Volume 1, Chapter 15: Plan F Has Follow-Up Questions (Patreon)

The water Bri had been plunged into hissed as it turned to steam, while the bucket trembled and rocked from side to side. The orc held it steady through sheer strength, keeping Bri submerged as she struggled with everything she had to break free.

The air smelled of charred meat—or skin—but the orc remained hunched over the bucket, waiting for my fireball to stop moving.

“You bring evil spirit! Think Gorloth stupid! Gorloth not!”

I shifted my body so I could look toward the burning tent. I sighed and reached into my soul for Cinderhide. Guiding my Soma inward toward my face, I willed the spell to manifest there. Instantly, I felt my skin crack open as warm lava poured from it and hardened across my face. It spread farther, crawling over my forehead and sealing itself above my hair until my entire head was enclosed within the black shell.

I silently thanked myself for not being able to see what I looked like with my whole head trapped inside that thing.

For a moment, I wondered why my Psyche had endured this transformation so much better than the ones before it. Then I reached toward the fiery lines I had drawn through the air earlier, feeling around blindly because I was too afraid to open my eyelids.

The moment I felt their heat, I reached inward for Stoke. The fire was burning far too weakly. I needed it hotter—as hot as I could possibly make it. My soul tensed almost to the limit of what it could endure, and I felt as though someone had shoved me into an oven. The inferno I created lasted only a few moments, but those instances stretched into an eternity in which I might as well have already been burning in the fires of hell.

Then I heard the clatter of metal striking metal and felt sudden heat against my foot. I jerked it back immediately and released Pyrography through my Authority, causing the line of fire I had painted into the air to vanish.

The air cooled almost instantly, though it remained uncomfortably warm. Rather than risk opening my eyes, I felt around with my hands until I found the opening I had created, then threw myself through it.

Only once I was outside the cage, lying on the damp ground, did I open my eyes. Panting and slightly dizzy, I released Cinderhide as well.

The orc was practically on top of me already, his axe raised overhead and ready to come down like a guillotine and split me in half. My survival instinct reacted faster than any conscious decision. I rolled aside, and the blow buried itself in the mud where I had been lying a moment earlier.

Gorloth immediately wrenched the weapon back up, spraying wet dirt everywhere. Some of it caught me squarely in the eye as I twisted onto all fours and tried to get up.

At the same time, my opponent realized he would not be able to bring the axe around for another strike quickly enough and kicked me hard in the side.

The impact knocked away what little balance I had managed to recover and forced me into another roll. Still on the ground, I slipped free of the strap of the bag slung over my shoulder, so that by the time I landed in a crouch, I already had it in one hand, while the other wiped away dirt from my face and the eye.

The orc was right on top of me again.

I swung the bag with everything I had while jumping sideways, smashing it into the arms holding his axe.

Once I was upright and facing an opponent who was rapidly recovering his balance, I felt far more confident than I had lying on the ground against an armed man. Unfortunately, I had little experience with close-quarters combat against someone wielding a melee weapon.

And to make this work, I needed to get closer to him than I would have liked. So when the orc paused for a moment to reassess the situation, just as I was doing, I spun on my heel and sprinted away from him as fast as I could. I made sure to place my feet only on exposed stone, while using the stalagmites jutting from the ground as cover whenever possible.

I did not particularly want to catch a thrown axe in the back. I expected the possibility, though it was not at the top of my list of concerns. I doubted he would willingly risk losing his weapon.

As I ran, I opened the bag and pulled out my keys, hooking the ring around one finger of my right hand. I grabbed the screwdriver in my left and the crowbar in my right, pinning the keys against my palm with it.

Thus armed, I threw the bag behind me. It sailed straight toward the pursuing orc. Then, as I reached a wall of thick stalagmites, I did not go around it. I jumped onto it instead.

Landing against the stone with my knees bent, I kicked off hard and launched myself back toward the orc, hidden behind the bag he had just caught and tossed aside, forcing him to loosen his two-handed grip on the axe.

Rolling over my right shoulder, I sprang back into the air, pushing off with both feet again. Taking advantage of his surprise, I drove my left shoulder into his chest and slipped between his outstretched arms.

The impact sent him stumbling backward—though not nearly as far as I would have liked. He caught himself with a single step, and while I was still close, I braced my back and neck and smashed my forehead straight into his flat nose.

His head snapped back. I immediately followed with my right elbow, laying the crowbar along my forearm as I drove the blow directly into the underside of his jaw. On a human, a hit like that had a decent chance of turning the lights out completely. Unfortunately, as it turned out, orcs were not quite as soft as humans.

Blindly, he dropped his axe and tried to grab me with both hands as he staggered backward. I followed the elbow with a rake of the keys across his face, aiming for his eyes, while my other hand began stabbing the screwdriver into his exposed abdomen from point-blank range.

Again and again. The tool’s tip plunged into muscle and came back out, driven in and ripped free by sheer determination. I could feel the growing warmth of the blood spraying over my hand, along with the exhaustion building from the frantic motion and the resistance of muscle and tissue that made pulling the screwdriver free harder every single time.

My elbow and shoulder were already burning from the speed and sheer number of movements I was forcing them through, starting with that first blow.

When his massive arms finally wrapped around me and pinned my upper body, he drew his head back to smash his forehead into my nose. I added a knee to his groin. Blood ran from my forehead down my face a moment later, followed immediately by pain informing me that his headbutt had landed too.

Dazed, I came back to myself several steps away from my opponent.

He stood there panting, his left hand pressed against the right side of his abdomen, where numerous streams of blood—some thin, some considerably thicker—ran between his fingers.

Despite the fact that I had poked a respectable number of holes in him and introduced his genitals to my knee, the motherfucker was still standing on both feet and glaring at me from beneath his brow.

Then he roared at the top of his lungs and charged me like a rabid bull, one shoulder lowered. Only then did I realize I was no longer holding either of my weapons. The crowbar lay several steps in front of me beside his axe. The screwdriver was still buried in his side.

Without thinking twice, I threw myself forward, back first at the charging orc’s legs, taking him down with a move he clearly had not expected. As he twisted toward me after the fall, I scrambled after him as fast as I could, wrapped my legs around one of his, and rolled, forcing the limb into a position that kept his back turned to me.

I pinned the leg more with my body weight than raw strength, keeping it tight against me as I adjusted my position. Using my hands to drag the limb where I needed it while clamping it as firmly as possible between my legs, I locked in the hold and immediately felt resistance in the joint. I kept twisting against the direction his knee was meant to bend, straining every muscle while he desperately tried to push himself upright with his arms and his remaining leg.

Eventually, though, the muscles gave out. Then the tendons. Then the bones. His leg bent the way I wanted it to. The orc let out a howl of unbearable pain so loud that it startled several small flying creatures I had not noticed before from their roosts near the cave ceiling.

I released his ruined leg and rolled aside as he sat up, tears in his eyes, reaching toward the broken limb with both hands.

I rose into a half crouch and quickly scrambled behind him, catching one of his arms between my legs before shifting them higher, until they locked around his thickly muscled neck and across his face.

Pulling his arm toward me, I squeezed harder and harder. As hard as I could. I did not know how long it lasted. But eventually, the orc stopped moving.

I allowed myself to lie on the ground for only a moment, because my heart had apparently decided it was tired of living inside my chest and was now trying, with obsessive determination, to break its way out. My lungs seemed eager to join the effort.

Then I remembered what had happened to Bri. The realization came from the crackling of the burning campfire and the orc’s half-consumed tent and got me moving again. As quickly as I could—which, unfortunately, could not be described as lightning-fast, or even particularly fast—I forced myself upright.

Careful of the wet ground so I would not stumble into another stupid trap, I stepped across the exposed stones toward the axe and picked it up. I looked at its iron blade. In the firelight, it reflected a warped image of my blood-covered face. I squinted at myself and returned to the orc.

Swinging the weapon from behind my head, I brought it down toward his skull. Or rather, I tried to. Whether from exhaustion, lack of strength, or simple incompetence, I hit badly. The blade slid across soft tissue and skin instead, taking an eye and a chunk of cheek with it.

I sighed. Then I turned the axe around so I was holding the blunt side forward and swung again.

This time, the poll struck the center of his forehead. I heard bone crack and watched his face cave inward. I tossed his weapon aside and hurried toward the bucket of water that was still giving off steam.

Shielding myself from the flames pouring out of the tent with one arm, I reached into the water and pulled out a small, round black sphere.

It pulsed faintly with blue-green light, which surprised me. There was a single irregularity on its surface, like a crack that had somehow sealed itself shut, but apart from that, it seemed completely unblemished.

It was still warm in my hand despite the absence of any flames. I wiped it against my sweatshirt, trying to remove as much moisture as possible, then, having no idea what else I could do to help her, gently tossed it into the tent that was still burning with bright, living fire. Her fire.

Hoping that it would help, I drank from the second bucket, scooping the water into my hands. That was when I noticed the key ring was still looped around one of my fingers, the keys hanging from it smeared with blood. I removed it and set it on the ground beside me, then scooted backward across the stone floor until I reached the nearest stalagmite.

I rested my head against it and waited to see what would happen next, silently hoping that one stupid moment of inattention had not cost Bri her life.