Thrall - Christie Golden [36]
Sickened, Thrall watched, unable to alter history, as his dying father fought with renewed strength and managed to snap the neck of his enemy.
At that moment, the assassin who had killed the wolf whirled on Grukar. The traitor was so surprised by the turn of events that he didn’t even think to draw his own weapon.
“No!” he cried, his voice high with surprise and fear. “No, I’m one of you; they are the target—”
A massive two-handed sword sliced through Grukar’s neck. The severed head went flying, blood spurting in a pattering spray over Thrall’s robes. Now the assassin turned on Thrall.
It was a grave mistake.
This, at least, Thrall could do: defend himself. His day would come, certainly. But not today. Thrall uttered a battle cry and charged, channeling his grief and horror and outrage into an attack that startled his would-be killer. Still, the assassin was a professional, and he rallied. The fight was close and intense. Thrall swung, ducked, leaped aside, kicked. The assassin hacked, growled, dodged.
His attention focused on his own survival, Thrall’s heart nonetheless ached as he heard Durotan’s cry of pain at the sight of Draka’s mangled corpse. The sound did not weaken Thrall. Instead, he felt a surge of renewed energy and focus. He increased his attack, pushing his now-alarmed opponent back, back, until the other orc stumbled and fell.
Thrall was on him at once. He pinned the assassin to the ground with one foot and lifted the Doomhammer high. He was about to bring the mighty weapon down to smash the orc’s skull, when he froze.
He could not alter the timeway. What if this vile creature needed to live, for some purpose he couldn’t imagine?
Thrall growled and spat in the orc’s face, then leaped off him. He stepped on the huge sword the other had wielded. “Go,” he said, “and never, ever let me see your face again: Do you understand?”
The assassin was not about to question his good fortune, and he took off at a dead run. As soon as he was certain the wretch had truly gone, Thrall turned back to his parents.
Draka was dead. Her body had nearly been hacked to pieces, her face locked in a snarl of defiance. Thrall turned to his father just in time to see the third assassin cruelly lop off both of Durotan’s arms—denying him even the ability to hold his son before he died. Thrall had seen many atrocities, but this horror froze him in place, unable to move.
“Take … the child,” Durotan rasped.
The assassin knelt down beside him and said, “We will leave the child for the forest creatures. Perhaps you can watch as they tear him to bits.”
Later, Thrall would not be able to recall how he had gotten from one end of the small clearing to the other. The next thing he knew, he was shouting so loudly his throat hurt, the Doomhammer moving so fast it was but a blur. This killer, too, he let go, though everything in him burned to tear the bastard to tiny pieces of bloody pulp. Clarity came back to him as, on his hands and knees, he gulped in air in great racking sobs.
“My child,” Durotan whispered.
He was still alive!
Thrall crawled over to the infant and picked him up. He gazed into his own blue eyes and touched his own small face. Then, as he knelt beside his father, Thrall rolled him over onto his back. Durotan grunted once in pain. Thrall placed the infant, wrapped in a swaddling cloth that bore the emblem of the Frostwolves, on Durotan’s chest.
“You have no arms to hold him,” Thrall said, his voice thick, tears filling his own blue eyes as the child that he had been wept. “And so I place him on your heart.”
Durotan, his face drawn in torment that Thrall could barely imagine, nodded. “Who are you? You betray us … you … let me and my mate die … yet you attack our killers. …”
Thrall shook his head. “You would not believe me, Durotan, son of Garad. But I beg you … by the ancestors, I beg you to believe this: your son will live.”
Hope flickered in the dimming eyes.
Thrall spoke quickly, before it was too late. “He will live, and grow strong. He will remember what it means to be an orc, and become both a