Flight was not an option against the battlepig (when and if he was unleashed) so fight it was. Doppelganger charged the pigmaster once they had entered the cover of the tree line. The orc released the pig from its pole, but Dangalf encased it in a block of ice. It was a stunning success not only to hit the charging battlepig with his spell but to bring its immense force to a complete stop. (Fortunately it had not reached full velocity.)
Doppelganger was upon the pigmaster a second later and brought his battleaxe down on his head. It struck the orc’s helmet solidly before sliding off the metal and continuing down through the flesh and bone at the shoulder. Foolish three times, the pigmaster was lightly armored. Doppelganger finished him by bringing the axe down solidly across his exposed neck, but it was a poorly angled blow, and Doppelganger had to settle for almost decapitating the pigmaster as his head bobbled at the end of some skin and tendons. Icil reappeared, his daggers drawn for action. “Good work,” he said.
“Have you been here all along?” asked Dangalf.
“For the most part,” said Icil.
It was agreed that Dangalf would not fireball the pig because the pyrotechnics would alert the camp to their presence. Instead, he undid the ice spell, and before the freed pig could attack, Icil forced poisoned daggers into where the pig was not armored. Almost instantly the pig lay down on its side and died quietly. Clearly Icil was a master of porcine anatomy as well. “Did you kill the tower guard?” Icil asked.
“What?” said Dangalf.
And suddenly Nerdraaage appeared from thin air. “Yes,” he said.
“Good. I was able to scout the camp. Not a White School or blackguard among them. They are only guards and mercenaries. The captain appears to be the only soldier rank of the bunch. But the three of you working together, I think you can clear the camp.”
“All of them?” asked Dangalf apprehensively.
“All of them,” said Icil. “But I won’t be far away.” And he and Nerdraaage unappeared.
The orc perimeter guards, drawn perhaps by the disappearance of the battlepig and pigmaster, approached the position of Doppelganger and Dangalf. Dangalf froze one into a block of ice. Another grand success! Doppelganger charged the other, but the alert guard deflected his attack. Doppelganger felt a chill as the orc smiled wickedly at him as they stood locked together. Doppelganger pushed the smaller orc off, but he rebounded like a spring, swinging viciously at the human.
Dangalf couldn’t cast a spell since Doppelganger and the orc fought too closely and fluidly. Instead he watched carefully and let his electroplasm regenerate. He still only had the conjurer’s small pool of electroplasm, and he did not know how many spells he would be called upon to cast if they were to do what in the game was called a “full clear”: the killing of all enemies at a particular location.
Doppelganger found himself retreating straight back from every wild blow before remembering the fundamentals of his training. He stepped aside, and his opponent clumsily charged past him. But not before spearing Doppelganger’s leg. His leg bled profusely, but it was not life threatening. In fact it was a lifesaver as it brought on Doppelganger’s bloodwarp. The three martial humors pumped furiously into his body. He took on the angry tint of the orc. He grew in size and strength. Fear and pain were banished and replaced with the warrior’s madness. The orc recovered and bore down again on Doppelganger. But this time, he was struck with an explosive fireball from Dangalf that seared his flesh and brought him to his knees. He did not long inhale the stench of his own burning flesh before Doppelganger removed his head.
The explosive fireball brought the attention of the whole camp. The troll captain exited the command office fastening his belt. He screamed to the lowly orcs in Trollish. Nerdraaage appeared behind the captain and whistled at him. The troll captain spun to him and sneered at the pathetic dwarf. He marched forward, determined to make quick work of the arrogant mercenary, but when he reached for his sword, he discovered that it was missing from his scabbard. Nerdraaage plunged a dagger into the captain’s unarmored groin. When the captain doubled over, he plunged another dagger into his eye. Nerdraaage unappeared to seek out another victim.
Icil did not unappear and instead met the clumsy orc guards face to face as they charged him. He slew three in a row before the others halted and grouped up. Now three attacked Icil simultaneously and met the same fate as the three solo attackers. Icil’s skill was such that compared to lowly guards, he was virtually invincible. The same could not be said for Dangalf and Doppelganger, who now had several of the orc guards charging them.
Icil shouted at the guards in challenge. Some turned from Dangalf and Doppelganger to charge the blackguard, but four still bore down on the two humans. This was especially troublesome for Dangalf, who had used a considerable amount of electroplasm. Unlike the warrior class, which became stronger as the battle raged on, the wizard class became weaker as electroplasm was expended and one-use spells became unlearned.
Doppelganger was attacked first and found himself trading heavy metal with an axe-wielding orc. He was enjoying the give and take, almost toying with his opponent, when he saw that the other three orcs were pursuing Dangalf. He suddenly remembered what his role was: just like in the game, he had to protect the squishy. Dangalf was in peril, and they had no healer and no healing potions. Doppelganger stopped toying with the orc guard and killed him.
Doppelganger charged after Dangalf and his pursuers. Dangalf could not outrun the mesomorphs, and he quickly looked back to see the speediest of the three orcs right at his back and ready to spear him. He did not know if the spell was ready again, but he had no choice but to cast it. He had never before known such relief when the orc immediately behind him was cast in a block of ice. But there was no celebration or even let up as two pursuers remained.
Dangalf saw Doppelganger coming to his rescue and was able to curve his retreat toward him. The angle allowed Doppelganger to catch up with the last pursuer. He struck at his leg, and the orc fell painfully to the ground. Doppelganger gained on Dangalf’s final pursuer, who realized he would not kill the little human before the big human was upon him. He stopped his pursuit and turned to fight Doppelganger.
Doppelganger’s defense of Dangalf had worked. Perhaps it worked too well, as the first orc limped quickly toward Doppelganger, and he found himself fighting both of them. Realizing he was safe from pursuit, Dangalf turned back to see Doppelganger furiously defending himself from the two orcs. He summoned his electroplasm to cast a spell, but he found he was completely drained. He had no spells to cast without rest. And then he did something no one of the Red School would understand in these circumstances: he lay down and slumbered.
Doppelganger saw Dangalf lying on the ground and knew that no massive fireball was going to bail him out of this fight. Not anytime soon anyway. The wounded orc, slowed by blood loss and severed tendons, could not defend himself adequately as Doppelganger charged. Doppelganger killed him but only after turning his back on the healthy orc. And the healthy orc was a mercenary, the same class as Doppelganger. He was ferocious and clever, and he placed his sword under the arm of Doppelganger’s armor. Doppelganger shrugged off the attack before his heart or lungs were pierced but not before serious damage was done. His left arm fell limply to his side. It was all he could do to parry his healthy opponent while he retreated. Then with a crash, the final orc was released from the crumbling remains of Dangalf’s ice block and charged toward the wounded Doppelganger.
And Dangalf slumbered. His electroplasm was replenishing only slowly. He feared that Doppelganger would soon be dead and couldn’t help but selfishly think that this meant he would be dead soon after.
Just as the second orc guard reached Doppelganger, he let out a sharp cry and fell dead to the ground. Standing behind him was Nerdraaage with his blade stained with stinking orc blood.
Nerdraaage flanked the final orc menacing Doppelganger. The orc turned on the dwarf furiously but suddenly a black raccoon mask covered his ey
es and he was blind. Nerdraaage stepped behind the wildly swinging orc and placed both his blades in his back. The orc went down, and Nerdraaage finished him off.
Doppelganger and Nerdraaage, bloodied and panting, collapsed to the ground. They watched wearily as Dangalf limped over to them. “I think I pulled a muscle running away,” he said. Nerdraaage laughed first. Doppelganger joined in even though as the bloodwarp faded, laughter racked pain through his dead arm. Dangalf was so overcome with emotion that they had survived the frenetic combat that he could have laughed or cried. But since his friends had chosen laughter, he joined them.
They made their way to the troll camp. The compound was littered with a dozen orc bodies and the troll captain. The buildings were just now catching fire. Icil greeted them with a torch that he tossed into the last building.
“How does it feel to finally bust those hymens?” he challenged them.
They laughed again. They were overcome with the rush of victory and the pride of facing death with honor. It was exhilarating, a glorious release, when locked in a battle to the death to see your opponent finally fall dead before you. Gentle, scholarly Weyd Salint himself had impressed upon Dangalf the importance of ridding this world of the bastard races of the Legion, and now that he had met the enemy face to monstrous face, Dangalf knew it was true.
Suddenly dark shadows appeared overhead, and a great whooshing sound overtook them. “Run,” said Icil, who looked worried. It was a frightening thing for the others to see such a man as Icil look worried. They looked up, but the creatures came from out of the sunset and were silhouetted. “Run!” shouted Icil furiously.
Dangalf, slowed by his limp, ran alongside Doppelganger, who was slowed by his dead arm. “What about Nerdraaage?” he asked.
“He can unappear,” said Doppelganger. They looked back at a fearsome sight as they ran. It was wyvern riders, the Legion’s answer to the dragoons. The very best warriors of the Legion Warrior class. Masters of murder. Icil also was a master, but there were four of them and only one of him. Still he remained visible and stood his ground as the giant wyverns landed around him. He wanted to buy the others time to escape.
The orcs landed in a circle around Icil, their wyverns trotting to a stop before they dismounted. They dwarfed Icil, who stood fearlessly visible to them. These were not like the orc guards and mercenaries whom they had just overwhelmed. They were massive and ferocious and heavily armored. They would not be wyvern riders if they were not also battle tested a hundred times over. With a nod from the biggest orc, two of them took off after Doppelganger and Dangalf. They ran like beasts, and even if Dangalf and Doppelganger hadn’t been injured, it would only be a matter of minutes before they overtook and dispatched the two humans.
Dangalf turned back long enough to cast the closest orc in a block of ice. He didn’t even have a second to turn around and continue running before the monster orc smashed his way out of the ice block. Dangalf and Doppelganger both feared this failed spell was their last hope to escape alive.
They continued desperately through the bush only to stumble upon a large tyger of purple and blue. Doppelganger instinctively raised his axe. The cat stepped back and moaned. “No,” said Dangalf as he pulled his wounded friend past the cat. They reached an open field and found Ciar standing before them.
“Lie down,” she told them, but they hesitated. “I am a very good healer but if the orcs chop your heads off, I will not be able to put them back on.” They did not know her, but they did know that she was a she-elf and that her composure was reassuring, so they lay down. Ciar whisper-sang in Elvish. The surrounding fauna grew in a few seconds to cover Doppelganger and Dangalf in a cocoon of vines and leafy plant matter. It was somewhat uncomfortable as branches and roots poked into and around their flesh, but it did seem to camouflage them well. Dangalf desperately hoped it would be enough.
Something heavy began walking on Dangalf. He dared only move his eyes, and he looked up to realize in terror that one of his orc pursuers stood right on top of him. “Go back to your stinking swamps before these woods swallow you!” Ciar said. The orcs looked at the she-elf druid, about twenty feet ahead of them and paused. Though she was no match for them in a fight, they did not like being in elven lands, even occupied elven lands, facing an elf witch.
One of the orcs shot an arrow at her that was brilliantly fast and perfectly aimed, yet she was able to sidestep it. The other immediately followed with his own shot, but she only tilted her head, and it missed her. They continued to fire in rapid succession, and she moved no more than necessary to dodge their arrows. Dangalf felt the orc step off from above him. Both charged toward Ciar, and in response she morphed into a brilliant white-and-gold tyger and speedily retreated. They stopped and she changed back to she-elf form still out of range. They understood. They could not hit her with their ranged attacks, and if they tried to pursue her, she would always remain ahead of them in her tyger form, pulling them closer to the crimson wall.
Dangalf could see their terrifying forms through the leaves over him. One of the orcs screamed at Ciar. It was a terrifying bestial sound that would have caused Dangalf to flee uncontrollably if he had not been solidly entwined. Ciar did not speak Orcish, but she knew it was a promise of terrible things to come should they meet again. The other wyvern rider blew a kiss to Ciar, and she knew that also was a promise of terrible things to come should they meet again. And then they both ran back the way they had come, one stomping directly on Dangalf’s face.
The two orcs left to deal with the assassin were in no hurry to face him. It was not fear but caution and experience that stayed their hands. They went through their gear, still keeping a close eye on the visible blackguard, to find the perfect tools for killing him. They uttered back and forth. Icil imagined that they were confused by his failure to unappear. He would try to use their confusion to his advantage.
Finally, they were prepared, and they separated so that they might approach him from different angles. The one behind Icil charged and just before he reached the assassin, Icil unappeared. Then he reappeared behind the orc and drove both of his daggers into the armor gap at the neck. Icil did everything correctly, but the beast was so ferocious, so thickly muscled, that it would not die quickly or even drop to the ground.
Icil could only hold onto his daggers and hope the beast would succumb before the other orc planted an axe between his shoulder blades. The other orc instead fired arrows, but Icil was able to use the first orc as a shield.
The orc finally gurgled and dropped heavily to the ground. Icil unappeared again. The other orc returned leisurely to his wyvern where he rummaged for more gear. He replaced his plate helmet with one of leather, which didn’t make sense to Icil until he recognized it as a Serpentine Helm. It would give its wearer heat-sensing vision—the perfect foil for an unappeared opponent. Icil had faced this threat before and knew to lower his body temperature as much as he could.
The orc marched toward him with his ice-enchanted axe. If the blade touched Icil at all, it would put a deathly chill on him that would slow his movement or even freeze him in place. Either scenario meant he would be an easy kill for the ferocious wyvern rider. He wished he had processed the gravewhisper flower into poison, but there was no time now. Icil braced himself as the warrior marched forward as if he knew exactly where Icil laid in wait. He could hear the enchanted axe now. It howled like hurricane winds across a glacier.
And suddenly the orc stopped and in an instant threw his axe violently forward. Icil recognized the throwing motion before it was completed but he had also seen that it was so off the mark that he would not have to dodge it. Icil would have laughed would it not have given his position away.
But with the sound of a groan and a thud, Icil sickly realized he had not been the target. Nerdraaage lay dying in the dirt behind him with the orc blade tossed through the center of his chest. Icil knew Nerdraaage’s life could be measured in a handful of sand. He needed the orc to go to Nerdraaage, to pass Icil and
give him his back. But the orc seemed surprised that he had struck a dwarf and was in no hurry to go to him. The orc armed himself with a shortsword from his belt.
Finally after scanning in every direction for the assassin, the orc moved to the dying dwarf. But as soon as his first finger touched the handle of the blade in Nerdraaage’s chest, Icil moved with unsurpassed quickness. He knew Nerdraaage’s life hung in the balance. The impalement may kill him yet, but a twist of the blade would kill him certainly. Icil had killed deathspeakers before they could utter a word and dodged lightning cast by Nil the Stormbringer, but could he strike quickly enough to stop this monstrous wyvern rider before he killed Nerdraaage?
Icil inserted his dagger between the orc’s leg armor and angled it down to the tendon. He felt it cut loose and with that the orc lost his balance and the leverage he would need to twist his blade. The orc howled like a wounded animal. Icil pushed with all his might and moved the massive orc away from Nerdraaage.
Icil stepped in close to his opponent. He made the orc pay for his heat vision as he bashed the top of the leather helm, stunning the orc. The orc swung powerfully at where Icil used to be. It was all Icil now as he had his way with the wyvern rider. He killed the orc and enjoyed the deathblow more than he usually did. This orc had wounded his apprentice, and against his better judgment Icil had become fond of the dwarf mercenary.
But there was no time for celebration as he heard the arrow just in time to dodge it. The other two orcs had returned from their fruitless pursuit and opened fire on Icil. They fired in unison, and he dodged the headshot at the cost of taking an arrow in the leg. He unappeared, but that trick would not long delay the master warriors. The self-sealing properties of his dragonwing leather meant that there would be no blood trail, but the poison from the arrow crippled his leg, and he could no longer walk without footprints. They could easily track him, and he did not have the speed to escape them.
Cronica Acadia Page 24