A place to mine was found quickly. Not so long ago, we passed by a warehouse filled with various kinds of consumables, starting with clothes and ending with stocks of combustible oil, which lubricates arrows or stones from a catapult. In general, if you set it on fire properly, it will burn so that it will not seem to anyone. Naturally, no one will leave such a place without protection, and there were two guards at the entrance.
Gesturing to my companions to wait, I crept towards the guards. No one even had time to make a sound. A short jerk, two blows, two corpses, which were immediately grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged inside the warehouse. After laying them along the wall, I went back and called the girls.
"Let's get started." — I said, taking the explosives out of the bag when we were all inside. There is really a lot of oil here and one two-hundred-gram checker is enough to shake this place thoroughly. While Chloe was watching the entrance, Olga watched with interest as I set a ten-minute countdown on the timer, and then attach the charge to one of the oil barrels tightly grouped in one corner.
"How interesting." — The woman said. — "And there's not a drop of magic in it."
"We don't have it at all." — I answered and turned the barrel so that the explosives could not be seen. — "I'm done, it's going to blow up in ten minutes, we need to get ready."
"Okay." — She agreed with a nod of her head. — "Will you tell me how this is possible when we find ourselves in a calm environment?"
— "Absolutely."
The return trip also passed without problems. While we were gone, nothing changed: the same bunch of people prevented us from passing.
"Aminute and a half left." — I informed the girls, checking my watch. — "Olga, while there is a little time, can you explain what exactly we need on the other side?"
"A teleportation artifact," — the Queen replied. — "It has a separate storage of magical energy and there is a high probability that it works."
"Understood." — I shook my head. It's bad that this is an unreliable method, I hope that it will work, otherwise we will have to break through. I could do it myself without any problems, but with two girls in my arms it will be very difficult. — "And where will he send us?"
"I have a small shelter on human territory. Away from cities and roads." — She replied
Comfortable. It will be possible to take a breath and think about what to do next, otherwise I somehow don't really imagine how I will live after we get out of here. Meanwhile, there are ten seconds left on the timer.
"Get ready" — As soon as I said this, the floor trembled noticeably under my feet, and a second later the echo of the explosion reached us.
The freaks below immediately rushed around, trying to figure out what had happened. The uproar was such that if I were among them now, I would be deaf, despite the possibilities of a superhuman body.
After a few minutes, they realized what was happening and where, and most of the people rushed to extinguish the fire. And it flared up a lot, even from the place where we hid in anticipation, the glare of the flame on the walls is visible and you can feel the streams of warm air, so the bastards will be busy. Soon most of the mercenaries disappeared, leaving only a dozen patrolmen on the gallery.
Without collusion, we leave the shelter and run to the other side. I immediately developed maximum speed, leaving a big gap from the girls and crashed into the first enemy. He only has time to turn at the sound of my footsteps.
"They're..." — the merc tries to shout, but was grabbed by the face. Together with him in my hand, I made a long jump forward and, when landing, I slammd the back of his head into the stone floor with a flourish. Two of his comrades, meanwhile, had already drawn their weapons and attacked. I got up and, turning the body, missed the tip of the spear, on which one of them tried to impale me with a scream. I grabbed the weapon by the shaft and kicked the attacker in the chest into flight. And he, releasing the spear from his hands, demolished a piece of the railing and together with the debris and flied down somewhere. The next one was armed with a sword, I just took his attack on the handcuff. The blade of the sword struck sparks, colliding with the heavy-duty alloy, and the mer gasped from the recoil that hit his hands. He didn't have time to do anything else, with the same hand that I blocked, I punch him in the press and, when he was bent in half from the force of the blow, I finish off with an elbow to the head from above. Having intercepted the captured spear, I throw it at one of the enemies that have not yet had time to approach. The one I was aiming at dodged, diving sideways with a pike, but his comrade running after him did not had time to react and caught the tip with his chest. The blade pierced through him, not noticing the leather breastplate, and tipped the body onto its back. I removed a riffle from the magnetic mount and send the remaining ones to the next world with accurate shots. The last one was lucky that he managed not to get hit by a spear. He looked with evil eyes first at the corpse next to him, then at the friends falling like bowling pins, tried to get up and run away, but he himself caught a bullet in the back of his head.
Having fixed the riffle on the magnet, I turned around to see how my companions were doing. The girls just caught up with me and we just silently walked on, went down the stairs and stopped in front of a massive stone door decorated with uncomplicated carvings.
"here." — Olga said and, going to the wall, pressed on one of the bricks. After that, the door slowly slid to the right, revealing a view of... four-eyed, whom I treated with a dagger in the neck not so long ago. Alive, and fucking healthy, and with a support group in the form of three ogres. The sound of many feet was heard behind him. It looks like we've been read and set up a trap.
"Fuck." — i was fuckinf surprised. — "Why didn't you die?"
"He's possessed by a demon." — Olga explained to me, looking at the people around us. Two dozen have already gathered, and are still staying. — "In exchange for a soul, he received power. It's not easy to kill such people, even beheading does not give an absolute guarantee."
I turned my surprised gaze from the queen to the warlock an started to to beat around the bush, simultaneously assessing the situation with my peripheral vision. — "So it turns out you have a guest stuck in your ass? Then you're no longer Harry Potter. You're fucking Duncan MacLeod, even though you look like the lead singer of a boys band."
There are about fifty people gathered around and they look quite serious, all dressed in chainmail, with spears and shields. They take us in a half-circle, blocking the escape routes, putting spearmen forward. Behind them, archers with bows and crossbows gathered, and a couple of ogres. They pay little attention to me, but girls are literally devoured with their eyes. Well, it's disgusting, there's only enough saliva from the mouth.
"You're sharp-tongued, but it won't save you." — The guy winced, adjusting his glasses with two fingers. — "You're good, but everything has its limits. Give up and you'll get a quick death, and maybe you can watch us have a little fun here."
"Look around." — He put his hands behind his back and looked at me with superiority. — "You are surrounded, there is nowhere to run."
"This arrangement suits me." — I removed my shotgun from its mounts.
A whisper in an unfamiliar language is heard from the side. Quiet enough that only we can hear it, but not our enemies.
"And so that you understand, here it is." — I raised my hand with a weapon so that everyone can see it. — "A thunder-stick. And it can do like this!"
I raised my hand in the direction of the formation of spearmen and press the trigger. A charge of buckshot pierces the shield and knocks down one loser. I make half a turn, taking a riffle in my second hand and releasing the queue with a fan, halving the first row of mers. Pistol bullets are also flying there — Chloe is not standing idle. Meanwhile, the shotgun is already looking at the bespectacled man's chest.
Shot.
The buckshot hovers half a meter from the asshole, bumping into a greenish film and falls to the floor.
"Ha!" — With a smile full of superiority, the warlock points his hand at me. — "Arrow of Decay!"
A putrid-green clot breaks off from his fingers and goes flying at a decent speed, and with it a volley of enemy shooters from the other side.
"Air shield!" — Olga screams and hits the floor with the staff shaft and we were covered with a translucent dome, in which arrows are stuck, and the stinking green crap splashed on the floor with a smelly liquid upon collision, which immediately began to sizzle and melt. After a second, the protection disappears, and the woman herself, breathing heavily, falls on one knee, leaning on the rod. Beads of sweat are running down her face. — "Not.. huh... not recovered enough…"
Meanwhile, the mercenaries who survived our attack let the ogres go forward and knock down a new shield wall, after which, bristling with spears, they quickly move closer.
The machine gun returns to the mount, instead of it, a grenade appears in my hand, which I throw behind the formation and, with my free hand, grab the queen by the waist. The shock wave and shrapnel hit the archers and unprotected backs of the shielders, causing screams of pain.
"Chloe, follow me!" — On the move, shooting with a shotgun and with the queen in my hand, I walked away from the door along the wall. The blonde, having heard me, moves after me, the cartridges in the pistol have run out, so a sword and a dagger have taken its place. Now we are being attacked from only one side and the Kin will have to come out to throw some more shit at us, which will make him more vulnerable. I would throw grenades at the asshole and then finish him off, but there must be an artifact inside that can be damaged by the explosion, so I'll have to think. I feel the noisy hot breath hitting my neck, it could be nice if it didn't happen during the fight. I carefully lower the burden and continue to shoot the enemies trying to advance. After the grenade burst, enemy formation has disintegrated. The survivors realized that they would not cook porridge with the usual tactics, and instead of a slow offensive, they tried to overcome the distance separating us in one jerk, but they turned out so-so. Each shot from a shotgun took one, or even two lives, if the losers were too close to each other. First of all, as the most dangerous, the shooters got, and second, the ogres, because it was impossible to miss them because of their rather large size.
