Rhinogres

By Greg Tuck

The Rhinogres are a mercenary army of creatures that are the cross between rhinoceroses and ogres. Hobgoblins are also members of the army. They live in mediaeval times and are based in the Caucasus Mountains in Eastern Europe. The Rhinogres in the army are not the brightest bunch and only two have any real intelligence and they are the leader and the second in command. Even the sorcerers who were supposed to be gifted were lacking in grey matter. They are accompanied by powerful beasts such as sabre-tooth tigers, mammoths, horned yaks and mountainboars. The army has been asked by the incumbent king of the land of the Dead in Egypt to help solve a mystery and to assist him in putting down a coup. Just getting to the Land of the Dead is in itself quite an arduous task as they have to avoid trolls, swamps, goblins, shifting sands, orcs and thirst.
Once the army arrive in Thebes on the Nile River, they are taken to see the king. The land they had arrived at was well named as all men and creatures were nothing but skeletons. The king’s own guard was comprised of The Land of the Dead’s own fantastic beasts including manticores and gigantic skeletal cobras. Only the wisdom of their two best and brightest, some bravery and a great deal of luck see them survive and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Tuck
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463184905

Greg Tuck

I am a former primary teacher and principal, landscape designer and gardener and now a full time author living in Gippsland in the state of Victoria in Australia. Although I write mainly fictional novels, I regularly contribute to political blogs and have letters regularly published in local and Victorian newspapers. I write parodies of songs and am in the process of writing music for the large number of poems that I have written.

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RHINOGRES

By Greg Tuck

© 2018

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Preface

History tells us many things. It is written by winners and for winners. It hides things that for many people would be unspeakable. It educates the young but only in what other people perceive that they need to know. Humankind has a lot to answer for, but is there anyone left to ask the questions? For years, people have assumed that myths and legends had no factual base because this was how people over time covered their tracks. History for years was never written down. It was just word of mouth passed down from one generation to another. With no credible evidence to back certain events, they were consigned to folklore and not historical fact.

But discoveries are being made every day and the evidence is becoming overwhelming. What we now think only as fantasy was reality at one time. So-called monsters such as the yeti and sasquatch used to roam the earth in numbers but now only one or two remain and stay hidden from any human contact with good justification. Vampires and dragons, trolls, pixies and werewolves have actually a basis in fact rather than fiction. Why else have so called mythological creatures been described in the folklore of different cultures around the world that have had no contact with each other? Sensationalised in movies and literature they strike a chord with long forgotten things of the past in the minds of humans.

So, what really happened? These creatures lived side by side with humans, sharing similar emotions and similar lifestyles. They were at times at war with each other and with humans and other times co-existed peacefully. They developed allegiances which were fluid. They sought to retain their individuality and their land just as humans do today. The lure of wealth be it gold or even food was the same across all creatures.

In those times, magic played an important role and its practitioners were all powerful. Beliefs were strong, particularly about the law of the jungle. Might was right and humans wanted to become the mightiest of them all. They had no muscular superiority, only a more developed brain and this they put to good effect. But it came at a cost to the diversity of life on the planet.

Other creatures noticed what was happening as more and more creatures were becoming extinct and the numbers of humans increased. They rose to confront this tide or rather tsunami of humanity and history as presented by humans merely mentions of a period known as The Dark Ages. It was a dark and dreadful time on Earth. Challenged by a united front of beasts, humans opted not seek some sort of peace, but instead had their sorcerers and alchemists work on a master weapon that would provide a perennial dominance by humans over every living creature. Biological warfare was born.

Experiments were carried out and new strains of viruses released. One experiment went horribly wrong and in one fell swoop every giant on the planet succumbed in just twenty-four hours. However, the viruses were then modified and certain creatures were targeted. Once released the consequences were irrevocable. Evil goblins died by the millions and unfortunately the same strain impacted on peaceful elves too. One by one humans led creatures that could challenge them as rulers of the planet, down the path of extinction, until only a few remained scattered in inaccessible parts of the world.

Humans then set about rewriting the pages of history omitting any reference to other creatures that may have been their equal if not better in times gone past. The enormous structures of the Mayan empire and the masterfully built Angkor Watt temples were given back to the jungle in the hope that any links to the creatures that once lived there would be lost forever. Places were renamed. Stories were rephrased and, at glacial speed, history was altered to reflect the belief that only humans had developed intellectually on earth. Special breeding programs were conducted to filter out any genetic links to a time when creatures and human hybrids existed. Humans were made to believe that the centaurs, fauns and mermaids were part of old religious folktales. Yet they used sphinxes, griffins and the Pegasus as symbols to unite groups of people. They even made light of elves and fairies with childhood tales of the tooth fairy and Father Christmas. Yet the tales of these creatures were consistent from country to country and across continents. Cults grew around these. Pagan rituals still occurred so humans developed religions that either took into account such gods or offered hellfire and damnation to those who even mentioned them. Just as biological warfare had altered forever the ecology of the planet, history and belief systems were altered by psychological warfare the like the world has never seen.

The following is an account of a much happier pre-Dark Age time.

Chapter 1

He looked again at the refracted image that bounced back at him off his armour in the flickering light of the campfire and for the hundredth time wondered how it had all begun and why it had all gone so wrong. Tomorrow they would re-join the battle and just how many of them would be around a fire the following night was anyone’s guess. He had no doubts about everyone’s tenacity in battle and their ability to absorb pain but if they were anything like him, perhaps they were a little weary of the tedium of it; and when you are tired that’s when you make mistakes. Against the enemies they regularly confronted any mistake could be your last.

His role as leader of this rag tag lot was never under threat. In most ogre armies, the tribune was the leader but whether by luck or good management, he as Standard Bearer had shown the most prowess as a leader and his leadership style was such that it brought the best out of all his troops, even the triplets, as their best and worst were pretty much the same. He had found in battle that being the Standard Bearer he was able to fly under the radar and many of his enemies attacked the tribune, Harry, who carried all the attributes of a leader. Nevertheless, all his troops knew who was really in charge and in the main held true to the ruse that was being played out on their opposition. Whilst the Rhinogre army would look to Harry for strength, they knew the orders came from the Standard Bearer and always deferred to his command. It had nothing to do with his size and strength as vast as these were. He knew he wasn’t the most intelligent of the group but had the talent to foresee problems that may arise, and that was what made him their leader. He lent forward to pick up the kebab stick that a hobgoblin had cooked for him and began to nibble distractedly. The hobgoblin made the mistake of chuckling at an inappropriate time and soon found himself swatted thirty metres away in a snow drift, as the leader of the Rhinogre horde again lost himself deep in thought.

This army under his command were a collection of individuals bonded together by the rejection from other ogres and the fear and repulsion shown by almost all beings in the empire. Too smart and cultured to be accepted as ogres and too different for all other tribes, they had welded into a rogue mercenary army of such skill that they could demand a high price for their talents. Whilst the money was fine, what they craved was acceptance and that was one thing that was never given. So, they moved from place to place and tonight’s camp was just another place; another home for the night.

He was shaken from his melancholy reverie by scuffle that had arisen amongst two of the units. Such a thing was common especially if it involved the triplets. They were in a unit of their own. They had to be. No-one could work with them, wanted to work with them or wanted to try. Like the three wise monkeys, though nowhere near as wise, each had a disability; one was blind, one was deaf and one was a mute. See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. But altogether, just pure evil. Apart from these disabilities, their intelligence was split across all three. Combine their IQ’s and you got an almost normal Rhinogre. He looked across at his second in command, Harry; but Harry had already moved towards the triplets and the noise died instantly. Harry’s negotiating skills were legendary.

The fire gave off only a little heat. Rhinogres have such thick skin that only blizzard type conditions cause them to drop in body temperature, so he wasn’t concerned about the lack of warmth from the fire. The hobgoblins had their own tiny fire that they continually stoked. Their skinny frames meant they were always too hot or too cold. He inwardly laughed. Hobgoblins are never just right. Their warped minds knew little of justice and invariably if they had a choice between two things, they always chose the wrong one. Knowing this had allowed him to lead his army very effectively. If a hobgoblin advised him to take the trail leading to the left, he always went the other way.

A smile almost passed across his lips as he watched these tiny goblin-like creatures chanting away around their fire. Their symbiotic relationship to his Rhinogres was valuable to one another. They had remarkable vision. In truth Rhinogres’ eyesight was pretty pathetic but he wasn’t about to acknowledge that even to himself. They functioned well as look outs, feeding him with information that he decoded by assuming the opposite. They were cunning and inventive and were capable of making very complicated snares. However, some of their snares were so sophisticated that many times all they caught were themselves. Constant medical supplies were needed and the occasional burial. In return, the Rhinogres protected them and didn’t kill them. It wasn’t a master slave relationship as such he admitted although that was what it looked like on the surface. Most cooked, cleaned and generally ran the camp during a battle although some formed sacrificial units to draw an unsuspecting enemy in. But deep down he wasn’t sure who the masters were and who were the slaves. At the end of a battle, the Rhinogres would always be paid if they won or retreat and regroup ready for another war if they lost. The hobgoblins always got what they wanted. They scoured battlefields for all sorts of equipment so that they could create their snares and build new armaments for the Rhinogres. The immense uproar they caused when they came across gunpowder had to be heard to be believed.

He wasn’t sure when and where the hobgoblins joined his mercenary army. They always seemed to be there since they had embarked from their journey from China. Now in their encampment in the Caucasus Mountains, they were polishing the Rhinogre armour with a mixture of gunpowder and animal fat as they huddled around their fire. Occasionally some of the mix would end up in the fire and shoot off in unpredictable directions causing chaos amongst them and a great deal of humour amongst his troops. The only hobgoblin he had grave concerns about was Gunny. It was only going to be a matter of time before someone ended up in a grave if Gunny wasn’t kept under control.

Gunny had spent a little too much time around bombardiers and gained an unnatural fascination with gun powder. He was renowned amongst the hobgoblins for his ability to make the loudest, most spectacular snares. Gunny acquired all kinds of shiny things over the years, all looted from unfortunate enemies (and friends) who ran into his snares. Due to his time spent around gun powder he was just slightly mad and often seen shouting BOOM and chuckling to himself. At the end of a day’s battle he was manacled to something solid and immovable so that others could rest or sleep in safety.

Most of his army of Rhinogres couldn’t tell one hobgoblin from another apart from Gunny. The maniacal grin and insane laughter had Gunny pegged from nearly the very beginning. Like a bower bird he loved to beg, borrow or steal anything shining. He would look in lots of places in his quest for something new. Some of the more mischievous Rhinogres used mirrors to bounce light off objects which sent Gunny scurrying all over the place. This may have led to that day that nearly saw Gunny transported further than any other living being had travelled.

One of the Rhinogres had been playing with a mirror teasing Gunny as usual when he accidentally dropped it down the barrel of a cannon. The barrel was huge but nowhere near wide enough for a Rhinogre to squeeze in to retrieve it. Annoyed with himself the Rhinogre nonchalantly walked away and eventually forgot about it as they prepared for battle the next day. As the dawn broke, Gunny fortunately, or not, was in just the right position to notice the sun strike the