Well, I knew that I would have a fight on my hands when I saw the two orcs. I was hoping for this outcome. Splitting the orcs and fighting only one of them at a time. I wasn’t counting on the orc being so much more powerful than I was.

If I had, I would have made the call to have both of us climb out. Abandon everything and run. As it was, that option was taken from me when I threw an overcharged mana stone at them.

Yeah, this impending doom was squarely on my shoulders, with nothing to do but try to meet it head-on. I had in my favor that I was already armed and that the orc would have to climb up to get me.

I yelled as loud as I could, “Lannah we have an orc charging us! Might could use your help!”

While I would have liked to have met the orc on the edge and tried to fight him from above, I was worried about the other two spell casters down below. However, I felt that it was worth the risk to at least take one shot at the orc as he came up.

I knew where the orc was going to have to come to make the ascent to my home. So I fished the runes for fire rain out of my hip bag and dropped a 30-point rain right over his climb.

I couldn’t see him because of the angles of sight. However, I could hear his bellowing war cry turn into more of a scream of anguish. I hoped that it would have slowed him down or, even better yet, turned him around; however, if anything, he sped up.

I snagged my staff from the ground where I had laid it before throwing my stone. Then, I readied myself for the orc’s arrival. I knew where he should pop up. What I wasn’t expecting however, was the way he came up.

I was a reasonable person and felt that climbing a 10-foot section of wall was the normal thing to do. However, this was an orc who was enraged and so not reasonable at all.

So when I saw him shoot up from the edge of the cliff like Hulk jumping, I knew that I would have even more problems. Nevertheless, I was committed to my plan and executed it because I hadn’t considered any backup plans.

I charged forward as soon as the orc landed with my staff fully charged with a fire strike. My staff made contact with the orc, and I tipped him back. Unfortunately, he had a much firmer stance than I had hoped, and while I hit him with my charge, it wasn’t with enough force to knock him over.

My two attacks which I was hoping would have rendered the orc down, had done nothing more it seemed to make him want to kill me more.

His exposed skin blistered from the fire rain. There was a charred spot in the center of his chest where I hit him with my staff. However, my eyes were more drawn to the mace, which was now crashing down at my head.

I tried to react in time. However, I wasn’t mentally ready to have to defend myself from an attack. I had thought that I would be able to knock the guy off the cliff. So I did the only thing I thought I could do, which was to move my head to the side and try to get inside the arc.

I took the mace like a chump to my right shoulder and felt pain flare down my spine. My knees went out as I saw about half of my health vanish in an instant.

I fell right between his feet and heard him bellow again. Then I saw him freeze with a seax sticking out of his arm and Lannah in her athletic wear.

I felt my automatic healing from my weighted skirt kick in, and I saw my health return to normal. The debuffs cleared out as I shook my head and started to try to get my feet under myself again.

Lannah glanced down at me as I saw her stab the guy again and again. There was blood splattering everywhere. The orc was just standing there. Not a sound but her stabbing the arm.

I got to my feet as fast as possible and hit the orc’s stationary body right in the neck with a fire strike. I watched as his neck caved in and flame-licked around the opening of his crushed trachea.

As he fell, Lannah followed up to his body, still stabbing in the same arm and crying and yelling. I reached out and grabbed her other arm and pulled her off the orc.

“Lannah, he’s dead,” I said loudly.

She turned toward me with anger and fear and then wrapped her arms around me. Lannah started to cry as she hugged me, letting the seax fall to the ground.

The fire rain still was falling, and the other orc was yelling at the goblins now. This was going to be a mess.

“Lannah, we need to move out of sight, so the casters don’t get us.”

She just clung to me, crying. I turned and started to drag her back away from the cliff as fast as possible. I wasn’t sure if the other orc was going to attack right now or send all the goblins in. All I knew was I was half dead, and Lannah was a mess.

I got her to the fire and sat her down in the chair. She was bawling with snot, hyperventilating, and the whole 9 yards. I tried to step back from her so that I could grab the seax, but she clung to my leg.

In between her crying, she was trying to talk, “I… dead… don’t… orc….” Unfortunately, it was hard to make out most of what she was trying to say as she was breathing too hard, and she had her face buried in my leg.

“Lannah, you got to get ahold of yourself. I don’t know what going on but I need to go grab the knife you dropped. You saved me and now we have to be ready again. If they come now we are going to have to retreat to the storage room.”

I worked for a moment to pull myself off of Lannah. Then, I made my way back to the dead orc. As I got close, I dropped into a low crawl so that I wouldn’t be a target.

I snagged the knife and looked over the cliff at the goblin camp. I saw that several of them were running back downriver. The orc was standing in the middle of the camp, yelling at them and kicking those who didn’t move fast enough.

I saw him yell at a group of gremlins, and they all scurried off to do whatever he told them to do. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, one passed too close, and he booted it about eight feet.

There was clearly a hierarchy. However, it was maintained through brutality and not leadership. The gremlin that the orc had kicked didn’t get back up. It either died when kicked or when it landed.

I moved back to camp. I knew that I would have to attack soon, or they would take us out. I checked on my bond with Lannah and saw that she only had 40 mana left after that battle.

She hadn’t been full when I started everything off, and now she was even lower. I had ten mana left and 10 in my skirt, which meant that I could pull a single fire rain. I would need her safe first, and then I was going to make my attack.

Five steps later, I was at my camp. “It’s time. I know this isn’t fun and I wished that we would have more time but I need to attack now. So lets get you into the storage room.”

Lannah stood up; as she did, the yoga pants morphed into the dress she had always worn. She staggered a bit as she was regaining her bearing. She took a deep breath and looked at me. “I am not sure now is the best time to attack because of how low my mana is but it might be the best time for you to make your climb. Let’s get me sealed up. If so long as they don’t have an earth mage I should be safe till you get back. Even if they do I will be safer than if I stay out here.”

“If I can wait the attack until you are fully charged I will but if something happens I will just do what I can. My goal is to try to take out the other orc. If you hadn’t attacked when you did then I wouldn’t be alive. Thank you.”

Lannah gave me a slight smile and turned slowly toward the storage room. As she walked off, I grabbed the sleeping fur from the lean-to and followed her to the storage room.

It says a lot about a guy’s brain when you can appreciate the beauty of a women walking away after having a fight with an orc. The thing it says would be that I was overwhelmed with what was happening, and I was grasping for straws as I thought this might be the last person I ever saw.

“Take the sleeping fur it might help make the wait a bit more comfortable.”

Lannah took the fur from me and then hugged me tightly. “Come back for me please.”

I smiled with a great show of bravado. I chuckled. “That’s the plan. Now let’s get this sealed up and I will make my climb.”