Carl finally caught another rider. He used a Decoy—turning his back and baiting the bastard to charge ‘him’ from behind. Then he stepped out and hacked Big Bird’s legs out, and gave them both a good prison shanking.

Now he was tired and soaked and hurting everywhere, but rather pleased with himself, all things considered. There’d been no more horns, and the orc infantry were nowhere in sight. Maybe they were hidden. Maybe they were safe.

A wolf howled not far in the distance.

Carl ran back towards his girls and the sound, hoping in a way it wasn’t Streak, who’d been sent away. Telling himself maybe it was just some wolf on the hunt. Some perfectly normal, non-mutant wolf out hunting normal old rabbits. Nothing too dangerous or out of the ordinary at all.

He found Silvie and the others out of the trees, on a series of rocky hills towards the mountain. They were huddled against a small cliff and each other, with orcs emerging from the woods. And there was Streak, on his own, standing on a rock, howling and dripping in the rain between them.

The rain was coming hard now. More orcs on foot were emerging from the trees in various groups. Eight. Nine. Ten. Carl stared, numb, quickly losing track in the dark and the mist. His hands trembled and his gut sloshed with ice. It was too many. These were armored, trained warriors and he was just one damn old man with a stupid knife and a few tricks. He'd been lucky so far. He shouldn't even be here.

"Carl!" Silvie's panic was clear in her voice. She clearly couldn’t see him and was just calling for help, hoping he was nearby. For a long moment he just stared at the orcs moving slowly towards everything in the world that mattered to him, and couldn’t move.

Get it together! He screamed in his mind.

He'd killed plenty of orcs. He'd survived the tutorial and the betrayal of the others, the wolves and the worms and the tunnel. Mason would come. Or Mason's allies. They'd come soon, he knew it. He just had to last a little longer.

He went running as the girls fell back and clustered closer together, only their wolf defender still on the hilltop, growling down at the approaching orcs.

The orcs were moving closer and closer as his girls backed away towards the hills. They could run, still, but where? And how far would they get? The orcs had found them, and there was no escaping that fact now.

Carl snuck up to the nearest orc he could reach, and stabbed straight through his armor with Surprise Strike to pierce his heart. The creature fell with nothing more than a muffled groan, and Carl managed to half decapitate another orc before the beasts noticed him.

“Champion!” they roared, turning with shields and spears and axes until they quickly formed two lines.

Carl Shadow Leapt straight past them all, then moved up the hill until he stood by Streak. He put a hand to the wolf’s shoulder, maybe to thank or comfort the animal, maybe to comfort himself.

Where have you been, boy? He wanted to ask. Did you find the others? Or were you just trapped and had to run? Where the hell was Mason when you needed him anyway?

"Stay back, or die," Carl pointed at the orcs with his blade with far more confidence and courage than he felt. At least his voice hadn’t cracked.

The big orc at the front of the pack looked at him. And the bastard smiled.

"Listen to his terror," the creature said, as if he'd been trained to speak English by the bloody king of England. "Kill him. And the beast. We’ll take the women."

The orcs came on in formation, and Carl was beginning to realize he had no choice but to fight them alone. His heart pounded in his chest, then slowly stilled. He looked at Streak and fought back the emotion that followed. Not alone, he thought.

He had to be brave. For the girls. For the wolf that deserved a fighter at his side.

"Come on, then." He tried to smile. "How many of you to take one old man, I wonder. Let’s see. Honorless cowards." Several of the creatures squinted and stopped smiling at that. Carl laughed and kept waving them on with his knife. "Come on! Let's see the heroic orcs of the Black Tower surround one foe."

Like they’d struck an invisible barrier, the entire line of orcs stopped dead. One of the creatures stepped forward, his eyes wide and almost glazed before they cleared. "The gods honor, me, brothers. I will silence their champion alone and claim my reward."

Carl squinted and readied himself. What the hell did that mean? With a terrible feeling, he began to suspect—that these orcs weren’t so different than men. Had their robot overlord just given this creature an objective to kill him?

The others stepped back cheered their approval. Streak growled and came forward, but Carl held him back. If he joined the other orcs would likely kill him. There was no point in throwing away both their lives.

"Carl!"

Silvie's voice was too full of emotion for Carl to deal with. He had to focus. Even if he won he knew it wouldn't make much difference. The others would come for him, and he'd have to be ready. He had to save his powers and mana as much as he could. Avoid using all his tricks. Finish this in one short move.

The orc lunged with a testing stab of his short spear, and Carl withdrew. A knife against a spear. On the surface it was almost impossible if all other things were equal. But then, all other things weren't equal.

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Carl circled and waited for a more committed stab. These orcs had seen him warp, but probably not very well, and they certainly wouldn’t be prepared for it. He judged the range, faked a charge, then Shadow Leapt behind the creature and spun, slashing and stabbing his back twice before his foe spun in surprise.

Carl hopped away and left his enemy writhing, heart still sprinting.

One of the other orcs looked up at the sky with something like reverence, and stepped forward next.

"My turn, brothers. And I have seen his cowardly ways."

Carl wiped the rain and sweat from his brow. Just a little more time, he thought. Mason's coming. Just a little more time.

He dodged a few spear thrusts, and kept his distance, praying he didn’t trip on a damn slippery rock. The orc was right, of course, he'd seen Carl's trick. One of them.

This time he formed a Clone and stepped back with his upgraded stealth engaged. When the orc gave another testing stab, he Shadow Leapt.

The orc spun, pulling a hidden knife from his shield arm. Carl couldn't turn. The creature's blade slammed hard just under his shoulder, but his Mirror Blade needed almost no strength. He attacked in the same moment, severing his enemy's arm at the elbow. In the next desperate fraction of a second, he tossed the blade and caught it with his other hand, then cut his enemy’s throat.

"Carl!"

Beautiful Silvie. ‘It's alright’, he wanted to tell her. ‘In a few months you've already made life more wonderful than I had in decades.’

He'd never had much luck with women. A long-term girlfriend who broke his heart. A rushed marriage to a woman who soon divorced him and took their children. But not here. Here he mattered to Silvie. To those girls. He was there defender. Their champion. He was all they had.

He kicked away the corpse of the orc and stepped back to his rock.

“Who’s next?” he muttered, in pain but no longer afraid.

There were more orcs coming from the trees now. Another ten. Then twenty. Where had they all come from? How was it even possible? And where in God’s name was Mason? Carl didn’t believe they’d killed him. He couldn’t.

Another orc stepped forward, this one with an axe, the same sheen of divine fanaticism shining in his eyes.

Carl held his knife in his offhand, ready to kill, ready to die. He still had Color Spray, and probably enough for a Simulacrum before the end.

"Excuse me, gentlemen!"

Carl blinked at the unfamiliar voice, trying to spot it behind the orcs, most of whom turned and growled.

"Sorry to interrupt." A thin young man with blonde hair and blue eyes stood at the front of half a dozen water-logged people. He raised his voice. "I assume you fine folk are from a settlement called Sanctuary?"

"We are." Carl called, still watching the eyes of his enemy. Could that be Mason’s brother Blake? Please, dear God. Or roboGod. I don’t even care. It had to be them. Who else? But they looked nothing alike. Was it possible?

"Oh thank goodness,” the young man looked genuinely relieved. “I hate walking, and I’m soaked. Ladies and gentlemen, could we deal with these ones, please?"

The motley crew came forward towards the orcs, a collection of men and women of various ages and backgrounds, armed with spears and swords and axes. Carl sagged in relief.

His enemy ignored it all and looked ready to strike, and just Carl hoped to delay long enough to survive.

"Nah ah ahh. Enough of that over there." The blonde haired speaker made a tsking sound, and his eyes blazed with golden light. Then Carl's opponent blinked. His mouth opened, and a bit of spittle leaked out the corner of his lips. Then his face twisted and he looked…horrified.

"As you wish, divine lords. I listen, and obey."

Then he turned, and stabbed one of his comrades in the chest.

Things got wild after that.

* * *

The orc turned from Mind Control with surprisingly little mana. Blake practically clapped his hands with joy as it stabbed its comrade. But he was surrounded by ‘warrior’ types and this seemed an opportune moment to appear lordly and serious.

"I think I'm going to like these creatures," he announced to no one in particular.

Phuong, Garet, Annie, and Rebecca had all apparently decided to attack. Blue shields flashed as Rebecca clutched her disc and simply launched herself straight into the pack. The orcs tried and failed to bring her down, and the others cleaved into them, hacking limbs and armored torsos with flashes of light and spraying blood.

Blake was losing track of it all. And interest, frankly. Instead he looked back at the many other orcs coming from the trees and sighed. Then he decided it was a wonderful test of his Psion powers, and became rather more excited.

"Seul-ki, my love, I'm going to need a little boost. OK a big boost." His lover gave him her hand, and he held his Mana Gem in the other. He wasn't sure how much he intended to use or indeed how much he could use. But these orcs seemed extremely susceptible to magic, and everyone was here and watching. If ever there was a time for a terrifying display of awesome mental power, now was surely it.

"Mind Control and presence," he muttered, and Seul-ki nodded, enhancing the ability and stat with all her power.

Blake wasn’t sure exactly what Presence did for his Mental powers, but he knew it helped. He reached out with Mental Influence first, just touching as many of the orc's minds as he could manage. Names and a host of other details flashed before his eyes, a strange combination of game-like stats and very real psychological data that was hard to interpret.

It took more time, but increased his understanding and power.

An arrow or two flashed at him, Seul-ki, and nearby Alex, but the Bellarussian was damn near immune to projectiles and deflected them all with ease. Time was something Blake almost always had.

The battle raged on, but none of that mattered. When he was ready he started Mind Control and filled it with power. The longer he focused on a mind, and the more mana he gave it, the more effective the spell. This was the battle that mattered, so he drew everything. Every last scrap he had left, every trickle he dared from Seul-ki, and finally the gem.

Soon he saw all the orcs in his mind—the simple understanding of the world, guided by a rigid hierarchy and a slavish devotion to the commands of their gods, just like the first he'd taken. It was rudimentary, really. Beautiful. Like biological robots.

Objective gained, he whispered in their minds. Defeat the traitorous chief who brought you, who has tricked you and defies the will of the gods. Kill him and all his warriors.

Then he released the breath he'd been holding. The air around him shimmered with power, and time itself seemed to have stopped. He saw all the minds he had touched with Mental Influence shining with dim light as he released his hold.

One by one they flickered. Five. Soon eight. Then ten. Nearly half the orcs he could see, and maybe more. They were his. All his.

[Title gained: Puppet Master. Control the minds of at least five targets at once. +2 presence.]

[Title gained: Orc Whisperer. Produce a major mind effect against a single orc, or a group of orcs. All Mental Powers improved and hidden against orcs.]

[Title gained: Phase jumper. Gain a title intended for a later phase in the Great Game. +1 to all statistics.]

Ghost text scrolled over Blake’s eyes as the first orc turned and threw a spear into one of his comrades, calling out a promise to serve his gods. The others roared in outrage and confusion. Some charged. Others cried out about magic and treachery and a terrible death. Annie, Garet, and Phuong kept on butchering.

Blake sagged against Seul-ki in the chaos, and laughed.