***
Match Head Ged couldn’t help but wonder how it had come to this.
His mighty army was gone, a two to one advantage squandered.
The shadow! The shadow had done it!
Now there was nothing before him but a horizon of rending claws and slashing weapons.
He lifted his nicked and blood stained club to block the attack of a frenzied warrior. The clang of the impact numbed his arm to the elbow, and the report of the blow was echoed by the feral scream of his attacker.
The red soldier was too proud of his meaningless assault, and in its distracted moment of celebration, Match Head Ged was able to slip in with his thrusting knife, the same one he had used to cut up cooked orc flesh, and take the opponent in the neck.
The immense soldier crumbled with a gurgle, ripping the knife from Match Head’s hand as it was swallowed up by a sea of opponents pressing forward to take its place.
Match Head bit his lip.
The loss of the weapon had not been worth the kill. His hand gripped his club more tightly.
He knew the end was near, and only the cold forged weapon could keep him from a drawn out end of torment.
Another warrior rose up before him. The creature was still humanoid, but dark tufts of hair sprouted at odd intervals about its body. Match Head dodged three quick claw swipes then dove forward with both hands on his club’s grip. The edge of the club entered the heart and the beast lurched forward. Before it fell, Match Head caught a glimpse of a strange intelligence in the beast’s eyes. Then the glimpse was gone, and the eyes faded to bestial darkness once again.
Another warrior rose up, then another. Match Head dispatched them with a workman’s weariness. Deep down he knew that it was only guile and luck that was keeping him alive. The Red Army was like a tidal wave, and the soldiers were unnaturally strong. The only thing that was keeping their swords and claws away was their own jubilation at their newly discovered strength. They considered themselves immortal, and thus Match Head was given an opening to pair them with death.
The warriors became a blur and the flash of intelligence became more and more frequent until a soldier finally went down to be replaced by a woman.
Match Head thought exhaustion had defeated him to cause a hallucination. He shook his head and wiped his hand across his brow in an attempt to drive the sweat away.
The woman remained.
All about her, the mass of bodies seemed to part. She stood alone, feet placed delicately between a horde of mutilated corpses.
The Red Lady, the one Uroad had spoken of, the woman he had seen leading this army of monsters. He could tell now why so many were willing to follow her, even with death littered around her like some twisted pebble path she looked divine, a beauty that even gods craved.
As he gazed upon her, he noticed the same glimmer of intelligence in her eyes. Suddenly he realized that he’d been facing this warrior in his last dozen encounters.
“Yes,” the Red Lady said, seeing the understanding in his face. “I’ve been possessing the body of your opponents. I know your every move, I know every twitch of your body. Shall I offer you the option to fall down upon your club? I think not. That would rob me of my vengeance.”
All at once, the weight of Match Head’s exhaustion fell down upon him and caused his knees to buckle. Every clobbering, every thrust, every blow that he had dealt throughout this miserable, losing conflict was echoed in his leaden limbs. Once again he wrapped his fingers around his club, but this time it was with the knowledge that he could not make a good accounting of himself in his last fight.
Nilt was dead, he had died not long after the giant shadow had fallen across the battle, Uroad was still alive, breathing hard and bloodily, his once fine sword covered in dents and dings. He was a fine warrior indeed, Ged now had no doubt that Uroad had once fought under Droak. It made him wonder about Eraloi, she had been by his side since the beginning of the Sack Swords, upon every raid, every attack on the Ebulon guards, he had always seen her next to him, fighting with a ferocity that even Droak would’ve been proud of. But in the corners of his eyes he couldn’t see her, just bloody and weary faces of the few men and women who had somehow survived the slaughter that the shadow brought about. Though it made as much sense as flowers sprouting on the face of the moon, he hoped that she had fled from this battle, that somehow she had slipped away into Ebulon, passed the guards, gotten herself enough supplies to keep herself fed and warm. It was the one time since knowing her that he wished she had become a coward, no not a coward, a survivor, just like Uroad had said, just like himself had wanted for all his troops. The thought made him remember the battle of Jamik where he held a dying Droak in his arms, though he personally survived that battle the Droakins were no more. He could accept that, as Droak had accepted the end of his own mercenary band. Droak had told him to run while there still time. Match Head Ged would have said the same thing to his remaining troops if there was anywhere to run to. With that memory filling his mind like a spilled bucket of paint on a canvas he realized how empty his arms felt, there would be no one to comfort him and tell him any last wise words. It was a bitter reality, to have survived the Orc Confederation’s attempt at genocide only now to die at the hand of a very different kind of monster, but a monster all the same.
He was defeated.
Torture would await him after all.
Yet he would not go to his death a coward.
With a grimace, Match Head Ged lifted his club and braced himself.
There was no mercy in the Red Lady. In that moment, in the darkness of the shadow stone, Match Head Ged recognized the face of death and stepped forward to embrace it.
The Shadow of All Worlds Page 44