Hello readers, today I bring you a short story written by Mike Byrum, thanks for Mike for sending it to us!
“The goblins are considered to be the weakest of the Orc races but, that is far from the truth. They are cunning and vicious and if a strong leader were to ever rise among them and become a true king. They would over run the world.”
Excerpt from “A Look at the Ork Races” written by Madd Mikkal.
Part One A bit of Flesh
Rork sat alone by the smoldering red embers of what had once been his blaster wagon. The explosion it had made as he smacked into the flank of the human knights fighting the Goblin Biggit Slick Tongue and giant Longreach, had been an exceptionally large one. So large in fact he was the only creature left alive.
He had no inkling why he had not been incinerated along with the rest of that raucous mob. “Lucky,” he muttered to himself. “Just like my maw told me, Rork you is lucky you is, and lucky is better than good,” he snorted at the thought of his old maw; shame he had had to kill her.
It appeared that after the battle, no one had bothered to search that part of the field for survivors or loot. Nothing could have lived through that except of course himself. He had been out cold for several hours, the wagon had exploded not long after sun-up and now a sliver of a moon shone in the sky, finding himself alone and in a lot of pain. His ears still rang and he was covered in burns, blisters, gore, and viscera; he was thirsty and hungry and it was getting colder. He knew he needed to get up and try to find the rest of his clan, in case the humans had won and were patrolling the area. “A live human, plus a live goblin, usually added up to one dead body,” he mulled.
As Rork walked through the heavy forest, towards where he hoped to find his clan, his mouth and throat were so dry they hurt and his stomach ached with every step. He began to run his black clawed fingers through his hair, over his clothes and body, picking off the odd goblet of flesh and bone. He would pop these small treasures into his mouth and savor each one and try to guess what it might have been from. Horse seemed to be the most numerous, but here and there he thought he might taste man-flesh or that of Longreach, although he had no idea of how Longreach should taste. He thought back to the events that had brought him to his current sorry state. Of how he had been forced onto a blast wagon, even though he had already driven one in the last two battles and it wasn’t his turn.
Slick Tongue the Biggit had ordered Rork onto the blast wagon, even though Rork had pleaded until Slick Tongue finally hissed at him, “Shut yore yap and get yore ass on that blasted wagon, or I’ll have the boys feed you to the maw pups.” Rork flinched at that, not just from SLick Tongue’s tone, but maw pups liked to “play” with their food before they ate it. “Not fair is all I’m saying,” he whined once more and lashed the wagon team into motion. It was a death sentence of sorts to join a war band and pledge yourself to a Biggit, and every git knew this, but to been put on a blast wagon, “Was the same as having a second yap cut into yer throat”, Rork mumbled.
He did not know what he had done to make Slick Tongue hate him; the Biggit had taken an instant dislike to him the moment he first laid eyes on him. Rork pulled another morsel of meat from his scalp and slid the length of his greasy blood-caked hair. He popped it in his mouth and chewed thinking for a moment and swallowed, “Ugh, that was a bit of me.”
The fight had started cheerily enough, the sun was shining, it had not rained for almost a week and a steady wind had dried the ground. The wagon drawn by four large horses rolled easily across the grass. There were three blast wagons in all, spaced out properly so that if one exploded it didn’t set the others off. The rest of the army had formed up a few moments later and across the open field, they moved at the double.
Rork had been told to hug the tree lines and stay hidden as best as he could until given the signal to charge. Sitting there among the huge fir and pine trees the smells of earth, pine tar, and blasting powder competed with the stench of horse shit and the contents of Rork’s guts. Rork’s stomach was swimming inside of him, he had had to climb down off the cart and hugged a tree as his body rid itself of every ounce of fluid at the same exact moment and from any orifice available.
After several moments of this, Rork had climbed back into the driver’s seat of the blast wagon licking his lips and chin clean, he would have to clean his backside later when he had the chance. As he took up the reins of the wagon he saw the unfolding battle before him, Slick Tongue and Longreach had been caught not more than fifty yards from where he sat. “Slick Tongue you’re done for now,” Rork thought. “I hope they spit and roast you, you little git!!”
Rork watched the fight, and though the Knights had wounded the giant, Slick Tongue seemed to be unharmed and the giant had felled more than a couple of the knights using his enormous sword and an old log he had as a club. When Slick Tongue killed a knight it was all Rork could take and he lashed the team of the blast wagon into a full gallop. DIE DIE DIE DIE was all that he screamed that first forty yards as he lashed the horses ever harder and he primed his powder kegs and charging headlong into the swirling melee.
Then suddenly realizing what he was doing, he screamed at the horses WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! The last five or so yards he screamed “SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! When the fuses stopped hissing as they struck powder, and he found himself right in the middle of the melee, Rork had said, “…oh…shit.”
Slick Tongue earned his name from always trying to talk others into seeing and doing things his way before he killed them. He was considered odd by the other gits for this, but he was deadly with a blade so they ignored this strange habit. He had been the Biggit of the Blood River Red Goblins clan for over a year, Which in his mind was some sort of record and made him possibly the greatest Biggit in at least the last five years. He had gotten his clan raiding work with the Wyrd Eye Ogre clan and had killed six different rivals to his position during that time. His blades were as quick as his wits and sharp as his tongue. Dressed in his best battle leathers and chains astride the largest big maw the clan had, he felt confident in himself and his gits.
The ogres had helped him to drill them, into as orderly a mob as a mob of gits could be. The Ogres were just behind them to outflank and smash into the humans once the battle had been joined. The fighting as always was fierce and bloody but Slick Tongue had no plans of dying today. Slick Tongue sat astride his big maw looking out over the battlefield, he had fought these humans during the previous fall, the humans had not been idle during the winter months they had bought blunders and cannons from the dwarves and were using them to take a very bloody toll on the goblin ranks. Slick Tongue spied the humans only had a regiment of cavalry and a few archers out on the left, He decided that would be the place to strike.
“Give the signal for the blast wagon to move forward,” he said calmly to his flaggit. The flaggit raised and lowered the banner in the prescribed motion and a number of times to signal Rork’s wagon to move forward, but nothing happened. Unbeknownst to Slick Tongue, it was at that moment Rork had chosen to empty his bowels. Slick Tongue ordered the flaggit to give the signal three more times. “What in the lower nethers is that idiot doing, Slick Tongue hissed. In a rage at not seeing any movement on his left, he spurred his great maw and began a gallop towards Rork’s position.
Longreach picked up and chucked a rock. He liked chucking rocks, he was too far away to hit any of the humans with them, but it made him feel good chucking them in that direction. He saw the horse-mounted men across the field from him, the only thing he liked more than chucking rocks, was eating horse flesh killed with a chucked rock. His mouth watered at the prospect of all that horse meat across from him, there must have been enough to feed him for a month. Longreach couldn’t count but he knew the difference between a lot and not many and none. He chucked another rock and then thought to look to see if he was getting “the signal” Slick Tongue’s mob was waving a stick and rag around. But Longreach wasn’t sure if it was meant for him, “Better wait and make sure,” Longreach thought, “But it better be quick, or that horse will get away.” His mouth watered even more now, and as the goblin flaggit went thru the same motion for the third time, it was all Longreach could stand, that had to be his signal.
BRAAHHHH, he bellowed and began charging waving his sword and log as he went. “BRAAAHHHH!!!As Slick Tongue started to Rorke’s position, he saw Longreach come bellowing out of the forest, No, no, no, NO, he thought! He adjusted his big maws path to intercept the giant so as to try and turn him, it was then he heard the unmistakable sound of almost a dozen armored men and mounts at full gallop. The giant’s heavy feet fell and the weight of the knights made the ground actually shake. Slick Tongue reigned his mount again to go behind the giant. As he did he came upon the giant’s left, drew his sword and he and the giant moved to meet the charge head on. Slick Tongue knew he and Longreach were about to die, but he could not have hoped to outrun the cavalry this close. When out of the tall grass Slick Tongue saw something the humans would have called a miracle. The remains of an old stone wall stood hidden in the tall grass, only twelve to fifteen feet of it in length and only three feet high, but it would be enough to hinder the cavalry charge. The lead knights had not seen the wall in time and they and their mounts went tumbling over it, as Longreach leaped high into the air and landed in the midst of the knights.
Time slowed to a crawl. Men cursed and horses screamed, Longreach bellowed, the big maw Slick Tongue rode, howled, and sank long teeth into any and all exposed flesh that came close enough. The sound of metal striking metal and flesh rang out. Slick Tongue’s blade darted about finding openings in armor and felling men. Madness reigned all around him. Slick Tongue and Longreach would have surely been churned under by that cavalry charge, but the wall had broken it and now Longreach would make short bloody work of them. Slick Tongue licked his lips and smiled, “I will not die today,” he thought to himself. Then there was a bright light, a thunderclap, and Slick Tongue Biggit of the Blood River Goblins was dead.
Rork walked to the crest of a hill and looked down upon the corral of the Blood River goblins. He had walked for miles getting lost and almost passing out more than once, but here he was he had made it. He would not die today. He pulled a large piece of flesh from behind his ear and popped it into his mouth and chewed. After a moment of careful consideration, he grinned an evil sharp-toothed grin, “Biggit” he purred.
