Glorious Hunger

Jahan did not care for his job, marching the food from the temple to the cave. He felt the weight of his mace slapping against his enrobed thigh more today than any other. He wished he had never taken Morchan’s invitation to be a warrior cleric.

“Be a shame to waste your mountainous frame,” Morchand had said, the old warrior cleric’s face tagged by battle scars that looked like small white worms. He had run a grizzled hand over his blotched, bald head and regarded Jahan with his stone-chip gray eyes as if he had been appraising a horse. “I’ll train you in everything I know and things you shouldn’t know,” the grizzled Elder had said with a conspiratorial wink.

Jahan had joined the Brotherhood of the Hungry Mouth to cure and heal, not wound and maim. At the induction, Morchan had chosen Jahan to serve as the new food trainer for the glory of Grungndir’s Food Delivery one week later.

He paused, adjusting his crimson leather jerkin, pulling the chainmail coverlet away from his neck. The group of four men chained together on a length of iron and bronze links, bodies scarred and filthy, skin ashen and bare but for a leather loincloth, two heavily bearded and hair matted. The other two were bald, with bleeding slash wounds on their heads and faces. The howling wind tore at their bodies like wolves, with bits of pebble and grit stinging their eyes. The sojourn from the Temple to the summit of the mountain was beating them into submission, bruising and bloodying their bodies.

Jahan watched them, fear etched in deep lines on their faces, their blurred eyes brimming with pain and horror. A small smile tugged the corner of the warrior cleric’s thin mouth. Such is the desert of evil deeds. Such is the meaty reward of the sin of taking the lives of the innocent. He could hear their ragged breaths over the wind, their chests heaving, their shoulders shaking, and their torsos bent as blistered hands found bleeding knees.

Jahan regarded the chain bolted to the iron saddle of the brown stallion he led by a curved bit. He sighed, closing his eyes, flexing his hulking arms, and proffering his 22-hand-tall horse. Why not hurl them from the cliff and be done with it?

How many times must he smell the death of men? When would his god call him to battle, not to subdue blackguards and hell-bent men, but to salve hurt and broken warrior clerics like himself, bleeding for the righteous glory of the brotherhood?

“Pl-please, s-sir…?” The second man moaned, going down to his hands and knees. He lowered his head to the rocky path, and he clasped his quivering hands, bitten and shredded by the mountain.

Jahan again closed his eyes and, this time, his ears as well. Now, the chorus of begging would begin and likely continue as did the ascent. Did these men believe that they could regulate the fates of others’ demises and not suffer their lives might one day be at hand as a result? Jahan spat at the begging man’s crumpled form, as the other men mimicked him, scrambling down to all fours, groveling, pleading, and not only with their bodies. Their eyes flashed with brilliant desperation, and their voices climbed as Jahan’s indifference mounted.

He squeezed his hands into fists until a few of the leather seams of his crimson gloves burst. The stallion whined, jouncing its head and pounding its hind hooves against stone, spitting up showers of dust and chips of rocks that settled on the men. He would not deign to waste his saliva on these dead men. Or another thought.

Grasping the bit ring, he turned and pulled the stallion. The trailing chain became taut and hauled the men to their feet. The bald one at the rear, a man as tall as Jahan but with arms and legs shriveled with age and wear, almost lost his balance. His neighbor, the third man, a stout, bush-bearded, broad-shouldered man, pulled him from the precipice.

Jahan slit his eyes against the wind, dragging the glorious food of Grundngir behind him.

Jahan met the Menu Master at the cave’s mouth, jagged stalactites and stalagmites shaping the entry into a stone-fanged maw.

“All hail His Hunger,” the Menu Master said, bowing his shaved head, three red-painted concentric circles on his pate that looked like a dartboard. He was tall, with spindly, hairless arms and legs, wearing the short, crimson cloth robes of his Brotherhood Service.

“His Hunger is all,” Jahan said, speaking the proper return phrase gloomily, the stallion snorting as he stopped it in its tracks by pulling the bit ring down.

The Menu Master gestured to Jahan’s train of men, who had all collapsed as soon as the giant horse halted. They were in various states of attempted escapes, pounding metal locks with fists, pulling wrists free of manacles, and tugging the chain backward. Their flesh flushed and paled, and their expressions went from jagged grimaces to flat exhaustion. The iron did not bend or break. Their flesh yielded yet more blood and fresh tears of skin.

“And what did you bring for His Holy Glory’s Menu, Brother Warrior Jahan?” The menu master’s voice was grave.

Jahan scoffed and kicked up a cloud of dust that the wind consumed. “These reprobates? Surely not worthy of Our God’s palate…”

Jahan went through the scripted dialogue, the required genuflections, and the ritual of the Delivery of His Glorious Food, but his mind left the mountain. He visualized a battlefield of warrior clerics subduing evildoers with maces and war hammers, being grievously and undeservedly injured, and the Hungry Mouths of the Brotherhood in their white mantles and gold gloves spilling onto the field like a blinding light.

The Hungry Mouths set forth. Jahan was among them, giving healing licks to the wounded. The copper taste of blood sent him into fury as Grungndir’s Tongue moved mystically through his mouth. The healing energy burst over the injuries and washed them clean as severed flesh sealed whole and broken bones mended. As a Hungry Mouth, Jahan would eat their pain and suffering and take those wounds unto himself as Grungndir’s Hunger fed. Then the ceremonious Regurgitation Rites would commence as the Hungry Mouth’s expelled the blood eaten…

“’I said, ‘Proffer the food to His Holy Servers!’” The Menu Master wheezed irefully.

Jahan, disturbed from his reverie, nodded, adjusted his grip on the bit ring, closed his hand over the other, and gave a mighty heave. The stallion burst forward, blasting the four men back on their feet. One way or another, by horse and chain, the food train was dragged forward into the cave’s mouth. As they crossed from howling wind to none of it all, the silence exploded within, and all Jahan heard was panting, spitting, weeping—and breathing. The tortured men’s breathing came in panicked huffs.

The rear of the cave, after a 500-foot, eight-foot ceiling path, ended in a towering opening that led to a cavern that had titanic stone pillars of smooth, gray stone framing the 40-foot-high entrance. Next to each pillar stood a solemn, nondescript man draped in flowing robes of muddy brown to match their lifeless brown eyes. The servers moved forward as if being weighed down by unseen stones.

“Is the food ready to serve His Glorious Hunger?” the one to the left asked, using a voice that echoed despite its low flatness.

Again, during the Food Delivery ritual, Jahan tasted the metal of blood in his mouth as he healed the wounds of his brothers. He imagined engorging himself on hurt and suffering. He shivered as he performed the Regurgitation Rites, expelling the hot blood. Glorious. Hungry for more…

“In the name of His Meal, His Hunger, Amen,” Jahan finished. He released the bit chain, and immediately the attempted escapes began. The chain jangled as the men clawed at the manacles, pulled and fought, crying out for mercy and all manner of cowardly nonsense Jahan ignored as he removed the saddle chain-link. He then yanked the length of heavy iron to two spikes, one on one pillar and one on the other, and hung the chain between the two spikes, to four men staggering and resisting to no avail.

The four men hung from the food chain like bruised meat.

The Server to the right, the veritable twin of his companion, gestured to the man with the bald pate at the end.

“He will Serve First,” he said.

Jahan unshackled the man, held him by the neck and forced him to his hands and knees with little more than a push. The scent of his blood pitched Jahan’s mind into frenzied visions.

The Server produced a scroll and unraveled it, his dead eyes gazing at it.

“Mage Torkantus…”

Jahan ignored the proceedings. He cared nothing for this carrion.

At length, the other Server produced an orb of pale blue stone and approached Torkantus and held it in front of his face. The palm-sized, smooth sphere began to glow, dimly at first, then brighter. The mage’s watery green eyes began to glow, too, but suddenly, the Server with the globe was staring at Jahan amidst an expression of mild shock.

“Brother Malcolm—,” the server said, almost breathless, gesturing to Jahan with a slender hand.

Brother Malcom gasped, and light returned to his eyes. This brought Jahan back from his reverie.

“What, pray, is the look for?” Jahan asked, holding out a fanned, beefy-fingered hand toward the orb, which the Server was attempting to place closer to Jahan. “And keep that thing back!”

Four warrior clerics, all built and hewn of a similar body and frame, stepped from the gloom of the cavern. They wore crimson armor plates over white mail and carried bastard swords of shining steel. Their visages were hidden behind visored helms in the shape of a dragon’s head and mouth with runes etched on the helms that glowed a wicked blue.

“Seize him,” Brother Malcolm said plainly.

Jahan stood and made his mace ready. Torkantus hesitated half a heartbeat, then sprang and fled down the hall, screaming and laughing. He did not get past Jahan before the giant warrior cleric’s mace swung and smashed his head into bits and chunks of gore. The body dropped and slid to a halt some feet away, making a long, bloodied swath.

The four hulks were upon Jahan, one easily disarming him by slapping his wrist with the flat of the blade, then turning the sword to hold just beneath his throat. Jahan knew he had no chance against the Crimson Guard. They were the only clerics who could wield swords.

“What is the meaning…?” Jahan spat. The three men left hanging ceased their struggling after witnessing their compatriot felled by Jahan’s mace.

Brother Malcolm approached. “Brother Theo noticed your eyes have His Hunger in them when placed next to the Seer Stone,” he explained, scooping a hand under Theo’s arm and hauling him to his feet.

Theo handed Malcolm the Seer Stone, which had dimmed somewhat but nevertheless remained lit. He held it close to Jahan’s face, the blade quivering under his chin. The blue in the stone shone brighter still as Malcolm brought it to touch Jahan’s perspiring cheek. Jahan’s eyes glowed with the same intense illumination. What madness was this? How was the Seer Stone detecting malfeasance in him?

“Jahan,” Malcom said, backing away from him, lowering the orb. “You are hereby consecrated as Food for his Glorious Menu. Your duplicity against Grungndir and your faithlessness in His Hunger makes you Excommunicate from the Brotherhood of the Hungry Mouth.”

“The most sacred of all Glorious Foods,” Theo said, nodding to the other three clerics.

The behemothic warriors turned, swords bristling, and marched toward the three men still chained. Their three bastard swords slashed in cycles of swings and thrusts, utterly slicing and stabbing the Food into chunks and slabs of gore. The deed was completed in minutes. They returned to the fourth, who still held his blade unwaveringly at Jahan’s neck.

“This is absurd!” Jahan raged. “I am the most righteous among you! I wish only to heal with Grungdndir’s Mouth, taste with His Tongue! I wanted nothing for this life of listening to those most worthy of being Food for His Holiness beg and bleat for three days, traveling from the Temple up the Sacred Path to His Hunger!”

His sudden anger gave way to a berserk battle cry as he rose. He grabbed the bastard sword under his chin by the flat and twisted it from the Crimson Guard’s grip. Turning, Jahan flipped the massive blade pommel into his falling hand. He continued the sword’s sweeping motion. The blade spun down and bit into the greaves of the warrior cleric’s knees. The sword’s arc continued, slicing through his armor. The blow severed the man’s legs at their knees. Jahan held the sword before him, hot blood and gore spattering his chest, arms, and face. The shrieking guard toppled over backward.

The other three formed a spearhead formation Jahan knew well. His smile was terrible. Malcolm and Theo ran into the darkness of the cavern, the stone orb becoming a sphere of blazing blue flame.

The center warrior, slightly more advanced in position, charged with his sword held high in two hands above his head. Jahan planted his feet, dodging left and down, as the sword fell. He evaded the attack. The sword crashed down and drew sparks against the stone ground where Jahan had just been. Jahan rose up as the warrior barreled past and swung his blade in a deadly arc to the man’s shoulders. The blade sliced into the gap of the helm and armored shoulders to sink into the guard’s neck. The sword sung as it whipped through flesh. The guard’s head flew off his shoulders and thunked to the ground. Blood fountained from the decapitation as the guard's body staggered three feet, then crumpled forward, smashing the ground with a booming clang.

The two outside warriors paused, holding their swords defensively before them. One risked raising the visor on his helm. His face was angular with sharp features and a combed mustache.

“None of this Brotherhood wield the bastard sword but the Crimson Guard, and you are nay one of us!” The guard shouted. “You’re not...one...of us!” He spat the words.

Jahan chuckled. “Elder Morchan trained me in the mace—and the bastard sword! Your arrogance will be your death!”

Giving a barbaric cry, Jahan launched himself at the mustachioed guard. He had wagered right. The fool spent precious seconds restoring his visor. The guard held his bastard sword in his left hand, blade pointed at Jahan’s heart.

Jahan ran to meet him, jumped, and spun in a full circle as his sword whirled and hit the guard’s sword with a deafening kla-CHING! The guard’s sword, knocked from his hands, clattered to the stone floor. Jahan pivoted left, swinging the sword back up. He swung his blade into space under the guard’s left arm and chest. It landed with a meaty CHUK! Jahan’s sword razored the left arm from the guard’s body. The spraying blood coated Jahan down to the teeth in his maniacal smile.

The last warrior cleric halted his advance and ran into the blackness of the cavern, where the Seer Stone still burned like blue lightning, the flashes framing the forms of Malcolm and Theo nearing the center of the cavern that Jahan could now see expanded into an enormous chamber that could have held a small castle. The crimson plate of the fleeing guard gleamed in the javelins of light being thrown by the stone orb.

“Nothing feeds my Glorious Hunger better than cowards!” an ominous voice echoed from the cavern’s depths.

Jahan watched as the two golden eyes, like twin upside-down crescents of glittering golden fire, appeared floating in the cavern 100 feet from the three men running toward them. The eyes blinked, and Jahan saw the slitted pupils of his God, Grungndir the Golden Dragon of the Holy Hunger.

An iris of fiery gold swirled open, and sheets of gold fire blasted forth, engulfing Malcom, Theo, and the Crimson Guard in a holocaust of heat and flame. His Breath exhaled for five seconds after it had started, the sudden extinguishment revealing the hulking, snaked form of Grundngir. The loops and hoops of his golden scaled skin spread the length of the cavern, massive wings the size of a galleon’s tall sails curled and unfurled on its back.

Jahan gripped his sword but remained outside the cavern, standing between the two pillars. Patches of flame and smoldering desolation roared in various places on the cavern’s stone floor, illuminating the charred forms of Malcolm, Theo, and the melted slag of the Crimson Guard.

Jahan heard the laughter of Grungndir, a sound of avalanching snow.

“Jahan! “ Grungndir’s voice was a hissing waterfall. “You serve the Brotherhood of the Hungry Mouth no longer! You will return to the world and hunt them for me! Slay them for me! Once you are captured by the Brotherhood, they will return you to me upon my Glorious Food Chain! Then, I will dine on the most succulent of all Food Deliveries on the Menu!”

“And that is?” Jahan asked, wiping the blood from his eyes.

The crashing waterfall again. “Betrayal!” Grungdir bellowed.

Jahan gathered his mace, mounted the stallion, and rode forth to seek his new Mission.