Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen (22 page)

Grizzle was fighting for his life now. He had waded through the orcs easily at first
, but slowly the gap behind him had filled in, and now he had orcs pressing in at his back. He was surrounded. He spun in circles, swinging the hammer wide. He had taken a couple of glancing blows, but nothing had yet found the creases in his armor. Then something slammed into his back. He rolled forward, coming back to his feet and swinging his hammer wildly. “Is that all you got, you overgrown son of a goat?”

It had been a maul. That definitely left a dent in his armor. The big orc raised the maul again just
as a blue blur descended. The orc’s arm came off just below the elbow and the maul fell to the ground. Grizzle slammed his hammer into the chest of the orc, knocking it backward and caving its chest in. The orcs were distracted by the man in blue running and hopping around on their shoulders. While they batted clumsily at Jabaal, Grizzle brought his hammer down. He swung left, crushing a hip, his backswing smashing another orc in the ribs, collapsing his lungs. Then Jabaal jumped down.

As he came down, Jabaal
shot his blades out in front of him, and both blades buried in the chest of the orc in front of him. That gave him the opportunity to get his feet under him as he landed. When his feet touched the ground both of his blades shot out as he spun, taking the legs off of all three of the orcs around him. Then another orc was bringing an axe down on him, and he rolled forward into the path of an oncoming club. Just before the club smashed him in the face, a flying hammer knocked the orc back.

Grizzle
’s hammer throw blew through the ranks of orcs, killing probably a hundred. It saved Jabaal, but it had also left him standing in the midst of the orcs, unarmed. An orc swung at him with a sword, but he leapt forward toward Jabaal. Jabaal moved past him, driving one of his swords up into the orc’s heart. Now the orcs were coming after Jabaal, and they were bearing down on Grizzle just as his hammer reappeared in his hand. They were holding the orcs off together, but they were losing ground. They had both taken hits—nothing serious, but they were starting to slow down. They would only be able to continue like this for so long.

Grindel lead the line of dwarves forward. He hacked and smashed their way through the orc lines. The
orcs had been surprised and hadn’t been able to organize a defense—not that orcs were known for their organization anyway—while the dwarves were fighting in tight lines, pushing forward and cutting through the orcs. Grindel saw Jabaal go running over the tops of the orcs not far ahead, so he spearheaded the dwarves in that direction. He almost reached the place he had last seen Jabaal when an orc, who was a whole head taller then the biggest orcs around him, cut down two dwarves with one stroke of his greatsword. His arms were as big around as Grindel’s legs and he had two more swords hanging at his hips. Grindel cut through the horde, making his way to the giant orc. The big orc saw him cutting his path toward him and turned to fight him. Grindel saw him actually cut two other orcs in half to get to him. The area around them began to open up. The fighting didn’t stop, but dwarves and orcs alike avoided those two.

The big orc came down with that massive sword. Grindel stepped out of the way just in time
and the sword buried itself in the ground. Grindel was able to score a minor cut on the orc’s thigh as he pulled his sword free of the ground. Grindel got his axe up just in time to block the swing that was coming in at his right shoulder. The orc was strong. The blow knocked him back a couple of steps. Another orc tried to come in from behind him, but he spun away from him. The big orc actually cut him down for interfering. The orc was insane, but Grindel had to admit he was good. This was a fight you could be proud of, he thought. If he died fighting this orc he would die honorably. This was the type of fight dwarves sang songs about: surrounded by a war and in the center of it was the king fighting off a huge orc. Another downward slash almost caught him, but he was just barely able to deflect it, and he took the opportunity to swing at the orc’s arms. The big orc abandoned the greatsword and drew the two smaller swords from his hip. Grindel wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. The orc was unimaginably fast for his size. The greatsword had made it hard to get close and had rocked him every time he had blocked it, but now the orc had two swords.

The orc came at him fast. Both swords came at him in rapid succession. He was obviously less familiar with the two blades but he had put Grindel on his heels quick enough. Then he had an idea. He swung his axe hard at the sword coming in at his left shoulder. This would expose his right side, but that was the plan. His axe broke the skinn
ier blade coming in at his left, and the orc abandoned it for the opening. The blade was coming in fast. There was no way he would be able to get his axe back across to block but he had planned on that. He let go of his axe with his right hand. With his steel hand he caught the blade. It cut through his skin but the hand was made of dwarven steel and magically hardened. He felt the pain of the skin being cut, but there was no feeling in the muscle, tendon, or bone. He saw the surprise in the orc’s face. Then Grindel brought his axe up with his left hand. The orc recovered quickly, though. He reached down and caught the handle of the axe, letting go of his sword and lifting Grindel up by the neck, squeezing his throat. Grindel was choking. He let go of his axe. Then he knew what to do. He smashed his steel hand into the orc’s arm. He heard a pop but the orc didn’t let go. He brought Grindel in close and squeezed his throat with both hands. Now Grindel could reach him. He locked his fingers straight and drove his hand into the orc’s chest as hard as he could. His hand buried into the orc’s chest, but he didn’t let go. Grindel felt his throat being crushed. Then he heard the pop. He couldn’t draw breath. He fell to the ground with the orc. They lay on the ground, staring motionless into each other’s eyes.

In those last few seconds of shared respect
, that dwarf and that orc appreciated each other. Then the sound of battle faded. Grindel thought he heard someone calling to him for just a second. Both of their worlds became a blur, and then they each found their way to the waiting.

The dwarves had fought their way to Grizzle and Jabaal. Grizzle had seen his father fighting a huge orc. He was trying to fight his way to him when he saw the king open himself up to catch the blade in his steel hand. With renewed vigor
, Grizzle cut through the orcs trying to get to his father. Then he saw his father bury his hand into the orc’s chest. He thought his father was going to get away, but the orc didn’t let go. Grizzle made it to the clearing around the king and the big orc just as they both fell to the ground.

“Father
, noooooo! Grindel. Daa...”

When he got to his father
’s side, he knew. The king was dead. He was the king now, though he would be dead soon, too. Jabaal entered the clearing. The dwarves were fighting in tight lines in each direction. This was it. This was their last battle. Grizzle called out to Bordin, and Jabaal cried out to Kalime. Together they charged into the mass of orcs. They would die fighting side by side. They would die as two of the greatest warriors of their time, but none, they believed, would live to tell the story.

Anwar and Grundel stood watch while Rundo prepared to link with Messah. He had established the link, but he had never looked through her eyes before. He remembered Navaeh used to do it all the time, but she had been with the hawk for a long time. He remembered his first experience looking through Bumbo’s eyes. It had been an enlightening experience but it had also been extremely exhausting
, and it had given him a splitting headache. He didn’t know what to expect when he looked through the hawk’s eyes, so he sat down on the ground. Then he reached out to her. He let her feel him, let her understand what he wanted, before diving into the link. When he knew that she was aware of him he closed his eyes.

When he saw through her eyes
, it was amazing. He was flying. He had a momentary adjustment period when he was afraid he was falling, but then he had felt Messah’s confidence, and he knew everything was fine. He could see everything. Now he understood the saying, “You have eyes like a hawk.” But now he knew that no human had eyes like a hawk: he could now see ten times what he could normally see. When Messah flapped her wings her vision blurred some, but when she spread them to glide she could see so much farther and clearer then he could.

Just then,
Messah saw movement a mile away. Her eyes focused on that movement. It was a hare. Rundo felt Messah’s urge to hunt, but he pushed for her to go toward the mountain. She felt his urgency. He couldn’t relay words to her, but he could enforce feelings. He could even show her images or ideas. He pictured Grizzle and Jabaal, and let her feel his worry for them. She turned and flew over the trees.

It was much easier to look through Messah’s eyes
than Bumbo’s, as Messah’s eyes were positioned on her head more like his own. Her eyes picked up motion easily like Bumbo’s, but her vision was more like a super-magnified version of Rundo’s own. She did have a much wider peripheral vision, but not so much that it made seeing a lot different. The biggest adjustment was just being so high; the colors were brighter, the greens of the leaves on the trees were more vibrant. From way up here her eyes caught the squirrels moving in the trees. Then she saw something in her peripheral vision.

It was an eagle
, far away. Rundo wouldn’t think that was an issue. The bird was so far away. Miles. But she knew it was an eagle. She was in its territory. If she could see it, it could see her. She flew away. The eagle was coming. Rundo let go completely and just watched. He felt her fear. Her determination. She did not want to fight the bigger bird. She knew how deadly its claws could be. Something bad had happened with an eagle before. He couldn’t pick out what it was, but he could feel it just under the surface of her thoughts, that memory. She soared down into the trees. She flew in and out of branches so quickly that the trees were just green blurs to Rundo. She dropped low under the branches and glided. Then she flapped her wings a couple of times before opening them up and floating again. It was miraculous. Rundo was amazed at her agility and speed. She had flown hard, and she had made it out of the eagle’s territory. She flapped her wings, bringing her up out of the trees. She continued to flap, taking her up and up until she was soaring high up in the sky. She would have just been a small black dot to Rundo’s own vision this high up, but she would be able to make him out without any trouble, he knew.

She continued north over the trees. It was hours of walking to get to Evermount
, but she could see the huge mountain ahead of her and he knew it wouldn’t take long for her swift flight to eat up the miles. As she flew toward Evermount, Rundo just enjoyed the ride. Half an hour later, she was looking at the end of the woods in front of Evermount. Rundo had been so caught up in seeing through the hawk’s eyes, he had nearly forgotten his purpose. It came up and smashed him in the face now.

Evermount was at war.
Orcs. Tens of thousands of orcs. He had Messah take in as much as she could. The fighting was out near the trees. How had the dwarves gotten behind the army? They had fought their way through thousands of orcs? He saw Jabaal in the middle of it—a shining blue light that stood out in a mass of dark green orc skin, brown leather, and the dwarves’ steel armor. There were less than a thousand dwarves against more than half a hundred thousand orcs. He wanted to return to Anwar right then, but he stayed with Messah and got the whole picture. The orcs were all the way up the mountain steps. They were hauling some kind of huge metal ram up the stairs. They were going to try to smash their way through the door. They would get through eventually, Rundo knew. Then he saw the bodies on the mountain. Tens of thousands of dead orcs littered the peaks and crevices on both sides of the stairs. Thousands of them were charred and black, and there were thousands more that were just smashed and bloodied. Impressively, the dwarves had accomplished this somehow, but that wasn’t even half, maybe not even a third of the total number of the orcs. They were doomed, Rundo knew, and their only hope was Anwar.

He had seen everything he needed to. He looked back at Jabaal one last time through Messah’s eyes, a ball of blue light cutting a path through the ocean of orcs. Then he was back in his own body
, sitting on the ground.

Rundo opened his eyes. He had to blink a couple of times to let his eyes focus, but other than that he was fine. He looked around. Anwar and Jabaal were standing a few feet away, looking north toward the mountain.

“We have to go now,” Rundo said.

“What’s happening?” Grundel asked.

“The short version
: We need to go straight to the edge of the forest in front of the stairs. There are orcs, tens of thousands of orcs. They made it up to the landing. They lost tens of thousands doing it, but they made the landing. They are marching some kind of big metal ram up to smash the door. The dwarves came out behind them somehow and are fighting between the woods and the mountain, but they’re backed up to the trees. The only one I could make out was Jabaal. I saw him surrounded in blue light, cutting a path through the orcs. There are too many, though. They will all die if you can’t do something.” This last part he had directed at Anwar. He hadn’t intended to put so much weight on it, but there it was.