The world was ending around Rika as she rode Branak from one gate to the next. Always gathering the news, always taking the next dire word of slaughter back to the chieftains. The ogres were too plenty and now they were using it. Every gate of the six was attacked by an entire legion. Hacked into it by great axes no matter how many spears and arrows were thrown at them. Once the corpses were piled they simply started to climb their dead brothers until they were dangerously close to reaching each gates’ top. Most of the greenskins answered them with a smile. With a roar of battle as their weapons could finally clash, yet for Rika, who saw the battle whole, it was no more than dying beasts last cry. A last roar before they could meet their ancestors.

She had just finished another round and was reporting it to Thick-Skin at the top end of the mesa when her eyes turned to Mara. She still stood and sang, but she could see that her darkling friend was shaking. Pain was going through her with every line the Ogres dark choir continued. Above her in the distant sky Rika could see how close the dark lightning of sorcery coursed through the black clouds, while those of nature only desperately held on. She knew they would be burned and crushed by the very sky if her friend failed, yet there was no time to worry.

She rode next to Thick-Skin. Kazzok and Scale-Eye were there as well.

“Every gate” She stammered out, huffing. “Every gate is losing.”

All three of them looked up at her. It was Scale-Eye who spoke, while Kazzok simply walked up and squeezed her hand. “We need to move further in.” Their Chieftain said to Thick-Skin.

The Rhino was looking down where gliders fought, and up the edge were Scale-Eye would be among the last of the winged who were left.

After a glance up at the sky he turned to Rika. “Tell them to retreat but man the caves!” His voice was rugged from shouts of orders and pride. “If they come through the cliffs they will be drowned with spears and arrows!”

Kazzok walked up to him and nodded back at where Mara was still singing on the boulder. “What about her? Once we move her the sorcery will come for us!”

Thick-Skin was huffing and thinking before Rika spoke. “I will take her once the rest is off the Mesa.” The eyes of chieftains and druid rested on her. “I don’t think they can aim their sorcery down the cliff without being there, so it should give us, and her some time to recover.”

“And what if not?” Scale-Eye finally took word. The concern in the old chieftains voice was enough to run a shiver down Rika’s spine.

Thick-Skin shook his head. “Then we know in death.” He stated and earned the smiles of both Rika and Kazzok. “Ride on, hunter.” He continued at Rika. “Tell them while we prepare our retreat.”

Kazzok glanced back down at the Legions and one Ogre with a wide red torn cloak. “But not too fast..” He said and locked his eyes with Thick-Skin. “Or they will notice and think of an answer before we could raise our spears.”

The two chieftains nodded, but Rika wasn’t about to listen much more. She leaned down to give Kazzok’s shoulder a squeeze of goodbye. He tapped her hand in answer. Then she punched her chest at the other two and rode off again. Down the long edge and finally the thin path down into the cliff. Other greenskins, most of them healers, were running along the thin path and pressed themselve against the cliff to have her ride by. They were gathering new healing supplies after the old ones were burnt, at least what they could still gather. Rika huffed as she thought how useless their effort was for they would retreat all of it down again once the plan was moving.

It was just when she reached the ground between the cliffs when she heard the shouting from the gate behind her. “They have broken through!!”

Her eyes widened as she turned. Both greenskins and ogres, wounded enough that they should be dead, were crawling over the gate. Never stopping, only slowing down no matter the brutality thrown at them. More and more of their warriors were pushed back by the undead and made a line inside the cliff. Yet once they reached the inside of the cliff the dead grew limp once more and fell to their crunching doom. Maybe their sorcery needed sight to work, but it was not for Rika to think or decide. After the Undead fell, living Ogres climbed their hacked corpses and started their charge at the line of greenskin warriors. All of Rika’s being wanted to aid them. She huffed and snorted unsure what to do, yet despite her urge to aid the battle, to get her friends down and to protect them, she continued her own quest.

She rode through the cliff and into the grand arena and the dolmen in the centre of them all. Nothing but the wind remained. The silence there gave her shivers for no one was left. Suddenly both the battle shouts and thunder seemed quite distant there in the centre of it all. Her eyes went up the big obsidian dolmen and the dark promise it still held. She knew, if the battle continued like that, someone would be stupid enough to take the offer. To turn the tide from one terror to another.

“You. Can. Save. Them.” The winds whispered in different voices to her. It carried the old smell of root and pine and leaf and home. Still she shook her head. “Not with you!” She exclaimed and rode into the first of the other cliffs. “Never with you…” she repeated herself and concentrated on her ride through the dark night of battle once more.

Once inside the next of the six cliffs she saw that their gate was broken as well. A thinning line of greenskins held the line while others threw and shot down further down to the cliff's end. Her eyes darted around to find a chieftain, yet she only found a druid next to her. “You there!” She made her stop. It must have been a druid from the distant swamps in the deepest south. Her teeth were sharper and both her tusks were split in two as if they were four teeth. Her eyes were reflecting the light and her warpaint made a skull of her already pale green face.

“Tell your chieftain that we will retreat! They have broken our gate too! We will meet in the centre but drown them in spears as long as you can!” The druid only nodded and Rika rode off and to the next once more.

It was a similar picture in all the cliffs. Four of them had been crashed or climbed by the Ogres already and in one of the cliffs the legions were already dangerously close to the mesa’s centre.

Finally she rode back to her friends and Chieftains. Their line of warriors had been parted far as well and even far enough that the path up was among Ogres. Even through the night and from a distance she could see how orcs tried to fight their way down. Ogres fell down to their brothers below, and orcs shouted and roared. Blood and limbs were flying in dark droplets and fleshy guts that rained down to the legions below, painting the legionnaires red.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

She saw Kazzok and for a moment thought to hear him roar in pain. She couldn’t see enough, only that he stumbled backwards. Her heart pounded in fear and fury and finally with a roar she led Branak directly into the legion. She threw a spear at one of them and hacked away with a tomahawk, at least whenever she could stay on Branak without needing a hand on him. The big wolf jumped far and wide, across the ogres and against the cliff. Some of them tried to bring their axes at him, yet he was fast. And Rika blocked what she could, sometimes with a desperate swing of her tomahawk, other times with a kick of her leather boot against an axe’s hilt. And few times just by killing them faster. Yet the path took its toll. Branak tried to jump from the cliff and around the Ogres and Rika could do nothing more than to hold herself tight on his back. After the great wolf had ripped an Ogre's throat another was turning to face them. He raised his axe and Rika stood up on Branaks back to kick away his axe. It worked, yet those they had just circled and left behind were following. Behind her two other Ogres raised their axes. She managed to hack the throat of one yet the other was about to bring his axe down at both her and the wolf.

For a second that lasted for an eternity she was faced with death. She saw the axe above her and knew it would be over. Her life would end, her warrior’s death grantet. A place among the ancestors and next to her father would be given to her. Most orcs, no matter if greenskin or darkling would have been fine with it. Most would have seen this at a proper end after she lost her arm not that long ago, a last chance of a worthy death in battle. Yet she wasn’t most. She was Rika Thar’Rakkan. She who they called Bloodspine. Daughter of the oak and the stag. Huntress of the Bristling pines. She knew Branak would die without her here. She knew Kazzok was in pain up there and she knew Mara had been in pain since the battle began. But more than anything she didn’t want to die. Not yet. She just wasn’t done, no matter how honourable her end would have been.

She launched herself from Branak and at the axe’s hilt to grab it tightly. With all her weight and the muscle her one arm could give she forced it down to land next to her wolf. The Ogre screamed and raised his axe again while she was still dangling from it, trying her best to keep it down. He took her by the neck and smiled as he slowly tightened the grip. Air left her quickly as she struggled in his hands. She was letting go of the axe by instinct and tried to get her tomahawk again, yet soon the world turned to fog as breathing became impossible. The only thing left was the battledrum in her chest and the sudden roar of wolf and boar. Her eyes returned to light when the Ogre had to let go of her. She gasped and desperately brought air back to her lounges while warm blood was spraying her face.

Branak was biting into the Ogres leg while Kazzok, in his form of Boar and orc roared and hacked at its head. Soon the Ogre fell yet there were plenty more on the way back down. The line of warriors down in the cliff tried their best to stay close to the path upwards, yet it was clear the Ogres had their own quest as well, and it was Mara. More and more swarmed up to them, an unending tide of fat, deformed, rotten flesh.

With a pained grunt Kazzok returned his form to a proper Orc and aided Rika up. Thickskin, Scale-Eye and other warriors went by behind them to join the fray, but her eyes remained on him. She saw a big cut at his shoulder, held a hand on it and locked her eyes with his. The concern in hers was echoed by concern of him and finally a hint of a smile in both.

It was him who spoke first. “We need to bring her down with us.” He said, between gasping.

She nodded and looked down the path they had just come up. It would cost just as much to go down as well. “Is there anyone else up there?” She asked and leaned on him for support for a moment as she still took air back to her lounges.

He shook his head. “Some went down on the other side..there is a path too. I don’t know how it is looking there.”

She huffed. “This is far from the only gate that has been crushed.”

He nodded and looked down at the other warriors. “I need to join them.” He said but continued to let her lean on him.

She nodded too and quickly brought her forehead to his. “Show them fury.” She said with a grin that was once again echoed on him, before she added with a whisper. “But don’t die..”

“I won’t.” He answered. And they left each other once more. He looked after her as she mounted Branak again and their eyes locked. She wanted to stay with him, but she knew what had to be done. Both of them punched their chest and she rode off, while he charged into the fray.

The way up was empty of the living but littered with corpses of ogre and greenskin. One more hacked than the other. The scent of fresh blood mingled with the ever conquering stink of rot that only rose as she reached the upper plateau. It was as empty as Kazzok had said. Only Mara remained on the boulder and sang into the sky. Wind and ash of the burned healer tents was circling her as she did and thunder answered her melody. Yet it was clear she struggled to even stand, one could wonder how she could still sing with raised arms.

As Rika quickly rode in she saw how the path at the other side was slowly conquered. The last Greenskins were pushed back until even the last one standing was thrown off the cliff. He threw a tomahawk at the ogre who did it as he fell, a final gift before he would crush below.

It made her and Branak go faster and she only hoped it looked different on Kazzok’s side.

The Ogres were charging for the boulder, yet it was far and their fat bodies slow. Rika stopped next to it and looked up at Mara who remained in trance to fight her battle against sorcery. Neither sure nor caring if it would hurt her this time, she brought a hand to Mara’s leg. “Mara?” She asked. Her hand and her voice made the darkling shaman gasp and open her eyes again. She looked down for a second before falling to a knee and holding up her hand with whispers again. The sky was almost conquered by the dark lightning of sorcery.

“We need to go. They are coming for you.” Rika said calmly yet glanced over at the charging ogres.

Mara nodded and slowly rose one last time while her song turned louder until it became a scream. She fell to her knees and brought both hands down with her. Lightning crashed in front of the Mesa at more than one place, but Rika’s attention was quickly drawn to the shaman's voice again. “We don’t have much time..” Mara said weakly and with a voice as sore as a smith's hands. Quickly Rika aided her down to sit on Branak behind her while sorcery finally won the battle in the black clouds and the other ogres from the other side were rushing ever closer. Enough that their stomps could be felt in the ground and that Branak growled at them. His maw still bloody from their brothers throats.

Once she rode off Mara leaned on her from behind and held herself as tight as she could. She was weak, Rika could feel that. Even the heat of her body was fading. “Fire…” Mara whispered as they turned back to the path of Kazzok and the others.

“What do you mean?” Rika asked and assumed another vision.

With a sore and distant voice Mara continued. “Fire…it is coming for her..”.

Before Mara could wonder more a sudden gigantic roar echoed from the north east where the darkness of night was slowly conquered by clouds turning red, as if fire burned through them. “She wants it’s dead body…” Mara continued. “They all do…”

Rika wasn’t sure if the shaman was losing consciousness but she felt how she still held onto her, even though weaker with the moment. She could do nothing but ride on, yet her eyes remained on the very distant mountains. The last she saw before they went for the path down, was a gigantic shadow in the cloud. Giant wings, followed by nothing but fire and a swarm of riders and their wyverns. The more the horizon turned red the more panic she felt. “What is that?” she whispered to Mara behind her as the path was close now.

“Fire..” she only answered weakly again. “All of it…” a distant fear laid bare in the shamans voice that slowly turned to panic. “All will burn…”