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The Orc

They left it there, the orc beneath the blood soaked blanket. Neither boy dared go near it. They, each of them, ignored one another. Leofwine sat with his back against a tree, staring unfixed into the river. William curled his knees against himself and cried quietly, hoping the other boys wouldn’t hear him, while Aldrich helplessly scrubbed his hands in the river.

Though Alrich’s arrow had felled the orc, they each had a part in his death. In its own time, the thought passed through each of them that they were murderers, that they had taken away everything the orc ever was or ever would be. They felt cold inside, as if there were a vast emptiness in their chests, an emptiness where only the golden warmth of triumph should have dwelt – not the cold terror of murder.

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