The sky above Gorehill burned the color of dried blood.
Smoke from the forges and campfires of a hundred ogres drifted through the valley, twisting into the air like black banners. The Red Maw’s drums rolled in the distance, deep and steady, echoing through the bones of the mountain.
Vris stood at the edge of the gathering circle, cloaked in silence. His strange eyes peering beyond looking at the enormity of the ogres gathered around him. He let Maggra stand forward this was her meeting, her people’s temper to manage.
The Fanglord’s face was unreadable, but his mind counted every heartbeat, every movement of the tribes that surrounded them.
This was not diplomacy.
This was dominance waiting to happen.
Maggra the Witch of Ash stood at the center of the circle, her twin heads rising over the crowd, violet fire glimmering in her eyes. Behind her loomed the Gorehill ogres her tribe painted in streaks of soot and ochre, their armor etched with runes of decay.
Before her stood the Ironhide Clan, the largest of the western ogre tribes. Their skin was gray-black, thick as iron plates. Their leader, Grond the Unbroken, towered even over Maggra a mountain of muscle with scars that looked like molten rivers, his tusks capped in steel.
He laughed when he saw her.
“This is your Fanglord?” he boomed, pointing one massive finger at Vris. “That speck? That insect? You would follow a half-goblin wretch when your kind once made gods kneel?”
A ripple of uneasy laughter spread through the Ironhides.
Maggra’s left head hissed. The right smiled coldly.
“He commands me,” she said simply. “And through me, all of you.”
Grond’s grin widened. “Then you are a fool twice! Once for bending knee to him, and once for thinking I’ll do the same.”
The circle grew silent.
Even the fires seemed to hesitate.
Vris didn’t move.
He watched, letting the moment weigh. He had learned that to rule ogres, one didn’t interrupt their thunder one survived it.
Maggra stepped forward, green fire crawling along her arms.
“You speak loudly,” she said, both heads in eerie unison. “But thunder without lightning only frightens children.”
Grond snorted. “You want lightning, witch? Come take it.”
The Ironhides cheered. The Gorehill ogres snarled back.
Before the Fanglord could open his mouth, Maggra’s staff hit the ground and the duel began.
The first blow shook the valley.
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Grond’s club came down like a falling tree; Maggra caught it with both hands, the impact cracking the rock beneath her feet. She twisted, spun, and slammed her skulls into his chest one biting, one laughing.
The Ironhide leader staggered back, roaring, then swung again. Maggra ducked beneath the arc and drove her staff into his ribs, the necrotic light flaring bright violet. Flesh blistered. The stench of rot filled the air.
“You dare challenge the Prophet of Ash?” her left head shrieked.
“You should have bowed,” the right purred.
Grond bellowed, seizing her by the throat, lifting her bodily from the ground. For a heartbeat it seemed he’d crush her skulls together. Then her hands shot forward, claws black with decay, and tore into his eyes.
The massive ogre howled, stumbling. Maggra wrenched free, leapt onto his chest, and slammed her staff into his jaw. Bone cracked. Blood flew in a spray of black and red.
He swung wildly, connecting once sending her sprawling through the dirt. The crowd howled as she rose again, staggering, her dual mouths both smiling, both bleeding.
“You think to kill me?” she hissed. “You can’t kill what’s already dead!”
She lifted her hands, and the ground erupted.
From the mud clawed skeletal arms ogre corpses from forgotten wars. They seized Grond’s legs as Maggra launched herself forward, her staff shattering into shards of bone that she used like claws.
The last blow drove her fist straight through his chest.
When she pulled free, his heart was in her hand, still beating.
The Ironhide ogres fell to their knees.
The Gorehill tribe roared their approval.
Grond’s body hit the ground with a thud that shook the hill.
Maggra stood over him, heaving, blood and violet fire dripping from her arms. Then she turned, eyes burning, and addressed the silent Ironhides.
“Your chief is fallen,” she said. “Your pride is broken. But your strength your strength belongs to the Fanglord.”
The ogres looked to Vris, then back to her. None spoke.
Then, one by one, they knelt.
Vris stepped forward, the Heartfang drawn, its red veins glowing in the firelight.
He rested it lightly on Maggra’s shoulder.
“You have done what even I could not,” he said softly. “You’ve made them see the Fang.”
She laughed both heads, breathless and feral. “They see only the witch who beat their chief to death.”
Her right head turned toward him, eyes gleaming with something darker than triumph. “I’ll take his warband and his place in the tent.”
The left head smirked. “Call it… spoils of war.”
Vris didn’t argue. He understood too well the language of power and possession.
He didn’t want to think about what her schemes, and her machinations were for the corpse of the once alive Ironhide Chief might be.
The Fanglord understood the value of Maggra’s unnatural magics how she could bend corpses to her will. It was an invalueable resource that also unnerved him. How many times could they allow that dark magic to prevail before it twisted and corrupted the lands around them?
That night, the Red Maw drums thundered until dawn. The Gorehill and Ironhide ogres drank, feasted, and brawled until the air stank of sweat and blood. The Fanglord’s armies had doubled again.
From his vantage point above the camp, Vris watched the fires spread like stars across the valley. Skara slept at his side; her breath rose and fell like bellows.
Below, Maggra sat among her new warriors, blood still glistening on her skin.
Even wounded, she seemed larger more terrible, more divine.
For the first time, Vris felt the faint weight of unease.
He was the Fanglord, yes.
But the Fang was growing teeth sharper than his own.