“And Gottfried, that’s why you must always be on guard in the Wilderness”

“Saint Valeria help me, what’s that?!” the squire said, still stunned looked with wide eyes at the snarling creature kept on the floor by the sword of Dame Alanya. A moment, they were preparing for the night, preparing the camp during their travelling from Argia to Vin, and the next one they had been attacked. His hearth was still racing from the scare, but Lady Alanya was quick to react.

Calming now a bit and at the light of the fire, he could have a better look at the creature.

“That’s an elf?” the squire asked, looking curiously, as he got back in his feet.

“An Elf? Not at all. Would she have been an elf, we both would have by now an arrow between our eyes” Alanya explained. With the tip of her blade, she moved the hair of the grey skinned creature from her face. Gottfried saw then her small pointy ears, yellow eyes and small fangs. “Take a good look. This Gottfried, it’s an Ozcura.”

The Ozcura looked up at the squire and hissed at him. Lady Alanya said something in a language unknown to Gottfried, but that sounded menacing. Feeling the cold steel of the sword between her shoulder blades, the grey skinned woman stopped moving.

“An Ozcura?” asked Gottfried, trying to make memory if he had heard of them in the myths or stories told by the fireplace in winter.

“Grey Orcs. They come from the lands of the demons, in Polforia” Alanya explained.

“Form Polforia?” Gottfried said surprised. While the Wilderness between the Northern Marches was –as is name implied- wild lands only scarcely populated, the imposing Dargoina Mountains divided the lands of the demons from the human realms of the northwest: Not only that, but in the eastern slopes of Dargoina, demons no longer ruled the lands of Polforia, but the human Christian kingdoms of the Outregam.

“Some of the orc tribes cross the mountain passes in summer for raiding” the Valknyrian quarter elf knight explained. “Thought after the defeat of the demons in the First War of the Power, many of the remnants of the forces that occupied the Five Kingdoms of the Northwest escaped northwards… other of the reasons why the Northern Marches were needed, to keep these dangers at bay”

Gottfried couldn’t avoid but blushing, as he noticed the she-orc wasn’t wearing anything to cover her top and –much to his own commotion! - he found the orc to be shapely. He knew he already was laughed for liking non-human girls –he had a secret hopeless crush as well with Lady Alanya!-, but one thing was to fall for quarter or half elves, and other for orcs!

“What is she doing here?” the Squire asked. Alanya looked around the near bushes.

“She’s a scout”

“A scout?” Gottfried said, surprised again. He had never heard of she-orcs scouts. Alanya saw his expression and smiled amused. That made Gottfried face even redder.

“So strange you find females to be warriors Gottfried?”

 

“I-I never implied that!” the squire quickly said

“It’s your first time facing an Ozcura, but you should learn from this. Grey Orcs females are the fighters, and only if you are attacking some of their dens, you will find males fighting along their bands.

Other thing you need to know it’s that, where there’s an Ozcura, there are probably more. Get some ropes from the saddle”

Gottfried nodded and went for the ropes, checking as well the horses –a large destrier battle horse and two palfreys they rode on the road- While he did that, he voiced other question.

“Why if she was a scout of a larger group, she decided to attack?” the Squire asked.

“Ozcuras normally prefer to attack unharmed people” Alanya said. “They attack women, children and elder first. My guess it’s that this one thought we would be an easy prey”

“An easy prey?” Gottfried said surprised, as he returned with the ropes. “Who would dare to attack a knight?” Alanya spoke again that dark language, ordering something at the Ozcura –who crossed her arms behind her back-.

Then she talked again in Hunclech to Gottfried “My bet is that she saw three horses, but only two of us, a woman and a boy. Neither they are that used to fight female warriors, so I guess she thought the knight wasn’t around, so instead of retreating in silence for back-up, she decided to risk it and get for herself all the loot.”

“What loot? We aren’t precisely carrying much with us” Gottfried said.

“Three horses, weapons, armor and travel supplies are a great loot, you silly rich boy” Alanya said with a smile, scolding her squire. The boy indeed came from a well-off family that until this first travel, hadn’t much experience with the world. “And on top of that, she would have gotten herself a cute boy!”

“A-a cute boy?!”

“Ozcuras like to play with their prey” Alanya explained. But the blushing squire with the ropes on his hands didn’t seemed to react to the Ozcura who was impatiently waiting with her hands behind her back, kept at bay only by the cold steel in her spine. “I don’t want to stay here the whole day, buy! Tie her up” ordered the knight. “She still may of some use of us”

“What?”

“And help me back into my armor. As said, there surely still are more Ozcuras around”

---

Mature Content

Mature Content

Mature Content

In general, in the Five Kingdoms of the Northwest, it was unusual to find women-warriors, but in some other christian human realms -as the island kingdom of Valknyria, from where Lady Alanya Pure Hearth comes from- or the Northern Marches it was more common -while in Nortender, set in the lands of the former western amazon lands, it was a common sight-

Next with Lady Alanya and her squire Gottfried:

Mature Content