Chapter Thirteen: Inconsistencies
Tom watched as the orcs approached. Three things became instantly apparent: it was a full warband, they would be on them in minutes, and they were most definitely different from the orcs in the Deep.
He watched through Sus and Sol as the thirty or so orcs strolled closer. The sight of them itched at him.
The orcs in the Deep could fit into three broad categories: regular orcs, Idealists, and the chieftains, with the Smith being a special exception. The regular orcs were all taller than the average human, though their postures often made them seem roughly the same height. They were thinner than most humans, though that was deceptive too. Their corded muscles also made them comfortably stronger than any non-Idealised human.
Idealist orcs flipped the script. They were taller and broader and stronger again than their non-Idealised fellows, and physically superior to Idealist humans. The chieftains were exemplars of their kind: the biggest and meanest orcs in the horde, a half-step between their Idealists and the Smith.
The orcs prowling towards them now were all the size of chieftains. They towered above the grass, chests and shoulders effortlessly clearing the tops of the stalks. And yet, they weren’t chieftains.
Tom was unsure how he knew, but he was certain. All the chieftains he’d seen before had a certain kind of gravity to them, a peculiar foul charisma that these orcs lacked despite their prodigious size.
The inconsistencies didn’t end there, either. Tom had come to associate all orc encounters with wild, unrestrained noise. Always, they came on savage and quick, baying their hatred to the heavens with wild abandon.
They roared and they ran. They sprinted and snarled. They barked, bayed, bolted and bounded. They were a tempest, coming chaotically, always full and overflowing with base, primal, unrestrained ferocity.
But these orcs appeared to be in no rush. They were all merely walking at a steady, even pace. They weren’t howling. They weren’t barking. They weren’t jostling at each other, desperate to be the first to draw blood.
Tom would have almost believed they didn’t know they were there, but they were trained unerringly at their position. Indeed, as he watched, one growled and shucked their head upwards at Sus and Sol, wheeling lazily above them. An orc that might have been the leader gave a low rumble, pointing directly at where Tom and his party were on the road.
Tom revised his estimate of how much time they had. If the orcs continued at their leisurely pace, they might have as much as five minutes. It still wouldn’t be enough. Eli was still unconscious. He would need time for his body to heal fully.
Tom wrenched his attention back to the group. Meri was staring at him, cheeks drawn tight under wide eyes. Tom gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look and gripped her shoulder.
“We’ll get through this,” he told her. The others had picked up on the tension. Rosa turned to him, apprehension plain on her face.
“What’s going on, Tom?”
Markus and Tanya were staring at him nervously. Darius looked up from where he was tending to Eli.
“We’ve got orcs coming our way,” Tom explained. “Thirty or so. They… there looks like a lot of Idealists. They must have heard the fight. They’ll be on us soon.”
“Oh Goddess,” Markus said. “We can’t fight them…” But his gaze found Eli, still lying on the road, breathing shallowly, and he trailed off as he realised they couldn’t run either.
The others drew the same conclusion. Tom could see it in their eyes. The situation was dire. They all knew it.
Thirty orcs was not bad odds. Not if they were all hale and rested. And if the orcs were not Idealists.
But they were a man down. They were tired and injured. And it looked like every orc in the warband was an Idealist.
Tom surprised himself. He couldn’t find it in himself to be afraid. The cold calculus of the situation was apparent, of course, but with it came no fear. He had been in worse situations. He might die, but such was the life of an Idealist. This was the world they lived in. You had to struggle to survive.
He saw the same calm acceptance mirrored throughout the group. Even Darius, who was not truly part of the party, wore a determined expression.
“Tanya,” Tom said. “Break out the healing and mana potions, please. Have you got any more traps?”
“No more traps,” she said, as she pulled bottles of liquid from her storage and passed them around. “My firing rod only has one or two more charges left, too, I think.”
Tom nodded absently, his mind trying to turn up some way to swing the looming fight in their favour. It came up blank.
Everyone swallowed their potions. Mana and vitality swept through Tom, washing away his aches and refilling his stores. Tanya dribbled a healing potion through Eli’s lips, carefully, gently. More colour returned to his skin, but he didn’t wake. The mind often needed time to catch up to the body when it had taken such serious injuries and been healed from them.
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Tom took another couple of poisons from his storage and downed them. The familiar buzzes pulsed through his body, enlivening and empowering him.
They reset their battlelines. Tom and Markus took the front. Sesame stood between them, and Meri’s wolf and Markus’ lion to either side. Darius stood behind them, and Rosa and Meri behind him. Tanya waited beside Eli, her firing rod held steady against her shoulder.
Tom breathed in and out, slowly, centering himself. He watched as the orcs stalked slowly towards them. He swapped his axe for his spear. The feel of the cool wood and the almost imperceptible lines of the enchantments calmed him.
Orc heads appeared above the grass, and moments later they were striding from it and onto the road. The lead few pointed at them, yelling short, guttural noises at their fellows.
The incongruence jarred him. These orcs were obviously completely different to the ones in the Deep. And yet at the same time, he knew in all the ways that counted, they would be the same.
They would be violent. They would be merciless. And they would kill any human, any chance they got.
The musing knocked loose a thought for Tom. What if they captured them? Did these orcs Forge, as well? The realisation that they might finally loosed a cold, snaking sliver of fear in his gut.
Then there was no time for thinking.
Tom cast Agony and Misery on the closest orc. It gave a grunt as the flickers of pink lightning began to run across its skin. Buffs surged in him as Markus activated his Team skills.
An arrow sprouted from the eye of a large female. A moment later, its head disappeared in a visceral explosion. The orcs behind casually shoved the body out of their way and stepped past it. Another arrow from Meri struck an orc in the chest. They advanced, unbothered.
Half the warband was on the road now. They wore no armour, but the majority of them carried crude bone weaponry: femurs for clubs or other lengths sharpened into points. As more of them emerged from the grass, they made short, satisfied, jeering noises.
There was a hiss and a whizz, and an orc collapsed with a hole missing from its torso. The next orc behind it jerked around, a chunk taken out of its shoulder. Tom had no idea how Tanya’s firing rod worked exactly, but it was obviously deadly effective.
A line of fire scorched past above Sesame. Rosa dragged it back and forth over the orc line. Most of them began to smoulder and burn, though it didn’t seem to cause them much consternation. Tom noticed Rosa’s Wildfire passive skill activate several times, jumping her burn damage to affect other orcs.
She laid down a smoke cloud over the back of the warband as she fired another exploding arrow into the fray. The rearmost orcs emerged from it calmly, though some of them were now burning too.
Tom became more and more nervous. The orcs’ behaviour was baffling. Never before had he failed to see pain or death or fighting elicit a bloodthirsty reaction from them. They simply continued their unhurried advance. They were almost like golems, though even golems showed more gusto.
The first orcs came close, and then, finally, Tom saw some change.
An orc picked him out, and took a few lumbering steps, almost breaking into a jog. The motion was like a boulder tipped loose on scree, faster than usual, still slow, but promising deadly momentum. It swung a femur behind itself as it began its short charge.
Tom readied his spear, positioning it minutely as the orc attacked. After its first step, something tweaked at him. He had no concentration to spare, however, with the orc upon him.
He stepped into the orc’s charge. His spear darted out, taking it in the neck. He slid to the side, dragging on the spear with his weight, pulling it crossways and out the side of the orc’s neck with a flare of blood.
Pink lightning coursed from the wound. He looked to the next orc, trying to sink into his battle state. He reset, casting Misery and Agony once again. Tom sent a mental command to Sus and Sol, briefly checked Sesame as the bear engaged his first orc, and moved on.
He flowed to the next orc, hitching his step a little as it began a charge as well. This one, a lankier female, raised a bone club for an overhead blow. Tom’s spear slipped into its armpit, deeply, and he was rewarded by a slick river of red as he pulled it free.
He twirled, moving fast, falling deeper into his battle-trance. Two orcs moved for him as he began to skirt slightly more to the side of the band, trying to force them to split their attention. He cast Misery on one and Agony on the other. He thrust, stabbing the first orc in its thigh, drew his spear back and used the butt to foul the other’s arm, pushing its strike off course. His spear whirled, slashing across the first orc’s throat, then flickering in to jab the second’s hip.
Something tweaked at the back of Tom’s mind again. This was too easy. These massive orcs were all on the scale of the Idealist chieftains of the Deep, and yet none had used any skills. He held Hush at the ready, waiting to pounce on the first sign, but they simply attacked at him at an almost glacial pace.
His attention split back towards Sesame. Something was wrong. The bear was savaging its orc attacker, definitely winning, and yet confusion was beginning to pulse more and more strongly through the bond.
Tom struggled to see the problem. Then he caught the look of consternation on Markus’ face, too. His lion, and Meri’s greatwolf, were all fighting to repel an attack by two more orcs. Once again, they were winning, handily. And yet something still seemed off.
The rest of the orcs closed in. Their frontline would struggle to hold them all, but with luck, they could pull through. Tanya, Meri and Rosa were working hard to soften them up. He could see Darius preparing to throw in his help where needed. Tom himself felt like a one-man-whirlwind.
And therein was the problem.
The orc with the slashed throat slapped at him as it died, and the casual blow clipped his shoulder. He felt bones fracture. They immediately began to knit themselves together under Sweet Suffering’s regeneration boost, but it gave him an appreciation for their deadly strength. It was far greater than a regular orc, closer to that of the Smith himself.
Still, Tom was too fast. In an instant, he stored his spear, retrieving his axe and swinging it through the neck of the second orc. As the axe burst free, he swapped it again for his spear.
As the body fell, he moved back in line with his original position, seeing he had grabbed enough of the orcs’ attention, and not wanting to open a hole in their line through which they could easily overwhelm the backline.
The bulk of the orcs were close, now. Tom slid towards them at supernatural speed. He felt a jolt of fear from Sesame. Something clicked, and the problem became abundantly clear.