Prologue
Horse of the Thunder Herd, Voice of the Storm Horde, cursed as he hastily climbed up the stairs he loathed. They were stairs that spiraled up the dizzying heights of Moth Mountain Tower, stairs he’d come to hate as passionately as he hated the systems and hypocrisies that he and his Dark Lord opposed. He knew these stairs all too well because he had gone up and down them so many times. Each time, he complained about how the tower needed some kind of magical lift. Though his complaints went unheeded, he was sure that such a mundane but wondrous addition to the tower would have saved him and the other warlords so much wasted time and energy spent climbing up and down again and again. Not only that, it would also have been useful in the event of some emergency, if he or any of the rest of the warlords had to get to their Lord’s tower-top throne very quickly…
Like now - when his Lord was under attack by a team of powerful heroes during a coordinated invasion by the Griffingale Monarchy and its many military arms..
Out of all of his kin, all of the masses of massive green-skinned, tusk-toothed, rage-eyed orcs dedicated to the Dark Lord, Horse had always been uniquely strong, driven, and experienced. Even if his Lord had not immediately issued him the rank of warlord upon his joining the cause, Horse would still have risen above the rest. As warlord, not only did he command all of the orcs of the Storm Horde, but he also coordinated personally with the Dark Lord and his other warlords, such as those commanding the gnoll and hollow elf armies.
The Storm Horde was still new, and not every orc throughout Griffingale had joined their ranks in service to the Dark Lord’s cause. There were plenty of orcs, including his own parents, that disagreed with what Horse and his young horde were doing. Horse couldn’t help wondering if he could have convinced more to join him. Maybe this battle could have gone differently.
Horse could hear the sounds of clashing swords and crashing spells all echoing down to him in the twisting and twisting ascent. As he climbed, mindful of his steps, he came across so many soldiers attempting to slow him. Humans and elves mostly. They swung their swords, thrust their spears, and the tightly winding stairs worked against them, allowing Horse to press the advantage when the walls guarded him against their blows. He didn’t bother making the same mistake by summoning his weapon, and instead used his bare fists to deal with each enemy.
He punched into breastplates, denting them. He grabbed ahold of necks, snapping them. He grabbed the hafts of spears and the blades of swords and tore them away, tossing them behind him so that they clattered their way down the stairs. He hit and he kicked and he slammed and he bit, and by the time he reached the doors at the very top of the ascent, his usually green hands were covered in the red blood of countless enemies.
The doors at the top of the stairs were just as pointlessly over-the-top as the spiraling staircase itself. Just as pointlessly over-the-top as it was for the Dark Lord’s throne to be at the very peak of the tower in the first place. The doors were more than twice as tall as Horse, who already stood well over seven feet, made of thick blackwood reinforced with infernal iron and engraved in silvery script. The cherry on top was the doorknockers, a pair of silver skulls with silver femur bones hanging from their open upper jaws. That imagery had never made any sense to Horse, but according to his Lord it was supposed to inspire fear in any who dared to approach the innermost sanctum of the tower. Right now, all it did was make Horse roll his eyes as he threw the full force of his weight against the doors.
Horse was strong, stronger than any other orc he’d met (excepting his father), and nearly as strong as the Dark Lord’s Giants, who had challenged him at arm wrestling on more than one occasion. For all the intimidating impressiveness of the door, the sheer size and weight of Horse would have been enough on their own to break through it. Add in his strength, and it gave way like rotted plywood.
He entered the room in an explosion of splinters and shrapnel.
The room was every bit as cringeworthy as the doors that now clattered to the ground, having been wrenched right off their hinges. Obsidian pillars and arches stretched disorientingly upward toward a glass dome ceiling, through which streaks of lightning amidst dark clouds illuminated griffins battling undead dragons in the skies above. The floor was a volcanic black-and-red marble, the red parts pulsating like living lava amidst the glassy black surfaces. At the opposite end of the room was the throne: a cushioned chair made from blackened bones, incorporating just about as many skulls as possible, along with a liberal use of gigantic claws and horns, the largest of which arched up from the top of the chair and curled toward each other. The vast center space of the chamber, which was usually occupied by illusory projections of maps, battlefields, and important allies and enemies, was now dominated by the Dark Lord himself, hooded, robed, and armored in layers upon layers of black.
He hovered above the pulsating floor and cackled wildly while his hands glowed with sickly green and sparking blue lights of magic. The blue lights powered the shield that shined around him each time arrows and spells impacted it, causing them to skid or bounce impotently off and to the floor. The green lights powered necromantic bolts of energy that he unleashed at the party of heroes surrounding him, each moving in concert.
Horse’s arrival gave the heroes pause. And why wouldn’t it? Horse was a monster of an orc. His normally ambery-yellow eyes were flooded with the crimson color of orc fury as his wild mane of black hair settled about his shoulders. Fiery orange and oceanic blue war-tattoos swirled and spiraled over the powerful sculpt of his large body, and ruby red blood stained his fists and his lower face, indicating that he’d killed countless enemies with his bare hands, and had bitten into more than a few of them with those prominent tusks of his. Unlike many of his brethren, Horse didn’t wear much in the way of armor, just a kilt of leathers and furs for modesty, and footwraps for comfort. He met blades and arrows and even spells head on, confident that he couldn’t be stopped, and would heal through any serious damage.
Each of the heroes saw him, and recognized him as one of the Dark Lord’s warlords. And they adjusted their tactics appropriately.
Slowly positioning himself between the Dark Lord and Horse was a blonde haired, blue eyed, and apricot skinned human wearing ostentatious platinum and golden plate armor. There was no helm to obscure the smolderingly handsome features of his face, and he wielded a sword over half as long as he was, with a shield half as big. The sword was just about the most unwieldy thing Horse had ever seen, with a ridiculously wide blade that was inches thick at its equally wide center, and a golden pegasus-head pommel with matching outstretched wings for the crossguard. The shield wore the bold religious iconography of the Four Lords Church that was popular with humans and some elves and dwarves. This was a Crusader, a hero forged by faith and armed in equipment and powers granted by the Church they served. He was clearly the group’s front line defender, perhaps their leader. The Dark Lord’s spells splashed impotently off the hero’s divinely decorated shield.
Horse charged toward the Crusader, blue lights burning across his tattoos before coalescing in his hand, where a massive mace with an atlas stone sized morning star head materialized in his right hand. Using the summoning magic ingrained in his tattoos was taxing when it came to his companion and mount, Rainshadow, but when it came to his mace he barely felt the ripple of magic through his veins. He reared back, getting ready for a strike, but by the time he’d gotten to within a few meters of the Crusader, he felt a foreign zing shoot up his legs. He turned his bloodshot eyes toward the ground beneath him, which glowed and cracked with white hot energy as shackles of energy wrapped around his ankles and held him fast.
“The orc is contained! Don’t let up!” Horse followed the new voice to its source, a mousy librarian-looking human with round glasses over her emerald green eyes. She wore a billowing blue cape over her otherwise ordinary-looking outfit, and multiple open tomes floated around her. The pages turned rapidly while she held one hand out, fingers splayed and sparking with the same energy that kept Horse’s feet rooted to the floor. Horse guessed she was some kind of magic-focused hero, an Arcanist maybe. She had silvery-white hair tied up in a bun with a long ballpoint pen, and pale ivory skin stained with inky symbols across the forearms. At her word, the Crusader turned his attention toward the Dark Lord and brought his sword crashing against the maniacally laughing madman’s magical barrier.
Horse struggled against the energy slithering up his legs, orange light burning along his tattoos in protest. When he realized there was nothing he could do to get free, he instead reeled back and launched his mace through the air at the Crusader, who didn’t even bother turning. He didn’t have to.
The Arcanist reached out with her second hand, and a long whip of cracking lightning lashed out and leashed his mace, yanking it to the ground. Horse reached out and tried to summon the mace back to his grasp, but it struggled impotently against the magic holding it. He looked frantically around himself… and his gaze fell upon one of the overly-opulent doors he’d broken off the frame when he crashed into the room. It was within reach.
He grabbed and hurled it at the Crusader’s still turned back.
The door impacted, and sent the Crusader face first into the Dark Lord’s barrier, bouncing off of it with the briefest sizzling scrape against his cheek and forehead. His body was sent sprawling across the ground as he cried out in confusion. He didn’t understand what had hit him… not until he turned his blue eyes toward Horse. The sudden fury in those eyes ignited a grin from the orc.
Good! He thought. One thing he wouldn’t tolerate was being ignored by any of these assholes.
But then a soft flowery green light from above pierced the dark chamber and shone across the Crusader, as if the Gods themselves were reaching down to him. And the red burn across his face vanished, along with the wounds he’d sustained from the door itself. Horse watched in surprise as wooden splinters and metal shards popped out of the places they’d actually found flesh, while the Crusader slowly rose, tossing the confused orc a triumphant grin.
Horse scanned the room for an explanation… and found another woman, this one an elf with caramel colored skin and frizzy raven hair. She wore leathers, leaves, mud, and a firefly woad that glowed in the darkness where she stood. A Warden.
Wardens were another kind of magic-focused hero, but instead of studying magic from books, they communed with natural forces, plants and animals and elements and the like. Horse understood some Wardens could become great healers, calling upon spirits to cleanse ailments, stitch wounds, and even return life to the dead. This woman seemed to be one such Warden, as a leafy green spectral snake swirled around her, shining with the same light that had fallen upon the Crusader and lifted him to his feet. She wore a beaming smile when she caught Horse’s eyes, and the realization in them.
Horse grabbed the other door.
Before he could throw it at the woad-covered Warden, he felt a sharp pain dig into his side, and the door fell awkwardly from his grasp, thudding to the ground.
He looked down and red hot blood was pooling across the ground between and around his feet. He twisted to see what had struck his side and saw… An orc.
A small one, anyway. Skin like mossy stone, the uppermost features of his face shadowed by the hood he was wearing, but his tusked mouth prominently displayed… and smirking. He was either a runt or a half-breed. Or both.
That didn’t surprise Horse. Plenty of runts and half-breeds would be glad to fight alongside humans and elves against an orc horde. Currently the little one was holding onto the dagger he’d shoved into Horse’s side with both hands, when he suddenly adjusted his grip to twist the blade within the larger orc’s innards. Horse let out a roar of pain.
The orc was a Bravo. A fucking Bravo…
Bravo was the term that sneak-type heroes preferred over ‘Burglar’, which had gone out of fashion due to its negative connotations. But it didn’t matter what you called them. They were still cutpurses and cutthroats - just dressing themselves up. Like when pirates called themselves ‘privateers.’
“You just stay put now.” The Bravo whispered, and then shouted to the rest of the party. “Stop playing with the fucker and finish him off!”
Playing? What they’d been doing so far was playing?!
Horse wanted to believe that those words were just foolish bravado… but then the Crusader’s sword shined, fierce and fiery. The Arcanist’s hands glowed with stormy energy, abandoning the spell holding Horse in place in order to summon a lightning bolt that came crashing through the glass ceiling. And the Warden moved her arms fluidly through the air, sending her summoned serpent spiraling forth, growing larger, fiercer.
All at once, the Crusader’s sword shattered the Dark Lord’s barrier and bit into his torso - while the lightning bolt struck his skull, traveling down through and out his feet, scorching the ground at the center of the chamber before shooting right back up through his body again - and the serpent coiled around him, bit and squeezed.
“Your reign of terror is at an end!” The Crusader cried out as he pulled his sword back, which seemed to shine even brighter before he thrust it into the Dark Lord’s chest… and out his back.
“JAMES!” Horse roared - the first word he’d said since entering the space. He thought he saw his friend’s face for a fleeting moment. He thought he saw that carefree smile, that knowing wink. He could almost imagine him telling him not to worry so much. About stairs, about magical lifts, about gaudy doors… He could almost imagine the man telling him that no matter what happened, they would succeed… they would save the world from itself.
The bright lights of the fiery sword, the explosive lightning, the spectral snake - they made it hard for Horse to actually see anything of James - the Dark Lord - other than his silhouette writhing amidst the attacks. But he could hear the madman’s laughter turn into screams of denial… just before he went completely quiet.
When the lights finally abated, and Horse’s eyes adjusted… he saw that his Lord and friend’s body had gone limp, leaning over the sword he was impaled upon. The snake coiling around him faded and vanished amidst the last static discharges of the lightning bolt. Black blood pooled beneath the dead Dark Lord, spreading across the glittering glass shards that had fallen from the shattered ceiling of the chamber. In the skies above, the griffins were overtaking the undead dragons.
The strangest part… was the silence. The laughter was gone, and everything went with it. Horse stood there waiting for a command to break through that silence. He waited for some sign that all of this was a trick as part of some secret counterattack. He waited for his friend to rise and reveal that he still had so much in store for these heroes. But he didn’t.
Horse felt a hollow feeling form in his gut as the Bravo pulled his dagger free from his side. The wound was already stitching slowly together, a tribute to the regenerative prowess of orcs. He still had strength in him yet, but the will to fight was all but gone as he fell to his knees, staring at the body of the Dark Lord, tossed unceremoniously from the Crusader’s sword.
The Crusader swung that sword through the air, sending black blood flying… though the stains remained. He then turned in Horse’s direction, and made a beeline march toward him, hoisting that sword above his head, prepared to deal a killing blow. Horse welcomed it with closed eyes and a sad smile. He couldn’t help wondering what his mother would think of all of this. She was right in the end…
“STOP!”
Where once the only sound in the chamber had been blood splashing and glass shards crunching beneath the Crusader’s clanking boots, the Arcanist’s voice cut through, echoing about the whole chamber. That singular cry drew everyone’s attention, even Horse’s, as his eyes slowly slid open to find the Crusader frozen in front of him, mid-swing. The blade was mere inches from Horse’s neck. The warlord might have marveled at the man’s control… were he not confused by the fact that he was still alive. Behind him, the Arcanist continued to speak while everyone stared at her.
“Our mission is complete. The Dark Lord is dead. His enchantment on the Tower, the armies, and the surrounding lands has died with him.” The Arcanist had her hand pressed against the lobe of her ear, and Horse could see some kind of arcane device tucked there. She was receiving reports through it, he guessed. “Healers are already successfully-”
“This is one of his warlords!” The Crusader protested. “He deserves to die!”
“He hasn’t committed any crimes worthy of execution, and even if he did-” But before the Arcanist could finish, the Crusader cut her off again, now marching toward her while Horse just stared in disbelief, unable to process what was happening.
“Look at him! His hands are COVERED in blood! The blood of all the soldiers who held the line so we could achieve victory!”
“All of whom will shortly be resurrected. As I said, with the enchantment on the land ended, our healers are already succeeding in reversing our losses. The orc’s crimes have been reduced to property damage and assault. Maybe attempted murder.”
“We’ll kill him for that then…” The Crusader declared, readying his sword again as he turned toward Horse.
“He has immunity. That was one of the stipulations of the hollow elf warlord’s cooperation.”
Horse felt all the air he had left go out of his lungs. Lady Lustera had betrayed the Dark Lord? Betrayed Horse? Horse thought of every conversation they’d had… every moment they’d shared… so many of them intimate. Had she just been using him?
“All of the warlords are to receive immunity from consequences related to their participation in the Dark Lord’s plans, so long as they surrender. Their subordinates are to receive a level of leniency under the same condition. They’ll be forced into community service, I suspect… probably fixing their leader’s mess…” She said this casually while investigating his Lord’s body. She was looking for loot…
“This doesn’t make any sense…” The Crusader argued. “The Dark Lord Jamathius and his warlords have done so many terrible things… what of all of the damage they’ve done - and all the people they killed up until now? We’re just supposed to forgive all of that?!” The Arcanist sighed like one would sigh over a tantruming child.
“This Dark Lord has been selective in his targets… Every life lost, every building destroyed, was either military or governmental, and their insurance always covers resurrection and repair. He’s cost the nation of Griffingale gold and time, not blood. At least now with his death we’ll be able to recover those losses by milking free labor from his armies…”
Horse might have laughed… if he’d fully comprehended in that moment the irony of the Dark Lord’s plans succumbing to the same bureaucracy they’d all fought so hard to upend. The Crusader cursed and kicked and Horse thought he might even cry… But in the end he leveled his sword at Horse, as if the third time might be the charm, and the Arcanist might finally relent.
“No one needs to know what happened here… Who would really care if he died?! One less orc in the world!” Everyone was watching him now, waiting to see if he would follow through. But while the Arcanist merely raised her brow, and the Warden grinned, waiting to see what happened next…the orc Bravo moved from his stoic stance at Horse’s side, and now stood between the Crusader’s sword and the warlord at his mercy.
“One less orc?” The Bravo asked, glaring at the Crusader, daring him to explain himself. The Crusader’s face twisted between anger and regret. And then he cursed once more, and marched away to join the Arcanist’s investigation of the Dark Lord’s body.
Horse didn’t thank the other orc… he couldn’t. All he could do was watch as the party of heroes stripped the room bare of everything they believed they could use - books, artifacts, even the energy in the air - the Arcanist slurped it up into one of her floating tomes. All of this while ignoring him completely. He was dimly aware of other figures filing into the room from an array of opening portals, some of them asking him questions, giving him instructions. He couldn’t remember who placed the business card in his large, bloodstained hand, though he faintly recalled hearing the clip-clop of hooves as he tried to process the big bold letters:
Looking for a fresh start?
Contact Minion Relocation Specialist Foalla Wonai at:
Workforce Integration Services
111A1 Liontale Street
Crownstown, Griffingale
