Orcs First Blood - Legion Of Thunder Part 23

'Minimum engagement then,' Stryke amended. 'Just what it takes to get out of here.'

'That could turn out to bewhatever it takes to get out of here,' Coilla remarked, eyeing the Watchers. 'I've seen them in action. They're faster than they look, and mercy's not their strong point.'

'You do realise they've seen the weapons and that means they're in execution mode?' Jup asked.

'Yes,' Stryke replied. 'But remember the bleeding of the magic's made them less effective.'

'There's a comfort.'

The Watchers were on the move again. Their way.

'Can wedo something?' Haskeer growled impatiently.

'All right,' Stryke said. 'Simple mission. All of us through that door.'

'Now?' Coilla prompted.He studied the advancing Watchers. 'Now.'

The band rushed forward, flowing to either side of the lead Watcher, intending to go around it. Dazzlingly fast, its arms shot out horizontally, barring the way. The other two did the same. Light glinted from their extended blades.

Everybody stopped.

'Any more bright ideas?' Haskeer wondered, flirting with insubor-dination.

The homunculi kept coming, arms outstretched as though shepherd-ing cattle. The band backtracked.

'Maybe we shouldn't go at this as a group,' Stryke suggested. 'They might find individual action harder to deal with.'

'If you mean every Wolverine for themselves,' Haskeer grumbled, 'I wish you'd say so.'

'You and me are going to have to have a little talk, Sergeant.'

'Let's try getting out of here alive first,' Coilla reminded them.

Jup had a notion. 'Why don't we attack this one all at once? I mean, how invulnerable can they be?'

'I'm game,' Haskeer rumbled, hefting a goblin's mace.

'We'll go for it,' Stryke decided. 'But if it doesn't work, don't linger. Ready?Now!'

They charged again, and set about the first Watcher. They slashed at it with swords, stabbed at it with daggers, pounded it with maces, crashed spears against it. Haskeer tried kicking it.

The Watcher stood impa.s.sive, stock still and completely unaffected.

The band moved back and regrouped. The Watchers resumed their inexorable advance.

'We're running out of room,' Jup said, glancing behind them. 'One more time?'

Stryke nodded. 'And give it all you've got.'

They thoroughly a.s.saulted the creature. To the extent that spears snapped, blades broke and knives were blunted.

None of it had any greater effect than before.

'Retreat!' Stryke yelled.

Coilla jerked her head at the dais. 'Up there, Stryke. It's all we've got left.'

Haskeer grinned. 'Yeah, I bet they can't climb!'

They made for the platform and swarmed on to it. The Watchers turned and followed.

'Now what?' Coilla wanted to know.

'Let's try that door again.'

Battering it with maces made no difference.

'Inlaid with steel, I'd say,' Stryke judged.

'We have to get out of this building fast,' Coilla said, 'before more of those d.a.m.n things get here.'

The three already in the room reached the platform and stopped.

'See?' Haskeer announced smugly. 'Can't climb.'

As one, the trio of Watchers retracted their blades. Their hands curled into fists. They lifted them above their heads.

Then they brought them down on the dais with the force of a small earthquake. The plat-form shook mightily. They did it again. Wood cracked and splintered. The platform lurched at an angle. Wolverines fought to keep their foot-ing. A final triple blow did it.

The dais collapsed with a roar.

Planks, struts and Wolverines crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust and chaos.

'They don'tneed to climb, bonehead!' Jup yelled.

'Ithink it's back to every orc for themselves,' Coilla spluttered, extricating herself from a tangle of timber.

'I've had enough of these f.u.c.king pests!' Haskeer bellowed. He seized a large joist and made for a Watcher.

'No!Get back here!' Stryke ordered.

Haskeer ignored him. Muttering, he strode to the nearest Watcher and smashed the beam across its chest. The joist snapped in two. Noth-ing changed for the Watcher.

Suddenly it brought up an arm and delivered a weighty back-hander that sent Haskeer flying. He collided with the remains of the platform. A couple of grunts ran to help him up. Haskeer cursed and waved them away.

Stryke spotted something that gave him an idea. 'Calthmon, Breggin, Finje. Come with me, I want to try something.'

As the rest of the band played cat and mouse with the Watchers, he led them to the other side of the room. The chain Haskeer had brought with him was lying on the floor. Stryke explained the plan.

'The chain's a little short for our purposes,' he added, 'but let's give it a go.'

Finje and Calthmon took hold of one end, Breggin and Stryke the other. He decided there weren't enough of them, and beckoned over Toche and Gant.

Three orcs at each end of the chain, they positioned themselves behind a Watcher. It was busy having chunks of wood thrown at it by the others. The missiles bounced off uselessly. At Stryke's word his group got a good grip on the chain, then they ran.

The taut chain hit the back of the Watcher's legs. The orcs kept going, pulling on the chain like two tug-of-war teams.

At first nothinghappened. They strained on the chain. The Watcher swayed a little. It took a step forward. They kept tugging, muscles standing out, breath laboured. The homunculus started swaying again, more p.r.o.nounced this time.

They pulled harder.

Suddenly the Watcher toppled. It hit the floor with a deafening crash.

Almost immediately its arms and legs began working frenziedly. It thrashed and wriggled in an attempt to right itself, making a metallic sc.r.a.ping noise on the flagstones.

'That'll give the b.a.s.t.a.r.d something to think about,' Stryke said.

They were targeting another Watcher when the sound of Haskeer whooping distracted them.Launching himself from the platform debris, he landed on the back of a Watcher. The creature twisted and shook, in a stiff kind of way, trying to dislodge him. Its arms were too rigid to reach the orc, so it snapped out its blades to poke at its unseen a.s.sailant. That made it even more dangerous for Haskeer, who had to dodge the probing steel.

He got his arms around the Watcher's neck and his feet in the small of its back. Pulling with the former and pus.h.i.+ng with the latter, he rocked back and forth. The Watcher was soon rocking with him. Its efforts to skewer the tormentor on its back grew more urgent. Haskeer was hard put to avoid a hit, but he kept on pus.h.i.+ng and pulling with all his strength. The fact that the Watcher was already moving and had its arms up helped Haskeer's scheme. It reeled like a drunk. Then its bal-ance deserted it.

As it fell backwards, Haskeer swiftly disentangled himself and leapt clear. The Watcher smacked on to the floor with a resonant clang.

Stryke and the others, watching this, ran in and showered the downed creature with blows from their weapons. They needed a little fancy footwork to evade its flailing blades, but its accuracy was out of whack. Haskeer joined them, s.n.a.t.c.hed a mace from a grunt and set to on the Watcher's face. He struck one of the gem-like eyes and it cracked.

Encouraged, he hammered at it again. It smashed.

A high-pressure plume of green smoke spurted from the fissure. Almost reaching the ceiling, it formed a small cloud that shed verdant-coloured droplets. The smell it gave off was foul and some of the orcs clamped hands over their noses and mouths.

Following Haskeer's example, Stryke leaned in and hacked at the other eye with his sword. That shattered too, releasing another ga.s.sy spout. The Watcher shuddered, its legs and arms hammering the floor. Gagging at the odour, the band backed off.

'Idon't think we could have done that in the old days,' Stryke told them.

The remaining Watcher was nowhere near the door now and en-gaged with the rest of the band.

'Get out!'Stryke shouted at them.

'Orcs don't retreat!' Haskeer exclaimed.

Jup and Coilla arrived in time to hear that.

'We do this time, dummy!' Jup said.

'The way your kind does, eh?'

'For f.u.c.k's sake,move, you two!' Coilla urged. 'Argue later!'

Everybody ran for the door.

Four more Watchers were coming along the alley from its open end. Enough to block that as an escape route. The Watcher in the house was moving to the doorway.

'Don't give up, do they?' Jup remarked.

Stryke realised the only chance was to try getting over the wall that blocked their end of the alley. It was tall and plaster smooth. He got two of the band's beefier members, Haskeer and Breggin, to give leg-ups.

Two grunts went straight up and balanced on the wall's narrow top. They reported another alley on the other side, then started reaching down to help the next in line. Troopers began scrambling up and drop-ping down the other side.

Because of his shortness, Jup needed an extra boost from a grumbling Haskeer, and the grunts above had to stretch lower for his hand.

Only Coilla, Stryke, Breggin and Haskeer were still to go when the Watcher came out of the house. Stryke and Coilla got to the top of the wall.

'Hurry!' Haskeer called out.

He and Breggin stood, arms above their heads. Eager hands clasped theirs and began pulling. The Watcher made a grab for Haskeer's foot. He shook free and scrambled frantically. The four other Watchers were near now.

Haskeer and Breggin made the top. Everybody lowered themselves into the next thoroughfare.

Jup made a face. 'Phew, that was close!'

A section of the wall they'd just climbed exploded. Masonry fell, powdery dust billowed. Tearing aside the obstruction like paper, a Watcher appeared, white plaster coating its metal body. A little further along, the fist of another blasted through.

'Get out of here!' Stryke ordered. 'And conceal your weapons! We don't want to attract even more attention.'

Swords were awkwardly hidden. Larger weapons like spears and maces were reluctantly discarded. The Wolverines ran.

They got themselves into the main thoroughfares of the quarter and slowed down a bit. Stryke had them break up into three groups rather than attract attention as a mob. He led with Coilla, Jup, Haskeer and a couple of grunts.

'I don't know if the Watchers have a way of communicating with each other,' he told them in an undertone. 'But sooner or later they're all going to know and be after us.'

'So it's the horses, the weapons and out of here, right?' Jup said.

'Right, only we forget the weapons. It'd be too risky hanging around at the entrance checkpoint. Anyway, we've got some weapons.'

'Getting the horses is a risk too,' Coilla said.

'It's one we've got to take.'

'I need one myself,' she remembered. 'We'll be short.'

'We'll buy another.'

'With what?'

'Pellucid's all we've got. Fortunately it's as good as any currency. I'll dig out a little before we go into the stables. Don'twant to flaunt the stuff.'

'Pity about those weapons,' Haskeer complained. 'I had a couple of favourites there.'

'Me too,' Jup agreed. 'But it's worth it to get you and Coilla back.'