“Stop!” Gabe cried out, and the two orcs froze in their tracks, unable to move.
Ted sent several magical bolts into the body of an orc that had gotten around Chuck and was bearing down on Felicia. The orc staggered against the magical assault, fell to its knees, and gasped for breath. Ted conjured a second salvo and split the four orbs between the injured orc and a second orc that had Chuck on the defensive. The second magical attack finished off the wounded orc and staggered the other creature enough to give Chuck an opening. Chuck did not hesitate to seize his advantage and thrust his blade through the distracted orc’s heart while bashing his shield into the face of another.
Chase crept around to the rear of the battle, slung his crossbow, and pulled out Biter and a long dagger from their sheaths. He darted from behind a thick pine tree and thrust Biter deep into the back of an orc double-teaming Phil and followed up with a thrust of his dagger into the kidney of the second. The first orc fell straight to the ground as the second faltered due to the excruciating pain in its lower back. Phil ended the creature’s agony by opening its throat with a slash from his broadsword.
Chase, not waiting around to acknowledge his friend’s quick thanks, darted back into the woods to circle around toward Chuck and Felicia while Phil jumped to bolster Josh’s position.
The thief moved quickly but silently through the vegetation to get behind the orcs Chuck and Felicia engaged. But before he could reach them, the creatures that had been felled by the now dispersed noxious cloud were regaining their feet. Discarding any sense of chivalry, he struck at the vulnerable backs of the creatures before they could add their numbers to the fight.
He struck two of the orcs down in rapid succession, but the remaining two regained their feet and turned to fight him as their two companions fell. Chase blocked the swing of the first orc with his dagger and sent Biter whistling around in an arc, cutting deeply into the sword arm of his attacker. He saw the incoming blow of the second orc out of the corner of his eye and tumbled nimbly away, sprang to his feet, spun back around, and thrust Biter into the belly of the wounded orc that thought to try to catch him on the ground.
The first orc charged him in hopes of catching him in a vulnerable position, but an arrow through its throat brought it down. Chase looked to his right and saw Chuck and Felicia running toward him, leaving nothing but bodies behind them. He looked over to the left flank and watched Phil and Josh finish off the two Gabe had immobilized.
“Come on! I think that was just a scouting party. We need to get out of here!” Felicia warned the group.
As if in answer to her warning, a horn sounded, long and low in the distance to the northwest. Phil and his sister retrieved as many of their spent arrows as they could before dashing after the rest of their small party.
Without comment, the group retrieved their horses, which thankfully had not spooked during the battle, and made haste toward the nearby mountains to the northeast. Unfortunately, the trail they followed turned due north before turning slightly west in the direction of the enemy force, which required them to take a slower, cross-country route.
“Is everyone all right, any injuries?” Gabe inquired as he pushed through the ferns and brush.
“I took one in the shoulder. Hurts like hell, but it’s not bleeding,” Josh answered, wincing at the pain his arm movements caused.
“I got cut kind of deep just above my thigh guard, but I tied a rag around it for now,” Chuck replied, his adrenaline masking any pain for the moment.
“Let’s stop for a second so I can take care of the injuries,” Gabe said, breathing hard.
Chuck shook his head. “I’m fine; we gotta put some distance between us and those orcs.”
“You bleeding out until you weaken will slow us down even more. Let me do something about it. It will only take a second,” Gabe insisted doggedly.
“He’s right,” Phil interjected. “We’ll make better time if you’re not injured, and if they do catch us, we’ll need our full strength.”
“All right, let’s be quick though.”
Gabe looked at Chuck’s wound first. It was a deep wound and bled profusely.
“Whoa, I didn’t think it was that bad,” Chuck said as Gabe uncovered his wound.
The cleric prayed softly, his hand taking on an ethereal glow as the wound stopped bleeding and closed, leaving a faint red scar where the deep gash had just been.
“Ok, Josh, you next,” Gabe called out.
“It’s ok, I can run just fine.”
“But can you fight at a hundred percent? C’mon, let me see it.”
Josh reluctantly did as he was told, but pressed Gabe to hurry. Gabe placed his hand over Josh’s wounded shoulder and repeated his healing prayer. The deep bruise and pain that lay unseen under the pauldron dissipated and Josh was able to move it without pain once again.
“Ok, now let’s go,” he ordered as he rolled his shoulder about.
The group set out at a brisk jog, trying to put some distance between them and their pursuers. Exhaustion began to set in and forced them to a fast walk, but even that pace became torturous to maintain for long. Only the blaring of the horns behind them kept them moving, their clarion calls slowly but surely gaining ground as they neared the base of the lofty mountain range.
The grey granite walls of the towering mountain range loomed before them, tall and imposing. Only the hard, nearly sheer barrier of stone lay before them, with no sign of a way through. They followed the cliff face east for over a mile before a narrow passage opened into the impassable rock wall.
“I think this may be the gap Brody marked on the map,” Phil pointed out.
“This is the gap? Madonna’s got a wider gap in her front teeth than this,” Chase commented sarcastically.
Felicia took charge and directed her friends. “Grab your packs. We’ll release the horses here and head through on foot. Brody said it gets even worse farther on.”
They strapped on their backpacks, removed the horses bridles, and gave them a hard slap on the rump. The horses, glad to be free and rid of their burden, galloped off into the woods away from the humans and the oncoming orc horde.
The blast of a horn not far behind them spurred the group on through the narrow breach. The fissure was so constricting, they could reach out and touch both walls at times. The shouts and presumed curses of the orcs reverberated through the gap and were getting closer while the pass got narrower and the ground rockier. The fear of the fissure closing off completely, trapping them in its confines with the murderous creatures behind them was paramount in everyone’s mind. Just around the next bend, the passage ended in a tumble of rock rising high above them.
Josh scanned the jumbled wall of stone. “We’ll have to climb!”
Phil, the more experienced climber, took the lead while his sister brought up the rear. The narrow gap looked to have suffered a major rockslide sometime in the recent past. Although it was not a cliff, the way was steep, long, and precipitous. The shifting stones made the ascent quite treacherous. Within minutes of beginning their climb, they saw the first orcs charging toward the base of the landslide and start climbing up after them.
Felicia turned her back to the wall, drew her bow, and selected a few of the wooden arrows. She sent a shaft streaking into the lead orc, causing it to fall into the one just behind it and knocking them both away from the rock face. Both creatures fell several feet before rolling to the bottom. She sent two more arrows into the remaining orcs and turned about to resume her climb, but a stone shifted under her feet and she began to slide back down the mountain.
“No!” her brother cried, as he looked below him, watching as his sister slid rapidly down the scree-covered face and into waiting arms of orcs quickly filling the gap below.
The orcs shouted in anticipation of getting their clutches on the human about to drop into their midst, as if the gods themselves were presenting them with a gift from the sky. Felicia dug her fingers deeply into the stones, scrabbled for
purchase, and arrested her descent just yards above the milling, shouting orcs. Several orcs started to climb up in hopes of pulling the human girl down to them. The first one up caught an arrow in the face for his trouble. Phil screamed in rage and released arrows at any monster that tried to go near his sister. Chase added his crossbow to the fray, further discouraging any attempt to reach Felicia as she slowly began to climb back up to her friends.
Ted and Gabe knew that the archers could not hold the tide of monsters back for long and conspired to devise a plan. “Hold your arrows, guys. Gabe and I will slow them down!”
Gabe was already casting, and a wall of spinning blades appeared, cutting right across the path of the orcs trying to climb up. The whirling wall of blades immediately cut down several orcs as they tried to climb the slope after the fleeing humans and dissuaded any others from following.
Ted launched a sphere of flame that expanded into a massive ball of fire as it reached the horde of orcs below. The sudden conflagration reduced a dozen or more of the foul creatures to cinders due them packing themselves so thoroughly in the rocky cleft.
Scores of others broke and ran from the passage that promised nothing but horrible death should they continue to press their assault. Chase climbed down to help Felicia the rest of the way up to where they waited. She paused to look back, and saw that the orcs had not been completely routed. They hung back around a bend in the large fissure, waiting for the humans to press on before following.
“Gabe, can you make another one of those blade walls again?” Ted asked.
Gabe shook his head and breathed deeply. His pale face showed the toll that the powerful spell had taken on him. “No, I don’t think so. Not without rest.”
“Do what you can for Felicia, and then get everyone moving again. I’ll hide and slow them down when they try to follow,” Ted offered bravely.
Phil insisted, “I’ll stay too. You’re not an experienced climber and might need my help. Plus, I can help hold them off with my bow. Felicia, once you get to the top throw us down a rope so we can climb back up faster.”
Felicia promised she would and dug out the rope Phil carried in his pack so she could add it to her own once they gained the top. Gabe applied his healing touch, easing the many bruises, scrapes, and sprains she suffered in her rough slide down the slope. All save Phil and Ted began ascending the mountain face once again.
Ted and Phil took cover behind a large boulder and watched as the orcs started filtering out from behind their cover soon after Gabe’s wall of blades wore off. Ted sent several crimson missiles into the first few orcs attempting to venture back toward the slope. The magical assault sent them running back behind the concealing bend in the passage.
“Save your arrows for any that get past my spells. I’ll tell you when,” Ted advised as a huge number of orcs piled into the gap down below.
Phil trusted his friend’s judgment and saved his arrows for when they were most needed. There were far more orcs than he had arrows anyway. The orcs decided a full frontal assault was required, trusting their superior numbers to overwhelm the wizard’s magical offensive.
Ted unleashed another ball of fire into the center mass of orcs, devastating their numbers as they tried to gain the slope. Even before the burning sphere reached its target, he started another incantation. Several seconds after the fireball erupted into the mass of orcs, a wall of flames erupted from the ground directly beneath the lead orcs and sent their burning bodies rolling back into the arms of those behind them.
“Let’s go, those flames won’t burn for long,” Ted said, urging Phil to climb.
Phil slung his bow, and both young men climbed upwards as fast as they could. A couple hundred feet ahead and above them, they could see the rest of the group nearing the precipice. Ted chanced a glance down below and saw that his wall of fire was rapidly diminishing and would be out in the next few seconds, allowing the orcs to pursue them once again.
He paused in his climbing and began casting another spell, already feeling the exhaustion from so many castings in such a short amount of time. A hundred yards below him, thick strands of web blanketed a huge swatch of the steep slope.
“That should slow them down considerably, and last a lot longer than the flame wall did,” he told Phil, who had also paused once he noticed his friend had stopped climbing.
The pair started climbing again as a rope dropped down within their reach. They thankfully grabbed the rope, stood upright, and used their legs to brace against the loose, rocky slope. They walked up the last two hundred feet of the steep gradient, pulling themselves hand over hand up the rope. Phil and Ted dropped in exhaustion just on the other side of the peak as Josh, Chuck, and Chase hurled large stones over the edge at the orcs stubbornly trying to advance up the craggy face.
Gabe and Felicia helped the pair up and over the summit before hurling their own missiles down the rock face. Their progress thwarted by the blockading sticky webs and ceaseless barrage of hurled stones, the orcs finally decided that their quarry was not worth the effort and further cost in lives. They fled back down the slope and out of the narrow gap to renew their harassment of human towns and villages as their master had commanded them. The significant reduction in their numbers would make their choices of targets much slimmer, however.
The party rested at the summit of the avalanche under the granite, sheer-sided walls looming imposingly hundreds of feet over their heads. They watched the pass for another hour until deciding the orcs had given up and would not be returning anytime soon. The party struggled across the uneven footing, the path being no more than a mass of fallen stone some two hundred feet deep and a half-mile long. It took nearly an hour to traverse that relatively short distance before they were able to climb down the far side where the gap resumed its upward climb, higher into the forbidding mountains.
Scouting ahead, Phil found a deep draw hidden behind an outcropping of rock that would make a good place to set up camp for the night and get some much-needed rest. The narrow draw opened up into a cul-de-sac where the tall rock walls provided protection from the cold, biting wind continuously blowing through the narrow gap.
They crowded into one tent to eat the dried meat and fruit the rangers had provided, and made tea over a can of gelled camping fuel the twins had packed. The small, hot flame and the press of bodies made for a warm respite despite the rapidly dropping temperature.
Once they finished eating, they split up into two tents, shed their armor, and crawled into their sleeping bags. Ted stayed up and studied his book of spells for a time by candlelight before drifting off to sleep himself. Phil let the wizard sleep and pulled both his and Ted’s watch shift, knowing he was exhausted and needed sleep more than he did.
CHAPTER 8
By the time the sun peaked over the mountains, Drew was thoroughly exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to stop and sleep, but he knew he had to press on.
There must be a human village or town somewhere. All I need to do is find one, and I’ll be safe. I can stay there until Chase and the guys find me, he thought to himself.
So he kept walking, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other long after fatigue demanded he stop and rest. The forest rose high above his head, the scent of pine filled the air, birds chirped, and insects buzzed around him. Any other time, this would be a peaceful paradise, if it were not for the bloodthirsty snow demons and evil, kidnapping goblins.
His ears detected a new sound up ahead. The sudden syncopation put him instantly on alert, but he quickly calmed down as he identified the sound as nothing more than the flowing water of a stream or small river. The anticipation of fresh water drew him forward but he remained alert as he approached the waterway. A deer was drinking from the stream as he emerged from the trees, but it bolted as he neared.
He watched the animal bound away into the woods before kneeling down and scooping handfuls of fresh water into his mouth. He emptied the stale water from the skin he had taken from the goblin camp
and refilled it from the brook. His body welcomed even this short respite, so he decided to sit on the bank with his back propped against a fallen log and rest a moment.
When he next opened his eyes, grey clouds had moved in and blotted out the sun. He could just discern the faint glowing disc of the sun and saw it had moved considerably westward since he sat down.
Drew’s body vehemently protested the prospect of moving once again, but he forced it to comply. He decided his best chance of finding the nearest thing resembling civilization would lie next to a waterway. The stream he followed was rather small. The widest he had seen it so far was no more than fifteen feet across, but he hoped it might grow larger or act as a tributary to a major river.
He knew from geography and history class that earlier civilizations built the majority of their towns and cities along waterways. The rivers provided fish and transportation for people and trade goods. His education proved its value as the sun was beginning to set and he saw the outline of what appeared to be buildings in the distance. The exhausted boy approached the small town, first with eagerness, then trepidation as the wind shifted and brought the smell of smoke to his nostrils. It was not the clean smell of stove or oven smoke, but the stale scent of burned timber. The smell brought back the memory of a house that had burned down last year just a block from his home. He could smell it for days after the fire had been put out. He soon saw that his fears had been correct as he neared the former logging town. Drew hid behind a tree and scanned the remains of the small village for a time, but the setting sun quickly made it too dark to see. He listened a while longer, but heard nothing beyond the rippling current of the stream and the chirping of crickets.
By the light of the nearly full moon, he probed through the buildings’ charred remains. He wondered where all the people had gone. There were no bodies, thankfully, and he wondered if they had fled before they destroyers had come. Drew did pass the carcasses of a few animals, dogs mostly, but those of goats and sheep as well. They gave off a strong odor of death, but did not show significant signs of decomposition he could discern in the wan light.
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