Zahul looked down and shook his head, “Sha-”, he sighed, “-hai. Heh.” Snickered, snapped his head back up.

  Glaring at Sarvok, Zahul said, “-Step aside, glob. Hafta find me ward in this wagh, so that I can kill them meself. Dinnae have time for this.”

  “I am sorry that you feel that way, sharku. But you will not disappoint me as your ward has!”

  Snarling Zahul only replied, “No, I mog you that.” When was the last time he really threw down proper in a Wurl? He might actually enjoy this?

  Dropping the bloody chain whip because he didn’t know how to properly use it, Sarvok Darthrak-stepped forward, dropping his whole body down as if preparing for a hundred meter dash, and then the channeled energy of instant burst rage into massive bundles of fast twitch fibers all exploded into a single point where his foot touched the ground, giving him pure power: moving his hundred and eighty-eight of mass sixteenish meters in two point three seconds.

  Incorporating the momentum of his rage empowered sprint-start stride, and then finally a battle leap into his Deathbringer Assault upon Zahul, Sarvok roared-

  “WAA-AA-AAGH!”

  As he descended, death from above.

  Zahul squinted up at his supposed death coming at him from above, casually and loosely stepped back on his non-dominant leg, shimmied his shoulders a bit to loosen them up, then held up his battle-axe – which of course he brought as well – in a batting stance.

  The War Master didn’t even grip the haft tightly because he knew the sheer power of Sarvok’s punch would rip the weapon out of his hands anyway. He knew what a Deathbringer looked like. No, he just needed to add enough counterforce for the blow to be redirected into the impact where Sarvok’s fist met his axe-edge.

  Sometimes the best way to deal with the wagh is to just use a waghed out orcan’s own wagh against him. Let ‘em blow themselves up. He likened it to tai chi- using nothing but gentle force to manipulate raging power.

  In his mind, while these unconscious and mentally unverbalized thoughts coalesced, he thought-spoke to himself-

  Eh batta batta batta.

  He matched his timing to Sarvok’s beat and swung laterally, his axe-blade’s edge catching Sarvok’s Darthrak right on the fist.

  HWU-THUNK!

  Sa-wing, batta.

  As expected, his battle axe shot away from his hands from the reaction. And the reaction was to the action of Sarvok’s fist exploding into little ribbons of flesh and bone when it met the hard sharp steel. Third Law, snaga. The power of the Deathbringer struck the axe so hard that the entire head of the gryph-reinforced axe was now warped beyond repair. Damn! That was supposed to be his heirloom for one of the twins.

  “HW-AAAH!”, Sarvok was still moving so fast that he had to sail right past Zahul who had instinctively spun and stepped away from the soaring hulk of an orc.

  Like Kullmang was trying to say, Zahul was a War Master and a hero of the Exodus and not to be underestimated. Experience trumped raw talent and ability every time. Zahul had put in his ten thousand hours and then some. Sarvok was just a precocious, pretentious upstart.

  The beastly bhaal crashed to the ground beside him and collapsed in a heap. The spinning battle axe bit into the earth, sinking deep to a stop no more than half a meter near Sarvok’s head. All Sarvok could do was nurse the bloody stump where his entire forearm – past his elbow, damned Darthrak! – used to be.

  “Sit down, boi, ya can’t hit. Ya can’t hit.” Might learn something. Farmed another one. He put a boot on the sunken axe-beard and with his palm laying flat cupped upon the axe-throat, surveying the plowed out rek tang orc before him. What is best in life? To crush your enemies, drive them before you and- something, something. Zahul couldn’t remember that part.

  Sarvok could only groan with pain, head buried in soil.

  “Holy bubhosh ghash, Dad, that was ohpee gof.”

  “Psh, hyperbole. ‘Tis standard, boi.”

  “No, no- Dad! Give sha self some credit, sharku, that was- that was WICKET!”

  “Oh- No, Zhon sha did not just-”, Deyandra groaned, “Skai! Now is not the time for puns!”

  “BRAU-UGH!!”, a second wave of rage, all loaded up in preparation for the eventuality that their host orc would bite off more than he could chew, erupted through Sarvok’s body. He leapt up to his feet, and now next to Zahul, squared up chin to chin, it was clear that the younger orc towered over the honorable captain.

  Zahul didn’t even look at Sarvok. He looked off far towards spinsum in the distance, squinting, a perturbed look on his face as if to say- hey, where’s my cover?

  On cue, a roughly eight-millimeter bore diameter bullet ripped through the bridge of Sarvok’s nose. His skull tore open, drops of blood spraying in a halo, splattering all over Zahul, Zhon, and Dey. Boom, headshot.

  Unfazed, Zahul just cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “THA-ANK SHA, GNOSTIE DEAR!”

  Dey wiped the blood from her face and thought to herself that the Thraxes family were all completely insane, every one of them. But she. Fucking. Loved. It. Because they had saved her life. Well, not Zhon, technically, Deyandra saved Zhon. But whatever.

  Gnosta rushed over, Dragunov slung over shoulder, and they reunited first with a group hug. Orcans - huggers. Zhon had to wince a bit though because his gaping arm socket – Deyandra had to cauterize it to stop him from bleeding out which meant it would take a significant amount of time to mog back, if he could do it at all – but the pain didn’t matter in this embrace. He was just glad to be alive and back with his family.

  Casualties for the WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH were mounting faster now that the parents had gotten involved, but that cost came with the advantageous trade off of the WAAAAAAAAAAGH finally dying down, back into just a regular old wagh. Durb was slowly being restored.

  Luckily since the parent’s staging area was right close to where Zholl had found Zhak and Gruker, Zanosta had picked them up on the way, and so Zholl and Zhak – Gruker had been sent home – were waiting with their mother at her sniper’s nest in the bushes, so Zanosta led the party back there to rejoin.

  “ZHON! Zhon! Wha- how did sha lose your arm?”

  “Hai! How’d you get that shiner, eh, skai?”

  “Shut up, mubru and come here.”

  Almost all the pham were now reunited with, of course, yet another group hug.

  But not all. No pham left behind.

  “Where the hell is Githie?” Zahul growled after they pulled out of the hug. He was no nonsense and all business, there was no time to waste on pleasantries. Zhak and Zholl had already been interrogated and Zhak had filled his parents in, while Zholl remained completely useless. Expecting the same from his twin brother, Zahul directed his question fully at shady Dey.

  “We- we don’t know.”

  Hai!

  “Where’s Lawrah?”, demanded Zholl.

  “We- we don’t know!”

  Hai! Double hai!

  The pham, the party, they ventured forth. Based on available intel, the clearest objective had to be to go into the dark woods to look for Githarie and Lawrah.

  “Ugh, why is it always dark woods?!” exclaimed Zhak, but atul had no idea what he was talking about.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It was a large expanse of bamboo, and there would be a while before they would finally find what they were looking for.

  Deep inside these dark woods, the twin elvans’ battles raged on. Drizzit and Vyerna had returned to within psionic range of each other.

  Have you got this, sis?! Drizzit thought, as he stalked towards where he thought Githarie had run to.

  Have you got this, brother?! Vyerna thought as she continued her duel with Lawrah, now without her bow, and sprawled on the ground.

  Vyerna once had the strength to dilate her perception of time, but now she lacked it. So in real time, she asked Jarlaxle who to go for.

  Jarlaxle, being a spirit, had all the time in all three realms. Even more than time, Jarlaxle was connected to the psionic legacy, and knew it all. He even knew the secret. Why they needed an orcan girl in the first place. But of course, being a spirit, and with the God Empress having superuser privileges, he was forbidden to reveal. But he could use that knowledge to run his heuristic which decided that yes, although Lawrah had originally been androus, and had mogged herself gynous at the age of six revs, the component in question worked perfectly fine anyway, if not even better given Lawrah’s robust health and magosh of orcan fortitude, whereas Githarie was a weird little runt who had truly unorthodox transmogrifications.

  And so Jarlaxle recommended to Vyerna that she go for Lawrah without hesitation.

  Skai! Of course. Higher risk, higher reward.

  The fight with Lawrah had not been going well for Vyerna. The armada to the face had knocked one of her gryph-plated teeth out of place. While the spirits were trying to stitch it back in, it was still a little wobbly, and even though it hurt she could not help but wiggle it back and forth with her tongue as if she wanted it to fall off, it was a base intrinsic organic instinct that would not leave the elvan body. Vyerna had been knocked prone- the orc’s leg had swept high up, knocking her in the jaw, and then threw her down by the neck as the limb swept back down. Then Lawrah had tried to stomp her, but Vyerna had rolled away. She struggled back to her feet now in the brief window of time she had to do so before Lawrah smacked her back down.

  Lawrah had only laid a few ginga beats to size up her next most advantageous angle of attack before settling on throwing her bound and clawed hands to the ground to set her up for a pivot into a martelo no chao. Her bound hands meant that she could not throw the torque of rotating her upper body into the blow, so the attack did not have its full potential force. But that did not matter.

  Because Lawrah was full wagh, and the martelo no chao was one of the hardest hitting kicks in capoeira. Lawrah’s foot slammed into Vyerna’s shoulder and smacked her back down.

  “HNG-”

  You haven’t got this, sis! I’m coming to help! Vyerna was in so much pain that Drizzit could not help but feel it. Vyerna, who now had a linear fracture running down her humerus, grit her teeth, grimaced, and thought-

  Do not lose our other target! We need optionality!

  Again, Lawrah tried to end the fight quickly with a devastating stomp, but stomping just wasn’t that accurate. And once again, Vyerna rolled away.

  “Is that all you know how to do, elf? Run?” spat Lawrah.

  It became clear that her rage – this was not Lawrah’s first rage for Raigo had guided her through a controlled rage in a controlled setting, but it was the first time she raged with real stakes involved – was beginning to ebb away. She had not the experience, nor the calories, to conserve it for when it really counted, and capoeira was a highly dynamic movement art, one that took a lot from the capoeirista.

  She also had two arrows still sticking out of her shoulders, and the blood that ran out from the entry and exit wounds had begun to gush because the arrows had jiggled so much as she was spinning around doing capoeira.

  Lawrah’s breath had begun to grow raggedy and heavy. She was panting.

  This was not Cool Hand Ani Oakley’s first rodeo. She sized Lawrah up properly now.

  She could now spot the weaknesses in Lawrah. Lawrah was talented yes, Lawrah was hardworking and trained hard, yes. In all respects Lawrah was a formidable fighter. But Lawrah was a greenhorn to actual combat. Tar O Dar. She could apply technical skills but did not know what skills to apply in what situation. She did not know that brute force often punished fancy flourishes. She did not know how to preserve her economy of action, her resources. But all Vyerna ever thought about was resources, and how to allocate them efficiently. She was a true capitalist. A rogue trader.

  So Vyerna just smirked and said, “Maybe so, zug, but what’s wrong with a little lokking about, hm?”

  And so, they continued, Vyerna intent on wearing Lawrah out, and it began to work. Vyerna too had gryph-reinforced fibers in her calves, and she danced around Lawrah, who could only move faster than Vyerna if she committed to the rage. But as Lawrah began to whiff, more and more, the horrible realization began to dawn upon her that maybe the rage couldn’t protect her completely.

  “WA-AGH!”

  Lawrah had begun by attempting to capitalize on her earlier success, using a closely related move to the martelo no chao, the hardest hitting attack, the meia lua de compasso.

  “RA-AGH!”

  Her bindings would not restrict the full unwinding of force on this attack as much as it would the martelo de chao, since instead of just rotating her body to wind up a limb, she would instead be swinging with the full weight of her entire body at Vyerna. But it took even more out of her to perform, for she had to support the full weight of her body on her bound hands, which forced her to put them both on the ground for the pivot instead of more widely distributing her weight, allowing momentum to carry her instead of her strength. And all the wild spinning around was beginning to make Lawrah dizzy.

  “RA-ugh-”

  And now that Vyerna had changed her approach she had made sure to give herself a wider margin of error with her positioning, staying safe, never letting Lawrah get her where she couldn’t get away. And she began to openly laugh now, mocking Lawrah’s vain efforts. She was the ringleader now, and Lawrah her circus. She guided the crazy hai to exactly where she wanted- where her compound bow had been kicked away to, and she scooped it up. The durban’s daughter, in her frenzy, did not notice until it was too late.

  I’ve always wanted to do this, thought Vyerna. She took out an arrow from her quiver and gripped it tight a little close to the tip so it wouldn’t bend and she would have control of the flex.

  Lawrah had swung back from another capoeira kick – she was now frantically trying every single type of kick she felt confident in, trying to keep Vyerna guessing, but it only made Lawrah’s form and accuracy fall apart – now she was returning to a neutral stance.

  Vyerna lunged forward and stabbed her in the eye with the arrow.

  The perennial problem with the buildup of force is the extraordinarily tempting desire to use it. Everyone succumbs to it eventually. Sarvok had spent so much damn time training how to use the Darthrak, it would have been a damn shame for him not to. Chekhov’s gun and all. And now, fully in the grip of the wagh, he wasn’t thinking straight and wouldn’t be held accountable for his actions. Violence driven by tribalism and ego. The need to dominate- to prove himself worthy! To defeat this War Master, and revel in his pain. For while Sarvok was not psychopathic, he was sadistic. Sadism was something that could not be removed from the orcan essence, for it was a crucial element of the berserker rage.

  A daemon noted that would be an impulse acceleration of 6.163 meters per second, leading to a whopping 1158.64 of kilogram-force! Converting that to the international system of units, that’s 11362.38 Newtons. Ouch. Not quite getting hit by a car, maybe getting hit by a motorbike though.

  That ain’t Charlie’s point. Charlie don’t surf.

  While Zahul practiced tai chi and meditation in private in a futile attempt to exorcize the haunting ghost of the elvan soldier he killed forty revs ago. While it was just one of many kills it was the one that stuck, the one that wouldn’t go away. He also wouldn’t be caught dead practising his tai chi with the Aunties and Uncles at the park, for they would surely make fun of him. ‘Hah! War Master! Didn’t know you did tai chi. Hah, didsha kill an elf with tai chi? Hahaha!’ Sometimes even Zahul had to think to himself- fuck orcs.

  He was well aware of the situational irony that he was in fact thinking his own batter’s taunt to himself, but that was really just how relaxed Zahul was, so sure he would put this punk in his place.

  …of Newton. Every force met with equal and opposite reaction.

  He had not decided which one yet, but it was most likely going to be Zholl.

  That’s my secret captain, I’m always angry.

  Hear the lamentations of their women. But Zahul felt no real need to indulge in that one. Zahul was not a sadist. He felt no joy in inflicting pain, but he did certainly feel joy in owning snaga fools who stepped up to him. It was in the nature of the androus ego to enjoy domination. Mastery. Not implying ownership, but simple proficiency. Knowledge.

  It was an old and biodegraded pile of muttshit manure, meant to be plowed for the nourishment of young bamboo shoots. Manure. Sarvok hated manure. Coincidentally, Sarvok was also nicknamed ‘Biff’, because he would hit other orcans so often and it often sounded like the onomatopoeia ‘biff’.

  Do not underestimate the old olog’s intelligence, or that of any orcan for that matter.

  It was no surprise to the rage. Orcans always bit off more than they could chew.

  They had wasted enough time on this! They needed to find Githarie!

  Thank goodness, we were getting sick of the volume.

  Zahul + Gnosta, it was what atul called them when they were together, especially in instances like these when they were really working as a unit. Gnohul just didn’t have the same ring to it.

  Gnosta knew what was up, and conspiring with Zhak, made sure Zahul did not gesh what was going on with Zhak’s love life.

  It was convenient that Zhak was a great expositor.

  He really liked to stalk didn’t he.

  Well wouldn’t you like to know which component? And that was the secret.

  Gills? Dolphin braining? Those could lead to unforeseen complications.

  Despite how annoyed at Vyerna they were, these were daemons governing her teeth, so she would not be distracted by their silent protestations.

  The ultimate. The ougi.

  I’m like the ringleader, I call the shots. I’m like a firecracker, I make it hot.

  And of course, they called it ‘the Legolas’.