The orc smiled with a nod, before grabbing its book and sitting back down. Its attention seemed wholly focused on the book, ignoring the eyes of the man now. The cover depicted two crossed battle axes, and there were some jagged symbols on the back cover.
The man decided to do the same, looking at the cover of the leatherbound book. A bust reminiscent of the orc sitting nearby was depicted on it, piercings and all. 'Did it write this?' he wondered to himself before opening the book to the first page.
Several jagged symbols were on it, and he guessed that this was the orc's written language. He could make no sense of them, and thus turned the page, finding the first letter on the last page on top of this one, with a diagram of the mouth underneath it. And not an orc's mouth, but a human's!
The diagram showed how to make the sound that letter was associated with. At least, he assumed that's what the images were for. And the first handful of pages were like this.
'Twenty-one letters, huh? Interesting.'
He spent an hour sounding out each letter over and over again, occasionally looking to the orc to see if he had got it right. If he didn't, the orc would sneer while waving its hand horizontally, and then repeat the letter properly.
If he got it right, the orc would wave its hand vertically with a smile.
Once he had felt familiar with the letters, he went on to the next section of the book. Depictions of common items sat at the center of those pages, with phrases written beneath them. He learned how to say "Crate," among other things as he continued to read the book.
The day passed by as he familiarized himself with their sentence structure after that, until eventually the carriage came to a stop. By now, the rain had long since stopped. And the man also noticed that the ride grew far more bumpier towards the end of the day.
The orc got up and closed his book, folding the corner of the page he was on before walking towards the man. The man cringed when he saw the orc crease the page…
It reached up to the roof of the carriage, over to the lamp hanging from the ceiling, untied it, and carried it by the rope as he walked past the man and punched the back wall of the carriage.
A closed and undiscernable door popped open with the gesture, and the orc gestured for the man to follow, which he did. The orc walked out, kicking something before going down two steps. The orc's leather boots crunched against the rocky ground.
There was gravel strewn about everywhere, and they seemed to be at the base of a huge mountain. From where the man stood, he couldn't see the top. However, he did see a Black Tower barely peaking over the visible edge of the mountain.
He looked up and saw the starry night sky with his own two eyes. For the first time in what felt like a very long time. Yet the sight of a large black spot rather than a moon confused him a little.
Ignoring that for now, he turned his attention to the clearing that the caravan had taken over.
Yes, that's right, an entire caravan!
Many large circular carriages encircled the clearing, forming a safe area in the middle. There were many orcs walking around, the majority of which seemed to be adults. And it was at this point that an internal question of his was answered.
Was the orc who was in there with him a guy or gal? Did orcs even have substantial differences based on their sex? And the answer was yes, yes they did.
He could safely make the assumption that the orc that had been in the carriage with him was a man.
While orc women were just as muscular as the men, and also had tusks growing out from their lower jaw; and while their faces were sharp like the men's, only slightly less angular…
They had breasts, which on average seemed to be quite large.
Besides the grown adults, there also seemed to be many young adults. And a few adolescents as well, their tusks and other features not as pronounced.
Another thing he had noticed was the fact that the orcs were all varying shades of green. Some bordered on being yellow while others were the color of vibrant green grass. Still others were a more faded green, and a few were dark green like the orc in front of him.
The man stepped down from the carriage, his bare feet touching the hard and cold wet ground. He had expected the pebbles to cause at least some discomfort on the soles of his feet, but they barely made any difference to him.
'Weird, even the pointy ones aren't hurting me.'
He had to try very hard to push out the intrusive thought of stomping on one to see if it would hurt or not. Not only because that would be stupid, but because the orcs had begun to look at him. The adults looked on with worry, but the adolescents looked on with intrigue.
It wasn't everyday that they'd meet someone from another tribe!
"{Enough gawking you idiots! Hurry up and finish setting up camp!}"
The orc that had accompanied the man in the carriage spoke up, his voice echoing throughout the clearing. The adolescents scrambled to look busy, while the adults laughed at their expense.
Although the adults had taken time to look at the human, they were still doing their jobs.
The man stood awkwardly beside the orc, watching the others work. He realized that this orc was the leader of the caravan. And soon, a pair of adolescents on the younger side brought two chairs over, one for the man and one for their leader.
The man was reluctant to sit down though. It felt wrong not to be working with the others for some reason.
"Come, sit here." The orc patted the chair.
The man nodded after the reassurance, taking the seat.
"Shagar is…" The man paused to sort his next words properly. "Difficult."
The orc laughed, listening to the young human's plight.
"Do not worry. You are doing good."