Note: I like it when orks, those fungoid creatures with no understanding of what we humans call sexangender, get they/them pronouns but this feels a bit awkward. Thoughts?

Big Murgg flew through the air with the reckless abandon of a freshly flung squig turd. With twin axes raised and the light of Gorkamorka in their eyes, the Big Boss loosed a mighty “WAAAGH!!” upon the eaves of the Gnarlwood. The last thing they remembered was thinking, “It’s just a zoggin’ tree.” Then there was a blaring pain in their jaw and darkness took the Orruk as their body struck the ungiving dust of Ghur.

It was the gruff voices of the rest of the Rukk that interrupted the darkness, bringing Big Murgg back to bleary daylight.

“Shame da dok got merked. Greenklaw’d have Big Murgg up in no time.”

“Merked? Murgg? Oi you fink you’s funny.”

There was a pause. “Oh yeah dat was a propa joke.”

“Don’t seem right muckin’ about like dis. Even if da boss ain’t dead Murgg can’t lead propa as ‘e is. Time we got back after it. A maw-krusha, dat’s a propa fight. Back to huntin’ I says, now dat da tree is out of our way.”

Big Murgg shot to their feet and punched the dissenter in the head. Potential rivals were to be dealt with swiftly. The other Orruk toppled to the side and Murgg told the rest to shut up and stop loafing, to get back on the trail of that big fing they had been hunting…but the boyz didn’t react. They just lazily turned towards the them with confused looks on their faces.

Big Murgg repeated the same order, but this time they heard their own words. Instead of the kind of strong, gravelly command one would expect to get the rest of the warband in line all that came out was a series of grunts and half-words. Zoggin’ gods above but did their jaw hurt…

The big boss swayed a little as a wave of dizziness over took them. They tried to get their bearings. In so doing, their jaw bumped a bit of lucky monster bone tied to their shoulder. That little nudge was enough to set Big Murgg howling in agony. The howl produced a small font of blood and one of their own bones, a cracked tooth, went flying towards the dry ground of Ghur. But instead of a dull, dusty thud the fang made a plinking sound against a rather dense object. It was not the ground but a felled tree…and one of the strangest looking trees Big Murgg had ever clapped eyes on. Was it the same stupid tree that had wrecked their gob?

Silly zoggin’ toof cracka! is what Big Murgg meant to say, a truly crushing insult to the apparently dead bit of flora that had so injured them. But what came out of their mouth sounded more like, “Toofwracka!”

The other boyz, more now gathered in response to Big Murgg’s cry, seemed confused. Was their defacto boss calling a WAAAGH or just yelling for the sake of noise? The Orruks began to banter between themselves. 

“Toofwracka! Toofwracka! Zogg’n toofwracka!” Big Murgg raved, still pointing at the downed gnarloak.

“Reckon ol’ Murgg is da boss now,” an arrowboy muttered.

“Sure is shoutin’ nonsense like a weird’n. You suppose it’s Gork…or maybe Mork speakin’ through ‘im now?”

“On account o’ Greenklaw bein’ merked?”

“If yous say ‘merked’ one more time…”

Bigg Murgg turned their attention back towards the slain gnarlwood oak and the voices faded away. Sure enough, there was Greenklaw, their Maddokk and leader…ex-leader…impaled on the root of that silly tree Then it came back to Murgg in their mind’s eye, all of a blazing rush: the daring attack on the tree that had rendered them unconscious (no mean feat considering the thickness of orruk skulls), the hunt Greenklaw was leading them on, the Ironjawz that had tried to get in their way, and the axes Murgg had taken from the Ardboyz what thought they could best a Bone Rukk.

“Yeah!” cried one of the Morboys. “We is da Tuff Whackaz now!”

“Nobody whacks gitz tuffer than us!” cried another.

“Nar! Nar!” mumbled Murgg through broken jaw. They pointed at the tree again and tried to speak more slowly before the WAAAGH truly picked up and the ladz were beyond reason. “Toof. Wreck. Ah.”

“Waaaagh!! Da Tuff Whackaz did in that zoggin’ oak just like we gonna do in da rest of this wood!”

The lusty war cries were getting louder now. All Murgg could do was sigh and cast their gaze about in frustration. A glint jutting out of the oak put the final piece of the puzzle into place. The shiny new ax! It was broken! But where was its twin? Some of the boyz had thought him foolish for copping them Ironjaw bits of steel instead of trusting to proper rock and bone, the way Gork (or possibly Mork) intended, but those axes called to Murgg in a way they did not understand.

Now one was broken and the other must have gone flying off into that irritating wood.It had to be found.

Without thought Big Murgg began pointing and gesticulating again, breaking the other Bonesplitterz from their rising frenzy.

“Two axes!” he tried to say, but all that came out was “Twaxis! Twaxis! Cub awn yadz!”

The battlecries paused for the moment as the Orruks looked to one another in hopes of an explanation. 

“More zoggin’ mad boy talk,” whispered one. “That tree must’ve rattled ‘is brains.”

“Is they sayin…Tullaksis?”

“What da zog is that?”

This gave the boyz a greater and more confused pause. Some of them even began to think, trying to recall where the strange word had come up in recent days. But thinking is boring work and soon brawls began to break out.

“Got it!” said the Morboy, Badgrak by name. “Tullaksis is dat place wot them Ardboy idiots was going on about. Some kind of speshul, magickal place. Probably all kinds of good loot there and plenty of fights along the way. Big fings ta kill wiv bigga bones fer us. Lads, Big Murgg is leadin’ us on! ‘Ere we go!”

Their inertia now given a vector, the Rukk took off in the very direction their new boss had pointed. Big Murgg growled and shook their head in frustration. Maybe the prized ax could be found that way or the maw-krusha they’d been hunting all along or, more hopefully, the big boss could figure out how to talk proper again and put the Bonesplitterz back on track. Until then, here was a jungle full of things to bash and, apparently, Big Murgg was the new prophet.