Disclaimer: The Surgeon General says that violence is bad for
one's health and ought not to be attempted at home. The Author says Lodoss isn't mine and I'm making no money off of
it. If you don't like violence, don't
read this chapter. Thanks! Enjoy!
Chapter Eleven: Battle
Orcs. Now that was a familiar, nostalgic smell.
His nose wrinkled
despite the many years he'd had to get used to the stench. Orc recruits had filled the ranks of Marmo's
army long before humans had been conscripted.
He glanced over at the Healer.
She had perceived it, too. Her
face was very pale, a look of bitter disgust and hatred on her face.
He heard muffled grunting coming
closer, snuffling as if it had found their scent, as well. Orcs had a sense of smell as keen as a
dog's, but they were certainly wilier than a dog.
He
heard the familiar catch and hiss of a sword being grasped and drawn, and he
saw the thin, rune-covered blade shining in the waning sunlight. His fingers ached to hold the weight of Soul
Crusher again.
Suddenly, he caught movement out of the
corner of his eye.
"Healer,
to the right," he barked, rolling out of the way as an Orc came charging
towards them, thick battle-axe raised over its head. He needn't have bothered with the warning, he saw, coming to his
knees. She was already facing the Orc,
sword at the ready. She looked
positively little before the Orc bearing down on her, and he thought that this
might be an interesting fight.
The Orc brought the axe down
where the half-Elf should have been, displacing air with a mighty hiss, the
blade sticking in the earth with the force of its blow. If the half-Elf had caught any of that
blade, she would have been cleaved in two.
"Bloody stinking porcine
bastard," He heard the Healer mutter, her tone emotionless as she rolled back
to her feet. The Orc roared, swinging
the axe again. The Healer, much faster,
darted forward, jabbing at the Orc. It
was not wearing armor, but Orc hide was
notoriously tough. Even an Elven blade
would have to get a clean shot in to pierce the stuff.
Apparently, she did enough
damage for the Orc to feel it, for it howled, little round yellow eyes
squinting up in pain and rage. It
charged her again, but she danced out of the way, jabbing at it, cutting it
down little pieces at a time.
Ashuram realized there was
movement coming up behind his left shoulder.
Instinct saved him: he ducked and sidestepped, air whistling by him as a
thick-bladed cutlass slashed downwards with crushing strength. He turned to see
another Orc poised to strike again, its tusk-filled mouth grinning idiotically,
yellow eyes agleam with piggish delight.
He had no sword; it figured him for easy prey. It would soon discover its mistake.
The Orc raised its sword over
its head in preparation to strike.
Classic, that: these were not Marmoan Orcs or they would have had more
battle finesse and more than one attack stance. As it brought the sword back to gain the best leverage, Ashuram
dodged in, aiming his booted foot for the Orc's crotch. Even Orcs suffered if hit in that particular
location. He missed, slightly, his toe
digging in instead into the Orc's belly.
It grunted, but the pain was
minimal and did not stop it. Ashuram
whirled out of the way as the Orc brought the sword down.
He remembered his days in training
as a knight when he had fought Orcs regularly in the sparring ring, bokken
against bokken. At night he had fought
more of them bare fisted in the fighting pit, where drunk lords would come and
throw down money on the favored fighter.
It had been an almost nightly entertainment for many of the Marmoan and
Kanonite lords looking to spend some of their newly acquired wealth. It came back to him slowly, how to box with
a thing twice his weight and with skin like fleshed-over chain mail.
He could hear the sound of the
battle raging behind him, the Healer's sharp exhalations as she fought, but he
could not turn around. He ducked under
the falling cutlass again easily, snatching the Orc's wrist and halting it
briefly before it could shake him loose.
Ashuram found the pressure points of the Orc's hand with determined
haste, putting all the strength he could muster in pressing them. With an angry yowl, the Orc whipped its hand
away, the fingers going lax and the cutlass clattering to the ground. Ashuram dove for it, grunting as he hefted
its weight.
Surprising, how easily
an Orc's head could be separated from its body with something so heavy. The Orc fell with a crash like muffled
thunder, head rolling someplace behind it.
Breathing raggedly, Ashuram turned to see how the Healer was
faring.
He
was just in time to duck out of the way of a toppling Orc body, which made an
echo to the crash that had come just before.
The Healer flicked blood from her sword with a graceful, whiplash sweep
of her arm. He appreciated the grace of
the gesture as much as he did the gesture itself; it harkened back to an older
school of fighting that one did not see much of these days. It showed respect for the blade, which he
could do nothing but empathize with.
Suddenly he found the tip of the
Elven sword resting in the deep hollow of his throat - the blade, warm from
battle, against his skin. He blinked,
startled, to meet the Healer's glittering, hard eyes. Her face was emotionless and quite pale.
"Orcs,"
she said in a bitten, low tone. "From
Kanon, surely. And you tell me you know
nothing of army movements?" Ashuram
snorted scornfully; he couldn't help himself.
"Do
you see any armor on these creatures?" he asked her, gesturing. "These aren't army Orcs, they're half-wild
and have no battle sense. Raiders, most
likely." Her green eyes narrowed
slightly.
"Whatever
Goddess you pray to help you if you're lying," she said evenly, and he could
only feel a mild feeling of astonishment as he realized she would kill me
right here if she thought she ought: I can see it in her eyes. Interesting.
He shook his head, feeling the point of
the blade bite gently against his skin.
"What
reason would I have to lie?" He asked, truthful at least in this. It must have rung convincingly in her ears,
for suddenly she sheathed the sword with a fast, sharp movement.
"Very well," she said
coolly. Suddenly she looked through the
trees towards the western horizon.
Ashuram looked with her, wondering what had caught her eyes.
Against
the setting of the sun, dark smoke was rising up in the distance, wafting into
the dimness of falling dusk in thin,
long wisps.
"Oh,
Goddess," the Healer said, her low voice anguished. "Vesper!"
She dropped her basket and began
to run, and Ashuram could only follow her.
* * * * * * *
The smoke was thick by the time
they reached the Healer's house.
"Vesper," he heard the Healer
say thinly, sounding as though she had already begun to mourn. He spared her a curious glance, bemused by
her desire to care for the small town.
Had it been a Marmoan or even a Kanonite village, he would not have felt
the same loyalty.
She ran to get her horse,
fumbling the bridle over the mare's unwilling head with desperate speed. She jumped up on the mare's back without
bothering with a saddle, and made as though she would ride off.
"Wait,"
Ashuram said, taking hold of the horse's reigns. The mare promptly tried to bite him, and he swatted her across
the nose warningly. "I would come,
too." The Healer looked at him for a
moment, her features becoming lost in the dimness of falling night.
"Very
well," she said at last. "Climb
up." He did as she bid him, awkwardly
holding on to her around the sack tied to her back. He had not ridden bareback since he was a page, but the loss of a
saddle did not bother him. The mare
snorted under the extra weight, dancing and tossing her head in protest.
"Stop
that," Veris told the horse, and touched her heels to the mare's flanks. The horse started off at a heavy canter,
struggling to run. Ashuram took hold of
the Healer's sword belt to keep the motion of the horse from jarring them together. He could smell the sweat of fear coming off
of her, and knew that no matter how calm she looked, she was frantic to save
her village.
The
mare ran down the hard-packed dirt road, her hooves sounding forcefully against
the earth. They could see flames not
long afterwards, the small heart of the village ablaze. Dark shapes darted between the flames,
broad-shouldered and ponderous.
Orcs.
A horde of them.
As they approached, the mare
neighed shrilly, rearing at the Orc scent and the blazing buildings. The Healer slipped off the mare's back,
sword coming to her hand, and Ashuram followed her.
For a moment the
half-Elf seemed mesmerized by the glare, firelight reflecting flatly in her
wide eyes. Then she seemed to shake
herself, her face becoming set, and she strode towards the burning houses
purposefully.
A
dark shape carrying a sword came running towards them, backlit by fire. Ashuram tensed before he realized it was
much too small to be an Orc.
"Healer
Veris," a low voice said, and the wide, well-muscled man that had approached
took one of her hands in his own briefly.
"Ill met but well come never the less."
The sword he carried was dark with blood and dark blood and soot stained
the man from head to foot.
"Goodman
Dorval," the Healer replied, sounding equally grim, "when?" She gestured to the blaze.
"Dusk,"
he replied. "Raiders. But this we can discuss later. We need your sword now."
"I
would we had got here sooner," the Healer said, shaking her head. "I'll do what I can."
"Give
me a sword," Ashuram ordered suddenly, and the heavily built man spared him a
somber, measuring look. "I can
fight." The man and the Healer's eyes
met in a thoughtful gaze. After a
moment the Healer nodded gravely.
"Do
as he bids, Goodman," she said at last.
"He is as true as his word." The
Goodman nodded. There was another full
scabbard at his belt, and he pulled the sword free and presented it hilt first
to Ashuram.
"It will likely not be up to
your standards," the man warned him.
Ashuram half-bowed.
"I
thank you," he said. He hefted the sword
curiously. The blade was thick and
long, curving gently like an elongated, slender cutlass. It was heavy, weight balanced forward along
the blade rather than in the hilt. The
hilt itself looked as though it were merely an extension of the sword, for it
was all one piece of steel rather than a hilt attached to the tang; the hand
grip was a piece of simple black leather wrapped snugly around the steel. It was a rough weapon, certainly no Soul
Crusher, but it was good to feel a sword in his hands again.
"It
suits," Ashuram told the man, whom he gathered to be the village
blacksmith. "Let us go."
* * * * * * *
The
night was long, hot, and full of blood.
It must have been a hard winter,
for there were many Orcs and they were hungry.
Coming up from Kanon, ravaged as it was by war and the struggle to
maintain a standing army, the Orcs were desperate for the largess they had
found in the village of Vesper.
They had certainly done a good
job on the town, Ashuram thought dispassionately as he fought his way around
the bodies of villagers and the carcasses of the Orcs. Goods and furniture had been strewn
everywhere, discarded carelessly when found they contained no food. Burning bits of roofs and collapsing
fire-eaten houses spilled into the street.
These Orcs, at least, knew how
to fight. Unlike the two in the woods,
the horde that had descended on the town showed evidence of training and battle
cunning. They might have been Marmoan
army recruits at one time, Ashuram found himself thinking, but they certainly
were no longer.
He
fought, and his body seemed almost to hum with delight as he moved in the
ages-old dance of battle. Now,
he thought. Now I am the Black
Knight again. A cold grin pulled at
his lips.
When there was a lull in the
activity around him, he paused, getting his breath back. Nearby he could hear the sounds of battle
still raging, and went to seek it out.
He
rounded the corner of a still burning house to find the Healer fighting two
Orcs. As he stopped to watch, he saw
the Healer block a furious blow from one of the Orc's swords, the force behind
it sending her to her knees. She was
slow getting up and he saw she was exhausted.
She
is too slow, she is going to die right here, he found himself thinking
distantly, and suddenly remembered she had all but saved his life. Sword in hand, he ran towards the two Orcs,
just as one of them was bringing its sword to bear.
Ashuram
blocked the blow that would have cleaved the Healer's head from her body. Standing over her, he dodged the Orc's sword
and thrust his own deep into the Orc's unprotected belly. Pulling it out, in the same motion he
reversed the sword and sunk it deeply into the remaining Orc. The two toppled slowly, slightly out of
synch, falling with heavy finality to the ground.
He
turned, his dark hair glinting with the firelight behind him, and offered his
hand to the Healer to help her up.
"Now
we are even," he said to her somberly, the hot wind from the roaring blaze
lifting his hair off of his shoulders slightly.
"Goddess,"
she said again in a low voice, as if she simply could not fathom what had
happened, "what are you?"
* * *
