[Durelin]

Vaguely hearing screams coming from Fid, who shrieked as he slashed at an orc behind him, Snyd desperately tried to fight off a more than formidable opponent. He was a thief, and all the weapons a thief, meant to be a silent assassin, needed was a knife. Never would a thief need to be armored for war with monsters such as these. Orcs were from Mordor, and anyone as smart as Snyd avoided that place. Not only did the huge slab of metal the creature had for a sword completely outmatch his belt knife, but the strength of this orc was extraordinary. That left one advantage in battle to Snyd: speed. You could count speed and agility as two separate advantages, but Snyd did not like to press his luck.

Ducking under a wild swing, he heard the whoosh of such a large object being hurtled out at such speed. Though the orc had just bared practically his entire body from the shoulders down, Snyd was too numb to react. Only much later would he be able to admit that this numbness came from fear. The scimitar came back around for another swing, this one lower, making Snyd hop backwards. He slipped and fell on slick, muddy earth on landing, and fell forward, toward the orc. He let out a shout as he fell, and was still yelling when his body made contact with the orc. It let out a strange growl of surprise as it fell over with Snyd. Just in time, Snyd remembered his knife, and forcing it outwards, it stabbed into the orc's stomach. It growled again, this time the grotesque noise sounding like a scream.

Pulling the knife back, Snyd hesitated a second, and the creature grabbed him by the throat as it struggled to free its scimitar from under him. "Underneath him," Snyd thought, "Luck. Bloody, flaming luck." Now Snyd did not hesitate before plunging the knife back into the orc, again and again in desperation as the hand clenching his throat became tighter and tighter. It seemed he had stabbed the creature at least two dozen times before the grip around his neck began to lessen, and then finally release him. Falling back, gasping for breath, Snyd realized just how harsh that had been on his body. He couldn't rise from the ground, his body felt limp from exertion. Turning his head to glance at the orc carcass beside him threatened to dizzy him. Black blood covered its bare chest and stomach, and Snyd's life lay beside it, the same blood covering it as well.

He knew it would be wise to reach over and grab his knife, as there was decidedly more than one orc around. Even with that knowledge, which should have tightened his stomach in a panic, Snyd could not steel himself to do so much as put out his arm. His mind wandered for a moment, and he thought of when he had killed his first man. Never had he planned to kill an orc, as he had never planned to meet one. He was brought back to his current battlefield by the realization of how quiet it was around him. No longer did he hear the screams of Fid. Quiet had always frightened Snyd, and this quiet spoke of evil. Finally fear drove him to reach for his belt knife. Rising with a groan, he looked around him into the darkness, still lit faintly by the candlelight in the house behind him, and realized he had made his way outside somehow. Seeing nothing around him, he decided that he had time to steel himself for walking.