The War of the Dwarves

She tore through a patch of bushes, thorns whipping and clutching. She rolled, and rolled, down the sloping earth in a cloud of dirt and leaves. She tumbled over a tree root, crumpled on a mossy rock. She slid slowly to a stop, on her back, and was still.

“Huuuurrrrhhh…”

Stones clattered down around her, sticks and gravel. Dust slowly settled. She heard wind, creaking in the branches of the trees, crackling in the leaves. Or her own breath, creaking and crackling in her broken throat. The sun flickered through black branches, jabbing at one eye. The other was dark. Flies buzzed, zipping and swimming in the warm morning air. She was down with the rubbish from Orso’s kitchens. Sprawled out helpless in the midst of the rotten leaves, and the cooking slime, and the stinking offal left over from the last month’s magnificent meals. Tossed out with the waste.

“Huuurrhhh…”

A jagged, mindless sound. She was embarrassed by it, almost, but couldn’t stop making it. Animal horror. Mad despair. The groan of the dead, in hell. Her eye darted desperately around. She saw the wreck of her right hand, a shapeless, purple glove with a bloody gash in the side. One finger trembled slightly. Its tip brushed against torn skin on her elbow. The forearm was folded in half, a broken-off twig of grey bone sticking through bloody silk. It didn’t look real. Like a cheap theatre prop.

“Huurrhhh…”

The fear had hold of her now, swelling with every breath. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t move her tongue in her mouth. She could feel the pain, gnawing at the edge of her mind. A terrible mass, pressing up against her, crushing every part of her, worse, and worse, and worse.

“Huurhh… uurh…”

Benna was dead. A streak of wet ran from her flickering eye and she felt it trickle slowly down her cheek. Why was she not dead? How could she not be dead?

Soon, please. Before the pain got any worse. Please, let it be soon.

“Uurh… uh… uh.”

Please, death.