Ashfang Ford had become more than a camp. Wooden palisades stood shoulder-high. Watchtowers loomed over the banks like silent sentinels, and the fires of the forge never slept. The Redmaw orcs, their rebellion crushed beneath Gorak's heel, now toiled under his banner. Loyalty—or something close enough—held for now.
But something new stirred in the hearts of the warriors, something Gorak didn't command: superstition.
It began with the cloth.
The discovery was accidental. Tharak's hunting party returned late one evening, dragging behind them the carcasses of wild elk and a battered leather satchel, half-rotted and tangled in river weeds. Inside it, folded in strange reverence, was a tattered banner. Not Redmaw colors. Older. Ancient.
Black fabric, frayed at the edges, marked with a swirling crimson spiral at its center.
When Tharak first unfurled it in the torchlight, a gust of wind blew through the camp—a wind against the natural current of the river. The flames flickered sideways. Warriors exchanged uneasy glances.
"The Whispering Banner," one of the older orcs murmured, crossing his arms tightly. "They say it belonged to the lost clans. To the ones who crossed the mountains before the rivers ran red."
At first, Gorak ignored it. A relic. Nothing more.
But the next few nights brought strange happenings. Voices carried on the wind—soft, broken phrases that couldn't be traced to any speaker. Sentries claimed the banner moved on its own. One morning, a Redmaw elder was found dead at the base of the main tower, his eyes wide, his mouth agape in horror.
"They say it speaks," Drask finally said to Gorak, frowning as the camp grew tense with unease. "Not in words we know. Old tongue. Mountain-speak. I've heard it too. In dreams."
Gorak studied the crimson spiral by torchlight. Even to him, it felt… wrong. Heavy. And yet, power hummed faintly beneath its weave.
"We don't run from old bones and dead men's whispers," he growled. "If this thing is cursed, we'll master it or break it."
But in his heart, a question coiled:
Was it luck or fate that had delivered the banner to his doorstep?
As the days wore on, a pattern emerged. The closer warriors camped to the banner, the more vivid their dreams became. Scenes of ancient battles played across their sleeping minds—orcish clans marching beneath unfamiliar banners, facing down massive creatures with twisted horns and luminous eyes.
And always, in those visions, the crimson spiral shone at the center of it all.
Then came the message.
A wandering gnoll mercenary—scarred, with one ear missing—arrived at Ashfang Ford under a flag of truce. His name was Grith, and he spoke in broken Orcish.
"Banner," he rasped. "You hold it. Others seek it. North. East. Bad men. Beastblood tribes. And… others."
Gorak's jaw tightened. "What others?"
Grith simply pointed skyward. "Not of dirt. Of sky."
For the first time in weeks, Gorak felt something foreign stir in his gut: unease. Not fear—but close.
"Then we'll hold it tighter," Gorak growled, closing his hand around the haft of his axe. "Let them come."
Below, Ashfang Ford pulsed with life, unaware that the crimson spiral had painted a target across them all.