"Aaaaahhhh" Sighed Brodnak contentedly, directing the acrid and brightly coloured stream of urine onto the contents of the sack. The bones hissed softly under the onslaught.
Brodnak Headsplitter was an old drinking buddy of Maris'. Some may wonder how it is a skeletal undead without a single soft fleshy organ could go drinking, let alone get drunk. These people are obviously unfamiliar with Orcish brewing techniques. The simple fact was that, generally speaking, it was only the dead that could actually survive a night drinking with Orcs. Orcs could brew some sort of drink out of just about anything. And, being Orcs, they usually did. Leaves, moss, sticks, entrails, unidentifiable pools of slime, rocks, poisonous spiders.... It all went in. What came out was unpredictable at best, but as any Orc would tell you, that was half the fun.
Orcish society seemed to be based on two principle: Drinking and Violence. Many surface dwellers regarded Orcs as being rather stupid. This wasn't actually the case at all. It's just that mostly the only time Orcs reach the surface is when they're to drunk to find their back home. Of course there were the occasional raids and the like, but since these were better organized they didn't tend to leave many survivors. Whatever passed for social mobility in Orcish society was based entirely around your ability to either out drink or beat up your peers. Orcs are a fairly uncomplicated lot. They like to know where they stand. The problem here of course is that they're rather distrustful of anyone they haven't had a fight or a drink with first. Since fighting or drinking with an Orc was usually fatal one way or another they were, as a species, left in a sort of diplomatic limbo.
The Orcs were a misunderstood bunch. Once you got past the point where they were trying to kill you they could be quite friendly.
When Maris had first met Orcs they had been, quite naturally, rather uncooperative. Not to mention insulting. This was back in the days just after he'd been rewarded with the constantly burning demonic claw that he sported in place of his right hand. The original had been lost in a pitched battle with a group of Paladins who'd managed to penetrate quite deep into the dungeon. In the aftermath of this event defenses were a little chaotic for a while, what with the population having taken a bit of a knock. Maris was sent down to the Orcs to form a Garrison to occupy level 5 whilst the Beastmasters nursed the Spiderbat population back from the brink of extinction.
So Maris had wandered into one of the surviving Orc bases to requisition some volunteers, and had been promptly told to piss off. An attitude that he'd found a little frustrating. He hadn't been having a good time lately. The battle had taken it's toll. He'd had his arm cut off and his face split open with an axe. The splintery crack running across his face still stung. He probably could have got a new skull from somewhere, but he was rather fond of this one. Sure he'd been "rewarded" with this flaming demon hand, but having your hand be on fire ALL THE TIME made life incredibly difficult. The charred remnants of his robes clung to his soot blackened bones in limp, disintegrating shreds. No doubt he cut an imposing figure, but frankly he just felt crap. All was chaos at the moment, and he'd been sent rushing around the dungeon trying to get things fixed up and the one thing he really didn't need right now was an Orcish warband with an attitude.
"Look, I just need a few of your lot to come upstairs and occupy level five." Maris had said in most reasonable tone of voice, his teeth grating with every word. "I'm sure there must be few up and coming warrior types who fancy a challenge."
Sure enough there were many young looking Orcs lounging around, seemingly with very little to do. However currently all eyes were on the confrontation taking place between the Chief and his guards and the ragged smoking undead, who looked quite small and puny when confronted with such a majestic wall of well oiled greenskin beef.
"Myuu myaa myurrr myeee mya myyoorrr" Said the head Orc in a high pitched attempt at mocking Maris' voice. The beefy Orc glared down at his ruined visage.
"Piss off, axehole". All the other Orcs chuckled at this witticism. As has already been mentioned, Orcs are a rather uncomplicated race.
Maris went to take a deep breathe, remembered he didn't actually have lungs, and set one of the Orcs heads on fire with a wave his claw. He'd had enough. One of the guards charged towards him with a bloodcurdling scream. Maris calmly sent a fireball straight down the Orcish warriors' gaping maw, blowing out his neck and a fair porion of his ribcage. He was VERY angry. The fires that forever flickered around the demon bone fused to his right arm grew larger, brighter. Hotter. With a circular wave he conjured up a wall of fire, isolating him and the chief and coincidentally taking out several more guards. There was a disappointed noise from beyond the veil of unnatural fire as the various hangers on and other spectators had their view blocked. The Orcish chief came at Maris with his axe. His very very large, very very sharp axe.
"funny thing about axes," Maris had thought idly to himself from somewhere within the burning rage "the handles are made of wood". With an idle flick of his writ the axe haft turned to ash as the brutish Orc swung down in what he must have presumed was a killing stroke. The axe head flew off beyond the wall of flame as the Orc lost his balance and crashed into a heap at Maris' feet. Reaching down he stabbed his pointy and blazing claws into the Orcs eyes. The scream was quickly choked off as Maris thumb was hooked into his mouth. Then Maris began, slowly and calmly, to burn his way through the Orcs head.
Once the smoke cleared everyone had been surprisingly friendly. Orcs don't particularly resent being beaten in combat. They just like to know the strongest is in charge. Having proven this by eliminating the current ruling council from the outpost Maris got a squad of 25 warriors and headed off, whilst the remaining Orcs started sharpening their axes in anticipation of the coming election.
Of course, he'd so far only proven himself in combat. But the drinking competitions wouldn't come until much later, when he'd finally acquired the gauntlet to contain his flaming appendage. They'd tried to engage him in a drinking contest before that of course, but the flames kept igniting the drinks.
No comments:
Post a Comment