Thrall - Christie Golden [82]
“Say whatever makes you feel better, orc,” said Blackmoore, “but you are still about to join your ancestors.”
The voice was slightly fainter, and the blow was weaker than earlier ones had been. Thrall must have wounded Blackmoore more than he had initially thought.
Thrall snarled and swung the Doomhammer, targeting his adversary’s legs. Blackmoore had been expecting him to struggle to rise, not attack from a fallen position, and cried out as the Doomhammer slammed into him. The armor took much of the impact, but the blow was powerful enough to knock Blackmoore completely off his feet.
This was no giant among men. Just as Taretha had still been her true self even in the corrupted timeway, so was Blackmoore. He might not have succumbed to drinking, or misspent his energy leaning on another’s strengths. But he was still Aedelas Blackmoore—a small-spirited man, a bully who thrived on treachery and manipulation.
And Thrall was still who he was.
Blackmoore might have intimidated Thrall as a youth, might have unnerved him when he reappeared as a seemingly stronger individual. But although Thrall wore only robes, he had new armor; though he wielded the familiar Doomhammer, he had new weapons. He felt his love for Aggra burning within his soul. It was not a distraction but a steady, calming ember, constant and true—truer than the hatred offered by the man who thrashed frantically in the snow, trying to rise on two wounded legs, wielding a sword with an arm that was weakened and rapidly becoming useless. Aggra’s love was like armor and weapon both, protecting him, shielding him, enabling him to bring the very best of who he was to this battle, which was as much about spirit as it was about the body.
Thrall understood, in a way he had never known before, that those moments when Blackmoore had won, when he had intimidated Thrall and undercut his resolve and made him feel less than who he was—those moments were in the past.
And that made them powerless over him. Thrall was in this moment, and in this moment he was unafraid.
In this moment Blackmoore would not win.
It was time to end this. To send Blackmoore to his destined fate: death at Thrall’s hands. To send all those doubts and insecurities and fears where they belonged: truly, forever, in the past.
His wound was bleeding freely, the warmth of his own red-black blood saturating his robes. The pain helped him to focus. Thrall began to swing the Doomhammer like the master of weapons he truly was as Blackmoore somehow managed to get unsteadily to his feet. The hammer knocked Fleshrender aside, Blackmoore’s weakened arm unable to effectively wield a two-handed sword. In the same movement, following through on the swing of the great weapon, Thrall lifted one hand from the shaft and up to the skies. There was a sudden cracking sound.
A huge icicle had broken free from its place beneath a rock overhang. It flew, like a dagger hurled by a skilled hand, toward Blackmoore. It was only frozen water; it could not pierce armor.
But it could—and did—knock the human down like a giant fist. A cry of pain and alarm escaped Blackmoore as he fell to his knees in the snow. Weaponless, nearly knocked unconscious, Blackmoore raised his hands imploringly to Thrall.
“Please…” The voice was rasping and faint, but on the clear air Thrall could hear him. “Please, spare me. …”
Thrall was not without compassion. But greater than compassion in his heart was the need for balance and justice—both in the twisted timeway that had birthed this Aedelas Blackmoore, and in Thrall’s own timeway, where the human did not belong.
Thrall raised the weapon, lifting it high above his head. His gaze was caught and held not by the begging gesture but by the gleam of plate armor that Orgrim Doomhammer had once worn. That he, Thrall, had once worn and since had reverently discarded.
The snake shedding its skin. The spirit