(Photo by Archie Binamira)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Gol’Dur knew things in life could not possibly get much worse. For one thing, he’d been taken and forced into an army filled with countless other orcs, all from different lands who spoke in just as many languages. They were forced to speak with the human tongue for most of the time just they could ensure most everyone understood what was being said. Gol’Dur hated the human tongue. It felt weak and wrong every time he used it. He longed for the strong growls, the grating of teeth, and the biting of his own cheeks that was required for proper speech. He missed the taste of blood in his mouth. Sure, he could just bite his cheeks anyway, and in truth he did sometimes, but it wasn’t the same.

The other primary complaint Gol’Dur had was that he hadn’t even been allowed to go on any of the raiding parties. It wasn’t much of a surprise to him, considering how he was the shortest and scrawniest orc in the entire army, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight. In certain situations, it was even beneficial to have someone small who could slip about unnoticed and slit throats of their enemies while they slept. Unfortunately, those who led the war campaign thought otherwise. They moved in more direct, more brutal fashion. Gol’Dur couldn’t speak against their orders. That would only end with Gol’Dur’s head posted on a spike so the crows and carrion fowl to pick at.

No, as much as Gol’Dur hated life, he preferred it over death. That was why he now trudged through muck and filth that rose up past his knees. Miles and miles of tunnel had been dug and then reinforced, crisscrossing all throughout the camp. There weren’t many things too foul for orc, but when so many were gathered together there was bound to be a need to dispose of unwanted things. Once the tunnels were finished, holes were dug down from the surface and into the tunnels so anyone who needed to dispose of something could just toss it in. Most of the time that was the last anyone, orc or otherwise, would see of the offending thing but, again, with so many orcs all in one place there were bound to be some things, tiny treasures or bits of things that still could be salvaged. It was a sign of how poorly things must be going out there in the war. If things were going well then there should have been an influx of raw materials and no orc, not even Gol’Dur,would be sent down to this place.

His hands gripped tightly to the handle of the odd sifter he’d been given, methodically dipping the scoop deep into the foul stuff and then lifting it all back up. It took a few moments for each load to run through the sifter and then inspected what remained.

Bits of bone, some scraps of cloth, even the odd coin turned up from time to time. Everything metal was added to the pack he carried on his back and the rest was tossed away behind him. Then it was time for the next scoop.

“Don’t come back until your pack is full,” Gol’Dur grumbled to himself as he watched his most recent scoop strain out. “Only a runt like you can fit down there…must remind you of home…maybe down there you’ll finally find some muscle. Then you might be strong enough to wield a dagger.”

Each muttered insult only brought him more anger. He ought to go and show them how skillful, and deadly, he could be with something like a dagger. Maybe they knew already and that was why they didn’t allow him to carry any weapons.

A low grumble in his gut reminded him of just how hungry he was. Being an orc meant a lot of things, but one of them was that he could go a long while without needing to eat and still work at full strength. Being hungry only made him more angry, however, there was a big difference between what he could survive and what was comfortable. Pains moved along through his empty gut, seemingly tracing out the emptiness left by his last meal.

Gol’Dur paused in his labors for a moment to massage his aching stomach. It didn’t help but he kept trying it from time to time. While he stood there he began counting the stones, bricks, and whatever else had been scrounged to form this subterranean passageway. The paler, well shaped stones were easy to pick out, even in the total darkness. His eyes could see no matter if it was pitch black or not. There were only seven of them. Gol’Dur wasn’t surprised to find so few of them. They were the remains of something humans had built and orcs had torn down long ago. The flat faces of those stones were good for building walls but orcs could build just as well with anything they could find on hand. Jagged shards of volcanic glass were the next most common type of stone. It was those that made leaning against the wall to take a break was a bad idea. They stuck out at odd angles and would easily cut deeply into anyone foolish enough to use the wall for respite.

Bricks were in no short supply, considering the many furnaces there were in the army. All anyone had to do was scrap together a few handfuls of the clay soil that dominated this region, form it more or less into the right shape, and then set it in the furnace for a day. They didn’t need to be strong, just strong enough. There were teams of orcs constantly making bricks these days. They might occasionally complain about having the worst job in the army but even they kept their complaints to themselves when Gol’Dur was around. They weren’t being considerate. They didn’t want the taskmasters to send them down with Gol’Dur as punishment for voicing their complaints.

A ripple passed through the sludge. Gol’Dur felt it more than saw it. He was deep underground and he wondered what had caused such a tremor. Was the volcano erupting? He’d never heard of it erupting in living memory. Only the endless flows of molten rock and iron that fed the master’s forges. Another ripple coursed passed like a strange breeze against his legs as the muck briefly pressed back against him.

A volcanic eruption might be good for him, Gol’Dur mused. All the big and important orcs lived up along the foothills of the volcano. If it erupted, they would be the first to die. Then again, if it erupted and the lava flowed down into these tunnels he’d have no way of escaping in time. Worse still, if it buried all of the tunnels that led back up to the surface he’d be stuck down here for the rest of his life, starving away for who knows how long.

Another rumble and this time he could hear the earth groan. Some of the stones and bricks that encased the tunnel were jostled free and fall around him, splashing him in the face. Some hit his eye and it burned, stinging and blinding him. His hands were too covered in filth to be of any use so he had to spend several minutes rubbing his eye against his shoulder until he was able to see once more. All the while, what had started out as a rumble was becoming a real quake and more of the tunnel seemed to be collapsing around him.

He had to get out before the tunnel collapsed entirely. Where was the last opening to the surface he’d seen? It wasn’t recent, he knew that, but he didn’t move very quickly while scooping and sifting through the muck. Would it be better if he ran ahead? The holes down to the tunnels weren’t spaced regularly so just because he couldn’t remember seeing on recently didn’t necessarily mean the closest means of escape was ahead of him.

Another quake and this time the tunnel ahead of him collapsed entirely, blocking off all hope of going in that direction. Without another thought, Gol’Dur turned and fled. He kept a wary eye on the stone and brick above him not only to watch for an opening but to make sure he wasn’t about to get crushed by another cave in. He wanted to hurry but the sludge made even a walking pace all but impossible. There was something else too, that bothered him and drove him onward. He couldn’t feel his master’s presence bearing down on him, driving him to obey. Was that because his master was distracted by the eruption? Or, and this thought made Gol’Dur almost pause, was the eruption happening because his master was no longer exerting his will over it?

Too many questions. Gol’Dur needed to focus but he’d been under his masters influence for so long that he found it difficult to keep up his harried pace even with the imminent threat of being crushed to death in this vile place.

At last he spied a break in the tunnel’s roof that didn’t look like a cave in. He rushed over to it and grinned as he stuck his head into the opening and smelled smoke. This lead to the surface all right. Without giving any thought to what the taskmasters might say, Gol’Dur slipped the pack he’d been carrying off of his shoulders to lighten his load and make the climb that much easier. He’d long since dropped the scooper when he first began his escape.

The hole was narrow and not exactly built for someone to climb up it but Gol’Dur managed to squeeze his way up, inch by inch, careful not to claw too deeply or frantically since that would only lead to him pulling down the walls of the hole on top of himself.

The earth rumbled and this time he could hear the crack of the exploding volcano. He grinned in spite of himself as he imagined his taskmasters being buried or burned alive. Preferably both at the same time but he wouldn’t be picky in this instance.

His hand finally reached up and did not encounter more rock and dirt and instead found his skin being pricked by the sharp scrub grass that grew in certain parts of the armies encampment. In a few more minutes of barely contained excitement, Gol’Dur was fully above ground.

He should have been triumphant, having escaped with his life, but everything around him was wrong. There were no orc here. There weren’t any anywhere he looked. The volcano was still sending plumes of ash and rock into the sky, which it tended to do even when it wasn’t fully erupting, but the winds were changed and rather than covering the sky above, the ash poured south and away, leaving the sky bare for the sun to cast down its hateful rays that burned and blinded the eyes even worse than the muck down below ever could. The only thing that kept Gol’Dur from scurrying back down the hole was the fact that the sun was not far from setting and he wouldn’t have to long endure it’s pain.

It wasn’t until he turned and looked towards the masters tower than Gol’Dur finally and fully accepted what had happened. The massive edifice that defied all expectation and reason as it stretched upward and outward with impossible proportions, was gone. Not gone in the sense that there was nothing there anymore, but rather in the sense that only unrecognizable rubble littered the ground around the place where the stronghold ought to have been.

Three days, four at the most. That was how long he’d been underground. How could such a thing happen so quickly? The enemies couldn’t have been that close, and nor could they have destroyed  the masters stronghold so completely in so short a span of time. And yet, there it was, lying in ruins as though every piece of it had been torn asunder.

Although, as he wandered through the barren landscape and thought about it, the less upset he was. Sure, there were still humans and the rest to deal with, but if this meant the war was ended then he could go back to where he’d lived before. He could be among his own kind. Speak his own tongue. There was no word for gratitude or thanks in his native language so instead he grunted out, “I will let the first of the enemy I find live to pay for this return of fortune.”

He’d reached the gates and looked out. He’d found where everyone had gone. The enemy was still there, although they appeared to be making camp a short distance away from the battlefield where orc and enemy alike lay dead or dying. It was late now and the enemy was using torches to see by. Some of them moved through the battlefield, searching. Every once in a while one of them would call out and others would rush out to carry away whatever wounded soldier they had found.

Gol’Dur’s stomach growled and he grinned as he massaged his painful guts.

“I saw you first,” he said quietly to one of the enemy, “but the others,” he trailed off as his eyes swept greedily across the battlefield and the countless dead and wounded and licked his dry and bleeding lips.

He crept low to the ground to avoid being spotted and began to make his way forward. It was a risk, going towards the enemy when they were in such numbers, but he was hungry and free. In celebrating the latter he would rectify the former. Then…well, he’d make his way home.