Book 2 Chapter Sixteen: Hob clearing

SIXTEEN

Taoya rocketed down the burning streets with single minded determination while Roan and Harris followed along like leaves in a breeze. Goblins came out of the darkness with their sharp blades and met their end swiftly, cut down by Harris’ sword and crushed by Roan’s warhammer.

Rubble shifted and an ogre came out of a half-collapsed building, blood smeared around its mouth. It carried a typical club in one hand but in the other was an unrecognizable shape, blood seeping out to trickle on the ashen stones. It lifted its club above its head as it started to roar, but Roan was faster.

The warhammer caved in the ogre’s chest and threw it back into the crumbling ruins of the building. No kill notification came, but Roan couldn’t stay to secure the kill. All around him the horde slunk in the shadows, darting out to cut and slash. If he allowed himself to be isolated then it wouldn’t be long until he felt those obsidian blades.

They continued to run, dispatching foes when they interrupted their journey, but otherwise leaving them. The closer they got to the fight the easier it was to hear the screams. Men and women pleading, crying out to others, begging for mercy. It was all buried under bestial snarls and savage cries.

Taoya disappeared in a blast of light, excess energy discharged in a burst of energy. Roan blinked his eyes instantly and dove to the side as he lost his bearings, his vision stripped away. Ahead of him he heard Harris swearing loudly as he was caught in the blast as well.

“Why’d he do that?” Roan called out, hoping that Harris had seen something he hadn’t.

“Hob!” Harris called back.

Roan blinked his eyes rapidly and his vision was restored in a few seconds. The smoky light of the burning village returned. The small knot of climbers they’d been angling for were dead. Their bodies split apart like rotten wood. From a street over they heard Taoya’s enraged cry and another burst of light filled the night air.

“Check the bodies!” Harris called as he broke into a sprint to get into the fight. Roan wondered when the other man had decided it was his place to order him around.

“His bloodline is better suited for this fight. Do not let ego distract you,” he told himself as he looked over the dead. They’d all died from a single catastrophic wound. A wound similar to the one that had nearly split him in half.

Roan checked the dead to see if there was anyone he recognized. Some of the faces looked familiar, but nobody that he knew. Most looked to be wearing rags of regular clothing, marking them as independents and not the elite fighters. Roan looked around and saw nobody else there.

He searched pockets and rapidly threw everything into his pack without looking at it. Fingers were checked for spatial rings, but there were none to be found. Their weapons were starter grade weapons, similar to his sword and warhammer. He piled those to the side in a heap of clanging steel as the sounds of Taoya’s duel with the hob continued to grow louder.

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“It’s getting closer,” he realized, pulling his hands out of a dead man’s pocket and grabbing his warhammer just as one of the village cottages exploded in burning wood. Shrapnel flew everywhere as the battered body of the hob slammed into the ground, bounced, flipped, and skidded on its feet. One of its arms dangled loosely to its side and half of its face was pulped.