The Heavenly Host

“Orcs? Orcs are unethical, malignant barbarians and thugs. I’m not surprised they would have such low standards for a deity.”

“I dare you to go out in the corridors and start shouting that,” Tizzy said slyly.

“I am not stupid, demon,” Talarius replied. Why did he even engage this annoying thing? It had been gratifying to note that several of the old D’Orcs had not appeared too fond of Tizzy. Apparently the demon had been remarkably consistent over the last several thousand years.

∼

Tal Gor finally finished selecting the twenty band members to join the hunt. It had actually been quite difficult, they were all essentially family. Or at least extended family. That, in fact, had been a big problem; he had his mother and father, two brothers and his sister. He finally decided to pick his siblings and told his parents that next time they could go. After that, well, he frankly went with those who had been the nicest to him over the last few years. A few had been more than difficult, or made nasty remarks about wishing him dead. They did not get selected.

His selected hunters sped off to their tents as Tal Gor turned to watch what was happening at the gate. Lord Tommus came over to him.

“I have another hunting party to send out in Etterdam in a few hours, so I will leave to take care of that and some other issues. What Vespa and I have discussed is that, when you have one or more large kills, contact me through our binding. We will then create a gateway to haul the kills to Mount Doom. We will store the kills for your warriors there in a cold room, and when the party returns, we will open a gate here and deliver the kills directly to camp. This will be much more efficient than trying to lug them around all day.”

“Yes, My Lord.” Tal Gor nodded. “How many kills are you expecting?”

“As many as we can reasonably and honorably get. I’ve got a lot of D’Orcs expecting a feast and they can eat a lot of meat.” Tommus smiled and patted Tal Gor on the shoulder. The demon lord’s giant claws caused Tal Gor to tense a bit in apprehension, but the demon lord was careful not to skewer him. Tal Gor felt a tingling of excitement; Lord Tommus had said he would be creating a gateway from the kill sites so apparently he would get to go along. This was truly the best day of his life.

He glanced over to see a couple of the D’Orcs at the edge of camp swatting at the tall plains grasses. He could not figure out what they were doing. It was extremely odd behavior, so he started wandering closer.

“Who ever heard of hairy ground?” one of the D’Orcs asked the other as he started pulling on some strands of four-foot high grass.

“It makes no sense. Why would the ground need hair? It does not sweat. It does not feel cold,” the other D’Orc said.

One of the more battle-scarred D’Orcs sneered at them. “It’s grass, you morons!”

“Grass?” the first D’Orc asked, looking up with a scowl.

“You mean the stuff that you old timers used to smoke after battle?” the second orc asked.

The older D’Orc shook his head in frustration. “No. That’s just a word we used for it. What we smoked was a distant relative, more like a weed that grew in hillocks and groves. This is regular grass. It is a plant that is eaten by a wide variety of animals, including those we hunt today.”

The older D’Orc turned to head back to the portal and spotted Tal Gor. He grinned. “These idiots were born in the Abyss, and have never been to the Planes of Orcs. Teaching and talking only goes so far; at some point you have to do.” He paraphrased the old orc saying. “You and your tribe mates won’t be the only ones on their first winged hunting party! We are going to be lucky if some of these bone-brains don’t get the heads and tails confused and slit the tail rather than the neck!” He shook his head and grinned.

Tal Gor chuckled as he turned his attention back to the portal.

The D’Orcs had just finished carrying tack and other gear through the gateway when a loud ruckus started on the other side. It sounded like a few hundred wargs! There were not actually that many, but they were loud and eager to hunt. D’Wargs were larger than the largest wargs Tal Gor had ever seen, and they had massive wings and claws nearly as fierce as Lord Tommus’s. The unusual tack that the D’Orcs had brought through now made sense.

About four D’Wargs had come through; others were preparing to follow when there arose some truly hideous snarls and growls. The D’Wargs that had been lined up to come through were forced back as what had to be the ugliest, scariest-looking D’Warg of them all barged through the gateway; spitting and snarling.

Tal Gor had no real idea how to judge age on a D’Warg; he supposed it was similar to a warg. If so, this was a rather old and very heavily scarred D’Warg. Its snout and jaw had apparently been broken and reset at some point, and its eyes were slightly off kilter, as if its skull had been somehow skewed. The head was huge with teeth so large and twisted, the D’Wargs’ lips could not close over them.