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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.33 (148)
🕑 Added 2024-04-08 15:58:52 +0000 UTCSpecialist Howard felt it the moment the illusionary barrier went down. What was once just another random piece of the forest in the mountain, suddenly became a staging ground for an invasion. The sporadic trees allowed for an impressive number of kobalds to congregate in a relatively small area. Not that the area was all that small to begin with.
He forced his perception field to thin, allowing it to cover more area, and he was shocked to discover a tunnel hidden near the back of the kobald’s formation. ‘Not good,’ he thought. ‘There could be thousands of them hiding down there. What we see above ground might only be the tip of the spear.’
Realizing the implications of what a tunnel might mean, he distractedly muttered an “Oh shit!”, then turned to lock eyes with the Captain. Seeing the curious tilt to the man’s head, he sent a connection request to show him what was coming.
In less than a second, he shoved the images of what he’d seen into the captain’s mind, and watched as his face paled. Without even getting a response other than a sense of determination radiating from the man’s psyche, Howard felt the connection snap shut.
As the captain turned to look back at the rest of the troops, Howard cast a ‘signal-flare’ into the air, the red orb slowly rising into the sky. Holding both of his hands together, he condensed an essence pulse to grab everyone’s attention. He needed to sound the alarm quickly, and it wouldn’t matter if the kobalds noticed, it wasn’t like they weren’t already on their way.
The feeling of anticipation rose in gut, and the familiar sense of imminent danger caused him to smile. It had been months since he’d had a good fight, and a battle against a horde of vicious kobalds was just what he needed to wipe away the stress of the last few weeks. The memory of the little lord’s cheap shot during training, the pain from the stone spike slamming into his gut caused his smile to dim a bit.
The captain shouted, “Howard, you’re the only real mage we have at the moment, so you’re on shield synchronization and aerial support.” Without waiting for a reply, he took off back toward the center of the camp to coordinate their defense.
The realization that he wouldn’t be able to fully let loose tempered his enthusiasm a little, but he was still excited to see what the enemy had in store for them.
Looking down, he saw the little lord still standing there with a look of shock on his face. Although understandable for a fresh recruit, he wouldn’t have thought the young man was the type to freeze under pressure. His smirk grew a little at seeing the magical prodigy acting so normal for once. ‘Besides, this gives me an excuse to leave them a few welcoming gifts,’ he thought to himself.
Quickly casting a defensive shield to counter the enemy’s rather unimpressive opening volley, he shouted, “There are a lot more than a hundred out there, Walker!”
He couldn’t stop himself from scoffing when he saw the little guy hiding behind a tower shield, carefully tucking his legs in, making sure nothing was sticking out. Shaking his head at the adorable sight, he began carving a small ‘flaming-whip-mine’, as he didn’t have enough time for much else.
Seeing the young lord peeking over the top of his shield, he almost burst out laughing.
The young lord changed weapons, finally putting away that ridiculous shield. He said, “I didn’t exactly have time to count them, I just meant there were a lot. Are we really just going to stand here and wait for them?”
Howard let the little idiot chatter away, as he was busy finishing his spell. Feeling the spell-form stabilize, he pumped a little more center into it, and then tied it to the local ether, locking it in place. ‘This is going to be great,’ he thought with a smile.
Turning around, he shouted over his shoulder, “Don’t talk. Just run.”
He took off back toward the rest of the troops, while casting a simple shield spell and anchoring it to his shoulders in order to hold off any incoming arrows or spells. It wasn’t worth casting an essence shield to deal with an enemy this pathetic. It looked like they’d be relying on their numbers, not their skills.
He sensed the little lord was finally coming to grips with what was happening, so he figured the young man would follow along soon enough. Keeping the little shit alive wasn’t his responsibility anyways.
When he got back to the center of the encampment, he took his place to the left of the captain. Looking out onto the troops, he could see them falling into an acceptable defensive line. It wasn’t perfect, and he would prefer it if they had more troops, but the few sergeants they did have seemed to know what they were doing.
He held out his arms, letting his control field seep into the ambient essence. He carefully carved an ‘essence post’ and anchored it to the ethereal plane within his essence field. Then, he reached out through the ether to tie the shield enchantments together, merging them all into a cohesive network. Normally, this would be the responsibility of a support mage, but he still remembered how to do it.
In fact, this whole scenario was reminding him of his early days in the army. Even the horde of incoming kobalds looked a little like the goblins he’d spent years massacring. The memory of the battles made his smile grow even wider with carefully controlled blood-lust.
While the captain called out orders, Howard completely released his restraint on his essence field, flooding as much of the area as he could with his will. Feeling some push back on the edge of his range, he raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘So the kobald’s have some skilled mages of their own. Let’s see what you have for me,’ he taunted them within his mind.
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Nero felt the recoil in his wrist as his essence infused blade slammed into the edge of a lucky block by the kobald in front of him. Grimacing at the subtle pain, he stepped forward to slam his shield into his opponent. The little lizard didn’t have the body mass to stand up to him, and Nero took advantage of the opening he caused to slash the kobald’s throat, spraying the poor bastard’s blood into the air like a fountain.
Turning his head away, he felt the sickening warmth coat the left side of his face. ‘At least monster blood evaporates after a while. This is disgusting,’ he thought.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Nick’s grim visage snarl as he speared a kobald while taking advantage of the gap between Nero and elite standing next to him. Among others, Nick was acting as a secondary line, aiding the first line with arrows, spears, and the occasional spell. They were also in charge of pulling the dead bodies out of the way.
Not letting himself get distracted, he tightened his mental hold on his mage-armor and resumed killing whatever had the balls to show up in front of him. ‘It’s just like the trees,’ he thought. ‘Spells are awesome, but sometimes it is just so much more efficient to do it manually. Nick is probably just trying not to waste his center. I wonder how Howie is doing?’
They’d been at this for around 20 minutes already, and the kobald’s numbers didn’t seem to be letting up at all. In fact, if it weren’t for the secondary line occasionally pulling bodies away from the battlefield, they’d all be fighting on top of a pile of kobald corpses. Luckily, it didn’t look like there were any casualties on the human side of the battle just yet, but that could change if the battle continued for the rest of the day.
Looking into the distance, he saw the field in front of him over-run with kobalds making their way up the hill. Meanwhile arrows and spells still exploded on the hovering shields above him. All in all, this didn’t look like the battle was going to be ending anytime soon.
Sidestepping, he let a kobald’s spear slip past his hip while he slashed another throat open with a backhand sword-slash. Snaking his shield arm over the dying kobald’s head, he yanked the little bastard behind him, trying to make sure he didn’t end up clogging the area with the lizard’s soon-to-be corpse. Through his essence field, he felt Rose pull the kobald back behind the lines and stack the body on top of the rest of corpses he’d made.
From over his shoulder, he felt Rose launch the dead kobald’s spear back toward the enemy. He cringed a little at the sight of the spear ‘head-shotting’ a charging kobald in the distance. ‘Considering how many times she’s done that, it’s definitely not luck. That girl is freaking brutal. I wonder if she’s finally out of arrows?’ he thought.
His breathing was surprisingly steady. As he fought, he couldn’t help but compare the battle to his time training with Cathleen. After thinking about it for a bit, he realized that this was all rather tame compared to what she had usually put him through.
While that thought bounced around his head, he kicked out gently with his foot to move his current enemy’s leg a little out of position, causing the kobald in front of him to lower his shield a little too far. Like he’d done countless times before, Nero stabbed forward with his blade. Seeing the strike nearly remove the kobald’s head by severing its thin excuse for a neck, he looked around to see how everyone else was doing.
It didn’t seem like the kobalds were much of a threat individually. From what he could tell, the elites were all handling them just fine. Some of them even looked a little bored. Even the pace of the battle wasn’t too bad. They’d probably be able to keep this up for hours at this rate. So why did he feel like he was missing something?
‘It’s because any idiot would know that this type of assault would never work. Fresh recruits would be able to handle this, and they aren’t even trying to get around the line to force us to turtle up. They can’t be this stupid, can they? I mean, We Have The High-ground!’ he thought with a chuckle.
Figuring he’d need the brainpower, and considering it was currently doing nothing other than sapping his mental strength, he let his mage-armor dissipate into the ether.
As he fought, he let part of his mind reach out through the ether, trying to get a better sense of what was happening from a wider perspective. His mental presence slid along the lines, watching the elites rip apart the enemy, while the bodies continued to pile higher and higher behind them. He had to admit that what he was seeing was without a doubt, rather impressive. The coordination among the teams was nothing short of outstanding. Not to mention, seeing Captain Angelton walking behind the troops, shouting orders and offering support as if he were some kind of Roman general demanding his troops to ‘hold the line’, was kind of awesome.
Surprisingly, he had no trouble paying attention to the fight while half his attention was busy taking a look around through the ether. ‘This must be what Nick meant when he talked about ‘splitting my mind’. The part I’ve been training to maintain my armor is now being used to spy on the battle. Nifty trick,” he thought.
If he had to describe it, he’d say the skill was similar to holding a conversation while cooking. Or better yet, watching TV while working out. However, it was also so much more than that. He felt like he was fully paying attention to two entirely separate things. In a way, it was rather amazing, but also kind of a let down. It didn’t seem remotely magical, it just felt like he was getting really good at paying attention to multiple things at the same time.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to play a riveting game of chess against myself anytime soon, or hold an intense mental debate in my head. This isn’t anything like the mind partitions I read about in the stories,’ he complained, while slamming the edge of his shield down onto the throat of kobald he’d tripped up.
While the fight went on, he sent his mental probe deeper into the kobald horde. ‘There has to be a reason they’re sacrificing themselves like this,’ he thought.
Back near the tree-line, almost at the edge of his perception range, he saw several of the larger kobalds shoving the foot-soldiers into hap-hazard lines and sending them off to their deaths. Even thought the farther he got from the battle lines, the fuzzier everything looked, he could still kind of hear them shouting orders in their weird hissing, guttural speech.
“Move in groups! Attack together! Force the smooth-skins to earn their kills!” yelled the towering lizards.
Nero frowned, the ether was shaking so much it was taking a lot of focus to maintain his connection to his probe. It didn’t seem to be wasting his center so much as it was simply sapping his concentration. It wasn’t really like scrying at all, since it was entirely within his field of control, but it was still oddly difficult. The worst part about it was that he didn’t know why he was having so much trouble with it.
While he slaughtered more kobalds, he let his mind chew on the problem.
‘What the hell is causing all this interference? I thought I had gotten pretty good at seeing through other people’s essence fields. I still can’t cast anything within their zone of control, but I should at least be able to see what the hell is going on. And why does the essence out there look like that? It’s so dense that it’s more like mist or fog than any kind of essence flow. Could it be the emotions or something? No, it’s got to be something else. That’s just too idiotic to consider,’ he thought.
Fed up, he slammed his sword hilt down onto a kobald’s head, feeling the recoil all the way up to his shoulder as the skull shattered. When the lizard went limp, he hooked his hilt behind its neck and let the body fall past him. Turning his attention to the next enemy, he used his shield to knock its spear up into the air. The kobald stumbled back, hissing in annoyance at his failed attempt to kill him. Nero didn’t pursue, and just maintained his position among the line, exactly like he was supposed to.
The battle raged on, with Nero lost in thought while almost mechanically eliminating enemies, one by one, over and over again.
Meanwhile, half his attention stayed focused on how the ether was roiling with thick clouds of essence and mulling over the implication that he was, in fact, missing something important.
While spells and arrows continued to explode on the shields above him, Nero wondered, ‘Where are all these bastards coming from? And is there a plan to end this any time soon?’
Comments
Ocean Breeze
I did!
Leetle Sheet
Yeah, I kinda messed up and published this a few hours early. Anyway, enjoy!:)
