Freedom

The light was fading as the few torches that clung to the walls were either thrown down or dashed to pieces. She knew enough about the two races to know that darkness would be no obstacle. Both were subteranean in their habits and she had been taught that the gods had graced them with special vision. But she was no dwarf, no orc either. Without light her newfound weapon wouldn't even serve in her defense.

If ever there was the moment to strike, now it was. The odds were against her - surely she would die. Yet as she held that axe and heard the screams and grunts, she felt a calmness overtake her the likes of which she had not felt since before her capture by Velus. Images shook her, memories unfolded, thoughts past and present swirled within her mind and pure emotion pulsated throughout her very being.

The sweat from only minutes before had dried upon her brow and her body - though not in its prime- stood as it was trained, stood in a warrior's stance. Her inner turmoil subsided into something new: her disgust, her anger, her frustration and glee, her joy, her hate, her guilt and shame; they all coalesced into one.

She looked upon the heaps of slain, she breathed in the smell of blood, and with a smile on her lips she lept upon the nearest orc and felt with satisfaction her blade dig deep into the startled creature's skull. Blood flowed freely from the wound, it splattered upon her shield and dripped down her axe-arm. Even as her enemy's life faded Astra's smile widened in ecstasy. Perhaps it was madness, perhaps it was a glint of sanity shining out for the first time in months, Astra didn't know nor did she care; dreams and stones and magic be damned! If death was going to take her, then at least the gods were kind enough to have her die a warrior and not some blackened harlot. If die she must, then at least the death of her enemies might serve as atonement for her sins, might give some satisfaction to the gods.

Astra screamed then. A warrior's scream, an Amazon's scream. For a split second that sound caused all the others to cease their mad battle. For a split second the monsters and villains wondered what new force had entered into their private little war. For a split second the orcs reared in fear of what was at their backs, and the dwarves looked up to see if it was for their good or their ill. For a split second and no more.

The war continued: dwarves in the front lines slowly, steadily, irrevocably losing ground; orcs in the middle slashing and flailing at all that moved; and Astra at the rear, a towering form in a sea of tusk and spike. She was closest to the corridor that led to freedom, yet she gave it no thought. For Astra, in that moment, in that place, freedom was already hers. Even as the nearest orcs turned to cut her down, she gloried in the one thing she understood in all the madness: she gloried in the kill.

1. And, indeed, the killing went on.

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