"There's no way in hell we can take that many orcs," Bridgette said, glumly staring at the scene below. The sun had set and she, Alice, and Colin y on their bellies, staring at the orc encampment a mile away. The orcs were continuing their party, feasting on the roasted corpse, beating drums for music, and dancing around the fire. "Don't get me wrong, I want to kill them all and rescue whoever is in that cage, but ... we have no idea how strong they are. And even if they were individually weak, that's still a shitload of orcs and wargs."

  "Maybe we could try to pick them off, a few at a time as they're on patrols, over the next week? It would take a lot longer, but we don't have forever before we need to head back home." Alice offered. "I hate the thought of leaving them here if we leave, hunting and killing humans."

  "That big guy, maybe he's the chief? He seems like the one we really need to take out," Colin said. "But in order to get to him, we're going through the whole camp. Fireballs only go so far when there's that many of them."

  "How about if we hit them right at dawn? They should be tired, mostly sleeping, and I'll bet we could do a lot of damage."

  "Not a bad idea, B. But maybe we go even more sneaky and try to blow up some of their stuff from distance, run away, and repeat?" Colin started to get excited. "Maybe we could rig up something like a mortar that goes off after we've left the area, so they have no idea where it came from or who was responsible?"

  As the three friends continued to brainstorm ideas, suddenly a commotion rippled through the orc encampment. An orc rider had raced into the camp, screaming in pain and gesticuting wildly. The chieftain and most of the other orcs suddenly ran around, screaming in a fury, and mounted their wargs and raced off into the darkness. Only ten orcs and a few wargs remained in the camp below, their behavior less celebratory after having been left out of whatever events were happening.

  Several minutes ter, as the friends wondered at the behavior, the orcs grew tired of standing around and resumed their celebration, creating an impromptu wrestling match. The rest of the orcs gathered around, watching and cheering, as two orcs fought and grappled, throwing each other around the circle of dirt near the campfire. One of the bystander orcs standing near the fire suddenly jerked, an arrow shaft appearing in his left eye socket, and he toppled into the fire, scattering fming logs drawing the attention of the other orcs.

  "Uh oh, something is happening down there," Bridgette said, restating the obvious.

  Most of the orcs drew their weapons and started bellowing war cries into the darkness around the campfire, while two orcs ran toward the pen to let their wargs free. One of those orcs suddenly fell, arrow shafts piercing through his neck, as blood sprayed across the dirt at its feet. The three friends all peered intently down, trying to watch the combat, attempting to figure out who was responsible and what was happening.

  An enormous wolf with mystical markings on its sides came lunging out of the darkness, leaping into the warg pen, and began attacking the creatures. The giant wolf picked up the first warg by the neck, rapidly shaking its head to snap the foul creature's spine, before taking an enormous bite, spshing blood on the rest of the wargs. They howled angrily and leapt at the rger wolf, teeth bared and cws fshing.

  As the wolf and wargs battled and the orcs spun around, staring into the woods to try to find their attacker, a small figure stepped from between the pine trees near the chieftain's hut, a bow in hand. The figure smoothly plucked an arrow from a quiver, firing it into an orc, and repeated this gesture, arrows fshing across the encampment, each one finding a home in an orc. Most of the hits were not as fatal as the original ambush, but the figure was clearly dealing damage to the orcs.

  The orcs rallied, seeing an enemy, and began to charge toward the figure, axes and swords raised and screaming war cries in their nguage. As they drew close to the figure, several of them stumbled to a halt, smming chest-first in a wall of spikes and thorns that erupted in a sphere around the figure. One orc impaled himself on a spike, staring down in amazement as his lifeblood dripped onto the dirt at his feet, the light fading from his eyes. The rest of the orcs slowed their pace, picking their way around the spikes and continuing to scream at the figure, arrows zipping toward them with every step.

  "Holy shit guys, I think that's D," Colin said. The trio stared in amazement as the mysterious lone figure and the giant wolf battled a much rger army of orcs and wargs. "That's fucking insane, taking on that many orcs. It's not just her, right?"

  While the giant wolf had pinned a second warg to the ground and was attempting to kill it, the remaining two wargs fnked the wolf and started to savage its rear legs, painfully tearing chunks of flesh from the enormous creature. It let out a howl of rage and pain, spinning to try to bite at the other wargs, but was clearly favoring one of its hind legs and not putting weight on the injured appendage.

  An orc managed to reach the figure, sshing at it with an axe which the figure only just dodged, nearly dropping her bow in the process. Five more orcs were rapidly approaching, having made it most of the way through the spike barrier. The figure quickly shifted, putting away her bow and drawing a sword, engaging with the orc, her sword and the orc's axe coming together in ringing blows that echoed through the mountains. A second and then a third orc joined the first, the three pressing the figure hard, cornering it against a building and scoring several damaging hits, slicing into the figure's arms and legs, blood visible even from a distance.

  "It's not just her, right?" Colin asked again. "She brought backup, right?"

  Bridgette and Alice quickly scanned the encampment and the surrounding forest. "I really don't think she did, Colin. I don't see anyone else out there. No more arrows coming in to attack since she put the bow away, just her and the wolf against them all."

  The giant wolf ripped the throat out of the second warg, howling in victory, but the howl quickly turned into a yelp as it fell, unable to put weight on its rear legs anymore. The figure turned, looking toward the wolf and trying to move to help it, but the orcs pressed in hard again, the fight turning to a five-against-one melee, refusing to let the figure come to the aid of the wolf.

  "Guys, we've got to help. She's in trouble," Colin pleaded. "Fuck it, I'm going." With a pop, he vanished, reappearing a quarter mile down hill and running as fast as his legs would carry him in the direction of the fight.

  "Fuck!" Bridgette yelled, vaulting off the outcrop they were ying on, nding on the slope ten feet below with a roll, and racing after Colin. Alice blinked, staring, then quickly got to her feet and started chasing the other two.