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.
