18 - When all Choices are Shite

Anilith stored the harvest from their latest ambush. It was meager, nothing more than parts to sell for basic funds and a few pieces of equipment that might fetch a higher-than-average price. “Fourteen patrols already? That can’t be normal.”

“Normal? Kid, ain’t nothin’ about this normal. We should be thankin’ our lucky stars that we ain’t seen more than a couple Rares in the groups we’ve taken out, an’ those bein’ weaker ones, at that.” Orion dropped back into the strange stealth he’d started using after leaving the clearing. It wasn’t as if he disappeared, but as if he became a part of the scenery in a way that made his presence harder to notice.

Anilith had a feeling that, if he chose to hide from her, she would be entirely unaware of his presence. Even listening to the song of the Wind gave her a strange, empty lack of feedback. She did her best to hide herself, but her skill level was vastly inferior to his. She might be able to hide from simple creatures, but she knew she would have to improve if she wanted to keep up with her new friends. Even Razhik, for all his size, could hide himself better than her. His variegated scales served to break up his image in the dark beneath the trees.

Honestly, the idea of suddenly coming upon him in the darkness horrified her, and she was glad to know he wasn’t nearly as terrifying as his appearance let on. Well, unless you happened to be a bunny, anyway.

“I’ll be back in a few. You and Razh lay low here. The patrols are getting tighter the closer we get, we’re gonna have to take them out even quicker from here on.” Orion disappeared into the tree line as Anilith moved closer to Razhik.

Closing her eyes, she listened, trying her best to follow the Wanderer’s passage. As her senses expanded from her immediate surroundings, she felt signs of groups moving about. Within a minute, she heard the whispers of five separate groups, all within shouting distance of one another. “Gods, if we’re not careful, Razhik…”

“Lord Razhik.”

She sighed in resignation. “Not this shit again. One of these days, you’ll treat me like a friend, Lord. If we’re not careful, we’ll bring a whole pack down on ourselves, and I’m not so sure we’d walk away from that easily.”

“Ehhhh, just have a little faith in the old guy. He knows what he’s doing; he wouldn’t let us get too far in over our heads, anyway. Besides, what better training is there than being hopelessly outnumbered behind enemy lines? You’re telling me you don’t get a thrill from that?”

“Hey, training’s only useful if you survive. It’s not like you’re taking out whole packs on your own, here.”

“Ooooo! I like challenges. Is that a challenge?” Razhik nodded vigorously. “That’s a yes, and I’m totally gonna crush it. The old man better hurry and get back so we can move out. It’s go time!”

Anilith shook her head, used to Razhik’s antics by this point, yet still amazed at his youthful vigor. His exuberance was undying, and it would be contagious if he didn’t make a point of being so annoying about it. Still, she appreciated him and the personality he brought to the group. Orion wasn’t a bad guy, in fact her opinion of him had grown markedly over time, but he wasn’t always a lot of fun to be around. She was no wellspring of joy, either. No, Razhik brought some much-needed balance and levity to the party. They’d be a sad pair, just the two of them without their mascot.

Almost as if summoned by Razhik’s comment, Orion materialized from the darkness and walked towards them, urgency in every step. He didn’t speak until he was standing close, and his voice was harsh and hushed. “This next one’s gonna be rough, no way around it. Don’t seem possible to engage any of the groups one at a time, and that’s not the worst of it. Three of the groups are warg riders.”

For once, Anilith’s primer offered precious little insight into the creatures based on the name alone. “Warg riders?”

Orion’s head snapped up, her comment apparently disturbing some thought of his. “Ah, yeah. Wargs: nasty, ugly beasties. Sometime, Ages back now, they started as a twisted offshoot of Dire Wolves, and they’re every bit as unpleasant as the Dire Wolf is majestic. Where wolves are lithe, agile, and powerful in measure, wargs forego all that finesse for sheer power. Vicious, quick hunters with little regard for their own safety.”

“And the creatures ride these things? How in the name of the gods did they tame them?”

“Can’t say as I know all the details, but the wargs were hunted near to extinction, once. Some deal musta been made, because the Gobs took them in an’ gave them a chance to flourish. Since then, the two have had a workin’ relationship. Spells bad news for us here. For all their brutish nature, wargs have a keen nose and sensitive ears. No way can we isolate the groups with that bein’ the case.”

Anilith, soaking in his information, closed her eyes and listened to the Wind, noting the difference in speed between the patrols. Some definitely left a larger, faster void in the Wind from their passage. She asked under her breath, almost without thinking, “What would you do?”

“Well, I see two options. We pick an isolated group an’ hope we can take it out before the others catch wise, rinse, and repeat. Or, we start at one edge, givin’ ourselves as much time as possible, an’ take them all out as quick as a lick.”

She squinted at the Wanderer, realizing he’d answered a question she hadn’t meant for him. She decided to go for broke and doubled down on the misunderstanding. “That doesn’t answer my question: What would you do?”

“Honestly, both options are shite. When picking between two shitty deaths, I always go with the one with the least left up to luck, my own bein’ what it is. I’d thin the herd from the edge and let what comes, come, and I’d have Razhik take out as many wargs as possible while they rush us. Strong as they are, they’re no match for our King in the Mire. “

“And me?”

“Oh, just what you do best, kid: try not to die a horrible death and send as many beasts packin’ as possible.”

“Really, that’s all? Sounds like a stroll to the baker, should I pick you up some pastries while I’m out?”

“Ani,” Orion said, no jest in his voice, “Trust us. Trust the work we’ve done together, and the team we’re buildin’. There’s an important difference from the last time you were here. You aren’t alone, we’ve got your back an’ you’ve got ours. I’m not gonna lie and call this a safe bet, but it’s a bet I’d make every time. There’s somethin’ very wrong here, an’ it’s our responsibility to try to figure out what.” He fixed her with a hard stare. “We could die today, sure, but if we walk away, so much more could be at risk. I feel it in my bones, kid.”

Razhik bounced from paw to paw, his head bobbing back and forth in a strange Razhik dance. “Time to go all out, really crush this challenge! Show the girl what you’re made of! You got this, buddy!”

Anilith watched the creature, bemused. “Razhik, talking to yourself now, are you?”

“Now? Been doing it for years, just now you’re around to see it. Only crazy heads don’t talk to themselves, I mean, who else is always with you, huh? Silly soft-skins and your soft-skin ideas.”

Seeing how ready even her lax new friend was, resolve cemented itself on the girl’s face. “Alright. Lead on, old man. Let’s do this thing.”

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Seeing the area through the lens of the blanketing breeze, Anilith stood with her back to a tree, eyes closed and awaiting the signal. Orion, his lack of presence now conspicuous to her senses, lurked some ways away in a tree, where he had a clear line of sight to the ambush sight. She felt the first patrol group, a bog-standard mix of fighters with no apparent casters, approaching the kill box they’d set up.

Orion had selected a place where the trees offered maximal protection from flanking maneuvers but didn’t entirely cut off a retreat. Their plan left the risk of being boxed in from behind, but it was a chance they had to take, and he made sure to have the retreat covered from his angle as well. The trees grew densely here, creating a funnel towards Anilith’s position, which, they hoped, would limit the wargs’ maneuverability.

Razhik lay in wait somewhere on the sidelines, ready to pick their foes apart, reducing their numbers and picking off any wargs who made to flank from behind.

“Wind, protect us. Here we go.”

As she felt the patrol approaching, Anilith stepped free from cover and raised a blade in challenge. “Thought I smelled something foul, and here I find six dirty muck stains.” Six goblins bearing crude weapons and wearing rusted chain armor stared back at her, a mix of confusion and anger splayed across their faces. “Huh, I guess I didn’t stop to think if you could actually understand me, but even if you can’t, your stench is already insulting enough. Might as well not have said anything in the first place, my bad!”

The group of beasts roared, a not-nearly-distant-enough reply echoing from the Forest. The call was taken up three more times in quick succession, but thankfully didn’t alert more groups than they had identified. Taking out five patrols was no small order by itself; the last thing they needed was more excitement.

They’d picked this spot to lie in wait, partially counting on Anilith’s martial prowess. Her preternatural senses worked best against melee fighters, so Orion had felt most comfortable laying the trap near this patrol. The ranged combatants in the other patrols were his primary targets, shifting to damage control from there. Razhik, doing what he did best, was assigned to cause maximum chaos while taking out the most mobile creatures.

The only question Anilith had was how the plan would go to shit, but she pushed the thought out of mind, not having time for distractions.

The advancing mob, disorganized in its approach, moved with a speed she found unthreatening, but underestimating an enemy was a fast route to the grave. She drew her off-hand blade and stood ready, waiting for the wave to crash over her. An occasional twang, earlier than she’d hoped to hear them, marked Orion taking pot shots at the reinforcements. Yelps and squeals, followed by silence, were the only things announcing Razhik’s presence.

As the first goblin entered her reach, Anilith side-stepped its lunge and brought her blade across its exposed neck in one smooth motion, eliminating a threat. When its closest companion stepped up to the plate, she stabbed downwards, impaling its foot and causing it to stumble from its own momentum. She easily dispatched the prone figure with a coup de grâce, stabbing it through the back.

Two more stepped in to claim their prize, but Anilith was ready, her Blade Weaving showing the trajectory of their weapons and how she’d need to dodge. She stepped into the dead zone, crude iron missing her by a narrow margin on each side as she twirled through the air, simultaneously drawing a shorter blade with each hand, each weighted perfectly for throwing. Neglecting this aspect of their design, she unleashed a flurry of stabs into the rightmost creature, and it fell, blood burbling from its lungs, its armor no match for the quality of her blades.

The creature to her left made to bring its sword, although she had a hard time acknowledging such a crude weapon as such, up in a slash. Crossing her blades, she blocked the attack and pinned the sword down with her boot. With her eyes, she saw the rage in the remaining goblins’ eyes. With her senses, she felt the arc of a wild swing from a massive hunk of iron that had been beaten into a mockery of a great sword. She stepped back, the dull edge cleaving through the goblin before her with a terrible, tearing squelch. In a fluid motion, she threw both blades into the eyes of the goblin not wielding the great sword, obscuring the rage they emanated.

Left with only one opponent, she backpedaled carefully, ripping her swords from the goblin she’d impaled as she moved. Every weapon around her sang in her mind, her own with a familiar and comforting melody, her opponent’s emitting the opening chords of a dangerous dirge. She knew that, with a thought, she could find a new weapon to wield, just as she knew that she stood no chance of blocking a strike from this opponent.

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Rage lent ferocity to the creature’s attacks that more than made up for its utter lack of finesse. For such a wiry creature, its frame belied a strength Anilith couldn’t hope to match. She narrowly evaded each strike. She found herself kept at range and unable to close the distance by the fervor of her enemy and the reach of its weapon. When her back was to a tree, the next attack already closing on her, she smiled as she felt the weapon’s trajectory.

She jumped, kicking off the tree as the hunk of iron embedding itself deep in the trunk of the tree. Even with all its strength, the goblin couldn’t withdraw the weapon. Anilith landed on the flat of the hunk of metal and crossed her blades as she moved, removing the creature’s head in the span of three steps.

As her feet touched the leaf-strewn earth, she inclined her head to her arboreal guardian. “That’s twice now that your brethren have saved my life. I am in your debt again.”

Turning back to the funnel, she saw her next foes beginning to trickle in. They rushed into the kill zone, moving carelessly and quickly. The remnants of three patrols seemed to have formed into a horde. A handful of archers, a score of swordsmen, and several riderless wargs moved on her position. Three archers fell within ten steps, two of the wargs collapsing as they ran, festering scratches oozing green as they struggled through rapid, rasping breaths.

“Shit, Razhik, what did you do to them?”

Orion dropped enemy after enemy, each shot thinning their numbers until hope was barely visible through the mass of bodies. As hope took its first breath, howls echoed from around them, driving that breath away, each howl betraying a power beyond what the wargs before Anilith held.

The fifth patrol had arrived, and the party’s miscalculation revealed itself. The plan had truly gone to shit.

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The ugly four-legs cried with a ferocity unmatched by their lesser brethren. Even without seeing them, Razhik felt the message in their cry, as any creature for miles would. It told a story of dominance, of menace, and a promise of a bloody end. It spoke of the superiority of these beasts.

Razhik, in a rare moment for him, felt disgusted and enraged. Who were these things to look down on him? What could possibly make them feel so superior? Even if he wasn’t a dragon, he was a King, and these beasts would learn what it was to cross him, to earn his ire as they had. The arrogance of these lowly pack-hunting animals.

“A King needs no pack, but those he deems worthy of standing with him,” Razhik growled.

Imbuing his claws with every ounce of venom he could muster, he flitted through the shadows towards the nearest call, life receding at his touch, unfit to linger in the passing of his anger. The sound of crashing branches ahead alerted him to the presence of the beast, his own passage silent.

Catching a glimpse of the creature, he saw it stood taller than Orion at the shoulder, truly a great beast in the eyes of most, but next to Razhik, it was an upstart subject, unworthy of the station it found itself possessing. The wind blew against him, hiding even his scent from the creature, and he leaped through the shadows, raking the rider from waist to shoulder, severing its spine and letting the envenomed fool be eaten away by his wrath.

The hound ground its pads into the soil, grinding to a halt even as its rider met its end. The beast raised its head, sniffing loudly, trying to locate its attacker. It never stood a chance as Razhik pounced from behind the creature, using the wind to his advantage all the while, digging his talons through the meat of the beast, pumping his venom into the arrogant creature.

Its howl, so forceful just a minute past, came out as a strangled bay, pain stifling the noise before it passed the maw. Lesser beasts cried out in answer, and Razhik was already off, seeking to end more before they closed on his friends.

Great as he was, he knew his friends were mere soft-skins, and their power was tempered by the weakness of their form. A King shepherds his allies, protecting them from the terrors in the dark. It was a duty few understood, but Lord Razhik knew better. He’d learned this duty on the day he met the Wanderer, and it set him apart from even his own kind.

He returned to the shadows, moving soundlessly through the trees. Everywhere he passed, the land withered, unable to withstand his righteous ire.

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Even as Orion’s arrow sank into the last archer in the funnel, and Anilith plunged her blade into the neck of an enraged goblin swordsman, the scene around them devolved into chaos. A field of bodies stretched before them, the scent threatening to turn Anilith’s stomach. For all she had witnessed death, this was on a scale she’d never seen. Short of the cautionary tales the Ekreeti told of Wars long passed, she had never known a single battle to spell the end of dozens of creatures.

Scratches littered her armor, jagged gashes marring her tanned skin, the wounds left by the crude weapons’ uneven blades almost certain to leave scars. Still, she stood victorious, for the moment, on a field of fallen enemies. There was no time to celebrate as the blood-curdling howls drew nearer, fiercer. One had fallen silent, but the others rallied in its passing, emboldened by its absence.

Anilith gathered what weapons she could, going so far as to collect the undamaged arrows near her. Her senses painted them with a melancholy ballad that reminded her inherently of their owner. Even with her eyes closed, she had no trouble finding anything that held an edge, the bodies appearing as lifeless voids under the blanket of the Wind. She felt the void that marked the Wanderer move on her position, and she held out his ammunition for him to claim.

Taking them, he muttered to himself, but she missed the words as she listened for their enemies, the only impression she got being something about “creepy” and “should be unnoticed,” but she couldn’t concern herself with the details. She felt the void scale a nearby tree, not one directly in their funnel, yet nearby enough that he could rain death on anything that approached from either side.

She felt the enemies drawing closer, three massive beasts with riders penning them in like cattle, with a solitary figure in the middle. The kill zone lay at her back as she faced approaching death. Through it all, her heart beat steadily in her chest, unfazed in the face of terrible odds. All she could do was have faith in her allies and struggle until her last breath.

She opened her eyes, eyes fixed on where the creatures would break cover. Mounts, hideous and overly muscled, larger than any beast she’d seen before meeting Razhik, plodded out from beneath the leaves, the daylight turning red as the day entered its twilight hours. Three wargs, larger than the ones her group had slain by an order of magnitude, plodded menacingly into sight. A chorus of howls around them announced the presence of lesser wargs, the occasional yip betraying Razhik’s efforts.

In the center stood one truly massive goblin who emanated palpable rage. It was so much greater than the anger she’d felt from her earlier foes; it felt in a class all its own. To either side was a goblin wielding one of the strange tubes and hammers she’d encountered on her first visit to the Forest. Sonomancers, Mingus had called them. Behind them, astride a misshapen steed, was a goblin with a visage of pustules, bearing a rotting, wooden staff.

The lead goblin, much to her surprise, spoke in a tongue she recognized through the Primer, though she had a hard time identifying which language. “We will feast on your flesh, tearing until even your marrow seeps from your bones! You have cost too much blood; the Warlord will settle for nothing less than adding your skulls to his pit. I will relish the look in your eyes as I pluck them from your living body and tear your Will to shreds!”

A chill passed down Anilith’s spine at the words, perturbed that she could understand such a beast. She’d never imagined them to be so intelligent, even if it was a warped, depraved intelligence. Such personality in an enemy raised questions she didn’t want to ask, and she found herself wondering where these creatures came from, what their lives were like back home. Was there more to their lives than to simply die so adventurers might advance?

She put the thought out of mind, unwilling to waste what might be her last moments debating such a question. “We will kill you, just as we have your allies, and when we’re done, we will find this Warlord and force your secrets from him.”

A vicious cackle erupted from the beast, and it renewed its advance. “The Warlord will pick his teeth with your bones when I bring him your lifeless corpse.” Behind him, the pustule-ridden rider finished preparing something she hadn’t noticed, a stinking green-brown beam sweeping the kill zone. Anilith threw herself to the ground, narrowly avoiding the spell. Behind her, the forest moaned as trees creaked and collapsed, burying the bodies of the fallen beneath twisted, broken boughs.

A quick glance revealed a changed landscape, and she knew they would never outrun the wargs now. Thankfully, the tree Orion had climbed stood outside of the beam's path, the destruction granting him a newly unobstructed view of the scene.

The Sonomancers ground their heels into their mounts, each moving to pen her in from the sides, removing any hope of escape and leaving her with no avenues to flee. Each began rhythmically tapping their tubes with their hammers, and Anilith’s danger sense screamed at her, her fledgling skill with Blade Weaving announcing incoming, invisible attacks.

She wove through the net of sound waves, quickly becoming penned in as the creatures adapted to her movements. Blood began to run from multiple injuries, even as she dodged to the limits of her ability.

She could hardly keep up, her awareness cluttered with incoming threats and unable to identify a path to safety, taking more damage with each passing moment. Without warning, a sharp twang resounded through the clearing, launching an arrow with more force than she’d even seen through the eye socket of one of the sound mages. It fell dead without a noise.

The large goblin threw itself forward, crossing the remaining yards in a blink and swinging at her wildly. Its fervor made the earlier warrior look like a child swinging a mock weapon, and she barely kept up, having to parry as many strikes as she dodged, still under assault from the remaining ranged mage, who had taken cover from her ally.

Each parry left her hands ringing, the blades driving a numbness deep into her arms. Her senses could keep up with the assault, seeing the path of every swing, but her body lagged more by the moment. Thankfully, the creature wasn’t wielding a great sword, but its strength and rage put more force into each strike than she could handle.

A desperate ploy came to her as she saw a wide swing incoming. She jumped into the path of the attack, crossing her blades and preparing for the pain she knew was coming. In the air, her body offered little resistance as the impact sent her flying, directly towards the remaining Sonomancer.

Anilith spun through the air uncontrollably, desperately trying to find purchase in the ground with her weapons and halt the violent spiral she’d volunteered herself for. Streams of sound peppered her back as she flew towards the caster, each knocking the wind from her in rapid succession. Her vision swam with black spots as she struggled to breathe, each shallow breath a momentary victory before the air was driven from her lungs.

Moments before she would have flown by the relentless creature, she dug a blade into the ground, slowing her passage and allowing her to line up a swing, decapitating the beast with the force of her enemy’s own attack.

Anilith’s eyes struggled to see, but with the help of the Wind, she noticed a void dropping from a tree, even as the massive shape of a goblin barreled after her. Unmoving mounds marked the places where the wargs lay dead, slain from afar by her ally. The caster who had destroyed so much of the forest was pinned to a tree, blood pooling at the base as the Forest consumed its life force in turn.

She felt the weapon, less crude and more crafted than those of the other goblins, almost worthy of being called a sword, descending towards her, and she knew she couldn’t block the strike.

“I’ve got you, kid! Hold on, this is gonna hurt!”

She felt something wrap around one of her legs for a moment before it was pulled with a force that momentarily pulled her hip from its socket, and she slid across the Forest floor. The goblin adjusted the arc of its strike, but failed to land the blow. She felt, in her dazed awareness, the Wanderer moving swiftly and sliding by her, launched by the force of his own pull, bow drawn to its limit as he unleashed a focused attack that barreled through the rage-fueled creature’s throat.

With its dying breaths, it impaled Orion through his right shoulder, using his own momentum against him. A wet cough escaped her ally’s lips, spittle spraying across his vanquished foe.

The Wind showed her all of this. It blew from the direction she somehow knew the Dungeon must lie, keeping the scent of blood from alerting more patrols. Silence fell on the battlefield, nothing moving but the breeze.

A large disturbance marked the arrival of Razhik, liquid dripping from his left side. The Forest drank in everything.

“Razh,” Orion said, fighting through his wet, wracking coughs, “Gather the corpses. We…we’ll need them to…figure out what’s…wrong. Help…help the girl…store them. No time…to sort it. Need to get…to the Dungeon…before more…come. It’s our…only…”

Orion’s words cut out, his strength leaving him as Razhik moved to do as he was asked. Anilith felt Razhik bringing the bodies, words escaping the creature’s grasp for the first time since she’d known him, and touched each, hoping she had the space to store them all.

When no more bodies came, she felt herself being lifted more gently than she could have imagined, before being draped over hard, warm scales. Rippling, sinuous muscle moved silently beneath her, and she pointed in the direction the Wind had shown her.

“That way, Razhik. Get him to safety.”

Whether he heard her or not, Razhik moved towards the Dungeon. Anilith held on to the edges of consciousness through force of Will, unwilling to let herself fade, struggling to hold on so she might help the man who saved her life.

Moments passed, darkness swimming before her eyes, and she could hardly tell if she’d lost her grip on consciousness or not.

The sound of Razhik’s claws scraping over stone preceded a booming slam as a massive doorway closed behind them, cutting her off from the Wind.

As she lay there, blind to her surroundings as her sight struggled to recover, she silently prayed that her senses returned in time. Razhik laid his allies on the cold stone and began nuzzling against his oldest friend. The sound of droplets hitting stone filled Anilith with dread, and she pulled herself towards the resonant echo.

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