The lizardmen hesitated for a brief second. Their mother was captured, their settlement is burning, their clansmen were dead, dying, and wishing for death. The hesitation wasn't bravery. It was the last reflex of a tribe that had always believed numbers and territory would eventually save them.
But reality has always been cruel to the hopeful.
They stared at the scythe under their broodmother's neck, at the orcs standing in mud and dawn light like they belonged there, and at the smoke rising from huts that had been "home" an hour ago.
The air tasted of ash and bile, and the riverbank still ran with panicked footprints and stains that had nothing to do with water.
There was no victory here to find, no retaliation to start, and no hope of flipping the tables. The orcs used their brains when all they had before was brawn.
That was the part that broke the lizardmen more than the blade.
Orcs were supposed to charge and die loudly.
