Dukagsh Pt 4

Sorry for the delay.  Just started police academy and personal time is not 
common.
Last part!

Two years later the new settlement had grown considerably.  The huts had 
become mud and clay structures that insulated against the elements, and they 
had defeated an opposing population of salamen in great battle, being 
outnumbered two to one.
	At the victory celebration Dukagsh spoke again the first words he had 
uttered to them since that day two years ago.  He wore his full chain armor 
wielded his great axe and stood beyond the raging bonfire that had consumed 
the last of their enemies bodies.  He raised his arms and silence fell among 
the dancing and singing orcs.  Shamans and priests held themselves at the 
center of attention, proclaiming that He-Who-Never-Sleeps had delivered them. 
 Now they fell silent too.  What would he say now after all this time?
	“Three years ago, as the Shamans tell you, we were defeated by the 
elves through trickery, magic and the weakness and stupidity of the goblins, 
kobolds and ogres.  I tell you that the goblins, kobolds and ogres were 
indeed weak and stupid.” 
	This brought laughter and scattered howls.  Even some of the shamans 
smiled, but not Karzat.
	“But the shaman’s also tell us, that a crippled warrior should not 
live or lead.  A leader that kills his own troops before entering battle 
should be slain and replaced, the strongest taking the lead.  The shaman’s 
also say that the old are weak and should be killed when they can’t fight and 
can’t lead!”
	“Today we had a great victory.  We were outnumbered, and we won.  
They rode great lizards and breathed fire.  We won.  The shamans say that 
Gruumsh gave us the victory.  Where was Gruumsh or the shamans on the field 
today?  Where were they when you trained in the desert?  Where were they when 
you learned the tactics that brought you victory?  Where were they when you 
learned to read and gained this knowledge?”
	Protests broke out among the shamans.  Some orcs rumbled and looked 
fearfully about at the free use of Gruumsh’s name by one other than a priest. 
 But Dukagsh drove on, the flames seemed to leap and grow with his fury.
	“The war with the elves wasn’t lost!  It was stolen!  Stolen by the 
shaman’s who killed their troops and chiefs because they wanted power, or 
because they hoped to gain glory for themselves!  But worse they teach you 
that is their right and privilege.  They teach you to follow them and their 
god that teaches them to kill their own troops, to honor the shaman’s as they 
grow old and weak!  They teach us to worship a cripple!!”
	Stunned silence filled the air.  Fingers grasped at weapons.
	“The shaman’s teach that Gruumsh lost his eye in battle with the 
elven god Corellon.  That he was tricked and defeated!  He lost because he 
was stupid and vain!  Weak!  Corellon defeated him and took his eye, leaving 
him alive because he knew that Gruumsh would never be a threat to him or his 
children again!  Because even the elf god knew that Gruumsh was a cripple!  
Not worthy to live or take space and food at our dinner tables!  Yet we 
worship him!  And we wonder why we always lose!  We lose because he does not 
care whether we win against the elves; he knows that the orcs, his children 
can never defeat what he himself could not defeat!  You know it is true what 
I say!  You know that to this day the shamans teach that our reward is to go 
to Archeron and fight the goblin spirits of Magubliyet forever more!  Where 
are the elves?  Why does he not take the hordes of our ancestors spirits and 
attack the lands of Arvandor?  Because he knows he will lose!  He already 
has!  Now as a crippled coward he instead bullies the weak goblins and 
slaughters us and wastes our lives to console his misery and weakness.  When 
you came here I told you that we had failed as orcs and must live as 
something new now.  Now you know why!  Because as orcs you can do nothing but 
fail!  The shaman’s prevent your victory, their god prevents your victory!  
But today I have brought you victory!  Today you claimed your own victory, 
and you did it because you did not act like orcs!”
	Silence reigned, then a cry.  “Blasphemy!”
	The orcs turned, Karzat strode to stand before Dukagsh, his remaining 
eye bloodshot with rage.  “Blasphemy!  You dare to question our creator, our 
great leader!”
	“I question a weak old cripple, who cannot fight his enemies and 
would rather kill his strong sons then risk being replaced!  I do the duty 
every orc is taught, but you shaman’s have twisted to prevent us from knowing 
the truth and becoming more than what you allow us!  Deny it!  What orc here 
has not seen with his own eyes what I speak of?  Did I not capture the elven 
admiral, only to be abandoned to die by this elven bastard because he wanted 
to control our fleet?  Who will not stand by me in this truth?”
	Dukagsh and Karzat stared each other down.  Great hatred passed 
between them like flaming pitch arrows shot across the skies.  Around them 
they heard growls and the sound of weapons clearing sheaths.  Commands were 
shouted and the sounds of footsteps drawing nearer marked the approaching 
nearness of doom for them.
	“You are old.  Weak.  You are a relic of a god who hasn’t enough 
sense to die.”  Dukagsh taunted him.  He knew that Karzat had feared he would 
do this.  Perhaps even the fumbling, half blind god he followed had tried to 
warn him.
	“You are a traitor!  You deny your maker, and forsake the order he 
has given us!  What would you do?  Make us human?  Follow the elven gods?  I 
know you have been teaching their tongue to your captains!  What would you do 
without our gods?”  Karzat demanded imperiously, demanding obeisance.
	At that moment the creak of drawn bows and whistling arrows muffled 
their speech.  Both orcs smiled, certain that their enemy, the true enemy of 
the orcs would fall now to their combined outrage.  Both were right. 
	Karzat fell down, shock on his face as his old body rapidly lost 
strength and his life spilled on the floor.  Behind him he could hear screams 
as the other shamans and priests were slain by the warriors.  As they 
perished he felt the power of Gruumsh flee from him, as quickly as his own 
blood poured. 
	Dukagsh stepped forward and seized him by the hair of his head, 
pulling his head up.  He forced the priest to look in his eyes.  “What will I 
do without our gods?  I will win, like I always do.  I will replace them.  I 
will become a god!”
	He flung back his hand with his axe, and Karzat whispered hoarsely, 
“Gruumsh- will ... stop you.”
	Dukagsh smiled, “Gruumsh does not care.  You may tell him yourself 
when you see him, all that I have said.  If you are lucky, he won’t 
immediately destroy you for reminding him of the truth of his pathetic 
godhood.”
	The axe fell, and Gruumsh and Karzat were with the people of Dukagsh 
no more.
	All was quiet again.  Finally Rark cam to him, a bloody sword in 
hand.  He looked at his leader with apprehension but excitement at the change 
to come.  “So who are we now?  What shall we be called?”
	Dukagsh looked at him and across the savage orcs that that he had 
dragged across the spheres and forced to grow.  “Someday I will give you a 
name.  A new name to conquer by.  A name that will not limit you but unleash 
your desire for revenge.  But until then, you are my people.  That is enough 
for now.”

	Years later Dukagsh’s people had undergone many changes.  They no 
longer claimed the history of the orcs.  The records of that race were kept 
for study but never again used to teach anything but how to fail. 
	Dukagsh’s people learned to read.  This taught them patience.  They 
learned to speak the language of their hated foes, the elves.  This taught 
them wisdom.  They learned every bit of knowledge they could from the other 
races on their new world.  Then they destroyed them.  They learned weapon 
skills from humans, dwarves and giff.  They traded for tools and learned to 
make new weapons.  They took books from wherever they could and began to 
teach their children the wisdom they held, and the wisdom of their Almighty 
Leader Dukagsh.
	Dukagsh personally fathered over a hundred whelps.  He declared that 
the females were just as valuable as males, if not more so because they 
carried each new generation of increasing might of his people.  The women 
learned warfare, tactics, fighting hand to hand.  They were also commanded to 
seek knowledge and increase the might of the race.  The women took to it 
quickly and parents together raised their children to venerate Dukagsh and 
the rules of their society.
	Each child was taught the rules of failure:

	1 Never try anything new.
	2 Never listen to the old.
	3 Never listen to the young.
	4 Blindly follow every order.
	5 Measure strength by size.

	They studied engineering, math, architecture, and farming.  Lastly 
they studied magic and began to unravel the secrets of the energies that 
moved the worlds and fired the stars. 
	Finally when four generations had passed, the old but still sharp and 
impressive Dukagsh gathered his people together again.  He had lived over a 
hundred years.  His people came together in hope of gaining their name.  The 
name promised by the revered Dukagsh that would begin to send them back to 
the stars again and reign in terror over the elves.
	Various students of magic and war helped him to his place and using 
their minor magic’s broadcast his voice so the multitudes could hear him. 
	“Today is the first day of a new world for us.  We arrived on this 
planet as strangers, exiles.  Today we own it.  There is no opponent, no 
creature we have not slain or enslaved.  This world is ours in four short 
generations.
	“Tomorrow my body will die.”  His people muttered in dismay.  He 
waved for silence.  “I know this.  But there is a way that I will remain with 
you forever more to guide you as you study and struggle.”
	“But first I give you a name.  Long ago I came to this planet with 
two thousand weak, bickering orcs.  Today there are nearly one hundred 
thousand.  You are organized.  Skilled.  You have mastered yourselves and in 
doing so have mastered this world.  All those beyond this will continue to do 
the same as long as you keep true to the path I have shown you.  Study and 
struggle.  Think and then act.  Never underestimate your enemies, for they 
will be numerous.  Do this and you will conquer, you will travel far, for all 
roads of knowledge lead to the elven destruction.  Do this and you will 
always be my children.  Do this, and you will always be- the Scro!”
	The word gathered in the air as the assembled hordes heard it, 
absorbed it and exulted in it.  A name!  The new name!  The mass began to 
chant.
	“Scro.  Scro.  Scro.”
	“Tomorrow this body will die, but you my people, my Scro, can keep me 
with you.”
	“Scro!  Scro!  Scro!”
	“Tonight and through tomorrow till I die you must worship me, you 
must honor me and revere me.  You must dance and sing and praise my name, my 
works and my glory!”
	“SCRO!  SCRO!  SCRO!”
	“Do this my people and I will become your god!  I will never leave 
you and I will never forget my promises to you, so long as you never forget 
your vows to me!  Do this and I will be god of the SCRO!!”
	“SCRO!!  SCRO!!  SCRO!!  SCRO!!”

	The celebration and ritual continued all through the night, and into 
the next.  The scro burned every remaining city of the original natives.  
They sacrificed prisoners to Dukagsh, they danced, they drank, they rutted 
all in Dukagsh’s name.  On the following night the tempo reached a crescendo 
and the sky filled with clouds of thunder and lightning.  The blasts lit up 
the ground and sizzled among the worshippers, but none were hurt.  The 
thunder of elven doom kept time to their agonizing dance and frenzied 
pleasures, all in the name of Dukagsh. 
	Finally it all ceased and for a moment silence smothered the land and 
all that was heard was the slithering hiss of a last breath escaping old 
lungs.  A cry of agony, rage, frustration and victory rang out at once in 
unison from the scro the combined breath of the new nation took shape and 
color, swirling into the clouds overhead, gathering as an amorphous mass.  
Lightning blasts struck from the clouds on all sides, and the earth shook 
until every scro was thrown down.  Yet the scintillating brilliance above 
forced even the prostrated to look upward and behold the flowing patterns, 
the spinning colors like the flow and like nothing at all.  Finally it 
exploded, like a sun it blazed over the surface of the entire world. 
	Stillness filled the air.  Winds began to blow lightly and push the 
storm clouds away.  Every scro looked up expectantly.  Had they failed?  Was 
it not enough?
	A sound.  Soft at first but growing in strength, then heard with 
certainty by every scro on the planet.
	Laughter.  The laughter of Dukagsh.  The laughter of a god.
	Their cheers echoed for miles, then they began to collapse from the 
exhaustion of their efforts until none remained conscious.
	From his enhanced view Dukagsh saw into the heart and mind of every 
scro.  He saw the most faithful and the best talented.  He chose his new 
Warpriests, his captains and his new Almighty Leader.  He gave them insights 
and dreams to pursue to further their own skills and the glory of their race.
	When he finished he let them rest for three days. 
	They had much to do these children of his.  He had to lead them 
onward and out into the stars again.  They must face the elves again, but 
this time without fear or weakness.  This time they would force the elves to 
fight their way and the elves would be forced to flee into exile.
	Dukagsh smiled.  He knew it would take time, he was a god certainly, 
but he had already felt his limits reaching the minds of his people.  He 
would have to grow in power along with his people.  But he knew it would 
happen, just as he always knew before.
	He would always win, and now someday he would defeat Gruumsh as well. 
 His revenge would be complete.