Siege State

Tom wasted no time. They quickly dispatched the last of the Idealist orc guards, and began working on getting everyone ready to move.

Scriber passed out miracle mice like sweets at a fair, and brief flashes of light began to strobe in the night. His mother moved to those not badly injured, healing them instead, to save on valuable enchantments. In relatively short order, everyone was free of ailments and injuries.

That was not to say they were all in perfect health. Though they were no longer bruised and cut, no longer nursing broken bones or torn muscles, many of them were still in poor condition. Many of the captives had been starved and abused for months on end, and the resulting wastage of their once vigorous Idealist bodies had left them in a sorry state.

They gathered around Tom and Val, and Scriber and Cub. Rosa and his mother, and Officer Dale, and his other recently captured Guards, stood with them. Tom looked out amongst the assembled captives, and what he saw surprised him.

There was some defeat, some apathy, as was to be expected, but by far the greater share of them had fury and hope and determination burning in their eyes. Suddenly, Tom found himself speaking.

He startled himself, taking the lead. Scriber or Val would surely be the better options for it, but he was getting tired of letting events happen to him, of feeling helpless in steering his own life. Perhaps that was why he spoke: he recognised that same feeling in the faces of the captives.

“Everyone, we don’t have much time. I have eyes on the army, and some few of the stragglers have heard the commotion just now.” There was some apprehensive shuffling at that. “We plan to get you all away safely, but we will need your help. Many of you are in no condition to move quickly, let alone fight, and yet we need to put as much distance as we can between us and the army as quickly as possible.

“Now, our first priority is to escape. It will be hard. They will come after us. We need to get further into the Deep, make it not worth trying to recapture us. Only then can we strike back.

“We will need to run and hide and recover your strength. We will need to make use of the Deep to do so. But we are Hunters, and the Deep is our home. The orcs are the worst sort of intruder. And once we are ready, we will make them suffer for what they have done.”

The group was silent. Fervour shone in their eyes, and Tom was immensely gratified to see the flames of fury and determination alight in the faces of those who had previously looked abject.

“This is Cub, and this is Smitten,” he said, gesturing to the man and the familiar. “They will lead us through the Deep to somewhere safe. Follow them closely. If you can fight, we will have need of you. Goddess be with us all.”

With that, Cub began to gather up all those who were still too wretched to be able to fight. Once gathered, he led them off through the Deep to the east. His mother went with them. Though she was not in bad shape, she would be of more use healing any new injuries that cropped up and keeping the weak moving. Scriber gave out stamina replenishing enchantments for them to share among the group too.

Some thirty Idealists remained behind with him, Val and Scriber. They looked mostly hale after being healed. Every single one of them looked ready to fight.

For a bizarre moment, they seemed to Tom like orcs: full of ferocity and anger, but weaponless and without armour, either. Luckily, he had just the thing for that.

Tom began to draw weapons out of Honeyfield’s ring. Swords, daggers, polearms, and axes, and all manner of other, strange, bladed weapons were retrieved and handed out. The former captives took them up like greedy children. Several of them marvelled when they realised the weapon they’d chosen was enchanted. Tom didn’t even think twice about handing out so much wealth. He was just pleased that Honeyfield’s stash was being put to good use.

Scriber passed around mana replenishing enchantments, and some more stamina replenishing ones as well. The man seemed to have an endless supply of useful objects in his storage spaces.

Several of the Idealists began to summon familiars, and others summoned ritual weapons. Soon, they had a small and eclectic menagerie accompanying them. There were a few other birds, including one enormous eagle. Tom wasn’t sure it was practical to have out in the Deep at night, but he didn’t stop the man. There were a pair of large cats, one with a huge mane, the other sleek and black. One woman summoned a bear, which immediately drew Sesame’s interest. It was much smaller than him, brown where he was black, and appeared to be shedding dust into the air every time it moved.

There were less familiars than he would have expected from a group of Idealists this size, but he imagined that many would have been killed trying to prevent their Idealists capture.

A few of the Idealists spurned his offers of weapons from Honeyfield’s stash, having their own ritual weapons to rely on, now that they wouldn’t simply be beaten unconscious for summoning them. One fellow summoned an entire set of plate armour, and looked extremely pleased at an enchanted halberd he’d snagged from Tom.

In short order, they were as ready as they could be. Val addressed them, this time.

“Right, everyone, looks like we’re good to go. I want you spread out in a line. Make sure you can always see at least four other people: two to either side of you. I’ll be on one end of the line and Tom here will be on the other. Scriber will be in the middle.

“Now, listen closely, ‘cause I will not have any of you dying after we put our asses out to save you. If you get injured, you run. Go west, and you’ll catch up with the others. Get healed, and then come back. I know you’re angry. Don’t throw your lives away trying to take as many down with you, or any of that glorious-sounding nonsense. You want payback? Then live to fight another day, and we’ll do it the right way.” She looked at the assembled group, her face hard. She looked every bit a woman who had spent most of her life living on a knife’s edge in the Deep.

“Are we clear?” she asked, her voice like rock. The group chorused their assent.

Val eyed them a moment longer. “Good. Let’s go.”

Scriber led them off after the others, and the group spread out to either side of him. Tom took the opposite end to Val. Rosa came with him.

He left a sparrow with Scriber, after briefly telling him he’d have it trill when orcs were catching up to them. When, not if. He turned some of his attention back to Sere’s other bodies.

The outlook was better than they could have hoped for, but not good. They had limited the amount of noise from their rescue to the best of their abilities, but some of the stragglers from the army had still heard it. Some of those had immediately turned around to investigate, drawn irresistibly by the sounds of violence. Others, perhaps cannier, had rushed ahead to gather more of their fellows. He could see many of them returning towards them now, with larger groups in tow.

They needed to make ground, and fast.

They moved at a decent pace. Not slow, but not as fast as they could go either. They didn’t want to catch up to the weaker section of the captives and endanger them. If there was to be fighting, it was better it be done by those with the capacity for it.

Sere tracked groups of orcs as they drew nearer, and each time Tom gave warning to Scriber when they got too close. Each time, they stopped and gave battle. Each time, they moved on, just a little more weary than before.

Their saving grace was threefold: they were all in fighting shape now, they had advance warning of the orcs chasing them, and there were not many Idealist orcs among those in pursuit. It made all the difference. Their fights, for the most part, were brief, ugly, and one-sided.

That changed after some twelve hours, when the news of the captives being rescued must have made it back to the army, and a coordinated response was made. Tom watched with trepidation as a truly huge number of orcs pursued them. Thousands, at least. Far more than they could handle.

When Tom saw them, he made his way along the line to Scriber. He informed him of the massive, organised number of orcs coming after them. Scriber just looked pensieve for a moment, and then sighed. Mice began to flow out of his cloak and onto the forest floor, spreading out behind them.

There was not much else Tom could do. They could only keep running. He would just have to hope whatever Scriber had planned was sufficient.

They ran for hours more before anything happened. The orcs had been steadily gaining on them the whole time. They were perhaps only another few hours from reaching them, and Tom was just about to move back down the line to tell Scriber, when suddenly, several of his links to Sere were cut.

The feedback of it stung, like threads to his soul had been snapped. He quickly counted, and found four of her bodies had died. A moment later, explosions sounded through the Deep. Big ones.

Whump-whump-whump-whump-whump! They went, overlapping with each other, and another brief spell later, a wind picked up and blew past them. Tom saw several of the Idealists down the line from him looking over their shoulders fearfully.

He sent more of Sere’s bodies winging towards the explosion site, to survey the damage. He already knew it must be Scriber’s work. They came upon a scene of pandemonium. A line of trees, and everything near them had been completely cleared. Around the blast site was a charnel house. Dying orcs, parts of orcs, and orc blood made a horrifying mosaic. Hundreds must have died.

Tom was once again staggered by Scriber’s power. It was quite frankly terrifying. He would need to be more careful with Sere’s scouting in future.

Though they’d taken heavy losses, the orcs quickly reassembled and came on. They seemed utterly determined to recapture them. Tom was not surprised. After the amount of effort they went to hunt him down after his Reaping, what expense would they spare to recapture a hundred Idealists? They could very well be their only way to make more for themselves.

Tom focused on feeding mana to his Wings of Grief skill, to regenerate the bodies Sere had lost. Each took roughly half an hour to form, and he summoned them and sent them flitting away once they were ready.

An hour later, another string of explosions shattered the quiet of the forest. Tom lost no more of Sere, this time. He had moved them to watch the rear of the oncoming orcs, which, unfortunately, meant he had a full view of the carnage. He very nearly lost the contents of his stomach at the sight.

Rosa saw his pale complexion, and must have pieced together what he’d seen. She gave him a concerned look, but they hadn’t the time to stop. Tom pushed down his revulsion, and kept running.

So did the orcs.

It took another two sets of explosions, each extracting horrific losses on their pursuers, before their morale finally broke. Tom watched as a huge orc, one of their true Idealist leaders he’d seen that day in the Smith’s war hut, if he wasn’t mistaken, tried in vain to threaten and coerce them onwards. It seemed even orc brutality had its limits.

Once he was sure they were no longer pursued, Tom made his way right the way down the line to Val to inform her, stopping briefly with Scriber to tell him the news as well. Relief was evident in both their faces. Scriber looked grim, pained. He had likely sacrificed some of his mice to make good their escape.

The group sped up, then, and soon caught up to the rest of the newly freed captives. They looked frightened, and the periodic explosions they’d been hearing from behind as they fled were the subject of much discussion.

Now reunited, they turned hard to the south. They pushed hard for several days, before they finally stopped at a small clearing, almost a field, with a clear, spring-fed pool gurgling in the middle of it.

Many people dropped where they stood, falling asleep immediately. Tom’s mother was tireless, moving between people and soothing aches and pains. Some of the less affected Idealists, including Officer Dale and some of the Guards, began building fires.

Tom found a quiet spot with Rosa. They sat down, and held each other for a long time, not saying anything.

They were exhausted, but triumphant. They had done it. They had made it.

He had rescued his loved ones, but he was sick of having to do it.

Now, it was time for payback.