Completed The Longhouse at Shadowed Pines

[Gerra]

The Orc tribe at Shadowed Pines played host to many travelers, though whether they be a good host oft depended upon the nature of the traveler. The settlement had a few standing structures, of wood, not stone, and a longhouse which served as an inn. Most of the Orcs here, however, lived in tents made from animal hides, coming and going as they pleased.

Gerra arrived with no retinue, save one, for he knew the orcs of the Spine would see it as weakness. He stood taller than all but the tallest among them and with his ashen skin and fiery hair, he drew immediate attention upon setting foot within the tribe's grounds. They knew from whence he hailed and as he felt his boots sink into the mud that made up the central road through the small settlement, he could feel eyes on him.

He wore a black coat, embroidered with a red flame over the breast pocket. Black were his pants and black his boots. The settlement smelled of animals, their dung and their dead. He spied carcasses of deer hanging on poles. How quaint.

Gerra himself smelled of brimstone and an unimpressive hammer sat in a loop on his belt. He looked around the settlement for anything especially out of the ordinary. He had heard that... well, no matter. Time would soon tell.

"Do you see anything, Sparhawk?" he asked of his sole companion.

J'Darak Moghahk Bruk @Maho Sparhawk

 

[Maho 'Jerik' Sparhawk]

This wasn't the first time that Sparhawk had stepped foot near the Shadowed Pines. Although he never got used to it. The faint smell of mud and death that trailed the entire area. The way the air was heavy and smog-like, blanketing the entirety of the land, a dark grey sleeve that engulfed the planes. On the other hand, he had his companion, Gerra, who was a very intimidating friend to have; not only was his size intimidating, but his footsteps carried a heavy hammer that struck the ground as he walked. He was happy he had such a strong and faithful Orc standing by his side, and it would take someone with considerable bravery to take him on. Or you'd be plain stupid.

He could feel eyes watching the pair. He knew that they were far from alone, and the illusion the environment was creating was a poor one, hiding in the trees, hiding in-between the rocks.

"There are eyes watching us..." He raised his Stave, and the end spouted a great flame, lighting up the area.

"Be on guard..."

This wasn't gonna go like last time he was here...

J'Darak Moghahk | Bruk | Gerra

 

[J'Darak Moghahk]

As if on cue, the somewhat quiet air surrounding the settlement was shattered as the main double door to the longhouse burst forth, filling the immediate area with a homely warmth and hearthfire light, two Orcs scrambled across the muddy surface and took a defensive position, their fists balled and their eyes set upon the looming figure who stooped his way into the open.
In one hand he clutched a rather imposing, if not crudely forged great-axe, in his other some sort of golden horn object, glinting in the flickering firelight escaping the doorway. A crowd of Orcs and a spattering of Goblins soon followed, surrounding the three and cheering uproariously, chanting in their native dialects.

J'Darak raised his axe, before slamming it down into the mud-riddled, soft peat ground and threw the golden horn forward into the dirt, between him and the two Orcs who were so warily eyeing him up, pacing and flexing, crackling knuckles against palms. Neither was appreciably smaller than Moghahk himself, but in build, he seemed like a monster. Muscles on muscles that would have made most wonder how on Arethil he even moved.
"Cuka um sram... Soda es kruk ka!" The brute roared, flecks of saliva following the booming declaration as he smacked his pectorals one after the other, shoulders rolling, nares flaring. His golden beady gaze split between the pair before him.

The left most Orc looked to his partner, then to the golden horn and made a break for it, scrambling through the mud. His partner moved in for a heavy blow to Moghahk, who took the blow to the jaw, following one of his own that smacked the second Orc clean to the floor in a heap. The first had grabbed the horn and aimed it in a strike, but the blow fell short, leaving him open to the knee that was brought to his gut.
Keeling over winded, he stumbled back a few steps, lifting his head just in time to see a hand take a hold of his face, then lift him clean off of the floor, before he was slammed right back down with a wet slap against the muddy surface. A swift kick to his skull had him rolling to his side unconscious. The crowd roared at the fight, shaking their skins and tankards.

Grunting in distaste, Moghahk turned to retrieve his axe, having dealt with the troublemakers. But instead he found a face-full of plank, as the first Orc had risen, taken a discarded piece of wood and delivered a surprise blow. J'Darak stumbled two steps back, before he shook his head twice. Blood dripped from a split lip and a gash in his eyebrow.
Almost immediately the favor was returned, a fist being slammed into the attackers face, followed by thick fingers taking his hair in a vice like grip. Moghahk dragged the unfortunate victim across the mud with some effort from the struggling and kicking and placed his face against a beam of wood that served as a frame for the longhouse.

After three impacts the Orc was likely unconscious, but J'Darak had not stopped until he heard the satisfying crack of a skull being fractured, blood smeared across the wooden surface of the beam and the unconscious body was discarded to one side. Retrieving his great-axe and swinging it onto his shoulder he picked the golden horn up on his way past, handing it to an elderly shaman woman in exchange for a rather sorry looking coin-purse.

With his job done, he made his way from the longhouse and towards a grouping of tents where he had been staying until his contract was up, which by the looks of it, had just happened.

Maho Spahawk | Gerra

 

[Gerra]

Gerra raised hairless brow as he bore witness to a display of brutality most beautiful. One of the corpses still twitched upon the ground, features collapsed in a mess of blood and bone, but most certainly dead. The other might still be alive, but Gerra held no real interest in any save the victor of this spat.

"Ah. That one."

The Molthal bastard nodded to himself. "Come, Sparhawk. We will inquire further."

The immense half-giant stomped forward toward the shaman woman who still held the golden horn. He towered over her, taller even than her champion. She looked up at him, with more curiosity than fear.

"What do they call that one?" he gestured in the direction of the departing axe-bearing orc.

"Mage Eater."

"Thank you." Gerra turned to go, then glanced at the mage standing next to him and the expression he wore. "Ahem. Ah, perhaps it is not literal."

The unconscious orc in the mud groaned, shifting and coming awake only to clutch at his head. Sobbing noises issued from his throat, giving small credence to Gerra's words.

"Come."

The half-giant strode toward the tents and called in voice reminiscent of a volcano's rumbling, "Mage Eater. I would have words."

 

[Maho 'Jerik' Sparhawk]

Though Sparhawk found his companion's words a little comforting, there was something unsettling about the beaten and riddled corpse that lay in the mud; the way it had been brutally maimed in the fight, the way the soul left its eyes as if it lay an empty husk for all time. His stave may have lit up the immediate area, but the oppressive darkness of their atmosphere was overwhelming, and no amount of light could fix it. He followed into the area near the tents, where the 'Mage-eater' had just entered.

There was something unsettling about that title 'Mage-eater'. He wasn't afraid, but definitely unsettled. He'd met many people in his life that had claimed to be able to destroy every mage with sheer willpower and determination. Sparhawk didn't disbelieve these claims, but to stop someone like himself, who could spout bolts of lightning from his stave, found it quite hard to believe he could be defeated by someone wielding a physical weapon, that blunts, rusts and cracks.

"Ahem. Ah, perhaps it is not literal."

"He can try..." He tried to give the most fearless answer he could, as he didn't want to seem weak in front of the Orc hords. He was trying to turn over a new leaf anyway, and he could potentially attempt to use some of the necromancy he'd learnt along the way...

Sparhawk spoke some odd words, and a thin barrier covered his exterior, that can absorb most Kinetic attacks. He leant over to Gerra...

"Just in case-"

J'Darak Moghahk | Bruk | Gerra

 

[J'Darak Moghahk]

"Mage Eater. I would have words."

Moghahk had heard that phrase one too many times. Drawing the whetstone in one last stroke of his axe, he rose from the stump he had been using as his sitting arrangement. Despite living in the tent for his duration in the Shadowed Pines, it was rather sparse, only a stump for a stool, a sack for what little belongings he had and a varied row of animals heads on a rope above the small crackling firepit in the center, each in some stage of skinning and cleaning.
Stepping from the flap that gave him his privacy, Moghahk eyed the one who seemed to think he had any words to interest the black orc, Gja-Tok was lifted into both hands, twirling the blackened axe-head twice. His posture screamed defensive, distrust. "Wha' you want, who you?" He asked, squinting his beady golden gaze at Gerra.

Taking in his size and posture, a rather large figure who looked vaguely orcish, but the hair and the general air about him said something else entirely. It put J'Darak off and made him uneasy. He disliked being uneasy. "Horn gone, Shaman already got, piss of-" He stopped and fixed his sights on Maho, apparently only just now noticing the far smaller human beside his mountain of a companion. Within moments he turned positively hostile. An almighty roar bellowed forth and he turned to face the Mage, raising Gja-Tok above his head and shaking it aggressively, saliva oozed from his jaw and frothed at the corners of his mouth, his eyes burned with a mixture of absolute fear and pure rage.

"Mage! You killed my brother, I will cut you. I will rip you apart, eat your mind and skull and bones, you will know my rage, my hate. I will crush and smash you!" He erupted, smashing a foot into the mud and advancing, Gja-Tok falling into a striking stance as he hefted the great-axe. "Gja-Tok will bite and tear, we will kill magic and all of you, EAT all of you! Blade of mine, feast!" He snarled, the black-blade being dropped in a wide, cleaving arc that could have easily cut a man clean in two.

Eyes wild, mind clouded, he seemed more beast than Orc, fueled by an intense boiling merciless hatred and a deep seething fear. All the while he seemed entirely oblivious to Gerra, focused solely on Maho.

Maho Spahawk | Gerra

(italics is Draal Gulhag orcish dialect Maho can understand, likely so can Gerra, your choice.)

 

[Gerra]

CLANG

A hammer of grim Molthal steel smashed into the axe-head, slapping it away from intended target so that it might cleave air and not Maho. Gerra held sure grip on the salt-stained leather of the hammer's haft. Eyes smoldering like twin embers blown suddenly into flame, the eight foot tall half-giant's wide, blocky features contorted in ire.

Those with keener eyes might note thin wisps of steam coiling from Gerra's ashen skin and red hair. The scent of brimstone grew thick in the air, occluding the other smells within the camp.

Gerra, raised in the Molten Halls, knew well the tongues of orcs, though that of the Blight Orcs differed in dialect. Despite the spittle and the roaring, he heard the words, if words they be. More like emotions and memories strung together and given voice. The Mage Eater had swung that axe so swiftly and with such fury that he had barely been able to stop it. From the way the orc spoke and the saliva strands dripping from his jaws, mayhap madness touched him.

"No," Gerra commanded in that voice like a restless mountain, speaking with the accent of the Blightlands. Any Orc of the Spine would know of the Fire King of Molthal and his bastard sons, unless they had lived within a cave for the last four decades - a feat very well possible. "No feasting, he. No killing, he. He is not mage. He is a sorcerer. Sorcerer. Like Shaman."

If words could not reach him and he could not be controlled, then Gerra would have little use for him. Perhaps in death he might prove a better ally. Maho needed to practice his necromancy, after all.

 

[Maho 'Jerik' Sparhawk]

For a brief moment, Sparhawk could see all of his deeds flash before him. As the axe swung with the momentum of 10 men, he almost accepted that as his doom. He knew the protective seal he'd put up would've defended him to a point, but if that axe had hit him with all that force, he surely would've been fighting for his life.
But his companion, Gerra, had saved him. The great clang the metal made could've been heard across the entire forest, ringing in the ears of everyone in the surrounding area, like an eagle screeching as it swoops for its prey. Knowing Orcs, especially those who hung around the Spine, this would surely mean that he now owes a life debt to Gerra, something he'd have to repay one day.

He was beginning to come back to his senses, and he could feel the anger... swelling within him. He was not one to get angry often, but someone had just attempted to kill him. He could feel his violence spilling over, beneath his feet the grass and mud scorched, and blackened.

No... He can't get angry now, he needed to diffuse the situation. He calmed down, the small fire building beneath him swelling down.

"I don't know of brother, but i don't kill Orc. Not good orc. Not your...enemy." He hadn't spoken Orcish in a while, needed a bit of brushing up...

J'Darak Moghahk | Bruk | Gerra

 

[J'Darak Moghahk]

Their Orcish was somewhat broken and rough in his dialect, hard to decipher. A mix of distaste and surprise crossed his mind and he stepped back a few paces, further into his tent, as though the material would offer some sort of respite or safety from the supposed sorcerer outside. Muscles flexed across his arms and his axe was lifted and lowered, the black orc clearly battling with his own inner demons.

Luckily, Moghahk had not noticed the blackened, charred earth or the rising fire beneath Maho, or that may have been the end of them both, instead he listened and used his mind, a rarity often enough. "No Mage..." He repeated, teeth gnashing and grinding as he seemed to calm down enough to look upon Maho without wanting to swing his axe.
Leaving the tent reluctantly, the lumbering beast circled the sorcerer slowly, golden gaze seeking something to send him back off on his berserk rage. However nothing really showed, the man did not make a move to strike Moghahk with fire that would render him no longer of this world. Perhaps the Giant was right.

Placing Gja-Tok firmly into the dirt finally, Moghahk folded both his arms and growled low, spitting the foamy spittle to his side. "No magic here, Gja-Tok bite if any comes." He demanded, particularly in Maho's direction. Sorcerer or not, he could smell magic on the air, even from the red haired Giant. "Wha' you want of me?"

Gerra | Maho Spahawk

 

[Gerra]

The answer appeared to satisfy the orc, for now. Good, good.

The fire in Gerra's gaze cooled in intensity. He pursed his thick lips for a moment and tilted his chin up, peering down broad nose to measure the Mage Eater's worth anew, like a smith might stare at a lump of metal caught between his tongs and wonder at what shape might best suit it.

Brawls were one of the more interesting things, but now that violence no longer seemed imminent, the onlookers they had grew bored and resumed tanning hides, fashioning wood, shaping pottery, and going about their daily life. Three orc children darted weaved in and out of the line of tents behind the Mage Eater.

Gerra frowned.

"You broke them well," he gestured with his chin back at the orcs still laying in the muck outside the long house. "That purse you took. . . You broke them for coin?"

 

[Maho 'Jerik' Sparhawk]

Almost lost my cool there...

That was the primary thought going through Sparhawk's mind at that very moment. He knew if he had not kept his restraint, they could have an entire orc clan at their throats. That would not be so good. Even with his companion they could not fight against their combined might.

not yet anyway...

He looked at the riddled orc corpse that had just been decimated by J'Darak. He felt he might be able to make an example out of it. He thought back on what he had learnt in the book he had been given. He focused his thoughts, channeling them into the body of the dead orc, the grass underneath it blackening, wilting.

It's head slightly turned, it's eyes truly dead, but it's vessel risen. It still lay there, but it's eyes rested on Sparhawk's.

Good insurance if anything goes south...

J'Darak Moghahk | Bruk | Gerra

 

[J'Darak Moghahk]

J'Darak wiped his mouth and nose with the back of a hand, lifting both shoulders in a heavy shrug of indifference. Despite this however, the question the half-giant had posed to him caused some internal conflict in his mind. He was unable to come up with a decisive answer. This would be very obvious to anyone looking at him, but he himself thought he was rather good at hiding his thoughts. After a good few moments, far longer than most would have taken on such a simple task, he spoke.
"I do not like kin stealing from kin, crush and grind when they turn on Orc." He rumbled thickly, both his lips furling and unfurling along his jagged jutting teeth. "But not Gja'Tok if they do not deserve the bite." The Black Orc declared, slamming the bladed bottom of the great-axe against the mud and dirt as if that solidified whatever point he was trying to get across.

With the slightest tip of his head to one side, he regarded Gerra for the first time properly since their meeting. Golden eyes squinted. He did not look like a kin-Orc and he did not look like a hunter or a pottery worker. In fact, he was unlike anything Moghahk had seen and he had seen a fair amount in his decades. "Wha' you want here with me, why do you come to Spine from where you smell of fire and rock." He demanded suspiciously, one foot sliding back and his entire body lacking any subtly as it immediately returned back to a defensive posture. Maybe this one was not a friend, there were those who wanted the Black Orc dead and Moghahk knew this, Gerra would most definitely be a foe who could see that done. Maybe.

Gerra | Maho Sparhawk

 

[Gerra]

Thinking gave the Black Orc a headache, Gerra observed.

The half-giant watched with a stony expression, this visage suppressing deep undercurrents of irritation, which ran in molten rivers through his amber gaze.

Gerra smiled toothlessly.

"To find strong warriors, who know what is right. And I have found you, who is both wise and mighty. Kin should not steal from kin. And that is why I seek warriors. Years ago one of my brothers stole from me my favorite sword, then he ran like a coward to live among the dwarves of Belgrath, who kill orc kind, both Blight and Spine."

Sorrow seemed to crack through the stone. Sorrow and anger, his expression swelling, like a caldera, threatening to burst and spew forth burning hatred. Then it faded.

"Soon, I will lead a force to reclaim what is mine. You should join me, to crush dwarven skulls and grind dwarven bones."