The mountain path was not a path at all.
It was a wound in the earth.
The ground immediately shifted from solid rock to something spongy and black, like compressed ash, that clung to Valkar's boots with every step. The air grew colder, carrying a metallic tang, like blood on stone.
However, Valkar was a warrior forged by Zura'thrax.
The orc women were the ones responsible for pretty much everything in the tribe, from cooking and crafting to training the younglings. Compared to the orc men, who can't even speak correctly, the women mutated to become smarter, and Zura'thrax, being the legendary figure she was, her training methods were beyond brutal.
She was… creative.
She taught her children the ways of the wilderness. She made them run barefoot on sharp rocks. She made them climb the tallest trees in the cavern. She made them fight each other with real weapons. She even made them eat poisonous plants to build resistance.
Valkar and Thraxa endured it all, emerging stronger, tougher, and more deadly than any other youngling in the tribe.
It's just that Valkar was always underestimated due to his smaller frame compared to the regular orcs. They always thought he was weak.
'Valkar is not weak,' he thought, his jaw tightening. 'Mother made sure of that.'
He moved with a caution others lacked. While Grosh and a few others stomped ahead, making as much noise as a rockslide, Valkar placed each foot deliberately, testing the ground before committing his weight. His eyes, now accustomed to the gloom, darted from shadow to shadow, cataloging every detail.
He planned to follow the other orcs for a while, to see how they fared, to learn from their mistakes.
But more importantly, he needed to find a water source. The water skin he had was not going to last long, and the mountain was a dry place. He had to find a stream or a spring.
Fortunately, his mother made sure to drill everything she experienced in this forsaken land into her children's minds.
One of the most important lessons was about water—and where you could find it without dying for it.
In the mountains, water was never where it should be.
Clear streams meant predators. Still pools meant poison. Anything that looked easy was a trap.
Zura'thrax had beaten that lesson into him with both words and scars.
"Water follows weakness," she had said once, her hand pressing his face into the damp, foul-smelling moss seeping from a crack in the cavern wall. "Find where the land bleeds slowly. Where nothing wants to drink."
Valkar slowed, letting the others pull farther ahead.
Grosh's laughter echoed faintly through the twisted pass, already too loud, already tempting fate. Two more orcs followed him closely, their voices raised in argument over who would claim the first kill. Fools. Noise carried strangely here, bending and warping, traveling farther than it should.
The mountain listened.
Valkar crouched and pressed his palm against the ground.
It was damp—but not wet.
"Hmm?" he narrowed his eyes, scanning the place he was in.
He stood in a narrow gorge, its walls so close he could touch both sides by stretching his arms. The stone was a mottled grey and black, streaked with veins of something that glimmered faintly, like dried blood. Above, the rock faces leaned towards each other, creating a jagged, broken ceiling that allowed only slivers of the colorless sky to pierce through.
"Mother said find the rock that looks like a spear," he muttered to himself, remembering her words. "Then go right."
So he looked around, ignoring the others as they disappeared around a bend ahead of him.
Valkar didn't care about the other orcs. He didn't even feel the need to be cautious of them. Not because he was strong or anything—the reason was much simpler than that.
They were orcs, his kin.
And orcs don't kill each other.
There was no law against it, no rule carved into stone. But it was a truth as old as their exile. In this dark, monster-filled land, every orc was a weapon against the true enemy. To kill one of their own was to weaken the entire tribe. A betrayal that went deeper than blood.
More than that, these orcs mutated to possess an extreme sense of honor and loyalty. A warrior would die before betraying their kin. A warrior would rather face a monster alone than abandon a wounded brother.
They do not stab each other in the back. They don't hold grudges. They don't hold envy.
But they do compete.
They compete for strength, for glory, for the right to mate with the most desirable females. But this competition was open and honorable. It was a test of strength and skill, not of cunning and deceit.
Hell, even the former chieftain who lost against their current one in honorable combat still lived and served the tribe as the second in command. The same went for his warriors.
So Valkar wasn't worried about the other orcs.
He was worried about the mountain.
After a few minutes of searching, he found it. A tall, narrow spire of black rock that jutted out from the canyon wall, its tip sharpened to a point by centuries of wind and rain. It looked exactly like a giant spear, aimed at the sky.
Valkar's gaze lingered on the stone spear for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Right," he murmured.
He turned and slipped into the narrow passage beside it, just as Zura'thrax had taught him.
The path immediately tightened, forcing him to turn sideways. The walls here were smoother, almost polished, and cold enough that they leeched heat from his skin through the leather wrappings on his arms. The air changed too—less metallic, heavier, carrying the faint scent of minerals and something old.
Alive.
The mountain did not like this path.
Good.
After several dozen careful steps, the floor dipped slightly. Valkar froze, lifting his foot just before it touched the ground. He reached down and scraped the surface with the tip of his knife.
Soft.
Not soil. Not ash.
Fungus.
A dark, spongy carpet of black mold stretched across the floor ahead, pulsing with a faint, sickly green light from within. Here and there, small clusters of grey mushrooms grew, their caps drooping like weeping eyes.
Valkar's breath caught.
He remembered this.
His mother had dragged him through a field of this same fungus once. He'd been younger then, still clumsy, still prone to fits of childish rage. He'd stumbled, his hands sinking into the soft, wet mass.
The pain had been worse than any beating she had ever given him.
"Night-rot," she had called it, her voice indifferent as she'd poured water over his hands to wash away the clinging filth. "It eats anything warm. It will not kill you. But you will wish it had."
Slowly, Valkar backed away, retracing his steps until he was clear of the fungus. He took a deep breath, forcing the memory of the burning, searing pain from his mind.
"Valkar needs to be careful," he muttered, his jaw tight.
He was about to turn back, to find another way, when he heard it.
Faint.
Distant.
A sound he knew all too well.
The sound of rushing water.
"But... where?" he tilted his head, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.
It was ahead.
Deeper into the passage, beyond the night-rot.
But that made no sense. Water was life. Things lived in the water. The fungus should have been feeding on it, not blocking it. Unless...
Unless the water was the reason for the fungus.
A slow smile touched Valkar's lips.
"Mother made sure to teach Valkar about this." he looked around him, trying to find what he was looking for. Then he saw them.
Small, white flowers growing on the walls. They were almost invisible against the pale stone, their petals thin and fragile. They had no scent, no color, no noticeable features.
But they were the key.
"Sorrow-moss," Zura's words echoed in his mind. "It drinks poison and spits clean water. The mountain tries to hide it, but it cannot."
Valkar walked to the wall and gently touched one of the flowers. It was cool to the touch, and a single drop of clear, pure water beaded on its surface.
He smiled, a genuine, feral smile that showed the tips of his tusks.
He had found it.
He carefully picked a few of the flowers, tucking them into his leather pouch. Then he looked ahead and resumed his journey.
Along the way, he picked up more of those 'Sorrow-moss' flowers. They would serve as his temporary water source, since they were safe to drink and eat. He even ate a few to quench his thirst. They were tasteless, but they did their job.
After what felt like an hour, the narrow passage began to widen. The walls receded, and the floor became solid rock once more. Valkar was lucky that those 'Night-rot' fungi weren't as dense as his mother told him before. Moreover, he was lucky to have a smaller frame compared to the other orcs, allowing him to navigate through the tight spaces with ease.
Valkar soon found a cave. It was small and dark, its entrance hidden behind a curtain of thick, black vines that seemed to writhe in the faint light.
The first cave in his journey.
He approached the entrance cautiously, and using the tip of his knife, he cut a few vines, creating a small opening to peek inside.
The cave was empty.
The air inside was stale, but it was dry, and it offered protection from the elements.
"Good for the night," Valkar nodded to himself as he pushed the vines aside and slipped inside.
The first and most important lesson that Zura taught him—the key to her survival—was to never stay in the open at night.
Never.
Not even for a few minutes.
The mountain was always watching. Always hungry. Ready to devour any soul who dared to walk under its dark sky.