The Tale of Eiadric – Part III

He was shoved violently into the small cell, hitting the opposite stone wall with a slap. The orcs that had taken him to the dungeons spat on the floor and sneered as they turned, happy to be joining the others at their feast. When they were gone Éiadric collapsed on the hard dirt floor and sat motionless for a minute or two. Then he looked around. He noted a wooden bucket in one corner and an old thin grey mattress in the other. It bore a dark, dry stain in the middle that could’ve been one of two things. He decided that he wasn’t going to try to find out what. He examined the heavy door from where he sat and sniffed the stale warm air in the cell and grimaced. He hoped that he would get used to it soon. Then he got up and limped over to the corner with the mattress and slid down with his back against the wall. He looked down at his right leg where he had been stabbed and noticed that it had reddened and was swelling and knew that it was going to become real nasty if something wasn’t done about it soon. He sat there quiet for a while wondering what was going to happen with him and noticed the continuous muffled screams and barking yells coming from outside his cell. He stared at the wall feeling remarkably calm. But he knew what his mind was doing. He had heard about this happening. He was blanking everything out. Detaching himself from this whole experience as if it were all happening to someone else. The next day they came for him. The cell door burst open and three orcs ran in and grabbed him by his tunic. He was forced through several passageways and out of the dungeons into the open. As they pushed him in front of them he tried to look around and take in as much as possible of the large orc settlement. He could see columns of orcs marching to and fro, and he could see and hear the banging of large hammers on anvils and saw black pillars of smoke rising in different places around the whole vast area. As they moved they seemed to stick close to the gigantic wall. It seemed that most of the settlement was somehow built into it as a massive complex that housed everything from workshops to living quarters. After a while they passed by what he thought looked like stables, yet very odd looking. When he looked more closely he could see wargs pacing back and forth snarling and howling to each other in what was obviously some sort of spoken language. As he was looking one of them suddenly caught his gaze and stared back with its huge terrifying eyes. It bared its teeth, wrinkled its muzzle and raised the hairs on its shoulders. In a flash it ran snarling out of the pens straight at him. Éiadric instinctively pulled back, stumbled and fell on his back. The escorting orcs finally saw what he was looking at and at the last moment managed to step in between him and the warg. Its jaws were snapping close to Éiadric’s face as they held it back with great effort and shouted abuse at it. A goblin with thick dark legs, and arms almost down to the ground came running over with a whip and managed to get the warg under control. There was great tumult for a while and the orcs were furious as they set off again with their prisoner. At length they reached what Éiadric assumed was their destination. He was pushed into a room with a rough stone slab in the middle and before he knew what was going on he was knocked out with a blow to the back of his head. He woke up and noticed that he was lying on the stone slab with his arms and legs shackled to its sides. Then he saw that an orc was standing next to him hunched over his legs. That’s when he felt a sudden sting in his right thigh. He screamed and noticed that they had gagged him. The orc working on him snarled at him. Barely distinguishable he thought he heard the words “leg” and “wound”, followed by a long string of what he guessed were orcish obscenities. Half an hour passed and then the orc covered his work with strips of cloth and left him. Not long after, two other orcs came in. One looked almost like a man yet he clearly wasn’t. Squinty-eyed and swarthy like an orc, yet with surprisingly mannish features. He spoke in the rough orcish manner yet Éiadric had no trouble understanding what he was saying. “Horse-man” he said in his crackling voice. “You are a prisoner of the White Hand. You will serve us. You will tell us what we want to know” As he said this, the orc that was working on his leg earlier came back into the room. Éiadric now noticed that his head was adorned with a horned animal skull. The orc walked over to a large brazier in the middle of the room and picked up a sharp hooked implement and smiling evilly he slowly walked over to Éiadric. The red hot tip of the hook came closer and closer. Éiadric struggled and screamed …