Elusive Prey

by Cheek, Jason

  “The oath that was given between the two of you was that of a vassal to a lord. The responsibility he accepted was in taking care of you and your clan. At no time was it a promise between two lovers. It was you who left him. It was you that refused to be around him due to my presence. Now he’s risking everything to help you, you miserable excuse for a vassal, to escape even after you’ve refused to follow his orders in regards to the plan.”

  “That’s because he took you as a lover!” Fylreh shouted in outrage.

  “What does that have anything to do with you following orders?” Helgath snarled, threateningly baring her shark-like teeth. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what the rune of a soulmate means, you know as well as I that Star didn’t take me to be his lover or a mate. He accepted this rune with me because it was the only way to save the hundreds upon hundreds of Sea Elves that were about to die a horrible death!” The Half-Orc’s outrage suddenly dissipated as she grew pensive.

  “What male would find a body like mine attractive?” Helgath honestly asked of Fylreh, as the Centauride uncomfortably looked away in spite of her hatred for the little beast. While the Half-Orc’s body had noticeably filled out and she now looked healthy and whole, she would never be beautiful or have Fylreh’s attributes. Besides that, Helgath’s green-tinged skin, vertically-slit pupils, and jagged teeth left no question as to her Orc and Goblin heritage. She was the very essence of a demi-human in every sense of the word. Not even a half-breed like Star would be attracted to a female such as her.

  “If you know he’ll never fully take you as his soulmate in anything but name alone,” Fylreh suddenly demanded, “then why are you trying to help me?”

  “Because,” Helgath proudly stated, pushing away her sadness. Star had saved her from a living nightmare and treated her better than she’d ever dreamed possible. “I promised to serve Star as my War Leader with my mind, body, and soul,” the Half-Orc mentally added in disgust, ‘not when it was convenient or it didn’t mesh with my personal goals and ambitions.’ Out loud, Helgath continued nonplussed. “So, will you honor the oath you gave him or should we kill you now and be done with it`”

  For some reason, that put everything into perspective for the filly. While they would never be friends, the intense hatred she’d felt towards the Half-Orc mostly diminished in that second. In its place was the sad reality that she’d royally screwed up the relationship she’d had with Star over her own feelings of inadequacies. As the Centauride’s desire for death left her, she met the Half-Orc’s yellow cat-eyes.

  “You know I will never accept you as a friend?” Fylreh asked, as she came to a decision.

  “We are vassals that serve the same War Leader,” Helgath clarified, “nothing more and nothing less. To seek your destruction without reason would go against my sworn oath.”

  “That I can live with,” Fylreh agreed, as Helgath stood up with a wordless nod still straddling the Centauride. To Fylreh’s shock, the Half-Orc cast a Regeneration spell on her battered body. Instantly, the blood that had been oozing onto the ground from her open wounds stopped as her hit points began recovering once again. With a silent nod to herself, Helgath finished collecting the rest of the newfar’s loot and mounted the Silver Dire Wolf’s back while the filly climbed back to her hooves to meet the Half-Orc’s steady gaze.

  “Do you think he would accept me back?” Fylreh asked, studying the other woman’s face. If anyone would know her chances of patching things up with Star, it would be this Half-Orc and wolf companion.

  “Where there's life, there's hope,” Helgath simply answered, as she mentally snorted in derision. From their shared connection, she and Neysa both knew that Star would never again fully trust someone who’d purposely chosen to hurt him. Not after the emotional abuse he’d been through in the newfar’s world. Nonetheless, the Half-Orc kept her thoughts to herself as she silently watched the other woman try to strap the hardened-leather breastplate back in place. The straps for the clamshell were obviously ruined. With an annoyed snarl, the filly finally gave up and tucked the now useless piece of armor onto her equipment harness, before digging through her inventory.

  Next, Fylreh pulled out a wide, leather wrap of Barbed Goat hide and began the process of binding up her large chest while Helgath hit her with another Regeneration spell. Though the supple leather was inadequate protection for a battle, it was a common item that Centaurides typically used to protect their chests while performing daily tasks and it was better than nothing in the current situation, the filly unhappily thought, as she pushed her chest out to make sure the wrap was tight enough. To protect her arms, Fylreh took out two long strips of braided-leather strips that she wrapped around her forearms. Finished with her preparations, she picked up her bow and met the Half-Orc’s yellow cat-eyes.

  “Cryptic as any shaman I’ve ever met,” Fylreh said with an unhappy snort.

  “My oath does not cover getting Star to mount you again, Centauride,” Helgath mockingly said, as she ignored the filly’s frown and finished giving Tengsly her message. As the Flying Squirrel raced away between the towering trunks, Neysa took off in the same direction as the Half-Orc called over her shoulder. “Now let’s see if we can save Star from himself!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  (Evil Sandra chasing after Star near the valley’s eastern pass)

  “If you want that cash bonus, you better move your asses!” Evil Sandra bellowed in raid chat, as they reached the eastern graveyard and headed up the slope towards the eastern pass. While the path that the other raid took was clear enough to follow, surprisingly enough, they still hadn’t caught up to Starfairy and his NPCs. Her nails dug into the palm of her hand as she fumed under her breath. “Those losers couldn’t have gotten that far ahead, they were mostly all NPCs!”

  For the most part, everyone’s morale was high since they’d been basically winning every fight they’d fought against these losers. Well, every fight except for Fatal Midnight’s failure to capture the fortress. Not that anyone was blaming her for that. Nope, that was being placed squarely on Mister-Griefer’s shoulders. The only thing that her people were upset at was being tricked into chasing after the first group since everyone wanted to be the ones who took out Starfairy. She stifled a snort at the nickname that Julie had come up with for Jason, before her thoughts turned serious once again. While that sleight of hand was annoying to an extent, she’d gone ahead and sic’d Dante and Yusuk after the first group.

  Those two idiots deserved one another, Evil Sandra thought as a vicious smile formed on her lips. That, and there was no doubt in her mind that Jason expected her to let the first group go and focus all of her resources on him. She’d put down some serious money that he hadn’t made any contingency plans for that. She mentally rubbed her hands together feeling like Dr. Evil. All of his buddies were soon going to find out just how outmatched they were once her iron fist closed around their throats! She was in mid-rant when a flurry of white stars suddenly rained down on top of the raid from further up the mountain.

  “Gah!” Evil Sandra snarled in annoyance, as her Lightning Shield suddenly collapsed and her muscles locked up for a moment. Stumbling to a stop, she looked up at the fountain like rain of electric balls falling down around her as she quickly recast her Lightning Shield and screamed. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Unfortunately, Shapo wasn’t around for her to get filtered reports as to what she needed to pay attention to, Evil Sandra frustratingly thought, as the raid oozed to a stop. To her annoyance, she’d discovered during a hot logout that her right-hand woman had been locked out for twenty-four hours. Something about her corpse being trapped inside that fuckstick’s fortress when it was packed up in travel mode. Dismissing the infuriating issue, she focused on the problem at hand.

  There seemed to be a lot of confusion as to what was going on. A quick glance at her HUD and Evil Sandra realized that no one had died. While the rain of white stars had been flashy, they’d done only minimal damage. Nothing like what
any of her fellow guildmates in Chaos Storm could do with their Lightning magic.

  Evil Sandra frowned seeing the individual that had attacked them up ahead. They were standing on the edge of a cliff around ninety yards further up the trail on an outcrop of rock. She frowned, as she mentally corrected herself, nothing like what any of her fellow guildmates could do if they were within sixty yards of the target. Whoever the idiot was, they’d left themselves open to retaliation. At that range, the lead elements of the raid would be able to catch up to them without a problem. Before she could give the command to run the fool down, a familiar voice called down the mountainside.

  “Yo, Crazy Sandra!” Although Evil Sandra couldn’t make out the man’s face from this far away, she clearly recognized Jason’s mocking voice. “Suck it!” While the words were still echoing from the valley walls, he exaggeratedly hip thrust with his crotch as he chopped his arms down at his groin while an angry muttering began in raid chat.

  “Who the fuck does that guy think he is?”

  “Is that Starfairy?”

  “What the fuck is he doing?”

  “Ah shit,” another player said, “he’s DX’ing us!”

  “DX?” another voice asked.

  “Yeah, D-Generation X,” the same player said, “it’s an old WWE group.”

  “Oh no he didn’t!” a female player snarled, as she suddenly understood the insult.

  “Ha!” another guy said with a chuckle, “he’s telling us all to suck it!”

  “I can’t believe he’s doing that?” another female player spat in disgust.

  “That punk is so fucking dead!”

  While this muttering was taking place Jason repeated the gesture a couple more times to his now stunned audience.

  “What a complete asshole,” Evil Sandra said, muttering under her breath. No matter how much she hated the man, she had to admit that he had a big ass pair of balls. No wonder Julie hated him so much. Even though he knew he was beat, the man wouldn’t just give up the ghost. Not that it was any skin off her back. If anything, it would just make her ultimate victory that much sweeter when she finally beat him down. Taking this as a sign that Jason’s back was against the wall, she started calling out orders to her raid.

  “Vanguard!” Evil Sandra’s voice cracked like a whip in raid chat, as her voice drowned out the angry mutters coming from her raid mates. “Run him down! Everybody else, move out! If Starfairy is this close, the rest of the raid can’t be that far away!”

  Immediately, the Chaos Storm alliance began racing up the mountain slope like a black mass as Starfairy took off running. Instead of heading back up the slope like she’d expected, he seemed to be running at a mostly parallel course across the front of the raid. Almost as if he were taunting them to chase him down.

  Due to the shape of the slope, that meant the asshole was more around two to three hundred yards ahead, but that was close enough for her people to sprint all out. As a group of the fastest runners in the vanguard moved out ahead of everyone else. Evil Sandra didn’t know what trick Jason was trying to pull now, but they were literally on a wide slope heading up the windswept side of a mountain atop frozen snow.

  Even if the asshole tried to jump back down into the valley, it wouldn’t help him any. She’d send a hundred players to hunt him down while chasing after his forces. About the best advantage he could hope for was forcing them to fight up hill and even that made little difference in a game like this where everyone had massive levels of endurance. Evil Sandra was still trying to figure out his play, when an odd black dot dropped out of the sky to land on his shoulder.

  That in and of itself wouldn’t have been particularly flagged as unusual. At least, it wouldn’t have if the next two things hadn’t happened. First, Starfairy immediately changed the direction he was running and took off back up the mountain slope. Second, three figures came shooting out of the edge of the woods at the edge of the slope. She immediately recognized the female Centaur, the Silver Dire Wolf, and the green demi-human that was riding on the wolf’s back as two plus two suddenly equaled four in her head.

  That asshole had somehow figured out how to get ranged communication! Evil Sandra silently swore as she began shouting for her people to try to stop the trio, before they could reach Starfairy. The raid’s Rangers began sending arrows in their direction to little effect as the missiles harmlessly bounced off the Holy Shields that were protecting the group. Before enough Rangers could get into position, the trio completely disappeared down into the low ridge next to the path.

  Her people tried to get into range to use their magic attacks, but without the Fatal Midnight guild’s speed and attribute buffs, they just didn’t have the extra speed they needed to quickly close the distance. If the Fatal Midnight guild had been with them, the situation would’ve been different, but after Jacob had attacked her and the rest of his surviving guildmates had been cut down, they hadn’t been invited back to the raid. That was going to cause a whole slew of problems that she was going to get shit about, but fuck that loser, Evil Sandra thought, as she watched the Roadkill and Coven players try to get into maximum range to use their special abilities along with a handful of her own people.

  The trio reappeared quicker than any of them expected, cresting the side of the trail about eighty yards ahead of the furthest member of the main raid. Unfortunately, the group that was focused on running Starfairy down, while ahead of the trio, were not in range to block their passage either. Nonetheless, her people charged the trio while letting loose a heavy volley of arrows, as the Centaur and Silver Dire Wolf broke out into a gallop heading up the trail.

  “What the fuck is going on,” Evil Sandra swore under her breath in confusion. “Seriously, why go through all of that taunting if you were just going to turn around and run with your tail tucked between your legs?” It didn’t make any sense. Dismissing her concerns, Evil Sandra shouted out encouragements to her people as she pushed her way towards the front of the raid. If Starfairy was going down, she wanted to be the one who was leading the attack!

  Chapter Eighteen

  (Second Assault Group: Helgath, Neysa, and Fylreh trying to catch up to Star on the eastern pass out of the valley)

  Helgath could feel Neysa’s straining muscles thrumming beneath her body as they raced up the frozen, mountainous trail. The heat radiating from the Silver Dire Wolf’s furry body and the heavy panting was a sign of the immense strain Neysa was under to reach Star in time as she pushed herself to her very limits. Directly behind them, Fylreh’s hooves thundered against the hard frozen ground as her bow continuously twanged from the constant Enhanced Multi-Shots she was loosing into the enemy’s ranks.

  There was a constant hissing sound from the arrows that fell from the sky around them as the Rangers in the main raid took random longshots trying to take them down. Although, the newfar were well over a hundred yards away, with several hundred arrows in the air at any given time, it was taking everything Helgath had to keep the Holy Shields up around the three of them. Even so, they’d all taken a number of shafts and were bleeding heavily. If not for the Half-Orc’s ability to borrow her soulmate’s abilities, they would’ve been forced to retreat shortly after coming within range of the massive group.

  Braced with her knees on Neysa’s back with a fist and her toes intertwined in the Silver Dire Wolf’s heavy coat, Helgath alternated between casting Holy Shield, Regeneration, and her Dark Cleansing spells. Although the constant use of her magic was making her head spin, she pushed herself beyond her normal limits as she fought to keep them alive. It was the only way for the Half-Orc to save Star from a series of horrible deaths. Hearing the filly’s hooves beginning to fall back behind them, she angrily shook the haze from her thoughts.

  “Move your ass, Fylreh,” Helgath irritably snapped, as they caught up to the group of runners trailing after Star. Already, several of the Rangers in the vanguard had turned their bows towards them. While that took some much needed pressure off of Star, It just m
ade the Half-Orc’s job that much harder. “They’ve almost gotten into spell range of him!”

  “What more do you want from me,” Fylreh snarled back in annoyance, “I’m already shooting as fast as I can, but every one of these Chofe-ka are shielded and too spread out for my Barrage of Death to take out more than just a handful.” The filly complained while loosing arrow after arrow as she did her best to target the individual newfar closing in on Star’s tail. “There’s just too many of them!”

  Helgath understood that the newfar were no joke to take out. It took at least three Enhanced Multi-Shots, if not four, to drop one enemy player. The effort to keep up the continuous attacks had nearly emptied the Centauride’s mana and there still had to be nearly eighty-three of the vanguard forces left. The Half-Orc wasn’t holding back either. She was hitting as many newfar as she could in-between keeping them alive, but it wasn’t even close to being enough with the number of enemies they were up against.

  “That’s why you’re going to have Star mount you,” Helgath shouted without any qualms, as the Centauride stumbled and nearly went down at the Half-Orc’s words. Catching her balance, she angrily caught back up with Neysa and Helgath.

  “Centaurs are not mounts!” Fylreh stormed at the Half-Orc’s armored back, completely forgetting to keep up her barrage of Enhanced Multi-Shots at the enemy. Her temper flaring at even the suggestion as she continued angrily. “We are a tribe of fierce warriors and not dumb beasts of burden!”

  “That’s not how I heard it went down in the bathhouse of the Wind Dancer,” Helgath called back without any hesitation. Unable to stop the cruel smile that came to her lips at the other female’s gasp, she continued in a no-nonsense tone. “If he can ride you there, than by the dark, he can ride you here!”