“Hey, Melindra, can you hear me?” I shout, while I look towards Melindra’s tent.
I can see no movements inside the tent, or anything else that might confirm the fact that she’s heard me. After a few more seconds of silence, I continue.
“Okay, you don’t need to answer me,” I say. “I just have a little favor to ask. Remember how you made us all fly over the wall of Thilias, with your wind magic? Well, I was thinking that maybe you might have a way to make me fly that would also give me some manner of control. You know, like some semi-intelligent air-currents that react to my movements or something. I’ve also had access to elementalist wind magic two times before, and I think it should be theoretically possible to cast such a spell. You’ve been practicing this type of magic for six hundred years, so surely you must know how to do something like this by now, right?”
I wait for a few seconds, to see if I get any reaction, but still, the only answer I get is silence.
“Listen,” I say. “I’m not asking you to join the battle. You don’t need to give yourself away or anything. All I’m asking is that you cast a spell on me that will allow me to fly.”
Still no answer.
“Come on, Melindra,” I say. “I know you can hear me!”
I wait for another three seconds, but there are no sounds coming from inside the tent.
“Melindra!” I shout.
All of a sudden, I can feel several air currents circling around me, similar to the ones I felt when Melindra raised me in the air for the first time. Then, only a few seconds later, my body gets lifted from the ground, and I start to float several feet above the soil. When I move my hands around a little, I notice that the air currents are reacting to my movements, and changing my direction accordingly. If I raise my arms in the air, the air currents propel me upwards. If I lower them, I slowly come to a halt. The currents also seem to be taking into account the way I lean my body, and the way I move my legs when they establish what direction I need to go in.
Obviously, they’re not going to be as responsive as the currents I was using to lift me from the ground back when I was using my stat device’s emergency mode, due to the fact that these particular air currents need to wait for my movements, before they change my direction and speed, but it’s much better than what I would have expected, from a spell of this kind. I could still do without all the nausea I’m getting every time I do a quick turn, but that’s probably due to my current drunken state, and not the fault of the spell.
“You have my thanks!” I shout, from up above, towards Melindra, and then I move higher into the air, in order to do a little test flight, before I head over to the mammoth.
I try to do as many moves as possible, so I can properly understand what causes me to change my direction, altitude and speed, because I can’t afford to make any mistakes when I’m fighting the mammoth. One slip up, and its trunk will break all of my bones, with a single swing. My control over this spell needs to be perfect.
“Barry, look out!” I hear Kate’s voice, from above.
As I look up, I suddenly notice that two of the wyvern riders are currently diving down towards me, with their spears at the ready, while Kate and Flower are too busy fighting their own wyverns to be able to help me in any way.
Engaging in an aerial battle so soon after I’ve been given these air currents is the last thing I wanted to do. If I attempt to fight these orcs right now, I will no doubt be put at an enormous disadvantage. But what if I tried negotiating with them, instead?…
“Wait!” I tell the orcs, as they’re approaching me. “You guys can speak Common, right? We don’t need to be fighting each other. Maybe we can make a deal!”
“We don’t make deals with humans!” says one of the orcs, in the Common language. “We only serve Tyrath.”
He then tries to impale me with his spear, but I dive out of his way, and then I try again to reason with him.
“Only Tyrath?” I say. “But what if I were to give you more money than the dragon? Couldn’t that make you change your mind?”
“Our loyalty towards the dragon king cannot be broken by mere promises of wealth!” the orc says, furiously.
“Hold on a second,” the other orc says. “Just how much gold are we talking about, here?”
As I take my gold pouch out of my pocket and open it, I notice the fact that I also have a few gems inside it. The same gems that I had procured from the ogre stronghold, when we were raiding their treasury. If I show these orcs only the gold, I will probably not be able to buy them off, but a single one of these gems should be enough for them to live the rest of their lives without any worries.
I decide to take out a large ruby from my pouch, and I hold it in front of the orcs, so they can see it clearly.
“I have many more of these in my backpack,” I say, “so I wouldn’t mind parting with one or two for the sake of a temporary alliance. I’m willing to offer you both this ruby, in advance, and if you actually help me by driving back the other orcs, I will also give you a shiny diamond to go along with it. What do you say?”
“Your offer is tempting, human,” the second orc says, without being able to fully hide the greed in his eyes. “But what would we orcs do with such treasure? Where else would we live our lives, if not in Tyrath’s domain? It’s not like any of the human cities would ever accept us within their walls.”
“I hear that Fyron is taking in refugees,” I say. “You know about Fyron, right?”
“The goblin general?” the orc asks, in a thoughtful voice. “Yes… I do know about him. I heard that his camp has been doing better in these past few years. I also heard that he accepts all types of monsters, nowadays, not only goblins. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go pay him a visit…”
“Do you realize what you are saying?” says the first orc, shocked. “What you speak of is treason!”
“Is it really?” the second orc says. “Tyrath is barely giving us enough money to afford our food and weapons. Why are you so loyal to him? If we accept this human’s offer, we could live like kings! Think about it, brother.”
“You are no brother of mine,” the first orc says, with pure hatred in his eyes, and he dives towards his former companion, with his spear aimed for his heart.
The second orc manages to raise himself into the air, before the other one reaches him, and he pushes his spear into his comrade’s chest, making him fall off his wyvern, to his death.
“Let this be the first sacrifice for our alliance, human,” the surviving orc says, while raising his bloody spear in the air.
“Here is a ruby, for your trouble,” I say, as I toss him the ruby I was holding in my hand earlier, and the orc catches the gem with both his hands. “As promised, I will also give you a diamond, when the other orcs are dead.”
“Traitor!” shouts another orc from above, as he also dives with his wyvern towards us, in an attempt to impale his old ally with his spear.
The betrayer orc does not wait for his adversary to reach him, and he flies upwards, driving his spear through the enemy wyvern’s chest, which makes it stop flapping its wings and sends it falling to the ground, along with its rider, killing them both.
“What’s going on, here?” Kate shouts, from a distance, as she sees what just happened.
“This orc is fighting on our side, as of now,” I shout at her and Flower. “Make sure not to attack him!”
“Right…” Kate and Illuna both say, at the same time, and then they continue to fight their enemies in the sky.
“I’ll go deal with the mammoth, now,” I tell my new orc ally. “You know what to do.”
I then leave the orc behind, and I fly to a lower altitude, closer to the mammoth that Hadrik and the others are still fighting. It seems that while I was busy with the wyverns, the mammoth has changed its tactic, and it is now trying to trample Daren and Nolderan, instead of focusing on Hadrik, like before. The two enchanters have managed to do quite a bit of damage to the monster’s legs while I w
asn’t looking, however, which has greatly reduced the creature’s speed. Seeing that Daren, Nolderan and Leila are all able to easily dodge its charges, the mammoth is forced to once again turn its focus to Hadrik, who just keeps pummeling the monster, despite all of the beating he’s taken in this fight.
As I get closer to my destination, I mimic a jump, in the direction in which I want to go, which sends me flying towards the creature at great speed. I then rotate my body upwards and begin to move my legs in a circular motion, similarly to how I would move them if I were trying to keep myself afloat in a lake, while in a vertical position. This stops my momentum, and it changes my direction, so that I can place myself right above the mammoth, in order to be ready to attack at a moment’s notice.
It’s a good thing that I can mostly control my direction and speed without my arms, because this allows me to also use my crossbow in mid-flight. I’m also noticing that the skills I gained by flying aircrafts in the past are proving really useful when trying to control these types of flight spells. It would have probably taken me a lot longer to get accustomed to flying like this, if I never flew a plane before.
As I lower my altitude a little, I notice that Hadrik is currently holding onto the mammoth’s trunk, while the monster keeps swinging it up and down, trying to make him lose his grip and fall off.
“Hey, Barry, you can fly now?” Hadrik shouts at me, while still holding onto the trunk.
“For now…” I shout back at him.
“Great!” Hadrik shouts. “Then maybe we can work together on this! I’ll hold down the mammoth’s trunk, while you stab it in the eyes. What do you say?”
While Hadrik is talking, the sound of his voice keeps fluctuating in intensity, due to the fact that he’s continuously being carried up and down by the trunk, at great speed.
“Sounds like a good plan,” I shout, “although, I’d rather aim for a weak point other than the eyes. But how are you planning on holding down the trunk?”
“Don’t worry,” Hadrik says. “I’ve got that covered.”
He then jumps off the trunk and he lands on the ground.
“You just need to keep the mammoth busy for a few seconds, while I do some shapeshifting,” Hadrik shouts.
Shapeshifting?… Against a red-eyed mammoth? Didn’t Golmyck say that he’d ban him from the tournament if he were to turn himself into anything much bigger than his current size?
I don’t have time to think about this much longer, because the mammoth is now fully focused on smashing me with its trunk, and I’m barely even getting a moment’s respite between two consecutive swings. When the monster wears itself out a little, and it slows down its rhythm, I take the opportunity to look down and see what Hadrik’s been up to.
Apparently, Hadrik has turned himself into a giant snail… And he’s just crawling on the ground at a very low speed… Oh man, I sure hope he’s not messing with me, right now. At any rate, I already told Hadrik that I’d follow his plan, so all I can do now is keep dodging, and hope that he knows what he’s doing.
After flying out of the trunk’s way a few more times, the alcohol-induced nausea finally starts to get to me, and it really messes up my sense of balance for a moment. By the time I recover, the mammoth’s trunk is already less than a second away from hitting me. With an absolutely incredible reaction speed, I manage to throw myself out of the way, and the trunk misses me by only a few inches. I could feel the wind from that swing blow right past me. I can’t afford to let that happen again. I’d better pull myself together, and quick.
As I look down, I notice that Hadrik is finally done with his shapeshifting, and he is now back in his dwarf form, standing with his feet in the slime that his snail form left behind. He has his arms raised, and he is looking straight at me.
“Alright, Barry!” Hadrik shouts. “Now try to make the mammoth swing its trunk over here!”
I think I’m finally beginning to understand what Hadrik was trying to do. The particular breed of giant snail that Hadrik turned into has a kind of slime that dries almost instantly, and becomes incredibly sticky, which is why it is often used as base material for many types of glues. Since Hadrik has his feet in the slime, he should now be able to grab onto the mammoth’s trunk, without having to worry about being lifted into the air afterwards.
“Nice thinking!” I tell Hadrik. “I’ll be right over!”
I then dive towards him, and I just float there, baiting the mammoth to attack me. The monster immediately takes the bait, and it swings its trunk with full force in our direction. I fly out of the way at the last second, and Hadrik quickly grabs onto the trunk, with both hands, without letting go.
“Now’s your chance, Barry!” Hadrik says. “Quick! I don’t know how long this glue will hold.”
As the ground below the dwarf is already starting to crack, from the force of the mammoth trying to pull away its trunk, I quickly fly upwards, in order to attack the beast’s weak spot.
I reach the area at the base of the trunk as fast as I can, and I try to identify the nostrils on its underside. As soon as I see them, I drive my scimitar into one of them, in an attempt to irreparably damage the creature’s airways. As the mammoth screams, I drive my blade further inside, while twisting it continuously. Soon, the screams of the creature start to turn into gasps of air, as the damage that I did to its airways is finally starting to have a visible effect.
I take my scimitar out of the monster and I fly away, while the mammoth is still desperately trying to breathe. After about ten seconds, the creature’s gasps for air start to get faster and shorter, until they eventually stop, and the mammoth falls completely silent, as it slowly crashes to the ground, causing a small earth tremor due to the enormous size of its body.
As I slowly land on the ground, besides the monster’s carcass, Hadrik lets out a hearty laugh. Taking a good look at him, I see that he has a black eye, from all the beating he’s taken during this fight.
“This is it!” Hadrik says. “It’s for moments like these that I’ve joined this tournament. I knew that staying in this group was the right decision! There’s just no running out of powerful enemies to fight, with you people!”
“That was quite the impressive combination you two had back there,” Nolderan says. “I did not know that any of you had the ability to fly.”
“Yeah, well if there’s anything Barry excels at, it’s resourcefulness!” Hadrik says. “He made that abundantly clear after somehow managing to wiggle his way out of the arena alive, against all odds.”
“An arena, you say?…” Nolderan asks.
“Oh, right, we didn’t tell you about that,” Hadrik says. “Back in Thilias, we all had to fight in an arena event, and the owner of that arena really had it in for Barry and Leila. Or rather, he wanted to make them into the stars of the show. He literally threw everything he had at them, and they only had some weaklings as teammates, but they still managed to make it out victorious. We’ll fill you in on the details later.”
“I sure hope that the orc captain is not planning to teleport back with even more reinforcements…” Daren says. “We really need to find a way to stop them from escaping. Otherwise, they’ll just keep coming at us over and over, until we’re completely worn out.”
“Or you could try to do a better job at hiding your tracks, from now on,” Nolderan says. “If they managed to find you for a second time, then you people probably left them a really obvious trail to follow.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right…” Daren says. “Now that I think about it, the only way they could have found us this fast is if they teleported back to the location of our previous battle, and pursued our tracks all the way to our camp.”
“What if they have a tracking spell cast on us?” I say.
“You mean, like the one that the golden fox cast on us before we arrived in Thilias?” Daren says. “I don’t think that’s the case. As a white mage, I should be able to detect these sorts of spells better than anyone. The fox is a really
powerful spirit from the magical plane, so her spells would be much more difficult to detect than normal, but these are just some lowly monsters. I really shouldn’t have any problems detecting spells cast by one or two orc mages.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I say. “But still, I don’t think that they could have found us just by following our trail. I’d be more inclined to believe that they have scouts, scattered all around the continent.”
“Actually, that would make a lot of sense…” Daren says. “The dragon has a huge army of orcs, so it’s only natural that he’d have scouts all over the place. And if they’re using transceivers to communicate, there would be no real way for us to kill them before they get to report our location. I suppose that we have no other choice than to keep mowing down their troops, until they decide to stop sending them after us, then…”
“Hey, look, your elementalists are coming back down!” Nolderan says. “I think they’re done killing the wyvern riders. No, wait, there’s one more left. He’s coming down for us. Get ready!”
“Hold on!” I say. “Don’t attack him. That one is working with us!”
“He is?…” Daren asks, confused.
“Yeah, I bribed him with some gems, and he switched sides in the middle of the battle,” I say.
“Hah!” Hadrik says. “What did I tell you about Barry and his resourcefulness? It’s like he has this constant supply of crazy ideas in his head, and whenever he needs one, he just pulls it out, like it’s nothing. I mean seriously, who else would have actually thought of trying to bribe an enemy orc, in the middle of a fight?”
As Kate and Flower come landing on the ground, next to us, the wyvern rider stops a dozen feet above the ground, as the wyvern keeps slowly flapping its wings, to maintain its altitude.
“All of the other orcs are dead, human,” the orc says. “I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.”
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