Chương 30: From the East

If the alert runes were glowing blue, that meant something important had been sighted. I glanced at the other Dupes who were watching me, and they stared back at me. They were looking at me with a touch of awe, and perhaps I'd earned it, considering I'd stabbed clean through a boulder yesterday. But now wasn't the time to lose our wits.

"Get back to the camp," I said quickly.

"And gear up. Let's find our squads and stick together." At the moment, I may have been stronger than them when it came to Skills, but I didn't have nearly as many attributes yet as some of them, and the majority of my attributes weren't physical. I had to be careful about timing my Skills, otherwise I was going to be a sitting duck—or worse. At the moment, I was basically a glass cannon. We sprinted back to the camp.

Romance was with me, and once we made it through the outer palisade of the camp, we broke off toward our squad's tent. When we arrived, I snatched up my scale mail and pulled it on over the chainmail hauberk I'd been wearing, then fastened my pauldron and damaged bracers. Lastly, I pulled on my helmet. I still didn't have a shield or any leg armour—no greaves nor gaiters, but I'd make do for today. My scale mail hung low enough to protect my thighs. As we ran out of the tent, fully suited-up, Shave caught us.

He tossed me an orange poncho and said, "It's going to get messy out there. We wouldn't want to stick you by accident." I nodded, then clasped the poncho on and tucked it into my belt. It wasn't long enough to interfere with my movement, so I figured there was no harm in wearing it. I gave my spear a whirl, then rushed out of the tent with Shave and Romance to the staging ground.

Lieutenant Finger marched in front of us, checking all the squads under his command, and Commander Galliard hopped on his horse, trotting back and forth behind us. The commander shouted, "We don't have a full report yet, but if the runes are flaring, it's bad. Since we haven't seen our watchmen yet, it's safe to assume they are already dead." Finger pulled a horn off his belt and held it up.

"Your lieutenants will lead your squads on a patrol of the nearby areas, searching for the threat. When you identify it, sound your horn, and we will all form up on you. Sergeants confirm?"

"Understood, lieutenant!" all the sergeants—including Shave—shouted.

"Move out. On the double!" Our squad made a tight formation behind Shave—the same formation we'd used when rescuing the prisoners from the Labyrinth—and moved with Finger out the camp gate. He led us north, toward the woods, and we crossed over the stream. Our most important duty was protecting Slowbend. Already, the citizens were rushing inside, and bells were tolling in warning. I didn't want to fight in the forest again, but if we had to, at least I was better equipped.

Once we had circled around to the north of Slowbend and crossed the stream, we stopped and slowly turned west. My stomach swarmed like it was an anthill and someone had kicked it, but I kept my wits about me, and I stayed in formation. Everything was painfully silent, and I stretched my ears, trying to hear as far into the distance as I could. But even with the extra Perception my helmet granted me, it wasn't enough. Whatever was attacking wasn't close enough to hear yet.

Finally, when Slowbend dipped behind the hills and I couldn't see it anymore—except for the smoke trails of its chimneys—Finger ordered our squads to a halt.

"That's far enough!" he said.

"Lieutenant!" Shave called, pointing toward the edge of the forest.

"Three riders!" Finger turned his gaze toward the forest, and all of the squads followed suit. At first, from this distance, I could only make out a silhouette, and it could have been anything. Finger raised his horn to his lips, ready to blow a blast, but a different Dupe from another squad shouted, "Wait! Lieutenant, they're men!" Three horses raced toward us. As they approached, I narrowed my eyes. One of the riders had fallen off his mount.

His foot was trapped in the stirrup, and his horse dragged him behind through the mud. He was a Dupe. Three arrows with mangy black feathers stuck out from his chest. The rider in the lead, however, was a regular human—not a Dupe. I recognized him as Sir Aldhelm from his helmet's black plume, and an arrow protruded from his shoulder too. He gripped his reins with both hands and snapped them, urging his horse to trot faster. His face curled into a grimace, and black blood was splattered across his cloak.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Lieutenant!" Sir Aldhelm shouted as soon as he was in hearing range.

"What's happening, sir?" Finger said, holding tight to his axe and shield.

"Orcs wiped out the 5th Battalion. When I heard, I came racing to aid them, but I was too late."

"How many orcs?"

"Four hundred strong. And they have plains trolls with them. I killed as many as I could, but it wasn't enough. They're heading this way as we speak."

"Our watchtower was reporting another crossing here," Finger replied.

"We're moving to intercept them."

"Gather your forces, Lieutenant. If another equal force is aiming for your camp, we face upward of eight hundred foes." My eyes widened. There were barely three hundred Dupes total in the camp. How were we supposed to take on eight hundred orcs at once?

"Sir Aldhelm can't seriously be thinking of facing them," I whispered. The thegn's head whipped toward me—he'd heard what I said.

"He is a sorcerer," Shave replied.

"That evens the odds slightly."

"I know my limits," Sir Aldhelm said, turning to face Finger's group.

"I can damage their force, but I need a front line. My best Art, a storm-based Art, takes time to charge. Hold them off for long enough, and I will wipe out as many of them as I can. It will consume all of my Presence, but it should quell their numbers enough to give us a fighting chance." He paused, then trotted his horse around and pointed to the woods.

"You have an orc army coming from the due north. Pull back and—" A different horn sounded, this time from the south. Our heads all flicked toward the other squads who were gathering up on the plains to the southeast. Even farther to the east, a swath of black specks were approaching over the hills. They didn't use a formation, and were simply racing forward as quickly as they could.

"We can't fight on two fronts," Finger said.

"We need to join them." I lifted myself up on my tiptoes, trying to see over the hills. In the distance, and from the due north as well as the east, orcs let out high-pitched war-shrieks. The orcs who had wiped out the 5th were coming from the forest. I glanced across the landscape, trying to look for any defensible positions. Trying to use my Focus to assess the situation. [Labyrinth Delver] may not have been any good, but it had [Eye For Framing] baked into it.

I pictured what was about to happen, and it wasn't pretty. We were going to get surrounded and wiped out.

"Sergeant, we're going to get steamrolled like this," I whispered to Shave.

"What would you do?" Ticks whispered back. I swallowed, then shrugged with a 'eh, fuck it' attitude. It might have been presumptuous to assume I knew better than our commanders, but what did I have to lose? I said, "I would pull back, let the northern orcs bunch up on the curve of the stream until they were all together, then bait them east. Once they're east of us, past the main line, we lead them back west and join the rest of the battalion—that way, we're only fighting on one front."

Shave debated for a moment, then nodded and said, "Sir Aldhelm! May I make a suggestion?"

"I heard your man, sergeant." Aldhelm ran his hand down the pommel of his great warbrand, then delivered a curt nod.

"It is a sound plan. Finger, rally your men behind me. I can spare enough Presence to raise a storm at the stream and delay the second wave of orcs."

"What does 'steamrolled' mean?" Romance hissed to me.

"I'll, uh, I'll explain later." It probably wasn't translating well, but they still got the general meaning of the phrase. Aldhelm snapped the reins of his horse, then instructed his one remaining rider to retreat to Slowbend and clean up any orcs that got past us. We spread out as wide as we could. Behind us, I was faintly aware of the battle on the plains as the other Dupes engaged the eastern wave of orcs. I couldn't let myself think about them. They would handle their foes for as long as they could.

"Shave, give us a read of what's north of us!" Lieutenant Finger ordered. Shave pulled off his helmet and used his perception Skill.

"I'm picking up about three hundred Irons and plenty of Steels."

"Those would be the plains trolls," Sir Aldhelm called. He turned his horse, then led Finger and our squads back across the stream, to a bend that curved away from the town and arced out over the plains, and would slow the orcs enough. Then, he brought us up to the top of a hill so we were in sight of the northern wave of orcs. We had to make ourselves the biggest target and keep their attention off the village.

Black specks began pouring out of the woods to the north as well, and there were larger lumps among them. They weren't ogres. They had sickly green flesh, the shade of dead grass, and they all carried heavy clubs. Their heads were round and bald, and they wore nothing but loincloths. Arrows protruded from their flesh, but nothing had pierced deep enough to do lasting damage.

"Noise!" Finger shouted.

"Make noise!" Dupes pounded their axes and swords on their shields. I found a boulder and pounded it with the blunt end of my spear, and altogether, it created a deafening racket. The northern wave of orcs raced toward us, sprinting across the fields. When they reached the stream we'd just crossed, they bunched up, slowing as they scrambled across it. Raising his sword, Sir Aldhelm triggered a basic Art—I didn't know what the powerful Art he was charging up would do, but this surely wasn't it.

A swell of pressure washed out from behind me, and a shroud of mist leapt up from the stream. The waves grew choppy, and lightning crackled in the mist. Bolts struck some of the orcs dead on the spot, and it was enough to hold them back for a short time. But it certainly wasn't the strongest ability he could muster. Enough for all the northern orcs to gather behind the stream, becoming a tight bundle. Shave shouted, "Lieutenant, they're all out of the woods! They're all stuck in the curve of the stream!"

"Now!" Finger yelled.

"Break east! Go, run as fast as you can!"