He had brushed his little tusks and now Rennik snuggled under the thick moorbinder hide as his Granny placed another peat slab on the glowing fire.
‘A Story, Granny’
‘What Story my Love?’
‘Ragnarok’
She smiled, it was always Ragnarok. She cuddled in next to his and tousled his hair.
‘Ragnarok was an Orcish Chieftain who united the 7 Tribes of Wildemount under the banner of Gruumsh, The Ruiner. In the depth of the Great War, on the march towards Vallenheim, his son Odar fell ill with a mysterious malady. Ragnarok prayed to Gruumsh and made sacrifices of scores of warriors, burning them on huge pyres, asking for his son to recover. But Gruumsh was an impatient God and told Ragnarok to kill his son and continue the attack. Ragnarok prepared to do his bidding but as he raised his axe, a great gale arose around the campsite. Whole trees were swept up in a whirlwind that obsured Ragnarok and Odar from the rest of the army. Then suddenly the wind died down and there standing facing Ragnarok was his son, Odar, seemingly healthy and restored. Odar told his father that he had been spared, not by Gruumsh but by Melora, the Wild Mother. She offered his son’s life if he would turn around his armies and take no further part in the coming battle. Disillusioned with Gruumsh and grateful for the salvation of his son, He took his Axe and broke it in two, vowing to return to his home and fight no more.
Tiamat’s wyrms had been guarding the skies above the Orcish Army and when they saw that Ragnarok had betrayed the forces of Evil, they flew to tell their mother. Infuriated, she came rushing from her lair, intent on seeking revenge. She caught up with the army on the outskirts of the Penumbra Mountain Range and attacked, laying waste to much of the Orcish Army. Mounted aboard his Griffon, Saoirse, Ragnarok took to the skies and fought Tiamat for three days and three nights. Saoirse clawed at the Goddesses eyes while Ragnarok rained down blasts of eldritch energy on her hide. As blood fell from her gargantuan body, the trees below of the Vermaloc Wildwood became infused and have kept her chromatic markings to this day. At last, with a swipe of her Venomous tail, she smote the Griffon, sending Ragnarok tumbling to the ground. As he lay there bleeding, her five heads arguing over which one would do the final deed, he cried out to Melora. As he reached out to stop her maw, A huge gust arose and his axe appeared in his hand, reforged anew. He swung the axe with all his might, driving a deem gash down her side and with an invocation, eyes white, shoved her backwards, through the wind, through the edge of this plane, back to the depths of avernus, to skulk and scheme her revenge.
Ragnarok looked at the destruction the three day battle had wrought on the landscape and saw the bright red tunic of his son. Odar had been slain, frozen in Ice by the dragons breath. He wept for his son and carried his body home on his shield.’
She paused as his tiny snores interrupted. She slipped out of the hide and resumed her knitting with one eye on her grandchild and one on the door. In the hearth, the embers crackled and glowed.