[Firefoot]

The march was cold – no one could deny that. It could hardly be considered inordinately difficult, though; that is, unless that one was Ulwakh.

He limped along, doing the best he could to keep up, and for the first hour or so he did fairly well, once some of the initial stiffness (resulting mostly from the cold) had worn off.

Then, conditions seemed to take a turn for the worse. The company reached the start of the mountain pass, and the terrain grew to be rougher and rougher. Ulwakh’s limp became more pronounced, and the now-hardened goop which Grimkul had spread upon the leg to stop the bleeding cracked. In this lay the one benefit of the cold weather: the blood had thickened, so that the flow was not nearly as heavy as it might have been. After a little while, it stopped of its own accord. This did not help Ulwakh, though, who was still recuperating from his severe loss of blood the previous afternoon.

Once more, Grimkul did what little he could to help, fending off other Orcs with a nasty look or, in an unusual display of what was almost affection, catching Ulwakh by the arm to keep him from stumbling too badly.

In the grand scheme of things, however, these helped little. Very slowly at first but with increasing rapidity, the pair dropped back through the ranks until they were almost in the very back. Once or twice Ulwakh glanced back and saw Kharn eyeing him, as if considering a choice word or two.

Ulwakh’s old reluctance to attract the attention of anyone higher up resurfaced. For a little while he redoubled his efforts to keep up, knowing his very life might depend on it. In doing so, however, his wound reopened and this time it was not nearly so quick in mending itself.

About half way through the march, Ulwakh knew that he was nearly spent; save by some happening of extraordinary luck, he doubted he would be able to continue at this pace. He stumbled.

“You mountain maggots aren’t even fit to march!” jeered Kharn from behind. “We shoulda left you back at the camp this morning – you’re just holding everyone else back!” Ulwakh scrambled back to his feet with difficulty – he had to hang on, had to keep going…

But Grimkul’s irritation awakened – no one insulted Ulwakh but him, and as for ‘mountain maggot,’ well, he came from the mountains, too! At Ulwakh’s fierce persuading, Grimkul held his peace for the moment, but Kharn had noticed how easy it was to cow the smaller one and took more frequent opportunity to insert his jeers, and not just towards Ulwakh, either. Grimkul did not take the goading well and finally refused to be knocked into submission any more. An ugly look on his face and hand on sword hilt, Grimkul turned to face the larger, higher-ranked Orc.

“Grimkul, don’t,” pleaded Ulwakh vainly.

“You,” said Grimkul, putting a particularly ugly emphasis on the word, “leave him alone.”

Kharn appeared somewhat surprised by this resistance but largely unfrightened. “And what are you going to do about it? Attack me?” he scoffed, though he had moved his hand to his own weapon lest he be caught defenseless. Ulwakh cursed to himself, knowing the direction this was headed and not liking it at all.

Thus provoked, Grimkul drew his scimitar; the sound echoed faintly in the mountain pass. Snarling, he launched a furious blow towards Kharn, who had just enough time to get his own sword between the opposing blade and himself. Hearing the ring of metal upon metal, the entire company stopped. Ulwakh sank to the ground, taking the opportunity to rest for a moment for its full value, though he did keep a pair of twisted throwing knives at hand should they prove necessary.

Grimkul backed off for a moment in the stunned silence. Kharn, thinking that Grimkul had learned better, lowered his weapon slightly. There was a shout from the front of the line – the Captain, thought Ulwakh – which diverted Kharn’s attention for the barest second, which Grimkul took advantage of. No longer heeding his scimitar, Grimkul simply lunged upon Kharn, bringing him down with his momentum. They hit the ground with Kharn on bottom and within moments Grimkul had his broken dagger pressed to Kharn’s throat.

“Now, what were you saying?” Grimkul snarled.