King of the Orcs, Part 4

Story by Moon-Drummer on SoFurry

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#4 of King of the Orcs

I didn't have a set plot in mind when I wrote this story. It was very organic, writing itself as I went. I let the orcs be themselves and watched where it went. I did have a few key events I knew had to happen, but the way they strung together and the points were sex happened were all spontaneous.


Train they did. It took a few days for the orcs to really grasp Stedon's method, but once they did, a new light shone from their eyes.

"Grunt, come here," Grothor growled after he dropped his last boulder. Stedon approached. "Feel the pump in this chest of mine!"

Stedon obediently smeared his fingers over the sweaty green skin. He let out a soft hum of appreciation. "I've never felt your muscles so taut before, my greater!"

"I know this place," Kreg spoke up. "Rife with big game and the predators who hunt them. We could have meat for weeks, perhaps months if we're lucky!"

Stedon listened while he tenderly suckled Grothor's sweaty pectorals clean. Grothor grunted in assent. "Get comfortable, brothers," Grothor said. "We're moving in!"

"For how long, my greater?" Blackmane asked.

Grothor grinned. "Until we're the biggest orcs to ever walk into Adaar'kurn!"

Adaar'kurn. The name alone made the other orcs stand a little taller. If the orcs were ever united enough, organized enough to form their own kingdom, Adaar'kurn would be its capital. Majok sat with his band that evening about the fire, and with Blackmane's aid, told the story of the orc city.

Orcs had always lived in anarchy, for the most part - a people of nomadic warbands that formed a chaotic patchwork of allies and enemies, constantly shifting as circumstances changed or leaders fell. Those bands who made names for themselves in battle became coveted by all ambitious young orcs, who would vie with each other for the privilege of joining.

"Understand this, Grunt," Majok explained to Stedon through words written with an ash stick. "When I say a band makes a name for itself, I mean it literally. Our band has no name...yet. We are like so many others - unknown to any but those whose territory abuts ours. But when a warband performs such a deed that it is spoken of across our lands, they come to be known by a name, a name by which that specific warband can be pointed out.

Of all the great warbands, however, none are more idolized than the Best Blades. They are the greatest fighters in orc memory. Not one member has ever been beaten in a fight. Those who do fall to an opponent outside the warband - even in a contest or a friendly spar - slay themselves rather than tarnish the band's reputation. "

"Every orc worth his tusks dreams of joining the Best Blades and following Zor the Undefeatable," Majok said. "Zor could and does have his pick. He sends veteran members across orc lands to scout for potential recruits. His warband has grown so large, he was forced to build Adaar'kurn to house them all. Orcs come from across the world to pay him homage, to bask in the glories of his fortress."

"Have you ever met him, Grothor?" Stedon asked.

Grothor looked into the fire.

"No. To my shame, I have not."

"I have," Kreg murmured. He stroked fingers down his tusks at the memory. "When I was Grunt, I once served him bloodbeer at a feast. He grabbed me by the throat, shoved me down on my back upon the feast table, and poured the bloodbeer down my gullet, laughing as he did it."

Kreg looked up at Stedon. "It was the most glorious moment of my life. Even drunk, Zor was like a god. I could FEEL the power of him. Like the power of a lion assured of his place amongst his harem, surveying his pride from atop some great cliff."

"And that's where we're going? To Adaar'kurn, to seek Zor?" Stedon asked.

Grothor nodded. "But a nameless warband hardly has the right to step through its gates, let alone seek an audience with Zor. I plan to do it anyway, but first we must...make an impression."

Stedon slowly smiled. "So you plan to use my...OUR new training techniques to stand out!"

"We will train every day until we cannot stand," Grothor said to his warband. "If you are not training, you are either eating, sleeping, aiding your brothers, or teaching Grunt how to be a real orc. Anyone caught slacking will be fucking raped on the spot."

The other orcs grunted in unison. Majok drew more letters with his ash stick: "We should decide who is teaching what to Grunt. I'm shaman. I will teach him writing, and the stories and songs he should know."

"I will teach him how to fight," Kreg volunteered.

"And I will teach him why we fight," Grothor said. "What it means to be an orc."

Stedon turned to Blackmane. He couldn't help the flirtatious smile that played on his face. "What about you, Blackmane? What do you plan to teach me?"

Blackmane tossed his gleaming long black hair and smirked back. "Everything you've been wondering about orc sex but were afraid to ask!"

So began the warband's year long retreat in Boulder Valley, as they came to call it. Together they built a shelter out of stone slabs that was secure against the wind and rain. The four burly orcs could lift boulders as large as wagons between them.

Days began before dawn with a breakfast prepared the night before and stored high up in a spiked palm tree away from predators. The warband began training soon after.

There were times, working out on the farm, when Stedon had pushed himself as far as he dared go. But he had needed a reserve of strength to help with the chores. Here, there was nothing to hold him or the orcs back, and orcs did not train anything like how humans might have.

"What are you doing, Grothor?" Kreg demanded.

"Working my arms, Kreg. What does it look like?" Grothor grunted back as he hoisted a large stone up and down, keeping his legs spread and slightly bent to provide counterbalance.

"That is the same weight of stone as you used yesterday for your arms," Kreg said. He gave Grothor a hard shove in his chest, enough to force him to drop his rock. "You're a sniveling excuse for a weakling, Grothor! Maybe you should stick to lifting pebbles!"

"You dare speak to me that way!" Grothor raged.

"Prove me wrong, then!" Kreg pointed to the next largest and heavier stone in their weight sequence.

Grothor attacked the rock, yanked it into the starting position, and with Kreg standing in front, forced himself to hoist the rock until his emerald body was shimmering with sweat and his arms quivered.

Kreg grabbed hold of Grothor's arms and roared in his face.

"Is that all you've got? Huh? No wonder Zor doesn't know your name!"

Grothor's bellow echoed off the boulders. He let out a roar that was a mix of agony and determination as he forced his arms to move the rock up and down again and again while Kreg goaded him. The stone finally slipped from Grothor's numb fingers.

Kreg clapped his hands around Grothor's cheeks. "Now show me those arms of yours, you beautiful beast!" he hissed out.

Grothor responded by wrapping Kreg's head in a headlock, flexing so hard that the veins snaking up his pumped and shredded arms looked as if they would explode. Kreg groaned and hugged his leader, slavishly smearing his tongue up Grothor's chest and turning his head to suckle on the hard bicep peak.

"Nnnggh...crush me, my greater! Show me my place!"

Grothor swung both arms down into a hard, snarling chest flex. The swell of his biceps acted to shove Kreg's face hard against his pectoral cleavage, which had grown thick enough to envelop most of Kreg's face out of view.

Kreg yanked himself free. Both orcs stood there panting and erect. Grothor grinned at Kreg and gestured to the stones. "Your turn!"

Training with such passion inevitably led to sex. Generally by the afternoon, the valley was filled with the sounds of deep masculine groans, wet suckles and slurps, and the squelching of hard thick green cock being rammed up willing luscious orc ass. The more they trained, the larger and stronger the orcs became. And the more eagerly they worshipped each other's bodies.

These sessions were not for Stedon. His frail human body couldn't take such abuse. As was befitting his station as Grunt, he waited for his superiors to finish their training before he took his turn. Whoever had made the least progress for the day served as Stedon's training partner. Sometimes Grothor or Blackmane would deliberately slack off for the opportunity.

Stedon learned quickly what pleased his orcs. Kreg loved his abusive fantasies, loved to utterly dominate his lovers, to conquer them and rule them and make them beg for what they wanted. Stedon came to relish his time with Kreg almost as much as with Grothor. At first, he found Kreg's style wearying, to say the least. More than once he would come out of an orgasm haze to find he'd broken a rib or cracked a leg bone. Majok would have to use his healing magic and accept the injury. But after months of it, after day upon day of learning how orcs thought and felt and behaved, Stedon changed. He would goad Kreg into it with subtle challenges to his manhood or authority.

Once he even found an old abandoned human soldier helmet and began parading around in nothing but the helm as if he were a soldier on the march. The other orcs chortled with amusement and hurled half-eaten drumsticks at him, trying to knock the helmet off.

Kreg confronted Stedon in it alone. He had a strange light in his eyes as he said, "You dare trespass on our lands, little warrior?"

Stedon raised a half smile on his face. "Have at you, foul orc," he murmured. "You shall never capture me alive."

Kreg panted, the tips of the fangs that orcs had in their upper jaws glittering. "I'll teach you," he rasped out. "I'll teach ALL of you to fear me!"

He smothered Stedon beneath him against the nearest of the boulders. Stedon stifled the urge to groan. Kreg's muscles had grown so full and hard they rubbed over his body like melted butter. Then came the cock, speared up Stedon's ass with such force Stedon lost his wind.

"And you thought I would kill you!" Kreg whispered in his ear, voice hot with hate for his imaginary foe.

Stedon shivered. "Please," he begged in Necarean. "Please no! I have a wife and children!"

Stedon felt Kreg's cock throb like a writhing serpent in response, heard Kreg let out a low, aggressive laugh. Then Stedon began to scream. Kreg utterly ravaged him, holding back nothing. Blood dripped from his ass and it sounded to Stedon as if he were being raped by some rabid beast.

Kreg beat him, bit him, wrapped his hands around Stedon's throat as if he would crush his windpipe while he fucked the human even harder. Stedon fought through the pain, something he was becoming quite good at living amongst orcs. He knew that an orc body translated pain as another form of pleasure. No wonder they were so bloodthirsty. Warfare for them was a grand and glorious orgy with swords instead of cocks.

Stedon broke character as if his willpower had crumbled. "Gods, harder, Kreg! Harder!"

It was the perfect thing to say. Kreg bashed the helmet from Stedon's head and embraced him there against the sun-soaked rock as he blasted his semen out in hard rutting fucks up inside Stedon.

Kreg pulled out and Stedon collapsed half-conscious to the ground. His vision swam. He was dimly aware that his own cock was dripping with cum, too. He tried to stand but could only crawl at Kreg's feet until he felt Kreg shove him to the dirt under one bare foot.

"Until you earn your place as an orc," Kreg said, "THIS is where you belong!"

Stedon blacked out. He came to that evening propped up inside the shelter to hear Grothor berating Kreg for his treatment.

The two had already exchanged a few punches by the time Stedon staggered out. He marched over and shoved them apart.

"Enough!"

The two orcs blinked down at him in surprise. Stedon glared at Grothor. "What Kreg and I do together is none of your concern! Or did Blackmane lie to me when he told me there were no rules when it came to two orcs sharing a bed?"

"And you!" Stedon said, turning on Kreg. He reached up and actually grabbed Kreg by his tusks, yanking him nose to nose. "If you ever gentle up on me, it'll be me making YOU fill the camp with your whorish screams!"

A slow grin spread over Kreg's face. He started to laugh, a laugh that built up from an unsteady trickle into a sky-rearing howl of mirth. Stedon let out a held breath. He hadn't been sure how the two would respond. But it seemed the most orcish thing to do. Grothor slapped his big hand on Stedon's back.

"His lessons are going well, eh, Kreg?"

Kreg shook Stedon by his shoulders once he'd composed himself. "Damn you, Grunt. I think I might actually like you!"

Blackmane wanted Stedon to be as human as possible in bed. Stedon taught Blackmane some Necarean phrases so that they could use them when they fucked. Blackmane wanted to know how humans made love. Stedon showed him, as best he could. He hadn't had much experience himself, but Blackmane responded well to what Stedon could give.

Blackmane turned out to have a massive vanity streak. It was easy to get Blackmane into the mood. All Stedon had to to was make sure Blackmane saw him staring at the orc's body. Blackmane would smirk at him and indulge him in a slow flex. That inevitably drew Stedon over to feel whatever Blackmane was teasing him with. Then came the verbal praise.

"Oh gods, Blackmane, I think your arms are the biggest in the warband!" Stedon moaned while he planted suckling kisses up one slowly pumping bicep.

"And my abs?" Blackmane asked, putting his hands behind his head to crunch them down and making them dance.

"Mmmmm, you could have any human man drooling over you with these!" Stedon rubbed them with his hands, then hugged himself around Blackmane's waist and started to eat them out, slurping hints of sweat from the cuts between them.

"And my mane?"

"Glorious. It must make stallions jealous!"

So it would go. They would devolve into a tangle of groaning, kissing bodies that humped together until Blackmane found Stedon's eager hole. Then it was Stedon's job to make Blackmane feel like the greatest lover the orc race had ever produced. Stedon got as verbal as possible. He vocalized every little pleasure Blackmane gave him, declared how jealous the other orcs in the band must be not to be the one Blackmane favored.

Lessons with Blackmane where intermingled between bouts of passion. The first thing Stedon learned was how Blackmane got a name that was so different than the others.

"It was a gift from my first lover," Blackmane declared proudly. "An orc chooses a name for himself when he earns his manhood and is no longer Grunt. But names like mine are earned."

"Sort of like how a warband earns a name, then," Stedon said.

"Not quite the same, little human," Blackmane said with a kiss. "If you wanted," he went on, idly trailing a fingertip around one of Stedon's nipples until it was a hard little pearl, "I could give you such a name and you could call yourself by it. All it would take would be another orc to witness."

"What if you don't like the name you're given?"

"Then do not use it," Blackmane shrugged. "Though, if you do not accept it, it is a grave insult and you'll have to be prepared to kill the fool who gave it to you."

Another round of groaning and humping Blackmane's muscle bound body, and Stedon thought of another question.

"Tell me about your women, Blackmane. I've never seen a female orc before."

Blackmane chuckled coyly. "Who says we have any?"

"What? But...how do you.."

Blackmane snuggled Stedon's back to his mighty chest. "You humans really think the other races of the world should all follow your pattern, don't you? Do you know that there are no men amongst the elves? Some elves are born 'anointed,' as they call them - with a special gland just here." Blackmane rubbed a spot under the edge of Stedon's jawline. "When an anointed elf orgasms, she releases a sweet nectar into her mouth that travels through the body of a true female and makes her womb fertile."

"All right, then. How does it work with orc..with us?" Grothor had told Stedon to get used to including himself when he spoke of the orc race as a whole.

"Orcs have men and cuntmen. The men sire the young, the cuntmen carry them to term," Blackmane said.

"Who nurses the babes?" Stedon asked.

"Why, no one! Orc spawn are born able to eat meat. The loss of their first fangs signals the growth of the tusks and the change to juvenile status."

Stedon took a while to digest this information. He'd never imagined a creature that looked and acted physically male and yet sported a vagina. He plunged onward.

"So then the juvenile becomes Grunt and starts his training, right?"

Blackmane nodded, with a naughty smirk. "Though there is...one other thing they must do if they are cuntmen. Cuntman orcs cannot produce their own seed, you see. So in order to grow properly strong, they must consume the seed of others. As much of it as they can get."

Stedon blushed and giggled. "Does that mean they're all submissives?"

"Not at all! It is not uncommon for a strong cuntman to have a harem of regular studs who supply him with what he needs. And a cuntman can always force a weaker orc to give cock to his throat during a fuck."

"I don't know if I could ever lie with a cuntman," Stedon said. "I rather like big juicy orc cocks too much."

Blackmane's loincloth tented and he slurped Stedon's ear. "Well then, Grunt. Why don't we go outside and show the warband how much you like mine?"

Blackmane enjoyed taking Stedon with an audience. Sessions between him and Stedon became a regular performance over the passing months that left the other orcs enthusiastically stroking themselves off . More than once, they'd joined in toward the end.

Stedon loved those times, for it seemed to him that in those moments of orgy, the warband was the most content. Every orc relished his brother, sought to give him pleasure. The warband celebrated itself, gloried in the fact that they were orcs and that their warband was strong.

As tender as those moments were, making love to Majok was more tender, still. Majok was so patient he was almost human. He taught Stedon orc lore through encouragement and reward rather than the more orcish method of using scorn to generate anger and punishment to purge weakness.

Stedon was secretly grateful for it. Majok was blessedly restful after lessons with the other three. It took a few months, but Majok and Stedon worked out an understanding that didn't require speech.

So Stedon learned the truth about the beginning of orckind. How they had indeed once been a strain of men during the ancient days when great beasts roamed the land and rivers of ice poured down from the mountains. How, while the men who would become humans huddled about their fires and took comfort in warmth and hearth and feared the night, the orcs' ancestors embraced the freezing storms and warmed themselves with the blood of the beasts they slew. Stedon learned that it was not a curse which had transformed the orcs, but rather a blessing.

"It was the birth of the gods that ended that age," Majok taught, drawing imagery to match his tales on the walls of their shelter with a mix of muds, ochres, charcoal and blood. "The gods shattered the ice rivers and brought down the fearsome predators who hunted men in the night. We who had run with the dire wolves and eaten the still-beating hearts of the cave bears rejected their light and warmth. So for our loyalty, and the honor we had always shown on the hunt, the spirits of the great beasts blessed us to carry on their legacy, to become proud and fearless beasts as they had been."

Majok could teach Stedon orkish lore, but it took the whole warband to each Stedon orkish song. Orcs did not sing the way humans did - to entertain. Songs were power, for an orc's blood was hot and easily swayed to passion. There were songs sung after a successful hunt, which were the oldest songs. There were songs of battle, both before and afterward; songs that swore vengeance upon the enemy after a defeat. Songs to honor the leaders of warbands, songs of honor for warbands that had their own names, which were sung long after the warband itself had passed away. There were no songs of death.

"When an orc dies," Majok told Stedon, "his spirit must be sated with blood. The greater the orc was in life, the more enemies must be slain to offer his spirit upon the funeral pyre. Let us imagine the day Grothor is slain. What would you do, as you held his head in your hands and watched the fire leave his eyes?"

Stedon clenched his fists. "I would want to kill the bastard who did it!"

"So would the entire warband. We would go on a rampage. Nothing would stop us. We would paint our faces black and hunt down those responsible or the nearest and closest targets to that end and we would kill without mercy, without ceasing. Until blood had washed our faces clean again."

Stedon shivered. "So....when Zor the Undefeatable finally dies..."

"It will be war," Majok wrote with his charcoal stick, outlining the glyph for war with red ochre.

Stedon did not want to think about Grothor dying. The night after Majok's revelation, Stedon slurped Grothor's meaty green cock until it was hard and eager, then begged Grothor to fuck him. He knew about the orkish way of bonding, now, so he rode Grothor's shaft while they grunted and gazed in each other's eyes, sharing breath and sweat and scent with each other. After it was over, Stedon squeezed his ass around Grothor's shaft.

"Again," he begged, smearing his tongue up over one nipple. "Please!"

"Mmmm...what's gotten into you, Grunt?" Grothor rumbled, hugging Stedon's quivering body with a chuckle.

Stedon bit into Grothor's nipple and when the orc snarled and looked down at him, Stedon glared right back and hissed out, "Again!"

Grothor made out with him while he waited for his cock to harden up once more. Stedon closed his eyes, tried to memorize every contour of that brutish mouth with his tongue. He could tell Grothor sensed his need. It made him harden faster.

Kreg came sidling into the stone shelter, smirking and already loosening his loincloth. Grothor broke the kiss with Stedon.

"GET OUT!"

Kreg backpedaled and left a moment later. Stedon barely had time to wonder how Grothor knew he wanted to be alone before he was yanked back into orcish heaven.

Grothor and Stedon came four times that night. Grothor held Stedon tightly afterward while Stedon gently licked the sweat off one bulging arm, as if they were mates. Grothor stroked Stedon's mowhawk tenderly.

"It is late, Grunt. The others want to sleep."

"Let them sleep outside. You're leader. Command it."

"I'd only do that as a punishment."

"Then sleep out under the stars and the naked moon with me," Stedon murmured, nuzzling the crook of Grothor's arm.

"Stedon," Grothor said. Stedon looked up at him in surprise. He hadn't been called by his human name in two seasons. "What troubles you?"

Stedon sighed. "Majok and I talked about you dying, today."

"And what did you say?" Grothor asked.

Stedon shrugged. "Oh, I told him how many enemies I would butcher for your funeral pyre, how I would drink the blood of your foes to send your spirit off."

"You seem troubled by that."

Stedon looked down. "I guess I'm still too human not to be."

"Do you know why the humans fear death? Why they weep for their fallen?" Grothor said.

Stedon blinked. "I never knew orcs had any thoughts on the matter."

Grothor chuckled. "Until you met me, you never knew orcs had any thoughts at all!" He slapped Stedon's ass fondly. Stedon couldn't suppress his smile.

"I will tell you why," Grothor went on. "It is because they are weak. In the old days, when the gods rose, the humans ran to them like children for protection. They still desire their gods to coddle and care for them. They wrap themselves in the comforts and riches of their parents and ancestors rather than work to gain such things for themselves. They flee from pain and complain about hardship. Do you not see what this all leads to, Grunt?"

"I....no," Stedon admitted. He felt ashamed, as though he were failing some test.

"It leads to an entire race who live their lives without challenge. Without meaning. Humans are like cattle, wanting in their hearts nothing more than to be content, fat, and relaxed. And like prey, they know only fear at the coming of their end. The bonds they have with each other are not strong enough to survive loss, and so they weep and wail whenever even the most unworthy of them is taken away. Even an old man, useless and sick, is grieved over when he should have been slain the day he became bedridden."

"So I am still too human," Stedon concluded, dejected.

"You are. Do not run from that truth," Grothor said. "I do not blame you for it. We have not fought together. Shed blood together. Technically, our relationship is nothing but lovers."

Stedon looked at him in shock. "So I'm not really a part of the warband?"

"You are our trusted ally. You give us strength and pleasure. But until you've spilled blood in our name...no, Grunt."

Stedon shoved himself to his feet and burst from the shelter, out into the night. The other orcs of the warband sat about the fire. Sweat still gleamed on a few of them from a bout of fucking. They didn't look at Stedon, but rather at the shelter entrance for a sign from Grothor that he was sated.

Grothor appeared. "Grunt!"

Stedon whirled on him, angry tears rising in his eyes. "What?"

"You run from my words? Why? Do you seek comfort out here? From them? Like a human?"

Stedon trembled.

"Answer your leader!" Grothor barked.

"I..." the tears spilled over onto his cheeks. "I thought I was strong, my greater! I thought I was one of you! And now...now I see that I am still nothing but a weak little human!"

Grothor put his hands on his hips, jerked his chin at Stedon. "And you despair?"

"I hate myself!" Stedon screamed. He stomped his bare foot, hands clenched at his sides. "I hate this pink skin and these pathetic tears! I want to be a warrior, a brother of the band! But I have so far to go!"

"Then you should be happy!" Grothor thundered, spreading his arms out in exasperation.

"I...what?" Stedon was so surprised that his tears stopped.

"Grunt, you have before you a mighty challenge. A greater challenge than even I have ever faced! I envy you!"

"You? Envy me?"

Grothor put a hand on Stedon's back, guided him toward the fire. The other orcs stood. Grothor gestured out to encompass them.

"We live for challenge, Grunt! We HUNGER for it! An orc is defined by his challenges - those he has defeated, those that have bested him, those he has yet to face! The scars he carries are like the medals granted to human warriors for valor - earned in the fires of combat and displayed with pride!"

Of course Stedon had noted the scars the orcs all bore. Some were small, subtle things. But now, Stedon read the scars anew. Grothor turned to Kreg.

"You. Tell this ignorant Grunt why you're jealous of him!"

Kreg stepped forward to face Stedon. "You have the chance to remake yourself into a warrior in ways I never will. I never had to learn to savor my kills, but you will. And that will make each doubly sweet."

Stedon stared at Kreg in shock. Kreg put a hand on his shoulder. "You learn to fight quickly. But you will still die in a real fight because you lack passion. Bloodlust. That is the key to the orc way of war, Grunt. I see you are starting to understand, now."

"You can't teach me bloodlust," Stedon said.

"No," Kreg said. "But the pain you feel right now is the agony of truth. The purging of weakness. It is ruk'torog. All Grunts must endure it."

"What must I do?" Stedon asked, looking from Kreg to Grothor.

Grothor stepped forward. "Embrace your pain." He emphasized his words with two clutching hands. "Welcome it! Drink deep of it into the very core of your being! Let it cleanse you of your weak human desires."

Majok pushed his way between Grothor and Kreg. He turned his back to Stedon and eyed both of them, then gave a gesture in orc hunter sign. Grothor nodded with a grunt.

"What's going on?" Stedon asked.

Majok faced him, picked up Stedon's hand and began to write with a finger in his palm. "You have entered ruk'torog. You stand before the fires of the crucible. We must do all we can to aid your agony. It is the orc ritual of manhood, the test to be passed before the final combat where an orc becomes an adult."

Stedon steeled himself. "Okay. What now?"

"I am your enemy," Majok wrote into Stedon's palm, and then stuck him to the ground.

Stedon felt his vision blur. He staggered to his feet. Blackmane stood there.

"I am your enemy." He planted a big green foot in Stedon's stomach and shoved him backward so that Stedon crashed against a standing boulder, winded.

Kreg strode toward him. Stedon dropped into a combat crouch. Kreg smiled at that. "I've been looking forward to this, human."

"Call me that again and I'll kill you!" Stedon yelled through clenched teeth. He had no idea where that came from, but it felt a white hot rage when Kreg told him he was human.

Kreg grinned wider. "Good!" he growled back. "I am your enemy."

Kreg sent a blinding fist at Stedon's face. Stedon blocked it, counter attacked, and was struck across the face so hard his blood sprayed onto the rocks. Nausea welled up in him. Stedon fought it back down with gasps of air.

Grothor stood before him. "I am your enemy, Grunt."

He held one of the smoldering branches from the fire. He stabbed Stedon in the chest with it. Stedon screamed. Grothor bent close.

"You will know nothing but pain. Until you take your destiny from this uncaring world with your bare hands, all the world is your enemy. Go. And do not return until all your enemies are dead."

Grothor removed the blazing brand from Stedon's flesh, ripped Stedon's loincloth away, and shoved him, naked, toward the permimeter of the camp.

Stedon hesitated. Grothor drew his sword. "GO OR DIE WHERE YOU STAND!"

Stedon staggered off into the dark. He hugged himself for warmth. His chest screamed. Water. He needed water. Stedon looked about him, but saw only rocks, briars, sand.

Embrace the pain, Grothor had said. Easy enough for a real orc, with their natural healing abilities. This human flesh was so fragile. Stedon tried rubbing some clean dry sand against his burned chest. The pain blossomed to such intensity he collapsed.

When Stedon's eyes opened again, it was dawn. His throat was parched. Stedon forced himself up onto all fours. He spotted a short, spiked bush not far away laden with bloated gourds. The warband had been harvesting them for the water they contained ever since they arrived in the valley.

Stedon ripped one of the gourds free, ignoring the spines that jabbed his fingers. He found a small pointed rock and drilled a hole in the side. The water that poured out into his mouth was the sweetest drink he had ever tasted. Ambrosia from the gods.

Stedon moaned and suckled it down. He drank his fill of the other gourds on the plant, then wiped his mouth and surveyed his surroundings.

***

"The human is dead, Grothor. We should go back to the mountains," Kreg said.

Grothor wasn't surprised at his lieutenant's words. So he ignored them. He sat before the smoking fire and sipped the last of their bloodbeer.

"It has been ten days, my greater. Ten days, naked, in the desert. No weapons," Kreg pressed.

"You once told me your own ruk'torog took two weeks," Grothor pointed out.

"I am a true orc!" Kreg exploded. "This game of yours with your human toy has gone on long enough! Winter comes in less than a month and we will miss the first blizzards if we languish around here like a bunch of elves!"

Grothor shot to his feet. Both orcs drew blades. A spear tipped with a chipped stone point hurtled between them and slammed into the center of the campfire. The orcs turned. Stedon slid down the side of a rock and drew a thick-bladed stone knife.

"No one is fighting anyone in this camp without me!"

The orcs stared at him. Stedon was dressed in the uncured hide of a desert wild cat. He had shed fat so that his taught muscled body stood shredded under the cold autumn light. Yet, his body looked slightly larger than he had before he'd left, rather than smaller. As though he had gained muscle to compensate.

Grothor felt his cock twitch. Stedon looked glorious. His hair had grown out, but somehow the human had found a way to keep his face and body relatively shaved. Stedon swaggered toward them, whirling his blade and sliding it back into its sheath by his side.

"Why are you lying about the camp? What happened to your training? The antelope are on the move not half a day from here, yet here you languish! Not the warband I thought I would return to!" Stedon said.

He strode up to Grothor's half-empty drinking horn, picked it up, and drained it dry. The brashness of it made Grothor smile. Stedon smirked over the top of the horn at him.

"Miss me, Grothor?"

"I knew you would return," Grothor growled.

They crashed together and this time it was Stedon who shoved Grothor back against the stones with the force of his lust. Stedon who rammed his tonge wantonly down inside Grothor's mouth. Their cocks frotted together through the skin of their loincloths.

"Right here. Right now," Stedon husked out.

Grothor tore both their loincloths off a moment later. The two naked sweaty muscled figures rolled together in the dirt. Stedon ended up on top. He slammed Grothor's back to the ground, pinned him beneath his legs. Stedon turned his head to grin over one sweaty shoulder at the astounded orcs.

"You've been neglecting your exercises." He spread his legs and ass cheeks. "Who wants to rectify that first?"

There was a pause, and then all three orcs were shoving and wrestling each other out of the way. Clothing and armor dropped like rain. Grothor was already smearing his tongue along Stedon's bulging chest.

Kreg won the right to Stedon's ass first. He knelt behind Stedon's upturned cheeks, grabbed them, and speared himself inside with an eager roar. Stedon bucked him back so hard he nearly threw Kreg off of him.

"Make me BLEED," Stedon growled.

Kreg saw red. He would break this horny human's fucking spine with his dick! Yet the sounds that came out of Stedon as he started to try to make good on that silent vow were the long, loud, throaty screams of a man in the throes of wild bliss.

Grothor clenched great fistfuls of Stedon's back and they smeared their sweaty bodies together like mating eels. Stedon clawed at Grothor's pecs, bit his neck so hard it drew blood.

"By the dead GODS, Grunt!" Grothor howled. In seconds he'd gone from hard to nearly exploding.

Stedon spat to the side. "The gods are lies!"

He used Kreg's eager thrusts to inch himself up closer to Grothor's face. He licked along one jutting tusk. "YOU are my god now, Grothor."

"Kreg," Grothor rumbled. "Get out of him. That ass is MINE!"

"I'm almost-"

"OUT!!!"

Kreg obeyed. Majok got down onto all fours and Kreg gratefully mounted him. Together, they rutted and watched while Grothor welcomed Stedon back into the band.

Stedon lay on his back atop Grothor, legs spread apart. Grothor held Stedon by the wrists and flexed with his hips and abdominals to shove his cock deep into the human.

Stedon writhed and hummed, spurting pre. After Kreg's savagery, Grothor's gentler bucks felt soothing. Grothor kissed him from above while they fucked.

Both pairs came at the same time. Yet, Stedon seemed insatiable. He gave bedroom eyes to Blackmane, and Blackmane needed no words. He mounted Stedon's face while Grothor took him from behind once more.

The old Stedon would have wept at the glorious orc sandwich he was in. But Stedon's days of tears were over. He grabbed Blackmane about the waist and flexed his arms over and over to help guide that juicy orkish sausage down his waiting throat.

When Stedon had drunk from Blackmane's balls, he shoved Blackmane off of him and staggered to his feet. After a long drink of cold water from a skin that Kreg handed him, Stedon smirked at Majok.

Majok raised an eyebrow, but smirked back and presented his ass for the human. It was time for Grunt to show his warband what he could do as a stud for a change. Stedon slid into that waiting hole. It was like having his cock wrapped in a warm, wet glove. After so recent a pounding by Kreg, the walls of Majok's anus were loose, and eased Stedon's passage inside.

Majok's bare rump nuzzled Stedon's belly. Stedon set up a steady, humping rhythm deep within the orc's ass. He didn't pull out an inch, just ground and ground his dick as deep inside Majok as he could. Majok lowered his head and gave a voiceless moan, like a great reversed gasp.

"Yes, that's how you like it, isn't it?" Stedon breathed. "These other boys have been too rough on you, poor Majok. Let me take care of you properly."

Majok started to pant. He reached down to furiously begin stroking himself. Stedon embraced the orc from behind, kissing the sweat off the green skin of his tattooed back. Majok responded, rocking back in time to Stedon's fucking.

Stedon drew it out, bringing Majok close and then backing off. Over and over. Until Majok was finally pounding his fist against the earth, wordlessly begging Stedon to finish it. Stedon delivered the killing blow with a series of hard, pounding, slow hip slams interspersed with slaps to those ass cheeks.

Majok shot his cum so far it landed, sizzling, in the campfire. He collapsed, and Stedon lay on top of him. Eyes closed. Content, for the moment.

A pair of big strong hands rubbed the post-sex fatigue out of Stedon's muscles. Stedon let them work, not caring whose they were. This was his warband. His brothers. He never wanted to see a human face again.