Chapter 172 - Buried Hopes

I woke to the sensation of being trapped, stuck in place. I couldn't move anything at first, and a panicked yell escaped my throat before I could stop it. Where was I? What the hell was going on? For a few more seconds I shifted around, trying to force my body into motion. As I did, it became clear I wasn't paralyzed; I was just stuck. I could move my fingers and toes. I could shift my limbs, a little bit anyway. But larger movements were impossible. Something heavy was crushing me into place, keeping me from standing up.

Memory came back more slowly than consciousness, but eventually it did. I recalled the lightning strike I'd called down and the epic explosion I'd created. The farmhouse must have been turned into a pile of kindling by that blast. Unfortunately, it had also collapsed the tunnel on top of me. I could move my head a little bit, but that was pretty much it. The dirt had collapsed onto the rest of me. Even my arms were trapped.

A soft whine reached my ears. I knew that voice!

"Hope? You here, girl?"

"Woof!"

Relief hit me like a rush. I wasn't alone, and that was huge. Without any further help I wasn't sure how I could have escaped this trap. Sooner or later, the oxygen trapped down there with me would run out, and I'd suffocate. If even my Strength couldn't bust me loose, I was completely screwed.

Hope wasn't, though. She was undead. She didn't get tired. She didn't need to breathe. And she was a dog, which meant she had skills I needed badly.

"Hope. Can you dig us out? Dig a tunnel up?"

"Woof!"

She shifted, and I realized she was lying across my head and shoulders. When the tunnel dropped and I dove for the support strut, she must have jumped on top of me to shield me from the collapsing soil. Hope was the reason I still had a pocket of air to breathe.

Hope scrambled, her claws scratching against my armor as she worked to shift herself around. It took her a minute to get set up, but once she did, her paws went to work, shifting dirt away from me and giving me more space to move. I did what I could to help her out, tossing Augment Undead on Hope to boost her stats some. The stronger she was, the faster she could get us out of there.

It didn't take Hope long to clear away enough dirt that I could shift myself out of the rest. She'd built us a tiny hole, a relatively safe pocket under the dirt. The beams which had supported the roof fell at an angle which held up most of the soil above, and that gave us a small area of relative safety. Chunks of dirt spilled from the ceiling periodically, so it wasn't really that safe, but it was better than being buried alive.

I couldn't tell which direction was which, though. There was no indication which way the tunnel went, just dirt in every direction. The best chance to escape and rejoin my friends would be to dig through the soil to get to the uncollapsed part of the tunnel, then walk the rest of the way out. Without knowing which way to dig, though, the odds were against us finding that optimal path before I suffocated. Unlike Hope, I did need to breathe.

"We're gonna have to do this another way, girl," I told her. The tunnel wasn't that deep underground. The tunnel had been eight feet tall when the zombies dug it, and they'd left about the same amount of soil above. Worst case, we had about fifteen feet to dig through if we wanted to get out. It was probably a little less.

The problem with digging our way to the surface was that I had very little idea what was out there. My Domain senses remained intact, so I knew that Peter and his dragon were gone, but where and for how long, I had no clue. Most of his orcs had departed as well, but a sizable army of orcs was still sitting out there. I figured they might be trying to dig me out, or maybe just waiting for me to dig myself out so they could capture or kill me. I had to be exceptionally careful as we dug ourselves free. If the enemy was out there and I just climbed out of a hole in the ground, we'd be toast. The best bet would be to punch through a small hole to the surface so I could get my bearings and figure out which way we needed to go to get a clean escape.

I set Hope to work, digging a hole. She drove into the wall of soil, scrabbling away at it with her claws. More and more dirt piled up, and I packed it into the dirt wall behind me as best I could. The dirt was loose enough that I could pat it down some, so we slowly gained more space in our little pocket. I reached up to help Hope, but then stopped myself. The more I moved around, the faster I burned oxygen. Hope could work hard and not use any air up, so that was the safer plan. I let her go to it, keeping my own movements as small and relaxed as I could.

It didn't take her long to get a good tunnel going, but the air was already feeling thick by the time she slid back down the tunnel with a soft "Woof."

I needed fresh air, and badly. I swapped places with Hope, slipping into the tunnel she'd dug and slowly shimmied up it. When I reached the top, I saw why she'd stopped. There was the smallest hole in the center of the tunnel, mixed in amidst thick clusters of grass roots. Fresh, cool air flowed in through the hole. Not much; the hole was only the size of my fist. But it was enough. I sucked down a few breaths. At least I wasn't going to suffocate. Now to make sure I didn't die from any of the other possible causes...

It was still dark outside, so I probably hadn't been unconscious long. That didn't mean it was safe out there, though. I reached down to my belt and pulled out a dagger. Then I slowly and ever-so-carefully used the blade to slice through the top layer of turf, cutting a semi-circular section away so that I could slowly lift it up just a smidge and peek out into the night.

Guttural voices reached my ears almost at once, which meant the orcs were still around, anyway. I propped the turf up about an inch so I could observe them and listen in, and waited. They were talkative, but it seemed the orcs had their own language, because they weren't using English. Whatever their native language was, I couldn't speak it. But I wasn't sure I had to, because it was very clear to me that there were a lot fewer orcs around than there had been earlier.

Peter was definitely gone. After half an hour of sitting there listening, there was still no sign of him. I felt confident I'd have at least heard his voice if he was still about. For some reason, he'd left the area before capturing or killing me. Why, I had no idea. I figured he'd have the dragon and his entire orc horde working to dig me out. Instead, he had a couple dozen orcs poking about at the hole in the ground where the main farmhouse used to be, and then scores more wandering around gathering their dead into a big pile. They'd piled up heaps of shattered wood beneath the dead, so I was guessing they intended some sort of funeral pyre.

That was super nice of them, though. They were collecting all their dead into one place. That was going to make it incredibly convenient to reconstitute a new army.

I took it nice and slow, even though I was aware that Peter might return at any time. I had no idea where he'd gone. Maybe he was off feeding the dragon. If so, he might return at any moment. But I needed troops if I was going to beat the remaining orcs, so I got to work Animating.

Most of the dead orcs were tier five, so I could Animate two of them at a time. I cast Animate Dead, raising two, and then just had them continue playing dead. Easy enough. When the orcs piled more bodies on top of the ones I'd Animated, I just cast the spell on those next. Cycling the spell through as fast as I could, I had a dozen of them working for me before I tapped myself out of mana. At that point I cast Health to Mana to get a little refill, then cast Drain Life on one of the zombie orcs I'd made. It took the zombie down halfway, but it refilled most of my missing health, letting me Health to Mana to restore still more mana.

The refill let me Animate ten more. Now I had twenty-two orcs. I repeated the process, Draining two more zombie orcs to replenish my mana, and used that to power more Animate Dead spells. That gave me thirty before I tapped out my mana. Was that going to be enough? I wasn't sure, but the orcs were getting close to finishing up the gathering of their dead. Once that process was complete they'd light the pyre, and I'd officially be out of time. Besides that, I had Peter to worry about. If he returned before I got away, I was done for.

I paused to think. Maybe it would be better to just slip away? I knew which way the tunnel ran, now. I could have Hope dig in that direction and open us a path to get clear. I wouldn't have to worry about killing all of those orcs; now that I'd had more time, it seemed there might be as many as a hundred of them still running about. It was hard to count, but there were a lot, anyway.

Part of me wanted to make them pay, though. For Sue. For Plum. For the home I'd been trying to build all of us, that they'd forced me to destroy. A dim ember of anger rose in my chest, gradually simmering into a full-blown rage. It wasn't going to be enough to just escape. I wanted to make these bastards pay for what they'd done. I wanted Peter to know that this war was not over. It was just beginning.

And I wanted to see about Plum and Sue, too. Leaving them out in the field for the orcs to mess with didn't feel right.

I cycled one more time, which brought me to forty zombie orcs. That was going to have to be good enough, because the live orcs were getting ready to light the pyre. Before they could, I ordered my zombies into action.

They rose as a group, soundless and quick, and rushed at the nearest orcs. The orc who'd been holding a torch to light the pyre went down first, three zombies clawing and biting at him. The orc screamed briefly and then went silent. I was pretty sure that would be one more addition to my army before long.

The other zombies spread out, attacking any orcs that were near. For a minute, the shock factor was enough to throw the enemy off. They backpeddaled and fled from the risen undead, running this way and that to get away from those ravenous mouths. But these orcs were disciplined troops. I wasn't surprised when one of their leaders ordered the remainder to form up ranks.

There were still a lot of living orcs. They made a wall of steel in front of my zombie platoon and then advanced. The zombies fought back as hard as they could, but they were outnumbered by better than two to one. They weren't going to be enough, not without help. It was time to enter the battle.

I pushed hard against the dirt, shoving the turf out of the way as I exploded into the air with my Flight power. Then I fired a Dark Pulse as I rose. The energy from the spell lashed out like a shockwave. The wave hit the orc formation from the side, knocking their troops over, fouling weapons, and generally causing chaos.

Then I fired a Lightning Bolt into their flank, killing several orcs as the electricity jumped from one to another.

The distraction was everything my zombies needed, and they plowed forward, carving apart the enemy force. I dropped from the sky directly behind the orcs, landing just near enough to cut one down with my sword as I touched down. I killed two more, each blow lightning-quick, before the others even realized I was there. One sounded the alarm, calling out for help. I killed him, too, but that turned the entire back rank in my direction.

With a thought, I lifted myself back away from them again with Flight, launching myself up and back. I cast a Drain Life on the nearest and he stumbled, going down briefly before struggling back to his feet. Once I was airborne, I cast Animate Dead on some of the newly fallen orcs, and Control Undead on some of the ones who'd been killed by my undead and risen on their own. Most of those went down quickly, but they were still doing damage. Every dead orc brought me one step closing to finishing this lot off and making my getaway.

Hope dashed in, her fangs slicing into tendons before she raced away again. Fast as she was, in the dark, she was almost impossible to stop, especially with our enemies so distracted by my zombie orcs. Each one she slashed toppled over, unable to stand, and became easy prey for the zombies.

The tide of the fighting was turning in our direction, but I needed something else to change our stars entirely and win this fight. Something bigger. Something stronger. And I knew just what to do.