Thane pulled out an arrow as the green skinned Malkin drew closer. “I’m going to get that goblin, Mahs and Kisha, hit the orcs with a strong spell as soon as I fire, try to keep it as quiet as possible. Sarah, get ready to clean up.”
Sarah nodded and began to creep along the tree line parallel with the river. Thane stayed crouched and silent, waiting for the four Malkin to draw closer. With a quick silent step he peered around the edge of a tree and aimed for the goblin. It scurried around on all fours for a moment climbing to the top of a rock where it tilted his head and began to sniff the air.
Nice of him to expose himself, Thane thought before releasing the arrow. The goblin was killed almost instantly as the arrow pierced its chest causing it to fly backwards at the feet of the surprised orcs. As he pulled out another arrow, Mahs was on his right, condensing and freezing water into a sharp icicle, and to his left Kisha was gathering earth and stone into a magical spear of her own. When the spells were fired, Thane followed with a second arrow. The spells took down two of the orcs, sending them flying backwards like the goblin had before. The third Orc gave out a grunt of pain and looked down at the arrow buried in his chest. A second arrow was fired by Thane and sunk into the Orc’s chest an inch from the first. The Orc staggered back and refused to fall, instead giving out a scream of rage as he scanned the trees looking for the assailants.
“That’s tougher than I expected,” Thane drew back the third arrow and changed his target, instead of aiming for the center mass of the brute…
The orc locked eyes with the small man who was aiming a bow at him. He opened his mouth to give another scream but was stopped short. The third arrow pierced him in the center of his head, passing through his snout and bursting out the other side. Once the orc crumpled to the ground, Thane gave a few quick signs to Sarah, who was close to where the orcs fell. She nodded and looked down the river. When she didn’t see any movement she crossed her hands in an X. Nobody was coming after that orc screamed.
Thane came out from his hiding place and jogged down to the Orc bodies by the river. After confirming that all four of them were dead he salvaged his arrows and examined the body of the orc that he shot. The skin was thicker and bones denser than he expected. The first two arrows managed to crack the ribs but not penetrate into the organs. The arrow through the sinuses managed to be a fatal injury to the orc, but Thane wondered if an arrow to a thicker part of the skull would bounce off as well. Certainly a cracked skull and the damage inflicted by the impact would prove to be fatal eventually, but how long could an orc fight until it collapsed from it?
“Mahs, did you bring the crossbow?”
“It’s still with the horses back at town. It’s a bit heavy to just be carrying around.”
“You’re probably right, but it looks like normal bows can't quite hit with enough force. We’ll have to change our aim, guts or limbs.” He looked at the corpses penetrated by the magic spears. “How many times can you fire off that icicle?”
“Four or five, make that 6 if I can recover the mana I already spent today.”
“About the same for me.” said Kisha.
Thane began to think. The Orcs were showing signs of organization. The scouting team of three orcs and one goblin was the same that Gryssel said he ran into. If the goblin was there to run and report trouble while the orcs fought, it would seem like whoever was sending out the scouts had a bit of intelligence too.
“Let's keep an eye out for more patrols and see what's ahead. Our job is to end the threat if it is a small group, or give a detailed report on positions and forces if it is a larger group. It’s starting to look like it might be the latter, so be prepared to retreat.”
They continued up the river, and the ground became a bit more inclined, and they reached the mouth of the canyon where the ground by the river remained fairly flat, but not far from the river the land shifted up in a steep incline. The four stopped all seeing the same thing in the distance.
“Smoke. Probably a bonfire. They are definitely inside the canyon.” Thane looked ahead and could see a point where the river made a turn. He couldn’t see too far ahead as the rocks and trees in the area blocked vision. He looked up the rising canyon walls, trying to find some sort of way up to take a look from above. From where he was standing the height of the canyon wall was only a few meters, but as it approached where the smoke was coming from, the height was over a hundred meters. The walls were a harsh slope covered with rocks but not much in the way of cover, and they were just steep enough to be dangerous.
“The mountain wanted to embrace the moon, but the river said ‘No’” Mahs recited.
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, don’t you remember that story when we were kids?”
“We can talk about it later, right now we need to figure out what to do. We can’t just go blindly walking in when we don’t know how many there are, or if they have any lookouts. And at some point they are going to realize that the four that left the camp aren’t coming back.”
Thane looked back up to the canyon walls, “We need to find a way to get up and scout out-”
“Found it.” Sarah interrupted pointing to the left side of the canyon. “Where it gets steep there, I see a few caves with a bit of an overhang. It looks like it's flat enough in front of the caves and it looks like a good place to stay out of sight and take a look. If we can get that far.”
Thane saw where she was pointing and mentally traced the path it would take to get there. It was completely exposed, if they took that route they would have to pray that the Orcs never looked up.
“If it’s just Thane and I, I can keep the two of us concealed for a few minutes. We should be able to get there unnoticed as long as the path holds.”
Sarah seemed confident and it seemed like the best option. At least it was better than running blind into whatever was waiting for them up the river. “All right, we’ll go ahead and you guys wait here. Send a signal if things go wrong and we’ll all retreat back to…”
Mahs seemed concerned about the pause, “What’s wrong?”
“...the town. These Orcs are only a couple hours walk to the nearest town. Why is it that nobody has seen them except for when Gryssel met a group by coincidence? Why haven’t they attacked the town or any travelers? When we asked we heard about a few hunters and fishermen that went missing, but nobody there knew anything about Orcs and they are this close.”
“So you think the Orc leading them doesn't want to be found out and is doing his best to stay hidden? That doesn’t sound like an Orc.”
“Exactly my point, it might not be an orc at all.”
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out once we get a good look at their camp,” Sarah interrupted, “There is no use thinking about it now, lets go.”
The first part of the ascent was a sheer slope a bit too steep to climb normally, Sarah was already crouched down with her hands linked and facing upward to give Thane a boost. He gave the others one last instruction, “If things look bad, shoot a signal and run back to town, we will meet you there.”
He ran and placed a foot in Sarah's palms, and used her arm strength to boost his jump to the point where he would reach the top of the ledge. Once he pulled himself up, he braced himself and lowered his hand, grabbing Sarah and pulling her up after she jumped.
“Try not to get too far away once we are concealed, hold my hand if you have to.”
She gave a smile as she cast the spell, something that Thane wasn’t entirely convinced was aimed at him and then disappeared. Thane looked at himself and noticed he was still visible. “Did it work?”
“Yes, it only interferes with how others perceive you, it doesn’t affect your own senses. She felt her pull on his arm and they began to walk forward, Thane kept his eyes low watching Sarah’s concealed feet form footprints in the dirt.
They climbed slowly for a few minutes, and the base camp of the Makin was starting to come into view. It took a few minutes to reach their destination and found a second ledge as high as the first. “Same as before” the invisible Sarah said, she slapped the wall for emphasis knocking loose a few small rocks. Thane aimed for the spot where she slapped and they used the same climbing technique as before. She tossed him up and he reached his hand down, slapping where she needed to reach. He somehow managed to grab her and pull her up without being able to see her.
Once they were in the cover of the cave, about two thirds up the slope, she released the illusion and laughed. “We always did work well together.” She was breathing heavily and looked a bit pale.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, it was tough to keep that going on 2 people, I’m going to rest a bit. I think I need a break before using mana again.”
Thane looked around, the area they were in was fairly flat and a large rock near the edge provided a bit of cover. He peered over the edge into the canyon below, it was over 100 meters down a steep incline to reach the bottom and Thane could see the Orcs below him. He didn’t expect what he saw down there.
This wasn’t a raiding party or a base camp. This was a village. The orcs had cast nets into the river to catch fish, there were a large number of wood and dirt huts scattered around. The large bonfire in the middle was cooking a few hunted animals, as well as a pair of human hunters who had the misfortune of encountering one of the roaming patrols. There were also several thick logs around the edge of the village that were being chopped and sharpened. The beginnings of fortifications were being constructed.
Thane sharpened his senses and scanned the village trying to get a count. There were several small goblins running around, but thankfully he saw nothing larger than an orc.
Sarah crouched down next to him until their shoulders brushed together and looked down. She was still recovering and had to ask, “How many?”
“Around a dozen, maybe fifteen goblins. Thirty to thirty-five orcs, no sign of a leader, I think it is in that large hut in the center.”
“Can we fight that many?”
“No. Plus we don’t know if there are any more patrols out, so there could be more.”
“Damn, the Baron’s bounty only applies to Orcs we kill, if we just report on the situation our pay is much smaller.”
“We aren’t really hurting for money right now. It’s not worth the risk unless we can think of a way to kill fifty Malkin with just the four of us.” There was a bit of movement from the central hut and the chances of them being able to pull off a successful attack dropped even further. It was definitely an orc but… “Grey Orc.”
A Grey Orc, sometimes called a Wart Orc or a Mottled Grey Orc was ugly, even by Orc standards. They were a mutated Orc that had thick, lumpy, grey skin that looked like a solid layer of warts over its entire body. The thick hide made it very difficult to injure, most blades would just sink into the lumps of flesh without drawing blood. Thane had heard that the thick skin made it difficult for the Orc to move. It seemed true as every move the Grey Orc made was awkward, from the way it walked to the way it poked at the meat over the fire. The skin would be thinner at the joint but...
“That must be their leader.”
It was at that moment when Thane heard the deepest voice he had ever heard address him, “Little man...”
Thane turned around and looked towards the back of the cave. He hadn’t noticed it earlier because it had been completely silent and motionless the entire time they were in the shallow cave. When it stood up, Thane couldn’t help but wonder how they missed it. With massive strides it quickly closed the distance between them, as Thane stood up from his crouched position he found himself face to stomach with the largest man he had ever seen.
The man was easily three meters tall and covered in muscles. He was wearing pants stitched together from animal hide but was exposed from the waist up. There were dozens of scars that criss crossed his chest and arms, and there didn’t seem to be a single hair on his body, not even eyebrows.
The monstrously large man looked down at Thane with a face that seemed to be devoid of all emotion. He repeated himself and continued. “Little man, the grey one is not the leader. Their leader is far more dangerous.”
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