Chapter 061: Wind, Rain, Thunder, and Lightning!

Jess wiped the rain from his face so he could see better. The figure was coming steadily down the slope, straight toward the two of them.

Judging by its outline, it certainly wasn't human, and it wasn't a dwarf. It was much taller than either. Here in the Redridge Mountains, that left almost only one possibility.

It was the orc!

"Run, Gred!"

"He—"

Before Gred could finish, Jess shoved him hard toward the lakeshore and threw himself after him. The two of them tumbled and slid down the steep bank.

They landed on a muddy stretch of shore, scrambled up, and sprinted toward Lakeshire. The orc came sliding down behind them, much faster than they were.

He ran like an athlete in a fury, every stride packed with power. There was nothing of a frail sage or prophet about him. He looked like a hardened fighter who had survived a hundred battles.

Sand and water sprayed behind him like the wake of a Jeep accelerating through the mud. If he caught them, Jess thought, he would simply run them over.

"Can't outrun him, damn it!" Gred roared, swinging his little round shield into his hand as he turned around.

Jess didn't want to stop, but the dwarf was right. If they kept running, they'd only waste their strength before the orc caught them anyway.

Through the pouring rain, the huge figure came into focus. He was a dark-green giant carrying a long staff. Tangled brown hair whipped around his head in the wind, and his eyes were fixed on them. Every muscle in his body looked tight as stone.

With a low growl, he charged and raised his staff. Jess could actually see a whirl of sand and dust rise around his arms as his muscles drove the blow.

Gred lifted his shield. The orc smashed straight through his defense with the force of his charge, knocking shield and dwarf flat onto the ground.

Forget a Jeep. This thing was a locomotive!

The orc took one quick step over Gred and was suddenly in front of Jess. Jess raised his sword to block, only for the orc to strike it with a metal bracer and snap it clean in two.

Five silver coins, gone just like that.

The orc lifted his staff. Jess brought up the staff he'd been carrying on his back to meet the blow. The moment the orc saw it, he froze for an instant.

That was long enough for Jess to get a good look at his face.

Rather than a mixture of man and beast, it looked more like a skull stretched over with skin. Two aggressive tusks rose from between thick lips that could barely close, and his wide eyes reminded Jess of a tiger someone had enraged.

While the orc hesitated, he suddenly let out a grunt. Gred had somehow gotten behind him and driven a sword into his calf.

The orc slammed his bracer into Gred's face. The dwarf went flying, spun twice in the air, and hit the ground.

Jess's mind went blank.

We're dead.

The orc yanked the straight sword from his leg and flung it aside. When he turned back, his expression was far more savage than before.

Jess knew the orc wasn't that furious because of the stab wound. It was because of the staff in Jess's hands.

Jess had thought every shaman in the Horde had abandoned the elements for the shadows long ago. This lone orc had clearly drunk demon blood—his skin had turned green instead of its natural brown—so Jess had assumed he had followed the path of fel magic and shadow as well.

But everything Jess had seen suggested the orc still practiced shamanism. That meant he must have recovered at least somewhat from the bloodlust and rage caused by the demon blood, and had begun to question what the demons had done to the Horde.

Orcs who had come to their senses would hate anything connected to demons even more fiercely.

Jess had only suspected it before. The sudden change in the orc's face confirmed it.

He had recognized an old relic of the Horde. As a shaman, a member of a group that once held the highest standing among the orcs, he would have particular reason to hate the senior members of the Shadow Council—the very people who had led the shamans to ruin.

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The orc bellowed and swung his staff down. Jess threw himself aside. The weapon buried itself in wet sand and sent water flying.

The orc pursued him wildly. Jess dodged again and again, keeping Gred's advice in mind: turn your weakness into an advantage. Watch the attack closely.

The enemy was enormously strong, but also enormous in size. His sweeping movements were often easy to read.

And a shaman wasn't a trained warrior. However terrifying his natural strength might be, his close-combat experience couldn't compare with a real fighter's. As long as Jess stayed patient, focused on dodging, and waited for Gred to help—

Then he remembered how far Gred had just been sent flying.

Would the dwarf even wake up?

Jess retreated step by step and slipped past two more strikes. The orc was about to thrust his staff at him when an arrow suddenly appeared in his shoulder.

"Over here, you bastard!" Gred shouted from a distance. "Go on, ignore me! I'll put so many arrows in you that you'll look like a sieve!"

At some point Gred had recovered his quiver. Even from here, Jess could tell there couldn't be many arrows left after the chaos.

The orc seemed determined to ignore him. He tore out the arrow and raised his staff to attack Jess again.

Another arrow struck his shoulder.

"What? Think I can't aim because I've only got one eye?" the dwarf laughed.

The orc turned and began chanting. Lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, followed by a peal of thunder.

A crackling ball of electricity gathered in his hand from the storm above, wrapped in water vapor. It sparked and burst over and over. The white flashes stabbed at Jess's eyes, but it was clear the orc was aiming at Gred.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"

The dwarf yelped and tried to run. Jess shouted, surged forward, and brought his staff down hard on the orc's electrified wrist.

Some of the energy scattered from the ball, but the orc growled and thrust his hand forward anyway.

A chain of lightning flashed between his palm and Gred. In that instant the lake, muddy beach, and nearby trees were lit up white. The discharge exploded outward, knocking Jess off his feet.

Farther away, Gred froze in the blinding light while running, then pitched facedown onto the ground.

Jess turned and ran, shouting Saeno's name, but the imp didn't answer.

Only then did Jess realize he'd left the bag containing the imp on the shore near Gred.

Damn it.

The orc turned toward the fleeing Jess and started chanting again. A mass of flame gathered in his hand. Even in this rain, he could summon fire!

As the flames grew, Jess had a desperate thought.

This definitely counts as a life-or-death situation, right?

Fear. Fear!

He turned, silently recited the spell, and pointed his long staff at the orc. As the last word left his lips, it felt as though more than half his mental strength had been drained away. His knees nearly buckled.

The fire in the orc's hand suddenly collapsed into sparks that scattered onto the ground. His whole body shook, and he dropped to one knee, roaring words Jess couldn't understand.

It worked. Fear had worked.

But how long would it last?

Jess forced himself forward, grabbed the sword the orc had thrown away, spun around, and drove it toward the orc's heart with all his strength.

Thunk!

The blade caught between his ribs.

What kind of monster was this?

Should've stabbed him in the belly...

Too late. The pain snapped the orc out of the spell. He seized Jess's blade with one hand and swung a fist with the other. Jess had to let go of the sword and retreat.

The fist missed his nose by inches, but Jess's violent backward step caught in the soft ground and sent him sprawling.

There was no time to worry about how much strength he had left. Jess cast Fear again. The orc's eyes widened, and he knelt there, furious, roaring without pause.

Jess forced himself upright and looked toward Gred, still lying on the shore. He had almost no strength left to fight. This time, he would grab Gred and run.

But before he could reach the dwarf, the orc was moving again.

Not even ten seconds.

His willpower was certainly no weaker than Gred's.

The orc watched the fleeing human. Instead of summoning fire, he dropped the sword and raised both hands to call down lightning once more.

This time Jess was farther away and saw the extraordinary sight clearly: a bolt struck the orc's hands from the sky and gathered into a raging sphere of electricity.

He looked as though he had connected heaven and earth with his own strength.

And Jess had never even heard of this particular shaman in Redridge. He might be perfectly ordinary among his kind.

Was this the terrifying power of the elements?

Whatever he is—

Jess immediately started the Fear spell again. When he finished, he collapsed with exhaustion. A dizzy wave, like his blood sugar had suddenly dropped, swept over him, and his sight went dark for a moment.

But the orc wasn't doing much better. His eyes went wide and unfocused, and his body locked in place. The lightning in his hands erupted and scattered across the sand and lake. Currents spread along the wet shore in a series of white flashes.

This time, though, he only stood panting and growling for a few moments before regaining his senses.

He shouted something abusive in Orcish and limped toward Jess. With a roar, he gathered another bolt of lightning in one hand.

The orc was forcing himself onward too. Each new surge of electricity was weaker than the last. Now it was a contest of endurance.

Jess grabbed Gred and shook him. The dwarf was unconscious, but at least he was breathing, and his heart was beating.

The lightning spell had struck him head-on. It was a miracle he was alive.

Jess turned, ready to squeeze out one more Fear spell by any means necessary.

The lightning in the orc's hand flashed first.

Jess saw white light swallow him. A deafening blast drowned out everything around him. An indescribable pain shot from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, as though his organs had all been scorched at once.

When the shock passed, he staggered back two steps in agony.

He wasn't dead.

He hadn't even passed out.

His arms and legs were so numb they barely obeyed him. He crouched on the ground, unable to stand, but he was still conscious.

How could I take a hit better than a dwarf?

Then he noticed faint, bright-red patterns running through his skin and along the veins beneath it. They weren't capillaries. They looked almost like written characters.

As the strange markings shifted, heat surged through his entire body, setting his blood racing.

Even the orc stopped in astonishment at how well Jess had survived the lightning.

Then a shrill cry in the distance caught both their attention.

"Master! You should thank me for saving your life! That's the power of the Blood Pact Seal!"