A new chapter to start a new year. Although, to be honest, it should actually be a new story that starts a new year. A chapter seems rather… meager. Well, nevertheless, hear it is: read, enjoy, and happy new year!
Sultar
………
For a moment Tera forgot to breath, could hardly move in shock. The elf drew breath harshly as if from exhaustion, though his blade was unmarred by blood and his stance spoke of no wound. He spared a quick glance at her before turning to Sarn. The orc was almost frozen in shock and mounting rage. The pendant pulsed darkly on his throat.
"So orc, we meet," growled the elf in a sinisterly rasping tone that spoke of pent-up hate, "with now your army too far to help."
Surprisingly, the orc was able to recollect himself with prideful ease. His own eyes glowed harsher in anger, but his voice was steady and resolved.
"Master elf," he drawled, voice rough and hoarse, "at last you visit the homely confines of my cavern. The first elf here—the first live elf, that is."
The bloodless grasp of hand on sword trembled slightly in rage as Glorfindel no doubt remembered the elves that had been lost. So many elves. Too many. And now? Now, he may yet have his vengeance.
"Yes, vengeance," the orc laughed heartlessly, reading the hate spun into the elf's visage with the clearness of a manipulator, "finally, you can have your vengeance. There is only one slight problem."
The pounding of Tera's heart grew to throb against her ears, a dull thudud, thudud, thudud that echoed through the chamber.
"You see, you are only a short distance from me, but my orc, over there? He is but a few steps from your human. So, shall I rephrase: kill me and she dies. Kill him and she has yet to live. Unless, of course, your lust for vengeance is strong enough to have the blood of a girl on your hands."
Stunned into stillness, Glorfindel cast another glance at her. She remembered, clearly, his words before. I stay to avenge those who should have gone.
You choose death.
But at once she saw with clarity the situation. If the elf let Sarn escape it would mean death for them both, and a failed mission. The only one way out of the situation was with her own death. The drumming grew louder, pounding with her heart, against her ears, no longer simply in her mind. The orc troop? It sounded too fast but she could not think. Her death was looming. She could barely breathe.
Glorfindel, too, caught his breath, eyes darkening to a stormy color while he tried to stall for time. Sarn, though, was either more clever or more cunning than that.
With one, mocking glance, he motioned to the executioner.
"Kill her."
The elf sprang into motion even before the words were uttered, with a hissed swear too poetic to be of any common tongue. He leaped—towards her.
"Idiot!" She screamed even as she felt tears of frustrated, helpless, bitter rage slap at the back of her eyes. Now we will both die. Even as her executioner fell to his knees in his own blood, she heard Sarn laugh manically as he lunged for the exit, as the drumming grew louder and louder and Glorfindel struggled harshly with the lock that held the guillotine in place.
Then two things chanced to happen.
First was the shatter of rusted iron shorn in two, as Glorfindel swept his blade across it and swung the top part of the guillotine away. Tera started upwards only to realize that her feet were chained as well and swore fiercely, as the drumming of footsteps reached a climax.
And that was the second thing.
There was a sudden pause in sound as a blur of motion darkened the entrance of the cavern, before the sound of heavy iron on stone sounded as the horse completed his leap.
Reggie.
The noise behind was no doubt the troop of orc racing for entry, and the stallion had obviously just gone through them. Blood stained the roughness of his coat and the fine leather of the saddle even as he glared, maddened, at the three live figures (and one dead) lining the room. They flared as they reached Sarn, and Glorfindel whispered simply into Tera's ear.
"I forgot to tell you—I called in reinforcements."
His bloodlust was barely compressed as Reggie battered against the surprised orc with the full force of his flight. Glorfindel started up to lend his aid, but the stallion needed no obvious help, hooves battering on the grounded orc with his haunches pulled forwards in mid-rear. With a wordless roar, Sarn flailed out with a fist, catching one foreleg and causing the other to come down for balance, full force on the orc's upper chest.
Directly onto the pendant.
With a crashing sound as the steel of his shoes struck the darkened red of the charm, the stone cracked neatly into two over the iron of Sarn's armor. The orc howled again in pain and desperation as the horse smashed his hooves onto the harsh, protruding cranium of his skull.
In an instant, he was dead.
Tera exhaled sharply in disbelief even as Glorfindel yanked the chains free from her feet. She stumbled to her feet unsteadily, feeling concussion compound her senses but ready for the troop of orc to enter.
There was a hiccup in the sound of steady marching, before the first of the orc entered the cavern.
He stopped, paused, and seemed to stumble to the ground. A moment later he was dead.
As the rest of the troop littered itself on the floor, Tera sank again her the greater security of her knees, Glorfindel grabbing her arm and slowing her fall.
"Their spirits," he deducted, "were trapped in that—thing. They were never truly alive to begin with."
Relief mingled with concussion and the time spent locked in emotional and physical distress, and Tera felt the tears that had surfaced slide embarrassingly to trace the side of one cheek.
"Why?" she whispered, perplexed. Why did you come back? Why everything?
Glorfindel crouched just behind her, supporting the tremble of unspent suspense in her knees with an arm holding her to his chest. He lowered his head until his lips leveled with her ear.
"I chose life."
