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“Enough playing! Time for a real fight!” The old orc yelled to the quick cheers of the others. Gregory noticed that none of the Runts joined in with cheers of their own. Instead they stayed silent and somewhat morbidly resolute.
That didn’t exactly bode well for their chances.
He followed along with them as they fell into line and marched towards the fighting pits. Ulag was still to decide which of the packs would face off against each other. It wasn’t exactly reassuring to see the old scarred orc out there again, given what had happened the last time he’d set up a mock battle. It made Gregory’s chest hurt just to think about it.
The orc prowled before them and stopped short when he laid eyes on the human in their midst again. There was a quiet momentary snarl that crossed his features before he steeled himself against his annoyance. The brat was supposed to have limped off into the night after what the Berserkers had done to him. To see him standing there just over a month later looking alive, well and even ready to fight again should have been damn near impossible.noveldrama
Ulag couldn’t put the Runts up against the Berserkers again. The warchief had been angry about Ulag’s little show the last time. He had some goodwill and an enduring friendship with the warchief, but throwing the Runts into the meat grinder again so openly would have made Grolfir angry. He’d seen Grolfir get angry before. It wasn’t a memory he was keen on reliving.
“Runts! You fight the Thorns.” Ulag yelled before plopping down glumly into his seat at the edge of the fighting pit.
If he couldn’t outright beat the human out of his proving grounds, then he might at least be able to make a case that he shouldn’t be there at all. The Thorns were decent fighters with a very strong pack mentality. They liked to test the waters of battle first, and bite into any weak spots they found. The Runts had plenty of weak spots for the tasting.
The human made no complaint as Ulf readied his pack, setting them into position and getting ready whilst the Thorns did the same thing. Around them, the other pups fell into a low chant of anticipation for the first clash of the upcoming fight. Their voices repeatedly shook the air like thunder. The beat of their song grew steadily faster as the packs facing off fell still. Ulag roared his approval and on his signal, the young orcs bolted towards each other. It was a different tactic for the Thorns to charge into the fray so openly, for they usually held off and drew out the fight in an attempt to weaken their foes. Ulag conceded that if the Runts got any weaker, then some of them might not have the strength to breathe properly. The two packs met at the centre of the pit. The human fell in behind Ulf whilst the great one-armed orc took the centre and fought into the fray like the veteran he was.
The Runts didn’t do so badly at first, using the powerhouse of their two heavy hitters to centre the battle whilst Ulf, Frelki, Ulla, and Nullik prevented any flanking manoeuvres. It was hardly tactical genius, but the one-armed Wrut was a strong warrior, even despite his disability. Alongside him at the centre of the fight was Frun, a stout yet powerful orc whom Ulag had long since noticed was perhaps a few planks short of a barrel. What he lacked in smarts, he more than made up for in aggression. The Thorns on the other hand were a little too smart for their own good and hadn’t quite taken Frun into account. Two of their members had already suffered a number of very powerful hits to their armour for overlooking him.
The human followed Ulf’s lead and somewhat annoyingly he wasn’t doing nearly as bad as he had done in his previous stint at the provings. Ulag watched him pick his moments carefully, often sidestepping around Ulf’s opponents and taking the advantage. He never got much of an advantage, but the Thorns clearly weren’t expecting him to be quite as aggressive as he was.
Unfortunately for the Runts, the tide began to slowly turn on them as their wily opponents shifted tactics. The Thorns were pushed back, but they had also spread out and sacrificed much of the impact Wrut and Frun were making in doing so. Both Ulf and the human managed to actually bring down one of the Thorns into the dirt, but by then it was too late.
Ulla had taken the fight too far afield and gotten herself surrounded by two opponents who made quick work of her once she was outnumbered and cut off from help. The next to fall were Nullik and Frelki, who had gone on the attack and couldn’t make much of an impact without their larger and more aggressive pack mates to back them up. That left Ulf, Frun, Wrut, and the human outnumbered. Ulag at least noted that they fixed their mistake, drawing closer together to watch each other’s backs. Of course, by then it was far too late and the Thorns picked them off one at a time with their advantage in numbers. First, they went for Frun, who charged out of the formation to be quickly tripped and clubbed across his armoured back. After that, Wrut became much easier to outflank where his missing limb could offer him no protection on his left side. He landed in a heap beside Frun soon after.
That left Ulf and the human, back to back and looking understandably worried as the Thorns closed in for the final attack. The orc pups called for blood, just as they always did. Then the human did something no one expected. Instead of letting the circle of his opponents close in around him, he bolted straight for the strongest member of the Thorn’s pack. He must have said something to Ulf, because the orc did the same in the opposite direction. The Thorns split their circle and were momentarily stunned at the sight of the human engaging in a brawl with a much larger orc and not losing.
It was clear that the opponent that the human had chosen was skilled, but the man’s smaller size was proving to be an advantage in dodging the incoming blows. The orc had moved to swat him out of the way like a fly, and had quickly been taught a swift lesson in not underestimating his enemy. Ducking under the blow, the human cracked his club onto the orc’s chest-plate so hard that it knocked him backwards. He followed that up with a hard kick into the side of the orc’s leg before taking up a new line of attack. So, all there assembled watched one of their brethren start to limp whilst trying to fend off the attacks of a very pissed-off human male.
It was the first time that Ulag could remember the proving grounds going completely silent.
The advantage didn’t last, of course. When the orc realised that he wasn’t fighting a ferret, he managed to get back onto equal terms with the human. His pack mates helped and soon enough, the human was sent flying back into the dirt to slide across the pit gagging for breath from where the orc’s club had smacked him in the gut.
Ulf had already fallen by then, lacking the human’s means of surprising his foes. He’d only managed a few seconds of sparring with his opponents before they’d forcefully put him down.
Beaten, the Runts slowly helped each other get back to their feet. Nullik offered Gregory a hand to lift him up and couldn’t quite suppress a grin at his performance.
“Not bad. Not bad at all,” Nullik spoke under his breath.