novelxo The Dark Elf’s Surprise Baby: Chapter 9
Every day I wake up, internally cursing to be stuck in this shithole, away from the woman I love and away from my home.
I want this war to finish as soon as possible so I can get back and be with her. I miss her so badly that I’m miserable, an emptiness inside me aching to be filled with her presence.
It seems as though I won’t get my wish though, because the orcs are launching powerful counter attacks against us. Those blasted bastards are pure evil, driving our forces back every time we make an inch of progress.
With a stretch, I stand up and head towards the camp mess hall, situated just south of the lookout station where I’ve been holed up for the last six hours. Nothing has so much as shaken the trees and I’m in dire need of dinner.
The squad is small—just ten of us here manning this camp. I sit down next to one of my fellow squadmates and he chucks a hardtack roll at my head. I barely manage to catch it and keep it from hitting me.
Those hardtack rolls are tough as rocks and would hurt if they hit you in the head but it’s just how we do it in the camp. No sentimentality here. No courtesy or gentle manners.
So I take the roll and dip it in my canteen of kaffo and take a bite, softening it up so it’s edible. We have boiled burgona, hardtack rolls and some tough thison that’s been dried and spiced.
It’s nothing like the comfortable, fancy meals I get from my chef at the manor. Everything here is in stark contrast to the comfortable life I was living.
This really puts the whole situation into perspective for me. I’m grateful for every day I get with Harper because the alternative is spending endless days fighting orcs in skirmish after skirmish and eating dried thison and hard bread.
“See anything?” Sunzas asks, leaning over to attempt to spear a burgona from my plate. I bat his hand away, tempted to stab him with a fork for daring to try.
“No,” I tell him. “Only a pillas pissing in the wind.” Sunzas rolls his eyes but chuckles at the joke anyway.
“Good,” Rharodo says. He offers me another roll which I accept. “We don’t need those filthy orcs mucking around.”
He’s just finished saying that when someone at the far end of the table screams for us to look up.
When my head whips in their direction I see Rhilgess pointing at the food storage tent, eyes wide with a look of terror on his pale face.
Following his finger, I see that our food storage tent is on fire. Shit! My fellow men scramble around, panicking as the fire consumes the supplies. I look around, trying to locate the source of the fire. What’s going on? Is it an attack or did something happen?
“What happened to the tent?” Sunzas yells at Rhilgess. “Why is it on fire?”
“No one knows what happened!” Rharodo snaps at Sunzas. “We were all here when it went down.”
“I’m not blaming anyone!” Sunzas yells back.
We can’t afford to let the fire progress. It’s already decimated the food supplies. Our squad is small, the backups for the other fighters. We were bringing these rations to the northern encampment.
I’m still scanning the outlying brush, trying to figure out if we’re in danger. Nothing happens for a long moment but then…
“Ambush!” I scream as orcs pour out of the woods, one after another. We’re surrounded on all sides. We were vulnerable in this spot, I knew we were vulnerable but Sunzas insisted we would be protected by the hill on our north.
The table is overturned in the ensuing chaos and I leap up, trying to get away before my legs get crushed under it.
Orcs surround us. There’s only ten of us and at least fifty of them. We’re damned doomed here if we don’t get ourselves together. We’re all holding steady as the fifty orcs start approaching, banded tightly together to protect each other.
“Attack!” Sunzas shouts. I wince and the orcs rush at us with huge weapons—clubs and axes and battle scythes. The men draw our own weapons and we prepare to fight.
The first orc launches himself at us and Sunzas easily slaughters him where he stands, stabbing him through with his sharp blade.
But it’s not so easy after that. They outnumber us five to one and we’re not the main fighting regiment of the army. Still, we manage to hold our own for a while.
I’m battling two orcs at once when I realize the danger that I’m in. If I don’t survive this, I’ll never be able to get back to Harper. She’ll be left all alone, wondering what happened to me.
And she’ll have to mourn my death. I can’t do that to her. I fight harder, trying to push off my attackers with a blow to one’s skull and bashing the other in the knees with one well-placed kick. It works and they’re both forced to fall back.
Oh gods above, I pray. Please let me survive and get back to my one true love. I will never leave her again if only I can survive. I’m pleading with the Thirteen to bring me home safe and sound when I hear a sharp intake of breath and a scream, followed by a gurgle.
My eyes travel to the sound and I widen them in shock when I realize Rhilgess has been run through with a battle scythe.
We’re down to nine men and the orcs aren’t dropping quickly enough. It’s no use trying to continue to fight. If we fight, we’re only going to all be killed.
“We need to retreat!” I yell to Sunzas. “Now!”
“If we leave now, we can’t get any of the rest of the supplies to the main camp!” Sunzas yells back. “We have to take the rest to them!”
“If we don’t leave, we’re all going to be slaughtered!” I counter, shoving my sword through another orc and dodging an axe hit.
While we’re arguing, another soldier in our squadron is hit. He goes down but he’s not fatally injured, just sliced through on his shoulder.
“See?” I tell Sunzas. “We’re all going to die and then it won’t matter if we bring the camp the rest of the supplies!”
We’re at a major disadvantage and every moment spent arguing is another chance for the orcs to slaughter us whole-worg.
Just before the next orc can pick me off, I manage to stab it in the gut, making it double over. “What we need to do is drive them off hard enough to escape, then take our hoqins and retreat!” I tell Sunzas. “If we can retreat, we can stay alive. Staying alive means we can come back to get the supplies later.”
“If they haven’t burned the camp to the ground,” Sunzas argues. “Which they will do the instant we retreat. They’ll raze it to the ground to make sure there’s nothing left to come back to.”
“The supplies aren’t worth our lives!” I tell him. “You have a wife at home, Sunzas. What would happen to her if you died in battle?”
“She would be fine,” Sunzas insists. “She knows what I signed up for!”
I’m tired of arguing with him. He’s stubborn and sees his job as a position of pride. I’m better off appealing to Rharodo to help me lead the men in a retreat.
“Rharodo!” I rush towards him, fighting off several orcs who try to ambush me. “We’re losing this fight. We’ve already lost Rhilgess and one of our other men is already injured. We can’t keep fighting.”
“Agreed,” Rharodo yells, hurtling his throwing disc at an incoming orc. “We need to retreat!”
At least someone agrees with me, I think with no small amount of relief. “We should drive these bastards back hard enough so we can gather the hoqin and get out of here,” I tell him.
“Sounds like a plan,” Rharodo agrees. “Now let’s show these bastards what we’re made of!”
I cover for him while Rharodo rushes to the weapons tent and quickly gathers a handful of exploding powder.
He stealthily sneaks through the grass undetected while the fighting goes on all around us until he gets closer to the orcs side. While he’s working, I rush around like lightning to tell the others about our plan. Everyone but Sunzas is in agreement.
Once ignited, we have about thirty seconds to pull out of here before we get blown up ourselves. We only have one shot at this.
Rharodo glances around and I nod, giving him the signal. Everyone is now in place, having fought our way to where our hoqin are tied up.
“NOW!” I yell and Rharodo lights it up, the powder beginning to whistle ominously. We throw ourselves on our hoqin and begin to beat a hasty retreat.
We’ve barely made it past the danger zone when the explosions start going off behind us. We don’t even stop to make sure that the orcs are dead, we have to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.
Just as I think we’re going to be safe, I feel something hit me square in the chest and force me to tumble off my hoqin, down to the grassy plains below.
“Shit!” I hear Rharodo curse. Warmth spreads through my chest and I look down, seeing the arrow piercing through my heart.
No.
This can’t be happening.
I fought so hard to get back to you, my love, I think as my vision begins to go fuzzy, the world blackening around the edges.
“Harper…” I call out, losing consciousness.