Chapter 11: Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear

An ugly, evil creature swaggered through the night on the back of a Warg.

Its hideous, dirty fangs protruded from its lips, and pieces of blood-stained, rusty iron were embedded directly into its flesh, serving as both armor and grotesque decoration. Sparse, withered hair clung to its mottled scalp. This was an Orc Captain, and he twitched his nose, sniffing the air. He raised the poorly maintained iron blade in his hand and pointed it toward the glowing tree in the distance.

"I smell Man-flesh!" the Orc Captain barked, his words a spray of foul-smelling saliva. "Kill them all! Peel their skin, dig out their organs, and feast on their bodies! Then, cut down that glowing tree and bring it back to Dol Guldur as an offering to our master!"

"Ooooh-woo-woo--!"

A chorus of excited roars answered him. Behind the captain, a horde of Orcs on their Warg mounts surged past, their howls a promise of the slaughter to come. They made no attempt at stealth; they believed the sound of their approach would fill their prey with terror, making the moment they finally appeared all the sweeter.

The Wargs moved with a terrifying nimbleness, weaving through the forest and ruined buildings until they reached the edge of the Erdtree's golden light. And there, they stopped. Their sharp claws tore at the earth in anxious, frustrated scrapes. No matter how much their Orc riders kicked and cursed, the beasts would not advance. The light of the young tree was anathema to them, a holy radiance that filled them with a deep, instinctual revulsion.

"Grrrrrrr--" The Wargs growled low in their throats, a guttural communication between beasts. The light itself would not harm them, but to a creature of darkness like a Warg, standing within its glow was as disgusting as a man wading through filth.

Ultimately, their inherent evil and the burning lust for slaughter overrode their revulsion. With angry, snarling roars, they charged forward. Their fury was now directed at the humans who had planted this offensive tree, but it was also a silent threat to their own captain. If they did not receive enough fresh meat to sate their hunger after the battle, the Orc on his back would have to make up the difference.

As the Wargs surged ahead, the Orcs raised their rusty swords and axes, letting out another volley of triumphant howls. They could hear the cries of their brethren approaching from the north, growing closer. Another warband.

"Faster! Go faster!" the Orc Captain shrieked, his voice rising with greed and urgency. "Don't let the northern filth steal our food!"

There was no concept of cooperation among Orcs, only competition. The captain was already imagining how, if the northern party reached the humans first, he would simply steal the corpses from them. Perhaps he would even arrange for a few… unfortunate accidents to befall his rivals.

The thought was cut short by a flicker of another image in his mind: a tall, white, one-armed figure. A cold dread, sharper than any blade, washed over him. If "He" found out what he had done, he would be the one fed to the Wargs. The Orc Captain swallowed hard, the fear of that one-armed being extinguishing his petty schemes. He channeled his frustration back toward the humans. He would make them feel his terror instead.

"Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-woo… aw?"

Suddenly, the excited howls from the north changed. They became cries of confusion, then pain. The Orc Captain frowned, wondering what was happening, when he saw flashes of brilliant sky-blue light flicker through the northern trees. The light was followed by the sharp, terrified screams of Orcs and the dying whimpers of their Wargs.

One or two screams might have been futile resistance. But this was a chorus of death, a wave of agony that washed over the woods. Even an Orc Captain's dull wit could tell that something was terribly wrong.

"Slow the march! Stop!" he roared at the charging vanguard.

But the Wargs, already maddened by the Erdtree's light and the sight of a lone, armored figure standing before them, ignored him completely. The Orcs on their backs, their own bloodlust boiling over, urged them on faster. The captain watched from the rear as the armored man, Tarnes, threw several clay pots into the charging horde.

Sizzle—!

Just as when Tarnes had aided Thorin Oakenshield, the Orcs had no concept of the destructive power of a Lightning Pot. Three of the small jars landed amidst the vanguard. The Wargs, all converging on the single target, were packed tightly together.

Golden lightning erupted. The five Wargs at the very front, along with the Orcs on their backs, were instantly blasted into charred, smoking husks. The disgusting smell of burnt protein filled the air as arcs of lightning lashed out from the initial blast, severely wounding and paralyzing seven more Orc and Warg pairs.

The charge halted abruptly, the remaining Wargs skittish and terrified. The Orc Captain stared, stunned, but after a few seconds, he saw that Tarnes was not throwing any more pots.

"He's out of the strange weapons, you cowards!" he bellowed, his voice a mix of fury and fear. "Go! Archers, shoot him!"

The remaining Orcs looked at each other, then cautiously began to surround their target. Tarnes calmly counted the survivors. Including the captain hiding in the rear, there were eleven left. A pity, he thought. If I had used an Ancient Dragon Lightning Pot, the effect would have been far more devastating. But those were rare, and he had used his last one long ago.

As he pondered this, Tarnes reached behind him and drew forth a new weapon. It was a long spear, but its head was a massive, three-pronged trident. It looked less like a weapon of war and more like a gigantic, ceremonial pitchfork. Yet, no one who saw it would make such a mistake. The golden shaft connecting the spearheads was exquisitely crafted, and the three points themselves seemed to burn with an inner fire, as if fresh blood dripped eternally from their tips.

This was Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear.

When facing a horde, Tarnes had many options. But the black flames of his Godslayer's Greatsword or the gravitational pull of the Starscourge Greatswords would tear up the very ground he planned to build on. Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear, however, inflicted a fatal, physically unblockable agony upon his foes while leaving the earth beneath them largely untouched.

The Orcs saw him swap weapons and took it as a sign of weakness. They jeered, believing he truly was out of his explosive pots. They swarmed forward, their dim minds recalling a simple truth of battle: a long-handled weapon was clumsy and useless up close.

Through the visor of his helmet, Tarnes could see the matted brown fur of the lead Warg as it lunged and could see the Orc on its back grinning with yellowed teeth.

The next moment, Tarnes raised a whistle to his lips and blew a sharp, ethereal note. With a shimmer of blue light, Torrent appeared, his spectral form larger and far more powerful than any Warg. The spirit steed reared, its front hooves lashing out with impossible force, and kicked the charging Warg squarely in the head.

Crack.

The Warg's neck snapped with a sound that was sickeningly clear in the sudden silence. It was thrown aside, its rider still trapped on its back, and landed in a heap at Tarnes's feet. Without a backward glance, Tarnes vaulted onto Torrent's back and charged—not away from the enemy, but directly toward the Orc Captain.

He knew from experience that once the leader was slain, the rest of these creatures would fall into chaos. As the saying went: to capture the rebels, first capture their king.

The Orc Captain saw the lone knight charge into his encirclement and let out a ferocious, delighted grin. "Chop him to pieces!" he roared.

But before the Orc archers fumbling for their bows could even nock an arrow, they saw the warrior on horseback raise his great trident high, stabbing it into the empty air above his head.

Then, to the disbelief of every Orc and Warg, the three spearheads of Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear ignited with a blood-red flame. A crimson light, malevolent and hungry, pulsed outwards, momentarily suppressing the holy glow of the Erdtree and bathing the entire clearing in its ominous glare.

The Orc Captain felt his skin crawl, as if being sliced by a thousand invisible razors. A deep, gnawing pain erupted from within his body as neat, clean wounds opened up all over his flesh, spilling his foul, black blood. In his eyes, dilated with pure terror, he saw the blood itself begin to burn with the same scarlet flame as the spear.

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah — — — — — —!!!"

A heart-wrenching, soul-piercing agony shot through him. He screamed, an inhuman sound of pure torment. All around him, the other Orcs and Wargs shrieked in unison as the Bloodflame took hold. The Wargs, whimpering in pain, threw their riders and tried to flee. The dismounted Orcs went mad, smashing their own heads against the rocks or plunging their daggers into their chests to escape the unbearable suffering.

And the instigator of it all, Tarnes, sat calmly atop his steed, unmoved by the symphony of agony around him. He raised his spear and thrust it toward the sky again, and then a third time, as if performing a sacred, terrible ritual. With each thrust, the crimson light grew more vivid. The sky itself seemed to bleed, pierced by the spear tip, gushing a torrent of spectral blood that rained down upon the battlefield.

As the third thrust ended, the bodies of every Orc and Warg in the clearing burst simultaneously. They died weakly, powerlessly, their lives ending in a final, gory spray upon the land they sought to defile.

Tarnes lowered Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear. After a quick scan to confirm that all were dead, he spurred Torrent on, riding swiftly toward the north, where Nepheli and Gandalf waited.

***

(End of Chapter)

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