Phweeett!!!

The sound of the whistle ripped through the air, and the doors of the roadside houses were kicked open, the men hiding inside poured out into the street like a pissed off swarm of hornet, screamed their battle cry to the top of their lungs, the volunteered militias eagerly followed the men-at-arm at the front of the charge. They rushed out from the two side of the street and caught the bandit by surprise in the middle, like a tidal wave of steel, wood and muscle, their crashed into the bandits and sent their line into chaos. The men-at-arm tucked behind their big oval shield, and knock over any bandit caught on their way, sent the thugs to the ground to be finishing off by the militia follow behind them, meanwhile the few archers and some local hunters rained arrow down on the bandits from their elevated position. Quickly the line of the men-at-arm from two side merged together and created a U-shape shield wall enveloped most of the bandit in a kill zone, while any other bandits knocked down by the men-at-arm’s initiate charge, had to fought for their own survival among the swarming militias.

From the first glance of the eyes, the ambush seemingly to went well, but soon Samuel noticed the bandits were oddly discipline and well-coordinated, they quickly overcame their initial surprise, slowly but surely the thugs formed a battle line and stood toe-to-toe with the men-at-arm. Not many of them was kill in the initial charge, those ones that got knocked down had already got back to their feet and was fencing off the militia swarming them. The volunteered militias might have had the number but tried as they might they couldn’t take any bandit down fast enough, and many of the bandits caught in the swarming militia had successfully escaped back to their line, even the arrows fell on the thug’s head was not much of help either, they either got block by the thug’s shield or harmlessly bounced off the thug’s helmet. Soon Samuel known why, when he and Kranwolf engaged with one of them, blow after blow they gave the bandit, and most of the two men attacks were skilfully deflected by the thug’s shield, even if Samuel or Kranwolf got any lucky hit at the thug’s torso, the best they could give the criminal were some bruises, the thug’s armour proved too effective. Barely any of the thug’s flesh was uncovered by armour, those that did were well guarded by his footwork and skill with the shield. To add to Samuel trouble, the bandit kept focused on attacking Kranwolf, for obvious reason, forced Samuel to mostly focus to protect the man, and even took a blow from the thug’s blade to his hand when he tried to deflect a slash armed at kranwolf, but somehow his hand was left uninjured to him and the thug’s surprise. Their struggle continued until when Elesil materialized from behind the thug and demanded the thug’s full attention with his skilful swordplay, the hooded man’s blade flashed in the air, his sword’s tip was like a bee, whizzed through the air attacking the thug’s from many angles. Only then Samuel could snatch the moment to plunged his blade into the thug’s heels, thus help Elesil took the thug down with a blade down to the thug’s throat.

The fight went on for many minutes long, everyone fought hard to the best of their ability, among the yelling and clashing of steel, were the moans of wounded men, many of the militia were injured or severely wounded when engage with the bandits, the lack of training, experience and equipment proved fatal. What thought to be an easy victory, now proven wrong, the enemy seemingly too tough and too odd, to think, getting ambushed and attacked by such number would quickly made the thug’s morale to wave and sent them in retreat. Yet they stood, yet they fought, fought like no criminal but more like a well-trained soldier, so was the remark made by Elesil. Thankfully, even though the bandits might be tougher than their look, but with the perseverance of the men-at-arm, and the sheer number of the militias, the battle line seemingly stabilized and slowly the thugs was being push back.

Another bandit took down by the combined effort of Samuel and Elesil, while Kranwolf in other hand had pulled back to the very back of the battle due to a cut on his shoulder gave by a bandit blade. As the two men moved forward with the formation, Elesil suddenly stood still, his eyes closed, for a short moment his eyeballs rapidly move behind his eyelids like a person in REM sleep. Something bothered the man, without a word Elesil quickly pushed through the militias to reach the men-at-arm’s line and looking for the captain.

“CAPTAIN!” -the hooded man yelled to overcome the noises of combat, “CAPTAIN! did you men equipped to fight mage?” Elesil spoke in perfect Bricatish to the captain.

“WHAT!?” the captain responded.

“DID YOU MEN EQUIPED TO FIGHT MAGE?” Elesil spoke loudly.

“Mage? No, we just here to train...” the captain answered but was cut short.

“Captain! Captain!” –an archer on the second floor of nearby house yelled out to the captain below- “Smoke! I saw smoke came from the temple direction!”

“Captain! I suspected there’s a mage in the vicinity, perhaps at the temple, I need a few men to help evacuate the temple,” Said Elesil.

The captain quickly agreed, and Elesil lead a dozens of militias heading back to the temple with Samuel closely behind him. Though Elesil had advised Samuel should stay at main fight because it safer for him there, Samuel declined as Casha was in danger. The men ran as fast as they could, as the big column of black smoke looming over the village skyline. After cleared off an alley, they could hear the sound of yelling and fighting from the temple’s ground and soon a scene of chaos came to their eyes.

A crown of smoke and fire consumed the temple’s roof, surrounding the building, many trees and bushes also were set a flame. In the while, the women and children inside the stone building were screaming and banging at the glass windows in helplessness, their face blackened by the smoke and soot, and twisted in absolute terror. While outside the men-at-arm and militias were struggling with a small force of bandit, many of them was killed, body burned to a crisp.

“MY WIFE! BY THE GODS, MY WIFE!” someone in Samuel’s group yelled out in panic.

The men quickly charged forward to the temple’s gate and windows to break them open, to save their love one. But before they could reach their endangered family, a tongue of fire from the fighting direction washed through two or three of them, and sent those poor men into to their agonising demise. Samuel’s eyes were as wide as humanly could, the hellish scenery reminded him of unpleasant memories, memories of death and destruction from his past. And to add to his bewilderment, from the direction where that tongue of fire came from, leisurely strolled toward them was a tall, green-skin figure.

“Orc!!!” -some of the men let out a surprised and frightful gasp as they saw their assailant.

The Orc’s imposing figure sent fear down every men spine, tall and muscular, perhaps taller than Samuel, the orc’s face hid behind a menacing wooden mask of which Samuel felt artistically resemblance the style of mask from Africa, and was also the orc’s clothing similar to some African cultures that he once saw when on a museum trip back in London. The Orc stood there, puffed up his chest, spinning the axe in his hand, watched everyone trembling from behind that mask of him and acted like he owned the place. Without a second wasted and without much of thinking, Samuel charged at the Orc with great ire, whilst yelling for the militias to rescue the women and child trapped inside the temple.

Sadly, Samuel could only take a few steps, before some invisible hand smack Samuel across his face, knocked him to the ground. Samuel’s head spin like he just got punched by a heavy weight boxer, fumbled to get back on his feet, Samuel wondering was what just happened was what he’d heard? Was that magic?

“Ignut” -the Orc raised his hand toward Samuel and spoke out loud.

From the Orc’s palm, in a blink of the eye, a spark appeared, then turned into a small fireball and then into a stream of fire enveloped Samuel.

Yet, to Samuel surprise, no harm was done to him. Confusion filled both Samuel and the Orc, the Orc’s fire enveloped Samuel just now was no illusion, for the grass around where Samuel stood were charred and smouldering, and he did felt the intense heat of the fire as it swallowed him. A thundering sound, snapped both Samuel and the Orc out of their confusion. The sound of wood crack and glass break resounded loudly as they watch all the windows and the big oak door of the temple had just been ripped from their frame by some invisible force, and thus set everyone trapping inside freed, the women and children rushed out from whatever opening nearest to them with the help of the militia.

Watched the scene happened, the Orc cursed in his tongue but before he could do anything, from behind Samuel, a blinding flash of light followed suit with and deafening crack of thunder assaulter Samuel’s eyes and ears. Barely could make sense of what was happening, Samuel watch in awe as a lightning bolt came from behind him and knocked the Orc tumbled backward a few lias (1 lia = 1 meter). Turned around and Samuel found Elesil stood right behind him, arm extended and the tip of his index and middle finger still smouldering, like a scene from a western movie.

Without a word, Elesil quickly jumped before Samuel and deflected a big fire ball flung at both of them. The Orc mage had recovered and kept flinging fireballs at the two of them, but one after another, they all deflected by Elesil. And once again, thunder clapped and lightning flashed, one bolt after another, the Orc mage struggling to deflect the powerful lightning bolts Elesil flung at him. His body trembled with each trike he defended from Elesil, and with each stroke of lightning the Orc mage got knocked back further away. Although, Elesil was on the upper hand in this engagement, the hooded man’s magical power was without a doubt overwhelming for the Orc mage, but with every lightning strike deflected by the Orc, collateral damage happened as some militias almost got hit by the deflected bolt. A magic battle tending to dragged on quite long, thus there must be another way for Elesil to end this fight as fast and with lest collateral damage as possible, naturally he did, but to do so, he required some assistance.

“Challenger, I require your assistance” -Elesil spoke whilst blocked a stream of fire from the Orc.

“What do you need?” Samuel answered.

“I need to end this fight as fast as possible without caused any more collateral damage, but doing so I will defenceless, I need you to protect me while I am doing so,” Elesil quickly explained.

“Will do, just tell me when,” Samuel said.

On Elesil’s cue, Samuel rushed to the right of Orc and threw a broken spearhead at him, the Orc noticed the attack and all he just need to do was to turn his face toward the object and the spearhead was flung aside harmlessly. But unbeknown to him, grabbed the split moment the Orc was distracted, Elesil closed the distant, the quick movement flipped his hood off of his head and revealed a pair of pointed ears. When the Orc realized who Elesil was and what him about to do, it was already too late. Elesil’s eyes turned a milky white colour and locked gaze with the Orc, both of the men frozen at where they stood before the bafflement of Samuel. But true to what he’d agreed Samuel jumped to Elesil’s defend when he saw a bandit, another Orc, just broke off from the fighting and charging at Elesil.