Rise of the Horde

256 Chapter 25After gathering the bodies of their dead comrades and tending to the wounded, the four warbands under the leadership of Khao’khen turned around and headed back towards their camp. Khao’khen knew that the strongest of their foes and that mage that cause most of the casualties on their side manage to escape but he can’t do anything about it since they just vanished directly in front of them. He can’t possibly scour the entirety of the Burning Sands just to find and kill them so he let them be as he led his warriors back after their victory.

The Warghen Cavalry were left behind to deal with the corpses of their foes and Khao’khen was sure that the wargs wouldn’t lack food for a long time. The morale of his warriors recovered after their recent victory and they were all happily boasting against each other on the number of foes that they have killed and even the two War Chiefs were involved in the contest as they proudly declared their kill count.

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As they returned back to the horde’s camp, Khao’khen noticed the recent battlefield that wasn’t far away from the camp which proves that his hunch was right, the enemy commander really didn’t let go of the opportunity to assault their camp. He entered the biggest tent that was on the camp which served as their command center in the siege.

“How did things go?” Khao’khen directed his question towards Sakh’arran who had his brows furrowed as he was reading the detailed reports of their casualties. After hearing the voice, Sakh’arran shifted his gaze from the reports and towards the origin of the voice.

“Chief!” he saluted which Khao’khen just waved his hands in reply as he headed towards the table.

“As you have said, chief, the darkskins really came out of the city and attacked our camp. We followed your instructions and remained on guard and engaged them a bit further from the camp. Our enemies confronted us with a combination of infantry and cavalry units but we successfully defeated them.” Sakh’arran reported as he went into more details of the recent battle that they fought.

“And what about our loses in the recent battle?” Khao’khen questioned as he was interested in how well did his warriors do in their last battle without his presence. Sakh’arran went silent for some time and still didn’t reply to his question which confused him.

“We didn’t lose to many warriors did we?” Khao’khen questioned as he was worried that the horde suffered tremendous loses.

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“More than an entire warband worth of warriors were lost in the recent battle, chief.” Sakh’arran finally reported.

“But most of the casualties are from the Skallsers and the Drakhars and the Rakshas only lost ten members while the remaining Yurakks were intact and still in full force.” He continued after he saw the chieftain’s dismayed look after hearing that they lost more than an entire warband’s worth of warriors.

Khao’khen started looking at the details of the reports that was written on the pieces of animal skin and got a clearer detail of their losses and didn’t hear the continuation of Sakh’arran’s reports. After reading the end of the report, he was a bit confused as there was a mention of a powerful combatant among their foes who caused them most of their casualties.

As soon as Sakh’arran went into further details as he retold the events that just happened, Khao’khen now finally understood why they suffered such losses. It turned out that there was someone powerful enough to overpower his warriors. Khao’khen consulted with Hekoth and Gunn on what they think about the foe that they fought since they were the ones who managed to drove him away and their evaluation of that powerful was not pleasant as the two shamans admitted that both of them needed to work together in order to best that powerful warrior or else they will surely be defeated if they fight him one on one.

“This doesn’t make any sense…” Khao’khen muttered in confusion as he digests the words of the two shamans. ‘A single person from their foes managed to threw their battle line into chaos and freely slaughtered all those who dared to stand in his way, this was supposed to be what the orcs would do to their enemies not the other way around.’ Thought as he toured around the camp aimlessly.

At night, the corpses of the fallen warriors were set ablaze as their comrades paid their respects to them and sent them on their journey to Xanadu. A small feast soon followed to celebrated their victories but Khao’khen was not in the mood to celebrate as he kept thinking about that powerful warrior that the two shamans admitted that they can’t beat if they were alone. The detail about the certain mysterious energy that the warrior used to defend and attack was what bothered Khao’khen as he observed the same thing with the strongest warrior of their foes whom they chased in the desert but managed to escape.

That night, Khao’khen didn’t manage to have a good night sleep as his mind was occupied with figuring out what that mysterious energy was. He absentmindedly opened his system panel and he noticed that it looks like it is glitching as the screen seemed to be blinking then returned to normal again, three times he observed such glitching happening but later it would resume to how it was before. He didn’t know if it was a normal occurrence of the system since it has been a long time since he opened it after it went full mute.

The surrounding was already starting to brighten up and Khao’khen still didn’t get even a short shut-eye, his eyelids felt heavy but he needed to do something to get the thoughts that are bothering him out of his head. He needed to find some answers or else this entire campaign of theirs would be in jeopardy if he can’t figure out what their foes were using.