Fragments by SkyEventide

Where the armies come from

Written for the prompt: giggled, thunderclap, wanderings, enchantment. Featuring a human and maybe an orc.

There’s a crooked old thing living at the edges of the village. Only at the edges, wandering with vague steps. She doesn’t come to the marketplace, she doesn’t come for festivals, not even to buy food. She only catches her food in the woods or steals it during night time; she doesn’t keep a garden of crops around the hut she’s claimed as a dwelling, hanging bird bones over her door.

Children sometimes sneak around her or her shed on a dare; she ignores them.

Anwarher believes she’s a creature of Angmar and they should perhaps do better to be rid of her. Gellamgir answers she is too pitiful to do anyone any harm.

Anwarher guards the village’s entrance, one night of storm. He is alone, until lightning strikes close enough to reveal the crooked old thing. She sits under the rain, holding her legs.

With careful steps and a hand on the sword’s hilt, he walks to her. « Are you an orc? », he demands.

She looks up, her face pale and scarred, her teeth askew, her nose broken and set wrong. She giggles, soaked in rain. « Yes. » Then she points a bony finger at the angry sky. « Do you know who made thunder? We know. Thunder’s an old magic. »

Anwarher thinks she might just be mad. « I didn’t know orcs had old crones among them », he replies, now sceptical of her claim.

« Where d’you think all the armies come from? », she croaks. « We’ve got to push babies out from somewhere, and then we grow old. They don’t make the good sturdy ones from elves anymore. »

Now he’s unnerved. He steps back. « Whatever, woman. Don’t make trouble. »

As he returns towards his post, he hears her giggle again.