Zargala

Zargala grew up accustomed to blood and battle, the daughter of a mercenary chieftain who led the band known as the Usurpers. With a sharp, humorous wit and a streak of rebelliousness, she became childhood friends with the son of another Usurper, Grengar. The two were almost like brother and sister, and secretly hoped to one day leave the warband and found their own warrior-group. The Usurpers worked for a while quelling a peasant uprising in eastern Kaerok, their services paid for by a Banner Lord named Sir Marston. They did so without realizing they had slipped into the midst of a dangerous feud. Many of the peasantry worked in land that was contested between Sir Marston and the neighboring lord, Sir Kentz. The presence of Orc mercenaries gave Kentz an opportunity to strike. He declared that he would intervene to protect 'his' people from the rapacious Orc attacks. Grengar and Zargala were preparing to depart on the very same night that Kentz attacked. They abandoned their plans as the Usurper camp was assailed by Kaerok knights and men-at-arms. The slaughter was fierce, and Zargala witnessed her father killed in the melee. She herself was knocked out, and didn't wake until it was all over. As Zargala came round she found herself amid her slain friends and family. Grengar was among them — he looked to have fallen while trying to protect her unconscious body. Filled with sorrow and rage, Zargala took up her father's great ax and set out after Kentz's forces. She tracked them until she found them at a narrow river crossing in battle with a group of Orcs Zargala did not recognize — Kentz, it seemed, was taking the opportunity to rid the land of all Orc warriors. Zargala wasted no time. First, she hacked down the guards protecting the Humans' horses – which the knights had left on the near bank as they attacked across the ford – then set them loose. In the chaos that followed she raised a racket in the nearby woods, beating her ax against tree trunks, rattling branches and roaring. She then stepped to the edge of the trees and pretended to give encouragement to non-existent Orc warriors behind. While they were disoriented by the horse stampede and the threat of an assault to their rear, the Humans were counterattacked by the Orcs they were fighting, led by one with a mane of red hair who wielded twin axes. The knights broke and Sir Kentz escaped. In the aftermath, Zargala met with the Orc leader. She recognized him from a chance meeting years before, where she had encountered him on his strange quest to take a Human orphan to the Eternal Citadel, the headquarters of the Sacred Order. His name was Galek, and he offered Zargala a place in his band. She turned him down, but agreed to travel with him until they had left the borders of Kaerok. The two quickly rekindled the embers of a friendship born from that bizarre meeting many moons ago, enlivened by Zargala's humor and Galek's earnest good nature. As summer follows spring, love blossomed between them. The two Orcs were, however, forced to part ways in body, if not in affection. Zargala never lost her desire to see Sir Kentz' head atop a pike, and was devoted to see the deed done. When Galek left his band to answer a 'call' he could not explain, she was devastated. Both knew their purposes, for the time being, lay with causes besides that of their love for each other. They vowed they would find each other again, one day.