Chương 61: Chapter Sixty-One: Peril

SIXTY-ONE"We have to stop that ram!" Darren shouted, darting forward but being stopped nearly instantly by a troop of goblins who spun on him. As empowered as he was by the stamina potion, it had stripped Darren of some of his fluidity. He fought like a jerky puppet, blade snapping back and forth as he killed the inferior-grade mobs. Roan started to calm himself with his breathing exercises and winced as the stone began to dim.

With a shout he dropped his warhammer and leapt, grabbing the lowest branch of the nearest tree on the edge of the forest and hauling himself up. He had to hope the defending mobs had some way of identifying friend from foe as Roan stoked the anger that burned inside of him. Rage and grief were twins who slumbered in him, kept contained by years of hard discipline from Old Bao. Abandoned, neglected, alone." They said they loved you, but they still entered this tower. You weren't enough to keep them from entering.

They abandoned you! Left you to starve on the streets of a dead city. A city left to ruin. You survived on pity and charity. Because you're weak!" The voice howled in his head as he felt the familiar anger start burning, intermingled with the despair that came with it. The red stone burned bright as he lifted the staff and aimed at the six ogres and their tree. Crossbow bolts rained down on them, peppering them, but it wasn't slowing them as they picked up speed.

They were halfway across the killing zone as Roan's emotions fully fanned to life for the first time in years. The glow of the stone was a star reborn, energy beginning to crackle around it as Roan tried to figure out how to use it." Think of the anger leaping from the stone. Think of a blazing inferno of your rage consuming your foes," the voice whispered and Roan pictured heat and rage flying from the staff and towards the ogres. Heat blossom as a leg thick spear of fire launched toward the ogres.

Exhaustion hit Roan as he slumped instantly, the staff tumbling from his fingers, the stone dull as it hit the ground. Roan watched as the ram exploded into a fireball, consuming all six of the ogres instantly. They didn't die, not with how tough they were. Instead they ran screaming in agony, bodies aflame, torches in the night as they crushed their own allies in their panic.

"Roan!" Darren shouted and lethargically Roan turned to look at the strategist. He'd dispatched the entire squad of goblins and stood around with a slightly concerned look on his face.

"I'm fine," Roan managed to say as he slid off the tree branch and hit the ground with a grunt.

"You used mana without a core, you idiot. Your body is drained," Darren said, sliding under Roan's arm and helping him stand. Six more kill notifications filled his feed as the ogres finally died.

"Got that. Need mana core and not my body's mana," Roan said as he looked inward at himself. It was the work of a moment to get his breathing correct and feel the sense of being he'd found in the temporal chamber. When he'd left the room he'd been a stream of energy racing through his body, thin stream sure, but constantly moving. Now he looked like a drought ridden desert river bed. A hunger surged through him, bending him in half as he groaned in agony.

"Mana deprivation. You'll live and a lesson was learned. Don't use magic without a mana core," Darren said, dragging Roan toward the gates. With the ogres rampage they'd cleared out a wide swathe of the area, simply crushing the goblins around them in their pained panic. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"ROAN!" Moira shouted and she broke from the lines, rushing toad them with her weapon, now a staff, flicking out this way and that as she knocked back the few goblins that came at her.

"She's a good healer. Didn't think she'd go that way, honestly," Darren muttered as the short woman got to them, taking up Roan's other arm, for which he was grateful. His feet weren't working properly and having less weight to move was better." Eight ogres and two shamans. A productive night." The voice whispered before falling silent.

"Necklaces. Bounty. Mine." Roan managed to rasp out. Darren barked a laugh but nodded his head.

"You'll get your reward, don't worry about that," he reassured Roan. They reached the line of defenders and they parted to let Roan lean against the wall. His legs folded and he slammed into the ground, panting as if he'd run a marathon. With a trembling hand he reached for his canteen and struggled to uncap it before managing a single, pitiful, swallow of water.

"What's the matter with him?" Moira asked as her hands skimmed his body, looking for a wound she couldn't find.

"Mana exhaustion. He doesn't have a core and used a shaman staff for that," Darren said.

"Shit. I don't have anything for you. You're body will slowly replace the mana with ambient mana, but having a core would make this much easier. Or we could get you mana rich food," Moira said.

"I'm. Fine." Roan said, waving them off as he rested. It was a strange type of weakness, he was in no threat of falling asleep, but it felt like he didn't have the energy to keep his eyelids open.

"You probably saved all our lives, so thank you for that," Moira said as her hands found the amulet around his neck.

"Dead. How did you drain all the vitality out of this? The body tempering! Smart," Moira said as she folded the necklace back under his shirt.

"I took mine off when I did it, which was dumb. Processed pure life energy would have been good to have as I went through the process. It's not mana though, not technically, so it wouldn't help you with this," Moira was babbling as she turned to look back at the battlefield. The goblins had stopped rushing out into the field. There were no glowing stones of shamans to be seen. Instead there was a stillness to the area as if the entire fight was holding its breath.

"We need to get these gates open," Moira said, slapping her hand on the gate ineffectively.

"Ladders?" Roan asked.

"We're too heavy. They're built for goblins. We could climb the wall if they stop attacking us for a minute," Moira said as she looked back out across the field. Fires were burning on the edges of the field, leftovers from shaman magic that had failed. More torches were lit along the edge of the walls. It gave them enough light to see the creature as it walked out of the woods.

Shamans trailed behind it, hunched and emaciated they lifted their staff and shields of fire appeared around them incinerating the bolts launched by the defending mobs. Roan focused on the creature, knowing instinctively it was a higher ranked officer. It was a yellow-green, like wilted grass in the summer. Humanoid, if taller and more lithe than most, with leather armor studded with bits of metal around key vital points. It held a helm in one hand and a polearm in the other.

Similar to a naginata, Roan thought slowly. Sulfur yellow eyes glowed as the creature looked back and forth at them all as bolts continued to hit its shield and disappear. With contempt it curled a lip up into a facsimile of a smile and put its helmet on.

"I shall eat your hearts," it declared as it pointed the long weapon at them. Roan winced and started to get up, fighting off Moira's hand as he got his feet under him.

"You can't fight that. Not in the shape you're in," Moira insisted.

"It's going to fight us, doesn't matter if we can't fight," Roan countered as he drew his sword out. The creature began to walk toward them but a roar bellowed from the walls above them, a challenge issued to the horde officer. A blue-white pillar of energy slammed into the earth between the creature and the clustered group of survivors in a geyser of gore and earth as the bodies he landed on disintegrated.