Samson Swarthout: Chronicles of a Gentle Giant

[Sam]

In the days that followed, Sam moved very little from around the wagon. He mourned for the loss of John, essentially his father, and for all those citizens of the countryside that paid them visits throughout his years. He lay and rest for nearly a day next to John before mustering the strength to rise and search for food and water. There was plenty to be found among the dead. Sam knew from his learnings that this was an invading army, one that carried only what they could and left destruction in its wake. After eating and drinking, Sam rested another full day.
The carnage was begining to smell.
The sun may have been shining during these days, but Samson never lifted his head enough to see. Instead, he scoured the ground for the bodies, burying them one at a time. There were nearly a hundred by the time he finished. The task took him nearly two weeks. All the while he worked he cursed the orcs, their god and thought of a way to lash out at them.

The concussions to his brain left him naseous, dizzy and the work was slow, nevertheless, with his dogged determination, he buried them all. First, Brother John, then David Stalwart, the father of Darian. He paid special honors to them in the ways of Helm, as they would have done for him had they lived and he had not.

He knew that no matter what, even if it killed him, he must find a way to stop that army from continuing on its course. Remembering an ancient orcish tradition, ordinarily reserved for praying to Gruumsh himself, Sam began writing a prayer. It was more difficult than he could have imagined. The concussions to his brain had also stripped away much of his ability to write as well. He struggled just to remember what letters formed the sounds of the words he could remember so clearly in his head, but to pronounce them… he could not. Unable to utter words, he couldn't match the sounds, and unable to match the sounds he found himself writing in scribbles, piecing together only the simplest of words or fragments.

His thinking was fairly clear by the end of the first week, but he was still unable to speak. When the last body was buried, Sam had mostly recovered physically. Spiritually, he was in anguish and mentally he knew he was forever damaged.
Nevertheless, with his determination, Sam spent his resting hours writing the prayer. This kind of prayer would be one only a lost soul would understand, with nothing left to live for but the answer to the prayer. When Sam finished burying all those that had stood to defend the mission against the orcs, so too had he finished their prayer. It was as if not only Sam, but each spirit buried in the earth spoke with him as he read his prayer, kneeling in front of the newly formed graveyard.

He didn't know what god, if any would hear him, but he read page after page of the prayer, throwing each into the fire. It was an ancient orc tradition he had read about, one used by the most powerful of shamans as they prayed to Gruumsh. But this prayer was most certainly not TO Gruumsh, but certainly FOR him. For him and all those that served him. Sam vowed vengeance and prayed for all the ability to bring it. He pledged his soul to this task, and the god that granted him the strength, Sam offered up his soul to whatever diety would claim it if he squandered that aid and failed in his task.

The reciting of the prayer lasted from sunup the first day to sunup the second. Sam never stopped reading, except to throw a new log onto the small fire he built before him, or to toss a new page into the fire. As the hours drug on, and Sam read page after page aloud, his speech improved enough so as to be intelligible. Still clumsy of tongue but eloquent of mind, Sam's prayer was heard, and Tyr was there. Other gods heard the prayer as well, and offered their aid, unbeknownst to Sam as he prayed. Tyr would not have it. If ever a being was entitled to justice, he told the others, this man would have it. And if Sam failed and lost his soul, Tyr vowed that Sam would live in peace in the afterlife.

Sam concluded his prayer and collapsed into sleep. When he awoke, he was still exhausted from his ordeals, but the time had come to leave. There was nothing left for him here. He went inside the ruins of the mission, to a large box that years ago John had opened and from it drawn out weapons and armor to begin Sam's martial training. He packed heavily, taking everything he would need to live off the land, and fight in it. Looking around, he thought of where to go first. Where would young Darian have gone first? Sam did not know. Instead he looked at the ground, and followed the tracks left by the hundreds of orcs in this invading army. It didn't take a ranger to follow so many tracks, they left a crushed trail where ever they went.

Having pledged his life to the destruction of these orcs, Sam followed them, unsure of how he would fight an army alone, but knowing full well that he would sooner die than let them continue to scorch the earth.

Sam followed these orcs across every kind of terrain imaginable. Wherever they went, they left destruction and death, but like a ghost haunting a house Sam was behind them. When they stopped to rest, Sam continued on, strengthened by the divine. As the army sent out scouts to gather water, or hunt for game, the strong half-orc slew them silently in the forests, laying in ambush near the rivers. After the first year of his pursuit, he became something of a talisman of doom within the ranks of the orcs. The orcs would stop to rest, and send out a couple of scouts to fetch water or game They would half-jokingly half-warningly tell the gatherers before they left, "Be wary of He Who Lurks in Shadow."

All too often, He Who Lurks in Shadow, would find one or two of the hunters. Those Sam found- never returned.

Relentlessly, Sam stayed on the heels of the army. Sometimes getting in front of them to kill their scouts. Them the orcish leaders, denied their eyes, would turn the course of the army away from that direction. Naturally they had no desire to face a prepared enemy. The raping and pillaging was far more to their liking. Sometimes, when the army moved too long or too far, it would begin to suffer from stragglers, Sam would never let one straggle too far from the main body before the orc straggled no more.

By the end of the second year, He Who Lurks in Shadows was no longer a rumor in the rank and file. It was a terrible legend, and the newest of members of the army were always sent on gathering details for the army. More and more, they fell in the woods silently. Search parties found their bodies, shot with arrows, cleaved in two, but Sam was never to be found. They tried ambushing Sam several times, but the protection of Tyr always stayed steady with him. Even the orc leaders, having sent out tricks and traps for He Who Lurks in Shadows, and never hearing from those units again, began to fear the legend.

By the end of the third year of his quest for vengeance, the army suffered from severe morale problems. The ranks were hungry and thirsty, but no one would hunt unless it was in a large group for protection. Deserters were rampant, and no allied orc clans would lend support to the army beset by this curse. His efforts slowed them dramaticly, and reduced morale so much that the commanders could only motivate their minions against the faintest of objectives.

Alone in the woods one late evening, Sam hid inside of a hollow tree stump, waiting for the hunters to return, and as they did, Sam would eat of their labors after he silenced them. Crouched deep inside the stump, he held a notched bow and arrow, his ears twitching for sounds.
snap
The crack of a twig from someone moving silently in the woods grabbed his attention and he slowly rose to standing, silently drawing his bow. What he saw nearly caused him to release his arrow in a start.

Without a doubt, it was a paladin! His sword drawn, glowing brightly, lighting the way for an army of men and elves, all clad in a uniform armor. An army led by a Paladin!? Sam lowered his bow and watched, for this army moved directly towards the orc army just a few miles away. As the Paladin crept nearer, he looked up and saw Sam. Sam looked back at him and for the longest while they stared at each other in disbelief.

"Sam?"

"Darian?"

Unabashed the two ran to each other and hugged like brothers before the entire army in tow. They laughed and hugged and cried for a few moments, but quickly, the paladin became deadly serious.

"Sam, Go south, there is a large town there. I will meet you there in a day or two."

"Uh uh. Yous goin..." He struggled for his words and Darian looked at him confused by the change in his old friends spoken words. "URKS!" Sam bellowed and pointed towards the encampment of orcs.

"Yes, Sam I know. We are here to slay them." Darian cocked his head curiously. "How did you know there were orcs over these hills?"

"Bin...huntin... killin 'em. Fur along time." Sam unstrapped the armor from his forearm and showed an tatoo design made out of small inch long straight lines. Some of the tatoos were very fresh indeed. "All dese... Sam kilt. Thuree yurs.... Bin fightin'"

Darian Stalwart's eyes bugged. "Three years, Sam? You!?" Darian's mouth worked as if he had as much trouble getting words to come forth as well." You are the Tyrran Archangel!? By Helm, Sam! You are truly a great man!" Darian hugged him again.

"Do you know what you've done? Do you have any idea how many lives you have saved!? Do you know how this army I lead came to be?! TIME, Sam, TIME!" Darian was ecstatic, as if a troublesome mystery had been solved.

"Do you remember when I told you one man alone is powerless, and that is why we Paladins walk the earth? We are the standards around which men will rally when the times become troubled."
"Well Sam, I have spent three years building this army, sitting with kings and nobles and creating in them a sense of urgency to commit their forces to slay these foul beasts, if only to protect the innocent and no other cause! But, Sam, they were slow to listen, they did not want to commit to this, and all the while we wondered why the army never turned directly to us while we were still divided. We never understood how their scouts would be found dead just miles from the villages, how suddenly when we knew their strength was high, we would catch deserters in the forests."

"They would speak of not wishing to die at the hands of He Who Lurks in Shadow, and at the same time the Tyrran priests assured me that I would have enough time to complete my mission because the Tyr had provided a great barrier between us! We," Darian guestured to the well equipped army behind him, "all thought we found find some great being of light, with wings and a flaming sword!" Some of the nearer soldiers laughed with Darian. Indeed the half-orc was an imposing figure, but his dirty, gaunt face and tattered clothes, and equipment were a testament to his trials.

"And here... all this time. It was my brother, my dearest Sam." Sam, tears streaming down his face with the realization that his war had come to a close, that Tyr had answered his prayer and the prayers those in the graveyard at the mission.

"Come, Sam. Let us finish this now, once and for all, come fight with us, as one of us!" But Sam's knees were shaking and suddenly he collapsed to his knees. While he had not felt it come, he knew just then, that suddenly the effects Tyr's blessing were gone.

"Nuh." Sam shook his bowed head in front of them all, feeling the fatigue of a thousand nights without sleep. "Sam's kilt enuff."
He fell onto his back and stared at the sky for the first time in a long time, but sleep took him only a second later.

The army marched, and was victorious. Darian returned for Sam where he was tended to. Indeed, the kings and noblemen recognized Darian as the man who organized them and led the army to glorious victory. Little attention was paid to the one man who suffered for them all, to mitigate the devastation that could have occured. Sam did not care. He only wished for a steady meal, a warm bed, and perhaps... a field to till.

Unfortunately, Darian was a paladin, and just as before, Sam fell into Darian's footsteps. Where Darian went, Sam followed. Sam found himself tending the horses, and fetching food as Darian executed his duties as a paladin.
For the next ten years, the two were inseparable, sharing many adventures together.

[Guest]

::entranced by the story.::

I'm into it for it not being another "here is the background for my cleric tank of Helm" story. Thank you.