Freelance Heroics (12 page)

“Here, let me help,” came a gentle voice. Gavi felt her fatigue retreat as mana flowed into her.

Gavi looked up at the woman whose hand was resting on her shoulder. She had long black hair, and was clad in pastel robes of blue, green, and peach, with no weapons. Her name was Uard, and she was the sixth squad’s other support caster.

“Thank you.” Gavi stood up. She felt the next best thing to one hundred percent, injuries notwithstanding. Rejuvenation magick was no substitute for rest, recuperation, and a good meal, but sometimes it was hard to tell.

Gavi swiped dripping hair out of her eyes—that, at least, magick could do nothing about. She thanked Uard again, then took up position on the orck’s blindside.

“Status report!” Sergeant Redsna shouted over his shoulder.

“Working on it!” replied Mazik. A spell exploded, and Gavi could hear Mazik yelp as glass shattered.

Gavi watched as the orck attacked Shava, waiting for an opening. Thinking of the wolves, she didn’t wait long—she darted in as soon as she saw the orck’s back, her sword raking across its hamstrings while she kept running past.

Gavi’s sword bounced again, and failed to penetrate. That’s what made orcks so difficult to kill, she knew. It wasn’t just that every one of them had an MPB—and without any of the hard work human casters had to go through to get them, which was another horrible injustice—it was that they could harden their barriers at will, temporarily blocking all damage. As long as an orck noticed an attack, it could defend against it, meaning that its barriers had to be completely shattered to do more than token damage.

And it’s hard to pull one over on an orck
, thought Gavi. They may not be smart, but that didn’t make them stupid. Where her fellow trainee years ago had panicked and flailed against the wolves, the orck was patiently defending itself, and launching periodic bouts of frightening aggression against random assailants. The good news was that they
were
containing it, even if it felt tenuous at times.

Gavi attacked again and faded away. The orck turned to her—and swung at Shava. The fake blindsided her, and Shava couldn’t get her guard up in time. She bit back a cry as her armor dented at the hip, and her left leg collapsed.

Gavi cursed. “Hold on!” Cold adrenaline flooded her as she dashed in, but it quickly became apparent that Shava wasn’t the one in danger. Unencumbered by other distractions, the orck turned to Sergeant Redsna and laid into him with a flurry of attacks.

“
Horvér!
” shouted Raedren. A green barrier sprang up in front of Sergeant Redsna—which the orck tore through immediately. The sergeant took blows to his left arm and thigh, the orck ripping through his other barriers before Gavi even got in range.

I won’t make it in time!
thought Gavi, panicked. Then, a flash of inspiration—Gavi summoned the mana for the spell she was practicing earlier, as quickly as she could. It moved sluggishly at first, then accelerated, the mana swirling obediently as she gripped her blade and swung it like she was crushing a flowerpot with a baseball bat. “
Crescent Slash!
”

The spell fizzled, and the orck’s defenses turned aside her blow, though she was gratified by the arc of mana, longer than any she had managed so far, which crawled up the length of the blade.

Fortunately, her failure didn’t matter—she had wanted to draw the orck’s attention, and her shout managed that. The orck turned on Gavi, lifting its stone blade high—and Mazik kicked it in the head.

“Boo yah!” said Mazik as blue light exploded from where he struck. The blue-skinned behemoth roared as fire engulfed its skull, and Mazik tumbled to the ground. He scuttled out of the way of the orck’s frustrated retaliation.

“Move, move, move!” yelled Mazik as he grabbed Redsna by the arm. Gavi didn’t ask questions—she lurched away from the orck.

Multicolored strobe lights exploded against the roaring orck. Gavi looked over to see the other one, the female, bleeding on the ground.

“About time,” said Gavi as Mazik stopped beside her, Sergeant Redsna leaning heavily on his shoulder. The other two forwards ran over to contain the male while Mazik’s fellow rangers kept up the barrage. “Nice kick.”

“Thank you,” said Mazik. He grinned around a large bruise on his right cheek.

“I feel you don’t understand what ‘ranged offense’ means,” said Sergeant Redsna.

“Eh, sounds boring. My way works better. But, if you insist—” Mazik pointed at the orck with his free hand. “
Mazik Blast!
”

With the entire squad focusing on one target, it didn’t take long for the orck to fall. After several more volleys, it collapsed with a subdued grunt, its weapon crashing to the ground.

The members of the sixth stood around, panting. Raedren and the other support caster made their way through the group, Raedren using his divine magick to dull their pain while Uard soothed their physical exhaustion. Only three people had suffered injuries, which was a good result against two orcks—a perk of five-to-one odds. But the sound of fighting reverberated from nearby, reminding them that they needed to get moving.

Raedren and Uard arrived at Mazik and Gavi last. “You two okay?” asked Raedren.

Mazik patted his bicep. “Great! Though I wish I hadn’t done that, because my arm hurts.” Mazik deflated, doubling over. “Owwww.”

Raedren smiled wanly and rested his hand on Mazik’s shoulder, saying, “
. . .dert può iyr jeut dernan—Dull Pain.
”

Uard covered her mouth, stifling a giggle at their antics. She tucked a strand of long black hair behind her pointed ear
¹⁹
. “Would any of you like some rejuvenation?”

“I’m fine,” said Gavi. Mazik echoed her. Uard waved to Raedren before walking off to join her guildmates.

Mazik glanced at Raedren. “You two seem to be getting along well,” he said, nodding at Uard.

Raedren ignored him. Before Mazik could say anything else, Sergeant Redsna hobbled to the front of the group as fast as his injured leg would allow him. “Is everyone ready? Mana report, please.”

There was a chorus of disorganized responses. After Redsna dealt with their mana situation—two channeled successfully, and topped off the others—he tapped the side of his head and spoke to someone far away.

He waved for them to stand up. “Follow me.”

Several streets later, the sixth turned a corner and found a battle in progress. It was not, as they would have suspected, between another squad and some orcks. Nor were the original defenders from the walls involved. It wasn’t even civilians who were fighting—no, that was probably exactly what was happening. Just not in the way Mazik would have expected.

It was much, much sillier.

On the side nearest to them was a single man wearing a form-fitting full-body blue leather costume, complete with matching mask. He was standing in front of a mother and her young son, who were huddled against the wall. In front of the blue-suited man was a blue-skinned orck. The orck was clutching a broken iron sword, and was badly bloodied.

The blue-suited man pointed at the orck. “Don’t worry, mis. I will not allow you or your son to be harmed as long as I, the Blue Boar, still draw breath.”

Mazik pushed to the front of the group, staring. “Oh, what the
fuck
is this right here?”

The Blue Boar was a short, heavily muscled man with broad shoulders. Any other physical attributes he possessed were a mystery, hidden by his extensive costume, the main component of which was a unitard made of tight-fitting, padded leather, which had been dyed a blue deeper than the orck’s dusky skin. Over the unitard, he wore thick boots and gloves—
probably to prevent injury while punching and kicking
, said the logical side of Mazik’s brain while the rest of him was busy being annoyed—as well as a padded codpiece, for obvious reasons. His costume was accented with brown streaks, which matched the crest of bristly brown fur that crossed his shoulders and swept down his back, morphing into a short blue cape that ended at the small of his back. His mask covered his entire head, save for a small area around his mouth. It had what looked like a snout and boar-like ears on his nose and the top of his head, respectively. Emblazoned on his chest was a circle of dark brown with the letters BB, the second situated lower than the first, in the center. The entire costume shimmered with the telltale gleam of magick-resistant enchantments.

Into the sixth’s embarrassed silence, Mazik repeated himself. “I repeat, what the
fuck
is this right here, and who the hell is this joker?”

“That’s the Blue Boar,” said Sergeant Redsna. “He’s a local. He calls himself a superhero.”

Mazik looked between Redsna and the Blue Boar, utter disbelief on his face. “He calls himself a superhero?” Mazik sputtered. “So what! Any of us can say that! We do shit most people can’t, and we can save people! We’re doing that right now!” He flailed in frustration. “So what!”

Sergeant Redsna didn’t respond. “You two, grab the civilians. Everyone else, help the Boar.”

As the sixth ran across the intersection, the Blue Boar glanced their way—which gave the orck an opening to strike. Its arm blurred, the broken sword aimed to impale the Blue Boar’s chest.

The Blue Boar snapped into motion. As barrier bindings from Raedren and others wrapped around the orck’s outstretched arm, the Blue Boar flowed to the side and chopped upward with a flattened fist, dislodging the broken sword and breaking the orck’s wrist in one smooth motion. The orck hissed and tried to retaliate, but the Blue Boar was still moving—he dodged out of the way and scythed the orck’s heavy legs out from under it.

The orck would have fallen, were it not for the sixth squad’s spell. It sagged back into the magickal constraints, its naked feet scrabbling at the ground as it tried to rise—and then the Blue Boar buried the butt of his hand in the orck’s face, shattering its flat nose and collapsing its defenses.

The Blue Boar danced out of range, but by then the sixth had arrived. It didn’t take long to finish off the orck.

“Ah, reinforcements! You came at a good time,” said the Blue Boar as the orck crashed to the ground. Behind him, the mother and son were being protected by the two of the sixth’s forwards. “I had the creature under control, but I was having trouble drawing it away from this family, which was constraining my ability to vanquish it.”

Mazik’s eyes almost rolled out of their sockets.

While Sergeant Redsna dealt with the civilians, Mazik walked over to the Blue Boar. He looked him over, top to bottom. “You look ridiculous.”

The Blue Boar glanced at Mazik. “At least I’m not wearing a bathrobe.”

Mazik bristled. He slapped his chest and gestured at his dark gray robes. “What part of this says—” He stopped, then sighed. Mazik’s anger drained away. “Forget it. I can’t even take you seriously. This is why I hate ‘superheroes,’” he said, complete with air quotes. “At least the rest of us have the decency to act under our own names, rather than hiding behind some stupid persona.”

“I am more than just a man,” said the Blue Boar. “I am a symbol. I—”

“He does have a name,” interrupted Uard, from where she and Raedren were tending to the civilians. “It’s Ravelin Bilay. Everyone knows that.”

Mazik arched an eyebrow. The Blue Boar’s eyes darted from side to side. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do,” said another adventurer, a ranger wearing blood-red robes and a bandage wrapped around his forehead. “Everyone knows who you are. I don’t know why you bother trying to hide it.”

“I keep telling you, I don’t know this man,” said the Blue Boar.

Sergeant Redsna sighed. “Mas Rav—uh, Blue Boar, would you mind escorting these two out of the area?”

“Of course! Then I will return to help rescue more citizens,” said the Blue Boar.

“You don’t have to do that,” said Sergeant Redsna.

“Don’t worry. I consider it my duty.” The Blue Boar picked up the boy and mother like they weighed nothing. “I’ll be back!”

The sixth watched as the Blue Boar zoomed away.

“That was stupid,” said Mazik. “That was so stupid. I don’t even know where to start.”

Sergeant Redsna grunted. “Let’s move out.”

Gavi crouched beside the dead orck. She pulled her gloves back on and tipped the corpse onto its back. The body was clad in only a loincloth, but there were a series of pouches around the orck’s waist. When the orck had toppled, something caught Gavi’s eye.

She tugged open one of the pouches, and a gold chalice fell out. Gavi picked it up. It had been crushed during the battle, its rim crumpled, but it was clearly expensive, with gems inlaid on the lip and platinum thread wound around the stem.

I wonder what an orck was doing with a chalice
, she thought, turning it around in her hand.
Or what two orcks were doing ransacking a jewelry store, for that matter.

Behind her, Gavi heard Mazik start ranting. Sergeant Redsna grunted. “Let’s move out.”

Gavi took one last look at the bent chalice. Then she dropped it and joined the others.

The next morning, Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren shambled down to the first floor for breakfast. Lunch, really—after a late night, much of which involved them getting banged up and/or expending a great deal of mana, the three of them had slept nearly to noon. Now they settled around a table with the sullen silence of the sleepy and sore.

Mazik waved at a waiter. The man walked over, pulling an order pad from his food-splattered apron. “What’ll it be, travelers?”

“Bring us food. Lots of it,” said Mazik.

The waiter wasn’t fazed. “Do you have any preferences?”

“Don’t care. Food.” Mazik gestured at the empty table. “M’hungry. Fill it up.”

Gavi, who had grabbed a menu like a responsible adult, took over. Once their order was placed, the waiter disappeared into the back. He returned several minutes later with plates piled high with food. Without a word, the three friends fell upon their meal like half-starved children after a months-long fast.