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| Details |
| Author: | Aly |
| Summary: | Ilanya takes out an orcish patrol in Tol Barad. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
It was the mess she remembered most. Dirt, and blood, and the acrid smell of the dead and dying. Even the mask didn’t help hide the stink. She crouched in the mud behind a ruined wall, daggers clutched in her hand, her once cherry pink painted nails chipped and streaked with filth. Back then she was small, helpless and weak. Back then she was afraid.
They were three in number, a scouting patrol. Two orcs on foot, one on worg. They thought they were safe. That their sense of smell would alert them. Stupid orcs. Lark didn’t waste her breath on a scoff.
She emerged from the shadows behind the left one at a sprint, her footfalls silent despite her speed. Her first dagger found the side of his neck, her second, the back. The orc gurgled and thrashed, reaching for his wounds as Lark leapt free, fading away again. A shout followed, and the mounted orc stepped heavily down from his beast, whirling around as he tried to locate her.
The rightmost orc began to channel something. Water flowed through his hands. A heal, then. Lark cursed silently for failing to identify the shaman first, but it wouldn’t matter. Not this time, not with this poison. She’d seen it work on somebody close to her. A friend. Seen the desperation on the faces of two healers as the wound and the poisons took their toll. As life was wrenched from his body, painful and violent.
Her prey fell to the ground, twitching, convulsing, and Lark watched. She watched as the healing was not enough, as despair rippled through the shaman’s face, as orc and worg cast about for their assailant, and finally, as life faded away. The shaman howled with rage, beseeching spirits for the soul of his companion, but Lark had seen this part, too.
From her belt she unhooked a grenade, watching, waiting. Until sweat formed on the brow of the shaman. Until anguish, and compassion, and hope filled his gaze. Until the spell was almost cast. Then, she threw it.
An explosion of light and sound reverberated through her bones, but Lark covered her ears and shielded her eyes. The orcs were not expecting it. They staggered and reeled, and the shaman’s spell went unfinished. More would come, but they would be too late. They would move the body, but he would never rise again. Lark made her retreat.
She could have killed them, all three down to the worg. But when she thought of the mess, the dirt, and the blood, something inside her clenched into iron. Lark wasn’t there to end the war. Lark was there to make them suffer.