An Unsung Death In Geoff - IX

IX

There was a timeless moment before he hit the ground. The dissipating fog was a grey roof overhead, glitters of starlight shining through. Passing the edge of a cloud Ragnar could make out the half-lidded shape of Vatun's eye, what these Southerns called Luna.

Looking into it he could feel the lost god's presence. It washed over him like a chilling flood. He shivered, then let the cold claim him.

He was Vatun's hand. The lost god's vengeance made flesh.

The realization filled him and cooled his blood. Time returned in an eye-blink. His rage was gone and Ragnar skidded across the ground, first on his shoulder, then tumbling to a halt.

For a moment there was nothing, no movement, no sign of life. Then he breathed, inhaling the air like a smith's bellows, then a great heaving sigh. He felt as if he'd just woken from a deep and dreamless sleep.

He lay there on the hard, cold ground for a moment. Something important he needed to remember, something... ah, 'Kill the Ogre.'

Ragnar sat up with a start and looked about. Where had that ogre gotten to?

* * *

Only a few moments had passed, but it felt like an age. Emiel had thrown his other knife and it struck the half-orc, Threefinger, squarely in the stomach, dropping him. He lay doubled in pain upon the porch.

The other half-orc, Splittoe, turned and ran back inside. Emiel followed.

The ogre stood, balanced on unsteady feet, as its lifeblood spilled out in a torrent. Its lefthand was gripping its stomach, seeking to hold itself together. With its righthand it swatted at the spear Ted jabbed toward its body.

***

Ragnar put his hand out and braced his arm to lever himself from the ground. Beneath his fingers he felt the steel blade of his axe, his skin stuck momentarily to the freezing metal, lifting it slightly then its weight pulled from his flesh, back to the oerth.

"Yes," he said aloud to himself. Vatun was smiling on him. A promise of a short and dangerous life from what the skalds had sung.

He grabbed the axe and threw himself to his feet. A wave of pain swept over him. He remembered more now. The ogre. Broken ribs for certain, he thought in the back of his mind.

Ragnar's charge across the ground was not so quick or agile as it had been only a moment before, but he did not have far to go.

The ogre had missed Ted with a forceful lunge, swayed on its feet and left an opening. Ted sank his spear deeply into the great open wound.

It bellowed once more, a cry of defeat and defiance. The ogre knew its fate. Death was already beside it, reaching out, but still a not clawing its soul away.

With both hands the ogre clenched Ted's spear and broke the wooden shaft in two. It staggered forward in a rush. Ted had only the splinter-ended half of the spear to fend of the attack. He failed.

Ted did no more than poke the ogre in its chest. His arms went as weak as a child's at the sight of the blood-spewing monster looming over him. It swatted the spear away and out of his arms with a vicious backhand blow then struck him across the head.

Ragnar could hear the crack as Ted's head snapped to the side, then saw his body follow, lifted up by the force of the blow. Ted collapsed in a heap a few feet away.

The ogre staggered on. It saw the man, the one who had brought death to it, and its last desire was to drag him down as well.

Ragnar did not rush, but walked straight toward the beast as it stretched out a shaking arm, reaching across a widening gulf between life and death toward him, Ragnar, with a sure and steady swing, severed that reaching hand from the ogre's body. It had no time to react. It did not even realize the loss, though it sought to grip the man's throat with a bloody stump. Its hand lay on the ground at its feet
.
The hard swung edge of steel which ended its hold on life, the ogre never felt.

* * *

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 with his arms 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 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 orc's 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.