The Outcast (Summoner #4)(65)
Still, even as the orc began to swing down, the weapon slapped across its face, slicing open its cheek and thudding across an eye with its hilt. The orc flinched, just for a moment. Enough time for Arcturus to tackle its legs, slamming his shoulder against its knee with all the strength he could muster.
It was like running into a stone pillar. He barely shifted the orc an inch before it kicked him, throwing him head over heels into the long grass. He gaped and gasped like a beached fish, barely able to take a breath, his midriff a band of red-hot pain searing across his stomach and deep into his insides.
The orc laughed again, raising its club once more. Arcturus could see Alice, her finger tracing in the air, the fire symbol spluttering and fizzling as her concentration wavered. He raised his own hand, knowing he would never make it in time.
Then it happened.
A great silver beast hurtled out of the jungle, sailing through the air and landing on the orc’s back. Blood sprayed as it ripped at the orc’s neck with its teeth, and the club fell from nerveless fingers. Edmund followed moments later, crumpling to the ground.
The orc spun and twisted for a half-dozen seconds, flailing its arms as the slavering creature savaged its head, the fangs sinking deep into its prey’s skull. Then it fell, lifeless, as the demon took a deep, savage bite out of its neck.
Gelert. Covered in mud and grime, his eyes bloodshot from exhaustion, legs trembling as he pulled himself toward Edmund’s inert body.
There was a garbled bellow of pain, cut short as Rotter skewered his own orc through the throat, withdrew and sliced the tusked head from the giant’s shoulders. Behind him, Sacharissa licked her wounds beside the corpse of the hyena, where a deep bite on her haunch seemed to be the worst of the damage.
Seeing the pair were now safe, Arcturus headed to Edmund first, where Alice had finally reached him. Tears cut runnels in the blood that smeared her face, the source of which Arcturus saw was a split lip and a copious nosebleed.
She was frantically sketching a heart shape in the air, the healing symbol fizzling as she struggled to keep it in place. Her breathing was thick and fast.
“Slowly.” Arcturus knelt beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Show me how to do it.”
The girl gulped and nodded. Slower now, her finger carved through the air, leaving a glowing blue line in its place. Beneath, Edmund wheezed through his wounded throat, his eyes closed, body near-motionless. The only other sound was Gelert’s whining as he nuzzled his master’s boots.
The heart symbol pulsed once as it fixed to Alice’s finger, then Alice and Edmund gave a mutual sigh of relief as healing white light streamed through the symbol and flowed around his wounded neck. Slowly, the red bands of swollen flesh shrank and paled until it looked good as new, and Edmund breathed easy once more, though his eyes remained closed.
A scream broke into the moment. Arcturus spun round, only to see the orc he had blasted barreling toward him, its body hunched over in pain, a muddied tree branch clutched in its giant fist.
Arcturus fell back, his hand grasping for the dirk, meeting nothing but wet grass. Sacharissa was limping toward them, with Reynard hard on her heels, but they were too far away. Rotter could do nothing but yell.
Gelert struggled to his feet and staggered in front of them, his chest still heaving with the exertion. He wouldn’t last long. Arcturus pulled on his mana reserve, his finger twisting in the air once more. The orc was but a dozen paces away.
Gelert leaped, only to be slammed away by the tree branch, yelping in pain as he tumbled into the long grass. The orc roared in triumph, spewing blood from its lips—Arcturus’s spell must have damaged its insides. Yet it charged on, even as Arcturus’s spell flickered and died.
The orc’s head jerked sideways. It fell and rolled along the ground, sliding the last few paces to press up against Arcturus’s feet. Its glazed eyes stared up at him, and it was only then that he saw the bloody bolt that had pierced its skull from temple to temple. And beyond, Elaine, a crossbow in her arms.
CHAPTER
36
EDMUND REMAINED UNCONSCIOUS EVEN when they splashed water in his face. Despite this, and their injuries, they only allowed themselves a few minutes to regroup before they decided to move on. Rotter knew more orcs would follow soon enough.
Still, before they left, Rotter sent Alice and Arcturus among the bodies to salvage what they could. Arcturus found himself wandering among the many corpses, trying to avoid their dead stares while searching the ground for anything useful.
Though they were leaving orc territory, there was no telling if there were more rebels hunting them. Hell, for all they knew the kingdom had been overthrown and the rebels had taken power. They needed to defend themselves … and clothe themselves for that matter. Now that they had left the warm confines of the jungle, it would become colder as they moved north, back toward Corcillum.
As he stumbled through the corpses, Arcturus tried to read the battlefield, the same way that Rotter had. At first, it seemed random, bodies scattered like seeds across a tilled pasture. But his eyes were soon drawn to the orc bodies, for their skin was stark against the black soil of the jungle’s edge.
There were as many as four of them in a group, lying together in the shadow of a dead tree split down the middle where lightning had struck long ago. Now that he looked closer, there was a cluster of human bodies there too, fallen in a rough semicircle.
Arcturus stopped on his way, removing an undershirt from a rebel boy roughly his height—the cloth miraculously unsullied by blood from the owner’s head wound. He pulled it on and found it to be a good fit.