WW Chapter 97: And the Kind Decision (Patreon)

You idiot. You don’t flout protocol like this. You’re such a fool that you’ll be lucky to get dismissed. If someone ignored wartime commands like this, they’d be flogged, if nothing else. If manpower hadn’t been so limited, they’d be hanged. You’re such a fucking moron that if your disobedience wasn’t going to get you killed by all these goblins, it’d still end up with you dead at the Duke’s punishment. A war’s coming on, and it doesn’t matter how promising you are, if you…

Jormun continued his parade of insults, addressing everything from Ezra’s mind to his capabilities, but Ezra had long since stopped listening. Instead, he looked at his little squad following him into almost certain death.

It had taken some argument, but there were only four people accompanying him towards the village. As soon as Ezra and Telemachus had made their plans known, as well as their reason for leaving their assignment, Dirk and Luna had insisted on coming along. Ezra couldn’t say that he had tried very hard to dissuade them from coming as well. Under Hector’s disbelieving eyes and Basil’s ever-tightening lips, Patrice and Tula had volunteered to come as well.

“You both really need to stay,” Ezra denied them. “Your families are tied to the Duke’s family, and even offering to come along might be bad for them and for you. If you actually leave…”

Tula’d nodded and pulled Patrice back at that. 

So, that was three of the people accompanying Ezra. The fourth was the greatest surprise. As the late afternoon sun grew closer to the horizon and lit the heavy clouds up with bright colors, Jhas jogged along behind the four soldiers. He’d given his explanation to Ezra and his friends, as well as Hector, before they left.

“I can cast Divine Vigor on them before they make contact. I won’t actually stay for the fight. My devotion is to you, but I can bless them to give them the greatest chance of survival before returning here.”

Ezra couldn’t say that he was unhappy about that, but the illiar had remained largely silent since they left camp. He remained geared up for a fight, but Ezra had no doubt that Jhas was telling the truth, and wouldn’t actually fight at their sides.

For maybe a quarter of an hour, the four Adepts (plus Jhas) had maintained a run a bit faster than a jog. While they continued, they started to come across signs of the goblinoid army. Heavy footprints, feces, and urine patterned across the street. Just like many of the veterans had said, despite their humanoid appearance, the goblinoids were hardly so civilized as to even move to the side of the street before relieving themselves. More worrisome than the sign of such large numbers was the presence of other distinctly inhuman tracks.

Ezra saw at least two pairs of footprints that must have belonged to the wolf Dragonkin. Worse, there were much larger, still somewhat lizard-like footsteps that he had to assume belonged to some of the Dragonkin like those he had faced in his first encounter with them. He knew next to nothing about tracking, so he couldn’t even guess how many of the beasts there’d actually be in the enemy army.

“We’re drawing close,” Jhas said, stopping. “There is less than a kilometer separating our current position from the main body of the enemy army. May I suggest you make a plan before you make contact? I would hate to have you all pay the ultimate price for your attempted heroism, regardless of how ill-advised it may be and will offer my advice to ensure your efforts have the greatest chance of finding success.”

Ezra clenched his jaw and nodded, looking at his friends.

“Fuck,” he groaned, looking at them. “Am I getting us all killed?”

Telemachus started to open his mouth in some sort of a joke response, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he took a long, slow breath, and shrugged. “I hope not. I don’t wanna die if I can help it. But… I couldn’t just stay back seeing what you were doing.”

“I believe that Inuksuza the Watcher and Pilar the Stone sent you to this place at this time on this day,” Luna smiled. “The Watcher gave you the opportunity to learn of these people and the danger they face, and the Stone gave you the stubbornness and determination to confront what you are supposed to do and replace that with what your soul screams you must adhere to. I consider it to be a privilege to fight by your side, and I am sure we will find victory.”

Ezra cocked his eyebrow at Luna’s excessively optimistic viewpoint, but she quirked a smile that let him know that perhaps she wasn’t such a blind believer as her words may appear. With only one person who hadn’t responded, he looked at the oldest and shortest member of the group.

“I think I’m supposed to be here,” Dirk said simply. “People need help. I’ve been sitting on my ass for so long that the people deserve me at least trying. That said, I’m with Telemachus. I sure don’t wanna die.”

Ezra chuckled, but then he felt his face fall into a severe glare.

“Here’s what we’ll do. Anybody who has different ideas, let them be known, because we need to make sure we do this right.”

***

True to his word, Jhas left immediately after giving his blessing to the four soldiers who would remain. Ezra hadn’t known what to expect from “Divine Vigor,” but the first thing that was immediately apparent was that, although he had made sure not to exhaust himself on the journey, he and the others had pushed themselves to go faster to make sure they could get to their destination in time. His legs, which had been burning along with his lungs, immediately lost any of the burn of exertion they’d been plagued by. It felt more like he had just done a warm-up than pushed himself for nearly half an hour, between the fight against the goblins with the rest of the delegation and getting here.

More than that, Jhas also let them all know of the secondary effects of the spell.

“Your wounds will heal faster, and your armor will hold together better. This is, among the second-level spells available to clerics, one of the less flashy options. However, as it is a spell that can affect up to twenty people, to have it concentrated among you four, it may just give you enough of a leg up to make a real difference. It will only last for the next hour, though, so make the most of it while it lasts.”

At that, he’d given his advice, he’d given his explanation, and that was it. Jhas nodded, then turned on his heel and started running back up the trail towards the delegation.

“What are we gonna do about having rebelled against the Duke’s sons after all this?” Telemachus started to wonder, but shook his head. “Maybe we should worry about that after we carry out our plan, shall we?”

Everybody else agreed, and they gathered together, their weapons held in their hands. Ezra and Telemachus took the front, their yooperlite weapons going to serve as particularly important in this first phase of the plan. Luna and Dirk both settled along the wings of their little formation, holding their shields to make sure to keep the party from being surrounded straight away. Luna’s sword and Dirk’s mace were both ready for use, but as the two significantly less experienced Adepts, their inner world’s reserves were significantly more limited than Ezra and Telemachus’s.

“Let’s go.”

Ezra’s command was immediately followed as they all ran around the bend of a hill towards where they were nearly certain the goblinoid army would be. As they came around the blind turn, it couldn’t have been more perfect. The rearmost ranks of the army weren’t more than ten meters away, and, for some reason, were fighting amongst themselves. A dozen goblins shivered before the rage of three orcs and five bugbears, and the eight leaders looked to be about to come to blows.

Whatever the reason for the hatred and anger was, Ezra hustled forward, and, as one of the bugbears noticed the humans' approach and started to turn towards them, pushed a hefty amount of his inner world’s reserves into the blade of his weapon. The orange flecks in the stone blade burned like miniature suns as he threw himself into battle.

His axe’s blade sliced through three goblins before he continued forward and lodged it in the base of one orc’s spine. The monster fell, screaming in pain as Telemachus jabbed forward and pierced his own weapon into a second orc’s chest. The spearhead ignited in flame, and the monster went down, dead as its innards smoldered.

Dirk and Luna both struck out into the nearest goblins, cutting down a handful themselves, but Ezra and Telemachus focused on the strongest ones while they still had the element of surprise. Both trusted in the sharpness of their weapons combined with their inner worlds and, before the enemies could mount a viable defense, had cut down all of the orcs and two of the bugbears.

The remaining three bugbears shouted, pulling the attention of the rest of the army towards the small squad, just in time for Ezra to hurl himself forward with a roar. His axe sliced through one torso before sinking into the other's hip, and Telemachus’s spear found the final remainder of the squad. He grunted quietly as he punched the weapon through its thick skin and fur and it screamed, but the beast fell, dead.

Then, at least fifty more of the goblin army turned towards their attackers. With shrieks of challenge, they threw themselves towards the four Adepts, and Ezra’s squad started retreating around the corner. They ran quickly, making sure to splinter the attacking forces. Now that the closest monsters had all been cut down, Ezra could take the measure of the army down the path before they retreated.

One piece of training that Chloe had given him, something he’d hated, was how to accurately take the measure of numbers of troops. He wasn’t a particularly experienced hand at that, but could verify that, within a disorganized column stretching some five or six hundred meters, there were about three hundred goblins. Scattered among them were another fifty bugbears and thirty orcs. All of them were well equipped, as the delegation had found over the past days, and that wasn’t the worst news of all.

Three of the Dragonkin wolves along with one Dragonkin humanoid thing strode among the army and looked towards the back of their column. The humanoid one’s eyes burned with hatred, somehow, as it looked at them. Ezra breathed curses to himself again and again as he led the retreat, but couldn’t see if the Dragonkin were pursuing them. If they did, it might very well be their death sentence. 

“Get the fuck back!” he shouted, following his own command as he ran. As they got to a more defensible position, Ezra saw the fifty goblins hurrying towards them. To his surprise, no orcs, bugbears, or Dragonkin accompanied them, and he grinned. 

“Plan’s going even better than expected. Be ready for shock and awe, then we’ll reevaluate.”

There was no more time for conversation, because the goblins were closing in, and the battle continued.