The next morning’s scouting report revealed that the Frost Giants had caught on to the problem much faster than Karl had been expecting them to. They were not known for being particularly bright, but this morning there were no fewer than twenty teams in the area, and it appeared that they were doing a methodical search for the missing teams.
From Hawk’s report, they had spread out along a ridgeline very early in the morning, and they were moving south through the valley and past the cave now.
If the team moved out in twenty minutes, they would be attacking the Giants from behind, and they could kill multiple groups quickly before retreating.
That seemed like a good plan to Karl. If they picked one of the stronger groups to eliminate as a group, Rae could use her Golems to take out a weak group nearby, starting with their Ascended leader, which would leave the Awakened Giant trainees helpless.
[I can play too.] Hawk suggested.
[True, but you’re our scout. I don’t want them associating you with the missing Giants. Can you do it cleanly enough?] Karl asked.
[No problem. I will wait for them to get close enough to you that I can throw the bodies in my space. We’re going to need to do something about all the excess Frost Giants, before they start getting in the way.] Hawk reminded him.
[Oh, don’t worry about that. I have just the plan to get rid of them, which will ensure the Giants are in chaos when the main line decides to advance.]
Karl led the group out of the cave toward the closest powerful group, which was flanked by two weaker groups.
The patrol line went on like that all the way across the valley they were working in. One group with a commander leading it, and then two groups of Ascended and Awakened. That should realistically give the Commander and his smaller group time to react to any attacks on the weaker groups, but with Karl’s divide and conquer strategy, it was about to become a feeding program for the beasts.
Remi was already overjoyed by the amount of Commander Rank food that she could gorge herself with as she waited for her body to grow up to fighting size, where she could crush and swallow her prey whole.
That was an odd bit of logic for a venomous snake, but that was how she preferred to eat, even after biting them. Biting was actually a last resort for the Spirit Snake, as she insisted that it made the food taste funny, but if she was threatened and her magic wasn’t doing enough, she had no problem getting physical.
But for the most part, she didn’t come out of her hiding space, and just poked her head out to cast Blizzard after fights.
[Remi, how long can your blizzard spell last?] Karl asked.
[About five minutes if I need it to, then I will cast it again.] She replied.
[In that case, cast it at the start of the fight, and just let it continue as we move away. Keep it centred on the group, and it will hide both the fight and our footprints, so the other groups can’t find us as easily.]
[Got it boss.]
The next group was just coming into sight when Karl caught a change in Rae’s thoughts.
[Tremble before the coming darkness.]
She was laughing at her hapless targets.
“Rae found her group. Let’s get to work. Remi, you’re up. Keep us hidden.” Karl instructed.
He charged forward with Thor, and the roar of the Frost Giants who were being damaged by a snowstorm out of nowhere echoed through the valley. That might not have been his best call, but they were already damaged when he made it to combat, and Dana’s twin Golems had no problem holding off the two Ascended Frost Giants while Karl fired arrows into the Commander’s chest and Thor prevented it from going after any of the other group members.
Ophelia had no problem assisting the Golems with one of the Frost Giants, and even Tessa had dismounted and come forward into melee range, attacking with her mace while Dana cast [Magic Missiles] and Karl’s [Chain Lightning] slowed the giants.
Karl felt two groups of Giants reach his space, one from Hawk and one from Rae. That was their signal to move, and Karl quickly stripped the giants of anything of value and threw the corpses into Remi’s mostly empty swamp.
Tessa identified the items left on the ground, and stuffed the magical ones into a pair of pouches that she slung over Thor’s back.
“We can sort them later. Where are we off to now?” She asked.
“There should be another three groups like those on their way here. Remi is keeping the blizzard active to hide our movement, and Hawk is scouting their locations as they approach.” Karl explained.
The groups had moved into the same formation as the ones they had attacked, weaker groups on the flanks with the stronger one in the middle as they searched for the attackers.
“Same pattern as last time. Tessa, did you want to ride Thor into combat?” Karl asked.
“Sounds great. I will start with the Commander, and Dana can focus her attacks on one Ascended, while Bear gets the other.” Tessa agreed.
Ophelia made a pleased grunt at the plan, still caught in the berserker rage, and still transformed into her half bear form.
As she fought, small wooden totems would appear on the ground around her. Karl wasn’t certain if they were buffs, or some sort of skill, but they vanished after ten seconds or so and didn’t seem to affect anyone but her.
Remi came out of her hiding spot to climb into Karl’s armour, leaving only her head exposed. That was warm enough that she could comfortably fight, and secure enough she wouldn’t fall down and into the snow.
Now they had an extra [Chain Lightning] at Ascended Rank to go with the Commander Rank version on Karl’s arrows. With the [Blizzard] damage being so negligible to creatures with cold damage resistance, the Giants had barely begun to understand that they were in serious trouble before they were paralyzed and cut down.
Two more batches of bodies entered the space, and Karl sent Hawk scouting down the line, getting a location for any other groups that might have been alerted to the battles.
[They’re all still moving forward. Should I bring some this way, or do we ambush them the same way again?] Rae asked as Hawk reported the location of the groups.
[Same pattern. Wait for us to get in position.] Karl instructed.
[But you’re so slow. Why don’t you just chase after me, and I will take out all the weak ones to throw in your space, then we can come back to the group for the Commanders?] Rae suggested.
[Because we can’t leave the rest of the group unprotected. There’s a reason for this group size and composition.] Karl reminded her.
[If I could just access the space from more than a hundred metres, this would be way easier.] Rae complained, eager to keep hunting.
[Work with what you’ve got. We will clean up all along the line today if we can, and then retreat somewhere warm.] Karl instructed.
That was all the motivation that Rae and Hawk needed to go off mission and start hunting the weaker groups on their own.
Before Karl had even reached the first Commander, they had cleared the weaker groups and had started on the next pair, racing through the snow-covered trees to avoid detection and then brutally ambushing their hapless prey.
Remi was stuck on cleanup duty, spreading her [Blizzard] as wide as possible, while collecting the bodies, which Karl was doing his best to run past as the group chased the rampaging pair of beasts.
“Why are they in such a hurry?” Ophelia asked as they reached their fifth group of the day, who were standing back to back, already paranoid and on alert after all the shouting from the other groups under attack on both sides of them.
“I may have promised them that once the line was clear, we could go somewhere warm for the night.” Karl laughed.
“Well, that sounds good to me, but the casters will not be able to keep this pace up forever. Even if they’re riding on Thor most of the time, that much magic will wear them out mentally.”
Karl nodded. “We’re almost done. I will call the two hooligans back once we clear this group, and then we can hide the battles in the snow and look for a good spot to spend the night.”