There was only someone you could do against a single dragon. If you were a single human or other enlightened being, mostly, what she could do is try to overpower it with a spell if you had that. Dragons ruled the air. Humans could not fly. Most of the time, they couldn’t fly. At least. Bob had a special technique to fly, but it required that he used a lot of flames. It wasn’t really sustainable in the long run, which meant that they were strategizing how they would take down what had to be at least three dragons on their own.
“So there’s three of them at least. And they have to be circling around the flesh. Weaver. Do you think that it still wants me to engage it in one-on-one combat?” Bob said.
“I hope my boyfriend is smart enough not to fight a death knight alone when dragons surround him.”
Bob gave her the puppy dog eyes.
“Don’t think that you can get out of this just because you’re f****** cute and because you’re a great lay. I mean, you are a great lay but you’re not going to f****** just dip out and do this. If we’re doing this, we’re doing this together.”
Bob was so grateful that whoever had packed up the skiff for them had left a bed roll or two. That was extra large sized so that Stella and he could fit in there. It also meant that they could be warm when they were sleeping and doing other things, which was great. Although the cleanup left a little to be desired as Stella had not left with a cleanse card.
She had learned the spell recently, which was a boon, but they were deciding how they would attack.
“If we make our way over there, how far do you think that is? 10 mi 20 miles? Can we make our way there in a day?” She said.
“What? On foot?” He said. “I guess we could.”
“It would probably take what all day? But you have that control undead card now, don’t you?”
He had it. It was their ace in a hole. She might be an experienced scout and Rogue and he an experienced scout and ranger, but there were only two of them. It would be the two of them against the world. This meant that they were feeling like it was time.
“I don’t know if it’s the bear pelt that’s itching me or if I just want to get out there and stab me a few dragons,” Bob said.
“I think it’s the Bear pelt. It has to be. Remember the last dragon we tried to face down?”
It was hard for Bob to forget that last dragon. Mostly because his girlfriend would not let him forget. She was superb at that. He did not want her to be great at that. But he kept tearing it and she kept talking about it, so he was going to let it slide. There are some things not worth fighting about, and this was one of them.
“All right. So we repelled down the mountain, march up there. And then return and get the skiff?” She said. “Bob, there’s only so much food we have. I know I grabbed a lot, but I’m not going to gate back soon.”
“I didn’t know that you got the gate spell. Did you?” He said.
“I wanted to keep it quiet,” she said. “But yeah, I could do one a day. Maybe. I’m working on filling out my where my world line is and yeah, it’s all over the place.”
“That’s good,” He said. “I didn’t know how we were going to catch any more food. Although the birds have been fine.”
Bob's summons had been catching birds for them and they had been roasting them. The minute controls afforded them through the fire bending card meant they could roast a flying turkey quickly.
Chances were that if they had to cook something on the ground, they could hunt. However, without Stella’s cleanse spell, they did not want to eat any meat that might be infected. Using Bob’s control undead card, they could tell what was potentially affected by the undead and what was too small and hadn’t been affected. Primarily small game was what they could eat. And because the Elven Kingdom was well into a large forest, this gave them a lot of opportunities for small game. Still, knowing that they could head back, Bob decided.
“If you have the gate spell,” he said. “Then we can head back whenever we want. I don’t want to head back yet, though.”
She nodded. He knew she was on board and this little tidbit of information had helped him finally set his mind at ease. If he had to sacrifice himself to kill the death knight for the good of the group, he might, but he didn’t want her to die. Bob knew that if he breathed that aloud, she would roast him. So he didn’t.
Okay, here’s my plan. We’re going to pack up everything we have. We’re going to take this gift to a lower altitude where we can find it. And then we’re going to place a marker there. I don’t know if you can use an anchor spell on something so that I can path find back to it, but what we’re going to do is we’re going to mark some trees on our way. I know where the thing is. But if we have to make our way back afterwards, I’m not going to find the skiff unless we mark the path. Are you with me?
She nodded.
“Okay, great. We’ll head out in the morning first. First thing, maybe even before first light. I’m just going to double check the pathway there, but I think we should be able to hike the rest of the way. Once we get to that Ridge, it has to be 10 mi away. We will stop and reassess. I know that’s not far for us if we were traveling by a caravan, but we’re going to be spending a lot of our energy moving there. I don’t want to overdo it. If we’re going to fight this motherfucker, I want to do it fresh. I’m not going to arrive half dead."
“You’re so handsome when you make battle plans,” Stella said. “You really need to do that more often.”
He smiled. He definitely would, for her.
---
“Do we think that the death knight is so duplicitous as to do a fake out with us?” Cedric said.
The meeting of the war council had included all the commanders of each of the companies of the legion, the heads of each of the attached companies from the 13 tribes, as well as five Orcs that I designated themselves as leaders.
All the chosen were in attendance. Save for those that were with Bob or chasing after Bob. Everyone knew Bob had gone into the Elven Kingdom, or had disappeared in another direction. No one was going to call him on his shit except for the chosen. So while they had wanted to save a chair in for him, they were just standing room only. In fact, for this specific event, Sonya had made a circular arena so that everyone on the outside could look in and observe the speakers.
There were nearly seventy leaders represented there.
“We believe that the death knight known to the chosen as the flesh Weaver has attempted to pull the wool over our eyes. This is not the first time that he has done something unusual for an undead,” Anthony said. “It is for this reason Will head out to the Elven Kingdom as soon as we can physically begin moving. If what we think is true, then the flesh Weaver is there and alive. After having swapped for the death night, that was there already. Perhaps it was the flesh Weaver that turned the other death night into that mountain of flesh that we all had to destroy.”
The thing that he wasn’t saying was that without Bob there in person, they couldn’t confirm the death. They could only go off of the card that the goat Lord had given Sophie, which so far was telling them that there was one death knight left. Or possibly that any remaining death nights were in the same direction. Possibly in the same spot.
“So what we were asking for is for everyone to prepare for an invasion of the Elven lands. We will have 15 airships heading there, three of which will be prepared to rapidly unload troops and secure a space for the rest of our fighters. We suspect that there will be at least three or four dragons in the air. Every single Chosen has committed this to this mission.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“It will take every single one of us in order to accomplish this,” Cedric said. “Now we need to talk about who is ready. Who needs training and which groups want to be the first ones? We understand that the Orcs have a grudge that may only be repaid by joining our fight.”
There were a fair amount of grunts from the crowd.
“But we have to make sure that everyone gets a chance. When this goes down in the history books, this coalition of enlightened will be honored. It has been an honor to serve with every single person here,” Cedric said.
A map displayed in the center of the area. A 3D topographical map sliced through Cedric as they could show the flight patterns that they intended to take into the area, as well as where they expected resistance and where they expected to land ground forces so they could secure the final death knight.
“Unlike the last mission, where we left a fortification deep within enemy lines and this one, we want to set up a waypoint so that we can purge the elvish kingdom from the inside. Once and I understand Orcs, we will get back to your homeland. Once this is established, we will return to the orcish capital and give you all the tools you need to reclaim your lands. As far as resupply and food and water go, we will supply you with that as well until you are back on your feet.”
There was only so much that the legion could do. Having the backing of the chosen as well as Finley the Tinker King meant they could do so much more. The thousand Orcs, we’re going to be one of the biggest issues for the chosen to solve. It meant that after this war, no matter what anyone did, there would still be many mouths to feed. But this was the problem they wanted.
“Make no mistake. We are happy to feed you. We are ecstatic to have you among our ranks. It is just going to be a bit of a pain to get everything running. And you are welcome to stay in Gloucester as long as you like,”. Anthony said.
“You are all part of the coalition. We honor you and we thank you for all your contributions,” Cedric said. “We understand it is now more than just a matter of our survival. We will survive. And once we destroy this last bastion of this horrific plague, we will thrive again.”
The sound from the crowd was intense. And for a second, Anthony had to reach out and pop his ears. It was a lot to take in. They were asking a lot of these leaders and they were going to be giving them a lot as well. He had never been so certain of victory as he had in that moment. It was just going to take one more trip.
If they did everything right? He might be on vacation in a few months. Permanently.
---
Finley loaded up another crate. The genius of the wide gates they had made from the warehouse to the airships with their protected gates and Sunderland was that they had capacity. A single portal could only take one person from one place to another. Having a wide base meant they could move product. In fact, at that moment, he was pushing through an entire rack of ribs still on the bone that was larger than him. It was going to be smoked on the other side, as they had lots of hands to help in Gloucester. None of the Orcs wanted to be stuck in Sunderland. They wanted to be helping whether they were going to be part of the fight.
In a whole, the dinosaur meat didn’t smell that bad. Really. It was kind of good compared to some places at the Caravan had taken him. In fact, he was kind of coming around to it as a source of food. It wasn’t the same as the tinker noodles that took so much time, but it was functional.
In order for him to make enough noodles to feed these Orcs dwarves and the smattering of other humans and lizard folk, he was going to need a lot of wheat. Wheat. He didn’t have any right now. Nor did he have any help. He had asked the merchants at yellowtail if they might help and they were coming through with a small amount of what he needed, but he knew it was going to be a lot more than what they were initially giving him.
Still, he did his best. And now, he needed nearly a hundred dwarves to move boxes. The entire support company of the 76th Dwarven legion was in lockstep with him moving supplies between continents. He had five just stacking them on one side throughout the day and night and then a hundred appear. While Sonya would hold open the gate. They would flash everything. It had gotten to be so much work that the dwarves had installed a rail system. Not only that, they had installed several dozen mine carts or mine cart like machines, they would then portal from the bottom of the hill back to the top when it was needed.
It was just easier for a dwarf to take a box. Have a dwarf tell them where to go with it and then, if needed, put it on the little dwarven railway from the Warehouse or the workshop down the road to where it was needed at the base camp. And then from there, it would get sorted out too with the individual units that needed it the most. It was a very efficient system because of how much work that had been put into it over the past 2 months. The ramp up of the Orcs was the first large wrench and stress. The system that had occurred since Finley and the east of War company had mashed up this continuous logistical movement. If only they had the time to raise their own cattle stock or velociraptors, then things we’ve much easier. And Finley winced as you saw. The fencing that was coming up north of the promontory where they were going to eventually put dinosaurs that were going to be raised for their meat. They hadn’t yet caught enough dinosaurs to place in that little pen area and he realized that herbivores they were going to have to feed those dinosaurs as well. Also, someone’s going to deal with feeding the dinosaurs, giving the dinosaurs water and making sure that they did not live in their own filth. If there was one thing that the elf did not want to do it, was that cleanup duty for any large herbivore.
That one was going to be something that the dwarves did for them. They had enough cleanse cards and enough space that it shouldn’t have been an issue. They just needed to build up that meat industry. Next to the large fenced in area, they had also built a small slaughterhouse to prepare for that. Finley knew it was just a bear bone structure with some carving tools that had been found and handed over. As it was, just a few blacksmiths working on various implements for the legion. Until the Orcs came and moved into several of the Dwarven buildings in Gloucester, everyone was relatively spread out. But with this new Matt mashup of races and enlightened, things were feeling like an actual city for once. Finley was feeling like if there was another zombie attack, then perhaps they would have to go through all those Orcs and then all of those dwarves before they even got to him. And if there was another sea monster attack, then yeah, that was definitely not going to happen.
He was not ready for another sea monster attack. In fact, he was so not ready for sea monster attack that if one had; He was just going to run away. Because that was what Heroes did. Heroes did not do dumb shit just to appear smart for any reason. Heroes had to live until tomorrow so they could save the world and satisfy the terms and conditions of the contract to which they were bound to.
There was another jolt as the last of the dwarves from the support company came through the gate. Sonya yelled through the gate. Checking to see if anyone was else was coming, but it looked like they were done.
She tutted. Snapping her fingers, the gate closed.
Let the workshop resume its duties, as they were continually trying to work on a way to get the supplies needed to the people where they needed it. They were not going to dedicate every single wagon of the legion just to move boxes from one place to the other. But they were going to need to flash a lot of food to the elvish Kingdom if they’re going to stick around there. No one was taking that. It was actually going to happen, but there was a big feeling that if the Goat Lord was going to intervene inside of the orcish Capital, then perhaps the goat Lord would intervene inside of the Elven Capital..
Gloucester was far from being the Dwarven Capital until recently. It hadn’t even been a ducal seat. Still, they had saved. Jose dwarven and turned them into goats that the goat lord has allowed. Finley was just hoping that they might save some elves. Finley held no particular love for his brothers and sisters. In fact, he felt very indifferent toward the whole thing. He had been ridiculed as a child by other elves and this? This just felt strange to him.
He wasn’t going to be the one directly saving them, but if he hadn’t picked up. Anthony, way back when and then picked up. Bob and then the rest of the chosen. None of this would have happened.
Thinking back, he thought about how would have been if he hadn’t picked up. Anthony. He would not have survived his next encounter. He would have lost his wagon to a group of zombie bandits.
He was pissed at his hypothetical self for giving up to zombie bandits. He would never tell himself that, but he could be pissed at that alternate universe version of himself that had never gone with Anthony. And now? He was considering returning the front lines for the first time in a while. If anything, the operation no longer needed him. Several people had come up to him and asked to become Tinkers. He had told them what they had to do and give them a chance to join him after this. This was all done. If he died in the battle, which he wouldn’t because he was a coward, one of the chosen that was a tinker would become the king or queen.
However, no one else could pass on the culture as there was no one else that remembered the before times. This was the only reason that he was holding back.
Remembering the classic stories of Tinkers, he knew it would be the right thing for him to show up and help. After all, what else would he be doing? He grew tired of moving crates of meat by himself. He had people for that. He had wars. That would do that. He that hunted for his subcontractors to supply them with the meat that they needed in order to run their society. He could spare a day to be in the thick of it. And in the back of his mind, he was thinking about what would happen to Anthony if he didn’t show up. He was dreading the idea that Anthony would die on the battlefields.
He didn’t know what he would do without Anthony and the rest of the chosen. It hadn’t been just them for a long time. It felt like it was time for him to put up whatever he had left and to fight it out.
Sonya slapped them on the shoulder.
“Hey old elf, you look like you’ve been brooding for a while.”
“I feel it. You know this big battle?” He said.
“What about it?” She said.
“I’m thinking about coming with.”
Sonya put her arm around him. Why did she have to feel so warm? All humans were so warm. They were also so kind and nice to him. It would have helped if they were mean. And sometimes they were. But only in what they were saying. They were never mean in their actions. And that was one thing that stung the most. It would have been nice if they were the main.
It would have been much easier on him to decide what to do then.