Chasing Orc, by Jacob Malewitz, A Fantasy Short Story on F Scott Fitzgerald Super Novel

 Chasing Orc

By Jacob Malewitz

Columbia, 2 Trill

Eberron Stronghold Gaming, 50

50 Blogs, 2 White Vest

How does one chase an orc?

The image of the gate kept the crossing world in balance, teetering as it did on destruction, or so the story went. As far as I can tell, it began around a simple campfire, where an old Orc told the tale of ‘How does one chase an orc?’ This old orc’s eyes looked somewhat pleased, taking in the basking fire while holding the attention of all young orcs. “They say the story began.”

“What happened, Guard Master?”

“Elder Guard Master,” he corrected.

“Yes, what happened, Tenuk?” said a younger, smarter orc.

“Ah, an old name.” The aged orc liked the name given, so he directed much of the tale to the growing Orc Tegrun, who showed such potential in stick fights, the beginning of orc training.

“Every story has an arc, young one, and the tales told around a campfire are no different. There was a beast, was a creature that always chased orc, little ones and big ones, not to feast, but to make them remember the age of man.”

#

The sole Orc didn’t see it coming, young ones. Walking was normal, in the hills and mountains it’s what kept us in shape, before the times of great war. His eyes were closed somewhat, sleeping, drunk, however much he drank, he could never be full. 

Dead before he walked a single step; killed before his axe came forth; stopped before he could even touch a Tongril, the most beautiful of females. His essence, his soul, disappeared. As he fell to the ground, the orc caught a glimpse of the beast’s eyes, those vessels where souls hold; there was nothing there.

Orcs do bleed sometimes, and we bled much back in the days of man. There rose warriors, a tempest. There rose man, a typhoon. It all came down to simple math: we had more than them. Math is good, but the math of the beast was far different. Man created it. They were always good at creating, better, unfortunately, than us. Some say that’s a lie: man couldn’t make a beast of such power, hunting us down and killing any who crossed its path. 

The village elders met, for man’s beast had to be stopped. The hunter needed to be hunted.

“It must stop!” said one village elder.

“How can we stop such a creature?”

“I can stop it,” yelled the young boy they called Small War, for he was always brewing. 

“Shut your mouth, Small,” said his father. Don’t say that, moaned his mother. She continued speaking, but it seemed the father learned over time that ignoring his wife allowed him to stay sane.

“I kill the creature. I kill it!” Small War wanted it! You could see it in his eyes. His  hands were high in the air, showing excitement in his eyes, and his breaths heightened; he could taste the blood and the triumph. 

But they didn’t listen. Instead they looked at him and smiled. A small bringer of light, Small War was always turning his mother’s cookware into fine weapons; she was the only one who really respected this boy, even in such a stage of youth. He had potential. He was alive with the kind of stuff true orc warriors are made of. But so very young! And so full of ambition! Quite like the chameleon, this boy.

“I can do it,” he whispered, but not to himself, for he saw his mother looked directly at him, hoping for her small child perhaps … or just hoping he would live life long enough for the 18 seasons to make him a strong warrior. You can be anything, she had once told him, or you can be nothing. Be anything.

#

The creature, while all this was happening, stood at the mountain set against time, far from the gate where it first walked, soaking the ground red with whatever got in its way. The crossing world held it; it worked in perfect symmetry, for it was man’s creation of death, the killer of Orcs. It moved much like a man’s clock, this beast, for it went in circles around small camps—that was the strategy. The beast was quite mad: you could see that in the eyes; you could find it in the methodic, horrific actions. Blood spilt, it always wanted more. Orc screams … it could never hear enough. 

Not quite an animal, but hungry like one.

Its eyes bulged out. It looked much like a elephant with its tusks … but a war elephant. It looked like a lion in its eyes … but the master of the pride, the greatest of them. Its body was small for a beast … yet bigger than any Orc by two lengths. It was meant to be fast, quicker than any Orc. 

In comparison, the mage boy Small War was cursed with eyes from his mother, a nose from his father, small, and he couldn’t quite place a blade in the right spot … only when his life depended on it. This clash, they say, began when the beast circled the small orc village, hoping to pick off some dinner. For it was always hungry, and it had a thirst for blood. 

It came that night, not knowing  a young warrior set out to destroy to, to end it’s bloodlust.

#

Small War looked toward his father’s armory. He needed something stronger, or so he thought. Yes, he had so many knives! But a knife? A knife couldn’t kill the beast which had felled dozens of good orc soldiers. No, this beast required …

Kill it, he  heard his mother calling, kill it and make your mother proud. Kill it and take your place, make your father see. Make them all see.

He sharpened one of his small food knives, making sure it was sharp by blooding himself with it. A true warrior earned marks, the marks of pain and trial. He had a mark just below his eye, from the time his father connected with a blow, for he said his mother’s food tasted terrible. There marks on his arms for each human he had killed, for he ran away much, always hunting, keeping it secret, yet always being mindful of his village. He took many other knives; his best.

Small War ran up the hills and across the mountains. There were marks of the killer all around; it didn’t fear being hunted. It should have. The sound of every animal made him flinch. He ran, but slow. Something held him back: eyes. The creature watched, for it knew how to hunt the Orcs of this tribe. The people came out looking for food occasional, then, pounce! Blood flowed. 

This was different. The small boy, it noted, carried many small knives, wooden handles with the smallest of metal blades—kitchen knifes, cooking knifes, vegetable knives, useless knives to kill such a creature. No, he couldn’t kill such a beast. For man had created it, and man had the great god, the speaker for the ages, the one …

…The boy stopped, looking down at the trail the monster had left for him. He noted the small tracks, tiny for any monster, so he thought, No, it must be somewhere else. I am a failure! I can’t even track a huge monster. 

The sound of death coming echoed through, reaching the tower far away, and made the orcs guarding it wonder. It echoed, but if you went closer, you would hear the call of the beast. For it was coming. And Small War almost smelled it. He closed his eyes ,waiting for the beast to come to him. Hours passed. He looked occasionally, holding himself out there like father had taught him. The hunter can be prey,  father always said. 

He smelled it first, saw it second. It looked quite obtuse, with an eye on its chest and a mouth full of sharp daggers—teeth fitted for grinding down stones. 

The blade thrust into the gut of the beast, only to find it land on him. “First blood!” He yelled, and cut again and again. He was being crushed, however, and tried to roll over as the beast fought to pin him to the ground for a kill. It gave out a sound, almost a laugh. It stunk of decayed flesh, for it was already dead, long ago the crossing world gods had taken its soul. It screamed, laughed.

Ha! It said in almost its language, for beasts speak words sometimes.

“First blood!” Small War said and slashed, driving his small kitchen knife into the beast. But it did nothing. The beast grabbed the blade, licked its lips, and tried to eat Small War in one bite; it didn’t work that way. The Orc dodged back, only to fall on a small stone. The beast closed, letting out a guttural laugh fit for the halls of the human hell. It ran, in a sense, but not believing it was running. It believed it ran for the next Orc, something perhaps bigger, but less intelligent. For Small War let it remember fear.

#

“How could the story end that way?” The young orc kicked a stone into the fire, which swallowed it up.

“Who said it ended?”

“He failed to kill the beast, Elder Guard Master.”

“He continued the fight.”

“So he does kill the beast?”

“You can never stop such a force. Listen, for there is a difference here to the Orc tales of beasts who swallow you up in one bite, or dark mages who turn you into stones.”

#

The boy’s eyes held sway as he stared at the crossing world gate, where one could see all the reasons to leave this forsaken world, for it grew old, it made you age, and it made you die. But, that wasn’t on the young boy’s mind. Small War planned to hunt down the beast and kill it; killing it meant respect. He also saw that this beast who hunted down orcs had no soul to steal, it couldn’t be reasoned with,, because it just ate orc, had a taste for them, laughed at them. He didn’t know the beast had other plans.

Once, as a young orc, he had decided to become a stone mage, building a life with the magics of the earth. He remembered—something from his past, a piece that perhaps could drive the beast back to hell. The blade in his hand felt heavy; it had a purpose, because he intended to end the beast.

Be a warrior, mother had said. Know your books, father mentioned. Chaos works on you as you work on it. Magic is dangerous.

He remembered the rhyme, the soothing one his mother had whispered to him as a young, sickly boy. See, he almost died of  a disease, barely old enough to walk. “Sing the young Orc/for he is small/but in the spirit/he is more beautiful than fall.” 

“Magic falls where the Orc is tall,” he said, shaking his head at the awkward silence around him. And I shall, he thought, be the next orc king to make the crossing gate his. How could I earn it? How will I see it?

As he thought of the poetry of the seasons, he walked over pebbles and spilt blood, over dead orc bodies and mysterious pieces of flesh, likely from the  beast. “You bleed!” He said, smiling. 

The walk to the crossing gate took him hours, so many that, he lost track of time and stared into the sky. I wish and I hope, he said, half asleep. He kept the kitchen knife close to his body, and whenever he did drip off into sleep, he would wake himself up with a small cut to his fingers. It usually worked, but he  had other plans for his blood. He kept a trail, the beast would find the blood, follow, be killed. The pieces of history told him this beast came from man, those villains of the netherworlds. His only hope was the fire, the last trial of Small War.

He stopped a good distance from the crossing gate, and proceeded to build a fire with the sticks he once trained with. Big sticks and little ones; sharp sticks or ones made sharp with his blade—they all went into the fire. After pulling out his small book of stone magic, he recalled a spell where one could trap such a beast. 

The fire sang its praises by sending smoke into the heavens. Smoke went toward the crossing gate, that place where somehow the beast had come from, and would have to go back through.

And it did come. “I wait for you, beast!”

He first heard a rustle of stones above him, as there was a small hill where one could see the crossing gate and even the small village. The book in his hand, he called the one spell he knew would work, that one piece of magic he understood and could cast. The beast came, fast. He saw again the soulless eyes in the chest area and the head full of teeth; he saw more too, and it disturbed him for a moment, slowed his actions of calling the spell. He stepped into the flames, his small kitchen knife ready, and the beast, mad or hungry, followed him into it. First he drove a stick straight into its mouth, drawing blood. It made no noise. Then he drove his kitchen knife into its left eye; it didn’t react. When he stepped out of the fire, he looked too long into its remaining eye and was caught off guard by the evil, the  hunger. “No Shuk,” he said again and again. “No Shuk Ke.” He then said. The beast finally screamed. When it began to rain, the clouds forming around as though the gods were angered, the beast had burned up, a small kitchen knife in its eye and a few blooded sticks in its mouth. When it cooled, and the fire went out, Small War went to retrieve the blade. For a moment, he was fearful. For a moment. 

He pulled the blade out and dragged the beast toward the crossing gate, which, for some reason, was unguarded. There was no questions to be asked. First blood, he thought, first blood for the new Orc leader, the king of the Orcs, the one with all the females … children … riches … power.

He dragged it in, hearing the sounds of its nails, or something else, scratching against the ground in a vein attempt to hold on. But it was dead. And it wouldn’t be coming back. He dragged it onto a small ramp, and pushed it into the crossing gate.

By the time  he looked back, It was too late. There were perhaps 20 of these beasts standing around the crossing gate, blood everywhere, and he wondered why, in all this chaos, he hadn’t noticed. For a moment, there was a smile on his face and a higher beat to his heart. “Who next?”

#

“What do you mean, ‘who next?’” said one Orc.

“And why aren’t we all dead?” Said Tegrun, the young Orc he had truly told the story to.

“It’s a fairly tale,” the Elder Guard Master replied.

“Are you sure?”

“I hope so. A tale of a youth tackling too much. They have coy beginnings, but no true ending”

“Did he die?”

“He lived. He crossed the gate, some say.”

“That is just a legend, the crossing gate, right?”

“Oh, there is always truth to any legend.” He held out a small fall stone, noting the small cut on his wrist, the small mark on his forehead, the small kitchen knife no one had noticed attached to his belt.