“Will someone please get that lighting head?” The paladin screamed as he managed, through the grace of his goddess, to dodge another bolt despite being a walking-talking lightning rod in a metal plate armor suit.
The sorcerer yelled back, “You are lucky I got the fire-breathing with a back-burner snuffing out its oils for a few minutes. Ha-zah!” Hands thrown out, the group’s magic user returned the lightning.
“Fuck, it’s dripping oil again from the red head,” shouted the fighter. “Move back, move back.” He ordered the unit of minions he had gathered over the last month hunting for this dragon.
One of the young men asked the monk, “Why isn’t the purple head not doing anything? It’s just staying up there watching everything, letting the blue and red heads do their things.”
“You had to ask that, you had to ask that.” The monk muttered, pushing the untested soldiers back just in time for a fire blast to land where they had been.
The thief ignored the byplay, using her ring of invisibility to advantage, slowly circling the multi-headed monster., when she noticed the purple head swivel her way.
“I see you,” a voice said in her head.
(words 199; first published 3/3/2024 – written for a FB group prompt, aiming for about 50 words as the goal – as usual, I went over)
Among the tribes of the Wagani war is life, and for Lut, war is his way out of the poverty that he was born into. A reaver, a warrior, and the chosen of the enigmatic goddess the Azure Queen, he has dedicated his existence to furthering her glory by the bite of his axe. Bloodthirsty, powerful, and without mercy, he marches upon the world to spread the name of his beloved deity.
But what happens when the goddess no longer loves her champion?
From the award-winning author of The Saga of The Panther comes a dark tale of violence, betrayal, and redemption where David Gemmell’s Legend fights alongside Steven Erickson’s Gardens of the Moon. In this world victory always comes at a price, love is forever the final victim, and not even the gods can stop the ruthless march of history. This is the world where only the strong and cunning survive.
This is the world of the War Pigs.
MY REVIEW
On one hand while reading this, this would be easy to group with LitRPG – the main character is unmistakably an orc. You follow him surviving his first levels, gaining the favor of a goddess, and acquiring an enchanted weapon. Further adventures continue and he goes from solo hero to building his fortress, etc.
On the other hand, there are no stats tracked. This isn’t a game within the story or any of the typical requirements for LitRPG. It’s full of actual story features like the point-of-view character undergoing a growth arc. You root for the character, not the dice rolls.
Sword & Sorcery, down and dirty. The Orc, Lut, isn’t a good guy. He will never be a good guy. But he is a guy with a plan to get out of the dirtiest, lowest, downtrodden places of his species – through fighting and focus. Blood, sacrifice, raids, sex.
With a Plan and Focus he is able to beat his species short life span to reach the pinnacle of existence. Then betrayal happens, destroying everything he worked to. His betrayer left him alive as a lesson to others.
Lut, though, is really good at lessons and learning from them. He gets a new Plan and a new Focus. Even the gods should fear the results.
Arriving back at the homestead, Jules slid off O’Faithful and led the tired horse to its stall and its well-earned brush-down and food. “Who’s a good girl?” she ruffled the brown mane once more, as Faithful concentrated on the oat treats mixed into the normal feed, before heading to the house. The milk cows were already in their stalls, so the livestock chores had been completed for the day
Shouting out as she entered the house, Jules said, “Hey Roamer, got the lands below the cherry groves plowed for Mia and her young’ins.”
Speaking of young ones, Jules paused as her brother’s four-year-old ran at her like an escaped bull, barely managing to hold steady despite her greater height and weight when the speeding child hit, once again proving shortness has advantages. The monkey climbed up her leg, unresisting arm, and scaled up to her broad shoulders for his preferred perch. The soaring ceiling in this half of the house, used to keep thing cool in the summer, let her not worry about head bangs when combining his short height with her six-foot three-inch towering frame.
Her brother came out of the kitchen carrying Gianna in his arms, the two-year-old had been crying again and Romeo looked exhausted. The back molars were coming in and nothing helped. Anna sobbed most of the night and Roamer took the brunt of it while Beatrice was away. Confident in Lorenzo’s ability to stay glued, Jules crossed the room and took Anna into her arms. “Finish dinner, I got the kids.”
Romeo rubbed his dark eyes. “Dinner’s ready, it is the last of the packing that needs doing.”
“Gotcha Roamer, I’ll get the spites fed and bed, you finish prepping for World’s End.”
“Have I told you how much I love you, sis?” A weary smile crossed Romeo’s face as he reached up a hand to stroke her cheek, rested a moment on Lorenzo’s leg, and a final brush of tears on Anna’s face.
“Go on, get.” Jules smiled back, bouncing Anna gently on her hip, Lorenzo’s balance shifting in response. “Sooner done, sooner bed, and sooner back to seeing Trish.”
“May the Waters carry your words.”
Walking toward the kitchen, Jules said, “Duck,” just before passing under the casing. The family grew big; Jules might be the tallest present living example but Uncle Enzo pushed seven foot before his injury. The doors on the airy side of the house had been built seven foot six inches. The winter side doors were only six foot with low ceilings Enzo scraped when wearing his war boots and helmet. But heating was much easier.
Eldritch fire dances along the blade, emerging from the pit it hovered over unsupported and continuing through the opening ceiling of the pavilion the Everdeens built around it to dissipate as sparks among the stars. I shift from one foot to another, studying my classmates between my mop of bangs and curls as well those of our age from the surrounding villages the Greenbies had conscripted for this year’s test.
Each year the invaders and their soldier forced children to grasp the sword. They called it Macheuvee – the Sword of Heroes. According to the legends they have been teaching in the school, their Sword of Heroes would bring a new Age of Champions to the Everdeen Empire, once again allowing them to expand. The Winter Wall Mountains had ended their progress to the West, the Fierce Ocean mocked them to the East, only allowing the Lasuo Islanders safe passage. They traveled so far north they were going south again, but the ManClaimer Ice Shield did not provide passage for armies. Nothing to forage. The South was blocked by a long narrow peninsula passing between Fierce Ocean and Widowmaker Waters; only a day’s march wide but nearly a year’s march long, conquering even a mile of that constricted land mass is a nightmare of unforgiving plants and animals, leaving the gems of the Paradisa Republics beyond the Greenbies greedy reach. Rare merchant’s ply the waters close to land, running trade goods between the Empire and the Republics, constantly wetting their appetite for the treasures beyond their reach.
But that sword, the one before us, was not their Macheuvee, if that forlorn fantasy even exists. No, it is Hck’vitch, The Gods Unreasoning. No one here would ever willingly grasp it. At least none of the locals. It was forbidden to the hands of Men.
The Greenbies discovered adults grasping it always died.
Hck’vitch did not abide people touching it.
I knew how it felt.
Unfortunately, they also discovered the fire was slightly more forgiving with children; youths grasping it mostly faced blisters, though sometimes the flames claimed fingers. But since they didn’t die, the Lords sent by the Emperor figured some poor boy could pull the sword out of its mystical confinement, then they could give it to a true hero. And rather than damage their own children, they sourced the task to the locals.
The soldiers push Marv forward first. I heard the mutter, words the soldiers hated, our native language, but for this they let us have the comfort. Marv prayed the gods would forgive him his affront. The prayer ends in screams as he pulls back his hand covered in blisters and peeling skin. Afric is next. Lever. Masur. A villager, Zef, who pretended to be dumb when the Greenbies came collecting students for their school, proving himself smarter than most.
He loses most of his little finger and all the middle. The flesh bound to the leather, cooked, when he yanks his hand away. The flame turns it black, glowing cracks like coals, until the flesh falls off. The younger among us cry and try to run, but pikes block all exits.
The soldiers, officers, nobles, and judges would keep this up until the hysterical children feared the blade more than the pikes. Usually the first death did it, sometimes it takes two.
The nobles start with the tallest and work down, trying to find a worthy wielder for their Sword of Heroes, assuming the gods want muscles, not passion. Until this past year, I have always been on the small size for my age. Still am. But now my age is enough to make me large enough to be close to Hck’vitch, even if I am the shortest of the oldest students. I might make it before the thirteen-year-olds panic.
I’m two away when I start speaking to the gods.
But I don’t pray.
I demand.
These petty conquerors, pretend statesmen, greedy children have lived among the True too long. It is time they understand why our gods are unnamable and their whimsies and rulings deranged.
Hck’vitch would not claim another child’s life this day.
Beybey holds his arm to his body when he pulls it back, he is sobbing but he gave no screams when he gripped the sword. I cannot tell how much damage he took as he walks to join those who never have to return to this hell, the only kindness these interlopers give us is we do not have to experience the insult to Hck’vitch more than once.
Around me, the other boys eyes are more white than color, and their skin a plaster lighter than the marble façade the Greenbies built around the Hck’vitch’s Prison.
The soldiers push me forward.
Unnecessarily.
For I am more than ready to end this. I say in the language I learned on my mother’s knee before the invaders tried to change who I was with their laws and their school. “Hck’vitch harm me, I care not. But I claim you as you claim me. You say you will not be wielded by Men. Then I shall no longer walk as a Man.”
I thrust my hand through the fire, the hairs on my arm burning away in whisps. I twist my hand over, like I was drawing Hck’vitch from a sheathe, for I am. A sheathe of fire, the prison the True’s unnamed gods put the Unreasoning into.
I hear it cackle and crackle as it is freed; it’s only desire to be sheathed again in warm blood.
Criella looked over at Dolph, remembering when she drafted the kid into her unit all those years ago. Was it only three? They were dealing with some bullshit pirate activity hitting the small ports along the southeast coast and needed locals to fill out the ranks of the recently dead. She hadn’t expected the blond fifteen-year-old to last, either dying or deserting before the month out. And here the kid was, waiting like the veteran he was for the goblins to come pouring over the hill. She waved the fisher boy over.
“What do you want, lieutenant?” the youngster asked the tiefling in heavily accented Draconic. “Captain.” He said nodding at Ghesh, the dragonborn leader of what was left of the duchy’s army. Dolph made Sergeant when he managed to learn Ghesh’s native tongue enough to run messages and sit in on the meetings.
“We got some magic shit from that last battle with the redcoats.” She offered him a sword. “It’s a scimitar. Don’t know what it does other than has a solid edge. The mage only had enough juice to detect, not identify. There’s not much use for a scimitar in the normal ranks behind the shield wall, but with your fucked-up fighting style, maybe it will be useful.”
The kid’s blue eyes grew round. “A magic sword, for me?”
“Yeah, here.” She thrust the ruby-jeweled hilted blade inside a beat-up leathered scabbard at him. “Don’t say I didn’t give you anything.”
“No sir, ma’am, sir.” The boy lifted the blade just far enough out of the scabbard to see the beaten waves of the special metal – a fractal pattern of silver and brown-rust leading to the curved shinning edge of the blade. “Thank you,” he breathed. Dolph glanced at the captain then at the lieutenant.
After they nodded permission, he moved off and unbuckled his belt, taking off the standard-issued longsword. He then threaded the belt through the scimitar’s scabbard, playing with how it fell against his leg, balancing it against his daggers, and the javelin on his back. Next he practiced drawing it and the dagger until satisfied. After dropping off the hated longword at supplies, he rejoined his light unit.
They asked him for news, and he watched their faces fall at the no change in orders. Sixty soldiers against a horde of goblin meant fewer would be gathering around the chow wagon come morning. It’s been one nonstop battle for a month since whatever happened at the capital happened leaving only a hole where the fortress and city above Mirror Port used to stand. Took two weeks for the news to sink in, now everyone and all their neighbors were vying for a land grown rich on trading from their many ports and solid roads the old duke and his son had insisted on building. All he, his unit, and his leaders could do was keep as many of the local alive until the big guys figure out who owned what.
Tonight that meant they would be fighting goblins.
Mini, Marcus, and Rovindell formed up on Dolph as they moved to the flank of the regulars they would be guarding and melted into the trees. Mini and Rovindell took to the trees like Dolph would take to water if there had been any. He moved to Marcus’ left side to guard the arm the man lost four days ago. If they hadn’t been protecting a convent against the redcoat army attacking all the religions their country’s monotheistic church hated, Marcus would still be laid up. Instead he was out here, untrained and off-balance for his new body structure. Dolph muttered a quick prayer to his distant sea god for mercy during this storm and safe harbor at the border fortress town just two days march away they were trying to reach, hoping for reinforcements.
The first horns of the goblins sounded in the next valley. Wolf howls echoed, and smoke rose against the twilight sky. Hollerhome burned, a sacrifice in the war of attrition, most of the citizens behind their limited military lines walking, running, and riding away with the clothes on their backs, dropping the precious possessions they could not leave behind but didn’t have the energy to carry if they wanted to move fast enough to escape.
Full dark was three hours past when the first screams rose from the ranks closest to the rise on the other flank. The clear field stopped reflecting the silvered harvest stubble as the goblins poured in. Within moments Dolph knew there was no flank to guard against a surrounding maneuver. Hundreds of goblin broke as a wave against the shield wall.
“I would tell you to run…” he muttered to his fellow soldier.
“If there was any place to run to.” Marcus finished the thought. “Well, every death here might save someone in a port town.” He adjusted the shield strapped against his body, drew his sword, and rushed in.
Dolph just a step behind him, dagger and new scimitar at ready. A cut one side, then the other, the scimitar not fighting his two-weapon style, but not being overly helpful. Still much better than the overlong sword forced on him when he enlisted. He could feel the weapon’s joy at the bite into goblin flesh and the sing at the end of the slash, blooddrops flying.
Dolph did not notice the blooddrops flying back into the sword a moment later, the battle overwhelming in sound and darkness.
More slashes, a few dagger thrusts, his avoiding pikes and knives, some enemy attacks skidding along his leather armor, bolts bouncing off his helm. A bite here and there, but Dolph paid more attention when Marcus went down, the older soldier’s longsword gripped by a goblin so he couldn’t withdraw it to protect him from three pikers on his right. Blood flew as Dolph made his way to his fallen private, not caring about killing blows to protect his back from survivors as much as clearing space between where he was and where he needed to be.
Anger ate at him. The never-ending battles. The useless fight. Friends dying. And goblins, so many goblins. He let his rage take him.
Criella found Dolph’s body on the left flank by following the path of desiccated goblin dead, shriveled, drained of blood, dozens if not scores piled around his form at the end of the path. Her tail flicked with surprise when his chest rose and fell. The kid was sleeping. In his hand, the magic sword she gave him was gripped tight, and not a drop of blood on him. The fractal pattern in the metal a wet red. His armor needed replacement, but he looked remarkably healthy considering the amount and placement of the holes in the leather.
Well, that gift worked better than she hoped.
She hunkered down to study the curved blade closer. Damn, a thirst sword. Sorry about that kid. Still, Dolphin was breathing, which exceeded the state of half their army at the moment. And likely they had that much because of blondie and the blood blade. The goblin shamans had taken the mage the redcoats and the pearls left them before she and Ghesh could break away from the hobgoblin allies the goblins brought with them. Now their army had no magic except her small skills.
Dolph and that sword would be getting a workout.
After tucking the thirst blade back into the mangled scabbard, his right hand still wrapped around the hilt making it difficult as shit, she let out a shrill whistle. A nearby dragonborn corpsman responded and picked up the six-foot soldier to take him back to the wounded tent.
She pushed aside the question of whether to warm Dolphin about the curse effects. People got really fucking weird when she reminded them how close her bloodline was to actual demons. Dolph hadn’t yet but she hadn’t really, really rubbed his face in it. Once they made a full count of the living, she would bounce the issues off the captain.
