[i][b][center]Mirak of the Benya Kurhah[/center][/b][/i]

Mirak adjusted the bronze-scaled hauberk panoply weighing on his shoulders and chest, hands naturally moving to the belt to secure it tighter. He knew well from long years of experience that a tight belt meant a good fit and a good fit was needed for riding. Though heavy on its own, when appropriately worn a hauberk of scale would feel no different upon a man than a partially loaded pack. He sighed with contentment as the belt slid into place, still fitting him well-enough.

He had aged. Mirak knew it, and he was sure his people did too. In his youth, even as Zhaan, he had always been wiry and fit. Though he did not doubt the strength of his limbs nor the power in his back, he certainly felt softer in places. Though he was no elder his hair had greyed early, the sign of wisdom most would say. To Mirak he simply felt like he was aging. But, he admitted, that was the nature of life; leave it to the Terrible Spirits and their agelessness to step into futures not meant for one such as he. His ancestors waited for him, even if for another many years, and he knew one day he would wish more than anything to see them. 

For now though he was yet hearty, strong and hoary. There was fire in his breath yet.

A helmet slid down over his head, Mirak scantily realizing it was his own hands placing it there. The cheek guards felt cold on his skin where no leather or fur padding was secured. The sweeping forward arch of the helmet’s peak changed the weight distribution of his head ever so slightly, intended for deflecting blows and arrows as well as reminding the warrior to ride forward, ever forward. He had been told he struck an imposing sight when dawning his full warrior garb. Mirak did not know; he felt other warriors embodied the ancestors of war better than he. With that he wrapped his lower face with the warrior scarf sewn in his clans colors, his retainers following suit. Now his transformation from man into spirit of battle was complete. 

His eyes swept this-way and that, across to the other warriors of his band. Some were his khayhar, loyal retainers all, but most were common warriors. They were men who intended action, each baring spears and bows and javelins in mixed assortments. His own retainers were more appropriately armored, looking much in the same way as him. Each, including himself, had a number of icons and fetishes hanging from their person, ranging from painted-tip feathers to runic stones to bits of trophy remains. These were wards of many different kinds, meant to protect the warriors and summon to them the spirits of battle that churned restlessly in the Mauda’a Tawil Jiilshaa. The rabble of nomad-warriors were less encumbered with the accoutrements of conflict so adorning the khayhar but seemed similarly fierce, daubed with warpaints and symbols of hand prints and sun-sigils. 

“The band is ready, my Zhaan.”

Mirak looked from behind his dread-aspected helmet to the khayhar speaking to him, his comrade of many seasons and trusted second. Nazih stared back at him, his eyes the single splotches of white behind the shadowed mask. Black face paint completed the illusion and ferocious imagery of bestial eyes and snarling maw painted upon his helm furnished a new image in his stead. Nazih no doubt saw some equally frightening monster gazing back as the two let the moment pass between them. Silence was best before battle, it always was, and the longer that silence lasted the better. This was where weak men were found and could be sent home or to the hills; now was the time for men of iron spines and breath of fire. 

“Make ready. Tonight it dies.”
[hr]

Thwump the Belligerent sat outside his cave in the rising moonlight, mooning himself pleasantly. It was his early-night ritual, something he’d done since the day he’d been shaken from his sire’s folds. He’d forgotten the name of that elderly troll for it had never quite interested him. And now, at the ripe young age of five hundred, he considered himself more than adult enough to care even less! 

Thwump had claimed the cavern he now sat out in front of for himself several hundred years ago, having marched himself down from the mountains and out into the plains. It was a solution cave slowly dissolved from the softer materials around it and held a lovely reservoir of mineral-rich waters to bathe in. He had to climb up and out of it but otherwise it made a lovely home to hide from the dreaded sun. Sometimes animals would even fall in, perfect for nabbing, a little dashing against the walls, and a quick consumption. It really worked out quite nicely.

But, like so many other dovregubbe, Thwump had a love for the finer things in life. Hunting, of course, was a pastime that could never been equalled by simply waiting in his grotto all day. And out upon the plains there were so many mortals ripe for a good crushing. Of course, there we also those bothersome animal-riders. It was always so difficult to sneak up on them and their mounts were so flitty, so difficult to outrun. Thwump was wasted on cross-country, after all, and those creatures had the speed and endurance to keep him running well into dawn.

“Blah!”

Thwump let out a displeased groan, sticking his gnarled tongue out in disgust. Filthy things, always making a perfectly good hunt go sour. No matter. Just a little farther north there were towns aplenty, ripe with humans who lived sedentary lives and packed themselves so generously inside boxes for him to open. It was good fun, after all, hearing the buildings crumple before him. Thwump closed his eyes, laid back in the moonlight, and let himself get lost in night-dreams of delicious meals and proper, good fun.

“Yeow!”

Thwump slapped his cheek with an open palm, hand quickly moving to the place where some critter must have bit him. His fingers, as awkward as they were, grubbed about to find the bite-mark. Instead he found a pricker. With little effort he tugged it out and looked at it, trying desperately to focus his poor eyes at the offending needle. 

“Ow!”

A second one! This time directly into his forehead! That couldn’t be any sort of creature, nor could he have simply rolled onto it. Thwump sat up with the sound of a hillside collapsing, eyes wide and furious at this interruption. Though his vision was poor he could see well enough in close and lo, there was his tormentor. A vaguely man-shaped silhouette filled his vision, the probably-human entity sitting about atop a mighty buck. [i]Well, it looked like the sort of buck silhouettes that Thwump had eaten before.[/i] Then a third pricker smacked directly into Thwump’s eye, sending him into a cursing fit. Massive, pounding fists slammed into the dirt and rock around him as he brought himself to his full height, nearly nine meters high in all his fury. 

“Oi! You’z gonna’ pay fer that, little thing!” Thwump’s roar that followed echoed across the land for miles, signalling his displeasure without question to the world around them.

“You first.”

The retort was sharp and swift, followed by a fourth pricker jabbing into Thwump’s body. It did little but bother the huge troll but bother was more than enough. With that the rider and his steed hammered off into the opposite direction, surging into the plains with a bounding grace that belied the violence of the hour. Thwump let out another howl of displeasure and rage before trudging on after them, less running and more waddling with huge strides in pursuit. The chase was on, thundering across the plains. 
[hr]
Minutes dragged into an hour as the chase began to get ragged. Thwump, in his anger, had followed as best he could. He realized that the warrior’s scent came in strong, as if he had added fragrance to himself to be more easily found by the troll, but his steed was not. From what Thwump could guess, the human had rolled his elk in freshly cut grass for days on end if smell was anything to go by. At one point, when Thwump was finally beginning to gain on the main as the elk tired, he had come to a stop by another and switched steeds. He had continued in the same direction while his exhausted elk had simply rode off calmly in the other direction. Thwump knew he could easily kill that one, if he had so desired, but knew nothing but anger towards the man instead. 

War’s on, after all.

His lungs were killing him, his muscles aching, but he refused to give up; the night was early and he reckoned he had at least six more hours of pure, unadulterated night before the sun would begin to rise.  Besides, Thwump knew of several soft plots of earth where he could quickly dig a burrow for himself in that time. No, this had become personal and surrender this early in the flight was not an option. As he closed once more with the elk and the man he took a brief moment to stop, bending down to grab two great clods of earth in either hand before continuing in his chase. Powerful fists balled the rock and soil into dense missiles of the earth’s bones, prepared thoroughly for a proper clobbering. [i]A thwumping, if one cared to appropriately categorize it.[/i]

In that moment where he began to step into his waddle again, a number of prickers pincushioned his hide. It was really beginning to sting!

A dozen or more humans had rode up on him, diving out of tall grasses on their mounts. Thwump cursed loudly to himself as he realized they had done to themselves what they first man had done to his steed! The bastards, they weren’t smelly at all! He thanked Gibbou for making him with working eyes and for not taking them yet in his twiddling years, just barely able to make out their shapes in the moonlight. He could work with that. 

With a howl of anger he tossed a massive clod of earth at a bunch of human riders, most scattering but one in particular being caught dead in the open. The mass of rock and dirt collided with mount and man alike, smashing the life from them with one quick blow. Pleased with his success, Thwump let fly his second missile, this one colliding with one mount only to drive onwards into a second riding too close nearby. The two men died screaming, not nearly as quickly as the first, and Thwump was pleased for his success. Hands dug down into the earth for more ammunition as the riders sped off after the first and Thwump came thundering after them.

There was blood in the air, of man and elk, and Thwump couldn’t help but bask in the scent. These foolish men! They had come to his home, to bother him, when he so rarely bothered them! These were the elk-folk, after all, and they were hard to catch! Now he’d teach them a lesson for bothering him. One step after the other he was closing the distance and one step after the other once they were all dead he’d reach their corpses and crunch them down!

[i][b]CRASH! CRUNCH! BANG![/b][/i]

“YEEEEOOOOOWWWW!”

Thwump let out a blood curdling scream of anguish as everything around him collapsed. The earth itself swallowed him up and in its gullet stabbing pain thrust forward. He looked down into the mess of dirt and troll-blood to see massive stakes thrusting up through his mangled feet, more still thrusting out of the walls to tear at his legs and keep him from moving. His heart pounded violently in his chest, awareness of how things had so quickly turned dawning on him. It seems he’d been the prey all along.
[hr]
Mirak glared out from behind the dread-visage of his helmet at the trapped troll. The ride had been long and arduous, even for him as the rider, but it had all been worth it. He silently cursed the beast for already slaying three of the assembled warriors, tribesmen all who had families who needed them. Nevertheless, their lives as well as his were already sacrificed for this journey; the warrior-ancestors who now dwelled in their armor saw to that. Until his panoply was removed with victory, he was already dead. 

His thoughts turned outward towards the troll. The beast and his ilk usually were beyond the interests of the Arrak but this one was special. A town he had raided recently contained a half-dozen sons and daughters of the Benya Kurhah and, so bounded by the walls of that so-called stronghold, they had been slain alongside a number of the population. Though Mirak cared little for the loss of life from the townsfolk beyond the general sadness he felt for all death, the loss of his people’s lives could not go unavenged. Worse still, the lot of them had been eaten. With no remains to return to their barrows beyond their belongings, their spirits would be deformed and broken in the afterlife or unable to return at all. As such, this trolls bones would hold their spirits and so his remains would furnish the ovoo of the ancestors in their stead. 

Despite the bold talk, Mirak knew this would be no easy task. Arrows did little but annoy the creature and spears were only effective when thrust by hand. The chase had been easy by comparison; this is where the trouble would begin.

Drawing his thrusting spear from hooks upon the antler’s of his mount, Mirak made ready himself. It would be a long night. 

The first howls of the charge sounded as warriors rode in, untrained clansmen following in behind retainers. For the next few hours they would harry the beast, attempting to kill it where it remained or otherwise keeping it from burying itself or escaping for the sun to do their work for them. Mirak raised his spear high and let out a roar of his own, the spirits of war in his chest giving fire to his voice. Off he rode towards the monster, death on his lips and dread thoughts on his mind.

[i]Tonight it dies.[/i]
[hr]
[hider=Summary]
Mirak of the Benya Kurhah, a clan of the Arrak, has set about making vengeance upon the head of one Thwump the Belligerent, a Dovregubbe troll. The post demonstrates Arrak conflict beliefs and traditions while opening the potential for further conflict between the trolls and the Arrak.[/hider]