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the thrashing body. He grunted and tugged on the hilt, but the blade was wedged too tightly and wouldn’t release. The fourth orc stabbed at him with a halberd, and Roskin let go of his sword and dove sideways to escape the blow. As he scrambled to his feet, he drew from his back a pair of ancient throwing axes that Crushaw had given him. They were light as air in his hands, and instead of hurling them at his foe, he used them like regular hand axes and exploded into the fourth orc with a series of slashes. The orc staggered backwards, squealing from the lacerations on its arms and chest, but Roskin closed in, his fury boiling in the faint light of dawn.
    ***
    Since Roskin had control of the main entrance to the barracks, Vishghu moved to the rear of the building and, using her massive club, crushed the skull of an orc trying to crawl out a window. Inside, the remaining soldiers stood back to back in a circle, their hands trembling from fear of death. As she peered through the window, Vishghu felt a twinge of pity for the beasts. They were all about to die, and they knew it, were powerless to stop it, and she would be, at least in part, a cause of their demise. Unlike the Tredjards who all knew someone killed by them and unlike Roskin who had endured several weeks of torment and torture at their hands, Vishghu had no reason to hate them. Her lack of hate left room for sympathy, and she considered letting them slip by and run for the fields. But emotions aside, Vishghu was a dutiful soldier, and to let these orcs escape would put all of them in danger. She stood her ground and readied her club to strike any that might attempt the window again.
    To her left, she noticed a group of orc field hands, armed with hoes and crude machetes, running to the barracks, but most of them didn’t make it, for Molgheon and the other archers cut them down as they crossed the open ground. The ones that did avoid the arrows were greeted by Leinjar and the other two Tredjards. Whatever dreams of honor and glory the field hands might have harbored were dismissed quickly by the vicious dwarves.
    Vishghu had led these Tredjards into battle at the Slithsythe and had seen firsthand just how ferocious they could be. They had spent many years as slaves, fighting in hand-to-hand battles against other dwarves to amuse the orcs. From torment, starvation, and their years as what the orcs called “leisure slaves,” these Tredjards had become even more bloodthirsty than most of their kin, and for them, any opportunity to kill an orc was greeted warmly. As they tore apart the hapless field hands, Vishghu had to look away.
    ***
    After seeing Vishghu out the back window, the remaining soldiers decided that their best chances were through the Kiredurk, so they formed a tight line and charged. Roskin backed from the entrance and crouched defensively to receive them. With a powerful right backhand, he struck the leader in the chest and pirouetted in the opposite direction to avoid the stampede. The leader crumpled to the ground, and the next two tripped over it and smashed face first on the hard earth.
    Roskin danced and chopped through the remaining four, spinning and grunting as the ancient axes sliced flesh. Before any of the four could even swing its pike or halberd, the dwarf had mortally wounded them all. Then, he extinguished the two on the ground. When he was done, his clothes and beard were damp with sweat and orc blood, and the Tredjards, finished with the field hands, gathered around the carnage.
    “Impressive,” Leinjar said, his wild eyes scanning the scene. “We’ll secure the big house.”
    Once they left, Roskin found his abandoned sword and ripped it from the orc’s ribcage. After wiping it clean on another orc’s shirt, he sheathed the sword and then cleaned the axes and slipped them into the straps on his back. He had expected to feel better after killing them, as if their deaths would avenge the anguish from the Slithsythe, but the