Through It All

Even though the armor-donning orc Elijah Heartland was built like a brick wall, the Master Judge always knew how to make his body feel microscopic and his testicles feel like shards of glass. Towering over Elijah at eight and a half feet tall, the golden-armored and powder-wigged Master Judge held his oversized war hammer over the orc’s head as easily as a pool cue and gave him a shiver-worthy evaluation.

“I must say, Elijah,” boomed Master Judge in a god-like voice. “You’ve excelled tremendously during the physical tests to becoming a paladin. Then again, such barbaric violence is always to be expected from a member of your race. You have the strength of a thousand warriors, but not the intelligence or wisdom of them. Ever since these trials began, you’ve been nothing short of an embarrassment to yourself. Your hair-trigger temper and dagger tongue have gotten you into more trouble than you’re worth. I should consider failing you right now!”

Thunder and lightning punctuated the Master Judge’s recent words, which sent Elijah backpedaling on his ass. The gigantic knight continued, “But instead I’ve opted to give you one final test: to confront the scathing ghost of your past. If you successfully complete this test, you will become a paladin and your prison sentence will be expunged. If you don’t, you will rot in solitary confinement for the rest of your waste life. And to think, all of this hateful violence was over a woman. Heh…a woman. Pull yourself together, you imbecile, or this will be the last time you see the light of day!”

A final bolt of lightning crashed down upon the Master Judge and he disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Without his massive frame to cover Elijah’s field of view, the orc gazed upon the test that lied before him: a heavenly white marble staircase with black hooded ghosts lining either side of it. He wondered if he would become acrophobic at such great heights.

Whatever fear Elijah previously had from being emasculated by the Master Judge disappeared when he stood back up and spit on the ground. He drew his sword thinking he would need it by the time he got to the top. Perhaps he could cut down these hooded ghosts and flee the scene? No, too risky. It wasn’t worth being locked in solitary confinement until the day he died. With furrowed brows and clenched fangs, the orc took his sweet time in ascending the marble stairs.

To his surprise, the ghosts just stood there chanting religious hymns instead of just pounding on him. The Master Judge said it best when he iterated Elijah had the strength of a thousand warriors, but even that wouldn’t be worth banking on against these freaks. The flight of stairs seemed to go on forever, like Elijah had been walking on a conveyor belt. His muscled legs refused to give out, especially when a golden ray of light grew brighter as he neared the top.

What Elijah saw at the platform caused him to lick his lips with violent lust and sharpen his sword with the corner of the stairs: a woman in orange monk’s robes on her knees with shackles pinning her arms to the ground and a black hood over her head. No matter how intensely she struggled, she couldn’t free herself. “You’re making this too easy, Master Judge!” shouted Elijah when he approached the woman and ripped the bag off of her head.

The orc’s scaly green skin turned as white as the marble staircase when he saw who was under the hood. “No…no, this isn’t happening! Shiva?! Is that you?!”

Shiva Terkai was the name given to the purple-haired, porcelain-faced lady who peeked up at Elijah with begging sorrowful eyes. “Please, Elijah. Help me. Don’t leave me here to die.”

Elijah Heartland chuckled and scoffed, “Leave you here to die? The irony is killing me, babe. I wish I had the right to say that when you ran away with that goofy looking shit-weasel you call a human! You ripped my heart out that day, Shiva. I should really be thanking you, though, for making me open my eyes and see the world for the hellhole it is. You human women are all the fucking same!”

“It’s not my fault you turned out this way, Elijah!” belted Shiva. “There’s no rule that says you have to go on a rampage every time some girl breaks your heart! There are other women out there! I bet you would have found one and gotten married if you hadn’t ended up in prison!”

“You would have done the same thing if I found another hot sexy woman while we were dating! I don’t expect you to understand what a broken heart does to people, because you never had a fucking heart to begin with! You think infidelity is okay?! I’m an orc and even I get disgusted by that shit!” shouted Elijah.

“Don’t act like you’re the saint around here! If you hadn’t gone on that rampage when we broke up, you would have done it for some other stupid reason! Your skull is thicker than a fucking brick! You have the temper of a goddamn five year old! How do you expect me to live with someone like you?! Running off with that other man? It would have happened sooner or later, but it didn’t happen soon enough!” snapped Shiva as she wrestled in her shackles some more.

“Why you!” stormed Elijah as he raised his sword to the sky and caused Shiva to flinch. His muscles twitched and pulsated, his pores released a floodgate of sweat, and his fangs could have chewed through stone with how hard he chomped down. This was his chance to exact revenge upon the woman who “drove him nuts”. One slash and her head would roll down the stairs like a keg of whiskey. The seconds he spent frozen in this position seemed to go on forever.

“What are you waiting for, Elijah!” screamed a familiar godly voice. The orc turned his head and saw the Master Judge standing only a few stairs behind him with his arms folded and his steel booted foot tapping. “Go ahead and kill her already! Save us the time of actually having to rehabilitate you into a righteous human being! It’ll be fun watching you squirm and sizzle in solitary confinement!”

Elijah sweated and trembled some more before the Master Judge and his ghost minions removed their hoods. The orc’s eyebrows shot sky high and his eyes bulged out of his head like a cartoon when he saw that underneath their hoods, they too were orcs. Scaly skin, wide noses, razor-sharp fangs, but a somehow milder stench than what Elijah was used to. The criminal gulped hard as he still had a decision to make involving the sword in his hands.

“I don’t have all fucking day, Elijah! Kill her already!” shouted the Master Judge. His orc friends chanted, “Kill her!” in succession like they were at a sports bar. The blade was raised, Shiva’s eyes grew damp, and Elijah’s muscles twitched even harder. And then, the blade came down like a bolt of lightning, a heavenly judgment for a “sinful” woman. Except the blade didn’t come down on her neck. He slashed one of the shackles in half and proceeded to slash the other, freeing her from bondage.

The two former lovers hugged it out and dampened each other’s shoulders with tears of joy. The Master Judge, on the other hand, had a face full of red hot lava and the trembling temper of a berserker. By drawing his thumb across his own throat, he signaled for his robed orc cohorts to charge up the stairs and finish the job themselves.

Elijah and Shiva got into their fighting stances and cut the ghostly orcs off at the top of the stairs. Elijah swung his blade at his opponents with rapid precision and a barbarian’s might, severing arms, legs, and heads while turning their bodies into blood bombs. One of the orcs threw a hatchet into Elijah’s arm and caused him to roar in pain. The fiery agony surged through his body for only a few seconds as he ripped it out, licked up the blood like a kissing lover, and slashed that minion’s throat with the same hatchet.

Shiva was a martial artist by nature and threw lightning quick punches and kicks at her opponents, shattering ribs and splitting skulls. Bodies rolled down the stairs and shattered even more bones on the sharp corners.  One of the minions managed to catch her in a bear hug, but she stamped the heel of her foot down on his toes and crunched them all to force his release. She delivered the final blow in the form of a back elbow to the jaw before throwing him across a group of orcs and watching them tumble down the stairs.

Body parts, shattered bones, and squishy organs decorated these once beautiful marble stairs until one orc minion remained. Elijah and Shiva nodded at each other before they both ganged up on him with a stab to the gut and a flying knee to the chest. The final minion sloshed onto the stairs like a puddle of violent pudding. “Enough!” shouted the Master Judge as he held out his hand and collected the spiritual essences of each ghost warrior under his command. Glowing white energy took the place of blood and body parts as it gathered into a silver orb in his hand until the stairs reverted back to their old beauty.

“I told you what was going to happen, Elijah, and by gods be damned, you’re going to get it!” belted the Master Judge as he held out his gigantic war hammer. Elijah and Shiva both stood back in their defensive positions expecting the Master Judge to smash them into bloody morsels. The two even held hands while Shiva whispered, “I’m sorry” and Elijah whispered back, “Me too.” The war hammer was raised high in the sky and brought down in a thunderous fury.

“Congratulations! You’ve passed the final test. I dub thee Sir Elijah Heartland,” said the Master Judge in a gentle voice as he knighted his criminal apprentice with the war hammer. Elijah and Shiva gazed up at their overlord in confusion rather than feeling instant elation. The Master Judge explained, “The paladin trials are just as much of an emotional challenge as they are physical. By sparing Shiva Terkai’s life, you’ve shown her forgiveness. Being able to forgive your enemies is a stronger feat than anything you can do with that blade of yours. The only time you needed that blade was to defend an innocent victim, which you’ve done a marvelous job of. This is what being a paladin is all about: knowing when to strike and when to forgive. Even under my harshest words, you’ve demonstrated that wisdom to a fault. You’re free to go, my friend. May you always walk in the light.”

A lightning bolt crashed down upon the Master Judge and he disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving Elijah and Shiva to stare at each other in awe and wonder. Shiva tried to hold her former lover’s hands, but he pushed them away and said, “We can never have what we used to have. What’s in the past should stay in the past. But if you want, I can walk you home just this one time. After that, we both go our separate ways. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” whispered Shiva while she hung her head. “But if you don’t mind…would it be okay if we…held hands while we walked home? I swear we’ll both go our separate ways, but just this once?”

Elijah sighed, “Sure, why not? Come on, let’s leave this place.” Sure enough the two of them locked their fingers together and descended the marble stairs slowly and carefully. They picked up their pace once the gray clouds gathered overhead and sprinkled some much needed cold rain on their sore skins.