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The Dawn of the Ogres
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By Lucas Twyman
Edited by Fred Wan
Listen carefully to my words, O Crab, for you have been a worthy foe, and they may be prologue for that which is to come. This mortal world that we live in is cyclical, and all that is to come is but a distorted reflection of what once was, just as my people are now a twisted shadow of their former glory. I am one of a mere handful who remember the ancient tales of my race, all enshrined in the songs of glory, their tunes too strong and harsh to be intoned in your thin and sharp tongue. I will instead speak to you the verses of the Kjornid, the ancient tale of Muhonarak, sire of the Mikata, the First and True Ogres, and his son Muhomono, Prince of the World, The Prince of Tears, forever weeping in death for his lost children.
The First Verse
Muhonarak came from the North, clad in leather and wolf-skin, strong as the earth itself and burning with an intellect beyond mortal ken. Behind him, his tribe, the Mikata (as Ogres were called before the tongue of Men) followed, hungry and lean, thousands strong, an army exceeded perhaps in size but never in strength. Muhonarak was a leader. He would become a king.
Muhonarak was the first of us. Born in the foam where the flaming river of the Burning Peak met the sea, far in the distant, frozen north, Muhonarak’s mother was the sea itself, and his father was the flame, brought to bear in the form of the dire earth-giant Kjald. Kjald, wounded mortally by the Moon for attempting to court the Sun, lay bleeding at the edge of the shelf of land, and it is his body that makes up the Burning Peak, and it is said by visiting northmen that, even today, the giant will stir in pain and his burning blood will once again violently rush forth from the wound.
Even at birth, Muhonarak knew no fear: it is said that he never cried out, even as the earth shuddered and the sea roared red. Instead, he stole his first breath from a passing hawk, and caught it as it fell limply to the earth. The essence of flame burned the water into crimson blood, but Muhonarak was kin with death itself, and was not worried. Suckled on the brine of the sea and the flesh of the hawk, Muhonarak grew strong in days.
Muhonarak’s first act was murder, but the murder was just, for they allowed the Ogre to live, and the Ogre were the agent of all the elements, and thus were the greatest of all mortal creatures. The hated man had not yet arisen in those days, and the world was ruled by five races, four born of one element each and the final born of wisdom. Just murder is the purpose of the ogre: it is why we were created; as we were born to be Ningen-Do’s warriors, its defenders. Muhonarak was created to defeat the champions of other realms, so that mortals could live in peace, free of the jealous influence of the realms of the dead. In order to do so, he would need an army, and the gods provided one: Muhonarak’s first hundred steps each birthed an ogre, the progenitors of our race.
Muhonarak fought many battles against the other godlings of the north, from the Great Wolf Yugoth, sire of all hounds, to the earliest children of the wyrms and the daughters of giants. The Mikata tribe grew beyond the bounds of the harsh north, and Muhonarak led his people to the south, to the land of the Five Races, to claim their riches and carve his kingdom.
The Second Verse
Muhonarak was a leader. He would be a king.
The Five Races saw the Mikata arrive, and watched the tribe with fear and trepidation. The races knew that they could not match the might of the ogres, but their leaders, the clever lionmen and the trickster crows, crafted a plan to avoid a military conflict. They approached the ogres, and asked why they had arrived in the lands of the Five. Muhonarak, speaking with the tongue of the heavens, replied that he had arrived to lead the races in the upcoming time of strife. Despite their vaunted magics and prophecy, the sorcerers of the Five were unaware of any time of turmoil, but the wise Muhonarak knew his purpose, and he knew the dark times to follow. The Five Races, fearful of the Ogres, challenged the Mikata to a pair of contests: the strongest of the ogres would face their champion in single combat, and the wisest of the ogres would face the wisest member of the Five Races in a contest of riddles. Muhonarak, the chieftain of chiefs, whose body contained the strength of the earth and whose mind was as quick and adaptable as the wind, agreed to face both challengers.
The first challenger was the king of trolls, the mightiest warrior of the Five Races. In those days, the trolls were nothing like the slovenly and obese creatures they are now; they were stout and heavily-built, with keen intellects forged in the heat of their volcanic homes. Muhonarak, however, could shatter the veil of the sky itself, and dwarfed even the mighty troll king. However, when he locked hands with the troll, something strange and terrible happened: rather than bending before the Ogre monarch’s assault, the troll grew in strength and size. The more effort Muhonarak exerted in his attempt to bring the troll to its knees, the larger and more powerful the troll became, until he began bending the Ogre lord towards the ground.
However, Muhonarak was more than a mighty warrior: his mind was clever and his eyes were keen, and he peered into the depths of the troll’s essence and saw the truth. The creature he fought was not merely a troll, but powered by the troll’s patron Flame. The more effort Muhonarak expended, the brighter and larger the troll’s fire would burn. Muhonarak immediately broke the clinch and moved swiftly away from the troll king, who then stood as large as the Kaiu Wall. The troll king attempted many times to catch Muhonarak, but the ogre lord was too nimble, and he danced out of the troll’s reach while the troll found himself burning away. The troll expended his energy and began shrinking, first to twice Muhonarak’s height, then to the tip of Muhonarak’s hair-knot, then to Muhonarak’s neck, then, finally, the troll stood only as tall as Muhonarak’s knees. Muhonarak ran to the edge of the ring and grabbed a massive stone ax. Hurling the blade through the air, Muhonarak struck, cleaving the weakened troll king’s skull in half.
“You were too clever for our warrior champion,” the Five Races told Muhonarak, “but are you clever enough to defeat our wisest ancient?”
Muhonarak only grunted in assent, and the races sent out an ancient kitsu sage to face the ogre lord. The contest was simple: the participants would take turns asking each-other riddles, until one was answered incorrectly. The wrinkled kitsu peered up at Muhonarak, and asked his name. Muhonarak told him, and asked the same question in return. However, before the old beast could answer, Muhonarak clasped the kitsu around the neck and choked the life from him. Turning to the remaining lords of the Five Races, Muhonarak raised the lifeless body of the kitsu into the air and took his place in the annals of prophecy and history, saying:
“I have killed the strongest among you, and your wisest is unable to answer the simple question I have asked. Your champions are defeated, and my right to rule is undisputed. Fear not! I come not to rule you, but to save you. As long as you find a homeland for my people, you will retain your homes and kingdoms. Dark days approach, but Thunder lives in my soul, and I am to be your defense against the Champion of Evil!”
The Third Verse
The Five Races saw the undisputed wisdom of Muhonarak’s words, and gave to him the lands of the rat-men, barbaric savages who lived in the far south. While initially difficult, the rat-men eventually learned the wisdom of the Mikata’s ways, becoming our servants. The Mikata trained daily for the upcoming war against Evil’s Champion, while the rat-men were given the easier duties of toiling in the fields, raising cattle, and cleaning the halls of the Ogre lords. We were fools to trust the rat-men, to give them so much!
After two hundred years, the time of destiny finally arrived. The attacks came suddenly: hordes of gibbering beasts pouring from the western jungles, creatures driven mad with the touch of the realm of the dead. The Five Races called out to the realm of heavenly spirits to protect them, but the Mikata knew better: the dead have little use for the living, be they in the glorious Halls of Eternal Battle or the hellish Realm of the Wailing Dead. The Five Races were shattered, their homes torn out from under them, and many fled into the many realms of ghosts and stories. The Mikata rose as one and held the line against the horrors that threatened to overrun the southlands: terrible demons with insectoid forms, the dead torn from hell to fight the living, terrifying dire-giants, their noble heritage twisted and lost, and corrupted and debased members of each of the world’s races. Finally, on the day of destiny, Muhonarak himself strode out onto the battlefield, swinging a club carved from the trunk of thousand-year-old-tree, and roared a challenge to the leader of the darkling beasts: “Come tonight, demon! Come to the fight! We will battle now, so that our tales may live forever more!”
His challenge was met, as hell’s champion rose from behind the lines and rode forth onto the battlefield on the back of a terrible wyrm. Rakshasa was their champion, a creature seldom seen in the world: a shape-changing demon with the smile of a tiger and unfathomable sorcerous power, lord of a race of shape-shifting tyrants from the lands of Ivory and Spices. Rakshasa’s evil mind was twisted even further towards debasement and horror; he was as loyal a servant of the Realm of the Wailing Dead as the Dark Father himself is now. A thousand horrible forms the beast took, each with flailing claws and gouging teeth. For three days, Muhonarak and the Dark One traded blows, Muhonarak hammering the foul creature with his club until it finally splintered to shards and then pummeling the creature with fists stronger than iron; the Rakshasa, for its part, scorched Muhonarak with dark magic and cut deep wounds into the Ogre king’s tough skin.
Finally, at dawn of the third day, Muhonarak sensed an opening, and reached into the whirling form of the dark sorcerer and plucked the Dark One’s third eye from his shifting face. The creature screamed, and in one final blow of defiance, reared back and stung Muhonarak with the tail of a scorpion. At the moment of death, the Dark One injected his dying heart’s blood into the chest of the ogre king, and Muhonarak fell to his knees. The army of hell shattered with the Dark One’s death, and Muhonarak’s loyal soldiers rushed to his side. The ogre lord was wounded, but his flesh was stone and his blood was flame, and so he would not be killed so easily. The triumphant Muhonarak was returned to his great hall, where the finest sages still living among the Five Races sought cures for his illness.
The Fourth Verse
The Day of Triumph was not without its price: the traitorous rat-men chafed under our benevolent rule, and their foul leader hatched a plot. Allying himself with the forces of darkness, he infiltrated Muhonarak’s ancestral home, disguised as one of the ogre lord’s faithful servants. Using a cruel curved blade, carved from the talons of the father of Wyrms, the rat-man struck at the Ogre lord as he convalesced on the bed. Muhonarak did not die right there: ignoring the Dark Lord’s poison running through his veins and the blade in his throat, the Ogre king still wrung the neck of the rat-traitor, finally dying after his last, lethally mortal foe was defeated.
Unfortunately, in the chaos that followed, the rat-men saw their opportunity, and turned on their rightful masters, casting us from our homes and forcing us to wander anew, but this time without our patron. The single tribe of the Mikata shattered as Ogre lord turned on Ogre lord, and a new empire rose to take our place: the empire of rat-men, an empire of squalor and barbarism. The rat-men, fearful of our strength, used their terrible name-magic to twist our noble bodies and drive us into pens. Only one hero remained free: Muhomono, eldest son of Muhonarak, heir to the Mikata throne. With jaw set and steady eyes, he fought an endless war to free his brothers and sisters from savage rat-men rule.
Then, after several hundred years of darkness, it seemed our prayers had been answered: the fire came from the heavens, and the terrible apocalypse the rat-men call “Tomorrow” arrived in the form of a massive explosion at the heart of the rat-men’s empire, the ruins of the settlement that the Ogre king once called home. A million rat-men died that glorious day, alongside a thousand of our hapless brothers and sisters who had yet to be liberated from their unjust shackles. It is our greatest sadness that this seemingly-glorious turn of events was merely the herald of the Mikata’s final days.
The Fifth Verse
After the Day of Fire, Muhomono travelled the former lands of the Mikata empire, gathering the last remnants of our once-proud race. He was terrified when he returned to the capital city: once, the greatest art and artifacts of ogre culture were stored in a massive meet-hall, and hundreds of ogres built their homes around the king’s tower. Now, there was only a deep pit, yawning at the night sky, and terrible screams could be heard whipping through the wind.
It was mere months before the Dark Father approached Muhomono, offering him power and wealth. The Ogres were the mightiest of the mortals, guardians of Ningen-Do, the sum of all the elements. It was no surprise that the Dark Father would want the Mikata at his side. Muhomono, however, knew the ancient ways his father had put forth for the ogres, and he did not trust the Dark Father. He required that the fallen god prove his identity and his intentions before the Ogres would bend knee. The king of the trolls, his people long-before decimated by Rakshasa, was eager to regain some of his lost glory, and bent knee to the Dark Father, who gifted his people with domain over the seas. Then, the Dark Father offered Muhomono a place at his side, yet again.
Muhomono asked again for the Dark Father’s intent, for he knew the Ogre’s noble heritage and suspected the Dark Father’s true nature: an ally of the Realm of the Wailing Dead. The Dark Father then offered his gifts to the goblins, a cowardly and shrewd race that were surely kin to the rat-men, and the goblin chieftain accepted, gaining dominion over the wastes. Then, the Dark Father asked Muhomono to bend knee one last time, but Muhomono asked again why the Ogres would benefit from allying with a servant of their old foe.
The Dark Father was enraged to see his nature revealed so easily. The fallen god lashed out at Muhomono with his sorcerous skill, cursing our race, and driving the Ogre lord mad. We have been mad ever since.
Remember, oh Crab! The Dark Father is the one you call the Dark Kami! He was the one who twisted us into this form, we, the Mikata, the true defenders of the realm of mortals! He was made hell’s champion after we slew the previous Dark Lord. Now his children twist us further, capturing our fallen brothers and remaking them into savage beasts! Remember how our triumph was transformed to dust!
Remember this, if you remember nothing else: the realm you call Jigoku has little mercy for failure, and we were destroyed because of this. We did not believe that it would find another champion after Rakshasa was slain, and for our arrogance, we paid the ultimate price. Remember, O Crab, victory is never final! Remember!
* * *
Hida Benjiro was forced to shield his eyes from the torchlight as the first stones were pulled away. Never before had he been so happy to see the worn face of Kaiu Kirino. Dusty air flowed into the chamber, forcing Benjiro to cough, but at least the air was fresh. Seven hours in the dark no way for a Crab to die!
“Benjiro!” Kirino cried as noticed the large Hida peering through the hole in the stones. “You’re alive!”
Benjiro chuckled, forcing him to cough again. “It will take more than a few tons of stone from one of the Kaiu’s finest traps to kill me.”
More stone was swiftly cleared away, and Benjiro realized exactly how lucky he had been: if the collapsing tunnel beneath the wall had not fallen in exactly the same way if the stones had piled slightly differently he would have been crushed along with the small pack of ogres that were caught sneaking through the tunnels. When there was finally a hole large enough for a man to fit through, Kirino climbed through the tight space and slid into the makeshift room, carrying medical supplies and a clay jug of water. Benjiro uncorked the jug and drank greedily.
Kiniro looked around the room, and his eyes grew wide as he saw the head and forearm of a massive ogre jutting out from beneath the fallen stone. He pointed at it and asked, his voice dripping with disgust, “You had to stay in here with that dead thing?”
Benjiro shrugged. “It was alive most of the time, actually. It was telling some sort of story.”
Kiniro raised an eyebrow. “A story? Really? What was it about?”
Benjiro took another deep drink from the jug, and shrugged again. “I couldn’t understand half of it.” He ran his hands through his hair, and dust fell to the ground. “Besides, it’s a monster. Why would I bother listening to what a monster has to say?”
*
