The leaders continued to talk to the others, and it was obvious that they were calling for a coordinated barrage, bidding those already prepared to fire to hold their shots.
The elves fired first, a pair of arrows soaring out from the brush to strike true across the way, Tarathiel's taking one leader in the throat, Innovindil's catching another in the belly, sending it squirming to the ground.
At that same moment, the air before Ivan seemed to warp like a ripple on a pond, and that wave rushed across the clearing as the orcs let fly.
Arrows warped even as they cleared the bows, bending like the strands of a willow tree and flying every which way but straight. Except for one, from the trees to the side, that soared in at Ivan.
The dwarf saw it in time, though, and he jerked down, bringing his axe up to the side and, fortunately, in line with the missile. It clipped the blade, then Ivan's armored shoulder, staggering the dwarf to the side but doing no real damage against the armor he wore.
"Get 'em all, ye durned fool!" Ivan scolded his brother, who giggled from the boughs above him.
Across the way, the orcs looked at their bows as if deceived and saw that most of those, too, had warped under the druidic magic wave, and so they threw them down, drew out swords and spears, and charged wildly.
Two more barely began their run before elven arrows dropped them.
Ivan Bouldershoulder resisted the urge to counter with his own charge, and the urge to look up and make sure that his scatterbrained brother was still paying attention.
Another pair of elven arrows soared off, and Tarathiel and Innovindil leaped out beside Ivan, each drawing a slender sword and a long dirk.
The orcs closed, leaping stones and scrambling over boulders, and howling their guttural battle cries.
Handfuls of bright red berries flew out over Ivan and the elves, enchanted missiles that popped loudly and sparked painfully as they hit. Dozens of little bursts settled in and around the charging orcs. The enchanted bombs did little damage, but brought about massive confusion, an opening that neither Ivan nor the elves missed.
Ivan pulled a hand axe from his belt and flung it into the face of the nearest orc, then drew a second and cut down an orc to the side. Out he charged with a roar, his large axe going to work immediately on one stumbling monster, halting its charge with a whack in the chest, then flying wide as Ivan spun past, coming in hard and chopping the creature on the back of the neck.
But it was the movement of the elves, and not ferocious Ivan, that elicited the sincerely impressed «Oooo» from Pikel up above.
Standing side by side, Tarathiel and Innovindil brought their weapons up in a flowing cross before their chests, rising past their faces and going out at the ready to either side, so that Tarathiel's right arm crossed against Innovindil's left, forearm to forearm. They held that touch as they went out against the charge, moving as if they were one, flowing back and forth and turning as they went, Tarathiel crossing behind Innovindil, coming around to the female's right and shifting past, so that they were touching right forearm to right forearm, right foot to right foot, heel against toe.
Not understanding the level of the joining, an orc rushed in at Tarathiel's seemingly exposed back, only to find Innovindil's blade waiting for it, turning its spear aside with ease. Innovindil didn't finish the move, though, but rather went back to an orc that was still off-balance from Pikel's bomb barrage. The elf slid the blade easily through the orc's exposed ribs as it stumbled past. She didn't have to finish that move either, for Tarathiel had understood everything she had accomplished in the parry as surely as if he had done the movement himself. He just reversed his grip on the dirk in his left hand, and while still parrying the blade of the orc he was fighting before him with his sword, he thrust out hard behind, stabbing the attacking spear wielder in the chest.
In a single, fluid movement, Tarathiel extracted the dagger and flipped it into the air, catching it by the tip, then brought his arm toward the orc before him as if he meant to throw the dirk.
The orc flinched, and Tarathiel rotated away.
Innovindil came across, her long sword slashing the confused orc's throat.
Tarathiel slopped the rotation first and dropped his sword arm down and around, hooking his still-moving partner around the waist. He pulled hard, lifting Innovindil off the ground, pulling her over his hip, and whipping her across before him, her feet extended and kicking at the orc that had come in at Tarathiel.
She didn't score any hits on that orc—she wasn't really trying to—but her weaving feet had the creature reacting with its short, hooked blade, striking at her repeatedly and futilely.
As Innovindil rolled across his torso, Tarathiel reached across with his left hand, and she hooked her right elbow over it, and he stopped his rotation completely, except with that arm, playing with Innovindil's momentum to send her spinning out to his left.
At the same time, as soon as she had cleared the way, the male struck out with his right arm, his sword arm. The poor orc, still trying to catch up to Innovindil, never even saw the blade coming.
Innovindil landed lightly, her momentum and spin bringing her right across the path of another orc, her blades slashing high, stabbing low.
In that one short charge and spin, the elves had five orcs dead or dying.
"Oooo," said Pikel, and he looked down at the berries in his hand doubtfully.
Then he caught a movement to the side, moving through the brush, and saw a pair of orcs lifting bows.
He threw before they could fire, the two dozen little explosions making the orcs jump and jerk, stinging and blinding them.
Pikel's arms went out that way, his fingers waggling, calling to the brush around the pair of orcs. Vines and shrubs grabbed at the creatures, and at a third, Pikel realized with a giggle, for he heard the unseen orc roaring in protest below its trapped companions.
Ivan didn't have the grace or coordination of the warrior elves, and in truth, their deadly dance was impressive to the dwarf. Amusing, but impressive nonetheless.
What he lacked in grace, the yellow-bearded dwarf more than made up for in sheer ferocity, though. Rushing past the orc he had chopped down, he met the charge—and hard—of another, accepting a shield rush and setting his legs powerfully. He didn't move. The orc bounced back.
Ivan chopped that leading shield arm hard, his axe creasing the shield, even digging into the arm strapped under it. He jerked the weapon free immediately, lifting the orc into a short turn and forcing it to regain its balance. The dwarf struck again, this time getting the axe head past the blocking shield, chopping hard on the orc's shoulder.
The wounded creature stumbled back, but another rushed past it, and a third behind that.
Ivan was already moving, taking one step back and dropping low. He grabbed up a rock and threw it hard as he came up, thumping the closest orc in the chest, staggering it. As its companion came past it on its left, Ivan went past it on the right. His axe took the stunned orc in the gut, lifting it into the air and dropping it hard on its back.
The second orc skidded to a stop and started to turn—and caught Ivan's axe, spinning end over end, right in the chest.
Ivan, orcs in hot pursuit, charged right in, bowling over the creased orc as it fell and collecting his axe on the way. He kept running to a nearby boulder and leaped up and rolled over it, landing on his feet and falling back against it.
Orcs split around the boulder, charging on, and expecting that Ivan had run out the other side.
His axe caught the first coming by on the left, then went back hard to the right, smashing the lead orc from there as well.