Black Metal: The Orc Wars (10 page)

“We harried the eastern hordes for weeks as they made their way across the plains. There were so many of them we couldn’t hope to risk facing them in full battle. All the orcs of the east had risen, and we were sorely pressed to raise our own army after filling the levies for Eldin’s damn crusade. Skirmishers like myself and their sentries fought constantly when the horde would stop to camp, and we’d keep our outriders on the lookout for groups or individual orcs who started falling behind the main body of the horde when it would start moving again. Many good men died on that brutal march towards Ameran, most with an orc blade in their guts and not a friend in sight. Little good it did us.” --- Micah Edmonds, ranger

Ma-Gur looked at his scarred hand intently, clenching and unclenching it as he watched the muscles play back and forth across his bones. The wounds burned into his hands by the hot metal weapon with which he had dispatched the dwarf still pained him, but it was a phantom pain of a wound long since healed. Though a warrior and a veteran of an increasing number of battles the pain from the wounds caught up with him at times. The burn had been large and deep, and though his orcish heritage bestowed him with accelerated healing, the memory of the horrible pain sometimes came to him. Even orc, it seemed, could not abuse their bodies without eventual consequences.

The sound of hammers ringing in the morning air caught his attention, bringing him roughly out of his reverie. His gaze followed the sound, carrying his vision beyond his perch atop one of the citadel’s high sentry towers. Beyond the gates of Ameran lay the workings of a vast army. Just out of missile range the dwarves and men were constructing massive battlements. The sight took Ma-Gur’s mind back through the events that had unfolded over the last few months.

Once the clans of the eastern and southern orcs had entered the castle, a massacre had ensued. The vastly outnumbered dwarves had stubbornly defended their stronghold, bringing death to many orcs even as they themselves were slain. Reygoth and the trolls were said to have been in the thick of it, having already been engaged with the hard-pressed defenders. Ca’tic’na and the goblins had been discovered holed up in the citadel’s larder. Apparently they had penetrated the larder, killed the guards, and had been defending their position when the clan orcs stormed the halls.

Once the fortress had been taken Vol and Aar, the clan chiefs, had acquiesced leadership to Ghalik. While this had initially been ill received by the clan orcs, distrustful of their seer’s submission to the leadership of another, Ghalik quickly proved his leadership skills and secured his position. This was because within a week a large force of dwarves assaulted the citadel. The dwarves were unprepared for the sheer numbers of orc defenders or the discipline and fervor Ghalik had instilled in them.

After the dwarves had been routed and run down Ghalik had warned the victorious of over celebration or laxity in their vigilance. Soon, he had said, the armies of man, elf, and dwarf will arrive at our doorstep. They had to be prepared for the long and vicious battles ahead.

The gate had been closed. Defenses damaged during the orc occupation were repaired. Hunting and raiding parties scoured and ravaged the land for game and loot. Within a month most all of the nearby villages had been taken. The buildings had been torn down for raw materials, the larders plundered for food, and the populations dragged into the underground warrens as slaves.

After the second month had passed winter had set in. Soon Ghalik’s wisdom was made clear to all. The overstocked food supplies promised a winter free from hunger. The mountains of scrap wood provided an abundance of warmth and fuel for the forges. The slaves provided ceaseless labor and service, allowing for the orcs to keep their war skills from being blunted by toil.

It was in the middle of the third month that the army came. They were led mostly by the knights and soldiers of Iithsul, yet the bulk of the army had the swarthy complexions of the warriors of Erol. Erol was a nation deep in the southern lands, famous for their mercenaries and their spicy cuisine. Apparently the coffers of mighty Iithsul were full enough to tempt the Erolite mercs to brave the winter and aid in the siege, that and their hatred of the ever-raiding southern orc clans who had escaped the purge. The company of dwarves that camped with the army indicated that the dwarves seemed to have gained the help of the humans. Who knew what they had offered in return.

Much to the defender’s surprise they army had not made an assault. They had a different approach in mind. Without an aggressive movement at all the army set at once to building what appeared to be a massive set of ramparts that stretched from one end of the stronghold to the other.

It wasn’t until the construction of the ramparts were well underway that Ghalik and his warriors realized the purpose of the project. The walls were built right up to the base of the mountain on either end of the stronghold in a crescent shaped semi-circle. They were just out of missile range and when completed would effectively hem in the orcs, trapping them in the mountain fastness.

Ghalik had pointed out that the enemy likely intended to starve them and whittle down their numbers. Since the horde’s forces had not grown since the occupation of the dwarven citadel, other than the addition of a few small groups of trolls and goblins who appeared just before the siege began, there would be no help from outside.

So this is where fate has deposited us, thought Ma-Gur as he shivered against the cold. Under siege and trapped. Well, he though, at least the enemy has lost some of their initial patience. After a few weeks of bloodless siege the enemy, presumably spurred on by the dwarves, had begun to assault the stronghold. So despite the fact that the orcs detested siege warfare, they had their hands full repelling attacking troops and exchanging missile fire with enemy siege engines that moved up to support the troops.

It wasn’t that the enemy had much of a chance of penetrating the fortress, but it did cost resources and lives to maintain the impregnability of the dwarven masterpiece. And a masterpiece it was, built long ago by the dwarves as a symbol of their mastery of stone and war, or so the legends told. The fortress was designed so that a scant few warriors could defend it as long as their supplies held. Which of course would soon be the problem given the thousands of warriors within the walls, not to mention the hundreds of slaves held below. It seemed the enemy’s plan truly was to whittle them down into nothing.

Ma-Gur’s eyes grew heavy, he had been on sentry duty for the better part of the day, and was eager for relief. As if on cue there was a tap on his boot, he looked down to find Okada and a clan orc standing below him in the stairwell.

“Ghalik has called for his leaders. Tonight he seeks a vision to save us,” the ranger stated, “Be it from siege, or from boredom judging by your face.”

Ma-Gur allowed himself a chuckle, which for orcs was about the extent of laughter and mirth. He never did understand Okada’s sensibilities, seen as a weakness by others, but at times it amused the warrior. He joined Okada and descended the stairs as the stooped clan orc took up the sentry position behind them.

Ghalik gasped, the air about him thickened as the psychoactive drug began to take effect. His blood felt thick as his eyelids seemed to flutter in tandem with his rapidly beating heart. Ghalik’s vision blurred and he began to feel as if he were growing lighter, his body feeling like it was slowly rising up from the ground. Through numbing lips he whispered in the broken language of magic, the energy coalescing about him as the spell began to take effect.

Those warriors present could feel the pull of the magical energy as it passed through them and into the old wizard. They were seated in a rough circle around the wizard, instructed by the seers Vol and Aar to remain still and silent no matter what happened.

The old orc began to convulse as he became fully enmeshed in the techniques of trance as taught to him by his fellow magicians, becoming the very device through which the spell of divination would manifest. The onlookers began to notice the brilliant sheen on his skin, a phosphorescent coat of sweat that flowed forth from his pours. Then, without warning his head flew back and he began to speak in a voice not his own.

“Down we must go. Into the Deep where the stone men fear to tread. A lifeline we must forge to the lands of the Sheul. Ruin has been laid upon our shoulders and it is Ruin we shall visit upon our oppressors. So it shall be until the end of our days.”

The room fell silent as the Ghalik slumped to the floor unconscious. Grim looks were exchanged, the course was set. The future was unfolding even as they left the room, time speeding along its insane course through the abyss.

“I served on the Wall at Ameran. It was the most boring post a man could hope for, and I was thankful. In Erol we say that a fat mercenary is a man who isn’t earning his keep, and by the gods we’d grown fat. In my twenty years on the Wall we made only two assaults, and those dwarves build their keeps stout as they come. We fired arrows, pitch, and stone. Raised ladders and fought with spear and axe. All for naught, as they repelled us with only a handful of warriors. A stout keep indeed. I took my wound there, aye and that was my retirement as well. A man can’t fight if he can’t stand. Now I have a good wife and healthy children, my sword hasn’t cleared leather in decades. Saved my life he did, that orc with his ugly dagger.” --- Tander Sek, former mercenary

“Surely we are spiraling towards the end my brother,” Vol, the eastern chieftain, uttered as he and Ma-Gur toiled alongside the labor crews deep in the underground tunnels below the captured citadel.

“Aye, but I intend not to go alone,” responded the younger, though larger, orc as he felted a boulder out and away from the human digging crews, “And if Ghalik is right the weapon we will need to scourge this world is almost at our fingertips.”

The two orc warriors went back to digging. The particular tunnel in which they toiled was one of dozens that had been worked into the mountain over time. Ma-Gur certainly hoped this tunnel was the one. According to Ghalik the dwarves had hidden the chamber beneath layer upon layer of brick and stone. The score of other tunnels were fakes, so this one must eventually lead to pay dirt, he thought.

After all, they had been digging for nearly one hundred years. Had it really been so long? Ma-Gur could barely wrap his mind around the idea. Then he thought of the tunnels themselves. Every one of them stretching and twisting on for miles, all sealed tightly and booby-trapped every inch of the way. The stone men were serious about keeping something hidden down there.

Ghalik had only hinted to the other orcs as to what lay beneath the century’s worth of stone and sediment that had been moved. His only explanation for anything was that their prize was so valuable and terrible that the dwarves of olden times had built the fortress to keep whatever was buried there inside. How Ghalik knew this no one had a clue, and no one had the desire to ask. So here they were, nearly a century later, digging in the dark for some ancient evil.

At least life on the surface was interesting. The dwarves and men had finished their wall. A massive barricade of stone and wood bristling with siege weapons and archers. Ma-Gur assumed that the attackers had realized what the orcs were doing because over the last several decades the assaults grew more vicious and desperate. Perhaps the secretive stone men had finally told the humans what lie underneath the fortress.

Unfortunately for the attackers the orcs were a race of pitiless immortals, and so their numbers only dwindled through violent death. The dwarves had built their fortress well, and even after a century of siege, Ameran still stood defiant against the world that sought its end. In spite of the constant whittling of their numbers and the lack of conventional food supplies, the horde survived. The orcs had learned to cultivate the fungus that grew in the dark places of the underground. With Ghalik’s foresight and Okada’s practical wisdom the orcs had managed to find the ways in which the dwarves survived within their mountains during times of war.

Without sympathy the orc horde used its original stock of slaves and bred them with captured soldiers before the invader’s bodies were hung from the ramparts. After a hundred years of toil there were no human slaves left who had not been born into bondage deep in the mountain. Stones that came from the tunnels were hauled up and used for repairs and catapult ammunition. Fungal bodies that could be burned like wood were discovered in the catacombs. For all intents and purposes, Ameran was self-sustainable and impregnable. A living legend amongst the newest generation of besiegers and the various allied nations from which they hailed.

Ghalik, looking no older than he did a hundred years ago, breathed in the smoke from his wizard’s incense. He contemplated the state of affairs in Ameran. The gridlock was beginning to wear thin. Of course the soldiers were unhappy. Though they often had much opportunity for battle, but it was siege warfare. Defending ramparts was tedious, and in every orc’s heart of hearts open warfare was the only satisfying way to fight. The old wizard had heard talk of counter-assaults but had prevented them from occurring. Even Reygoth, a much older and slower creature these days, seemed to have lost his will to continue with affairs as they were.

Thinking of this, the old wizard opened his eyes to look at the old troll. Reygoth lay upon a crude cot, his mottled skin having lost its yellow luster of his younger days.

“You wear a long face old friend,” croaked the troll as he noticed Ghalik’s eyes upon him.

“Much has happened to give me grief. I have seen ages come and go like morning and night. This one is no different, yet I find myself unable to welcome its conclusion,” mumbled Ghalik, embarrassed for such an unusual display of emotion.

“Perhaps it is the killing boredom that stalks this place. Before I was unable to stand even defending the walls grew tiresome. We long for the open fields and room to breathe or fight. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live out as many years as you have, only to be trapped in this tomb,” the troll chuckled bitterly, “I at least have the luxury of dying before even death loses it’s fire.”

“The ancient races have lived our times in this world. All around us the world is changing. We have been left behind. Yet we still remain, caged like animals,” Ghalik spat.

“Once you find the Sheul you will give the world one last glimpse of its origins before your time comes,” coughed the troll as he rolled over to face the wall, “I know that an old crippled warrior like me has no business giving advise to an immortal wizard. But once you find what you seek, never, ever go back to this.”

The troll weakly reached out and ran his hand down the dank wall next to his cot and whispered, “It will kill your spirit. As it has mine.”

The troll’s hand fell back to the cot. Ghalik looked at the troll’s back for a long time. Then eventually rose to leave, a resolve growing in him that he had thought long dead.

“Thank you,” he spoke softly, though his words fell on deaf ears.

Ma-Gur grunted and swung his pickaxe at the rock-filled wall of dirt in front of him. After a century of digging, he was by far the strongest and best-equipped orc for the job. He and the handful of orcs near his size worked alongside the human labor crews, clearing dirt and rock away while the goblins scampered about the newly formed tunnel searching for traps or clues as to the tunnel’s true purpose. While few orcs had met their end in these catacombs, the death toll by dwarven traps upon the slave population was heavy and had to be guarded against.

The burly orc’s arms shivered as the pickaxe struck something hard and unforgiving somewhere under the mound of dirt. Hearing the sound of the impact the goblins scurried over to Ma-Gur’s position. He shoved the human slaves out of the way and helped the goblins as they all dug with their bare hands. Oddly enough the dirt gave way easily, as if it were strangely repelled by whatever lie just underneath the surface. They continued to clear dirt and rock away until they found that the hard surface had been a massive stone door.

Ma-Gur sent a pair of goblins running after Ghalik, and third skulked off on his own, presumably to inform Ca’tic’na of their discovery. While they were waiting the orc and goblins finished clearing the last of the dirt from the door. Upon its surface was an inscription, presumably dwarvish. Ma-Gur couldn’t read the script, but assumed that it told or warned of what lie behind the massive doors that stood slightly taller than the orc himself and seemed quite thick.

The goblin runners found Ghalik still standing in Reygoth’s chamber, looking blankly at the last of the trolls. Hid mind burned with the knowledge that he had just witnessed the death of a race. Reygoth had confided in him many years ago that like the orcs the trolls had found themselves under attack, their women and children slaughtered as the troll clans were overrun by the vast armies of men. It was said that the High King of Iithsul had begun what he considered a holy crusade against the old races. Even though the cleric nation lay far to the south the templars and soldiers had ranged even to the northern wilderness of the Angir. Surely after a century the High King had died, passing on his power and position to the next holy man.

“Time moves ever faster. The end speeds towards us in the swiftness of the passing days. Every year seems a day. Every life sparkling only a moment,” he intoned as the goblins entered the room.

They told him of Ma-Gur’s findings in their strange language, gesturing this way and that. Ghalik instructed one to lead him to the tunnel and the other to find Okada. Within minutes they had reached the catacombs. After moving down the tunnel for several miles deeper into the mountain they finally emerged into the small chamber carved out around the great stone door. Without words he stepped up to the door and began to run his hands over the dwarven inscriptions, murmuring to himself in a strange language that could only have been dwarvish.

Okada arrived shortly after, closely followed by Ca’tic’na and Aar. They joined Ma-Gur and Vol to watch in silence as Ghalik stood before the door. After many long moments the old wizard spoke to them over his shoulder as he traced his finger over an especially bizarre symbol at the center of the door.

“Imprisoned within this chamber is one of the Sheul, Lord Arius,” he stated as he turned around to face his commanders, “This is a god from the ancient world, somehow captured by the stone men and held by old magics. This is the weapon I have promised you. Even as we are the ancient race, this Sheul was the oldest of titans.”

Then, without the slightest pretense, he turned and heaved against the great door. His muscles strained but did not seem to be able to budge its fastness. Vol, Aar, and Ma-Gur shouldered past the goblins and added their strength to the wizard’s. As they grunted and strained the door began to move, folding inwards as the orcs forced it open.

They found themselves in a large chamber. It was circular in shape, and in alcoves all around the chamber there were piles of black armor and weapons. There was enough armor and weaponry to equip a massive army. At the center of the chamber was a throne, its black metal frame bedecked with spikes and blades. Seated upon the throne was a massive suit of armor.

The form upon the throne would have stood just as tall as Ma-Gur, its bizarre armor adding bulk to its already large frame. At its hands lay and axe and sword, wicked weapons that had seen countless ages of bloodshed. In the center of its breastplate was an impression in which it seemed a circular stone or key should fit.

The crypt was silent as death as the orc commanders walked slowly into the room. As they approached a booming and sinister voice sounded in their minds.

“So my children have come to free me at last,” spoke a voice so ancient it threatened to crush those who heard it.

Ghalik and the others stood at the base of the raised throne. Ghalik gathered his courage and spoke.

“Lord Arius, last of the Sheul. I have heard your voice in my dreams Old One. We have come to bring you into an age of war.”

The visor of the great helm that sat atop the armored shoulders of the creature began to glow from a source deep within the metal shell.

“I am the last Sheul, the progenitor of orcish kind. Your strength is my power. Listen my children, and learn the last wisdom of the ancient world,” it spoke as the orc commanders behind Ghalik were compelled to drop to one knee. Ghalik himself was in a trance and could not find the will to move, “Long ago I spawned your kind. The dwarves and the elves rallied to stop me from destroying this world. Your ancestors were sundered and scattered to all corners of the world. The other Sheul had been destroyed in our great conflict with the gods. Then I, Lord Arius, the First Orc, was defeated. An alliance of dwarven craftsmen and elvish sorcerers bound me with great magics. They forged my essence into this darksteel suit of armor that you see before you. The dwarves were then able to physically hold me here, while the elves hold the rune key that binds me to this throne.”

“Ghalik, my last true son. You and your kin have become the killing spirit that will set me free. Find the rune key, return it here and I will stand at your side,” the armored figure uttered in their minds as it turned up its palm. The movement was slight, but the grinding of the armor betrayed the difficulty of the movement, the god truly was held fast, “Send me the blood of your blood, and I will bless him so that he will be able to pass unseen into the kingdom of the elves.”

Without a word Ghalik walked over to Okada and touched his shoulder. As the others looked on a confused Okada stood up next to the old wizard. The Ghalik removed an armored bracer from his wrist, revealing a strange tattoo. Every Angir orc bore a tattoo marking it as the child or kin of every other orc bearing that tattoo. Okada had been raised believing that his father had died in battle long ago. The mark on Okada’s wrist was an exact copy of the one of Ghalik’s own wrist. Then the truth hit all present like a hammer on steel, Okada was a superb ranger and warrior, but possessed no magic. Ghalik had hidden his heritage from the tribe to protect his son. All knew that if the Ghalik sired a son with no magic, it was to be put to death immediately for fear that it would sap the strength of the current Ghalik. A lifetime of forbidden emotions played over the muscles in Ghalik’s face, and all could plainly see that it had sapped strength from the mighty orc. The greatest hero of their race, a traitor to even his own tribe, was truly the son of a deceitful god.

The old sorcerer said nothing, but simply gestured for the ranger to approach the throne. Okada visibly swallowed his confusion, fear, emotion, and stepped towards the armored creature. The thing remained still, though a palpable aura of power could be felt radiating from it. The ranger gingerly put his hand in the god’s. There was a flash of magical energy, and then all was silent.

“Now I will await your return. Then I will stand with you at the end of ages.”