Before I start we need some explaning.
This story is based on Warhammer. If you don't know what it is, it's a popular tabletop minatures game. The main character of this story is a Dwarf, one of the many races that inhabit the "Warhammer world". He is also a Slayer. A Slayer is a Dwarf, whom, having been shamed or dishonored (ie: unable to fufill an oath, suffered a grevious personal loss), and simply cannot bear the weight of the happening, they take the oath of a Slayer. They shave their hair into a mowhawk, dye it a bloody red-orange, and leave home to find their glorious doom against some horrible monster to make up for their sin.
Heres a pic of a Slayer:
Also, note that a rememberer is someone who goes along with a Slayer to record their doom, lest they be forgotten.
That's everything. Enjoy.
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The snow bit deep into my eyes as I walked. The noise of the
wind was unbelievably loud. It didn’t matter, and I didn’t know why. I
couldn’t feel it, nor did I care. I looked down. My feet were turning blue
in the snow, but I felt no physical pain. Why should I? It didn’t matter
anymore. There was no reason to. There was only my doom to look
forward to.
The prints in the snow were long gone, but I could smell it still.
That sick smell, the one that made you cringe. Blood. It was
maddening. The rage grew. I fought through the snow drifts,
oblivious.
I looked down at my warhammer. It wasn’t as heavy as when I
first hefted it. It must have been something mental, I thought, a
primal strength, hidden in the back of one’s mind. Something only a
Slayer could dig down and unlock. There was something unreal about
it, the Slayer mind. Long ago, when I first learned of the Slayers, my
mother told me they were just madmen, broken one’s without a
cause. She said they were just crazy, and should be left to find their
glories and dooms.
It didn’t not seem so crazy now...
The snow whipped harder then ever. I ran my fingers across my
mowhawk. It was still short, of course. Barely even a crest. A little bit
of the blood red dye came off onto my hands. It made me start to
remember...
First there was the flames...then the screams....
I brushed the dye off my hands in the snow, and tried to clear
my head. The stench of blood was in the air. Surely I wasn’t that
close?
After a few more minutes of walking, I came upon a small
clearing. The stench was strong in the air. I looked around...
My gaze fell upon a large dead tree, and I fought back the urge to
vomit.
A dwarf, now unrecognizable, had been impaled on one of the
lower branches of the tree. It was hideously mangled and reeked.
The rage grew. I slammed my hammer into a nearby tree, taking a
large chuck out of the wood. I remembered...
The barricades on the main door rumbled. More flaming arrows came
over the wall. The door rumbled one more time....
I fought down the memories, and took a deep breath of air. There was
another trail, another path of the stench. I surged forward, the rage
growing with every step.
The ground was sloping upward. I was at the base of a
mountain. Most likely the third peak of Gurnblag.
The trees were growing sparser, as the ground turned gradually
more rockier. The snow whipped around me, a wailing wall of sound,
obscuring my vision and making the trek much slower. It was like the
wind taunted me, the very earth was set against me. Perhaps just the
Ancestral Gods, driving me forward, urging me towards the doom.
Such are the ways of the Gods, to use us as they see fit. Why! What
right do they have!
For a second, the rage almost broke.
The gates shattered inward. Fall back, they cried. It did not avail us.
The way was open, and in they came....
‘Why, da-mn you!” I yelled at the sky.
“You killed them all and left me! Why not I!? You leave me to this
fate! You forsake me!”
I slumped to the ground, the outburst draining me of my will. No.
They will be avenged. Or I shall join them.
The rocky slope was quickly turning into a climb. The mountain
stretched up towards the sky, blocked out by the blizzard. The trees
had disappeared, replaced by sparse coniferous bushes.
The smell was becoming clearer as I climbed. It drove me
forward, the scent fueling a unquenchable bloodlust.
I was close...so very close. I was begging to see signs. Pieces of
armor in the snow. Weapons. Bodies. I gripped the shaft of my
hammer until my knuckles turned white.
They came in, pouring through the gate like a tide. Trogg’s. We fought
against them as hard as we could, but they pushed us back. They
began to climb over the walls of the outpost, seeking to surround us. We fought like dogs, back to back, never stopping for breath. We
fought our way to the main hall, and barricaded ourselves inside. We waited....
I marched onward. The horn of doom was sounding. I could hear
it. It beckoned me, driving me forward. All else did not matter.
I had gotten there without even noticing. I stood at the mouth
of a cave. It looked as though it were the mouth of some strange
beast, ready to devour some hapless victim. Blood covered the ground
in front of it.
I remembered again...
The battering ram sounded. It chilled us to the bone.
Boom.
The children cried out with fear.
Boom.
We hefted our weapons. Metal scraped metal. Rifles were loaded.
BOOM.
And then they came.
It was not battle anymore. It was bloody, mindless, swirling madness.
I could barely recall it. it was a tumult of sound and violence.
And then it happened.
Maybe it was fate, maybe it was destiny. Maybe it was just some cruel
trick.
The ceiling caved in on me. Darkness surrounded me. I was left in the
shadow, to listen to the sounds of battle that seemed to last an
eternity...
I hefted my warhammer.
Doom beckoned. Daring me onward to meet it. Waiting within the
cave, taunting me.
I walked in, ready to face it.
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It was here even stronger than before. The stench of death.
It permeated every inch of this place, saturating it with it’s
vile taint.
I could smell them now. That disgusting smell of Trogg.
Some claimed that they were once dwarves, hideously
mutated in some long forgotten catastrophe. Others said
they were a mindless primal force, only seeking to further
their own existence.
It did not matter. I would slaughter them regardless.
As I moved deeper into the cave, I began to see
haunting signs. Bones. Armor. Blood.
I remembered...
It had seemed to taken forever to pull myself out from
under the rubble. The sight I saw when I was free almost
broke my sanity. Then again, maybe it did...
I pressed on, the Slayer beast within my mind roared for
battle. I could hear noises now. Grunts and squeals of
Troggs. My blood boiled as the noise grew louder. And then I
saw it.
I had reached a small chamber. In the center, a fire
burned, over it roasted dwarf bodies. Trogg’s surrounded the
fire, cackling with a sadistic glee.
“On their honor, you shall all die!”
The Troggs looked upon me with suprise, but quickly grasped
the situation and charged.
I brought my hammer down on the first, reducing it’s
skull to jelly. A wide swing crushed the next two, crumpling
them against the force of impact. Another leapt into the air
towards me, and I sent him flying into the wall.
The few that remained exchanged looks of fear and
anger, and ran out of the chamber through an adjacent
tunnel. I gave chase, the Slayer beast mad with bloodlust,
and I remembered....
In front of the ruined temple of Grungnir, I swore into
the oath of a Slayer. I hastily shaved and died my hair, and
charged out into the unknown, following the trail that the
Trogg warband had left behind. Vengeance and doom
reverberated in my mind.
The sound of the Troggs was reaching a roar now. I was
close. I turned another corner. I could see torchlight. I
turned again, and halted.
A cavern it was, larger than the first and lit by
torchlight. It was littered with bodies and blood, and it
reeked of death. A large band of Troggs stood at it’s center,
apparently awaiting my arrival. At the rear was the largest
Trogg I had ever seen, it appeared as though it was
mutated, although that may have not been the case.
The Slayer beast unsheathed it claws and charged.
They sought to surround me. I would not let them. I
raged and killed, every swing brought down another, carving
a path of red ruin through their numbers. They began to
break and flee, I cut them down as they went, not intent to
let them get away.
One remained. The giant of a Trogg, baring it’s fangs
and daring me to charge it. The Slayer beast screamed out,
and I charged.
The enormous Trogg stomped forward, grinning with
delight as it brought down it’s enormous club. I wasn’t there
when it hit. I slammed my hammer into the beast’s ankle,
and was met with the satisfying crunch of shattering bone.
The Trogg roared and brought it’s club down in another
swing, but I ducked underneath and brought my hammer
into the beasts stomach, producing a rather sickening
squelching sound.
I dashed off to the side, and the Trogg followed, mad
with pain. I grabbed a torch off the wall, and hurled it at the
beast. The torch struck the beast in the eye, and it doubled
over, clutching at it’s scorched eye. Now was my chance.
I dashed behind the creature, and quickly climbed a
small rock pillar to about the creature’s head level. The
Slayer beast roared, louder than ever before. I jumped.
Time seemed to slow. The Trogg turned around and
looked up. I brought my hammer down, and it collided with
the skull of the monster. Time sped back up, and I leapt off
the Trogg, now fountaining blood from a gaping hole in it’s
head. It was mortally wounded.
I dashed forward once again, convinced the next strike
would destroy it. I dashed to the side, hoping to get in
underneath the beast’s swing.
Through it’s mad bloodlust, the Trogg made one last
desperate swing, and it struck.
It felt like I had been hit by an avalanche. I sailed
through the air, slammed into a pillar, and came to rest at
it’s base.
My body was broken. I couldn’t move. The pain was
excruciating. The Trogg lumbered over to where I lay, and
with one last gurgle, it brought down it’s club.
In that final moment, as my doom came falling towards
me, and the Ancestral Halls beckoned; the only thing I had
to regret was that there was no rememberer...
The End.
Forgotten (short story.)
