Tuvek, Scout Captain of Clan Blacktusk, waited with his warriors.

"We should attack them now," said Duvok for the third time. "Why wait? It's almost all women. No warriors but an old man."

"Soon," said Tuvek for the third time without tone or impatience. He had served Clan Blacktusk faithfully for five years, and was not the type to question a command, or fail in his task. He wasn't about to start now.

Duvok growled and went back to stewing, likely to complain again in a few minutes. Tuvek didn't mind. It was only grumbling, and they had nothing else to do. The others all waited with the patient boredom of proper warriors, picking their teeth or stripping twigs or chewing on grass. But their cautious eyes roamed the trees, river, and hills.

Tuvek noticed Brack squint at a cluster of rocks behind them, brow furrowed as he stared.

"What is it?"

The competent scout growled and spit. "Nothing, Captain. I thought..." he shrugged. "It's nothing. A trick of the heat."

Unlike Duvok, Brack was not the type to speak without meaning or concern, and Tuvek watched the rocks as well. But he saw nothing unusual. They weren't tall enough to hide a man unless he'd crouched down, but he would have been spotted even in the grass if he'd tried to reach them.

"They say our target is a wizard," Duvok said. "If he can shoot lightning, and tell great worms to kill shamans, who knows what else he can do."

Tuvek grit his teeth and glared, letting the warrior know his complaining had gone too far. Duvok lowered his eyes and sat pouting like a child.

"Did you not see his magic at the walls? We make sure the wizard isn’t here, only then do we attack," Tuvek said for the fourth time. "These civilians are caught. We can take them whenever we wish. Keep looking."

"Aye."

"Sir."

"Yes, Captain," came the chorus of grunts and agreement, and Duvok sighed and looked away.

Tuvek truly hoped he had seen the limits of the wizard’s power. Few things frightened him. But dying to magic was one of them. They’d wait until nightfall, when orc eyes were far better than men’s, then they would circle the doomed civilians and find this wizard or not. Only then would he strike.

It was what he was thinking when he heard the sizzling rattle from the rock Brack had noticed. The scouts were instantly on their feet and scattering as the blue streak launched and flew towards them.

Tuvek felt the power of it whoosh past his head, exploding with a thunderous crack and the terrified screams of some of his men.

"Spread out! Surround him!" Tuvek yelled, barely hearing himself over the ringing in his ears. He gripped his bow in trembling hands and tried to think, to do more than react like a frightened animal.

It was only a human, and only one of them. Wizards took time to cast. They just had to distract him, to stay on him…they could kill him, they just had to be quick.

He spun and looked towards the rocks to find a man emerging from the stone. As if somehow he had been part of the stone, or used it to travel. How was such a thing possible? Didn’t matter. Not anymore. Tuvek stopped thinking, drew, and shot.

His arrow was on target. For a moment he almost growled in triumph, until the wizard held up his arms, and the shaft bounced away like it had struck a stone wall.

Tuvek’s scouts followed his lead, circling and loosing arrows and throwing javelins until the Wizard leapt behind his rocks. He emerged with his own bow and began answering with viciously powerful shots of his own.

Back and forth the scouts and wizard loosed and dodged as the orcs tried to circle and ruin his cover. At least one arrow struck him and Tuvek heard the grunt of pain. They were succeeding. He couldn’t cast with so many arrows seeking his flesh. Couldn’t do anything. They would have him soon.

Then Tuvek heard a growl.

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He glanced behind him to see a giant Taiga wolf racing at full speed towards him from the trees.

"Duvok! Behind you!"

He was too late. The wolf pounced and took almost the entirety of his warrior’s head in its jaws, pulling him sideways to thrash and maul him on the ground.

"Brack, with me on the animal! The rest of you, keep that wizard pinned!"

The competent scout lifted his spear and stabbed at the animal while Tuvek found a shot, and loosed. The arrow pierced the wolf's flank, and it growled in pain and released an almost certainly dead Duvok as it withdrew.

"Bad move," whispered someone behind him.

Tuvek tried to turn, but a sharp and terrible pain entered his back. He growled and twisted and knocked back whoever had stabbed him with a vicious elbow, then turned and found an older human with a now bleeding nose.

Tuvek dropped his bow and drew his knife. Then he realized he was kneeling. In fact he couldn't seem to control his feet at all, and looked up with confusion before he collapsed to the ground.

The white clouds rolled overhead, slow and beautiful and just as they had when he was a child leaving the warrens for the first time, finally outside of the tower. He smiled at them, then closed his eyes.

* * *

"Son of a bitch broke my nose," Carl complained as he stepped towards another orc. The pain, at least, brought him fully awake.

His Prescience power blared a directional warning, and he triggered a Decoy/Shadow Leap in a randomly forward direction.

As he blinked, as usual time seemed to slow, or else his perception was super-enhanced to make it feel slow. It gave him a chance to plan his next move, but his body was almost no faster, and it didn’t let him make much in terms of adjustment…

With a slight cringe, he slammed straight into another orc.

They went down together, but Carl wasn’t surprised and went stabbing. His ridiculously sharp blade cut and carved and not for the first time he nearly sliced himself accidentally from using too much force.

Other orcs were turning in alarm towards him, but when they did they usually took an arrow to the throat. Or a Streak.

The wounded wolf was far from out of the fight. In fact he mostly just looked pissed off. He launched himself at another archer, growling and chewing his way up the creature's leg until he dropped to the ground for a far worse mauling.

Carl stood before his attackers arrived and activated his insane new prestige class power: Simulacrum.

He watched the world fade to an endless blue as he was again given the option to command his 'copy's’ behavior. He targeted the archers, then a blurred image of him charged forward.

It took too much damn mana, but that power was not going to get old.

In the distraction he turned on another scout, this one ready for him. He saw fear in the creature's eyes and smiled.

"That's right, you son of a bitch. Be afraid. Be very afraid."

The orc growled in obvious anger and stepped forward with two quick strikes. His axe had a decent reach and he swung it bloody fast, and Carl decided he had little choice but to warp or flee.

"I'll be back!" he shouted over his shoulder.

The orc roared and chased him, and he waited three steps before activated a Clone and Shadow Leap, aimed it backwards, and appeared behind his new friend. As the orc hacked into his clone, instantly destroying it, he cut the creature's spine.

By the time he'd finished it and looked for another enemy, Mason and Streak had basically broken the orcs. Most lay on the ground with arrows sticking out of them, a few trying uselessly to escape before getting hacked down.

"Glad you heard us," Mason said, pulling an arrow out of his leg. "That might have got ugly."

"Everyone for about five miles heard you. What in the hell was that sound? We heard it twice before, too."

"Thunder, I guess." Mason shrugged, sitting on a rock as he bled freely. "How's the nose?"

"Bloody broken." Carl sat down and raised his face to try and stop the bleeding. Streak whined and flopped nearby. "There's an arrow in your wolf."

"So I see. Come here, buddy." Mason examined the creature and shrugged. "Think the girls can help? I mean, I can pull it out. But I don't really know if I should."

Carl nodded. "We’ve got a pre-med, and she’s got some kind of surgeon class. Jules. Julie. She can sort him out."

Mason nodded and looked relieved. And also terrible. And now that Carl was looking at him, underneath all the blood and camouflage, he was also stark naked.

"Boy, you look like you ate rotten pork and washed it down with rubbing alcohol. You, uh, alright? And why are you naked?"

Mason glanced at himself and at least looked a little embarrassed. "It’s the Sleeves. Work better naked. And I guess I died for a second. Don't let those snakes bite you, that’s for damn sure. I'm Nature Affinity, and I regenerate. You'd be totally fucked."

Carl wasn’t sure what to say to that. He was about to ask about Rosa when she came out of the trees looking radiant as ever. She glanced around at the corpses and covered her mouth and nose, then stepped closer to Mason.

“Hi Carl,” she said with a smile.

“Hi Lucie. Getting yourself in trouble as usual?”

“I’m not the one with the broken nose,” she said and leaned over to inspect. “That looks like it hurts.”

“It does, thanks. Let’s keep talking about it.”

Rosa grinned a little and went right back to Mason, her hands moving over his skin with at least a little familiarity. And she didn’t seem at all troubled by his nakedness.

Carl saw the look in her eyes and winced a little. He liked Mason, he truly did. But for Rosa and maybe all his girls he decided now he would have chosen nice, peaceful civilians who didn’t get involved in the death and madness. But he supposed that was a fool’s hope and not up to him.

And the truth was, the people of Sanctuary and maybe the world needed men like Mason now more than ever. To survive. To exist.

Carl looked at the dead orcs all over the place and sighed as he looked at Mason.

“That isn’t the last of them chasing us, is it?”

His young friend just looked at the corpses, and didn’t bother to confirm.