T Lain - City of Fire

Naull smiled slightly at the fighter’s joke but she knew he was in earnest.

Trebba started to move away, but Regdar grabbed her hand and said, “If Ian is right, we’ll have a more or less even fight on our hands. I want to get into the cavern, if that’s what it is, as quickly as possible. Most of us’re more maneuverable than the orcs, but I don’t want any surprises. Something drops down from that other passage, shout your head off. They’ll know we’re here if that happens anyway.”

“All right.”

As Trebba and Ian moved forward, Early watched but Regdar hesitated.

“What do you think, Naull?” he asked in a voice too quiet for anyone but the small woman to hear.

“It’s a decent plan,” she answered nervously. “I hope Ian is right about the orcs, though, or we could be headed for trouble.”

Regdar shook his head. He doesn’t want to do this, either, she thought suddenly. She almost asked him again to call the whole attack off, but the moment passed.

As the party approached, the sounds grew in volume. Foul orc speech and cursing came from the passage to the right, and they saw the firelight flicker on the uneven stone. Trebba skillfully slipped up around the corner and back again. In the dim light she nodded and held up five fingers.

Regdar and Early moved up. Early had his long sword and shield ready, but Regdar bent and strung his large bow.

With a glance up the passage to the left, the two fighters went around the corner. A shout of surprise from the orcs greeted them, and Regdar’s bow twanged. The arrow took a heavyset orc in the chest. He spun around in place and fell, right near the fire.

“That’s four to go!” Early shouted.

He started rushing forward and Regdar, dropping his bow, swept out his sword, and followed.

The melee that ensued was fast and brutal. Early and Regdar barreled into the remaining orcs at full speed. Though the brutes had their gear on and their weapons out, they weren’t prepared for two large humans—one nearly seven feet tall and screaming like a madman and the other encased almost entirely in blackened plate armor and wielding a sword almost as long as he was tall—attacking them in their lair. They gave ground quickly. When Ian entered the fray, one orc threw down its weapon and turned to run.

With a yelp, the orc sprawled on its face, one of Ian’s small axes buried in its back. In a flash Ian yanked a second axe from his belt and rushed forward to duel with a big orc. Its two-handed axe blows cleft nothing but air as the half-elf played with his prey. When the orc tossed a quick glance over its shoulder toward the exit, the tip of the half-elf’s rapier thrust forward and pierced the orc through the neck.

Naull watched both the battle and the dark passage leading up. She thought about casting her last light spell up there, but Trebba had the ring out and she could see the hole in the “ceiling” that led to an upper area. Nothing stirred up there, so Naull turned back to the fight.

With three orcs down in only twice as many seconds, the fight was nearly over. Early and Regdar each fought to keep the last few humanoids at bay, but they didn’t want them to escape, either. Beyond the fire they could see another passage—a large, dark cave mouth. If the two fled down there, who knew how long it would take to catch them. Better to finish the last of them off in the open, rather than hunt them through their warren.

The last of them? Naull thought.

She scanned the three—now four, as Early’s foe was down, too—orc corpses in the room. She glanced up at the last just as Regdar drove his bastard sword into its guts.

No, that’s not the leader, either, she concluded.

She’d seen the leader only briefly back at the ambush site, but none of these orcs were nearly as well armed and armored as he had been. She wouldn’t forget that two-handed cleaver anytime soon.

“Regdar!” she called out to tell him, but then Trebba screamed.

By bad coincidence, both women were paying attention to the battle and not the hole at just the wrong time. As if they’d known of the watchers’ distraction, two large orcs sprang down through the chute. One right after the other bore down on the wizard and the rogue. The first drove the point of a longspear into Trebba’s stomach as she turned back to face them. The dark woman collapsed sideways with a gasp, blocking the passage for a precious second. Naull leaped back before she could suffer a similar fate.

The wizard found herself alone at the top of the passage facing two huge orcs. Up close, their yellow fangs looked huge and their breath stank of rotten meat. One croaked evilly as it twisted its spear in Trebba’s stomach and she whimpered on the ground, rolling away. The other swept a cruelly familiar two-handed sword from its back sheath and stepped toward Naull.

The wizard fell backward, holding one hand up as if in futile defense, but the sound that escaped the small woman’s lips wasn’t a scream. The sword came down hard, but sheared off at the last second as it struck a magical, invisible shield. Naull tried to back-step and she tumbled backward into the larger room.

The orc with the spear wrenched it out of Trebba’s body, then leaped past Naull and down toward the fighters. Regdar turned when Trebba screamed and cried out with rage, starting back up the passage. The orc stabbed at the more lightly-armored Early. Trebba’s blood spattered the man’s wooden shield as it turned the blow aside, but Early’s riposte also flew wide. The orc spun in place and brought the back of the spear around like a club, striking the big man in the sword arm and causing him to cry out in pain and drop his weapon.

Just then, a roar erupted from the cave beyond the fire. Ian had said no orc leader would leave many of his followers in a cave alone with their captured loot, and he hadn’t been wrong. Five orc warriors had stayed behind along with the spear-wielder and now the party saw why. The orc “leader” was merely a lieutenant.

The creature erupting from the cave mouth had to be the humanoids’ true commander.

It had the jutting chin and fangs of an orc, but stood nearly half again as tall. Its bare, elongated arms hung down past its tree trunk thighs and below its perpetually bent knees. Gold and silver along with bone and hide ornamented its brown, stringy hair, and it wielded a huge club covered in spikes and wrapped with leather thongs.

“An ogre!” Ian cried out in dismay.

The ogre bellowed and started toward the ranger. Ian was farthest into the cavern, almost up to the fire after his duel with the orc, and it was obvious the creature wanted the closest target first.

Naull struggled to rise to her feat, to do anything to help, but she had to roll away as the sword-wielding orc lieutenant bounded toward her. Thankfully the orc didn’t reach her. Regdar jumped between them and the two huge weapons rang against each other. The orc had the momentum, and Regdar’s sword bounced back.

“Naull, if you’ve got any surprises hidden, now would be a good time!”

The wizard chose quickly. Not even bothering to stand up, she rose to her knees and pointed at the orc fighting Regdar. Two bright missiles, like those that had killed an orc at the ambush, streaked from her fingertips and struck the brutish lieutenant full in the chest. He lurched backward and roared, but didn’t fall.

Regdar screamed in frustration and struck with his bastard sword. The orc tried to parry but the blow pushed the creature’s own blade back across its chest and the edge of Regdar’s weapon bit into the humanoid’s bicep. Blood from a deep cut flowed down its arm.

The orc backstepped but ran up against the cavern’s wall. It didn’t try going up and to the left. Even without Trebba’s body in the way, stepping up on the uneven ground might have brought catastrophe. It had no choice but to answer Regdar, blow for blow. The two dueled as Naull watched, feeling helpless. She looked around for anything that might save them.