Conquest of the Horde

Chapter One
Fear The Horde

“N’t ev’n a f’ckin’ th’nk yo’. A’l my we’pons g’ne. A’d my ch’nce for p’y. F’ck th’m.”

The erstwhile guard captain had earned herself a measure of safe invisibility in Dalaran. After the orc had said her goodbyes to the group of freed prisoners and given her token honorifics she had loped off, finding a nice, quiet place in a dark alley to nod off.

The erstwhile guard captain had earned herself a measure of safe invisibility in Dalaran. In the city of mages and heroes she was just another mountain of muscles, scars and oiled leather, another orc to join the pile of minor heroes that passed through the floating city’s walls every day.

Moriok was a peculiarly masculine specimen of her race’s gender. The orc was tall and broad, a brawler’s build with thick knuckles and flat feet. Her limbs were thick trunks, each muscle a slight swell that glided and tensed with every movement. Her face –what was visible beneath the spiked blast helmet that was pulled down to her nose- was full of gashes and scars. A v-shaped chink had been carved out of her lower left lip that allowed, when she spoke at great lengths, drool to escape in small beads to wet her chin. Her left nostril had been carved open and re-healed and a length of metal wire had been used to secure the nostril to her cheek. She had a deep burn on her right cheek and on her left five little blade-cut scars.

The orc had been in the city for nearly three days now. After giving her money, weapons and chances for employment to the prisoners to help them escape, the orc was left with only a few silver and a single sword at her disposal. With the cost of transport back to Orgimmar beyond her, she had sold off a few last trinkets and arranged for her stay. With enough silver to pay for drinks and food the orc settled in to wait for providence, the fickle lady, to arrive and see her escape from this slow hell of fancy towers and dress-wearing pansies.

Till then, however, she had to deal with her emotional baggage. Cheap drink was the intelligent option and so the orc had been on a constant pub crawl, moving through the different distributors across the city. There, amidst a small pyramid of her frothy peers, the woman pushed down her sorrow beneath the crushing weight of paint-peeling booze.

Tonight saw her in Dalaran’s Underbelly at the infamous Cantrips & Clay. After lopping around the dilapidated dock skimming off old beers and bumming cigarettes, the woman had settled herself –uninvited- at the table of two grizzled Underbelly Pit Fighters.

The thoroughly drunk orc had been drawn in a trance to Gor’smash the Skullmasher and Vex’nal the Eye Gouger. Maybe the two orc’s flamboyant armor and colorful bloodsmeers touched her womanly heart. Perhaps it was the two’s muscular, overly oiled physiques that touchedr her womanly libido. Whatever the reason she found a kindred spirit in the two men at first sight and had finessed herself into their company.

“W’tho’t me th’y wo’ld be p’ssin’ o’t of th’ir ey’ s’ckets!” The woman slurred, alcohol making her speech even more muddled and spittle-ridden. Moriok dropped her right hand on the table with a dull, metallic sound and, to emphasis her contribution, again snarled, “Th’ir ey’ s’ckets!”

The two Pit Fighters, for their part, nodded sympathetically before turning her attention to the table’s turtle.

When Moriok had arrived at the table she had announced her intent to sit by removing her helmet and slamming it against the wood top. The gesture had caused the two burly orcs to jump and, a distance away in the water, to rouse a little turtle from his slumber. Crawling out of the dingy sewer water, the shell-clad reptile had fallen eyes upon the metal dome.

It was love at first sight.

A few minutes later the turtle, scrabbling against one of the table’s wooden legs, found itself lifted by a female orc’s tight grip. The creature was brought up to the table and, once inspected, deposited on its back. For the rest of the discussion it wobbled back and forth there, wiggling its flat feet in the air as it made soft plaintive sounds at its paramour, the helmet.

The helmet was unresponsive to the turtle’s advances.

“I s’ve th’m fr’m Fac’less. I k’ep th’m ent’rtained. I k’ep th’m al’ve. An’ wh’t do th’y do? Th’y slap me ups’de the h’ad an’ l’ave me h’re to r’t. Me! The C’p’n!”

The two men continued to bob their head in sympathy. Quietly they began to poke the turtle, nudging it into a slow spin. The turtle was displeased by this change.

“It s’cks!”

The men mumbled their agreement. One pulled a cherry tomato from his salad and busied himself with tempting the woozy turtle to eat it. The turtle was having none of it.

“Scr’w th’m. I w’s hon’rable. I d’d wh’t was ri’ht. No sat’sfact’on. No pl’asure.” A slow, wicked smile passed across the woman’s face. Her teeth were yellowed and many were missing. The gaps had been filled with loose debris, from bits of jagged metal to animal bones. Each had been sunk into the woman’s visibly infected gums and tied to the neighboring teeth with strips of copper wire. It gave her smile the appearance of a tetanus warren.

“Yo’ boys g’t th’ r’ght id’a. No hon’r. No gl’ry. J’st punchin’ pe’ple till th’y fall d’wn. Go’d Old H’rde br’tality.” The woman guffawed, reaching over to clasp the two men on the shoulder. They welcomed the gesture with a passing glance and a wan smile.

“Yo’ g’ys g’t y’ur sh’t tog’ther. I l’ke it! N’ r’les. J’st p’in.” The woman settled back into her seat and downed her mug of ale. She belched aftwards, flecing the table and her tabard with bits of gristle and stale beer.

"No m’re k’nd M’riok!” The woman rose, sending the chair skittering backwards. She took back up her helmet, swinging her focus towards the sound of the arena just across the bridge. Another Pit Fight was starting and the hucksters were already calling for bets. The orc felt the thin purse on her side, weighing the handful of silver within.

“Yo’ g’ys g’t it fig’red o’t.” She replaced her helmet, fastening it back down around the chin. Through the little holes in the front and glazed, unfocused eyes she fixed the men with a pointed look. "Lok'tar ogar!”

With the declaration given the orc turns and, fixing her footing, wobbles across the bridge and towards the arena. The two Pit Fighters watch the woman go out of the corners of their eyes, waiting silently till she was gone before breaking into laughter.

“Vat a strange voman…” Mumbled Gor’smash, fidgeting with his green face-paint.

Vex’nel chuckled, fingering his paper-mache axe. “Deed she zeenk ve verre rreally orrks...?”

“Alkohol ees a terreeble zeenk. RRooeens even ze best meends.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Vex’nel gently nudged the turtle back over. The beast, happy to be righted once more, looked dejectedly around for the helmet. With nothing present, the turtle hung its head. “Ah..Zat rremeends me. Next akt, be morre gentle veez ze foldeenk khaeerr. Ve vant sell ze akt to ze aoodeeenke, not aktooally hoorrt eakhozerr.”

The two draenei Pit Fighters chuckled before heading off to grab another drink. The World Pit Fighting Federation’s sanctioned match wouldn’t be up for another hour or so. Plenty of time to fix up their ‘orc’ armor and re-apply their green make-up.

People take away different things when they gamble. Many learn about the fickle, often evasive, nature of luck. Some learn about the demon of greed that is present within them. A few even come to understand the value of effort over chance.

Very few take away a heavier purse.

It had been three days since Moriok had first stepped into the Underbelly’s arena with a purse jangling with coins and a drunken, greedy glitter in her misty red eyes. And in those three days gambling had driven her both to ecstatic heights of power and riches and the deepest sorrows of weakness and poverty.

The first fight she had bet two silver and lost both. The second fight she put down one silver and walked away with five. By the end of the first day she had three gold weighing down her purse and by the middle of the second she had ten copper squirreled away in her pocket.

Yet the burly orc had seen her chance with the next fight, a gnome rogue versus a draenei warrior. She could win back her fortune with this one-sided fight, the odds of which gave the gnome a slim chance of victory. It wasn’t Put it all on the gnome and run away rich when the agile bastard carved up the goat’s back, that was her plan.

But the ‘all’ for Moriok was a handful of change that had already been spent on a slice of bread and a cup of watery ale. And so the woman, frustrated, had set her mind to a solution. There was a mysteriously poorly-guarded pile of gold coins spilling out of the goblin bank besides Cantrips & Clay, but the orc had a feeling that stealing from goblins would be a poor career choice –and life choice- on the whole. She could prostitute herself, the woman reasoned, and instead of putting out just put her fists in the John’s face and nab their possessions…But that may run her afoul with Dalaran’s brothels and get her in trouble with Dalaran law, something she had no desire to see happen.

Bit by bit, however, the woman came to the simple –and, in hindsight- poor solution that many before her had similarly reached: Go to a loan shark. At a bustling arena where fortunes rose and fell with the fall of a blade, there was no shortage of shady individuals willing to pass wads of coin over to strangers in exchange for promises of quick payment.

Moriok had taken out her loan with Jimmy the Smile Bank LTC, a snappily-dressed troll loitering in the back of the grandstands flipping a coin and chewing a toothpick. The troll had extracted a promise from the burly orc to repay her debts after the fight with a five percent interest. Math, not being the woman’s strong suit, agreed and greedily took the three gold offered to the ticket booth. She almost missed final call for fight bets.

Almost.

The fight went well for the draenei. At the bell the draenei had charged and the gnome, wearing a cocky smile and flicking his daggers about in his hands, had side-stepped the oncoming train of blue flesh. Or would have, if his little foot hadn’t become stuck in the arena’s grating. Helpless, the gnome could only scream for his pink-haired mommy as the draenei steam-rolled over him. The fight was declared a victory for the draenei on a technicality. By the time they managed to slow the warrior down the gnome’s body could not be found.

That had been a day ago. Seeing her dreams soar away in the same manner as the gnome’s senseless body, Moriok had wisely beaten a hasty retreat from the troll and his goons. She had found a nice place in the Underbelly to hide and implement her Plan B: The construction of a rope ladder to take her from Dalaran to the wilderness below.

It is hard to escape the long arm of the law, however…And the arm of crime is often even longer then law’s.

“Ah…Deah, yah really gottah learn from dis lesson…”

Battered and bruised, two orcs dragged the limp body of Moriok out of her warren and, grabbing her by either shoulder, hefted her up to stand before the suit-wearing troll.

Jimmy the Smile was a grafter at heart. The troll had the long, angular face of a shrewish man, the features only accentuated by the shadow his wide-brimmed black hat cast. He had a toothpick, for some peculiar reason, tied to the middle of one of his long, angular tusks. Whenever he was stressed, the man could inch his lips forward and chew on the wooden tip.

“Youh got mah money?” The troll sneered, grabbing the woman’s chin and lifting her head up. The orc’s left eye was already a dark blue and beginning to swell up. Her lip had been busted and one of the fingers on her right hand had been bent back into a hideous angle.

“Wh’t do yo’ th’nk?” The orc spat a dislodged piece of metal from her mouth, the bloody scrap slapping against the man’s cheek before rolling off. The troll frowned, stepping back.

“I think yah be runnin’ mah patience low, deah. We ‘ad a deahl. Now yah tryin’ to step out of dat…”

“F’ck yo’!”

“…an’ yah attitudhe ain’t no winnin’ anythin’ fah yah, deah.”

The orc glared, through one remaining eye, up at the moneylender. A bit of blood dribbled out of the chink in her lower lip, rolling down her chin and splattering her red tabard.

“Sah…We gonna take yah ahmah. Then weh gonna break yah ankles…” The troll eyed the two orcs on either side of the woman, giving each a lopsided smile. He began to chew his toothpick. “Nah…We gonna just break one of yah ankles. I be nice, ya-”

“D’n’t t’uch my f’ckin’ arm’r!”

“Yah don’t realleh have a ch-”

“Go f’ck yo’rself!”

“Im’ tryi-”

“On a t’tem p’le!”

“Sehrio-”

“A b’g t’tem p’le!”

“Be qu-”

“Arrghghg!”

The troll let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “Fihne…” The mobster waved to one of the orcs, who, having been given such a gesture before, curled his free hand into a fist and swung for the woman’s face.

A lot of things happened at once after that. The woman swung her head down towards the approaching fist, changing the impact point from a soft cheek to a rather strong metal skullcap. The fist struck one of the spikes and there was a hideous crack of yielding bone connecting with unyielding metal. The woman’s other foot, the boot clad in heavy metal, swung up and dropped down on the other guard’s foot, the same crack wafting to the ears. Momentarily stunned the woman wrenched out of the guard’s grasp, her helmet rolling off her head and into her head. She brought it to bear against the temple the wounded hand orc, the metal making a satisfying crack. The second orc swung at her and missed, the woman sweeping out of the way and trapping the man’s arm in her armpit. Three strikes to the jaw finished up by a blow to the man’s elbow sent him crumbling as well into a bloodied, groaning heap.

The troll could only utter a Trollish swear before the bloodthirsty orc was upon him, crooked fists and battered helmet hammering him down and to the ground.

It was a long, bloody time before the orc, straddling the troll’s waist, finally slowed down her onslaught and took stock.

Both of the troll’s bodyguards were incapacitated, one being unconscious and the other writhing on the muck-covered floor with a broken foot, arm and jaw. The troll’s body was a bloody mess, much of his chest and face caved in. Blood was beginning to seep through the cracks of the stone and the woman’s gnarled hands were clenched around his throat. Despite it all, however, the man was alive.

Carefully the woman rose off him, chest heaving as she caught herself. She replaced her helmet and, silently, returned to her warren to retrieve her sword.

The orc was calm. Oddly calm. With her sword she frisked the bodies, taking a few odds and ends. From the troll she took five gold and some pocket change, adding those to her empty purse. It would be enough to get her back to Orgrimmar with a little extra to buy some new weapons.

But that was all in the back of the warrior’s mind as she moved towards the Underbelly’s exit…

Moriok felt happy.

She hadn’t felt so alive in months. She was the conqueror. She was the bloodthirsty horde. She was the killer and harmer and breaker. She felt like an orc again after beating those men to a bloody pulp.

A vile smile spread across the woman’s scarred face as she picked her way through the city. She knew –just- what she needed to do when she got back to Orgrimmar.

Chapter Two
Hit 'em Hard

Life was good for Moriok Forepicker.

A week ago the warrior had been a schmuck, a bleeding heart hero with a lot of good wishes and warm thoughts for her fellow man. A week ago the warrior had been poor and penniless and getting seven colors of shit extruded from her pores with the assistance of five knuckles with an angry man attached. A week ago the orc had been a nobody. The orc had been depressed. The orc had been shit.

Times change.

The woman strolled down Orgrimmar’s avenues, a swagger in her step and a cocky smirk plastered over her scarred mug. The woman swung a truncheon ahead of her, the bulbous, spike-studded tip the entirety of her diplomatic package. Her new armor, freshly polished black leather and a new horde tabard, fitted her like a second skin. Her helmet had even been buffed and the dents hammered out.

Moriok waved to the occasional passerby, offering them a laugh or a token comment.

A week can change a woman. A week ago she had been a bleeding heart, all her energies focused on saving a bunch of shit-smeared convicts from some cold hell hole. And now…? Now the orc had signed on with a goblin war profiteer. She spent her days drinking, smoking and screwing and her nights beating her way through Durotar. No morals. No shit-stained –anything-. No thought, even, if she wanted to be honest with herself.

The orc’s official title was ‘consultant’. It was a fancy title she waved around whenever a friend –she had a lot of friends now that she was making so much money- began asking less-than-civil questions about her nightly exploits. To the boss, however, she was just a thug, a knuckle-dragger who solved problems with her mitts or her clubs.

To Moriok that was just fine and dandy.

The warrior was happy now. Happier then she had been in a long, long time. There was no thought to her work. No responsibility. She went where she was told and punched who she had to. The only creativity that she needed was the brutal kind, and the woman had that in spades.

The work was easy, profitable, slightly illegal and plenty brutal.

The woman slid off her helmet with exaggerated care and mopped her brow with a swath of silk. Her piercings had been replaced, the rusted metal swapped out for gold. She had also begun to replace the rusted bits of metal in her jaw with professionally set pieces of stainless steel. It gave her smile an even more twisted and dangerous edge, like some kind of land-walking shark.

Moriok smiled a lot nowadays.

The woman checked the back of her hand. There was an address and instructions on it, written with exaggerated simplicity by a goblin who considered her nothing more than a hammer with slightly above-average intelligence.

“Go to Gun’zun’s Meet Shop and get money. Hit him hard.”

The woman spat on the instructions and wiped them of on her leather jerkin. She replaced her helmet and stepped towards the shop’s door.

As she passed the woman dragged her hand over the wooden sign on the front, flipping it over from Open to Closed.

“H’y…G’n’zu’n…” The woman’s voice drifted through the slowly closing door. “Th’se are s’me…Re’lly f’ne me’t t’nderizers yo’ g’t th’re…”

An hour later the orc replaced the sign and moved out of the shop. Her club was slung over her back, unused and still pearly clean. As the warrior broke away from the shop and melded back into the crowd she plucked a handkerchief from her pocket and began to dry the blood off the tenderizer in her hand.

Life was good for Moriok Forepicker.

“Shh….”

Moriok enjoyed simple jobs. After all, there is little ambiguity when your entire mission statement revolves around inflict pain on various types of transgressors. The only challenge came when trying to define ‘transgressor’.

“S’e, yo’re ruin’ th’ mo’d h’re. It’s disr’sp’ctful, esp’cially aft’r all th’ t’me I sp’nt cr’atin’ it.”

Moriok wasn’t lieing. When she and her goons had staggered out of the dusty plains of Durotar and into the shack of Lhatif Goresmack they had found a pleasant, if sparsely decorated, one room orcish abode. Hand-hewn furniture lined the walls, each laden down with bowls and distorted glass alchemical instruments. A cooking basin had been set in the center, ringed with pillows and thickly woven mats.

The home of the elderly orc who had defaulted on his loan and tried to skip town was, by orcish standards, rather quaint.

In the hour the man was away the goons, under Moriok’s careful eye and slightly garbled orders, had tipped over all the furniture and dashed the glassware. They had tipped over the brazier and scattered burning coals across the mats. They had kicked dirt around the room and, with axes and clubs, beaten holes in the thin clay walls.

When the elderly orc arrived the goons had fallen upon him. After knocking him down the thugs had put their boots to him for a good few minutes. And all the while the red leather-clad warrior watched, wearing that thin, metal-filled smile all the while.

Lhatif Goresmack had been a warrior in his better days, a proud –and, above all, savage- raider of the Old Horde. Yet the better days were long gone and the man had slipped quietly down the road to senility. He was a hunchback now, his eyes slightly misty and his once strong jaw muddled beneath a thick white beard. Her walked without help of cane nor walker, howeve,r and strode with purpose and confidence.

With the tenderizing over the elderly man was peeled off the floor and lashed to a chair, his hands and legs tied down to the gnarled wood. The chair was shifted over and dropped infront of the sitting woman, who had settled upon the overturned cooking brazier to pick her teeth with one of her gnarled fingers.

All in all it had been a rather cut-and-dry intimidation. The man was bloodied and broken. The house was mangled. The goons were suitable position to maximize intimidation without putting an undue strain on their bulging muscles. Everything was set up just right.

However, much to the warrior’s annoyance, the man wouldn’t shut up throughout her monologue.

“Y’ur l’te on yo-”

The grizzled orc spat a yellowed teeth at the woman, snarling something incomprehensible. The warrior frowned.

“As I w’s s’ying’…”

A bit of blood oozed out of the corner of the old orc’s mouth. He let out a hacking cough, evidently clearing a well out of his throat. “Weakling!”

The orc turned to make a gesture towards one of the goons but stopped halfway. She smiled slowly, mischeviously, turning back to eye the man. “…G’on. Th’s m’n h’re h’s lo’sened his b’nds. T’ghten th’m for h’m.”

The old orc paled. Before he could pull his hands out of the bonds and fling himself upon Moriok the goons were upon him, slamming him back to his seat and lashing the ropes back into place.

When it was all done the woman laughed.

“I l’ke th’s guy! R’minds me of a c’ld b’tch I kn’w.” The woman slid off her barrel and moved over to the man, giving him a light pat on the cheek with a mangled, gloved hand. The elderly man snarled.

“N’w n’w. I l’ke yo’. Th’t me’ns yo’ g’t to k’ep yo’r kn’e c’ps. Sm’le.”

The orc turned away, chuckling. “B’t we st’ll g’t a pr’blem. Yo’ to’k out a lo’n.” The woman waggled a playful finger at the man. “B’t yo’r old. I und’rstand.” The orc pushed the finger against her own forehead, tapping her spiked helmet. “M’mory go’s. Yo’ f’rgot!”

“I forgot nothing. Wretched cretin…Your hubris and weakness will be your undoing.”

“Boss!” There was a crunch and an orcish swear. Over in a corner, one of the goons had sunken into the man’s bed. “Gottsa lotta weapons here.”

One of the goons had decided to take a load off on the man’s bed. The sleeping slab had caved underneath the muscle-heads weight, breaking open a secret compartment. When the goon managed to clamber out they had uncovered a veritable treasure-trove of gold and red halberds and shields.

Moriok crooned softly as the weapons were emptied at her feet, creating a pile of glittering gold and steel. She gave the man a lopsided smile. “Yo’r mem’ry ain’t as b’d as I th’ught…Yo’ g’t us pl’nty of st’ff, I s’e. Go’d m’n.”

The elderly man had paled even further. Her stared in mute horror as his treasure was shifted, sweat beginning to bead on his brow. When he looked back to Moriok, his defiance had melted into simpering.

“Please…Don’t be a cruel. Let me keep the weapons. I will get the money. I…Can repay you in other ways…” Moriok tipped her head back and laughed at the offer, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Ho…I appr’ciate the c’nfidence…But I am n’t I’to ‘ld g’ys…”

“No! No…! I can help you. You look strong. I can train you. Make you even stronger. We work out a deal. Make everyone happy…”

Moriok scoffed, turning towards the door. She waved for the goons to grab the weaponry and load up.

“Naw…” The woman paused in the doorway, the other two shuffling out with arms filled with gold and metal. “S’e th’s?” The woman crooked her arm, bearing the bulge of her bicep. She patted it tenderly.

“N’body h’ts h’rder th’n me.”

With one last laugh Moriok departed, leaving the battered an lashed to his chair, bleeding and mangled. The dusty plains of Durotar swallowed the band of thugs up and they were gone.

Moriok moved down the arena ramp, dragging her club behind her and across the yellowed stone. For the briefest moment her mind wandered, her gaze falling to the stone trying vainly to pick out the footsteps of those gladiators who had walked before her. Yet there was no sign of them or their path and the warrior turned her mind back to the sandy ring and the task at hand.

Moriok had come to the Gurubashi Arena’s Friday Night Fight for catharsis. The haggard orc’s words hadn’t gotten to her. She knew she was strong. Knew she was the baddest, most savage orc to have every come out of the valley. Yet the very idea that someone would dare challenge her position…It spoke volumes about the idiocy of this world. As such, she had set out to educate them.

Her first combatant was a human, a seasoned gladiator with a haggard frown and dented armor. He had come into the arena a few moments after her, drawing his blade and inspecting his green-skinned opponent with detached interest. He sized her up in a moment and, smiling, waved his hand, gesturing for her to begin.

Such defiance. Such heroism. The orc adjusted her mask, stifling her own vile smile. The humans had a history of under-appreciating their opponents. It would, as in the past, prove this human’s undoing.

Moriok pushed her helm back into place with the butt of her blade. "Ins’lence!" The woman charges across the arena, closing the gap. At the end she spins around, blade leading as she slashes first, her mace following in quick succession. "L'k'tar!"

Vindaes peered at her, eyeing her movements. He parried the blade and goes to jump back and dodge the mace. The nails on the mace slice across his chest, ripping his tabard. The man sees the advantage in her attack and presses it, charging back and turning on his heel completely as he gets in front of her, going to spin and slam the hilt of his blade into the side of her helmet.

The warrior suffers the blow, her head twisting around from the contact. With her ears ringing she swings blindly, her body dropping into a low crouch as she tried to sweep the man’s legs out from underneath him with a mace sweep.

The man’s legs fly out from under him and looses grip of his blade. On his back he drives his legs upward, wrapping both of his legs around hers in an effort to straighten her leg completely out, looking to shatter the kneecap.

The orc falls upon the human and they fight for a time, writhing and rolling on the dusty arena. Weapons give way to feet, teeth and nail as they scrabble and punch. After a time the man knocks the woman away, casting her to the dusty earth.

Vindaes stands up cracking his neck. A small grin on his face, noticing her turned away from him as she crawls for her blade. He goes to slam his foot full force into the back of her helmet.

The orc closes her hand around the blade’s pitted grip. The blow lands on the back of her head and her face is driven into the dirt, the strike reverberating in her skull. The helmet rolls away and, stunned, the woman rolls onto her back, swiping blindly towards the man’s.

Vindaes steps back and out of the way. He watches, bemused, as the woman rolls onto her hands and knees and begins to crawl away. The gladiator walks around the stunned, bloodied woman, taking a practiced pause before driving his foot into the side of her head.

The world spins for the orc. She rolls onto her back, panting softly. The blow connects before she can fully pick herself up, her head snapping around. There is a sickening crack as her jaw is splintered. The woman rolls backwards a few feet.

Moriok catches her breath before slowly, shakily, shes lifts herself to her feet. Her sword is still clutched in her hand. She lifts it slowly, pointing the blade at the man. She spits out a false tooth, the bloody bit of metal smacking against the arena floor.

“Yo’…I’m…I’m goin’ t’ c’rve yo’ fr’m t’p to b’ll…”

Vindaes stares at Moriok and nods at her "We'll see." He brings his hands up in an old fighting stance. He motions his hands at her for her to attack him. Swaying back in forth as he waits.

A bit of blood dribbled from the chink in her lower jaw. She wiped it away with the cuff of her sword hand. “…N’body…” The woman lunges, snarling as she leaps to bring the sword down upon the man’s skull.

Vindaes steps to the side, as he watches the blade go straight beside him. He twists his heel and rolls his shoulder as he goes to use his full body into the punch straight to her jaw.

The thug is staggered. She jerks around with the punch, staggering backwards, the world swaying before her. Her head swung around, the sword dropping from her hand. The woman was stunned.

Dimly she heard a goblin yell for the man to finish her.

The woman reels around, her gaze sweeping around the arena. The world spins. She dimly feels the blow land upon the back of her neck. The crowd swings away as the earth rises up to meet her.

The orc fell and was still.

"Fight over! The gladiator wins! The orc is defeated!”

Dimly Moriok feels herself lifted, her broken body carried out by kindly Draenei. She was alive, yet barely so. Her heart was heavy. Her mind dulled. She felt shame.

The warrior waved her healers away when she was deposited and, for the rest of the tournament she remained, back to a stone wall, head hung as she bled silently against the stone.