by Xander Jade
While Sam was recalling the events of the first battle, Sophia calmed down enough to listen and breathe normally. She took up the conversation for the second battle, "We followed Max and his crew here and eventually to the orc camp. We talked him into letting us participate and get some revenge on the fuckers. There had to be over fifty of them, and Max had us surround the camp, but listen for his signal. How do you suppose the battle went? Any of you can answer."
Hank: All-out battle, numerous casualties.
James: Our pack took most of them out with the help of the siba and kodiak.
Carl: Our pack took care of everything without help.
Sophia couldn’t help herself, she busted out laughing. The three males were confused by her behavior. When Sophia calmed down, she explained the rest of the scene to the idiots. "No, Max himself went straight up to the camp with his glorious muscles and toned body. The fifty or so orcs didn’t know how to act, they just stood up with their weapons out. He gave them an ultimatum, answer his questions truthfully, or one of them dies until he gets to the last one. They didn’t answer his questions at first; but after he swiped one’s head off with his claws, and stepped on two more heads crushing them with his feet, they started answering."
James stated, "I call bullshit! No way, I don’t believe he did all that by himself!"
Sophia took a deep calming breath and continued, "Yes, at that point Max was annoyed, he had us move up to surround them, with Reaper and Hercules. The orcs scattered when they heard our growls, so half of them fled. We took care of them within minutes, so Max brought us up into the camp. At this point, Max asked who the second in command was. When someone pointed him out, he ripped the head off of the leader and threw his head and body to the ground. He got the intel he needed and let us kill the rest. Now we are here about to clean this nest out. People are prisoners in there, and we need to get them out.
James smirked, "See, I told you the pack took care of business. He couldn’t have done it himself."
Sam replied, "You don’t understand anything do you? Max did it this way because it would have less casualties. There wasn’t any wounded on our side. He is a great leader! You three could learn a few lessons from him. He is wise for one to be so young." They laughed at her remarks, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was looking for Max, and couldn’t locate him. "Alpha, where is our hero? I can’t seem to find him." All five of them scanned the area looking for the triple threat. The only thing they saw was the rest of the pack waiting and whispering by the entrance to the mine. They went over to see what the commotion was.
"What’s going on here?" Sophia questioned.
"Alpha, your companions have entered the mine, without reinforcements." One of the weres replied.
She was concerned, how come they went inside without them? "Well, let’s go, but quietly."
"No alpha, look at the door, it is welded shut. They sealed themselves in, and it looks like only a mage can enter or exit." They all were murmuring now and the three amigos had worried looks on their faces.
Sophia’s anger came back with a vengeance, "If he doesn’t come out alive and well, I’ll kill you three slowly. Do you understand my vow?" They paled, but nodded.
***
Strolling through the caves in the damp darkness, since we all had night vision it wasn't difficult to see as my companions and I came to a fork. Reap and Herc tried to get the scent of the humans that were trapped and came to a conclusion that the tunnel on the right was where the prisoners were kept. We went down the left tunnel to find the others deep into the mine. An hour later we came to a stop deep into the earth. Looking around we saw the trails where the railcars move into the earth. Damn, I can’t even count how many different places that these fuckers could be. We kept going, watching for signs of movement, and finally heard some hissing and growling. Our group stopped and hid behind some mining cars, waiting for the creatures to show themselves. Five minutes later, two of the fuckers showed their faces going away from us. We were about to go after them, but suddenly, two more of the wens came out of different access tunnels to start coming towards us. SHIT!! There are four of these fuckers down here.
‘I believe our intel was wrong. We will have to improvise, let’s watch their movements for a little while to see if there is a pattern.’ Reap suggested and we nodded.
Thirty minutes later, we had it figured out. The duo decided to take two at a time, silently if possible. We got out of our hiding places and moved into the positions assigned, waiting for the chance to strike. The wens came around the curve where the three of us were hidden. As they walked past us, we got out and moved in behind them. Reap and Herc were like assassins, silently moving with the creatures. When it came time, they grabbed the two wens by their necks, and broke them. They threw the bodies on the floor beside me and I punched my clawed hands in and pulled their hearts out. I threw the organs down to the ground and willed my hands to produce fire. Within seconds the hearts burst into flames, so I took my axe out and cut the heads off of the two dead wens, just to make sure.
Awesome, I didn't have to say the word to activate. Sigmis congratulated me, and after two agonizing minutes the hearts were ash.
We backtracked to the other two, waiting for the right time to pounce. These two were a little bit bigger, but we took care of them the same way. When the deed was done, we laid the bodies beside each other, and I burned them to ashes. We stayed down there for another thirty minutes to see if anymore would show up, but all we heard was silence. We retraced our steps back to the fork and started walking down to the prisoners. After about ten minutes the smell hit us. It was like a privy that hasn’t been cleaned in years, the stench was downright nasty. I noticed the first sign of movement, and stopped my crew. We crouched and waited for the nasty bugger to come back our way. It didn’t take them long, so we moved up to cut it off. We took it out easily, and went to find the others. Another one was found off to the right, so we took him out. That’s six, but I have a feeling we were lied to, and I made my concern known.
‘I think the douchebag set us up. That’s already six we have taken out, bet there has to be more.’
‘I will concede to that, we will need to be careful,' Herc answered. "I can hear noises coming from down the corridor we are in.’
‘Let’s go, but quietly," Reap replied.
We walked onward further into the mine and I finally heard the noises. We stopped outside a massive door that was conveniently cracked open. We looked in and the scene was horrifying. I lost count on how many cages were stacked two high and what looked like a mile long. (I was exaggerating) We found our dead skin evil doers too, I located them spread across the room, counting four of them. I relayed the info to Reap and Herc, but advised them I needed to try and find the rangers. They nodded and I scanned the room to find any outfits that was easily recognizable. Shit, the fuckers miscalculated how many they had captured too. There had to be way over four hundred beings in here: humans, dwarves, elves, weres, amazons, gnomes, and different sort of creatures in separate cells. They had everyone else packed into the secured cells, while they guarded from escape. It took me a little bit but found some people I recognized, and my face fell at locating Will and his company. Let’s hope we can get them out alive.
‘I have located the rangers, and it’s worse than we thought. They have Will and his company.’
‘Very disturbing news, that means there may be others that we know are stuck in here,’ Reap said. I nodded still trying to wrap my mind around this situation.
‘I found numerous people unconscious, probably mages knocked out, or weres.’
‘Good observation, Max,' Herc praised. 'Let’s move in carefully and hopefully unnoticed.’
‘Let’s see if we can do some recon, I’ll go in and let you know when to come in.’
They nodded and I squeezed through the door, the stench got way worse. It got to the point of almost retching, I crouched, then moved carefully around and behind the c
ages. People were stunned and shocked to say the least. I put my hand up to silence them, and they shut their mouths. The further I got into the room, the more people I came upon. There might be more than I first thought. Shaking my head to concentrate before the jackasses find me. Finally, I came up behind the cage I was looking for and walked to the cage to find numerous people looking at me with every kind of emotion that I could think of. I found the person I wanted to speak to already waiting for me. The light was blocked behind the cages, so it was dark, and he didn’t recognize me.
"Who are you? Are you helping these fiends?" Will growled. "When we get out I will come after you and your kind." I couldn’t help but snicker at his words and hope the wens didn’t hear me. "Why are you laughing, come over here, and we’ll give you something to laugh about."
At this point, his whole company was beside him, ready for any altercation. I decided to put them out of their misery and spoke to them.
"Will, how the hell did you get yourself captured? I thought you were better than that."
He looked at my shadow trying to figure out who I was. I didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes to see if he would try. Finally, one of his company helped him out.
"Max, is that you?" the voice asked hesitantly.
"I see someone remembers my manly voice."
My voice had gotten deeper, and my body had changed a lot with the release of my magic. My hair had gotten longer, but it changed color from black to a reddish brown. My eyes went from blue to a deep orange with specks of yellow flowing through them. Brown outlined the corneas instead of white, it was a sight to see for sure. I came into the light and they suddenly backed up tripping over themselves.
Will looked at me and shook his head, "Damn Max, what the hell happened to you? How are you here?"
"No time for chit chat, I need some things answered quickly. How many do they have guarding you?"
"Five of those things are making sure we are playing nice," someone said.
"How long have you been here? How many people are here? Estimation. Is there anyone here that we know?
"We've been here a few months, after you dropped those slavers off. Estimation is over 400 and yes, I believe some are here from Oakenshore." Will replied. Shit! I shook my head at that statement.
"Now, answer my question, how the hell did you find us?"
"I’m here, let’s leave it at that. Where are the Oakenshore people?"
He pointed to a cage nearby, so I made my way over dreading to see who got captured. I recognized him immediately, staying with me all those weeks. I came near the cage and his guards broke into action protecting their lord.
"Step away fiend, before you anger us," one of the guards growled.
I chuckled softly at his threat, "Hey, dumbass, your behind bars. I’m on the outside looking in." He took offense to my statement.
"Max, is that you?" I walked up to the cage and he grasped my hand.
"Gordon, it’s good to see you. I don’t think this room is up to your station standards, you might want to talk to the owner." He laughed at my joke.
"Man, it’s good to see you, but you need to get out and get help. These fiends have killed numerous people trying to escape. They are hard to kill, you won’t have a chance by yourself. Go to Oakenshore and get my father to bring his army. They have slavers coming to get us."
I nodded and responded with, "I know, I found out earlier tonight. That’s why I’m here, though I didn’t know you were captured."
"We need for you to get some help, if I heard correctly, they have more of the creatures deeper into the mine. You will die if you don’t get out of here," Gordon emphasized in pleading manner.
"I’m not going anywhere without releasing these people."
His guard sneered, "You idiot, he just told you that you will die, but you’re staying here. We need an army to get out of here!"
I smiled at the ungrateful guard, "Thank you for the kind words sir and your concern, but don’t worry about me. Gordon, good to see you, I’ll be back in a bit." I walked away back towards Will. When seeing him I advised, "Will, all hell is about to break loose, keep everyone to the back of the cages." He nodded but could tell he didn’t know what was about to happen. That’s okay, because I don’t either. I made my way back to Reap and Herc, to give them the news and make a plan.
‘Will and his people told me there were five guarding the four hundred or so prisoners, oh, and Gordon is in there too.’
‘It’s alright, we’ll get them out. There’s no way to do this quietly. We’ll just have to use brute strength.’ Herc replied. I nodded and got a crazy idea.
‘What if we use the door for the first couple? I bang on it and when it sticks its head out you grab them. The other one close by should come to investigate and we grab them too.’
‘Sounds like a plan. Let’s do it.’ Reap growled, reveling in the thought of the upcoming fight. I went over and peaked in so see where the wens were. Two were near the door, one at 50 ft. to the left, and the second was about 75 ft. to the right. I stepped back, got my nerves under control and slowly raised my hand in the air. I made a fist, moved it down quickly, and banged on the door. The sound was it made was echoing down the tunnel and I chuckled softly when everything in the cavern behind the door went silent.
I heard two raspy voices in the silence, "What was that?"
"Sounds like something hit the door, must’ve been a fallen stalactite or something." Really? It sounded like these idiots were lazy. I made them come open the door, when I banged on the door again three times.
"Go check it out!"
I took my dagger out when I saw the nearest one coming over. He moved the door some to stick his head out to look and see where the noise was coming from. He gazed around the tunnel until he saw me, then hissed; but before he could yell out Herc stuck his paw out, and grabbed it by the throat. He pulled it out of the doorway, slammed it on the ground, and slashed across its throat. He gestured to me for my part, then Reap and Herc went back to the door and got into place for his accomplice. I quickly carved the heart out and threw it on the floor of the tunnel. I paused to listen for any movement, but didn’t hear anything, so I lit the organ on fire. The light it caused was minimal, so I got back in position, and watched the flaming heart turn to ash. It wasn’t long before the wens compadre, called out.
"Dante, you there?" It came over to investigate, but stopped just inside the door. "Answer me you freaking moron!" No response came and the second one pushed the massive door open making a terrible screeching noise. Well, there goes any hope of sneaking up on the others. The wen looked straight out and came face to face with two massive creatures.
The only thing heard was ‘Shit!’ before growling and hissing, echoed through the cavern. Reap grabbed it by the neck and cut its throat out with his claws. The wendigo hissed and gurgled out blood. I took my axe out and cut the head off of the hideous creature. The body fell over and Herc pushed it towards me so I could cut the heart out. I did it quickly and turned it to ash. All that happened in a matter of minutes, but our cover had been blown.
‘Stay back for a moment, I’m going to see if I can get them both to come at me, then you two cut them off their path.’ They agreed, I walked in and quickly found the other two wens staring at me. One that was about nine ft. tall, with a fat belly, and gangly teeth. The other one was shorter, bones sticking out of the skin, and rotten teeth. Fugly creatures, looks like they haven’t been outside in years. Those who were conscious cried out for help, but I didn’t pay attention to them.
"Who are you?"
"Don’t concern yourself with that. I don’t want to know your name, so you don’t need to know mine." The taller one hissed at me and the smaller one was laughing maniacally.
"Leave now, and live. Stay, and die." T said. (I’m calling the tall one T and the small one S. Ha!)
"Well, T, that was… ominous."
S not to be left out, decided to get in on the conversation. "Where ar
e our brothers? You, human, couldn’t possibly be able to defeat them."
I chuckled and replied, "They’re dead, just like the other six we came upon in our frolic through your mine." Gasps filled the cavern from the prisoners, but outrage was the emotion that came from the wens.
T growled out, "You will die slowly, little one. I will peel your skin off one section at a time while you’re still alive!"
"Hmmm… Sounds tempting, but I’ll pass. Why don’t you tell me why you have all these people?"
T bellowed with laughter, "You don’t need to know, today is the last you will breathe."
He turned and yelled something incoherent to the back of the cave. I heard a boom, and the ground started to tremble. Shit, something big is coming. A few moments later, a huge wendigo walked into the light. I mean he had to be at least 12 ft. tall, scars all over its body, and black hair in a ponytail. The creature’s head was cut up, eye sockets sunk in, and rotten tusks hanging out of its mouth. It reminded me of an orc, so I’ll conveniently name it a wendigorc. I chuckled to myself, definitely not the time to be making jokes. Screams of terror brought me back to reality. Evidently, these people have never seen a 12 foot tall orc before. Damn, get a grip people. ... Actually, it was massive, I couldn’t say that it wasn’t intimidating.
T turned to me and smugly said, "Little human, meet Ogg. He will be your tour guide for the rest of the evening."
I smiled, took a deep breath and replied, "No thanks, the service in here sucks. I really don’t like what you did with the place. If you would please send me a refund, I would appreciate it."
"Ah, the snarky comments before you die. I’ve heard it numerous times before, go ahead, and say something irrelevant. It’s not like you’re leaving this place alive. Ogg, say hello." T casually said. Ogg had a club the size of a large tree trunk in his hand and roared. Damn, that looks like it will hurt a little bit. I was trying to mentally prepare myself when shouts came from behind me.