[Be Gone] Ch 11 – A Raid Gone Black

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There was only a mile to go, and the shattered landscape with jutting mounds of stone broke up lines of sight. All-in-all, not too many creatures had seen the excitement, and of those, it was with the ones with poor impulse control who ignored whatever was summoning or commanding them and hurried over to find out what was going on.

            That still ended up being hundreds of the things, and they had the place completely surrounded.

            I came up silently from an angle no one else was approaching at, and paused just long enough to survey what was going on.

            Some trolls and goblins were over there, tearing apart the remnants of some unfortunate horses and having themselves a gory feast.

            Bodies were tumbling down from the slope as the defenders up above cut, stabbed, shot, or bashed them, an occasional flash of light signaling some spell fired off in desperation that dropped a bunch of demons or forced back a breach.

            There were about a dozen of them, and they were pretty skilled if they’d held out this long. But at this point, given that the Levels I was seeing were the equivalents of Six or below, save for one Eight who was probably in charge, they were doomed and were simply selling themselves as dearly as possible. 

            Without their horses, they had no chance of outrunning pursuit, which was why they’d picked the top of this hill. There was only one arc to approach along, so things had to fight up to them, and they’d managed to make a crude wall of saddles, stones, and dirt, Shaped together by magic.

            Unfortunately, that didn’t protect them against aerial attacks, and they were probably very low on arrows. Also, the sheer slope on the sides was hardly going to stop some of the demons, so they still had to watch the off-side in case some spidery wall-crawler came sneaking up and overwhelmed them from behind.

            Still, bodies leaking interesting hues of ichor and odd organs were sliding off the sides and back down the slope, helping check those advancing... or providing newcomers free meals, depending on your perspective.

            A Stillflight and/or Interdiction would certainly have helped, but I didn’t see either at work.

            Their Auras were largely Blue, with the Caster up there more Green, one of the men more Crimson, and the Eight in command inclined towards Silver.

            Definitely soldiers with that mindset...

            Well, whatever.

            “Warriors on the hill, I am about to relieve you. Be prepared to evacuate the hill with all speed as I reach you.”

            Heads turned around everywhere as my voice rang out in Tongues, carried on Voice of the Mage. They could tell someone was speaking, but even if they didn’t actually know the language, they could still understand what it said.

            Then Feature came blurring out of nowhere in full dragon form, roaring all gold and silver, snaking across the ground while ripping through anything in his path as his nose-spear chopped left and right through the goblins and minor demons in his path. 

            Shards hissed out in the close quarters, finding lots of ideal weaker targets. With popping explosions of vivus, close to two hundred of the attackers were sliced through by polyflame darts of Force and Fire, exploding into fire and lightning and unwhite oblivion.

            The entire attacking force going up the hill towards the fight above dropped in place and began to slide back down the hill, blazing in multiple hues as they did so and painting the darkly sullen rock a garish white.

            Feature reared up to some twenty feet high, his hood a spreading frill in dragon form, and stared at the ogres gawking up at him in shock from where they were ordering the goblins up at the base of the slope, letting them know for just that precious second that their goose was totally cooked.

            A Shardray went up, stabbed into the biggest of the demons circling overhead, and then crackled around the ring of them. Shrieking and burning, a score of demons mostly blew apart and rained fireworks of dead demons down all over the place.

            Dragonfire blew over the ogres and relieved them of life. Feature surged past them and up the hill that was abruptly cleansed in front of us, rather molten red save for spots of white ash where corpses had completely burned away. I could see the people up ahead gaping at me in disbelief as they saw a dragon coming up for them at great speed, and someone riding on the top of it.

            Hmm, not humans, judging by the way the light caught their eyes.

            Well, whatever. Enemy of my enemy, for the moment. It meant they didn’t understand Human, either, but the Tongues spell that was Permanent on me was taking care of that. Getting over language Barriers for Adventurers 101, as it were.

            As soon as I hit sixty feet to their barrier, I began barking orders. “Evacuating you! Who’s in command? Stack any unconscious wounded on Disk One for treatment!” The first main Loading Disk lotused up out of my Masspack, and Two and Three followed. “Everyone else find a seat on Disks Two and Three! You can’t fall off unless you choose to do so! Move!”

            Despite themselves, they responded to the whipcrack of command and assurance very quickly, especially as the Disks swooped in under TK encouragement. I evaluated the red eyes, yellow skins, flat noses, and tusks, and raised an eyebrow.

            Orcs? No, but something similar. Whatever, I would think about it later.

            Two of them sitting off to the side were clearly dying, barely holding on. I hit the bigger one with Healing Wrath, Forked it to the second, and a third soldier with a bloody bandage about his head.

            Red blood, at least.

            “On the Disks, quite gawking! If it’s not worth your life, leave it! We have to go!” I went on, Magnus’ TK pushing and prodding and encouraging them to pile onto the Disks, including the wounded men. Four men each to a Disk was a lot of weight, but mine could handle it.

            They didn’t have time to argue before they were all seated rather precariously, and Feature drove right past them and over the back slope of the hill we were on, while behind us the hilltop exploded in fire as I incinerated the remains of the soldiers and horses who had died.

            Don’t leave stuff behind to be Animated, that was always a rule.

            Despite themselves, they shouted as they were drawn after us, and suddenly there was no ground beneath them. They screamed again despite themselves, especially when Feature leveled out into a long glide and began to pick up speed.

            The wind was whipping past us by the time we swooped right over the heads of everything that had been encircling the hill behind them. The creatures turned to gape in shock as we zoomed on past, leveled out near the ground, and Feature kept right on going, undulating in a 3D motion that could not be called a slither, easily as fast as a racing horse.

            The lance on his nose morphed into a scything crescent axe blade as he zipped on by a line of goblins, and popped their heads as they gawked, like he was harvesting wheat. The bigger, fatter one in command fared no better as it managed to dive out of the way... and Feature’s lashing tail hit it with the force of a battering ram as we went by, sending it flying thirty feet through the air to skull-crush into a patient boulder waiting there for it.

            The soldiers were blinking in astonishment at the rather abrupt turnaround. They had their armor, axes, and bows, and the leader had a sword on, too. I eyed the style of their armor, very what would be considered an Oriental style in my world, leather with some metal inset, but a lighter sort, obviously made for the fast and light use of a scouting troop. Only the boss had heavier armor, and even then their leggings were still mostly leather.

            “That light show has now alerted every demon thing within five to ten kliks that we are here.” I raised my Staff, burning black with Banefire to Fiends, and the Shardray speared out to the line of demons following us from the sky. The largest one I targeted detonated, and then a zigzagging arc of multi-colored energies danced among twenty more of them, sending them either exploding outright or plunging to the ground all aflame.

            The remaining demons all moved back and drove for height or behind cover at the same time, looking to get out of my range. I could use Seeking to take them out, but didn’t want to waste the Wand charges.    

            I could naturally pick out the Caster of the soldiers, as he was the shortest and palest of the lot, clutching a ringed staff with several talismans of bone hanging from it, staring at me and the dragon I was on top of with unabashed awe.

            He would be more useful listening in and deciding how he could help.

            I drove Healing Wrath into the officer, and it Forked out to two of the soldiers sitting there too, healing physical injuries rapidly, if not their Soak. I silently administered to the whole troop of them as they watched golden fires lick over them and seal off their injuries, restoring lost blood, and getting rid of general aches and pains, if not real fatigue and loss of energy.

            It wasn’t true Healing magic, so there would be faint scars, but I doubted they’d mind that, given their appearance.

            Actually, given what I was feeling, it might be all that they had.

            “Officer.” Magnus spun a Hexar Shield down under the feet of the ranker. “If we could confer.”

            The officer’s dark eyes narrowed, but set their feet on the Shield, which took their weight easily, and brought them up next to me.

            I didn’t look at them because I couldn’t see them, but Feature had turned ever-so-slightly to watch, and the officer didn’t miss it. The wind was whipping past us at the speed we were moving, but Primus was keeping it away, and it was barely ruffling our hair, despite the breakneck speed.

            “My apologies if I am seeming rude or curt, but I don’t know your customs or language, I’ve never laid eyes on your species before, and I happen to be mostly blind at the moment.” Their eyes flickered in consternation. “My name is Aelryinth, and I am a Magos of the human species,” I introduced myself.

            There was only a moment of hesitation. “I am Taicho Uverhua of the Horse Clan. We are korobokru!” she stated proudly. 

            The hairy (dwarven?) barbarians of Oriental myth? I couldn’t remember if they were Chinese or Japanese to us...

            Well, they looked very orcish to us, but red blood, obviously not the same species. Perhaps an uncorrupted version?

            Female, too. I probably could have Assayed, but I didn’t want to be rude with a Caster right there, and Assay, unlike an Aural scan, could be felt and resisted as intrusive magic.

            “We have seen humans before, and you even dress like some of them.” That made me frown, as she continued, “They even use the burning black skulls like you do, but you do not bear the emblem of the House of the Tiger!”

            I had the distinct impression that those Clan names were very important.

            “I am a newcomer to this place.” Her dark eyes opened a bit wider, and she glanced off in a direction, as if recalling something. “Are our people enemies?” I asked directly.

            She shook her head shortly. “No, Magos Aelryinth. The House of the Tiger serves honorably on the Great Wall, as subordinates to the Bear, and have been, if not fervent allies, at least neutral and not enemies to the Horse families.”

            Well, that was something of a relief. Finding myself the only human around on a new world would be irritating... or a new experience, it was hard to tell.

            “At this moment, we are heading in approximately that direction.” I simply pointed ahead with a straight chop of my free hand. “As you can see, we are being tailed, Taicho Uverhua.” She glanced back and up at the demons following us in the sky, their numbers slowly growing as other interested flocks of different demons swooped in to see what was being chased. “I can thin their numbers out, but all it will do is make them follow us from further away. So, those ahead are going to be able to tell something is coming.

            “Do you know what we are getting into, or is that what you were out here trying to find out?”

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