Chapter 18: Chapter 18 – The Hopak on the Hill

Chapter 18 - The Hopak on the Hill

I was looking up at the sky, about a week later, watching the clouds drift past as the wagon I was lying in bumped along the road.

We were currently en route to a town by the name of Raialie, which was situated on the far southwestern edge of the Enbraden territory. I had found out that civilization in Vrekfren, locally anyway, had not developed to the point of full nations with solid borders. Instead, there was something of a network of city-states, each surrounded by a loose affiliation of smaller towns that did not so much owe allegiance to the main city as pay to not to be harassed. Honestly, I would just call that taxes with extra steps… and fewer benefits. But, anyway, while some of these city-states were near enough to one another to have a territorial border, most were simply surrounded by unclaimed wilderness.

Such was the case with Bradfirth. The Allenwood marked most of its eastern territorial border, a wilderness I was intimately familiar with, and we were currently headed toward a vast untamed grassland, called the Fourth Plains, which, as you might guess, surrounded the Stele of the Fourth Creation. The Stele, I had discovered, was something of a holy site for all of the kinds and was frequently a target for pilgrimage by various religious sects. From what I had gleaned, no one actually knew much about the place, other than it was a big-ass rock in the middle of a giant deserted field in the middle of no where. And it was covered in writing that no one could decipher. Given what I knew of language now, I wondered if that were really true.

Which was not to say that people did not have theories about it. That they certainly did. In fact, in my inquiries, I had gotten three different stories about the Stele from various individuals, all of which varied wildly. The most plausible one, I felt, had been told to me by the blacksmith back in Kemry-on-the-Moors.

I had been there to purchase a shield. My fighting style had been developing into something along the lines of ‘Keep it away! Hand of Mercy, keep it away!’, and a shield was just the thing I needed. Jax was sure I could get a decent one with our budget, too. I rubbed at the smooth edges of my new equipment, lovingly. It had been a week, and I was still geeking out about it. I owned a real live shield!

Okay, sure, it was not fancy. It was an oval in shape and was made of some sort of hardwood. The smith had told me what kind when I had bought it, but I had forgotten. The edges of it were ringed in bronze, and it had a steel disk in the center with a bit of a spike. Unfortunately, it was wickedly heavy, so I was having a hard time imagining myself actually trying to shield bash anything with it.

The smith had been one of those tree-like people, a Forga, I learned. I still thought they all looked alike, too. They all had bark-like skin, and spindly, jagged limbs sticking out from a headless torso with a face just planted into the center of their chest. The smith, a man by the name of JigJig the Smith — he would get upset if you left off ‘the Smith’ — had his green shoulder-hair cut extremely short. It was his only distinguishing feature.

The story he had told us had been very difficult for me to understand. He had spoken Laoi’na but with an extremely thick accent. I got the impression that it was his second language, at the very least. Unfortunately, it was mine, too. I was saved an iota of embarrassment, at the time, by the fact that Jax refused to let me speak Laoi’na in public any more. Or, at least, until we had had time for a few lessons.

“Da whey ah figger’n, et bein’ all ta neem. Da Firth Creesh’n, et bein’, ya figger gotsa mane sum’n,” he said.

I looked at Jax for help. “He be sayin’ it be all in the name. If it be the Fourth Creation, that has to mean summat.” I nodded and gestured that the man continue.

“Ah figger’n ting’s a’recer’ d’ah loi’. Was wat’n sish fra’ n’a ‘ginnin’a nah, lees’n a Tird, ‘newah.”

“It be a record o’ life from the beginin’ ter now since the Third, anyway,” he translated.

“Third?” I asked, in Laoi’na. I could get away with one word responses.

JigJig the Smith spread his spindly limbs unconcernedly, “Haddabe. F’in bay Firth bay Tird ‘n s’on. Bay trin’a getter roit, sa’I.”

“Who is?” Jax asked. I looked at him, lost. Who was what?

“Who’ver meddettal,” the Smith drawled. “De God’ses, meb.”

Jax frowned in thought.

“What? What is he saying?” I asked.

“Bunch o’ shite. He be sayin’ that someone be makin’ an’ remakin’ the world over ‘n over. An’ leavin’ a record on the Stele.” He had switched to English.

“You don’t think that sounds plausible?” I probed.

He shook his head, “I never heard no priest say such. An’ besides, Fourth Creation could mean a lot o’ things.”

I considered. It certainly was not the only explanation, but it was better than at least one that we had heard. Thinking back, that was when we had actually met her. That had been at the tailor’s shop, as I recalled, though I was pretty certain I had seen her at the pub the night previous. She had been insistent that the thing was some kind of giant egg that had been left there by some great monster, and it would hatch to destroy the world precisely 397 years from now. She had gone on, but I had started ignoring her when I had gotten a whiff of her breath. To be that drunk in the early morning took dedication, and the whole thing sounded like a random conspiracy theory. Dressed as she was, I could see her need for a tailor, though. Her outfit had been worse than mine and only just barely decent. And I did not want to think about her that way. She scared the hell out of me.

We had purchased a couple of new packs, leather this time, as well as a few sets of clothes. Nothing overly fancy, mind you, but certainly a step up from the near rags we had been wearing. That, combined with my shield and the supplies we had purchased, nearly bankrupted us. JigJig had been… sorry. JigJig the Smith had been kind enough to repair and sharpen what equipment we did have free with our purchase. He had even replaced the haft of my broken half-spear. It was now about six feet long, and I felt much more confident in it as a weapon. He had even polished it.

I looked down at our last remaining silver, shining dully in my palm. I just had to hope that it would carry us until we could get some more. Fortunately, we had managed to secure passage with a merchant caravan that was going our way. Free of charge, too. Initially, we had tried to sign on as guards, but they were not at all interested. We were only of the second layer, after all. However, their tune changed when I had let it slip that I had a healing skill. Apparently, it was extremely rare that a non-priest class had access to such a thing, and they tended to charge exorbitant prices for their services. Jax and I privately agreed not to mention any potential side-effects the skill might incur. That was on a ‘need to know’ basis, especially when a free ride was on the line.

“Doing alright, today, Donum?” someone called from the side.

I looked up. Menda, the head merchant and caravan leader, was addressing me from atop his horse. Or I was calling it a horse, anyway. They had their own name for it, of course, but it was close enough in my book. It looked rather like the descriptions of Sleipnir, Odin’s horse from the Poetic Edda, that I had read. Apparently, this place had several versions of horses with varied amounts of legs. This one had eight. Menda had told me they were specialized for pulling power, which made them an excellent choice for hauling cargo. He was riding one of the ones that they were currently resting.

I smiled, “Yes, thank you. Much far, the distance becoming?”

Menda smirked, “’How much further’, do you mean?” The people in the caravan had been helping me with the language as we traveled. Apparently, I was having some difficulty getting the word order correctly. My biggest hurdle was a concept they called ‘word color’, which had an effect on what order to place adjectives depending on the color the noun was, given the tense of the verb. So far, I had avoided any major land mines, but it had the potential to radically alter your meaning if you were not careful. The concept was completely throwing me. It really was not enough to just have a word dictionary in your head. “We’ll be arriving in Raialie tomorrow afternoon. Barring any disasters.”

“Say not this thing,” I said half-jokingly. “The luck is wrong, you do sometimes.”

He tilted his head. “I’m… not sure what you were trying to say there.”

Shoot. What did I do… uh… ‘do’ is in present tense and luck is… green? No! It’s a purple word. Dammit…

“Uh… Bad luck to do this. You not… uh… should not fate with the seduction… no… tempt fate?” I said haltingly. Ugh. This language was murderous!

“Maiden’s hoary arse, Donum!” Jax chimed in. He had been trying to catch some sleep beside me in the wagon, his new jacket thrown over his head. Menda blanched at the easy blasphemy. Of course, I was used to Jax’s near constant swearing by this point, and I barely even noticed it anymore. What is more, I saw no reason to explain Jax’s grudge against the Lawmaiden to the man. If anything, it would only complicate things. “He has a silly superstition about bringin’ up things yer afraid of. Says the goddesses might take it as an excuse to fuck with yer.”

Had I truly phrased it that way? That did not sound like me.

Menda looked confused by this whole exchange and was about to reply, but right about then, one of the scouts rode up. “Bad news, Menda. Looks like there’s a mudslide ahead.”

I tried really hard not to look smug. Honestly.

Jax threw his jacket at me.

The area we had been traveling through was a hilly and sparse woodland, and our track had been wending its way around a fairly steep slope. ‘Had been’ was the operative phrase here. The recent rainy season had caused the ground to collapse, and the road ahead was completely covered in a giant mound of mud, trees, and rocks. It would take us weeks to dig through it.

I hopped out of the wagon to get a closer look. Menda and a few of the other merchants were gathered there and talking quietly amongst themselves.

“…we go around?” I heard.

“Yes,” Menda replied, “but we’d have to go to the north.”

“But that’s getting closer to Bradfirth,” another complained. “Might meet up with Collectors then.”

“We can hardly go south,” the first man argued. “That’s straight into the Fourth Plains. We’d run right into a pack of who-knows-what out there.”

Jax stepped up beside me. “What are Collectors?” I asked in English.

He shrugged, “Bunch o’ thugs. Bandits, basically. But they claim they be hired by the Enbraden. They got some kind o’ deal worked out, I reckon.”

“The Enbraden hire the Cursed?” I asked, a bit shocked.

He shook his head, “Nay, they be no Cursed. Near enough, though. If they catch ye, they take a share o’ cargo or yer lives, lest ye pay ‘em off.”

I frowned. Government sanctioned robbery? And towns had to pay not to be harassed? Were these people rulers or mafia dons? “Do people fight them off?” I asked. “Would the Enbraden care? And how would they stay uncursed if they kill for money?”

Jax waved me down to slow my stream of questions. Finally, he answered, “There be ways round the curse. Tie a man to a tree in the middle o’ the wood, an’ he’s dead sure enough. But you did nay do they killin’,” he explained. “And o’ course, people fight ‘em off. Why do ye think these one’s got so many guards?”

There actually were quite a few of them. At least twenty, by my count. Twenty-one if you counted that woman…

He continued, “As fer the Enbraden, who can say? I doubt they care if a bunch o’ thugs die in their name out in the wilderness.”

“Alright,” Menda called out. We all diverted our attention for his announcement. “We’ve decided to go back and around to the south.”

There was a lot of grumbling at that, but he shouted over them, “You all know our cargo! If the Collectors find out, they’ll try to take the whole load! Even if we fought them off, we’d have to slaughter them to a man. If even one got loose, they’d hound us all the way. We can’t risk it.”

I nodded in understanding. We were carrying a huge load of beer and spirits to Raialie, amongst other things. If the Collectors were as Jax had described, I had little doubt they would covet it for themselves.

Right about then, we heard a shout from above and an arrow thunked into one of the wagons.

“Raid!” someone yelled. “The Collectors are on us!”

“This far south? Impossible!” Menda cried, unbelieving.

I looked up the hill to try to see what was coming. Cresting the ridge above, dozens and dozens of men where charging down at us. But in the shadows from the canopy, they looked kind of funny. With big bulbous heads.

“Worse,” Jax yelled. “Gob swarm!”

I stood trembling uncertainly as a huge dose of adrenaline slammed into my system all at once. Finally realizing that I was standing there unarmed while a pack of crazed monsters were charging us, I hastily sprinted back to where I had stashed my gear. A couple of arrows thudded into the dirt at my feet, and I looked up to see where they were coming from. Since when had Gobs upgraded to arrows? Up at the top of the ridge, there were several larger figures with crude bows firing down at us. Fortunately, we were still a bit out of range or half of us would be down already.

Ducking under the wagon, I called out, “Ware the bowmen! They don’t look like Gobs to me!” In my panicked state of mind, I did not realize I was shouting in English.

Jax slid to cover just as I yelled. Summoning his axe, he risked a look and cursed. “Bloody tally-washer’s got Goblins with ‘em. This were planned!”

“What do we do?” I asked, the adrenaline making my voice quiver.

“Get yer shield an’ stand firm! Use the wagons fer cover long as ye can! An’ get that spell goin’! We need every advantage we can get!” he said over the shouting from all around.

I nodded firmly. “Right.” I had a game plan now. I was good as long as I had a game plan.

Taking a quick peek around the wagon, I saw that the coast was clear, for the moment anyway, and darted to my shield and spear. Pulling the heavy thing up, I ducked under it just in time to deflect an arrow. Mercy, Power, and Law, I was not prepared for this. But like it or not, they were on us.

Jax leapt to my side, his axe swinging. The little Gobs were ferocious but little challenge to someone armed and ready… in ones or twos, anyway. Jax took out two of them in as many swings before I had jumped down from the wagon. Three more charged us before I was even in position.

Shoving one to the ground with my shield, I punched my spear through its exposed belly. Under normal circumstances, I might have been sickened by that, but my fight or flight response was in full gear. “Hold them off while I concentrate,” I called out. He did not acknowledge me, too busy doing just that. Summoning the words to mind, I began the process of trying to spit them out, but an arrow thudded into my shield and broke my concentration. Damn it all, I needed to start practicing this seriously if I wanted to be a real mage. I resolved that if I lived through this, that would be my new goal.

“Hurry up! They be thick as studs on a mare in heat!” Jax shouted.

Firming my resolve, I wrangled the words together again and finally pushed them out. The spell went wild for a moment, trying to affect all of my allies at once. I went to a knee as my breath was stolen. It felt as if I were trying to dead lift a house. Mentally, I steered the spell to only affect Jax and myself, and the shadows pulled in around us. Panting, I stood up again. I could manage this for a while.

“Okay, we’re good. What now?” I yelled, just as a Gob charged me. Startled, I did not so much stab it as move my spear in its way. It died all the same.

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“Watcher’s Eye! Where is Sherr Hess?!” someone yelled.

A guard shouted out from nearby, “Passed out drunk in her wagon, of course!” Just then, an arrow took him right in the shin.

Wincing, I moved to help him but Jax pulled me back. “Later,” he yelled. “Tend the wounded if we survive. You ain’t got the stamina for it, now. We need to wake her up!”

He was right, of course. On the other hand, I would almost rather face the Gobs all on my own than try to wake up Sherr Hess. Almost.

Moving slowly, the shadows did their work. Jax still needed to take out the occasional Gob that got too close, but for the most part we went unmolested. The guards and merchants were holding their own fairly well at first, but each time one fell, it only increased the burden on the rest. And the Gobs seemed to be unending.

Finally making it to the end of the caravan, we swung ourselves into Sherr Hess’ wagon. She was lying face down with her bare feet hanging out the back. Somehow, she was still managing to snore.

“How the hell is she sleeping through this?” I said aloud. Another arrow ricocheted off of my shield and grazed my cheek. Wincing from the pain, I looked up. Those Goblins were getting closer and more accurate. Stepping over her prone form, I positioned my shield to guard against more of the oncoming fire. The thing was rapidly paying for itself.

Jax did not answer, struggling as he was to flip her over. She was huge, after all. When she was standing, which was admittedly rare, she stood at almost seven feet tall, and if I had to guess, I would put her at around three hundred pounds from her muscle mass alone. Not that I would tell her that to her face, of course. She was a gray orc, a Keltha to give them their proper name, and I had never once seen her sober. Honestly, I think the only reason she had signed up for this trip was because of our cargo. Actually… Jax had been rather excited about it when he found out, as well.

A few rocks passing harmlessly overhead heralded the entrance of three more Gobs as they jumped over the side of the wagon with us. The shifting shadows were doing their job, for the most part, but I was not very skilled with it yet and there were an awful lot of Gobs. Eventually, some were going to see us. The fight was a stumbling, awkward mess. Jax was doing okay, though he was getting scratched up pretty bad. My spear, though, was too long to wield properly in the space we had. Plus, there was a three hundred pound Keltha woman underfoot. She stayed asleep through most of the whole thing, until right at the very end. I had managed to brain one of the nasty things with an overhead swing, and it fell right on top of her head. I must have stepped on her a dozen times by that point, but for some reason, getting slapped in the face by a foot long Gob cock woke her up instantly.

Her shark-like black eyes popped open, and with a roar, she hurled the little manling out of the wagon, end over end like a rag doll. Our gaze met for just a moment, and her eyes narrowed. I was standing over her, straddling her prone form, I realized. Hastily getting out of her way as she surged to her feet, I tried to back off, but she grabbed me by the collar and hauled me into the air.

“W-what do ya think you’re doin’, Donum?” she snarled, with an unsteady sway. My eyes watered from her breath. She was still drunk, I realized.

Instead of replying, I just pointed in the direction of the oncoming horde. At least five more had broken off and were heading right for us, followed, I noticed, by two of the slightly taller Goblins. An arrow buzzed right between our faces.

“Oo~ooh…” she drawled. “Izz play time.” Belching loudly, she lazily tossed me behind her and out of the wagon.

I landed on my shoulder badly, the pain of it causing me to grit my teeth in agony, and my spell dropped. Rolling over with a groan, I watched as she drew two scimitars from her attached belt. Holding them aloft, she let loose the loudest sound I had ever heard, “HEAD!” The force of it was almost like an explosion, the shock wave alone knocking Jax away, out of the wagon and between the two hitched horses. His sudden appearance, or maybe it was just the explosive noise, caused them to rear in panic, and the wagon jerked into motion. Whatever it was that Sherr Hess had expected to happen after yelling like that, it probably did not include the wagon jerking out from under her and her subsequent face plant into the dirt. All things considered, this was starting out about like I had expected.

Standing back up unsteadily, she chuckled to herself, “Whoopsie.”

Whatever else might have been said in that moment was lost, as the horde was on us. Rolling to my feet in rush, I ignored the stabbing pain from my shoulder as I hefted my shield once more. Thrusting forward without really aiming properly, I still managed to graze one of the Gobs in the leg. That gave me enough breathing room to dance over to Jax. He was laying about himself with his axe with abandon, still using what shadows were available to him from the shade of the trees to make the weapon sing with his tenebrous dance. Finally, he cleaved the third and last one that was at our immediate position through the head with an overhead swing, and there was a flash. A rush of energy ran up his axe, into his body and subsequently into me. We both gasped at the same time. It had almost felt like a bolt of electricity.

“The fuck was that?!” I choked out.

“F-finally got that d… da~amned skill to work,” he panted out in reply, twitching.

“Skill? What…” I was interrupted by a severed Goblin head smashing into my shield. The force of it knocked me from my feet again.

“HEAD!” Sherr Hess roared again, cackling wildly. She had cleared our little corner of the battlefield, leaving a pile of corpses all around her, and rushed away. I had not been paying attention to her fight, but somewhere along the way… somehow, some way, she was now pant-less.

“Hess, yer fanny be flappin’ in the wind!” Jax called after her. I did not know if she heard him. As much as I disliked the woman, my eyes still followed her ass as it jiggled away from us. My current state of semi-arousal was not helping matters, either. The woman was definitely in shape, I would give her that.

Offering his hand, Jax hauled me back to my feet. “Come on. This battle ain’t won yet.”

Nodding grimly, I concentrated once more. The now familiar cloak provided by Fortunate Shadows surrounded us, and we started away. We would need all of the fortune we could get.

Heading back to the rest of the group, I could see that at least half of them were down now. Looking over to my right, I could see Sherr Hess off on her own, reaping through the horde like so much wheat. She was singing, I realized, in a drunken off-key sort of way. It sounded like she had invented some kind of theme song for herself. Shaking my head, I decided to ignore her for now. She would be fine on her own, pants or no.

Just then, I caught sight of Menda. He had his back to one of the wagons and was laying about himself with a longsword. He was standing protectively over two of the other traders, who looked to be bleeding out, while a single guard held his flank. They were doing alright for themselves, but two Goblins were peppering them with arrows from further up the hill. It would not be long before their luck ran out.

I tapped Jax on the shoulder and motioned to the archers. “Come on. Let’s see if we can take them unaware.”

Hefting his axe, he nodded with determination. Trying to move with any sort of stealth through a battlefield, magical aid or no, was not an easy thing but the trees helped considerably. Many times, we had to stop to waylay a few Gobs who had gotten too close or just straight out bumped into us. By the time we were in position, just upslope from the Goblins, I had collected a nasty gash right above my ankle and was limping badly. Jax was doing little better.

“Ready?” he called.

Panting with the effort of holding the spell to this point, I gave him a firm nod and dropped the magical cloak. Hoping to cut them down before they could fire on us, we silently charged. Somehow, fate was with me for just that moment, and my spearhead sank into the Goblin’s back with a dull thud. It gave a sharp but short gasp as I drilled it to the ground.

Unfortunately, the sound tipped off the other one, and it ducked out of the way before Jax could cleave its head from its shoulders. Cursing, Jax charged it again, but the little green man managed to loose an arrow right into his gut just as Jax’s sharp blade separated its arm from its torso. They both crumpled to the ground, screaming in pain.

“No!” I yelled. Rushing over, I finished off the little bastard before turning to my companion. He was lying on his back, gasping, but still alive.

“Utter cock-juggling gowk! He nailed me,” Jax coughed out.

I chuckled. If he could still swear, he would be fine. “Alright. Let me get this arrow out of you. Are you ready for the healing spell? I might have to crank it up to get you on your feet.”

He rolled his eyes, “One agony for another. Hurry it up. Our bums are swingin’ bare out here.”

“On three?” I asked.

Gritting his teeth, he prepared himself.

“Okay, one…” and I yanked the arrow free.

“Arrrrgh… whore’s fud! Ye said three, ya radge wee shite!” he howled.

“Yeah, I lied,” I said by way of explanation. Several high pitched bellows caught my attention, and I could see another four Gobs were charging us from the side. “Damn it!” I muttered. Trying to block out the sensation of my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, I closed my eyes to summon up the Renewal of Consumption. The words wrestled with me for a moment before I finally spat the thing out, and Jax began writhing on the ground. That was the last I saw before they were on me.

It was all I could do to keep them at bay. I was no fighter of consequence, and taking on four Gobs at once was pushing me to my very limits, to say nothing of the aftershock of the spell tying my stomach in knots. Twisting away, I leapt slightly down slope, trying to keep them separated so as not to be overwhelmed, but the little fuckers kept grabbing at my shield and trying to trip me up. One of them dove for my feet, but I jumped just in time and landed right on its torso. The creature, and my wounded ankle, cried out in pain as we slid a bit further down in the wet dirt, but I gritted my teeth to ignore it. Stabbing down quickly, I managed to finish it before the others charged again.

Skipping to the side awkwardly, I swept my spear in wide arcs to keep them away. One of them, noticing Jax regaining his feet, broke off to attack him, and I shouted in warning. His head jerked up just in time to catch the thing’s charge, and rolling onto his back, he launched the Gob over his head with his feet, careening down the hill. But I did not have the time to pay any more attention. I still had two of my own to deal with.

They had spread themselves out to try and flank me, a situation I had been trying to avoid, but the distraction had given them just enough time to pull off the maneuver. Seeing nothing else for it, I charged the one on my left. Surprised at my sudden aggression, it barely managed to dodge, and the sharp blade of my spear cut a deep gouge across its ribs. My move cost me, though. The other one took advantage of my inattention, and glommed onto my bad leg, clawing and chewing for all it was worth. Howling in pain, I kicked forward like I was punting a football, and the little bastard went sailing.

Taking in the damage, I was gouged and bleeding all up and down my leg. If I did nothing, I was afraid I might bleed out soon. I needed to try and heal it, but I was too distracted. Howling in rage, the one I had wounded charged me again. I saw it come in plenty of time, and I swung my shield in front of me. Unfortunately, my leg was too hurt to plant properly, and when it leapt for me, I overbalanced.

The both of us tumbled to the ground and started sliding. Exposed roots and twigs scraped across my back as we went. All the while, I was still holding the shield in front of me to keep the menace away from my face. Snarling and scratching at me from around the barrier, I tried to hold it as far from myself as I could, but its weight was too much for me to hold out long. Finally, in desperation, I rolled. If it had not been so single minded, the move probably would not have worked, but as it was, I soon had the thing pinned under my shield. Coming to a halt, the thing still snarled and bit at me, struggled for all it was worth. I might as well have been trying to restrain a feral cat. Not knowing what else to do and fearing that it would get loose at any moment, I choked up on my spear as much as I could and repeatedly stabbed down until the creature went still.

I lay there panting for a little longer than I should have, blood dripping from my face. From the throbbing coming from my cheek, some of it was probably my own. Being this close and personal was started to cause my stomach to react badly. I closed my eyes to try and fight back the gorge. Now was not the time to lose it.

Suddenly, I realized that there was one more out there that I had merely kicked away. Looking back up the slope, I tried to find where it had went, only to see Jax chopping down with his axe to finish it off. The move caused another surge of energy to pass between us, and I inhaled sharply as life filled me. Weirdly, the sudden shock of it really helped my stomach settle.

Jax had taken a knee and was clutching at his shirt to control his trembling. “Mmm… fuck…” he muttered. “That’s nice.”

From the look of it, he was not exactly experiencing the same thing from it as I was. No, it looked like… I frowned. I did not know if associating violence with pleasure was such a good thing in the long run, but it was not something I could address right now. Deciding to set the excess energy Jax had just provided to good use, I rolled onto my backside and attempted to get a mild regeneration going on my leg. If I could just stop the bleeding, that would suit me fine. Closing my eyes again to try and concentrate, I once again summoned the words to Renewal of Consumption. The spell came more easily this time. Practice was paying off, after all.

I could feel the effects of the spell immediately, but it was not the pulsating surges of pleasure that Jax had described — a fact I was mildly disappointed over. Instead, it felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket fresh from the dryer and smothered in kisses from a pack of puppies. I started smiling like an idiot and giggled.

“I weren’t expectin’ that kind o’ reaction from ye, mate,” Jax said as he walked over to help me up. He was still pretty scratched up, but most of his wounds looked like they were on the mend.

Accepting his hand, I stood gingerly. My wounds had gone from feeling like thousands of miniature suns of pain to thousands of little pulses of… minty freshness? “Yeah, that was weird but nice,” I answered with some confusion, “I don’t know why my spells affect us differently.”

He just shook his head and looked around. Our little patch of the slope was clear, but the battle was still raging. “No time fer that now.”

“HEAD!”

Instinctively, I ducked, but the head in question smashed into one of the wagons near where Menda had been taking cover, the force of it causing the wagon to rock on its metal springs. I did not see him now, but there was a sizable pile of corpses there. Looking back, I found Sherr Hess staggering around in the middle of the hillside. She had found a bottle of alcohol from somewhere and was doing her level best to drain the thing in a single go. Her level best was pretty good, too. An arrow took her right in her exposed thigh while she was not paying attention, but she barely noticed. Pulling it out like it was an annoying mosquito, she tossed it aside and finished her drink.

Just then, we heard a massive roar from above. Some kind of gigantic figure was just cresting the rise. From here, it looked like an incredibly fat, green man with a tiny head. It was hard to say how tall it was, but it looked easily thrice as big as the Goblins it was now standing next to.

“Ah, fuckin’ arsepiece. They got a dog licking Gobborn, too?” Jax swore. The ‘Gobborn’ bellowed a challenge to the field in general, swinging a giant log above its head.

“Ah, shuddap!” Hess roared and hurled her now empty bottle at it. The bottle shattered right in the Gobborn’s face, and it fell to its backside in surprise. Scrubbing the broken glass from its eyes, it shook its head roughly before bellowing in anger. Surging to its feet once more, it charged her.

Laughing wildly, Hess pulled out her scimitars once more and began to stumble up the slope. After a few steps, though, she stopped. Giving the loudest and longest belch I had ever heard, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she fell face first into the dirt.

“Fuck,” Jax and I said at the same time.

Whatever the Gobborn had been expecting, it was not that. It slowed its charge and having reached the woman, it stared down at her in confusion. Seemingly almost crestfallen, it began poking at Hess’ still form.

“Goddess be damned, tolla-thon!” Jax swore and turned to me, “Without that drunken numpty, we ain’t gonna last long against that thing.”

“What do we do?” I asked worriedly. At least twenty more Gobs were coming over the hill and half as many Goblins. Turning back, I counted maybe five guards left, still frantically holding out.

Jax did not look at me, but I could see the muscles working in his jaw. Closing his eyes for a moment, he just said, “Run.” Without another word, the axe flashed back into his grip and he charged the Gobborn, howling like a maniac. The Gobborn had finally decided to brain Sherr Hess into oblivion, just because it could, but hearing Jax coming, it stepped over her and roared to accept his challenge. It almost looked happy about it, too.

I watched him uncertainly for a breath too long, confused. Perhaps it was the chaos of the situation or the fact that this felt all too much like real life where such things were not possible, but by the time I realized what Jax had intended, at least seven Gobs where running right at me, determined to rip me to shreds.

Cursing myself for a fool, I fled. I used to do this all time in role playing games. Send the summon out to grab the enemy’s attention, then regroup. But Jax was not just a summon. He was my friend. We had laughed and drank, and fought together side by side many times now. I felt like a damned coward. The situation may have been hopeless, this may have been the right move, but emotions are not logical things.

Pelting down the hill for all I was worth, my adrenaline addled mind made a decision for me that I never would have otherwise contemplated. Seeing the wagons ahead of me, maybe it was my angle of descent, the speed I was going, or some ridiculous notion that going around them would be too slow, I leapt, sailing through the air. As cool as I felt doing it, I realized very quickly that I had just made the mother of all bone-headed moves.

My foot just clipped the edge of the wagon going over, and I tripped and began tumbling down the hill, away from the wagons. Over and over, I went. I lost my spear somewhere along the way, and it was all I could do to keep my shield in front of my face. I slammed into a tree before I had fallen more than twenty paces, my momentum jerking me around and I continued past.

After that, I lost track of everything else. My world had narrowed to a spinning mess of dirt, twigs, leaves and gravity. I counted at least three times that I hit something else. I ripped through several bushes. I do not know if they had thorns, but as fast as I was tumbling, they hardly needed them. My arms and legs were on fire from scraping through them, and my shirt was torn clean away. When I hit the rock, my shield cracked loudly and flew off somewhere.

When I ultimately came to rest at the bottom of the hill, I was done. I was certain that my arm was broken, at the very least. Coughing and dizzy, I struggled to sit up again. The world was still spinning crazily, and I closed my eyes to try and make it behave itself again. Finally, I could hold it no longer, and turning I began heaving violently into the grass.

Wiping the acid from my mouth, my head jerked up as I heard noises coming from above me. The little bastards had not given up yet. Struggling to get up again, I managed to make three stumbling steps before my fortune ultimately ran out.

One of the Gobs finally managed to luck out with one of those damned rocks. The thing sailed through the air in an almost gentle arc before beaning me on the head, and I collapsed, unconscious.

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