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51. Ogre

He sprinted through the narrow gap in the massive doors and onto the concrete bridge. The anvil was swaying on its chains and the dwarf and a woman were huddled behind it. The [knights] backed away as he came and the [armiger]'s head bled and fist gripped the smoking [pistol], and a monster from his past shook the bridge with their charge.

"Ogre," he shouted.

Left roared but Right heard his call and they stopped five paces from the dwarf and the woman.

"Not them." He pointed to the armiger. "Him."

Left roared still with their eyes closed and spit dripping down their face but Right looked down at the [armiger] who shouted commands and raised his [long spear] and advanced around the anvil.

"Dis one?" said Right.

"That one," said Orc.

Ogre took a step and balled both fists and raised them above their heads and plunged them onto the [armiger] who crumpled on the pavers in a sharp snap as all his bones broke at once.

Left stopped roaring to say, "Ow," and they held their hand before their face to study where the spearhead had gone clear through the meaty side of their palm. They looked at the [armiger] flattened on the pavers. "You killed boss man."

Right said, "Orc says to."

"Orc?"

Left looked around and saw him.

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"Orc!"

Right shook their head. "You dun listen."

A [captain] of the knights shouted and ran to where the [armiger] lay in a heap of broken limbs and crushed armor. The others drew up spears and swords behind him. The [captain] grabbed the shaft of the [armiger]'s [long spear].

"Ow!" cried Ogre. And with their skewered hand they plucked the [captain] off his feet and smashed his helmeted head on the anvil with a resounding clang and they reached their other hand to catch his shoulders and Left pulled one way and Right pulled opposite and the [captain] gasped a single brief note and exploded. In the red glow of the forge the blood that burst might've been water or spirits but it was neither. It seemed to come from nowhere and it fell all at once with a wet slap against the pavers of the bridge and the man's upper section bounced off the bridge and fell into the molten rock and his lower section went cartwheeling through the huge doors at the forge's far end as if his legs ambulated away all on their own.

Panic took the others after the disembodied legs. They fell over each other and rolled and picked each other up and fled.

Ogre turned to him and he saw a bloodlust writ across their four eyes that he'd never seen in Booky's pit. "Orc," they bellowed together.

Suddenly the woman leapt onto the anvil and her hood fell from her head and she cast both palms before her as if she would bodily push Ogre off the bridge. From her wrists to her fingertips ignited in swirling blue and yellow flames that danced in her eyes and curled the hair of her eyelashes and she closed her eyes against them and closed her hands to fists and she [threw] the flames at Ogre's faces and they roared and they flailed their arms and wiped their foreheads and cheeks and the backs of their necks as if swiping away a hive of wasps. They roared again and turned as if they might turn away from the pain and they ran from the chamber with their heads on fire.

Orc called after them and took a step but the cloaked [pyromancer] spun to him. The hems of her sleeves smoked and her eyes glowed and her untroubled forehead sweat and the ash under her eyes ran down her cheeks in two black tears and she raised her palms at him and fire snapped from her fingertips and before he could do anything the [bosun] appeared at her side as if stepping from her shadow, the point of [Booky's blade] against the artery pulsing in the side of her neck.