Chapter Thirty-Five: A Wing and a Prayer

Chapter Thirty-Five: A Wing and a Prayer

Tensions rose all through the next day. The expedition was surrounded by at least one hundred of the huge, savage orcs, with more filtering in. The fact that they were only keeping pace at a distance, shadowing them, was only cause for more tension.

It was unlike any previous orc behaviour, whether from the Deep, or from that of legend, during the Extermination Wars. Orcs attacked with single-minded viciousness with absolutely no regard for their own safety. They attacked regardless of disparity in numbers or strength. It was known. Only, it was not proving true.

The expedition still had seen no sight of the camp. The scouts could no longer range out into the Grounds, both due to the ever-increasing beasts being driven towards them and the cordon of orcs shadowing them.

They were still making efforts, though. At least twenty of the scouts had aerial familiars, one of the main reasons they had been chosen for the expedition. They could scout a huge amount of ground in a very short period of time, and were extremely valuable in terrain such as the wide open spaces in the Proving Grounds. They too were being hampered, however.

Flying beasts were increasing in number too. The aerial familiars were having an exceptionally hard time getting anywhere without being set upon by raptors and sprites. During that day, they grouped them up, hoping to make more headway using the strength of numbers. They managed to make it a little further ahead, but still had to retreat to their summoners for healing before making much headway.

The group was getting worn and battered. The expedition as a whole was no longer making much headway themselves, given the sheer numbers of beasts they were facing. And the orcs, although they were holding off for now, would surely attack sooner or later, and likely sooner. They needed to come up with a plan.

One of the scouts had suggested a plan, but she was unsure of whether it would work. Many of the flying beasts that were blocking their familiars would be inactive at night. At the very least, they would have reduced visibility. The plan was simple: to try and sneak past the approaching creatures at night while there were less of them.

They had four familiars that could make the plan work. One of the scouts had a bat familiar, and another had a shadow-aspected goose. And, of course, there was Sus and Sol. Creatures like wind sprites would still be active though, and with only four familiars, if any of them were discovered they would be torn apart. There was also no telling how far away the camp was, and if the familiars would be able to reach it and scout it within a night’s flying. And the surrounding orcs could attack at any time.

Still, it was the best plan they could come up with. Tom stepped back off the front lines as dusk approached to ensure he was fit and able to concentrate on his bond with his owls. The sun swiftly fell below the horizon, and the expedition made camp and braced themselves for a long night.

Tom sat next to the other two members whose familiars would be joining Sus and Sol on the mission, to better communicate and coordinate with each other. Rosa hovered nervously nearby.

There was not much prep to take care of. Tom gave each of his owls a tiny pellet to hold in their beaks that they could use to refresh their small mana pools if needed. Though, to be honest, if they ended up needing to use their mana pools at all they were probably doomed. He gave a pellet each to the two scouts for their familiars. He was not sure how much use it would be for the bat, but the shadow-aspected goose would likely need to use mana to access its shadow abilities. He hoped it would help.

Once the sun had fully set, and the moon was already rising through the cooler night air, four pairs of wings beat and lifted the familiar scouts into the sky. They beat, striving for altitude, using the general murmur of the camp to obscure the noise, and banked, then winged away towards the horizon.

Tom nudged Sus and Sol to spread out a little, and the other two familiars did the same. Their best chance was to slip by any beasts without causing a fuss, and triggering any retaliation from the orcs.

The three of them sat in a circle, murmuring quietly to each other. Between Sus and Sol’s night vision, the bat’s echolocation, and the goose’s affinity for darkness, they managed to slowly but surely wiggle their way through the remaining beasts without being seen.

Once they’d flown for half an hour or so, the amount of aerial beasts dropped off significantly. It was curious, almost as if the flying beasts were surrounding the expedition too. It made no sense. The grounded beasts had attacked them, but many had flowed straight past the expedition and further into the Grounds. If the flying beasts were also trying to get away from the orc camp, then why were they lingering around the expedition in such numbers?

The only answer Tom could think of was that they sensed a massacre about to happen, and were waiting on a feast. But another thought tickled his mind: why would flying beasts need to flee orcs at all? The thought kept him occupied for another hour as Sus and Sol flew onwards.

He was glad that he’d recently uplifted his Quiet Under Moonlight skill. All familiar skills came with an inbuilt range to them, a tether of sorts, soul to soul, which bound the familiar to its summoner. It could be stretched, to an extent, but it would mean feedback through the bond would grow and information passed along it would become unreliable. Each time a familiar skill was uplifted, the length of the tether increased as a matter of course. The extra range Sus and Sol had now was showing its worth.

As it happened, the extra range almost wasn’t needed. After another handful of minutes, the birds spotted something. Out there, in the shadowed Grounds, that immense plain full of quietly rustling grass, were orcs.

At first there were only sporadic bands, like those that had come across the expedition and begun circling it like sharks. That didn’t last for long, however. Bands of ten became masses of hundreds, and masses of hundreds quickly scaled into an enormous throng.

Sus and Sol circled high, as did the bat and goose. Back at the camp, all three of them were murmuring their frantic reports to anxious listeners: they’d found the orc camp, and it was worse than they had expected.

After some long, tense minutes circling, all three of them agreed on a rough of forty thousand brutish orcs. It was a far lower number than they had expected. The infestation at Wayrest had been brewing for roughly as long as this one, and had reached one hundred thousand orcs months ago. By now, it likely would have made two hundred thousand. The number of orcs here, then, was strange.

But that was not accounting for the help.

Tom and the scouts’ reports grew stranger. The orcs were clumped up in a huge mass, mostly chaotic, but all around the edges was something completely unexpected.

Mana beasts. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them.

Tom goggled at the sight. The plains dogs, winewolves, scorpions and snakes and lizards, all milled about in boiling crowds. There were huge packs of grass sharks, snapping and snarling, and sprites and golems of all varieties. Tom even saw a handful of the proud Proving Grounds horses.

All of them were attended by orcs. The brutes were corralling them into groups, lashing out at any that weren’t compliant, throwing them huge chunks of meat and cheering on the resulting tumultuous fights.

But that was not even the worst of it. At the leading edge of the encampment, hundreds of orcs were marshalling, and they were mounted.

There were only two creatures in the Grounds large enough to bear the weight of this gigantic breed of orc, and of those, only one vicious enough to suit them. Tom watched in horror as the hundred and more orc riders shepherded their grass shark mounts into order.

The faces of the monks at their camp grew stony. All mana beasts used a Goddess-given gift and sullied it, as per their faith. Orcs, then, were the highest aberration to Goddess in their eyes. What could be worse than a near humanoid, voracious killer that also used mana?

One’s that used mana to dominate the will of other mana beasts to their own ends.

Suddenly, at some unseen signal, the orc riders kicked their mounts into a run. Hundreds of other nearby creatures broke free of their handlers and charged along with them. Or perhaps they were set free. Their orc handlers certainly seemed encouraging.

Tom snapped back to himself in the camp. “We need to go, now! Orc riders are coming!”

Resolute faces met the declaration with grim equanimity. The monks were zealous, but they knew they could not face such numbers. Sunrise gave the order, and in no time, the monks were preparing to retreat.

Tom flicked his consciousness back through his bond with Sus and Sol, bidding them return. He would not be able to devote much attention to ensuring they got back safely, but he had faith in his familiars. He pitied any errant wind sprite that got in Sus’s way.

As his consciousness drifted back to camp, readying to leave, he took a last glance back at the orc camp through the eyes of his owls. In the centre, one massive yurt-like structure stood dominant against the brewing, shadowed background of forty thousand orcs. If their strange size and temperament, their odd homogenous auras, and seemingly ability to tame mana beasts was not enough, then the sight of that huge, ramshackle structure drove the point home.

There was another chieftain here. Different to the Great Smith, and no doubt about it, but no less deadly. A chill ran through Tom’s skin.

The monks were ready to go, and never a group to be indecisive, they immediately struck out back the way they came. Abbess Sunrise was stalwart, a solid, unwavering beacon of calm. She rotated fresh monks to the outside of the expedition and had everyone on high alert.

The contingent of mounted orcs was in pursuit, and by everyone’s reckoning, they would catch up with them in around an hour. By that point, they absolutely had to win free of the surrounding orcs or they would be trapped and killed.

All one hundred and fifty members of the expedition broke into a steady, mile-eating jog. No one panicked; they were all of them too disciplined and experienced for such folly. They knew the only way they would survive the coming days was to conserve their energy.

This was going to be a battle of endurance. There was no way they could outrun their pursuit entirely. They instead needed to get far enough from orc reinforcements, and make themselves prickly enough to eradicate, so that the orcs gave up the chase.

It was a tall order. Everyone knew what orcs were like when their blood was up. Still, if anyone could do it, Tom would put his money on the Bloody Monks.

Their first engagement came not fifteen minutes later. With a sudden flush of dread, it became all too apparent that these orcs were not the simple brutes they appeared to be.

Tom sent a prayer to Goddess, and readied his spear.