The green beasts flashed their fangs, howled their battle cries, and charged at the militia like a fast approaching nightmare. 

"Ready yourselves!" Ludivico called out to his squad mates. Ulri and Ojan raised their swords and shields, locked in a defensive stance five feet behind their squad captain. The farm boy quickly mimicked their fighting posture, completing a diamond formation that put the young man at the rear. 

The orcs then split into pairs of threes against the five man squads. Ludivico raised his battle axes, crossing them in front of his body as he stepped forward. His long hair was kept in a braided pony tail with no tricorn hat to block his vision. His hazel brown eyes glared through an iron [url=https://ubistatic19-a.akamaihd.net/resource/en-US/game/forhonor/fh-game/fh_hero-detail-berserker-armor-2-thumb_ncsa.png]face guard[/url] in anticipation for the coming violence.

"Carcosa the blind, witness our bladed dance on this day." Ludivico murmured the pirate's prayer, eyes fixed at the three Orcs stampeding in their direction. The ground rumbled with their every step, ragged breathing and ghastly roars ignited the air like war horns. "Open your deathly jaws and ready your undying appetite. A feast of souls await you." Ludivico walked at a snail's pace, controlling his breath with slow respiration. The hounds zipped past him like whirling dervishes, bolting directly at the oncoming orcs. They flashed their fangs and gnawed at their legs, stopping the green beasts in their tracks. Just then, Stefano's falcon swooped overhead and attacked the largest of the three. It tried swatting the bird with its two-handed weapon, and as it did, a loud thud followed by a spattering of dark fluid gushed from its neck. [i]Good shot, friend.[/i] 

The orc toppled onto its knees, clutching its gushing neck. Ludivico was there within a split second to drop both axes onto its head for the overkill. The sound of iron against bone and brain was sickly, but Ludivico did not flinch. Instead, he planted a foot on the orc's chest and pulled his axes free from its skull, kicking the lifeless beast onto the ground.  The two remaining orcs were too preoccupied with Stefano's hounds to have noticed Ludivico's advance. 

He dropped low, axe slicing through the first orc's Achilles's heel, then spun to chop down at the back of the other beast's leg. The hounds dug their teeth into green hides as Ulri and Ojan pounced forward, stabbing their swords deep into the orc's meaty torsos. Their guttural screams made the farm boy tense up. Ludivico never looked back. 

After his swift attack to the orc's lower extremities, he kept his stance facing foward, awaiting the next wave of beasts to cut down.[i] So far, so good.[/i]