The Taste of Massacre
The caravan column raced on, fleeing the orc riders pounding at their heels.
"Damn it! The horses are blown!"
"They can't take any more!"
"Keep them running! Make them run!"
The drivers screamed and laid on the whips, and the horses answered with shrill, panicked cries. But the animals were already past their limit. With every stride their legs grew heavier, and the moment their speed began to collapse, the orcs behind them started closing the gap at a frightening rate.
Mercenaries drove their mounts in alongside the despairing drivers and shouted.
"This is no good! Dump the wagons!"
"No! Abandon the cargo and they'll cast us out!"
"You stupid bastard! Worry about living first! Getting thrown out is the least of it!"
The caravan clerk clutching the reins looked ready to weep. In the wagon bed, the caged slaves erupted as well.
"S-save us!"
"Don't leave us!"
"Please! Take us with you!"
"At least open this—I'm begging you!"
Had their pursuers been ordinary bandits or highwaymen, the slaves would not have been so terrified. But these were not men. They were monsters. However civilized the orcs might claim to be, to them a human was no different from a cow or a pig—livestock to be worked until the strength gave out, and eaten the moment the food ran short. Dragged off to that fate, they had no choice but to become desperate.
The mercenary's temper snapped as he watched them wail, and watched the clerk who still could not bring himself to abandon the wagon for fear of being dismissed by the caravan. He was in the same bind. Leave the wagon and the clerk behind, and his own reputation would crack.
"Fuck! We're all about to die out here!"
While he hesitated, the orcs behind them split the air with their howls.
"Kraaang! Kill them!"
"Humans! Seize them!"
"We'll skin you! Kraaak!"
From the rear they ate up the distance. The howls finally hardened the mercenaries' resolve. They vaulted onto the wagon and raised their axes.
Steel rang. The axe came down in a burst of sparks and smashed the lock on the iron cage holding the slaves. The lock broke clean in two and fell away, and the women inside, rigid with terror, screamed.
"Move!"
"P-please, save me!"
"Out! Now!"
In a crisis, caravan staff were not what a mercenary was meant to protect. The best move left to them was to secure whichever of their charges was worth the most.
One of the startled women caught her balance on the rocking wagon, seized a mercenary's arm, and crossed over onto his horse. The clerk cried out in panic.
"W-what is this! Take me too!"
But the mercenaries had already mounted a woman apiece.
"We can't save you on top of them! I told you to dump the wagon before it came to this!"
With that they spurred past the wagon and pulled ahead.
"Hyah!"
"Go!"
"No! Please!"
The clerk's scream was still ringing when the orc riders closed to within arm's reach. Terror stripped his voice raw.
"Save me! Somebody—please, save me!"
The riders about to swarm the wagon checked, just for an instant. In that same instant something registered in the clerk's eyes: a shape tearing toward them from the front, running the wrong way down the road at terrible speed.
"The baron?"
A Humvee came on in a storm of dust, its engine howling. It blew past the rearmost wagon and then cranked into a savage turn. As that massive flank swung broadside, it threw up a barrier in a great sweeping crescent.
The orcs roared.
"Grrrng! Watch yourselves!"
"Monster!"
"Ghost wagon!"
"A mage!"
Swinging off the Humvee's rear, the cargo bed whipped through the same violent arc and lurched hard.
"Hold on tight!"
Whether the outlander slave in the bed heard the shout from the cab or not, he flung his shield aside and flattened himself to the floor. The discarded shield spun away and cracked an oncoming orc rider across the body. The orc folded with a strangled bark.
The wolves that failed to clear the spinning mass of steel struck the cargo bed and were hurled aside. Bodies crashed and tumbled. Three or four of them lay sprawled on the grass, yelping, where the bed had thrown them.
I hauled the shifter into gear and stamped the accelerator. The engine bellowed. Tires scouring gravel, the heavy steel monster clawed at the ground, built speed in a rush, and tore back down the way it had come.
Red Fang and Sand Wind saw it too.
"Catch them!"
"Don't let them get away!"
The orcs came on. Getting back the speed I'd bled off in the turn took time, and into that gap the riders leapt.
"Kraaang! Humans!"
"Kill them!"
A wolf gaped its jaws, fangs bared, and lunged at the Humvee. Those teeth rang off the steel.
But—
"Are you stupid?"
The wolf yelped and scrabbled off. As if fangs were going to bite into plate a crossbow bolt couldn't pierce.
The orcs were more trouble than the wolves. They sprang from their mounts, grabbed hold of the Humvee, and clung. The bodywork shuddered under their weight.
"Kraang! I'll kill you!"
Through the glass I saw one of them hanging on with a single hand, long sharp tusks bared, the other arm lifting a blade high. A crude sword, its point hooked forward like a claw.
Insane.
Before they could bring those blades down—
"No free rides, you bastards!"
I wrenched the wheel. The tires shrieked. The vehicle fishtailed, and gravel and sand sprayed away to either side. I could see the ones clinging on straining against the force that wanted to peel them loose, but I didn't shake them all off in one go. Their grip was well past anything human.
"Number Three! Take the wheel!"
"Y-yes, Master!"
Number Three, wedged between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, seized the wheel as I let go. I caught the overhead handle and hauled myself up. Number Three squeezed into the seat I'd left, and I flipped the latch on the hatch cut into the center of the roof, shoved it open, and thrust my upper body out into the wind.
The engine's roar and the scream of the road hit my ears raw. All around us, the charge of the wolves drummed the earth. No wonder the adrenaline was surging. I knew it was dangerous. I was also packed full of reckless nerve—the magic, most likely. Knowing I had a safeguard made me willing to try anything, however mad. That, and the memory of having died and crawled back, and the killing I'd already done fighting the IS bastards.
Leaning out, I drew an AK-47 from my magic pouch. In truth, my head had been full of the itch to unload the thing on them since well before now.
The orcs pursuing on either side saw me and burst into savage cries.
"A mage!"
"Kill him! The mage!"
"Smash the mage's head!"
"Kwawang!"
I shouldered the rifle, swung it toward the riders on the right, and pulled the trigger. The burst ripped out, one long tearing roar after another. Caught in it, the orcs became a thrashing mess of green and crimson and slammed into the ground, rolling.
Watching them tumble, I felt a jolt of pleasure, as if I'd struck them down with my own hands.
Damn. This. This is why I'm doing this insane shit.
No game could compare. It was something an ordinary life would never let you taste. Something permitted only in another world. The true taste of massacre.
I drank in the excitement and the pleasure fountaining through my skull, and pulled the trigger again. The magazine ran dry before I noticed. I pitched the empty one to the floor and seated a fresh magazine, striking the base to lock it in. I hit the bolt-catch release. The bolt carrier snapped forward and locked into battery with a series of hard mechanical clacks.
I swung the reloaded muzzle the other way and fired again. Bullets hosed sideways and dropped another three or four orc riders in a bloody heap.
With the orcs pressing in on both flanks dealt with, I had room to breathe. After that I emptied another five or six magazines, pouring fire into the ones still giving chase. The orcs who had come on like a suicide charge opened the distance and did not dare close again.
"The mage!"
"A mage who wields thunder!"
"Beware! Thunder-sound magic!"
"A monster!"
From the orcs' side of it, a horseless ghost wagon was uncanny enough. Every time the thunder spoke, their kin tumbled with holes punched clean through them. They had no answer.
Once the riders could no longer pursue in a straight line, the caravan found room to breathe as well. Astonishingly, the thunder mage's magic reached past fifty meters. Other spells could manage that, of course. The problem was speed. Blood fountained in the same instant as the thunder—faster, it seemed, even than lightning magic, which already ranked among the swiftest there was.
While they hesitated, the wolves began to fail. I was watching the slowing pack fall away from the caravan when cavalry closed in from both sides.
Marcus, captain of the Marcus Mercenary Company.
"You have endured much, my lord Baron."
I had heard he disliked mixing words with nobles. Along the way I had traded a few with the caravan staff and some of the mercenaries, but never a single one with Marcus. Yet here he was, speaking first.
"We shall escort you. Whether you require it, I cannot say."
Does he like me?
At a time like this, better to act the noble.
"Is that so. Then I shall go back in and rest."
Hemmed in by the mercenaries' horses ranged to either side, I dropped back down into the driver's seat.
"Hey! Number Three, move over again."
Number Three shifted back into the gap between the seats, and I sat behind the wheel once more. The hand on it trembled faintly.
The rush still hasn't worn off.
At this rate, am I getting addicted to dopamine?
I drew a long breath and drove, easing the speed up until I could rejoin the caravan.