Woad Children (Challenger's Call Book 3)

by Nathan Thompson

  Battleform attempting to engage, my mindscreen informed me. Engagement failed. The ability has been overtaxed.

  Fuck it, Teeth and I mentally snapped at once. I slammed my shield into a Miscreant’s skull and began hacking and cleaving my way through the remains of the hundred-strong warband.

  From behind me, I heard shouts of surprise from the elves, shouts of frustration from my own band, and battle cries from Alum’s Gaelguard who arrived in time to smash into the Horde from the rear. Something about all the shouting triggered another one of my synapses. I yelled again, altering the pitch of my tone to create a song-spell.

  “TREMBLE AND MOURN WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!”

  I felt my Will sweep into the spell, and over half the Horde suddenly flinched away from me and dropped their weapons, looking bewildered as they did so.

  But they weren’t surrendering, and I was too angry to care even if they had. And even if I wasn’t angry, I remembered the first time one of these sick freaks had tried to ‘surrender,’ and just how disgusting that experience had been. So I cleaved my way through their shocked faces with a clean conscience, not stopping until one of the Mongrels recovered enough to parry my attack. A sword blade burst from his mouth as I tore the cleaver out of his hands, and as he sank to the ground I saw Alum’s people had hewn their way to meet me in the middle of the fight.

  “Is that the last of them?” I said, panting from anger and spent energy.

  “Aye,” the tattooed warrior said slowly, giving me one of those ‘hey Wes, you’re covered in blood’ looks I had begun to recognize. “There was another mass of them attacking another part of the village that we cleared first. That’s why we were late.” He was almost apologetic, unlike his wife.

  “They were a good bit bigger than this group,” she said smugly. “But good job on keeping these wee ones busy for us. My lord,” she added at the last minute, smiling challengingly at me.

  Are all of the Woadwomen like this? Teeth spoke up, mostly recovered from our combined rage. Because if they are, we should probably look into getting one as a mate.

  Shut up and I hate you, I sent back, then turned to the elves, remembering that the Horde were raiding for slaves, at least before they realized they were in enough number to overwhelm the village without our help.

  But my eyes were drawn to the mass of wounded elves on the ground. At least a score of soldiers and non-combatants were mewling and bleeding out on the ground, as a small group of green-robed elves worked frantically to save as many as they could. Breena immediately flew forward, and Val bounded over while opening her pack. Then a mournful cry caught my attention from the very back, where a woman lying on the ground was clutching her spilling stomach with one hand and reaching out to the forest with another.

  “Amma!” she cried out in an anguished, gurgling voice, her reaching hand straining futilely. “My Amma!”

  “Mommy!” a little elf-girl’s voice called out, and I saw a black shape dragging a smaller, long-haired shape behind it as it passed through a hole in the wrecked tree wall. “I’m sorry, Mommy!” the long-haired shape wailed in a desperate, pitiful tone. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it! I love you!”

  I dismissed my axe, bounded over to the disemboweled mother, stuck my hand into her wound, and cast Vein to Vein. I felt my own insides quiver as I poured as much of my life as I dared into her ruined torso, but the woman had little to no vital guard of her own. It wasn’t enough. And I knew my Water magic would be even less help.

  “Wes!” Val shouted behind me. I saw my adopted sister hurl a small blue blob in my direction. As the blob landed, it bounced up and latched onto the dying woman’s stomach.

  “Di-rec-tive!” the little jelly chirped urgently. “Heal! Save! Di-rec-tive!”

  “We’ve got this!” my little sister shouted. She began casting another spell of her own, some kind of healing Shadow magic I hadn’t learned about yet that calmed the thrashing woman. “Hurry up and go!” she said in a desperate tone. “Don’t let them take any more kids!”

  That was more than enough encouragement for me to act.

  I recast all of my enhancement spells and began rushing forward, chanting the speed song Weylin had taught me. Many of the others were running after me, but the truth was that I was probably the fastest runner over long distances.

  At least I was right now. Because I’d eat my own tongue before I’d let the bastards take from me again.

  The little girl’s sobs continued to guide and spur me onward as I chased after the Wretch dragging her beyond the wall.

  “Drop her!” I shouted out. “Drop her or I will eat you!”

  In my defense, my teeth were still itching terribly.

  The stupid Hordebeast shot a frightened look over its shoulder and began running faster. When I realized it heard me and disobeyed, my vision turned red, and I began running faster as well. The little girl kept crying out apologies to her mother as I closed the distance between myself and her inhuman captor.

  Another enhanced leap brought me right behind them.

  “I WARNED YOU!” I shouted, dismissing my shield to grab hold of the short Hordebeast. With my other arm I tore off the limb grasping the child, letting her fall into a bed of leaves as I yanked the terrified Wretch in front of me. “I WARNED YOU!” I roared again, my jaw itching and suddenly stretching forward. “AND YOU DID NOT LISTEN! SO DIE!”

  I dimly realized that Teeth had seized control again as my enlarged, scaled jaw closed over the shrieking monster’s throat and tore it right out. I spat the flesh out of the mouth, threw the dying thing into a nearby sturdy tree and turned to check on the child, a dusky-skinned girl with long black hair probably no older than seven, or whatever the equivalent for that age was in elven bodies. She was badly scraped all over, but not fatally.

  “Stay away,” she sobbed, scooting away from me with wide eyes. “Momma says red-haired men are all bad. Don’t touch me.”

  I clenched my eyes shut, knowing the last thing I needed to be was angry right now. I began casting my signature water spell, Corrective Flow. Since it was now at the Journeyman level, I could use it to heal at a distance. The little girl gasped as her wounds began to disappear.

  “The elves are coming to bring you back to your momma,” I said softly, and I could hear Weylin call out a song chant that grew closer and closer. “But I need to know where they are taking the other children so I can save them. Do you know which way?”

  The little girl hesitated as she stared at me, but when she heard the nearby elves call out, she made up her mind and pointed.

  “That way,” she said firmly. “They got my brother, and a lot of my friends. Momma says the Woad Princess is coming, though. You better not do anything bad to my friends, or she’s gonna beat you up when she gets here.”

  She’s right here, I sent to Weylin as he trailed behind. I’m going for the rest of the kids. Catch up when you can.

  My legs coiled, and I bounded off toward the direction Amma had pointed.

  The Hordebeast were fast for an average person, and some could even outrun a human or elf that had undergone several Rises. But for someone with Ideal-blessed agility and dragon-enhanced muscles, they were laughably slow in a foot race. I caught up with a series of Wretches and Miscreants, bounding up to them one at a time, freeing their victim, killing the Hordebeast outright, and then moving on to the next, since their trail was easy to find and their victims were (barely) more scared of losing their friends and loved ones than they were of being tricked by another red-haired man. At any rate, a point was all I needed to find the next one, and I could trust my trailing team to take care of the children I had just rescued.

  Finally, though, I had caught up to what seemed like the last of the Horde raiders. There was a whole pack of them, over a dozen Miscreants herding children with their spears or clutching small cages with tiny glowing people trapped inside them. Leading them was the largest Mongrel I had ever seen, over seven feet tall, wrapped in form-fitting
chain armor with a few pieces of spiked, form-fitting plate armor covering his upper torso. In one hand he clutched a massive, single-edged blade, one even bigger than the Horde cleaver I possessed and covered with red flaming rune script. In the other he was lifting a struggling elven woman with brown hair and a ragged dress. His head was adorned with an open-faced spiked helmet that still allowed for his massive tusks and ram-like horns to jut out. He was arguing with one of the better-armored Miscreants cowing before him.

  “We are not waiting for the others any longer!” he bellowed, and this time I knew he was speaking in Earthborn English, the language the Horde had somehow chosen as their own. “We do not have time!”

  “But they’ll punish us!” the leather-clad Miscreant whined. “We left behind prey!”

  “Fool!” the massive Mongrel bellowed, brandishing his giant sword at the smaller Hordebeast. “The Woad bitch is coming! She’ll be here any minute! Then we will have no prey!” He turned his awful face back to the elven woman in his grasp. “Make your little ones go faster,” he snarled, speaking in Elvish this time. “Or I kill one right now, in front of you.”

  The young-looking woman in his hands had a sad, but defiant, look in her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare,” she spat. “Because then you wouldn’t get to do all sorts of other horrible things to them. If I could, I’d kill them myself,” she added in an angry, hollow voice, “just to save them from what you’re going to do to them.”

  “Maybe.” The giant Mongrel grinned, leaning closer to her. “Maybe I won’t kill one. Maybe I’ll make you my bride-meal instead, in front of them right now. I can make time for that, I promise, and then they will go faster for sure, won’t they? Can’t you tell I want to?” He tried to leer, but suddenly stopped, wincing in pain and dropping the woman at his feet. “What is happening?” he asked, backing away from the woman while clutching his face and sounding frightened. “Why do I no longer want to? Why does it feel… wrong?”

  The other Hordebeasts all hissed in horror, backing away from their leader as if he had suddenly become contagious. The move put them farther away from their own captives and gave me the best chance I was going to get.

  “Because it is wrong,” I answered, leaping toward a large tree and kicking off of it to put me in a better position. Now that most of the Miscreants were in a line below me, I fired off my stored lightning bolt into one near the back. The electric blast arced downward just enough to catch the muzzled heads of the monsters in front of him before it slammed into his chest, burning clean through flesh and armor, and then arcing one final time to slam into the remaining row of horrified Miscreants.

  “Traitor-prince!” screamed the Miscreant cowering in front of the Mongrel. “The traitor-prince is here!”

  “I hate that stupid name,” I growled, hurling my axe into the last Miscreant’s face. It crunched firmly into his skull, so I summoned my spear and shield as I charged the giant Mongrel. “But I hate the freaky shit you want to do to women even more.”

  “You!” the monster shouted with wide, outraged eyes. “You ruined bride-meals for us! You changed us!”

  His giant machete burst into red flame, and he swept the weapon down at me.

  “You’re welcome!” I snarled as I dodged to the side and slammed my spear into his torso. My blow struck a spot just below the half-breastplate he was wearing and dented the mail, and I heard the giant gasp in pain from my blow. But the next moment he lifted the spear, twisting it to catch under my armpit and lift me up into the air as well.

  “Traitor-prince!” the beast bellowed, swinging his flaming blade at me. “Kill the traitor-prince!”

  I caught the blow on my shield at the last second, shuddering from the impact and hearing the wood crunch and start to burn. I let go of my spear and twisted in mid-air as I fell, drawing my enchanted, flaming spatha and wishing that the frightened woman would recover enough to run away, so that I could fight this stupid monster at range instead of up close and personal. As my shield came free I darted forward to stab the monster in his mailed leg. The fire-covered point got through enough for blood to sizzle off when I pulled the weapon back. I brought my shield up in time to deflect the Mongrel’s next attack at an angle instead of head on, but the blow still rattled me.

  “Bad seed, bad tongue,” the Mongrel chanted. “Made us, our hungers shun! End his words and end his taint and kill the traitor-prince!”

  I wish I knew why they chanted like this, I thought bitterly and I stepped to the side and scored another blow along the monster’s arm.

  It’s a mantra, Teeth said grimly. They’re using it to resist your influence. But worry about that after the fight.

  I grunted in response and then ducked again, not willing to test my vital guard on a hunk of blazing metal roughly my own size. This time, though, the Mongrel struck with his free hand, reaching forward and grabbing the front of my mail. He pulled forward, head-butting me with his horned, tusked head, and then slammed me to the ground before I could reflect on just how stupid I had been not to wear a real helmet.

  My vital guard arrested the concussion and puncture wounds just soon enough for me to see the monster loom over me, machete cocked back for a downward stab into my face.

  “Kill the traitor-prince!” he screamed again, thrusting the burning weapon downward.

  But I was already acting. My shield arm struck his grasping hand from one angle, getting in the way of his potential death blow, while my other hand smashed into his elbow with my spatha’s pommel. Then I discharged my Outer Current spell, letting my Lightning magic arc into him from all three locations, resenting the fact that it hadn’t already triggered earlier when he grabbed me.

  The monster roared in pain as his own strike missed, and I spun out from under him, my leg into the back of both of his knees, further electrocuting him and tripping the Hordebeast at the same time. As he fell he twisted to land on me, counting on the fact that he weighed hundreds and hundreds of pounds to beat me in a grapple. It would have worked, if my Strength wasn’t currently high enough to let me lift over a ton.

  I took advantage of the fact that I was also faster than him to arrest my spin, drop my sword, and throw both of my fists upward in a rising uppercut straight into his mailed stomach. To his surprise, my blow knocked the wind out of him and flipped the Mongrel over to land on his back. By the time he landed, I had snatched up my spatha, leaped on top of him, braced his weapon hand with my left boot all while slamming my spatha downward in a two-handed thrust into his mouth.

  He gurgled and clutched at my right boot with his free hand, but before he could yank me off my feet I twisted my blade, and he went completely limp, raised arm suddenly dropping downward. I twisted my weapon into his throat one final time to make sure he was dead, then yanked the weapon out of his mouth and hopped down from his body, sighing at myself.

  “I need to work on being more consistently competent when I fight,” I sighed to myself. Then turned to make sure the hostages were all alright. “Everyone okay?” I asked, trusting my mindscreen to translate my words.

  By my count no one, fairy or elf, had gotten hurt in that brief fight, but the woman had moved to shield the children and caged sprites with her body.

  “Do what you want with me,” she said, shuddering and closing her eyes. “Just… let the little ones go.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, losing my temper for a minute. “I slay your captors, get bashed in the face and nearly stabbed to death in the process, and this is your reaction? Of course I’m going to let you all go! And if you were listening in on the conversation,” I growled, belatedly realizing that the Mongrel was probably speaking English a moment ago, “you’d know that they all want to kill me because I did something that inhibits the monsters from hurting you all more in the first place!”

  “What do you mean?” the woman asked, blinking and clearly confused. But then she stubbornly shook her head. “Nevermind. I mean it. I’ll do anything. Just… let the little ones go. Please. They don�
�t deserve this.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. “We’ll play your game.” She shuddered and closed her eyes again, and I felt Teeth grow concerned with me. “Tell me if there are any other hostages. So I can rescue them.” She opened her eyes again, cocking her head at me in confusion. “I mean it,” I snarled. “You said you’d do anything! So tell me where the other captives are, so I can do my job and rescue them!”

  Thank God, Teeth sighed in relief. You scared me for a moment.

  “Then after you tell me,” I continued, trying to get through to the frightened woman, “I want you to lead the children and sprite-folk back to the village. There’s a team of elves and some friends of mine already on the way to escort all of you back. Can you please hurry up and do that for me?” I asked, trying to bring my temper under control.

  God help me, she still hesitated.

  “I…” she hedged. “I don’t know…”

  I sighed again, realizing the poor woman was likely frightened out of her mind and that my temper wasn’t helping.

  “Look,” I began again, but then another voice interrupted me.

  “Everyone else is safe,” a lilted, feminine, Gaelic-sounding voice said from the trees above me. “I already made sure.”

  The voice sounded familiar, but I was more concerned with the news.

  “If that’s true, then thank God, and the rest of you can head back,” I said in relief. “But can you identify yourself, Miss? Or Mrs., or—shit!”

  I raised my shield and leaped back as a cluster of arrows fired close to where I was standing. I couldn’t tell if those were meant to be fatal shots or warning shots.

  “It’s Miss, I suppose,” the lilting voice continued as a figure leaped from the trees in a flurry of brown hair and hunting leathers. She landed in a neat crouch in front of the rescued captives, rising slowly and gracefully.