Chapter 28
ORC SOUP
Dark flames roared around the ogres’ blistering legs, burning them with a sinister fire. A dripping ball of ichor arced into the centre of the remaining twelve hulking creatures. Devon had ordered the fast-strike soldiers to hang back because the monsters’ heavy armour meant their attacks would barely penetrate. Instead, the enemies were under attack from more magic than the outer city had seen for centuries. The whole area was now saturated in magical energy from the waygate, and their magic could be used with impunity.
Devon had also called forward all their snipers now that the city was mostly under their control. Arrows flew into the fray while Darcia and the other sharpshooters shot explosive rounds from their custom-built rifles. The unicorns had energised everyone in range with empowerment spells, and they were all protected by a thick, golden dome cast by Izzy.
One of the ogres opened its mouth and shrieked like a boiling kettle. Steam poured from every extremity until it burst in a shower of boiled ogre pieces. Gwen had hexed the unsuspecting creature, and over the space of thirty seconds, it had cooked from the inside.
Silence fell as the last ogre succumbed to a fireball, large enough to engulf the ogre’s entire torso – a gift from one of their pyromancers.
Darcia began casting a spell. Devon watched in amazement as she shimmered then vanished. Seconds later, other sharpshooters and bowyers did the same.
Some guards dared to pop their heads above the nearby wall’s parapet. There was a faint pffft sound, and the top of the furthest guard’s head turned to paste, and he collapsed. Two more shots and his comrades joined him. Hell’s teeth, Darcia is good, Devon thought. Regardless of his feelings about guns, he couldn’t argue with the results. Every creature that stupidly showed itself on the wall met its doom with explosive bullets or arrows. Devon imagined what a group of sharpshooters and bowyers could achieve before the front-line forces even got close enough to engage.
Devon had lost track of the souls that had answered his calls because he had stopped counting at fifty. Every squad had been doing their jobs with lethal efficiency.
Two large black cats and something else set off at a sprint. The shadow warriors and shadow knights in his army all seemed to have the same cat form that he had. As for Ffi, she could take any shape she chose. He had only seen Izzy’s travel form on a couple of occasions. She turned into the softest, most fluffy snow leopard he had ever seen. Everything she did was beautiful.
Devon kept forgetting that she often read his thoughts.
He smiled. Beth’s little flying eye creatures were a creation of genius. Her genius. They were proving their worth now as having invisible eyes inside the palace was proving valuable. The relationship he and Beth had nurtured was a happy compromise akin to brother and sister now. They were there for each other, neither needing anything more intimate than a reassuring hug now and then. They both enjoyed time together, and the stress between them had evaporated. At least he thought so.
Amber moved forward a step to stand next to Jet, just in front and to the left of Devon. The dwarf was his squad’s Wayfarer knight. She was a surly hulk in her heavy armour, but she was a vivacious, young dwarf with the friendliest demeanour out of it. As a knight, she fought with a reinforced, mana-empowered shield and a vicious war-axe that she had insisted on helping him design. She saw her place as right beside him, acting as his vanguard. Devon glanced at her and raised his eyebrow. Amber nodded and made ready. Her shield began to shimmer, and her axe took on a bright golden glow.
Jet nuzzled his leg as she took up position on his other side.
Devon drew Wrath and began channelling mana into it. The mana-blades emerged from both tips to form a polearm of pure magical power. Dark flames started to swirl around Wrath’s shaft. Djinn emerged from him and floated off toward the incoming force, and Sulkiss leapt into the air and expanded to about ten feet long as he began to circle.
The city’s inner walls housed the queen’s palace. The clearance of the city’s districts had taken a little over eight hours, and dawn was still a long way away yet. The only natural light came from a gibbous moon. The surrounding gardens contained neatly trimmed lawns which formed a ring around the shimmering white walls of the building. Regularly spaced globes of bright white light mounted on metal poles illuminated the whole area. They revealed the gaudily painted windows that managed to contrast everything, creating a jarring effect on the eyes. A white marble path led through the garden straight up to some white marble steps. At the top of the steps were the palace’s large, white double doors. Those doors had just been flung open and were now vomiting out a horde of the most humungous ogres Devon had ever seen.
He heard Darcia’s gun start sounding off. This time, the explosions that the rounds delivered were more prominent and a lot more devastating. Arrows with specialised incendiary-filled tips buzzed across the palace lawn and found their marks. Flames erupted from the frontmost ogres, who charged on without hesitation.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
An enormous light-infused fireball hurtled out of the sky and shattered in a massive flash of lava-like substance. The flames rose higher, the lava sticking to flesh and armour. Devon and Gwen sent black balls of darkness into the charging behemoths. Gwen’s contained a stinking ichor that leached vitality from everything it touched. Devon’s was a ball of concentrated darkness that engulfed every one of the ogres, burning them mercilessly. Black fire roared up from the floor, causing yet more damage. He could see arrows flitting in from three separate angles behind the beasts. The projectiles did minor damage, but each found its target and caused pain and annoyance. Balls of potions rained down on the ogre’s heads, delivered like bombs by Sulkiss.
More spells pummelled the ogres as they approached, and by the time they got within striking range, there was less than half their number remaining. All were a lot weaker than they had been when they started. Golden light enshrouded Devon’s troops, and moments later, a white mist, originating from Twilight, joined the golden light in protecting the fighters.
Devon’s staff sliced cleanly through an outstretched leg, and one ogre tumbled. He wrapped a nearby ogre with his soul chains, taking him out of the fight too. A vast war-axe swung at him, and he pumped mana into his jump. He somersaulted and brought his staff around hard. His attacker’s head lolled sideways as his mana-blade almost wholly severed it.
Gwen flung several corrosive potion-balls into the confusion of ogres, then she flashed into her shadow-wraith form. She shifted to ethereal and flowed through the mess of bodies, then, seeing a target, she added corporeal mass to her state and placed a claw on the face of a busy ogre. The hex bit into flesh and sank below the skin. A witch’s mark from Gwen meant certain doom, so she moved on.
The witch passed through the other combatants and out the other side of the skirmish. She moved some distance away from the battle then reverted to her standard form. Sulkiss landed on his hind legs on her shoulder, where he spent most of his time. The dragon roared a silent roar, and foul miasma erupted from his jaws. Dark gas flowed over the ogres and clung to every hostile combatant. Then Gwen felt a massive impact and left the ground, ribs shattered, lungs torn, and she flew over ten feet to land in a crumpled heap. A huge mace had hit her hard in the side. She coughed twice then lost consciousness as her heart stopped.
Gwen’s agony acted like a beacon to Twilight, who immediately absorbed half of it. With a thought, a white flash erupted from her, and a heartbeat later, she had transported herself to Gwen’s side. An orb of protection instantly surrounded her, deflecting the charging ogre as it rushed in for the kill. Soft, pale-skinned hands pressed on Gwen’s wounds. The medic used her deep knowledge of anatomy to carefully shape her magical energy, which travelled into the witch’s battered body. The mana-flow delicately guided ribs to knit back together and ruptured organs to repair. Satisfied the repairs had gone well, Twilight restarted Gwen’s heart while absorbing her remaining pain. She gritted her teeth as the agony the witch had been suffering bit deeply into her own core. Gwen had to get back into the fight, and the unicorn would willingly shoulder her burden of suffering for now. She channelled mana into a healing spell and then added some invigoration magic before releasing it into her patient. There, Twilight thought with satisfaction; you’re all better.
Twilight took a moment for herself now she’d completed Gwen’s healing. She cast a ‘self-preservation’ spell and began to glow red as her magic extracted the pain that she’d absorbed from the witch. The magic forced the pain essence into a soothing silver mist which seeped back into the unicorn, restoring some of her mana-wyrm’s depleted vitality as it did so.
When Gwen opened her eyes, all she saw was a flash of brilliant white light as Twilight flashed across to Jinx, her next patient. The witch carefully tested her torso and found that her wounds were healed and the pain was gone. The only evidence of the massive trauma she’d experienced was the mess it had made of her armour. She got up, called Sulkiss to her and went to work, hexing the ogre that she was sure had hit her.
Devon was relieved to see Grace and her troops sprinting up the road toward the gate. That relief died when he heard what Beth had to report.
There were only three ogres left, and they were already in a very sorry state. Devon set about dicing them as they clumsily tried to strike him. He had cast ‘dark time’, which slowed everything around him. All the ogres could see were searing, black flames rising to engulf them and a shadowy blur that dissected them, a piece at a time. All three were dead in less than twenty seconds.
An enormous, black wyvern made from the smoky shadows rose up from the ogre-flavoured carnage, holding a shadow-cat delicately in its talons. The building’s windows shook when it roared a challenge toward the palace then flapped off lazily to join Grace and the others on the wall. All around, there was the popping of the white globes as they exploded.
When Devon landed, he deposited Jet gently down on the wall’s walkway. It was the first time that he’d transported her while in his flight form, and his companion seemed to have enjoyed the experience. She carried him most of the time. It was nice to return the favour for once.
Grace came to him and gave her report. “It was a mess in the residences, sir. There were no guards or nobles around. I think they fled, but there were hundreds of refugees just milling about. Most of them looked half-starved and desperate. We tried to guide them back to the western wall, but some just followed us back into the city.”
“Good to know, thanks, Grace.” Devon pondered the problem.
Shouts of “Yes, sir” rang out from the walls. They now numbered less than forty fighters and eleven medics, but their god fought by their side, and they would not fail him.
The two regiments of orcs charged into view. They looked momentarily flummoxed when they didn’t see a battle going on at the gate. However, the queen hadn’t recruited these creatures for their mental aptitude, and they just ran on anyway. Initially, they ignored the gore that had started to splash amongst them as exploding bullets and arrows found homes. Still, they couldn’t miss the vast balls of fire, ichor, darkness, electricity, and frost that began to rain down upon them. Orc after orc perished under the onslaught of sculpted magical energy. Thousands of insects fell upon the army in a frenzy while large, jagged rocks pelted them from the sky.
The two orc regiments met at the gate. By now, they had realised that their enemy had taken to the walls. Unfortunately for them, while they had a few healers, they had no archers or offensive casters. His ranged attackers had long since targeted the healers, and so their race had finished before it had even begun. The lights were gone now, so it was almost dark. The orcs’ weak eyes couldn’t make out any targets even if they could strike back.
Devon noticed Grace was spinning her clenched fists in a barrelling motion. She then unclasped her hands and pushed a blue cloud toward the ground where the enemy now stood. Devon followed the magic’s trajectory and saw that any earth it fell upon instantly turned into a deep, sucking swamp. Screams rang out as the few orcs that had managed to leap for the solid edges of the quagmire were pulled back in as their comrades tried to use them to climb out.
Grace was back to rolling her fists again. This time in the other direction. When the subsequent brown cloud hit the ground, the soil immediately returned to its original solid state. That left over seventy of the orc survivors buried well past their waists in solid earth. The onslaught of other spells hadn’t let up, and orcs perished at an alarming rate.
Grace was now rotating her hands, palms flat down in a horizontally circular motion. Red mist emerged from the gestures, and the orcs began to bake as the earth heated to extreme temperatures. Terrified yells of agony cut short as the creatures’ insides expanded well past their skins ability to contain them. There was a series of highly unpleasant, wet, popping sounds as an army of orcs became soup. Silence descended on the scene as Devon’s forces took in the reality of what had just occurred.
Devon didn’t know what to think when Grace grinned up at him expectantly. “Bloody hell, Grace! That went well past creative. Well done, little star. You are now officially awesome.”
Grace beamed at him proudly. “Thank you, Devon. I like that you like.”