When someone tells you to run, most people will not run. They will ask why they need to run; they will wonder what it is that they need to be running from, and they will, in general, waste a lot of time before they finally get around to doing the obvious thing; which is to say, run.

Ironically, though I am a strong advocate for intelligence being a desirable attribute in a person, it has been my observation that the more intelligent a person is the more likely they are to waste time trying to gather additional information. I am not making this up, it’s a real thing called analysis paralysis. Many people confuse analysis paralysis with decision paralysis; they are different, but functionally speaking there aren’t many instances where differentiating the two will actually matter. What does matter is that I am not the one who has to interpret and respond to this unexpected event.

Bucky, who for all his gifts is a rather straight forward fellow, is the one currently holding the reigns to the carriage when Regina appears frantically waving us back. He is not paralyzed in the slightest, and without hesitation he immediately begins to steer the carriage in a sharp turn. Too sharp, his swift and decisive action puts us in danger of jackknifing, and the carriage nearly overturns before the immediacy of being launched along with the carriage causers Joaqim to commandeer the reigns from Bucky, broadening the turn enough to avoid a self-inflicted disaster. Turning a carriage is not the fastest thing in the world and the delays and headaches cost us several precious seconds, though aside from a bit of the in progress potion spilling and some ingredients and materials scattering, no injuries or damage result from the sudden course reversal.

By the time our carriage is turned around, Regina has closed with and surpassed us along our new course. If you have ever wondered whether a carriage can drive as quickly as a horse with a rider, the theoretical answer is that in terms of top speed they can come very close to the same speed, nearly identical really, the additional weight is of marginal consequence. The practical answer however is that since carriages are far more susceptible to environmental conditions, a single horse with a rider is almost always faster even in a straightaway. Now that Regina is in the lead, we won’t catch her unless she wants us to or her horse gives out, and she hasn’t slowed down to explain why we are running.

I see nothing behind us, though the gentle slopes we have been traveling along would be enough to hide a potential enemy until they are relatively close, within probably 100 meters or so at many points of travel. Many of the areas we have passed along the way possess far less hospitable of terrain, including some small chasms or large crevices that would make excellent locations for an ambush, but Regina has up to now been able to select truly convenient routes for us to allow the carriage to pass with little difficulty.

We continue at a rapid rate of retreat for the next couple minutes before Regina finally slows down. She doesn’t stop, but she has been riding harder and longer than the rest of us and she doesn’t want her horse to die; so we are able to catch up within about 5 minutes.

“What happened?” Joaqim asks as he pulls up beside her. Regina pulls up the reigns on her horse, and we all come to a stop.

“We found the Orcs. I haven’t even been actively avoiding patrols, I don’t know how we managed to make it this far without running into any, but I found what I think might be their camp. Not the patrol, the group they are attached to. I cannot be completely sure, but I don’t think I was spotted. We're too close though, we need to find somewhere to hide, quickly, because we could run into a patrol any minute, and if we get spotted this close to their main camp we’re going to have a very difficult time escaping with our skins attached to our skeletons.” Regina replies.

“Hiding this whole carriage won’t be easy,” I say, “But we should be able to make it harder to notice by covering it with foliage in the more wooded sections, or alternately we might be able to find a cave or something inside one of those larger crevices. Either way, the horses are going to give us a lot of trouble staying hidden.”

“That’s true. We’re in a hurry though, we're closer than we should be and could get discovered at any time. Quick vote. I think we should go for the woods; I don’t want to spend much time looking for a cave that may or may not exist.” Regina says.

Joaqim and Bucky both agree, but before we even start to move again, Joaqim calls our attention to a problem. A squad of Orcs returning to their camp from patrol; exactly what Regina had been afraid of. We are fortunate that the natural condition is for Orcs live underground, and as a consequence their vision is actually somewhat impaired during the day; they haven’t seen us yet. We are also fortunate that this is a smaller patrol than the last one we’d seen; instead of 22 wolf riders, which would translate to 44 enemies capable of grinding us into tiny bits, we see 15 orcs on foot; 3 of whom are notably larger than the rest.

We are less than fortunate in that there’s nowhere we can possibly hope to hide. I recall when we fought 5 Orcs. Jim killed 4 of them outright, and the last one was on the verge of death after a single spell of his. Orcs have a strong militant culture with a focus on strength, much like Lizardfolk, so we do not have to worry about the same results occurring in reverse due to their own use of magic… But this is bad. Very bad. There is no Jim this time. None of us have the ability to attack more than one at a time, and those 3 taller ones are clearly stronger than their peers.

We do not really have much of a choice, the only survivor they might allow out of our group would be Regina… though I suspect she might not appreciate their reason for letting her live. They are almost as famous for their “open mindedness” as they are for their destructive tendencies. As far as Orcs are concerned, 2 legs and female is everything they need. As far as killing all the rest of us is concerned? It might be different if we were approaching them on their home territory, rather than running directly into a military detachment. Probably not, but maybe. It *would* be different if we were strong enough to easily wipe them out. Orcs become surprisingly willing to establish peaceful contact when you are significantly stronger than they are. But we are not. The truth is that we will probably all die horribly once combat is joined. But that’s probably. We don’t really have a choice but to try, and at the least we should be able to make their victory costly.

“Use the carriage as cover, make the best use possible of your ranged weapons. We have to trim them down to a manageable level before they close on us. Their maximum effective javelin throw should be about 30 or 40 meters out, but they probably will not try and throw them until they get to about 10 meters out so you should be able to ignore their throws until around when they get to that wobbly looking tree. We need to make the most of the first couple volleys we can get on them.” I say.

“Regina, focus on the 3 leaders, the rest of us likely wouldn’t be able to take them down. When they get close to our position, stay outside and fall back behind the carriage, continue to back up as needed and avoid letting them engage you in melee. You have to stay out of their reach, Joaqim won’t be able to make it to you. Most likely they’ll all throw their Javelins at close to the same time, so you should only have to worry about them getting you in melee. If you absolutely cannot escape them, return to the carriage and we’ll do our best to hold them off. Bucky, you hold the other side of the carriage and protect that door. I’ll be on this door. Joaqin, you’re inside the carriage, healing whichever one of us needs it most at any given moment. If the horses take off, we try and stay with the carriage until after we’ve broken through their line. Joaqim you can bring the carriage back when you get the horses under control, but me and Bucky will have to stay back to prevent Regina from getting overwhelmed. Everyone got it?”

Everyone seems to understand what I was trying to say, and no one objects.

“Joaqim, lock in the brake” I say, before going to the horses and tightening their blinders to reduce their field of vision as much as I can. These horses are not trained for war, they are very likely to panic in the coming seconds. Regina gets her longbow ready but does not fire yet, and Bucky checks to make sure his sword is loose in the scabbard before grabbing his short bow and getting it prepped. I open the door on my side of the cabin, then walk forward and a bit to the side of the horses. Ready and waiting for them to come into my range. Are they truly this inept to have not noticed us yet? How? Forget it, I decide, and start casting an imbuement. At the sluggish rate they are traveling, I might actually be able to finish the spell. Casting a spell ahead of time would be a nice change for me.

We have stepped far enough outside of the carriage to have a clear shot, but the orcs are still outside of our effective weapon range. My sling simply cannot make that kind of distance; even with the time it took to hatch a battle plan and move into position, they are still a solid 100 meters away. I really should make myself and Joaqim a crossbow, being able to fight more effectively and from a greater range would be worth detouring on the armor project. Especially since the first noteworthy milestone is so far away.

The Orcs have not registered that we are there yet, despite heading directly towards us. I lack the appropriate vision to understand what things look like through their eyes so that I can understand why they still have not recognized the horses and carriage or the people standing to the sides of it; I am left with nothing but an assumption that the sun is causing their eyes more pain than I would have expected and it is reducing their effective range of vision significantly more than anticipated. I almost wish we'd ran instead, maybe we had time after all… Or maybe this group of Orcs truly is just less alert than should be possible.

Another 50 or so seconds go by, before Regina sets loose her first arrow. As her preference is a long bow, she has the best range out of all of us. It strikes the Orc at the front of the column. He is the largest Orc present, and presumably he is the leader amongst the 3 leaders. It sticks into his chest but does not seem to cause much harm. It does, however, wake them up. Reginas second arrow follows closely on the heels of the first, and this time it digs into the Orc leaders throat, unleashing an unreasonably large spray of blood. There is no way someone on earth could take that shot and remain standing for more than a few seconds, much less be able to fight while they were bleeding so profusely. This guy though? He lifts is falchion high and roars, discharging another massive spray of blood in the process, and he begins to charge, with the rest of the Orcs following suit with their own roars before they too charge.

15 Orcs might not sound like a lot to some people, especially if they have read Wuxia novels, where being 1 level higher means that the MC can take on 10,000 enemies all in one go. This is not a Wuxia; unless there are some special magical shenanigans going on, a group of people being anywhere in the vicinity of your own level is enough to constitute a viable threat. If you're limited to conventional weaponry and tactics, being outnumbered nearly 4 to 1 is terrifying, doubly so when your survival relies on people like me, who would struggle to match even one of those 15, being able to take so many enemies down. The circumstances favor us greatly. All of the circumstances except strength and numbers, at least. We'll be lucky if any of us survive this, but we’ve collected all the advantages we can in the time we had. Nothing to do now but fight.