Chapter 78
Riaret the Severing Strike didn’t slow down and kept marching along the back of Camp Styx, even though she knew she was in trouble the moment she saw and got a feel for the approaching enemy general. Gharakar and Levathan, her two trusted captains, must have felt it too, as the smallest minotaur she had ever seen came into view with his escorts that consisted of four caver demons.
Her 40 levels against the enemy general’s 47. Such a high level for such a small minotaur, and a mage no doubt, one who had put all his gains into his magical abilities, strengthening his soulstrength and willpower instead of his body. And those four caver demons, at least level 37 each — she didn’t know what to expect from those black, slick-skinned creatures with no eyes to see, but with long tongues sticking out of their enormous, toothy mouths. They weren’t warriors; they carried no weapons, and they weren’t terribly large either, about the same size as their minotaur master. She knew very little about the strange looking Third Ringers: they lived in the darkness of deep caves — hence the name — and they didn’t need to see because somehow their long tongues had replaced their eyesight with some other senses. They must have been earth mages, just as their general. What was it Hyde was always saying? “Distance is your friend.” That was probably true, if you were a mage or an archer, but not for proper warriors like her and her captains — for her getting close wasn’t optional.
‘This is not good,’ Gharakar stated calmly, probably realising the same thing.
‘No. Still, we fight,’ Riaret said.
‘Of course we fight,’ Levathan agreed without hesitation. ‘And we’ll win,’ he added, brimming with confidence Riaret knew was as misplaced as a fire-spell in an ice-demon’s arsenal.
In the distance, from behind the city walls, the fiery death Hyde had promised rose into the air, flying towards the minotaur army following their general a couple of hundred paces behind. She could just about see a ghostly figure towering amongst them, but she couldn’t make the details out; it must have been the distraction to slow them down and keep them in place for the catapults. Hm. Clever.
General, my Second Battalion is ready to attack the enemy the moment the first catapult strike hits them. Can you see their general? Reinos reported.
I can. He’s about a hundred paces from us. Reinos, keep his army busy! The crafters and my soldiers are making their way through the camp. It won’t be long before they reach the Path. She told him.
That’s the plan, general. The reply came.
The plan indeed. Hyde’s plan. The human wasn’t much to look at, at least at first glance, but she had to admit he was an interesting creature with an interesting way of thinking. Elaborate plans, especially ones not focused on the total annihilation of one’s enemies, were rather undemonic. However, Ugrathar in his infinite stupidity had proved that his way of thinking wasn’t going to work for a campaign, and Hyde seemed to be proving that taking the time to prepare and building plans upon plans, could see a smaller, weaker army triumph over another, much larger one. And that victory could mean something other than the outright destruction of the enemy. What had he called those things? Limited objectives? This is what this was: limited objective. If most of the crafters as well as her army made it out of Orroth, it would be a victory. A small one, granted, but another plan had already been built on it, which would bring the campaign closer to final victory. Ah, this whole planning business was giving her a headache — better to focus on the here and now, and on the enemy general who just turned around to see his army going up in flames behind him.
The flameslime jars landed in the midst of the minotaur army, and she could see fire-spells hitting them on the edges of their formation. But her focus was on the enemy general, who had stopped his advance, likely deciding whether he should continue with his assault on Camp Colosseum or rush to the aid of his people.
‘Let’s get that Third Ring scum!’ Riaret yelled and broke into a sprint, calling on her Speed Demon skill to flood her body with Hell-Mana and make her faster than any other demon, and her Severing Strike skill to make her halberd deadlier than any other weapon.
The distance between her and her enemy vanished in seconds, his two captains right behind her with their own battle cries, drawing the attention of the enemy general back to them. This was it; Riaret’s eyes were locked on the small but high-level minotaur, ignoring the four cavers surrounding him, her halberd brimming with power, ready to drive it through the bastard and tear him in two. She slammed into a wall of hardened earth that hadn’t been there half a heartbeat ago, her armour as well as her bones cracking as she bounced back. Her halberd flew out of her hand, and she couldn’t see where it landed as she rolled back on the ground, her vision a blur of twirling nonsense. She felt Hell-Mana moving all around her — the damned mage wasn’t done with just the wall. She didn’t let herself grind to a halt; she kept rolling, and she could just about catch glimpses of dirt and stone spikes shooting upwards from the ground underneath, missing her by a hair’s width each time she rolled over.
She sprung to her feet. On her left, Levathen bounced off a wall that had just erupted from the ground. She threw herself to the right as a stone spike shot out from the wall that had stopped her, and as she did that, she saw Gharakar a few steps away, getting caught between two earthen spears, one from the front, one from behind, the spell-spawn constructs screaming against his captain’s armour as he slid away just in time to avoid getting skewered.
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She broke into a sprint once again, calling on her skill. Walls and spikes were popping up along her path as she ran; she hoped to circle around to find a spot to attack, and as she did, she caught glimpses of the four cavers here and there, spread out to cover all sides of their general. Were these walls all the cavers’ doing? They really were mages, weren’t they? Hell-Mana was everywhere, permeating the ground under her feet, only her speed keeping her ahead of the dozens of spikes aimed at her from all directions. This wasn’t good at all; with the cavers watching — or otherwise sensing — in every direction, there was no way to get behind the general, no unguarded angle of attack, and they seemed to share Hyde’s sentiment of “distance is your friend”, keeping her and her captains away. How long could she keep powering her skills with Hell-Mana? Not long enough to outlast four high-level enemy mages working in concert to keep her away from her even higher-level target.
Get the cavers! Kill them! She ordered her two captains as she came full circle around the magical walls, dodging earthen spears and spikes.
Then she saw her halberd on the ground. And she saw why she received no reply: Levathen was on the ground, his body twitching, three stone spikes jutting out of his legs, one from his chest. Gharakar, just a few steps from him, was backing away, his armor ripped and dented, swinging his sword, fending off spears shooting up from the ground one after another. Damn it, her captains weren’t high enough level, not fast and strong enough to face this. Should she call in reinforcements? Sure, a few more of her captains and a hundred soldiers could overwhelm the general and his horrid defenders. But they wouldn’t make it here fast enough, not from the camp; they had to stay there as a last line of defence should she fail here.
With a well-coordinated move she picked up her halberd as she run, the bonded weapon immediately drawing on her soul’s Hell-Mana. She aimed at one of the wall segments immediately, on top of which one of the cavers perched with its long tongue waving around in the air. Her skill Destructive Impact powering her strike, the weapon crashed through a quickly forming spike, into the wall, pulverising the hardened earth barricade in a blink of an eye. Riaret ignored everything, including how much Hell-Mana this had cost her or where the caver had landed, and she lunged forward without hesitation, through the cloud of dust and earth that used to be the wall, only to find a new one behind it. One more strike, one more Destructive Impact! If she was fast enough, if she could land the strike, maybe it would be enough not only to break through this stupid, makeshift earth fortress, but to kill him.
Her weapon connected with the wall, her levels as well as the skill putting as much force behind the strike as possible, even more, almost depleting her soul, but the result was as explosive as she wanted it to be. She flew through the dust and debris like a whirlwind of fury and destruction, and finally she laid eyes on the minotaur general, the level 47 mage from the Third Ring, and she was ready to strike him down once and for all.
The mage, standing some ten steps away, didn’t move; the broken stones and earth and dust in the air did. The air around Riaret cleared as if every last bit of dirt had been sucked away in an instant. That didn’t stop her; just one more step, one more swing of her halberd and she had the enemy general — but before she could launch her final strike, the ground under her exploded upward, launching her into the air like a flameslime jar from one of Hyde’s catapults. It happened so fast and so violently that she could barely understand what was happening. That’s when she realised that all the debris from the walls she had broken were also in the air, hovering, waiting just for her. Damned earth mages! With nothing under her feet and no way to move out of the way, a hundred pieces of the broken walls slammed into her with all the speed and force the general’s spells and his Hell-Mana could muster. The plates of her armour bent and cracked under the barrage, and as she reached the peak of her climb into the air about thirty steps high, all she could feel was pain permeating her entire body. Damn earth mages! Then she fell.
The impact was soft as if she had landed in water. Or mud. She even heard something like a splash. Her helmet had warped around her head; she could barely see anything, but she felt like she was sinking. She tried to move, but she couldn’t, and as her blurred vision cleared and her helmet shifted a bit, she realised she was half buried already, the dry ground flowing to envelope her and to drag her even deeper. Oh, this was not good.
She didn’t know why, but all she could think of was one important thing to do before she was slain.
Reinos, you brat, you are a good son after all. I never thought you could become a general, but you did. Do your best. Good-bye. She sent her thought-voice to her son.
How strange; she had never felt the need to say this before. But now? Perhaps Reinos would have stood a better chance against this foe; he had chosen the path of a mage, which she had always considered inferior to that of a warrior, but if her imminent demise would prove anything, it was that she had been wrong. Perhaps Reinos had chosen well for himself. And he didn’t reply. Huh! Did he resent her this much? He probably did. No matter; she’d die and become the very same EXP she had always been fighting to get.
She stopped sinking, only her head and one of her shoulders still above the surface of the ground that held her captive, unable to move.
‘So, you are the fire-demon general.’ She heard the deep, raspy voice of the minotaur general just as his hooves came into her view. She wanted to yell some curses at the enemy, but the pain and the earth constricting her didn’t let her. The minotaur sighed. ‘I admit your tricks took us by surprise, but did you really think you could kill us all? We are the Great Herd of the Third Ring. We will not be defeated.’
‘Get stuffed!’ Riaret managed to squeeze the words out.
The minotaur laughed, stomping on the ground with one hoof — Riaret felt the painful vibration in her entire being and sensed as Hell-Mana began to gather around the mage and in the soil around her. Death by the ground on which she used to walk — damned earth mages!
‘Typical Fourth Ring idiocy,’ the mage said. ‘I suppose there isn’t any point in delaying the inevitable. With your death, your army will scatter.’
Instead of the silence and nothingness of death, she heard a faint boom and a painful shriek. She couldn’t look, she couldn’t see, but she recognised that boom. And there it was again, and again, and again: boom. The minotaur general swore and rushed off, all the Hell-Mana going with him. Then, after a few seconds, a voice came to her, one she had got to know quite well over the past few days.
‘Not the time for a mud-bath, Riri! Get out of there and help, for god’s sake!’
She grinned; did Hyde just call her … Riri? Now, this was an affront of the highest order no-one had committed since her childhood in the Wilds. But under the circumstances, she was inclined to let him call her whatever he wanted, provided she’d live long enough to make an issue out of it later.
