U'rtak a berserker of the Axe clan was at the front of his scouting team, they had to clear the way of dangerous beasts or monsters and also find a safe and wide enough pass, for the army to march through.
These scouting teams usually consisted of 15 warrior orcs but they were generally split apart to cover more ground. Offcourse if one of them was attacked, they would send out an emergency signal and recieve help within 5 min tops.
U'rtak was diligently looking ahead for any kind of clearing or path, but he was starting to get hungry so he decided to hunt some food for himself.
U'rtak was abit above average in his clan , he was tall and strong but also fast, his senses were topnoch for scouting and tracking and with 14 circles he was a formidable mage.
All of this earned him a spot as the scouting captain of the 4th battalion scouts.
After climbing a ridge he noticed a cockatrice on the hunt for something hidden in the bushes, but since the bird dared to hunt it alone, he deemed that it was safe for him to attack it and maybe get a bonus lunch.
Like usual he sank in to the ground and moved forward. Altho entirely burried and with no vision of his prey, he could still sense the vibrations it gave off from the earth.
It was a bit strange as he could sense something like a spike boar but its walking rythm was wierd....
Once he got closer the pig stoped behind a tree and the cockatrice was readying itself up to pounce which was the prime moment for some head chopping.
Comming out of the ground he released his battle axe from the straps on his backs and aimed a bit forward between the tree and the cockatrice.
Once it jumped he threw the axe with all the force he could muster, the only peculiar thing tho was that as the axe chopped its head off an arrow came flying in to its eye.
'Strange the others shouldn't be that close....if some one is slacking off and left their designated area i'm going to behead them too!'
He called out to his brothers in arms, speaking Lu'qan their language "Hey! Get back to your area now!"
But once he got closer and saw the arrow he immediately understood they weren't his underlings....nor were they orcs.
Now highly alert he looked directly towards the path the arrow took and thats when he saw a human.
'A human! Need to kill it!' , he thought because if he let it escape they could warn the fellow humans and the supprise attack through the mountain range would be ruined.
Everyone knew about the war in the village, how could they not when the prices of produce like food and tools was climbing and climbing. Their village was still safe from conscription tho because it was in the outskirts and small ....culling the outer regions of wild life mostly played a part in it.
But nevertheless the war was taking its toll, the kingdoms army managed to stop the invasion in the north-eastern mountain pass.
So they felt somewhat safe being this far in to the northern forest, tho now they actually managed to encounter an orc in the forest. How did he get here? Teclos was only 14 and was clearly outmached judging by the aura the orc gave off. Even if they worked together, they wouldn't stand a chance , so all he could do was to scream to Raplh and Gillard , "RUN! Split apart!"
Since they were just running away ,U'rtak just casually picked his battle axe back up once he saw that ...he could smell the panic and see almost no strategy ,no diversion, no slowing spells, just running away in different directions and wasting mana in the process. These weren't scouts or hunters ,these were just kids. But even so he had to kill them before they spread the word about meeting an orc here.
With his senses he could roughly estimate that the kid who shouted something was moving faster than the other two, which means he must be their leader and had the highest chance of escaping.
Now altho he was capable of easily finnishing those 3 off, he still sent out a signal basicly telling the others which direction they were going and how manny enemys there were.
With that done he sank in to the earth again and went after Teclos.
This was the first time Teclos felt such fear , that thing was just too much... He knew what a capable warrior should look like and feel like, as he was always training with Talmir.
But this thing was simply on a different level, he had to come up with a plan, how to escape because sooner or later that orc would catch up and kill him otherwise.
First he checked the situation around himself by throwing himself up high above the tree line. Trying to see where he was exactly and if he knew the terrain around himself , the terrain was one of the few advantages he could use to slow the orc down.
He looked around while still moving forward and after a while he saw a few locations which could help him,but thinking of the orc again he had a bold idea and went straight to a mountain he knew off that was fairly close.
Rising in the middle of the forest a stand-alone peak full of jagged rocks that kind of seemed out of place, Talmir always warned him to stay away from that place and the reason why but in this situation he was betting on fighting fire with fire ...well more like fighting fire with a volcanic dissaster which might kill him aswell but still.
Just before he reached it tho, earth spikes rose from the ground trying to impale him.
Managing to dodge it with a shadow like tentacle wrapping and pulling him closer to a tree, the orc was getting closer but Teclos still couldn't sense or see him.
More and more spikes shot out from the ground, slowing him down and trying to kill him. He remembered Kosak and his earth movement so he knew the orc was probably underground but something wasn't right ...Kosak had no problems hitting him during training, why was the orc who could probably squash Kosak like a bug missing?
Still what mattered was that he reached the path up the mountain.
'Alright i reached it ....hopefully that thing won't kill me and actually go for the orc.'
With Teclos quickly climbing the mountain , the orc stoped and rose back up from the ground.
"I can't sense anything strong on the mountain....Why is he going there? Plus mountains are an advantageus terrain for earth mages hmmm, is it a trap or is he panicking this much? I still don't know what mana he has, i asume it's wind since he is basicly dodging my spikes mid air but then he could just fly up in the sky and try to escape that way..."
U'rtak still decided to follow him in the end even if it was a trap, mountains were an advantageous terrain for him and his oponent wasn't a warrior.
If push comes to shove he would just escape if the trap was actually good and wait for the kid to come back down.