Escape to the Fringe (Fringe Chronicles Book 1)

by Adam Drake

  Other enemy units had arrived and were in the process of crossing the river via the altar platform. Two more footmen units and, behind them, two archery units.

  Even more appeared in the distance to the north, but I couldn't discern their unit type.

  “Can you tell what those are?” I asked, feeling foolish as I squinted at the chat screen.

  The scout turned to look at me. “Would you like me to move closer? No problem at all.”

  “No problem, huh?” I found myself asking. This NPC has got some attitude, and I was intrigued despite myself. “Why is that?”

  That crooked grin appeared on his face, again. “Because I'm the best scout you got.”

  I laughed. “You're the only scout I got!”

  “Exactly!” he said, grin widening.

  By the Gaming Gods. I thought. Was I actually flirting with this NPC? How stupid was that? Maybe I've been playing this game too long, if that was the case.

  Over his shoulder, Amara dropped out of Shadow Form directly behind him. She raised her sword.

  “Look out!” I yelled, surprised.

  “I am looking out,” the scout said with mild confusion. “It's my job to-.”

  With a swing Amara cut his head off, and just as the chat view terminated I saw her grinning at the camera.

  At me.

  Now I swore. Curse words flowed like water from a roiling river.

  I tried to calm down but only succeeded in making it worse. My hands were shaking with rage.

  There was only one thing that could temper my anger.

  I pointed at the archer unit. “Fall in behind us and stay close.” The archers nodded in unison and moved to stand behind the formation of footmen.

  Smoke's respawn timer still had five minutes on it, but that was fine. I'd hoof it with my troops for now.

  I ran through the footmen ranks and stood before them. They made quite a sight, albeit a smaller one that I'd like.

  “We're heading out to meet the enemy!” I shouted.

  All the men cheered, raising their weapons with scattered shouts of, “By Y'Godda!”

  I turned and began running northwest, my troops behind me, one unit following the next. My heart was thudding at full speed.

  So, Amara wanted a fight? I thought, ticked off.

  Fine.

  She was going to get one.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We marched as fast as I could push my army.

  Within a few minutes we reached the midway point of the curve but there was no sign of the enemy. Could Amara be camped out at the altar, waiting for me?

  My anger had subsided, and I started to think through my plan only to realize I had none. Find Amara and attack. Not very strategic, just a decision based off of emotion.

  I looked back at my army. It made for an impressive sight to see them marching along with determined looks. It gave me a bit of a charge.

  Thorm, my friend who I'd adventured with many times, went through a long phase where all he played were these Battle Fields. It had become an addiction to the point he even stopped questing in the outer gaming world all together. He attained a championship level and entered competitive ladders. But after a really bad defeat, where he suspected his opponent had cheated but couldn't prove it, he quit Battle Fields all together.

  He use to say he loved the charge of leading an army into battle so much he couldn't stop himself from playing.

  I'd dismissed that out of hand, until now. There was definitely a unique feeling you got with dozens of troops following you into battle.

  Still, I worried these units would be enough. Amara had quite a few assembled before I lost sight of them.

  As we marched I'd kept an impatient eye on my gold resource counter. Now it ticked over enough to train a new footmen unit.

  “Halt!” I said raising my hand.

  In unison, all four units stopped. Staring straight ahead, they quietly waited.

  I needed to do some quick micro-managing before continuing on.

  First, I put another footmen unit into training. The moment they popped out, I'd have them follow us.

  Then I switched the worker unit at the quarry to the gold mine as well. This put all my workers on gold duty. The stone and lumber for buildings and the Keep upgrade could wait. Right now, troops were the priority and gold was desperately needed for them.

  Maybe I should use what resources I had to build another barracks? Two units in training were better than one.

  I could see how players could spend most of their time just waiting for things to happen. Waiting on resources, waiting on units to train, waiting on units moving.

  “Enemy spotted!” shouted one of the footmen in the front unit, and pointed.

  Marching quickly toward us from around the northern bend were Amara's units.

  Waiting on the enemy was one thing I didn't have to worry about.

  “Get ready!” I shouted. My troops tensed.

  I surveyed the approaching army.

  Two units of troll grunts marched side by side, followed by another grunt unit.

  Trailing behind these were two units of troll archers. Even from this distance I saw their bows were the same short variety as my own archers.

  As they fully emerged from around the bend, no other units appeared.

  I allowed myself a slight sense of relief. Aside from an extra unit of archers, the armies were even. And they had the distinct disadvantage of lacking a commander. Where was Amara?

  Turning to my troops I barked out orders, and they reacted quickly.

  I brought forward all three of my footmen units and lined them up, side by side. Then, I moved my archer unit in close, but instead of keeping them in a square, I used their formation menu to spread them out in a single line.

  The enemy units copied me, bringing their third grunt unit up to step between the other two. Their archer units positioned themselves directly behind the grunts, but did not change their square formations. All this was done without altering their speed.

  In moments, they would be at my front lines.

  Let them come, I thought with a smile.

  Enemy spotted!

  I blinked in surprise. Where did that come from? Looking past the approaching enemy I didn't see another new unit.

  Panicking, I looked behind us. Nothing was there but empty grass.

  Then my eyes were drawn to a flashing icon on my map.

  The Lookout at the Keep had sent the warning.

  He had spotted an enemy unit approaching the base from the northeast. It was an icon I did not immediately recognize. Then cold dread washed over me.

  Cavalry!

  Amara had cavalry? So soon?

  My thoughts were cut short as the first elements of the enemy grunts suddenly stepped up their advance as they got closer.

  One of the trolls raised his spear and let out a war cry. The other grunts shouted in kind.

  I looked to my footmen in confusion. Shouldn't they be shouting, too?

  Then all three grunt units slammed into my footmen's front ranks.

  Whoa. Things were happening fast. I looked from the fighting troops, with spears and swords flailing, to the icon of the enemy cavalry descending on my defenseless base.

  Suddenly, there was the sound of two dozen enemy bows releasing their arrows.

  I looked up at the cloud of death from above.

  Oh, crap.

  The arrows fell into the footmen's ranks where men screamed. But when I looked to my archers, they simply stood with arrows nocked in their bows, doing nothing.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled as I ran over to them. “Why aren't you firing back?”

  “You want us to fire back?” The archer leader asked.

  “Yes!” I shouted, incredulous.

  The archers then raised their bows and fired.

  “And keep at it,” I said. “Don't stop.”

  “Yes, Commander!” the leader said. They loosed another volley.

  What
was with that delay?

  On a hunch I checked the archer's unit info screen and found an unchecked box at the bottom marked 'Autonomous.'

  I checked the box and the archer's leader shouted, “Fire at will!”

  If there were time, I would have smacked myself in the head. Under each of the footmen units info screens was the same unchecked box. Cursing to myself, I checked them all.

  This had a dramatic effect on the men. Instead of reacting to the trolls attacks, they became aggressive and pushed forward.

  Stupid learning curve.

  But I didn't have time to lament. On the map, the enemy cavalry icon had cut the distance to my base by half and closed fast. And there were three minutes remaining on the barracks training timer.

  Other than a single Lookout, the base was defenseless.

  Thankfully, Smoke's respawn timer had ended, and I summoned him. Leaping up into the saddle I shouted to my men who were locked in furious combat. “Hold the line!”

  “Yes, Commander!” shouted the different unit leaders, just as another volley of arrows fell into their ranks.

  To the archer leader I said, “Concentrate your fire on their archers!”

  I looked over the battle.

  My footmen were fully entangled with the grunts, swords and spears slashing and jabbing. Both formations were thinning out, but other than the enemy's extra archery unit, the sides appeared even.

  I had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be enough.

  Base Under Attack!

  The cavalry icon was now within my base's perimeter and moved up against the Keep.

  I had to go. Now.

  With frustration, I put my back to my army and charged southward at full speed. The sound of the ferocious battle fading behind me.

  When I selected the Keep's icon a health meter appeared.

  Keep: 8,200 / 10,000 hit points.

  As I watched in horror, the 8,200 dropped to 7,900. In no time it would be destroyed which I couldn't let happen.

  Never mind holding the banner at the center altar, without the Keep I couldn't create buildings nor hire workers. The game would effectively be over.

  Smoke ran like the wind and in less than a minute we rounded the bend. The Keep was in sight.

  Mounted trolls hit at the base of the Keep with swords. Smoke started to billow from its arrow slits, and the Lookout valiantly fired his bow down at the attackers.

  I took small solace that the cavalry did not seek out my workers. The worker units were well past the trees, out of view. My gold counter kept steadily rising.

  When Smoke got me within range, I readied my bow and fired.

  A troll screamed and fell to the ground, his horse racing off.

  +5 Battle Points.

  But the other riders did not react, only concentrated on smacking away at the Keep's stone base.

  Keep: 5,500 / 10,000 hit points.

  I fired two more times, and both arrows found their mark. This made the remaining attackers change their focus and nine riders turned to face me.

  This is going to hurt, I thought, switching to my sword. Then I crashed directly into their ranks.

  My first swing sent a head flying away to bounce of the Keep's wall. The next parried a sword thrust by hacking off the owner's arm.

  One-on-one these guys were no match for me, but there were too many of them. They used their numbers to crowd me in.

  I felt the tip of a blade slice through my cloak and cut deeply into my right shoulder. Another pierced my left thigh.

  Smoke took a hit against his flank, and in response kicked back with both legs. I felt it connect, and someone screamed, but I was too busy parrying swords to look.

  A rider rammed his own horse into me just as I had stretched out to hit another attacker in the head. My balance was off, and the impact sent me sprawling to the ground.

  I found myself suddenly up against the Keep's wall. Troll's and horses crowded around swinging swords and kicking legs.

  This is bad, I thought, blocking what I could. Too many of their hits were now connecting. Bad, bad, bad.

  Footmen Unit training complete.

  Through the forest of horse legs I saw the new footmen unit assemble next to the barracks building. They looked over at me expectantly.

  “Get your butts over here!” I screamed. A horse had turned in front of me and kicked back. I jumped out of the way as its hoof cracked against the stone wall.

  The new footmen unit joined the fray allowing me to recover and mount Smoke. Annoyed beyond reason, I made sure the remaining riders were each decapitated.

  Within a minute the cavalry unit was eliminated.

  The footmen let out a cheer as I surveyed the damage to the Keep.

  4,800 / 10,000 hit points.

  Cost to repair: 50 wood & 75 stone & 50 gold per 1,000 hit points.

  Wonderful, I thought glumly. Repairing this would cause further delay in, well, everything else.

  As I caught my breath, I assigned one of the worker units from the gold mine to begin repairs on the Keep. They appeared through the trees and smacked the outside of the Keep with hammers.

  It was like watching the cavalry unit attack, but in reverse. The Keep's hit points began to slowly climb up.

  “Commander, what should we do with these?” asked a footman. He held one of the cavalry horses by the bridle. I looked around and saw at least eight or nine more of the animals wandering about.

  “Can you ride them?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the footman said. “If you are willing to pay for the training.” A tile appeared next to the man's head.

  Upgrade this footmen unit to cavalry unit.

  Cost 200 gold. Yes/No?

  My gold counter was at zero and the moment any was added it vanished. I realized that the repair work to the Keep was taking it all.

  I selected No.

  “Going to have to wait on the upgrade for a little while,” I told the footman. “Until then, corral these horses together and place them in the barracks.”

  The footman saluted and the men set about capturing the horses.

  Well, at least I'd get a cavalry unit out of this mess, I thought.

  Then I noticed a message appear in my combat log, with a bunch of previous ones I hadn't noticed in the heat of battle.

  Footmen Unit Eliminated.

  Oh, shoot. I looked to my map just in time to see the last unit icon of my forces fighting on the plains blink out.

  All three footmen units and the lone archer unit were no longer present on the map.

  My army had been destroyed.

  I cursed. Could this situation possible get any worse?

  You Banner Has Been Taken!

  What?!

  My head snapped around to the altar.

  There, clutching the red banner in her hands was Amara. She must have snuck in under Shadow Form during the fighting.

  Before I could react, she summoned her mount and jumped into the saddle with a single leap. Then she charged off.

  “Eat FILTERED, ya FILTERED!” She screamed.

  By the Gaming Gods.

  Amara had my banner!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Recovering from my shock, I leapt onto Smoke and gave chase.

  Amara's white horse was frighteningly fast, and I hoped Smoke could catch up with it. She headed to the northeast curve of the lower circle. I figured she didn't want to risk running into any potential elements of my now defeated army on the western curve.

  Regardless, her destination was clear: The central platform. There, once the banner was placed and held for five minutes, she would win.

  Grass blurred underneath me, and trees whipped by. My eyes were locked onto her back. Although out of range for the moment, I switched to my bow and summoned a magma arrow. If it killed her before, it could do it again.

  I should have suspected the cavalry attack was meant to cause a distraction while she got close to the banner in Shadow Form.