The new Ogor Mawtribes Army Set goes on pre-order tomorrow! As an aperitif to the main course, enjoy this free short story.
‘I’ll ask you one more time, Father, just to tell myself I have,’ said Kivya as she finished checking her steed’s saddle. ‘Are you sure this is wise?’
Amidst the jostle of men and women performing their final equipment checks and loading up carts and snorting Ghuroch, Midar found time to look at his daughter. Fierce eyes in a dark face; her mother had been the same. Tyena’s armour still seemed to hang heavy and oversized on Kivya’s slight frame, though maybe that was just paternal instincts at play. Handing over a Coin Malleus didn’t break that.
‘The Stonebelly ogors have been our allies for many years, my girl.’ Clapping a hand on her shoulder, Midar forced a smile. Sharp Ghurish wind tugged his dusty ochre cloak so it billowed and snapped. ‘When your grandfather and his fellows first settled this land in the God-King’s name, it was the Stonebellies they hired to fight the dark clans at their side. When the beast-times came, they didn’t prey upon us but threw themselves at the orruks of Glondar Bog. They’re wild, but—’
‘“—not monsters”.’ Kivya’s smile had faded. She took her father’s hand, squeezing. His daughter had always been very good at making him feel a fool. ‘We’re paying them.’ She gestured to the carts, each loaded with salted flathorn haunches and yethar hearts. ‘They don’t keep the peace out of some noble sentiment, father.’
A grimace, more pained for its agreement, stole across Midar’s features. As he sighed, he clapped both hands on Kivya’s shoulders. A moment passed, before his expression firmed: a Marshal in conference with an advisor.
‘You’re correct. We’re going anyway,’ he said. ‘This is my responsibility. One day it’ll be your responsibility. It’s always worked, since the earliest days. These aren’t orruks or beasts. However much they snort and scoff, ogors are canny. They understand our ways. And I’ll insist that as much as I have to, feed them as much as I have to, if it keeps them satisfied and away from our walls.’
Tension had turned Kivya’s body to coiled sinew. Sighing, chuckling, Midar kissed her brow and ruffled her short hair. When he smiled again, he was her father once more.
‘Besides, wouldn’t you like to meet Gruella’s extended family?’
‘Don’t you go fearing no Stonebelly blaggards, little miss Marshal,’ rumbled a boulder baritone from nearby. Gruella sat on the edge of an unhitched cart, all but tipping it as she tore idly into the leg of some unfortunate sheep. The ogor wore her Freeguild gear, though the crow’s nest usually strapped to her back was absent. Mirth, crude but earnest, filled her piggish eyes.
‘Proud Stonebelly for many moons, was I.’ Gruella slapped her armoured stomach with a dull metal thud. Fabric sleeves shifted, revealing faded tattoos snaking over her muscles. ‘Till I signed up wiv you lot fer the grub. But they’re not unreasonable. Know how things work.’ She belched, sending nearby troopers staggering. Midar rolled his eyes as Gruella guffawed and wagged a thick finger. ‘Don’t get nuffin’ fer free. That’s what great Globb of the Meatfist says. But an ogor ain’t some battle-brained orruk. Keep our back scratched, and we’ll keep yours scratched too.’ She grinned, the golden snaggletooth rammed into her gums flashing.
‘Now, fer me, I’m just looking to see me old mucker Vog. Remember Vog, Marshal? The ugly one.’ Gruella laughed then, laughed like a cogfort’s engine shunting into life, slapping a knee as spittle flew. Midar could only smile as he used his cloak to shelter himself and Kivya from the spray. ‘But we squashed many swampies in our time, no doubt about that. Vog and the rest are smart lads, little miss Marshal. Just like old Gruella.’
‘Well, if they’re anything like you, Gruella,’ Kivya said, fighting to keep her smile hidden, ‘then I’m sure it’ll be an event.’
They mounted in short order: Cavaliers riding alongside the carts, infantry marching abreast either side. Midar formed the column’s head, sitting high in the saddle as the sparse plains of Scar Reach began to break up into valleys, canyons, and rising fang-edged cliffs. Normally, protocol dictated, this was where they were most likely to be harassed by the Reach’s roaming wolf-packs – perhaps even the larger, venomous Snarlfangs. Not today. Today, the wind that hissed through the shorn grasses did so uninterrupted by barks and howls: an absence, an emptiness, that made the plains seem to sprawl uncomfortably wide from horizon to horizon before narrowing into the canyonlands.
Midar’s sword hung heavy at his waist as his gaze fell on the looming cliff wall. For as long as he could remember, that rocky face had been dominated by the immense scrawls of old ogor chieftains. All that was now covered by a great red circle of teeth. Streaks of dried copper-crimson ran along the rock from its incisors.
‘A new tribe?’ Kivya was the one who gave voice to Midar’s thoughts. Hooves clattered as she directed her steed to her father’s side, shooting him a sharp look. ‘That changes things, father. That’s dangerous.’
‘Agreed,’ Midar said, yanking the reins of his whinnying steed. ‘We—’
‘Nah. This is Stonebelly turf still.’
Gruella had pushed her way to the front of the pack. She breathed deep, squinting at the symbol. ‘Otherwise what was left of the lads would be hung up too. New tribe has to make a statement. And the smell…’ Her mighty nostrils wrinkled as she dragged in stale winds. ‘Aye, Stonebellies, alright.’ She paused, before looking at Midar.
‘I’ll be taking a gander, boss. You can come or not.’ It hardly seemed worth trying to stop the ogor; Gruella had already shouldered milling soldiers aside, maul slung over her shoulder as she lumbered towards the canyon. Midar hesitated briefly before turning to his daughter.
‘Take half the detachment back to the strongpoint. Alert the other Marshals. We’ll return as soon as we can.’
‘Father, no—’
‘Do as I say, Kivya,’ Midar spoke as both father and general now. The latter forced steel into his voice; the former saw him cup her cheek. A moment later he turned, cracking the reins and setting off after Gruella, trusting his veterans to follow.
The canyons closed in quickly. Walls of stone loomed high, a court of primeval earth-gods casting sour-faced judgement on the petitioners crawling through their midst. Midar’s sword hung loose in its scabbard.
Primal instinct, that which made the gazelle suddenly lift its gaze and scan for the lion, saw the Marshal look up. Cold air clawed his face as he saw the heavyset figures on the cliff high above. Each slung a crossbow as big as a man's torso across their shoulder. All were wrapped in thick leather strips and pelts. All watched with a naked predatory interest.
‘Beastclaw folk,’ Gruella murmured, squinting at the primitively clad ogors. ‘Kinripper alfrostun, too… thought them lot were far towards the Glimmerglaciers.’
‘A threat?’ Midar asked quietly. Gruella didn’t answer immediately.
‘Dunno.’
Two carts, axles squealing like hogs, remained with them as they reached the Stonebelly hold. Even that was overstating the edifice; it was an approximation of a castle hacked from cliff-face and cave. Smoke billowed from its rough windows. Smoke, and acrid meat stench, and above all a tectonic chanting that lacked any of the arrogant, barbarous jocularity Midar recognised in the Stonebellies.
‘Groff-kosar-mawgurgar-kos-mawgorg. Groff-kosar-mawgurgar-kos-mawgorg!’
The chanting ceased.
The torchlight glowing in cave mouths quivered as heavy feet stomped. Inexorably, like viscera seeping from an earthen wound, they emerged: ogors, ogors by the score. Miniature mountains. Tattoos wound over slabbed muscle and landslide faces. Midar saw that mark scrawled again: the teeth and the maw, inked in blood, dripping. Bones rose from trophy racks or were driven through elephantine skin. Some of the brutes drooled.
Midar’s own breath rattled loud as his horse paced uneasily beneath him, and he fought for words.
‘Stonebellies! Old allies!’ He gestured to the food-laden carts, clutching the reins tight. Ghuroch were snorting, desperately trying to shake free their harnesses. ‘We have come to offer payment and honour our pact!’
Mutters broke out amongst the ogors. The pitted blades of their cleavers caught glinting sunlight. Some of them swayed as if in a trance. At last, one brute stepped forwards, hideous trophies clinking from the bandolier-chains lashed across him. It was hard to tell whether the red covering his lower jaw was ink or caked blood.
‘Nah.’
Ice settled into Midar’s tightening bowels. Gruella saved him the need to answer as she stepped forwards, face thunderous.
‘Vog? Vog! Globb’s jowls, you old cove, what do you look like?’
Recognition crossed the other ogor’s face. There was something there, crude but earnest. Vog, Midar thought, looked suddenly weighed down by this savage attire. Then he scowled and spat upon the earth.
‘No words from you, traitor. No talk of the Glittermaw neither.’
‘Traitor? Vog, you blaggard, I’ll have your lungs on a platter for that!’ Gruella grasped her maul, teeth bared. ‘And why not speak of Globb? Of the Tyrant of Tyrants?’
‘Cause he’s dead.’
Beating their gutplates arrhythmically, the stinking sea of ogor-flesh parted. Through the opening wafted a bow wave of stench: ripe stench, meat stench. Ogors bowed their heads and mumbled in a thuggish sort of deference as the thing emerged from the caves. A smock coated in dried gore clung to its front, and it carried a brass pot from which viscous gruel seeped and sloshed. The butcher-shaman grinned, exposing a wriggling length of intestine between two teeth.
‘Skulgus,’ Gruella murmured, as she stared down the meat-master. ‘So. Thinkin’ yerself chief now?’
‘No “thinkin’” about it, false-gut.’ Skulgus belched as he spoke. Midar made a show of shying back; it gave a chance to inch towards the canyon mouth, subtly gesturing to his soldiers to do the same. ‘Globb’s dead. Our great and hungry god had enough of him. Took us down the wrong path, dealing with these scrawnies…’ He nodded at Midar before sneering at Gruella.
‘And your city kind. Wrong ’uns. Blasphemers an’ all. So says the Hungry One,’ Skulgus nodded. ‘We hear him better than ever now. He reminded us what we forgot. And I’ll tell you this, lass…’ Skulgus chuckled then, and it was the ugliest sound Midar had ever heard. ‘He’ll have your guts fer garters. Or maybe just starters.’
Gruella was a hefty creature. But she moved with surprising speed now – barrelling forwards like a runaway land-train, maul raised high. Skulgus met her bravery with a chortle as he reached into his pot and pulled free a stomach. His warty tongue licked out before he grunted a word and bit into the bloody organ.
Gruella’s belly exploded. It burst like a firecracker on High Cometsday, a celebratory spray of wriggling gut-matter. Her legs were still running even as the ogor looked down at her ruined stomach, catching what she could in her palms, trying to stuff it all back in. With a heavy crash, Gruella collapsed, slid a pace or two, and moved no more.
Death’s reek saw the ogors go mad. They stampeded forwards, tearing at each other in eagerness to fall on Gruella’s corpse, faces buried in the trough of her burst innards. Others had barged into the Freeguilders, ripping off arms and snapping limbs to guzzle down the marrow. A band of Fusiliers attempted to crack off shots, only for Vog to barrel into the midst of them, massive blade bisecting three in one blow. Midar was halfway through shouting orders when the primal rush and roar overwhelmed his steed. Screaming, his horse bucked him off; he hit the ground hard, rolling, dazed.
‘Father!’
The sound of Kivya’s voice smothered pain beneath its more sinister twin; terror. Midar looked up as his daughter – his brave, foolish daughter, as brave and foolish as her mother had been – led her riders into the opening before the Stonebellies’ lair, screaming words of rescue. She put a pistol shot through the thick skull of an ogor, blood spraying her face.
‘Kivya!’ Midar bellowed as he tried to rise. From all around, the sound of flesh shredding, bones breaking, entrails ripping rang on. ‘Kivya, no, you—’
Even over the carnage, he heard a whispering sound, like a beast treading across crumpled snow. Then the serrated bolt, as tall as Kivya herself, burst through his daughter’s spine and stomach. She thrashed for a moment, eyes wide and unblinking as blood rushed out her mouth, pinned to her dying horse. As they toppled, there came a distant guffaw. High on the cliff, one of the ogor trackers lowered their crossbow as their fellows rained shots against the now-trapped Cavaliers.
As Midar stared at his daughter's corpse, a shadow fell over him. He couldn’t see Skulgus, but he smelled the Butcher’s stench – felt the thick, stinking drool splatter across his back.
‘Oh, yes,’ grunted the monster. ‘You’ll do nicely fer me stew.’
A fat hand seized Midar. It didn’t take long after that.
Start planning your own stew, and pre-order the Ogor Mawtribes Army Set tomorrow.
