Danny looked around wildly as he tried to figure out how best to explain the situation. Finally, he went with, “I have been working on something, but I can’t move from this spot or use any mana.”
Ivy just stared at him for a few contemplative seconds before yelling out, “Form up everyone! We have to protect Danny while he gets us out of here!” Turning to the dwarf, she added, “Dain, try to clear some of this rubble so we have enough room to move around safely.”
Dain, for once, didn’t argue with the girl and got to work. Danny gritted his teeth as he settled down into a crouch. His head still ached something fierce, but adrenaline was now pumping, and he was getting somewhat more used to the pain.
With the wall at their back, Brooke stood between Danny and the oncoming goblins. Those who were first to enter had slowed down, waiting for more numbers before proceeding. Ivy took up Brooke’s right side and Jade her left.
As the girls moved into position, Danny asked Jade, “I need a weapon. Can you find me one?”
Jade looked briefly around before running a few meters away and returning with a crude spear. She no sooner handed it to him than the first of the goblins attacked.
Brooke’s shield flew out and met the first in the charge head on. Two goblins were thrown backwards and crashed into those behind them. Ivy and Brooke rushed around her and quickly thrust their blades into the collapsed tangle of goblin bodies. Blades of ice and wind quickly cut them into pieces. Spears flew from the rear, and the two girls ducked back behind the protection of Brooke’s shield.
The whole while, Dain ran past Danny to pick up the largest stones that could threaten the girls’ footing.
The mass of goblin flesh pushed forward again, and the three teenage girls did their best to hold it back. With her tower shield firmly planted, Brooke was struggling to fend off the attempted strikes to her feet and legs while blocking any spears from above. Ivy and Jade barely managed to avoid attacks to their exposed arms and sides as they reached around to strike from behind Brooke’s shield.
Phantom leaped from her hiding spot in the nearby debris of the fallen ceiling, attacking the goblins’ flank. The goblins were successfully distracted, and the pressure let off of the girls long enough for them to catch their breath for a few moments.
Phantom was gone as quickly as she had arrived, and even though a few goblins split off to chase after her, the girls were quickly thrown back into the thick of it. Danny had tried attacking with his spear from his crouched and fixed position, but he only managed to briefly trip up Ivy. After receiving a brief glare, he focused on helping Dain finish moving what debris they could reach safely.
It was while he was moving a few loose stones that he noticed his backpack lying there where he had been left while passed out. Someone had placed it under his head like a pillow. The only problem was that it should not have been comfortable at all. Lifting up the pack’s flap in a panic, Danny quickly rummaged around inside with his free hand. Finding it empty, he visibly paled.
Danny yelled to be heard over the sounds of screaming goblins and clashing weapons, “Dain, where is my stuff that was in this backpack?”
Dain looked up and was distracted by something over Danny’s shoulder. Looking back, Danny watched as a hobgoblin shaman who had managed to climb onto the collapsed wall cast a curse at them. The entropy magic flew across and splashed against Brooke’s shield. The metal warped and corroded, but held.
Ivy turned to Jade, “Can you reach the shaman?”
Jade just frowned and shook her head. Her mana was too low.
Danny hesitatingly turned back to the now incredulous look on Dain’s face, and the dwarf answered, “I don’t think whatever you lost, boy, is really important right now. Unless it was a weapon that could save our asses.”
Danny held up the empty backpack, “Yes, there was something we could have potentially used. Where is the second bag that was in here?”
Dain shrugged, “Everything was still in there when I moved you against the wall.”
Danny looked around the room in terror, completely forgetting the goblins attacking not two meters away from him. He knew that this was not a good sign.
A shadow crossed the early morning sun, and the room grew quiet. The goblins that the girls were actively engaged with fell back, and none of the other goblins were in a hurry to press forward to take up their places.
The troll that had knocked the hole in the wall returned and now lifted another boulder over his head. Danny panicked trying to yank his hand out of the root’s grip, but to his horror, the root grew thicker and in the process pulled him closer to the ground.
As the troll hurled the massive stone at them, Danny realized that even if he had been able to, there would have been no time for him to move out of the way. The rock easily flew over the retreating goblins and headed dead center for where Danny fruitlessly struggled on the dirty stone floor.
The light of the room visibly darkened. The approaching boulder seemed to grow in size as it eclipsed the sunlight streaming inside. Before the boulder could reach him, though, a red light blazed to life as Brooke held her mace aloft behind her head. Her entire arm was awash in red light like like a pillar of fire, and her mace was a now a small sun.
Danny could only watch in some strange physically dislocated way as Brooke’s blindingly red mace flew forward and parted the approaching boulder like it was made of butter.
The boulder glowed for a second before exploding outward. Molten hot debris flew either outward to her sides or right back toward the goblins and the troll.
Brooke let out a relieved sigh, as she smiled back over her shoulder, saying, “Glad I saved some mana for an emergency.”
Anything the rest of the group could have said would have been drowned out by the screams of pain that now filled the room. Uncursed goblins, lucky enough to still be alive, were coated in the remains of the boulder and were frantically trying to remove the steaming pieces from their bodies. The troll had been hit as well, but it just stood there as its flesh began to smoke and cook. A few cursed and uncursed goblins caught fire, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. The shaman who had made it up onto the wall had been struck in the head and had fallen to its death on the floor below. At the shaman’s death, the troll and the cursed goblins immediately turned on the uncursed goblins and each other. The troll’s behavior quickly became increasingly violent and unpredictable. Goblins ran screaming from the courtyard as the troll chased after them. More than a few goblins tried to find safety in the remains of the great hall, but Brooke and Jade quickly rushed to dispatch any survivors.
“Danny, this is our chance to get out of here. Let’s go while we can,” Ivy urged him as she tried to help him up.
Danny tried pulling on the root, but as expected, it held firm. Now that the pain in his head was not so severe, he could concentrate enough to manipulate his mana. Danny new he could easily override, Cranny’s control if he wanted to, but his other half’s warnings gave him pause.
Jade yelled from near the wall, “Hey, the troll’s coming back this way!”
*Cranny, we need to go. What are you doing?* Danny tried one last time.
To Danny’s surprise, Cranny replied, *I’m done! We don’t have to be connected to the sacred tree anymore.*
The root holding Danny’s hand released him, and he let Ivy help him stand up. Rubbing his sore wrist, Danny said, “Alright, I am finished. Let’s go.” Reaching down, he grabbed his crude spear, hoping his staff skills might be somewhat transferred.
Before the rest of the group even started moving toward the collapsed wall, Jade jumped down from her perch as a large figure loomed behind her. The now burned and blood-covered troll was back, and it looked as if it wasn’t completely out of control anymore. It reached out and kicked over the rest of the wall with one foot. As the wall collapsed, it sent out a plume of dust that quickly obscured the group’s vision.
*Oh crap, I completely forgot about the trolls…* Crann
y bemoaned.
*What is that supposed to mean?* Danny said worriedly.
*It means you need to figure out how to kill it with what little mana we are regenerating,* Cranny replied, unhelpfully.
“It’s inside,” yelled Jade, somewhere ahead.
Ivy was still next to him, and she yelled back, “Stay out of its reach, but keep it busy.” Turning to Danny, she asked, “Can you do anything about it? I thought you were cooking something up?”
Danny was starting to panic, having hedged everything on Cranny coming up with something amazing. Shaking his head, Danny admitted, “It wasn’t for this. Maybe if I had more time.” Danny’s magic was recovering, but it was still only enough to cast a few low-powered spells. He would either have to get creative, or bide for time.
*Cranny, I am going to use Nature Affinity and merge with the sacred trees.*
Cranny’s reply was immediate, *No! I already told you to leave it alone. I am still using the tree! It should be done soon.*
*I thought you said you were already done? And what is this ‘it’ you are talking about?* Danny asked with barely concealed anger.
The dust still hadn’t settled, and it freaked out Danny more than anything else that he still couldn’t see the massive troll. Danny could hear Jade taunt the troll from one side of the room, while Brooke yelled from the other.
“We can’t keep this up forever,’ Brooke yelled out.
Phantom growled somewhere up ahead as the Troll hollered in pain.
Danny could finally make out Ivy next to him, and she was busy loading her crossbow. Ivy yelled back, “Just keep him busy!”
Cranny answered Danny’s earlier question, *I can’t go into it right now, but let’s just say it should fix our goblin problem. I just wished I had remembered the trolls… Oh shit, the wolves!*
Danny wanted to tear his hair out, *What the hell did you do, Cranny?*
Ignoring Danny, Cranny added, “Oh, and I had to use the backup seeds as well.”
Danny frantically checked his robes, confirming his last-resort sacred tree seeds were gone. Before Danny could begin the chewing out Cranny deserved, there was the sound of something heavy striking metal and a strangled cry from Brooke.
Jade yelled out, “Uhh, we could use a little help here…”
Ivy finished loading her crossbow just as the dust still floating in the room was swept away. Jade had used her affinity to clear up the air, exposing Brooke’s prone form frantically trying to crawl away from under the troll. Jade’s actions didn’t distract the troll from targeting Brooke, and the troll lifted both hands above its head, preparing to smash Brooke into the ground. Danny spotted Phantom racing over, but he knew the cat wouldn’t make it in time.
The twang of Ivy’s crossbow was followed by the loud bellow of the troll. Ivy had almost missed the troll’s eye, but the bolt burying itself in the inside corner near where Danny could only guess its tear duct should be. The troll dug at its eye, more than likely burying the bolt in further. Jade grabbed Brooke and slowly dragged her away, doing her best not to get them stomped on. Danny used some of his limited magic to send an extra large earthen spike into the troll’s foot. The troll was so disoriented by his eye that the small spike was enough to trip it backwards and over into a large piece of collapsed roof.
Danny fell to one knee as it felt like his blood sugar had suddenly plummeted. His head spun, and his stomach lurched. The dull pounding in his head returned with a vengeance.
Cranny cautioned him, *You are almost empty; we need that mana to live!*
Ivy didn’t waste any time and ran over to the troll, drawing her blade. The young girl jumped from the debris, up one leg, and ran to where the troll was still busy clawing at its eye. Just as she reached the top of the troll’s chest, Ivy jumped into the air. Her arms exploded into a thousand dazzling lights, right before she stabbed her blade into the troll’s neck. The troll’s body jerked, and its hands swept down, knocking Ivy off. Ivy’s body flew across the room and bounced off a bare stretch of floor before slamming into a section of collapsed wall.
Phantom was still healing Brooke, so Jade was the first to reach Ivy, and immediately, she yelled, “She needs healing!”
As Danny stumbled to race across the floor, he watched the troll grabbing for its neck as if there was something it was trying to remove. The troll’s face contorted strangely as it open and closed its mouth multiple times. Despite the trolls efforts no sound or air escaped its lips.
Reaching Jade and Ivy, Danny told Jade, “I got this. Watch the troll!”
Danny knelt down and inspected the girl with harmony magic.
*Danny, let me handle this. You still don’t have a handle on how much to use,* Cranny pleaded.
Danny relented control to Cranny as they continued their examination. Besides the broken ribs, arm, and leg on her right side, Ivy had sustained serious damage to her skull. Ivy wasn’t moving, and her breathing had a liquid quality, synonymous with a punctured lung. Danny knew that if he didn’t hurry, Ivy wouldn’t last much longer. To his relief, Phantom was already there by his side, and her harmony aura leaked out of her body to surround Ivy’s. Cranny used Danny’s magic to control and guide Phantom’s mana to maximize efficiency.
Danny was so wrapped up in healing Ivy that he almost didn’t hear Dain speak up next to him with a relieved sigh, “The troll’s dead, Danny. The brave girl froze its throat shut.”
Danny finished healing Ivy, and while she was still unresponsive, she was at least breathing normally now. Danny stood up and turned to see the dead troll taking up a good eighth of the great hall’s space. Lying down, it somehow looked bigger than when it was standing. Brooke had recovered enough to take up a spear, which Danny assumed she had found on the ground, and stabbed up into the troll’s eye, reaching deep into its brain. Brooke then used her mace like a hammer to drive it home. Danny recognized Brooke’s shield lying on the ground nearby, bent almost in half. The shield was all but useless now.
Jade ran over from scouting the opening, whispering, “Danny, there are only a few goblins in the courtyard and manning the walls. They seem to have completely forgotten about us. I think they are fighting the elves.” Jade held out her hand and in it was a familiar looking arrow.
Danny had Phantom stay with Ivy as he and Jade cautiously approached the opening that now extended all the way to the floor. Outside, there were goblin bodies everywhere. Danny was sure some of this was from when the girls first came through. Wooden fragments of the fortress gate were littered everywhere, and there were weird jagged scorch marks on the southernmost wall. The bodies of a good many goblins sported elven arrows. Based on the condition of many of the goblins’ bodies, many had obviously fallen from the walls.
As Jade had said, only a scattering of goblins cowered behind the walls and parapets. Danny watched as a never-ending river of goblins seemed to be rushing past the opening which had formerly held the fortress’s gate. They were all headed to the south. Even now, arrows rained down, most finding a spot in the goblins’ flesh and causing wounds which assured they could not get back up again.
Brooke walked up next to them, asking, “Where in the elements did they all come from?”
Danny shook his head, replying, “I don’t know, but we need to get Ivy out of here. First, though, I want to check on what is happening to the south with the elves. Jade, can you come with me? Brooke, do you mind watching Ivy?”
Jade nodded her head, while Brooke said, “Of course, but be careful. I didn’t come all this way to get you so you could just fall off a wall and break your neck.”
Danny smiled at her attempt to alleviate the dark mood, “We will be careful.”
CHAPTER 32
Danny was shocked when the goblins cowering behind the walls made no move to attack them when he and Jade stepped out of the remains of the great hall and into the courtyard. The goblins rushing by heading outside, fortunately, paid no attention to anything going on inside the courtyard.
Carefully stepping over corpses and various liquid stains on the ground, Danny and Jade made their way up a hill of debris that had been piled up for use as makeshift ramp. A goblin on the wall seemed to gather up a bit of courage, grabbing its sword off the ground as it prepared to rush the two humans. Seeing one of their kind taking action, a few of the other goblins started to grab their weapons. Then, seconds later, the brave goblin’s head cleared the parapet with an arrow sunk into it. The goblin’s body tipped over sideways and tumbled off the wall to fall on the ground of the courtyard below. The rest of the goblins paused, before dropping their weapons and sitting back down.
Danny and Jade shared a look before crouching down low as they made it up onto the wall. Ivy sat down with her back against the parapet, and Danny followed her example.
”Do you think it is safe to look?” Danny asked in concern.
Jade bit her lip as her emerald eyes seemed to search the courtyard for something in particular. Jade never said anything as she suddenly stood up and quickly glanced over the wall, before immediately dropping back down. A few seconds later, an arrow struck the top of the wall right above their heads.
Danny looked over at Jade with wide-eyed alarm, “I guess that answers that. Were you able to see anything?”
“The elves must all be firing arrows from the trees. There are definitely a lot more elves than just the three scouts you sensed last night. The goblins who have made it to the edge of the forest are all surrounding and trying to climb the trees. They have a few trolls pushing down what trees they can. Past that, I couldn’t see much else,” Jade relayed.
*Cranny, can we use Air Scan to see what else is going on?*
Cranny made an uncomfortable sound before replying, *They are pretty far away, and we won’t be able to see for very long. You only regenerate one thousandth of your mana every thirty minutes. Living with the elves has made us too reliant on our magic. I would wait until something happens before using Air Scan.*
Jade tapped Danny’s shoulder and pointed toward where the fortress’s gate used to be. There was a hazy appearance to the air there. After a few minutes, the haziness turned into visible smoke. The goblins inside the fortress were starting to get agitated.
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