by Eric Vall
Luckily, the violent convulsion ripping through the ogre made him drop the mage before the lightning could transfer into his body, too, and I sprinted over to drag the guy out of range as the ogre began to char to his core.
“Get to the infirmary,” I ordered while the mage winced from his effort to stand, and I handed him to a passing Flumen Mage since he clearly couldn’t make it on his own.
The two mages just stared at the electrified ogre for a long moment before they finally turned tail, and Haragh was standing shell shocked when I got back to him.
Then we exchanged a brief glance before he pulled both of his pistols out.
“It’s us or them,” he growled. “Kill ‘em all.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
Big Guy and Big Red’s swords unsheathed at the same time as I pulled my second pistol out, and they turned their ominous eyes toward one another above my head.
“I expect you boys to work together on this,” I informed them as the crack of revolvers split the air. “For the good of the town.”
The metal men still turned in opposite directions, though, and I dove behind the edge of a house as Haragh stormed straight into the mayhem.
I swiftly scanned the streets before I fired on the first three ogres I saw, and I managed to catch them just in time to spare a group of mages who’d taken cover in their home.
“Stay in there and fire from the windows!” I ordered as the mages’ eyes went wide, and they gaped at the sight of the massive ogres convulsing in a tangle of electric blue lightning.
The mages snapped out of it when I sprinted past them, though, and they had their revolvers propped on the windowpane within a few seconds before they began firing on all targets in rapid succession.
Still, more and more ogres were trudging over the railway and spilling into Falmount, and the Defenders passed me by with their powers sparked for action. They all reeked of ale, but they didn’t hesitate to throw everything they had at the ogres, and when the green giants crashed down as the Terra mages got to work, Kurna lit the tracks on fire with a fifteen-foot blaze.
This only seemed to piss the ogres off more, though, and they were twice as barbaric after they tore through the flaming wall and lurched at the Defenders.
Two men’s heads were torn from their shoulders before they could do anything to defend themselves, but I swiftly electrocuted both of their attackers and took out another two just behind them. Then the Defenders combined their efforts in circuits, and I was about to holster my pistols and join them when someone screamed my name in a surprisingly pissed off tone.
That’s when I turned to find all of my women with their bows strapped on, gun belts secured, and spare swords in hand. They were in a line with thoroughly icy glares on their faces, but I wasn’t focused on their expressions. Even with gunfire and bellowing roars echoing around me, I could only stare at their bodies.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled as I eyed the thin strips of leather that barely concealed my women’s nipples.
The rest of their ensembles were literally just leather straps scantily placed for my own enjoyment, but luckily, their leather thongs covered enough to keep me from having to send them straight home no matter how well armed they were.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” Cayla demanded as she crossed her arms, and I raised my brows as the leather strap across her nipples shifted a fraction of an inch.
“Me?” I scoffed. “The way you’re dressed, all of you should be in bed! This is an attack, not a--”
“We were in bed,” Aurora cut in, and her fiery gaze silenced me. “We waited thirty minutes for you. Where have you been?”
“Um … ”
An ogre crashed right through the house to my left while I fumbled for a better response, and I leapt at the opportunity.
“There’s definitely more important things going on right now,” I decided.
“You were playing with that lightning rune again!” Shoshanne gasped.
“I was not!” I lied, but I was already turning toward the ogre who was seconds away from tearing one of my mages’ jugulars out with his teeth.
Then I sent a bullet straight into the ogre’s chest before he got a firm hold on the mage, and when he convulsed in a web of lightning, I bit my lip and chanced a glance over my shoulder.
Shoshanne pursed her lips in disapproval, and her cheeks were flushed with rage.
“Okay, I was working on the lightning rune, but don’t look at me like that,” I groaned. “This is such a win, and you know it. Look! I’m totally conscious and kicking ass, right?”
“You’re so incredibly sexy,” Cayla informed me, and I grinned at the hooded cast of her blue eyes while she eyed the pistol in my hand.
“Me or the gun?” I clarified.
“You,” she replied. “Both. All of it, just …” The princess let out an irritated huff as her cheeks turned pink, and she tensely sheathed her sword as she pulled her pistols out instead. “Let’s get these fuckers killed so we can go have sex.”
“Deal,” Aurora said with a smirk, and Deya giggled in approval as she trotted over to give me a kiss on the cheek. Then she flickered out of sight, and Shoshanne turned on her heels to go kill some ogres while she stubbornly avoided my gaze.
Which was fine by me because the view from the back was absolutely fantastic, and the healer always had an extra bit of sass in her step when she was mad at me for risking my own safety.
So, I crinkled my brow as the torchlight glistened on Shoshanne’s perfect caramel ass with every stride, and I could tell she was just as pissed about being so exposed in public as she was about me sneaking out to mess around with lightning.
She raised her pistol toward every mage who had the gall to stare too openly, and they all shrank away and returned to their efforts against the ogres as I chuckled merrily to myself.
“What was that about more important things going on?” Aurora asked in my ear, and she wore a devilish grin on her face when I looked her way.
“Sorry,” I muttered, but I admired the taut leather strapped across her breasts for a second before I fired on three passing ogres.
“Watch your back!” Kurna suddenly bellowed and raised his palms toward us, and we ducked as a jet of flames shot out from both of his hands. The fire billowed out to cover the entire lane, and the five hulking ogres who were about to close in on us were immersed in amber flames.
The bastards kept stumbling forward, though, even as their flesh blistered and split open from Kurna’s wrath, and the mages taking cover between the houses fired their revolvers from either side.
Aurora and I crawled out of range while I watched the ogres finally drop to their knees, but they clawed at the dirt as they fought to get at us until every inch of them was burned away.
Then Kurna finally ceased his flames, and I could see from his eyes that he was just as unnerved as I was by the resilience of the Master’s ogres. The brawny Ignis Mage only nodded in my direction, though, before he sprinted down another lane with his palms raised, and Aurora shot to her feet as she bolted into the fray and fired her pistol toward the deluge spilling over the tracks.
Then I dodged a swinging club as two young mages teamed up to try and drown my attacker, but even combined, their powers were no match for his brute strength. The ogre turned on them before they could summon enough water to fill his enormous lungs, but I had my pistol aimed at the ready, and just as he reached the pair of Flumen mages, I sent a bullet into the back of his head.
Blood and brains sprayed out all over the mages while they screeched at the sight of his violent convulsions, and I moved on to the next ogre.
I brought another four down by the time the first one fell into a charred heap, and then I paused and ducked behind Flynt’s Pub to take stock of the village. We weren’t winning yet by any means, but we were holding out, and flames billowed up the lanes while the ground broke apart all over the place. The crack of revolvers and rifles echoed through the air while ma
ges took turns firing their weapons or summoning their powers, and for a moment, I was floored with the amount of improvement I was seeing amongst the younger mages. There wasn’t a single mage out there who couldn’t wield their element readily, and they were following the Defenders’ lead to combine their strength in circuits, too.
I could tell the ordinary bullets were barely affecting the giant ogres, but the revolvers were holding the possessed creatures at bay long enough for the mages’ combined efforts to overpower them.
So, I emptied the last of my lightning magazine into three more ogres who had a handful of mages cornered across the market, and I made sure to pocket the magazine for later before I loaded my next one. I was just about to fire on an ogre who had a mage’s decapitated head dangling from one hand when a vicious snarl broke out, and I recognized the sound of Taru’s fury.
Then Haragh turned on a pair of mages.
“Shoot my women would ye’?” the half-ogre roared, and I’d never seen so much hatred in his eyes before. “Get over here! I’ll tear your heart right out your assholes!”
The mages who’d mistaken Taru for one of the Master’s ogres scrambled to get away, but Haragh was hot on their tails as Taru took her anger out on a nearby ogre. She split the guy’s face wide open with a single blow from her club, but she still beat him to a pulp while blood trickled from the bullet hole in her arm.
She was vicious enough to tear these guys apart even with the Master’s rune on them, and knowing I had an army of ogres in Jagruel just waiting for my orders eased my mounting concern over how much destruction was being unleashed on Falmount right now.
Grot had told me he was missing forty-eight ogres, but that was weeks ago, and there were nearly as many runed ogres currently spilling into my town. My first thought was that the Master might have found a means of adding to his numbers since we’d left Jagruel, so I decided to contact Grot the moment this was all handled to be sure Max was doing his job out there. If not, we had bigger problems than I’d thought, because a mage across the market just emptied his entire cylinder into the chest of an oncoming ogre, and the fucker was still coming after him when Taru pounced and tore his face off with her teeth.
Ruela was tearing through the flaming market, too, with fresh blood all over her sable fur, and when I saw her take down an ogre in a single bite, I knew she could handle herself out there. She was already eating his guts before he even died, and the resemblance between her and Deya as a dragon was just uncanny.
That’s when I caught sight of Cayla, though, and all of my attention shot to the taut leather straps pinching her porcelain frame as she stalked along the edge of a building with a pistol in each hand. The princess moved as stealthily as a cat, and she kept her icy eyes scanning carefully despite the chaos swarming around us. When I squinted through the smoke and flames, there were so many ogres I couldn’t tell who she had in mind, but then Cayla emerged from her cover to take her stance.
One by one, every ogre in the marketplace began dropping into a fiery chasm while Cayla picked them off like flies, and she didn’t miss a single shot while I fought to keep my blood flowing in the proper direction. It was nearly impossible, though, since her breasts jolted against the thin leather straps with every pull of the trigger, and the moment the marketplace was cleared, Cayla handily ejected both magazines, reloaded while she ducked between two more buildings, and started to stalk silently down the lanes.
“Damn,” I sighed as her porcelain backend disappeared from view, and I finally remembered I was supposed to be kicking ass right now. “Shit.”
I bolted along the back of the buildings until I was near the train station, and since there were no more ogres coming in, I leapt onto the platform before I emptied my magazine on eleven hulking beasts. The shards of stone and torches they held dropped to the ground as they burst into flames, and I wrenched my dwarven sword from its sheath while I jumped down into the streets once more.
Then I hacked at every green limb I could reach, and as whole forearms were severed and guts impaled, I could feel the strength of the mages’ powers surging all around me.
Aurora was close by now as she sent a jet of flames straight into the snarling face of her attacker, and while he flailed and fought to get at her still, she swiftly unsheathed a dagger and buried it in a passing ogre’s neck. Then she stooped and whipped her leg around to knock his legs out from under him, and as both ogres crashed into one another, she pulled out another two daggers and rammed them into their ears.
The fierce half-elf was grinning when she set fire to both of their twitching bodies, and her grin only grew wider when she caught me staring. Then Aurora winked and snapped the leather strap of her thong, and I would have literally lost my head if Cayla hadn’t spotted the ogre coming at me from the sidelines.
The princess buried a bullet right between his eyes before she took another two down, and then she tossed me a spare magazine with a casual smirk.
“Having trouble focusing, baron?” Cayla purred.
I caught the magazine despite my sweaty palms, but Aurora was already gone by the time I got my pistol reloaded and turned to the flaming ogres she’d left behind.
“Godsdamnit,” I muttered, and Cayla chuckled.
“The sooner you kill these guys, the sooner you can join us back in bed,” Cayla reminded me, and she emptied the last of her own magazine before she holstered her pistols.
“I’m working on it,” I growled and dodged a massive club.
“I’ve seen you do better,” the princess teased, and I narrowed my eyes at the challenge in her tone.
Then she pulled her whip from the clasp on her belt, and I had to look away, otherwise I’d never get a damn thing accomplished. I still enjoyed the sound of her leather thrashing the ogres, though, and every furious snarl was met with another sound lashing while Aurora chuckled and paired up with the princess.
One woman whipped them while the other set them on fire, and I was about to tear the ground open for them so they had somewhere to steer their victims, but someone else did it for me.
That’s when I finally saw Pindor through the crowd, and he had a cocky grin on his face that was honestly well earned this time. I watched him fire his revolver with incredible precision while simultaneously burying my women’s attackers with his Terra powers, and Mina sent him a flirty smile from his side.
The two of them worked their way through the streets like this was the best date they’d ever been on, and every time Mina set someone on fire, Pindor was right there to either bury the asshole or blow his brains out.
“Is that what we look like?” I muttered as I nudged Aurora, and the half-elf let Cayla whip her attacker for a bit while she craned her neck to get a good look.
“Not at all,” Aurora chuckled. “I’m mostly naked, and you’re covered in blood again. Totally different.”
I looked down, and she wasn’t wrong. Ogre blood was splattered all over my chest and drenching my sleeves.
“Godsdamnit,” I sighed, “Cayla just got me this shirt yesterday.”
“Then take it off,” Aurora purred before she flipped around and sent a wall of flames over six ogres with a genuinely chilling cackle.
Cayla kept whipping the ogres as the two women drove the herd of brutes into another trench, and I sealed it off until the snarls of the ogres were silenced.
Then I caught sight of Big Red, and he had three growling ogres hanging from his limbs while he spun in circles and tried to shake them off.
The momentum finally shifted one of the beasts down his arm a ways, and the automaton quickly fired his crossbow straight into the ogre’s gut. Then he fired three more arrows as he hurled a second ogre to the ground, and the moment both of them hit the dirt, Big Guy sped over and flattened them under his treads. I furrowed my brow as Big Red chucked the last ogre off his back, and once Big Guy decapitated him with his sword, the two automatons went suddenly stock still as they considered one another.
They were clearl
y sharing a moment, but I couldn’t tell if this was a bad or good thing. I half expected them to finally turn on one another with those massive swords of theirs, but they didn’t. They turned their backs on each other instead and branched off down two separate streets, and I sighed as I watched them go.
Then I leapt out of the way of a gnarled club before I sent two fireball bullets into another ogre, and I emptied the last of my magazine into the fray as three Defenders ran past with deadly grins on their faces.
Judging by this, I knew the tides had already turned in our favor, but the sound of mages screeching doused my excitement in seconds flat.
“Get out of the way!” a man screamed, and a sea of mages stampeded down the lane looking pale as death.
Beyond them, I could see Big Red’s ominous eyes burning blood red, and for a second, it looked like he was coming after the mages. Then I realized there were ten ogres attempting to make a break for it, but he hounded after them, and he was only a few feet behind when I heard a familiar chink of metal.
That’s when Big Guy’s massive blade shot out from behind a building, and every fleeing ogre met the edge of his sword before their heads went flying in all directions.
Suddenly, my heart began to swell despite my best efforts to not get mushy, but I couldn’t help it. My boys were actually working together, and they fucking obliterated ten ogres in seconds flat. They were like big stubborn babies realizing they could get along for the sake of annoying their parents, except they used their powers for good instead of evil, and now, they rolled their steel treads over the corpses of their victims while I stood there lost in a glory moment.
Then Big Red came to a stop at Big Guy’s side, and the two automatons exchanged a stoic high five that made my heart burst into little metal pieces.
“I’m so fucking proud,” I mumbled, and I tried to swipe the water from my eyes, but I ended up with fresh ogre blood all over my face instead. “Oh, well.”