And now Gorlim could see the face of the one who had hit him in the back. He knew now he'd been hit with a sword's hilt. He sways on his feet as the tall, mottle-skinned creature steps towards him. The eyes in that face are dead. No mind resides behind him except the machine that feeds off his Master's will. He looks almost bored as he raises a clawed hand, and sticks a knife into Gorlim's belly.
And the other two laugh at the disbelief on his face, and mumble to him when the weapon is withdrawn and the Man remains standing. The murderer lifts a brow, and what little piece of his mind has survived Melkor's manipulation wonders briefly that even now, the rodent looks him in the eyes. And then thinks -- why should the traitor be ashamed to look at the murderer? We are brothers, in a way.
Save that in a very short while, he will be dead, and I will be having my supper.
Gorlim barely feels the second time the blade goes in, this time under his ribs, slicing into his lung. He barely feels as the laughing orc, in the excitement, hops forward to join the party, his blade digging into the Man's side. And then the third, just to be social, steps closer and buries his dagger to its hilt in Gorlim's chest, missing his heart but slicing his other lung.
All three withdraw at once, and the broken body topples backwards into the leaflined ditch, wherein lie other dead, perhaps his wife among them, and all are rotten, and all forgotten, and the sewage of Angband is thrown atop them. Their graves are marked by a little snow that remains on the opposite bank, and their eulogies are the crass jokes that the soldiers tell in passing -- not too close, for the stench of the dead is sometimes almost as bad as their own.
And now he is alone. The orcs have gone. His neck is twisted at a funny angle. His wounds pour blood. And still the scene continues.
And he begins to laugh. His lips part, bloody, and his chest convulses painfully as his diaphragm pumps against the skeletal ruin of the man's belly. Yet from the flooding throat, no sound comes that may be heard by mortal ears, and any who knew such a sound there was in all existence would have thanked their dark gods that they could not, for it would have deafened their ears to all else that was beautiful, and broken their minds to the sight of the stars. And even the gods do not hear. They are not listening. Not to the sounds of war.
Yet he laughs, and with the last breath in his body he curses himself and his captors, and he curses Ruin (redundant though it is). And he laughs a coughing, strangled laugh, his head thrown back and nearly broken, his blood speckles his lips, tints his nostrils and pours down his face, and his broken hand opens as if to grasp the waiting shadows.
And it ends.
The grey eyes which once had been so full of love and pain now stare blindly. The grey eyes that once were windows into a fierce and desperate soul are blank and lifeless. No hand would come to close them -- no quiet nurse, no mourning wife, no somber soldier. The once kindly face, now sunken and bruised and bloody, would remain frozen in an obscene mask showing the very birth of madness, until some brave foraging thing happened upon them. And the eyes that once had wept, that once had sparkled with joy and sorrow, the eyes that had once been so tenderly kissed, and once brushed their lashes against the cheek of a god, would be devoured as a second thought for a disappointed carrion bird for whom the rest of his corpse was too wasted to bother with for a meal, all tendons and wound-rot.
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And the other two laugh at the disbelief on his face, and mumble to him when the weapon is withdrawn and the Man remains standing. The murderer lifts a brow, and what little piece of his mind has survived Melkor's manipulation wonders briefly that even now, the rodent looks him in the eyes. And then thinks -- why should the traitor be ashamed to look at the murderer? We are brothers, in a way.
Save that in a very short while, he will be dead, and I will be having my supper.
Gorlim barely feels the second time the blade goes in, this time under his ribs, slicing into his lung. He barely feels as the laughing orc, in the excitement, hops forward to join the party, his blade digging into the Man's side. And then the third, just to be social, steps closer and buries his dagger to its hilt in Gorlim's chest, missing his heart but slicing his other lung.
All three withdraw at once, and the broken body topples backwards into the leaflined ditch, wherein lie other dead, perhaps his wife among them, and all are rotten, and all forgotten, and the sewage of Angband is thrown atop them. Their graves are marked by a little snow that remains on the opposite bank, and their eulogies are the crass jokes that the soldiers tell in passing -- not too close, for the stench of the dead is sometimes almost as bad as their own.
And now he is alone. The orcs have gone. His neck is twisted at a funny angle. His wounds pour blood. And still the scene continues.
And he begins to laugh. His lips part, bloody, and his chest convulses painfully as his diaphragm pumps against the skeletal ruin of the man's belly. Yet from the flooding throat, no sound comes that may be heard by mortal ears, and any who knew such a sound there was in all existence would have thanked their dark gods that they could not, for it would have deafened their ears to all else that was beautiful, and broken their minds to the sight of the stars. And even the gods do not hear. They are not listening. Not to the sounds of war.
Yet he laughs, and with the last breath in his body he curses himself and his captors, and he curses Ruin (redundant though it is). And he laughs a coughing, strangled laugh, his head thrown back and nearly broken, his blood speckles his lips, tints his nostrils and pours down his face, and his broken hand opens as if to grasp the waiting shadows.
And it ends.
The grey eyes which once had been so full of love and pain now stare blindly. The grey eyes that once were windows into a fierce and desperate soul are blank and lifeless. No hand would come to close them -- no quiet nurse, no mourning wife, no somber soldier. The once kindly face, now sunken and bruised and bloody, would remain frozen in an obscene mask showing the very birth of madness, until some brave foraging thing happened upon them. And the eyes that once had wept, that once had sparkled with joy and sorrow, the eyes that had once been so tenderly kissed, and once brushed their lashes against the cheek of a god, would be devoured as a second thought for a disappointed carrion bird for whom the rest of his corpse was too wasted to bother with for a meal, all tendons and wound-rot.
So dies Gorlim, son of Angrim, traitor betrayed.