Panic had spread through the Orc camp. One person after another had gone missing after venturing outside, and the camp commander had finally realized something was wrong. He sent his soldiers out to investigate, but an entire day passed without a word from either of the two groups he dispatched.
The commander finally grew anxious. He was only a centurion, with barely two hundred men under his command. There might have been nearly four thousand Orcs in the camp, but those were not his men!
He had initially considered himself lucky when he arrived to take charge of the camp. The vast camp had been deserted, without a soul in sight. The battle for the Searing Lands was about to begin, and the six thousand troops of the Orcs Main Force previously stationed there had been urgently transferred to the front. Rather than garrison duty, his assignment was more accurately described as maintaining the camp and keeping it clean.
Although tensions ran high on the Searing Lands front and a major battle could erupt at any moment, this place had still been safely behind the lines. He had felt lucky because he and his brothers no longer had to fight. The Orc army had retreated in defeat all the way from Alterac to the Searing Lands. War-weariness was spreading among the soldiers, and anxiety was everywhere. Neither he nor his men wanted to return to the battlefield.
At the time, only he and his two hundred or so men had lived in the vast camp. It had felt rather empty and lonely, but they had been free to do as they pleased. At least they no longer had superior officers barking orders and shouting nonsense at them every day.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last. Once the battle for