Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  It was using that tactic that I eventually attracted the others to me, Freya and Drace finding me through the press of bodies as we pushed forward, while Halcyon and Caius broke away from the other casters to support us. Together, we then spearheaded a push deep into the invaders’ chaotic ranks, cutting through four of the shadow-covered heralds in relatively quick succession, not only regaining the ground that we’d lost from their corrupted bombardment but beginning to drive forward once again. Yet despite our relatively rapid advance, it was still too slow to prevent the siegebreaker from regaining its feet, the massive creature shrugging off what few spells that our casters were able to direct towards it. Lumbering forward with renewed purpose, it was only a matter of seconds afterward that another deafening crunch of shattering wood reached our ears as the abomination bit down on the palisade once again.

  “Damn! It’s widening the breach!” Freya exclaimed from beside me as we all watched the siegebreaker tear another section of the now sagging wall free and then throw itself against what remained and causing it to break inwards. “We need to stop it before it widens it too far! The only thing keeping those orcs out is the narrow entrance! They’ll swarm us in no time if they can all get through!”

  “I think that might be easier said than done!” I called back to the woman as a ripple in the orcs ranks ahead of me caught my attention, revealing the tip of a familiar shadowlike helmet that was rapidly closing in on us. “Because someone finally decided to come and play!”

  Just managing to get the words out before the orcs ahead of us parted, our attention was then stolen away from the siegebreaker by the timely arrival of Zhul and two heralds who burst free of them at a run, fixating on the four of us.

  “So I see he failed,” I heard Zhul announce by way of greeting as he swept out towards me with his massive shadowhewn axe, sending it in a vicious in a downward chop.

  “Of course he did,” I replied, blocking a claw from one of the heralds while narrowly dodging the axe as it hit the ground beside me with enough force to send dirt spraying through the air. “Did you really expect anything different?”

  “No,” Zhul stated as he reversed his grip on the weapon and attacked once more, this time with an upwards slash. “Even with the gifts Riius so generously gave him, he was weak. The horde is stronger without him.”

  Unable to help but wince at the orc’s cold statement as I once again evaded his slash, this time by leaping backward out its reach, I found myself at a loss of how to even begin to reply to his words or if there was even a reply worth giving. From the first time that I had met him, Carver had always prided himself on his strength and dominance over others—an attitude that I suddenly understood he shared very closely with the orcs.

  It was likely why he fell in with them so easily. He was just like them, I thought as landed back on my heels, pausing long enough for the axe to pass by me before reversing my momentum and lunging straight towards him, a layer of frost forming on Savagery’s edge. But an attitude like that ends up cutting both ways. As Carver just found out.

  Darting in faster than Zhul could react, I landed my Frost Strike directly against his chest, or at least as near as I could, my sword once again being stopped just inches away from making contact with his body by a thick layer of shadow. This time, however, I was prepared for the tendrils that rose up to lash out towards me, already moving to dodge directly between Zhul and the herald immediately to his right. In any other situation, it would have been a suicidal path to take, with all that either of them needing to do to stop me, being simply to close ranks with one another.

  But in this situation, I wasn’t the only one fighting the trio.

  Launching myself forward at the same instant that Freya’s spear flicked out to hook the herald’s leg and pull it off its feet, I was able to dodge past Zhul before his shadowy defense could even finish forming. Hearing a grunt of surprise as I darted past him, I saw the orc warlord try to twist and follow me but abruptly stop as something heavy slammed into him instead, courtesy of Drace filling the spot that I’d just vacated. That left me with an opportunity to attack Zhul from behind the same way that I had with the heralds, reaching out with my hand and thrusting it into the dark cloak of shadows that hung at his back. Feeling it touch something soft as it partially vanished into the darkness, I didn’t hesitate in beginning to drain mana from the orc, gritting my teeth at the corruption that accompanied it.

  Yet despite the small trickle of energy that I was able to absorb in the first few seconds, Zhul reacted as if I had branded him with a hot iron, the orc throwing himself sideways past the herald beside him and shoving them out of the way in his haste to break contact. Eyes widening at the warlord’s overt reaction, I had just enough time to see his shadowy cloak writhe with what only could be described as agony in response to my touch, the orc letting out a growl as he turned back to face me, the eyes on his helmet narrowing in anger.

  But before he could say anything in response to my attack, both he and herald he’d almost knocked over were suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning and a ball of fire, courtesy of Halcyon and Caius who choose that instant to join our exchange. Slamming into him in quick succession, the twin blast of magic staggered the pair, buying Drace and me the opportunity to close with them before they could do anything else, both of us landing another set of punishing blows on each. In Drace’s case, his blow was directed towards Zhul as he slammed his shield into the warlord’s body, using his strength to force the orc back a step and keep him temporarily occupied. That allowed me to focus on the still off-balance herald in the meantime, closing with it and lashing out with a vicious uppercut across where I expected its jaw to be. As I struck, I used the opportunity the blow gave me to once again trigger what was rapidly becoming my most favorite magical item, my Ring of Force.

  Connecting squarely with the shadow-covered orc’s face, my magically charged punch lifted it from the ground and sent it flying half a dozen feet through the air until it vanished amongst the invaders behind Zhul as it fell back to the ground. That left the warlord temporarily alone for the four of us to take advantage of, the other orcs around us far too occupied in attacking the defending adventurers to help, assuming that they even wanted to. With a powerful curse landing from Caius as I rushed to close with Zhul again, I had the chance to see his magic dance along the warlord’s shadowhewn armor, causing pieces of it to turn hazy and insubstantial. It served as a perfect distraction for me to land a Fire Strike directly across the warlord’s helmet, Savagery’s passing leaving a bright orange line of magic clinging to it. Reeling from the blow, it left the warlord open for a crimson ray of energy from Halcyon that shot between Drace and me, the laser-like spell burning a white-hot scar into the shadows armoring him. Yet for all that damage that we managed to inflict, Zhul didn’t fall and instead redoubled his attacks on us as he recovered from the onslaught, the cloak of shadows at his back billowing outwards threateningly.

  “Rah! I have had enough of your defiance!” he growled as he swept his axe horizontally in front of him, the slash sending out a wave of cutting shadows that burst from his weapon towards Drace and me, slicing into us both before we could react. “This ends—”

  A distant roar accompanied by the loud peal of thunder cut the warlord’s words off before they could finish, the unexpected sound causing everyone, including those of us who had been nervously anticipating it, to flinch.

  “You know what, Zhul?” I asked, a surge of incomparable relief shooting through me the instant that I heard the roar. “I think you’re right. It does end now. But not in the way that I imagine you expected.”

  Ringing out as if to punctuate my words, another roar—this one even louder and closer than the first—split the air.

  “W-what have you done?” Zhul demanded after the primal scream finally ended, his head snapping to the side as bright arcs of lightning flashed out from beyond the walls.

  A bright flash of lightning that hadn’t come from the sky abov
e.

  “The same thing you tried to do to us,” I replied as I lunged to attack him once again, only to have the warlord retreat back a step in response, his resolve looking suddenly shaken as the orcs around us started to call out in a panic. “Except that your camp doesn’t have walls as high as ours.”

  Recoiling from those words as if I’d managed to wound him a second time, Zhul moved to break our engagement. But before he did, the cloak of shadow that had been building behind him launched itself towards Drace and me, temporarily blocking out everything around us. Letting out a surprised shout, the next thing I knew was that I was being cut, bludgeoned, and stabbed by a hundred different tendrils, the sheer weight of their attack forcing me back onto my knees. But as quickly as the shadows had appeared, they vanished, restoring my vision just in time to see Zhul’s back one final time before he plunged into the now panicking sea of orcs and disappeared from sight.

  “Lyr, Drace! Are you okay?” I heard Freya shout a second later as both she and Amaranth appeared beside us.

  “Oof. I-I’ve been better,” I replied weakly, wincing at the pain that coursed through my body as I rose to my feet, Zhul’s parting attack having taken off nearly half my health in an instant. “Whatever he did at the end there hurt.”

  “Yeah…you could say that again,” Drace agreed with a grunt as he too forced himself back upwards, just in time for another deafening roar to echo out in the distance. “But we don’t have time to worry about that now. Zhul is making a break for it, and the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Are we going to try and catch him?”

  “If we can,” I replied as I looked at the disorganized mass of orcs ahead of us, some of them still intent on pressing forward into the town, while others turned and tried to escape back out from the breach. “But it’s this part of the plan where things get a little hairy.”

  “Oh, something tells me we’re past that point already!” Freya stated with sudden urgency, using her spear to point at something ahead of us. “Look! The siegebreaker!”

  Spinning at the woman’s words, Drace and I didn’t need any further prompting to turn towards the abomination, seeing its massive form starting to lean to one side as it abruptly retreated a step from its position halfway through the breach.

  “It’s turning!” I said as I saw the creature lift one of its colossal legs as it continued to shift, carelessly bringing it down on top of a group of orcs and crushing them. “The siegebreaker is turning!”

  “That means we have to push while we have the chance!” Freya exclaimed eagerly as she took a large step towards the chaotic orc mass. “Come on! Before the orcs can regroup and figure out what they’re doing!”

  Not needing a second invitation, Drace, Amaranth, and I fell in line with Freya as she rushed forward, the four of us leading the charge back into the horde ahead. With others joining us as we charged, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves once again in the thick of combat, slashing and stabbing at the orc ranks. But this time, however, instead of standing to meet our charge, the orcs shrank away from us, the panic that had gripped them along with the siegebreaker’s abrupt retreat having stolen away their earlier ferocity. This allowed us to cut through them in a fraction of the time that it had taken before, driving them closer and closer to the breach with every minute that passed. Before long, we even found ourselves linking up with the reinforcements that the Legion and Lionheart guilds had sent to attack the orc flanks during our counterattack.

  “They’re breaking!” Mithaniel shouted as the orc line abruptly gave way a few dozen feet away from the breach, the steady flow of invaders that had been rushing into the town reversing itself. “Don’t stop pushing! Force them all out!”

  Hearing similar cries rise up in response to the man’s words, we all charged the routing orcs one last time, cutting and pulling dozens of them down before they could escape. We even went as far as to chase them through the breach and into the storm beyond, stopping only when we reached the river’s edge. Had it been any other occasion, we would have pursued the orcs until they reached the safety of their camp, harrying them relentlessly every step of the way. But on this occasion, in particular, the orc camp had already been destroyed by the massive serpentine figure that loomed in the distance, leaving us with no reason to chase them.

  “They did it,” Drace whispered from beside me as we all watched the now scattered orc horde flee across the rain-soaked ground ahead.

  “That they did,” I agreed, my attention sliding from the routed orcs and towards the distant form of the siegebreaker as a primal roar reverberated through the air.

  Spotting it easily, I caught sight of the abomination just in time to see it charge headlong into the gargantuan beast waiting for it, the two creatures slamming into one another with such force that we all heard it, despite the distance separating us. Given the siegebreaker’s size, it was perhaps the best tactic that it had available to it, one that would have certainly overwhelmed a lesser creature, leaving it trampled and crushed beneath its weight.

  But Soh-Khan, the broodmother, was no lesser creature.

  Almost double the size of the siegebreaker, the colossal behir accepted the abomination’s charge with the surety of a mountain standing up to a storm, shrugging off the impact as if it were a minor inconvenience. Responding in kind to the attack, the behir lashed out with one of its enormous claws, the blow landing hard across the siegebreaker’s face, hitting it with enough force that its head snapped violently to the side, its body staggering behind a second later. From there, the battle between the two titanic creatures devolved into a wild affair of clawing, biting, and wrestling that tore up the countryside surrounding Aldford, each of the pair landing vicious hits on one another.

  But as the exchange progressed, it was clear that the siegebreaker was of no real match for the broodmother, especially not after the long battle that it had already endured and the countless injuries that we had piled on top of it. So it was with a pair of powerful strikes that the behir spelled the beginning of the end for the creature, the impact of the first sending it off balance with the second then pushing it over the edge and sending it crashing into the sodden ground. With its rival lying prone before it, the behir reared up with a triumphant roar, its mouth beginning to glow brightly as it did so. Lasting for several seconds, the broodmother ended its cry by bringing its head down and belching forward a stream of lightning directly into the siegebreaker. Holding its position as it poured an untold amount of power into the corrupted creature, it wasn’t long before we saw steam begin to rise from the creature as it was cooked from within, its body eventually going as far as to even catch fire. Yet even then, the behir refused to relent in its attack, continuing until the siegebreaker’s form turned a bright red.

  And then exploded.

  Spraying outwards in every direction as its form finally gave way, the siegebreaker abruptly vanished in a thunderous flash of noise and white light that sent us all reeling and reaching to clutch our ears.

  “Wow,” Freya whispered once the noise finally faded. “I don’t think that the siegebreaker will be bothering us again.”

  “It sure doesn’t look like it,” I replied, continuing to stare at the broodmother, hearing it let out a frustrated cry as it looked over the remains of the abomination and discovered that it wasn’t in fact made of meat. “Uh-oh, here’s the moment of truth. Which way is it going to go?”

  Trilling angrily as the beast stomped the ground with its front claws, its head rose high to glance in our direction, slowly rising as it took in the full size of the tree above. As it did, it must have been something that it didn’t like, because it abruptly bared its teeth and let out a brief roar before turning away, its attention fixating on something else that I couldn’t make out from this far. Freezing for a split instant as it stared at whatever it spotted, the serpentine creature’s body suddenly coiled before exploding out in a lunge, visibly biting down on something close to the ground.

  And then it did i
t again, and again, and again.

  “It’s chasing the orcs,” I realized, feeling yet another wave of relief shoot through me after seeing the behir dive towards the ground time and time again, the gargantuan creature eventually breaking forward to chase down one of the larger clusters of orcs that were fleeing from the battlefield. “Damn, it almost gave me a heart attack. It looked like it was going to come this way for a second there.”

  “I guess it figured the orcs were the easier thing to chase,” Freya replied as we all continued to watch the broodmother tear into the remains of the orc horde, chasing them across the rain-soaked plains away from Aldford. “Hopefully, it manages to eat its fill and forgets that we’re here.”

  “Hopefully,” I agreed, knowing that the colossal raid boss was likely going to be a problem for the future for us to deal with, especially now that it knew where Aldford was and that there was a source of food here. But, for today, the creature was our salvation, its arrival having sent the orc horde into a panic and causing them to abort their attack at the worse possible moment.

  All they had to do was keep attacking, I thought, realizing just how close to defeat that we’d come. Then they could have just overwhelmed us and ate the loss of their camp. They’d have survived, and we’d have lost.

  It was a sobering thought that kept me quiet for the next few minutes as we watched the behir continue to rampage after the fleeing orcs, everyone else slowly coming to terms with the battle’s end. It wasn’t until two figures appeared from the battlefield beyond, both leaning on one another as they unsteadily walked towards us that our attention was stolen from the distant sight.

  “Oh, there they are!” Freya exclaimed as several voices started to call out at their arrival, my head turning just in time to see the completely drenched and exhausted shapes of both Sierra and Kilgore looking back at us as they approached the river’s edge.