The Heart of Vengeance

[TGRF]

Whoops. I was supposed to post this at the beginning of May. This is why I will never be posting a chapter once every two months again.
Without further delay, I give you the last half of the last chapter:
Chapter Five
Death of the Enemy (Part Two)

Spoiler Alert!

An army presents a question: how many men will you use? The more you have behind you, the better your chances are of winning. But the more there are, the more casualties you will invariably take.
Such a question no longer existed. There was but one that needed to fight; one, indeed, that could fight, such had been the ferocity of Drelach’s raid. And since that orc’s life was over anyway, what did the question of casualties matter? What did any question matter? There was but one purpose left, one terrible goal emblazoned on Ragnak’s mind: kill Drelach. Kill the destroyer of his life.
Ragnak never knew how long it took him. Drelach’s village was a good distance away, especially on foot, but Ragnak was beyond such things as fatigue. There was nothing more he could lose, for it had all been taken from him already.
The next thing he was aware of after kneeling in his blackened house, was arriving outside Drelach’s village, and seeing the terrible shadow of the Levach overhead.
Again the flame descended, and again Ragnak endured. No cry of pain, no laugh of disregard escaped him, for he was beyond reactions. The Levach landed, thinking him finished, and Ragnak threw one of his axes, point forward, sinking it to the hilt in the beast’s eye. The Levach toppled, dead, and Drelach leapt from its back, skulls strapped to his arms, ready to do battle at last, ready for the final confrontation, the duel that would never end.
Ragnak neither frowned nor smiled. He neither bellowed his war cry nor attempted to frighten Drelach. He had come for this. He would finish it.
The two warriors clashed, their demon Hearts glowing with the strength of the combat. Arms of dark magic burst from them almost immediately as the weapons cut and slashed, crushed and sliced, opening wounds that were almost immediately healed. Wreathes of magic formed about the warriors, hiding them from view. Neither could die. Neither could win. There was only the battle.
Fatigue was not a factor. The Hearts supplied them with all the energy they needed. Similarly hunger did not matter, for the Hearts fed them magic, filling their stomachs with hate, their throats with fury. Both warriors shed enough blood for two of them, but that too was replenished instantly by the Hearts, which pumped even more of the blue substance through their veins, circulating it faster, and faster, and faster…
“Enough!” cried Drelach. He stepped back and threw his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. “Your village is gone, your army defeated, your power taken from you. Submit!”
In response, Ragnak lunged forwards, and sank his axe straight through Drelach, leaving it imbedded there. As Drelach staggered backwards, Ragnak drew back his fist, his eyes burning with all the hate of seventeen years, and smashed it, with all the force he could muster, into Drelach’s demon Heart.
The Heart shattered. Its light flickered and died as shards of it flew in every direction. Drelach was lifted off of his feet by the blow, and landed against a rock. His own Heart glowing with triumph, Ragnak advanced on Drelach, a firm determination in his eyes. He was close now, so close, to the final peace, the peace that could only come with death…
Ragnak’s fingers closed about the hilt of his axe. He wrenched it from Drelach’s body. Drelach gasped as the weapon slid through him, and blood began gushing from the wound. With no Heart to heal him, he would bleed out within the minute.
Ragnak pointed the axe at Drelach like a pronouncement of doom. “You,” he said, speaking for the first time, “have destroyed my life. You took what was good in it from me, leaving only darkness behind. Now that darkness has destroyed you.”
He wrenched his own demon Heart from his armor and held it aloft. “I no longer seek life,” he thundered, “for you have taken it from me. Know that my Heart’s last action was to bring about your death, your end. Die in that knowledge, Drelach! Die now, by my axe!”
“No!” A terrible shriek, one that even penetrated through the haze of fury and pain about Ragnak, reached his ears. For a brief moment, the Heart’s hold on his mind slipped. The voice was young, that of a girl. A shape flew past Ragnak and fell on top of Drelach.
Ragnak stumbled back. A young orc, barely more than fifteen, lay over Drelach, covering him with her own body. Tears fell down her face. “Please,” she whispered, staring up at Ragnak. “Please… don’t kill him. He’s all I have. Don’t kill my father.”
The Heart’s magic ignited at the word. Father. Ragnak had been a father once, but that privilege had been taken from him.
“Move,” he said to the girl, gesturing with his axe. His voice was calm, unhurried. This was his final act in this life. He would have it done properly.
“No… please…” whispered the girl, more tears streaming down her face. “Don’t take him… please…”
“Move,” said Ragnak calmly, “or I kill you both.”
The girl was silent, but did not move. She had been warned. Ragnak had told her what he intended to do. She had made her decision. Ragnak raised his axes, and prepared for the final blow.
Ragnak hesitated. Despite everything, he hated to have to end her life as well. He had done such things in the past, but he still hated to do them. They seemed so pointless, so wrong. Shoving his thoughts aside, he tightened his grip on his axes. “This is your last chance,” he said. “Move. Please.”
The girl looked up at him. “No,” she said, and Ragnak was surprised to hear that her voice was quite as calm as his own. “Don’t you understand? It’s not about me, it’s about my father. It’s not about my life, it’s about his. I will not move.”
The words came rushing back to Ragnak. It’s not about me.
Kira.

Ragnak’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground. The axe slipped from his grasp, but he did not pick it up. For the first time in seventeen years, tears spilled from his eyes as the full weight of Kira’s loss crashed over him.
“For your daughter, Drelach,” Ragnak said, his voice thick, “will I spare you. For her love, will I let you live. I have caused enough pain and misery in my life. I will cause no more.” He held the demon Heart close to Drelach. Magic burst from it, and immediately healed his injuries.
The demon Heart flared brightly, angrily, dangerously. Ragnak felt a surge of anger, a burst of his old hatred, a burning desire to slay Drelach. But he quelled it. He had done enough. Instead, he turned eyes full of anger upon his Heart.
“And you,” he said, speaking to its depths as it flickered ominously at him. “You have enabled me to fill my life with revenge. Always you have given me the strength to carry out my darkest desire. If it weren’t for you, Grimnak would still be alive. This terrible burden you have enabled me to bring upon myself would not exist. If it weren’t for you, Aderra and Kira would be by my side. If it weren’t for you, my life would be whole, not in pieces.
“No longer will you give me the strength to carry out my hatred. Without your magic, I will be unable to have revenge. Perhaps then, peace shall find me.”
The Heart burst with magic, its arms seeking Ragnak’s face, knowing what he was about to do. But Ragnak was too quick. He closed his fist, and with a terrible splintering, the Heart flickered once, feebly, and then died. Instantly pain washed over Ragnak as the Heart’s magic left him.
“Your father’s life has been spared,” he whispered to the young girl at his feet. “Promise me but one thing: never seek vengeance. Show kindness, do not spread misery. Forgive.”
The girl nodded once, fresh tears staining her face. She silently formed the words, “Thank you.”

“Father!”
That cry Ragnak knew. His head jerked up, searching for its source. There, running from Drelach’s village, whole and uninjured, was Kira.
“Father!” she cried.
Ragnak was too stunned to speak. It was as if the sun had suddenly risen within him, flooding him with life-giving light. He caught Kira as she flung herself into his hug. And in that moment, in that second of happiness, the pain lifted. The loss remained, but Ragnak could bear it. Forgiveness had done what vengeance never could. He was free.
Kira pried herself away from his embrace and turned a shining countenance to him. “Drelach wanted to kill me, father. He wanted to hurt you. But Melak said no. He remembered what I had done. He convinced Drelach to keep me alive. It is because of him I am still here.”
But Ragnak just hugged her tighter. He knew why she was still here.

It was because of forgiveness.

And so ends the Heart of Vengeance

~TGRF.

[William099]

Nice ending

[TGRF]

The Heart of Vengeance was difficult to write. So difficult that it almost never happened. As I said in the author's note, Bigga redefined the entire book when I sent him a failed copy of the first chapter.

As an author, there are always a lot of failed first attempts before I hit on the right way to write something. Looking through my files tonight, I happened across those first attempts. I had completely forgotten about them.

They reveal how I was going to tie Ragnak to LBV and Dilmir. They tell (or at least start) the untold tale of Ragnak on Valhalla. Three times, oddly. They show forgotten scenes of how things might have happened on Grut. And one in particular shows a totally different Ragnak, with a different family, and a different life.

These attempts were never edited by Bigga, so mistakes abound. Three of them seem to be only slightly different versions of the same chapter. But I'd still like to post them. Failed or not, they are still something I wrote to share with others. I would like to share them now.

I will have to ascertain that they are suitable for posting and not simply duplicates of each other, but once I have, I'll put them here for you to view at your leisure.

~TGRF.

EDIT: I also have several first attempts for Apocalypse, one of which lasted for four chapters. Whether those are of high enough quality to post though, remains to be seen.

[William099]

Sweet I look forward to it

[TheAverageFan]

I second that. More writing available to the public = good.

~TAF, who really needs to get back to writing but has been too busy penning his first DM campaign in d&d

[TGRF]

So to put it bluntly, the Ragnak drafts are a big mess. I was really struggling with the first chapter, and wrote it four times. And it's not a short chapter either, so it's difficult to tell at a glance what is the same and what is different. I don't want to post four versions of the same thing.

So I'm going to post as I find. We open with what originally opened the fan fiction:

Recognize that which can destroy you, and never underestimate it, for the day you do is the day that it shall consume you completely.

- Saying of Nerak

That heads what was the original opening chapter.

It looks like I had a good idea of how the first chapter should unfold. I kept writing it, deciding it didn't work, and trying a new approach. There are four of those 'new approaches' one of which might be a collection of the other three. What follows is the first 'new approach', the third draft of the first chapter.

Spoiler Alert!

Ragnak hurtled around the corner. The fiend turned to him, hissing dangerously, its red eyes gleaming in the twilight. It lunged at him, its clawed hands outstretched, eager, grasping, ready to tear…
Ragnak never took his eyes from the fiend. He raised his crude sword above his head, raking the fiend for a vulnerable spot. He quickly found one at the base of the neck, and plunged forwards, his sword swinging downwards with just the right amount of force.
The kill was perfect. The fiend’s momentum carried it too far. It slid neatly onto the sword, its arms too short to harm Ragnak. He kicked it off of his blade, and with a swift whirl of the sword, beheaded it.
Another fiend leapt from the shadows, teeth locked in a savage growl, blood dripping down its fur. Ragnak spared it one look before turning on the spot and slamming his sword into its chest. The fiend stopped midair as the blade collided with it, and then fell neatly on top of the first.
The sound of nearby combat reached Ragnak’s ears. He turned, and saw another orc desperately battling three fiends. No two fiends were the same. They could be as small as rabbits or as large as dinosaurs. They could be covered in anything from fur to scales to feathers. Their weapons could be anything between teeth and claws and dark magic.
The three fiends that Ragnak now saw were fairly similar. They were all about five feet, humanoid, and covered in thick scales that seemed to ward off most blows. Ragnak noticed, however, that one had long arms that seemed to end in a razor sharp point. Another had flames curling over its body, incinerating anything it touched. The third was a sickly shade of green, and something that looked suspiciously like poison dripped from its fangs.
Next to the fiends, the orc they were battling looked extremely ordinary. She had blue skin, wore rough brown armor, and carried a crude stone club. Her eyes had the slightly hollow look of one with not quite enough to eat. She was tall and thin, but oddly muscular for her size. It was the way every orc of Grut looked.
As it so happened, however, she was not just any orc.
“Kira!” Ragnak commanded. “Duck!”
She fell to the ground so fast that for a moment Ragnak thought she had been hit. But there was no time to worry. His sword was already on its way, slicing through the air towards the fiends. It struck them all, one after the other, its momentum carrying it cleanly through them. Their heads fell to the ground, rolling grotesquely to a halt. Their bodies soon followed.
“You all right?” asked Ragnak, offering Kira a hand.
“I’m fine,” she replied, getting to her feet. She calmly brushed some of the fiend’s blood from her armor, as though having three beasts attack her was a daily practice. “You?”
Ragnak grinned. “You don’t seriously think these creatures can hurt me?”
Kira contemplated him. “No,” she said, “probably not.”
Ragnak saw the warning in an instant. Kira’s eyes moved beyond him, and then widened. Her grip on her club tightened, and she shifted her weight backwards. Ragnak ducked instantly. A moment later, Kira had swung her weapon into the head of whatever fiend was behind Ragnak. A terrible thud reached Ragnak’s ears, followed by a screech of pain, and then the sound of a body dropping to the ground.
He turned around and saw a furry creature with inch long claws, a large wound on its head steadily oozing blood onto the ground on which it lay. Another fiend. There seemed to be an endless supply of them.
“Where’s Kanett?” he asked, getting to his feet as though nothing had happened.
Kira tapped her club against the ground, ridding it of pieces of fiend. “I think she’s somewhere in the south quarter,” she said thoughtfully. “Defending the gates or something. Like that’s going to help.” She rolled her eyes. The entire village was overrun.
Ragnak thanked her, and, grinning, set off towards the gates. ‘Gates’ was a poor term for them. The entire village was surrounded by a mound of mud seven feet high. It wouldn’t stop anyone from getting in, but it would slow their approach. The only place the wall stopped was at the gates: two shabby pieces of material cobbled together from old wood, animal hides, and bones. It was a shaky contraption at best.
Ragnak encountered ten more fiends on his way, all of which he slew with varying degrees of ease. Small fiends were not much of a threat to the battle-hardened orcs. It was the larger ones that caused the most destruction.
Being attacked by fiends was not a rare occurrence. The spawn of demons seemed to exist to attack orcs. What was rare was being raided nearly twice every week. The orcs barely had time to recover from the damage of one attack before another happened. And the fiends were getting stronger. With each raid they got more and more dangerous. Even some of the small ones were becoming too much for a single orc to handle.
As it turned out, there was a very large battle going on at the gates. A gigantic fiend the size of a house was standing in the gap in the wall, flailing its fists and knocking the orcs about it every which way. Countless smaller fiends milled about its feet, trying to strike at the distracted orcs. Most of them were succeeding in causing injuries.
Ragnak had slain five fiends before they even realized he was there. Two came at him at once, spitting flames. Ragnak slammed into them, knocking them to the ground, where he quickly dispatched them. Three more charged him, and were similarly dealt with.

It is important to note that Kira was constantly changing in these drafts. She only became Ragnak's daughter in the later drafts. Previously, she was either his sister, or his love interest. Which she is in this draft remains unclear.

More will follow.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

This is the second of the 'new attempts', the fifth draft of the first chapter.

It seemed fairly well lodged in my head at this point that the answer to the failing original first chapter was simply to open with more action - preferably a raid. Action was not what I was missing, so my attempts kept failing. At least they yielded something...

Kira is not to be found in this rendition. I had stumbled across the name somewhere, and instantly knew it was perfect. Why, I know not. It just is. Love that name.

Anyway, I had recently come to the conclusion that I was using 'Kira' too much, and decided to go for a different name. I tried it out in the below. Again, exactly what the relations are, is unclear.

Spoiler Alert!

Shrill cries filled the air. Thick smoke obscured the scene. The stench of blood was everywhere.
Ragnak hurtled around the corner. Not five feet in front of him stood a terrible creature, its flaming hide flickering through the oppressive smoke, its red, ember-like eyes glowing maliciously in the half-light. It cackled when it saw him, and the flames surrounding it burned brighter.
Ragnak lunged at the creature with all the speed and focus of a loosed arrow. He slammed into it, his sword striking it squarely in its flaming chest, knocking it to the ground with the force of the blow. He gave it no time to recover, but leapt upon it, bringing his sword crashing down upon its head. The fiend went limp.
Ragnak leapt off of the creature just in time. The small flames, which before had simply been licking about it, suddenly roared to a terrible height, consuming the beast below them. In a matter of moments, all that was left of the fiend was a pile of gray ashes.
Something hissed in Ragnak’s ear. He spun around, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Another fiend, this one resembling a large, scaly snake, slammed into him, bringing its full weight against him.
Rather than resisting the attack, Ragnak allowed himself to fall to the ground. He twisted as he did so, however, and managed to roll out of the way of the snake. This had the effect that he hit the ground and tumbled to the side, while the fiend struck the hard packed earth head-on. While the snake was still struggling to recover from its mistake, Ragnak leapt to the attack, cleaving its body in two with one powerful stroke of his sword.
Such a scene was not uncommon on Grut, the Dying World. Orcs populated the land, but they were threatened nearly every day of their lives. Dinosaurs stalked the red barren rocks, attacking anything that moved. Their hides and bones provided material without which the orcs would have long died out. The ‘saurs – as the orcs called them – however, did not take kindly to being hunted. More often than not it was the orcs who ended up dead.
The ‘saurs, however, were not the most threatening predators of the planet. Lesser demons, great devils bound to the dark underworld beneath Grut, regularly attacked the orcs, apparently for no other reason than to wipe them out. Since the demons themselves were chained by a thread of darkness, they could not move beyond their lair. They spawned terrible fiends, however, which were only too glad to wreak havoc upon any orc village they encountered.
Ragnak charged another fiend which had just appeared out of the twisting smoke. All fiends were different. This one was only about five feet high, but was such a sickly shade of green that Ragnak was convinced it must be poisonous. He never found out if he was correct. The fiend toppled beneath his blade before it had even turned to face him.
Ragnak had no doubts. He knew what he was doing, and he knew why. He was fighting to defend his village and its people. He was fighting for their survival.
Ragnak turned, watching the smoke swirl about him. Any moment now, another fiend would come crashing towards him. Any moment now, he would lift his sword again, and strike another blow for his people, his clan…
The fiends had stopped coming, however. Ragnak could hear the sounds of battle about him, still raging on. Orcs screamed in pain as they fell, fiends hissed as they were slain. Arrows sped through the air, landing with a thud in their targets, toppling them. Explosions, oddly muted by the smoke, reached Ragnak’s ears as the fiends did their best to wreck his village. He had no way of knowing how the rest of the battle was going, no way of knowing if they were winning or losing.
A shrill scream sounded behind Ragnak. He spun on the spot, staring into the smoke from whence it had come. That sound was made by no fiend. It was the cry of an orc, an orc in pain, an orc in suffering, an orc Ragnak knew.
The scream came again. “Aderra,” Ragnak muttered. He knew that voice. In an instant, he lunged forwards.
The smoke clung to him, stinging his eyes, blinding him, choking the air he breathed. He stumbled forwards, trying to see. Dull flashes of light flared on either side of him, flames soared past his head, arrows thudded into the ground at his feet.
All semblance of control and power left Ragnak. He was very nearly crushed as a massive fiend, pierced by ten arrows, fell to the ground. A huge orc wielding two gigantic swords appeared before him, and just as quickly disappeared as an even larger fiend tackled him to the ground, its fangs dripping with poison eagerly in the flickering light. All was chaos about him.
The orc screamed again. Ragnak shifted his course to the left slightly, searching the smoke, willing his eyes to penetrate it, to see beyond the veil it cast.

More to come.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

It eventually dawned on me that action wasn't the answer. I still didn't know what was the answer though. I knew I wanted to write this. Something about the world of Grut had that spark that indicates there's something worth investigating, something worth writing about. I just hadn't found it yet. I decided to paint a more vivid picture of Grut, in hopes of finding that spark...

Spoiler Alert!

Violence. Pain. Death. Grut was full of them. Battles raged across its scarred face, dyeing its rocky landscape an ever-deepening shade of red. At night, the cries of the wounded and dying tore at its merciless skies. Corpses littered the ground, serving as meeting places for scavengers. Grut was not a place for the kind, the forgiving, or those with love. It knew none of these things, and gave none of them back to those that so desperately clung to life upon it.
Grut was a violent world. Orcs died every day, not merely by the tens or hundreds, but by the thousands. Most of the deaths were not caused by the orcs. Dinosaurs – called simply ‘saurs by the orcs – roamed the land, attacking anything that moved. Lesser demons spawned hordes of fiends, terrible creatures that seemed to exist to slay anything they met.
Terrible plagues ravaged the land, killing orcs and ‘saurs alike by the droves. The lack of rain had caused the vegetation to long since wither away, leaving only the toughest and most tasteless plants behind. Even the land itself split, swallowing whole villages or consuming them with lava. When the orcs weren’t threatened by their own kin, the demons or ‘saurs, or the very land upon which they lived, they were locked in a never-ending struggle to find food. They were forever on the brink of starvation, their strength kept up only by their need to survive.
Orcs were not evil. They were violent beyond comparison and loved battle, yes, but they were not evil. They could be whipped into a frenzy at the smell of blood, and beat their opponent without mercy, but they were not dark. They were simply taught that they had to fight everything and everyone in order to survive from the moment of birth. They were not evil, but it was often hard to tell the difference…

A cry of pain. A snarling voice. Ragnak slipped into the shadows of his house to listen.
“This is my home, Kira,” hissed the deadly voice of his brother, Gurak. “With mother gone, it falls to you to make the meals.”
Ragnak heard Kira whimper something.
Gurak laughed, a terrible sound that made even Ragnak shiver. “You want me to help? You want me to bring you food to make the meals with? No, Kira. I am the oldest, and I will do what I please. And at the moment, I wish to eat. You will make the meal now, or you will make it very soon and in great pain.”
Kira whispered something too quietly for Ragnak to hear. It was followed by another cry of pain and the sound of Kira falling to the floor.
“Don’t you speak to me of Ragnak!” Gurak shouted. “He brings you food because he is weak! If he were strong, he would be hunting ‘saurs and killing fiends, not gathering herbs.”
Kira spoke, and Ragnak could hear her this time. Her voice was shaking slightly, though it seemed to quaver out of anger, and not fear.

Terrible place to end, I know. Unfortunately, that is all I wrote, and I haven't the faintest idea what Kira was about to say. In this rendition, she is obviously Ragnak's sister.

Those are all of the 'new attempts'. I'll look through the drafts of the first chapter and determine what can be posted.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

In 2017, I had discovered the many drafts for this tale. Ragnak went through MANY different iterations before I finally landed on the story I wrote, and some of those drafts are pretty solid.

I was posting those drafts as I read through them, but for reasons unknown to me, I stopped in July of 2017. It's possible other fan fictions distracted me. It is not, however, because I had run out of drafts to post. There's still some good stuff I never posted, and there's no reason I shouldn't post it now, while the writing for Dilmir 4 is underway. So that's what I'll do.

Now aside from the drafts, there's some old stuff left over from the original Codex release of this fiction which may or may not have ever made it to this thread. So that will be coming too. I've already updated the demon picture in the first chapter so that it doesn't come from photobucket.

On with the drafts. The best I can tell after a quick glance through them, is that I at one point tried to format the story of Ragnak into a series of flashbacks. I then started the story three times, apparently unable to get it to come out the way I wanted. I'll post the first of those attempts below.

Some necessary background: For some reason, the idea of Ragnak always started with LBV. In that story, Utgar has all but conquered Valhalla. Jandar has fled to his final fortress in the Thaelink. Utgar's forces form up before it, preparing for the final battle.

Fair warning: the battle is never shown (what I was thinking, I know not). But Ragnak makes it through, and ends up hunting a lone survivor, an elf mage by the name of Astia. He doesn't know who won or lost. Why exactly he's hunting her isn't known - even to me at the time of writing, if I recall.

You can find the continuation of the drafts in the next post.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

The first chapter starts before the battle. The second chapter picks up after it. Fair warning: these are longer than my average chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter One
Night of the Final Battle of Valhalla, northern coast of the Dragon’s Head Sea

Spoiler Alert!

It is a fine line that separates your own survival from that of another. Know that line, respect it, and do not cross it, for life is more than mere survival.

- Saying of Nerak

“Prepare for battle!” Ragnak bellowed to the orcs milling about him. “Let’s show these soldiers of Jandar that we are as formidable as our reputation!”
Eager cries and feral snarls met these words. The orcs banged their swords against their shields, and bellowed into the cold wind. Far ahead of them, a white castle, formed out of rock and perpetual snow, loomed ever upwards, dimly gray against the black of the merciless night.
Ragnak swept a well-practiced eye over the orcs; his men. They had followed him throughout Valhalla, striking terror into the hearts of those they met. But none more so than he, Ragnak, greatest champion of Grut.
Ragnak allowed himself a moment of reflection. Greatest champion? Where would I be if it weren’t for the demon? If it weren’t for this?
Ragnak looked down, where a strange red stone was embedded deeply into his thick armor. It rested over his heart, glowing faintly. It had been there for many years now, keeping careful watch over Ragnak, and in return, he had guarded it with his life, for it was his life.
What would I be without the Heart? he thought. For the strange red stone was just that – a heart; the heart of a demon.
Suddenly, a booming voice echoed magically throughout the night sky. The voice was powerful, controlling, and possessed by a terrible righteous fury.
“Men of Utgar!” the voice of Jandar cried. “Heed my words!”
Ragnak looked up towards the castle, from whence he knew the voice came.
“Long have you fought,” Jandar shouted. “Long have you battled in a war far from your home. And for what? What is it that you fight for? This I truly ask you.
“Utgar fights for power. He cares nothing for you, or even for his own kin. If he has promised to send you all back once the war is done, then you have been deluded! His thirst for power will never be quenched. You must know this!”
“I and my soldiers fight for Valhalla. We fight for what will last. We fight for this land and its freedom, so that one day, others may walk it without the tyranny of war. We fight so that our families may be safe, and that a new generation may come, one untainted by the horrors we have seen. We fight so that our races may flourish, and not use our strengths against each other. We fight for others, and what will benefit them!
“Utgar fights only for himself. Stay loyal to him if you will, but he owes you nothing, and cares not whether you live or die. If you fight for me, I cannot guarantee you victory. But if you do die, I can guarantee that you will have fought for a cause worth defending. Choose your side wisely, for there will be no other time than now. This will be the final battle. This is the time that Valhalla’s fate shall be decided.”
A wave of muttering swept Utgar’s ranks. Ragnak watched it spread through his orcs; a ripple, starting at the castle and spreading outwards, until it evaporated in the cold waters of the Dragon’s Head Sea.
“Quiet,” he ordered his men.
They looked at him, and he nodded back. Nothing had changed. There would be no deviation from his orders.
A solitary winged figure rose into the air above the assembled army. Red skin gleaming in the frozen starlight, Utgar surveyed his forces clustered on the barren Thaelink Tundra.
“Men,” the tyrant bellowed, “let us show Jandar that no mere words can sway us from our goal. Charge now, for glory, for honor, for death, and we will take Valhalla forever! The land will be ours!”
Ragnak looked up at Utgar, far above, hovering in the air. He waited for the order.
Utgar surveyed his forces.
“Charge!” he thundered.
Ragnak smiled grimly to himself. And so it begins, he thought.

Chapter One cont'd
Thirty years previously, Grut

Spoiler Alert!

Ragnak watched his mother mutter distractedly to herself. She hadn’t been right for months now. Something inside of her, some part of her mind, had left her along with his father. And when his father had not returned, his mother had not gone back to normal.
“Ragnak,” she said suddenly, calling his name. “Ragnak, where are you?”
Ragnak got up and went to her. “I’m here, mother,” he said, kneeling before her. He took one of her soft hands in his two hard ones. “I’m here.”
She smiled at him. “Ragnak,” she said. “What do you fight for?”
This question may have seemed out of place, but in a world where fights to the death were nearly a daily event, it was quite common. The answer, no matter who gave it, was always the same.
“For others,” said Ragnak, watching her. “I fight for others, and what will benefit them, not for myself.”
His mother smiled again. “Good,” she said. “Now tell your father, he’ll be pleased to hear it.”
Ragnak got up. His mother started to speak to herself again, forever lost in the past. Ragnak sat back down again against the pole.
In reality, the pole was a gigantic rib, torn from the carcass of a fallen dinosaur. The dinosaurs, or simply ‘saurs as the orcs called them, were natural predators of Grut, the dying world.
There were six ribs in total, arranged in a circle around a blackened piece of earth, in which the charred remains of logs still smoldered. Ragnak and his family cooked their meals in this pit of ash, the only source of heat to their home.
The home itself was constructed in a fashion similar to a teepee. Long poles, dug into the ground in a large circle, rose upwards, supporting the mass of animal hides, ‘saur skins, mud, and straw that made up the walls. The inner circle of six ribs reached even higher, giving the house a somewhat flat roof, albeit with a hole in the top for smoke to escape through. Rain might have been a problem with such a hole, but it only rained on Grut once a month. Or less.
Hides, stretched taught and scrubbed to perfection, stretched between the ribs and the poles, forming small rooms. These rooms served as beds for the orcs, who all slept on the floor. The house was a place to eat, sleep, and store what little items of value the orcs had. It was nothing else.
At least from the outside. To a passing orc, it would have been a crude dwelling that leaked when it rained and would not let a breeze in when it was hot. Its floors were packed, hard, and uncomfortable to sit or sleep on. The walls were usually covered in filth despite the best attempts to clean them. At yet, if he were offered some other place to stay, Ragnak would not have taken it. This place, this jumble of skins, soot, and wood… this was home.
Ragnak’s sister, Kira, three years younger than he, appeared at his side. “How is she?” she asked quietly, indicating their mother.
“Same,” grunted Ragnak. “She still thinks father’s here. She recognizes me though,” he added, slightly defensively. He was convinced that his mother was improving.
“Maybe,” said Kira. She looked at her mother critically.
Ragnak glanced sideways at his sister. Grut was a violent world. From birth, an orc had to fight for existence. If ever once they laid down their guard, they could be killed. Killed by ‘saurs, killed by orcs, killed by volcanic eruptions – Grut never ran out of creative ways to slaughter its inhabitants. No orc had died from old age in living memory. On a good day, anywhere from ten to a hundred orcs would die a violent death. On a bad day, any number around a thousand was a good guess.
Of course, orcs could die from other things as well. Terrible plagues ravaged the land, killing orcs by the droves. The lack of rain had caused the vegetation to long since wither away, leaving only the toughest and most tasteless plants behind. Even the land itself split, swallowing whole villages or consuming them with lava. When the orcs weren’t threatened by their own kin, the demons or ‘saurs, or the very land upon which they lived, they were locked in a never ending struggle to find food. They were forever on the brink of starvation, their strength kept up only by their need to survive.
Kira was fairly pretty, but her appearance was ruined somewhat by the mud that splattered her features. She was thin, as most orcs were, and her cloths hung limply on her. Still, she was strong. Ragnak knew she could wield a blade as well as most other twelve year old orcs. After all, she had to. All orcs had to be tough to survive. If they weren’t, they would be run over in the mad dash to evade the many forms of approaching death.
“We need some more water,” Kira said, glancing at him. “We’re nearly out, and Gurak won’t get us anymore.”
“Why not?” asked Ragnak, though he thought he knew the answer.
“He’s too busy picking on orcs half his age,” said Kira cooly.
Ragnak grimaced. Orcs were constantly being attacked, not just by disease or ‘saurs, but by their own kin as well. Raids happened nearly every other week. This of course meant that they had to train to fight against other orcs. Unfortunately, this also meant that certain small orcs got singled out for target practice in the streets. Ragnak knew this. He was one of the targets.
Ragnak was not particularly small. He could actually beat most orcs his age in a fair fight. The problem was that the big orcs tended to travel around in large packs, picking on whoever looked like they would put up a fight. They liked a challenge. They just didn’t like to lose.
Ragnak got up. “I’ll get us some more water,” he said.
Kira looked up at him. “Gurak should be the one doing it. I don’t want you to have to do it.”
“Better me than you,” Ragnak said. The orcs tended to attack young males like Ragnak, but they weren’t below picking a fight with Kira either.
“Don’t worry, Kira,” Ragnak said, smiling at her. “No one’s dumb enough to attack me while I have a bucket of water with me.” It was true. The orcs had learned to leave Ragnak alone while he had a weapon, however crude it might be. Ragnak crossed to the small doorway.
“It’s before you get the water that I’m worried about,” said Kira.
“Then they’ll get what’s coming to them,” said Ragnak, turning briefly. “I’ll be fine.”
Orcs were not particularly violent by nature. Being nearly killed by five separate things a day tended to put them on edge, however. Orcs simply had to be ready, and what better way was there than practicing defending themselves? And what was it to them if their ‘defense’ happened to be slightly aggressive?
Ragnak left the house and moved down the road at a fast pace. He wasn’t particularly scared of any orcs that might try to attack him. He was becoming quite good at warding them off. What he did not want to run into, however, was Torag’s gang, which comprised nearly twenty orcs, one of which was his older brother, Gurak.
Though he still lived with them, Gurak was not like Ragnak. He saw no reason to stay at home and help his mother. He saw no reason to help Kira, who had to keep food appearing twice a day all by herself. He spent the day with Torag’s gang, or practicing with blades, or hunting ‘saurs. Ragnak disliked him. However, Gurak, being about a foot taller than he was, did not like being told what to do. Ragnak still had the bruises from the last time Gurak had been asked to get water.
It was nearly dusk. Bats skirted the tops of the orcs’ dwellings, flitting in and out of the smoke that hung over the village. Their high chirps echoed back and forth over the darkening roofs, bouncing from one end of the village to the other. Within each house he passed, each constructed similarly to his own, Ragnak could hear orcs muttering, speaking of the day’s events, the latest movements of rival clans, the possibilities of further attacks.
A foul stench hung over the entire village. Blood mingled in the air, tainting everything with its scent. A smell of rot and filth pervaded, coming mostly from the large graveyard outside the village walls. The smell of burning cloth, mingled with that of molten metal, came from the weapon houses. In places, smoke clogged the street, making Ragnak choke and shield his eyes. An orc village never truly went to sleep.
“Where are you going?”
Ragnak wheeled around. An orc had appeared beside him so silently that he might have been formed from the shadows themselves.
“Getting water,” Ragnak grunted. The orc was big, and his shoulders were blackened – likely the result of them catching fire one too many times. Ragnak could see the shadowy outlines of more orcs about him, keeping to the dark, sliding between houses as they kept them in sight.
“What do you want, Torag?” he said, keeping his voice level.
“Care to help us out with a little practice?” asked Torag in an offhand voice.
“Like I did the last twenty times?” said Ragnak. “I think I’ll pass, thanks. You’ve had enough practice.”
“You’re telling me what to do?” Torag asked, his voice lowering dangerously. Subtly was not an orc’s strong suit.
“I’m telling you to leave me alone if you have any sense, Torag, yeah.” Ragnak knew he had gone too far. However, he also knew that Torag would never leave him be. The orc was looking for the smallest of excuses to pick a fight, and all Ragnak could do was delay it or take it now. He chose to take it now.
Ragnak dropped to the ground as Torag’s fist came sailing out of the night. He slammed into Torag’s legs, sending him crashing to the ground, and was on top of him in a moment. Ragnak knew it was pointless to try to get away. He had found that out the hard way the first five times. His only hope was to get Torag to call off the attack before the rest of his group joined in.
Unfortunately, Ragnak wasn’t quite fast enough. Torag had sustained a good number of bruises, but not enough to stop six hands from clamping onto Ragnak and throwing him back on the ground.
Orcs are brutal. There was no way around it. They lived in a violent world. They did what they had to in order to survive, and sometimes a little extra. They had to fight for the right to exist. Unfortunately for them, what they fought usually fought back.
Ragnak had been attacked by large groups so many times that he was becoming quite good at dealing with them. Of course, most of those groups consisted of four or five orcs, not twenty all scrambling over each other to get at him.
Four orcs had fallen to the ground unconscious before the first blow fell on Ragnak. He was so adept at defensive fighting that he managed to turn most attacks against him into injuries on his attackers. However, not even he could turn every direction at once.
Blows started to rain down on him, first slowly, then faster and faster. The orcs struck him, and then leapt back before he could retaliate, learning quickly to strike from behind and stay away from his long arms. In return, Ragnak learned to duck at odd moments and throw punches beneath the orcs’ guards. However, he could not last forever.
Fortunately, he did not have to. Torag had sustained a rather nasty blow to one eye, and the skin about it was now bleeding profusely. Enraged at the pain, he went a step further than the rest of his group.
Swords were common scenery in Ragnak’s village. They were crude weapons, little more than sharp slabs of stone or steel with a handle attached. They were deadly though, and could cut through bone easily in the right hands. One such sword happened to be leaning against the side of a nearby house, thrown there for reasons unknown.
Torag grabbed the sword and, punching several of his own orcs out of the way, ran at Ragnak with it.
Ragnak didn’t even pause. He jabbed one orc in the stomach, struck another in the chest, sending him sprawling into his companions, and then grabbed the hilt of the sword before Torag could bring it down. He turned, slamming his back into Torag’s chest, and elbowed him in the arm. He felt Torag’s grip slacken, and his fist clenched about the sword’s handle.
The other orcs instantly backed away. Ragnak prompted those that were slower by ramming them on the head with the handle. With the possible exception of Torag, none of them were aiming to kill.
Torag, crazed by the blood in his eyes and his pain, rushed headlong at Ragnak. This proved to be a mistake. Ragnak kicked him in the stomach, and then flew forward and brought the flat of the blade down on Torag’s head.
Torag fell to the ground, dazed. Ragnak knelt over him, tilting the sword until its tip touched his throat.
Ragnak was breathing rapidly, and, despite his injuries, he felt a maniacal glee in the fight. All orcs did. For whatever reason, they loved fighting. Orcs, ‘saurs, demons, it made no difference as long as they were an enemy. This time, however, Ragnak felt something else.
He looked down at Torag’s beaten face, into his defiant eyes, which he noticed for the first time were a clear shade of dark gray. In them he saw something he had never seen there before: fear.
It took Ragnak a moment to realize that Torag was afraid of him, afraid of the blade he held against his throat. Ragnak pressed it closer, and saw the fear intensify. “I could kill you, Torag,” he whispered to him. Torag’s lips twitched, but he seemed incapable of speech. “I could kill you right here. Then you’d stop bothering me. Perhaps I should.”
Ragnak twisted the blade slightly. He knew where to strike. He knew how much pressure to apply to the blade. He knew what organs he would destroy. He knew how fast or slow Torag would die. He knew how much pain he would be in.
But he didn’t do it. He gazed at Torag for a while longer, and then got up, throwing the blade aside. “Leave me alone, Torag,” he said, glaring at him. “And Kira too. Leave me and my family be.”
After a second, Torag nodded, painfully, slowly.
Ragnak glared at the assembled orcs, and then pushed through them. His heart was still beating rapidly as he stumbled through the shadows towards the wells. Torag and his gang had their reasons, of course. They weren’t the only ones attacking people. It wasn’t a very nice practice, true, but it did work. Nearly all of the famous orcs had been targets when they were young. Maybe not Grimnak, rich and powerful, sitting unconcernedly on his throne far away, dictating their lives for them. Ragnak felt a surge of hate against Grimnak, chieftain of the clan.
He remembered holding the sword to Torag’s throat, and thought with satisfaction how it would feel to do that to Grimnak. To hold that kind of power over him, to see that same fear in his eyes, fear of him, Ragnak…
Ragnak collected a bucketful of water from the well and started back. He didn’t really hold anything against Torag. They picked on him just as often as they picked on anyone else. They only wanted to fight him because they knew he would fight back, because they knew he was a challenge, because they respected his skill.
Picking on Kira, though, was something he wouldn’t stand for. She could defend herself, but not against twenty of them. Ragnak remembered the feel of the sword in his hands. Had he seriously considered using it? Had he?
If they stay away from us, he thought savagely, it will have been worth it. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what I’ll do. And it worked, didn’t it? They won’t bother us now.
Had he been right to use the sword, though? Had he been right to threaten Torag’s life? “For others,” he had said, not long ago. “I fight for others, and what will benefit them, not myself.” He believed it, as did all orcs. They were surrounded by death too much not to.
Ragnak frowned. Why had he threatened Torag then? To defend Kira? To stop the attacks on himself? No, not really. If he was honest with himself… he had wanted to punish Torag for the pain he had caused. He had wanted to hurt him, not for others, but for himself.
It worked though, he thought. It worked, and I doubt anything else would have.
As Ragnak walked back up the street, the bucket of water swinging heavily by his side, he decided that perhaps fighting for himself wasn’t so bad. After all, why would he fight for others when he could fight for himself, his own survival? What was there to gain out of it?
Ragnak was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn’t notice he had made it back until he passed the house. Kira’s voice was the only thing that brought him back to the present.
“Ragnak?” she said, standing in the doorway.
Ragnak recollected where he was, and turned back to her. “I brought the water,” he said, holding it up.
Kira was not looking at the water however. “They found you, didn’t they?” she asked, surveying him. “Torag.”
For the first time, Ragnak became aware that he was bleeding from several cuts. He was mildly surprised to find blood running down his arm. “Oh,” he said, rather blankly. “Yes, they did. Don’t worry though,” he added hastily at Kira’s expression. “They’ll leave us alone from now on.”
She asked no questions, but brought him inside. Ragnak didn’t tell her how he knew they would be left alone. It was enough to know that it was true. That he, his sister, and his mother, were all safe.
At least for now.

[TGRF]

Chapter Two? (There are no chapter divisions for some reason...)
One day after the Final Battle, Thaelink Tundra

Spoiler Alert!

Recognize that which can destroy you, and never underestimate it, for the day you do is the day that it shall consume you completely.

- Saying of Nerak

Snow swirled about Ragnak. The world was a shifting field of white against black, blinding him to all else. Silence pressed in on him, disturbed only by the rhythmic sound of his own feet crunching in the snow.
Cold air battered against him, stinging what little of his face was exposed. Most of him was covered by plate upon plate of bony armor, parts of it even creeping half way up his head, covering his nose and mouth.
A faint flicker flared momentarily in the blackness. It was far away, a solitary burst of flame in the night against the white of the Tundra. But it was enough.
Ragnak surged forwards, quickening his pace. He was getting close. The elf wizard, the one called Astia, was getting slower. He had to find her before she disappeared into the perpetual snow.
The air whipped against him, bringing the elf’s scent with it. Ragnak searched the velvety blackness before him with all the precision of a trained hunter. Somewhere out there, half frozen, still struggling to escape from him, was the elf. Ragnak knew she would not get far. He would find her.
Of course, Astia was not the only one that was half frozen. White frost clung to Ragnak, numbing his fingers and even penetrating his armor in places. There were times when he could barely keep moving forward. It was times like that, when the cold had nearly overcome him, that the demon Heart in his chest acted.
With a surge of heat, a tendril of dark magic burst from the Heart, targeting all the frozen places on Ragnak. The frost withered away under the attack, and the magic healed Ragnak’s skin from the cold, heating his blood, fortifying him against the snow. Without the Heart, he would have long since stumbled to a halt and been seen no more, a mere lump in this vast tundra. But Ragnak was no ordinary orc. He was one of the few ever to possess such a Heart. He remembered clearly how he had attained it…

Chapter Two cont'd
Twenty-eight years previously, Grut

Spoiler Alert!

Another limp body fell beneath Ragnak’s blade. He leapt over it and sank his sword into another. It, too, fell to the ground.
An insubstantial ball of darkness appeared in the air twenty feet before Ragnak and flew at him. He dove to the ground just in time. The globe of shadow struck a house behind him, slamming through the walls and bursting into black flames. The house promptly exploded.
A fiend attack was no time to remain on the ground. There were two choices: flee and hope you got out of the way, or stay and defend your home and family. Ragnak, as it turned out, had found a third option: be the hero that saves the entire village. Unfortunately, he was having trouble attaining his goal.
Another fiend leapt at him. Ragnak surged to his feet and slammed his sword into the fiend, knocking it upwards. The fel creature sagged limply on his blade, and then dissolved into shadow.
‘Saurs were not the only predators of Grut. The land was home to venomous lizards, poisonous snakes, and a host of other creatures capable of easily bringing down a full grown orc. The most fearsome predators by far, however, were the demons.
Greater demons were mere legends, said to be as tall as a mountains. None had been seen for hundreds of years. Lesser demons, however, were quite common. They were chained to the dark below the surface of Grut, and so could not roam the land at will. However, they spawned all manner of foul creatures to carry out their will for them. These creatures, which came in all shapes and sizes, were fiends. Though most were easily slain, some were particularly dangerous.
“Attack!” Ragnak roared to no one in particular. He caught sight of another fiend, this one wielding balls of fire, and ran towards it. Two orcs came around the corner of a house, however, and got there first. It was lucky they did. At least for Ragnak.
The fiend was similar in shape to a thin and short orc, if such a thing can be imagined. Its skin seemed to be a roiling mass of flames, its eyes two darkened shards of molten rock. Its hands were clawed with twisting shadows, and smoke billowed from its back.
It turned as the two orcs charged it, and drew its hand back, as if to throw something at them. The next moment, both orcs had fallen, struck down by a lance of flame. The fiend cast another twisting tongue of fire at the building they had issued from, as if for good measure.
Ragnak got behind a house just in time. The bolt of fire that the fiend cast at him narrowly missed his head. He rolled to one side, in case the fiend decided to blast apart the house, and crouched behind a small rock.
There was no time to remain still. Ragnak looked out from behind the rock, trying to judge the distance to the fiend. It had turned the other way and was now bombarding a group of fleeing orcs.
Ragnak saw that both of the orcs that had just attacked the fiend had dropped their swords. They now lay, tantalizingly close, between him and his foe. He knew he would never be able to cross that distance, grab the swords, and catch the fiend unawares. It needed to be distracted, to be threatened. Something needed to hold its attention. That something happened to be Kira.
Ragnak’s sister, now fifteen, seemed to materialize fifty feet in front of the fiend. In less than a second, she had loosed an arrow at it. The shaft sped straight, and smote the creature in the center of its flaming head. And then it passed straight through.
Most female orcs became archers. The reason was that they were generally lighter, and could so get out of the way easier than the men, who usually did not want to leave the battle anyway.
Kira whipped behind a house just as the fiend shot a bolt of flame at her. The fire struck the side of the house, which quickly burst into flames. Apparently satisfied, the fiend turned back to the large group of fleeing orcs.
Kira leapt back out from behind the building and loosed another arrow at the beast. The bolt went wide by three inches. In that time, however, Ragnak caught Kira’s eye, and saw that she understood what he needed. She rolled back into cover as the fiend angrily turned back to her.
Ragnak, crouching, vaulted over the rock and knelt behind the house. He would have only one chance. The fiend was too far from the house for him to avoid it if he had to. If he missed, it would all be over in a few seconds.
For a third time, Kira leapt from behind the burning house. Unfortunately, this time the fiend was ready for her. The second she appeared, a blast of flame struck her in the face. With a cry of pain, she fell backwards, struggling to get back behind the house. The fiend let loose another bolt at her.
Ragnak did not see if the fire struck or not. The instant Kira appeared, he had launched himself forwards, scooping up both swords as he ran headlong at the fiend. He swung the blades up as he approached his target, and then brought them down with all the strength he could muster.
They landed squarely on the fiend’s shoulders. The creature slammed into the ground, but then Ragnak’s blades passed straight through it. It turned a flaming visage on Ragnak. Ragnak knew enough not to stand directly in front of it. At least not while it was looking at him. Thinking fast, he did the only thing that occurred to him: he kicked the beast in the head.
With a terrible shriek, the fiend leapt backwards, sparks issuing from its head like blood. Its eyes seemed to grow brighter with hate as it looked at Ragnak, and its swept its hands towards him, flames boiling within them.
Ragnak leapt at it, lunging forward with his swords. They both found their mark, one after the other, and the fiend fell shakily to the ground, its flames withering.
Ragnak gave it no time to recover. He leapt atop it, which he quickly realized was a very bad idea. Heat went straight through his shoes and burned his feet. He slammed one sword into the fiend to keep it down, and then quickly leapt off of it.
The creature reared up, sparks now coming from its back as well, ready to strike Ragnak. It was then that an arrow sprouted from its left shoulder. Kira had returned to the fight. Unfortunately, the fiend paid the arrow no mind, and flung one massive clawed hand at Ragnak’s head anyway.
Ragnak leaned back as far as he could, but it wasn’t quite far enough. One claw left a deep gash in his head. Blood began to run from it immediately. Ragnak shifted his weight downwards, and swung up with his sword. The heavy blade slammed into the fiend’s lower jaw, the force carrying it off of its feet.
The creature howled with pain as it fell back down. Ragnak followed up with a blow to the neck, which would have instantly decapitated any orc. He dealt a similar blow with his other sword, and at last the fiend was still.
If one had thought that the battle was then over, they would be wrong. Just as Kira came limping out from behind the house, a new attack began. A black ball of churning smoke and flame suddenly appeared speeding through the sky. It struck the house Kira had been hiding behind, and exploded. The force was so great that Kira was knocked off of her feet and flung forwards.
Ragnak knew that such force could be deadly. He crouched as the explosion swept over him, and then hastily looked up, searching for Kira. He didn’t have far to look.
Kira lay on the ground, about twenty feet away, very still. Ragnak could see a large pool of blood already forming below her. It was impossible to tell if it was hers, as there were so many other dead orcs nearby, but Ragnak did not like the way her limbs were positioned, or the way she was not moving in the slightest, not even breathing.
She’s just unconscious, he thought desperately as he ran to her. She’s just had the wind knocked out of her, that’s all. He did not get to find out if he was right. A whistling overhead warned him of what was approaching. He flattened himself to the ground just as another ball of flame exploded mere yards away.
As the flame and smoke washed over him, Ragnak tried to see how badly Kira was injured. He was only a foot from her body, and could see a formidable looking gash on her head. Her skin was rapidly turning red, and it had split in several places. And she was not breathing. He could see that very clearly. She was still, so still…
“Kira?” Ragnak whispered, choking on the smoke that swirled about him. He shook her slightly. “Kira?” She did not respond. Only seconds ago she had been loosing arrows, fighting with him. How could she be dead so quickly? How?
Another ball of flame exploded, and Ragnak looked up to find its source, his eyes burning. He did not have to look long.
For months now, the village had been beset by fiend attacks nearly every two weeks. Most villages were only attacked once a month, or less. The orcs barely had time to rebuild the damage done by one raid, before another occurred. Some might have wanted to leave, but they knew that this was the only place with water for twenty miles. They couldn’t simply walk into another village; it would be seen as a raid. Orcs trusted only those they knew. Everyone else was an enemy and a threat.
Since there had been so many attacks, it was therefore understandable that Ragnak was not struck speechless by what he saw. True, he had never seen a fiend as large as a house. True, he had never seen the way its ribs covered its skin, providing a sort of armor. True, he had never seen its hideous face, hidden in deep shadow and flame. But he had seen many fiends, each different. This one was simply slightly… more.
It looked very similar to an orc, save that its ribs burst from its skin and wrapped about its chest, deflecting any arrows that were launched at it. A kind of rock web seemed to incase its head, so that nothing could be seen save for its two red eyes, glowing evilly as it searched out its prey. Its arms bulged with muscles, and its feet appeared to be scaly and covered in spines. Flame trickled down it like sweat, incinerating whatever it touched. Black smoke billowed from its head, obscuring the sun. Lines of shadow writhed across its massive frame, the only signs that dark magic infested it.
As Ragnak watched, the fiend opened its mouth wide, and spat out a boiling mass of flame and smoke. The ball flew across the sky, and struck the ground, annihilating four houses at once. Ragnak convulsively clutched Kira’s arm. So that was what had caused this. This unnatural stillness, this deathlike state. Ragnak turned to Kira, and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, but no breath moved her frame. She was dead, and he knew it. He slowly turned to face his sister’s killer, the giant fiend before him.
Rage began to course through him, feeding him strength to carry out his will. He leapt up, grabbing his two swords from the ground, and ran at the beast. He was only as high as its knee.
Height is no disadvantage to an orc. Ragnak thrust the first sword deeply into the fiend’s leg, which was not as easy as it sounds. The scales were rock solid, and did not give an inch. However, neither did Ragnak’s anger. In the end, his fury won out. He swung himself up and plunged the other sword higher up in the leg. He wrenched the first out, and then began to scale the fiend with a speed that normally would have been impossible.
The beast seemed to notice Ragnak by the time he reached its chest. It tried to grab him, but only succeeded in scratching itself as Ragnak swung to one side, and continued to climb up the creature’s back. There, protected from the beast’s flailing arms, he dug one sword in, deep, searching for the spinal cord.
After a few seconds of searching, however, it became clear that the fiend did not have a spinal cord. Ragnak climbed higher, and sank his blade into the base of the beast’s skull. That seemed to do the trick.
The entire creature shuddered, and fell to its knees. Ragnak drew the blade out, and then plunged it back in. The beast shuddered again.
Everything seemed to have gone strangely quiet. All of the other fiends had fled. Ragnak was dimly aware of orcs shouting, arrows whizzing by his head. He plunged his sword into the fiend one last time, and felt it begin to fall over backwards. A deep satisfaction came over him. He had had his revenge.
A moment later, his mind kicked into gear, and Ragnak realized that the ground was rushing up to meet him. He tried to leap to safety, but he was too late. He struck the hard earth with a bone-breaking crash, and the fiend landed on top of him, exploding into a boiling mass of flame, shadow, and bones.

The nightmares came first. Billowing shadow, from which poured every fiend imaginable, their hideous faces coming closer, seeking Ragnak out. Their fangs dripped poison, the clawed hands stretched out towards him, everywhere lay the bodies of dead orcs, their blood coloring the ground.
He knelt next to Kira’s body. It was twisted, her eyes staring unseeingly into the cruel sky. Flames sprouted upon her, and he feverishly tried to beat them back. They only spread to him, consuming him with their heat, their pain…
“Ragnak.” The voice seemed to come from nowhere, or everywhere, or some place Ragnak did not know. It echoed quietly in his mind. Darkness settled over him, blotting out the terrible scenes he had conjured up.
After a time, color bloomed before him, swimming in and out of focus as he dreamed. He saw in his mind a shape, steadily becoming clearer. He tried to reach out to touch it, to discover what it was, but he found he could not move.
“Ragnak.” The voice spoke again, this time clearer. Ragnak knew that voice. He knew it very well. “Karetta,” he whispered. It was a strange name for an orc. It didn’t sound nearly harsh or rough enough. But the Karetta Ragnak knew was neither rough nor harsh. She was kind, selfless, and loving.
“Ragnak, wake up,” whispered the voice.
As if his mind had been waiting for the command, the dream ended. Ragnak opened his eyes to see that the figure bending over him was Karetta herself. He instantly became aware of two things. He was pleased that she was here, with him. He was also very aware of how close she was.
“Karetta,” he rasped, trying to sit up. “What are you doing here?”
“Making sure you don’t hurt yourself, like you will if you keep moving. You have three broken ribs.” Karetta’s voice was firm, but her eyes were kind. She gently put a hand on Ragnak’s shoulder, keeping him down.
Ragnak lay back down, becoming aware of a terrible pain in his chest. It felt like a good deal more than three ribs were broken.
“Kira?” he asked through the pain.
“She’ll live,” said Karetta, bending over him and examining his ribs critically. “She only got knocked out and winded. She’s fairly bruised, but she’ll be alright.”
Relief burst in Ragnak, washing away his pain. Kira was all right. She was going to be fine. She was not dead. And then the pain forced itself again upon Ragnak’s mind.
By a thorough questioning of Karetta, Ragnak found out that the fiends had indeed fled when the giant, their leader, had fallen. Unfortunately, they had already wrecked over half of the village, and slain over a hundred orcs. Houses still smoldered, smoke wafted through the streets, and the dead and dying were everywhere. It didn’t feel as though they had won.
Five more raids occurred before Ragnak could get up. Fortunately, his home was at the farthest edge of the village, and so escaped most of the destruction. With each raid, he tried to get up, but each time he fell back to his bed, his chest aching painfully.
Kira recovered faster than Ragnak. She had suffered more permanent damage than a few bruises, however, and could no longer fight as she used to. She cared for Ragnak as best she could, but she couldn’t carry water all the way across the village, or collect the ‘saur meat that they ate. Karetta did those things instead. Her entire family had been slain in the fiend attack, and her home demolished. Therefore, she lived in Ragnak’s home, caring for him and his mother, whose strength lessened daily, and helping Kira to keep them from starving.
It was two months before Ragnak could walk again without pain. In that time, the fiend attacks had only increased in intensity. Once there was an attack nearly every day, it was obvious that something had to be done. No matter how many fiends were slain, more always came. With each attack, they became stronger, bolder, and more dangerous. Every orc knew there was only one explanation for what was happening: a Lesser demon was somewhere near the village, spawning wave after wave of fiends, trying to slay all the orcs it could. There was only one thing to be done: The demon had to be found, and slain.
Finding the demon was not a problem. It was quickly located in a dry river bed, issuing clouds of black and gray smoke into the skies. Killing it was slightly more difficult.
Though fiends were easily slain, all demons had a Heart. A demon Heart was an object of terrible magic. It healed whoever possessed it, while at the same time bolstering their strength. It might have seemed desirable to the orcs, had it not been for the side effect of turning its owner into a battle-hungry monster. Only one orc had ever taken possession of such a heart. In his short life, he had created more misery amongst the clans than any other being ever to walk Grut. His name had been Ornak.
The only way to kill a demon was to take its Heart. Otherwise, it would simply be healed in a minutes’ time and continue to wreck its swath of destruction. Even without the Heart, demons were hardly an easy kill.

... And that's where I stopped. At least you can guess where I was headed.

What follows in my drafts folder look like two more versions of what you just read. However, they look quite different, so I'll have a look through them, and post them tomorrow if they aren't 95% duplicates.

~TGRF.

[TGRF]

I've reviewed the remaining drafts. One was short, and aside from a few paragraphs, mostly repetition. The next two are identical - or at least enough the same that I can't find any difference. They are also identical to the actual first chapter, with only minor deviations. And the final draft seems to take place at the end of the tale. It is short, disconnected from anything else, and boils down to two people talking. By far, the best items have already been posted.

There are, however, a few pictures which went with this story. I've included them below:

First, there is a map of my interpretation of Grut.

Spoiler Alert!

When I first began thinking of a story set on this world, I as usual had a ton of random disconnected worldbuilding which popped into my head. My idea was that a Greater Demon had taken up residence in the volcano in the middle of the map (super original, I know). First ideas of the story had Ragnak using his demon heart to eventually defeat this demon, possibly restoring Grut in the process.

This story was of course written for the Codex, and at that time, we had several artists in the art department who were willing to take a stab at illustrations for this story. @Wanderer999 did a fantastic job turning my crude ideas into seriously good sketches, and @Evar-Scarcarver digitized those and colored them. Below is a sketch which for some reason never made it to this thread - whether it was ever released in the Codex I can't recall. While Wanderer999 was the one doing the sketches, I have it attributed to ES on my computer, so at this point I'm unsure who drew it. But either way, here it is:

Spoiler Alert!

This picture was meant to go with the chapter in which Ragnak battles Tornak. Why it was uncolored, and why ES drew it - if indeed that's what happened - I cannot say.

There is one final picture, this one definitely drawn by W999. It features the Levach, the dragon-like mount of Drelach, rampaging Rangak's village as he watches, helpless. It too is uncolored.

Spoiler Alert!

And to cap off the full content of Ragnak, we have the cover. If I recall correctly, this was created before Ragnak was ever written for the Codex. I asked @b57123m to take a stab at designing the cover, based on a rough sketch I made. He delivered some excellent digital artwork, making an excellent representation of Ragnak. Here is the cover:

Spoiler Alert!

And that's everything! All of Ragnak's drafts and forgotten content has been posted. If you feel so inclined, let me know what you thought.

~TGRF.