Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  Ty nodded, grateful to hear that. He had enough to worry about without getting blown up while he collected the salamander saliva.

  “So, you’ve come about training?” Elor asked.

  “Uh…no,” Ty replied. “We spoke yesterday about filling the trenches with salamander spit and tar.”

  “Trenches?” the master asked, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t recall—”

  “The ones we dug outside the walls yesterday,” Ty pressed. “Remember?”

  Elor stood there a moment, clearly racking his brain, struggling to recall what they’d done.

  Ty had expected as much and knew he’d need to push the master the same way he had his friends in order to get them to recall things outside of their programming.

  “You know, the ones we dug to slow the horde down?”

  Elor straightened. “Ah…yes, I recall now.” He started toward a set of stairs nearly hidden in a dark corner. “I set the things we need to the side, so if you don’t mind helping me, we can be about it.”

  “Happy to,” Ty replied, grinning.

  The master had been easier to remind than his friends had been, and that was a good thing. He didn’t know if it was because the master was a higher level in-game, thus had more points stashed into wit and wisdom, making him technically smarter than the other NPCS, or if it was something else.

  Regardless, the fact that Elor knew what was needed and was prepared gave Ty hope that maybe, just maybe, things might work out. And as the old master led him down the stairs to the basement, Ty dared to look ahead a little.

  We might just pull this off.

  That positivity wilted after he helped the alchemist master lug barrel after barrel out of the basement and load it into the wagon that had been positioned behind the trainer’s hut.

  That had been another hurdle Ty had needed to get across. Elor had sworn up and down that his hut didn’t have a backdoor, so he’d practically forced Ty to wheel the barrels all the way around the building instead of simply carting them out the door right next to the wagon. It took Ty dragging the master out the door by the sleeve to finally show him how much easier it would be.

  But finally, they finished the work. Then Ty curled up in the wagon, pulling a tarp over his head, as Elor drove the cart out of town and out to the trenches.

  Fortunately, Char and Deven and Amon had been hard at work already. Ty climbed out of the back of the wagon only to find he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

  “Whoa!”

  Where there had been ten people working along the killing field, there were now over twenty. They hustled about, building short wooden walls near the gates. Sharpened stakes jutted out in the direction the horde would be coming, waiting to add to the body count.

  More surprising to Ty, someone had actually thought to collect animal traps and scatter them about the makeshift walls to keep the enemy from simply going around them. Metal teeth gleamed in the gaping maws of the traps, and Ty winced at imagining them being triggered.

  There’s going to be some seriously unhappy ankles, he thought with a chuckle.

  “Was this you?” he asked Char as she and the other came over. He motioned to the traps.

  She nodded. “I was thinking of what else we might do to stop the horde and it hit me.” Char grinned, proud of herself.

  Ty smiled back. He was proud, too. His friends were evolving into real people, and it thrilled him to see it.

  As workers came over to help Master Elor unload the wagon and get to work pouring the various substances into the trenches, Ty heard the thrum of a bowstring and a panicked shout.

  “Look out below!”

  Ty ducked instinctively, and it was a good thing he had.

  An arrow thudded into the ground just a few feet behind him.

  “Whoa!” he muttered and glanced up at the wall.

  Eunice waved to him. “Sorry!”

  She held a bow in her hand and had a sheepish look on her face. The ranger trainer, Bol, shook his head in obvious disappointment and went to show her how to hold the bow properly.

  Still, despite nearly being shot in the face by an arrow, Ty grinned. All along the wall stood another twenty NPCs, all armed with bows and clearly driving Bol mad with their inability.

  Ty laughed, amazed at how well things were coming together.

  He knew not to get overly excited about it, seeing how, as soon as he did, things would start to fall apart. But he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of optimism that he’d made the right choices.

  They might not defeat Halgor tonight, but they’d dang sure give him the fight of his life.

  And now, with nearly everything in place, the hardest part left would be the wait.

  Oh, and avoiding getting stabbed in the back by greedy PCs.

  Ty watched as the would-be archers practiced and the NPCs helped Elor fill the trenches, and all he could think was how impressed he was with everyone. They had come together under the worst of circumstances and worked to defend their town.

  He wished it was all real, at least in the sense that, if—no, when—they defeated Halgor that it would be over, that the troll king and his minions would be done forever, but Ty knew that wasn’t the case. Still, just knowing they could beat that big, scaly butthead would go a long way toward increasing the confidence of the townspeople. They could hole their heads high having taken part in defeating the dreaded troll king that plagued Altunn.

  Ty let out a loud breath through his smile, and he turned to his friends. “I’ve a couple more things to do before nightfall arrives, so if you guys don’t mind watching the final preparations here, and finishing up that last thing we discussed, I’ll meet back up with you before the invasion starts.”

  “Be careful,” Amon told him, nodding. “We’ve heard about the bounty.”

  Ty let out a nervous laugh. “I will. I happen to like where my head is now.”

  “Up your butt?” Deven ventured, grinning.

  “Keeps it warm during the winter,” he fired back. “Anyway, I’ll be careful. There are just some things I need to do. See you all soon.”

  Char offered him a farewell smile, and the other two waved. Ty shot off toward the rope ladder and scrambled onto the wall. The showdown was coming, and he needed to be ready.

  He glanced out over the wall, zeroing in on the horde. Though he could barely pick out any details, nothing more than a shadowy blob shifting and moving, a black wave on the horizon, Ty spotted Halgor pacing back and forth behind the horde.

  “You and me, buddy,” Ty called out to him. “It’ll me just you and me soon.”

  His voice drifted out over the field and, as if the troll king heard him, Ty saw Halgor stop and stare back. A cold chill washed over Ty, and he knew it was on.

  Challenge accepted!

  Ty sighed and dropped back into Altunn.

  Night would be on them soon and time was running out. If Ty was going to be as ready as he could be, he needed to get back to work.

  TY GROANED AS he crept to his hidey hole in a dark corner of the Shadow Walk. Every muscle in his body ached from his latest task, and all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep a week, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  He checked in with Theolin before he settled in to wait for nightfall and got a lukewarm answer to his burning question, the thief unable to ensure Ty there’d be enough PC’s interested in joining their cause to make a difference. There would be plenty of people online because they knew Ty would be, the bounty calling their name, but what side they’d choose in the end, Theolin couldn’t say.

  Ty let loose a frustrated sigh as he sunk into the shadows to disappear, desperate for a short nap to recharge. All his hard work up in the air thanks to his impetuous killing of Vile One and pissing off Defiler, Ty hoped he hadn’t screwed everything up all for some petty shot at revenge.

  But too tired to worry about that right then, he closed his eyes and did his best to dream of better things. The worst of it would come soon enough. There
wasn’t any point in worrying about it now. So, Ty didn’t.

  And, for once, the shadows obliged his wishes.

  He was asleep within minutes, the beginning of the end drawing ever closer as he snored.

  Twenty-Three

  The End of the Beginning of the End

  NIGHTFALL FOUND TY camped out on the walls alongside about forty anxious NPCs. They clutched to their bows with white-knuckled grips, and they paced uncomfortably. Each shivered, and Ty knew it was from more than the cold breeze that had crept in from the north as the sun set.

  Each and every one of them contemplated the decision that had brought them there to face down an enemy they’d never even once imagined standing up against. They were cold, scared, and ready to bolt.

  The howls of the horde only made it worse.

  Readying for the invasion, the enemy had ramped up their battle cries and war whoops, drums rumbling in the distance like thunder from a coming storm. The moon hung heavy in the sky above. It looked ready to crash down upon their heads. Blood red and dripping with angst, it dowsed the field in a foreboding crimson shimmer.

  Eunice clung to Sully, and Ty could see the fear in her eyes, but there was something else there, too. Resoluteness. For all her terror that she should hang on the baker without hiding their relationship, she looked ready to stand until the end.

  Ty offered her a reassuring smile when she glanced his way.

  What she and the others didn’t know, or better yet, understand, was that they were positioned in the safest place in all of Altunn. No matter what happened tonight, as long as they remained on the wall, Halgor and his minions couldn’t touch them. They were safe.

  They might have to watch their town burn to the ground, and all the rest of their friends and family, those who didn’t join in, be slaughtered, but they were safe.

  Ty sighed and hoped it didn’t come to that, but he knew the odds they were against. Even if everything worked out perfectly, and it wouldn’t, people would die and shops and homes would meet the torch.

  But Ty was determined to do his best to defeat Halgor and end the threat of the troll king.

  For now.

  Fingers drumming on the pommel of his sword—his newly resized leather jerkin and pants snug and comfortable—Ty caught the first signs of the horde’s advance. The distant shadows rippled and flowed forward, heading toward Altunn.

  “They’re coming!” he called out, his voice cracking at the end. “Make ready!”

  Ty couldn’t believe how hard his heart beat inside his chest. It threatened to bruise his ribs, he was so scared. Logic waged a war against his emotions, but it was losing it. He knew he was safe on the wall, that Halgor and the orcs and goblins would simply ignore him and move into the city if they got past the defenses.

  Even then, Ty knew what was at stake. This wasn’t about him anymore. This was about his friends, about Altunn and all the people who lived there. This wasn’t a game—well, sort of still—it was his life. Failure had real consequences in-game, and now that Ty was level 7, there was no certainty as to whether he faced slipping into a perpetual limbo if he were to die tonight.

  He wanted to run, to hide and avoid Halgor, wait it out until it was over and stay safe, alive.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  Ty drew in a slow, deep breath to steady his nerves and looked out over the killing field at the rapidly advancing horde, their red and green banners waving.

  His mother had always taught him to stand for something bigger and better than himself. He couldn’t imagine disappointing her, so he slipped his sword loose of its sheath and held it up the night sky.

  “Stand fast!” he shouted. “This is our battle to win.”

  Char grinned at him from across the way, hunched by the wall alongside Deven and Amon. The three stood ready to repel the invaders, lending their courage to the townsfolk to keep them standing strong.

  Well, Deven and Char did. Amon whined and made excuses.

  “I think I left the lanterns on in my shop,” he muttered. “I should go douse those just in case…”

  “In case the place burns down?” Deven grunted, patting him on the back. “I think the odds are good that’s gonna happen anyway.”

  “Encouraging…” the crafter sighed. “I wonder if I locked the door?”

  “Hold steady,” Ty shouted out to Amon, offering a thumbs up.

  Amon groaned, but he held his ground.

  Another few minutes and the horde would collide with the first of the defenses they’d prepared, and Ty knew that would stir the confidence of everyone standing fast on the wall.

  And sure enough, after what seemed an interminable wait, the horde marched right into the first set of trenches as he’d hoped they would, oblivious to the deadly new feature placed there.

  Shrieks of agony and surprise rang out in equal measure as the goblins in the front ranks were impaled by the spears. They howled and thrashed, but they didn’t stand a chance.

  Those behind them just kept pushing forward, driving their companions further onto the offending spears and getting themselves caught as well. A whole new set of wails rose up, then another as the horde marched on, each row bringing about the death of the one before them.

  Ty pumped a fist and grinned over at his friends. “It’s working!” The defenders on the wall offered tentative smiles, too terrorized to realize they were watching the death of dozens of goblins already and the battle hadn’t really even started.

  The horde, however, pressed on.

  As more and more bodies piled up in the forward trenches, the less effective the spikes became. The goblins and orcs just kept pushing, piling bodies up in their wake until there were so many impaled upon the wooden spears that they broke under the weight or there were simply no sharp points left to impale anyone else.

  A collective gasp rose up from the defenders as the horde stomped on the backs of their dead to keep coming, mercilessly grinding their fellow monsters into the ground, and filling the trenches with blood and bodies.

  Ty raised a hand to ward off the nervous murmurs rising among the NPCs. “It’s okay,” he called out. “Everything’s going to plan.”

  And it was, but the horde wouldn’t be stopped so easily.

  They pushed on, crashing into the next row of spears, again using their dead to traverse it. Then again and once more, they hit the trenches with a reckless abandon of suicidal proportions, determined to tear down Altunn.

  More and more of them died screaming and wailing, pushed onto the spears then trampled, their brethren using them as stepping stones for the rest of the horde to break free of the trenches and move ahead.

  Ty stared out over the wall and held his breath. He’d known the invaders would push on relentlessly, but he was amazed by how many remained despite the hundreds of dead they’d left in their wake.

  He spun on his heel and waved to Master Bol, who’d apparently not needed Ty’s signal.

  The old archer trainer already had an arrow nocked, and he bent down and set its pitch-soaked arrowhead alight with a small, smoldering censer set beside him. Then he aimed out over the wall and let his arrow fly.

  He was in the process of launching a second flaming arrow when the first landed perfectly where he’d aimed it. The furthest trench filled with tar and fire salamander spit ignited with a rush.

  Daylight snuck over them for a moment as it exploded into flame, the whole of the trench rippling with flaming tongues that lapped at the sky.

  Ty clasped to the wall to keep his balance, dots dancing in his vision, but the horded just kept charging. As the other trenches ignited all around them, the goblins and orcs in the lead barreled into the flames without so much as a stutter of hesitation.

  They paid for their ignorance with their lives.

  As if the fire had appeared out of nowhere, the horde shrieked and went down in flaming heaps, bodies tripping and falling over one another, thrashing and flailing until they slumped dead.

  Mor
e and more crashed through the flames, carrying it with them, the tar sticking to their flesh and armor, carrying the fiery touch of the salamander spit with it. The bodies of the horde piled deep just this side of the flaming trenches, but the enemy kept on and on and on.

  But for all its effectiveness, Ty knew it still wasn’t enough. For every creature that barreled through the flames, they took with them a coating of the tar and spit, carrying it out and beyond the trench, where it flickered and died beneath the mountain of corpses starving it of air.

  “Archers!” Master Bol called out, raising a hand. “Fire at will!”

  He launched his own attack and, to Ty’s grateful surprise, the rest of the NPCs did the same. Arrows hissed through the air like snakes, and given just how clustered the orcs and goblins were, nearly every shaft struck home in flesh.

  Char and the others fired arrow after arrow into the horde, and despite their success, he could see the line of NPCs was faltering. The horde was simply determined to march on Altunn, and nothing the NPCs did could stop them, and it was breaking their will.

  Morale was failing, and the pace of the arrows slowed as the number of monsters increased, trampling over the companions in the now-sputtering trenches. Not even when the horde plowed into the last of the makeshift defenses, the metallic snap of traps being set off left and right, were they emboldened.

  And Ty could blame them.

  He went to shout out something inspiring and leader-like, but the appearance of Halgor himself stole the breath from his lungs.

  The great troll king lumbered forward over the bodies of his army. Bones crunched beneath his feet, and he swept aside the wreckage of his horde that stood in his way, dead or alive. His great yellow eyes settled on Ty, and he swore the temperature dropped about fifty degrees right then.

  A frigid tremor ran through him, and Ty gasped to catch his breath. “Oh…Cheetos,” he muttered.