[Kransha]

Kransha wasn’t exactly used to pain. It had been a long time, perhaps too long, since the flames of physical distress had burned him. With a muted grunt, he swayed and lurched backward, feeling, and hearing, a sickly crunch of bone when a white-knuckled fist bashed his jaw. His jowls contorted irately as the orc staggered, and he let go of the shattered remnants of his bow, drawing both clawed hands to his face. Blood, sable and viscous, coursed over the backs of his hands, wound rivers down his arms, and dripped onto the trampled grass below, but Kransha sucked in the unwholesome substance and looked up just in time to see another fist coming at him, with the fire of a Man of Éothéod unwavering behind it. But, the orc, despite his wound, his loss of armament, and his severe disorientation, was ready for the blow as it came.

His bloodstained hand shot forward and up, the unclipped talons jutting from his bony fingers curling, vicious as the teeth of a wolf and closing. As the closed fist surged, Kransha’s cold digits closed, locking around the hand of the Rohirrim. Their came a stifled cry from the man, that would’ve have been a full-fledged scream of pain from any man who had not been trained as a warrior. Groaning as the fingers constricted, The Rohirrim fell to his knees, weakened by the wound to his leg and the hold on his hand. Kransha, his bloody mouth worming its way into an ignoble grin, wrenched the hand and arm back, twisting it about, but the Rohirrim did not react this time. Kransha’s meager tuft of an eyebrow arched curiously, but did not realize the reason for this lack of response until it was almost too late. From beneath the hunched over form, an arm bearing a sword shot out, thrusting swiftly at the orc’s chest. Kransha barely had the quickness in him to maneuver sideways and grab the wrist of the offending arm, pulling to aside to deject the blade. The Rohirrim, ignoring pain in hand and leg, struggled to his feet and pushed forward, forcing Kransha backward along the hillside at gaining speed until the two, still grappling, fell to the earth and rolled down the slope.

The two, caught in a wrestling match on the ground, crashed through shallow brakes as they tumbled onto level terrain. Locked together, they kicked at each other madly, but could not break free of their hold on each other. At last, a swift head-butt from the Rohirrim dislodged Kransha. Losing his grip, the uruk fell from his quarry, and slid into the grass, throwing himself up as soon as his legs would allow. He shook his head fiercely, effacing the numbness that diffused through his half-cracked skull. Thankfully, the orc’s bald cranium was brazen in its hardness, and he quickly recovered. Now, his hands each moved to his flanks, and from the taut belt that was wrapped around his waste he drew two blades, each of different size and type: one a scimitar-like weapon, curved and elegant, in an orcish way, the other a jagged knife, shorter and more vulgar, but just as deadly to the touch. Baring his teeth and clasping the pair of blades, Kransha plunged at the Rohirrim as he got to his feet. The orc’s first attack was blocked with a curt maneuver when the Rohirrim simply arced his blade upward, knocking the two knives away. Unfazed, Kransha swung again, and this time the jagged rungs of his knife latched onto the man’s flailing sword. The man tugged at his weapon, yanking Kransha forward so much that he did not gain the needed momentum to attack efficiently with his other knife. Again, the two found themselves locked, but standing this time. Each pull, each subtle tug carried the two about in circles and loops, but Kransha gained the upper hand and thrust his knife away from the sword of the man of Rohan as he turned again.

The effect of this tactic was both good and bad. The force of it was so great that Kransha lost his hold on his own blade, and the knife was propelled out of his sweat-soaked palm, but it also pulled the Rohirrim’s sword from him. Both weapons flew up and, still melded together as one, skidded to the ground just beneath one of the two remaining stone trolls. The Rohirrim, without hesitation, sprinted towards his needed sword where it lay beneath the troll. Kransha turned and tried to pounce upon him, but there was great strength in him, even as his leg leaked blood onto the grass, and Kransha could not catch up until the two of them had dashed through the battle that raged about them and reached the trolls. The Rohirrim dove and Kransha fell as well upon the lump of earth where the two serpentine weapons lay entangled. Kransha’s knife lanced downward, hoping to impale the wretched man where he landed, but the Rohirrim’s hand grabbed his sword and extricated it from the teeth of Kransha’s dagger, flinging himself sideways so that the iron tongue of the orc found only dirt to slay. Roaring with hellish fury, the orc turned on his knee, pulling up the blade in his position and taking his abandoned one from its bed beneath the troll, but he could not attack. The Rohirrim was already upon him.

Kransha pitched backward as a mad slash lopped at the air a hair’s breadth short of his throat. He found himself backed up against the creased leg and knee of the stone troll, who stood oblivious to all that occurred around him. Seeing, at that time, no other solution, Kransha laced his gangly arm around the solidified limb and swung himself backwards and around, pivoting onto the immobilized creature. He pulled his lightweight form onto the troll’s waist and balanced behind its leg as the sword of the Rohirrim jetted forward. The cold steel did not find Kransha, but it found the stone troll’s leg and speared through it, the very tip bursting out of the other side where Kransha was precariously balanced. The tip found the orc’s flesh, and penetrated, making a shallow stab wound in his stomach. With no more than an annoyed grunt, the orc fell from his perch, but as he lurched upward, he saw the man trying, very unsuccessfully, to remove his sword: it was stuck in the stone troll’s leg. Grinning, Kransha pounced, dismissing the pain from his injury, and struck the Rohirrim full in the face with the hilt of his knife. The man fell back, away from his sword, and the orc took this as his chance. Snaking around the stone troll, he swung his longer scimitar into a downward position and arched it down upon the Rohirrim foe…

But the blow never found its mark.

Kransha’s gaze was averted by a noise as his knife plunged. A troll, huge and galumphing, raucous in his course, suddenly flew between Kransha and his mark. The great, bulky form, danced awkwardly across the land, nearly crushing both combatants beneath it. Kransha did not know where it was going, but he had a feeling it did not know fully either. Either way, the wretched beast forced him to leap back with all his might, so as not to be crushed. As the troll passed, he dragged his terrible weapon behind him lazily, and it bashed against the stone troll who the live one had stumbled past. As the troll continued, reeling and swaying like a drunken man, the inanimate form that hung its side-turned head over Kransha reeled as well, and then its extended arm, already cracked, was marred by a rippling wave of splinters in the rock. The great arm instantly broke from its place at the troll’s shoulder and fell with a resounding thud onto the grass. Barely seconds later, the weakened figure, its foundations all but gone, quivered and sprawled face down on the field with a thunderous crash, sending up a geyser of dust and dirt that shot up, spraying the combatants, and several others nearby, with debris and a smoggy cloud that billowed over the terrain before promptly wafting up and away.

When the dust settled, Kransha looked up to see only one stone troll remaining, of the three that had been there before. He looked around, almost frantic, for his foe, but saw no Rohirrim amongst the crumbled boulders and shards of rock. The Rohirrim might have been crushed by the stone troll colossus, but Kransha doubted it – he knew better. Spitting darkly onto the wreck, he turned away and searched for new quarry, scanning the field, and poking carelessly at the bleeding hole in his stomach.