It seemed to take a long time, long enough that Karl was starting to worry about when they should consider doing something on their own anyway. But finally Christine returned. She led them up to the side of a large boulder, and as they gathered around she gestured for them to leave her a little room in the middle.

“Okay, this is what we are fighting.” Bending down, the ranger summoned a monster corpse. It was almost human height and build, but gray and with wicked talons. “It's called a kythar, apparently. Blunt, slashing, and piercing damage all should work. You want to shoot it here, here, or here,” she said, pointing with an arrow. Michael grunted a nod. “Maybe a mild resistance to fire? I can't tell; my Skill isn't high enough yet.”

Tabitha squatted down and grabbed one arm of the kythar corpse. Her hand began to glow red. Everyone watched for a few moments. Finally Tabitha said, “A little. They will burn,” dropped it and stood back up.

“How tough is it?”

The ranger shrugged. “About a hundred and fifty experience? A level two could probably take one. I wouldn't want to take on more than two alone. The rest of you can probably handle more.”

Christine vanished the corpse again, then flipped open a notebook and showed them a crude drawing. “Okay, there's a sloped valley between those two ridges.” She pointed at her drawing, and then the hills in question. “The opening is on the low end on the north side, you can just see it from here. It's being used as a cattle pen. People are inside—I couldn't tell how many without getting spotted. I saw two guards in front of the gate here, four more up here, four on the other side, and at least twenty, maybe thirty in a group on the far side of that ridge on the right, where the campfire is. I couldn't get close.”

Karl looked around at his group of six. Reinforcements, if they came, would be six or eight people of level two or so, plus Jake, and Terry whenever she showed up. “So frontal assault is out, but if we can pick off groups...”

“Sneak in and rescue the people?” Jo asked.

“We can't abandon them, and most of our firepower is already here. If we can find a way, I don't see that we've got a choice.” Christine seemed to relax, ever so slightly. Karl wasn't sure he'd have noticed before the System. Then he understood. Of course; Christine doesn't know me. Despite her deference to him, she'd been worried he might not do the right thing.

Karl looked at the drawing covered in dots. The two groups of four kythars would have a commanding view from the heights to either side of the valley. They could also see each other. Once again Karl wished he had time to read some books on warfare. He knew vaguely that the “high ground” was supposed to be important, and the kythars certainly had that.

“Okay. My first thought is, we need to take out both high groups simultaneously,” he hazarded.

“Agreed.” Christine nodded.

“How do we get up there?”

“The easy paths are down the north side; we can't use those because they are in plain view of the kythar. We'll have to circle around clockwise and climb up the south sides. It's much steeper, but doable. There's almost no presence in that direction, likely just one or two singletons wandering around there that we have to kill on our way to getting into position. Once we control the slopes, the group on the left can come down the front, but the ones on the right will have to climb back down the way they came or the camp will be alerted.”

Karl glanced around at the others but they seemed content to let him brainstorm with Christine. He supposed if he proposed something really foolhardy someone would point it out. “Could they jump down into the pen? Get out that way?”

“Possibly? I couldn't get a look into the interior. My instinct says no, though, or it might not be a good cage. People would climb out.” As Christine spoke, Jo looked relieved. Scared of heights? he wondered. Not important right now.

Karl frowned and tried to think of good questions. “The one farther from here we're calling the right side? West side? And the camp is west of the ridges.” He looked around, making sure nobody had it backwards, including him. “If we take out the group on the right, will the large body notice right away?”

“They might. They will eventually. Doing it quietly enough might buy us five or ten minutes? That's a wild guess.”

“What would you need, to take out one of these groups?”

“Without raising an alarm? Two people to attack two quickly while I shoot the other two. If we don't care about noise, one other person would do.”

Karl turned to the archer. “Michael? What would you need?”

“Alone, I can take them, but probably not quietly. Give me one or two people, I can probably kill them without them getting an alarm out.”

Karl nodded. “So the six of us can probably take out the two high posts quietly, but once we do, we've got minutes at best before the main force is alerted. The group on the left ridge will have to get down to the gate, kill the guards—again without raising an alarm—open the gate, and get the prisoners moving east in a short time. The leader on the right ridge will make the call whether to come down then, or wait until the prisoners are freed and on the move.”

“I'll have to be with the left group then,” Chenelle pointed out. “There may be injured people.”

“All right, tentative plan: Michael, Jo and Tabitha on the right ridge, Christine, Chenelle and myself on the left ridge. Any objections?” No one spoke. “How do we coordinate for simultaneous strikes?”

“I'll shoot at one of your targets to start the fight,” Michael said. “You see that arrow fly, go in.”

“Better you than me. If I shot and missed, my arrow might end up in the enemy camp.”

“What happens if it doesn't work, and they raise the alarm?”

Karl frowned. “Both teams run down the front paths, and join up at the gate. The six of us bust the gate open, and hope we have some combat classed people in there. There will at least be Letisha and Jim, maybe more. We defend the gate so that the kythar can't all come at us at once, and whittle them down.”

“They'll retake the high ground and shoot down at us,” Christine warned.

“But hopefully we'll have killed their best archers already. We're talking about taking out ten of them without any losses. That's at least a quarter of their force. After that we'll be at least a little stronger. It's risky, but we don't want to leave those people trapped any longer than necessary. We don't know what will happen to them otherwise.”

“So best case, we kill ten and sneak out with the prisoners. Worst case, we have to fight them all, but we do it in stages,” Christine mused.

“Another problem,” Jo said. “What happens after they notice the prisoners are gone? They'll chase us, right? How do we keep from getting killed or captured by the pursuit?”

“We'll have to stay ahead of them long enough to reach the second wave back at Maria's. We'll have both healers take up the rear, to help stragglers.” He saw agreement from Chenelle.

Karl nodded. “I think we have a plan and a backup plan. Any objections?” No one spoke.

Suddenly Michael exploded into motion, running a few steps away from the boulder they hid behind, and snapped off a shot at a lone kythar that had just stumbled across them. Less than two seconds later, Christine fired, then another shot from Michael took it down. The creature had only managed a startled yip before dying. The two shooters went to retrieve their arrows and loot. Karl heard them talking quietly.

“Ranger?” Christine asked.

“Archer. No tracking.”

“Fast shooting.”

“You make good arrows.”

“Store bought last night. Needed an edge more than the coin.”

“Mm.”

Karl waited until they both had looted and returned, then let out a breath. “Okay everyone.” Karl stuck out his hand in the middle of the group. He needed to touch them all, but after he did it he realized it was also a good morale move. I meant to do that... Fake it til you make it, Karl. After a moment, Chenelle, Michael, and Christine did likewise; then Jo, and finally Tabitha. carefully touching Jo's hand. Still not sure how to address his prayers, Karl murmured, “God and System, please aid us in our worthy cause.” Karl cast guardian aura four times with a single thought, touching each of the others except Tabitha, who quietly withdrew her hand, placing it on Jo's shoulder instead.

“Use your sword,” Jo murmured softly. Karl drew his short sword slowly and held it out to the circle, bowing his head. Tabitha gingerly touched the metal with one finger, and Karl cast guardian aura on her using SpellBlade. “Thank you,” Jo added in a whisper, and when Karl looked at Tabitha, she bowed her head slightly to him in return.

“Good luck and good hunting. Let's go get our people back.”

The group moved out, together at first. After a minute, Michael stopped and told Jo quietly, “You're too loud.”

“One sec.” Jo's armor and sword vanished. A moment later, it reappeared, armor in place over her body. She vanished it again. I'll have to practice that trick with my armor, Karl noted. Michael nodded approval to Jo, and they resumed circling to the left around the two ridges. Once behind the small hills, the two groups split up.

Christine led, with Chenelle next and Karl bringing up the rear. He didn't think he would be able to be very quiet, despite his lack of metal armor, but specifically upgrading his boots seemed to come with some extra benefits. He was still louder than Christine, but not by as much as he'd feared.

It probably took over fifteen minutes to cross the short distance and climb that would normally have taken two minutes if they could walk openly. He trusted Christine's competence, and followed her silent guidance as they climbed.

Partway up, they began to see bits of the enclosure, and a few of the people in there. Christine abruptly stopped and stared down. Karl couldn't tell what or who she was looking at.

Christine proceeded to point at the guards up top, then two fingers at her own eyes, then pointed down into the enclosure, and finally put a finger to her lips. Turning to Karl and Chenelle, she smiled and crossed her fingers for luck.

They reached the last few feet of height before the top. Christine used a pocket mirror to peek at the guards. Then she peered across the ravine, trying to spot the others. With great patience, she searched the back of the second ridge, then tensed, and made a little wave close to her body. A moment later, she turned to Karl and Chenelle, held up three fingers, then two, then started climbing the last few feet as fast as a mountain goat.

Karl didn't hear the arrow, but he clambered up the easier part of the south slope as soon as Christine drew back for her first shot. Some of the guards were looking down at something in the pen and were slow to notice their approach. His first weapon of choice was a rock the size of a baseball and he threw it at one of the kythars not already sporting an arrow. By luck as much as skill he clocked it right on the skull.

Critical Strike. Damage X3.

The kythar went down. Karl summoned his shield and short sword and charged at his next opponent, choosing the farthest one because he wanted to try using Shield Bash correctly for a change. He got up a good head of steam...and the kythar dodged. Karl found himself desperately concentrating on not falling off the top of the ridge and only barely managed it.

And then the cheeky bastard pushed him.

Karl felt himself going over the edge, knew he'd been an idiot, but by God he was going to take the monster with him! He managed to grab the creature's wrist and pull it over on top of him. He consoled himself that technically he had taken care of two of the four kythars on the ridge, which was all he had been expected to. He needed the consolation, too; he was having a flashback to falling down the stairs headfirst with a hobgoblin on top of him two days earlier. But for the System, that would have broken his spine in multiple places and it still haunted him.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Now he was doing the same thing only it was worse, because they both landed on his shield and now they were sledding down the fucking mountain going head first!

A blur of action followed. It took about six seconds and involved:

slamming the kythar into a rock;

breaking his own leg and healing it;

at least one somersault;

headlong, out of control downhill running;

breaking his leg again;

healing it again;

a plummeting Critical Strike X6 with which he shield bashed a kythar gate guard into paste;

and finally somersaulting to his feet facing the other kythar--

in an overall combination move he could not have duplicated if he practiced until the heat death of the universe.

The last kythar was still staring at him in amazement when he stabbed it to death with his orcish blade. A few seconds later, Christine and Chenelle came cautiously running down the north slope. Karl checked quickly for more guards, then hurried to the gate. A crowd was forming on the other side. There were a lot of people in there, murmuring,“That was fantastic!” “Did you see that?” “Is that a knight?”

“Well, that happened,” Chenelle said quietly as she arrived, humor in her tone.

Karl grinned without turning around. He held a finger to his lips. Prisoners nodded and pointed out the mechanism. Karl started working it and quickly unbarred the gate.

Christine took up position at the mouth of the valley and nocked an arrow.

People started flowing through the moment it opened. Karl pointed at Christine, who nodded and started leading them around the ridge so they could get distance without being spotted from the camp. He kept pointing at her and in a low voice repeated, “Follow quickly and quietly.” As soon as the crowd thinned out, Chenelle went in, and Karl followed.

There were seven badly injured people, with three healthy ones watching over them, trying to figure out how to move them. Two of the watchers were Maria and Annie, who were vastly relieved to see them. Chenelle cast healing again and again, and most of the people were startled to be awake and mobile. This was their first encounter with healing magic.

Maria approached him. “I was hoping for rescue eventually, but we've only been here an hour or two. How did you get here so fast?”

“The coppers helped. Well done.” He winked and Maria smiled. “Chenelle got a notification when Danny took damage from fire. We assumed the worst and sent this team immediately, and more people to your house.” He kept scanning the pen, watching as the wounded became walking wounded and made their way in a scraggly line.

“They burned my home down. Burned the Safe Zone. We couldn't stay inside. We surrendered out front as a diversion. Did Clarissa make it out with the kids?”

Karl frowned and shook his head, but added, “The kids made it. Doug has them. Clarissa bought them time with her life.”

Maria got stone faced, but her voice trembled. “She was a good person.”

“That she was.”

“Karl!” Chenelle hissed, beckoning. Both of them hurried over. She knelt next to the last of the wounded. “I'm out of mana!”

Karl cast healing hands before he even realized it was Jim. He still didn't wake, so Karl frowned, placed his hands directly on Jim's head and cast healing hands again. Jim stirred and opened his eyes. Hm, so health is not quite so simple as one number, even under the System. Hidden variables, maybe?

“Man, the second escape attempt hurt a lot worse than the first one,” Jim groaned. “Sorry Maria, I tried. How long was I out?” As he spoke, he staggered to his feet.

“Half an hour or so. We got very fast service from 911.” Maria murmured to Jim quietly, gesturing at Karl.

“We escaping? Cool. Third time's the charm.”

“Let's move, quiet now.” As he urged them forward, Karl frowned. There had been a large number of people in this enclosure, he'd barely had time to glance at them, and he'd never met even a third of them. So why was his gut nagging him that they'd definitely missed someone?

“Who's missing?” Karl murmured as they exited the gate. So many people and names in just a few days... He looked back at the empty enclosure.

Maria's eyes widened. “Letisha! They came and took her away right when we arrived.”

Of course. Damn it, trying to think of too many things at once.

“Which way did they go?”

“They turned left at the end of the valley.” Towards the main camp.

Karl winced. “Chenelle, keep them moving.”

“Karl, don't you dare.” She stopped when he did, so he scowled and started following the escapees again. Once she started moving, Karl kept walking with her to buy time to argue.

“You're out of mana; I still have some healing. And I've got Michael, Jo and Tabitha atop that ridge for air support, or whatever you call it. I can't walk away and you know it.”

“Of course I would want you to save her, but you can't. It's suicide!”

“Not if I'm quiet.”

“Sounds like you could use a scout,” Jim said, a bit shakily, but visibly better almost by the moment.

“I could at that,” Karl said with relief. “Go. Find where Letisha is, then meet me around the corner from the camp.” Jim ran off.

Chenelle looked like she wanted to scowl at Jim but realized he was right. She was still very obviously worried. “And if you're not quiet, and you bring the whole tribe down on us while we're fleeing?”

“They're coming anyway, but that's why I'm going to wait a few minutes before poking the hornet's nest.”

“But if you wait my mana will come back.”

Karl was exasperated. “Not that long. If Michael's out of arrows then I'm sending him with you. If Terry shows up then you send her to me. You literally just saved six people personally and helped save lots more. Stop trying to hog all the glory.”

Chenelle boggled at him very satisfactorily. He pressed his case.

“Chenelle, somebody has to ride herd on this bunch! Who better than you? You're smart, levelheaded, experienced and good with people. When those escapees start to panic—and they will—I trust you not to let them stop moving until they're with the rest of our people. Chenelle, I need you. Will you do this for me, please?”

Chenelle stared at him, obviously thinking hard, then nodded. “You're risking your life just to try to save one more person.” She didn't say it like she was disagreeing, though.

Karl shrugged. “It's the job.”

“No,” she said softly. “It's the man.” She looked at him strangely for a long moment, then asked, “Karl, do you know what polyamory means?”

Before Karl could even parse the completely unexpected question, Chenelle stepped over, grabbed him, and kissed him.

Stunned, all Karl knew for a moment was her tight embrace, the warmth of her lips, and the counterpoint to the ache in his heart. His lips and arms didn't wait for an answer from a brain that had completely frozen, and he returned the embrace. This was Chenelle, who had comforted him, scolded him, laughed at him, and understood him. He hadn't realized consciously how appealing he found her.

Chenelle ended the kiss and let go of him, eyes shining. “It means Doug won't mind,” she whispered. She stepped back, smiling. “So you'd better survive!”

Karl kept staring as she turned and hurried after the last stragglers.

What?

Wait.

What?

Karl imagined a System Message: I got nothin'.

On autopilot, he turned and headed back towards the ridge because he needed to do something over there. Something. It would come to him any second.

Before he got there, a roar rose up from the camp. Oh, crap. Brain snapping back into gear, Karl ran towards the ridge, and saw Michael, Jo and Tabitha running down the slope toward him. He took up position at the bottom, facing outward to protect their approach.

Four creatures came around the ridge and Karl lashed out at the closest. It dodged, then leaped at him. Karl blocked that with his shield, as well as the second kythar's jump. The other two hurried to circle around him. The first one clung to his shield and wouldn't let go. If his strength had been any lower Karl would have lost control of it.

But now I have the strength of five elderly men, Karl quipped mentally.

At any rate, he was able to swing the shield around despite the added weight, dropped his sword, and summoned an orcish knife to his hand, stabbing at the first kythar body part to expose itself.

“Tabby, NO!”-- “I like fire.” --The voices overlapped but Tabitha's was much closer, both above and behind him. Sprouting flamethrowers from her palms, the pyromancer ran down and attacked the two who had tried to circle around him. Despite the creatures being nearly engulfed, they were still fighting. One of them clawed Tabitha in the arm. She screamed in pain and her flamethrower spell went out.

Karl left the dagger in a kythar and reached out with his right hand to cast healing hands on her, but she screamed again and flinched away, seemingly more scared of him than the monsters.

“ME!” Jo yelled. “Heal me!” She raced down the slope between them and shield bashed the kythar that had clawed Tabitha. On her way past Karl just barely managed to tag Jo and the spell went off. Tabitha sighed in relief.

Later, Karl thought at the puzzle. Take a number.

Neither of Karl's opponents were dead yet and that needed to change. His next weapon out of inventory turned out to be garden shears, which he used to wicked effect on one kythar's leg. The kythar stumbled. Health is more than one number, you little fiend! Karl lifted the kythar, unbalancing it and cutting deeper, doing more and more damage until finally it stilled.

Pain exploded across his face as the kythar riding his shield took a deep gouge out of him. He couldn't see out of his left eye. He dropped the shears and the corpse, grabbed the first kythar's leg to keep it from escaping, and deliberately fell on it, his shield crushing the thing. A hasty dagger stab and it was finished. Karl cast healing hands on his left cheek, which felt better, and he could see again from his left eye, but not well. Another problem for later.

As he picked up his dropped sword and stumbled back erect, he glanced right to an awe-inspiring sight. Jo looked like she was dancing; she launched no attacks, yet managed with sword and shield to block every slash or bite that came Tabitha's way. Tabitha had switched to her burning hands attack the moment she was able to grab onto one foe, and she simple glared at it through gritted teeth and hissed, “Fire.” That kythar rapidly switched from fruitless attacks to desperately trying to get out of the pyromancer's grip. This gave Jo the opening she needed to finish it off with a stab. Karl slashed at the other one, which quickly fell to both their blades. More kythar were coming to replace the fallen four.

“Fire!” Tabitha shouted again, rushing to the left behind them both. Karl rushed to get in front of her, at least until Jo could catch up. Jo grabbed Tabitha's hand and yanked to stop her. Tabitha turned to her partner and pointed at the camp. “The fire!” Jo let go, and Karl got at least part of the idea.

She must have some spell that uses existing fire, and that's a big one. He proceeded to race into a shield bash, providing cover on one side for Tabitha's mad dash, while Jo put on a burst of speed and got ahead of her on the other. Their impromptu flying wedge of two shields might still have failed if most of the kythar before them weren't suddenly sprouting feathers and arrow shafts just before impact. Thank you, Michael.

The strange dash to the middle of the camp caught the kythars out of position, rushing to block an escape route that wasn't being attempted. The humans would be in for a world of hurt in a few more seconds, but briefly they had the giant camp fire to themselves. Tabitha closed her eyes and held both palms out towards it.

“Oh shit give her space!” Jo shouted urgently, for once running a few steps away from the woman she Protected. Karl took a few steps away on the other side. This was going to be something new.

The flames of the campfire began to lean towards Tabitha, even as they grew hotter and brighter. Karl wondered what this spell was named, but soon found out what it did. The flames raced horizontally into Tabitha's palms as if being sucked by an implacable vacuum. Then Tabitha lifted one palm to the sky, and a wide jet of flame soared upwards, bent over and down in a wide arc, and swept back into the firewood. Tabitha made no attack, and didn't quite let the flames reach the trees above, instead holding and maintaining a twenty foot diameter vertical ring of fire very obviously under her control.

“HORDESLAYER!” Tabitha screamed.

“HORDESLAYER!” Jo bellowed, holding her sword aloft.

The kythar stopped. Wavered. A few took a step back. The System translated that, Karl realized. It had told the monsters exactly what they were facing...and the monsters were afraid.

Then a horrendous screech sounded from across the camp, and a much, much larger kythar burst forth from a hut, bellowing a counter challenge. The kythar opposition firmed up. The kythar chief pointed at the humans, screamed again, and the monsters resumed their advance.

Tabitha simply shook her head slowly, waited for the enemy to get into range, and then twisted the flames into a horizontal ring of fire and washed it over half a dozen monsters. She held it on them even as they struggled forward through the inferno. Three fell. The others pressed on, badly injured. Two fell to Michael's arrows, and Karl stabbed the last. Six more down.

Then the ring of flame dissipated as all the wood of the campfire crumbled into ash, completely consumed in under a minute. Miraculously, none of the trees nearby had caught fire. Tabitha had aimed her weapon very carefully. Now, she fell on her rump and stared forward, looking exhausted. “Fire...” she murmured happily.

Karl stared. That spell seemed much more powerful than their level would indicate. He was pretty sure Tabitha would never have been able to produce that ring of fire by herself. The spell must have consumed Tabitha's mana only to control it, while the campfire provided the raw power involved.

The other ten foes and their chief started forming up into a solid mass before deciding to advance, apparently assuming that the pyromancer had no more tricks up her sleeves. The chief began leading his troops in some sort of war chant that was slowly building in intensity. Karl glanced at Jo and Tabitha, and for a moment up the slope at Michael, who appeared uninjured but also out of arrows. Unless Jim could accomplish an epic backstab or ten, it looked like they were indeed about out of tricks.

Then Letisha appeared out of stealth.