“Do you hear that?”

In the deep of night, the blood-curdling howls were making their way over to Esmi and Danil where they had stayed back with the horses. The animals were neighing and snorting fearfully, aware that something horrible was happening.

“I hear it,” said Danil. “Well, let’s hope our side is winning.”

“We should go help them.” The snow came up to Esmi’s knees as she looked out into the gloom towards the camp where she knew her friends might’ve been fighting for dear life. “What if they’re in trouble?”

Danil grabbed her by the arm preemptively to stop her. “Boss knew the stakes. He brought us here knowing that. We’re gonna wait here until it’s over. And if nobody comes back, we’re gonna go home. That’s what we were told to do, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Orders or not, Esmi could hardly just stand there and do nothing. Of course, she wasn’t stupid. She knew she was useless. But if Manu and Bogdi were going to die like her mother died, then she wanted to be there and see it with her own eyes. The only thing worse than having Sandra die in front of her would’ve been to not know how she died at all, and imagine it in the worst way possible forever every night instead.

Esmi quieted down, listening to the distant snarls and growling. Then, when Danil finally took his hand off of her and went to check on one of the horses, she bolted. “Esmeralda! Esmi!” he called out. “Get back here, little girl!”

His voice could do nothing to stop her as she ran breathlessly towards the her friends, her legs doing their best to wade through the drifts of snow. She fell twice, getting caught in snags—but that was fine, because she had eluded Danil, who decided the horses were more important and headed back.

The closer she was getting, the faster her heart beat, the louder and worse the noises were getting. There were screams—terrible screams that pierced her ears and cut the thick night air. “I told you not to fucking shoot it! I told you! Run, run, there’s no point, just fucking run!”

As she got closer, Esmi could see several men running out of the walled encampment. Inside, though, she could still see Manu and the others, facing down the immense orc. Three torn bodies were already on the ground, their hot entrails smoking in the night air.

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Bogdi was the first one to see her. “Esmeralda? Get the hell away from here, stupid!”

Shukiva shot at the orc, close enough to its eye that she got its attention. The others followed up as they noticed it closing in on Shukiva, but it was too late. The orc swung down—and Shukiva only narrowly avoided the black blade.

The guns around the orc smoked, but it hardly seemed to be affected by their bullets. “Boss, this isn’t working,” said Bogdi.

“I can see that,” said Manu.

Maybe because she had gotten its best shot and possibly hurt it, or maybe simply because she was a woman, the orc pursued Shukiva ferociously. Unable to use her gun any longer at such close range, she gave it up and unsheathed her dagger. The next time the orc swung down, she waited to jump out of the way, then slashed at its wrist in the split second that the blade remained wedged in the frozen ground.

The orc, however, was not as surprised by this as she expected. The moment she slashed, it gave up the blade entirely, and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her high up in the air, choking the life out of her as it snarled in satisfaction.

Esmi saw that she was about to die and lost control of her better judgment. “Shukiva! Shukiva! Somebody help her!”

Shukiva herself was trying to fight the orc off, using her fingers to search for its eyes and poke them out. Her free hand tried to get the remaining slender blade hidden at the back of her boot. When her fingertips connected with its eye, the orc snapped its head upwards, swallowed her hand, and chomped down on her wrist.

It was such a sudden movement that nobody even realized what had happened, till they saw it spitting out the hand he had cleanly taken off. With the blood spurting from her stump, Shukiva shrieked and kicked helplessly.

Esmi closed in, at which point Bogdi grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her down into the blanketing snow. She barely got a chance to get her bearings before Manu pulled her up to her feet and held her tightly with one. “Esmeralda, I will kill you myself.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Bogdi, meanwhile, was going towards the orc with his blade. “Look at me, you ugly fuck. Look at me.”

The orc, however, only licked its lips as it tasted the blood squirting from Shukiva’s amputated hand. Beast that it was, the love of human blood was too much to resist, even as a human that was a real threat approached from behind.

Seeing the distasteful way it was torturing Shukiva, ready to drink up the rest of her blood, Bogdi gripped his blade firmly, then thrust up from below into the orc’s crotch. “I said look at me, you piece of filth!”

Orc or not, the blade went up into something soft, and the bestial cry of pain Bogdi heard told him everything he needed to know. Success.

The orc let Shukiva go and whirled with unstoppable fury, howling from its powerful lungs.