Book I (Ap.D): The Tale of Rhughash and Rhenna

This story was related to me by the grandchildren of Chieftain Thrakaduhl da Tharka, of Clan Dhakka, who would tell them the story when discussing his love for the elf, Kaira. Thrakaduhl’s grandchildren related the story to me as their grandfather had told it, complete with his particular way of speaking, and some laughter and tears shed for his memory.

Immortality in this life is over-rated. I know many humans long for it, wish for some way they can avoid their end, but you need to understand, there are things far worse than dying. I’ll admit, I don’t believe that we’re all dreaming. It’s the traditional orc belief, I know, that you can jump off some cliff and just pop back up somewhere else like some persistent gopher. But I’ve always held with the idea that we start with this life, and when we move onto the next, that’s it. No dying and coming back. It’s a one way trip. You get one chance at this life, so make it count.

I say all that because when I tell you immortality is a load of hog swill, I want you to understand that it’s because we get two lives for two different reasons. We get an afterlife that lasts forever, and we get this life, which doesn’t, and that’s the point. That’s what makes this life special. This life is short, so anything you gotta do, you gotta get it done fast, and not waste too much time on regretting and second guessing. Save the philosophy for the next life, you’ll have plenty of time for it.

That said, the story goes that a long, long time ago, there was a young orc named Rughash, who had a damned hard childhood. He was born in the middle of the biggest war between orcs and elves that was ever seen on this side of Kaleida. You see, after our common mother Hannoua died, the bonds between us and our elven brothers and sisters became strained. Orcs live only briefly, but elves live for a long time, so, not surprisingly, elves ultimately ended up running things. King Ellouin’s eldest daughter succeeded him, all of Queen Hannoua’s children by Dureshka being long since dead, and from then on elves controlled Lallau’s throne, and eventually everything else – even after our ancestors crossed the Morn Ocean from the Old Kingdoms and came to Feguncia.

Now, I’ll allow, it did make sense for them to run things. When an elf can watch two dozen generations of orcs come and go, you can be sure she’s going to be the wiser for it. There’re two problems with that idea though. The first is, there’s more to ruling than being wise. When you’ve lived that long, you forget what it’s like to be young, and you don’t think about how little time the rest of us have to get on with our lives. You start thinking you should be making decisions for everyone else, for their own good, but you forget what’s good for you isn’t what’s good for them. The second problem is, that while an elf might become wiser with time, they forget that some of them ain’t born with the sense God gave a horse. I’m telling you, it is possible to be so damned stupid that, if you had a hundred lifetimes, you couldn’t find your own ass with three mirrors and a court attending.

Now, problem was, in Feguncia the elves who crossed over from the old world had, for some reason I still don’t understand, allowed themselves to fall under the leadership of the dimmest elf that ever graced this hemisphere. The elven King Vlakahs was dumb as a rock. Most elves are like wine, get me? The bottle don’t change, but what’s inside gets better. Vlakahs was like bottled goats milk. In the end, he had less brains than a head of cheese, and unlike cheese, he didn’t get any sharper with age. But that didn’t matter to him because he was too stupid to know how stupid he was. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he was on the throne in Feguncia for centuries, which was more than enough time to screw the kingdom up royally. It was under him that the elves lost control of Facia to a race of bureacrats, and got hoodwinked repeatedly by Dwara in the west. Some of the other elves even tried to talk to him, explain what a damned mess he was making, but the words went in one pointy ear and out the other with nothing to catch them in between.

Now, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, Rhughash. Rhughash was born after the orcs, and some of the humans who’d come to live beside them, had finally had enough and decided to split with the elves. Some of the elves wanted to join their fight against Vlakahs but the orcs didn’t want their help – said they needed to find their own way in the world and couldn’t do that with them hanging over their shoulders. And to their credit, those elves understood and agreed to simply be neutral. They up and left, and settled in the forests of northern Feguncia, on the coast of the Morn Ocean. Which, by the way, is where your grandmother’s family is from.

Anyway, I’m not ashamed to admit, our orc ancestors and their human allies got their asses handed to them. Vlakahs was twelve biscuits short of a baker’s dozen, but his military commanders weren’t idiots, and they knew more about fighting than three generations of orc warriors. In fact, I imagine they could have ended the war in just a few years, but the poor fellows had to deal with Vlakahs dragging them down. Almost inevitably, they’d be just about to make some decisive final victory when the king would suddenly take an interest in the war, would come down from on high, and start telling them how they should be doing things.

So about a century into the war, we orcs had gone and just about spent ourselves, despite King Vlakahs repeatedly providing the idiot’s equivalent of a divine intervention. We’d thrown everything we had at the elves as fast as possible, banking on our greater numbers and relative fearlessness to quickly overwhelm them, but it was like throwing a bucket of water at a wall. Our population was decimated – and I don’t mean that in the literal way your grandmother would say I’m supposed to use it, I mean that in the way normal folks use it; a hundred years into the war, the orc population was one tenth what it had been at the start, and that one tenth was now our entire standing military. Another defeat could have obliterated the orc population altogether.

So, that’s the world Rhughash was born into. His parents were soldiers barely older than you. They were too young to fight a war, and definitely too young to become parents, but back then orc kids were being encouraged to make babies as fast as possible, being told it was the only way to save the race. But about like you’d expect, his parents didn’t last long in battle against elves, and Rhughash was orphaned not too long after he was weaned.

Now, this part gets pretty hinky, doesn’t really make much sense, but I reckon I’ll tell it to you the only ways I ever heard it. The story goes that Rhughash was such a perceptive child, that he knew immediately what needed to be done to save his people, and that when he spoke his first words, they were a prayer to the Loutha. Now, the only way I’ve ever heard that explained, is that Rhughash was actually a Louan – a sleeper who chose to remember his previous dreams – and because of that he was able to call upon the awakened for help.

Whatever the case may be, he made a deal to become unkillable, or as the story would tell you, he made sure the Loutha kept him asleep for eternity. The idea was, an orc would finally live long enough to learn all the things the elves knew, and one orc, at least, would always survive every battle. Now, the catch was he couldn’t just restore the orc race by using the time he was afforded by his immortality to just start getting busy with orc women – he would have to be celibate – no relations with women. According to some folks, he was forbidden to love altogether. Well when Rhughash struck the deal he was an angry little boy, so he wasn’t concerned with relationships, and he agreed to it.

Now, I can assure you, it took a damned long time, but Rhughash eventually did what he said. He learned to fight, learned to win, and learned how to teach. The orcs began winning a few fights, then some more, and then a lot, and their population grew, while the elves began to wane in number. Partly because a lot of them were just tired of the war and up and left, but hey, I reckon winning is winning.

Now, in his long years of fighting Rhughash made many friends, fellow soldiers who followed him into battle and inevitably died, but he learned to accept that with grace. That is, until he met Rhenna.

Rhenna fought like a devil let lose in a locked building. No one could stand against Rhenna, so it was inevitable that Rhenna the Relentless would eventually wind up next to Rhughash the Unkillable on the battlefield. You’ve heard of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object? Imagine if those two things met, and then decided to come after you together. They crushed the elves again and again in one battle after another. And, with so much time spent fighting alongside each other, they eventually developed a bond that transcended the comradery of the battlefield.

Now, there’re two very different versions of this story here that orcs have argued over a lot for a mighty long time. I reckon it doesn’t really matter which version is true, but you kids should know both.

In one version, Rhughash had sworn himself to celibacy, and moreover, to never know the loving touch of a woman. Because of this, he never told Rhenna how he felt about her. She knew, of course (after all, orcs aren’t subtle), but there was an unspoken agreement that they must honor his vow to the gods. Unfortunately, Rhenna eventually died on the battlefield. Rhughash knew he’d lose her eventually, of course, but when Rhenna did actually die, with Rhughash never having actually told her he loved her, he was overwhelmed with grief over the loss. Moreover, because of his immortality, he fell into despair, because he knew he’d never see her again. He knew that if he’d consummated their love, they could have died together, and been joined in the afterlife, but he had made a vow, and could not break it now any more than he could have then. Nevertheless, he regretted his pact with the gods so greatly, that when they burned Rhenna's body, he could no longer bare the weight of it. He walked into the fire as it consumed her and begged the gods to withdraw the immortality he’d been blessed with. Now, legend has it, he went into the fire and never came out, but not one person in attendance heard but the pop and crack of the fire, and Rhughash’s weeping prayer to be reunited with his beloved Rhenna. That's one version, anyway.

Now, in the other version, Rhughash had foresworn love in general, not women. Now, to Rhughash, when he made the vow as a child, it was all the same. Everyone around him treated it the same – when a man grew up, he would love a woman, and she would bear his children, just as his parents had. That was what he vowed not to do, or so he thought. The problem was, eventually he met Rhenna, the unstoppable warrior, just as in the other version, but according to this version, Rhenna was a he – not a she. 

Just as in the other story, Rhughash loved Rhenna, but in this case, he didn’t leave it unspoken, he denied it to himself, because he did not believe it possible for one man to love another in that way. Eventually, Rhenna actually confessed his love for his leader, and Rhughash spurned him. To him it was nonsense. So, the next day, Rhenna went to the battlefield, and fought as Rhughash would – with no regard for his own safety. Legend has it he won the battle with his own two hands, but he succumbed to his wounds afterwards. When Rhughash saw Rhenna’s lifeless body, he was consumed with grief believing he’d never see his beloved friend again.

Story goes, though, that whoever he’d made the pact with was so moved by his grief, that they decided that Rhughash had fallen in love, whether he had admitted it or not. That meant he’d broken his vow, which dissolved the pact and ended Rhughash’s immortality. But, being the romantics they apparently were, they could not punish Rhughash by destroying him or denying him entrance to the afterlife, because doing so would be punishing the heroic Rhenna.  So, Rhughash’s life was ended, but he was reunited with the man he loved.

Like I said, I don’t reckon the difference between the two versions is real important, because the point is the same. Living forever doesn’t mean nothing if you never really live. Fall in love whenever you can. Don’t go being shy about it. And when death calls, don’t say ‘goodbye,’ just say ‘see you on the other side.’