Chapter 14

Ice cold snow wafted down from the flint gray sky, swirled through the thick soup of bluish fog, and finally settled on the curved edge of the crossbow. The mage-sight that threw everything into a sharp relief of blues and oranges made it pathetically easy to pick out the hulking form of the orc patroller as he walked through the gloom, bare chested despite the chill. His partner walked with his ax over his shoulders, arms hooked over the haft, while the two talked to one another.

Quietly, Estoc heard Trebuchet’s voice in her ear.

“I’ll take the one on the left, you take the one on the right. On three.” She paused. Estoc shifted her crossbow, her wings fluttering behind her in a nervous twitch.

“One.”

The two orcs paused in their patrolling.

“Two.”

Estoc planted the cross-hair on the center of mass.

“Three.”

The sharp, short thock thock of two fairie crossbows snapping off rang out in the cloying gloom. Both orcs jerked, twitched, then fell, their bodies beginning to dim as the life and heat sapped from their corpses.

“Tangos down,” Trebuchet whispered.

“Lets go,” Estoc murmured into her mage-link, then buzzed her wings. She flew from behind a small clump of snow and leaves on the branch she had been lurking on as she and her partner buzzed over the dead sentries and into the side of the orc war-camp. The images SCOPES had sent them were a little out of date – in their endless industry, the orcs and their war-slaves, the peasants, had been busy in expanding the facility. Watchtowers now sat at each corner of the base, with the short barreled snouts of heavy cannons jutting from each of their sides, while several logging facilities had been thrown up to match the receding line of trees that the orcs fed into their heavy buzz saws and cutters. They had, furthermore, started create copies of those strange skull shaped buildings that SCOPES had picked up before. Up close, they were not soaked in blood and sacrifice. Instead, peering through her mage-sight into one of them, all Estoc could see were orcs in robes, gathered around flames for warmth. She snorted, as the winds blew up fiercer and thicker.

Did the orcs even know that this blizzard was magic? They reacted to it with grumbles, not alarm and alertness, so she supposed they must not. She and Trebuchet flew down and landed in the underbelly of one of the towers. Overhead, goblins grumbled to one another.

“We can’t see shit through this soup,” one of them said.

“Ah put a sock in it, Gob Gobinglington,” the other said. “We don’t need to see something to hit it with canister.”

“I guess you’re right...”

Trebuchet, her hand reaching into the sleek black leather jumpsuit she wore, tugged out the small map of the camp that they had from their scrying. She peered at it, while Estoc fidgeted with her crossbow. The weapons were excellent tools of stealth assassination – but in an actual fight, their rate of fire would tell. She felt naked and toothless without her armored suit ... she shook her head. Focus. Focus. There was a beautiful elf noble to rescue.

“Okay,” Trebuchet said. “We need to break for here, then get into position for the distraction.”

Estoc peered down as the wind picked up, snowflakes swirling past them. It looked like a straight shot through the camp to the underside of their central fortification. In the images from SCOPES, it had just been a simple wooden log town hall looking thing. Now? Now it was a dark sphere of metal and wrought iron, covered in spikes and skulls, with the rattling sound of industry and wicked revelry coming from within. Estoc frowned as she glared at it.

“We’re going to have to buzz the whole camp to get there,” she whispered.

“We stay on foot, use the snowbanks,” Trebuchet said.

Estoc nodded.

The two fairies started to advance, the snow crunching underfoot. They cleared mounds that orcs would and did simply plow through, hunched low, their crossbows up, their mage-sights sweeping around. Estoc spotted a gaggle of the huge, hulking cow peasants that the orcs used for slave labor and the two hurried to hide next to a large bucket of what Estoc hoped was water. The peasants thumped by, their hooves shaking the ground, their pickaxes on their shoulders as they headed for the mine that was the heart of the orc war camp.

“Come on!” Estoc hissed, then ducked forward and ran, her wings fluttering behind her. She sprinted around the bucket, then got between two buildings, her shoulder pressed up against the corner. Peeking around it, she saw that an orc with a huge wolf was walking by, whistling to herself. The wolf sniffed at the air – then whined as a snow-crystal blew into its nostril. It started to whine louder as the orc gently guided it away.

“Lets get ya inside, beastie.”

Trebuchet thumped against the wall next to Estoc, her back planted against the wood, her breath fogging the air as she panted.

“We’re good,” Estoc whispered.

“Okay.” Trebuchet gulped, then checked her map, then nodded again. “One last flight, from here, to there.” She pointed.

“Wait for that fogbank...” Estoc said – holding up her hand. The blizzard blew harder, the wind biting deep despite their warming leathers. The fog grew thicker and the two beat their wings, buzzing up into the air. There was a reason why they hadn’t flown aside from the danger of being seen at eye-line-level: The blizzard threw wild, unpredictable swirls and rushes of wind into their path. Invisible save for how the snowflakes danced and twirled, a bad beat of the wings or a mistimed dive would send either fairie tumbling head over heads into the snowbanks below ... or, worse, under the foot of some trudging groundling orc or goblin. Estoc’s stomach flipped as she buzzed around a whorl – then suddenly, she felt the air pressure under and around her wings jar alarmingly to the side.

She beat her wings wildly, spinning end over end, then started to corkscrew towards the ground. Her mage-link started to chirrup at her.

Terrain! Terrain! Pull up! Terrain! Terrain!

Estoc clenched her teeth. She flared her wings wide, tossed her crossbow to the ground to rationalize her flight signature. She pulled up, narrowly missed a discarded pile of firewood, twisted around and skimmed her belly inches away from a log cabin. Then her wings beat and she was in control again.

“Estoc! You okay?”

“Condition green! On target!”

Estoc buzzed up and landed on the chosen hiding spot, right next to Trebuchet, who clicked her tongue. “The crossbow!”

“We’ll manage,” Estoc said, reaching up to fiddle with her wrist. Down in the snow, her crossbow destroyed itself with a tiny spark of hissing, purple fire.

A goblin passing by looked down at the puff of smoke, brow furrowing as they saw the tiny scorch mark where the toy sized crossbow had been, then looked around for a bit before the biting chill of the blizzard forced her to hurry inside.

Estoc, reaching down to her boot, drew her fairie knife, which glowed a pale blue in her hand. She nodded, gravely, to Trebuchet, who sighed.

“Okay,” she said. “Now, we have to see if Raptor and Warhammer manage their distraction.”

The two waited.

Waited.

Waited.

And then the entire left side of the camp, the part where the orcs kept their flamesmoke powder, exploded.

“I think that’ll do it,” Estoc whispered.

There was just one problem.

As the orcs milled around, shouting and running from place to place, and a hurried collection of them started to guide huge, blue skinned pig-like creatures to the burning armory, Estoc and Warhammer and Raptor and Trebuchet all converged on the tent where Mephileph Icewild was being held.

And found it empty.

“This is bullshit!” Estoc hissed. “Fucking bullshit. Bull. Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Her wings beat as she zipped through the air – having emerged from the blizzard with her knife tucked into her boot once more and her eyes glittering furiously. The decision had been made by Warhammer, and it had been made fast. Get back, tell the snow elves about this, we’ll keep searching and gathering intel. Go. Go! Go!

Estoc was the fastest flier, and without her crossbow, she was of limited use.

But still.

Bullshit.

She glanced over her shoulder – as she flew away from the blizzard, she was getting clearer, smoother flight, and that was all well and good, but-

But.

... but...

Her wings flared and she buzzed to a hover, her brow furrowed. She saw that the narrow path she was following had been bisected by a jagged slash of disturbed snow. This far out from the supernaturally conjured blizzard, there was little coverage and she could see half a dozen snapped twigs. She flew down and landed. From the ground, it was easy as fuck to tell that someone going as fast as they could had pushed through the underbrush here, snapping branches and trampling underbrush. Someone had come through here, dragging something heavy and lumpy, and their path went right back to the orc camp. She frowned as she saw the distant, rising smoke from the fire, the blizzard already beginning to abate. Her buddies were back there, hidden in the way only the fae could be.