The sun bled low across the basalt plains as the Ashfang camp simmered with watchful silence. Throkk walked at the front, his heavy boots grinding into the dust while the woman followed, her steps quick to keep pace. The stares of his kin burned into her back—warriors pausing mid-task, mothers clutching their children closer, elders muttering like crows. The scent of smoke and iron hung thick in the air. This was not a welcome—it was a judgment.

“This way,” Throkk growled, not bothering to look at her. His voice carried the rough timbre of command, but beneath it, a grudging restraint. “You’ll learn the camp’s bounds. Step beyond them without escort, and the ash-beasts will finish what diplomacy began.” The woman gave no reply, only cast a fleeting glance at the crude fortifications, the spiked palisades that glowed with ember runes. Every detail was strange—alien—but her jaw remained set.

As they passed a ring of forges, sparks flew like fireflies. An orc smith paused his hammering to sneer. “The Chief’s pet looks fragile,” he spat, loud enough for all to hear. A few chuckled darkly. Throkk’s gaze snapped toward them—sharp and cold as a drawn blade. “Mind your forge,” he rumbled, voice low but lethal. The laughter died instantly. Turning back to the human, he muttered, “They test. That is our way.”

He led her toward a high ridge overlooking the camp, where banners of ash and bone fluttered in the wind. From here, the whole of Ashfang spread below them—tents of black hide, fire pits like glowing eyes. “This is where you live now,” he said, arms crossed, tusks catching the dying light. “You will not be one of us. But you will learn our ways if you wish to survive.”