They said that the heat of battle could do one of two things to age. The adrenaline, the sudden happenings, and the drive to survive in the face of death could erode the effects of age, temporarily lessening the wear and tear on a soldier’s body, making them move with the agility and vigor of a man ten years younger. Muscles, remembering past and training, might stretch and react with a quickness honed to a fine point in years past. Reflexes would hasten, senses heighten, and, for a few fleeting moments, one might reclaim a vitality they had long thought lost.
The opposite could equally be true. Olatt’an dived to one side, feeling every ache, every pin-and-needle in his creaking bones. Hitting the ground shoulder-first only exacerbated the relentless strain. If anything, he felt aged beyond his years. But, as a jagged bolt of lightning arced to the sword he had jammed into the ground and dived away from instead of his chest, he felt some small surge of elation.
He didn’t pick himself up. He simply twisted, bringing his crossbow to his shoulder. Holding his breath, he waited just a moment and finally loosed the bolt.
The crossbow bolt closed the distance in the blink of an eye, striking the strange flying machine’s inner cogs just as his last three had. Once again, gears locked up, spinning bits of metal jammed, and the entire contraption seized. But it only lasted a moment. The metal serpent lost some height, falling low enough to the ground for Zojja to slam her axe into its ribs of iron, but quickly recovered. Its movements seemed a bit stiffer once it resumed the undulating movements of its serpentine body.
Olatt’an grunted as he shoved himself off the ground. He crouched behind the sword in the ground, now warped from the lightning strike, hoping it would serve as cover long enough for him to reset his crossbow.
His bolts were having an effect. Eventually, with enough of the serpent’s gears locked up, it had to fall and stay down. Three of his bolts were jamming three different sections of its innards. How many more were needed?
How many more could he land before his luck ran out?
Drawing the string back on the crossbow was not an easy or quick task, but it was a mindless one. It allowed him a brief moment to scan the battlefield.
Things were not looking good. They hadn’t been prepared to face a flying opponent. Only three of the group had crossbows and Eiff’an was either dead or down for the rest of the battle. Vippa picked up his crossbow but the one and only shot she got off before being fried wouldn’t have hit the creature even if it had been ten times its size. One Protector was dead. The other had shouted something before rushing off to the portal.
Olatt’an hoped it knew what it was doing. If it opened the portal and another of these things came through, there wouldn’t be the slightest hope.
The elf was missing entirely. Not surprising. She wasn’t a combatant. Better for her to hunker down and stay out of everyone else’s way.
As for everyone else… They were more or less useless. Early on, it had tried biting a few of them. And it got a few of them, but they got it in turn, even hacking off one of those pylons on its spine. Now, it was admirable that they were trying to draw the serpent’s attention away from Olatt’an, usually by flinging rocks before ducking for cover, but their efforts just weren’t enough. After this third crossbow bolt struck true, the serpent wasn’t even turning to snarl at the minor pelting of stones it was receiving. Its eyes, crackling with the same lightning that ran along the pylons on its back, were locked on Olatt’an.
He sucked in a breath, trying to steady his shaking hands as he finished setting the crossbow. It took time for the serpent to ready another lightning bolt. But with it staring straight at him, he doubted he would get an opening.
In the distance, he could barely hear his men shouting—cries of desperate defiance and fear as they tried to draw the serpent’s aggression toward them.
His eyes flicked to Zojja, who was reeling from her latest strike but not backing down. She stood almost directly beneath the creature, glaring up at where her axe had chunked away a small bit of the creature’s metal ribs. As if knowing she was being watched, she lowered her head. Her eyes met his and, in a brief moment of understanding, she nodded.
With a feral roar, Zojja clambered up the slope of a toppled wall. She swung her axe around, using its weight to counterbalance her brief spin. Then, she let it go. An orc letting go of their weapon was something simply not done unless they were dead or unconscious. Yet she did. And it was a perfect throw, flinging high until the bladed edge struck the underside of the serpent.
It could ignore rocks. It didn’t overlook the axe. The blade crashing into its underside nearly knocked it out of the air. Not quite, but it still turned to face Zojja.
The orc stood there, weaponless, glaring defiantly as lightning surged up and down its pylons.
Olatt’an wasn’t about to let her sacrifice herself. From the moment they made eye contact, he had been ready.
He loosed a bolt.
It opened its jaw, lightning crackling between the sharp points of metal that served as its teeth.
The crossbow bolt struck another gearbox, locking it up. Just like last time, the creature lost altitude, this time landing in the dirt of the ruins completely.
But it didn’t stop the buildup of lighting. Zojja didn’t have anywhere to run and had nowhere to hide. Her legs were poised to leap to one side at any moment, but it wouldn’t be enough. Olatt’an had seen those lightning bolts veer toward their targets.
Just before the crackling buildup reached its peak, a small flare of red formed just below the machine’s chin.
A conflagration erupted, knocking the serpent upward. The bolt of lightning it had been charging crashed into the orange clouds overhead.
Three dark shadows dashed toward the serpent, each wielding long curved blades at the ends of staves. They moved far faster than the dark armor they wore should have allowed, closing in on the creature before it could recover from the explosion.
It seemed to sense their presence, even with it still roughly facing Zojja. The serpent squirmed and shifted, twisting out of the way of two of the three blades. The third cut through the strong metal with only mild resistance, slicing off a quarter of the creature’s end.
Even with that bit flipping and flopping on the ground like a fish tossed on a sandy beach, the rest of the serpent managed to take to the skies.
And, once again, they were back to where they started. The creature high above. Them down below. The lightning along its back sparked and fizzed, no longer simply cascading up and down the pylons on its spine. The lightning jolted and jumped at random, arcing to random points in the air in instant flashes of light. The creature itself dipped and rose, unable to keep itself at a steady height. But it didn’t come crashing down again.
Despite the damage it took, it was charging up once again. Maybe even faster this time, with all the mechanics inside it going haywire.
Until… something happened to it. It slowed to a crawl. For a brief instant, it looked as if the undulating movements simply stopped, but in reality, it simply moved so slowly as to look like it stopped. Even the lightning took several seconds to arc between the pylons.
Another spark of fire appeared near the serpent. This time, above it. The resulting conflagration blasted it toward the ground. Whatever slowness took over its body didn’t affect its fall. The three scythe-wielders and Zojja had barely a second to dive in opposite directions, barely avoiding being crushed.
Before any one of them could get back to their feet, a blur moved through the air. A haze that shimmered past Olatt’an, moving toward the serpent. It passed through the mechanical monster, consolidating to a stop on the creature’s other side in the form of a dark elf who simply stared down at a short sword held in her hands.
The serpent’s sparks sputtered a moment more before, in slow motion, it peeled apart into a dozen thin strips of metal, split cogs, and broken gears.
“Hale! Help Eiff’an. He’s still alive. Morvin and Zullie, get to Krett’al.”
Olatt’an, bones aching to their fullest, turned to find Arkk alongside an entire crew from Fortress Al-Mir. They were surrounded by the dark knights, all clearly on guard for any additional threats both in the air and on land. Arkk himself, eyes ablaze far brighter than Olatt’an could remember, knelt over Vippa. From the frustration on his face, Olatt’an didn’t think his healing was doing as much as he hoped.
Grunting as he stood fully, Olatt’an stretched his back, felt the grinding of his bones, and ignored the aches. He turned, assessing the changed situation.
The crystalline portal was active once more. This time, rather than an infernal land of metal machines and movement, he could see the familiar interior of Fortress Al-Mir. More of Arkk’s men were on their way through. Not ready to fight as Dakka’s troops were, but ready to lend aid and help recover what needed recovery. They were already spreading out, moving to the less injured who weren’t currently receiving attention from the healers.
Dakka, her men, and the dark elf stood around the metal serpent, watching it warily as if it might spring back to life despite having been taken apart. It didn’t look like it would, but Olatt’an couldn’t fault their caution.
The silver-haired elf, Ilya, hurried through the portal as Olatt’an watched. She had fear and worry on her face, but not for any of those who deserved it at the moment. As soon as his stare caught her eye, Olatt’an raised a hand and pointed off in the direction he last saw the elf’s mother. Ilya gave him a curt nod and immediately hurried off.
“Alive?” Olatt’an grunted as he limped toward Arkk. That last dive had jolted his hip enough to send a spike of pain through him with every step.
“No,” Arkk said with a heavy scowl. His glowing red eyes lifted from Vippa’s body, locking onto Olatt’an. In an unnaturally calm voice, he asked a single question. “What happened?”
Olatt’an took his eyes off Arkk, looking around once more. This time, it wasn’t at the people around, but at the scenery. The ruins. A desolate expanse of crumbled stone and shattered hope. The jagged remains of a once-proud fortress—a proper, above-ground fortress—jutted up from the ground around him. Blackened stones still bore the scars of ancient fires, visible even through the layer of sand and dust that coated everything. Here and there, the rusted hulks of long-abandoned war machines lay half-buried in the soil.
“We found the orc homeland,” he said, sighing somewhat. “Or, at least, the homelands in this world. It is just as the old songs say, if a bit less intact.”
Despite his obvious anger—directed more at the situation than at Olatt’an, at least for the moment—Arkk did raise a curious eyebrow. “This world?”
“I don’t know exactly where orcs come from. The songs tell of a people on the run, moving from land to land all while learning and, in some cases, plundering what unique magics they could from the locals. I once thought that referred to orcs traversing actual land, such as the lands of the Beastman Tribes, the Tetrarchy, Evestani, and even lands across the seas. But after meeting you, my notions changed. We—my people—traversed planes.
“The bones we found in this place prove it. As does the utter lack of those living shadows. Orcs arrived here from another world, built this fortress, and, perhaps, spread out and learned local magics to become those black knights your servant speaks of.”
“And what,” Arkk said, looking to where Dakka and the dark elf were standing guard, “you found what they were on the run from?”
“I don’t believe so, no. I’m not sure what that is but it fell far too easily to force an entire people on the run,” he said, turning his from the serpent to the portal. “We found the portal and, wanting to take as much information back with us, started investigating it. None of the team are spellcasters or magical experts and we didn’t mean to activate the artifact. I suspect that some of our investigation work combined with the overwhelming magic in this world to spontaneously activate it. We managed to shut it back down by damaging one of the runes, but not before that thing made it through.”
Arkk pursed his lips into a thin line, following his line of sight to the portal. “I suppose it is something that you didn’t mean to activate it. But this… this is a mess, Olatt’an. I expected far better judgment calls from you of all people. If Alya ended up hurt…”
“It is a shame,” he said, kneeling down to Vippa’s body. He tried to keep the annoyance in his tone as low as possible. It wasn’t like he had room to complain. Arkk was right. Rekk’ar was the brash one. He was supposed to be the wise one. He should have realized that fiddling with a magical artifact in a world of abundant magic wasn’t the best idea.
But what had happened happened. There was no changing that. All he could do was to make up for it.
And he had a way to make up for it. “It isn’t going to lessen injuries or bring Vippa back,” Olatt’an started, “but I think you might be quite interested in what we’ve found here.”
Arkk closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, they were still glowing a bright red, but it wasn’t quite as intense as it had been just a few moments prior. “Hold onto that thought, unless it is an emergency—”
“It isn’t,” Olatt’an admitted.
“I’m going to ensure everyone else survives this. Then we can speak.”
Olatt’an simply nodded his head. Arkk cast one last pitying glance at Vippa before he turned and hurried off toward where Hale was working on replacing the missing flesh of Eiff’an with something bulky and scaled.
Olatt’an didn’t follow. After running around for his life as much as he had, he needed a moment to himself more than he thought he had. Resting his crossbow on the ground, he sat down next to Vippa’s body. It really was a shame. There wasn’t supposed to have been danger here. Nobody had been prepared for it beyond the basics. Half his team didn’t even have armor with them, let alone on them. Would armor have saved Eiff’an’s arm from being bit off by that machine? Possibly. Possibly not. Would it have saved Vippa? Krett’al?
Probably not.
Olatt’an could have saved them. Activating the portal had been accidental, he hadn’t lied about that. But they hadn’t tried to shut it down immediately. Olatt’an could have given that order. He could have stopped that creature from coming through with plenty of time to spare. But he wanted a peek. A selfish glimpse at the likely next land his people had once called home.
When Arkk had activated the portal to the Underworld, he had ensured that there were contingencies in place. An entire group of guards to keep anything that might come through from posing a threat, traps and pitfalls in the corridors beyond the portal, and even lesser servants burrowed in the walls, ready to collapse the entire chamber if the threat proved greater than traps and guards could handle.
A farmer and a hunter with barely a lick of sense between his ears had taken the threat of other worlds far more seriously than Olatt’an had. It was, frankly, embarrassing.
He rested a hand on Vippa’s chest. “Sorry,” he said, grunting the word out. There wasn’t much else he could say.
He sat there, staring out with a scowl on his toothless face, until Arkk returned.
Everyone else survived, though several suffered varying levels of injury. That was a small consolation. His mistake hadn’t gotten everyone killed.
“Those hulking machines,” Olatt’an said without preamble, gesturing at some of the ruins that weren’t buildings. “They’re something similar to your walking tower, except on a smaller scale, designed for a single occupant to fuel them with magic. These are obviously little more than rust and dust, but they are intact enough to see how they’re made, aren’t they?”
Arkk frowned, staring at the nearest of them.
“And the serpent too. It was a machine, not a living creature. I think it was protecting the other side of the portal. When we inadvertently activated it, it saw us as invaders and attacked. I’m not sure how to make it see us as allies rather than a threat, but there is someone in your employ who might be the right person to figure both the hulks and the serpent out.”
“Agnete,” Arkk said, earning a nod from Olatt’an.
“Indeed. In addition, I believe she would be very interested in the world we found, if it is possible to open the portal there once again.
“I think we found the Anvil of All Worlds.”