The Tale of the Khut’ulun
The steam curled in ghostly plumes from the enormous wooden tub, thick with the scent of the censer on the side table and the hot coals burning in the furnace built into the earth below. Dorant relaxed against the reinforced back edge, pulling Merada tighter against his chest. Her skin was slick and smooth against his, the weight of her a comforting anchor in the fragrant, steaming haze. His arms were masts around her, one resting just below the swell of her breast, the other splayed across her stomach, his fingers idly tracing patterns on her damp skin. Her head was nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, her dark hair a heavy, wavy, wet curtain over his arm. Unbraided and free. They lay in silence, simply breathing, listening to the gentle lapping of water against the tub. It served as a warm, liquid embrace, a world apart from the chill evening air beyond the thick stone walls of Merada’s lodge.
“Tell me a story,” he murmured out of nowhere, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her back. “One of your clan’s tales. The oldest ones you know.”
Merada shifted slightly, tilting her head back to look up at him. The low light from the candles, and the hearth which danced in the other room, reflected in her eyes, turning them to pools of molten gold. She wore her surprise plainly, but it smoothed over into a slow, knowing smile that touched her lips. “A story costs something, mate.”
He chuckled, a deep, warm sound. He pulled her closer. “And what is your price?”
Her gaze drifted from his eyes down to the strong line of his jaw, and then to the thick, red beard that flowed to his chest, now plastered to his skin by the water. She reached up, her fingers combing through the damp, coarse hairs. “I will tell you the Tale of the Khut’ulun,” she said with a smile that bordered on giddy. It reached her eyes, showing far too much tusk. “But only if you let me braid this while I speak. It’s been too long since it has been properly tended.”
A genuine laugh escaped him now, and he pressed a kiss to her temple. “A fair bargain. You have my leave, Lorekeeper.”
Merada blushed. She shifted in his embrace, creating gentle waves in the water as she turned to reach him better. With delicate, practiced fingers, she began to separate the damp strands of his beard.
In the days of Old Dreanor, when the clans rose from the bones of the Ogre empire, and there was yet no Draenei, the Warsong clan held dominion over the endless grasslands of Nagrand. Their hunting grounds pressed deep into the forests of Terokkar, which then bore another name. Their Warchief was Khar’kruk, son of Khar’krul the Moon-Breaker, a name earned for the fury with which he drove the Shadowmoon back into their mountain valleys in the wars of his father’s time. Khar’kruk was a great chief born of greater chiefs, with many wives and many sons. But he had only one daughter, and he called her his brightest star.
From the moment Khut’ulun could walk, her father trained her with her brothers. She learned to wolf-ride before she could walk, to shoot a bow and hunt with a spear before she was weaned from her mother’s breast. By then, she could ride harder than boys twice her age. By twelve, she could wrestle grown men to the dust. By fifteen, she sparred with the elite warriors of her father’s honor guard, their weapons live and sharp, and she won. When the time came for her Om’riggor, her name was whispered as far as Tanaan: the daughter who fought like a demon, before demons were ever known.
This left her father with a problem. A woman could never be a chieftain, yet she was the strongest in the clan by far. Any successor he chose would live in the shadow of her challenge, a shadow that could tear the clan apart and leave them weak before the others, who would gladly feast on their division. So Khar’kruk chose another path: marriage. His thinking was that a hearth and home would temper the fire in his daughter’s heart, and that a man who could win her favor would both shield her and bind her tighter to the clan. Conflict could be avoided, but Khut’ulun did not see her father’s wisdom. Suitors began arriving at the Warsong stronghold. Sons of warriors, hunters, and shamans, all seeking Khut’ulun’s hand.
She refused every one.
Her father pressed her. “You must marry,” he told her. “It is our way. You are my daughter. A strong mate can secure the clan for generations.”
In answer, Khut’ulun made a proposal. “I will marry,” she said, “but only the man who can defeat me in honored Mak’Rogahn. And every man who challenges me and loses will not face exile. Instead, he will pay me a tenth of whatever holds his bounty.”
Mak’Rogahn. Duel of Will. A Warsong custom to prove one’s worth. Separate from the Mak’gora, it was a pure test of will, of surviving any hardship and enduring all pain. Not to the death, though death could claim the unwary. To surrender was to be cast out. Exiled.
The clan was struck silent. Some called it arrogance, even for a daughter of the Warsong. Others called it a betrayal of tradition. Khar’kruk, her father, smiled after a long moment.
“Very well,” he said. “Let the challenges begin.”
The first challenger came within weeks- a son of the Burning Blade’s Chieftain, bringing ten of the finest blades the clan had ever made. He was strong and full of himself, a blademaster worthy of the name. His clan was close friends with the Warsong and would have made a fine mate.
The match was over in less than two minutes.
When the drums sounded the start, Khut’ulun moved like a bolt of lightning. Before he knew what had occurred, the son of the Burning Blade was face down in the dirt, his sword arm wrenched up his back at breaking point. The crowd roared. Khut’ulun stood, barely breathing hard, and claimed her prize.
Then a second challenger came. Then a tenth. Then a hundred. From all across Dreanor, from all clans, including the exiled and the wanderers. Some were skilled wrestlers. Some were brutes who thought raw strength and the differences of gender would break her technique. Some were clever fighters who studied her past bouts, hunting for a weakness. None of it mattered, for Khut’ulun beat them all the same. Their tenth became hers, and what was hers became the Warsongs. Weapons, stores of food, pelts, beads, wolves; whatever the bounty was, it was put to use. Over time, the matches became events unto themselves. The gathering crowds grew so large that only Kosh’harg could rival the numbered host. People rode for weeks just to see them. Bets were laid. Stories were sung. Friendships outside of clan and kin were formed. And with every win, Khut’ulun’s name grew louder, even to outshine her fathers and the whole of the Warsong.
But Khut’ulun did not let this change her. Every time Khut’ulun stepped onto that wrestling ground, she was telling the whole of her clan, the whole orcish world that she was no prize to be bartered.
Then a champion arrived from the distant wilds. No banner, no clan, a mountain of a man with shoulders like a bull and hands that could grind stone to dust. He brought not a tenth of his bounty, but one hundred. One hundred skulls of beast, gorgon, orc, and Arrakoa kind. The whispers rippled through the crowd: he was a wanderer who had never known defeat, not only in the old ways of wrestling but in the fighting arts of the Arrakoa. That he was rumored to be one of the reviled Mok’Nathal –half-ogres– and thus had no right to participate. By any measure, he was the most fearsome opponent Khut’ulun had ever faced. Even Khar’kruk showed his worry.
“You do not have to accept this, daughter,” he told her. “This one is different. There is no shame in turning him away.”
Khut’ulun met his gaze. “If I refuse now, all I have built is worth nothing.”
The day of the match came. The entire clan and several envoys were there. The champion arrived early, all power and pride. He paid no mind to the whispers or stares. Then Khut’ulun entered, the crowd fell silent, and the match began.
They circled. He lunged. For a moment, he got a grip. He was at least two times her size and easily pulled her with his greater weight. The crowd gasped. No one had ever pulled Khut’ulun off her feet before. But she did not fight his pull. She used it. She dropped her weight, spun, hooked her leg behind his, and pulled. Leverage did the rest. The champion hit the ground like a felled tree. Dust billowed around them. No one could see the result. For a heartbeat, no one breathed. Then Khut’ulun rose in the victory pose, and the camp erupted.
In a shocking turn, she helped the champion to his feet and offered him a place in her father’s warband, and, in an even stronger shock, he accepted.
This odd cycle would continue until the wheel of time spun, and war came once again to the orc clans of Dreanor: many foes, many wars. The first time, it was the Orge’s, seeking to reclaim their lost empire. Khar’kruk named Khut’ulun a commander, giving her authority over thousands of warriors.
Some of his elder generals protested. “She is a woman. The men will not follow.”
Khar’kruk’s answer was simple. “We shall see.”
The fighting reached a stalemate at the Skysong River. Before the battle, she split her warband, and with a created diversion rode the wolves into a wide wedge that struck straight at the heart of the enemy’s command. In the chaos, she charged an enemy general, leaped from her wolf-saddle, seizing his armor, and hauling him from his mount onto the ground. His severed head would come to sit atop her clan’s war banner, still bleeding come morning. In the wake of his death, the enemy army shattered. Deception was not the Warsong way, but wars are won in the mind as much as with the blade, and a victory in the former often begets the latter.
She served her Warchief and her clan for fifteen years, leading forces from a few hundred to tens of thousands, protecting fleeing warriors with countercharges that broke the armies that pursued them. Her title among her people became “Shield the People”. But then the time came for the greatest war: that of the succession of the Warchief Mantle. By then, Khut’ulun was the most capable of Khar’kruk’s children; A famed warrior, a feared general, a beloved shepherd of her people. Her father could not help but consider naming her his heir. This infuriated her brothers, the elders, and even the other clans.
Khut’ulun saw the storm gathering. If she were named chieftain, the clan, all that she had built for her father, would tear itself apart. Her brothers would see to it that she would be chief of the ashes before she was allowed to take her rightful place. Before her father went to seek the guidance of the spirits at the Throne of Elements, she pulled him aside in private.
“You must choose one of my brothers. If you name me, this family will tear itself apart. Unless the Spirits offer another in their wisdom, name my brother Orus as Chief, while she would remain the commander of the armies.”
When Khar’kruk passed in peace and wisdom, the passing of power was smooth. Orus took the throne of the Warsong, but Khut’ulun retained control of the warbands. Thus was the Warsong saved from itself. Rumors followed her father’s death: poison, dark magic, murder. None were ever proven, none ever stained her name. Later, in her forties, out of the scrutiny of the clan and elders, she did indeed choose a husband. Some say it was the champion from unknown lands, the only one to give her a challenge. Some say that it was not a chief’s son, or the champion, but a loyal soldier of her warband she trusted. Regardless, she continued to command. Heavy with child or burdened with the weight of age, she never gave up who she was until she died in the early years of the new century. The exact day and cause are lost to time.
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