"Of Crossbows and Two Myrcontorians"
by Mark L. Stinson
The hairy beasts called orks giggled evil laughs as they whipped the slaves. This was the kitchen of what had been the great Castle Torenth. Once it had been a place of gathering for huge armies...a rest stop on the road to the south for mercenaries, and even a school of the mystic arts. But that had been during the Silver King's rule, Lord Jundane the Fourth. Now, it was a degenerate meeting place for orks, a hotel of sorts. It was slowly caving in, but to the orks, one of the slimiest type of humanoids, it was a haven...a blessing from the orkish god of war, Hummerd.
The slaves, all young men, at one time in the not-so-distant past, had attacked the lost Castle of Torenth, seeking gold, adventure, and most of all, orkish blood. In the city of Kern, the reward for an orkish head was quite high, from 5 to 10 gold pieces, depending on the size.
Of all the young men, only one had not been broken. He was Mordland, an his spirit was still his own. He was the one who still spit in the orkish food, still stood straight and tall, and the one who never showed any emotion but hate. Hate kept him going, fighting until, he hoped soon, his death. Yes, hope had left him, but his will was strong.
The small kitchen barely was big enough to allow the four slaves, one of them Mordland, and the three ork guards to move about. The slaves cooking, stirring, scampering about in fear (all but Mordland) and the orks whipping and cursing up a frenzy.
Borrn, servant of the the dark ways, observed the kitchen from the hall, peering warily through one of several holes in the wooden door. He, an elf, was slowly humming one of the few elvan war songs. He remembered some of the words, but a few of the more complicated phrases had escaped him. It spoke of ork, troll, and goblin heads rolling from their bodies...of elvan swordsmen and bowmen sweeping the trash of the land from the surface of the world...and of the fighting elves taking vengeance for the great orkish harvest.
This "harvest" is one of the main reasons elves hate orks. Forty years ago the orks took advantage of teh weakness of the elves after a large tribal war. They vanquished the battle-weakened elvan warriors and proceeded to "harvest" the women and children of Westland. The dead elves were the lucky ones, for the survivors were ever haunted by the memory of being violated by the vile orks.
Just the humming of the song was getting Borrn angry and excited. He was battle-ready. His hands mailed in black metal and leather, moved towards his weapons...a longsword, called "Fleshflayer" and one of his five hammers, the he called his "children." His sword he had possessed since birth. His mother, who was secretly an elvan witch of the dark ways, had blessed it on Borrn's birthnight, asking the darklords to watch over her son and bonding them to come at his demand. His "children," he had gotten at different times and places during his life.
A wicked smirk mirrored his soul as he kicked the kitchen doors open. The first ork to go down hardly had time to scream before one of Borrn's children caved his chest in. Ribs splintered, organs ruptured, and the only external evidence of this was the deep depression in the ork's chest and the red blood gurgling from his now silent mouth and nose. The second ork's head was seperated from his body even before the first creature's body thudded to the floor.
Borrn threw his head left and right trying to let his senses catch up with his battle-crazed mind. Where's the third...the third monster...the enemy of my race? As his mind took control once again, the scene before him finally reached his attention. Three slaves grovelled on the floor as the fourth slave was struggling with the third and final ork. The slave, weakened by diseased food and constant beatings, was overcome by the ork. The beast held the slave in front of him with a knife at his throat. "Drop your sword, elfie, or the human will die," the ork growled out in broken common language.
Borrn's mind screamed a warning...The ork's left hand isn't in view! "I know not the human, ork. His life is of little value to me. You will die, no matter his fate." Elves learned to bargin with lower creatures at an equal level of lowliness at a very young age.
Watch his left arm, his mind warned. With Borrn's last comment, Mordland's eyes filled with fear. What's in his left hand, kept going through Borrn's mind.
The ork merely frowned, attempted to think, and in the end shrugged. That ork's left arm....
Borrn jumped forward as the ork's dagger slid, left to right, across the human's throat. A scarlet stream of liquid shot from the gaping chasm cut into Mordand's throat and splashed across Borrn's torso. Left arm....
Five feet lay between elf and ork before Borrn realized his mistake...he had ignored the hidden threat posed by the ork's left hand. As Mordland's twitching body hit the floor, Borrn stumbled backwards, Fleshflayer and his second child in hand. Blood, orkish and human, slick on the floor caused him to lose his footing and fall backwards.
Borrn was still in mid-air, his body nearly parallel to the floor when he saw the crossbow leveled at him, in the ork's left hand. BEfore he had hit the ground, two of Borrn's children were airborne...seeking to delay their father's demise...speeding to end his enemy's life. Later Borrn would wish he had not thrown them.
The first hammer splintered the ork's right upper leg. The second caught the ork in the solar plexis. As the ork fell forward (his leg, but mush, and unable to hold his weight),a gout of vomit exploded from his vile mouth, adding yet another splended stench to the collection the kitchen seemed to be gathering. The crossbow, which had been aimed at Borrn's chest, rose its aim as the ork flailed his left arm upwards. The beast's finger instinctively pulled the crossbow trigger, sending death flying at Borrn'e elvan face.
Thwap! Crunch! ...and then utter pain.
The crossbow bolt hit, puncturing his flesh, crunching his cheek bone, entering his brain cavity. It had entered below his left eye and there it rested, only half its eight inch length protruding from his face. He opened his mouth, but could not scream. He tasted blood, smelled blood, and felt blood running down the inside and outside of his body. He stumbled to his feet, pulling his fourth hammer...his child...from his belt. His sword forgotten, he reached the side of the ork, still retching on the floor.
The ork looked up and saw the crazed elf kneeling with the crossbow bolt still imbedded in his head. He started to scream, but with a single blow, Borrn's hammer closed off any possible exit the sound could have taken. The ork flopped around, not dead...but unable to breathe. The front of his head, especially in the area of his mouth and nose, was sunken in about three inches. This was about two inches too much to allow even a little air to enter the ork's now stale lungs. Borrn, feeling absolutely no pity for the ork, did not deliver a second blow. He felt a smothering death suited the ork.
The servant of the dark ways stumbled once again to his feet. The three spiritless human slaves were kneeling by Mordland, who by some miracle still lived. The elf jerkily walked around the room, gather his "children" and retrieving his sword.
With fleshflayer he hacked the three dead orks' heads off and then tossed on to each of the three slaves. "You'll get a good price for those...be off with you vagrents!" The slaves, whimpering, jumped up and ran out the door.
Mordland clamored to his knees, and Borrn, barely able to stand on his own, helped him to his feet. Human on the left, elf on the right, they helped each other out of the kitchen-turned-morgue. The human sheathed the dagger that had cut his throat in his belt, and tried desperately with his now free left hand to stop the staunch of blood that was still gushing from his ruined neck. Borrn's blood, on the other hand, was barely seeping past the crossbow bolt still halfway imbedded in his face.
"I fear my spirit may finally be seeking to leave my body," Mordland gurgled. "In any case, I can't travel with you back to Kern. My path leads west...."
"...Into the Unknown," Borrn finished the old saying for him. "Myrcontorian...perhaps we will meet again. Mayhap, I fear we will meet too soon if I don't see to this crossbow bolt. May you follow the path of your fate as easily as you resisted it."
With that parting comment, Borrn pulled away from Mordland. The human took a step backwards and smiled a blood-stained smile. The blood had stopped flowing, for Mordland was a dead man...a dead man who didn't care to die. He turned and walked away with an erratic, but proud, unbroken gait. He looked back only once, before walking over a hill and out of sight, but the look was enough to make Borrn wish it was he who had received the mortal wound. But maybe he had. Perhaps he too was travelling into the Unknown. Only time would tell....
Chris Steven's adventuring world centered around a large city by the name of Kern. It was a typical D&D town, and the perfect place for adventurers to rest up, get in bar fights, re-supply, and interact with the townspeople. In order to create his campain world, Chris incorporated all the best elements of all of the fantasy novels we were all reading at the time. There was Sword of Shannara...Tolkien...and many others. In many ways his world was very familiar to us, because most of the game themes we encountered, we had already read at least a little about. It was an extremely fun campaign, and I'm glad I found this story I wrote based around the first character from his world.
Late in this story, Borrn uses an elvan word in reference to the mortally wounded Mordland. I should explain that the word "myrcontorian" is an elvan word refering to someone with will enough to avoid death, no matter its shape or form. The word's origin is simple enough. The first elf to make the deathless journey was named Myrcontorian. It is said that Myrcontorian rules the lands of the west...the lands of the Unknown. He gives aid to others who make the journey on the trail that he blazed.