked on from a distance, my people being gifted with long sight and hearing, I wondered why they held the youth captive as they did. He seemed as ferocious and feral as they, perhaps a bit smaller, but nonetheless one of them. Was that the reason? Perhaps because of his size, they considered him somehow inferior. My distaste for them grew at the thought and only deepened when I discovered the reality.

  It was the second summer after they had arrived that I picked up on their rough, guttural tongue. I had heard them repeatedly refer to the youth as ‘jootka’. ‘Ka’, I had learned, could be used for several things, depending on its use. It was used anywhere from referring to the spirit of a fellow orc in the honorable sense, to a type of animal in a derogatory sense. The latter was used only of the vilest or useless animals. I could tell by their tone towards him, it was the same when they referred to the youth, directly or not. It meant roughly, one’s being, all that he was…or wasn’t. In the derisive, its use could be translated breed.

  The other half of the word, ‘joot’ had only one meaning: half.

  Half-breed. That is what they called him. He was a mix of blood both orc and human, as I would later learn. Though these orcs adamantly and repeatedly referred to the youth as such, at first, I could not see the difference. He appeared as the rest; skin, form, tusks, all were similar at least. As he grew, however, the differences became apparent. His skin was a lighter shade then theirs. His features were less feral, more uniform. He still possessed a set of tusks, jutting upward from his lower jaw, but they were more even. He looked...more human, I thought, for I could not think of a better word.

  The instant I recognized the meaning of that word, my mind came into understanding. And with understanding, came anger. To these orcs, the youth was only half a soul and so deserved no good thing. None carried this heart more so than the leader of the tribe; the one called Gurak. A monster among monsters, he was the largest of the tribe, and by far the cruelest. He seemed to delight in torturing the youth, taking great pleasure in tossing him rancid food to eat, which was all the youth ever received from his kin besides scraps of tree bark. The other children would often pelt the youth with rocks or strike him with sticks. He was given tasks that, much to my anger, were far too difficult or burdensome for the youth.

  At first light of the third day of their settling, when I took my post to watch and relieved the night watchman, my eyes searched for the youth and found him sleeping among the dung piles. An elder orc walked over to him, his weapon in hand, and with what seemed to be all his force, kicked the youth awake. I watched the youth’s body come up off the ground and land rolling, no doubt in extreme agony. My pity for the youth grew and I thought for sure that he would not see his first moon on the Great Plains. But as I continued to watch and listen to the elder orc yell at him in his guttural tongue, no doubt slandering him amidst a flurry of orders, I watched the youth slowly begin to rise. Another kick sent him hurtling back to the ground. But again, the youth pushed against the earth beneath him and, through some struggle, rose to his feet, this time standing firm, if breathing heavily and holding his chest. It was then, as I watched the orc walk away and the youth begin his first task of the day that I realized how truly wrong I was. I observed the boy stave off the best efforts of his kin to drive him to starvation and death.

  He snuck food often, the others either too slow or too stupid to catch him. When the rocks would pelt him, he would ignore it, eventually causing the other youths to become bored and leave him alone. And, much to my delight, the youth would take every task given him and complete it without fail and with more skill than any other of his tribe could have mustered. I was sure, however, that such accomplishments came at great cost to his body.

  Gurak was often furious. Each morn he would give this youth tasks to complete. And each day I would watch this monster’s face slowly change from insidious delight to bitter frustration as the youth completed each task within the day’s time. Gurak became increasingly irate, often moving to strike or beat the youth, and being prevented after only a few blows by the others of his tribe to keep him from killing the youth. He would then move to destroy the product of the youth’s efforts and then command him to do it again. There must have been some law among the tribe that no youth shall be killed before being given his right of manhood. For there were times I am certain Gurak would have liked nothing more than to rip the youth in two with his bare hands. Yet he always walked away leaving the youth alive, if not severely beaten. Because of such reluctant mercy, the youth lived to learn more and became increasingly skilled.

  I often smiled at the youth’s progress, even though the youth himself never seemed to express any joy or satisfaction at the completion of a task; he merely moved on to the next.

  Gurak’s anger at being unable to defeat the youth must have kept up his hatred of him. For even as the rest of the tribe eventually tired of torturing the youth and his chains were removed for lack of fit, Gurak still hated him and continued to delight in his torture. He continued his attempts to break the youth, to cause him death by insidious means. Were it possible, I would have charged in and killed the brute myself. But committing such an act meant inciting war, and I would not risk it, not for a youth who seemed to give no care for the daily tortures lain upon him.

  Even unchained and given the chance to draw and kill, the youth never ran nor drew a weapon to any of them. When I came to realize this, I felt a crunching pain in the pit of my stomach. I thought they had truly broken him. The youth had become nothing more than a task beast. Gurak had won.

  Then the harsh winter came. It snowed greatly and even these thick-skinned beasts had wrapped themselves in furs, all except for the youth. He was, of course, denied any clothing, save for a ragged loincloth.

  On a day when I thought myself hidden well, the youth was given the task of finding firewood for the tribe. Despite the thick layer of snow and scarcity of wood on the plains, he had managed to collect a decent stock of twigs and dead branches. He had strayed quite a distance from the settlement and eventually came upon the spot where I stood hidden among a cluster of trees. Digging around in the snow at my feet, he stopped and looked up, noticing me for the first time. Our eyes locked and I was stunned by what I saw. The youth’s eyes sparked with intelligence, intelligence that far exceeded that of his kin. He also seemed…alive, somehow, though I cannot say how I could discern this. It was as though I could see somewhere inside him, that he was still fighting, unwilling to give in, to be broken by the tortures of his life. This prompted me to slowly reach out and offer the youth my hand; a silent chance to be free. I would take him to my tribe where he would be accepted despite his differences. Perhaps, I thought, he might grow to know love instead of the hatred he had bee
n taught by the orcs of his tribe.

  But instead of taking my offer, the youth merely returned to his task, his eyes not returning to me even for an instant. It seemed to me as if the youth gave no care for my presence; neither friend nor enemy. I might have been greatly insulted, had I not been so thoroughly confused. The youth’s eyes sparked with intelligence. He had an unyielding spirit. Yet he choicely remained with his tribe. Why? Surely he understood their mistreatment of him. He had no doubt seen the way the other children had been treated. Had he then fallen into the false belief that he was inferior to them because of his mixed blood? The look of his eyes flashed in my memory. No. I could not accept that. I would not accept that! He was as worthy as the others. Surely he saw that. Still, the question begged to be answered. And still, I could not answer. I prayed for the truth to be revealed. Yet no answer came. So I waited upon the Great Father, upon his timing, and remained as such; praying and observing with the question ever present in my mind until the fifth following summer when the answer came at last.

  The youth had grown. He was as tall as Gurak and almost as broad. His strength was greater than any in the tribe, save Gurak himself. Though in truth, I had not witnessed the brute test his strength in many seasons. Long had the youth been denied his rite of passage, his test of manhood. I had witnessed many in the tribe take these tests and there were varying degrees of difficulty. As it went, the more difficult and dangerous the trial, the higher the male’s status was in the tribe. Most had taken the easier trials, while a choice few had taken the harder trials, and they were those who flaunted their authority as much as they could. True sons of Gurak, in blood and in spirit, destined to lead the tribe in the long days after Gurak finally would pass. Much the same they were as their brutish father. The only apparent difference between them was that they had become bored of the youth long ago. Gurak still hated him. But on this day, the tribal leader’s face held on it an insidious grin. No doubt he expected the youth to die from his trial. And if not, Gurak would surely find an excuse to kill him anyway. From my place in the trees, I scowled at the monster. His grimace made my stomach turn. It took all my strength not to rush in and slay the monster purely on principle. I held fast, however. The youth had waited all this time to earn his status. I would not be the one to deny him.