Freelance Heroics (11 page)

Gavi sighed. “I’ll do it.”

Mazik grinned. “And that’s why we love you, Gavs.”

“Good to know I’m useful for something,” she replied dryly.

“Amen to that,” said Mazik, steamrolling right over her sarcasm. He turned back to the sergeant. “We’ll be there. Anything else we should know?”

“Be on time, follow orders, and don’t run off on your own.”

“Awesome. We’re great at all of those things,” lied Mazik again. The four of them exchanged farewells, and then the three adventurers headed for the door.

Mazik stopped with his hand on the doorframe. “Oh, yeah. One last thing.”

The sergeant looked up from his desk. “Hm?”

“If we were to, hypothetically speaking, take out the orck leader and/or stop the attacks entirely, what would the payment be for that? Hypothetically.”

Sergeant Redsna stared at Mazik for a long moment. “Like I said, we’re restricting our operations to defense at this time. However, there is a standing quest for the orck leader’s head. You’ll have to ask the bookkeepers for details, but I believe the reward is substantial. And if you somehow routed the entire invasion . . .” He shrugged. “This is a rich city. If enough of it is left standing to pay, you would be rewarded accordingly. But once again, that’s only if you see an opportunity. We need you on defense tonight.”

“Of course. Just asking in case we saw her.” Mazik patted his arm. “Red feathers, right?” He saluted and departed.

Less than twenty minutes after nightfall, the attack began.

When word came, Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren were sitting on a brick planter across from the guardhouse, playing a card game. Raedren was winning handily, and being frustratingly humble about it. They had spent the afternoon taking care of mundane errands—finding an inn, dropping off their gear, procuring dinner.

Now they were sprinting for the southern walls, an army in their midst.

Mazik was impressed. For a city that was apparently scraping the bottom of the barrel, Saffir had assembled a solid force. The reactionary force alone consisted of two hundred in total, most of them casters of Gavi’s strength or greater—and that didn’t even include the defenders already on the walls. Two hundred doesn’t sound impressive, but Mazik knew better. There was an old military rule of thumb: a trained caster equaled five manaless, and when working in squads of three or more, they could account for many times that number. Organized as they were, it was like having an army of several thousand, compressed so they could fit within one city block.

But unlike the previous two days, nearly half of them were adventurers, which made for a powerful, if irregular, force. The city had reconfigured their response teams to accommodate this. While half remained in the main force, acting as a single army, the other half was organized into reactionary squads. These groups of eight to ten were tasked with harassment, chasing down loose orcks, and keeping the enemy contained. Since most adventurers were used to operating in small groups anyway, they were concentrated there.

Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren had been placed in the sixth squad, under the command of none other than Sergeant Redsna—who hadn’t actually been in command at the guardhouse, they now realized. He had just been interviewing them, since they would end up in his squad if they accepted the quest. Mazik couldn’t help but appreciate the unnecessary subterfuge.

There were ten people in the sixth, and aside from the sergeant, they were all adventurers. They had five melee-focused forwards, including Gavi and Redsna; three ranged offensive specialists, or rangers, including Mazik; and two on support providing barriers and enhancement, including Raedren.

The army was hurrying down South Avenue, one of the four main streets that spread out from the center of Saffir like spokes on a compass, provided the compass’s spokes curved and coiled like drunken snakes. The winding avenue had been emptied by the city’s emergency curfew. Once again, Mazik was impressed. For a city that had been so bustling earlier, it had emptied completely, the marble buildings and quaint shops darkened by a citizenry obediently hunkering down. Mazik was sure Houkians wouldn’t have listened this well. They probably would have stayed to watch, heckle, and possibly sell souvenirs.

The racket of their stampeding feet echoed through the empty streets as they drew closer to the edge of town. The squads began to split off, one after another darting down side streets and spreading out. It reminded Mazik of one of his favorite spells, Mazik Missiles—they all originated at one point, spread out, and would then converge together on a single spot. They didn’t know if the orcks had breached the walls yet—they were rushing too quickly to stop for updates—so they weren’t taking chances. They would enclose the area and converge from all sides.

At Sergeant Redsna’s signal, his squad veered down an alley and away from the main group, their speed increasing as they left the slower knights of the Jihnsruckian army behind. As one of the last squads to split away, they turned again only a few streets later and ran parallel to the main force.

As they got closer, Mazik could hear the sounds of combat impinging on the city’s unnatural quiet. There was a whiff of smoke, the burnt ozone of explosive spells, and the stink of something organic and foul.

The sixth barreled down the streets, darkened doors flashing past. Sergeant Redsna raised a hand, signaling for them to slow. Together, they slowed to a trot, then quietly slunk to the end of the alley. They could already tell that something was on fire ahead, from the warm light washing over their faces.

Weaving around people, Mazik slipped to the front of the group. Together with the sergeant and one other, he peered into the city square that would give them a clear view of the distant walls. It was then that Mazik and the others learned what having the home-field advantage, in sports terms, meant when you were fighting orcks.

It meant they had more homes to destroy.

The orcks had indeed breached the walls, the tip of a discarded battering ram dimly visible through the jagged hole. Bodies—mostly human—littered the mound of rubble that had spilled inside, the broken stones dyed red with defenders’ blood. From there, the orcks had apparently wasted little time, because every single building between the breached wall and where the sixth stood had been ripped at, split apart, knocked down, or set on fire.

Mazik gaped. But the square was the worst, he quickly realized. As he watched, the last half dozen of the southern wall’s defenders were torn apart. Mazik wished that was a metaphor. The men and women weren’t stabbed, riddled with arrows, or bisected by a particularly vicious strike. The forty-some-odd orcks swarming over them grabbed at them like a classroom of children with plate of cookies, and
pulled
, ripping them asunder with brute strength. Blood and organs spilled onto the ground, bathing the invaders in sticky crimson.

Before this, Mazik had seen an orck once. Not a live one—his stint in the Houkian army wasn’t that exciting. At a museum, a stuffed one. He checked off their identifying features: big, muscular, with blue skin, flat noses, and the occasional short tusk protruding from their split lips. Naked save for rags and weapon belts, the creatures ransacking Saffir were certainly orcks. But what the stuffed specimen hadn’t managed to capture, no matter how hard the taxidermists must have tried, was the striking violence of an orck in motion.

Orcks were not the stupid beasts most humans thought they were. While their test scores would be nothing to brag about, they didn’t slobber or stomp about, nor did they fool easy. They were too focused for that. Orcks didn’t need to be smart because they could smash their way through any obstacle, aside from other orcks—and in large enough numbers, even that wasn’t a problem.

It was their eyes, Mazik decided, as the orcks finished rending the soldiers apart and turned their attention to the city’s one-hundred-strong main force, which was even now entering the square. The only beings Mazik had come across that came anywhere close to the murderous intent he saw in the orcks’ eyes were the monstrous aku of Amougourest, and the dark god Amougourest itself.

Orcks were not beasts. Orcks were predators. They were predators who killed and destroyed, not for sustenance, but for pleasure. Orcks were stupid like tigers—they could be fooled, but they were always dangerous and should never be underestimated.

Mazik’s eyes scanned the smoldering cityscape. As expected, after the rout in the orcks’ camp earlier that day, they had brought more of their own forces to bear. In addition to the forty warriors now orienting on the bulk of Saffir’s defenders, he could see flashes of blue skin amid the burned and broken buildings between the sixth squad and the distant walls.

Sergeant Redsna had clearly realized the same thing. He didn’t curse, though he looked like he wanted to. But the sixth didn’t move—the sergeant held up a hand, telling them to wait.

Horns sounded from the city’s main force as they moved to engage the orcks. Shields dug into the pavement as armored knights took up the front ranks, setting themselves up to stop the orck charge before they could get at the more lightly armored allies behind them.

As if in response, the visible orcks let loose a terrific unified bellow—a bone-rattling roar of aggression that made Mazik’s stomach feel like it was going to drop out of his body. He looked at his friends. Gavi was gripping her sword, her other hand stroking her arrowhead charm while the focus crystal he lent her glowed faintly. Raedren showed no outward signs of tension, though Mazik was sure it was there, all of it trapped behind the calm detachment he assumed in stressful situations.

Mazik turned back to the square, mana gathering in his hands as his heart hammered with excitement and fear. He pushed away the fear, choosing excitement instead. A wild slasher grin grew on his face. He had learned long ago that he had a choice between enjoying the fight or being crushed by it, and Mazik knew which he preferred.

A flare went up, then another—both blue. Sergeant Redsna backed into the alley. “We’re on hunting duty. We find the stragglers and burn them down. Move out.”

It didn’t take long for the sixth squad to come across their first orcks. Two streets away, they found a pair ransacking a jeweler’s storefront. One, a male wearing only a loincloth, was standing in the middle of the one-room shop, a notched prismatic blade
¹⁷
in its hand as it looked at the shelves in apparent confusion. The other, a female also wearing only a loincloth
¹⁸
and carrying a stolen steel-headed axe, was out front. She was holding a display case over her head, which she crushed like an accordion; a small fortune in necklaces and bangles rained down over her naked shoulders.

The sixth was crouched behind the edge of a building on the other side of the intersection. Sergeant Redsna pointed at Mazik and the other two rangers. They scuttled to the front.

“Hit the one outside. See if you can bring her down before they know we’re here,” whispered Sergeant Redsna.

The rangers took aim. Sergeant Redsna held up three fingers and counted down. “Three, two, one—fire.”

The female roared as she was engulfed. The explosions swallowed her, choking off her voice, flash-frying her skin—and then the cloud dissipated. Half of her body was burned, badly, but she was still alive.

Sergeant Redsna rose, his guard-issued sword in hand. He pointed at two forwards. “You two, all rangers, take out the injured one. Other forwards, you’re with me. Support, keep us all alive. Go!”

During her tenure in the Houk Army, Gavi learned tactics for fighting more powerful opponents, both one-on-one and in groups. She had paid close attention to those lessons, since being overpowered was her usual state of affairs.

She recalled one lesson in particular. One of the other trainees had been getting cocky, so the drill sergeant had locked him in a pen with three wolves. Gavi learned a lot from watching those wolves. The trainee survived—he was good at protection magick, and the drill sergeant was careful to save him before the wolves could finish him off—but not before the wolves delivered a humbling lesson.

Every time the trainee tried to focus on one wolf, one of the others would attack him from another direction. They always sought to cripple him, going for the legs. They darted in and out, never giving him a chance to properly retaliate. They wore him down, never letting him rest, until he grew too tired, and . . . the drill sergeant saved him.

Gavi darted out of the orck’s reach before it could turn. She was putting that lesson to good use now. Gavi, Sergeant Redsna, and another forward—a woman named Shava, who wore a full suit of plate armor and was wielding a long zweihander—were arranged around a darkened street corner, an angry orck between them. Right now they were doing their best to keep the orck contained, and barely managing it.

Gavi’s sword collided with the orck’s sweating flank, and sparks flew as her blade bounced. She barely ducked the orck’s return swipe, its dirty nails slicing through the air over her head—and she completely misjudged the second blow. The hilt of the orck’s blade slammed into Gavi’s stomach, hurling her to the ground.

The problem
, Gavi dimly thought as stars exploded behind her eyes and the hard ground forced all of the air out of her lungs,
is that this thing is more powerful than any trainee.
She would hate to see what happened to wolves in orck territory.

Gavi forced her reeling body to move. She rolled out of the way as the orck’s weapon came down, the sidewalk splitting where she had fallen. Gavi kept rolling, right off the sidewalk and into the gutter. She splashed down in the foul liquid, some of it shooting up her nose.

“Come on, you stinking blueberry!” snarled Shava, interposing herself between the orck and Gavi. She stabbed at it with her zweihander, but even the big two-handed sword could barely penetrate the orck’s natural barriers, and the orck ignored what little damage it had done.

As Sergeant Redsna attacked the orck from behind, Gavi pushed herself onto her hands and knees, water sleeting off her leather armor. The orck’s speed was terrifying. She had heard stories, but those were nothing next to experiencing it herself. She would have said it was unfair that something so much larger and stronger than her could also be so much faster as well, but she was used to such injustices. Aegis made it abundantly clear that it didn’t care a whit for equality or fairness.