[piosenniel]

Bazhrat --- encounter with the Elf Witch

Bazhrat clapped his hands to where his ears might have been. The nasty Elf was screeching. Elvish words in a big voice. She held up her pointy little Orc sticker, he saw. One of the burning, hurtful ones he’d had the bad luck to encounter that long, long time ago. It had been one of those biting Elvish knives that had gutted him on the rocky field that lay at the fortress’ feet. He clasped his long, spatulate fingers to his belly as the memory of pain burned bright within him once again.

And here she was looking out at the Orcs and cursing them with her foul Elvish words.

‘Ow! Ow!’ she cried in a grim voice, her eyes as hard as granite. ‘Ow! Ow!’ And some sneaking sounds to round the hurting words out.

He backed away from her, his eyes wide with fear. He was certain that if she once pointed that knife she held at him, he would indeed be swept away to whatever fate those long gone companions of his had met. He shrank in on himself, as does a shadow exposed to a bright light . . .

‘Witch!’ he heard one of the other Orcs hiss behind him. ‘Nasssty Elf witch. Tries to trick us with her words.’ Several of the other Orcs who had followed along behind him now pushed forward, their inconsequential forms swelling against him, carrying his along.

A number of their wraithlike figures bore no weapons save for their jagged, sharp teeth and their long, hard, ragged nails; others grasped the jagged blades they'd used in life. Moths to a bright flame, they rolled toward her . . . a great seething mass of hazy mist . . . stinging and cutting her where they touched bare skin. Cold . . . relentless . . . a frenzy of angry, malicious loathing . . . they pushed against her . . . willing her spirit to let them in . . .

‘Get behind her!’ Bazhrat heard one of the Orcs say. ‘Don’t let her reach the fortress. It’s us as has the rights to her not them murderin’, sneakin’ Elves inside. We saw her first . . .’

‘Quit yer shoving!’ Bazhrat yelled at the Orc who was now trying to elbow him out of the way. ‘I was here first!’ A fight broke out, even as they rolled about the Elf and her knife. ‘It’s me what’s got the first rights!’ yelled another of the larger Orcs. ‘You maggots stand back and let your better have first go!’

The Elven prize forgotten for the moment in the growing battle for positioning, the Orcs turned on themselves, screeching and clawing at each other with a vengeance . . .