All the time, the whining blade in its hand grew closer and closer, as eager as its master to test its
edge against the outlines of Larn’s body.
Then, incredibly, salvation came from an unlikely source. As if from nowhere, Larn saw Zeebers
appear in the darkness behind the ork and jump screaming onto the creature’s back to wrap his arms
about its throat. Horribly wounded, the spool of his intestines unravelled in the mud behind him, as
the ork tried to pull him off, Zeebers briefly smiled towards Larn in pain-fuelled madness, before
raising a hand above his head and letting out a bloody-mouthed and psychotic roar of triumph.
Seeing the gleam of a half-dozen rings around Zeebers’ fingers, Larn realised the madman must
have pulled the pins from every grenade on his belt.
Knocked on his back as Zeebers and the ork disappeared in the roar and flash of the resulting
explosion, Larn staggered to his feet once more and became aware the volume of firing about him
had risen dramatically. All around him no-man’s land was alive with bullets as, fully roused now
from sleep, the orks fired blindly from their lines in search of targets. A last glance confirming there
was no more he could do for Zeebers, Larn turned to run for the human lines in the hope of safety.
Only to trip, not realising at first he had been shot, before he could go even a dozen steps.
The sun was rising in the west, the first red fingers of dawn revealing the brooding and foreboding
shape of Broucheroc on the horizon. And still lying wounded in no-man’s land in the same place
where he had fallen, Larn looked up at the brightening sky above him and knew he should fear the
110
sun. With the gathering of the light soon the orks would be able to see him from their lines. But
where once he would have felt anxiety, even perhaps terror at that prospect, now all those things had
left him. Instead, he lay on his back watching the sun slowly rise and he felt peace. He watched it
and he knew contentment.
I have made it past fifteen hours, he thought, at last given answer by the coming of the dawn to
the question that had plagued him throughout the night. More than that even, now the sun is rising.
And with it I have proved the others wrong. I have beaten the odds. I have survived this place. I
have passed the test. The orks cannot kill me now. The laws that rule this monstrous city will not let
them.
Certain now that his fate had been decided in his favour and it was only a matter of time before
someone came to rescue him, Larn settled calmly down to wait. All the fear had passed through him
now. All the loneliness. The desperation. The despair. They were gone, replaced instead by a
growing sense of detached serenity.
Over the last fifteen hours he had faced the worst this city could throw at him. It was over now
and with it he was forever free. Free from doubt. Free from worry. Free from his fears. He did not
even feel the cold anymore. He felt safe and warm. He felt whole. He had survived his fifteen hours.
He had lasted. He had proved himself. This place could no longer hurt him and with that last happy
thought, Larn smiled and closed his eyes. Closed his eyes to drift away to dreamless sleep, the last
shreds of his consciousness flying away from him like dead leaves on the wind as the relentless
babble of his mind gradually gave way to silence. Drawing a last contented breath, his beating heart
slowed and stilled.
Then, finally, there was only darkness.
(The End)
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