Valley of Ash--Finish the Story #30

The Battle of Bloodneck Valley

by @dirge

(First Part of the story written by @dirge)

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Shog, called the Bonecrusher by his people, knew they’d lost when human horns roared across the battlefield. The Imperiate had come after all, to aid their elven allies of the Alish’tae Republic. Shog’s people, orcs of the Galak Tribe, so named after the mountain upon which they’d once lived, fought hard and well. But they fought alone.

Orcs no allies. Not even their Gods, the Old Ones, cared anymore.

As the morning sun crept above the clouds, illuminating the blood soaked fields, the Imperiate horsemen charged out from the forest. Muk’nola, matriarch of the Galaks, sounded her war horn, signalling the retreat. But it would be too late, Shog knew. Those horsemen would slaughter them as they fled. Their children, next.

An elf, empowered by the sense of looming victory, stormed forward from their line, straight towards Shog. He parried the elf’s longsword then heaved his mighty hammer, Breaker of Worlds, in a perfect arc. It smashed upon the elf’s helmeted skull, and he proved his namesake for the countless time. The elf’s head exploded in bone and carnage.

“Back!” he heard. “Fall back!” In disarray, the others around him fled towards Bloodneck Valley, where they’d encamped. Their position fell. Shog screamed to maintain the line but knew the day was lost. His people fled. He had no choice but to follow.

He reached the camp, already nearly moving again, fleeing up the valley to the highlands. Shog, exhausted, reached Zee-zee, his daughter, and Gheelah, his love. Gheelah had already packed their yurt and few remaining possessions. “Flee!” he shouted to her.

“And you?” Gheelah asked.

“I stay to hold them back.”

In typical orcish fashion, their utter devotion, love and mutual respect expressed itself only in their shared gaze, never in public, spoken word. He gripped her hand. He told Zee-zee to be strong. Gheelah nodded. Then the doy galloped away with the rest of the fleeing, broken host.

Muk-nola, matriarch, rallied the remaining Galak warriors. They reformed to a single line. Bloodneck Valley was narrow. Rocky. Layered with crimson colored clay. The land elevated as it led to the Highlands, their only advantage.

Maybe at the height of the tribe’s strength, before the humans had come with their purges and stolen their land, before the elves had arrived to ‘cleanse the world of evil’, maybe they would have been strong enough. But Shog saw they had a few hundred left. A few hundred to hold a line against an entire battalion of Imperiate horsemen and Alish’tae swordsmen, the latter no doubt already being reinforced.

The ‘Fair Folk’ would aim to eradicate the Galak now, as they fled.

Shog marched up to Muk-nola. She hailed him. “Yog-Sothoth burns in us,” she said.

“Yog-Sothoth hasn’t given a shit about us since Galak Mountain ceased its fire,” Shog replied.

Imperiate horns loomed. The sun flared, blinding Shog for a moment. Another disadvantage. The ground rumbled with the cavalry charge.

“Either way. I’ll crush his soul in hell. Right after I’m done with these Fair Folk.”

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(My Conclusion)

The Valley of Ash
By @agmoore

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Galak warriors stood fast. They wielded axes and polearms with indifference to their own fates. The survival of the tribe depended on victory that day. As wounds gaped and their numbers dwindled, the defenders battled on. Shadows lengthened across the blood-soaked valley and its sheltering, blood-drenched boulders.

On one of these boulders, Shog noted the play of a particular shadow that seemed to be more than the whimsy of fading light. The shadow wrapped itself around a stout boulder and swirled demonically until the stone was animated and assumed the form of a grotesque deity.

One of the deity's claw-like appendages brandished an ax. Another a gargantuan mace. From behind its gnome-like cranium, bolts of fire soared to smoldering clouds and created a maelstrom of heat that moved rapidly toward the invaders.

Panic ensued among the enemy as they realized their doom was imminent. Vain was their effort to escape. Those most near the wrathful deity were caught with licks of fire and were raised high to be charred and thrown back to the blood-stained earth--as ash.

This was not death, to which all of them had become inured. It was annihilation, and damnation.

Not one of the elves and Imperiate survived the fury of the rampaging spirit. Blood that had run freely down to the meadow now clotted with ash, ash that would eventually settle into the earth and become part of the legend of the Valley.

When the last of the foe had fallen, Shog waited uncertainly to discover his fate. Had the thirst for death been sated with the incineration of the elves and Imperiate? Or would the deity demand that all present be sacrificed to its appetite?

The creature's hollow orbs revealed nothing of its intention, but its spires of fire gradually diminished to flames, and the flames dimmed to sparks.

The spirit settled in a recessed corner where once a boulder had stood. With the final fading of light, the deity's form was obscured in that space.

Darkness fell.

Shog dared not leave the valley until he understood the intention of the spirit. Always he held in mind his family, hidden in the Highlands behind. He signaled to the Galak warriors that they would neither retreat nor advance but pass the night among the ashen remains of their fallen enemy.

No sleep nor dream visited Shog that night. When first the sun rose on the horizon, he studied the corner where the deity had settled. There, a blood-red boulder with knife-like, upward-reaching appurtenances filled the hollow.

The truth of the battle of Bloodneck Valley became clear to Shog in that moment. Yog-Sothoth had fought with them. And he would remain at the mouth of the Valley to protect Galak families that waited in the Highlands.

The legend of Bloodneck Valley was told to generations of Galak through millennia that followed, until the location of the Valley was lost to memory. Only the names of heroes who fought that day were memorialized. And the abiding protection of Yog-Sothoth was celebrated in the devotional incantations of the tribe until the last breath of the last Galak.

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ABOUT FINISH THE STORY CONTEST

Every week the beginning of a story is featured by @bananafish. Sometimes guest authors write these pieces. Usually @f3nix is the author. In every case, all of Steemit has an invitation to enter into the realm of imagination. There are few rules. A 500 word limit is suggested, but not mandatory. Any thread, any idea from the first part may become an inspiration to follow for the second author.

The name of this contest is finishthestory, but it's really about writing your own story that is connected in some way to the first. Accept the invitation to write, to become part of a community and at the same time demonstrate your individuality.

Finish the Story Contest--highly recommended.