(Note: All of this next part, up to the Epilogue, take place in the Middle Ages. I'm not putting an exact year because I like letting the reader have some freedom to imagine it as dark as they please. Also, any dialogue is technically taking place entirely in the Troll language, unless noted otherwise. Given most if not all of the active characters are Trolls, there's little reason for them to speak anything else. Any further notes will be added as they are needed.)
He couldn't get the image out of his mind. Absently the Gumm-Gumm general lashed out with a fist, catching a remaining support from a burned-out building. The post was shattered, already decimated by the flames that had started during the attack. The gesture could be passed off as just looking for more fleshbags to consume, though in truth he wasn't hungry anymore nor was there any left even if he was. This village was small, an isolated community that had been so cut off from the outside world they hadn't even heard rumors of the horde's activities before they became targets. Thankfully his warband wasn't as large as some at this moment, having split off on a scouting mission from the main forces, or he might have had to kill some of his own forces to maintain control with so little food to go around.
Rising up to his full towing height - few of the army could match his stature - the general looked around. Lines on his body that the fleshbags might have called carvings in his stony hide glowed iridescent green in the fire-lit darkness; in his black eyed the same light radiated as inner flame to match the flames raging around him. Much of his normally gray body and green mane of hair was caked in blood, mud, and ash, as was his soldiers.
The paint of battle, of destruction, of victory.
His soldiers were milling about, searching absently or just breaking things for the sake of breaking them. None were looking his way directly; they knew he would call them when they were to hear to the next objective. Satisfied, the general eased back down to his customary pose - knuckles bracing his large upper body against the ground in a slightly hunched forward manner - and tried to work through these very odd, very unsettling thoughts.
It had happened during the battle (hah! Battle! These fleshbags hadn't put up even a modicum of a fight; it had been an easy slaughter). He'd just grabbed a fleeting fleshbag that he recognized as a female by her smaller build and squishier body. Around him his soldiers were eating their fill and smashing everything in sight. Several fires caused by both accidental Gumm-Gumm movements and intentionally by the fleshbags as some form of pointless defense already burned, adding to the glorious chaos. And he had one of his preferred meals in hand. A squeeze of his massive hands around her throat ended her panicked screaming, but in its wake another, higher pitched scream sounded.
The noise itself didn't disturb the general; such cries were an everyday thing for him. But as his eyes followed to the source of the sound and took in the young fleshbag he saw watching him, he paused. The look on that tiny fleshbag's face... he appeared as if his heart had just been ripped away from him, right before his eyes. As if his everything had been ripped away. It was a look of utter devastation and horror and heartbreak all in one. And it struck true to the general's otherwise impenetrable heart like no weapon ever had. Something deep within him twisted with a distant but familiar ache, as if that look was somehow known to him, on a personal level. But where? How? Who had he ever seen that could have made such an expression?
Then a flung piece of debris, a casual, unaimed throw by one of his warriors, caught the young fleshbag clean and ended his misery in an unintentional, twisted act of mercy, leaving only a small icon of a fleshbag made of scraps of cloth behind. The general felt his entire body twitch as the body before him was flung back several feet and crushed, like a cord pulled tight and plucked that he hadn't known was there. Then a moment later his warriors were around him and roaring in victory, and he roared with them. Whatever that had been was gone.
So why then later, when they were departing into the night, did a part of him wish that he had seen the blow incoming... and stop it?
oooooooooooooooooooo
Much later, after he had given the word to make camp, he ventured off on his own. To his warriors he was scouting. But where his feet ended up taking him was rather far from the beaten path...