The Orc Hunt, Part Two
The morning after we found the orc settlement, I filled my belly with high-calorie combat rations and stepped out of the tent.
The slaves had risen first. Tents already struck, they stood waiting, ready to move.
Argon came over.
"I don't have to go, do I?"
"If you drop out too and somebody hits the main camp, then what? Stay here and watch the slaves. I built the plan without you anyway. If it goes bad, I'll just run."
Whatever else he doubted, running he seemed to trust he could manage. He nodded and stepped back.
Leaving the truck and Argon behind, the IS slaves made the Humvee and the pickup ready. The ones who climbed aboard busied themselves mounting the weapons I had issued, fixing them to the roofs and the rear cargo beds.
A Russian PKP machine gun, taken when we hit the IS training camp. The enemy numbered in the hundreds, but hang those on both vehicles and let them rip, and there was nothing to worry about.
While the slaves worked, I held an operations briefing with Marcus, the mercenary captain. The aerial shots from the drone made the explaining easy. I dragged the ground photos around on the smart pad, zooming in and out as I talked, and Marcus caught on at once.
"Then we hold in the rear and drive them from this side toward that side."
"Correct."
"But can two of those truly manage it? Even a rough count puts them past four hundred. No Maximus. No Lord Argon. Two automatic carriages and six slaves."
Of course he was worried. By any sane measure, the operation sat a long way outside sense. But this world had a cheat that could turn the abnormal into the ordinary.
"Don't worry. I'm a mage, aren't I?"
He seemed to understand that further argument was wasted, and nodded.
"Then let us move."
Marcus returned to the mercenaries, swung into the saddle, and led them north at a gallop. I watched them go, then turned and climbed into the waiting Humvee.
The first thing I did once I was aboard was check the radio. I drew the wire from the set clipped to the chest of my tactical vest back behind my ear and seated the earpiece, cut tape and fixed it at ear and neck, then anchored the little wired microphone beside my cheek so it would not slip.
"Radio check. Radio check. This is Alpha. Bravo, Charlie, do you read?"
Bravo: "—kssh— This is Bravo. Reading you loud and clear."
Charlie: "Charlie. Comms clear."
Check complete. Time to move.
I spoke to IS No. 2 in the driver's seat.
"Move out."
"Yes, Master."
The engine snarled. Led by the Humvee, the vehicles threw up sand and raced for the far side of the grassland, and Humvee and Toyota soon overtook the mercenaries ahead and pulled clear.
Kicking dust across the plain, they ate dozens of kilometers in no time. Coming around the shoulder of a hill, the settlement appeared ahead of the Humvee — dozens of Mongolian tents packed tight together.
The Toyota opened the throttle and swung out to the right, and the two vehicles ran abreast, gathering speed.
Through the rising dust, the orcs noticed them at last. Wolf riders kicked off in a rush and drove their wolves out first, dozens of the vanguard screaming as they charged.
"Intruders!"
"Kill them!"
"Take them alive! Find out where their comrades are!"
"Don't let them get away!"
Watching the orcs come on wolfback, bloodshot eyes and savage roars, I couldn't help the tension, safe as I knew I was. I shook it off with a deep breath, drew the in-ear from the radio at my belt, and seated it. Once I was sure the mic was fixed, I rose and sent the call.
"Bravo. Prepare to engage."
"This is Bravo. Preparing to engage."
I rose as well, threw the roof hatches open to either side, and pushed my upper body out. I pulled the goggles from around my neck down over my eyes and shouldered the machine gun fixed to the Humvee's roof. Sighting through the optic I had bought in Istanbul, I picked up the enemy charging in.
"This is Alpha. On my order from this side, fire on their vanguard."
"Bravo. Understood. Standing by for the order."
The distance between the two sides closed fast. Until now the dust had kept the view from settling, but from the orc settlement they could finally make out what the oncoming Humvee was. The moment it showed itself, Sand Wind's face twisted.
The warrior beside him started at the order.
"What are you saying, Sand Wind? A recall horn?"
"Those bastards are mages! Not ordinary mages — high mages!"
Sand Wind tried to haul the vanguard back in a rush, but the moment was already gone. Far off, that familiar thunder broke in a rolling burst. He knew exactly what the sound was. He had taken it once before.
His eyes swung back to the front, and he saw fire flashing without pause above the automatic carriage. An instant after the flames bloomed, dust erupted around the wolf riders charging the enemy. Orcs and wolves tangled into a single mass, tumbling, slamming into the ground. A heartbeat later the delayed thunder shook the air.
Damn it. It's that bastard from back then.
On the Humvee jolting across the grassland, I watched the wolf riders coming in from the front, hauled the charging handle back, and let it go. The handle snapped forward again, and the round chambered with a clean, tight clack.
I resettled the stock against my shoulder, put my eye to the optic, and walked the wavering red dot onto a charging wolf rider.
Then—
I pulled the trigger with the shout. As if it had been waiting, the machine gun shuddered through my whole body and poured rounds. Flame and smoke spat, and the bullets hammering in around the charging riders kicked sand and raised dust. The ones that landed true punched straight through orc riders and desert wolves.
Then the Toyota opened up as well. Both machine guns swept the vanguard and passed on. Blood sprayed, dust flew, and orcs and wolves tangled together — collapsing, slamming down, rolling. In an instant more than twenty wolf riders were on the ground and not getting up. Even those still breathing only twitched from shock and gunshot wounds.
With their edge broken, the next thing was to herd them.
"Spread left and right. Bravo, swing right. We're the left."
The Humvee and the Toyota, which had run abreast and swept the vanguard, split left and right and kept going. From the roofs of the vehicles opened wide to either side of the settlement, the machine guns spat fire. Rounds raked the tents and slaughtered orcs who had let their guard down.
Those who grasped it late hid on instinct and dropped flat, but every time the guns raised a cloud of dust, the orcs caught in it went down just the same, blood bursting from their bodies.
"Take cover!"
"Demons!"
"It's magic!"
"They're using a demon's arts!"
Great Warrior Molar and the other wolf riders, their preparations finished too late, grabbed their wolves and tried to charge, but the firepower was nothing like last time. Swallowing long belts without pause, the machine guns swept the orc lines at six hundred rounds a minute. Where that baptism of fire passed, corpses and pools of blood spread.
Orcs lucky enough to be outside the beaten zone tried to mount wolves and chase the vehicles. Even the slower Humvee topped a hundred kilometers an hour. Wolves could not begin to keep up.
Spread left and right, the two vehicles poured rounds into the orc formation between them to their hearts' content, then met on the far side.
"We're cutting in from the right. Cease fire."
Having swung wide around the outside of the orc lines, the Toyota and the Humvee crossed each other. Pale dust bloomed over the ground the tires had swept. Once past, each took the opposite heading and ran another half-circle, and because they had crossed, each met head-on the wolf riders that had been chasing the other.
"Cross complete! Resume fire!"
Bullets poured straight into the charging orcs and wolves and swept them down.
"Aaagh!"
The wolves yelped and shrieked. The beaten zone, raising dust as it passed, punched through the oncoming orcs and tore on. Riders lost their balance, toppled backward, collapsed, pitched forward onto their faces. Wolves without masters, and wolves whose lines tangled when the ones ahead went down, piled into each other, fell, and scattered left and right.
Watching it, I called to IS No. 2.
"Push through!"
"Yes!"
The engine roared. Orcs frightened by the steel monster charging them split like the Red Sea. Torque up, the three-ton beast slammed straight into the tangled orcs and wolves. An impact to match a raging elephant's charge smashed through them, flinging wolves and orcs aside. Bodies and corpses that were struck and grazed bounced like bowling pins and flew apart, broken.
Having shattered the pursuit, the Humvee swung wide around the right side of the settlement. With the chase annihilated, the muzzle came right again and began dumping rounds into the tents. Under fire pouring in from both sides, the orcs as a mass could not get their heads together and were busy burying their faces in the dirt.
No further sign of resistance from their lines. Time for the next step.
"Start the smoke."
The slave riding in the very back of the Humvee threw the rear hatch wide. Inside sat something I had seen plenty of back in Korea in the nineties — a smoke fogger, the kind they used to load onto trucks and send down alleys, belching disinfectant smoke.
The gasoline engine turned over, and with that familiar racket a pale screen poured out behind the vehicle. Up on the roof I turned to check the wake. Smoke was spreading in a dirty white sheet behind us. Couldn't let everything I had prepared blow off into empty sky for nothing.
I drew a small dagger from inside my coat.
And—
"Sylph."
A moment later the wind running alongside the moving vehicle gathered into a strange shape. Sylph, a lesser spirit of the wind. The owner of a spirit dagger could summon the spirit contracted to the blade and give it orders. This single dagger had cost a full three hundred gold. A waste, but if I meant to use it with that smoke, there was no choice.
"Bind the wind. Don't let the smoke escape. Fill the orc settlement with it."
Sylph, understanding, scattered back into wind. The smoke that had been pouring out behind the vehicle and spreading began to creep inward, as if trapped behind a membrane. And so the smoke the two vehicles poured gradually drowned the orc settlement in a fog.