Thrall - Christie Golden [83]
He shook his head. His heart felt calm. It was not joy or vengeance that filled it, for there was no delight in the act. But there was a sense of freedom, of release.
“No,” Thrall said. “You should not be here, Blackmoore. You should not be anywhere. With this blow, I make things right.”
He brought the Doomhammer crashing down. It crushed the metal helm and the head inside it. Blackmoore fell beneath it, dead from the first instant.
Thrall had slain his shadow.
SEVENTEEN
Blackmoore was silent as he died. The snow beneath his corpse turned slushy and red. Thrall took a deep breath, exhaled, and then stumbled to the side before sitting down heavily. The pain of the battle and the fall surged forward, and Thrall felt a small smile creep across his face as he realized, in this moment, that he hurt very badly indeed. He closed his eyes, asked for healing, and felt an answering warmth seep through his body. He was exhausted and still hurting, but he had tended to the worst, and he would survive.
Still, there was no question in his mind about giving up. After a moment to steel himself for the pain, he rose. He still needed to find shelter. He still needed to start a fire and find sustenance. He was not going to die here, not when he had to return to Aggra—and to another being who needed Thrall’s help.
He had been trudging slowly for some time before the shadow fell on the snow. Thrall looked up, eyelashes crusted with ice, to see a huge reptilian shape hovering above him. It was between him and the sun, and he could not see its color. His body almost numb, barely able to move, he nonetheless lifted the Doomhammer. He was not about to let something as trivial as a twilight dragon stand between him and Aggra.
“Hold, friend orc,” came a slightly amused voice. “I’ve come to bear you back to warmth and food. I confess, I thought I would bear you back for a hero’s funeral, but instead I will gain the gratitude of my Aspect.”
It was a blue! The relief that swept through Thrall was so profound, he felt his legs give way. The last thing he felt before unconsciousness claimed him was powerful talons closing gently around him.
An hour later, Thrall found himself back in the now-familiar conjured space in the Nexus. He sat in the chair, wrapped in a warm blanket, holding a steaming cup of some beverage that was both sweet and spicy and seemed to restore his strength with each sip.
The brazier burned brightly, and Thrall extended his hands to it. He had come close to death today more than once—the death of more than the body. But he had refused to die and now was here, alive and glad of it, grateful for the warmth of the fire and the friendship of the blues, who had continued to look for him long past the time when they should have abandoned hope.
“Thrall.”
The orc rose to greet his friend Kalecgos. A relieved smile was on the dragon’s half-elven face, and both hands clasped Thrall’s upper arms.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” said Kalecgos. “Discovering you was a blessing on an otherwise dark day. Tell me how it is we came across you. My heart was wounded when you fell: I could not find you.”
Thrall smiled a little, though his eyes were somber. “The snow broke my fall, but also hid me from your sight. It would seem the ancestors are not ready for me to join their numbers yet.”
“Narygos, the one who found you, told me there was a body not far away,” Kalec said.
“Blackmoore,” Thrall said. He had expected to spit the word angrily, and was more than a little surprised to find no more anger or hate in his heart as he spoke the name. Blackmoore was well and truly defeated. Not only was he gone from this timeway, where he never should have been, but his influence was gone as well. Any power he had held over Thrall had died with him.
Kalec nodded. “I suspected as much when the body was described to me. I am glad you were