Page 54 of Mountain Orc Daddy

When Remus and I were in our pre-teen years we once decided to drop a watermelon off the roof of our home so we could see it splat and hear the sound of the melon being obliterated. It was a fascinating sound. Watching and listening to Rogar deliver a blow to the center of Aisling’s chest was the exact sound the melon made when it hit the hot pavement many summers ago.

My mother charges forward. Allied witches who were upholding the mirroring spell charge forward.

“All hands get on her!” my father screams as he runs forward.

Fireballs of all colors and sizes, sailing in from different angles, smash into Aisling’s body. Those witches who are not firing their best at Aisling, Rogues, and minions, too, watch in surprise and horror.

I still have knives with me. I rush forward to bury my blades as many times as I can get away with Aisling's battered husk of a body. Remus grabs and holds me close.

“Hold up there,” Remus tells me. “Get ready for the counterattack!”

I know what he means. Now that Aisling is getting pummeled and has all the focus, her witches and minions are freed to counterattack with less hindrance. I keep trancing out on Aisling’s body twitching and shaking with each blast of magic and fire from the allied witches.

“Get them!” my father yells. “Don’t let them regroup.”

Two orc warriors rush in and begin battering Aisling’s body until there is nothing left. In a blast of heat and fire, she rips apart, taking the warriors with her and some of her own people too.

The sight of her death only seems to give the rogues and their minions a surge of energy, though.

Not needing the obvious to be stated, all other orcs and allied witches face outward and prepare for the counterattack.

The minions are rushing in first, half-hearted and almost directionless.

Orc hammers and fists convert the thrumming wave into confetti, mash them down into the earth and stone.

“Without her they have nothing,” Remus shouts. “They are like bees without a hive or queen.”

To my left is a group of witches. Jade. Orcs. And my fallen beloved.

“Blair?” someone calls from this group circled around Jade. I won’t look. I am not going over there. I’m not ready. I know who is over there, and I don’t need to see him fallen.

Instead, I watch the rogue witches retreat themselves into the trees, duck for cover behind anything, or run blindly into the angry swings of orc hammers and swords and fists. The rogues and minions have no tiller with which to steer their ship with Aisling mashed into the dust and the blood and soil.

“Form a solid perimeter,” I tell the allied witches. “Face outward. Just in case they’re not done.”

“Blair!” is shouted again from the group of witches and orcs circled around Jade and my fallen beloved.

“Form a perimeter in line with the allied witches,” Rogar barks at his orcs.

I watch with relief and huge sadness as a ragged and bloody circle of orcs and allied witches encloses our position. What rogues have not fled are crawling or taking a knee with hands raised in the gesture of asking for quarters.

“Blair!” is shouted a third time from the same group circled around Jade and he-whose-body-I-am-not-ready-to-see-yet. Don’t they know I can’t go over there?

What puts fissures in my stubbornness is what I see through the inverted v-shape of an orc’s muscled green legs.

Uzul.

That beautiful being of green muscle and tusks that I have come to love is sitting up. Jade is helping him.

“Is it you?” I ask, not allowing myself to fall for the witches’ mimicry again. I do not recall crossing the distance between where I stood at the perimeter next to my father and the small circle around Jade and Uzul.

Total blackout.

Everything sans getting next to him is blank.

“It is, my love.” Uzul’s voice is deep and soothing.

At the sound of his voice I fly into him, my arms wrapping around his tree-trunk frame.

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