Hidden rooms and Dragons

The air still smelled of death, but at least the fire seemed to have been extinguished by the rain. My wolf companion and I had been traveling without sleep for three days to stay on the trail of the Wall of Fire. Our home, our country, is just dust in the air. No sound, no light, no life, just death.

My eyes burn from the ash filled atmosphere and my mouth knows only the taste of iron from the blood oozing from the cracks in my lips. Never has water looked sweeter or a brook appeared more hallowed. The wolf lays down in foam simultaneously trying to drink and be rid of the blood soaked, blackened dust encrusting her form.

The Fangland woods are a mysterious and massive territory. Untouched and unspoiled, the forest sprawls across the country for an unknown distance. Humans believe the woods are a labyrinth, cursed by some mixture of Gods or bedeviled Druids, depending on who is telling the story. As such, it has been a safe, impenetrable home to the beasts of the country for as long as the mortals have hunted and preyed upon them. But, in truth, the Woods are not a labyrinth or a maze, as the elk and bears could tell you. It only appears unnavigable to those who don’t respect it. The trees are not kind hosts to strangers, seemingly shifting and changing, making fools of any would be mapmaker who think their unique cartography skills can reveal Fangland’s secrets.

I have known these woods all my life. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t a part of it, but now slouched at the edge of its ashen remains, I already feel like a part of me has died.

Suddenly, a great Elk emerges from the ashen stumps wishing to drink from the brook where the Wolf and I are resting.

If the woods were silent before, the river almost sounds as though it is holding its breath. The wood always seems mute when a life hangs in the balance. The wolf is poised as quick as an adder, her eyes locked on the great-antlered elk noiselessly drinking below us. This poor creature undoubtedly made the same restless crossing as we. Surely, fleeing fire and flames and now slurping the first water its seen to quell its dry, cracked throat. The escape of one death, begets only another.

Slowly… the heavy silence is broken with the pained groaning of the bend of my bow.

Seconds pass and my fingers begin to tingle for want of blood. Then… a sharp exhale and my arrow flies deep into the elk’s side. Crying a voluminous bellow, the great King of the wood stumbles through the brook with a violent spray, ambling for the safety of the brush on the other side. Without even a glance, the wolf breaks from her crouch and bounds after the wounded animal.

These woods are filled with competitors; it would not be long before the smell of fresh blood would bring a shadow cat or a bear to take our kill. Pushing through the brush I see the Wolf, calmly standing over the hamstrung and impaled elk. Like all beings on the precipice of death, the elk’s eyes are white with fear… puffs of steam sharply bursting from his nostrils with hot, terrified pulses.

It pains me to fell a beast at its most vulnerable moment. There’s no honor in triumphing a vulnerable foe. But we need the meat if we are to journey back to our home and inspect the ravaged land we once hunted.

Swiftly, I move to return the peace to the creature we had just stolen it from; placing my foot on his jaw and probing the softness between his ribs with my knife, then pushing the blade into the creature’s heart. A brief twist, and the great king went limp, letting out a single, soft breath.

This has always been the way of the wild, harsh but honest. The woods may keep its secrets, but it never deceives you. A boar may gore you when your back is turned, but there is no pretense. The strong rule here as in the rest of the world, but between branches and fangs, there is no feigned good or unkept promises. No gilded work belies the intent of predators in these lands, and in that cruel truthfulness is a nobility that kings and generals can never touch.

The name I was given was Mauredan Peredorqu. It means “born man, half-orc” in the Elvish tongue, a painful reminder of my mixed blood. The only guidance I ever received was from the Elf who named me. She put a bow in my hand and from a cold distance, taught me to survive and to rely on no one. Once my hand grew steady and my skills were forged, the teacher vanished, leaving only a wolf cub behind who was my sole ally. So, this has been my place in the world, a friend among wolves and a stranger everywhere else. Everything I know of Orcs comes from the stories of bored hunters, who when they think the woods are empty, flap their jaws endlessly and tell tales of great wars between men and Orcs. When the night is quiet and still, in my dreams, I see my place:

I was conceived in sorrow and fear;
I was born in darkness and anguish.
Guilt is my family; a beast is my kin.
I was fathered by blood.
I was nursed with Death.

The world never lets me forget who I am. My tusked lips and grey form make me an unwanted creature among the races of this world. Fear peppers the eyes of children. Disgust drips from the mouths of women. In the towns and villages of men, I can feel hateful eyes, boring into my flesh so the woods of twisted thorns and pale-white flowers are my home. It is a cruel, even unwelcoming home, but it is mine and I keep it.

At least, I kept it… but now the fires have claimed it.

With a night’s rest and some meat for the journey, we need to travel across the blackened lands of our former home. Every new step, trudging across a graveyard. Near the former border of the woods I make out to hunched figures lazely sitting on ashen stumps. Two woodsmen with grey cigars dancing on their lips as they greedily discussed their strategy for selling the now razed earth to fattened, gold-rich farmers. I felt my shoulders tense so hard that my flesh might split…

Mankind… always taking… ALWAYS TAKING…

Burning, flickering, unquenchably devouring is the avarice of men…THERE’S NO END TO THEIR GREED.

Rage pulsating in the back of my eyes, I pulled an arrow swiftly to my bow aiming at the throat of the loudest one.

Then, sooner than a breath, a soft hand gently rested on my wrist and a familiar voice whispered in the Elvish tongue, “Be still.”