The Gorog Chronicles

Author notes

Gorog, The Restless

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on Nov. 6, 2007

The baby who would be Gorog was found atop Black Tooth Mountain by a wandering witch named Ursull. Having never given birth to a child of her own, she found this discovery quite exciting. Ursull named the child Gorog, an ancient word from a forgotten language. Only Ursull knew the meaning of the word, but she never told anyone else. To this day, no one knows what Gorog means. Some say it translates as “destroyer”, some say it is “drinker of lukewarm blood”; but, there are some circles who suggest that the name simply is a mispronunciation of the other ancient word Carthok, which means “creamy skin”. Intellectuals have never been able to agree on a standard definition.

Ursull raised the boy for ten and a half years. She fed him witch’s brew, which consists mainly of decapitated rodents, filleted lizards, and raw innards from various small mammals. Though lacking the mainstream flavor that cooked meat would provide, these raw entrails worked to strengthen Gorog’s immune system. The raw protein enabled his muscles to develop at a higher speed. And his steady diet of home-made mead paved the way for body hair at an early age.

By the time Gorog was nearly eleven, he had decided he would leave home. The world was large and he intended to see every part of it with his own eyes. There was nothing left at the witch’s cottage besides dead animals and rotting meat. He thanked Ursull for the love and food and the occasional grooming of his enormous blond mane. When he left the cottage, the witch became enraged, for secretly, she had hoped the boy would stay until she died of old age. She needed a companion because witches, for the most part, were widely misunderstood and ignored by the general populace. Many more witches suffered from loneliness than one might expect.

As a witch, Ursull lacked the kind of communication skills necessary for a decent conversation between a child and his anxious foster-mother. Instead of making tea and discussing her anxieties, she summoned a horde of venomous demon toads to attack her once-beloved and adopted son. Gorog destroyed each of the seven hundred and forty-two toads before turning on Ursull. She told him he would live a cursed life of violence and woe. He broke her neck as she summoned a skeleton from a nearby graveyard. Having no direction from Ursull, the skeleton turned out to be quite agreeable and Gorog invited the undead creature to travel with him. Conversation was lighthearted.

But that is another story.