The Flight of the Doom Diver
By: Ruben Plooster
This story was originally submitted to Mythic!
‘Get on that, grot!’ a big Orc slaver shouted to Grohjiv. Clumsily he climbed on the catapult, not helped at all by the heavy wooden wings on both his arms. Grohjiv was a doom diver, one of the best. Ofcourse its hard to say what makes a doom diver good when being catapulted into enemy lines is your only plan. Grohjiv had survived his first time, which made him a veteran. Even though he didn’t kill anyone that time and just fell into a pool of water, he still earned respect from his peers. Enough respect not to get eaten while he was asleep.
Grohjiv straightened his wings, which made him look like a really ugly bird; but by Goblin logic, looking like a bird means you can fly like a bird. ‘Shoot!’ the big orc shouted and Grohjiv was fired upon the enemy lines. High above everything else he got a good view of the battle. A green tide was clashing with a human army. The warboss of his clan had decided to attack the empire now that they where weakened. Grohjiv was able to steer himself towards the enemy artillery, in particular a big mortar which was being reloaded. With a loud “Yahooo!” he crashed into the mortar at breakneck speed.
Darkness surrounded him, he had not expected that. He had expected very little, like most goblins. Was this the afterlife? Why would the afterlife be dark? Why would it smell so much like gunpowder? Why did he hear a human voice yell ‘Fire”!’? With a bright light Grohjiv was fired into the sky. With burning wings and a buring head, many Orcs and Goblins mistook him for the avatar of Gork (or Mork) himself and charged themselves into the human ranks once more; thinking they were blessed and chosen by the gods. Grohjiv himself was still going up into the air and if his head wasn’t burning and he himself wasn’t dead, he could have seen the nearing orc victory over the empire. He would have seen that the human commander was getting ready to retreat and he could possibly have seen his house from there. If he still was alive when going down, he would have seen the Orcs cheering him on, he would have seen many goblins forming a line to the doom diver catapult and finally he would have seem that the human commander was getting real close real fast.
With a might crash Grohjiv fell on the commander, killing him instantly. If the goblin had been even an bit smarter, the battle would have been lost. Stupidity is a weapon.
