Hunter

This started as a bit of background fluff for my Skull Chewas Tribe but I got a bit carried away!  Hope you like it!
The wind howled round the grey-black mountain peaks and screamed it’s frustration at the progress of the lone, fur-clad figure steadily climbing the unforgiving landscape.  He was close to the snowline now and he could smell a blizzard on the air.  He would need to be wearing the creature’s pelt by sundown else perish.  Twas not just the need to feed that drove him on, the creature threatened his very way of life here among the peaks.  The beast must be ferocious indeed for it had driven off or killed almost every other creature this side of the tallest peak and if it didn’t die soon there would be nothing left to hunt.
There were few trees left this high on the mountainside.  On the one hand that was good because the beast had fewer places to hide.  On the other hand the hunter had fewer places to hide so sneaking up on the beast was looking less likely.  He’d tried to stay upwind of the beast but the screaming gales blew in all directions, as if it were trying to warn his quarry.  The hunter gave no thought to what the mountain was trying to do; the peaks were always trying to kill him.  One day they would succeed but so far they had only made him stronger.  The hunter was good at his job, many years experience had enabled him to track and kill pretty much all the varied creatures of the peaks.  However, he was unsure what he was tracking.  It left strange tracks that belonged to no beast he had seen.  He thought it must be some sort of belly crawler because of the drag marks between the strange footprints.  The footprints themselves were bizarre because no two looked the same.  Also, he wasn’t sure how many feet the beast actually had.  He was beginning to think it was some sort of mutant, perhaps a crag beast or ice mammoth.  It was certainly bigger than a normal crag beast maybe bigger than an ice mammoth, but neither of them crawled on the ground.  A frost drake would fit the bill but the tracks looked nothing like those of the frozen wyrms.  In the end it didn’t matter, thought the hunter.  It would die and his reputation and ego would be inflated beyond all reasonable proportions.
Then the hunter had a stroke of luck, a massive pile of the creature’s dung waited for him on the side of the trail.  The hunter regarded it for a moment, still unsure as to what left it and wondering why it had not been buried to cover the smell.  Most other creatures would try and cover their scent but not this one.  Must be mighty sure of itself, mused the hunter.  Whatever the reason the hunter could use this and so cheerfully dived into the steaming pile and rolled around like a dog.  The stench was horrendous but was ignored; now he was in disguise!
He continued up the mountain, more and more of the mystery beast’s tracks appeared, lots of different trails, some obviously older than others, all converging into one.  The hunter guessed he must be tracking the creature towards its lair!  The hunter was high up the mountainside by now.  There were only a few straggly pines left this far up.  Mostly the landscape was boulder strewn and near vertical.  Climbing some of the sheerest cliff faces the hunter was forced to use the creature’s claw marks as handholds as there were no natural ones.  If the fact that the creature could leave deep furrows in the rock face bothered the hunter he gave no sign.
An hour later he reached a small plateau and stopped.  Bones and carcasses littered ground as well as more dung.  Dried blood was splashed everywhere and even some of the rocks and boulders had been smashed apart.  Whatever the creature was it was huge and strong, not caring to cover its trail or conceal itself in anyway.  This would take some careful planning. 
“Or not” said the hunter to himself as a titanic roar echoed across the mountains.  Dragging itself around a corner came a hideous creature.  Fully twenty feet tall with a gigantic rat’s head atop its hunched shoulders, multiple arms and tentacles flailed wildly about the creature.  The rat-beast was a fleshy, blubbery mountain of mind-wrenching insanity.  Beneath the flab were great muscles that could power it forward.  There even appeared to be bits of metal and pipes growing out of its flanks and several smaller rat heads had been stitched on seemingly at random, each one screeching and chattering inanely.  The abomination let out another mighty roar that caused a few rocks to drop from the mountain, but it was answered in turn by a roar from the ogre hunter as Mal pulled himself to his full eleven foot height and screamed a challenge at the hideous rat-beast.
Hefting a mighty hunting spear the ogre barrelled forward and hurled the spear at the creature.  The spear pierced its fleshy sides and stuck fast.  Even as the beast howled in pain the wound healed itself around the shaft.  More disturbing still was the way the shaft began to flail around madly like the creature’s other limbs.  The creature began to drag itself forward but the ogre noticed its progress was sporadic, as if its legs and limbs were fighting against each other.
“Too many ‘eads and not nuff legs, Eh?” he shouted.  But even as he said this the creature began to build up momentum.  Another spear lanced through the sky and pierced the creature’s upper body, but still it came on.  The ogre backed up and then hurled his last spear.  Again it found its mark but the creature wouldn’t drop and now the ogre was out of spears.  He’d never carried more than a half handful before because he’d never needed to.  By the Maw this thing was tough!  He unhooked his club from his belt and prepared to charge.
The combined impact of ogre and beast caused another minor avalanche and club met flesh with a resounding thud.  The ogre lashed out left and right, bone crunching and heads splatting but no matter how hard he hit, the damned thing just healed itself at supernatural speed. 
A backhanded swipe from a giant clawed armed sent him reeling into a boulder and lights flashed before his eyes from the shock.  The creature reared up and threatened to crush him with its bulk but at that moment the ogre’s reinforcements struck.  Two sabre tusks leapt on the back of the creature scratching and biting great gouges in its flesh.  He’d trained the cats well over the last few years to the point where he barely needed to issue orders.  The abomination twisted to try and throw the great cats from its back but slipped in the process.  Mal surged forward and landed blow after blow on the creature’s largest head.  He left it a pummelled mess but stared in disbelief as it started reforming with a sickening glooping noise.  Even as he watched the teeth began gnawing and gnashing trying to bite at an enemy as yet unseen. 
One of the sabre tusks had chewed a smaller head off and was clawing at another.  The other cat was dead, ripped in two by the abomination’s awesome strength.  Mal was at a loss as to how to finally kill the creature.  He couldn’t cause enough damage himself to stop it reforming.  He’d killed trolls in the past but he’d always been prepared and taken fire with him.  Now he had no fire coz he hadn’t known what he was tracking and that was going to kill him.
The rat-beast had regained its footing, but Mal stepped in and broke one of its many legs.  It would only slow it down but he needed time to think.  As he was an ogre he would need a lot of time to think.  He blocked a blow with his club and ducked a swing from one of his own spears that had been aimed at his head.  Following the cats’ example he pulled himself onto the creature’s back and rained blow after blow but still the thing kept fighting back.  The huge clawed hand ripped up and snapped his club in two.  Mal stared in astonishment.  He’d used that club to break holes in the mountain and it had broke like ice.  The moment’s distraction cost him and a tentacle wrapped around his leg and hurled him bodily against the cliff.
Ribs splintered as Mal impacted on the unbending rock with incredible force.  His head swam and he couldn’t focus, but he could hear the rumble of the beast’s approach.  Even as the rumble intensified he desperately tried to push himself up but couldn’t so just braced for the impact.  Which never came.  An anguished howl rang out even over the continuing noise.  Mal pushed himself upright cleared his head by banging it with the stump of his club.  When he could focus he managed to make sense of the scene before him.
His impact on the cliff had caused an avalanche which had more or less buried the rat-beast and had missed him by only a few feet.  Only a couple of heads and half an arm were visible beneath the rubble.  Mal let out a bellow of laughter and gave the heads a good kicking.  True the wounds began to heal but now he had time to prepare.  He unslung his pack from his back and retrieved his flints.  The beast eyed him warily as he went about his business, then as the sparks began to fall from the flints it started to mew and scream in panic.  It might be insane but it knew fire when it saw it.
The roasting pit burned bright in the night, the carcass of the rat beast had been butchered and great slabs of meat hung on spits being turned slowly by teams of sweating gnoblars, the short-arsed slave-race of the ogres.  When the Slaughtermaster had cut the beast he had discovered not one but thirteen hearts.  He’d been ecstatic and claimed them all for his gore soaked rituals.  The noise of scores of ogres in full feast was deafening, overpowered only by the stench of scores of ogres in full feast.  Beaming with pride and rosy cheeked with booze Mal sat at the right hand side of the tyrant of Da Skull Chewa Tribe, Blug Giantbreaker.  Blug had earned the name Giantbreaker after subduing two giants at the same time.  He claimed he’d picked up one of the giants and beaten the other into submission with it.  The two giants, now known as Meatshield and GetUp had survived and formed a vital part of the tyrant’s army as massive shock troops.
Back on the mountainside Mal had burnt the rat-beast until it stopped healing itself and then dug the carcass out from the avalanche.  He’d also found the corpses of his two sabre tusks.  He’d felt a pang of loss for their deaths but not enough to stop him from eating them.  He’d then dragged, pushed and rolled the rat-beast down the rocky slopes and eventually brought it to Da Skull Chewa Tribe, who currently had camp in the valley below.  The tale of how he’d slaughtered it had been very well received, but in his version he missed out the bit about the avalanche.  With any luck by the time the tale reached the mountain foothills he’d have killed the beast with one blow!
Blug Giantbreaker raised himself off his throne of beast hides and bones and bellowed for silence.  Eventually even the drunkest ogres got the message after they’d been hit a few times.
“Mal Beastkiller!” Yelled the tyrant, his deep voice booming across the camp.  “Killer of the great rat-beast!  Let all know his name!  Let all know his deed!”   A massive cheer erupted and haunches of meat were thrown in the air like hats.
With that the tyrant slumped back down to his throne, long winded speech done.  Then the feast began in earnest.  Enough meat and ale was consumed that night to feed a town for a month.  Gristle and spittle and bone flew from ogre mouths as they laughed and sung and swore and cursed.  One particularly dense ogre was bet he couldn’t eat his own leg, but it was a bet he won.  At one end of the camp a bunch of Bellowers, the ogre equivalent of musicians, had started a shouting contest accompanied by the thump, thump, thump of clubs on the hard ground.  Occasionally there was a burst of light and a whooshing noise as the Firebelly known as Boona ignited either breath or flatulence!  Gnoblars scurried between the hulking bodies of their masters stealing food and trinkets or else serving food and ale.  There had been a few meaningless scraps and a few gnoblars chucked, beaten or eaten but nothing serious until a large bruiser drunkenly stood up and hurled a haunch of meat straight at the tyrant. 
The meat hit Blug square in the face with a loud splat and then fell to the floor, but not before the tyrant’s gluttonous instincts kicked in and he’d bitten a chuck from the meat.  Instantly the noise was redoubled as ogres began cheering and bellowing for blood!  The bruiser pointed at Blug,
“Grund Challenge!” He bellowed and again the cheering intensified.
“Blug take Challenge!” Replied the ogre tyrant and quickly began unbuckling his gut plate, the thick armour plate that covers an ogre’s stomach and therefore their vital organ.  The bruiser began doing likewise a look of eager anticipation in his eyes.  The rest of the tribe was beginning to crowd around the Maw Pit, the focus of the ogres’ worship. 
To an ogre eating and worship are one and the same for their god is the Great Maw, a city sized mouth found in the Far East.  Birthed by the arrival of a giant comet the insatiable god ate its way through the planet’s core and out the other side.  It passed its’ never-ending hunger to the ogre’s who feel it constantly and are driven to feed all the time.  Whenever the ogres make camp their very first act is to eat something, but after that they dig a huge pit, line the edges with sharpened stakes to represent the Great Maws teeth and it is within this pit that they conduct their barbaric rituals, most of which involve eating or fighting or both at the same time.  The most important of these rituals is the Tyrant Challenge.  Any ogre who feels himself strong enough may challenge the current tyrant to a guts-out fight, the looser to be consumed by the victor.  Leadership challenges are the most violent, bloody and longest out of all the ogre’s traditional fights.  Neither ogre can expect to win so must fight hard and the looser will be quickly devoured.  If they are lucky they’ll have been killed first.  It is considered a bad omen for the tribe if the winner is unable to consume the entirety of his foe before he leaves the pit.
Mals’ victory over the rat-beast lent him a certain prestige so he was able to push forward to the very edge of the Maw Pit.  Two enormous tusks, set upright in the ground, marked the entrance to the pit.  The base of each tusk was obscured by trophies from past victories; gut-plates, weapons, skulls and bones.  It was quite an impressive collection.  The current tyrant traditionally is the first to enter the pit so Blug swaggered into centre and turned to face his opponent.  As Grund reached the tusks Mal thought he was going to try a move known as The Goldtooth whereby the challenger leaps gut first onto the head of the tyrant hopefully breaking his neck.  It was first tried by Greasus Goldtooth on his journey to become Overtyrant of all the Ogre Kingdoms.  However, Blug was no novice and changed his stance so Grund simply stomped into the Maw Pit and faced off against the tyrant.
The noise reached a crescendo as the two combatants weighed each other up.  Grund was slightly taller, but Blug seemed to have the weight advantage.  As they began to paw the ground like a couple of irate overweight bulls, Mal thought the two of them looked similar and briefly wondered if Grund was the offspring of Blug.  Not that it made any difference, been done before, be done again thought Mal.  At that point the two ogres charged.
Both thrust their guts out at the same and the slamming noise of the impact reminded Mal of the avalanche he had just survived.  Grund immediately brought one great fist round to slam it into Blug’s head but Blug blocked the blow with his forearm and pushed forward with his gut once more.  The taller ogre gave ground to regain a better footing and just managed to block a blow to his own head.  Blows and punches were quickly exchanged, each ogre giving and receiving a good pummelling.  The crowd appeared to be going insane over the fight, screaming and bellowing, with smaller fights breaking out around the pit.  Blug received a vicious kick to his gut but responded by dropping to his knees and biting a great chunk from Grund’s thigh.
“Gotta finish whut I started!” said Blug with an evil, blood-soaked grin.  Grund screamed in rage and pain and lumbered toward the tyrant.  Punches and gut barges were passed between them and then Grund managed to get a bear hug on Blug and began to squeeze.  His huge muscles bulged and his arms shook as he tried to break the tyrant’s back.  Blug was obviously having trouble breathing and Mal felt his own breath catch as he began to think it was all over.  Then Blug reared back his head and rammed it forward with insane speed and power.  The unmistakeable sound of breaking bone could be heard even over the roar of the crowd, but no one was sure whose skull had given way.  Grund dropped the tyrant and staggered backwards, arms flailing to keep balance.  It was the perfect opportunity for Blug to regain the initiative but he was too busy staggering about himself.  Both ogres managed to face each other after a few false starts and began to lumber forward once more.  It was clear to Mal that they were fighting on instinct now rather than tactics or strategy.
Once again there was an explosion of noise as the two great guts slammed into each other but this time Grund slipped and landed heavily.  Blug belly flopped on top of him, winding the ogre badly.  After punching his head a few times, the tyrant then grabbed Grund’s arm and began to heave and pull and twist and turn it.  With a sickening wet ripping noise, and gallons of blood cascading to the pit floor, Grund’s arm tore free.  Blug pulled himself up and then began mercilessly club Grund with his own arm.  Again and again the gory weapon rose and fell until eventually Grund stopped moving.  Blug, however was too overcome with battle-lust and gave the corpse a good kicking, bellowing and screaming in rage and victory.  Several violent minutes later he subsided and, gulping for air raised the bloody arm over his head.  Turning round slowly Blug soaked in the crowd’s adoration.  The tyrant was covered in blood from head to foot as well as sweat and mud and lumps of Grund. Steam rose from his back and arms and there was a mad light in his eyes.  If Mal was any judge that was a violent enough demonstration of the tyrant’s power to cement his position for another few years to come.  Ogre’s follow strength and that had been an impressive display.
“Boona!” yelled Blug. “Boona!  Cook my meal!  You lot, eat more!”  The Firebelly knew what Blug meant and with a quick prayer to the Fire Mouth hurled a massive fireball at the corpse of Grund.  With the flames roasting the body Blug began to consume the still-raw arm that had won him victory.
As the sun began to rise the next morning the feast began to wind down, slowly the ogre’s great store of food had been consumed and the last few bits of straggly meat had been thrown in the roasting pit.  The last few barrels of ale had been split open and the gnoblars had started the traditional ‘stealing stuff from big un’s too drunk to stop us’. 
Mal’s belly felt more bloated than he could ever remember it being, but he knew he would still need to feed later.  It was as he was pondering finding a quiet spot somewhere and having a kip that he saw the Slaughtermaster approaching him.  Immediately Mal began to get nervous.  The shamanistic Slaughtermasters were not choosy where they got the ingredients from for their spells and many an ogre had vanished after a visit from a Slaughtermaster or Butcher.  As subtly as he could manage Mal drew his hunting knife whilst trying to conceal it from the wizard.  In actually fact his ‘knife’ was a double handed sword wielded by a thinling from the Empire, but to Mal it was a just the right size for a knife.  The slaughtermaster held a large club in one hand and appeared to be eating the skull and brains of one of the rat-beasts heads with the other.  Between mouthfuls he spoke to Mal.
“Beastkiller, you take this.” He said, proffering the mighty club.  “Belong Grund.  Grund not need no more.  Me magic club.  Blessed club by all dem hearts in rat-beast.  Much magic, strong magic.  You take.  You need.”  Mal regarded the club and could see the red-black blood of the rat-beast still glistening on the sides.  Re-sheathing his knife he took the club and, still keeping a wary eye on the Slaughtermaster, gave it a couple of experimental swings.  There was a good solid weight to the club, with plenty of metal strapped to the sweet spot.  Grund had obviously chosen the club well for it was long enough to be used with two hands but not so long that it couldn’t be used in just one.  However, there was no magical tingling when Mal gripped the shaft, no weird glowing lights, no sense of impossible powers, it was just a club.  A good club, but just a club.  Mal raised an eye brow.
“Magic?” he queried.
“Magic!” confirmed the shaman with an unhealthy chuckle. “Much magic, strong magic.” And with that he turned and waddled off, his great rolls of flab shaking as he chuckled to himself.
“Nutter.” Said Mal, but not too loudly and then went to get some kip himself.
Ogres need little sleep to survive, but even still Mal felt he needed more when someone started kicking him in the head to wake him up.  Groggily he opened one eye and squinted at the enormous shape looming over him.  Blug Giantbreaker grinned down at the prone hunter, his body was covered in bruises and both his eyes were badly swollen and Mal was sure he’d lost some teeth.  Although Grund was no more he’d taken his toll on the tyrant and Blug was gonna feel sore for a few days.
“Get up Beasty!” barked Blug.  “Need you to lead hunt.  No food left after big feast last night.  Tribe hungry and want to see you in action.”  This was enough of a threat to jerk Mal fully awake.  He reached under his head and retrieved his new club, which he’d used as a pillow, and then staggered to his feet.
“Need to use caves first.  Then we hunt.” He grunted.  Blug nodded and then strode off to wake up the rest of the hunting party.  Mal lumbered off toward the cave where the ogres left their waste, exchanging nods with an ogre who had just finished his business.  Gnoblars are a downtrodden, extremely ill-treated race of goblinoids.  They are given all the horrible little jobs that ogres can’t or won’t do.  But of all a downtrodden race none are looked down on more so than those gnoblars known as Wipers.  As Mal reached the entrance to the cave he scooped up a  noblars whose smell and downcast expression marked him out as a Wiper and prepared to make the little runts life that little bit more unpleasant. 
The hunting party had been traipsing across the mountains for over half the day without so much as a whiff of anything.  Mal estimated the party consisted of two handfuls of ogres most of which were little more than whelps.  Even Blug hadn’t been able to berate the older and bigger ogres into joining the party on account of their immense hangovers.  Mal knew he would have to do most of the work and didn’t relish the prospect.  Any hunting party that failed to secure food tended to end up on the menu.  The youngest members of the party were beginning to grumble and complain like only and ogre can.  If they didn’t catch scent of something soon things could turn very nasty very soon.
Mal stopped and motioned for the rest of the group to do so.  Ignoring the low key grumbling he organised them into smaller separate.
“Lissen up!” He yelled. “All o’ you spread out in your groups!  Don’t get lost.  Don’t wander off!  Stay within earshot of each other!  If you find summuts you can handle then handle it.  If it’s too big for ya, grow some guts!  If it’s still too big, holla and der others will come running.”  Orders given he stomped off, not caring whether the others followed or not. 
The hare stopped grazing and sniffed the wind.  For a moment it thought it smelled something but then it was gone.  After eyeing the landscape warily it returned to its grazing.  A moment later a great hunting spear obliterated its head and the body leapt in the air.  Mal sniffed in satisfaction.  Using a hunting spear to kill a hare was a bit of overkill but he was in no mood to muck about.  He pulled a length of rope from his pack and tied it to the back of his belt.  Expertly he then tied the hare’s rear feet to the other end of the rope so that as he walked it would drag on the ground leaving a trail of blood.  With any luck the blood will attract something else a little bit more substantial.
He didn’t have to wait long.  Within a few minutes he felt a tremor run through the ground and eventually a thundertusk crested a ridge behind him.  Twenty tons of hungry elephantine muscle and fur roared in anticipation of a meal.  Its great tusks swung this way and that as it sized up its opponent.  Each of its legs was thicker than Mal was wide and capable of carrying the thundertusk at terrifying speeds.  Not that it needed to close with its foe.  So saturated with magic was the creature that it was able to launch great lumps of ice, drawn from the air itself, across great distances.  Accuracy wasn’t an issue as the ice exploded on impact, lacerating anything nearby.  If that wasn’t enough to down its prey then the beast itself exuded an aura of such intense cold that anything attacking it would find its flesh freezing and brain numbing.

Mal took a deep breath and bellowed as loudly as he could.  Hopefully the dumb bastards that made up the rest of the hunting party would come running and not take too long about it.  The thundertusk eyed him warily, unsure as to what to do.  It could smell blood and it seemed to be coming from the small fur-covered creature up ahead but the creature didn’t seem wounded.  In the end it relied on instinct and began drawing a great breath.  A mystical glow began to coalesce around the great tusks and a giant ball of ice quickly formed between them, held in place by the inate magic of the great pachyderm.  With a great crack of thunder the deadly ball of ice was hurled forward in a swooping arc toward the foe.  Which wasn’t there.  Mal had already covered most of the distance between him and the thundertusk and crashed into the beast, blocking the swipe of a tusk with his new club.
Mal laughed out loud to himself, the thrill of battle coursing through his veins.  He’d killed thundertusks aplenty in the past and knew the secret.  With their great tusks hanging almost to the ground an adult thundertusk was unable to look down immediately in front of itself!  If a hunter had enough guts and got close enough to the immense beast then it wouldn’t be able to focus on him so long as he remained in the beast’s blindspot.  True the hunter risked being squashed flat as the thundertusk flailed around madly but it was a risk truly worth it.  Mal almost danced with the beast as it lunged this way and that trying to find its assailant.  He sidestepped a giant leg and ducked a tusk always staying as close to the creature’s blindspot as possible.  The aura of cold surrounding the beast didn’t hinder Mal at all as the thick furs he always wore protected him from the worst of it.
Mal heard ogre voices behind him calling out and shouting encouragement.  The thundertusk realised it was outnumbered by a foe prepared to fight back and began to panic.  It reared up on its hind legs ready to stomp and flatten the small thing in front of it.  Yet Mal had seen its muscles bunch and guessed what it was going to do.  Instead of diving for cover, Mal stood his ground and raised his club.  When the hairy beast raised itself up as far as it could go he struck with all his might at the exposed underbelly of the beast.  The force of the impact actually knocked the thundertusk backwards landing on its back with a massive thump.  The other ogres reacted instantly swarming over the downed beast.  Despite the size of the ogres they were tiny compared to the bulk of the beast but there were more of them and they were armed and hungry.  Blood splattered the ground and soon the beast was still.  Mal looked at the steaming corpse critically.
“Another couple o’ dem and dat’ll be nuff for lunch.”  He announced to the rest of the hunting party.