The first thing Ragnak wanted to do when he woke nearly a day later was fight, punch, and kick every part of Grimnak he could reach. However, Grimnak was gone, returned to his village, and the face that swam into focus over Ragnak made all thought of violence leave his mind.
“Stay still,” whispered the face, bending over him. “You have too many injuries to count, and every one of them is trying to kill you.”
Ragnak leaned back, for he had begun to get up. His entire body ached, and he was bruised both inside and out. His pain was nothing to the near terror that consumed him, however. “Aderra,” he whispered, searching the face of the orc that was tending to him. “My father… is he…”
He had only to look at her face to see the answer. He was gone. Grimnak had taken the last of his family from him.
Over the next three months, rage as Ragnak had never known burned inside of him. Aderra, an orc he had known for nearly five years, tried to comfort him. However, comfort was not what he needed. He sought vengeance. Grimnak might be more powerful, but he would never win, not as long as Ragnak drew breath.
The rest of his village paid what Grimnak demanded, but Ragnak refused to contribute his share. He glared at the guards that collected the tribute, daring them to make him do otherwise. It was a sign of how well he had fought that Grimnak did not return to press the matter.
Ragnak fell into an endless cycle of training with all manner of weapons. The loss Grimnak had inflicted upon him went too deep to ever heal completely. Nearly every night, he woke up gripping invisible weapons, the image of his father’s death haunting him. Each training session ended with him dissolving into a rage, battering aside his opponent’s defenses, imagining each blow to be aimed against Grimnak. His only hope, the only way he would ever be able to live again, would be if he became better than Grimnak; if he could slay him in combat.
After nearly five months of ceaseless practice, Ragnak challenged the guards that were sent to collect the tribute. He slew three of them, leaving the fourth alive, so that he could bring word to Grimnak.
Grimnak came then, as Ragnak had known he would. But when he came, he was even more formidable than he had been. He defeated Ragnak again, and left the ground dyed with his blood, laughing. It was true – the champion of Theranock could not be defeated.
There was only one way Ragnak would be able to slay Grimnak now, only one way he could ever avenge his father. Most orcs would not choose the only path that was left. Most orcs would turn aside and surrender, rather than face what awaited them.
Ragnak was not most orcs.
It was a humid and cloudy day when he set out, four months later, finally healed from his last encounter with Grimnak. Ragnak journeyed for a night and two days, stopping only when the darkness forced him to. He would have willingly continued on in the dark, if it weren’t for the fact that more predators were out at night, including the formidable swog, a terrible mountain cat capable of easily killing an orc.
The evening of the second day found Ragnak at his destination. Or, more properly, the entrance to his destination. A long and narrow canyon stretched before him, its floors cool and sheltered by the sheer walls that rose on either side. The canyon sloped steeply into the earth, looking like a giant crack in the endless rock of Grut. Ragnak was not quite foolish enough to enter the canyon at twilight, and instead made camp at the entrance.
He entered the crack the next morning. Everything was silent as he walked. Even the air was unnaturally still, as if it were holding its breath. Several times Ragnak thought he heard sounds – the scuffling of feet, the rapid draw of breath, a faint hiss – but every time he looked, he saw nothing. The canyon was devoid of life.
Or so it seemed. Ragnak knew that this silent place was in fact the home of a lesser demon. The canyon he walked along was one of several, all of which stretched out like the legs of a spider, the central location being where the demon lay, spawning fiends.
Fiends – devils that seemed to exist to slay orcs - were not what Ragnak was after, however. It was the demon that he sought. Unfortunately, going after a lesser demon was near suicide.
Every demon possessed a Heart. The Heart resided within its chest, an oddly hard, crystal-like rock, pulsing with dark magic. It was this Heart that made demons so formidable. A demon was not difficult to wound. The problem was that the Heart would immediately send out a tendril of dark magic which instantly healed the demon, renewing its strength and returning it to the battle good as new. The longer the encounter went on, the more tired the orc became, until the demon finally killed him.
Of course, one could simply retreat. All lesser demons were chained to the dark below Grut, and could only move a few feet in all directions. However, once they had been attacked, they spawned armies of fiends that tracked down the orc and slew him within minutes. Once an attack had been made, either the demon or the orc would die.
There was only one reason Ragnak would challenge such a creature. If he could gain the Heart, he would become invincible. No matter how wounded he was, he would always be healed to perfection, fueled to return to battle by its magic. If he could win the Heart, he could slay Grimnak. Then, at last, his mind would have peace. At last, the wound left by his father’s death could begin to heal.
The canyon did not take long to traverse. It was barely midday by the time Ragnak turned a corner, and the silence seemed to intensify. He stopped dead, listening. He heard the sound of deep, slow breathing, coming from just ahead. His quarry was just around the next bend.
Ragnak knew enough about demons to know that his prey was not sleeping. Demons never slept. They were not natural creatures, and so were not bound to the laws of the natural world. Most likely, the lesser demon was resting, gathering its strength to spawn another horde of fiends.
Very quietly, so as to not alert the demon to his presence, Ragnak unstrapped his sword from his back. It was the same heavy weapon he had fought Grimnak with nearly a year ago. He might have preferred a better crafted weapon, but Grimnak had robbed his village of all but the meanest tools. The edge was rough, and better suited to crushing rather than slicing. It was plenty capable of inflicting injury, though.
Ragnak peered around the corner, holding his breath, ready to snap his head back in a moment. A terrible smell smote him in the face, its taste cold with watery decay. He stumbled backward and quickly moved back behind the corner. One glance had been enough.
The demon was there, barely ten feet away from him. As he had suspected, it was resting, steadily watching the northern canyon for any sign of intruders. It had its back to him.
Every demon was different. This one resembled a very large, very fat crab. The demon had ten legs, each bony and pointed. They very closely resembled swords resting point down on the ground. Sharp spikes jutted up at regular intervals along them, looking only too capable of rending flesh. A razor sharp slab burst from each leg just below the knee. One strike from them and Ragnak could lose an arm.
The demon sat atop a large hole; a hole which, Ragnak knew, led straight down into the evil dark beneath Grut. Smoke billowed up through the hole, obscuring most of the demon’s body. Only six ribs, barbed like the legs and a poisonous looking shade of red, could be seen through its dark clouds. The demon’s head was turned away from Ragnak, but what he had seen of it was mottled red and black, like something diseased.
Ragnak took a breath. He called up the image that had sustained him through the past year, the one that had kept him going through every trial. A terrible rage took possession of him as he saw, once again, his father’s face looking at him, and his blood pooling beneath him.
For him, he thought. Ragnak gripped his sword very hard, and stepped out from behind the corner.
Launching himself from a small outcropping of rock, he leapt into the air. His blade whistled above him as he sped towards the demon, his eyes focused, his will unbreakable, as silent and deadly as a trained assassin…
He made contact half a second later and sank his blade into the back of the demon. The creature let loose a terrible roar which could be heard for miles and reared up on its back four legs, furiously twisting around to get at him.
Ragnak hung on by the hilt of his sword, which had sunk deeply into the demon’s back. He worked it deeper in as he gained his footing, pulling himself up. The demon howled in rage and pain as it turned about. He had to get to the Heart. For his father.
WHAM! One bony leg connected painfully with Ragnak’s shoulder. The bone just below the knee cut deeply, severing muscles with ease. He wrenched away from the leg, and was just as quickly caught by another.
This one struck him in the side, the tip penetrating deep, causing devastating damage to his organs. Ragnak knew he had but one chance to come out of this alive, and that the chance was resting in the center of the demon’s chest.
Working his sword loose, he crept towards the demon’s thrashing head, even as more legs struck the air above him, seeking to embed themselves in his chest.
He reached the head and looked down. Sure enough, easily seen through the smoke, was the demon’s red Heart, glowing feverishly through the darkness, the only thing that could help him slay Grimnak. It was protected by the six ribs, which circled in front of it like the arms of a protective mother.
That’s ironic, thought Ragnak in a disjointed way as another leg made contact, sinking deep into his back. He rolled away from the leg, which only made the wound worse, and slammed his sword into it. The leg did not snap. In fact, the most damage that Ragnak might have done to it was to nick it. The bone was harder even than rock.
With a sudden jolt, the demon lurched forwards. Ragnak, caught by surprise, was flung to the ground. He had the presence of mind to roll away as the demon lunged after him, its pointed legs eagerly striking at the ground as he fled from it.
He came up in front of it, mere feet from the Heart. He could see the Heart pulsing with dark energy, calling to him, urging him to take it, guarded jealously by the demon. He raised his sword on high, and brought it down on the middle two ribs. They broke with a report like a ’saur’s jaws snapping shut. The Heart, however, remained firmly fixed in the demon’s chest.
A leg came out of nowhere and struck Ragnak in the stomach. It lifted him off of his feet as it slid straight through, completing the damage done by the wound to his side. Ragnak’s vision began to fail as he slid off of the leg and onto the ground. He staggered to one knee, his hand outstretched, grasping for the Heart, the only thing that could save him now…
Far above him, oddly muted as if through water, the demon was screaming in rage and pain, stamping about, trying to finish him off… The smoke was blinding him, stinging his eyes, choking him… sweat and the demon’s stench were stinging in his wounds, blood was softening the ground beneath him… his father was before his eyes, Grimnak grinding a dagger ever deeper into his chest… and then, quite suddenly, Ragnak’s fingers closed about something small, warm, and somehow, someway… alive.
Energy shot through Ragnak painfully, forcing his eyes open. The sensations of pain were roughly shoved to the back of his mind as a terrible force took hold of him. The Heart he held, only about the size of his hand, suddenly flashed with a dangerous light that seemed to both blind and transfix him at the same time. Tendrils of dark magic, black like shadow and red like the dying sun, burst from it, their power flowing into his wounds, healing them, reknitting his flesh, kindling his anger.
His vision sharpened, his strength returned, and his fury ignited. Gripping his sword firmly about the hilt, Ragnak lunged forwards, driving the blade into the demon, deep into the cavity where the Heart had rested.
The demon writhed and screamed in agony. Its legs pierced Ragnak again and again, but he merely laughed as the Heart he held healed him over and over. The demon fell to the ground, its shape dissolving into black liquid, which slowly oozed towards the hole in the ground, falling back into the pit from whence it had come.
Ragnak looked down at his trophy. The Heart was his. He would soon have his vengeance.
