Chapter 2(d)

Convinced that the strange creature was indeed dead, Angus took stock of the battlefield. All of their immediate opponents were dead and he hear no sound of reinforcements. His boys appeared to have weathered this storm just fine. As he stroked the middle braid of his three beard braids, he chuckled thinking about Fenel's roar, unconventional but effective. Fenel was not the fighter that Boulder was, probably would never be. He did not share Angus's own love for battle, but he knew how to use his abilities well. Fenel's roar was as important a weapon for him as Thunderstrike was for Angus. Angus had watched some of the best fighters be unnerved by that roar, giving Fenel a split second advantage which he exploited to perfection. Angus's chuckle ended in a smile of deep pride.
From his vantage point, Angus could observe Fenel tending to a severely wounded Goom. He noted that Boulder was trying to release Ogroc from the harness he wore to pull their cart. Even from this distance, Angus could tell that Ogroc was dead. He wished that he had been quicker, that he had arrived sooner. This led him to consider the ambush. It had been a well-executed ambush that these dwarves, no, he would not call them that, that these creatues had almost succeeded in. Ogroc was securely harnessed to the cart when the ambush struck. They concentrated on him first, allowing him no time to free himself from the cart. If he had been unencumbered, the outcome of the ambush would have been far different. It would have taken most of their group to subdue him and with Goom present, they would not have succeeded. These creatures had known how Goom and her children traveled to Silvermark. This was not a random event. Their course had allowed them to use only two fighters to defeat Ogroc. Goom had been battling two ambushers when Angus ordered them to stop, which left one to deal with Goomi. It was then that it dawned on Angus that Goom's young daughter was nowhere to be found. He scanned the entire battlefield, looking either for her body or signs that she had escaped or hidden. Sadly. He could find neither. Just then loud, angry orcan grunts filled the air. "Ah, so that is what happened to Goomi," Angus mused. She must have fled to her father. Ever the battlefield commander, he looked at the scene before him again, this time through the eyes of a aggrieved father, Grok. "The All-Father help us. This is not going to be pretty,"Angus observed with a wince. Grok's daughter had come to him in terror with tales of dwarves savagely attacking her mother and brother. Grok would soon break into the open plain of the Rest and see two dwarves hovering over his family, doing the All-Father knows what. The rest even a child could figure out. "No, this is not good and how do I control this situation, " Angus wondered to himself. Grok was Angus's friend and an ally of the Keep dwarves, but Angus would not let him harm his family, even in misguided righteous anger. How he was going to stop Grok without seriously hurting him or making the situation worse was what Angus was trying to figure out. He would have no time to develop a proper stategy because just then Grok burst onto the plain at a full run. Grok was seven feet tall with an extremely muscular physique. Being shirtless, his muscles bulged and flexed under his mottled green skin as he raced to rescue his family. His face was the picture of sheer hatred and rage, made all the more menacing by the two two inch tusks that protruded from his lower jaw over his upper lip. As he shouted in Orcan, he waved the finely crafted battleaxe Angus had made him just a year ago.
He must have seen Fenel first or at least recognized his mate, because he made a bee-line for them. Fenel looked up to see Grok approaching. Fenel's eyes were bulging wide open as he tried to make sense out of what was happening. Boulder look first at Grok, and then at his father who motioned for him to remain still. Grok's immediate course of action became clear to Angus. He was going to leap the cart and kill the dwarf savaging his wife. Angus sprang into action. He ran as fast as he could to cut Grok off. Grok was oblivious to Angus's movement, but Angus could tell he would not be able to reach Grok before Fenel tasted his battleaxe. His only hope was to trip Grok with Thunderstrike and then pounce on top of him, hoping that with Fenel's and Boulder's help he could subdue the grief and anger driven orc long enough to reach him with the truth. He stopped to get a more accurate throw and let Thunderstrike fly. He hoped he had timed the throw right and that he had used the right amount of force in the throw, enough to get it to Grok, but not enough to severely damage his legs. Grok had reached the launching point for his leap over the cart when Thunderstrike arrived. He was in mid-air when the hammer sailed between his legs causing his left leg to get tangled with it, sending him sprawling into the cart. He landed with a loud thud, as his head hit the inside wall of the cart, knocking him unconscious. When Angus arrived at the cart intent on finishing his plan by pouncing on the orc, he saw that that would not be necessary.
"Fenel, " Angus barked, waking Fenel from his stupor. " Finish tending to Goom."
Fenel returned to complete his care of the female orc.
Angus was glad that his task had been made easier by Grok's unfortunate landing, but he still had much to do, and the three of them would not be enough to do everything he had in mind. He needed reinforcements, so he took the ram's horn that hung around his neck and blew in it three times, each time long and loudly. Now there was nothing to do, but wait for the answer.