The Mountain Golem

The Stone

 Written by Connor Danz

Screams of the villagers echoed through the night sky. 

For several months now, the people known as the Petras have heard of the invaders who hailed from the east. The great force of foreign men with unknown weapons that have been slowly moving across the countryside and plains, adding village after village to their spoils. Most were either slane or enslaved by this foreign horde, but a few had taken flight with the cover of night to warn their neighbors. 

 The Petras did not sit idly on the warning they were given. The village took up its defenses, the priests prayed for aid, the farmers beat their plowshares to swords, the merchants sent letters for aid in every direction, and common folk armed themselves with whatever they had. 

Besides the time of preparation they had, the Petras had one other advantage against the invading Horde, the terrain. Unlike the villages the Horde had already conquered on the plains, the Petras’ village was on much rockier terrain, with the invaders needing to travel downhill through a narrow path to get to the valley where their village rests, which left them vulnerable. The Horde could also not attack from any other angle as the village rested in the valley of a mountain, with all other directions being naturally fortified. 

As the sun began to set, the Petras could see the outline of the horde encroaching upon the entrance to their valley. The Petras stood firm, fleeing was not an option for them, they would either claim victory or die trying. Their chief stood among his people and rallied them as the Horde quickly descended upon them. They attempted to use the narrow entrance to their advantage, placing men to drop rocks and boulders in their path, but this did little to slow the Horde, and the men were eviscerated by the Horde’s weapons. These weapons that had swung the tide of the previous battles continued to do the same, with the balls of steel that came out of Horde’s spears tore not only through the village’s defenses but several villagers themselves, the larger steel logs on wheels tore through entire houses. That was not all their military might, balls of fire began to rain from the sky as massive war catapults flung molten rock into the valley. Even engaging the Horde in hand-to-hand combat seemed fruitless as they covered themselves in steel, leaving the makeshift swords and clubs of the Petras ineffective. 

Screams of the villagers echoed through the night sky. They used all their might to hold back their foes, but at every point, the superior technology of the foreign horde won out. Almost all of the Petras lie dead across the scorched ruins they once called home. Through some divine misfortune, the Chief of the village still lived, writhing in agony not for his brutal injuries but for the family of the people that lifelessly lay around him. Noticing his pain, a man in decorated armor, the Commander of the Horde moved in to relieve him of his pain. Seeing this slow approach, the Chief let out a final cry…

“God of my Fathers! If you would not save my people from destruction, then at least allow the same to fall upon our murderers seventy-fold!”

With those words, the Chief of the Petras breathed his last before the Horde Commander could finish him. 

With the Petras extinguished, the Horde began to make their way through what remained, to salvage any goods for themselves. They were only met with disappointment, as their recklessness with their own destructive power destroyed all the wealth the Petras had left behind. Fine linen and wheat burned, coins were reduced to melted piles, and the warped weapons were primitive compared to their own. 

As the Horde began to collect themselves in the valley with what scraps they were able to scrounge, the very terrain itself began to violently shake. The shaking was so powerful that the men had fallen to their feet, and their large weapons either toppled over or were swallowed into the dirt. When the shaking had reached its most violent, a blood-curdling scream could be heard from the very valley itself. The scream was that of all tones and pitches at once, the screams of men, women, and children all in a horrific harmony. This already frightening scene for the Horde concluded when they turned towards the mountain wall that overlooked the village. The glow of the magma they had launched earlier illuminated what stood before them. 

A Stone Golem lumbered over the Horde army. 

Standing in its hunched-over position, it was easily the height of a fortress wall. Its arms hung long, down to its shins with large boulders in the place of hands. In between the rocks that made up the Golem’s body was little glowing lights. The few men who survived the Golem claim to have seen faces in the lights wailing and screaming. 

Before the Horde Men could begin their retreat, the Golem began its march forward, crushing several men along with the charred remains of the village. With each step, he crushed more and more of the horde until he had left the valley of his birth to where the Horde had set up camp outside. Having seen him emerge from the mountain wall, the Horde camp had rallied for an attack, firing the same weapons of steel that had slane its people. This had little effect on the Golem, and with the same harmonious scream that was heard when he emerged, the Golem smashed its stone cut fits into the ground and dragged them as it stomped about. In a matter of moments, the Golem had wiped away the majority of the force with the mercy they had shown the village. The few battered Horde who remained gazed in awe at the Golem that had left but a scant trace of their massive invading force. 

At last, when dawn broke above the horizon, the destruction was over. Gone were the Horde from the East, the mighty Golem laid waste to them. As the sun hit the stone body, a great sigh of relief could be felt across the land as the lights that inhabited the Golem's armor flew to the sky where they belonged. 

When the sun was, at last, shining upon the whole of the land, there stood the Golem, now a lifeless statue, standing not as a memorial to the lost people, but as a warning to those who dare to crush the weak under their heel.