Fresh Food

“Look boys! We’ve caught pointy ears!” laughed an orc, looking at the fallen figure on the ground.

Three more orcs, all greener than fresh grass, with long, yellowed tusks with bits of decayed meat stuck to it, emerged from the bushes nearby, each holding a crude wooden spear just like the first. Hunger filled their eyes, and saliva dripped from their mouths like a leaking tap when they saw the fallen figure.

“What do we do with ‘im?” asked the smallest of the lot.

“Eat! Eat!” chanted the others. “Yeah, we’ve had no fresh meat for a long, long time now, eh? I’m thirsty for it.”

Their leader, distinguished by his immense size, stepped up to the orc who had spoken and smacked him across the head with the butt of his spear. “You don’t get thirsty for meat, fool. You get hungry for it!” he growled.

“Whatever,” the hurt orc growled, rubbing his head.

The orc leader, Jabba, turned his attention back to the figure lying on the ground, clutching a bleeding leg.

The figure was an elf, or ‘pointy ears’ as his kind called them, due to their anatomical difference that set them apart from the other races. He looked gaunt, as if he hadn’t eaten in days, with dark circles surrounding his eyes like clouds to a moon on a cloudy night. Parts of his face, hands and other portions of his body not covered by his flowing, dark-as-night cloak revealed to be grimy and mouldy, as if bathing was chore unfamiliar to him. If it weren’t for the fact that he was still breathing, Jabba might have thought him dead.

The elf’s gnarled hands also held a long, burned staff, and Jabba’s eyes widened as he realized who the figure might be. “A sorcerer! Get his staff away before ‘e can cast one of ‘em blasted spells!”

There was a flurry of movement as the orcs hurried to do what he bade. There was no chance, and the bleeding figure felt his staff snatched from his hands.

Certain that there was no threat, Jabba asked the elf, “What’s yer name?”

“Food?” an orc helped.

Jabba looked at the outspoken orc, and snarled, “Stop trying to be funny.” His voice was soft, but full of steel and danger.

The bleeding elf looked up at the orc leader and growled, “Nazeroth.”

Jabba faltered and fell a step backwards. The fear wasn’t due to the name, but to the figure’s eyes, which were blood-red.

Nazeroth saw this and remarked, “Fear…I see fear in your eyes.” A wicked smile stretched across his ruined face. With a laboured breath, he pushed himself up, resting his weight on his uninjured leg.

The orc leader saw that he was tall, and despite being bony and famished, there was a majestic feel surrounding the elf, suggesting someone of immense power. He was also extremely old, a fact illustrated by his bending at the waist.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Nazeroth rasped, his breath coming in wheezes due to exertion.

The smallest orc, the one who was outspoken, sneered. “Yeah? With what?”

Nazeroth looked at him before replying, “Set me free, and you’ll live to see tomorrow. If not…”

Silence descended like a slammed door. Then, as one, the orcs started laughing. Jabba didn’t laugh, but his sneer was no less insulting. “You, take our lives? Heh, what makes you think we’ll let you, old elf?”

Nazeroth flashed him a look so poisonous that if looks could kill, Jabba would have been dead that very instant.

“You, with yer broken leg and old age,” Jabba continued, “what more, you don’t even have yer damn magic staff! We ain’t stupid, elf. We know you can’t cast any blasted spells without yer stupid staff.”

The laughter rose a decibel higher.

Nazeroth smiled and opened his mouth to reply but before he could do so, an orc kicked his bleeding leg. He crashed to the floor heavily, his breath knocked out.

From the ground, Nazeroth saw Jabba shout to the orc holding his staff. “Throw that wretched thing away and carry this filth back to the camp.” He looked at Nazeroth before shouting, “Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!”

Before Nazeroth could do anything, a spear came crashing heavily onto his head. The noise of wood hitting bone, together with the sinister laughter of orcs was the last thing he heard before darkness descended.2

*  * * * *

It was the smell that woke him up. But the smell wasn’t that of orcs. It was the putrid smell of rotting flesh, something that Nazeroth was familiar with. It sparked a hope within him, and gave the necessary strength to open his eyes.

The orcs were standing some distance away, their backs to him. They were staring at something on the ground, and were busy discussing with each other. One of them pointed out Nazeroth to their leader when he saw that the elf was no longer unconscious.

Nazeroth ignored the green beings, and instead tried to find the source of that sickly, sour and putrid smell. He saw it. It was what the orcs were discussing.

On the beaten path ahead lay dozens upon dozens of dead bodies, some of them clearly human, some orc, most indistinguishable. It looked as if a small battle had been waged here, a battle in which there were no real winners. The worst part of it was that it probably happened a month or two back, as was evident from the level of decay of the bodies. They were all rotting, giving off fumes of noxious gases so strong and rancid that it made even the smelly orcs gag. Nazeroth could also see ants, beetles and maggots swarming over the ocean of dead bodies, feasting. Overhead, he saw a few crows and vultures circling in the sky.

Then Jabba stepped into his field of vision and pulled the elf up by the collars.

“You’re awake.” It was not a question. “Good, we won’t have to carry you anymore.”

“We shouldn’t have taken the short cut,” one of the orcs mumbled. “I think we’re lost.”

He was about to say something more but shut up after he saw the look of Jabba’s face.

“What do we do?” another orc asked.

“We’ll continue,” Jabba answered. “Our camp is on the other side of this forest.” With that, he pushed Nazeroth through the corpses.

Halfway through, Nazeroth faltered and fell straight to the ground, rolling over a few of the dead. The orcs saw this as weakness and began to laugh horribly. But their laughter died in their throats almost instantly.

The corpses, which were undoubtedly dead, began to stir when Nazeroth touched them. One by one, the dead began to rise and encircled the four orcs, raising their falchions and sabers.

The first instinct the orcs felt was to flee. Their opponents were zombies, something that was undead. How do you kill something that’s already dead?

But they didn’t flee. Orcs were bred to fight, and fight they would, zombie or no zombie. The orcs raised their spears and braced for the assault.

The undead were excruciatingly slow, but when they swung their blades, the impact of it nearly knocked the orcs backwards. Two of them were even knocked to the ground. They were stabbed to death before they could even rise.

Jabba and the remaining orc felt bile rise up their throats at what they saw next. As if the killing wasn’t enough, the zombies crawled over the writhing, dying bodies and started devouring them hungrily.

Jabba tore his eyes away from the gruesome scene, ignoring the screams of the dying orcs and the wet sounds of the zombies munching on raw meat, and faced an assailant. It was a dead man, its eye sockets full of maggots instead of eyeballs. The walking dead slashed at his right, and Jabba brought his spear across to block the attack. He stabbed it quickly in the gut and pushed it to another zombie to his right. For a moment, he thought the thing seeping from the inflicted wound in the zombie’s gut was blood, then felt himself go sick when he realized it was white and squirming. Maggots.

There was a heavy sound of someone dropping behind him, and Jabba turned to see that he was the only remaining orc left. The only one who was still living.

Fear and despair tried to drown him, but he still fought on. He wasn’t fighting to survive; of that there was no chance. Rather, he was fighting because something deep in him was urging him not to go down easily, to bring down as many of these foul creatures before he went down. The only problem was that he was having very little success.

He stabbed, slashed, blocked and smacked his spear all around, but there was no stopping them. The entire place was literally crawling with the damned creatures. It wasn’t long before his crude wooden spear broke in two, and he felt two grimy hands snatch at him. He closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable pain that was to come.

It didn’t.

Instead, he felt his hands and knees pulled back tightly, and the living dead in front of him parted. Jabba opened his eyes and saw a tall figure standing in front of him. A figure that was thin, weak and clad in black sweeping cloak.

“You’re safe! Why?” Jabba gasped, looking confusedly at Nazeroth.

The elf wizard just kept smiling, and it didn’t make any sense to Jabba. And then the knowledge hit him. It felt as if someone had taken a swipe at his head with a blunt sword. “These creatures…they’re controlled by you...”

The smile on Nazeroth’s face was full of malevolence.

“You’re a…a necromancer!”

“And a necromancer doesn’t need any wand to cast a spell,” Nazeroth whispered. It was barely audible, but there was no mistaking the contempt and poison in it. “You wanted to have me for meal? Now you will be one for my minions.”And then Jabba felt teeth sink into his arms, then his legs, then neck. He saw Nazeroth turn and walk away, and heard his own scream as if it were coming from someone else. Then it was all silence.4