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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.32 (147)
🕑 Added 2024-04-05 22:30:04 +0000 UTCNicholas Salvatore-Verena had never considered himself much of a physical person. He’d always preferred to handle things at a distance. Even when performing experiments, he disliked having to do any sort of field-work. He was also well aware that this preference was a direct result of his upbringing, but he never really cared enough to address the short-coming.
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do physical labor, or that he thought it was somehow beneath him, or any other such nonsense. He just didn’t like it, and he was fine with that.
Despite all that, he was delightfully surprised to find that he was truly enjoying building the wall. Even cutting down trees wasn’t as bad as he’d remembered it being. Perhaps he’d grown as a person in the last 50 years.
Stretching his arms up high, he helped his fellow elites guide the large log into place. He looked over to see the man on his right cast a simple spell to temporarily fuse the joint, securing the log to the support post.
Stepping back, he placed his hands on his hips with a smile, a proud look on his face.
While some of the others started hammering in the large wooden dowels to finish the section off, he made his way over to the lumber pile to help bring over the wood for the next section.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nero off in the distance, dragging another freshly felled tree back from the edge of the forest. He felt his smile die on his face.
It really was a shame. The young man had so many talents, but they were all so random. How could he seem so world-wise, yet so unbearably ignorant at the same time. Wherever he came from must have been completely different and undoubtedly savage. Seriously, how could Nero have gone through his entire life never having learned how to chop down a tree? That’s something children learn on their first school camping trip.
Turning away from the rather pathetic sight of his friend, he returned to what he was doing. Nodding to the woman next to him, together they hefted the large log to their shoulders in tandem. Following along, he stared at her back while mentally recalling the numerous jobs Nero had failed at since arriving an hour ago.
The poor guy couldn’t even remove a tree-stump. Although it was a particularly good explosion when he’d tried.
Letting his mind wander, he thought of his wife, and what she might be up to at the moment. Reaching out to his link, he checked to see if Dorchester’s Thought-hub was contactable at the moment. ‘Nope. We must currently be under an oscillatory essence wave. We’re not even that far away, and the density shift is already causing problems. Maybe I can convince the captain to have someone deliver a wave analyzer with the next supply drop. Either way, it’s too bad I can’t ping Vera,’ he thought to himself.
Thinking back to how she’d been when he’d seen her after the fiasco at the Hall of Leadership, he couldn’t help but smile. It was nice that she was enjoying being a noble again. He had always known he’d have to return to the nobility, but he’d hoped he would have had a few more years before it became an issue. It wasn’t like he was aware of how much Vera had missed all the intrigue and danger. ‘Well, at least she’s happy now,’ he thought.
After helping place another support post, he turned around to go help bring over another log. Glancing at the rising communications tower in the center of the camp, he saw Nero standing by the captain and that war-mage, Specialist Howard. ‘That man is really over-qualified for his position. Despite being terrible at theoretical work, his practical magic is surprisingly good. I wonder who he pissed off to get this assignment?’ he thought to himself.
While he waited for one of the supervising sergeants to finish trimming the logs to the required lengths for the next section of the wall, he frowned at the sight of Nero leading Captain Angelton and Specialist Howard back toward the tree-line. ‘What is he up to now?’ he wondered.
His curiosity was interrupted by a light slap to his arm. Turning around, he saw the woman he’d been working with gesture for him to pick up his end. Nodding, he joined her in hefting the freshly cut log onto their shoulders.
As they made their way back toward the slowly assembling wall, this time with him in the front, he ran his eyes across the progress they’d made. It really did feel good to build something with his own two hands. Magic would remain his first love, but he had to admit that reality had a charm of it’s own. ‘Maybe I should spend some time working on enchanting, combining reality and magic to create something new and unique,’ he mused.
Feeling a large pulse of essence slam into his essence field, he almost dropped the log. When the woman behind him let her end go, he almost tipped over. Releasing his grip, he let the log finally fall.
Turning around with a confused look on his face, he mumbled, “What’s going on?” He had a vaguely remembered reading that an essence pulse like that was supposed to mean something.
Seeing the woman behind him already running off back toward the center of the camp, he looked around to see everyone else following suit. He stood for a second, a little confused, and raised one eyebrow in surprise. Figuring that they all probably had a good reason, he followed along like a good soldier.
After only a few steps, he heard the forest cry out, the horrific sound setting his teeth on edge and giving him goosebumps. Feeling a primal fear rise up in his belly, he picked up his pace.
Letting his perception field expand, he tried to get an idea of what was happening. Unfortunately, whatever was going on was too far away for him to get a read, and he had to be content with the fact that he was currently running in the opposite direction.
Seeing that everyone who’d made it near the backpacks and supplies was already gearing up for a fight, the realization of what was happening hit him like a bolt of lightning. ‘Of course it’s an alarm you idiot! You’re in an army encampment, did you think you were being called in because it’s time for lunch?’ he scolded himself.
Looking over his shoulder to see if he could see anything with his eyes, he felt his blood run cold as arrows and spells were launched into the air.
‘Well, that rules out a monster or spontaneous beast wave. Best guess, it’s either kobalds or more nobles trying to kill Nero,’ he thought, unable to turn off his analytical brain.
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It was only a few seconds ago that everything had gone to hell, and as a novice in the arena of war it was understandable that Nero’s brain was misfiring.
A veritable horde of kobalds burst through the treeline. Even from around 50 ft away, their war-cries were loud enough to drown out the sound of Specialist Howard ordering him to retreat. Or perhaps it was the sight of hundreds of arrows and spells falling from the sky that had frozen him in place, too stunned to do anything of use.
At least the landscape was working to his advantage, as the kobalds were forced to run up the rocky soil interspersed with loose dirt from where the elites had dug out tree trunks. The slope wasn’t terrible, as the relatively flat terrain was the reason they were setting up an encampment here in the first place. Yet, it was enough to give Nero time to get his head in order.
Luckily, Nero’s limited experience kicked in, and he applied his tried and true method of dealing with incoming threats. Like it was instinct, he brought out his shield from his personal space, setting the bottom against the ground in front of him and ducking his entire body behind it. ‘The Wall 2.0’ was deployed before Nero realized what had happened.
Hidden behind the 4ft tower shield, his brain started working again, and the first thought through it was the memory of an arrow clipping his lower leg in this exact situation during his fight with the assassins in the wilds. Grimacing at the memory, he pulled his extremities in and tried to come up with a plan.
The situation was not ideal, and he couldn’t stop staring at the felled tree which he’d been carrying when all of this had started. The damn thing was sitting right next to him, slightly vibrating in the face of all the noise going on around him.
Shaking his head at the distracting thought, he focused on what was about to happen. His adrenaline pumping, his mind worked fast to come up with a course of action.
The kobalds had realized their illusion had been seen through, and were now charging in early. Their ground forces were being preceded by a volley of arrows and giant balls of light which were probably spells, and not simply flares... considering the sun was still up. He hadn’t gotten a good look at where the volley would land, but one thing for sure was that he was currently the closest elite at the moment.
While he was trying to figure out what to do, the sound of the kobald’s charge was drowned out by an explosion large enough to shake the ground under his feet. But the sensation was didn’t feel right, there was no rattling of his bones, or fire coating the ground around him. As he was still staring at the felled tree, he could see that it was perfectly fine, as if whatever happened had no effect on it at all.
Confused, he peeked his head over the top of ‘The Wall 2.0’ to see what was happening. His jaw dropped at the sight of a 20ft wide curved barrier glowing in front of his position. Its light blue hue gently distorting the sight of the kobalds rapidly closing in.
Seeing the magical shield prompted him him to instinctively let his essence field out so his mental probe could give him a better idea as to what he what he was looking at.
The rush of information let him know that Specialist Howard was standing tall, just to his left. The man’s legs were locked in a horse stance and he held his hands up, palms forward, like a boss. Nero could see Howard’s face set in a feral grin, ready to unleash hell onto the enemy.
At the edge of his range, he could also feel the other elites already assembling into battle teams in the middle of the camp, each group under magical shields being pelted by arrows and exploding fireballs. The realization that he and Specialist Howard were totally out of position hammered him in the face like a 3rd grade teacher in the middle ages smacking him with the dumb-stick.
It had all happened in just 10 seconds, but his brain had finally caught up and his confidence that he could handle the situation was beginning to return. It was like his essence field was providing real-time understanding of what was going on around him, and he kicked himself for having pulled it back when he’d been caught peeping on the kobalds under their nifty illusion.
From behind him, he heard Specialist Howard’s steady voice, tinged with annoyance, say, “There are a lot more than a hundred out there, Walker!”
Nero stood up, pulled out his blade and switched out the wall for one of his smaller bucklers. Turning to face the man, he retorted quickly, “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?”
Right as Nero said that, he felt Specialist Howard complete another spell. The area in front of the shield lit up with a small ball of light, its green and red roiling flames quickly growing bigger.
“Don’t talk. Just run,” said the man, than followed his own advice and took off back toward the assembling defensive line while a small blue shield floated above his shoulders and upper back.
Nero took one last look at the kobalds. They were still charging in without fear, their little legs pumping in excitement. They were now close enough for him to see actual froth accumulating around their snouts while their faces were being lit up by the spell growing 5 ft away from him.
Deciding that running was probably not a bad idea, Nero turned around and took off as fast as he could. Howard’s shield, and whatever spell that looked like it was about to go off, would hopefully slow them down enough to give him a head start. Although, he needn’t have worried, despite being incredibly agile, kobalds didn’t have a very impressive top-speed.
As he ran, his hands held tight to his sword and shield, while his mind began the process of activating his mage-armor. He’d practiced the technique enough that it didn’t even make him stumble, part of his consciousness smoothly isolating itself to maintain the armor’s identity.
Almost as soon as he started running, he felt an arrow slam into his upper back. The force was completely blunted by his shield, but it still felt like a gong ringing in his head. Gritting his teeth, he kept running, but put a little more focus on maintaining his mage-armor.
He could see that Howard had already closed the distance to the rest of the elites and the small bubbles of shields were already collapsing into a line, the elites behind them readying to face the charge. Behind each group, one or two people were returning fire at the kobalds with spears, arrows, and the occasional spell. Their firing arc was sending the attacks high into the air to make it over the defensive shields.
Nero covered the approximately 100ft between him and the rest of the elites faster than he’d thought possible, his adrenaline and fear urging him to wring out whatever he could from his ‘body’ stats.
In a way, he was lucky that the forest’s tree-density around here was so low, it had prompted them to clear a rather large amount of area, and forced the kobalds to begin their charge from a much greater distance than if they’d been attacked at their old encampment. Of course, Nero hadn’t actually ever spent any time at that encampment, so the thought didn’t occur to him.
Squeezing in between the collapsing shields, Nero stuttered to a halt and looked around to see where he could be of use.
What caught Nero’s attention first, was that the shields weren’t actually spells, or at least not ‘just’ spells. Every 5 man team had a sergeant holding a shield that was projecting the magical half-bubble in front of them. But some of the teams had up to 8 people using the shields as cover.
Even though the situation was dire, he couldn’t help but take a quick count and try and figure out how many people were actually part of their little war camp. ‘I should have really taken a headcount before we left Dorchester,’ he thought to himself.
Figuring that it would be easiest to just start by counting the shields, his eyes swept along the line until he saw his team near one of the flanks, preparing for battle. Running over, he finished his count by taking advantage of his perception field. There were 10 shields, so he figured between maybe 60 or 70 troops.
Stuttering to a stop next to Nick, he saw Rose and Cathleen standing a few feet away shooting arrows and launching spears up into the air like rapid-fire turrets. ‘Where the hell do they store all that crap? Cathleen might have a personal space filled with spears, but Rose’s quiver just never seems to run out,’ he thought to himself.
“Nero, what in the hells were you doing standing out there!?! Did you plan to fight the entire kobald charge all on your own?” shouted Nick, causing Nero’s head to snap toward the man in surprise.
Nero cringed at the rebuke, but changed the subject to something he actually wanted to talk about. “I thought there were only 20 recruits including us. Even with the team-leaders, aren’t there too many people here?” he asked.
As the sounds of combat were all around them, the crisp snap of bowstrings, grunts from the spear-throwers, and cracks of kobald arrows breaking themselves against the shields, Nick stared at Nero in total shock.
“What are you talking about? We’re in the middle of a battle! Focus on the enemy Nero!” he shouted.
Nero shrugged awkwardly, his adrenaline making him a little jumpy, while the multiple things he was paying attention to was causing him to suffer from distractions.
Turning to face the charging kobalds, he tried to force his thoughts back onto the what he needed to do to prepare for combat. ‘Don’t let your mind wander. You don’t want to die to midget lizards… that’s not how you get into Valhalla,’ he told himself.
Seconds passed as Nero watched the little kobalds climb up the hill, running over each other when they slipped on the loose ground during what, to them, was a break-neck charge. He laughed a little when he saw that the spell Howard had cast was still up and running. It had turned into a giant ball of green fire which was occasionally launching red streaks of flame in random directions. There must have been 10 or 20 kobald corpses currently acting like mini-bonfires all around it.
Nero jumped when he heard Captain Angelton’s loud voice ring out over the battlefield, “POST!”
As one, all the shield-bearers raised their shields at the same time, tilting them up into the air and allowing the bottom to rise up so the rest of the soldiers could meet the charge while still being under cover.
Sergeant Wesker shouted, “Walker get up here, you and Averrett are the line with me.”
Taking out another shield, Wesker left the one providing their overhead cover just floating in the air. Nero could see the shield anchoring itself in the ether. Perhaps it was an enchantment holding it place?
Forcing his attention away from the interesting magical phenomenon, Nero rushed up next to the sergeant and readied his own buckler to face the charge. Each shield bubble had 3 or 4 people under it, all in a line, ready to meet the kobald’s charge.
Nero held his breath, as the first few kobalds were already just a few feet away. His heart was pumping like crazy, and the sight of the incoming mob was making his palms sweat. The kobald lines hadn’t held together very well, and it looked more like a loose swarm making its way up a hill. The elite’s higher ground was giving him a great view of what was happening behind the shorter enemies.
He heard the first of the kobalds being cut down a few groups to his right, and soon enough his first enemy made it into range.
Like an insane child wielding a cleaver, the kobald jumped forward wildly swinging its jagged sword at him. Swiftly moving his shield into position, he received the blow at an angle like Cathleen had trained him to. The sword moved past him, and he swung his hip to give the little bastard his counter-blow. His own sword shot out, stabbing the kobald directly in its chest. The lizards eyes widened, it dropped its weapons and gripped the blade with both of its claws. Nero finished the move, pulling the blade back and returning his shield to the ready position.
As the blade ripped itself free of the kobald, Nero watched its eyes go dead and its legs give out. Just like that, his first fight of the war was over.
All around him, the elites were ripping into the kobalds. The enemy’s charge wasn’t nearly coordinated enough to cause them much of a problem. It was actually kind of pathetic to see the kobalds being executed one after another. To Nero, it looked like they were just too stupid to realize how screwed they were.
But before Nero’s thoughts could fool him into thinking this was going to be an easy victory, his attention was caught by another kobald screaming bloody-murder and charging at him, brandishing a short spear like he was charging a dummy.
Over the little murder-lizard’s shoulder, Nero saw the entire area up to the tree line filled with kobalds making their way forward, eagerly rushing to their death. Interspersed throughout the horde were the other types of kobalds, some of which were casting spells, organizing the charge, and dismantling Howard’s spell. He couldn’t see the end of them, and the ones in the back weren’t nearly as stupid as the ones in the front.
‘Yeah, Howie was right. There are definitely more than a hundred of them. I must have forgot to carry a zero, or something. My bad,’ he thought, not remotely considering the possibility that he just didn’t look around enough.
Comments
Tommy Mullane
This story is great
