Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 7

Yet another stone, larger than a man’s fist, flew out towards the Adventurer contingent. It sailed into their midst, clipping an unfortunate Druid in the shoulder. She was knocked off of her feet, turning once in midair before the thick grass muffled her landing.

“I see them!” A Silver-plate Ranger called out, “Three Ogres: edge of the trees to the west!”

With a face to their enemy, the more experienced Adventures fell into routines developed from years of their craft. The arrangement of the contingent reorganized itself into a more defensible formation.

“It can’t just be Ogres,” Moknach said. “They’ll need a lot more than that to deal with all of us.”

Moknach stepped to the front of the group, standing closest to the treeline to present himself as the closest target for the Ogres. More large stones came hurtling in, but he easily sidestepped them. Something darted out of the tall grass and he shifted his arm slightly to deflect it with his shield. The object broke and its pieces spun repeatedly in the air before landing on the ground: it was an arrow.

Seeing that the threat had escalated from rocks clumsily hurled at a distance he advanced, tracing the flight of the arrow back to its source. A rustle in the grass to the side was the only warning he received before a metal spearhead jabbed out at him. With a curse, he pivoted to evade the gleaming point. When the spear seemingly reached the fullest point of its extension, he swatted it to the side with his longsword and advanced on his new assailant.

He had taken perhaps two steps when another arrow zipped out and pinged off of the ridge of his helmet. Moknach glanced towards the hidden archer and decided that the crude-looking stone points couldn’t penetrate his armour. It was all the time the hidden spear wielder needed, however: in the second it took Moknach to turn his attention back to his closest opponent, it was already gone.

“Shit,” he cursed again before shouting to the others nearby. “Goblins probably. At least two…well there’s never just two.”

A stone from the treeline hit him square in the back, and he staggered to one knee. A spear lanced out from the grass again towards his face and he barely rolled away in time.

“The hell!” He roared as he straightened to his feet again, “What are the rest of you doing? Clear this grass so we can take out this trash!”

“On it!” A woman called out, stepping forward with her staff extended. “「 Fireba–”

She remained motionless, extending her staff out towards the field, but the spell had been cut off. After a moment, the mage lowered her magical focus and pointed at her lips with her free hand. While doing so, an arrow appeared in her shoulder, then another in her thigh. When her shock passed, she cried out with a pained expression – not that anyone could hear her. A nearby Adventurer ran out and grabbed her, holding his shield above their heads as they scurried away.

“She got silenced!” Someone recognized the gesture before the mage was attacked, “They have a caster out there too!”

“A Goblin caster? You’re kidding me.”

“Could be a Cleric, or a Bard.”

There were several different types of casters that were capable of casting Silence – a second-tier spell – or effects similar to it.

“Spare me the Goblin Bard…”

There was loose laughter between the more experienced Adventurers. The Copper plates scattered around the ruin wore uncomprehending expressions: how could anyone laugh when they were being attacked like this?

“I think we can take this, Moknach,” Blair, a Druid from Rainbow, who was leading a different party said. “Doesn’t look like their equipment is any better than regular stuff. No poison, either. If we can flush them out, we have the advantage – if they thought they had the edge in numbers, they would have tried to overwhelm us with this ambush.”

“Do it,” Moknach nodded.

The mage, who had just been healed by Blair, popped her head out of the grass. She didn’t give herself away this time.

“「Fireball」!”

The mage disappeared into the grass again as soon as she finished casting the spell. A compact sphere of flame shot out and landed in the rough area where the arrows had come from. A torrent of fire whirled out from the point of impact, scorching away the grass covering the area to the west and setting the surrounding field ablaze.

“We get any?” Moknach shouted over the wind.

“I don’t know, I doubt it with the way that they’ve been moving though!”

Several arrows whistled in from the north, disappearing in the grass near where the mage had cast her Fireball from.

“Guess that answers that,” Moknach said. “How many do you have left?”

“Plenty where that came from,” the mage replied from where she had crawled off to after casting her spell.

“Alright, clear the field to the north,” Moknach told her. “We can’t go chasing these Goblins around without leaving the newbies undefended, but at least we can deny them any cover nearby.”

The mage unleashed another Fireball, and Moknach’s mind worked to come up with a decisive advantage. Though the initial surprise of the attack had faded, it was still pretty much a standoff against unknown numbers.

“Oi, oi, oi, oi!” A Silver-ranked Ranger called out, “Ogres in the back! They used the smoke from the west field to get in and flank us!”

There were cries of panic in the rear of the formation as the trio of three metre tall Ogres descended on the Copper plates. They brandished makeshift clubs formed out of heavy branches, waving them menacingly as they closed distance. Over a dozen Adventurers immediately scattered at the intimidating sight, and the Ogres roared as they swatted aside the few who stood their ground like stuffed dolls.

Several Silver and Gold-ranked Adventurers within range raised their bows, releasing arrows in an effort to slow down the rampaging Ogres. The arrows that should have made their mark stopped in mid-air, a hand’s breadth away from their targets, before falling harmlessly to the ground.

“The Ogres are warded from arrows!”

“Casters again?” Moknach growled.

The safest method of dealing with physically powerful opponents like Ogres was to take them down from range. It was a common tactic, but Moknach had never before seen Ogres counter it with Protection from Arrows before. The result was that it turned the normally manageable Ogres into a much riskier adversary; full of unknowns stemming from the existence of support magic from the unseen casters.

“Get in there and protect the newbies!” He barked out to the surrounding Adventurers, “We don’t know what we’re fighting, and this is becoming too chaotic: we need to withdraw and regroup.”

Even as he called the retreat, the next gust of wind blanketed them in thick smoke. Moknach and what was formerly the entire front line of veteran Adventurers could barely see in front of them through the stinging screen. As he blindly stepped forward, coughing and squeezing the tears from his eyes, he kicked something soft that responded with an angry, muffled noise. Looking at his feet he saw the woman, still covered in vines, who had set off the entire sequence of events.

With a long-suffering sigh, Moknach tossed her over his shoulder and trudged off towards the chaos in the rear. By the time he made his way out of the blanket of smoke, the formation of Adventurers had collapsed entirely. The Copper plates had continued fleeing after they had been scattered by the Ogre assault, and were now all over the field running towards E-Rantel. Exhausted from their hour-long run to the meeting spot, they were not fast enough to outpace the hidden archers harrying them along the way. They fell one after another as Goblin arrows found their targets.

The Iron plates – who should have been able to handily stand up to the three Ogres with even odds – seemed to have been beaten down one at a time.

With the lower-ranked Adventurers out of the fight, the veterans shifted their focus from attempting to protect their scattered charges to dealing with their ambushers. The Gold-ranked Fighter was at the front of the Vanguard, advancing with his Greatsword in an aggressive high guard. A Silver-ranked Ranger shadowed him, waiting for an opportune moment to strike in melee.

The Fighter blocked the massive overhead swing of the first Ogre using 「 Fortress」. As it reeled from the block, which would have felt like striking a stone wall, he released the defensive Martial Art and shifted to offence. He roared, advancing to deliver a massive blow to the still-recovering Ogre.

“「Sla–”

A volley of brilliant lights streamed out of the grass towards the Fighter. Moknach instantly recognized them as projectiles from the Magic Arrow spell. There were two sources: each two salvos of three arrows, meaning that there were at least two tier three casters hiding in the grass. The twelve flaring projectiles were unerring; the Fighter groaned and collapsed in the direction of his momentum. The Ranger, caught off guard by the unexpected loss as he tried to flank one of the Ogres, was himself flanked and summarily pounded into the grass.

All that remained were the veterans who were returning from the front line. There was Rainbow – Moknach’s regular Mithril-rank team – the Platinum-rank mage, and a Gold-rank Bard. Their adversary consisted of the three Ogres, two – no, probably three casters, two who were at least tier three, whatever it was that kept harassing him with the spear and at least two archers.

By his estimation, the remaining Adventurers should still easily come out on top. The magic casters could still cause things to go awry, so he slowed down and went wide around the tall grass that they appeared to be depending on for concealment. Purposely stalking in a circle, he joined up with his partner Josin – a Mithril-ranked Monk who could act flexibly as either a vanguard or makeshift defender, depending on what the situation warranted.

“You still good to go?” Moknach asked him.

“Not a scratch,” Josin replied.

Moknach nodded. They were in good shape for a brawl if it came down to it, and time was on their side. He made a challenging gesture at the trio of Ogres still standing in range of the grass, but they only mocked him in response. That was strange. Ogres usually gleefully entered battle heedless of risk if they felt that they had the advantage. Well, he supposed that they didn’t…but they shouldn’t have been able to puzzle that out from numbers alone.

He turned to the mage, fishing around his memory for her name.

“Ilma.”

“It’s Ilyn,” she scowled.

“Uh, right,” Moknach said apologetically. “Do you have anything that can whittle those guys down? They seem to have a lot of magical support.”

“Hmm…I have about half of my mana left,” Ilyn replied. “I can’t tell what other enchantments they have on them, though. Shouldn’t I just Fireball them if they’re all standing together like that?”

“They already know you have Fireball,” he told her, “so these casters might have already guarded against it. Just put some hurt on them – maybe those Ogres will finally get mad enough to charge beyond the range of their support.”

“Right-o…”

Ilyn edged forward into range. The Ogres stood their ground, meaning that they were probably standing between their casters and the Adventurers. They couldn’t open the way to them, but their own casters would have to come forward out of the grass to retaliate against her.

“「Magic Arrow」.”

She sent out the first-tier spell, and they awaited the results. Three bolts of dazzling light flew out of her hands, striking the leftmost Ogre. It grinned back at her.

“That didn’t look like it did damage,” Moknach examined the result. “More magical protection?”

“Nuh-uh,” Ilyn replied, “that definitely stung. He’s putting up an act.”

“「Magic Arrow」.”

The Wizard delivered another salvo of magical bolts, striking the same Ogre. This time, a pair of arrows were launched out of the grass towards the city. They both stopped before sinking into her flesh, dropping impotently to the ground.

“Hah!” Ilyn grinned, “You’re not the only ones that can do that.”

The arrows kept coming, even as she launched a third salvo of magical bolts into the same Ogre. Then, something odd happened. First one stream of arrows stopped, then the other. Not a single individual on the field missed that.

“Ah crap,” Moknach said. “Time’s up: let’s go!”

He dashed forward together with Josin, rapidly closing the distance to the Ogres and riveting their attention on them. There was a strain of discordant notes in the air and he felt himself being filled with a sense of courage and power.

“「Twin Magic – Haste」!”

Ilyn layered an additional enchantment on the two charging Adventurers, augmenting the rapidity of their movement and attacks. Moknach catapulted forward at a tremendous speed, like a bolt loosed from a ballista. If this was the case…

“「Ability Boost」.”

With all the magic that had been piled on him, even his regular attacks would be quite potent. Attacks with Martial Arts would be absurdly so. He aimed for the Ogre in the middle, who appeared to be preparing for the charge with an attack of its own. It didn’t matter to Moknach, though.

“「Invulnerable Fortress」!”

The heavy branch came down on him to no more effect than a feather. Moknach hurtled forward, driving his shoulder into the middle Ogre’s abdomen with the full force of his charge. It flew tens of metres through the air, tumbling away end over end after it landed, leaving a long trail of disturbed grass. Perfectly stable with his Defensive Art active, Moknach pivoted, bringing the full force of his upper body down at the next Ogre; the blade of the longsword traced a shimmering arc overhead.

“「Fortress」.”

The Ogre gave him a smug look as it parried Moknach’s devastating overhead strike.

Well I guess that explains a lot.

Three Ogres usually could not stand against so many Adventurers but, like Human warriors, they could grow in experience, strength and skill as well.

“Ogre Berserkers,” he called out.

“You don’t say?” Josin replied sardonically.

Unlike Moknach, Josin had finished off the left Ogre – a Monk’s relentless flurry of strikes cared little for a few seconds of enhanced defence. Augmented by magic as he was, the lean brawler remained completely unscathed.

It was two versus one now, and Moknach wanted to finish things before it might change again. His sword had gotten stuck in the thick branch – proof that he had attacked with such force it nearly overwhelmed the augmented parry – which the Ogre stubbornly refused to relinquish. Well, that was fine by him.

“Hey Josin,” he said, “weapon’s stuck. Let’s finish this guy o–”

Moknach’s call for assistance was needless, as the Bard appeared behind the Ogre Berserker and casually slashed out the giant Demihuman’s knees from behind with his rapier.