Warmaster 8: Charnel Keep: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure, page 14
Aderyn nodded. “Isold, I’m sorry. You saw things more clearly than I did. Thank you for persisting.”
“I understand.” Isold hugged her. “As I recall, you did the same for me once.”
Weston cleared his throat. “I’m glad we didn’t go into battle with that hanging over our heads, but the corollary to that is—we are about to go into battle, and we should get in position.”
“I have an elementalist to fight,” Livia said, cracking the knuckles of her stone hand.
Aderyn caught Weston’s eye. Weston nodded slightly, as if he’d read her mind. Someone was going to have to defend Livia during the battle, because neither Aderyn nor Weston believed she would stop before she reached her limit.
“All right,” she said. “Then let’s do this.”
They all clasped hands for a moment, then walked through the empty camp to where the soldiers were regrouping by platoon, by specialty, and by regiment. When Aderyn reached the head of the troops, she didn’t need the
She stood balanced on Weston’s shoulders and with [Amplify Voice] called out, “This is it! Remember your part in the plan, and when that falls apart, kill as many orcs as you can!”
A roar of eager anticipation rose from the assembled troops. Aderyn dropped to the ground, checked the positions of the soldiers nearest her, and shouted, “Go, go, go!”
Chapter Fifteen
Arrows darkened the sky like a veil sweeping across the clouds. The orcs’ front line shuddered, but didn’t disintegrate. Another volley of arrows passed, and then the orc archers returned fire. Aderyn covered her head with her shield. She’d already determined [See It Coming] wasn’t proof against a dozen arrows all aimed at different places. Nothing struck, though an arrow drove a groove through the ground near her and shuddered briefly before falling over. Around her, soldiers streamed past, running in silence now rather than waste breath shouting defiance at the enemy. Why Owen wasn’t with them, she didn’t know; all she knew was [Keep Pace] hadn’t taken effect.
Then Owen grabbed her arm and shouted, “This way!”
She ran with him, pausing to defend against another stream of orc arrows, until they closed with orcs who cringed away from the light of the
All around her, men and women closed with orc warriors. Aderyn couldn’t afford to watch their battles, and she didn’t dare notice when her soldiers died at the notched, heavy blades of orc grunts or mashers. The time to mourn was later, when they’d won.
Someone shoved her, and she shoved back, only then realizing it was a soldier’s dead body an orc had pushed into her. Surprise became fury, and all her resolutions vanished as she reflexively went for the orc.
Congratulations! You have defeated [Orc Masher].
You have earned [6475 XP]
Snarling, Aderyn stabbed the monster repeatedly with the mystery sword until Owen dragged her away from its corpse.
“Don’t,” was all he said, but Aderyn knew what he meant. Don’t take it personally. That could get her killed. Aderyn nodded, wiped charcoal-red blood off her hands, and returned to providing Owen with [Outflank]. Together, they surged through the orc army.
She realized they’d reached the dangerous right flank, where the Earthbreakers had turned the terrain into a death trap for orc riders, only when she stumbled and nearly fell into a gaping pit. With that at her back, she wiped sweat out of her eyes and surveyed the battle. None of the orc riders were visible, but she didn’t assume that meant they’d all been neutralized. The furious motion of the fighting meant nothing more than a few feet away was clear.
Except for the whirling cyclone near the center.
Zothemza, lanky and pale, hovered seven feet above the battlefield, his bare feet dangling like a child’s. His mostly naked body glowed with colored lights, white and green and orange and blue, their brightness almost as great as the
“Owen!” Aderyn shouted. “Owen, that’s Livia!”
Owen finished his opponent and stepped back into a defensive stance, breathing heavily. Aderyn waved at the cyclone, which now spun erratically out of control across the battlefield, and Zothemza, who pressed a hand to his chest as if that strike had really hurt. “Livia’s fighting him,” Aderyn said. “We have to back her up.”
“Stay close, then,” Owen said.
The two of them again fought their way across the battlefield, Owen turning attacks aside rather than engaging closely with most of the orcs in his way. Aderyn searched the crowds ahead for Weston, who would be more visible than Livia and would definitely be at her side. She skewered an orc seconds before someone else’s sword took the creature’s head off and nearly slit her throat on the backswing. “Sorry!” Ruan shouted.
Aderyn took a step back. Ruan faced off against another orc, a big, green-skinned monster that towered over him. His greatsword looked like a slash of night glittering with stars, the dark inverse of Owen’s slim, curved blade. Beyond him, Suveer scuttled past into an [Outflank] position and awkwardly stabbed the orc elite a blow that glanced off the orc’s rough-cured hide armor. The orc shouted and whirled to strike Suveer.
In the next second, the orc screamed in pain as Ruan’s greatsword cleaved his sword arm off. Blood spattered Suveer, who didn’t wipe it away. He held his ground against the screaming orc elite in a determined way that didn’t at all resemble the Suveer Aderyn thought she knew. Ruan shouted and brought his sword around in a great sweeping arc that ended with the blade deeply embedded in the orc’s back. The orc elite shuddered and collapsed.
The whole thing had taken only a few seconds, but it was long enough for Owen to shout Aderyn’s name in panic. Startled, Aderyn turned and found herself face to face with a marauding goretusk ridden by an orc intent on running her down. She threw herself to the side, rolled, and came to her feet in time to see Ruan bring his greatsword down on the goretusk’s neck, severing its head. Then Owen was there, grabbing her free hand and shouting, “Stop gawking! Zothemza’s striking back!”
That brought Aderyn to her senses. She ran with Owen, this time taking the lead and letting [See It Coming] guide them between combatants. Ahead, the fighting seemed less fierce, but then she realized she was looking at an empty space that grew gradually wider as humans and orcs fled the magical battle raging there.
Livia, shrouded in the ever-shifting slabs of stone that constituted her armor, wielded an enormous stone hammer that glowed with the radiance of stone fist. She shouted, and the earth beneath her feet bulged and lifted her to meet the levitating Zothemza. With another cry, she slammed the elemental hammer against her foe’s side, knocking him back.
Tattoos on Zothemza’s wounded arm glowed orange, and the air between him and Livia shimmered with heat haze. Livia dropped back to earth and called out a few words, and a dome of earth rose up, surrounding her and Weston and Owen and Aderyn. Seconds later, the air shook with a titanic blast, and fierce heat dried Aderyn’s eyes and nostrils.
“Mass protection from fire,” Livia said. She didn’t sound winded or even a little tired. “He sure does love that attack. Fireball, or cyclone—any of those elemental blasts.”
“How can you hurt him with earth attacks? He’s got protection against elemental magic,” Aderyn said.
“That’s true. But it turns out what he does not have is protection from an ordinary attack that happens to be made of stone. Like the hammer. Or my fist.” Livia grinned. “I’d punch him in his thundering stupid face if he’d hold still long enough.”
Aderyn glanced over her shoulder as the earth dome cracked and shattered into a million ceramic pieces. Isold had just [Coerced] two orc grunts to fight each other and was approaching rapidly. “What if—”
Wind rose up around her, whipping faster and faster until she couldn’t breathe. She fell to the ground, pressing her face into the earth with her arm curved over her head, searching for a pocket of still air. Then the cyclone was gone. Gasping, Aderyn said, “What if Isold uses [Hypnotize]?”
“I tried,” Isold said. “It didn’t last long. And the problem with [Hypnotize] is—”
“Watch out!” Livia shrieked. She threw herself bodily at Isold, knocking him out of the way of a sickly green blast of what looked like liquid fire. It hit the ground two feet from Isold and began smoking and emitting a stinking cloud of acid gas. Livia rolled to her feet and flung out one hand, chanting, and a hail of iron spikes flew at Zothemza, who dodged all but one. Shrieking in pain, Zothemza levitated higher.
“[Hypnotize] stops working if the victim has shrugged it off before,” Isold finished. “And anything I can reasonably [Coerce] him to do will take him away from this fight and force us to chase him down.”
“We’ve got five seconds before he recovers,” Weston said. His whole attention was on the hovering elementalist. “Livia?”
“I’m fine,” Livia said. “I still have half my reserves. You all watch to make sure nobody comes to his rescue.” With a shout, she rose into the air atop an accelerating pillar of stone.
“I’m watching her,” Weston immediately said.
“Then we’ll guard you,” Owen said. “I’m going to regret saying this, but we haven’t seen many other elementalists today, have we?”
“Regret—”
A crack of thunder preceded the cloudless sky opening up above them. Aderyn shrieked in surprise as a fist-sized hailstone struck her shoulder. She raised her shield to protect her head and cast about frantically for the elementalist who’d created the hailstorm. Owen was ahead of her. He threw down his shield and ran through the storm to tackle an orc whose tattoos mostly glowed blue. Aderyn tossed aside her shield and ran, dodging the stones, to stab the elementalist through the heart where Owen had knocked him down. “I see,” she said, panting. “More jinxes?”
Another crash of thunder startled them. Rain took the place of hail, hard, stinging, hot raindrops that sizzled when they touched the earth. Aderyn’s face burned as if a thousand tiny coals scored her cheeks. She scrambled to pick up her shield as Owen did the same. Several feet away, Isold began singing, a soporific melody Aderyn recognized. She’d heard it often enough that it no longer made her feel even a little sleepy, but across the cleared space, ten or twelve orcs sagged in sleep. The burning rain stopped.
Weston shouted, “Livia!”
Aderyn tilted her head back cautiously, not wanting to take a chance on a few burning raindrops lingering. She couldn’t see Livia’s combat clearly, what with the pillar of earth in the way, but colored lights flashed as Zothemza unleashed the magical energy from his tattoos, and the irregular thumping as Livia landed blows with stone fist told Aderyn her friend was still upright.
Weston sheathed his sword and ran at the pillar. Though it wasn’t perfectly vertical, it did have a steep slope and was only a couple of feet across. Weston ran up it like it was a garden path and hauled himself over the edge to where Livia stood. Seconds later, a tremendous boom shook the air, and Livia’s pillar crumbled. Aderyn darted out of the way of the rubble. Weston landed amid the falling wreckage with Livia’s body in his arms.
“She’s not dead,” he panted. “Ran through her reserves. And Zothemza is still up there.”
Owen pushed him aside. “He’s not up there. He’s here.”
Zothemza crouched a short distance away, in the remains of the pillar, his shoulders heaving with his heavy breaths. A few tattoos still shone, but most of the markings across his body were dark like soot. He rose, slowly, like a snake uncoiling, until he faced the friends. Aderyn took her position at Owen’s side and drew her sword. Isold moved to stand on his other side so the three blocked the way to Weston and the unconscious Livia.
Zothemza’s eyes were solid black from edge to edge, but he turned his head as he surveyed the five so it was clear he was examining each of them in turn. Owen drew his sword as well. “Come and take us,” he snarled.
Isold took one step forward and drew breath to sing. Instantly, the tattoos on Zothemza’s face blazed a brilliant green, and with a crack, the earth split open beneath them. Aderyn lost her balance, reflexively grabbed Owen’s shoulder, and then all five of them tumbled into the rift.
Dust and a shower of stones struck Aderyn in the face, choking her. She scrabbled at the sheer walls of the rift, trying to slow her descent, and finally managed to embed the tip of the mystery sword into the wall and press her feet against the opposite wall, bringing herself to a halt. The earth groaned as if it was trying to close on her, but aside from a couple of tremors, nothing moved.
Above her, the sky looked like an X, one fat bright bar of sunlight crossed by a thinner one. Aderyn blinked dust out of her eyes and realized it was Owen’s
—actually, that was a good thing, because with [Weapon Mastery], Owen’s sword was unbreakable. They probably weren’t about to die. Still, getting out quickly was a good idea.
Aderyn told herself she was not about to be crushed and carefully craned her neck to look past herself. Isold was just below her, tucked into a smaller crevice and cradling his arm like it was injured. Lower down, Weston had his back pressed against one side of the rift and his feet jammed against the opposite side. Livia sprawled across his lap, still unconscious.
“Is everyone all right?” Owen called down.
Everyone but Livia responded with some kind of “yes.” Owen went on, “The battle’s still raging, so we have to be smart about this. We need to get Livia out, but someone else has to be there to defend her. Aderyn? Aderyn, are you all right? Don’t freak out!”
Aderyn made herself breathe normally. She glanced around again and forced a lighthearted reply. “You don’t still have that rope, do you? Not in a battle?”
“Sweetheart, ever since Gamboling Coil I carry rope everywhere. Hang on.”
Owen wriggled a bit, and then a length of rope dropped past Aderyn’s face to dangle loosely in front of her. She tugged on it and discovered Owen had tied it to himself. “I’ll go first,” she said. “Then send Livia up. Then Weston, Isold, and Owen. Otherwise Weston can’t give a hand to the rest of you. Don’t remove the
With Owen’s help and the aid of the rope, Aderyn maneuvered around her husband and climbed to the surface. To her surprise, no one had entered the empty space where Livia and Zothemza had dueled. The fighting didn’t seem as intense, either. Zothemza had vanished. Aderyn told herself none of that mattered if they all didn’t escape the rift.
She helped haul Livia up and settled her safely beside the rift, then drew her sword and paced, glaring fiercely at any orc that threatened to come near. Again, none did, though a few snarled and bared their teeth at her before backing away. One more mystery she couldn’t solve at the moment.
Shortly, Weston clambered out of the rift, knelt on its edge for a few seconds as if catching his breath, and then wrapped one length of rope around his massive fist and braced himself. “Isold says his arm isn’t broken, but he can’t put much weight on it,” he told Aderyn. “Is Livia all right?”
“She’s going to be pissed off about missing this.”
Weston let out a bark of laughter. “She’ll be pissed off Zothemza turned her own element against us.” He began drawing the rope in, hand over hand.
Isold eventually rose out of the rift, one hand clutching the rope, and then Weston repeated the maneuver for Owen. Aderyn continued to pace the confines of their defended space while the men stared into the rift. “If I remove the sword, the rift will close, and that will probably happen faster than I can pull it up,” Owen said.
“It’s less than a foot from the surface,” Weston said. “We should chance it. At worst, we’ll have to dig it up, or wait for Livia to recover and shape the earth out of the way.”
“If it was an enemy, I could use [Reposition] on it,” Aderyn said.
“Let’s be glad it’s not an enemy,” Owen said. “All right. I’ll tie the rope to the hilt and… oh. I have an idea.”
Aderyn listened to the sounds of Owen clambering into the rift and back out again. “Ready? On my mark—three, two, one, mark!”
The rope swished, and with a thump, the rift closed. Aderyn looked just long enough to see Owen cradling the hilt of the
“Ever since level seventeen, I’ve been able to activate and deactivate the blade with a thought,” he said. “I figured, if the blade was dismissed, the hilt would be lighter and might move faster. I’m glad I was right.”
The noise of battle was greatly diminished now. Aderyn sheathed her sword and hugged Owen. “We survived. But we didn’t defeat Zothemza.”
“No, but it looks like we might have won the battle,” Owen said.
“Let me talk to Varoun. He probably knows more than I do about what happened.”
But the
