Chapter 25: Chapter Twenty-Four: Death Race

           Three or so hours later, Leo and Val, riding Wolten and Helwo, respectively, sprinted up the cobblestone path at full gallop.

            They’d learned that there were two orc guards at the exit from the orchards into the town proper. Leo and Val were inexperienced riders, but each had carefully trained in the exact maneuver they were about to try thirty or so times before heading to the orcs.

            And we need to pray these orcs are as aggressive as Lily says. Although from what I’ve seen, she’s been totally right so far.

            Exhilaration coursed through Leo as he flew down the cobblestone road, between the rotted fence posts that separated it from the orchards in either side. It mixed with the adrenaline of fear as he fought to stay on Wolten. His near-supernatural Strength and supernatural Agility compensated for his notable lack of skill, but it was still a challenge to stay mounted.

            As they rode, Leo spotted the two orcs guarding the entrance to the village, one on each side of the cobblestone road. Each grabbed a spear and rushed out to meet them. As Helwo carried Val up, Val began firing arrows.

The first arrow hit an orc in the arm. It screamed, “Evlesti Cogthak!” and stumbled back.

Another arrow hit the same orc in the leg, even as it ripped the first arrow from its arm, doing more damage than the arrow had done going in. The orc collapsed to the side, off the road.

            Leo waited until he was on top of his opponent, leaning forward and sideways with a death grip on his sword and Wolten’s fur both. Then he pulled with his magic, and telekinetically threw a rotted wooden fence beam at the orc. Snarling, the orc swung its spear around and smacked the beam before it hit it, deflecting it. The orc tried, but failed, to pull the spear back around as Leo slashed the orc across the head, blood fountaining from the ruinous blow across its temple.

            Leo was nearly knocked from his mount by the force of the blow, and Wolten yipped as a bit of his tough fur came loose—it was normally as strong as a good coat and could handle the abuse, but Leo was pushing it.

            They rode past, still sprinting. Both wolves were fine, breathing easily. Although, we have a long way to go, so I hope their Endurance holds.

            They raced into the tiny town, down the streets past the cages. The elves cried out—some in fear, some in excitement, and many to be freed—but Leo ignored them. Instead, he reached out with his mind and grabbed the burning logs in the campfires he ran past, tossing them telekinetically onto the tents of the orcs.

            “I’m setting your homes on fire you slaving jerks. You can’t do anything about it, you weak, pathetic incest-pig bastards! I’d love to see you try!”

            A lot, since my plan requires you to follow me. All forty of you and your pretty wargs, too, preferably.

            Most of orcs screamed at him in a language he didn’t know, but one orc threw a cooking pot—it didn’t come close—and screamed in heavily accented Averian, “We take your woman in front of your eyes while we eat you, elf!”

            Wow, that escalated quickly, Leo thought to himself, too hyped on adrenaline to really be afraid.

            A few arrows shot at them, but none hit. Wolten circled hard, and Leo clung for dear life to avoid being tossed, Val behind him.

He directed Wolten back past the camp, and they headed back onto the fenced marble road they had come from and ran back south through the orchards again.

I just need to get to the path toward the Queen wolf, a few miles back down the road through the orchards.

            The howling of the wargs started behind him.

            Perfect. Let’s see if they’ll follow us all the way.

            Leo glanced back and saw that most of the warg rider orcs—and the few remaining goblins—were leaping onto wargs. The twenty in patrol had already dug heel to mount and were in hot pursuit.

            Again, perfect.

            Wolten and Helwo ran like the wind.

But Leo needed to give the sluggards a chance to join the pack—he needed them all to follow him. This part was going to be the most dangerous. Fortunately, most of his enemies didn’t appear to have ranged weapons. Leo stood no chance at all against a huge, massive group of orcs ganging up on him, but one or two at a time he thought he could handle. He didn’t think more than that could hit him on the road at the same time.

            Leo’s and Val’s mounts were both strengthened by the Animal Companion bond, and ghost wolves were higher level than wargs to start with, with the higher stats that implied. But Wolten’s stats were higher than Helwo’s thanks to the first bond perk. And Leo had a lot more magical weapons and armor than Val.

            He urged Wolten back slightly and allowed Helwo to pull ahead. “Just like we planned, Val! Under no circumstances should you fight, no matter what happens!”

            Val looked back, her eyes wide, her coppery hair flapping around her head, and a manic grin on her face. She gave one nod and then faced forward, racing down the marble road between the fences and the rows of apple trees ahead of Leo.

            Soon, the wargs started to catch up.

            Leo judged sizes as they ran. Yeah, this path can allow three at a time—so two could catch me, theoretically. But if I handle it well, I should be able to handle them in small batches.

            As Leo had predicted, a warg tried to ride up to the left, and another to the right. Wind whipped around Leo as they ran at a rate still over twenty miles an hour. It might have been slow for an automobile, but it was breakneck for a giant wolf with no saddle.

            Just before the wargs flanked him, Leo telekinetically sent a cobblestone flying back on his left. A warg ran into it, breaking its leg and wiping out. It’s insane rolling fall pulped its rider and caused a near-cartoonish pileup behind it as numerous riders and mounts went flying.

            Okay, we’re doing this ‘Cloud leaving Midgar’ style.

            Leo slashed sideways at the orc coming up on his other side, his sword carried in his right arm—slashing back at the left side of the orc.

            But he had briefly forgotten how strong orcs were. Even against Leo’s levels and magic gear, the orc parried the blow with his toothed club. The strike still forced the club back, and the orc growled as the spikes of its weapon gouged its chest, but it wasn’t stopped.

The orc took its club awkwardly in its left hand and swung at Wolten.

Leo winced and held his breath as the club slammed into Wolten’s right shoulder, but the ghost wolf seemed okay, yipping once but continuing.

            And the blow had left the orc exposed. Leo slashed at the orc’s neck and hit hard. Arterial blood spurted as Leo nearly clove the orc’s head from its shoulders.

            The orc pursuit had fallen behind.

            Leo touched his mount and used regenerate, rank I, keeping Wolten running fast for a few seconds to give him time to heal. Then he slowed down again and allowed the growing mass of wargs to catch up to him.

            The orcs can’t all be this dumb… can they?

            Leo glanced back over his shoulder and saw that they were at least trying new things. A few of the wargs were leaving the road at breaks in the fence. They were obviously trying to run up through the orchards to flank him. Even with neat rows for the trees, Leo didn’t think that tactic would work. The wargs stats simply weren’t a match for the magically enhanced Wolten’s.

            Then the wargs chasing him parted, and a warg that was a good foot taller at the shoulder raced to the front. Its rider was an orc covered in black scales instead of gray skin—and he carried a great bow and a murderously large great sword. The sword was across his back, and the bow in his hands, arrow nocked.

            Frik!

            Leo leaned down just as the orc released. The arrow hit Leo’s armor, flat, and bounced up just slightly, slashing across the back of his head.

            Leo briefly saw stars and barely managed to hold on. Wolten gave a yowl and jinked side to side, adding to the difficulty Leo had maintaining his balance.

            But he kept his wits about him enough to hit himself with a regeneration, and the next arrow missed thanks to Wolten’s hijinks.

            I need to put a stop to that!

            Leo dropped back again and telekinetically grabbed a likely beam from a rotted fence they were racing past. He simply slid it sideways through the air behind him.

            Scaled Orc hit it going twenty miles an hour at chest height. He flew back into the crowd, causing another brief pileup, his fate unknown to Leo.

            Leo was just starting to think he’d pulled his plan off when the riderless warg, free of its heavy burden, put on a burst of speed and bit Wolten in his left hindleg.

            The ghost wolf’s speed immediately dropped as Leo turned back and slashed his sword across the warg’s face. The giant warg ran to the side and abandoned the chase, leaping over a fence to escape.

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But other orcs were to the sides of them almost immediately. A third regeneration gave Wolten healing, and Leo flailed wildly with his sword. One warg rider pulled back with a hiss after receiving a cut on his arm. Leo took a couple of hits with a club, and one spear thrust, none of which did more than mildly wound him—fortunately, no one else targeted his mount.

            And the breathing room on one side gave him the chance to use the last of his essence. Another rotted wooden beam flew up at Leo’s telekinetic direction and cleared the other side for him.

            Then he cussed as a smaller arrow struck him in his shoulder. It barely penetrated his armor, but that was now a wound he would have to simply live with, along with the brusing from the club blows.

            “All right, Wolten. It’s time to blow this joint,” Leo said. “We’ve empirically learned how long I can fight wave after wave of orc—I’ve got no essence left. Run faster!”

            He dug his heels in to Wolten’s sides—although he had no idea why, since he’d never really trained Wolten to that signal—and Wolten shot forward, his sudden speed putting the wargs behind him.

            But all Leo had really needed was to give everyone else time and space—and let the sluggards catch up. He kept ahead of the wargs, but not so far that they wouldn’t chase.

            After a few more minutes, Leo saw the break in the fence that led to the path toward the wolf queen. He turned off the fenced road they were running down and onto a small forest path. Ahead of him was his ultimate target—a giant web. On the far side of it, Val waited, her bow at the ready, Helwo behind her. The mystic orb spider was next to her, its fur rainbow-colored.

            Wolten ran right to the edge before Leo yanked back on his neck hair and cried, “Stop!”

            The baying of the wargs was right behind him.

            He leapt from Wolten. Then, nervous about the spiders, Leo led Wolten at a careful fast walk through the webs, never touching any, to the side of the web where the spider was. He quickly pet it—reigning his fear in—and its fur turned rainbow.

            Predictably, the wargs didn’t slow, and they all ran into the webs, the orcs slashing and cursing. To add injury to insult, one threw an ax at the rainbow-furred spider.

            The forest canopy came alive.

Fifty or so of the spiders changed their hair to crimson and then flooded down the webs onto the wargs and orcs or simply leapt at them. The attack was silent and sudden, and numerous orcs screamed as six-inch fangs pierced their hides, injecting venom, before they knew they were under attack.

            The melee was hell—wargs and orcs packed into a small space, and under surprise attack by a horde of spiders.

            Then a bugle sounded, and Hugh slammed into the back of the enemy, dragging an orc down from his mount and eviscerating it. The soldiers of Cavendil’s Coterie, who had been waiting in cover, hit the rear of the warg riders.

            It was a slaughter.

***

            “It’s a damn shame we still have to fight tomorrow,” Lily said.

Leo kicked his feet up onto the command table that Cavendil’s Coterie had brought along with them. Around the table sat his ‘command team.’ It was composed of Meryl Cavendil, the actual commander, as well as Hugh, Lily, Val, and little Zir. Drinks ringed the edge of the table, and a hastily drawn map of the orcs camp and the surrounding area, done in charcoal, sat in the middle.

Zir had apparently murdered an orc somehow during all the confusion and was cleaning blood off his knife, scowling for some reason.

            “Well, we got the forty riders, and more importantly, their wargs,” Meryl said. “That means that we have about a hundred and sixty orcs left to kill tomorrow. But they’ll be mostly Level One… if we had to fight all that and forty Level Three wargs, we’d have been completely, well… we’d have been totally screwed. So an excellent job defeating them in detail.”

            “Thanks,” Leo said.

            “I think we’ll be okay tomorrow,” Meryl said, taking a drink of a watery beer next to her. “I mean, these orcs have been unopposed by anything other than their fellow orcs so long they’re ridiculously cocky. They’ll change their thinking after we kick their teeth in a few times, but I’m really hoping we get a few more battles where they act like idiots out of arrogance. The spiders were inspired though. Even if we had ambushed them in a normal manner, I’d have lost a lot of men against those wargs.”

            Leo had a sudden thought. “The spiders aren’t going to be mad that I looted them, right? I mean, the spider’s do have animal intelligence, we’re sure?”

            Lily laughed and flicked her silver hair from her face. “The spiders are animals. Think of it like milking cows or something.”

            “Then I’m going to consider it a tax to support the military efforts necessary to keep the orcs off the spiders’ home turf.”

            “Well, they don’t care what you call it, or that you took some healing mushrooms,” Lily said. “And it will let us help more soldiers, tomorrow.”

            “Speaking of the soldiers, how’d we do?” Leo asked Meryl.

            She smiled. “We did fantastically. It really is a shame that we have do have another fight at dawn. I’d love to get sloshed to celebrate, instead of drinking this water masquerading as piss.”

Hugh laughed boisterously at the simple joke. Leo gave his own titter just because the dragon was so excitable, not at the quip itself. What a teenager.

Meryl continued. “Making that deal with you might prove to be one of the most pivotal damn decisions I make in building my career.”

            The word ‘damn’ had the same general connotation as it did in English, including its use as an intensifier. But Leo absently noted that in Middle Averian, it literally meant ‘to be dropped into a bad dimension,’ as opposed to a more spiritual thing.

            “How so?” Leo asked, idly curious. “I take it we didn’t lose anyone?”

            “Two dead, both extremely unlucky,” Meryl said. “With Lily there, anything less than a blow that killed within seconds was fixed right up. But the wargs got two of my men before they went down.”

            “We lost two? Why do you say it was fantastic?” Leo asked, a bit horrified.

            The looks that everyone gave him around the table told him he was being an idiot.

            Zir held his knife up in one hand, and a piece of ripped clothing in the other. “Levels,” he said as he cleaned his knife.

Did someone let him in on the fighting? Leo wondered. Did he sneak in?

“Exactly right,” Meryl said. “Almost thirty of my people made Level Two, and one living blade”—the phrase translated closer to ‘buzz saw’ in Leo’s mind—“managed to hit Level Three. They’re high off a victory right now as well, and early in their contract with me. Almost four years left to go. So very few of them took powers to help them with a non-combatant career down the road, instead focusing on powers to make them stronger fighters.”

“Amazing!” Lily said.

“That’s almost half of my team that’s Level Two now, including, wait for it”—Meryl did a little drumroll on the table with her fingers—“four healers! I can’t believe I had four Body magic types who all made Level Two and qualified to be healers. Four people who can use essence to keep my soldiers alive!”

“Seriously, that really is amazing,” Lily said again, smiling. “I’m so happy for you.”

“So, what’s the plan now, my lord?” Leo asked.

Meryl sighed. “Well, it’s not quite as good the one you had with the spiders, but since the orcs have proved that they can be led around by the nose if you punch them in it, I did have a way I think we can defeat them and save all the slaves. Again, though, it has to wait till tomorrow.”

“Why not hit them tonight?” Lily asked.

Meryl laughed. “A blind brawl in the middle of the night? Are you crazy? We can’t see in the dark. But orcs have some low-light vision. Also, I couldn’t command at all. It would literally just be a brawl against a species with natural bonuses to Strength and Toughness, that can see better. A complex, insane mess on the worst possible terms. No thank you.”

Lily flushed. “Sorry. I guess we wait, then.”

Zir tightened his grip on the knife. “I hope my mom will be okay till then.”

“Yes, assuming that.”

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