Dark Thoughts

Dark Thoughts

Orinon walked alone into the dark forest of the island. Pacing through the trees without really watching his path, he looked up to realize he stood before the shrine of Aspirax, his dark god.

“Aspirax,” he said aloud,”my days of loneliness and despair have made me forget the trials of my youth”.

Orinon looked down at his black hands and sighed.

“Wasn’t so long ago that I did not wear this mantle.”

Laughing to himself, he realized that it had been long ago. Almost a millennia had passed since that awful night when he and his brother had struck down the evil plaguing the lands, and were both struck down, cursed to live forever, cursed to forever change, to be given a new form every time he became accustomed to his current one.

“Much better than my brother” he thought aloud.
“Much better than to have the eternal struggle with my sanity and much better than to fight the eternal thirst of the night breed.”

The night breed, vampire, that was the curse thrust upon his brother that horrible night.

“I remember how fearful I was.”

Grinning to himself, Orinon let his memories take over.

#

Pale pink images flood his vision. Slowly he begins to discern his surroundings. Realization struck him that it was the infrared spectrum his eyes were seeing.

“Well I am not dead.” Said a deep and booming voice.

That scared him; they were his words but definitely not his voice. Looking down his snout he could see a hugely powerful body and strange hooves where his feet should be. Snout? What the hell? He could hear dripping water in the distance, summoning every bit of courage he could muster, he crawled to the edge of the pool. Peering into the pool sent him into a frenzied wail of denial. Long bovine snout and long black horns were the first things he noticed. Big cow eyes that glowed yellow in the darkness and a huge seven and a half-foot muscular frame. His hands, he could see, were quite like his hands should be; though more heavily muscled and denser in bone structure, not to mention covered in soft red fur.

“Minotaur,” he said to himself, “that twice cursed mage turned me into a Minotaur. With his last breath, he doomed me to an existence as a monster.”

A half man half-bull creature, his head was now that of a bull and his body that of a large almost giant like human with the hooves of a bull where his feet should be. The gravity of the situation was daunting, there was an odd nagging sensation at the back of his consciousness.

“Hormoth” he called.

He spun around catching sight of his brothers still form across the cavern floor. Fear froze his limbs, for the last he saw him the mage had laid him low as he struck the magi a fatal blow. He rushed to his brother’s side and took his cold lifeless hand and pressed it to his breast. Grief stricken, he began to weep. Hormoth had always been a handsome young man; lithe runners physique, slightly over average height with a quick smile for anyone. His wavy black hair was lying across his face obscuring Orinon’s view of his resting features. Orinon brushed aside the wayward hairs and Hormoth’s eyes burst open and a low growl escaped from his lips. Stark terror registered in Hormoth’s eyes as Orinon was pushed aside and he scrambled away. Though if Hormoth could have seen Orinon’s eyes he would have seen his own terror and grief as he realized what had happened to him.

During the first days of the war, many a warrior was slain by the rising dead. The demon lich could raise the dead to fight for him. They had seen the zombies and skeletons rise to fight them again and again and again.

“Get away from me beast” it hissed.

That’s when Orinon saw them, the long canines protruded from his upper gums just hanging over his lower lips. Orinon wasn't sure what frightened him the most, the teeth or the baleful red glow emanating from his brother’s eyes.

“Brother,” was all he could force from his trembling mouth “brother it’s me.”

Terrified but needing to know if his brother was still in there, he stood to his full height, looked down and said “it’s me Orinon.”

“Beast” he hissed again.

“I hunger” the pain in his voice forced Orinon to realize that his brother was no longer in control.

Suddenly, too fast for the eye to follow, he was at Orinon’s throat, claws raking attempting to feed. His strength was incredible, but it was no match for Orinon in this new body. Both his wrists Orinon grabbed, dropping straight onto his back and kicked up both feet, sending Hormoth flying over his head to fall onto his back in a murky little pool of water. Rolling back to a standing position, Orinon promptly fell right on his rear. This was going to take some getting used to.

”Hormoth,” Orinon said after he stood again.

“Hormoth if you are in there my brother, you must gain control and recognize me. It is I, your brother, Ori.”

He was quite taken back by his own actions, here before him stood the most dreaded and powerful undead, a vampire, cursed to eternally walk the night and drink the blood of the living. His little brother, his best friend. He should have been trying to kill him, or at least escape with his life intact.

There was movement in the water at that moment, a large hand, black as night, reached up from the depths of the pool and grasp Hormoth about the leg! Impossibly fast, Hormoth’s six-foot frame was jerked backwards, and then into the depths of the stagnant pool. Orinon did not know exactly how he managed it, but he rushed to the pool and dove in. A tunnel under the stone surface was what he found once under the cool waters. Swimming and pulling himself along using the rock sides of the tunnel, He emerged to find his brother fighting for his life.

The room was circular with an exit into the night to the one side; a small fire was blazing in a hearth, which temporarily blinded him. Once his eyes had adjusted, he joined his brother in the melee. Hormoth jumped to one side kicking the creature with a sound crack to the side of the head, Orinon immediately fell to the other side landing a blow from his massive hand. As it was rising groggily Hormoth was upon it in an instant sinking his teeth into the neck of the seven-foot troll like creature. As its webbed feet kicked and struggled its last few moments of life away, Orinon sat back in grotesque fascination of the scene now being played before his eyes.

When Hormoth pulled away, he could see the color returning to his pallid skin, and if it wasn't for the gore dripping from his chin Orinon thought he would have embraced him. There, with blood dripping from his gruesome meal he looked no different from the battle with the demon mage.

“Brother,” he said as he cleaned himself, “what have we done to deserve such a fate?”

Orinon then embraced his brother with no fear of his current state. They walked from that cave into a new world, and a new existence that would forever change the order of this world.

#

Standing alone in the grove of evergreens, huddled in his dark green cloak, Orinon let out a sigh that frosted immediately in the cold night air.

“How things have changed my master” He whispered to his silent god.

“If only we could regain the innocence of those dark days. Perhaps, the future would seem a little brighter.”

Turning the dark lord began the trek away from the grove and into the night.

“Perhaps such an adventure is just what is needed before our doom descends upon us.”

His laughter cold and haunting echoed from the trees as he faded into shadow.