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Emiel was frozen to the bone. Crawling through the wet, cold stalks of grain left to rot wild in the field had leeched away his body heat and left his clothes damp and slimey. Running after Ragnar had not warmed him, though the sight of the ogre had sent a tingling down his back and up the nape of his neck.
He'd run past the ogre and after the orcs that had been standing on the half-ruined porch. Through the door and inside the house he leapt and it was like jumping into a steaming bath. A wave of heat struck him, fires were stoked high on the hearths and the old hall was thick with warmth and smoke. Then the smell washed over Emiel, a rank combination of dirty, unwashed clothes, wet, filthy fur and burning flesh. It made him gasp.
Inside all was chaos. Emiel had come running, following on the heels of an orc. What order the monsters had been forming was smashed asunder by the entrance of the panicked orc and the small man.
An unruly pack of goblins had been shoved together and were being prodded to the door by another orc, when Splittoe and Emiel had come running in. Their sudden appearance had scattered the goblins, and now the small monsters were being chased by the orc who'd just prodded them into line. The orc ran about, beating at them with the flat of a rusty sword, screaming "Get back here ya little rats".
Under other circumstances it would have been an amusing sight, but Emiel saw nothing funny about anything to do with orcs or goblins, not this night at least. Splittoe, the orc he'd followed, ran through the crowded mass of goblins, past a long wooden table, the body of a man soaked in blood lying across it, and out through a darkened doorway at the back of the hall.
"That one's not coming back." Emiel thought to himself.
The other orc, Halftooth, stopped, sword in hand, and stared at Emiel. The half-dozen goblins darted about in panic, the Squire's roars of pain and anger from outside driving them mad with fear. Emiel did not hesitate, he ran toward the orc, screaming at the top of his lungs, and drove the goblins before him.
Halftooth barked a curse at the goblins, "You damned stinking little..." he kicked out at them and in his fury struck one down with his sword. As he pulled the blade free from the goblin's wiry body, Emiel was upon him.
A burning pain streaked across Halftooth's chest as the edge of Emiel's sword sliced into him. His head was knocked upward, the tip of the blade catching his chin. It drew his attention completely, the goblin's forgotten.
The man had but a large knife or a very short sword. Halftooth had a blade twice as long and a greater reach as well. He would skewer this human vermin and roast his body over the fire.
Emiel's sword licked out again, carving a slice of skin and muscle from the orc's swordarm. He'd ducked under the wild swing and the beast had left itself open for the strike. A backhand blow from the orc nearly parted Emiel's scalp from his head. Emiel jumped back.
Halftooth flinched as the next cut came. He'd chopped down as the man jumped backed, 'cursed little weasel,' and this time he'd drawn blood, striking across Emiel's hip and upper thigh, below the thick leather jerkin. But as he leaned into the blow the man's sword came up and almost cut his throat. Halftooth jerked his head aside at the last moment and the blade took away half his ear.
With both hands gripping the sword, Halftooth brought the blade around in a great, sweeping arc, but he failed to connect and merely drove Emiel back. He swung again and again, and suffered another cut across his other arm as his only reward.
Emiel eyed the winded and lagging orc. He wanted to end this quick but could only cut the orc down by inches as long as it had that sword. As it swung around again, Emiel timed himself and lashed out, missing the wrist but opening the back of the orcs hand, the blade grating across bone.
The sword flew from Halftooth's grasp, his arms weakened from deep cuts and his lefthand twitching, no longer his to control. Halftooth braced himself for the mortal blow to come.
* * *
"You're mine" Emiel said with a laugh.
Halftooth was backed against a wall, his arms and body bleeding, his sword on the floor far beyond his reach. 'This was the end,' he thought, and closed his eyes, awaiting the sting of the blade before death claimed him.
But the gods, or fate, or simple happenstance sometimes reach out a hand at times when the future's course appears most clear and immutable. Emiel was certain that his next strike would take the miserable orc's life and he reveled in that certainty. Perhaps such surety in a mortal was found offensive by the powers that be, or the cruel and callous orcish deity smiled upon his most unworthy subject Halftooth, but fate put her hand into what was to come and brought a blade with her.
* * *
(To Be Continued)