Page 50 of Agor

He cursed and growled in frustration. Raising his mace, he aimed behind him. I fisted my hand in his long beard and pulled.

“Stop clinging to me like a fucking tree lizard!” He twisted like an eel on a frying pan, trying to shake me off his back.

“Becca!” Agor roared across the square.

Several orcs rushed Agor now. He struggled to stay upright with all of them wrestling him down. Shoving one out of the way, he tossed a knife before going down under the pile of his attackers.

The knife hit Farod in the chest, right against his heart. The handle pulsed with his heartbeat, but the orc barely jerked.

I pulled my body up, reached over his shoulder, and yanked the knife out.

Blood gushed out in a thick, throbbing stream. Farod stepped forward heavily. I slammed the knife into the side of his neck as hard as I could. The blade went in deep, cutting through skin, muscle, and the artery. Pulling the knife out, I slid down from his back as the orc crashed forward.

My muscles trembled. I was covered in blood, wearing only a knee-length tunic. Yet, I didn’t feel the cold, flushed with the heat of the action.

A low, guttural sound of a horn came from the woods. And another wave of orcs rushed into the settlement, following it.

There was no end to this.

No hope of winning or even surviving it.

I couldn’t see Agor anymore, just a pile of dead bodies in the place where he’d been last.

Ilya shoved past me, moving backwards with his sword thrust forward. His eyes bulged out in horror. He’d been defending the community hall but must’ve gotten separated from the others in the chaos of the battle.

An orc raised his sword from behind Ilya. The boy didn’t see that. He looked like he saw nothing and no one, blinded by terror.

“Ilya! Behind you!” I jumped after him, but I was too far to get to him in time, and there was no clear path for me to throw the knife.

Suddenly, a mace smashed Ilya’s opponent on the side of his head. Blood burst out from the orc’s crushed skull. Ilya spun around, holding his sword in front of him. The orc fell forward, impaling his face on Ilya’s sword.

A grinning orc girl stood behind the dead orc. She was wearing an armor that very much resembled my mother’s, only hers was decorated with live flowers on her chest and shoulders. It was Nacy from Agor’s keep.

“Stick with me,” she told Ilya, tipping her chin at the fallen orc. “We make a great team.”

Nodding quickly, Ilya jumped over the corpse to join his rescuer.

Another orc shoved a few dead orcs aside from the top of a high pile, then dragged Agor out by his arm.

“Agor!” I ran to him.

He was covered in blood and gore, but his head seemed intact.

The orc, who helped him, gave him a good shake.

Agor blinked, wiping blood from his face. “Grat?”

“How are you?” I asked Agor while keeping a cautious eye on the orc he called Grat.

Grat was bald, beardless, and as huge as Agor, with a ragged scar running across the right side of his face. The way the scar had healed over his eyelids made it look like Grat was permanently winking at the world.

He grinned at me, letting go of Agor’s arm. “He’ll live.”

Agor stooped forward but managed to stay upright. There was a gaping wound in his shoulder. A broken arrow was sticking out from his back, and another one from his thigh.

Grat took off, joining the battle, seemingly unconcerned about his chief’s state.

“Can you make it to the community hall?” I asked Agor.

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