Chapter 3:
Orc Johnny
THE DAY AFTER I returned, I rode a horse out to the mill. It wasn’t dragon-riding distance, and I didn’t want to spook the orcs. In preparation for peace that would surely come someday, I was considering establishing communication with them.
Once there, I asked one of the workers, “Is Ruma here?”
Ruma, the manager of the flour mill, was in the process of unchaining the orcs from the mill’s central pillar. Everyone was about to go on break, so my timing was perfect.
He shot me a dubious look. “Hey, Field Marshal. Need something?”
“Please lend me one of the orcs for a bit.”
“Well, they do belong to you…” Strictly speaking, it was His Majesty who owned them, and who allowed me to make use of them. “But what do you need it for?”
Was I better off explaining? No, he didn’t need to know my reasons. He might think me a lunatic if I told him I wanted to learn to talk like an orc.
“I thought I’d teach it some tricks to kill time,” I said, without giving my words much thought.
Despite the odd look he gave me, Ruma soon brought out a small, thin orc. It was likely the weakest of his laborers, and hence its absence would have minimal impact on work. Seeing this, the other orcs suddenly began to oink. They seemed to be protesting, perhaps thinking that something terrible was in store for their comrade. Ruma cracked his whip against the floor, and the dramatic sound it made subdued their cries until they fell back into silence.
It occurred to me that I could see neither hair nor hide of the one who’d collapsed the last time I’d been here. It wasn’t as if I could tell one orc from another, so I couldn’t be certain, but in doing a headcount, I deduced there were two fewer orcs than there had been previously.
“What happened to the one who collapsed the last time I was here?”
“Oh, it died right after that.” Ruma seemed to shrink back as he told me this, as if he feared I’d scold him.
“That’s a shame. Well, there’s not much we could have done.” That orc had clearly been on the verge of death anyway. “From now on, though, please take care that we don’t lose others.”
Ruma looked relieved as he replied, “Yessir, got it, sir. So will this one suffice?” He gave the runty orc a nudge forward.
“Yes, thanks.”
“Just wait a tick, and I’ll leash it up for you.”
Ruma fastened a collar and chain to the orc, then handed me the key.
“Don’t let it slip away, now.”
“I’ll be careful. Also, I’d like to make use of a structure with a roof.”
“There’s the shed I sleep in, I guess,” Ruma proposed uncomfortably.
“A storehouse would be better.”
Again Ruma looked relieved, clearly not wanting an orc anywhere near where he slept. Well, I didn’t want to go near his bed either.
“You can use our storehouses however you’d like. The one on the right’s for wheat, and the one on the left’s for the orcs’ feed. Over there, that’s their pen. I don’t recommend that one; it stinks.”
I led the orc into the storehouse for wheat. To the left were piles of unstripped wheat, while stripped wheat was heaped to the right. The air was filled with floating granules, and our feet left shallow footprints. Would it have been better to use the storehouse for feed? Then again, from what I could tell, the orcs were clearly hungry; they were probably only given the minimum necessary sustenance. I wouldn’t want this one to lose concentration, being surrounded by food.
I glanced at the orc, and I could see clear fear in its eyes at having been dragged in here by someone wearing a sword. I would have to begin by easing its anxiety. First, a gentle smile… No, that wasn’t the wisest idea. Smiles only worked with humans, or races very closely related to humans. With our appearances being so different, a smile might even have the opposite effect. Some races interpreted a smile as a human baring their fangs. Both of us needed to learn more about the other’s expressions.
Therefore, I kept my face blank as I removed its collar. Then I offered an apple I’d brought with me for this purpose. The orc didn’t take it, but I wasn’t surprised. I produced a knife and cut the apple in half.
The orc recoiled a little at the sight of the blade. Once I’d tucked the knife away and bitten into my half of the fruit, I held the other half out again. Finally, the orc hesitantly reached out. With the offering in its hands, it stared at me nervously. I pointed at its apple piece and then to its mouth. The message got through this time and the orc timidly took its first bite, then hastily devoured the rest.
Not bad for first contact. I moved on to a greeting.
“Hello. Good day. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
The orc stopped eating and stared, but it was clear it didn’t understand my words. This attempt at communication seemed to fall outside the scope of my translation abilities. I wasn’t surprised, though, as I’d heard orcs speak before, and they were never translated. In most cases, my translation ability only applied to the language of whatever people had summoned me to their world. Beyond that, I would have to actually learn the different languages of that world, and because of this, learning languages had become one of my talents.
Unfortunately, learning orcish seemed like it would prove more difficult than any language I had tackled. First off, there were no translators who could help me along the way. The biggest obstacle, however, had to be the difficulty of differentiating and reproducing orcish vocalizations. An orc’s vocal cords were not in the throat but closer to the nose, meaning they communicated through a series of snorts.
First, I pointed to myself and said my own name. Next, I pointed at the orc and urged it to introduce itself. I had to repeat this prompting several times, but it finally picked up my intent and replied with a complicated series of snorts. If I were to force the sounds into letters, it might look like: “Fguboorrrbubrooo,” but it sounded different every time the orc repeated it, so I wasn’t confident in my interpretation.
To make things easier, I began to think of this orc as “Johnny.”
Next, I put the knife and apple side by side and pointed at them in a similar fashion. Johnny snorted at each item. I could tell the sounds were different, but I would be hard-pressed to remember or recognize them. I would hardly need to explain what happened when I attempted the vocalizations myself. Our anatomies were simply too different, and there was nothing to be done about that. Luckily, though, the orc seemed to be able to distinguish between my words to some degree. At the very least, it soon learned the difference between knife and apple.
After that, I made it my habit to go to the wheat shed with Johnny every day. It wasn’t as if I currently had anything better to do.
Johnny learned fast. I had to wonder if he was a younger orc, which might have explained why he was on the small side, but I couldn’t tell the young from the old and could only guess. I brought various items into the storehouse to be identified, and I taught him that his new name was Johnny. Gradually, he learned the function of several verbs. Now he could understand simple commands such as “Bring me the bucket,” or “Line up three stones.”
When I demonstrated my results to Ruma, his eyes grew wide as saucers. Behind him, George also seemed to take great interest in these accomplishments. Lately, he’d been helping out at the mill. He was wary of people, and thus found it easier to work among the orcs. Initially, he’d been afraid of them; he’d come a long way.
“M-milord, could I try that?” George timidly asked me.
“Go right ahead.”
With my permission, he came over to me, shy but good-natured. He smiled more these days.
“Hey! Bring me the bucket!” George shouted, but Johnny remained immobile, a vacant look on his face. “Can’t you hear me? Bring that bucket over here!” he cried again, to no avail. In fact, Johnny was starting to look a little fearful of George.
“How about speaking a little slower?” I suggested. “He might not understand you.”
“Yes, sir.” Then to Johnny: “Bring. Me. The. Bucket.”
This time, he spoke calmly and soothingly, making each word distinct, and yet Johnny still didn’t budge.