by Sam Sea
Everybody stood frozen for a moment, even archers forgot to fire arrows, watching her massacre so many of the orcs, purposely sending their chopped heads down the bridge to the legs of the new ones coming to her.
Their wild shrieks quieted down, and many of them stopped advancing, and slowly the crowd came to a stop, watching, not ready to advance on her blood-covered blade. They hopped nervously from one leg to another, and anyone making the mistake to rush at her was swiftly cut down.
“Come on, you bastards! Come to me! I have plenty of iron for all of you!
But then Mikka realized the threat she help create. Soon, there were over hundred of them standing and waiting, more coming and joining them, pushing them a step forward every second.
So many of them would overrun her like a water of the river underneath.
“Archers, shoot! Thin their lines!” She called and instantly arrows flew through the air.
“Make them fly high!” sergeant commanded behind her and then she realized what he meant. The arrows were shoot high in the air. As they came down on top of the bridge and the heads of orcs, they gathered speed and ferocity of which took them down without much trouble.
“Smart,” Mikka nodded her head for the approval to the sergeant behind her.
The second wave of attacks came soon after. Orcs came more cautious but more forcefully and Mikka had to fight on all sides before Les and Sergeant stepped in and gave her a hand.
When Mikka felt her strength withering, she called on pike-men and together they pushed against the coming horde, cutting through them and throwing most of them to the whites of the rushing water underneath.
They pushed orcs back halfway across the bridge when Les called on to Mikka. “Look to the hill above, full orcs are coming!”
Mikka saw seven and a half foot tall orcs coming down the hill. What made her nervous was not their size but the way they were approaching the bridge. They walked in file four a breast, many armed with steel and covered in armor. Their bodies seemed to have turned completely dark blue. A few of them even seemed to order the others around, keeping them in a tight formation.
Their chant and stamping of feet overpowered clanking of steel and everyone had stopped to look at them. Half orcs caught on the bridge soon backed away, clearing the way for the others.
“Someone had organized them… They look like an army now,” Mikka voice almost became worrisome as she accepted the reality she saw. “Move back to the end of the bridge.”
As they rushed backward, their feet slid over the blood-wetted stones.
Mikka looked at them again. “They will not charge us at once. Drink water and refresh yourselves. Leave the dead orcs on the bridge.. that should slow them down.”
Mikka was right. They did not come at them at once. It was an hour and they were still standing in line in front of the bridge, half orcs hiding behind them.
“What do you think they are waiting for?” Les asked her.
“Don’t know… there must be over thousand of them there… Maybe they are waiting for someone.”
“that means that they are being controlled…”
“Yes, they are more organized now.”
“They will still die.” Mikka interrupted chatter among the soldiers. “We will not sit idles and waste time waiting to see what they are to do next. I want twenty soldiers providing rear support to run to those trees there. Cut down their branches and bring them here. We will build a blockade on the bridge that they will have to climb over if they want to reach us. That can help us out.”
“Yes, my lady,” the sergeant answered approvingly, fully knowing that it is the best to keep men occupied rather than stare at the threat of thousands of cannibals across the river.
That proved to be a smart thing to do as a few hours of waiting had passed until they found out what exactly was happening across the other side.
The group of twenty orcs, riding workhorses, appeared on the hill and swiftly approached. Mikka eyes zeroed on the one whose helped had a large bull horns, making him even taller and scarier than the others. She could see him raising his hands and barking out orders.
Behind the twenty riders, another army of orcs started to approach them. Many carried shields, some made of wood but many bearing seals of different houses of Lords.
“They must have ransacked the castles.” Les whispered.
“I guess that is what they were waiting for. Not a mindless orcs now, are they?” Mikka answered him.
“If they thought today, they will be tired… They will be easier to kill.”
“Yes…”
The sun was slowly heading toward the horizon, and Mikka calculated there was at least four more hours of daylight.
“Maybe they will wait until tomorrow,” one of the soldiers said.
“I doubt it. They will want to clear the bridge by night. But we will cut them down just as well.”
Mikka examined the barricade twenty feet in front of them, made of tree branches that stretched six feet tall from one side of the bridge to another.
“tell the solders, that’s it… whatever wood they mastered so far is all we can use. Tell them to armor up and take their positions.”
As soon as Mikka said that, the wild chant across the bridge echoed through the air and orcs slowly stepped toward them. The ones in the first line all had shields, creating the wall of shields and spears.
“Don’t waste no arrows on them.” Mikka yelled through the crazed chant of orcs as she picked up her staff and jumped on the bridge wall.
The river of orcs completely started to cover the bridge. There was no way that the poorly made barricade or that any amount of sword or pikes could hold them from pushing through to the other side.
Mikka waited for them to come but feet away from the barricade and then her staff lightened with a power of a white sun, the powerful blast leaving its one side, creating an instant explosion of light that engulfed hundreds of the orcs in the first few lines. Their bodies exploded or were lighted on fire.
“A witch…” many were heard screaming.
“Goddess…” whispered many others.
Mikka paid them no attention and her staff lighted again and blasts of light followed again and again. Soon the tight formation of hundreds of orcs were broken to screams of those still alive to be . None seemed untouched by the white light. Many found it better to try their lucks with the rushing water underneath.”
The bull-horned orc raised his hand, and at seeing the carnage called the attack off.
As the explosion ended, the eerie silence hanged in the air.
Les walked over to Mikka who placed her staff in the ground again.
“Are we saved?” Les asked.
“No…” Mikka’s answer surprised him.
The silence, interrupted only by those orcs who were still yelling their dying cries, seemed to last forever.
“They are not stupid… at least, that orc is not…” Mikka said pointing her finger at the bull-horned orc. They will realize that the power of my staff is limited…”
“How would they know that?” Les asked confused and suddenly dishearten as he realized why Mikka has not used her staff before.
“Barricades… they see barricades. They know why we build them. If I had unlimited power, why would we need them? Understand…”
“How much more power does your staff have?”
Mikka took it up in her hands again. “Another five blasts like those…” she answered. “But, I do not want to use those… I can make my staff explode and that might be powerful enough to bring the whole bridge down… do you understand?”
Les nodded his head.
“So if you see me throw my staff toward the middle of the bridge, you better run off the bridge that second…” Mikka looked at other solders, making sure they all know her plan.
“I hope there is enough power in it still to bring it all down.”
The orcs decided not to attack for the rest of that day. But the soun
d of chopping woods from the nearby forest made their future plans clear. The night was restless with hundreds of burning fires across the river serving as a reminder of what was to happen the next day.
In the darkness of the night, Mikka soldiers worked hard to improve the barricade and did not rested until it stood eight feet tall and covered good ten paces of the bridge from one side to another.
“five hours of work for them to cut through it in fifteen minutes>” Mikka said sadly as she sent her soldiers to finally rest.
She tried to rest as well, meditating for a while and then drifted off to a sleep that lasted less than she wanted. She was up before the sun.
The first light brought a craw that landed on sergeants shoulder. The message was for Mikka from Grand Master Derran.
Two kings to cross the river downstream… keep orcs engaged for another day…
Mikka didn’t like it. She was hoping that two kings would make it toward the bridge and that with combined power, they would be able to slain enough orcs and send them running toward the forest. Obviously
“They probably have enough children and women with them… they probably did not dare engage the enemy…” the sergeant tried to find excuse for them seeing how disappointed
“That means we cannot blow the bridge up anytime soon… If we do, the orcs will rush downriver to find where else they can cross it and find those refugees trailing with two kings…” Mikka’s worried voice came out in a whisper.
It was clear that during the night, orcs numbers swelled and that now they numbered multiples of what they were yesterday. Mikka feared that in a few days, there would be tens of thousands of them.
“It was a wise choice to leave the castle… We could not have held these numbers there…” Mikka told Les as he slowly worked a river stone against the edge of his sword. She realized a change in him. It was there, ever since she used her staff to blast hundreds of orcs yesterday. As much as that saved their lives, it sort of build a wall around her. Not ever sergeant could dare to look her in the eyes again.
“At least they are not running down the river in full force…” Les said, but his eyes drifted down the river and there seemed to be no meet Mikka’s look.
They are all scared of me… Now, more than ever before… They are all very scared of me… She thought regretfully.
The low banks of the river seemed covered by hundreds of quickly made rafts. They were mostly just a few of freshly chopped tree trunks tied together.
“That is what I was afraid of…” the sergeant said seeing the sight.
Mikka shrugged them off. “There are about fifty of those rafts… each can maybe carry about five or six of orcs only. Many of them I doubt will be able to even make it across the river. The others… they will be an easy target for our archers, just make sure you get them as they try to cross the river and cut them before they land on the banks. You Ronnich take one side, and Bartolomizus take another. Cut them all down,” Mikka was ordering him. “Leave only thirty pike-men here with me, and the rest take with you. Go with horses, so you can make back to help me once you finished them off. I bet they will attack at the same time.”
Mikka’s guess proved right again. As orcs got ready to enter the rafts, hundreds more marched toward the bridge. Unlike yesterday, they marched without shields, but then thousands of bows appeared in their hands, and arrows they shot suddenly had darkened the sky.
“Their archers came during the night… Put your shields up!” she yelled at her soldiers as thousands of arrows rained down on them.
She found it easy to knock off arrows raining above her head, and Les did the same… All except one arrow which bounced off the stone and went through the calf of Mikka’s left leg. She cried out in pain and her leg gave in, her whole body coming down hard on the bridge. She waived her sword above her and knocked five arrows off that would have pierced her chest, but before she could get back up, another wave of the arrows came down. Les threw himself over her, waving his sword with one hand while pulling Mikka off the bridge with another.
As he raced pulling her toward the cover, two arrows pierced his folded back. He fell down as well on top of Mikka and it was time for her men to move their raised shields forward and run to cover them up.
Mikka broke the arrow in her leg and pulled it out on the side it came through. She calculated that it would take her at least a minute to stop her bleeding, a minute she did not have as the horde was already running toward their barricades.
“Light up the barricade…” she screamed humping over to the place where he staff was planted in the ground, and soon three torches were thrown to create a fire wall.
She took her staff and humped back to where Les was. She looked at him and two pools of blood wetting his leather.
His nervous eyes settled on hers after first staring at her bleeding leg. "It seems you are human after all.”
“You fool, what were you thinking?” she said but tears filled her eyes instead of anger.
“You know, they offered me eternal life, forgiveness of all my past sins... everything... If I just… I did not believe them. I did not think such a thing was possible. Besides…”
"Did they? Don't talk. Just be still. We will deal with them later. First we need to take care of you…" Yet, how could she take care of him, she did not know.
"Yes, but what would I do? Even if I accepted their deal and killed you, then live for eternity without you... that would be a hell. I am fine now. My life at now has a meaning, the meaning I was hoping...”
“Shut up…” Mikka begged him as she pulled a little canister out from her cloak.
Five orcs were already running through the fire at them, jumping over their fallen burning comrades. Mikka paid them no attention. She grabbed Les, picked him up like a child in her hands and took him far away off the bridge.
The line of pike-men marched forward and orcs found their blades in their chests and necks moments later.
As she placed Les down, Mikka opened the canister, taking out two of spongy-looking objects. She pulled both arrows out of crying Les and placed those sponges in his bleeding wounds. They sizzled and grew as blood soaked them…
“You should have saved that magic for yourself…” Les fought to tell her, seeing how his bleeding had stopped.
“Be still… Do not move… If arrows have not went too deep, you may live still,” she whispered, daring to hope.
Then as she got up, she picked up her staff and turned it toward the orcs that were already advancing through the fire. She twisted the handle of her staff and threw it like a spear toward the middle of the bridge.
It exploded before any of the orcs had a chance to pick it up. The fire leaped, the earth shook, stones flew everywhere and the bridge cracked.
The orcs pulled back, but the bridge lost its footing and stones crashed hundreds of feet to the water below.
Everyone stopped to look at it as it collapsed, staring in disbelief, but only for a second. The bridge was gone, the rain of coming arrows were not.
Mikka towered over Les, protecting him with her own body, oblivious to the iron rain falling on them. One arrow went through her leg, the other pierced deep inside her should. Soldiers ran to protect her with their shields, but Mikka seemed to see only Les. How she found the strength to pick him up, lift him in two of her hands, and started to move him away from the bridge nobody could understand.
“I did not save you from the mouth of that giant serpent, from the iron chains they cut into your flesh, and gave you more of my blood than I could had… just to see you die on my hands,” she screamed in agony, not ready to accept the reality, another arrow brushing past her head, another one…
What happened next was the subject of a great debate afterwards, retold in stories and folktales that spanned generations and millenniums, growing into a myth…
Some say that the god himself had decided to come, seeing the dying tears of her daughter Mikka for her lost love. Some that it was the Grand Maste
r with all his divine power that parted the skies and with the flash of light and the ship that could move through the clouds made it across the thin air.
Thunderous sound shook the ground. Mikka knew what it was before she looked up to see a metal fortress flying down from the sky. A bright light came from it, and it burned orcs in hundreds as they stood frozen in awe looking at it all.
For a second, Mikka thought it was Val but then recognized her own ship. As it landed on the road behind her, she picked Les up and ignoring pain in her leg, ran toward it as fast as she could.
The ship’s gate opened and Silent came out running to meet her. Behind her was Derran.
“He’s been hit… Do we have anything to stop his eternal bleedings?” she screamed through the noise of her ships still-working engine.
“You’ve been hit too.” Derran said with outmost worry. “You lost too much blood… Why you have not helped yourself?”
“Help him, please…” Mikka begged as he took the unconscious body of Les from her.
“He has your blood… He will be fine… We will fly him to the monastery in no time. And don’t you worry about the fuel. I’ll give you all I have from my own ship, and that will be enough to take you to the wormhole gate.” Mikka nodded her head, and for the first time since she came to the planet started to relax.
“How, how did you get to the ship so fast?” she asked as she
“Don’t worry about anything now. Let’s just take those arrows out of you and make you stop bleading.”
“How?” Mikka still wanted to know as she set on the floor of the ship.
“I never took it to the monastery, I hid it in nearby temple – I thought it was prudent to keep it somewhere close by…”
“Does it still have enough power to get us to the monastery? You wasted a lot of it burning the orcs…”
“Sure, we have plenty of power for everything… don’t worry about that. Just sit still and let me work on those arrows… Hope they have not been poisoned.”
“I… I want you to take care of him…” she said as her mind drifted to darkness and she collapsed on the floor.
