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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paka" data-source="post: 1280387" data-attributes="member: 100">Dark Tower's Shadow II - The Riddle of MidnightPost 2Varduk's RevengeI am Varduk, Orc of the Bitter Mother tribe.  One day ago I challenged my chief, whose name I refuse to utter until his last breath says mine.  The chief took my sword arm and locked me in a cage on the side of the road, a cage put there by Father Izrador to show the world what becomes of the weak.My arm is outside of the cage, holding a stick to remind me of my loss.  It was right to challenge him.  If our illustrious chief hadn't made grevious errors back in Baden's Bluff we wouldn't have been sent across the water, sent north, sent to kill the Worm of the Fortress Wall.  It is suicide and we knew it.Last night I dreamt of two Elves and a Northman letting me out of the crow's cage that is now my home and would likely have been my grave.  They let me out and we killed the Orcs in this dream but our blood spilled the ground in great quantities.  I was bleeding badly out of the ruin that was my arm, now a stump right to the shoulder.  When I opened my eyes the Northman was standing before me.  He tested my strength with the stick, asked if I was going to be trouble."Let me out and we will hunt my tribesman like we did in my dream," I told him.  He struck the cage with his blade, a hand and a half Northman's blade these humans of the North favor.  Their blades are relics but I didn't tell him so.  In this age, the Last Age, the Age of the Orc will know the Vardatch, as symbols of victory.  In the Black Tongue Vardatch is translated into Cleaver but the word is changing.  Some tribes are already saying that Vardatch has always meant one thing:  Flame of God.The Elves came next.  One was bundled up in leathers and fur, skin a dark brown, hair in braids.  The other walked as if he had a crown on his head rather than just the red skullcap.  He was clad in a dark crimson, like blood that has stained leather.  They walked away to speak, letting me gather my strength.  I used this time to gather stones and make a sling.  I was quickly realizing that I would be useless as a Halfling in battle.  When they walked away the dusky Elf and the Northman kept their eyes on me but the Crimson Prince showed me his back.  He let me know that he didn't believe I was a threat.  It was a hard truth to realize that he was right, blood loss had left me a babe.  He was right for now.  Izrador willing, my strength would return.The red clad Elf returned and spoke to me.  He took off his skullcap and proclaimed, "I am Vorden Qell, son of the Sorcerer of Shadow, the Night King.  If you serve Izrador you will now serve me."If you serve me well, I will put your arm back on and make you whole again."  As he spoke I examined the mark in the middle of his forehead and it was a Night King's sigil, burned into his head, black like a brand.  He cast a magic on my severed arm, taking the stink of rotting meat off of it.  He could make me whole, return me to my strength, better to serve Father Izrador.I fell to my knees at the thought of my sword-arm.  "I will serve you, Crimson Prince and together we will spill blood for the one true god."The Prince put the skull around my neck, just as he had in my dream.  He had made a pact in the dreams, told the spirit he would bury the skull under a fruit tree in the Elven forest.  The spirit was to warn them if I sought to harm them.We found the remains of the camp that we had ambushed in our dreams.  The chief had broken camp early and they were heading north towards the Karhoun Keep, wherein the Worm of the Fortress Wall resided.  The Northman knew of a Shadow weapons cache and he thought the band would visit on the journey north.Sleepless and cold we made our way northwest to the cache, to ambush the band again, hopefully with less blood offered to the earth.On the journey I had time to study my new companions and my new Prince, son of a Night King.The Northman was called Karhoun Esben.  I knew the family name, a cursed family of Northern humans whose patriarch, Vildar Esben had sworn fealty to the Shadow first in the North.  He had been given unnatural long life for his kind and is widely known for his paranoia and bloodlust.Karhoun knew the lay of the land and could track a goose through a snowstorm.  He was built like an orc, not frail and weak like so many humans.  I was eager to meet him once my prince put my arm back on, show Izrador the strength he had given his son.Karhoun shared a name with the keep that the Worm of the Fortress Wall laired in.  This fact didn't escape me.  The keep was where Karhoun was headed when we all met at the crossroads.Vorden Qell, the Scarlet Prince walked the trail as if it was a red carpet leading to a throne.  He held a staff that perhaps once had iron shods at the ends but now they were gone, broken off but he held it like a scepter.  He was prone to rants, loud and long displays that showed his fears and worries before furrowing his brow and casting powerful magics and taking action.Baau was from far away.  I had never seen an Elf like him and they referenced his home, a bay.  He believed his wife was the Elf my former band traveled with.  He was sullen and focused, prone to chills created by the north wind.  He didn't talk about his home but it was obvious they were warm.I never mentioned my own use of the Elf he thought was his wife.  I didn't tell him that there wouldn't be much left of her.  She cursed us during the first days, telling us in gruff tones how she would kill us and something about her sister.  After the third day she stopped talking, her eyes seemed to focused on something we all couldn't see, shock had set in.We arrived at the cache, a dark stone marker the size of five men with the sigil of Izrador on its face.  I saw the sigil, a black crown with the rune for North upon the crown's highest point.There were two hills, upon one was the cache and the other was clear.  Thick fir trees sat at the bottom of both, breaking the white, snowy plains.  I put my left hand to the sigil and pushed, opening the cache for my Prince, as they were worried about the possibility of a Legate's ward, doing them harm.The cache was stocked with good Orcish full plate, barbed javelins with iron rings for looping rope, five lengths of a hundred foot of rope, and ten good Orcish daggers and five Vardatch.  We split up the booty from the cache and set our ambush, not knowing how long a margin we had before my former comrades arrived.The Crimson Prince spoke to the trees, communed with them like a Legate would speak to his sniffer-demon.  The Prince, like his father, had powerful magicks at his disposal.  He handed them spears, armed them as if they were soldiers.  They swayed in the wind, eager to throw the rusted metal javelins clutched in their branches, eager to spill Orc blood.  Never again would I feel at ease in the forest, among the bloodthirsty trees.Karhoun swept up our trail with the branches of a fir tree, making your footprints through the snow smooth.  Baau, the dusky spear-Elf glamoured a pit with a javelin tip in it, in front of the cache entrance.  Karhoun buried himself in a nearby hill.  Across from the cache, near the second hill, the Elves took to the trees with their bows in hand. I waited among the trees near the cache, sigil of Father Izrador watching over me.  I prayed for His blessing, hoping I could cover the distance, close and get my dagger to their throats before their Vardatch and spears could hack at my limbs.  But if I did die, I knew that I would speed on my way to the Halls of the North, to feast forever on Elf-flesh and drinking Dwarven blood with the One True God sitting at the head of the banquet table. Wind howling, ambush set, Karhoun in the snow, Elves in the trees, trees with spears clutched in their branches and their lone, one armed Orc hidden nearby we waited.Baau waited to save his love's life after she had been used roughly by Orcs for days that, for her, would have stretched out for eternities.Karhoun waited to finish his hunt, kill his prey.  He held the claw of the Manticore, claimed to have taken it from its corpse.Vorden Qell waited to see if the trees would indeed go to battle for him.I, Varduk, waited for revenge.</blockquote>

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