Smoke trailed behind the march of the new horde.
The Blackgrin banners still flew, but they were no longer black and white.
Across each painted jaw a red fang slashed downward the mark of Vris the Fanglord. Around it, fresh sigils crowded the hides: a lattice of webbing for the Webmother Matriarch; a pawprint pressed in ash for Skara and her wargs; a twisted staff for Maggra the Witch of Gorehill.
Every beast, every monster, every outcast of the south now moved beneath that red fang.
Vris rode high on Skara’s broad back, cloak snapping like a banner of its own. Dunzok marched beside her flank, armor patched with bone and iron, the grin-tooth motif smeared in dried blood.
They had begun the first of their unification raids to bring every clan of orc, goblin, or beast that still roamed the plains beneath one rule.
Their first prey were the Fleshfeeders, a feral tribe that lived by consuming their own fallen. They painted themselves in gore, gnawed the bones of enemies and kin alike, and screamed their prayers to carrion gods.
When word reached them that a “half-breed goblin king” marched on the plains, they came to meet him in frenzy and mockery.
Vris saw this as opportunity.
He turned to Dunzok, eyes bright beneath the shadow of his hood.
“You called yourself Warchief once,” he said. “Show them what that means.”
He opened the ranks and let Dunzok run loose.
The Fleshfeeders charged, a tide of madness.
They never saw the lines of goblins buried in the grass, nor the wargs crouched downwind, nor the ogres hidden beneath cloaks of earth.
Dunzok met them head-on a storm of steel and fury and the trap snapped shut.
From the sides, the Fanglord’s goblins poured arrows dipped in spider-venom. From below, the Webmother’s brood opened trapdoors on screaming orcs, tangling them in silk as they were dragged to their doom. Maggra’s staff flared with necrotic light, raising the first of the enemy’s dead to fight their own kin.
When the dust settled, only less than half of the Fleshfeeders still stood: a brute of an orc, bones threaded through his skin, laughing through blood-filled teeth roared defiantly wielding two axes.
“One champion!” he roared. “One for each tribe!”
Vris only gestured. “Dunzok.”
The duel was short, brutal, and loud.
Axes clashed. Blood spattered. Dunzok took a cut across his shoulder and answered by breaking the other’s jaw with his helm.The Fleshfeeder lunged for his throat Dunzok caught him by the tusks, twisted, and tore until the skull came apart in two cracking halves.
He raised the remains overhead and bellowed, “For the Fanglord!”
The Fleshfeeders’ roar faltered. Then, one by one, they knelt.
By nightfall, the Fleshfeeders marched beneath the Red Maw banner.
Their fires joined those of the Blackgrin, their war drums echoing through the plains. Every new conquest added another sigil to the Fanglord’s army tribes woven into one monstrous tapestry.
They swept north and east, hitting human trade-roads and isolated hamlets. Caravans vanished into smoke. From the watchtowers of Fairehaven, terrified guards whispered of red-toothed banners prowling the horizon.
Vris watched the flames from a hillside, Skara’s breath warm against his back.
“You see?” he murmured to Dunzok. “They called you beast. I made you a blade.”
“And the world?” the orc asked.
Vris’s grin flashed sharp in the firelight. “The world will be our kindling.”
The night before the march smelled of iron and rain. The plains stretched wide and silver under the moon, the burrows quiet behind him the tribe asleep, dreaming of conquest.
Vris sat alone beside the fire-pit, armor stripped to the waist, his green-black skin slick with oil and ash. The flames reflected in his eyes, twin points of green against the night.
He wasn’t alone for long.
A low, rumbling growl rolled through the dark not warning, but recognition.
Skara emerged from the shadowed ridge, fur glistening with dew, her fangs catching the moonlight like drawn steel. The ground trembled under her weight.
She moved with the silence of smoke until she stood beside him, her amber eyes reflecting both the fire and the Fanglord seated at its edge.
“You should be sleeping,” Vris murmured.
The great warg lowered her head, snorting once hot breath misting the air. Then she sat, the way she always did when defying him a slow, deliberate folding of limbs that said: I do as I please.
Vris chuckled, resting his elbows on his knees. “You think you’re my equal, don’t you?”
Skara tilted her head, ears twitching. She didn’t answer didn’t need to. Her silence was its own kind of arrogance.
He reached for the haunch of meat near the fire and tossed it to her. She caught it midair, her jaws snapping with a wet crunch that echoed into the night. Then, with surprising delicacy, she tore it apart in halves one for her, one dropped at his feet.
He stared at the offering, then up at her. “You share with me now?”
She huffed.
“Eat fang-cub..” It was in the motherly rumble of her throat as if daring him to disagree with her gesture.
He took the piece and bit into it. It was cold, raw, and perfect. They ate in silence for a while, listening to the distant hum of the burrows.
Finally, he spoke. “You could have gone back to the plains, you know. Found a mate. Led your pack far from all this.”
Skara’s head lifted slightly, eyes narrowing.
“You stay because you want to see what I become.”
She leaned forward nudging his lap with her enormous head as if warning him to not push his luck.
Her tail flicked. The sound she made was low not quite a growl, not quite a purr.
He smiled faintly. “Then you’re as foolish as I am.”
In the darkness, Vris slept for the first time in weeks.
And Skara watched the horizon until dawn, ears pricked and teeth bared toward the wind ever the guardian, ever the hunter.
When morning came, they rode out together Fanglord and Warg, bound by blood and understanding.