Gill grabbed Alex’s hand and pointed in the direction of the orcs. He leaned over and whispered into Alex’s ear, “There are two of them, smaller ones than the others. I can’t tell what they’re doing, though. I think they might just be eating. They might not know we’re here.”
Alex turned to Brath. “Give me your knife.”
Brath gasped quietly. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “No. It’s my family’s—”
“Here,” Gill said, pulling a small curved dagger from his side. “I have two. What are you—”
Alex took the knife and pointed toward the orcs. “I’m going to take care of them.”
Brath gulped. “We should run. Hide.”
Gill pursed his lips before unsheathing his other knife. “No, she is right. This is our home, and it is under attack. We should do what we can. All right, Alex Bound, I shall follow you. I’ll help. Brath, you coming?”
Brath shook his head. “I can’t see well enough,” he admitted. “But we’ll stay here in case they slip past you. Maybe Jollies can light up the area enough to see if I need it.” Alex noted that although there was fear in his voice, there was also disappointment. Brath was smart, and he wanted revenge on the Dark One more than anyone here. He would have come if he hadn’t felt it was a suicide mission.
Oh, God, Alex thought. I hope this isn’t a suicide mission.
Manny hovered in front of her. “You can’t go. You’ll get killed.”
“Manny,” Alex said, “I have to. Gill and I are the only ones who have a chance, and if we don’t take them out, we’ll all die. Let me do this. Please.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then you, Brath, and Jollies haul ass and hide.”
The Beholder considered for a moment before finally nodding. “Don’t fail, then. Myrddin will kill me.”
Alex touched the Beholder and nodded, then tugged Gill’s hand. “Come on. You drows are supposed to be good at sneaking, right?”
Gill smiled, his sharp incisors glimmering in the darkness. “You could say that. Come on. We have to move fast.”
There was another clatter and a sharp shout in Orcish.
Alex crouched, and Gill did the same. They slowly made their way toward the orcs, Gill occasionally stopping to point in the direction they needed to go. Alex’s ears and nose were good, but Gill’s darkvision was a godsend.
They were closing in on the orcs, who were now chattering loudly. She was right—whatever the orcs were planning, they were in no obvious rush.
As Alex and Gill got closer to the orcs, Alex’s heart jumped up to her throat. What was she doing? She wasn’t an assassin. She’d never even been in a real fight. How was she going to ambush two orcs and kill them?
This wasn’t the time to be thinking like that, and Alex knew it. If she had thought like this during the joust, she would have lost. She didn’t know if her instincts were any good, but all she could do was follow them. It was better than waiting to die.
Alex and Gill leaned against the wall. The orcs were in the back where the lunch folk usually cooked and passed out food. It seemed like they hadn’t noticed the human and drow sneaking up on them.
Gill took Alex’s hand and pointed to one of the orcs, then to himself, and then to the other orc. Simple enough. Alex was going to take the one on the right. Gill was going to take the one on the left.
Alex looked down at her knife. This was the first time she could remember ever holding a weapon, and she was going to use it to kill an orc. The thought made her stomach turn, but then she thought about the dead cadets she had seen in the hallway.
Alex squeezed Gill’s hand and pointed forward. It was time. She crouched as low as she could to the floor, moving slowly, listening to the smacking lips of the orcs as they chewed on whatever food they had found.
From the corner of Alex’s eye, she could see Gill’s shape. He wasn’t joking; he was good at sneaking. Alex pulled up the corner of her blindfold. She could hardly tell the drow from the shadows.
God, that kid is hot, she thought before remembering there was a full-grown orc ahead of her who was sorely in need of a knife in the back. All right, I got this. I got this. I got this!
Alex went forward, concentrating on making as little noise as she could. Gill was only a little way ahead of her.
The smell of the orcs was nearly overpowering. Alex thought Gill was lucky his sense of smell wasn’t as good as hers. Both Alex and Gill reached the orcs. It was now or never.
Alex leaped onto the nearest orc’s back and wrapped her hands around its throat. The orc screamed in shock as it tried to grab its sword.
Gill slashed at his orc’s ankles, severing both of its Achilles tendons. The orc fell to the ground, screaming as it pulled out its rifle.
Alex squeezed her orc’s throat as tightly as she could with one arm and raised her knife, then brought it down into the thing’s neck. She couldn’t believe how strong she was. There was something about being in Middang3ard; she was stronger than on Earth. Faster, too.
Like Captain America or Marvel, except without all the hand blaster stuff. God, that would have been cool.
The orc spun, its arms waving wildly as Alex stabbed it again and again, trying to keep from screaming as she hacked at its neck.
At her side, the surviving orc got hold of its rifle. It fired two shots that lit the room like a crack of lightning. In the brief period of light, Alex saw Gill’s eyes flicker as he stepped into the shadows, his face covered in orc blood.
The orc turned to face Alex and aimed his rifle. Alex backed up, holding her knife in front
