Dominic shook the Baron’s hand, then looked for the source of the mournful cry that had called his Trolls together.
Near the house, two bodies lay under white sheets, while an old woman sat nearby, crying.
The Baron had brought his whole extended family, so that would likely be his mother, and two lost members of his direct family, or his wife’s family.
"Priestess, are you able to move? Or do you need to rest?" He asked.
"I need at least an hour, unless Dave is going to carry me. It doesn’t look like much now, but I pulled a dozen men from the brink of death." She replied, barely more than a whisper.
"Two trolls will stay with the Priestess for her security. That should be enough to see her safely back home once she can move. If you’ve got food ready, they’ll need it. Magic use on that level is brutal on the energy levels."
"I’m sure that we can put a pot of stew on?"
The ment was phrased as a question, but the Trolls chosen to stay behind celebrated while the others sighed in resignation.
"The Trolls are vegetarian, so it’s not a problem if you just throw on something simple." Dominic noted.
"Oh, that is a relief. With an appetite like that, I don’t think we’d have enough meat to make them happy." The Baron’s wife replied as she sent staff back inside to warn the kitchen staff.
The Trolls wouldn’t let her work alone, though. The pair elected to remain immediately went to the garden and ripened enough produce for the meal, and brought it to the kitchen window.
If someone was cooking for them, the least they could do was bring the ingredients.
Dominic gestured to another pair of Trolls. "Go to the other Barony House and keep the area secure. The farmers will all be going there for safety, and they’ll need you.
The rest of you are with me, and we’re headed back to join the others."
The Baron shook his head as Dominic left. He had separated four of his Trolls for their defence, but there wasn’t much left to fight in the area, and they had spears to arm militia for that. The extra fighters would be a blessing if another portal opened, but there were thousands of people in town, not counting the farms, and under two hundred bined between the two Baronies.
The Trolls were surprisingly fast when they were running, and Dominic knew just where to send them.
The majority of the portals had opened on the east side of the river, so they weren’t separated from Wistover by the river, so he could circle the attack and hit from the side.
He already knew what he could do with Amie at his side, and now he had sixteen Mountain Trolls as well.
The first targets they were going to reach were bugbears, brutish creatures that turned out to be absolutely terrified of Trolls. The moment that the Mountain Trolls charged into bat, the creatures began to apologize and run away.
Amie and Dominic fired their pistols as fast as they could and had the Trolls herd the bugbears toward a group of Ogres.
Those would be one of the bigger threats to the town, so they needed to be eliminated.
There were no Portals in this area, and it was being clear that the mages had very loose control of their monsters. They were following directions, but they weren’t mindlessly attacking.
"The soldiers and airships have been targeting the mages as much as they can. I think they don’t have enough of them left here to control the monsters." Amie explained over the sound of pistols firing.
"Perfect. The less organized they are, the easier this gets.
Trolls, focus on the Ogres, we will deal with the cowards."
Each pistol shot dropped a bugbear. Some were dead, some were just heavily injured, but to Dominic it didn’t matter. They would go back through and finish them later.
What mattered was that the numbers were shifting, and there were fewer Ogres than there were trolls in his group.
One on one, they were somewhat evenly matched, but the Ogres really didn’t stand much of a chance, as the Trolls could heal so quickly.
However, their arrival had triggered a chain response, and monsters that had been headed for the defenders near the town limits turned back to defend against the ambush.
"Oh, we’re going to be rich." Amie laughed as she saw the horde of Goblins headed their way.
"We’re already rich. We’re going to be out of storage space, is what we’re going to be."
Amie laughed and handed him a bag. "I grabbed this from the Sect earlier. It’s got enough storage space that you can just load it up and sort it out later. Just stuff it in your coat pocket and it should be usable."
That was good enough for Dominic. He had needed a new bag of storage for some time, with all these monster attacks.
The two of them with a pair of revolvers each was as devastating as he remembered from the last battle, but the number of monsters ing their way from the main battle was about to bee overwhelming.
Switching to [Fireball] blasted holes in the Goblin horde, but even with his increased casting speed, it was far from enough to hold them off.
Dominic spared a few shots to take down an Ogre, giving the Trolls more of an advantage, and then focused on the tide of Goblins. Amie was at his side, and between the two of them, they had enough firepower to nearly stall the front lines of the horde.
However, they were ing from every direction but the back, and that could change at any minute if the mages realized that there was a major threat on this side of the battle.
"Artillery?" Amie asked.
"Artillery."
Dominic grabbed a mortar round and lit the fuse on his horn.
The confused look on the Goblins’ faces as the oblong object flew at them was priceless, but Dominic didn’t wait, and continued to hurl more explosives at them, rocking the area with shockwaves.
User Comments
0 comments from readers