“Oh? And who would you wretches have found to waste their time trying to train you into something of any worth?" Ulag marched down the Line with a nasty sneer on his face.

“Algra Strongblood, master.“ Ulf called out the name and the noise of several other packs who were training nearby fell silent.

The mention of that name stopped Ulag in his tracks, and he turned to round his attention on Gregory. The sneer shifted into a snarl of frustration. Algra's reputation was well known, and as the War Chief's niece an open challenge to her could be seen as a challenge on Grolfir himself. It seemed that for a few moments Ulag tried to burn Gregory off the face of the earth with the power of his gaze alone, until he finally growled and rounded his attention on their new weapons.

“What's this foolishness?" he asked.

“We aim to try something different if given the honour of a proving, master. These are our chosen weapons. None have a sharp edge or point, and cannot crack iron.”

“A shield!?" Ulag stopped when he saw the circular shield that Wrut carried. "This is a coward's weapon. I wouldn't have thought you of all people would want to wield such a thing.”

Though it was clear the proving master was trying to get a rise out of the one armed orc, Wrut didn't move and continued to stay in a rigid stance whilst keeping his eyes focused into the middle distance.

“I have learned to accept what I am, master. It is good to make such peace, and know one's Limitations."

Ulag spat on the ground to show what he thought of Wrut's Limitations and then stepped back to look over each of them.

“Very well. If you want a proving? You have one. Rolk!" he yelled for the Berserker alpha.

Nothing happened.

“Rolk!?" Ulag turned around and scoured the training field with his gaze.

“Where the bloody hell are The Berserkers?"

"They're with the healers, master." Nullik happily filled in.

“What the hell are they doing with the healers?" Ulag's right eye twitched with rage.

“Er... well I'm not rightly sure, master," Nullik hesitated. "I heard that they ran afoul of Dregolf and his war-pack yesterday. Don't worry, master. Last I saw, the healers were doing a good job of putting them back together. All the broken bones were set and I was told that Rolk's face looked a lot less like an inflated sheep's bladder than when he'd first been brought there."

For a brief moment after that it seemed Like the Runts' first proving match of their return might have been against their proving master. At one point Gregory was pretty sure that steam was going to start whistling out of Ulag's ears on being informed his favourites had been injured without him being alerted to it.

“Bear Claws!" Ulag finally yelled.

Immediately, a group of seven orcs ran through the training grounds to present themselves in a similar line to that which the Runts had formed.

Gregory glanced over to them and what he saw was not encouraging. They weren't collectively as big as the Berserkers but they still looked like a bunch of over-enthusiastic Olympians with psychotic tendencies.

“Put these idiots back in their place! Proving begins at my signal.” Ulag yelled before Looking over the runts dismissively. "Shouldn't Last long."

The other orcs gave a collective howl of approval and then began to file out of the training area towards the seating around the proving pits.

As soon as the proving master had stormed off, the Runts gave a collective breath of relief before Looking to each other warily.

“Alright guys, time to skin some bears." Gregory said. They all looked at him in horror.

“Not fucking Literally! Jeez! I mean it's time to put all this work we've been doing into practice. I reckon we should run the falcon on them. What do you think?" he asked ULf.