Unconquered Tower

FORTY-TWO

Dirt fell on Roan, covering him, choking him. Roan spat out a mouthful of dry dust and struggled to his feet, trying to figure out what way up was. The light of the sun was gone, all that remained was a dark haze that he couldn’t see through. Sounds of fighting were nearly drowned out by the rumble of the earth.

Someone landed next to him, rising up slowly, swearing loudly. It was Taoya. The man was just as confused as Roan. Taoya spun toward him, fist rising up, but he stopped when he realized it was Roan.

“Knew there’d be a trap. Didn’t think it would be this big!” Taoya had to shout to be heard. Roan shifted his polearm, trying to free it from the earth. The blade and half the shaft were buried under loose dirt.

“Look out!” Taoya shouted, shoving Roan to the ground. A shape emerged from the shroud of dust, a massive ogre lifting a club in the air. Roan rolled quickly, the club smashing the ground where he’d been standing. Taoya lunged forward, his fish crashed against the ogre’s chest.

Metal screeched and blue bolts of light flew off into the light. Momentum transferred and the ogre was thrown backwards, disappearing as fast as it had arrived. Taoya shook his hand viciously, cursing loudly.

“Heavy armor!” Taoya shouted. Roan nodded, occupied with pulling the polearm out of the ground. The ground stopped rumbling as the hill settled. A horn blew in the distance. And then drums. Drums from the deep.

“We got to go. The plans fucked!” Roan shouted. With his new skill he could feel how the hill had inverted becoming a bowl. Importantly they were now below the level of the cave system. Tunnels were now open for more of the goblinoids to surround them.

“DARREN!” Taoya yelled, his voice louder than anything else around them. Before the others could respond, more of the ogres were coming toward them. Massive figures in thick armor with giant clubs that looked like trees. Behind them, flames began to flicker, sparks dancing in the air.

“Fuck!” Roan spat, throwing himself to the floor just as a wall of fire shot toward them. Heat baked the back of his neck and he felt his hair curl from the flame. Taoya shouted in pain and there was a blue blast of light so bright it illuminated the entire area.

Then the massive armored ogres were there, looming above Roan with their tree-sized clubs. Roan rolled, uncaring of what was near him. The clubs smashed the ground he’d just been, sending up a wider shower of dust.

Roan got to his knees, ignoring the pain of his scalded head, and stared up at the ogres. A pair of them had come toward him, armored head to toe with thick metal plates around their joints.

“Think I know why he’s called a general.” Whatever had happened, they had been masterfully played. Their tactics had been turned on them and Roan’s brutal but effective ogre culling techniques had been diminished by the heavy armor.

Roan still hammered the closest creature’s knee with all his strength. The difference from two days ago to now was instantly apparent. The uncommon-grade halberd smashed apart the armor joint and sent the ogre spilling to the ground. They were so ponderously slow compared to Roan that it felt like child’s play.

If it wasn’t for the shaman’s fire or that there would be hobs hiding, Roan felt like they should stay and battle it out. The ogre’s helmet caved in, Roan driving its head into the earth before spinning out of the second one’s wide swing. With a flex of his leg he killed his momentum and speared the ogre through the eye, managing to slide the spearpoint through the thin visor.

The ogre stiffened, black blood rolling out of its helm, before it slowly crashed to the earth. It hadn’t been a long fight, but already the dust was starting to settle. Roan groaned as he saw how badly they were out of place.

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Taoya, Darren and a few of the freed prisoners were battling another duo of armored ogres. Taoya was hammering one into the earth while the other three fought to keep the second ogre from attacking Taoya’s back. Shamans lined the top of the bowl, their evil staffs glowing. The side of the bowl was crumbled stone, nearly vertical with its ascension.

A javelin rocketed out of the dust and struck one of the fiery shield a trio of shamans had cast. The javelin sheared straight through the shield and hit the center shaman. Roan watched as the weapon ripped half way out of the shaman’s back before it detonated. There was no fancy lights or signs of mana being used, the shaman just burst apart in a shower of gore.

Grace was there a moment later, racing up the slope. It was steep enough that she fell and crawled up it, her feet digging trenches in the shifting stone. Nash and a few of her other people were right behind her, all of them heading for the temporary gap she’d made.

It also left Moira, Taoya, and Darren by themselves as more ogres and goblins came out of the cave entrance near them. Roan looked at the group struggling to run away and felt a tug to follow after them. Save himself now while he could.

It was the smart play. The practical play. To live to fight another day.

The other idea was to kill every single goblin who stood in front of him and fight his way out of the pseudo-caldera with his allies.

Roan ran toward his allies.

Earth exploded under his feet as he crossed the distance in three leaping bounds. His body exulted in the ability to move as fast as it could, his second tempering paying off. Roan leapt and slammed feet first into the back of an ogre.

It staggered a few feet, turning slowly to see him. Roan fell to the ground and rolled upright, whipping around the hammer side of the polearm instantly. Steel and bone exploded, the turning ogre collapsing to the ground. He finished it off in a single brutal blow, decorating himself with black blood as the ogre’s head detonated.

“Time to go!” Roan yelled, using his free hand to point after Grace and the others.

“There’s still people here!” Moira yelled instantly. She spun a staff in her hand that thinned, lengthened into a needle that easily slid through the visor of the ogre. It screamed in pain, but Moira twisted her wrist and pulled her weapon back to her. The ogre fell to the ground in a heap leaving them a temporary pathway forward.

“If we stay, we’re dying. Let’s go!” Darren countered. He grabbed Moira’s elbow and dragged her away. Roan knew Moira could have fought him, she was stronger than Darren, but she let herself be dragged away.

Taoya finished crushing his target under his heavy fists. Dozens of blows had turned the ogre into nothing more than a crumpled mess of leaking armor. The big man panted heavily as he followed after Darren and Moira. Roan took up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for any more attackers. The hobs had to be close by.

A few of the prisoners found their way to them, leaving others to die under the armored ogre’s hands. Roan wondered where Tyler was, but had to hope the woman could figure it out herself.

They started up the steep hill, all of them quickly falling to all fours to creep up the side. Bolts of fire flew in from other shaman trios, slamming around them. Someone screamed behind Roan, the smell of cooking meat coming a second later. None of his allies were hit though, Moira and Darren making the edge of the caldera first.

Taoya reached the top, spinning around and offering his hand back. Roan took Taoya’s hand, the heat emanating from him uncomfortable. Taoya grunted and Roan flew up to the top of the caldera, giving him a look down on the chaos below.

The dust had mostly settled, giving him plenty of visibility as he saw the dead climbers sprawled out everywhere. Prisoners and members of Grace’s crew, few who had managed to retreat with her.

“We got our ass beat,” Taoya grumbled, his eyes didn’t leave the broken hill, looking for something.

“Tyler?” Roan guessed.

“Where is she? She was entering the tunnel just as we…” Taoya trailed off. Roan turned to see what he was looking at. A pair of figures were coming out of the tunnel that Tyler had been in, the natural one that sat flush against the wall of the crater.

Tyler was being dragged by her hair, a smear of wet blood leaking behind her. The creature that held her was covered in bubbling sores that leaked black blood that wetted the ground. Where its skin wasn’t bubbling there were tiny scales on it, pebbled like the dragon’s had been. One yellow eye was all that remained, the other had been melted, half its skull crumpled.

Even in its ruinous state it was nearly eight feet of tightly corded muscle. Behind it came a pair of hobs in nearly as bad shape as Tyler’s captor. Smoke rose from them where their bodies burned, but they held their weapons in steady hands and glared upward at Roan and Taoya with unrelenting hatred.

“I won’t let her die,” Taoya whispered. Before Roan could say anything the big man leapt, the last of his stored energy sputtering off of him as he sailed across the crater and toward the trio.

“Shit.”