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.Wetness poured down hisface.His chest heaving with agony, Thrall recalled Tari s words to him, so long ago:These are calledtears.They come when we are so sad, so soul sick, it s as if our hearts are so full of pain there sno place else for it to go.But there was a place for the pain to go.Into action, into revenge.Red flooded Thrall s vision now, andhe threw back his head and screamed with rage such as he had never before experienced.The cryburned his throat with its raw fury.The sky boiled.Dozens of lightning strikes split the clouds, dazzling the eye for a moment.The furiouspeals of crashing thunder that followed nearly deafened the men at the fortress.Many of them droppedtheir weapons and fell to their knees, gibbering terror at the celestial display of fury that so clearly echoedthe wrenching pain of the orc leader.Blackmoore laughed, obviously mistaking Thrall s rage for helpless grief.When the last peals of thunderdied down, he yelled, They said you couldn t be broken! Well, I broke you, Thrall.I broke you! Thrall s cry died away, and he stared at Blackmoore.Even across this distance, he could see the blooddrain from Blackmoore s face as his enemy now, finally, began to understand what he had roused withhis brutal murder.Thrall had come hoping to end this peacefully.Blackmoore s actions had destroyed that chance utterly.Blackmoore would not live to see another sunrise, and his keep would shatter like fragile glass before theorcish attack. Thrall. It was Hellscream, uncertain as to Thrall s state of mind.Thrall, his chest still raw with griefand tears still streaming down his broad green face, impaled him with his glance.Mingled sympathy andapproval showed in Hellscream s expression.Slowly, harnessing his powerful self-control, Thrall raised the great warhammer.He began to stamp hisfeet, one right after the other, in a powerful, steady rhythm.The others joined him at once, and veryfaintly, the earth trembled.Langston stared, sickened and appalled, at the girl s head on the ground thirty feet below.He hadknown Blackmoore had a streak of cruelty, but he had never imagined. What have you done! The words exploded from Sergeant, who grabbed Blackmoore and spun himaround to face him.Blackmoore began laughing hysterically.Sergeant went cold inside as he heard the screams, and then felt the slight tremble in the stone. My lord,he makes the earth shake.we must fire! Two thousand orcs all stomping their feet, course the earth s going to shake! snarled Blackmoore.Heveered back toward the wall, apparently intent upon verbally tormenting the orc still further.They were lost, Langston thought.It was too late to surrender now.Thrall was going to use his demonicmagic, and destroy the fortress and everyone in it as retaliation for the girl.His mouth worked, butnothing came out.He felt Sergeant staring at him. Damn the lot of you noble-born, heartless bastards, Sergeant hissed, then bellowed, Fire!Thrall did not even twitch when the cannons went off.Behind him he heard screams of torment, but hewas untouched.He called on the Spirit of Earth, pouring out his pain, and Earth responded.In a clean,precise, direct line, the earth heaved and buckled.It went straight from Thrall s feet to the mammothdoor like the burrowing of some giant underground creature.The door shuddered.The surrounding stonetrembled and a few small stones fell, but it was more soundly built than the slapped-together walls of theencampments, and held.Blackmoore shrieked.His world took on a very sharp focus, and for the first time since he had gottenhimself drunk enough to order Taretha Foxton s execution he was thinking clearly.Langston hadn t exaggerated.Thrall s powers were immense and his tactic to break the orc had failed.In fact, it had roused him to an even greater fury, and as Blackmoore watched, panicked and sick,hundreds.no, thousands.of huge, green forms flowed down the road in a river of death.He had to get out.Thrall was going to kill him.He just knew it.Somehow, Thrall was going to find himand kill him, for what he d done to Taretha.Tari, Tari, I loved you, why did you do this to me?Someone was shouting.Langston was yapping in one ear, his pretty face purple and eyes bulging withfear, and Sergeant s voice was in the other, screaming nonsensical noises.He stared at them helplessly.Sergeant spat some more words, then turned to the men.They continued to load and fire the cannons,and below Blackmoore the mounted knights charged the ranks of orcs.He heard battle cries and theclash of steel.The black armor of his men milled with the ugly green skin of the orcs, and here and therewas a flash of white fur as.by the Light, had Thrall really managed to call white wolves to his army? Too many, he whispered. There are too many.So many of them.Again, the very walls of the fortress shook.Fear such as Blackmoore had never known shudderedthrough him, and he fell to his knees.It was in this position, crawling like a dog, that he made his waydown the steps and into the courtyard.The knights were all outside fighting, and, Blackmoore presumed, dying.Inside, the men who were leftwere shrieking and gathering what they could to defend themselves scythes, pitchforks, even thewooden training weapons with which a much younger Thrall had honed his fighting skills.A peculiar, yetfamiliar smell filled Blackmoore s nostrils.Fear, that was it.He d reeked of the stench in battles past, hadsmelled it on dead men s corpses.He d forgotten how it had churned his stomach.It wasn t supposed to be this way.The orcs on the other side of the now-shuddering gates weresupposed to be his army.Their leader, out there screaming Blackmoore s name over and over again,was supposed to be his docile, obedient slave.Tari was supposed to be here.where was she,anyway.and then he remembered, he remembered, his own lips forming around the order that hadtaken her life, and he was sick, right in front of his men, sick in body, sick in soul. He s lost control! bellowed Langston inches from Sergeant s ear, shouting to be heard over thesounds of cannon, sword impacting shield, and cries of pain.Yet again, the walls shuddered. He lost control long ago! Sergeant shouted back. You re in command, Lord Langston! What wouldyou have us do? Surrender! Langston shrieked, without hesitation.Sergeant, his eyes on the battle thirty feet below,shook his head. Too late for that! Blackmoore s done us all in.We ve got to fight for it now until Thrall decides hewants to talk peace again.if he ever does.What would you have us do? Sergeant demanded again. I.I. Anything resembling logical thought had fled from Langston s brain.This thing called battle,he was not made for it twice now he had crumbled in the face of it.He knew himself for a coward,and despised himself for it, but the fact remained. Would you like me to take command of the defense of Durnholde, sir? asked Sergeant.Langston turned wet, grateful eyes to the older man and nodded
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