notanightlight:

Warning: blood, gore, death, implied torture, this is from an orc’s perspective. This ficlet is horror. If that is going to trigger you than DO NOT READ IT!

Gnalbag cringed back into waking, the insipid sunlight filtering down into his yellowed eyes. Sticky black blood plastered loose dirt to the side of his head and he could feel the weight of another body pinning his legs down. He hissed and spat as he struggled to pull himself out from under the heavy corpse, cursing every form of life he knew of.

Dagor Dagorath lived up to its name. It truly was the battle of all battles, and the time for orcs to rise. Gnalbag believed the war would already be over, if it wasn’t for the unexpected charge of those mangey rock grubbers.

The thrice damned stringy elf Warriors were struggling against the might of the Dark Lord’s armies after a year of bloodshed, so close to caving that Gnalbag could practically see the battlefields littered with heaps of their dead, furless, smelly, infected bodies! And then doors opened in the mountainside and bellowing, thick-skulled dwarves poured out.

Gnalbag cursed at the mangled stump that used to be his left leg and the wound in his side still oozing tar black blood and bile. Where was his pike? He was going to drive it through the mouth of the next dwarf he saw and carry their head on it until it rotted off!

He spotted the jagged head of his pike and began scrambling over to if when a thick, steel-toed boot stepped down on it, pressing it into the sludge of dirt and blood.

“I don’t think you’ll be needing that,” said a deep voice.

Gnalbag growled and spat a black curse at the pompous dwarf.

“Do not get comfortable with victory. This is the last you’ll know it!” he ranted. “Our dark master will grind you into the stones you came from and the ground will be stained as red as your beard!”

The dwarf snorted at him dismissively, calling out that he found a live one while leaning casually on his axe, as if to emphasize how little of a threat Gnalbag was to him. Gnalbag wished he had a knife to drive into its belly. Then he noticed the nine figures engraved on the dwarf’s chest plate.

“I know who you are,” Gnalbag said, feeling unholy glee build up inside him. “You’re the dwarf from the nine!”

Other dwarves were starting to draw near.

“You’re the one who was sticking the elf!” he cackled, spraying flecks of black blood and spit.

“I would watch your tongue, orc, or I will remove it for you,” the dwarf growled.

Gnalbag only laughed louder.

“Still looking for your elvish whore?” he continued. The dwarf didn’t answer, but Gnalbag had seen the way his eyes swept over the battlefield. He bared his teeth in a crooked grin.

“How do you know you didn’t already meet him out there?”

“What are you implying?” the dwarf spat.

“Gimli, don’t listen to a thing like that,” another dwarf tried to reason, but Gnalbag knew he had the red dwarf’s attention now.

“You might have greeted him with your axe,” Gnalbag carried on, “after all, our Master needed thousands of orcs for his armies for his armies.”

Gnalbag relished the simmering mass of emotion practically radiating from the dwarf’s skin.

“Do you know how orcs are made, dwarf?” he taunted with a falsely sweet voice, “I’ll give you a hint.”

Gnalbag lifted a finger to his own torn, but still pointed ear, nearly bursting with manic glee.

“I used to be an elf once!” Gnalbag crowed.

The last thing he ever knew was the exact taste of Dwarvish steel as the axe shattered his face.

End.

(Thanks for the prompt. You didn’t think I’d go there, did you?)