Staff in hand Michael led Lucas slowly out of Lullaby Falls towards the dim North Star. The town was eerily silent with a quiet Michael was unaccustomed to. Usually the nights were full of mob violence as humans strove one with another in a desperate fight for survival.
The stillness set Michael’s teeth on edge however.
Lucas was merrily oblivious, tip tapping a little tune on the jar he carried. The infectious little melody soon helped sooth both of their fears. Sometimes you just have to accept gifts when life presents them to you, thought Michael to himself.
Lullaby Falls had known no war in its thousands of years of peace. Therefore there were no huge stone walls to announce the boarder of the city. There were however a series of decorative white picket fences where horses and all manner of livestock had once roamed free circumventing the whole city making use of its once lush pastoral lands.
Now the fences were desolate, empty of friendly beast and the delicious grasses upon which they once partook.
It was not long after leaving the city that Michael and Lucas were caught by the roaming band of Trogs. Howls filled the still night air as they slobberingly descended upon their prey. In a snap, the two stunned and horrified brothers were stuffed into sacks flipped over the shoulders of two brutes and whisked into the night.
I would like to say the brothers were firm and brave in their resolve during this desperate journey however the Trogs’ dinner menu discussion made that impossible.
It seemed the brothers were doomed as soon as their jaunt was at an end.
A few hours later the brothers were roughly tossed in a cage upon the parched earth of Surrenderland to the howling delight of a larger tribe of Trogs. In fairness to our two heroes there is no way they could have predicted their current woes. The brothers had never even heard of Trogs before and for good reason.
Until the evil one had touched the world and darkness had fallen, Trogs had been a thing of nightmares, stories told to bad children just before bed time.
Lucas hugged Michael in a death grip as their hosts began to sharpen knives and stoke fires dancing all the while in jubilation. Trogs are a large humanoid race with hair only on their arms and feet. Their foreheads were sloped, teeth sharpened and their tongues often lolled salivating to the side. Grey as rocks with ripcord muscles and pot bellies these were some of the ugliest beings ever dreamt up by a twisted evil machination.
They say that timing is everything in life. And if not for a precious moment in time the brothers would have likely met their foul end post haste. But two things happened in quick succession which changed the dire situation of the lads in a most triumphant way.
Firstly, Hermelgora, a female Trog so ugly she could shear the wool off a lamb at a glance saw the lads and something ponderous happened. A mothers sympathy sprang up like a new seasons harvest within her heart, sprang up and took root. She made up her mind right then and there to not let the boys be fricasseed without a fight (And a fearsome fight she could put forth no doubt). Secondly, in the jubilant commotion created by this tribe of Trogs they had failed to notice another tribe take the opportunity to creep up upon them.
As the Trogs danced their drunken rage, they were caught unawares unprepared for a fight; Seizing the moment Hermelgora absconded the lads from the cage. As bloody fatalistic war decimated two Troggish tribes that night!
