The Chronicles of Linionine: Fall (1)

The air was filled with smoke and blood. Angrim tried to move but found that he couldn't, his body pinned to the ground by the weight of his armour. He heard noises around him though, a disconcerted horse, the sound of men talking in a foreign tongue. He knew that he knew the language, but his mind was filled with haze and he had not the concentration to translate it.
Angrim tried to open his eyes but they just stung, he couldn't even see the eyelets of his own face plate properly. He winced and let them close again, instead just focusing on the sounds he heard. In his delirious state his mind swirled like water, even noise sending ripples across the dark pond.
Something fell over, metal clattering to the ground and rolling, and in his mind he saw the great gates of Ker Rokkar. How they had collapsed, stone and metal falling into the hall. The green tide that had flowed over the ruins to attack them. Again he heard the horn, the long clang of metal as the line of dwarfs locked their shields over each other to face the coming horde.
He had seen it from his vantage point further up the stairs. Laying on the ground his right hand tried to close around his axe handle, but it was not there. The sudden shock in his heart pulled him back to the present. He needed to find his axe, that was all that mattered now. Angrim's arm moved frantically as it could, awkwardly searching the space near him for his axe. There was no energy left in the young dwarf however, and soon he fell back. His mind swam again and a scream of pain from nearby returned him to the battle.
How the orc had screamed, that first one to make it up the steps, as he swung his axe into its chest. They had fought well, they had fought hard. The Iron Dwarfs of Ker Rokkar had made a wall of green skin corpses but there was no victory. He knew there could never have been for he had heard the reports. To the east the entire marshland was on the march, and beyond that Uruks from Theldrithin and orcs from Gordurand too. A green tide the likes of which none of his race had ever seen.
It reminded him of the elven texts he had read when he was a boy, about the first war. The orcs were creatures of destruction, made for destruction. And now they had come to destroy again. The thought sent shivers down his spine. Soon the sound of metal hitting stone pushed him once more into the past.
That was the closest he had come to death, as they fought their way through the dark tunnels, one step at a time. They had given the women and children as long as they could then followed. But that moment would haunt him for the rest of his life, his axe had missed the greenskin's face. How the creature had grinned at that, at finding an opening in his defence. Angrim would be dead now if it was not for the spear that had flown past his head and impaled the creature.
There was a shock of pain as something hit his side, though not with much force or malice. Angrim let out a groan and was rewarded with a string of something in the human tongue. What was it, he tried to think. The words assembled themselves for translation.
"Otkell! This one is alive too."
"See what you can do for him Vedis."
Came the response, a voice as thick as tar and as gruff as an old boar, followed by the sound of hurrying feet and the swish of a dress. Light filled Angrim's world as his faceplate was removed. He opened his bright blue eyes again to look up into a smiling female face. The sun shone around her features and through her ragged golden hair. Her face was homely, though with a beauty of its own spoiled a little by nervousness as she pressed a water skin to Angrim's lips.
Greedily he drank the water, gulp after gulp until he had no more breath and fell to spluttering. The woman pulled the rest of his helmet off and rolled him onto his side allowing him to cough more easily. His hair flowed from the helmet, long blonde curls mixing with his plaited beard. He tried to assemble the words in the Sorazi tongue, which is what these humans were speaking, to thank her but his tongue stuck in his mouth. All that came out was a broken groan.
"Relax, friend."
The woman's dwarfish had a strong accent, but was very good. Of course it was he thought with an internal sigh. The Sorazi and Mer Rokkar had been allies for centuries and this woman was wearing a short dress down to her upper thighs and woolen leggings underneath, riding clothes. She must be a noble.
"My thanks, human."
He managed to croak.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere..."
She chuckled lightly and helped him into a sitting position, putting one arm under his shoulder to support his weight and kneeling beside him. He saw then what had befallen his comrades. Dead dwarfs littered the narrow valley that was one of the secret exits to Ker Rokkar. There were orcs too and even some fallen Sorazi warriors, armoured in their quilted leather or chainmail. Their surviving kin were going through the battlefield, helping their wounded comrades and dispatching the surviving orcs.
They had died there as well, they had come to save people who were not their own and they had paid the price. Cut down by the foul horde that destroyed his home. Cut down and left in the mud. Noble allies until the end.
Angrim wanted to cry out then, to yell a blood oath and swear his vengeance on the greenskins, but weakness stopped him. Since sitting up his head was spinning like a top. His head fell back into the shoulder of the woman who looked down at him. Her right hand gently stroked its way through his hair. The last words he heard before the world swam into blackness were her words in Sorazi, he never remembered what they were.

It was some time later when Angrim woke again, beneath him he could feel the rhythm of the wheels of a cart. He opened his eyes to see that he had been stripped of his armour. The human woman from before was knelt beside him, cleaning a long wound across his lower chest with a strange paste. He had no idea what it was, only that it stank.
The woman looked up at him as he stirred and lay a hand on his shoulder. There was no point struggling, he was weakened and Sorazi women were often as strong as their men folk. They were not the pampered women of the empires to the south or the city states far to the west. Their lives were tough and harsh.
“Stay still.”
Her words were short and clipped, straight to the point. They suggested to the hearer that one way or another he was staying still.
“Where are we… going…”
His voice was a hoarse whisper, but at least he could speak now.
She looked away from him, back to applying the paste to his wound.
“Hostenford.”
“What are you putting on my wound?”
He tried to crane his neck to look down but it was not easy. The woman chuckled her soft chuckle again and looked at him.
“Trust me dwarf, you do not want to know.”
Angrim would have gone pale, but he had lost so much blood that in truth if he whent any more pale he may have stopped being visible all together.
“What is your name?”
He tried instead to take his mind off of it.
“Vedis Oktelldottir.”
“I am…”
“Prince Angrim, yes I know. I recognised you from the blot last year.”
Despite himself Angrim grinned. It was a tradition for the highest ranking dwarfs to attend the Sorazi blots, which happened every four years. Most religious ceremonies of his people were long and filled with tradition and sombre faces. But the blots had become something to look forward to, filled with mead and fufta mushrooms and plenty of human women who wanted to try a dwarf. Blots were something to enjoy.
“Rest now.”
Her voice snapped him out of the past as she lay down the cloth.
“We will be arriving soon and you will need your strength.”
She stood and began to walk shakily towards the back of the cart.
“Vedis.”
Angrim didn’t know what made him call out to her as she walked away, for a start the sight of her walking away was not one he wanted over in a hurry, but he did. She turned back to him with an eyebrow raised.
“Yes, dwarf?”
He took the only way out he could. With considerable effort he lay a hand on his chest and lowered his gaze.
“My thanks.”
“Mhmmm…”
There was the sound of her dropping off the cart, and by the time he looked up again she was gone. He lay his head back down again happily. It seemed angels did exist after all, what a bueatif..-
For the second time that day Angrim almost faded out of the universe. He propped himself up and looked down his body, past his beard. So that was why his head was swimming, he put it down to blood loss. With a shrug he let his head hit the make shift pillow of furs. With any luck she would take it as flattering.