[Contest] The Twelve Rigors of Mokkosh

[Garulfkar]

Part I - The Pelt of Horogosh

Untold years ago, among the rustic Orcs of the Blade’s Edge Mountains lived a warrior known only as Mokkosh. He was born into clanless savagery, and grew up among the lowland war bands which populated the deep and treacherous canyons of the Blade’s Edge. It was rumored that his father, Goro’kosh Stonefang, had once been a warrior of Clan Redblade, a great uncle to their one time Chieftain Grenth Stonebrow. But had left the territory of Clan Redblade behind in his youth to seek glory and trial closer to the Ogre bands which carved out their existence among the Blade’s Edge Mountains. When Goro’kosh fell in battle, his orphaned son was raised by the Stonefang war band to whom he had served as warlord. In time, Mokkosh would come to know the failed dream of his father; to unite the Blade’s Edge war bands beneath the banner of clan Redblade, and to return home with worthy Orcs to empower his kin.

The years rolled by like distant thunder. The young Mokkosh had been painted with the blood of the his first solo kill in the Om’riggor, his talon-crusted axe had tasted the flesh of Ogres in many trials of battle, and he had seen the Stonefang’s numbers dwindle under the leadership of the aged Warlord who had replaced his father, Omruk Earthcleave. Mokkosh yearned to command, and though he had learned to obey, he knew that to challenge Omruk directly would further splinter the already weakening Stonefang war band. But without great valor and the loyalties thus earned of his comrades, he knew he could never provide them with another banner to unite beneath. So too, without great trials, he could not return to clan Redblade as his father had once intended. A Mak’gora with Earthcleave was inevitable, but Mokkosh was cunning, and devised a way to challenge his Warlord without dividing his brethren.

Among the many foes the Stonefang faced were the fierce Ogres of the Bloodcrag banner. Their Overlord, Urgocc, had subjugated a fearsome pack of wolves in the days of Mokkosh’s youth. The alpha of this pack, Horogosh, was a gargantuan beast, and was rumored to sleep upon a great bed of Orcish bones gleaned from the enemies of the Bloodcrag Ogres. Though no living Orc had ever dared penetrate the lair of Horogosh, legend held that when the Bloodcrag employed the beast in battle, no arrow, axe, or club could pierce or break the Dread Wolf’s uncanny hide. Grashkul, a hunter of the Stonefang who had followed Goro’kosh from clan Redblade, once told that while roaming the craggy slopes in search of highland Talbuk, he had heard the grisly howl of Horogosh, and that its song was enough to chill the molten blood within even the fiercest warrior’s veins. And the Stonefang war band were not the only Orcs to have lost kin to the Bloodcrag and their wolves. Many neighboring war bands and clans had great cause for blood feud with the pack of Horogosh, and the Ogres who commanded them.

Mokkosh determined that to slay Horogosh would win him both the loyalty of his war band, and grant him renown among the Stonefang’s neighbors. And so, Mokkosh set out alone from his village, clad in the rugged hides of the Talbuk hunt, and armed with naught but his war axe of Oshar’trk, and a hunting bow of the Northern Olemba tree; the likes of which he thought would avail him nothing in his blood-bound fate.

He made camp one night, a days march from the lair of Horogosh and his pack, a bleak and uncharted cavern situated in the cliffs above the village of their Bloodcrag masters. And as he faded into the protean realm of slumber, a vision came to Mokkosh. In this vision, his father appeared, wandering as though fixed to some unknown purpose amongst the strange moths who dwelled in the East. Goro’kosh was cleaving wide the silky cocoons of the winged creatures, and though Mokkosh called out to his forebear, Goro’kosh did not respond. Growing desperate and anxious, Mokkosh confronted his father, spinning him round to face him. The two spirit Orcs locked eyes, and though his mouth moved not, Mokkosh heard the voice of his father within his head, saying over and over, 

“I cannot hear you any longer. I cannot hear you any longer. I cannot hear you...”

Goro’kosh grinned slyly, and Mokkosh awoke, bursting from his meager hide blankets with a despair so complete as to nearly rob the breath from him. He gnawed on a strip of Talbuk jerky, and ate as well the berries of the Tor’kra bush which a Shaman once said would settle the spirit. Mokkosh thought the vision of the night to be an ill omen upon his quest, but as he gazed Eastward in the first light of day, he felt the Tor’mul within his chest, and like the wolf who pursues a flight of inspiration from its ravenous instincts, Mokkosh rose swiftly and set off with a barbarous resolve.

Two days later, Mokkosh returned to the menacing cliffs above the lair of Horogosh, though the arrows which had accompanied his bow were gone, and the haft of his war axe was cracked down its spine. He let forth a bleating call as dusk fell, mimicking as best he could the cry of a Talbuk fawn in distress. Despite the wind, he waited, and watched as his bestial call was heeded by the wolves who moments before had been slumbering outside of the cavern’s maw. Upon waking, the wolves seemed to catch a scent upon the wind, and snarling with a hunger thus awakened, struck off from their posts outside the cave to sate it.

Mokkosh wasted no time in descending the harrowing cliffside. Grinning slyly as he father had, he gazed at the last of the wolves who had scattered into the nearby woods after the bloody Talbuk meat he had scattered there. Skulking quietly with his tough, clefthide boots into the uncertain jaws of the Dread Wolf’s lair, Mokkosh soon vanished from the surface world. The wind howling outside reverberated against the cavern walls, filling the air with ominous spirits and a grim foreboding. But this song of the skies granted Mokkosh the damper he needed to strike up a flame, bestowing it upon a crude torch.

Deeper and deeper into the lair of Horogosh did Mokkosh plunge, the rough stones beneath his feet littered with the bones of beast and Orc alike. He slowly reached within a leather pouch upon his belt, lifting his hand to each side of his skull for a moment. And as he ventured further, the rank odor of wolf dung invaded his senses, throbbing within his skull like a thousand smoldering arrows. It was not long before Mokkosh began to grow nauseous, but no sooner had his belly revolted than did a low growl from beyond the torchlight force its quaking into submission.  

Before he could react to the disorienting growl and its echoes, seeming to surround him,  a dread black wolf of gargantuan size leapt from the shadows, and nearly seized upon Mokkosh’s arm with its fangs. The torch fell to the ground, and began slowly to fade within the festering sludge in which it landed. He could scarcely behold the terrible wolf, so close was he grappled with its formidable paws. The claws of its forelimbs tore into his chest, rending the Talbuk hides that covered it as though they were nothing. The wolf snarled as Mokkosh kicked free with his mighty legs, rising swiftly to stand.

“Ogar kar’tosh! Horogosh!” roared Mokkosh, the two seasoned predators leaping with fury against one another.

The wolf pounced against Mokkosh, knocking him fiercely onto his back amidst the fetid, rocky muck. As the wolf landed, its fangs sank into the scampering legs of the Redblade Orc. And though his anguish was great, Mokkosh swung his broad and mighty arms around the wolf’s neck while its jaws were kept busy upon his lower leg. Hand in fist, Mokkosh clasped himself around the neck of Horogosh like a constricting torque of adamantite, his brown arms unyielding as rough hewn stone. The wolf let loose a forbidding howl, but despite the tale of Grashkul, Mokkosh was undaunted and unshaken. His arms grasped tighter and tighter, a collar of death shackled about the throat of the Dread Wolf. Soon, the howl of Horogosh waned into bursting yelps and whines. And then, the final rasps at last diminished into shadows and death, the same shadows which overcome the Pale Lady to whom the Dread Wolf had long sung.

Mokkosh released the gargantuan wolf from his arms, and the slain beast slumped upon the cavern floor. Scarce was the light that remained from the torch, but Mokkosh bound well his wound with the knotted tatters of his Talbuk cuirass. He reached up to his ears, plucking forth the mysterious substance which had rendered him invulnerable to the piercing howl of Horogosh. It was silk... silk from the cocoons of the moths to the East! Panting heavily, he sat and surveyed his prize. But alas, though the massive beast was felled, Mokkosh was exhausted from his arduous triumph and could not bear off with the carcass. And it could not be long now that the pack outside would return to the cavern, trapping Mokkosh within its depths. As the wound in his leg throbbed with fury, Mokkosh remembered the words his father had told him as a youth,

“Ta’muk drak’kal Gronn, ruk ner’ekar horg draggath.”

“Tough be the hides of Gronn, but weakness sleeps beneath.”

Whereupon remembering the echoed voice of his Redblade forebear, Mokkosh seized a sharp rock from the floor of the Dread Wolf’s lair, opened the maw of Horogosh, and pounded its jaw until its most incisive fang was claimed for his own. The triumphant Orc held the fang of Horogosh within his hand like a knife, and set about the slow and gruesome business of carving free its resilient hide. When the gore-drenched business was complete, Mokkosh slowly donned the bloody hide of Horogosh so that the head of the Dread Wolf came to rest over his own skull, as though submerging him.

As Mokkosh emerged from the cavern, the other wolves began to surround him from a distance, yelping and whining with a frantic submission. The limp in his leg did little to shatter the image of strength presented to the now panicked-pack by the blood-dripping hide of their former alpha. Mokkosh snarled toward one wolf who drew too close, and it lowered its head, swiftly backing away.

Days later, when Mokkosh returned to the Stonefang stronghold, a wake of black wolves strode not far behind him. And as he emerged within view of its guards, the Redblade Orcs among the Stonefang war band gazed long at his skin, blood-encrusted; the Pelt of Horogosh adorning his vigorous frame. He knew in his heart that none among his war band would now oppose him, no matter the deeds yet to come between he and the Warlord Omruk Earthcleave... But that, that is a tale for another time...

(To Be Continued).

((Loosely modeled off the legends of Hercules.

*edit -- After finally reading more of the lore and stories behind the Red Blade, I realize now that this tale of Mokkosh greatly resembles the story of Kraag, the Wolfking. Perhaps this tale can serve as an archetypal example of how the descendants of the more ancient Redblade Orcs strove to embody and continue the myths and legends of their forebears, just as myths and legends of the real world build upon one another, playing with the same archetypal affinities all along.))