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Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.49 (280)

On the way out of the human city, Vorgor Stonebarrel kept silent as the rest of his brothers and sisters nattered away over their communications array like a bunch of children. He wanted answers just as much as they did, but who was he going to ask? Why were they expecting him to just ‘know’ everything?

‘Stone below take me, I hate being in charge,’ he thought to himself.

Glancing out from under his helmet, he glared at the back of the impressively armored hu...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.48 (279)

Many years ago, when he was a young man and fresh from the training field, he’d falter like anyone else when a battle was going poorly enough that he’d thought he might die. But, as a Knight of Dorchester, he’d seen more than his share of combat and had learned to push past those feelings and keep fighting. Battles could turn in a moment, and as long as he kept his head, there was always a chance for things to turn in their favor.

Perhaps Battle Leader Averett was right and their ...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.47 (278)

The armored dwarf’s speed so was fast that it took Nero’s brain a few seconds to register what had happened. From out of nowhere, the dwarf launched himself forward with a leap, brandishing his axe and infusing it with enough essence to overload Nero’s senses. He came down with an overhead chop that somehow made his axe-head look like it was the size of a shipping container in the ether. It no doubt would have killed him, ruining the perfectly good body he’d just wasted a ridiculous a...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.46 (277)

Cathleen slipped around the jagged tip of a kobald’s spear while using her own to finish off the one behind it with a thrust to its throat.  Twisting her body and using the bleeding-out kobald’s body as a leverage point with her spear, she hook-kicked the kobald closest to her hard enough to crush its chest and launch it into the one beside it, taking it out of the fight as well.

With the immediate area around her clear, she ripped her spear out of the now-dead kobald and slamm...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.45 (276)

After arriving back in private quarters, Archmage Jennings immediately began reworking his scrying spell to overcome the changes occurring in the ether around the anchor point. The interplanar connection was flooding the area with changing essence signatures and he didn’t feel like putting in the effort to compensate for it when he could just have the Tower of Magic do it for him.

Plopping down into his chair with a sigh, he poured himself some coffee to combat his stress headache and...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.44 (275)

Archmage Jennings stood off to the side of the city lord’s reception party outside the gate. He was close enough to indicate his support, but not so close as to be considered one of her retinue. While dwarves as a species usually ignored political nuances, he was sure they would understand what he was implying.

Sending out a quick scry, he confirmed that the Battleborns should soon be arriving.

After sighing in annoyance at circumstances having forced him to be here, he turned h...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.43 (274)

Cathleen Averrett had spent a lifetime training her senses. So, she knew full well how poorly the battle was going. While she may not be able to ‘see’ everything that was happening, she could sense where the kobalds were and how broken the formation had become.

Glancing to her right, she felt her blood boil at the thought of fighting actual planar invaders like these new kobalds that had arrived. She’d prefer to be over there testing her metal against them, but instead, she was st...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.42 (273)

Seeing another mage from the group next to him disconnect from the shield spell, Merrick began to question whether or not he should as well. As more and more kobalds were throwing themselves into the rapidly growing melee style free-for-all, there were fewer and fewer ranged attacks coming down on them. So, he’d probably be of more use doing something else. The problem was Merrick had no idea what that ‘else’ should be.

He knew that it was just a matter of luck that he’d found h...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.41 (272)

Knight Angleton felt it the moment the command channel disappeared. Former Sergeant Blackwood, his longtime friend and comrade, was no longer maintaining it.

Sliding his right foot back, he braced behind his shield and received the kobald’s cross cut from its off-hand blade. While normally he’d counter-attack, the kobald’s strike was too strong, too controlled to allow him to do so.

The enemy was strong and fast, but whatever the enemy casters had done to enhance it made it ...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.40 (271)

Slipping the edge of her spear around a kobald shield, she swiped the edge of its blade across a kobald throat before guiding the dying body to the ground out of the way. The maneuver was performed so smoothly that she didn’t even need to alter her footing while she ran.

Cathleen continued to dispatch kobalds, one after another, as she focused on the reports she was receiving through the command channel. While she would have preferred to be at the front line with the rest of the elite...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.39 (270)

Former Captain in the Dorchester Army Knight Harold Angleton, known as Knight Angleton to his subordinates, Harold to his friends, and Harry to his lord physically recoiled from the mental pain he felt when he bounced off the gate. He, along with many other Wackos with appropriate abilities, had hit the hells be damned thing at a run, fully expecting to obliterate it. The amount of force they’d applied should have been more than enough to tear it off its hinges.

And yet, the gate stil...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.38 (269)

Mike’s life had been through quite a few changes recently. If anyone had told him that he would be putting his life on the line for the sake of the city under the orders of a noble who’d he’d personally sworn his entire life to, he would probably have laughed his ass off… right before plotting to rob and kill the insulting bastard. Yet, here he was.

Keeping his head down out of reflex rather than necessity every time a kobald spell exploded onto the shield above him, he stared w...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.37 (268)

The meeting with the Council of Leadership and the rest of the nobles had gone even worse than he’d expected it to.  And that was saying something considering how low his expectations had been to begin with.

Between the weaker nobles who were ready to flee Dorchester and wait for the kingdom to refound it, the pragmatists who were more concerned with positioning themselves in the eyes of the expected auditors, and the few who were more concerned with assigning blame for the disas...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.36 (267)

Common knowledge held that a person’s path only ended when they allowed it to. That’s what was taught to every child in every city in all of Oglivarch. It was a cultural belief that was reinforced by parents, teachers, preachers, and wayfinders. Everyone believed that hard work and tenacity trumped talent and determination.

“Success isn’t a matter of will or luck, it’s a result of effort,” his father had told him.

Merrick had long ago come to the conclusion that his fa...

Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.35 (266)

Stepping back from the table, Subcommander Jates put his hands behind his back and stretched his lower back with a groan. Between the rush through the tunnels to combine his forces with those from F.O.B.3 and the hurried assault once they’d arrived, the stress was getting to him.

Over the command channel, he heard, “Jates! Get your troops under control! The push from tunnel 5 is falling behind, you’re going to allow the bastards to regroup if you don’t hold that position!”...