Between Two Worlds

[ThatPirateGuy]

It had been a long journey. Traversing the Sword Coast had been a long, arduous task, and while he'd managed to avoid any major confrontations, it had taken its toll on him. As he approached the small caravan outside the looming bridge, he couldn't help but think back on the events that had led to his wandering so far from his home in the Spine.

Once, all had been fine, his tribe was prosperous, there had been no need to raid the pinkskins, no need for more bloodshed than what was daily life in the Spine. Gruumsh had truly smiled on them, giving them all the battle they could ever ask for against the beasts and dragons that made their home in the cold, unforgiving mountains, and a bounty of fine meat, hides, and exotic ivory to trade with the Uthgardt, who brought fine weapons and magics from the soft, honorless pinkskins of the Ten-Towns. The Uthgardt were not like the Ten-Town pinkskins, they fought bravely, and their shamans and warriors were a near-even match for the might of the Muz'grub Tribe. In such a place as the Spine, it was best not to make unnecessary enemies.

His mother had always been an unusual sort, very interested in the Uthgardt's ways, and admired their strength. She particularly admired one of their warriors, a strong, savage, mountain of a man, She'd told Grah'Thok his name many times, but the intricacies of the pinkskins speech had alway been a little beyond his faculties, and names were the hardest. He never forgot the tales though, told in the Orcish he'd grown up with.

A particularly nasty ice-dragon had taken up residence on a nearby mountaintop, and had begun to run through the local game quicker than it could replenish itself. The Uthgardt and Muz'grub had sent out their warbands, and together, they'd managed to destroy the beast, his father landing the killing blow, unfortunately, from inside the beasts gullet. When they skinned the monstrous creature, they'd found the dragons heart impaled on the butt-spike of his fathers axe. In giving himself, he'd saved both their tribes, the finest honor of all, dying for one's kin in battle against impossible odds.

As Grah'Thok grew, his physique was the best combination that the hardy Uthgardt and savage Orcish blood could provide. He easily bested the other younglings in his tribe, and put to shame several Uthgardt youth that were several winters his senior. Unfortunately, however, he'd not gotten his mothers unusually (for an orc) sharp intellect. Grah'Thok wasn't inept, he'd just no desire for the pursuits of the mind, especially when it was just so natural that he excelled at other, more important matters, such as hunting, and fending off the giants and ogres that lived in the caves a bit higher in the mountains.

One day, in his nineteenth summer, he and the other Muz'grub warriors had gone to run out a group of hobgoblins that had been poaching their gaqme and encroaching on their tribe's land. It would be the last day Grah'Thok would see his mother alive. The hobgoblins were easily routed, no match for the strength of the Muz'grub tribe, regardless of their foul magics. As the warband made its way back to the tribe's camp, they could see flashes of purple and red light illuminating the valley that they'd long called home.

The warband made haste to the village, only to find flames and cinders where their home had once been, and soon, the source was clear.

"There's the rest. So much for slaves, we can't afford to have the animals running loose while we finish this job." A tattooed pinkskin in red robes stood, surrounded by several armored shieldmen. With that phrase, he turned and released a wave of sickening energy upon the carts holding the survivors of his tribe, wilting them to dessicated corpses. The answer to this murderous insult was immediately clear to Grah'Thok, as he hoisted axe and shield high, and let out the warcry of the Muz'grub tribe. He and his fellow warriors charged the gaunt man. His shieldmen stepped to guard him, but were no match for the combined onslaught of the orcish horde. Axe and hammer rent and pounded the armored pinkskins until there was naught left but bits of bone and flesh dripping out of dented, torn pieces of broken armor.

With a flash of blinding blue light, Grah'Thok found himself held high in the air by a a crushing fist, slowly squeezing the air from his lungs. He watched from his vantage point as axe, arrow, and hammer bounced harmlessly from the pinkskin's magic protections. The pink skin became redder and redder as the mage chanted, and with a final incant, and a subtle gesture, a burst of flame emanated from the red-robed murderer, washing over all that remained of his tribe, his family, everything he had ever cared for.

He found himself struggling for breath as the hand brought him in front of the mage.

"And you, half-blood, I think will die soon enough on your own..." And with a flick of the wrist, the wizard sent Grah'Thok flying over the treeline.

...........

He'd awoke, days later, broken and battered from the fall, his ribs crushed by the mage's spell, in the yurt of the Uthgardt shaman.

"Huskarlsson, you wake..." the wizened old man muttered, sprinkling some unknown powder into a brewing cauldron. The smoke turned a eerie purple, and displayed the tattooed face of his tribe's killer. "You live for a reason, Huskarlsson. The spirits have chosen you, and you will do their task, this is not a choice for you to make, but a duty to fulfill." The mystic waved his hand through the smoke, and it swirled again, this time forming a great bridge over a coastal inlet, far to the south. "This killer, the man that would take your proud tribe as slaves, and slaughter your brothers-in-arms, will return one day to the Spine of the World, and when he returns, it will not be for slaves. He is a greedy, petty man, who cares for nothing other than his own power. He will return to awaken a great force beneath the Spine, one that has the power to break the veil that seperates the Spirits and the living. He does not know it yet, but the Spirits led him to let you live, so that you may lead your tribe against him.."

"I HAB NO TRIBE!!!" Grah'Thok roared, wincing in pain as his broken ribs dug against the softer bits inside. For the first time in his life, he felt completely alone...

"That, dear Huskarlsson, is wrong..." The shaman replied, a slight grin on his face. He unfolded a sheaf of furs, inside, a large axe, encrusted in blood, its butt-spike cold to the touch... "This was your fathers, and his fathers before him. It carries the blood of many Uthgardt battles, and has never seen defeat..."

Grah'Thok sat up, feeling the bone in his chest scraping against itself. "I take yous axe, an' I kill da Tattoo-man... but I do dat for Muz'grub tribe, not for da Uthgardt..." He tried, and failed, to look tough and apathetic, but the stories of this very axe swirled in his head...

"No, Huskarlsson, you do this for all of us...." The mystic said, matter-of-factly, as something in his chest popped, and Grah'Thok succumbed to the pain..