The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (14 page)

The bugbears! They had found the village! But how, the mist was only down for… the Quickening! The beam of light that had shot into the sky would have acted like a beacon! Then once the defenses had fallen, it had led the bugbears straight to them. Then it would have been a simple matter of making a bridge
to cross
the trench. This was his fault!

The time for recriminations was not now, though. That point was made clear when the bugbears
roared,
and then rushed forward to attack. The first ran forward to attack the Hearth Mother. At six feet tall, the burly goblinoid must have thought that Hisako’s diminutive four feet would make her easy prey. He was wrong.

Without breaking her stride, she threw her hands out to the side, more magical words pouring from her throat. Two vertical panels of gold light appeared. Each was 5x10
feet,
and hung a few feet off of the ground. The shields separated the three attackers in front of them, creating a hallway that flared out towards Hisako. It both left her only one enemy to directly
confront
, while simultaneously impeding the forward progress of the others. The bugbears on either side of the shields struck with
axe
and mace, but their strikes couldn’t penetrate the shield.

The middle attacker moved forward undaunted
with a buckler raised and his sword poised to stab. Before he could make his
lunge,
though, she shouted and slapped both wrists together, fingers outstretched and separate. A bar of white light shot from between her fingers and struck the buckler. In an instant, the beam was gone, and only the afterimage of the light
remained in Richter’s vision. Looking at the
bugbear, though, Richter realized that a square hole six inches in diameter was
missing from the buckler… and from the chest of the bugbear that had been holding it. It dropped to the ground in a clatter of armor. Holy shit! Was that a Kamehameha?!?

The other two struck the gold panels again, and a web of cracks appeared on the left panel. The two sprites ducked low and each shot an imbued arrow into one of the bugbears’ legs. Neither were wearing medium or heavy armor over their legs, and the strikes savaged their limbs. Both fell face first into the gold panels screaming, their furred hands scrabbling for purchase. You wouldn’t have expected such
high-pitched
noises from such big guys, Richter thought. Hisako swept her right arm down quickly, and both shields vanished. The bugbears collapsed to the ground. Before they could even try to roll over, a pair of swords stabbed into each neck and they lay still. Hisako and the sprites had killed four attackers in the space of ten seconds! He was glad they were allies!

The villagers behind him were in shock as well! Most were simple craftsmen or workers. Even the casters probably hadn’t been in combat before. The wood sprites, however, fought constantly to protect the forest from invaders and monsters. When faced with the fighting prowess of the sprites, the villagers were
dumfounded
. A feeling Richter could well understand. Despite having fought beside Sion, he had never seen the sprites working as a group before. His village had a long way to go if this was an indication of the level of battle that they would need to operate at.

He clapped his hands to break his people out of their reverie. If enemies hadn’t heard the short, but fierce battle then his
clap
wouldn’t alert them. And if they had heard the fight, then the element of surprise was gone anyway. “Grab their weapons!” He pointed to one of the villagers that he remembered was an Air caster. “Take the shield. Support our fighters! Those of you without weapons yet, stay in the center of the group!”

The better armed
group continued to move toward the burning longhouse. The screams were getting louder and smoke was thick in the air. More than half of the roof was covered in flames. The goal of Richter’s group was to get to the doors of the longhouse. Ten bugbears were still hammering at the doors. If his people were going to survive, they would have to be dealt with.

A series of loud booms came from far ahead of them, heralding Yoshi’s arrival at the bridge. A fold in the land coupled with the distance and
darkness
kept Richter from seeing exactly what was happening, but the night was lit with blue flares of color. They provided brief moments of illumination, like a storm on the horizon. No time at all passed between the sprite’s initial attack and the responding roars of defiance from the bugbears. In the resulting clash, at
least
one scream ripped itself from a sprite throat.

Hisako looked at him upon hearing the pain of her people. Richter thought she would immediately run to their aid, but the only expression on her face was one of steely resolve. “We will finish our
task
and save your people. My warriors will last until we can join them.”

Richter just nodded back, “Onward!”

They hadn’t made it another one hundred yards
when the next attack came. The bugbears had indeed heard their attack on their comrades, and they had prepared. The group of defenders was making their way to the longhouse when Richter heard Alma’s voice in his head, *
Danger!
*

Suddenly the air in front of them…
rippled
. There was
shriek
of pain, and whereas before there had been nothing but open space in front of them, they could now see bugbears arranged in broad horseshoe pattern no more than ten yards ahead. Directly in front of Richter’s group, at the tip of the arch formation, was a tall figure wearing black robes. The hood was thrown back showing a mostly bald head with a
top knot
tied in a bun on top. The face was green and the lower jaw protruded, two large fangs extended upward in place of incisors. At that moment, the robed figure’s face was screwed up into a rictus of pain, and both hands were slapped to the sides of his head. The wail of pain was tearing itself from his throat.

Richter looked in shock at the force arrayed against them. The bugbears had gotten so close! If the defenders had walked forward for only a few more
seconds,
they would have been hemmed in on three sides, and most likely slaughtered to the last man! Suddenly, he
knew
had happened.
At least he knew part of it.

Alma had been flying above Richter and the others. Then she had felt the thought patterns of the hostile group in front of them. She could not read thoughts, but she had been unable to miss the clustered minds in front of Richter and his group. She had flown ahead, and as soon as she passed the veil of Dark magic, she saw the ambushers. She then dove and used a
psi blast
to distract the caster. The attack made him loose concentration and the ongoing
enchantment was interrupted. The spell backlash coupled with the psi attack, had caused the shriek of pain that alerted them!

Richter had no time to wonder about how he instantly had this information. The dark veil had apparently protected the bugbears from the effects of Hisako’s spell. The removal of the concealment
spell,
however, made them shy from the light the same as the first three. That was probably the only reason that Richter’s group had not been immediately overwhelmed once the caster was distracted. Despite not being in the perfect position for them to spring their ambush, the fifteen or so skirmishers in front of them were still more than enough to cause serious damage.

“Shoot,” Richter shouted! His own target was the caster in front of him. The mage was the first enemy magic user Richter had seen so far, and he well knew that this battle could hinge on removing the caster from play. He imbued his arrow and shot, not taking much time to channel his mana. The pure gold aura around arrow made an after image in his sight as it sped towards the helpless mage. At the last
moment, though, a large bugbear with a kite shield jumped in the path of arrow
. The projectile struck the shield with a loud bang! The contact did knock the off balance bugbear
backwards, but the mage
was spared.

At the same time that Richter shot, Sion and Daniella both unloaded arrows into the closest bugbears. Both were critical hits, one to the face and another to the knee, shearing off the lower part of the creature’s leg. Even if they weren’t immediate kill shots, the attackers wouldn’t be back in the fight anytime soon.

Hisako looked around at the enemies arrayed against them, and then fell to one knee. Both of her hands reached out at shoulder height, and then circled opposite each other until they were vertically in line with her sternum. Her finger tips touched in three complex hand configurations. Then her hands shot back out to shoulder height a second time, and she once again started circling them back. She looked off in the distance, completely focused on her casting, her lips forming words in an unbroken chant. Richter had no idea what spell she was casting, but it clearly required more than a one second casting time. It was also clear that she was vulnerable while she cast it. She had to be protected. He turned to the villagers with weapons, “Protect her at all costs! Whoever is unarmed, stay back!”

The other bugbears had started moving forward. The sprites’ fiendishly high Dexterity let them loose one more imbued arrow each, but only Daniella’s shot knocked an enemy down. Sion’s shot was blocked by a hasty
side swipe
of his target’s buckler. The arrow skewed past and detonated harmlessly on the ground twenty yards away. Richter knew that if the attackers made it to them, they would be torn apart. He did the first thing he could think of. He cast
Grease
.

The spell summoned a slippery substance coating the ground in a 10x10 area. The two enemies in front of him fell.
Unfortunately,
his aim was off, and he was inside of AoE (area of effect) as well. He fell as the two attackers continued to slide towards him. One had fallen forward and she raised her half- moon
axe
to chop down into Richter as soon as she got close.

Two of the villagers stood with Sion, fighting hand to hand against the goblinoids. Daniella had backed up several feet and continued to fire arrows past the defenders into the
mass of enemies. In such close
quarters
however, imbuing her arrows would harm both friend and foe, so she relied on skill alone to make her kills. The remaining armed villagers and the Air mage holding the
shield stood in front of Hisako
who was still chanting her spell. The rest of the villagers remained in the background, throwing small rocks they found on the ground. It served as little more than a nuisance, however. The battle was joined!

The bugbear’s slide in the grease had ended only a few feet from Richter’s prone body. If she had slid the entire way, then he was sure that her axe would either be either battering at his armor or buried in his body. Even so, she was up on both legs and one arm. The other arm still held her
axe
aloft and was about to slam it down onto him. Praying that the spell was strong enough, he cast
Charm
.

The axe had already descending towards him when he finished the one-second
cast. They made eye contact as the blade passed the halfway point. A brutal smile broke out over her face, and then she twisted her body like a corkscrew. She rolled over
completely,
and struck the bugbear to her right in the shoulder. The blade bit, but the thick leather armor her former comrade was wearing stopped any serious damage. He snarled and grappled with his traitorous ally. Though wounded, he was putting up a large fight, and her
axe
was useless in such close quarters. Richter rolled out of the AoE of his
Grease
spell. Carefully standing on his feet, he didn’t see how he could help his charmed fighter without risking damage to her as well. They were rolling around too fast for him to risk an arrow. He turned his attention to the rest of the fight.

Sion, Daniella
and two armed villagers were facing off against five bugbears. Sion was holding his own, but the villagers were hard pressed. If it wasn’t for Daniella taking shots of opportunity the two would be dead already. The large bugbears were not appreciably slowed, however. Their leather armor was tough and hard to penetrate. Even the arrows that did strike flesh hit nothing
critical. None of them could sink
too deeply through the natural armor of their hide. The stalemate didn’t last long, however. With a terrified scream that became a wet
burble
, one of the villagers fell!

The bugbear that killed him had brought its warhammer
down in a mighty overhand swing. The poor fool tried to parry with his sword. The blade was just swept
down by the hammer and c
ut into the villager’s own flesh. It wouldn’t have made a difference if the sword were involved or
not, once
the hammer fell into the man’s chest. All that was left was a ruined bloody mess. The attacker pulled his weapon out with a horrible sucking sound.

Richter bellowed in outrage. These people were under his protection! He activated
Double Shot
. Two arrows flew from his bow in the space of a second. The only flaw to using this subskill of Archery was that both arrows had a greatly decreased accuracy than normal. The second arrow suffered twice as much penalty as the first. True to form, Richter’s first shot struck true, hitting the bugbear in the abdomen, but the second went wide. That didn’t
matter though, because he immediately used
Drill Shot
. Aiming for the impact of site of the first arrow, he concentrated for a moment and then released. The arrow spun in the air true to its name and hit a bare centimeter to the side of the first strike. The already weakened armor gave way, and the arrow
imbedded several inches into the bugbear’s stomach, continuing to
spin. The invader gave a small groan and collapsed onto the wet ground. The attacker wasn’t dead, but
at least Sion’s group won a few seconds of respite.