Finish The Story Contest - WEEK #30! - The source

The Battle of Bloodneck Valley

by @dirge

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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The source

Somehow else the all-devourer was about to enjoy this drama.

How much they drove away the divine long time! To devour everything was no fun if you did it alone. Where was the audience anyway? Where were the co-eaters? Whatever their nouns might be: Elves, Orks, Humans! They always had some names and strong symbols.

The devourer considered eating language.

What would the big game look like then, how would it taste?

But now: who would kill the most of them all? How it pleased him to taste the tragedy, the blood and the tears that his helpers would grant him.

The devourer – of course - waited for his adversary.

Meeting him in the intermediate dimension to manifest in matter. Oh, how the devourer was looking forward to those moments where he felt - felt almost like an organish - in flesh and blood. Not long and the other also came crawling out of the ether and formed a Gestalt before his eyes, which probably represented a Galak warrior.

From the silence of his thoughts, the copy of the Shog creature felt how unwilling he was to appear. Only a glimpse ago he had paid his respects to a Supernova and now he should let himself be drawn into this small war of the devourer, who once again hired himself out as a universal puppeteer.

What God's duty was given to him not to let the devourer make it easy? Part of him answered: "What are you? Are you flying outside the universe? Do you even know if there is a where? Don't you also appreciate the extraordinary amazement only when you feel compelled to turn to more petty things? Do not pretend that the devourer is not a delicious necessity in your sublime existence".
So he became the Shog.

The devourer watched with greedy interest. Then he decided to take the form of a human.
Both looked at each other with moist eyes.

Meanwhile, in her dimension, Muk-nola felt an inner shock far outside on her escape. She looked around, but there was nothing to see.

The human - to whom nothing unusual could be seen from the outside - stood there calmly. The Shogcopy surpassed him in size and wildness. One ear of the human, an atypical shape, looked elvishly boldly out from under the blond hair.

Silence reigned long and short between the devourer and his adversary.

Then their figures dissolved - bit by bit - into billions of vibrations, dispersed invisibly into the incipient wind, hurried down into the valley that stretched to the mountain where the fire of Galak had extinguished.

The storm had begun!

Now they were in competition: those gathered on the warfield were haunted. Feelings and stirrings.
The Fair Folk felt an inner hunger, tongues watered, stomachs growled, they gave their horses their spurs, some riders armed themselves against the emerging greeds, at odds with themselves and their intentions, eyes directed at own ranks, not recognizing faces of others in unsaturated existence.
Pity took possession of them.
Thought flashes of pregnant Orc women.

In the rows of the fleeing courage gathered, beyond hunger and thirst.
A strange agreement with transience slowed them down, made them faster. "Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth!"

Shog suddenly stopped to turn to an Elf who had taken his sights off him. "Fare well", he grimmed towards Gheelah and Zee-zee and swung the Breaker of Worlds.

The great feast on the stage of life took its course.

At the end was the beginning.
The figures, long changed, the symbols handed down over the millennia,
still for the pleasure and feeling of the devourer and the defender.

For a time-space there was peace.

At some not particular point - hider and seeker met and meet - every Thing was and is in order.

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Another round of the finishthestory contest, held by @bananafish takes place.

Writers and readers, have fun and enjoy this weeks writings and comments!

Here, you go to read the rules and more from the @bananafish. Who also talks a little about "decentralization", which is for sure synchronicity as I myself just published about it the other day:)

Thanks for coming up with always great beginnings and inspire us doing our "endings".

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1st Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash
2nd Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

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