by Justin Wayne
***
Just minutes after the battle had ended, the northmen departed to track down any surviving orcs and make their way home, and Dunawar stayed back with his son to try and retrieve his hammer one last time. He had had it for decades and wasn’t about to leave it behind now. Spitting in his hands, he took hold of the handle smoothed by years of use and pulled with all his might, foot against the stone.
His mighty arms bulged and turned bright red. His face followed suit and beaded with perspiration as he grit his teeth and scowled. The lines of his aging face shown more clearly then and his chest shuddered beneath the exertion.
He released and slumped against the boulder and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. He shook his head and slapped the stone. “I’m getting old, Dradewen.” he laughed self depreciatingly. “’Fore long I won’t be able to even lift the durned thing.”
“That is, if we ever get it back.” the young Warrior added ruefully. He stepped up and slapped his hands together then wrapped them around the hammer’s length. Dunawar stood passively beside him and watched his son.
Dradewen’s arms swelled massively and his face soon looked like his father’s. His neck was spiderwebbed with veins that stood in bright blues and greens beneath his jaw that was set determinedly in a square. He focused solely on the weapon before him and placed his footing accordingly to make up for the lack of fulcrum, then resumed pulling even harder; heaving back with his legs as if trying to walk away with it.
The hammer held fast as his chest began to rise and fall rapidly in shallow breaths and his arms began to quiver. But he remained steadfast and continued his test. For to him, this was a chance to prove his manhood and rise as something more to his father and to the tribe. Despite his aptitude in the art of battle and his feats of strength, he was still looked down upon for his mixed heritage and age; he was nearly upon his sixteenth winter; not yet a man, and seen only as the spoiled son of the chief who didn’t fit in.
He would prove them wrong.
He would prove them all wrong!
With a shout to his gods, he gripped the hammer lower and with tremendous effort that dropped him to his knees, pulled the hammer free in a shower or rock and dust, leaving a crater in the boulder as a reminder of their power.
Dunawar clapped his hands together in surprise and stared at Dradewen, seeing him in a new light, just as his son had hoped. He lifted him to his feet and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You did it, boy!” he cried. “I knew you could do it! Now you’re ready to become a true warrior. In our next campaign after the fools who stole our dagger, I want you to lead the expedition! I’m sure that dark elf can find them again and lead us to them no problem.”
Dradewen’s wide smile faltered. “Father, do you not think it to be a waste of time and resources? I mean, it is only one dagger, and surely they couldn’t have escaped such a force unscathed.”
The chief looked at him, at a loss for words, and gripped his shoulder tighter. “So wise ye be.” He shook his head slightly. “Just like your mother.”
He knew his father rarely brought her up since her death last winter and this must really mean something to him.
“Alright.” Dunawar said after a pause. “We let them go, tell the whole city they fled their own home across the country in fear of our might just before we decimated the orc tribe!” He smiled and flexed slightly. “But if they come back…” He grinned all the more and let the threat fall there. Dradewen nodded in agreement and handed his father his mighty warhammer with a slight bow.
The chief accepted it and they shook hands.
A stirring behind them caught their attention. They turned about to watch the writhing form of the broken body, deformed beyond recognition and nigh destroyed, twist itself upright. Then in jarring, unnatural movements, pop its joints back into sockets and reset broken bones.
Last of all, the skull came upright from where it had touched its own back, and cried out a howl of glee. It rushed forward with inhuman and inorc speed and lifted both of them by their throats, squeezing the breath from their lungs
“How fortunate of you two to be the ones that would be here during my resurrection!” It smiled inwardly and laughed a cackling that sounded like bones crackling in a fire. “I applaud you, oh great chief, for your prowess. And you, young warrior, for your ability to survive. But your road ends here.”
The two fighters struck out at the demon but soon the pressure on their throats became too much. Dunawar became light headed and dropped his hammer, the weight too much and his grip vanished. Dradewen had likewise been incapacitated and now colors swam before his eyes.
Faces purple they began to slip into the dark veil of unconsciousness, already exhausted from the strain of battle and removing the imbedded hammer. The two watched each other in a depressed acceptance.
Then they heard something whistle past and Cleave Rend screamed the most horrifying wail they had ever heard. An agonized cry wrought of terror to rival that of a banshee that sent shivers down their spines and rattled their organs. Its intensity grew as they were dropped to the ground. Dradewen was the first to open his eyes against the immense weight.
A gleaming black axe, darker than the night around them and glowing slightly with a sickening green similar to poison, protruded from the demon’s back and clean through its chest. The vast majority of the head had passed through the hole in its armor left in Dunawar’s wake, and sheared through the bone.
Its spine was snapped and stuck out in two pieces, replaced in the center by the razor edge of Cleave Rend's axe.
The skull cried out louder then went silent as its body began to decompose into ash, the very edges of its innards glowing like embers and dissolving. The charred head turned to regard its killer before it would disappear completely.
Ulgvhen, gaping chest wound gushing his lifeblood from where the axe had been, smiled until his last breath whispered through his lips: “Uvrikh.”
Cleave Rend folded in on itself; hollow, and shuddered until the remnants of the warped armor fell to the ground in a cloud of dust. The axe lay within the remains, still glowing faintly.
The Warriors stared at each other in amazement.
