Cows of Chaos

The dungeon shook with chaos.

Skaf and Muffin writhed in Ethor’s black tentacles, coils dragging them down into wriggling shadow. Sean and Elion lay still, smoking from the lightning bolt that had felled them. The fire elemental flickered and vanished with Elion’s fall, its molten fists stilled forever.

Only Brogmar remained standing.

Across the chamber, Ethor’s stood arrogantly, the wizard sneering in triumph. Brogmar’s sickle trembled in his grip.

Wolves would do nothing. Bears would be torn apart. Insects, serpents, vines—they would all fail.

He needed weight. He needed thunder. He needed Chaos.

The word came unbidden, from somewhere deep within. Somewhere fundamental.

Cows.

The air groaned. From the void above, they fell, massive, bellowing, bodies striking Ethor's fragile form with catastrophic force. His arrogant glare vanished and was replaced with terror. His concentration shattered, the black tentacles dissolving into smoke as the cows crashed, one by one in to his frail form. The first cow knocked him over. The second shatterd his bones. The rest made sure the job was done.

The fight was over.

In the thunder of hooves, Brogmar's mind returns to a different time. A time long since past. A memory.

A Memory Returns

The night air pressed heavy on the Dennison estate, thick with the scent of hay and the pending storm. Marterus had been bright with lanterns and music earlier, but young Harry Dennison had grown restless. The boy who had everything demanded more, always more. Tonight, it was a midnight tour of the barns.

"Come on!", he shouted at his parents as he led them towards the barn. "Let's see the cows!"

His parents, indulgent as ever, followed with weary smiles. Garron, the old farmhand, trudged beside them. Harry had always liked Garron, though he would never admit it aloud—the man’s weathered face and quiet humor softened the harsh edges of a childhood lived under constant luxury and expectation.

Garron shared an uneasy gaze at Harry and his parents, but said nothing. Forever loyal and obedient he followed his master's son in to the barn.

Inside the barn, herd shifted as Garron entered. He is disappointed to find Harry taunting the giant beasts with a large stick. The smell of damp earth clung to the air. Garron warned him not to go too close, but Harry only laughed, darting between the beasts with mock-heroic shouts.

"I will be a great warrior!", Harry exclaimed as he ran around brandishing his stick as a sword.

Most nights, the cows would stay in the paddock, grazing at their leisure. But not tonight, as a great storm was predicted. It hadn't started raining yet, but Garron and his fellow workers were nervous. They knew what was to come.

Harry ran around the animals, ignorant, or perhaps arrogant enough to assume danger does not apply to him. He swung his makeshift sword around in epic gestures, mimicking heroes from the stories read to him by his mother.

As Harry brought down his stick carelessly during one epic flourish, it struck a nearby cow, and without warning, the sky split open. Lightning tore the heavens, thunder cracked like a god’s fist. Lightning, just as Ethor's spell had, made a deafening cracking sound. A huge detonation of light and sound filled the barn as the bolt hit the highest point of the wooden structure. Wood shards flew violently in every direction.

The herd exploded into chaos. The world became hooves. Hooves striking mud, hooves shattering the night. The ground shook as through the weight of a thousand thumping footsteps pounded the muddy surface. Harry slipped and fell, his makeshift sword crashing to his feet. The lantern he had discarded earlier, toppled over igniting some nearby hay.

For a moment the stampede became more than cattle. The pounding hooves were drums, the breath of beasts became the roar of rivers, yet Harry felt a calm amongst in the torrent of chaos. A ghostly figure of a woman appears in silence, her hair flowing like reeds, her eyes deep and sorrowful. She reached for him not with hands, but with stillness, with the promise of calm beyond terror. Reaching out from another worldly place. A look of calm but also expectation. As quickly as she came, she vanished.

He is abruptly brought back to the barn. Gasping and his lungs full of mud and fear. His eyes sting from the smoke. The fire starts to rage around him.

"Harry!" Garron’s cry pulls him back closer to the present. The farmhand seized his arm, eyes wide, mouth twisted in terror. For a heartbeat, Harry saw both men at once: Garron the servant, mud-slick and desperate—and Garron as something else, some eternal guardian in the shape of man. Something more than just a worker on the family farm.

Then Garron shoved him clear. Harry tumbled into the muck. He turned just in time to see the man vanish beneath the wave of cattle. The sound of it stayed with him, bones breaking, flesh torn, the final silence. The cows burst through the barn doors escaping to the open paddock.

Another bolt of lightning strikes the barn, this time ripping open the roof in a violent explosion. The water bursts through falling in sheets, washing blood into pools of red. The flames are extinguished, but the damage had been done. Garron’s body lay broken, his sacrifice undeniable. His face twisted in pain but also a sense of accomplishment. Had he done what was meant to?

Harry's mother can be heard calling as she bursts in, his father close behind. Horror frozen on their faces. They scan the scene, their faces solemn.

"This never leaves these grounds." His father says after a long silence. He knew what had to be done. He looked at Harry. He looked at the corpse of Garron. A look Harry had never seen before, a mix of anger and disappointment, but also one of resolve.

His mother’s hands shook as she pulled Harry close.

"The family name cannot be stained." She said through tears. "You must speak of this to no one."

By dawn the story was rewritten. Garron had died bravely, tending the herd in the storm. His widow was given coin, his children promises. The staff kept silent, some by fear, others by loyalty.

Harry buried the truth. He told himself the vision had been a trick of lightning, the stampede nothing more than beasts in panic. Yet in his dreams, the ghostly woman returned, her gaze piercing, her silence deeper than words. The look of expectation growing over the years.

Countless years later, stranded on his unknown island’s shores, he would see her again—this time with a name whispered by the wild: Eldath.

And when Harry Dennison shed his name to become Brogmar Mossbeard, the sound of hooves and rushing water still echoed in the hollow of his soul.

The Guilt

Brogmar returned his thoughts to the dungeon as his allies regained consciousness. The broken corpse of Ethor lay beneath a pile of hooves and meat.

Brogmar stood unmoving, antlers dripping, eyes distant. He remembered Garron. The sacrifice. The lie. And the woman that presented herself.

This never happened, his parents had said. But it had.

The echo of hooves and crushing bone roared louder than any battlefield.