94. Night Fighting: Wiremu

Clearing the city wall was easy. I love this Granite Manipulation. It was easy to get to the Apprentice level, and Tāoke has learned it from me. When he is in his small form, he can make a hole big enough that he can fit into and then move rock from in front of himself to behind him and essentially move through rock. He runs out of energy quite quickly at the moment, but he can rest as long as he has enough air. It will get more energy efficient as the skill levels, and I can share energy with him through our bond if necessary. It will probably need to be at Journeyman level before I am able to make a crawl space for me to move through rock. Making small handholds up a city wall is child's play, and they are much less noticeable than the spikes I used to use.

Tabitha and I hit the bottom of the wall and took off toward the quarry. The quarry is a ten-minute wagon ride, so it is only a five-minute run. We are running fast, but we are also running carefully. There are enemies around. The ones we killed in the city had a blue bandana signifying a gang of some sort. Tabitha muttered something about Seadogs. If these ones are the same, it will be a sizable gang. Probably they will be a different group.

The fighting was finished when we arrived at the quarry. Every one of my traps at the front of the quarry had sprung. Some contained bodies, and others just had blood where the person was injured. The gates were smashed in, but it looks like Mayakku’s enchantments on the palisade wall stopped anyone from going over it. Hence they had to smash the gates. There were eight bodies at the gates. Two of them were our hired guards.

We entered the gate and froze. We didn’t freeze because of the mess, and it was a mess. We froze because Oske had his head down and was about to charge us.

“Hold on, Oske, it is us,” I yell. Fortunately, he heard me and raised his head. He had blood on his horns and hooves, but he also had some cuts in various places which were bleeding. I went over to him and looked, but they didn’t look too serious to me.

“Skavt will be out in the morning to look after you,” I said to him. “Thanks for your help and watching the gate.” He just snorted. I ran to catch up to Tabitha, who had headed toward the buildings. There were a lot of bodies, and one of them was caught in the branches of a tree. It must have been Oske. I recognised the bodies of another three of our hired guards.

I ran over to Tabitha, who had found Appā. When I saw him, I started to get really angry. He could barely sit from blood loss and only had one arm. Tabitha was asking about the others.

“Ilaiya got us enough warning that we got Am'mā, Anni and the kittens in the bolt hole. Ilaiya and Mutalil were escorting Mayakku there when they were attacked. We got a potion in Mutalil, and he will live, but Ilaiya was killed, and Mayakku was taken.” That talk seemed to exhaust him, and he lay back down.

I don’t think I have felt this angry since my village was raided. At that time, I went on the attack with little thought about my life. Yes, it was very similar. I shared a look with Tabitha, and she looked as mad as I was.

“I am sorry, Appā. We will get her back and avenge the losses.” I vowed.

I then saw Tāttā coming with two of our remaining guards. He was limping but seemed otherwise OK. He gave instructions to the two guards and then came toward us. We went to meet him.

“I am sorry we bought this on you, Tāttā.” Tabitha started.

“Ain’t your fault, lass. We knew it was risky when we signed up, seeing as how you defied the local Crime Boss. Poor Ilaiya will be missed, but it has been safer travelling with you than on our own. You will get my granddaughter back and make sure they pay, right?” He was angry and sad.

“Absolutely.” I said. “Tell us what happened and how many you think are left.”

Ilaiya provided a warning, but Mayakku was in her work wagon, which was enchanted against a lot of things, including privacy, so she didn’t hear anything. Ilaiya and Mutalil went and got her out and headed to the bolt hole when several rogue types attacked them. They were fast, and Ilaiya died straight away from a knife in the back. Mutalil managed to deflect the knife of his attacker and struck back but was stabbed by another rogue and left to bleed out. Mayakku was knocked unconscious and carried away. According to Tāttā, the only reason that any of them were still alive was because of Oske. He came rampaging through and caused such havoc they decided to retreat rather than stay to try to finish off everybody.

There was a group of five rogues that took Mayakku, and he estimated about half the attackers died there. They had counted twenty bodies so far. So there were about twenty warriors left and about five rogues. This had already been an expensive attack for them regarding human resources. With close to fifty people in this attack, it would be the entirety of their fighting force. I don’t think Tabitha had that many when she was a Crime Lord. Maybe she did, but it would certainly be the bulk of their forces. We were about to make it more expensive, and I sincerely hope the Canine Queens were doing the same in the city.

I stocked up on arrows, grabbed my spears and some potions and then Tabitha and I headed out. As far as my tracking could tell, the Rogues and the Warriors were headed in the same direction, which was toward the coast. We would need to catch them before they got on a boat. We were moving faster than they were.

After a half hour of running, we saw our first group of warriors. These were the wounded, going as fast as they could. We stopped to ask them politely where they were headed. Well, we were not that polite. Tāoke was excellent at persuading people to talk. He was over 6m in length now when he used the Grow Skill. They did indeed have a boat. They were a smuggling outfit operating from a ship anchored in a cove about four hours jog down the coast. Kidnap and kill jobs were not their usual work, but the coin was too good to pass up. Their First Mate was killed in the fight, but the Captain was up ahead. We didn’t leave any survivors behind us as we moved on.

We caught up to the back of the main group about an hour later. They were moving quite fast. They were strung out in a single file, and we moved up toward the front. A large warrior type was carrying Mayakku. And several rogues were near her, going by the light armour and knives. We then moved away to discuss our approach.

The priority was to get Mayakku away from them in one piece. The second priority was to give back more than was received. The first task was the hardest as Mayakku was surrounded by the fast, and probably the competent, portion of the group. If it wasn’t handled correctly, Mayakku would end up a hostage or dead.

We decided that Tāoke and I would be the distraction team and Tabitha and Nyx the rescue team. I was happy about that as I wanted to let out some anger and a fight is one way to do that. We moved ahead of the jogging column of kidnappers, and I set the two traps I had with me. While most of the column were part-time fighters, that would not apply to the front group around Mayakku. These would be the specialised group. We were aiming for a snatch-and-run scenario. If they split up, we could pick them off in small groups, but I think they were more intelligent than that.

Tāoke and I positioned ourselves and waited. The person leading the column had some perception skills as she spotted the traps and was about to call a warning, so I put an arrow in her throat. This didn’t kill her, and she dived off to the side. She was severely wounded and would potentially bleed out. It was a physical arrow, not a Venom one, so she may live, but she should be out of this fight. The guy behind her saw what happened and yelled and ducked. The venom arrow clipped his shoulder. The next guy dived to the right, and my physical arrow hit the one after him, but I don’t think it penetrated his armour. Only two were wounded from a surprise attack, quite a poor showing, but I am against higher-level people with better perception and reactions.

I saw Tāoke drop from a tree onto a person when Engulfing Shadows hit. There was a yell to “Pair up” as I approached with my spear. I went for a Power Strike with my spear, and again they moved, and It was a glancing hit. It did draw blood and was imbued with Venom. I immediately had to deflect a sword strike with my spear, and the wooden shaft was cut. This was one of the spears where I had used Petrify on the core of it, so the sword cut didn’t penetrate far. The Swordsman's partner was trying to flank me, and I threw a dart, but he deflected it off his shield. It was my bad luck to engage two sword and shield warriors.

There was yelling further down the line, so I assume Tabitha was making a move. I yelled to bring attention here and fainted a stab and the first swordsman before darting at the other with a stone knife in my other hand. He had taken my faint at his partner to try to skewer me with his sword. My sudden movement meant he sliced rather than skewered, but his slice cut my leather armour and Snakeskin, drawing blood. I am still missing the Troll armour I used to have. It would not have gotten through that. My attack with the knife was more successful, and I left it embedded in his shoulder while I put both hands back on my spear to fend off his mate, who had come aggressively onto the attack.

I had to back up from his skilful sword and shield combo as I tried to regain control of this fight. Then I got backstabbed by a rogue. If I didn’t have Granite Bones, I would be dead. The knife penetrated my Armour and went between two ribs, but my sudden movement meant my bones broke the thin blade. I struck them hard with the butt of my spear, and they went down. I now had a broken knife blade embedded in my back which was quite painful. I stepped to the side as the downed rogue tried to slice my tendons, all the while still fending off the swordsman.

Tāoke came to my rescue and injected the rogue with venom, but he got knifed for his trouble. The Swordsman was bleeding from several cuts from where my spear had got past his defence, mostly due to my Quick Strike Skill. He was stubbornly staying on the offensive. I figured that his Physical Constitution was well up there, so it would take a lot more of my Imbued Venom to affect him. It was time to disengage and run.

The plan was for Nyx to hold the Engulfing Shadows while Tabitha did whatever she needed to grab Mayakku and get out. Nyx would then continue to hold it until Tāoke and I disengaged. She should also be syphoning energy which would be increasing the energy cost whenever the higher tired skills are being used. It didn’t stop someone from being a very skilled swordsman. Then he hit me with a skilled Shield Bash, and I flew backwards. My Physical Agility meant I could control my landing to some extent, but he didn’t stop there. He chained his Skills immediately, moving into a Shield Charge. I planted the butt of my spear in the ground, hoping he would impale himself on it like a pike, but his shield hit it, and even my Petrified enforced spear couldn’t last against it, and it broke. It meant he lost the charge's momentum, and he now had a spear point penetrating through his shield. But he didn’t let up and kept coming at me.

I must have attacked one of their best. They would have killed Oske and everyone else if they had all been like this. I could feel Tāoke had gone into hiding. I think the cut from the rogue must have been quite bad. I barely had time to grab a knife and parry the swordsman's next strike. I moved back again, trying to create some space, but he kept coming. This is where I needed something like Tāoke’s Spit Venom because I am outclassed in weapon skills. I surprised him with Granite Spikes and then threw my knife, piercing his arm, and then I took off into the bush. This was not a very successful ambush. I hoped Tabitha was successful.