The night hung heavy in the air as Kurik crouched atop a thick branch, looking down at the game trail. For the past day, he and his squad had steadily engaged in a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the orcs. They had killed dozens, and yet, their efforts paled in comparison to their ally.

At one point, Kurik had doubted that a single person could make enough difference to turn the tides of the coming conflict. No longer did he harbor such doubt, because he’d gotten a small peek at what the man was capable of, and he’d come away both impressed and horrified. Kurik pushed those thoughts aside. He couldn’t afford to be distracted, because he heard his prey finally coming into range.

He’d been stalking the orc for the last hour, and he’d finally managed to bait the hulking creature into following him. Now, he only had to wait as the monster crept down the trail. It made an attempt at concealment, and it was clearly capable of moving through the thick terrain with some degree of stealth. However, to Kurik’s keen eyes, it was entirely exposed.

Just when it passed beneath him, Kurik leaped from his position on the branch. His axe flashed with his Eagle’s Talon ability, which augmented his melee damage by forty percent for a single strike. The caveat was that he could only use it while striking from above. It was a very limited ability, but under the right circumstances, it was devastating as well.

Never was that clearer than when his axe cleaved through the orc’s shoulder, cutting diagonally across its torso and digging deep into its chest. It would have gone further if it wasn’t for the thing’s dense bones and high Constitution. In any case, Kurik’s momentum bore the monster to the ground, and he ended up on top of the bulky and bleeding monster.

Orcs were notoriously hard to kill, and even the devastating attack he’d just delivered wasn’t enough to finish it off. So, he reared back, intending to deliver a killing blow.

But before he could, he heard a twig snap behind him. Knowing what that signified, he dove forward in a roll that narrowly let him avoid a descending club. He came up running, recognizing that he’d already lost the fight. A pair of orcs crashed through the underbrush behind him, both bellowing in rage as they left their fellow behind.

Hopefully, it would bleed to death, but Kurik had fought enough orcs by that point to know how unlikely that was. If they weren’t killed outright, they would recover. Not to full strength – they weren’t trolls, after all – but enough that they could keep on fighting. Still, as much as he regretted the necessity of leaving the kill unfinished, Kurik knew his own abilities well enough to recognize that he couldn’t stand up to a single orc in straight combat, much less two.

So, he ran.

As he did so, he ran through his options. He had a couple of traps nearby, and both had been enhanced with his ability. Yet, he didn’t want to use them unless absolutely necessary. The fact was that each time he used the ability, it took a significant amount of ethera, so he’d begun to ration his abilities. As a result, he was forced to rely on other tactics, which had further exposed what he already knew.

He was no Warrior.

Sure, he was a decent enough scout, and he could function as a fair archer while holding his own in hand-to-hand combat. But against creatures like orcs, he was woefully outmatched. It was a reminder of his place in the world.

Perhaps one day he could rise above that position, but that day had yet to come.

He could run, though, and with his Fleet-Footed enhancement, he could move incredibly quickly through rough terrain. The only person he’d ever found who could rival him was his newest ally, which, as far as he was concerned, didn’t really count. The human was clearly an outlier, so comparing himself to Elijah wasn’t a fair exercise.

Just when Kurik was on the verge of veering toward one of his traps, he heard a commotion behind him. Then, suddenly, there was only one orc following. Knowing what that meant, he kept running until, suddenly, the noise repeated. It was followed by silence.

“You’re clear,” came a quiet voice.

Kurik slowed to a stop, then turned around to see Elijah standing over a fallen orc. The creature had had its entire torso ripped open, and its head flopped to the side, its neck nearly severed.

“I was fine,” Kurik insisted.

“I know. Just helping where I can,” the man said. He made for a curious sight, with his odd collection of equipment and curios. Kurik knew enough to recognize that many of them were magical in nature, though he couldn’t even begin to guess their purpose. However, he was well aware that anyone with that many magical items was either rich or dangerous.

Elijah was probably both, at least in relation to the rest of Earth.

“Did it work?” Kurk asked.

Elijah stepped forward into the light and shrugged. “Sort of, I guess,” he said. “I got a few of them, but not as many as I would have liked.”

“What happened?”

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“They have a couple of spellcasters,” Elijah stated. “Stopped my spells from doing too much damage. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“They’re more advanced than we thought.”

“It looks that way,” said the man. He ran a hand through his curly blonde hair. “You should go tell Ramik and the others. Take the rest of your squad, too. We’re not going to win the fight like this.”

“You think we need to come up with another strategy?”

“I do.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll stay out here and slow them down.”

“By yourself?”

“I’ll be careful,” Elijah said. “In the meantime, you need to make sure everyone’s ready for what’s coming, because this isn’t something we can stop before it gets to Ironshore. There’s going to be a fight there, one way or another.”

“I think that was always the case,” Kurik admitted with a sigh. There was little chance of stopping the horde before it reached the budding settlement. Everyone had known that from the very beginning, but some had hoped that they could use Elijah’s power to avoid that inevitable eventuality.

“You’re not wrong,” Elijah said. “You should go. I’m going to keep hunting.”

Kurik nodded, and without another word, headed to the rendezvous point to reconnect with his people. As he did, he hoped that Elijah could work a miracle, because he expected that that was what it was going to take if they were going to survive.

* * *

As soon as Kurik was gone, Elijah shifted back into his draconid form and went on the hunt. The past day had been exhausting in a way he hadn’t experienced since the last tower, but in a lot of ways, it was much worse.

First of all, the orcs were far more attentive than the ogres had ever been, and if Elijah wasn’t extremely careful about how he moved among them, they would detect his presence. Fortunately, he’d gotten plenty of practice doing just that, so, for the most part, he was fine. Yet, he’d still gotten into trouble a couple of times, and he’d barely made it out of those instances alive.

Second, while the orcs were disturbingly humanoid in appearance – aside from their tusks, immense size, and grey skin – they were just as obviously monsters. They had some semblance of a society, but it was a hollow thing, as if they were merely imitating something they had seen.

Or, as Kurik had suggested, acting upon instincts they didn’t understand.

As a result, they seemed sapient at first glance, but they weren’t. However, even that hint was enough to make killing them a difficult thing. Elijah had pushed the resultant guilt aside, but it was much harder to do so than he’d expected.

Not that it was going to stop him from doing what was necessary, but it definitely didn’t help his mindset.

And finally, there was the issue of their advancement. He’d grown used to being able to use Swarm and Calamity whenever he wanted, and the first time he’d done so against the orcs had gone off without a hitch. He’d killed a couple dozen of them, even gaining a level in the process. Yet, when he’d tried to do so a second time, one of the orcs had risen up and cast something to reduce the effect of the spells.

Another had cast some sort of red globe of liquid in his direction. He’d avoided it, but the fact that it had found him so quickly did not bode well for his chances of using his spells in the future.

Which had been his primary strategy, so since then, Elijah had been forced to rethink things. He’d also sent Kurik and his scouts back to Ironshore to help with the preparations.

Though he didn’t see how they could win.

In the meantime, though, Elijah intended to keep fighting as best he could, and if the battle was hopeless, perhaps he could level enough to gain a new spell or ability that would make the difference they needed to survive.

That made Elijah’s goals clear.

So, without any further ado, he set off through the underbrush, passing beneath the trees as he headed toward the location where he’d last seen the orcs.

Soon enough, he found their camp. It was still dark, so they had yet to begin their march, but Elijah had already witnessed their routine, so he knew what to expect. Still, he watched from the shadows, waiting for an opportunity. As he did, he studied the camp. There were hundreds of tents, dozens of fires, and thousands of grey-skinned orcs. How the tribe had expanded so rapidly, Elijah had no idea.

Perhaps he’d only seen a small portion back at that abandoned Wal-Mart.

Or maybe they reproduced that quickly.

Whatever the case, there were far more than Elijah could handle alone. In truth, even if he hadn’t killed Ironshore’s security force, the chances of repelling the invasion seemed incredibly slim – unless they could figure out some way to even the odds. Being on the defense would help. So would the fact that the orcs were barely-thinking monsters.

But that wasn’t going to be enough.

A few minutes after Elijah had begun his vigil, a trio of orcs broke away from the camp and tromped off into the woods. It was only then that Elijah realized something that had eluded him until that very moment.

Orcs had to eat.

That was an unavoidable fact of life. He’d seen them hunting, cooking, and eating by their fires. Yet, he’d not recognized the opportunity that held. Still, before he established a plan, he wanted to confirm his suspicions. So, he followed the trio into the woods, and sure enough, twenty minutes later, he saw them take down a wild hog the size of a hippopotamus. The three orcs expertly dressed the animal, then hauled the meat back to the camp before setting off for another hunting expedition.

That’s when Elijah struck, hitting the first one with an attack that utilized Predator Strike. He ripped through the creature with little difficulty, then bounded away into the underbrush. As soon as he was out of sight of the orcs, he bounded up a tree. By that point, the remaining two hunters were alert, but because they never bothered to look up, they had no idea where he was. Elijah dropped out of combat a few moments later, then adopted Guise of the Unseen before repeating the process.

Two more attacks, and the trio of hunters were dead. But that had never been the point. He’d only killed them because it was a good opportunity to thin the horde. With the numbers arrayed against Elijah and Ironshore, he couldn’t afford to let such a chance go to waste. However, he didn’t linger after finishing them off. Instead, he took off across the landscape with as much speed as he could muster, and soon enough, he found Kurik and his squad of scouts.

Before he approached, he shifted back into his human form and called out, “It’s me. Don’t attack.”

Then, he stepped out of the trees.

Kurik said, “Thought you were stayin’ out here to hunt.”

“I was. I did,” Elijah said excitedly. “But I figured something out.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Elijah told him, then elaborated on his plan.

“You think we can do that? There are only ten of us here,” Kurik said. “Twenty more back in Ironshore.”

“You’re scouts and hunters, right? This is what you do,” Elijah stated. “I think this is our best option.”

Kurik shrugged. “Better than any idea I got. Best we get to it, then.”