Chapter 34

 

 

Both Akimoto and I dashed to the front and began laying into the orcs as quick as we could with our weapons and courage. These were the lighter and smaller, expendable fighters that they’d lined up on the front because they were more easily bullied into doing so. But if enough of them got through the bigger ones would follow. Somehow it’s easier to try to whack them when they are smaller.

It was also a really good system I noticed. The orcs could promote and sell the back row positions as ‘survival options’ for those that fought well in previous battles and give them something to work forward to by gaining more prestigious back row positions after the fodder had created breaches or exhausted previously engaged combatants. And the bigger back row orcs would naturally enforce the smaller orcs to be in front of them to secure their own safety.

Its kind of a very twisted, sick system; but still effective.

It also seemed that the smaller orcs were probably newly spawned grunts only a few years old? Often they didn’t have as many scars or ornaments as the larger orcs; plus their gear seemed more basic and less specialized.

My steel axe cut through the first one that was heading towards Yuriko, while Akimoto’s spear also went into one that was going after his aides. They had a tendency to shriek at us when dying, which we tried to ignore. Even in death they hated us to the end it seems. Everyone was now just trying to hang on. All around us people were engaged against them, trying to fight to their fullest.

Orc guts turn to mush really good from heavy metal axe blade blows puncturing them I found out. Some of them purposefully avoid engaging people with good weapons too it seems, knowing they hurt more than others. They kept trying to go for juicy targets as soon as they were sighted; the women. We continued our hard work trying to repel the invaders, but I found out the mentality of a battle where you are trying to force them off a certain territory is much harder than roam killing because you worry more. With roam killing the stress isn’t as bad because you know you can run away anytime you want.

Akira managed to raise a rally around him, with his ability to use the extended reach of the log to ‘bat’ orcs down the hill similar to a certain arcade game where you pound hedgehogs with a mallet. People seemed to think fighting near him would boost their survival and I couldn’t blame them. But they had an added danger of having to realize his violent swing reach was longer than a human’s and that gave them additional danger in the long run of things. Because of the angle and having to come up the hill slope they weren’t even able to approach him before receiving chopping blows.

Others with spears up were also able to mimic this maneuver, but not with the same effect. People were sure scrambling to stop the tide of the orcs from coming in, but they couldn’t stop everything.

“Hurry! Close the gap! Push them down,” I heard some of the rangers saying desperately while they are using range warfare tactics. A few of them had banded together to fight as a unit of three and they were trying to help boost each others survival by covering each other while they moved. A lot of them next had put away their slings and were now stabbing away with the orc spears. They seemed to be going to wherever they were needed most but staying together since they understood each others fighting style. They had already bowled over a whole slew of orcs with a spear mesh tactic as well.

It had seemed to be working previous…until now.

But it wasn’t enough.

We made some progress and people were working hard, but the orcs had a lot of stamina and were stronger than humans. So once things were on even ground they were starting to show more of their worth. Steadily they’d bit into a few places where people were trying to keep them from going through.

I was now trying to use the axe similar to Akira with using the reach and hill slope against them to keep them from coming up to the crown of the hill. I’d learned a few moves by watching him, though I couldn’t make it exactly like him. Normally this type of approach would be a terrible idea for an axe, but with the reach penalty the orcs against the slope and from coming up under us it was workable here with some gain against them. Within ten seconds, I’d gutted two more orcs before they could even get close. Then I chopped a third right through the collar bone and down through the lung while I’d even helped keep them off Akimoto’s aides, to their great surprise. We kept going like this while their guts sprayed all over our clothes.

Amazing!

With a machine manufactured steel axe, the orcs can’t stop me! Their poorly made wood and stone weapons get smashed easily by my blows! Even while stronger than me, their weapons just get swept away!

My clothes are going to be ruined from the gore. It’s not fun to wear gore covered clothes.

But orcs are still hard to fight. Just because we got a few shorty grunts didn’t mean a victory was ensured. Also the danger of the smaller grunts was the feeling of overconfidence they could give you when suddenly a more experienced survivor orc shows up.

Even though I’d been lucky with these three now, I could feel how hard it was too fight them and they’d even tried to block me a few times and they could be cunning too. In addition to blocking sometimes they’d try to fake you out thinking they’d come from one direction and then go from the other. I’d also had help from people next to me to help spot me in blocking their attacks. Steadily as we cut down the smaller grunts, the ones from the ranks behind seemed to be getting smarter too.

To my surprise Akira noticed how much trouble there was with everyone and began roving around the whole defense line wherever the orcs were pouring through. He was pretty much unstoppable with his new body and a decent log as a weapon to swing hard into the enemy lines! He’d seemed to also be attracting people to fight close to him almost like he was a mascot because of his great height and strength, it had unexpectedly left other areas of the defense line more vulnerable but helped with other areas.

Akira couldn’t be everywhere though. Some areas are struggling.

The wounded were instead of having mostly small wounds, being replaced with some people with really awful deathly wounds on the front line. One orc put his spear completely through one kid, skewering him through the front of the chest and killing him instantly while his spear went out his back and spine area. At least in death the orc’s weapon was momentarily trapped and someone else mowed him down in turn. But the orcs could replace their numbers and we couldn’t.

Another girl had an orc try to drag her down the hill, but was pulled by two students trying to save her. The tug of war went on for a brief intense ten seconds with everyone trying to not give up. Then it finally suddenly sharply ended up with the orc yanking on the girl’s head and neck with the other students were still trying to pull her feet. She ended up immediately dead with a snapped neck and somehow looking wall eyed in death.

But the orcs still tried to pull her body down the hill, not giving up. I couldn’t imagine why, but the students still fought to the death to keep her body. Akimoto settled the dispute by savagely gutting the orc. I realized also that the girl’s body being pulled down had animated the orcs, hence the ranger thought it prudent to still intervene even though it was just a body.

Did they also think that certain kinds of meat were better than others?

The orcs were slowly being pushed back off the crown of the hill but it was costing us a lot of blood. Within the next minute a whole slew of people also died. Because we were desperate too, we couldn’t run away knowing they’d easily catch up with us.

I saw one orc with a rusty sword which was reinforced with wood chop off a kid’s arm. If that doesn’t get a nasty infection, I wasn’t sure what would. Even worse, because it didn’t have a sharp clean edge the break was mostly caused by the blunt metal reinforcement that had been reworked to hold the orc’s blade together to strengthen it. It was a terrible mess of shredded and torn flesh and an uneven break in the bone and crushed flesh.

The kid was also screaming from pain, unable to fight any longer.

Even if that person were to survive we’d have to inflict more pain to get the bone break and torn flesh to a clean point where we could let the wound be treated with a clean amputation. That with the fact that we were in a medieval world right now didn’t help his chances for a good retirement.

We kept fighting with more sacrificial savagery hoping to push the rest of the orcs back and regain lost ground, but it wasn’t working anymore. Their finally having made it up the hill had inflamed their blood and rage.

I tried to move about quickly using double teaming to inflict kills quicker. It worked on a handful of orcs, but the others near me didn’t have a metal weapon to boost their effectiveness. If an orc was already engaged with someone, I could sneak in from the side to finish it off without having to go through the slow process of parrying, blocking, and dodging.

But I also had to be ready so that nothing could sneak up on me and at the same time also keep an eye on the spot where Sensei and Rina were located. Rina was awake now, and Sensei with her, working as a team staying away from the main fighting. Both had orc spears I’d given them earlier, and had begun attacking people already engaged with orcs. So I went to fight near them to ensure their survival.

They were staying alive by using the higher position of their boulder ledge to stab at things before they could be attacked.

But how had so many orcs gotten behind our defense lines? It was reasonable for them to get to the top of the hill, but a lot were in the middle of the hill unexpectedly.

That they’d gotten in this far where Rina and Sensei were was really bad because some of them were sneaking up on wounded or the weak in their offensive strategy instead of fighting directly. In theory you might have a gain from this, but the individual risked pushing himself into enemy lines so recklessly that they might incur reverse swarming. Also there was the fact that it divided attention of those up front, so that sometimes they weren’t sure if they should face forward or pull back.

Akimoto wasn’t directing people enough to give attention to this matter either, but just kept stabbing at orcs near the front as they came up. He didn’t realize if he was serious about this leadership he needed a way to carry through orders through the structure to help the whole group survive and not just survive himself. His aides seemed to be protecting him, but sometimes they’d get cut up too, and the leather clothes they were wearing didn’t make them as invincible as they believed.

We needed to deal with the orcs behind enemy lines too in addition to the ones that were were on the front line. After doing so that would let us reinforce the front easier, but we also had to do it without pulling people off the more crucial front defense.

But where was Yumi? In all the confusion of the battle I’d lost sight of her. Nor could I catch any sign of the glow of her shield, which should be the most easily visible. But my search was put on hold by nearby orcs.

That worried me too.

An orc right then went after Sensei, so I intercepted with a vicious blow, putting my axe blade into in between its ribs, and it lost all the air in its lungs and fell to the ground while I stepped on its neck as hard as I could. Before I’d even gotten to kick its remains of the edge of the blade I again sighed another going for both of them.

They seemed to go through any unreasonable danger to try to snag females! My eyes are wide with horror, and worry as that thought permeated my skull.

Then just like that two more orcs came almost faster than I could react. Because of their lust to capture females they didn’t noticed me right away. I hacked at one, mangling its arm in the bicep area and disarming it in the process. The other one stopped then seeing me and suddenly I was now defending against two viciously strong orcs instead of one. The one with the mangled arm had blood shot eyes, and didn’t retreat like I thought he would. They kept trying to stab and bash at me, while I used the axe to look for an opening unsuccessfully. Further, the one who had been disarmed, just ended up retrieving the weapon with his other hand and resuming fighting.

Parrying the two of their attacks, one after another I then realized why the orcs would be so brave. Both orcs had the same blood shot eyes, and from seeing them in previous battles I hadn’t always seen this. But it was a new revelation to me now. They also looked like their bodies were under some kind of influence of something other than alcohol, though it wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case too.

It seems the orc shamans or someone else had given them some kind of frenzy inducing drugs to help dull their sense of pain and make them angrier. Both of them, and probably most of those coming up the hill were high as a kite on some kind of orc drugs and would fight with extreme wounds I noticed with a sinking feeling in my gut.

Again I blocked, feeling the heavy orc swing against me, but the axe handle was very solid still; while Sensei stabbed at one next to me. But she missed and attracted its attention from me. While I blocked the other one’s overhand blow, it went after her. I had to kick at the one who’d attacked me in the pelvis to knock it over and then hurrying quickly chop my axe down to crush the spear shaft that was about to stab Sensei. The counter made the orc stare in shock at his broken weapon.

I had to be careful to defend both myself and others, and that was harder than I could have imagined.

Whew, it barely worked in time!

The orc hissed at me, seeing red with its spear was broken. But instead of running away I had to now keep my balance while the other one with wide shoulders tried to shoulder butt me. I nearly fell over and then it tried to grab at my weapon while Rina and Sensei were holding the one with the broken spear back. They both were trying to use their long spear reach to stab at it mercilessly. It seemed to be working.

Oh no! It had grappled with my weapon!

Turning to the side I kept my weapon and then kneed this bigger orc in the balls to force him back and weaken his grip on me. Still he kept hanging onto my weapon and I became suddenly afraid. He then kicked at me trying to duplicate my move, while he was biting back the pain. I expected it, and then twisted to the left, absorbing the impact with my shin with no damage.

So I kneed him in the gut, throwing all my weight against his diaphragm and nearly falling in the process. He somehow tripped backwards barely, while he was trying to recover but then hit the ground anyway. Even with the drugs pain was dull to him, but he still had to breathe. It worked, and he was now on his back, and I kept my weapon jumping back so that he couldn’t grab it again. Then he tried to block my blow as I savagely brought down the axe with all my strength. It broke his spear and then split open his chest, killing him. I suddenly felt very thankful to whoever had invented processing steel into hardier metal alloys.

I also learned one of the depressing parts of war is that real organisms don’t always die quickly. They expire slowly and make you want to pity them even when you shouldn’t. Plus no matter how skillful you are, there’s always fear of being swarmed and overcome by numbers. I was sure to get stomach ulcers from the stress of this.

Turning away I was then able to do a neck chop and save Sensei and Rina who had almost finished the other one off that they were fighting, but not quite finished yet.

“Thanks,” Sensei affirmed, feeling relieved.

“Stay close to me,” I reminded them.

“Trying...” came the grieved reply.

We slowly moved into the next set of a handful of rabid looking orcs, which had ironically surrounded the three man ranger team. They were fully surrounded and being hacked at, with several with wounds while trying to stay from getting dog piled.

I killed the first orc instantly with a terribly wicked neck chop, while Sensei and Rina’s spears went into the next one closest to it. Unlike the movies neck chops don’t always mean you decapitate them I learned, but at least his spine was severed. The one the other two had attacked, I could hear the gasp of the orc as its lungs were punctured from behind.

We moved right into the other remaining orcs without stopping. They were confused now because they had humans in front of them, and humans coming in from the side. It divided their attention long enough for us to seize the moment. I chopped and mangled another orc’s arm, while he was finished off from the front by the rangers.

We were forced to change our formation suddenly when a few more orcs came too late to rescue their friends but were still angry enough to try to kill us. The rangers speared through one of them quickly from the other side, but another blocked and ended up in combat locked with another ranger.

We moved against the others and I ducked under a hand axe strike that would’ve been aimed at my head. Then I used a low strike to recover from the ground and pull my weight back up while clipping the axe end under an orc’s knee tendons. He was sent into the ground to fall over but swung wildly at everything around him nearly hitting his allies.

I couldn’t stop to rest though and had to intercept another one that had gone after Rina and Sensei. Coming from behind I swung my axe blade to bite into his spine just under his arms. The ‘shpluck’ sound of his spine being crunched told me more than anything he was now paralyzed.

Yuck, I hate the way it sounds when you savage guts. It’s worse than scratching fingernails on the blackboard. Particularly when you hit a bone…

He was in too much shock to even scream.

Sensei then barely managed to block a strike that was aimed at trying to hit me with a surprise attack. Her balance was good, but her arm strength was low and it nearly pushed her down. That surprised me too. Asakura was better at this than I’d believed she could be, if she could manage to compensate for her low muscle strength this might work out.

I then rebounded to crush the enemy orc spear and then distracted it and sent the butt end of my axe into its nose; he crashed into the ground while Rina and Sensei finished off the two wounded orcs. By now the rangers had also finished off the group of the others that didn’t survive as long as they’d hoped against humans.

In less than two minutes we’d saved the nearly overthrown rangers, despite them having more combat power. Despite minor wounds they were still able to continue.

“Thanks,” they cried out, hurrying to the next batch of orcs. I didn’t mind that they left quickly. It was best to keep everyone fighting.

“We can’t stay here forever Shun. Eventually this place will be overrun. Please save us,” Sensei cried out.

She pointed to the nearby front defense line, which was getting totally swarmed. A whole line of orcs were trying to climb up. Akira and Yuriko were trying their best to hold them off, and keep the line from collapsing. It wasn’t easy to do, and they were hurrying about with near panic.

I realized the line could collapse at any second. Further I also realized we weren’t as good at killing orcs as I’d hoped we were. We’d only gotten by through surprise assists mostly, and Akira’s wild killing strength. Those were things we might not always have around. The fact that Yuriko hadn’t stayed with Rina and Asakura when I asked her too, worried me about how far I could rely on the other two.

I had another problem to solve too;

If I have enough strength for another heal do I try to heal the tennis champion’s arm or try to save the life of the kid with the amputated and crushed arm who will likely fall into shock or die? If I could keep one of them fighting or at least surviving, then I might not need the heal spell for someone in my team, but I face infinite need with only a small ability to save from need.

And where the hell was Yumi? It wasn’t like her to ditch Rina. But I hadn’t seen her for most of this fight.

Then I also noticed Akira was wounded too. If Akira was wounded…