“Hal Materialism really isn't a vice you're familiar with, is it? But I think I might have an idea that could help sort out all the clutter. I hope you don't mind but I summoned up the orcs who all that stuff used to belong to."

“Oh, so we're just going to give it back? Cool." His shoulders visibly relaxed.

"No, we aren't." Janette quickly interjected as Dregolf frowned.

“Because that would be returning something that was won in a challenge, which would be like telling those orcs that they're unworthy because when you take all they have it's just not good enough. This would be a huge insult, so we're not doing that. Right?"

“Oh, er... Right." He nodded with an apologetic glance to Dregolf.

“Wasn't thinking straight, of course. Really busy day."

Dregolf's frown relaxed on hearing that, having obviously not wanted his little brother to be humiliated in such a way.

“Ok then," Janette nodded with a little huff of relief that Gregory hadn't pressed that particular issue. "So what we're going to do instead is rent these orcs the things that used to belong to them so that they can work more effectively for you. They get their equipment, gear and whatever else used to belong to them, and in return they'll give you a small tribute every month."

“That sounds alright with me if it's ok with them."

"It is. I talked about it with them Last night whilst you were occupied.”

“Well Look at you go. A few weeks in and my chief ambassador is already organising deals for me." He gave her a little squeeze against him.

“I knew you'd be good at this stuff, Jan.”

“There are a few hiccups though, and here they come now." Janette looked past Dregolf to where a series of chained orcs were walking together in a Line.

It was The Berserkers themselves, with the notable exception of Rolk, who was presumably still incapable of walking in a straight line due to his head injury.

“Hey, wait a sec here," Gregory protested. "I didn't challenge the whole pack, just the alpha. And he can go fuck himself for all I care.

I don't give a shit whether or not it's insulting."

“Yeah, but it turns out that Rolk had a unique way of keeping his pack in line. He issued a formal challenge to each of them, one by one, and took exactly what he was owed when he won. That's how they worked. The strongest was in charge. They just took the whole thing a bit too literally. Even orcs know that leadership is a different skill to having a lot of brawn. Most of them pick their alphas like The Runts picked you."

"So now I've beaten him, I've got to deal with these guys?"

“Yeah. They're orcs, so they have to follow the rules of the challenge.

Although we had them put in shackles because a lot of them are fucking sociopaths and we didn't want them going nuts in the middle of the camp."