Nym Airi ran through the woods with dozens of skinny beastfolk in tow. There was inevitably some noise, just because of their numbers, but each individual was being as quiet as they could. Soon, they arrived at the camp.

These beastfolk had lived in a frontier farming village where orc raids were common, so they naturally weren’t very comfortable around War Orcs, but now that the Oni village was well behind them, Airi could do more to help convince them.

She could safely make a scene here, so she stood before her kin and used her experience as a high priestess to think up a speech on the fly.

“Sisters,” she called out to the freed slaves, “our mother goddess has not abandoned you. As we speak, she is waiting for you to return with her arms wide open. My name is Nym Airi, and I was once your empress. That title is lost, as our country has fallen, but I remain a priestess of Ashtante. And I tell you also that I am the daughter of two Nocts. Our divine ancestors still exist in this world, still with the power to assume any form, and sometimes blessed children are still born. I know that you have been victimized by War Orcs in the past, but those days are over, because the new queen of all Orcs is our kin! A safe haven is waiting for you, so please have faith.”

It was a good speech, but still not quite enough, considering all that these poor women had been through. Nym Airi spent a few minutes patiently convincing them and answering their questions. They even called one of the Noct back to camp and had them demonstrate their shapeshifting powers. Finally, one beastfolk was willing to pass through the teleportation pad and scout the situation, and their testimony quickly convinced the rest that Airi didn’t seem to be lying.

The warband sent the beastfolk to Babylon, disassembled the portal, and still the Oni village was quiet. Phase one of the operation seemed to be a success, so the two generals gathered with Airi again for a quick follow-up meeting.

“Let’s kill the elites in their sleep,” Varoon suggested. “Then we can try to negotiate with the leftovers first thing in the morning.”

Durghan folded his arms. “I don’t like how that sounds, but if we were to fight the citizens, Nemeses’ curse would force them to fight back until one side was dead. We don’t have many options if we want there to be survivors.”

“I’d bet my left arm that my sister wants a genocide,” Varoon snorted. “Oni are fundamentally civilized Orcs. We just have to give it a month or two for Nemeses to abandon them, and then they’ll be brought under Vyra’s racial dominance like the rest of the Orcs.”

“In theory we could just tie up their leaders,” Airi suggested, “but they know how to ritually sacrifice to the Dark Lord of Pride. I would feel anxious if that knowledge were to stay circulating.”

***

Varoon stepped quietly. He wore just enough leather armor to cover his vitals, all to reduce the sound he made while moving. It was dark, but the sun would begin rising within the next hour. He and Durghan had spent a lot of time in order to avoid alerting the Oni’s to their presence.

The magic beast and monster hybrid found the last building the scouts had told him held one of the demon priests. He climbed in silently through a window and explored the interior. He moved carefully enough that the wooden floor never creaked under his weight.

He found a ritual maiden sleeping peacefully. All that remained was to quickly snap her neck and be done with it. The martial artist felt the muscles in his large, orcish hands tense in preparation for the strike.

This house belonged to the ritual matron overseeing the rest of the ritual maidens, and she made a habit of putting up barriers before falling asleep.

Varoon had lousy mystical senses. It was a consequence of his mixed bloodline: the beast side wanted magic to flow freely, while the monster side wanted to trap it all inside of a core. He couldn’t control his magic that was in a constant civil war, and so he would never walk the path of a mage for as long as he lived.

And so, unfortunately, one of Varoon’s weaknesses was that he wouldn’t notice a barrier like this without seeing or touching it. Once he entered its range, the ritual matron opened her eyes and leapt out of bed, taking a potted plant off of a shelf to defend herself with, somehow.

“Who—!” she meant to shout as loud as possible while questioning the intruder, but Varoon stepped forward with feet that moved too fast to see and covered her mouth with his hand.

“By order of the Orc Lord, I’m here to kill you.”

***

Durghan released a breath and lowered his longbow. His usual axe was hanging at his hip, and his metal armor had been replaced with leather. Stealth was not his forte as a warrior, but a tactical mind would still find a way.

For example, if he couldn’t quietly enter someone’s home, just shoot at them through a window.

I’ll tell the city when I get back: don’t put beds where there’s a clear line of sight from any windows.

The orc general had been tasked with killing two of the demon priests while Varoon—better at moving quietly—would handle the other three. So far no alarms had been raised, and he just had one more target to kill before withdrawing.

With the window cracked and his bow drawn to full power, Durghan aimed carefully at the head of the Oni, but his intuition told him something was wrong.

His target wasn’t registering with his detection skill, not as an ally, an enemy, or a neutral party.

Is it a body double? He shook off that thought. No, there’s definitely a physical presence there, and they shouldn’t have known we were coming. But, it’s definitely some kind of magic.

The former orc chief, currently an orc general, slowly relaxed his bowstring and pondered his next move. He couldn’t fail to kill his target in a single strike. There was a chance of alerting the whole town if he lost the element of surprise.

Durghan quietly retreated and signaled for one of the black goblin mages sneaking about to come over.

“Can you silence that room over there?” Durghan whispered. “This one might turn into a fight, and I don’t want to wake the town.”

“I’ll put up a wind barrier,” the Noct said.

The orc general nodded, traded his bow for a shortsword and entered the house. He tested his hoof on the wooden floor near the entrance and was pleased that he couldn’t hear his own noisy footsteps.

He entered a proper combat-ready stance right beside the ritual master’s bed and hoped to indeed finish this in one swing.