145 Rearguard

Clashes of steel and iron rang out among the trees where two groups were fighting. On one side were men and woman dressed in simple woven tunics and trousers while the other group was soldiers in blue coats and plate mail. Grunts and curses accompanied each swing and stab of the sword as both sides fought to overwhelm each other.

Tyrier flung a ball of fire into a group of soldiers who raised their shields to block only to get their shields shattered away and bones breaking from the explosion. He parried a swing from another blue coated soldier and hammered his dull blade onto the armored pauldron of his opponent, barely denting it. But it made his opponent curse in pain and Tyrier smashed the half helm of the soldier with a reverse slash, sending the shocked soldier tumbling over the forest undergrowth.

"Goddammit it!" Tyrier dropped his blunt and bent blade and quickly drew his Glock out and fired at the fallen soldier. He stepped back from the fight and took a quick check around his surroundings, taking note of his own guys and he fired at the blue coated soldiers who were overwhelming the armed slaves.

Tyrier took a quick breather, and reholstered his pistol before grabbing an abandoned ax spear from the ground and charged at one of the enemies who was engaged with a couple of slaves. He rammed the spear with all his body weight into the side of the unaware soldier, the edged tip punching through the side plate mail leather covers and into the guts, citing a dying scream from the soldier.

He pulled out and swiped the spear around, giving some breathing space for the two clearly exhausted and wounded slaves. The fighting had been brutal and dirty, the trees had forced the fighting into pockets of small conflicts. The remaining two Empire soldiers stared out with hate-filled eyes from the eye slits of their helms at Tyrier as he kept the spear between them.

Tyrier sighed and suddenly reversed the spear and stabbing it into the ground before whipping out his pistol and gave each of the surprised soldiers a shot each before picking up his spear again. "Grab their shields and replace any swords or weapons with dulled edges!" He instructed the two slaves behind him, "Quickly now!"

The two winded slaves quickly dashed forward and grabbed the fallen weapons and equipment on the ground, while Tyrier kept a watch around them. "GET DOWN!" He suddenly yelled when he felt goosebumps rising on his skin and he dropped flat.

The two slaves were slower and they paused, turning to see what was the problem when a dozen bolts of energy blew up the area around them. Tyrier rolled away to the side until he reached the cover of a tree root while the area he was before was smoking and bits of bark and flesh rained down.

As the smoke cleared, both the slaves were down, parts of their body missing and smoldering from the effect of the spells. "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" A childish girlish voice was heard laughing, "Die you, evil man! Know the power of I, Liz the greatest mage ever!" A petite sized girl appeared several meters away, perched on top of a tree root. She waved her staff and posed, all the while laughing to herself.

"What the... fark?" Tyrier peeked over the side and saw the scene, "Damn kid is crazy!"

He turned back into cover and unslung his M2, and slowly leaned out while prone, placing his rifle sights at the crazy girl who had started chanting and preparing to cast spells. He lined up the rear and front sights directly at the center of mass and squeezed the trigger twice. The painful slam of the rifle butt against his shoulder felt comforting, like an old friend.

Both bullets slammed into the girl mage, the impacts barely shattered her magic shields but was enough to break her concentration of her spells and also it knocked her off the tree. "Ahhhhhhh!"

"Crazy bitch!" Tyrier spat, "Eat lead!" He quickly rosed from his position and weaved through the trees, "Fall back. fall back!" The Hero's party members have started to show their powers, it would mean that the Hero will act soon. "Come on people! BACK!"

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UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

"---more One, ----est re--for--ent unde- ---tack by her- and emp-- forc-s" A choppy transmission burst was broadcasted into the headphones of the radio operator. "Repea-, nee- sup---t now!"

"XO!" The radio operator yelled out, urgently waving for Commander Ford to come over. "I am picking up a transmission with Claymore One identifier. The signal is very gabbled up but it will appear that they are in trouble."

"Let me hear," Ford leaned over the comms panel and held the offered headset to his ear, listening to the playback. "Shit. Get me the Captain, Commander Tommyand Major Frank on the line now, put it on the command chair."

"Yes, sir!" The female operator quickly punched in the call to the Captain and the Airforce and Marine commanders to the command chair of the bridge which Ford quickly sat on.

"Captain!" Ford greeted Blake and gave a nod to Tommy and Frank when they all log in to the call. "Got a situation again. Claymore One appeared to be under attack, permission to engage retrieval protocols?"

Blake nodded, "Do it, I will be in my office in..." He glanced at the digital timer on the side, "10 minutes. Brief me what's going on there. Tommy prep the birds, Frank get your boys loaded and ready to move."

"Yes sir!" The men acknowledged the order and left the chat.

-----

Sawtooth Mountain Airbase, Valkyrie Hanger One

The old support base was rebuilt and refurbished to be an Airbase for the planes, dragons, and Airforce.Inside the brightly lit hanger, a single boxy looking craft was nested on its four landing gears, and a large crew of technicians, elves, humans, and even a few goblins dress in a various color-coded vest over work overalls swarmed the craft.

"Come on!" Chief Gale yelled at his crew as they serviced the craft, "Move those asses of yours, load up the extra fuel canisters, remove all the external armor plating!" He stood over the crew as they labored with powered tools, unbolting huge plates of armor plating from the bird.

Two goblins wearing oversized ear mufflers, a black hockey like helmet, and a green vest over their kid-sized overalls, pushed a trolley ladened with a massive fuel tank pod. They both eagerly scampered across the hanger and parked the trolley at the color coded box drawn on the floor, handing over to the crew with a yellow vest.

Chief Gale kept a wary eye on the goblins as they scampered back happily to the elevators that lead to underground storage to pick up the second load of fuel tanks. Shaking his head, "Damn, never would I thought that I will have goblins under my watch."

"Chief!" Flight Lieutenant Peter walked into the hanger, with his flight helmet held roguishly at his side. "How's everything?"

"So far so good," Chief Gale replied, "Just that those goblins give me the creeps." He unconsciously patted his sidearm to make use it is there.

"But I heard they are pretty handy on maintenance," Peter said as he watched two goblins giggling away as they push a fuel pod out from the elevator. "They seem so happy and eager too."

"Yea, I just hope they don't turn on us," Chief Gale frowned. "Those creatures seemed to worship technology. They have been praying to the planes, calling it some kind of Machine God..." He rubbed his head as a headache sudden threaten to pop out. "Gods, I am getting too old for this shit."

"Hahahaha," Peter laughed cheerfully, "I still remember when they first saw the Valkyrie, they all bow down and prayed, and later they found out that your the 'Chief' of all the planes, they started to worship you as the chosen one of the Machine Gods! Hahahahahaha!"

"Not funny, Lieutenant," Chief Gale rolled his eyes, "Not funny at all."

"Great Chief Gale!" The two goblins skipped over and saluted, "We complete great mission! Need more mission?"

"Ahh..." Chief Gale sighed, "Once the fuel pods are loaded, return the trollies back."

"Yes! Great Chief!" They gave a salute again, and ran off happily, "Mission accepted!"

Peter laughed again and gave a salute to Gale as he half jogged to his bird while mimicking the voice of the goblins, "Great Chief Gale, I go for mission now!"

"Asshole..." Chief Gale cursed at the back of the laughing Peter. "Damn, I hate goblins..."

-----

Uncharted Forest, 469 km from Sawtooth Mouth Pass

Kaga panted hard as she helped to support one of the injured slaves as they half ran in the forest. She kept her eyes on the back of the mercenary with his strange weapons and ignored the pain from healed blisters from opening again. Only two of the mercenaries were with them while the rest were at the rear selling their lives for them to escape.

Suddenly the mercenary at the front stopped in his tracks and raised a clenched fist. Kage was confused but she stopped as she watched the mercenary turned his head left and right as if he had sensed something. She was about to ask when the mercenary suddenly spun to the right and brought up his strange metal wand and thunder and fire erupted from the tip of it.

Despite witnessing the effects of the strange magic weapon they were carrying, the loudness and suddenness were still shocking to everyone, including Kaga. She flinched and instinctively ducked down, but her eyes never left the mercenary as he continued to cast spell after spell with the thunder stick of his.

-----

Doth jerked to the right just as he sensed an intense killing aura from his right. He smoothly raised his M2 and fired at the glow that was approaching, and saw sparks exploding off a magic shield. "Damn! Is that the Hero?" He cursed his luck but he held his ground. "Young! We got company!"

He tracked the inhumanly fast movement of the glowing Hero, firing at him as he weaved in and out of the trees for cover. Despite that Doth's majority of his shots managed to hit the Hero, forcing his speed to drop as the force of the bullets stunned him slightly.

"Son of a Bitch!" Doth yelled as he stepped back while firing at the rapidly closing Hero. Suddenly he felt a chill, a premonition of death behind him and his instincts told him to duck. He dropped to the side just as a silver slash came from behind. "Fark you!" He crashed down on to the undergrowth just as someone attempted to backstab him.

His left shoulder took the brunt of the attack and bleeding, but he ignored the pain and turned his M2 to the attacker and fired blank point.

-----

Stab cursed as his rapier missed his target, only managing to inflict a cut on the guard's shoulder. He was very curious of the weapons the guards were using and knew that these were the rebels that had signed some pact with demons to possess such powerful artifacts. He knew that they are very dangerous, that was why he and the Hero decided to attack from both sides.

With the glow of the Hero as a distraction, he would slip into the shadows and reappear behind the guards to backstab them while they are distracted by the Hero. But he did not expect to be noticed! He had erased all of his presence but how did he got found out?

Just as those thoughts were racing in his mind, the guard rolled over and pointed the thunder stick artifact at him, and the world turned into flames and thunder.

-----

Doth emptied his remaining magazine into the slim bony looking male, his shots unable to miss due to the very short distance. He saw the bloody body tumbled down as the protection spells on him failed and the bullets ripped through the assassin.

"How you like that? Bitch?"