Questing Sucks (Book 1) (53 page)

“There they are!” a voice shouted. “Attack! Kill every last one of those pointy-eared freaks of nature!”

Another volley of arrows came from the ridge above them and another dozen Elves died. Calen tried to form words—he tried to speak. But his mind struggled to make sense of what was happening. How were they being assaulted from the mountain? The enemy couldn’t have gotten in front of them, no, Calen had traveled too fast for that, so what was going on?

Calen cried in surprise when he felt a hand grab hold of his foot. He looked down into the face of an Elven boy no older than sixteen-seasons, trailing blood along the rocks while he writhed in pain, with an arrow running through his eye. He flopped along the ground like a dying fish, wailing in such a high-pitched, agonizing cry, that Calen shivered and backed away from him reflexively. He raised a palm to his mouth, gaping at the scene before him, paralyzed.

“Get out of the way! Calen, move!”

Calen was thrown to the ground before he could respond to the voice. He shook his head to clear his vision, and then whimpered when he saw the lifeless form of
Roal
lying on top of him, with an arrow in his chest.

W-What’s happening! How…how are they killing us? We outran them. Is this real? Is this really happening?

Calen was hauled back to his feet. He turned to see Daniel staring at him, his eyes wide and his lips pulled back. “Do something, Calen!”

Calen shook his head and acted on instinct. He couldn’t think—thoughts were dangerous. His men, dead, dying in agony. No, thoughts were the last thing he needed. He opened his mouth and let experience take over. “Fall back! Fall back!”

By the time the first of the black-armored soldiers appeared, Calen had already spotted the additional six pathways into the mountain, one of which led downward into what Calen assumed was an underground cavern leading back the way they came.

Gods,
Calen thought.
The enemy knew of a passageway that even we didn’t. But how?

Calen’s men turned to flee, but not before another ten were knocked off their feet by enemy archers. As Calen raced with his men back through the valley, he spotted the ten fallen Elves, two of whom were women. Most were still alive, and they raised their hands and pleaded with their attackers. They were silenced as the enemy soldiers drove their swords into their bodies and finished them off.

Calen grit his teeth and forced himself to keep running. He wanted to turn around, and personally, with his own two hands, strangle each one of the merciless Humans. Instead, he pointed to a nearby rock formation, the reverse U-shaped structure he’d admired earlier. “Over there!” he shouted. “Quickly, get underneath it.”

Daniel grabbed Calen’s shoulder. “Are you crazy? We need to keep running. I don’t know how, but the enemy got in front of us. Gods, we need to get as far away from them as we can.”

Calen shook his head. “It was a tunnel,” he said. “Somehow, they knew of a tunnel that runs underground, and they used it to catch us by surprise in that mountain. But listen, they wouldn’t send more than half their men after us, not when they know how fast we can run. There’s definitely another ambush waiting ahead. We need to take a defensive position.”

Daniel’s face darkened. “Then we’ll die for sure.”

“It seems that way.”

Calen was the first inside the rocky shelter. There were only two ways in, and the hard ceiling prevented the enemy from raining arrows down on top of them. One by one, the Elves leapt inside of the structure, some being cut down by longbows in the process. Calen was aware of the tears that slid down his eyes, but he still managed to count the number of men that entered. One hundred forty. Sixty of his people had been slain.

Calen sucked air into his lungs and shouted. “Bows ready! Draw Arrows. Aim! Now make them pay for the death of our brothers and sisters. Fire!”

The soldiers halted immediately when the Elves returned fire. Only a few of the black-armored men were slain, while the rest halted just outside of killing range. Just as Calen predicted, he could only spot around four hundred of them, which meant…

“Half of you!” he shouted to his Elves. “Quickly, head to the opposite end of the structure. Hurry! And Daniel, go with them.”

The Elves did not question his order. They picked themselves up and sprinted to the other end, before jumping back to the ground and taking aim.

“You were right!” Daniel called. “There’s about another four hundred of them, from the direction we came.”

So, this is it,
Calen thought.
This is how we die.

Surrounded on both sides and split up, Calen knew there was no way out. All he could hope for was to take as many of the black-armored men with him to Helena as he could. Eventually, the enemy soldiers would make their way into the rock formation, and then, Calen would order his men to unsheathe their daggers and fight to the last breath.

“It’s their eight hundred against our two,” Lira whistled. “We’ve got this.”

Calen, in spite of everything, laughed. “It’s more than just eight hundred.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen to the ground…can you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“The approaching horsemen. Alan Marshall was wrong.”

A bead of sweat fell down Lira’s face. It was the first showing of fear that Calen had ever seen from her. “Wrong? How?”

“He didn’t expect the enemy commander to send that much more than a thousand men after us. He told me that if we hit their camp, they’d send no more than twelve hundred, and that we’d have to contend with them. But I can hear it in the ground…there’s another thousand or so on the way, and then another thousand after that. Minus what we’ve killed, we’ve still got about eighteen hundred furious Humans on their way to end our lives, with more following behind.”

Calen realized right away that he should’ve kept his voice low. His Elves trembled at the news, but none cried or pleaded for their lives. Other than a select few who whispered prayers to Helena, the men tightened their grips around their bow shafts and prepared to die.

“Don’t worry, Sword Calen. We’ll take out as many as we can.” Calen turned to look at the speaker. It was another boy. With his loose, wobbly ears, and his wide, circular eyes, Calen estimated him to be around fifteenth-seasoned.

Prince Saerith must have been desperate,
Calen thought.
Or he’d never take them so young.

Within minutes, the enemy surrounded their makeshift holdup. When no men on either side made a move, Calen waved his hands downward, signaling his Elves to hold their fire. “Why are they hesitating?”

His question was soon answered. A powerful, rigid voice shouted loudly enough for all to hear. “Captain Rorrick!” it boomed. “I am Captain Leon of our great leader’s seventh wing. You are to stand down, and return at once!”

Calen held his breath. What were they talking about? Another voice answered in the same rumbling shout. “Are you serious? What are you on about, man?”

“This is an order that comes from commander Ghell himself. My men and I have been dispatched to bring you back to base and stop you from pursuing the Elves.”

The other voice—Captain Rorrick, Calen presumed—added anger to his tone as he responded. “Are you serious, man? These bloody tree huggers have slaughtered two hundred of my best men. And now we’ve got them surrounded, and you want us to turn tail and run?”

“Watch your tone with me, sir. Do not assume that I wanted anything—these orders are not mine.”

“Well Gods curse me then, because I won’t be having any of it.”

“You would ignore an order from commander Ghell? My good sir, has the heat gotten to your head? Perhaps it has seeped into your brain, and now you are unable to think properly. Either way, the result is the same. You and your men are to return at once.”

Calen tried not to get his hopes up, but as he listened in on the conversation, he—and many of the others, by the looks of them—felt the beginnings of hope. No one stirred while they listened to the two captains argue. Calen risked losing his head and peeked out of the opening in the rock formation.

He could only see the first captain, the one addressed as “Rorrick.” The man was much less than his voice sounded him to be—short, plump, and dressed more elaborately than Prince Saerith had been when he recruited Calen. The man had so much gold on him that Calen didn’t know how he managed to sit up straight on his horse. There were at least three rings on each of his fingers, and enough golden necklaces to hide his skin underneath.

Eventually, the other captain, Leon, rode into Calen’s view, crossing over to Rorrick’s side. “Do not make me drag you.”

Rorrick held out a hand and then pointed towards the rock formation, directly to where Calen’s head stuck out from the rock. Calen ducked out of sight and prayed he hadn’t been seen.

“Listen to me,” Rorrick began. “There’s only two hundred in there and…and several of them are women. I didn’t want to say anything before, because, well, to be truthful I wanted them to myself. But if you attack with me, I’ll make sure we capture them alive, and I’ll even give you and your men half of the women.”

Calen once again risked being seen and leaned out to watch. Leon’s face changed. He licked his lips and rubbed his chin. “Half, Captain Rorrick? Need I remind you that you’ve publicly stated your intention to betray commander Ghell? You heard him admit to that, boys, didn’t you?”

“Yes sir!” Leon’s men shouted.

Rorrick closed his eyes a moment and then opened them. “Fine, fine. You can have a little more than half. But Gods, man, don’t be greedy. I haven’t had a woman in months, and I’ve never had an Elven one, at that. I doubt you have, either. Help me get my revenge, and we’ll all take a go at them.”

The Elven women growled around Calen. Lira drew the dagger from her sheathe. “Human or not, I won’t let any of these pigs touch a single one of you. I’d sooner kill you myself than let them have you.”

For the love of the Gods,
Calen thought.
Please just do what your commander asks and let us live!

Calen knew he’d be afforded no such luck. He could see the way Leon continued to lick his lips, while Rorrick described—in great detail—the shape and form of an Elven woman’s body, and why it was ‘so much better’ than a Human’s.

“What say you, boys?” Leon asked. “Do we add Elven girls to our list of things we dine on tonight?”

The black-armored men answered unanimously. Not just Leon’s, but Rorrick’s joined in on their ceremonious cheer. “All right,” Leon said. “Men! We’ll kill all but the women. Any man here that harms a woman will be summarily executed. There’s barely enough to go around as it is before we wear them out. Not one Elven woman is to be slain, do you understand?”

“Yes sir!” replied the nearly two thousand soldiers.

With nothing left to hope for, and no possible way to survive, Calen picked up his bow and held it over his chest, reciting. “Helena. You are my love. You are my hope eternal. You are all that was, or will ever be.”

The Elves chanted with him. Even Daniel and Lira joined in, placing their bows against their chests. “And you are my morning. And you are my night. And you are in darkness as you are in light.”

Tears were shed by some, while others held only smiles. Only Elves facing death in battle could recite their last will directly to Helena. “And you are my sun. And you are my moon. And you are in later as you are in soon. And you are my giver. And you are my taker. And we bless you forever, Helena, our maker.”

Calen jumped back as the first of the arrows landed in front of the small opening, none coming close enough to kill. There was a thud above them, and the Elves flinched while they were pelted by thousands of arrows, none of which could hurt them or breach the rocky ceiling, but the sound it brought sent shivers into Calen’s spine.