Beyond Dagothar (The Oraclon Chronicles Book 1)

by Jason Breshears

  They were going to die.

  General Hagim surveyed the scene aware that the Taran Warlord was watching closely. He pulled a black veil back over his helm. The cloths had been issued to the entire army when they had ascended through the funnelweb caves upon entering the surface world. The cloth was used to shield their eyes when the burning disk ruled the sky. With the burning disk now hiding beyond the mountains the orcs began removing their veils.

  With the granite portals now knocked apart the terrified goblins inside the court began spilling out of the fortress to oppose the attackers, more and more appearing from the mountain pressing those ahead of them forward. They brandished spears, maces, axes and crudely shaped forged swords. Over a thousand ran out of the mountain to join the defensive press. The underworld general watched on dispassionately. Hagim was a hornhulk, about half the weight of an ogre and much larger than the normal hornback orcs known as bloodborns. All of them had the bone horn emerging from their spines to the back of their heads so charactoristic of the hornback species.

  Standing motionless beside the general was an Aelvatchi headhunter, a four-armed dark elf of Sarthaldon in the Deep. They were silent, highly trained warriors, assassins and military strategists. The elf had coal black eyes, two thin daggers and two wickedly curved scimitars. All the four-armed headhunters wore darkjade armor found only in the mines of Hollowrealm.

  "Send in the umberslogs," General Hagim commanded.

  The blackish elf turned and nodded at other headhunters standing near to the herd of slogs. They hissed at the ravenous beasts pointing forward and the entire herd of unholy animals lunged forth like hellish bulls stampeding into the advancing goblins.

  The goblin defenders did not remain quiet for long, spellbound by terror and disbelief. Their panicking shrieks echoed off of the stony landscape but were drowned out by the infernal roaring of the six-legged creatures as they tore through the crowds of screaming goblins, chewing on limbs, crunching bones, rending armor, snapping weapons in their jaws, slashing apart flesh, stampeding over writhing bodies, piercing helms and crushing the skulls inside them. With bloodied talons they cleaved paths into the goblin press. Some slogs stood on their back legs and sliced their victims with four powerful limbs ending in razorlike talons. They trampled over the dead and dying violently charging forward into the outergate foretress as mortified goblins in the mountain struggled to close the inner stone doors, fighting against pleading goblins trying to get back in.

  King Ugul leaned over the balcony and watched as the terrible beasts closed in on the mountain entrance. Panicking goblins attempting to force their way back in were suddenly stilled...frozen in time. The portals were still open, crammed with goblins now as solid as stone. A sulferous cold wafted about and other goblins falling back to the portals knocked over a goblin that fell and broke apart like a statue.

  The sorcery froze the portals open with icy finger formations. More goblins fell back and the high-pitched screaming intensified as the heavy slogs plunged into the portal entrance area breaking apart frozen statues of goblins. Living goblins swung their weapons wildly trying to keep the beasts from devouring them but they were unsuccessful.

  An umberslog plummetted through the portals breaking apart frozen rock and goblin pieces to fall upon terrified defenders inside the fortress. King Ugul stood upright as fiery lances of searing pain ripped through his body as two daggers penetrated his back and right side. He slumped to the floor unable to look his commanders in the eye. For over a millennia it had been custom of the chieftains to slay the kings who failed to protect their domains. The muffled screams of victims and roars of the six-legged animals echoed inside the mountain.

  The goblin advance guard of the outergate citadel were in disarray with not even a hundred still left standing after the last of the herd of umberslogs charged straight through and over them in entering the mountain. Many goblins remained on the ground writhing in agony or staring blankly into the smoky sky. The majority of the fallen did not move at all. The survivors still standing shook as ten menacing titan ogres all with single horns protruding from their foreheads approached them dragging long chains as goblin archers ran into position to cut them down if they resisted. The Darkfrost goblins of the surface world had never seen goblins like those in the underworld army. Opting for slavery over certain death they dropped their weapons and threw down their helmets allowing the enormous armored ogres to chain them neck to neck.

  As the darkness returned General Hagim could see much clearer and he watched as the first thirty-five ranks of hornback orcs began storming the mountain. Twenty-one hundred combat veterans. As with the other legions under the Taran Warlord presently pouring over the mountainous regions of Darkfrost Peaks, he too had six thousand battle-hardened orcs under his command and about twenty-four hundred support troops of dusk giants, titan ogres all kin to the Warlord, goblin archers, cavalries of the speedy basilaks and hammertaurs that use their boneplate heads to ram their adversaries. Also under his command was an air cavalry of pteragaunts, the winged goblins that were led by the fearful Aelvatchi headhunters flying astride their wingmordh steeds. Accompanying each legion were Aelvatchi dark elven warlocks from the underworld city of Sarthaldon and the snakelike draconian warsorcers who served as mercenaries in Hollowrealm widely sought after for their infamous warcraft. The seige engine brigades were operated by the pagai, or pigmy goblin engineers and their sapper imps.

  But nothing, the general mused, was as deathly efficient as the umberslogs. These creatures were unknown to the various races of the underworld. Only the black elves knew anything about them. In all of their campaigning with the Warlord in the caverns of the Deep they had never come across such vile beasts. Only months ago at the outset of their journey to the surface world were the mysterious slogs added to their hosts.

  Hours later trains of stupefied goblins chained on to another were marched out of the mountain. The entire city of Mount Zoab was taken and left empty. This campaign was not an occupation.

  "Fire the lift, marshal."

  Obeying the hornhulk general, the seige engine brigade marshal, a small pigmy goblin wearing a flat iron helm with eye holes, barked a gutteral order at the other pagai grouped around a lever attached to a scaffold contraption with high-tension springs holding a bladder. A pigmy goblin reached up and hung from the lever, followed by two more. When a forth joined them the lever yeilded to their combined weight. The engine shuddered launching the bladder about three hundred feet into the air where it exploded. Tens of thousands of eyes watched it shoot even higher out of the blast until it detonated into a plume of reddish light that reflected off the clouds.

  Far away a lone headhunter upon a wingmordh saw the signal and took flight from a high cliff to relay the news. Before the night was over General Hagim and Legion One would begin moving toward their next assignment.

  The designs of the Taran Warlord had begun.

  Darkfrost Peaks...Upper Mount Thokax

  Mount Thokax is believed to be the largest and tallest mountain in all of Dagothar. The cavern-filled mountain was now occupied by trollocks. Though the outside keeps were guarded the trollocks performed no maintenance other than piling up large rocks to plug crumbling walls, doorless entrances or to seal off numerous caves.

  Thokax was the ancestral home of the Nimbolc dwarves from distant times, the original race that all dwarven clans claim descent. Upper Thokax is inhabited by the trollock civilization within the ancient dwarven cavern suburbs and abandoned mines, a nasty race born long ago when the hama'kin trolls took captive hundreds of orc females in some unrecorded war. The trollocks were parasites, using only captured weapons and armor normally obtained from goblins, mountain orcs, ogres, plundered tombs. Many weilded the simplest clubs or spears they could fashion. Though lazy and unintelligent the trollocks were not stupid.

  None dared venture into Lower Mount Thokax. Things dwelt amidst the deeper Nimbolc ruins. Legends afar still claimed that Lower Thokax was haunt
ed.

  General Zulrig of Legion Two stood upon the observation platform raised by the pigmy goblin engineers.

  "Go in and exterminate the trolls. They cannot serve our ends," he commanded the black elf headhunter. The Aelvatchi lowered his visor and raised four scimitars into the air with his four arms. Lowering the two blades on the right and pointing forward, two hornback captains blew their horns. Two companies of armored underworld orcs marched into the crumbling citadel and into the mountain. The elf signalled that companies three and four were to fall in behind them.

  Zulrig was a bloodborn orc, the smaller species of hornback but what he lacked in size he made up for in brutality. His assignment was to secure Mount Thokax and locate the old abandoned undervein highways, a network of underground corridors that connected all of the former dwarf strongholds. Somehow the Warlord knew that the undervein system had fallen into disuse and was largely forgotten. A forward scout, fresh blood spatter painting his armor, approached.

  "There are prisoners, sir, er, uh, slaves. About six hundred goblins, a few ogres and a score of humans." General Zulrig's head jerked at hearing this.

  "Men?"

  "Oh, not Barad-ai, sir!", replied the orc quickly, referring to the dreaded Deep Men of Hollowrealm, a race of underworld humans hated by all. The scourge of Hollowrealm.

  "These be a wild sort, surface-dwelling kind...primitive."

  General Zulrig pondered this news. His briefing with the other generals had disclosed that this region of the surface world harbored no humans. Men were not to be found for hundreds of miles to the east.

  "Chain the slaves then."

  As General Zulrig observed from his platform along the timberline of Mount Thokax he had to avert his eyes from the bright burning piles of trollocks that the titan ogres and dusk giants dragged out of the caves. Many of the trolls faught to get out of the flames but were held down with long, fiery poles and spears. One dusk giant banged large rocks against trollock heads before tossing them onto the flaming piles. These filthy creatures were despised even in the underworld and were very hard to kill because of their unique ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue and bone.

  In the night sky the general could clearly see the heavy wingmordhs carrying their Aelvatchi riders as they led the assault of the pteragaunts against those trolls that had climbed the mountain to escape and those few gathered at cave entrances higher above along the mountain face. Deep inside Upper Thokax hundreds of umberslogs terrorized the trollocks. In blind panic many of the trolls ran right into the ranks of blade-weilding orcs, ogres and giants.

  Zulrig grinned wickedly. The umberslogs were the vanguard in this war, the spearhead. What perfect marauders! Why did we not use these wonderful beasts in the Barad-ai Wars? Where did they come from? Why is there such secrecy about them? He had wanted to ask some of his dark elf subcommanders about the slogs but this required admitting his ignorance. The hideous animals only obeyed the Aelvatchi, but as far as any other underworlders knew, the dark elves had never before had or used umberslogs. The origin of the six-legged devourers was an enigma. Where did they get them?

  While musing over this a headhunter and another dark elf, a two-armed warlock, approached and stepped up to the platform. Zulrig had not seen them appear and move toward his position. Suppressing his surprise and suspecting witchery he looked into the abyssal eyes of the dark elf mage.

  "General, a couple slogs were put down by the trollocks and a third was lost to a troll giant. Two others ventured into Lower Thokax. They have not returned."

  "Then they are lost." Both the orc general and the warlock knew of the cavernous ruins of Nimbolc far below. The vast underground city's lowest areas were accessible from the underworld's highest cave systems and many were the tales of parties disappearing when nearing too close to Lower Thokax.

  "What of the underveins?"

  "They have been located, blocked off only by loose piles of boulders that are being removed even now."

  "Good." Zulrig turned and looked down the mountain at the scouts of the two legions hidden further down by the thick forest. Legion Six was commanded by Bruik Caveraider, a minatrorc barbarian who had tamed the ferocious garbolg herd they brought with them. Legion Seven was commanded by the Undyrchief of the Grimh. The giant dwarves of Hollowrealm. The Grimh were the only race not conquered by the Warlord. They came as allies. These two hidden legions were the only ones not made up of hornback orcs and they had been given a very different assignment. They would be advancing upon the enemy from below, travelling through the long abandoned undervein highways.

  "Convey the order to withdraw. No need pursueing the trollocks. Those remaining cannot hinder legions six and seven. Provide the Undyrchief and General Caveraider escorts to the underveins. We shall camp and rest. We will march under the burning disk."

  "As you command," the warlock answered, then hesitated.

  "Have you more to report?"

  "General, the giants are disturbed. The slog-slayer, the troll giant, well, when it saw the dusk giants it offered to share the umberslog. It did not act hostile but regarded the duskim as family though we know it could kill easily one or more of them..."

  "What did they do?"

  "They are talking to him now."

  "They speak the same language?" Zulrig did not hide his surprise.

  "The dusk giants are bothered because the troll giant is kin to them, not fully troll, like the trollocks being part orc. The duskim ask that you accept the troll giant into their ranks." The dark elf paused as Zulrig thought over this. The elf did not have to tell him that this could get messy if he ordered the giants to kill the troll giant. Or put him in chains. Zulrig thought about the addition of this mighty beast to his legion. Perhaps the Warlord will be pleased.

  "Grant this for now but tell them the matter has been put to the Warlord. I will not face the Enforcer should this be a mistake." The black elf nodded and he with the headhunter departed in a wisp of dark smoke. The Warlord was feared and respected by all but everyone was terrified of the Enforcer.

  Zulrig nodded to the pigmy goblin looking up at him and then he watched as the pagai launched the signal bladder high into the sky.

  Darkfrost Peaks...Shadevale Forest

  Over a thousand hornback orcs fell back into a noisy retreat. They appeared like so many bugs passing through the colossal, wizened bristlecone pines at the edge of the valley's expansive entrance. Beneath their feet the ground shook. The valley trembled with the oncoming of enemy giants. The orcs fled in a very real panic as twenty-three timber giants rounded the bend and laid eyes on them. Seeing their quarry the timber giants roared and gnashed their teeth.

  The bronze-skinned gigantic men wore woven tunics and some carried young trees carved into massive spears. The second largest was about twenty-two feet tall and appeared to be their leader. He weilded a massive flint axe. It was larger than the biggest orc. The brown eyes and combed hair of the timber giants conveyed neatness and intelligence. But at that moment they were anything but civilized.

  And they were in trouble.

  The orcs had raided an outlying meadow assaulting a giantess at a mill. She screamed and the giants chased the orcs straight into a carefully laid ambush. At the blast of a signal horn dozens of pigmy goblin engineers waited excitedly as the hornback orcs got out of the way and took up position behind a mass of rank and file orcs in armor. All at once four and five pagai leapt up to pull down the levers to their engines with their combined weight as ogres did the same with a single immense hand. The constructions shuddered and released their iron spears, sharpened rocks and circular sawblades at the onrushing giants.

  Just as the first timber giants realized their danger dark shadows from the sky fell among them. Aelvatchi headhunters on wingmordhs led an aerial assault of hundreds of pteragaunts, a living cloud that issued death from above.

  Iron spears impaled giants in the chest, neck, thighs and one doubled over with a spear in his stomach. Two giants fell dea
d instantly from a iron bar thrust through the face and a perfect shot through the heart. Giants crumpled to the ground transfixed with the blackened iron. A giant sat down with a confused expression painting his face, half his head crushed in from the impact of a granite cube with sharpened corners. Another giant fell backward, shock and terror paralyzed across his face with a jagged-edged sawblade protruding from his chest. A rain of purple-tipped metal headed arrows and spear tips fell upon them sinking deep into necks, shoulders and arms. One giant's right foot was impaled by a javalin to the ground. He bellowed and swung at a passing wingmordh knocking a headhunter far into the trees. Overwhelmed by the violence of the sudden assault the giants bellowed loudly raising birds from their branches even thousands of feet away. As the valley filled with their cries the pagai quickly reloaded their contraptions and engines were reset.

  The largest giant jumped high into the air stunning the underworlders with the feat. He snatched a wingmordh out of the air as it tried to evade, ripping the shrieking creature in half before his feet touched back on the ground. The Aelvatchi headhunter slashed at him with three scimitars but the raging giant grabbed him tightly and bit off the dark elf's head. The headhunter's headless carcass crashed into a seige engine being reloaded. As soon as the giant stood back upon the valley floor a hammertaur with rider leapt into the air impacting against the giant's stomach knocking the wind out of him. Unable to breath, the giant still caught the wriggling hammertaur and held it fast crushing the animal and orc to death.