Long ago in the age of tar and obsidian , there was a clan of orks that revered fire above all else.

The founder of their tribe was the legendary warlord Zagarm knifetusk, whom had slain the elf prince Fintas.

Now this elf prince had himself inflicted an unmendable wound upon the chrimson dragon Gultusalt. Such was the pleasure of Gultusalt when news of the death of his enemy spread that he took flight from his lair in the mountains of ash and landed atop a hill overlooking the small encampment of orks to lay upon them both a blessing and a curse.

Gultusalt spewed forth a blaze upon the hill.

He perched and as the trees flaired and the rocks cooked he spoke to the orks, “I salute you orks who have defiled my nemesis. Know then this boon I grant you, this fire I have started and you shall keep. If the flames rise high and I should happen to see your light from my lair, then I shall grant you strength, But should there be times when I look down upon this plane and see only fragile dimness, so then shall I curse your tribe with weakness.”

For over three centuries now, the orks have tended the blaze that was their infernal lifeline.

The burning face ork clan (as they call themselves) had constructed and indomitable fortress of iron and obsidian that housed their sacred fire.

The fate of the clan was indeed directly tied to the condition of the fire.

In times of high and seering flame the tribe was mighty, cruelest in battle, and richest with fouly taken plunder.

In times of low flame, when the timber was scarce or great and terrible rains fell from the mailstrom sky, the same orks were then weak and fearfull, open to invasion from the goblin hoards that dwelled nearby in the inhospitable crags of strife.

Consequently the orks toiled feircely and fought without rest to conquer more land, to strip and feed the very flame that was their heartbeat.

The planes where the orks drove their great reptilian beast caravans became lifeless and desolate as the clan raped the vegetation out of them unceasingly.

As the years pressed on, the orks were forced to press further and further away from their iron fortress in search of the increasing rare patches of woodland that were becoming extinct in the blight of the plains.

During the reign of Naska the wicked, fate became unkind to the clan.

No vegetation of any burnable kind could be found anywhere within several weeks travel.

The beast driven caravans ground to a halt and the fire began to fall.

The clan began to descend into weakness and fear.

Terrible was the wrath of Naska when his beetle riding scouts failed to find new scouts.

Many heads fell to appease his urgent anger but these executions were no solution to the dilemma that faced the clan.

Sensing his imminent overthrow, Naska commanded that all the reserves of lumber that the clan had labored to store were to be thrown upon the flame with all due haste.

As the flames rose to heights undreamt of, the clan forgot their troubles.

Never before had the blazen bonfire threatened the sky with such a long reach and never before had the buring face ork clan partied with such force.

Seventeen nights did the revelry continue and at it’s zenith the iron fortress melted into slag.

As an angry red sun penetrated the soot soaked sky on the eighteenth day, the orks ran out of lumber and the blood wine kegs had been expired.

The warriors sobered up and looked at the ruins of their once mighty fortress with horror.

It was then that the cclan knew that they had been betrayed by their leader.

Naska had sent their power up in smoke.

Naska the Wicked was slain by the hand of the war shaman Kezkah Cursed Eyed as he wretchedly begged for mercy before the slag ruins of the iron fortress.

Brutal and effective was the ruthless leadership of Kezkah Cursed Eye, whom eliminated all the Centaurs and unified the crumbling tribe. A great march ws called for to press beyond the blighted plains in search of more trees to log for the blaze.

The great wagon wizards were harnessed and all the adolescents and weaklings were fed to the monsters until the valley echoes with a cacophony of their screams.

Thousand strong, armed with obsidian blades and stone axes, the caln lumbered southward through the the desolate wastes.

Within the armored hull of the most massive battle wagon, the small dim sacred fire was kept still by the witches of their tribe. For many hungry nights and many thirsty days, the beasts pushed foreward – for agonizing weeks.

A break in the wasteland ws not yet seen and the fire fell further for lack of fuel.

The warriors began to feel the displeasure of Gultusalt as he scoffed at their feeble fire from afar.

The strength of Kezkah began to wane as the warriors sought to blame their leader for the tribes weakness.

Dark words were rapidly followed by foul deeds.

Thrice and once more did the desperate orks try to dispose of their leader, and on the fourth attempt his one uncursed eye was hune out of the socket by the bone axe of his traiterous body guard.

Great was the fear Kezkah commanded when his sinister eye bgan to glow with a sinister green illumination.

So terrifying ws his visage that all his would be assassins were humbled and served him with fear and respect once again.

With his authority once more in place, Kezkah was free to practice his hideous majik.

Drunk on the blood of one of the weaker reptilian beasts that had been put down by one of the wagon masters to conserve food, Kezkah lapsed into a dreamlike state.

He saw himself in a smokey void of sooty blackness and the fumes parted to reveal the land the orcs sought, a land of vast green trees ripe for conquest. Kezkah started to awaken from his trance, until a new vision replaced the first.

Pale creatures with golden skin were emerging from the forest.

Kezkah was appalled by the weakness of these fragile creatures.

He knew they were elves, the ancient enemies of his people.

Knowing that his dream meant tht an elvish forest was close, Kezkah spoke to all his assembled warriors of the future.

Holding the idea of war against the elves out before his warriors like meat held out before a kennel of slobbering hounds, Kezkah whipped the warrrior tribe into a frenzy.

Every minute of their march now began a long year of pain, for the orks longed with every facet of their tainted souls to murder the dispicable elves and pile their children in burned heaps.

The very thought of how close their hated enemy was caused the orks to gnash their lips and rend their flesh until the bodies of the orks were criss crossed by a mass of bleeding gashes, that they themselves had wrought.

The sun fled from their fierce advance and the skies were clouded with soot and smoke and rage.

The landscape around them was begging to change.

Desolated plains and the choked valleys began to rapidly be replaced by green grass, hills, and verdant paths.

The scent of such abundant green vegetation drove the wagon beasts mad, and they tore up the very earth as they passed, until such mayhem was enacted that nothing would ever grow there agains.

Orks whom believe in the ways of oblivion still walk this path of desolation to this day.

Hunting was simple in this place where the animals had grown soft from lack of predators.

All Plants of any kind were Ripped from this place and the fire began to rise with these sacrifices.

The foul horn of one of the scouts sounded from beyond the ridge to the west.

The call was sounded again, and once more from other warriors that had passed ahead of the main army in that direction.

The orks threw down their cooking implements and readied their many weapons.

A lone scout riding a ostritch-like reptillian mount appeared from beyond the ridge and he spurred his floundering mount betwixt the roaring warriors and he raised his spear high.

All beheld the delicate elf head long pale hair burned off, and eyes bludgeoned out, which was stuck on the end of the spear.

War had begun.

Shouting 1,000 and one war cries, the burning face ork clan charged upwards until they had arrayed themselves all along the ridge like a slithering serpent.

A blindingly green forest stretched out from horizon to horizon below.

The size of it made them dizzy and sick with greed and lust.

One family of orks went mad with desire to plunder the woodlands, and they rushed down the ridge with such greed that an avalanche came down with them to bury them with the very trees they sought.

The crash of the rocks echoed with force, and a flock of colorful virds took flight from the forest canopy with angry songs.

Those orks possessed of bows brought down many of the avains with barbed and venomed bolts, but most escaped to warn the elves of the invasions.

The orks began to log into the forest, chopping the life out of the giant trees.

Whenever a root snapped, the orks would grin, and when a tree fell, they would sing.

Never before had the tribe felt so close as when they hacked away the elvish woods together.

During the morning of the next day, the caravan’s war-beasts began to act strange.

They tore at the gound and hissed at the air - most refused to lumber any further.

The beast masters stirred them forward with painful lashes and searing iron so that the beasts were pushed on once again.

The elves struck swiftly, And during the day, when the clan was yet groggy.

A flight of silver feathered arrows flew from the forest and slew many of the unarmored orks who rested in the shade.

Plae elvesin bright mail coats and hooded green cloaks lunged out of cover with long metal spears.

Battle was joined as orks howled and lashe out with crude clubs and axes.

The tide turned in favor of the orks, and the elves became awash with blood and gore.

The tribe pursued the elves into the woods, but the elves sprinted out on secret deer paths and traipsed through the thikcet as though it was open land.

The elves left behind no trails, but Kezkah Cursed-eyed knew that the vile elves would be lurking in the heart of the woods.

The great bonfire could no longer be confined to the massive war wagon, so it spilled out and started to spread at a pleasing rate.

(SONG: tO BURN)

Now the orks were infused with such power that they were able to march both day and night, hewing and torching trees as they went.

Even elven skirmishers tried to halt the orks, but the warriors now knew how sweet the elven blood tasted, and even orks whom were riddled with arrows would charge forward still, such was their desire to magle the vile elves.

It was rare that the orks could capture an elf alive, but a cruel fate awaited those few.

The clan would strip the clothes off of them with whips, and place them in small bone cages.

Here, their faces were simged off until they were hideous and grotesque.

The cages filled with these elves were placed atop the tallest battle wagon, where the sight of their condition, and their wretched screams would demoralize othe elves, who would grow fearful and timid.

After logging their way to the very heart of the forest, the clan at last beheld the doomed splendor of the elvish palace.

Tall, gently curving towers of pure white marble ran upward like vines as they wove like a tapestry into the main grand keep.

Crystalline spikes graced the sky with magical silk flags that flew and danced without wind.

Below the tower were wells and springs that flowed from the mouths of the delicately carved animal statues.

The orks had never beheld such a sickening place.

The sheer eloquence of the palace drove them, twisted in hatred and madness.

Their faces knotted up and their fists clenched and unclenched furiously.

Straight away, the orks assembled ballistae, and other war engines, iron bolts, like missiles, rocks, and mutilated deer carcasses were all hurles against the walls.

The elves fought back with arrows and terrible fey magic that could cause even a berserk ork to fall into sleep undending.

Stronger than its fragile look, decieved was the palace, and it seemed that he elves would win the day, but kezkah had other plans…

Beginning a ritual with 19 other shamans and witches that ended with the sacrifice of 19 elvish captives, kezkah unleashed a spell of doom that cracked the walls of the keep.

The orks flooded in like vermin and butchered the elves to the final door of the tallest tower in the wrecked palace.

As the orks made ready to assault the final tower, the door swung suddenly open.

The elven king stood before them in full battle array.

Without a word, he drew his gleaming saber, and began to slay the orks with the aid of his red-plumed honor guard.

The fallen warriors began to litter the floor and the stairway was slick with blood.

A red-plumed elf slid down the stairs and his feet were hewn off by a cleaver before the elves could pull him to safety.

The elvish line advanced as a unified wall of thrusting spears, and the ork warriors were smitten deeply, through armor, flesh, and bone.

All the way down to the ground entrance were the orks pushed, but at the gate, a massive pit fighter named Ham O Graw Gorefist stood forward to rally the orks.

The warriors charged forward, fresh and fearless once more.

Ham O Graw and the elf king began to duel.

The elf king was uncanny with quickness and injured HAM O Graw Gorefist several times, but in the end the elf slipped on a loose rock and his body was broken by the great flint studded club that Gorefist weilded.

The elves were eliminated that day, and wiped out.

Their future was defiled, their animals were butcherec, and the entire forest was gutted by fire.

As for the burning face ork clan, none know if they continue to keep their fire or if they were unable to maintain it and died out long ago.

It is written in the blackened tomes, however, that Gultusalt finally rewarded the finest of their tribe, and that he transported them to Baator, where they keep the fires of hell raging and war with angels to this day.

fin