He scrambled back and forth, and turned wildly in circles until at last the orc relinquished the spear.
Pwent hopped to face him. The dwarf twisted his face into a mask of rage as the orc reached for a heavy stone, and with a growl, he flipped both his arms up over the spear, then drove them down.
The weapon snapped and Pwent caught both ends and tossed them out to the side.
The rock slammed against his chest, knocking him back a step.
"Oh, but yerself's gonna hurt," the battlerager promised.
He leaped forward, fists flying, knees pumping, and head swinging, so that his helmet spike whipped back and forth right before the orc's face.
The orc leaned back, back, and stumbled and seemed to topple, and Pwent howled and lowered his head and burst forward. He felt his helmet spike punch through chain links and leather batting, slide through orc flesh, crunch through orc bone, a sensation the battlerager had felt so many times in his war-rich history.
Pwent snapped upright, taking his victim with him, lifting the bouncing orc right atop his head, impaled on the long spike.
Surprisingly, though, Pwent found himself facing his opponent. Only as the orc stepped forward, sword extended, did the battlerager understand the ruse. The orc had feigned the fall and had propped up one of the corpses in his place (and had retrieved a sword from the ground in the same move), and the victim weighing down on Pwent's head had been dead for many days.
And now the real opponent seemed to have an open charge and thrust to Thibbledorf Pwent's heart.
The next few moments went by in a blur. Stabs and swats traded purely on reflex. Pwent got slugged and gave a couple out in return. The sword nicked his arm, drawing blood on his black armor, but in that move, the battlerager was able to drive the weapon out wider than the orc had anticipated, and step in for a series of short and heavy punches. As the orc finally managed to back out, he did manage a left cross that stung Pwent's jaw, and before the battlerager could give chase, that sword came back in line.
This one's good-very good for an orc-Pwent thought.
Another vicious flurry had them dancing around each other, growling and punching, stabbing and dodging. All the time, Pwent carried nearly three hundred pounds of dead orc atop his head. It couldn't last, the dwarf knew. Not like this.
A sword slash nearly took out his gut as he just managed to suck in his belly and throw back his hips in time to avoid. Then he used the overbalance, his head, bearing the weight of the dead orc, too far out in front of his hips, to propel him forward suddenly.
He came up launching a wild left hook, but to his surprise, the orc dropped into a deep crouch and his fist whipped overhead. Improvisation alone saved the stumbling Pwent, for rather than try to halt the swing, as instinct told him, he followed through even farther, turning and lifting his right foot as he came around.
He kicked out. He needed to connect and he did, sending the orc stumbling back another couple of steps.
But Pwent, too, the corpse rolling around his helmet spike, fell off balance. He couldn't hope to recover fast enough to counter the next assault.
The orc saw it, too, and he planted his back foot and rushed forward for the kill.
Pwent couldn't stop him.
But the orc's eyes widened suddenly as something to the side apparently caught his attention. Before he could finish the strike, the battlerager, never one to question a lucky break, tightened every muscle in his body, then snapped his head for shy;ward powerfully, extricating the impaled orc, launching the corpse right into his opponent.
The orc stumbled back a step and issued a strange wail. But Pwent didn't hesitate, rushing forward and leaping in a twisting somersault right over the corpse and the living orc. As he came around, rolling over his opponent's shoulder, the battlerager slapped his forearm hard under the orc's chin while slapping his other hand across its face the other way, catching a grip on hair and leather helm. When he landed on his feet, behind the orc, Pwent had the battle won. With the orc's head twisted out far to the left and the warrior off-balance-surely to fall, except that Pwent held him aloft-and unable to do anything about it.
A simple jerk with one hand, while driving his forearm back the other way, would snap the orc's neck, while Pwent's ridged bracer, already drawing blood on the orc's throat, would tear out the creature's windpipe.
Pwent set himself to do just that, but something about the orc's expression, a detachment, a profound wound, gave him pause.
"Why'd ye stop?" the battlerager demanded, loosening his grip just enough to allow a reply, and certain that he could execute the orc at any time.
The orc didn't answer, and Pwent jostled its head painfully.
"Ye said 'for' something," Pwent pressed. "For what?"
When the orc didn't immediately respond, he gave a painful tug.
"You do not deserve to know her name," the orc grunted with what little breath he could find.
"Her?" Pwent asked. "Ye got a lover out here, do ye? Ye ready to join her, are ye?"
The orc growled and tried futilely to struggle, as if Pwent had hit a nerve.
"Well?" he whispered.
"My daughter," the orc said, and to Pwent's surprise, he seemed to just give up, then. Pwent felt him go limp below his grasp.
"Yer girl? What do ye mean? What're ye doing out here?"
Again, the orc paused, and Pwent jostled him viciously. "Tell, me!"
"My daughter," the orc said, or started to say, for his voice cracked and he couldn't get through the word.
"Yer daughter died out here?" Pwent asked. "In the fight? Ye lost yer girl?"
The orc didn't answer, but Pwent saw the truth of his every question right there on the broken warrior's face.
Pwent followed the orc's hollow gaze to the side, to where several more corpses lay. "That's her, ain't it?" he asked.
"Tinguinguay," the orc mouthed, almost silently, and Pwent could hardly believe it when he noted a tear running from the orc's eye.
Pwent swallowed hard. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
He tightened his grip, telling himself to just be done with it.
To his own surprise, he hoisted the orc up to its feet and threw it forward.
"Just get her and get out o' here," the battlerager said past the lump in his throat.
Who will remember those who died here, and what have they gained to compensate for all that they, on both sides, lost?
Whenever we lose a loved one, we resolve, inevitably, to never forget, to remember that dear person for all our living days. But we the living contend with the present, and the present often commands all of our attention. And so as the years pass, we do not remember those who have gone before us every day, or even every week. Then comes the guilt, for if I am not remembering Zaknafein-my father, my mentor who sacrificed himself for me-then who is? And if no one is, then perhaps he really is gone. As the years pass, the guilt will lessen, because we forget more consistently and the pendulum turns in our self-serving thoughts to applaud ourselves on those increasingly rare occasions when we do remember! There is always the guilt, perhaps, because we are self centered creatures to the last. It is the truth of indi shy;viduality that cannot be denied.
In the end, we, all of us, see the world through our own, personal eyes.
G'nurk broke his momentum and swung around to face the surprising dwarf. "You would let me leave?" he asked in Dwarvish.