A Vow of Vengeance

With the greatest of effort, Erebor opened his eyes. He lay completely dead on the ground, the smell of burned flesh, his flesh filled his nostrils. He forced himself to focus, what he could see from the ground was a vision of hell: fires burning, dead bodies torn to shreds, everything in pieces. He slowly rose up to a sitting position, hoping that sitting up would change what he was seeing. It did not. He saw faces – heads of people he recognized, his family, his brothers. Tears rolled downed his blackened cheeks.

He did not know how long he sat, labored breathing ringing in his ears. He looked down and saw his large hammer on the ground. He wasn’t sure he could pick it up in his current state. He looked to the river and realized he was thirsty. Slowly he rose to his feet, waiting to feel a broken bone or other major injury. His head swam, blackness closing in, threatening to swallow him whole and collapse into unconsciousness or death. He shook his head violently to dispel the weakness. He slowly made his way to the river. In shock, he kept drinking in the death and carnage that was once his happy home. He fell clumsily to his knees and put a shaking hand into the water and drank greedily. He looked at his face reflected back to him and did not recognize the walking corpse that he saw. His face blackened with angry red streaks of blood and torn flesh showing through.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember the demon that had done this. It had the form of a great metal scorpion, metal flying from its claws and fire from its tail. It laid the entire camp to waste in minutes, hundreds of great, proud warriors reduced to meat in seconds. The image of a large black gauntlet closed into a fist had been painted on the side of the machine. The Zhentarim! He had heard of them and had seen them from afar as the wagon and caravans had passed through their lands. They had never attacked, not wanting any trouble from the infamous black network. For some reason they had brought war to the tribe. Well, now he would bring war and death to them. Looking about and seeing the dead bodies of all of those he held dear, he vowed that he would avenge their death, he would bring death to the Zhentarim.

But how?