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Hob looked about him, he was all but out of arrows, not that they had been doing too much anyway, and the only thing standing between him and the orcs were his friends. He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let them die without doing anything to protect them. He'd only known death by illness and old age, but now he could do something to stop his friends dying, so they could live to see long and happy lives, or at least summer.
With this thought in his head he pulled and old carving knife out of his pack, hoping it would slice living meat as well as it had done dead and cooked meat. He took a deep breath and charged, bellowing at the nearest orc. His voice joined and merged with the screams, yells and growls of the scene around him. He could see the dead body of Ivy and in his mind's eyes of Estelle and Meri. Every thing seemed so hopeless, but Hob was not one to give up all hope.
The knife slid into the orc's side, the orc's arm stopped where it was throwing a knife and it looked down at Hob, surprised. Hob smiled, almost politely as he would to an old gaffer he met walking down the rooad, but a fire was burning in his eyes and it told a different story; either he or the orc would die.
The orc's arm moved too quickly for Hob to react and he found himself with a hand around his throat and it was slowly lifting him upwards towards the orc's face. With one hand Hob tried vainly to pull the hand away from him while the other flailed around looking for something that may be used as a weapon. He found something. His hand closed around the last arrow in his quiver, flipped it out and stabbed it into the arm that attached him to the orc. The orc yelled and threw him across the battle. He landed on something soft, winded and his throat was burning with a fire worse than any sore throat he'd ever had. He rolled onto his front so he could stand up and found himself face to face with the deathly pale visage of Gorby, no breath was coming from his lips.
Hob yelled hoarsely in horror and crawled off the body. He slowly stood up, clutching his stomach and gulping the air down, his eyes fixed on Gorby's pale face. Then his legs were swept from underneath his and was once more staring into the face of the orc. The orc pulled the knife out of his side and without any further hesitation, stabbed it through Hob's chest.
The world stopped.
Hob tried to gasp as the pain shot through his body, but his broken lungs couldn't allow it. With no last breath to breathe, his mind floated to a place where there were no orcs, no arrows, swords or spears but where his mother was waiting for him and the smell of blossom on the apple trees was no longer just a memory and he could work all day with the sun on his back and stare up at the stars at night without his breath obscuring the view. Then, he was gone.
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