The morning after the "battle"—if you could even call it that—dawned crisp and bright. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the trees, painting golden streaks across our clearing. Birds sang. A cool breeze stirred the drying wolf hides strung up on our walls.
And Borgu strutted.
That was the only word for it. The orc lumbered about like some triumphant warlord, shoulders back, chest puffed, tusks gleaming in the sunlight. He jabbed his spear into the dirt with each step like a parade march, his grin so wide I thought his face might split.
"Did you see them run?" he boomed, not for the first time. "Like rabbits before wolf! No—like rabbits before orc!"
"Yes, Borgu," I muttered, running a whetstone down my sword. "We saw."
"I did not just see," he corrected, spinning in a circle to face Sylvara, who sat nearby fletching arrows with her usual calm. "I made it happen. Orc genius! Orc traps! Orc victory!"
Sylvara didn't even look up. "I seem to recall you nearly rolling that spiked log into our wall before it hit them."
Borgu froze. For a moment I thought he might actually argue. Instead, he raised his chin higher. "That was tactical feint."
"Tactical stupidity," she murmured.
Lorian, sitting cross-legged beside her, nearly choked on his porridge as he tried not to laugh.
Borgu whipped toward him. "What you laugh at, little man? You think traps spring from nothing? You think wall of spikes grow like tree? No! Borgu build with hands! With sweat! With orc bloodline of Meatfist genius!"
The poor boy tried to smother his grin, but it only made it worse. "Supreme Warden of the Spikes," he muttered under his breath.
Borgu's tusks gleamed in delight. "Yes! Yes, good! Warden of Spikes! Orc title! All fear me now!"
Sylvara rolled her eyes so hard I thought she'd strain something.
By midday, Borgu had taken to reenacting the previous night's encounter in painstaking—and wildly exaggerated—detail.
He marched along the inside of the wall, booming out lines in what I assumed was supposed to be a cultist's voice.
"'Oh no! What is this? Orc wall too scary! Orc traps too smart! We cannot fight such genius!'"
Then he'd throw himself backward into the dirt, kicking his legs in the air like a turtle on its back, and howl in mock terror.
Lorian laughed so hard he nearly dropped the pot lid he was scrubbing. "It wasn't that dramatic!"
Borgu shot him a look of betrayal. "What you mean? It was exactly that dramatic. You not see man cry? Tears on face! Orc nose smell fear!"
Sylvara sighed and set down her bow. "All I saw was a group of imbeciles who couldn't climb a wall without stabbing each other. Hardly worth boasting about."
Borgu pointed an accusing finger at her. "Elf has no spirit of story. Story must be told big! Story must make children laugh and enemies quake! Orc way!"
I smirked despite myself. "And here I thought the orc way was hitting things until they stopped moving."
"Both way good," Borgu conceded with a grin.
The afternoon was spent patching traps and making improvements—or at least trying to.
"Bone-chime too soft," Borgu declared, rattling one of the lines of dangling deer bones and stones. "Cultist nearly sneak in before sound."
"They were tripping over each other and screaming," Sylvara said flatly. "We hardly needed better alarms."
But Borgu was already on to his next grand idea.
"Need bigger log," he mused, patting the spiked barricade he'd toppled last night. "Log that rolls faster. Log that smash everything!"
"Borgu…" I pinched the bridge of my nose. "The last log nearly flattened us as well as them."
"That mean design is strong!" he boomed proudly. "Stronger log, stronger smash. Orc improvement!"
Lorian, wide-eyed, leaned closer. "What if… you tied two logs together? Then it'd smash even wider!"
Borgu gasped as if the boy had spoken divine revelation. "Yes! Yes! Human boy has orc heart! We build double doom log!"
Sylvara muttered something in Elvish that I was fairly sure was unflattering.
By the time the sun was dipping low, we had an entire section of the wall reinforced with new traps. Pitfalls lined with sharpened sticks. Rope snares that Borgu insisted could lift a man off his feet (though they only managed to catch his own ankle during testing). And, of course, the infamous "double doom log."
Testing it was a disaster from the start.
Borgu and Lorian heaved the monstrosity into place on a slight hill overlooking the wall. It was two massive tree trunks lashed together with far too much rope, bristling with sharpened stakes.
"Behold!" Borgu cried, arms raised to the heavens. "Doom log of Meatfist! Wall destroyer! Enemy flattener!"
I crossed my arms. "Please don't release that thing without—"
They released it.
The double doom log rumbled forward with terrifying speed, wobbling wildly. For a glorious three seconds, Borgu looked like the proudest orc alive.
Then the log veered left.
Straight toward Lorian.
The boy yelped and dove out of the way just in time, rolling into the dirt as the monstrosity thundered past, tearing up the ground and finally coming to rest against a tree with a splintering crash.
The clearing fell silent.
Then Sylvara pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, "Idiots. All of you."
Lorian, still sprawled in the dirt, wheezed, "I… I thought it was brilliant…"
Borgu slapped his knee and howled with laughter. "It was brilliant! Boy nearly crushed, but still brilliant!"
I groaned. "One day, Borgu, your 'brilliance' is going to kill us."
"Better die brilliant than live boring," he declared proudly.
That night, we gathered around the fire, sharing stew and laughter.
Lorian mimicked the cultists' squeals again, clutching his side as he laughed. Sylvara, despite herself, smiled faintly at his antics. Borgu retold the story for the fifth time, each version grander than the last.
And me? I sat back, watching them. A strange, mismatched family, bound not by blood but by circumstance and stubbornness.
I knew real danger still lurked out there. Stronger enemies would come. But tonight, with the fire warm and their laughter loud, I let myself believe in this small, fragile peace.
Tomorrow, we'd prepare again. Tomorrow, we'd be vigilant.
But tonight, Borgu Meatfist was Supreme Warden of the Spikes, and the world was a little less dark.