“Interesting spell, human,” the gigantic Orakh’s voice filled the chamber, overwhelming the sound of Dan’s soldiers fighting the monstrous creature’s minions. “Was that elven spell artillery?”
“It was a Railgun,” Dan frowned as he turned to face the creature, uncomfortable talking so casually with it, but content to use the conversation to recharge his mana. “I accelerated a ball of metal very fast with magic.”
“Ah.” the hordelord nodded its great bulbous head, a knowing look on its misformed features. “Like the slings used by the half-men. They swing them over their head and release rocks at great speed.”
Dan cocked his head to the side, trying to make sense of the strangely talkative Orakh. It was taller than him, almost three times his height, and covered in bulging muscles. In its hand was a glaive almost as oversized as the monster. The head, made of a dark, yet shiny metal, was almost the size of Dan’s torso.
As for the creature itself, it was almost topless, wearing only a cape crafted from what appeared to be silk. The fabric was covered in scenes of battle, Orakh triumphing over elves, humans, and what appeared to be smaller humans, all interwoven with crude versions of runes. Clearly, the article of clothing was enchanted, but Dan had a nagging suspicion that the creature selected it because it showed off its impressive physique.
Other than the cape, all it wore was a set of familiar gauntlets and simple breeches. Without even looking that closely, Dan knew that the gauntlets were inscribed with crude spell runes. Even if the Orakh itself couldn’t cast, the gauntlets would solve that problem for it, albeit in a mana-inefficient way.
“Half-men?” Dan asked, fishing for information as he tried to recover from his battle with Merella. “Do you mean dwarves? I’ve read about them, but we haven’t met them yet.”
The Orakh scowled. “Not the bearded ones. Their machines of steam and gears are no fun to smash and destroy. By the time you bash your way through their traps and get to the center of their lairs, most of the time, they’re already gone.
“No!” Its expression brightened. “The half men didn’t have many planets. All rolling plains. They lived underground and cast magic by singing songs rather than elven spells. When we attacked, they swung stones over their head and hit our warriors. They stung, a couple even died.
“They were delicious.” A dreamy look settled over the Orakh’s face. “All you needed was a little rosemary, sea salt, and a spit. You just needed to chop their feet off before roasting them on an open fire. The hair ruins the flavor and interferes with the spices.”
“Halfings?” Dan gagged slightly. “You ate halflings? The Tellask never wrote anything about halflings!”
“They were our nearest neighbors.” The Orakh shrugged, still smiling. “We met them before they met the elves. I think we ate them all before the elves contacted them. A shame. They taste a lot better than elf. The arrogance and stringiness dry them out. There’s no depth to the flavor.”
“You killed them all/” Dan spoke softly, shaking his head. “Just like that, you exterminated them.”
Garnash hefted his glaive. “It’s what the Horde does. Luckily, human tastes a lot better than elf. At least you put some meat on your bones. It keeps you nice and juicy.”
“Before we do this,” Dan interjected, trying to control his bile. As much as banter with the monster made him sick, he needed to draw it out. The conversation was an invaluable opportunity to gain more information, and it gave Dan more time to recover his depleted mana.
“Why were you working with Merella?” he asked, sword in hand but pointed partially at the ground. “You flat-out admitted that you were planning on eating her if she won. Why ally yourself with her if your plan is just to betray her?”
The Orakh shrugged. “I plan on eating you, too. But, as for the elf? It amused me. The elves always brag about how much smarter they are than the Orakh, but what good is all of that flashy magic and brain power in my gut? She was helpful in trapping you, human. She hated you so much she didn’t even make an attempt to escape. I lost nothing by eating her last.”
“Trapping me?” Dan frowned. “We fought our way in, killing tens of thousands of Orakh. Right now, we’re fighting in your throne room. My guards and yours are evenly matched, and I’m about to engage you in single combat, just like I wanted. I don’t really feel trapped?”
“That’s what the dead elf said you’d think,” the Orakh chuckled, raising a hand into the air. A rune glowed on his gauntlet as mana flowed into it. “She said your forces were the only ones that could use magic. That you’d be the only ones who could stop me. She said that, if I showed too much power, you’d spend months preparing yourself and sacrifice this entire city to me in order to stop me once and for all.
“You killed tens of thousands of Orakh.” Garnash grunted as a spray of light emitted from its gauntlet displaying an image of the clearing outside the landing craft. “But we are hundreds of thousands. Where one falls, ten replace it. By acting weak, we draw you into the center of our domain. Once you are too far from your reinforcements, we attack you with our entire army.”
The Orakh’s face screwed up in concentration. Another rune began to glow on its gauntlet. Orakh began to pour from nearby buildings, charging through withering fire toward William’s forces.
Dan frowned. His men were outnumbered heavily, but they were in fortified positions with clear fields of fire. They could account for many times their number.
Of course, the Orakh seemed more than content to test his theory. Eventually, people would begin to slip, and ammunition would start to run low. Each Orakh warrior took a distressing number of rifle shots or irreplaceable fifty-caliber ammunition to take down.
“The elf said that I should show you this.” Garnash grinned at him, jagged teeth poking out from the giant monster’s uneven mouth. “That I should let you know that every minute you spend in the bowels of this ship is purchased at the cost of your own troops. We can talk all you want. You can regain all the mana you want, but you’re wasting your warriors by doing so.”
Dan gritted his teeth and ignited his sword. The Orakh slammed the butt of his glaive against the throne room floor.
“That’s the look I like to see!” the creature boomed happily. “Determination, desperation. I didn’t understand why the elf told me to say that, but it was the right choice. Your panic will flavor your flesh and weaken you in combat. She was smart, for food.”
Dan rushed toward the Orakh, his physical runes at maximum and his spellshield fully charged. With each step, he kept his eyes on the hulking monster, ready to activate his temporal rune at a moment’s notice.
It smiled, closing its gauntlet and ending the images of the battle outside. Garnash pointed at Dan and uttered a word in a harsh and foreign tongue.
A rune glowed on the gauntlet, and Dan jerked to a halt, the force of his stop knocking the wind out of him. Barely visible ringing his spellshield was a band of force compressing around him like an anaconda.
“You fight like an elf, human.” Garnash lifted his glaive high, black lightning crackling around its head. “And I’ve killed a lot of elves. All tricks, magic, and speed, until they run out of mana or take a misstep. Behind your spellshield, you’re weak.”
Garnash spat on the floor, a great greenish black glob of something unspeakable that hissed as the chemicals in it interacted with the metal.
“You’re pink paste,” the Orakh continued, shifting his glaive into a ready position, the arcs of mana around it flickering faster as they played up and down its length. “Wobbly and ineffectual. One solid hit, and you’re done, shattered into a dozen pieces, all just as weak.”
The glaive fell, its blade crashing into Dan’s spellshield. His head exploded into agony as bolts of electricity flickered and launched themselves around the room. Wherever they struck, they scoured deep holes in the solid stone.
With the crash of a breaking window, the spellshield shattered. Dan activated the temporal rune. Almost at a glacial pace, he watched the circle of force begin to contract around him. He jumped into the air, the force of his physical runes combined with his instinctive use of Gravitational Easing launching him almost to the ceiling.
He launched two Lightning Strokes, landing both of them on the Orakh’s unarmored torso before he reached the apex of his arc, where Dan landed on a force bubble. Garnash just laughed, the rune for electricity glowing on his cape.
The Orakh amended its earlier assessment. “Fine. You fight like a skilled elf. The spellshields of most wouldn’t have survived half as long, and your reflexes are superb.
“You still rely on agility.” Garnash shrugged, almost apologetically. “I just need to catch you in the ring and stab you. Without your ability to dodge, you’re too small and poorly armored to survive a full-force blow. In the meantime, feel free to pepper me with your elemental magics. I am a true warrior. My cloak and skin will absorb the worst you can throw at me. It is only a matter of time before my binding rings find you and end this farce.”
Dan frowned. Garnash had a point. His spellshield barely stopped the glave blow at full energy, and it would take some time to transfer more mana into it. If the Orakh could actually pin him down, two blows would finish him on the best of days. Right now? One would probably cripple him.
The giant Orakh pointed his glaive directly at Dan and let a blast of black lighting loose at him. Dan simply let himself drop, barely noting as the energy annihilated his force bubble.
While he fell, Dan fired a Forcebolt into the giant creature. It impacted on a muscular thigh with a hollow thud, drawing little more than a glance from Garnash.
Still, Dan smiled. No rune lit up in response to force magic. The cape seemed to protect the monster from elemental attacks, but physical blows would still damage it.
He looked the musclebound behemoth up and down. Technically. It would take a lot of physical damage to actually seriously harm something with Garnash’s herculean physique.
“Don’t act like you’ve found my weakness, human.” Garnash pointed his gauntlet at Dan, drawing another panicked dodge as a translucent band appeared where he’d just stood. “If you want to get close enough to exchange blows, you can try to hurt me. I invite the attempt, and I will celebrate your bravery as I drink from your skull. Close combat between a human and a hordelord is more foolish than the elf trusting me not to eat her.”
Dan took in a deep breath, his eyes on the gigantic being’s grin and bulging muscles. There was some truth to his words, but at the same time, if Dan got close enough, the Orakh wouldn’t be able to use its unwieldy glaive. Of course, at that range, elbows and knees would be as deadly as a sword or spear.
Still, his only other option was to stand at range, lobbing spells the Orakh could more or less ignore until it captured him with the ring or blasted him with lightning. Theoretically, if he could hit it with Railgun, that would probably do the trick, but Dan strongly suspected that any attempt would end quickly as he was immobilized and electrocuted by the hordelord.
“Remember, human.” The Orakh raised its hand, projecting the battle once more. “Even as you stand there contemplating your own folly, your soldiers die.”
Dan’s mouth turned into a bitter line as he watched William, standing atop a tank in his power armor, blasting flames from one arm as he fired round after round from the other. He wasn’t sure what the older man was trying to do. The tank was isolated from the rest of the battle line, which seemed to have fallen back at some point under the constant assault from the Orakh.
Even as Dan watched, a reaper flew overhead, banking to the side to avoid a giant blast of light from a crystal mounted on the top of the landing craft. It launched a volley of missiles into the mass of Orakh bodies, killing hundreds, but failing to even dent their advance.
An axe struck William’s leg, failing to penetrate the armor, but knocking the man off-balance. The power suit went down in a heap on top of the tank, flamethrower spinning in a circle as the downed man tried to force the mob back. One monster after another climbed atop the tank, pinning the powerful armor with the weight of their bodies as axes began to rise and fall.
Dan’s worry and confusion vanished as a cold breath of clarity ran down his spine. He was out of time. The entire battle had been fought on the palm of Garnash’s scarred hand. Every action of his had been foretold and countered.
If he was going to win, he’d need to change things. Throw sand in the gears of Merella’s plans and force the Orakh to go off-script. He smiled, an unpleasant thing.
“You’re right, Garnash.” He cocked his head at his foe. “Right here, I can’t defeat you. I’ll see you in a minute.”
The Orakh looked at him in confusion for a second as Dan made a dash for the open pit where his previous Railgun shot had blown a hole into the brood chamber. Realization flashed across its face.
“Protect the eggs!” Its shout was accompanied by a line of black lightning from the glaive, but it was too late.
Dan had already jumped, and with a puff of Gravitational Easing, he was gone.
