Snakes and Ladders-22

Chapter 22

“TROLLS!”

I look to where they are coming from and really these things are scary as hell especially when you think about the sheer size of something ten feet tall yeah like another two feet over the ceilings in most houses then add it the bulk…add huge muscles, fangs and tusks and armor and huge weapons and make them pretty damned fast and it’s a really scary sight.

There’s people opening fire on them and most of the spell weapon attacks are barely slowing them down.

There’s the Fizz-boom of Bhlaze’s ball lightning attacks popping of near them and the electrical stuff isn’t really stopping them either. One goes down from a direct hit to the chest of a ball lightning and he’s still twitching.

I look to the Loremistress and she gives me a nod and I take a deep breath…yeah…yeah feel the power…energy…it’s the same thing as me pressing the pedal down…hard…I feel it responding to me and it’s as hard channelling this as it is to steer when the wheel locks up on you…I might get two maybe three with this unless…

Yeah…

Oh shit this might hurt.

“Get ready I might not be good for a few after this!” I’m sort of not yelling but crying it out through clenched teeth.

I cut loose the spell and there’s that rush of the truck like it’s running through me and I’m like intangible and The air horn blasts and the trolls aren’t stopping there’s no fear and the sound wave isn’t doing it and the impact…

I yank back on the energies….I’m smell my nose hairs burning…taste a bit of blood too from the strain and I scream in the effort but I yank the wheel around…jack-knife the spell…I roll the truck.

Yeah I hit them sideways and I let it pull power from me like the way that a crash goes haywire…I feel Shaya and Bhlaze above me and the link and power pouring through me into them and it’s somewhere between having an orgasm and touching a lice industrial plug in.

So…weird this little effect of seeing micro-bits of lightning arcing back and forth from my eyes and not feeling it…it sort of turned everything this over exposed blue white without messing with my vision.

And the trolls…

The first ones in the wedge got not just hit but hit like getting hit by the truck and they get caught up in the force roll of the spell and sort of look like what happened if you put chopped up week dead cow in an industrial washing machine.

Only no industrial washing machine…

Then the others got bashed super hard crushed into the ground and even some spun over once or twice and there were dropped weapons and the very loud crunch of bones and screaming. The troll that got stunned…he was up on all fours when it hit him and the spell doesn’t look like anything really except to me and his head was right at impact levels and popped like a grape. Well actually like six M-80 firecrackers shoved into a watermelon.

I drop aching…I sort of feel like I was in the cab of that even though it’s fading and I’m sort of gagging too.

And it’s actually not the trolls it’s the smell of my fried nose hairs and cooked blood that I can’t get out and I’m actually coughing out a bit of smoke which is bad because exhaling even if coughing through my mouth has the smell of and now the taste of burn’t hair and burnt pork now on my tongue.

The elves attack and two stay with me I killed four outright I think and I knocked down and I stunned the rest as well as hurt them. It’s fast with some serious point blank shots going on and sword strikes except for a few with the bows are using them now and I’m not exactly clueless about modern types of bows from home and stuff but these look sort of normal but I can see in the bowstring grooves spell tech fittings and in the handles too and I’m wondering just what the deal is when the arrows go through the plate they’re wearing and the trolls as big as they are moving like a human would when getting shot with a nine millimetre.

One get’s up and breaks and makes a run for it and another is charging me…

Oh shit he get’s past the two Rymoran that were babysitting me swatting them aside really hard with blows from his warhammer and they went flying and sort of crunched when he hit them.

The Loremistress has two blasters in her hands and she’s rapid firing into the trolls back and I’m pulling my sword and there’s a roar…above and loud, really loud and angry and Bhlaze and Shaya land hard and shake the ground.

The troll swings and Shaya tackles me out of the way of the massive warhammer strike to the ground and we roll and keep rolling a good dozen feet or more out of the way.

Bhlaze does this super fast lizard on the ground slide between the troll and us and hiss’s at the thing.

~C’MON! Bring IT! ~

The Troll roars back in fury and swings hard and hits Bhlaze right up along side of his head. The thud…I felt the thud from the force of the hit from where Shaya and I were laying.

Mentally there’s this rage that comes up from Bhlaze that made my worst moments as bear seem small and weak in the anger and rage department. It was like the troll just reached out and slapped a pit-bull that was used for dog-fights.

I look up to see Bhlaze whip his head around and at the same time unhinge his jaws sort of and snap up the troll in one bite and shake it like a rag doll and then there’s this surge of power as Bhlaze does one of those ball-lightning things not just point blank but…right there in him mouth and there’s a screaming-roar combo as the troll is incinerated by the sheer amount of power run through it and he goes poof.

Like you see happen to vampires on Buffy.

Bhlaze shakes his head and re-locks his jaw and he huffs out a blast of the ashy remnants and smoke. There’s this angry smug feeling coming off of him as he broadcasts out.

~And they say that thunder dragons can breathe fire. ~

There’s a short cheer and he raised his head in this I am the shit almost cat like way and Shaya and I are getting to our feet. She looks at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah just tried something off the hip and well y’know.”

“Yes, next time save experimenting for when we have the time and such to get it down.”

“Yes honey.”

We kiss again and the Loremistress looks at us and she turns to give a bunch of orders. Then she get’s that telepathy look going on. “Shaya they need you top-side the enemy is starting to rally up there you need to keep them from thinking that’s a way out!”

I quick kiss her and slap her bottom. “Go, we’ll handle things down here.”

I watch her leave running to Bhlaze who lowers his head and she runs up his snout and grabbing his horns does and jumping slide around throwing herself into the harness and he’s already jumping into the air and there’s this strange feeling as he zooms up like some kind of updraft. Lifting off faster than any chopper I’m seen and a whole lot faster than when I’m on board.

“Whoa…”

The Loremistress looks at me. “Thunder dragons can alter their electricity in a lot of ways he just pushed him EM field off of the planets.”

“Oh that’s cool like anti-gravity.”

“Human’s have such?”

“No but we have science fiction.”

“Oh science based fictional stories…we don’t have those.”

“I’ll catch you up on some stuff later. Now what?”

“No we advance and we break through those doors. You think you can do that with your spell?”

We’re walking, sort of jogging and our unit’s melding with Kyte’s and there’s more knights and men at arms with her. I see her looking at the smears and gore over the ground and she’s giving me this look like she had no idea that I was capable of doing that.

Honestly I had no idea that I was either and right now I’m trying not to think about the actual sheet damage that I unleashed here.

I get a look at the doors in the side of the mountain that they closed up on us. Big and made of stone or metal or more that likely since they look like the mountain I’m thinking something like reinforced concrete like a huge set of bunker doors.

“I’m not sure I might not have the energy for it…”

“I’ll be your power sink; don’t worry about the amount of power.”

I’m staring at the doors and there’s this thing bubbling up in my brain…magic is focus, intent, desire in short it’s a mental and emotional thing.

“Yeah I can do it just give me a few minutes to get ready and get everyone read for this but out of our way.”

“Consider it done.”

She’s talking to Kyte and I start building the drive and the focus for my spell to break through this barrier.

I have just the thing in mind and I clear my mind and start to recite it mostly in my head but as I’m starting to build the spell I’m talking to myself then out loud when the Loremistress touches my hips with her hands and there’s this magical burst through me like NOS going through me…

“There's armoured cars and tanks and jeeps
And rigs of every size
Yeah them chicken coops was full of bears
And choppers filled the skies
Well we shot the line
We went for broke
With a thousand screaming trucks
And eleven longhaired friends of Jesus
In a chartreuse microbus

(Ah, Rubber Duck, this is Sodbuster. C'mon here?)
(Yeah, ten-four Sodbuster.
Listen, ya wanna put that microbus in behind that suicide jockey?)
(Yeah he's haulin' dynamite and he needs all the help he can get)

Well we laid a strip for the Jersey shore
Prepared to cross the line
I could see the bridge was lined with bears
But I didn't have a doggone dime
I says Pigpen this here's the Rubber Duck
We just aint gonna pay no toll
So we crashed the gate doin' ninety-eight
I says Let them truckers roll, ten-four

Coz we got a mighty convoy rockin' thru the night
Yeah we got a mighty convoy aint she a beautiful sight
Come on and join our convoy aint nothin' gonna get in our way…….”

I know there’s not a soul here that has any idea of what I’m saying to myself but this…this song, story is like a thing of power to me and I’m reliving the whole thing in my head and seeing the trucks and the emotional wave the very first time I heard this and I pour that all into my magic and the power of all of that energy running through the two of us was just…Yeah like a Suicide Jockey running a trailer of dynamite.

It hits like a full on barrage of trucks four lanes wide and just no give at all truck after truck nose bumper to bumper hitting that wall with a hammering crash and that knowledge in my head that that wall that door would stand up as much as any silly damned barricade.

And for a second I’m there not bear but me in my rig and I’m still wren but I’m shifting gears and getting as much speed on my rig as I can as I hit the doors with the others foot flat to the floor, no more gears left to shift up into and grinning like…

Well shit I always grin like this when I’m going to do something crazy.

Smashing the doors was so three-d as I ride in with the spell and the doors explode inward and the spell keeps going in at least forty or fifty feet smashing through wagons and gear and goblins and orcs and there’s a barrage of energy lights from above as they fire on something that isn’t there…

Then I’m inside of myself and on my knees with the Loremistress and her eyes are shimmering with power and there’s a second where there’s this semi-visible hooded robed figure touching her and I get this sensation of…not human, not elfin, not even dragon but something else…

He matches this image on one of her pendants but the image is peacefully holding an open book.

I blink and he’s gone and her eyes are normal but filled with tears and yet she’s not crying her expression’s too her…too curious…

“Convoy?....you’ll have to tell this tale to me…”

I look up to where the doors are smashed and the troops are running in with the knights first shields raised over their heads and some in the front and blasters at the ready running in with Kyte and the others.

“Okay…that’d be nice…over a meal…”

She get’s up somehow just pushing herself and she grins at me. “C’mon we’re missing the fun.”

She pulls both her blasters and takes off to the breached mountain and I shake my head and pull my sword.

“Oh we can’t miss out on the fun now can we? Alright, Coming Tink!”