Siege State
Chapter Seventy-Eight: Crowd Control

Tom frantically cast about through Sere’s bodies, searching for some way past the mass of orcs before them.

The carefully searching multitudes had no gaps they could exploit, no places they could hide and wait until they passed. Tom watched them search behind barrels and crates, peer into wells, and scour every inch of ground they passed. Parties of orcs were dragging all the furniture out of houses and turfing it into the street, smashing up everything larger than a breadbox.

To make matters worse, he even saw Idealists moving with the crowd. One was sweeping areas with patches of shadows, dark tendrils waving from the pool as it bled across the ground, searching. Another pair crept about on all fours, their heads cocking from side to side like dogs, their long limbs spread out like some kind of bizarre spider. Even more appeared to be searching via the faint sense all Idealists had for ambient mana.

It was obvious they were searching for something, and given the mission that they had just pulled off, it couldn’t be a coincidence. The orcs had somehow guessed that they would try to infiltrate closer to the army. Had they been detected the last time they had crept so close? Did one or another of their Idealists have some kind of skill that had alerted them?

The one small blessing was that they didn’t seem to have guessed at their plans for sabotage. The orcs in the mine hadn’t shown any kind of odd behaviour, and had given no indication whatsoever of any kind of differences in their routine.

It was likely, then, that they knew the Hunters would be mounting some kind of larger infiltration or sabotage. Tom could not see far enough with his birds, but he had to guess that similar parties of orcs would be scouring other villages around the army too. Or perhaps they were truly unlucky, and some sign of their passing had been found.

Frantically, Tom sent the few sparrows behind them and to the sides out further, searching for another way out. His blood ran cold. More orcs were moving towards them from the south and north. A moment later, Sere reported more from the west, towards Wayrest. Every direction held more orcs than the four of them could handle. Idealist orcs with sensory or detection skills were closing in from every side like hounds.

The net was tightening, and there was no way out. Tom made a choice.

“Scriber, you need to trigger the enchantments, now!” he hissed. Scriber gave him a quizzical look, then read the naked fear in Tom’s face. The other two team members looked at him with tight expressions, their eyes wide. They looked ready to bolt. This was not the plan they had agreed on.

“There’s orcs in every direction!” he explained, fear lashing at his heart. “They’re searching for us! They must have detected us somehow!

“We need to go, now, then!” their stealthy healer said.

“There’s too many! Thousands! We need to distract them. It might open a way through for us.”

Scriber paused for a second, his expression inscrutable. Then his eyes unfocused, his attention elsewhere, with the two mice they had left behind in the mine.

They had planned to wait until they were well away to trigger the enchantments. Scriber, being at a much higher tier than Tom, also had a much longer range on the bond with his mice. He only needed Tom’s help to get the mice in and out, but once done, he could trigger them from almost as far away as the Deep.

Plans had changed. They needed something to happen, right now, or they were going to be captured. There was no way Scriber’s stealth enchantments could get them past such rigorous searching. Once again, the orcs proved that simply throwing enough bodies at an issue could solve most problems.

The hair on Tom’s neck stood up. A noise, right on the edge of his hearing, slowly built into a deep, grinding, bass note. The ground began to shake, only slightly, at first, but increasingly more violently. It was nowhere near strong enough to threaten their balance, but it was still concerning given how far away they were from the mine.

Goddess, Tom thought. Just how strong were those enchantments? He banished the thought. The stronger the better. They had to destroy the siege orcs.

A rumbling built, and built, and rose to a crescendo. A sudden, enormous WHUMP sounded, and seconds later, a wind picked up and tousled Tom’s hair. Sere made frantic corrections to keep themselves airborne as the wind gusted.

He glanced out towards Ren’s Delve. Silhouetted against the velvety, starry night, a gigantic column of dust and debris was rising into the sky. Tom felt vicious victoriousness rising in him. If that hadn’t taken care of the siege orcs, nothing would.

Tom cast about through Sere’s eyes again. Orcs were milling about, distracted, panicking. Many were pointing towards the great dust cloud rising above Ren’s Delve. Idealists were furiously trying to impose order, barking at their subordinates, lashing out at them, trying anything they could to get their minds back on the task at hand, with only middling success.

Where before, the orcs were spread evenly, ensuring every inch of ground was covered, searching thoroughly, now, they were spread out unevenly, clustered up in fear or confusion.

There were still thousands of orcs between them and safety. Any misstep would see them discovered and buried under orc bodies. But there was a chance now. A slim one, but a chance all the same.

Tom checked the other directions too. The orcs to the south and west were in much the same state. They were hesitant even, clearly reluctant to move towards the source of the huge explosion. The orcs to the north were a different story.

They were moving towards them even faster now, trying to flee away from the massive disruption. They were in no danger, but the uncertainty caused by such a big explosion in the middle of their army had caused them to panic. For the moment, until the Idealists with them could rein them in, fear and confusion were running wild.

They had less time than before. They had to take a chance on making it through the orcs ahead of them, or they would be caught between the groups and captured.

“The explosion has them in disarray! Now’s our chance! Try and stick as close together as you can. We need to go, now!”

The two stealth Idealists looked grim. Maybe they had sensory abilities, or perhaps they could read it in his expression, but Tom could see that they knew how slim their chances of making it through were. Scriber simply looked thoughtful.

Still, none of them were keen on simply waiting to be captured. They activated their stealth enchantments and skills, and began moving at speed, towards the east, and the mass of orcs intent on capturing them.

Tom kept an eye on them through Sere, and sent Sus and Sol into the air to join her. The two owls were near invisible against the night sky, and the extra eyes would be useful.

They kept east as fast as they dared. They need to take advantage of the general pandemonium, and weave through the gaps in the orcs. For the moment, they could move fairly quickly without worrying about detection by the Idealist orcs: the mines were still emitting frequent booms and rumbles as they collapsed, and the Idealists had their hands full trying to keep the regular orcs under control.

Soon, they came to the edge of the village, and the leading edge of the mass of orcs. Many were still arguing, or surreptitiously trying to sneak away, or just standing there, staring up at the slowly expanding cloud of dust.

However, there were still thousands of orcs between them and safety, thousands at least, and that many orcs became a daunting obstacle by way of sheer numbers.

Tom slowed as they approached. Though many were distracted, individuals and groups were still shifting about, and some were still trying to search. He couldn’t hesitate, though, couldn’t stop. He picked a gap and strode into it, trusting in Scriber’s stealth enchantments to obscure him.

They made it only twenty feet through before they were forced to stop. A group of orcs erupted into a violent brawl directly in front of them. One larger male took a nasty slash across its arm, and the blood spatter sprinkled Tom. Luckily, none of the nearby orcs seemed to notice.

More orcs were getting drawn into the fray, or riled up by the closeness of violence. Tom looked around for an out. There! Through Sere’s eyes, he watched the flow of the crowd, and spotted a gap that was about to open. He made for it, and like magic, the crowd parted long enough to admit him around the fight.

Without Sere’s bird’s eye view of proceedings, he would have never been able to anticipate such an opening. Once past the fight, he found himself relying on Sere more and more to navigate. He could see Scriber had made it through behind him. Sere could not see him, but Sus and Sol’s eyesight was sharp enough to pick up the slight blurring of his stealth enchantment in the low light.

Tom could not see where the other two team members had gone, and he could not pause to check. He could do nothing for them anyway. Their stealth skills were much better than Scriber’s enchantments for concealment; they could be right behind them, or they could be stuck. They could already be through. He had no way to check. He would simply have to hope they made it out.

They were roughly halfway through the crowd when the confusion began to ebb, and the Idealists began to reassert order. They turned the orcs back to their duties. Slowly, but surely, they resumed their searching.

Tom increased his pace. He could see where the orcs thinned now, where they turned from an organised search into those who just happened to be nearby. There was a clear line where the numbers began to slacken. As far as he could see through Sus and Sol, beyond that point, there were no Idealists either.

They had almost made it. The anxiety and fear and hope mixing in him felt poisonous, sickening. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to stop and cry. He wanted to lash out at the hateful, stupid beasts around him, and go down in a flash of glory. More than anything, he wanted to go home, be safe, and see Rosa.

One step after another. Sweat poured down his neck as he split his focus between his familiars and his feet. Stepping around orcs, stopping, a quick jog, pause, and walk. So close, now. So close.

And then, through his owls, whose eyesight missed nothing, he saw it all come tumbling down.

The Idealist that had been sweeping the ground with a pool of shadows cowed the orcs nearby it into submission. The pool began creeping across the ground again, shadowy tendrils waving spasmodically in the air. All at once, they stiffened, then lashed inwards.

With a scream, the stealth healer was revealed. They thrashed in the grip of the tendrils, struggling to free themselves. The Idealist roared in triumph, and the nearby orcs bore down on them.

The healer flashed with light, and some of the tendrils snapped, but more snaked out to grab them. Within moments, they were completely obscured by orcs.

Tom tried to steal forward, to use the momentary distraction to their advantage, but the other Idealist orcs spread throughout the crowd began to take up furious calls. The rest of the orcs, seeing that the task they had been set to had borne fruit, fell to searching with fervour.

Tom stood stock still. The closest orcs would be on them in moments. There was no gap he could slip through, not without running straight into another orc behind them. His stomach burned, and he knew that they were done.

Suddenly, he caught a flicker through the owls, just a slight movement well behind them. The flicker repeated itself further forward then again, and again, moving rapidly.

Our tank! Tom deduced. He must have a short range teleport! Such skills, especially on Idealist whose skillsets leaned towards defence, tended to use them for repositioning, not true movement. Tom watched as the flicker moved rapidly through the crowd, hoping against hope that they would get free.

It was not to be. As they materialised after one of their jumps, an orc walked into them. The orc yelped in surprise, but managed to grab onto the man. With the simple action, he was done.

The teleport must have had fairly severe restrictions: teleports usually did. This one must not have allowed him to teleport whilst being grappled, or otherwise interfered with, because after being grabbed he made no move to teleport away.

The orc was quickly joined by its fellows, dogpiling the teleporter. He fought valiantly, killing several orcs with clinical jabs of a shortsword, bashing several more away with a sweep of a suddenly summoned tower shield, but eventually, he was dragged down.

Alone, and without a team, there was nothing he could do. Tanks were not made for slippery movement, nor for killing large numbers of orcs. Tom imagined he would go down the same when they discovered him.

He watched the orc that would surely bump into him and raise the alarm as it approached. He felt a strange sense of calm descend on him, and readied himself to fight.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” came a whisper from behind him, and the world flashed white.