The next afternoon, Koruk found himself deep in thought. Too restless to fish, he walked down a familiar trail in the hills surrounding the village, occasionally whacking plants with a stick.

  Maybe I should go with Moktark he thought. It was a thought that hadn’t left his mind since last night. But like always, doubts plagued him. How many times has he done this? How many times has he allowed himself to be burdened by these doubts? He cursed himself for his weakness. He wished he was as strong as his friend.

  A flash of movement in the bushes next to him startled him back to reality. Quickly adjusting his grip, Koruk flung the stick into the bushes. A loud CRACK was followed by a brief flailing of limbs, and a rabbit lay dead. Well, at least this wasn’t a complete waste of time.

  As Koruk skinned the rabbit, the same thoughts ran through his head as did a hundred times. Not every orc in the tribe was a warrior. In the raiding season, someone had to stay behind and tend the pigs, and provide food for the womanfolk. It wasn’t unheard of for she-orcs to take up arms or hunt with the men, but generally they stayed home and preformed the menial labour which kept the village running and put clothes on everyone’s backs, which meant some men were needed to feed them.

  Perhaps he should be satisfied with his lot in life. It’s not like he’s a burden on the village, he thought. He carried his own weight, and then some. And in these times of peace, the warriors found themselves bored, which is mostly why they went on these raids. But still, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to ask…

  Koruk’s train of thought was cut short, as he noticed something in the sky above him. There was a bright light, like a shooting star, soaring through the sky overhead. Koruk squinted his eyes to look at it through the bright sunlight. That was no shooting star, it was a fireball. And it was coming right for him.

  As the fireball roared overhead, the sonic boom knocked Koruk onto his rear.

  They say your last words are seldom flattering. In Koruk’s case, they would have been something like “Holy shit, pig shit!” Luckily for him though, the falling star continued on to the north, disappearing over the hills towards the ocean.

  Still carrying the dead rabbit in his hand, Koruk ran up the hill to its summit, and scanned the horizon for any sign of it. In the distance to the north, he thought he could see the faintest sign of smoke. Yes, there was definitely a pillar of smoke starting to rise up into the sky.

  Excitement gripped the orc. He had no idea what he had just witnessed. It seemed as though the gods themselves had smote the earth with their fury, and he had lived to tell the tale. He had to get back to the village. He had to tell Moktark.

  Breathlessly he ran, and ran, and ran down that familiar trail. His rucksack rattled behind him. The rabbit, still clutched in a thick green paw, swung around like a pi?ata. Leather shoes impacted earth in an endless rhythm. After half an hour, he sighted the walls of the village and the smoke rising from a hundred fires.

  Runerg the gate guard couldn’t get a word in as Koruk bounded past him. Into the narrow streets he ran past bewildered looking women and children, until he arrived at the pigpens at the centre of the village.

  Moktark looked down at this friend in alarm as Koruk tried to stammer out words.

  “The beach… the fire… came down… haaah, haah”

  “Whoh little brother, calm down.” Moktark said, and led his friend to the fence.

  Koruk leaned against the fence, panting, sweat dripping from his chin. He coughed and spit onto the ground. He grinned and looked up at his friend.

  “I was, hunting.” He said, waving the skinned rabbit he was still holding. “Up on the hill, above town. There was… this light. A fire, it came down, like, BOOM!” Koruk gesticulated with the rabbit, failing it above his head. Moktark nodded, trying to take it in.

  “Slow down, what went boom? I don’t understand what you say little brother.”

  “I was hunting up in the hills, north of the village. I saw this, this light. It came down from the sky, like a ball of fire! It screamed at me and flew overhead, and then it landed up near the beach to the north.”

  “It screamed at you? Was it alive?” Moktark said.

  “I guess it must have been yeah. I’ve never heard a scream like that. It was like… I don’t know. A big burning bird I guess. It started a fire up by the beach, there’s smoke.” Koruk said.

  Moktark leaned back against the fence and looked up at the sky, a thoughtful expression on his face. He silently mouthed the word “dragon” to himself, and his eyes gained a mischievous sparkle.

  “We need to inform the elders.” Koruk said, turning to leave.

  “No, wait.” Said Moktark, rubbing his chin. “Let’s go check it out, you and me.”

  Koruk was dumbstruck. “What? Are you crazy?”

  “No think about it.” Moktark said, pushing off from the fence and turning towards the younger orc. “Whatever it was, you saw it first. You get first dibs on it. Don’t hurry to give that away.”

  “As for me, well.” Moktark said, grinning broadly and thumping his chest, “If it’s a dragon or a monster, you and me together should be able to take it down!”

  Koruk looked at his friend, who was grinning like an idiot. He’s insane, he thought to himself.

  But he’s right.

  If it is something valuable, and he laid claim to it, it would bring him a lot of respect from the village. Even the other warriors wouldn’t look down on him anymore. He felt his heart beat in his chest. There seemed to be a lump in his belly.

  He looked at Moktark, and nodded. Moktark clapped him roughly on the shoulder and smiled even wider.

  “Come on, let’s get ready.”

  Koruk hoped it wasn’t actually a dragon.

  Back at Moktark’s hut, the pair assembled their gear. Moktark grabbed a leather covered shield and a big flint axe, and Koruk selected a stiff bow and a quiver of arrows. Koruk strung it and gave it a few test pulls. A warbow was heavier than he was used to using for hunting, but he had no trouble drawing it back.

  They decided to pack light, forgoing any armour and taking only two rucksacks with a couple days supply of food, two skins of water, and some basic tools. It was late in the afternoon, and they wanted to make quick time, so to not alert the other tribesmen that something was up.

  The two explained to the gate guard, an ancient, geriatric orc who looked like he was ready to go to bed, that they were going hunting for rockheads in the hills. He shrugged, uncaring, and seemed to doze off. Then they set off on their quest.

  They hiked north, moving at a steady pace over the rolling hills covered with tall brown grass. Lazy herders waved at them as they traveled, and they passed pigs snuffling around for roots. Soon the sun set, and the twin moons shone bright in the sky, the larger appearing to devour the other in its “mouth”. They were bright enough that they were able to keep up mostly the same pace, and after a few hours of travel, they spotted the smoke cast against the night sky.

  As they approached the beach the terrain began to change. Dry grass grew greener, and huge leafy palm trees began to populate the landscape, the moonlight dancing off their leaves eerily. They could both smell the acrid smoke now, and followed their noses more than their eyes.

  The trees grew denser, and they found themselves having to cut their way through a thick tangle of vegetation with axe and knife. Eventually, after much stumbling and hacking, the jungle opened up into a clearing.

  A great circle of charred ground opened up before them. The still smouldering trees had been toppled over, and lie radially outwards from a strange object protruding from the ground in the centre. The two orcs stalked closer to it, weapons drawn. Koruk’s heart pounded, and he nocked an arrow in his bow. Whatever this was had him on edge, and his sense of wrongness was pounding in his head.

  The object was hut-sized, white, smooth, and oblong, streaked with black scorch marks along the bottom where it had buried itself into the sandy ground. It was covered in strange runes that Koruk had never seen the like of before. He reached out to touch it, and recoiled. It was hot to the touch. Was this the fireball he had seen? Looking around at the ring of scorched trees, there could be no doubt.

  “What the hell is it?” Moktark said. He had taken the words out of Koruk’s head.

  “I have no idea.”

  Moktark gave it an exploratory bonk with the flat of his axe, and the smooth hull of the contraption rung briefly. He raised his brow and grunted.

  “Different than how I imagined a dragon.”

  They walked around the perimeter of it, taking care to avoid the hotter patches of ground. In parts, the paint had been scoured away, to reveal a shining silvery metal surface underneath. On the half buried end, there was a mess of tubes, pipes, and mechanisms feeding into three funnels. The sand around these had fused into glass, which glimmered in strange colours. Finding no openings, they decided to try climbing on top of it. Moktark hoisted Koruk up, and the smaller orc scampered onto the still hot surface of the thing, his feet sliding as they tried to find purchase. He tentatively stood up, holding his arms out for balance.

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  The top of the “dragon” was nearly as featureless as the sides, with one exception. Further up, there was a rectangular, door shaped indent in its surface, with a small glass porthole. Koruk carefully eased his way up towards it, sliding his feet along and trying not to slip. Thankfully, around the indent were some handholds, which he grabbed onto just as he started to feel his feet slip.

  The window was fogged, and he couldn’t see much beyond it. Nor could he see any obvious way of opening it. Koruk took a moment to marvel at this thing they had found. It was like nothing else in the world he had ever seen, or even heard about.

  “What’s up there little brother?” Moktark called from below.

  “I think it’s some kind of door, maybe. There’s a hole but I can’t see inside.”

  “A door? Here I was thinking this was a dragon egg. The shape seems right. Well, try to open it!”

  Koruk had no idea where to even begin doing that. He ran his thick fingers along the seam of the doorway. The door, if a door it was, was fitted tighter than anything he had ever seen, aligning so perfectly to its frame that there didn’t seem to be any gap between the two. There was a strange circular dial near the middle of the door. He was about to try turning it when he heard a loud banging below him, and the hull started to vibrate. He had to grab hold of the handhold to avoid sliding off.

  “What are you doing down there Moktark? I almost fell!”

  “Thought I’d try breaking through the shell with my axe! Didn’t even scratch it though. This is something else. You know little brother, there’s enough silver here to be a king. A king of kings.”

  Koruk hadn’t even thought of that. He was so caught up with the strangeness of this fallen object that he hadn’t considered that it did indeed appear to be made of solid silver. He doubted this much silver had been mined in all the world. It sure beat the tiny ornaments the soot shamans would cast for sheer impressiveness.

  Restraining his imagination, he went back to the door. The dial seems to have three segments, and he was able to fit his fingers in between them. He rotated it, and it moved. He heard a hiss and a loud pop, and nearly fell as he reflexively jumped back. Trying the dial again, he found that the door was loose, and he managed to lift it off with some effort. It slid down and hit the ground with a loud clunk.

  “I think I got it!” He called down.

  “No kidding. Help me up!”

  Koruk helped hoist Moktark up, and both of them looked down into the now open doorway.

  A strange thrumming and crackling sound reverberated through the small room, which was lit by harsh red lights. Glowing slates of glass were embedded into a desk, making a noise like a swarm of mosquitoes. It looked as though tiny insects were beating against the light from inside the slate, in a pattern that made Koruk’s head hurt to look at. Panels had fallen off the walls in places, revealing strange devices and nests of tubes and black ropes that shone in the light. In the centre of all this chaos, was a chair, and in that chair, was a creature unlike he had ever seen.

  It seemed to be wearing some sort of bulky cloth armour, coloured in a vibrant blue. Its head was crowned by a helmet of gold and silver, which was open at the front revealing its strange, alien face.

  Its delicate looking face was flat, its skin a pale white. Its small mouth lacked any tusks or fangs, and its chin lacked any hair. It seemed to be unconscious.

  Koruk motioned for Moktark to help him lift the figure out of the chair. Cutting the straps that were tying him down, they easily lifted him free from the strange craft, and working together, got him down onto the ground outside. A quick examination revealed that one of the alien’s arms was laying at a weird angle, that Koruk figured probably wasn’t natural.

  “He’s still breathing.” Koruk said.

  “Is he suppose to breathe? He looks like a corpse. What is this thing he’s wearing? It looks like...” Moktark began, but then just shrugged, lost for words.

  “I don’t know. Help me tie him to a travois. I think we should bring him back with us to the village.”

  Moktark nodded.

  “I don’t see any harm. He doesn’t look too dangerous. I think I saw some rope inside the egg, you fetch it and I’ll cut some poles.”

  As Moktark began delimbing a pair of fallen trees, Koruk climbed back onto the “dragon egg” and hopped through the door into the compartment. It was extremely cramped. He couldn’t imagine how that strange creature had lived in there, without even enough space to stretch out. At least the chair seemed comfortable. Glancing around, he saw the black ropes that Moktark mentioned, and tried pulling them out of the wall. They resisted, a lot more than thin rope should. Nothing about this makes any damn sense Koruk thought, and started to cut through the ropes with his knife.

  As he was about halfway through the knot of cords, his hand slipped, and he briefly touched the frayed ends. A brief flash of lightning zapped his fingers and sent him howling in pain. In blind frustration he lashed out with the knife, hacking through the rest of the cord with brute force. He grabbed the wires and pulled at them with all his might, and several of them came free, whipping out of the walls like uncoiled snakes.

  Calming down a little, he bundled up a bunch of them into a loop, and climbed out, hopping back down to the ground.

  Moktark had finished with the trees. He arranged them in an X shape, and placing the door between the two logs, they lashed it together fairly snugly with the rope. Gingerly Koruk lifted the unconscious figure onto the door, and began to examine him.

  Even his clothes were a mystery. The helmet seemed to be sealed to the rest of his one piece outfit, and Koruk had no idea how he ever got the thing on. After a bit of poking and feeling around, he found a pair of latches at the neck of the thing, and pulling them, the gold visored helmet popped off, revealing the head of the figure in greater detail.

  His (if indeed this was a male) ears were short and round, and his hair was brown and cropped close to his head. Koruk stuck a finger into the sleeping creature’s mouth and opened it, revealing rows of flat, stubby teeth. As he looked at the unconscious being in front of him, he felt some strange sense of familiarity. As if he was looking at something familiar, and yet wrong in some subtle way he couldn’t define. He shook his head. No, there would be time to marvel and guess at this later. He was feeling overwhelmed. His gut was turning over. He just wanted to be away from this weird place and back home where things made sense.

  Koruk tried to set the man’s arm back into a relatively straight position, and lashed him onto the door with more of the strange ropes. He and Moktark were about to go back into the chamber where they had found him and look around again, when they heard a horn blow nearby.

  Out of the forest to the east, an orcish warband emerged. All hope quickly evaporated when they saw that they carried the banner of the Beast Tamers, the crest of a red open talon embroidered on it. There had to be a dozen of them.

  “Damn, just our luck. Must have seen the fire!”. Moktark said, readying his axe and shield. Koruk steeled himself, and grabbed his bow. He forced down his feelings.

  The leader of the Beast Tamers strode out in front of his warband, wielding a massive spear with a jagged tip. His armour was made from rockhead bones, and he wore a wolf’s skull on his head. His green skin was tattooed with red stripes and swirls that made him look like he was on fire.

  He clambered up onto the roof of the craft like a gorilla, and stood atop it, looking down at the pair.

  “This thing is ours. This thing belongs to the Beasts!” He shouted, thumping his spear down onto the metal at his feet.

  “This is White Moon land. You have no place here, mongrel dog!” Moktark shouted back, standing up straight and puffing himself up.

  The huge Beast Tamer grinned savagely, his eyes gleaming.

  “You challenge ME? I am Kevesh, warrior of song, killer of the dire wolf!” He gestured to the skull on his head, and laughed. “You have a death wish, whelp!”

  Moktark motioned for Koruk to stay put, and strode forward brandishing his axe and shield and his sides, arms outstretched.

  “I am Moktark. Twice now have I entered your lands. I have killed your warriors, I have taken your women and your pigs. I will do so again! This thing belongs to the White Moons. This is our land, and we will not be challenged here!”

  The other warriors crowded around, keeping their distance. They jeered and shouted insults at Moktark, and bashed their shields with their weapons, but made no move. It was to be a duel then, Koruk thought.

  Kevesh jumped down from the craft. He roared into the sky, and the crowd cheered. Moktark adjusted his grip on his axe and entered a fighting stance.

  “Are you going to posture like a woman or are we going to fight?” He said.

  Kevesh roared in rage and charged towards him, slashing his spear down at Moktark. Moktark took the blow on his shield, grunting as his arm absorbed the impact. This guy is strong, he thought. Strong but impulsive.

  Moktark lashed out at Kevesh’s side with the axe, and the Beast Tamer twisted to catch the blow on his armoured belly. It glanced off the thick rockhead skull plate fastened there, sending chips of bone and flint flying. Kevesh kicked Moktark’s shield, and pushed him back. He then came at him again, thrusting the spear in short jabs, trying to get past his opponent’s shield. Moktark held fast, blocking or dodging dozens of these attacks. The two circled the field, Moktark backstepping defensively all the while as he parried blows meant to end him, but he made no move to counterattack.

  The two orcs battled for some time, the Beast Tamer growing increasingly furious as Moktark blocked or sidestepped his increasingly heavy strikes. In a rage, he swung his spear overhand, determined to break through. The spear impacted the shield with a thunderous crack, and the leather straps holding it to Moktark’s arm tore. In the same moment, seeing his opponent was left open, Moktark hacked at Kevesh’s thigh, and his blade found its mark. Red blood splattered onto the scorched ground. Moktark was flung down by the force of the last blow, his shield destroyed, and unable to follow up the blow with a finishing strike.

  The two orcs stood, panting heavily, eyeing the other. Kevesh was wounded, and walking with a limp. Blood dripped down his leg, but Moktark noted, not enough to render it a mortal wound. Moktark for his part, had lost his main advantage in the fight, and his left arm felt numb from absorbing so many attacks. He figured they were still equally matched.

  Nearly a minute passed as the two caught their breath. Moktark circled his opponent, occasionally making feints, testing Kevesh’s defenses. The tables had turned, and now the Beast Tamer was fighting a defensive battle, knowing he couldn’t come to grips with his opponent easily with his wounded leg. Likewise Moktark didn’t trust his ability to parry the spear and get close enough for a killing blow. The two were at a stalemate.

  “A few minutes ago you were eager to fight, Beast!” Moktark said, batting Kevesh’s spearpoint aside with his axe, continuing his circling. “Has the fire gone out from your belly? Or have you lost so much blood that you are ready to faint?”

  Kevesh roared and limped forward, jabbing at his taunter with the spear. Moktark jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed in the neck. Still, he had an idea.

  Moktark held the axe out to his side, and dropped it on the ground. Kevesh smiled.

  “Giving up so soon whelp?” He said, laughing. He seemed tired, and didn’t hide that he was glad this was over with.

  “I’m not giving up.” Moktark said, smiling. He turned to the crowed assembled around them. “I need no weapon to fight this coward!”

  Moktark turned towards Kevesh again.

  “Come on, come get me. I am unarmed! Come, slay me! Or are you afraid?” Moktark taunted, slamming his chest with a closed fist.

  Kevesh was livid. The crowd began to murmur. He thought he caught a couple of them laughing at him. Of all the disgrace…

  Forgetting his wound, he lunged forward, determined to end this once and for all. He was going to take this upstart’s head and feed it to his wolves!

  Moktark dodged quickly to the side as the spear whistled past his head, nicking the edge of his ear. He smiled. His opponent had overreached massively. Moktark grabbed the spear in both hands and yanked as hard as he could, and sent his off balance opponent stumbling forward. He then swung his meaty fist into the Beast Tamer’s shocked face, using his own momentum against him. Kevesh’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his nose splattered blood as it broke. He dropped the spear and fell to the ground.

  Moktark quickly snatched it up, and held it at the throat of his defeated foe.

  “You are beaten, now get off White Moon land!”

  Kevesh coughed, and spat out blood.

  “You’re forgetting whelp. There’s twelve of us, and two of you. You can’t win.” Kevesh said, his face twisting into a grimace of pure hatred.

  “You honourless dog! You are no better than the beasts you lie with!” Moktark spat in his face. He looked around at the faces of those assembled. They looked ashamed, but made no move to leave. The dragon’s egg was too great a prize to be won by a simple duel of honour.

  Moktark picked up his axe, and stomped towards the ring of warriors surrounding him. They did not try to stop him from passing, parting easily. They refused to look him in the eye. Moktark gestured for Koruk to follow him. They picked up the travois holding the unconscious alien, and drug it away behind them as they left.