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Story of the Week #1: On the Road to Orlgrunt

Posted 3 months, 28 days ago., on Friday, July 25th, 2008, at 2:22 pm
Tags:Fantasy, Story of the Week, trolls, Writing

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Here’s Story of the Week number one. I was pretty surprised at how easy it was to write it. This Story of the Week thing is going to be easy!

Anyway, this is “On the Road to Orlgrunt”. It’s got a couple of in-jokes from my days as a Dungeon Master but I think it’s nicely accessible to everyone. Enjoy. Or not.

Grlawg tugged at the meat until it ripped apart, then took a piece and shoved it into his mouth, chewing slowly and deliberately. Dwarf jerky. Again. Gods around, he hated dwarf jerky.

He dug through his pack, hoping against hope that maybe he’d overlooked something a bit more tantalizing that he could have for his supper. Tripe of gnome, perhaps, or elf kidneys. He loved elf kidneys. Even a light salad would be a nice change. But no, there was nothing. Lately even his pack, made of stitched-together manhide, was beginning to look tasty.

But no, he couldn’t eat that. If he did, what would he carry all this dwarf jerky around in? Grlawg was nothing if not a practical troll. And the famine had made it necessary for him to save his provisions. The pack would have to be last.

Grlawg sat back against a boulder, shifting it slightly, and chewed thoughtfully. By his estimate he had another two days of walking before he reached Orlgrunt, where his cousins waited for him. He was pretty sure he’d be able to find some food on the way. He’d heard rumors about a large hive of elves near the mountains, so he had planned to make a little detour. Maybe pick up some elf kidneys.

A tree nearby fell over. It was one of the younger ones, barely a century old, and if Grlawg hadn’t been staring right at it, he wouldn’t have even noticed it. Then another tree fell, right next to the first, and then a third. From behind the falling trees a small dark shadow emerged. Another troll, probably a child. Grlawg blinked and saw that his first guess had been wrong; it wasn’t a child, but a woman. A small woman, quite delicate, with nicely bowed legs and knuckles that barely touched the ground as she walked. She caught Grlawg staring at her and stopped, blinking in surprise, then gave him a suspicious look.

Grlawg tried to look casual. It had been months since he’d seen a woman. He didn’t want to seem too threatening, but neither did he want to be seen as too timid. He didn’t know much about women but he did know they didn’t like men who could be felled in just four or five blows.

At length the woman shrugged, then came over and sat next to Grlawg. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Grlawg replied.

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.

Grlawg shifted uncomfortably. Finally he held a piece of meat out to her. “Want some?”

“What is it?”

“Dwarf jerky.”

“Oooh, I love that!” She grabbed the piece of jerky and began gnawing on it greedily. “It’s been months since I’ve had this stuff, you know?”

“Really? Back where I come from, it’s all that’s left.”

“Where do you come from?”

Grlawg pointed back over his shoulder in the direction he’d come from. “Back there a few miles. Little place called Tchrularl. Heard of it?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Things bad there?”

“You could say that.” Grlawg sighed. “Whole town’s gone, actually. They came during the night, killed most of us. There were three of us that escaped. I’m the only one left. The other two got killed just a week ago.”

“Was it humans?”

Grlawg scoffed. “Of course. Just like everywhere else. Some sort of infection or something I guess. Used to be you could just go grab as many as you want but now they’re dangerous. I think it’s spreading to the other livestock as well. Elves are starting to get a little twitchy. You have to sneak up on them these days.”

The woman stopped chewing on her jerky. “Dwarves too?”

“Don’t worry, that one’s fine. My name’s Grlawg, by the way.”

“Tina.”

“Good to meet you Tina. Where you headed?”

“Corgloth. You?”

“Orlgrunt. I hear that the food’s still good there.”

Tina scoffed. “Who told you that?”

“Couple of guys I met a few days ago.”

“Well, I just came from Orlgrunt. Things really aren’t any better there. In fact,” she went on, chewing on some of the dwarf jerky, “things are just completely shot to hell there. People are eating each other there. Corgloth’s supposed to be pretty safe these days.”

“Eating each other? In Orlgrunt?” Grlawg scoffed. “I don’t think so. Our kind isn’t prone to cannibalism. And last I heard, Corgloth was abandoned.”

“Oh, no,” said Tina. “Corgloth is great! Everything’s perfect there. No infected food at all.”

Grlawg considered this. On the one hand, the idea of going to a town where everything was perfect, with no infected food, was awfully tempting. On the other hand, he had family in Orlgrunt. “I can’t,” he said at last. “I’ve got to go to Orlgrunt. I’ve got family there.”

Tina shrugged. “Your loss.” She sniffed at the air and looked thoughtful. “Well, night’s coming. Let’s camp here, and tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways.”

Grlawg nodded. Then he looked at Tina out of the corner of his eye. It had been awhile. Asking couldn’t hurt. “You know,” he said, “it’s been awfully cold these past few nights.”

“It has,” agreed Tina. “Think we should do something about it?”

“Absolutey.”

And they did.

Grlawg did not awaken the next morning. It happened that way with men sometimes, Tina reflected. They were bigger, sure, but size is deceiving. Troll mating can last for days, and can result in lots of bruises and broken bones. And sometimes, if the man was tired, he just… died.

Still, Tina was glad. Grlawg had seemed absolutely set on going on to Orlgrunt. She’d hoped to persuade him otherwise using any means necessary. Now it seemed she didn’t have to worry about it.

She grabbed one of Grlawg’s legs and began to pull. There would be good eating in Corgloth tonight.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Story of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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