So began my life as an orc among the orcs of Koseki. I, who arrived in Kigen as a naked, feral survivor, now took another step up the chain of existence. The people of Koseki were barbarians—though they wore silk, forged steel, and dwelled behind massive stone walls, they lived too fiercely, too primitively, to be called anything else. You wouldn’t find their like on Earth, nor see their counterpart in its history. More on that later. First, let me tell you about my battle with Goro the Bear.
They took the chains off and moved me into a tower on Koseki’s wall, where I stayed until my wounds closed up. Officially, I was still a prisoner; they brought food and drink regularly, and they tended my injuries with surprising skill. From what they told me, they wanted me in perfect shape for a wrestling match with Goro, a fight that would determine whether I joined the orcs of Koseki, or wound up as a feast for wolves and vultures. No sense leaving my corpse around to stink up the place.
Most of them kept it strictly business with me, except for Taro the Swift, who was friendly in his blunt, orcish way. I didn’t see Kosshun the Skull-Splitter, Goro, Gotsuro Tigerwrath, or Aiko at all during that time. I can’t recall a more tedious stretch in my life. It wasn’t fear—I’d gambled with death so many times that the concept lost its sting. But back on Earth, I’d been a gangster who thrived in action, and here in Kigen, I’d spent months living like a mountain cat, always on the prowl. Being locked up in that tower, pacing the stones like a caged beast, drove me insane. By the time they finally let me out, I was so keyed up with pent energy that I felt like a dynamite fuse.
Now, let me be blunt: there’s no human on Earth who could match the raw power of a Koseki orc. Day after day, they wrestle with perils both beastly and mortal, forging savage strength. But for months, I hadn’t just been living like a savage—I’d been living like a wild animal. I was stronger than I’d ever dreamed possible back home in Tokyo, and if that champion wrestler I once sparred with on Earth had seen me now, he’d have fainted. My fists could pulverize ribcages, my arms could snap bone. I could move with the lethal grace of a tiger. Yet I knew Goro was going to test every last reserve I had.
Taro rattled off Goro’s greatest hits, painting a picture of rampage and broken bodies. No one had survived a barehanded contest with him. Some said only Roga the Bonebreaker—chief of Tanabe, a rival city—might rival Goro’s strength. I’d fought Roga once and come out alive, so maybe I had a chance. Taro told me Roga’s favorite poniard, the one I’d taken, was rumored to have been forged by a supernatural metalworker—a kikaika, he called it. It reminded me of Earth’s old tales about dwarven smiths in Germanic legend.
Taro told me countless things about the orcs and about this entire world they called Kigen, but I’ll get to that in time. Eventually Kosshun showed up, checked my bandages, noted my muscle tone with a flicker of respect, and declared me ready to fight.
***
Night had fallen when they finally led me through the streets of Koseki. The towering walls loomed overhead, monolithic against the star-hung sky. Everything here was built on a gigantic scale—short in height, maybe, but absurdly thick, like the orcs had heaped blocks of stone until an army of giants couldn’t shake them.
They took me into a big oval arena near the outer fortifications, ringed by vast tiers of stone blocks for seating. Orcs crowded the lower benches; behind them, women and children perched on upper tiers. Torches sputtered in the breeze, lighting a woven barrier of leather thongs that fenced in the arena floor. Grass showed in patches underfoot, worn down to tough stubble in places. I spotted Aiko among the crowd. I’m not sure why, but my pulse quickened when I realized she was watching.
Taro and the other warriors motioned me into the ring. High above, Kosshun sat on a raised stone seat draped with leopard hides. I threw a glance at the alien sky, shimmering with unfamiliar constellations, then choked down a half-crazed laugh at how bizarre my life had become. Here I was, Kai, gangster fugitive from Tokyo, about to prove my right to breathe in Kigen by wrestling an orc named Goro the Bear. Couldn’t make it up if I tried.
A cluster of warriors approached from the far side, with Goro’s hulking form in the middle. He snarled when he realized I’d arrived first, as if that alone was an insult. Kosshun raised a spear and flung it downward, letting it stick blade-first in the turf. As soon as we saw that shining spear lodge in the dirt, Goro and I lunged at each other.
We both wore nothing but stout leather around our waists, more belt than clothing. Our rules were stripped down to basics: no fists or open-hand blows, no biting or gouging. Almost anything else was fair game. One look at Goro and I realized he was even stronger than Roga had been. And I couldn’t use my best weapons—my fists. He outweighed me, probably knew every trick in the orcish wrestling manual, and that bull neck of his looked impossible to choke out.
What I did have on him was speed and endurance, hammered into me by months in the wilderness. After that first collision, the rest became a haze of gasping, thrashing, savage deadlock. Foot against foot, chest against chest, each of us seeking that one edge. Time lost all meaning. My lungs burned, my muscles screamed, my mouth dripped blood, but Goro was in no better shape.
Somewhere near midnight, we broke apart. I reeled on shaky legs, my ribs felt like glass about to shatter, and my head pounded so hard I could hardly see. Goro, likewise, was spitting blood, half the orcish bravado gone from his eyes. Then he roared one final time, charged me with everything left. I caught his arm, ducked low, and heaved in a last-ditch throw.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The pivot worked. Goro flipped over my shoulder, slammed onto the ground with the sickening crack of bone, and went limp. I staggered above him, dimly aware of the deep-throated roar rising from Koseki’s spectators. Then the torches and stars winked out, and I collapsed across Goro’s motionless body.
***
They told me later that both of us looked dead. It took them hours of work to revive us, and to this day I’m amazed my heart stood the strain. No one in Koseki had seen a match drag on so long. Goro’s shoulder and skull were fractured; three of my ribs were busted, and half my joints were sprained or bruised.
Once I’d been patched up and was lying on a padded pallet, I asked Taro if Goro would hold a grudge. Taro admitted nobody could guess—Goro had never been beaten before. The answer came when a litter bearing Goro himself, swathed in bandages, arrived at my chamber. He demanded his warriors carry him to me, so he could make it clear he bore no ill will. Quite the opposite—he held my battered hand in his huge paw, roared out the glorious highlights of our battle for anyone who’d listen, and bellowed that he couldn’t wait for the day we might join forces in some future war. Despite the bruises, I found myself liking the big lug’s directness.
And so I, Kai, ascended from savage to barbarian in the eyes of Koseki’s orcs. In the great council hall, still stiff and hurting, I stood before Kosshun Skull-Splitter. He drew his immense sword and inscribed the city’s symbol above my head, then buckled a warrior’s harness around me—thick leather belt, iron buckle, and all. That belt supported a broad silver-guarded sword and a razor-edged dagger. Then the warriors passed before me, chief after chief, pressing their palms to mine, each speaking his name and repeating the one they’d gifted me: Tetsuken. There were four thousand orcs in the Koseki clan, with four hundred of them of chief rank, so you can imagine how long that took. But it was tradition. When we finished, I was a Koseki orc as surely as if I’d been born in their midst.
***
In my tower cell—and later as a recognized tribesman—I learned plenty about the orcs of Koseki and about the world of Kigen. They considered themselves the only true race on Kigen, though they admitted there was a mysterious people of winged black raiders called the Karasu, far to the south. The orcs used the term Kijin to refer to themselves, meaning simply “the People” in their own language. Many Kijin strongholds dotted the plains between the southern Girdle and the icy north, each city a fortress akin to Koseki, each tribe at perpetual war with the others.
The orcs explained that no one from Koseki had ever circled the planet—Kigen was vast, and orcs rarely traveled except to hunt or raid. They insisted the far north was a land of freezing wastes, haunted by eerie shapes and echoing with howls in the long Arctic nights. Some said the Girdle in the south was a ring of impassable cliffs that split the planet in half, though the boldest dreamers believed there was another hemisphere beyond that barrier. Most orcs scoffed at such “romantic nonsense.”
Wherever they settled, the Kijin built monstrous walls—square towers heaped from stone blocks, more suited for withstanding wars and bestial assaults than for pleasing the eye. No Kijin city strayed too far from a reliable freshwater source, and each cultivated the plants they used for silk, wine, and food inside its walls, making them nearly impervious to sieges. When they needed fresh meat, they hunted, often for sport as much as sustenance. Hunting parties roamed far, and seldom did the entire fighting force remain in the city at once.
As for the women, Aiko included, they were an entirely different matter. Pale, slender, quick of mind, and guarded ferociously by their men, they had no voice in public affairs and rarely left the safety of the walls. Yet their orc mates—fierce as they were—protected them from abuse, worshiped them in their own barbaric way, and insisted on strict monogamy. The women sang, made silk from special plants, and raised children with a gentleness that contrasted starkly with the men’s endless taste for war.
The men, meanwhile, resembled Earth’s Viking raiders in some respects: loyal to their clan, scornful of deceit, savage in combat, easily provoked and just as easily appeased if the blood feud wasn’t personal. They lived to brawl, hunt, and raid. The technology they favored included swords, spears, a single-shot firearm with short range, and—when it came to true skill—the bow and arrow. They soared with pride over their barbaric freedom, and if they recognized an enemy, heaven help that poor soul.
In my months at Koseki, I adapted wholeheartedly to the hunts, the feasts, the ale-swilling, and the occasional fistfight between friends. It was raw existence turned up to full volume, everything I’d craved since arriving on Kigen. If you asked me then, I would have said I’d never needed libraries or universities. I hunted, I feasted, I fought. I embraced life with no holds barred, a glutton for the raw energy of existence. For a time, I almost forgot the slender orc-girl with the dark eyes, who’d watched that mad council all those weeks ago and somehow brought a curious ache to my chest.
***
Still, Kigen is a land of endless mysteries. The orcs only half-understood their world, whispering tales of ancient ruins built by forgotten peoples, or wandering nightmares that prowled beneath the moonlight. They dreaded and despised the Karasu, those black-winged marauders from Karasuta, perched on the rock called Kuroishi by the River Yoko, deep in the land of Karasuha. Led by their immortal queen, Yasu, the Karasu periodically descended upon the Kijin cities to steal away orcish maidens for unspeakable ends. Did they serve a monstrous deity? Did they devour their captives alive? No orc had ever escaped to tell. Some insisted the Karasu recognized no gods but themselves. Whatever the truth, fear of that black-winged race ran deep.
Worse horrors lurked in rumor or half-glimpsed shadow: half-human beasts prowling the crypts of unnamed ruins, laughing bats big enough to drive warriors mad, and shambling giants that roared down from lonely mountain passes. The orcs lived daily with such nightmares, forging a culture as tough as the stones of their walls. And though I heard much and saw glimpses of these terrors, my story has its own pace. Bear with me, for events in Kigen can race from calm to chaos in a heartbeat, and my chronicle will follow that same furious course once it truly begins.
For now, know that I spent months thriving in Koseki, becoming orc in all but birth. I wrestled, sparred, gorged on game fresh from the hunts, quaffed ale while roaring out rowdy ballads. In those wild nights, as I slammed cups together with Taro or hoisted Goro’s battered arm in triumph, I rarely remembered the quiet, watchful gaze of Aiko. But Fate moves in subtle arcs, and Kigen is a world that rarely leaves any path untwisted for long.