Iorrjaer

Chapter 40

Häsmæl and Grana continued their clash. She had righted herself around quickly after getting flipped over and tossed. She was displeased that the orc had that much strength and continued to have enough strength to match her.

She was considerably stronger than Alan and Häsmæl was feeling his limits. He knew he had to keep pushing his body to keep up with her. However, he was not sure how much longer he could keep his rage active. He was still learning the limits of his rage state and each time he had entered this state, he had been with his axe; so now, without it, he was learning about the power that he possessed. Without Jörcnir.

Although, as he got knocked back, pinned, and caught Granna's mandibles before they could impale or capture him, he could not help but wish that he had his axe. His grip on them was awkward and unruly. He kept losing his grip with his left hand and the terrible pincer would attempt its task of impaling him, but he was always able to prevent it from getting its desired angle and bite.

Granna was growing more noticeably furious that he kept evading her and the more infuriated she became, the leaner her body became and the denser and sharper her pincers became. Häsmæl caught her left pincer and in an awkward struggle was able to use her leverage to get himself back up and onto his feet.

No longer prone, Häsmæl was able to regain the upper hand with his purchases on her pincers and reset his massive strength against her. He started to push her back and at the same time, lift. She understood that he was going for another attempt to get under her, to once again pick her up and toss her.

She refused to let that happen again. Once was enough. The humiliation was unbearable. She started to wiggle and thrash. Häsmæl found that her movements made it hard for him to hold onto her, so he eased his pushing and lifting, letting her back down and then twisted her to the side so that he was on the outside of her right mandible, where he grabbed it in his left hand, set his body to be pressed against its joint and started to punch her carapace. His punches rang through her body on each strike. She could feel the carapace weakening. Her eye saw each incredible blow and felt each impact.

His hold on her pincer was starting to get stronger and tighter, as well. She could feel the sinew and cartilage that made up the interior of the pincer weakening and knew that he was close to being able to rip it off. She could not let that happen, more than she could not let herself be thrown again, she could not afford to lose one of her pincers.

His hold on her made it hard for her to move, even to her her closet leg up weakened her brace and gave him more control. She had to think of something. She dared a second to glance around and saw that her whole plan was falling apart. Her soldiers were distracted and unable to assist. She even tried the desperate measure of reaching out to her clone but even that was busy. Panic started to set in as she felt her pincer reach its critical point.

She felt something in her thorax, a stirring. She let the pain go and let everything else go and focused on her back. Whatever it was that was there, wanted to be used. She felt her back split and spread and then heard the buzzing of rapidly fluttering wings. She realized that it was her, she had discovered her hidden ability of flight and the second that she was able to lift herself off of the ground, Häsmæl stopped punching her and started trying to keep her grounded.

She lifted him and he released her pincer. She was disappointed that he did not try to hold on longer, to let her bring him up even further. At the point that he released her, he was able to land and not get hurt. He watched her as she got control of her flight and then started to feel how flight worked.

She was flying! A new advantage and a whole new perspective opened up to her. She saw that the moon was nearly at the ziggurat's zenith, just a few more minutes. She also saw how desperately close Häsmæl and his team were to thwarting everything. She risked a second to go and check and found that neither Victor nor his boys nor the girl were at the alter yet. This infuriated her even further. What could they be doing? Where were they?