T Lain: Plague of Ice

“You missed me, pig!” she shouted, flourishing her sword.

The orcs’ response was a sharp battle cry as they charged. The bridge heaved and sagged under the pounding weight. Almost immediately a slat gave way beneath one of the orcs, who tumbled through to the river below. The ice shattered where he impacted. The others continued unperturbed.

Regdar was startled when he felt the quarrel from a crossbow zip past his head, almost striking his helmet. The bolt came from behind them. He whirled about to see six more orcs rushing onto the bridge from the other bank, their armor covered with snow. Another quarrel struck him in the chest but bounced harmlessly off the steel breast plate beneath his winter furs.

“Gods,” he muttered under his breath. Those weren’t boulders at all on the far side of the bridge but concealed orcs. He should have guessed.

“Are they crazy?” Lidda yelled. “They’ll bring down the bridge and all of us with it!”

She slipped behind Regdar to face the orcs coming up behind them. They looked crazy, their eyes glassed over with rage. Orcs weren’t temperate beasts under any circumstance, and this unexpected event probably had them lashing out at anyone they could blame.

As the orcs drew close, Lidda used her lightness to her advantage by springing from her place and landing on the bridge’s handrail. Her blade sliced an orc across its face. The orc squealed in pain and tripped backward. It broke through a portion of the far handrail as it tumbled off the bridge, joining its fellow in the ice below. Another swung its axe at Lidda, but she dodged the weapon easily and jumped behind the orcs this time. She heard wood breaking beneath her feet and barely pulled away before the deck gave way with a loud crack.

Meanwhile Regdar decided to do the last thing the orcs expected and meet their charge. He rushed headlong into the oncoming orcs, greatsword swinging. The sword struck a club from one of his opponent’s hands, propelling it over the side of the bridge. The orc drew back in sudden fear. It tripped one of its fellows, who slipped on the icy wood and fell at Regdar’s feet. The others trampled it as it tried futilely to pull itself up. The orc with the crossbow fired a second bolt at close range. Regdar barely managed to block it with the blade of his sword.

Lidda swore at the two orcs from the other side of the broken slat, trying everything to get them to step forward and risk falling into the river below. They resisted her taunts and turned instead on Regdar, running toward his unguarded back.

“Behind you!” Lidda shouted. The fighter replied with a horizontal swing of his greatsword as he pirouetted. The blade chopped through the handrail of the bridge on one side and caught both of the orcs in the midsection, slicing through their armor and drawing blood from their bellies. They stumbled back wounded and with all their attention suddenly focused on the human. Lidda hopped over the broken slat to slit the throat of first one, then the other. With that, all the orcs attacking from the far side of the bridge were defeated, so she moved up to Regdar’s side to face off against those remaining.

“Hey, friends!” came a voice from somewhere. “Are we too late to help?”

Before Regdar and Lidda could reply, they heard a sound like the whistling of wind and a loud detonation opposite the orcs. One of the orcs was blown off its feet from behind. As it tumbled forward, it narrowly missed crashing into Regdar before falling off the side of the bridge.

“Be careful,” Regdar shouted, recovering his footing and trading parries with the remaining orcs. “If there are any snowy mounds over there they might just be…”

An orc war-cry filled the air, confirming Regdar’s suspicions. He and Lidda carved through the remaining two orcs on the bridge. When the orcs fell, the human and halfling could see that three more figures had joined the fray on the riverbank. At least four more orcs had also emerged from hiding there. Two of them engaged one man who wore a red leather military uniform and fought with a sword and a large, square shield. A black-robed man with a short spear held back another orc. A third figure, dressed in white and whirring about like a snowstorm, was an indistinct blur confronting the orc farthest from the bridge.

Regdar and Lidda rushed forward, mindful of their footing on the treacherous bridge, past the bodies of what they took to be dead or unconscious orcs. As they passed one, however, the orc’s eyes popped open and it slashed Regdar’s leg with its sword, leaving a long, jagged wound. Regdar fell forward with all his weight. His face smashed through one of the uneven slats, and he found himself staring down into the icy river and the broken bodies of the fallen orcs. There were jagged, dark holes where tumbling bodies had smashed through the brittle surface. The edge of the broken slat sliced Regdar’s cheek.

Lidda served the treacherous orc a swift thrust of her sword into its belly. She was helping Regdar to his feet when she saw the uniformed man on the river bank overwhelmed by his orc opponents. He was clearly inexperienced in this sort of fighting. He held his shield so far from his body that the one of the orcs easily wrenched it aside, allowing the other to slash the man’s sword arm. His sword, still gripped by his forearm, fell to the ground and disappeared beneath the snow. Their position was marked by a bright splash of red blood.

The man with the short spear, whose black cloak fluttered dramatically as he leaped and hopped, abandoned the axe-wielding orc before him and rushed to his fellow’s aid. One of the orcs had its back turned, and it was immediately speared through the neck. The counterattack was too late to save the uniformed man, however; he had already joined his severed arm in a spreading, red stain beneath the thick carpet of snow.

Regdar rose to his knees with Lidda’s help, then clutched the handrail and pulled himself to his feet. He was clearly in pain from his wounded leg, but he hobbled toward the far side of the bridge nevertheless. Lidda and Regdar reached the opposite bank in time to see the cloaked man conjure a pellet of solid magic in his hand and launch it at the orc that stood over the slain man. Trailing green streamers of magic, it caught the orc squarely in the face and sent it tumbling down the riverbank onto the solid ice beyond. The orc he’d turned his back on was rushing forward, axe raised overhead. Lidda leveled her crossbow and squeezed the trigger.

The quarrel buried itself in the orc’s side. The brute registered its pain with a toothy snarl but continued toward the magic-user. Alerted by the snarl, the wizard snatched back his short spear from the neck of the slain orc at his feet and spun toward the threat. His turn was too slow. With a swing of its axe, the orc knocked away the weapon before it was in position.

Regdar raised his greatsword, but his wound slowed him too much to reach the orc before it could strike.

With a sudden whirr of snow and a loud smashing noise, something hit hard on the orc’s head. The beast dropped its weapon and fell, its skull crushed by a heavy club in the hands of a slender, young woman who looked too weak to wield so massive a weapon. Regdar stared at her. An eerie quiet settled onto the bridge and its bloodied mass of churned snow and crumpled bodies.

The woman’s white robes were elegantly functional but far too sheer for this climate. Her face was what riveted Regdar’s attention. The warrior was convinced he was looking at a creature from one of the goodly planes rather than this coarse world. She lowered her hood, displaying a short crop of honey-blond hair framing a pale, crystalline face that was smooth and pure. Regdar stared at her until Lidda tugged his arm, bringing him back into the world.