“What’s this, overemotion from an elf?” Lupek teased his friend. Deless looked over to his ranger companion and grinned slightly.
“Keep focused, ranger,” he quipped back. “There are over one hundred fire giants, with twice that many common giants and ogres, and over a dozen dragons in the caves beside the fire giant castle. I count at least four reds, eight blues, twelve greens, and even more blacks. This is a large gathering of chromatics; it will take more than what Eladran Weir has to counter them.
“Eladran can muster a couple of pairs of bronze, copper, and brass dragons as well as Talonth, his mate, and that young silver. They are a formidable force,” Deless continued, “but they are still outnumbered almost six to one with what we can see. We will have to come to their aid when this conglomerated army moves.”
“The beholders are powerful by themselves, and I’m sure there are several sorcerers of notable power, as well as death knights,” Lupek said.
“Wait, what are those creatures?” Deless exclaimed as Lupek quickly focused his lens on strange, multilegged snake-like dragons that were moving with the cavalry.
“They look like a cross between a blue dragon, an alligator, and a snake. I count at least eight small legs, and their bodies end in a short, stubby tail,” Lupek observed. “Can you hear what they are saying?”
“They are calling them ‘behirs.’ Their riders are having a hard time controlling them and are turning to either one of the several sorcerers or the chromatic dragons to threaten them,” Deless said, conveying what his sensitive elvish ears caught from the long distance.
“I wonder what their capabilities are,” Lupek said rhetorically.
“The way they are moving this way, we might find out before we want to,” Deless answered. A squad of orcs was making their way over to the rock outcropping, likely to relieve the orc they killed with a new guard.
“Let’s go, I think our welcome is worn out,” Lupek whispered as he slipped down the backside of the rock, quickly followed by his elf partner. They dashed to the wood line and started to move from concealed position to concealed position. Within a couple of minutes, they heard the clamor from the outcropping as the behirs’ shrill warbling roars announced the presence of intruders. “Looks like our exfiltration will get a little complicated,” Lupek whispered to Deless.
They then heard a crashing of a strange new dragon-like creature entering the sparse woods along with the clang of orc armor and the familiar grunts of their harsh language. As the two were slipping from tree to tree, three manticores flew overhead and began to circle back.
“It looks like we’re going to have to fight through this to make it back to our griffons,” Lupek whispered.
“These woods are too thin to hide or get around them,” Deless agreed.
“We should take out the manticores first, for we can outrun the orcs. As soon as they get above us, you take the lead and trail ones, and I’ll hit the one in the middle,” Lupek said. Deless nodded as he drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it onto the string. Lupek repositioned his hand on his dragonstone-imbedded elf wood javelin, its pointed mithril tip glinting in the sunlight. As the manticores approached barely a hundred fifty feet above the trees, Deless drew his bow and whispered a short incantation, upon which the sapphire dragonstone started to glow and transferred energy into the arrow.
Deless’s arrow started to crackle with electrical power as the lightning bolt spell fused into it. He gave the manticore a small lead, which for the slow-flying beast was not difficult, and fired. The spell-charged arrow streaked through the air and struck the manticore’s enlarged lion-like chest. The evil mount jerked back hard from the impact, let a sharp roar from its grotesque half-lion half-ape head, and then plummeted lifelessly to the ground, its rider frantically trying to loosen the flying straps.
Lupek jumped out from behind the tree and threw the lightning javelin toward the second manticore. It struck the beast on its lower left side, causing it to buckle and spin out of control. Deless quickly drew another arrow as he started another incantation. The arrow started to glisten with frost as he cast an ice ray spell onto it. The third manticore started to bank to the left as it passed over the rangers. Its rider did not know their precise location, but it let loose a volley of six spikes from its tail in their general direction.
Deless swung around as he drew his bow and began to take aim; Lupek jumped in front of him, raising his left arm with the mithril-lined buckler strapped to it, just in time to stop a spike from hitting his elven comrade. Deless loosed the arrow, which had frost vapors coming off of the shaft. It sailed through the air and caught the stubby-winged beast on the underbelly. The ice-empowered arrow instantly froze the manticore almost solid as well as its rider, sending them both hurtling to the ground. When they hit the valley floor, they shattered into thousands of pieces.
Lupek outstretched his left arm, upon which his javelin dislodged from the dead manticore and flew back to his hand. Two orcs then emerged from the brush and charged the rangers. Deless quickly drew an arrow and shot the lead orc in the chest, knocking the chain mail-armored creature off his feet. Lupek drew his scimitar and faced off with the second orc. The rust-colored-skinned orc snarled, revealing his jagged yellow/brown teeth, and raised his battle-axe, swinging down at the ranger. Lupek dodged the pitted axe blade and pinned the back of the weapon down with his javelin. He then swung his scimitar up and cut the orc’s arm off at the elbow. The ranger then spun around, thrust the silvery blade into the orc’s midsection, and then kicked the mortally wounded creature to the ground.
Ten more orcs took off at a dead run at the two rangers. Deless drew an arrow and took aim. Quickly whispering an incantation, he let loose the glowing arrow, which then split into six glowing projectiles, striking six of the charging orcs in the midsections. Those hit were blown back, with their armor or hide smoldering from the magic missile impact. Lupek stuck his javelin in the ground, dropped his scimitar, and quickly drew and threw two knives at the closest orcs, hitting one in the neck and the other in the chest. They both fell to their knees, grasping the knife handles as their grayish black orc blood spurted from the wounds. He quickly picked up his javelin and scimitar and assumed a defensive stance to meet the two remaining orcs moving toward him.
The lead orc raised his sword just as Lupek dropped down and swung his javelin forward, catching the orc in the legs, causing him to be thrown forward by his own momentum. Lupek then raised his scimitar up and to the right to parry the spear of the second orc. In a fluid motion like water flowing around rock, he spun backward, swinging his javelin around and striking the orc in the midsection, doubling him over. He then continued his turn, bringing the curved scimitar down on the orc’s exposed neck below his helmet, easily severing its head.
The first orc had just gotten back on its feet as Lupek thrust his spear, and its pointed mithril tip pierced the orc’s breastplate and flesh like a knife slicing a heavy crusted loaf of bread. The orc dropped its axe and grabbed the shaft of the javelin sticking out of his chest in a vain attempt to pull it out. Lupek moved in, grasped the end of his javelin, and sliced down, cutting the orc’s leg at the upper thigh. As it fell to the ground, he pulled the javelin out of the orc’s chest and moved back to Deless, who lowered his bow.
“What did you think, I couldn’t handle a couple of orcs?” Lupek said, smiling at his elf friend.
“Always have your back, my friend.” Deless looked over to Lupek and gave a rare smile, but his expression immediately went serious as he shouted, “Down; scutelm!” He raised his bow and spoke the elvish word for shield; the sapphire dragonstone glowed and emanated its invisible magic shield, just in time to take a lightning bolt strike. Deless’s screen shuddered with the impact but held.
The behir bellowed a shrill garbled roar from a hundred yards away. “There they are, get the elf vermin,” the Morgathian rider yelled to
the orcs beside the dragon-like creature. The platoon of orcs began to bellow war cries and charge at the rangers. Deless drew an arrow, powered it with a lightning bolt spell, and released it. The electrically charged arrow sped the one-hundred-yard distance in a blink of an eye and struck the behir square in the chest. The arrow deflected off its dull bluish hide and hit in the middle of the pack of orcs. The explosion sent six of them flying through the air, landing on the ground smoldering.
“That was almost a waste of a spell,” Lupek said to Deless.
“I wanted to confirm that these new creatures were immune to electricity, plus I did take out six orcs,” Deless quipped back. “Now if you don’t mind slowing the others down, I want another shot at the creature to see how tough it really is.”
“Just make your shot count, pointy ears!” Lupek yelled back to him as he moved to engage the orcs that were bearing down on them. Deless then drew another arrow, nocked it, and spoke another half-elvish, half-Draconic incantation with a more intense concentration, for he was preparing a powerful disruption spell. Lupek raised his javelin and threw it at one of the orcs in the middle of the group. The javelin impaled a large orc in the lower abdomen and burst with electrical energy, sending out smaller bolts in all directions and hitting eight other orcs nearby. This strike effectively eliminated almost half of the platoon that was bearing down on him.
Lupek then grabbed two daggers from the vest on his mithril-studded leather armor and threw them at the closest orcs, one hitting one in the chest and the other in the shoulder. He then quickly drew his scimitar and a hand axe, wading into the middle of the squad of orc soldiers converging on him. He literally moved right through them, dodging the axe of one while slicing it underneath its armor and hitting another in the knee with his axe. The orcs were clearly taken by surprise at his speed and fluidity in battle, but they wheeled around to face him. He threw the axe at the closest orc, which cut through the leather band on its shoulder and sinking half the blade into its upper chest.
Lupek then outstretched his arm, and his javelin dislodged from the orc it was imbedded in and flew back to his hand. He knew he couldn’t power another lighting bolt strike yet but needed the slender five-foot spear to give him reach against his opponents. There were seven orcs remaining to contend with.
He grasped the javelin at the middle of its shaft and held it tight against his forearm, for he could use both ends as weapons this way. He then moved against two orcs in front of him, parrying their swords with his javelin and scimitar. He then thrust the rear end of his javelin backward, hitting an orc behind him in the chest and knocking it back a couple of feet. With a quick thrust forward, he pierced the orc to his front left through the abdomen with the mithril tip. As the other orc swung his sword at Lupek’s right side, he again parried with his scimitar, forcing the orc’s blade down, then he cut up under the orc’s arm pit and through the upper shoulder, the grayish black blood spurting from the wound.
Another orc managed to move up behind the ranger and thrust a spear at the lower right portion of his back. The spear tip caught Lupek’s studded armor and slightly penetrated it, but he automatically spun to the left to roll away from the impact. Lupek continued to turn around with amazing speed, hitting the orc’s spear with his javelin and following through with his scimitar’s curved blade, slicing the orc’s exposed neck. He kept the momentum of his spin going, swinging the javelin in a wide arc to temporarily keep the remaining five orcs at bay, to prevent them from converging on him.
In the meantime, Deless had drawn another arrow, which was now almost glowing with power after he finished the incantation, and then released it. The golden-brown fletched elf wood shaft sped toward the behir, which was now moving closer to Lupek and the orcs he was fighting. The arrow struck the bluish, multilegged Draconic creature at the base of the neck and immediately turned into a brilliant streak of energy, cutting through it like a searing hot poker. The behir raised its head in a shrill cry of pain and tipped over on its right side, writhing in agony at the gaping wound the disruption spell the arrow delivered.
Not very magic resistant, Deless thought to himself as he quickly drew another arrow and aimed at one of the two orcs that were bearing down on him. He released the arrow, which found its mark in the orc’s face, almost flipping it over. A second arrow, immediately drawn and fired with incredible speed, downed the other orc only five yards away; Deless had to step to the side to avoid the falling creature from hitting him. Lupek killed two more orcs with a quick thrust of his javelin, piercing once orc’s shield and continuing through its chest cavity and slicing the other’s abdomen with his scimitar. The three remaining orcs rushed him, with the smallest one being shoved onto the javelin as a sacrifice. Another was impaled on Lupek’s scimitar, but the third pushed him to the ground. As it raised its axe to deliver a killing blow to the struggling Lupek, an arrow from Deless emerged from the back of the orc’s helmet through its forehead. It fell forward, almost on top of the ranger, who rolled away and then sprang to his feet.
“I guess I have to owe you one, pointy ears,” Lupek said to his comrade in elvish as he secured his javelin and scimitar.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you forget it,” Deless replied.
“We’ll see, but now we have to go,” Lupek said back to him as he looked at the gathering forces that were starting to move toward them. He realized that they would soon be hopelessly outnumbered, so they started to run through the remaining part of the sparse woods back toward the mountain pass to get to their griffon mounts. As they made it through the woods and were running through the boulder-strewn path around the rocky mountain, they could hear the pounding hooves of the Morgathian heavy cavalry stop at the edge of the forest, where it was too rocky for horses to traverse and too narrow for the behirs.
Lupek wondered if they would send a chromatic after them, for once the senior sorcerers and warlords learned that three manticores, a platoon of orcs, and a behir were killed, they would figure that someone of power had been encountered. They might send a dragon to investigate, if anything just for an opportunity for a budding young red or green to show off its power. He knew that all they could do was delay a blue or red. Even a big green or black would give them a very hard time. He quickened his pace, as Deless kept up with him.
They stealthily moved through the rock formations, keeping ahead of the pursuing orcs and out of sight of the aerial patrols of manticores that were flying overhead. The elf-made cloaks definitely aided them in avoiding detection from the manticores and their riders. They moved for several hours around the mountains until they finally came to the rock outcropping and cave where they left their griffons.
The statuesque creatures were nestled inside, still waiting for their masters. Lupek and Deless could tell that they were unsettled, though, in that they could sense their mortal enemies, the manticores, nearby. They moved to their mounts to quickly calm them down. The shallow cave hid them from aerial view, but the orcs would not be too far behind. Deless was starting an incantation as they both mounted and secured themselves in their flying saddles.
“I am preparing the teleportation spell to get us back to the Weir, but it will take a couple of minutes once we are airborne to focus to allow both of us to go. You must be within wingtip distance when I give the mark,” Deless told Lupek as they both waited on their griffons for the manticore patrol to fly around the mountain.
“If we run into trouble, you just go and I will get back the hard way,” Lupek answered.
“No, that would be unwise. First, Captain Mkel told us not to go out; second, you are the ranger platoon leader and therefore too valuable to be left behind. Third, I won’t do it, for you are my friend,” Deless replied.
“Remember, elf or not, I still outrank you, and this information is more important than either one of us. You have a better chance of making it back, so I will run interference for you,” Lupek answered.
“Just keep close and I will get us both home as soon as I can,” Deless said.
“I’ll run cover for you if we encounter anything; let’s go,” Lupek ordered. They urged their griffons forward. The large golden brown feathered mounts stood up on all fours and walked out of the cave, their white feathered heads peered out of the entrance. They separated enough to spread their wings, and with a short sprint and a leap, they were airborne. Griffons were powerful flyers, and they gained altitude rapidly. As they continued to make their way up the narrow valley, a muffled roar came from behind them. A pair of manticores were attempting to pursue them but were several hundred yards behind. They didn’t concern the rangers, since manticores were much slower than griffons and did not possess seeing crystals to call for help.
The manticores were beating their bat-like wings hard in an attempt get within range to use their spikes. Lupek knew that they could only shoot accurately out to fifty or so yards hence why they loosed volleys of six or more at a time. They usually had up to twenty four that grew back rapidly after they were used. Even with the griffons ascending, they would not get to within three times that distance. Their luck then changed as a lone manticore emerged to their front from around one of the steep narrow mountains, heading to intercept them.
Foolish rider, Lupek thought to himself: a lone manticore against two griffons. “Razor Claw, let’s answer his challenge,” he said to his mount. He veered right, away from Deless’s griffon. Razor Claw let out a deep piercing war cry as a challenge to the manticore and stretched out its sharp front talons. The manticore moved to intercept them and raised its spiked tail, bristling with over twenty pointed hollow spikes at the tip. Lupek’s griffon was swerving from side to side so as not to give the manticore a stationary target.
When they closed to less than one hundred yards, the manticore whipped his tail, sending a shower of a dozen or so spikes darting toward the ranger and griffon. The powerful golden wings immediately folded, and they dove hard. One spike hit the griffon on the right rear haunch, causing it to wince from the black thorn, and Lupek stopped another with his buckler. The griffon immediately unfurled its wings and used its downward momentum to shoot back up with a forceful acceleration.
Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow Page 29