Servant of a Dark Lord
1
I am a soldier,
In an evil army,
A twisted beast,
With yellow eyes,
And scaly skin.
Bred in the darkest pits of the Earth,
Hell bent on destruction,
And conquest.
I am an instrument of evil,
The fulfillment of a prophecy,
Passed down,
From generation,
To generation,
The culmination,
Of the collective nightmares,
Of a hundred kingdoms.
I am nothing more or less,
Than what you created.
2
I am an Orc.
I grew up,
With other Orcs,
In a hole,
A series of underground caverns,
Feasting on maggots,
Hunting rats.
I remember collecting spiders,
Playing in filth,
Not minding the smells,
Loving the stories.
The Stories,
Orc mothers,
Told orc children,
Stories of the beauty of the surface,
Of the glowing sun that warmed the earth,
Of the trees that bore delicious fruit,
And the Elves.
The Elves,
Stories of their giant cities,
Golden towers,
Silk dresses,
Clean uniforms,
Elegant statues,
Soothing music,
Of their clear skin,
Blue eyes,
White hair.
It was said,
That to lay eyes on a creature so beautiful,
Would kill you instantly.
That was how they kept the children,
From leaving the caves.
It worked,
But didn’t stop us,
From dreaming of the surface,
Of the glowing sun,
Of the trees that bore delicious fruit,
And the Elves,
The most beautiful beings,
That ever existed.
Sometimes,
I think I wanted to be an Elf.
3
The Elves also had a story,
To tell their children.
A prophecy,
Foretelling a dark age,
Of twisted beasts,
With yellow eyes,
And scaly skin.
Bred in the darkest pits of the Earth,
Hell bent on destruction,
And conquest.
The Elf children grew up,
And decided that the twisted beasts,
With yellow eyes,
And scaly skin,
Were orcs,
And hunted our kind,
Like vermin,
Like our children hunted rats.
I didn’t learn of this prophecy,
Until it was too late.
4
A trio of Elf warriors,
Scouts for the Elvin empire,
Found our hole.
They came in the night,
Rounded us up,
In one room.
I was scared,
I was in awe.
They were more beautiful,
Then I could’ve ever known.
Their every move,
The smallest gesture,
Filled with an elegance,
I’d never known.
Every glance,
Powerful,
Striking.
Their very presence,
Enchanted me,
Made me weak,
And stunned me,
Into silence.
Then the massacre began.
My mother’s throat slit open,
My father stabbed through the heart,
My baby sister’s small head,
Stomped under an Elvin boot.
I stood frozen,
Warm blood pooling at my feet.
They grew bored of killing,
And wanted to go home for dinner,
They left me,
And a few others for dead.
I slept that night,
Next to my mother’s body.
It stayed warm,
Until morning.
5
Most orcs,
Have a story like mine,
Or a close friend or relative,
With such a story,
Dreading the day,
They join the club.
6
He appeared.
The Elves refused to utter his name aloud,
Calling him,
The Dark Lord.
Came from nowhere,
Neither Elf,
Nor Orc,
And not quite something,
In-between.
No soul,
No morals,
Wanting only power,
At any cost.
He needed an army.
He cared nothing for orcs,
His cause was not just,
He wanted to drown the world in Elf blood,
And rule over whatever was left.
Sounded good to me.
7
I became a soldier,
In an evil army,
Marching across the land.
Marching across the Surface World,
Through the tall grass tickling my legs,
Listening to birds chirping,
Feeling a cool breeze,
With my comrades,
My evil cohorts.
The thing I remember most,
From that first march on the surface,
Was after sunset,
When the stars came out.
My mother never got to tell me,
About the stars.
8
Warmed by the fire,
Of a torched Elvin village.
Fighting dumb Elvin boys,
Attacking with sticks and stones,
Thinking themselves men.
Feasting upon the carcass,
Of an Elvin child,
In front of the parents,
Their screams echoing in the night.
The grass stained red with blood,
A warm Elvin corpse for a chair,
A warm Elvin youth for company.
The prophecy was fulfilled,
The Dark Age had come.
And we danced around the fire,
Laughing in bitter delight,
At the destruction we’d achieved,
And the destruction to come,
And the screams that lulled us to sleep.
9
I still look at the eyes,
When I kill an Elf,
At those oceans of blue.
Run my hand through the white hair,
Over the soft clear skin,
Faces like statues,
Bodies like gods.
It feels almost wrong,
To desecrate them,
To carve them with my knife,
Rip them apart with my fangs.
But it also doesn’t.
The thrill,
Of destroying something so beautiful,
Making it twisted,
And hideous,
And vulgar.
Making it ugly,
Like me.
I don’t know how to love anymore,
Hate will just have to do.
