Chapter Twenty: More Courage to Live

Chapter Twenty: More Courage to Live

Tom stood tall, orienting himself, rubbing his thumb across one of the stones. Then he pulled back and threw. The stone flew like an arrow, and immediately he sent the second, and the third, winging after it.

A moment later, he was rewarded with two hollow sounding crunches. A high, angry whining filled the clearing immediately after. It set Toms teeth on edge, made him want to scratch at his ears. A huge, seething black cloud rose into the air, flowing back and forth, contracting and expanding, almost like a school of fish. It began sweeping down into the grass.

The orcs' excitement turned to confusion, to surprise, then to rage. Toms eyes flicked to his wisp when they could as he ran. They knew theyd been tricked, and they were furious.

To begin with, he caught glimpses of, Tricky dog! Biting flies cannot stop us! Run him down! But their tunes quickly changed when they realised the wasps would not simply give up, and they could not simply endure them.

Pained yelps and whines began to dominate their bestial discourse. A thread of near-panic began to wind its way in. Within a couple of minutes, they had lost all thoughts of chasing Tom, and were desperately trying to find a solution to their bug problem.

Water! I hear water! his wisp translated for him.

Tom grinned wide as he ran onwards.

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Tom ran for days more. Or maybe a week. It must have been another week. He was sure of it. He wasnt sure at all - it had to have been a week! He was starting to break down. As much as he had found he enjoyed surviving in the wild, being relentlessly pursued by monsters for a month was more than he could handle.

Unfortunately, his stunt with the wasps didnt put an end to the chase. It was less than a day later that he heard his pursuers again. This time, they sounded angry. Furious. Totally and utterly beyond reason.Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

Even with his fall of Ideals now, he was only just managing to keep ahead of them. They must be driving themselves to exhaustion for him, just as he was driving himself to exhaustion to escape.

But Tom was close to freedom. He felt like hed been running for years, running endlessly. He must be close.

Any day, any moment, Ill hit one of the trade roads. Ill look up, and see houses and smoke through the trees, villagers working their crops he thought.

It was a fantasy. He hadnt a clue how close he was, except that hed been alone and endlessly pursued. But it kept him going. The thought of safety, of not sleeping lightly, of returning to Wayrest triumphant, spurred him on.

He dared not lay in wait again. With the orcs bearing down on him like a forest fire, he hadnt the time to set up any elaborate ambushes, and with his trail so obvious they would come down on him in a single pack.

So he kept running. Through trees, up slopes, down gullies, through ravines, wending along switchbacks, navigating past escarpments, pushing through brush, shoving through vines, hacking through creatures, running, running, running. Desperate. Exhausted.

Several times he stopped to lay a hasty trap in a choice spot. Rubbing a bit of poisonous mushroom on a jagged rock in a narrow alleyway, the only way up a steep ridge. Leading a trail right up to a musky den, close as he dared, before backtracking and circling around it using trees, then dropping back to the floor and running on. Finding a small ford in a river, quickly returning to the corpse of a large snake hed killed not ten minutes earlier and dragging it back with him, leaving it there, hoping it would attract some larger predator to the crossing. Any desperate, half-baked idea he could think of. Anything he could do quickly.

Nothing worked. He hadnt slept in days. Always, the orcs came on.

~~~~~~~~~~

On a sunny afternoon, running through dappled sunlight and dancing sunbeams, Tom began to slow. His legs and lungs burning, he stopped. Orcs screaming with glee not minutes behind him, he turned. Stomach roiling and hands sweaty, he unsheathed his sword.

He was at the end of himself. He couldnt run any longer, and he refused to hide. Here he would fight, one last time.

He looked around, curious, calm. Oaks stretched into the canopy, their thick brown trunks solid and reassuring. Motes of vegetation marched lazily through sunbeams in endless streams. A bush replete with bright red flowers sat against a nearby birch tree, looking incongruously cheerful. A small bird swooped by to snap an insect from the air before flitting away again.

Hush.

The orcs eyes widened in shock. The chains of mana holding Tom stuttered and disappeared. It twisted its head, trying to give an order to its fellows, but its voice would not obey it. It realised its error a second too late.

Tom lunged forward, sword leading. Its point sunk deep into the leaders shoulder. He withdrew it as the orc stumbled backwards, and moved forward to thrust again, but the leader brought Markharts hammer around in a whirl and deflected the attack. The speed of the simple parry spoke of incredible strength. The hammer was not light.

The leader snarled at him, drawing the hammer out wide and low to its side. It gestured curtly to its pack, and they fell back to surround them.

Tom had to end this quickly. The Silence debuff would only last so long, and as soon as it lifted, the orc would be able to trap him again. Another brief moment of paralysis would be all it needed to kill him.

The orc tensed its legs, and as it did, Tom took his chance.

He leapt forwards, feinting a thrust at its face, even as he slipped to the side to avoid the telegraphed hammer blow. Toms sword flashed down, leaving the orc with a vicious cut to its hip, then danced backwards out of range of the counter attack. He felt the wind stir his hair as several pounds of heavy steel flashed past his face.

Once again, they separated, waiting.

A decade of combat training gave Tom the advantage here. For all the orcs bestial strength, it fought more similarly to a beast than a person, with more ferocity than calculation.

Tom lunged forward again as the minute adjustments in its stance spoke of it gathering itself for another assault. Faster than ever, his blade flicked out, the point finding the soft meat of its bicep.

It howled with rage, unsettling in its quietude, dragging the hammer in a lethal arc set to shatter his chest. But Tom was faster, and he slid back with the liquid grace of long training, the wind whistling as the hammer failed to meet flesh once again. His sword flicked out lightly, and the massive orc took another deep cut to its thigh. It staggered back, pure, animal hatred radiating from its gaze.

Possibilities spun out in his minds eye. Countless hours of training, of drilling, of practice - he could see what he needed to do.

As Tom sought to close the distance, to end this, swinging for its neck, he caught movement in his peripheral vision and rolled to his side. A Wayrest-made spear stabbed through the space he had just occupied. The rest of the pack had had enough waiting. Another stepped between Tom and its chief.

Agony, you fucker, Tom spat at the leader as it sank back, allowing its comrades to fill the gap. It gave a noiseless gasp of pain as it retreated, rusty brown blood flowing freely from its wounds.

The next orc swung a captured spear at him like a club. Tom slipped around it easily and chopped at the arm holding it. It bit deep into the limb, but the blade got lodged in the bone. The orc squealed with pain and knocked him as it flailed away.

Weaponless, exhausted, Tom still stood his ground. Another orc charged him. His wisp pulsed pink again as his skill came off cooldown.

Agony, he snarled again, but pain alone wasnt enough to stop its charge. It slammed him to the ground for the third time, and spikes of pain shot through his ribs.

A great ache bloomed in his chest as he struggled to draw breath and couldnt. The weight of the orc atop him made sure of it. He felt long fingers creep and crawl their way around his neck, tightening, attempting to throttle the last of his light from him.

Toms vision swam. His limbs twitched spasmodically. Blackness began to creep from the corners of his sight, slowly swelling towards the centre. He heard more snarling in the background, heard steel meet flesh. Thumps and wet smacks and barks of pain and strained grunting floated and bobbed through his addled consciousness like debris in an eddy.

He smiled to himself. Big fucker doesnt run as tight a ship as he thought. Looks like someone took their chance to lead the pack. Or maybe Tom was hearing things. He was half way dead, after all.

He felt himself being dragged bodily along the ground, roughly jostled about.

Lucky me, thought Tom. Back into the Deep.

And he knew no more.