Chapter Twenty: More Courage to Live

Tom didn’t have to wait long. Within a quarter hour, he caught the first fragments of baying on the wind. Not long after he heard the orcs reach the clearing and break the treeline. They snarled and barked with excitement as they saw the clear trail he’d left through the tall grass. Running as a pack, they came howling into the clearing.

Tom stood tall, orienting himself, rubbing his thumb across one of the stones. Then he pulled back and threw. The stone flew like an arrow, and immediately he sent the second, and the third, winging after it.

A moment later, he was rewarded with two hollow sounding crunches. A high, angry whining filled the clearing immediately after. It set Tom’s teeth on edge, made him want to scratch at his ears. A huge, seething black cloud rose into the air, flowing back and forth, contracting and expanding, almost like a school of fish. It began sweeping down into the grass.

The orcs' excitement turned to confusion, to surprise, then to rage. Tom’s eyes flicked to his wisp when they could as he ran. They knew they’d been tricked, and they were furious.

To begin with, he caught glimpses of, Tricky dog! Biting flies cannot stop us! Run him down! But their tunes quickly changed when they realised the wasps would not simply give up, and they could not simply endure them.

Pained yelps and whines began to dominate their bestial discourse. A thread of near-panic began to wind its way in. Within a couple of minutes, they had lost all thoughts of chasing Tom, and were desperately trying to find a solution to their bug problem.

Water! I hear water! his wisp translated for him.

Tom grinned wide as he ran onwards.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tom ran for days more. Or maybe a week. It must have been another week. He was sure of it. He wasn’t sure at all - it had to have been a week! He was starting to break down. As much as he had found he enjoyed surviving in the wild, being relentlessly pursued by monsters for a month was more than he could handle.

Unfortunately, his stunt with the wasps didn’t put an end to the chase. It was less than a day later that he heard his pursuers again. This time, they sounded angry. Furious. Totally and utterly beyond reason.

Even with his fall of Ideals now, he was only just managing to keep ahead of them. They must be driving themselves to exhaustion for him, just as he was driving himself to exhaustion to escape.

But Tom was close to freedom. He felt like he’d been running for years, running endlessly. He must be close.

Any day, any moment, I’ll hit one of the trade roads. I’ll look up, and see houses and smoke through the trees, villagers working their crops… he thought.

It was a fantasy. He hadn’t a clue how close he was, except that he’d been alone and endlessly pursued. But it kept him going. The thought of safety, of not sleeping lightly, of returning to Wayrest triumphant, spurred him on.

He dared not lay in wait again. With the orcs bearing down on him like a forest fire, he hadn’t the time to set up any elaborate ambushes, and with his trail so obvious they would come down on him in a single pack.

So he kept running. Through trees, up slopes, down gullies, through ravines, wending along switchbacks, navigating past escarpments, pushing through brush, shoving through vines, hacking through creatures, running, running, running. Desperate. Exhausted.

Several times he stopped to lay a hasty trap in a choice spot. Rubbing a bit of poisonous mushroom on a jagged rock in a narrow alleyway, the only way up a steep ridge. Leading a trail right up to a musky den, close as he dared, before backtracking and circling around it using trees, then dropping back to the floor and running on. Finding a small ford in a river, quickly returning to the corpse of a large snake he’d killed not ten minutes earlier and dragging it back with him, leaving it there, hoping it would attract some larger predator to the crossing. Any desperate, half-baked idea he could think of. Anything he could do quickly.

Nothing worked. He hadn’t slept in days. Always, the orcs came on.

~~~~~~~~~~

On a sunny afternoon, running through dappled sunlight and dancing sunbeams, Tom began to slow. His legs and lungs burning, he stopped. Orcs screaming with glee not minutes behind him, he turned. Stomach roiling and hands sweaty, he unsheathed his sword.

He was at the end of himself. He couldn’t run any longer, and he refused to hide. Here he would fight, one last time.

He looked around, curious, calm. Oaks stretched into the canopy, their thick brown trunks solid and reassuring. Motes of vegetation marched lazily through sunbeams in endless streams. A bush replete with bright red flowers sat against a nearby birch tree, looking incongruously cheerful. A small bird swooped by to snap an insect from the air before flitting away again.

The ground was mostly free of undergrowth. The soil was firm enough. The trees provided solid cover, and weren’t hoary enough with age to chase through the ground with treacherous roots.

As good a place to die as any, Tom thought, content. His wisp bobbed beside him, merry and pink.

He took a deep breath, stood tall, and faced his brutal, bloodthirsty hunters as bravely as he could.

They came tearing through the trees, helter-skelter, some on all fours and some running like men. They were strung out, caution thrown to the wind. They knew they had him.

He could see the over wide mouths of the few in front, filled with too many canines, spittle flying from them like spray at a river rapid. Red muscles tensing and flexing like cables soaked in blood. Their yapping hit a fever pitch as the lead few caught sight of him.

Tom was not keen to wait. Not keen to stand there so they could surround him, beat him and drag him back through the Deep.

And so he charged.

“Agony,” Tom spat, filling the word with all the rage he could muster. His mana, coiled within him, leapt to respond, striking out with a satisfying release of energy akin to throwing a good punch. The orc in front staggered as the pain hit it, tumbled, rolled towards Tom. He lashed out with his sword, chopping downwards, and caught it in the neck as it spilled past him.

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The next orc leaped straight at him and grabbed him round the waist in a full-bodied tackle. He twisted as they fell, thumped heavily into the ground on his side. The wind burst from him in an explosion. The orc writhed, and Tom wrenched his face away as it snapped at him, teeth seeking the soft meat of his cheeks, raw, rank breath blasting straight into his nose and mouth.

Tom flailed, and the orc suddenly went limp as the short sword bit into its chest. Tom rolled away from it, quick as he could, tried to stand, and was immediately tackled back down again.

The back of his head thunked on a rock. His vision flashed. Claws scrabbled on his breastplate. Tom thanked Goddess he’d recovered it. The orc’s warm, stinking weight pressed him back into the earth, its muscles straining as it strove to pin him.

Tom worked his sword, its hilt scraping through the soil, and punched it drunkenly into the orc’s side, one, twice. It gave a great gasping breath, dripping drool onto his face as it died. He shoved it to the side as it slumped on him, deflecting the dead weight, and staggered to his feet.

He had a single second to count four orcs almost upon him. He raised his blade to meet them.

But his limbs seized. He couldn’t work them. They wouldn’t move. He pushed and pulled and - nothing. He looked down, struggling, and saw glowing red chains snaking steadily along his arms, craned further, and saw more scaling his legs.

A harsh bark brought the four charging orcs to a skidding halt. They snarled their hate at him like starving dogs brought short of a steak by strangling chains. Tom tried to sneer defiance back.

The massive orc leader strode up, coming into Tom’s sightline. It casually hefted Markhart’s huge hammer, idly jostling it up and down like a child fiddling with a stick.

It prowled around until it was in front of him, and harsh growls rumbled from its barrel chest. Tom’s wisp bobbed and text began to scrawl across its core. He mentally pulled it a little closer so he could read it. The leader watched his face intently.

Idealist. I knew it, it growled. You had to be to evade a full hunting party for so long. To ambush us, even. It is not often a dog finds the courage to turn on wolves.

It chuffed out a great breath through its broad, flat nose, its slitted nostrils flaring. You are what I was told to expect of an Idealist. You have proven too cunning for slavery. You were worthy prey. I honour you with death.

“Fuck yourself!” Tom snarled.

The orc’s cold, black eyes flickered briefly as it read something.

So they have wisps too, thought Tom. Surely not.

The orc gave a great snort of contempt and raised its hammer.

“Hush.”

The orc’s eyes widened in shock. The chains of mana holding Tom stuttered and disappeared. It twisted its head, trying to give an order to its fellows, but its voice would not obey it. It realised its error a second too late.

Tom lunged forward, sword leading. Its point sunk deep into the leader’s shoulder. He withdrew it as the orc stumbled backwards, and moved forward to thrust again, but the leader brought Markhart’s hammer around in a whirl and deflected the attack. The speed of the simple parry spoke of incredible strength. The hammer was not light.

The leader snarled at him, drawing the hammer out wide and low to its side. It gestured curtly to its pack, and they fell back to surround them.

Tom had to end this quickly. The Silence debuff would only last so long, and as soon as it lifted, the orc would be able to trap him again. Another brief moment of paralysis would be all it needed to kill him.

The orc tensed its legs, and as it did, Tom took his chance.

He leapt forwards, feinting a thrust at its face, even as he slipped to the side to avoid the telegraphed hammer blow. Tom’s sword flashed down, leaving the orc with a vicious cut to its hip, then danced backwards out of range of the counter attack. He felt the wind stir his hair as several pounds of heavy steel flashed past his face.

Once again, they separated, waiting.

A decade of combat training gave Tom the advantage here. For all the orc’s bestial strength, it fought more similarly to a beast than a person, with more ferocity than calculation.

Tom lunged forward again as the minute adjustments in its stance spoke of it gathering itself for another assault. Faster than ever, his blade flicked out, the point finding the soft meat of its bicep.

It howled with rage, unsettling in its quietude, dragging the hammer in a lethal arc set to shatter his chest. But Tom was faster, and he slid back with the liquid grace of long training, the wind whistling as the hammer failed to meet flesh once again. His sword flicked out lightly, and the massive orc took another deep cut to its thigh. It staggered back, pure, animal hatred radiating from its gaze.

Possibilities spun out in his mind’s eye. Countless hours of training, of drilling, of practice - he could see what he needed to do.

As Tom sought to close the distance, to end this, swinging for its neck, he caught movement in his peripheral vision and rolled to his side. A Wayrest-made spear stabbed through the space he had just occupied. The rest of the pack had had enough waiting. Another stepped between Tom and its chief.

“Agony, you fucker,” Tom spat at the leader as it sank back, allowing its comrades to fill the gap. It gave a noiseless gasp of pain as it retreated, rusty brown blood flowing freely from its wounds.

The next orc swung a captured spear at him like a club. Tom slipped around it easily and chopped at the arm holding it. It bit deep into the limb, but the blade got lodged in the bone. The orc squealed with pain and knocked him as it flailed away.

Weaponless, exhausted, Tom still stood his ground. Another orc charged him. His wisp pulsed pink again as his skill came off cooldown.

“Agony,” he snarled again, but pain alone wasn’t enough to stop its charge. It slammed him to the ground for the third time, and spikes of pain shot through his ribs.

A great ache bloomed in his chest as he struggled to draw breath and couldn’t. The weight of the orc atop him made sure of it. He felt long fingers creep and crawl their way around his neck, tightening, attempting to throttle the last of his light from him.

Tom’s vision swam. His limbs twitched spasmodically. Blackness began to creep from the corners of his sight, slowly swelling towards the centre. He heard more snarling in the background, heard steel meet flesh. Thumps and wet smacks and barks of pain and strained grunting floated and bobbed through his addled consciousness like debris in an eddy.

He smiled to himself. Big fucker doesn’t run as tight a ship as he thought. Looks like someone took their chance to lead the pack. Or maybe Tom was hearing things. He was half way dead, after all.

He felt himself being dragged bodily along the ground, roughly jostled about.

Lucky me, thought Tom. Back into the Deep.

And he knew no more.