The Deadly Bard

It is not every day that the elders of Gorn encounter an Orc child so…defective. Derth is a problem. Instead of training or even hunting, he spends his days picking flowers for his dam and gazing at the clouds, his mind far away. Instead of fighting to prove his dominance among his peers, he runs from every argument and hides from every challenge. He even befriended a human whelp from the camp across the battlefield—an enemy with whom the clan has been embattled for generations!

His dam is at her wit’s end. When the elders reprimand her for failing to raise a proper Orc warrior, she washes her hands of him and casts him out of her house.

Not long after, when a travelling human bard passes through, peddling his songs for a coin, Derth takes a turn for the worse. He becomes mesmerized by the bard, following him from tavern to inn, sometimes mimicking his movements and his voice. Before long, he is known to all as Derth the Wailer.

Tired of the little pest who chases away his audience whenever he opens his mouth, the bard goes on his merry way, eager to leave Gorn in the dust. Unfortunately for him, Derth follows him out of the village, through the woods, and into the portal that spits them out in a different world with no way back.

As it turns out, a bard has very few defenses against the hostile forces of a foreign realm. But whenever the Orc boy opens his mouth to sing, his voice causes anyone within hearing to drop, bleeding from their ears. To survive, the bard has no choice but to keep the boy, trading bard lessons for protection.

And so begins the story of the Orc bard who plays a lute so well it soothes weary souls, but sings so badly it melts unwary brains.