“You know, this means you’ve officially saved both me and my brother since we got trapped here,” Tamsin said. “My mother would be so proud of you.”
Jack nodded, fighting waves of dizziness. Do concussions exist in this world? He thought.
“So,” he said, suddenly self-conscious at the fact the rocks had them pinned awkwardly close together.
“So,” Tamsin said. They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for a moment. “This isn’t exactly the first date I had in mind.”
“What?” Jack said.
“Oh, shit, I was trying to be funny and now it’s twice as awkward, isn’t it…”
“…more like four times as awkward.”
“This is really weird.”
“We better not die down here. I don’t want our last conversation to be this uncomfortable.”
“Why did the two people with clinical anxiety have to get stuck in the cave in together?” Tamsin said.
“You have—how did you know I had…?”
“Morgan told Tobias and Tobias told me.”
“Why did Morgan tell Tobias I have anxiety?”
“So Tobias wouldn’t give you a hard time when you wouldn’t go out with them to some thing or another.”
“I feel simultaneously betrayed and strangely relieved I don’t actually have to tell you about my anxiety,” Jack said.
“Quick, change the subject,” Tamsin said.
“Are you still going out with that cosplayer, the one with the perfect anime hair?” Jack said. “Crap, that’s not any less awkward than…”
“We broke up anyway, he cheated on me with an Attack on Titan cosplayer he met doing an Eren versus the Female Titan photoshoot,” Tamsin said.
“I’m… sorry to hear that?” Jack said.
“It’s fine. He was too obsessed with his abs anyway,” Tamsin said. “What about you, are you still going out with…”
“Oh, no, that went sideways on account of me being unlikable,” Jack said.
“You know what’s unlikable? Self-pity,” Tamsin said.
“If I’m being honest it was mostly because we kept running out of things to talk about,” Jack said.
“I assume you never tried super-awkward banter,” Tamsin said.
“If only we’d tried, we could’ve salvaged the relationship,” Jack said. He shot her a weak smile.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”
“Two,” Jack said. Tamsin stared at him. “Seventeen. I’m at a seventeen. You?”
“You took most of the impact. I’m at like a six,” Tamsin said. “Also, you can put your head back down if your neck hurts.”
“I’m picturing Tobias’ reaction when they find our bodies. ‘Why was he listening to her stomach growling when they suffocated?’”
“We’ll be like those mystery bodies on Lost.”
“Exactly how I wanted to go out,” Jack said. “Hey, Tam?”
“Yeah?”
“This has been a good conversation. If we don’t die, we should talk more.”
“Maybe we will,” she said.
Then they both perked up at the sound of soft scratching against the stone.
“You hear that?” Jack said.
“Yup,” Tamsin said. “Shush. It’s above us.”
They remained still and silent for a few minutes, listening to the clacking of moving rocks and the distant sound of combat. Then one of the rocks above them moved.
“I found you,” a familiar, and yet still creepy, voice said. “You owe me even more now.”
“Orsun?” Tamsin said.
The spider-creature’s gaunt little head poked through the stones. He smiled. It was an incredibly alarming sight, a row of needle teeth trying to look reassuring.
“I watched. I saw the rocks fall. I listened!” he said. “Heard your voices. Knew you weren’t dead. You talk a lot.”
“I never thought I’d be this happy to see you, you bizarre little man,” Jack said. “Help us get out of here, Orsun, and we’ll make sure it’s worth your while, my friend.”
Chapter 17: To the death
Cordelia heard the blood pounding in her ears as uncontrolled rage pumped through her veins. She felt like she was teetering on the edge of losing control, and this both terrified and exhilarated her.
I should be afraid, she thought. But she wasn’t. Not even a little.
The great, hulking trog champion swung his makeshift weapon like a maniac, forcing Cordelia and Ingo to duck and weave to stay out of its way. The creature seemed impervious to pain, no matter what they threw at him. Ingo planted his axe in the champion’s calf, and Cordelia made vicious contact with the trog’s abdomen, leaving him bleeding fiercely. But both warriors were battered as well, covered in their own blood, bruised and wounded.
It was no elegant sword fight. This was a battle between barbarians, fighters with no care for their own safety, driven mad by the smell of their own blood.
She swung, missing the champion but burying her axe in the neck of one of his subordinates. She nearly met the same fate as the trog leader attacked, but Ingo shoulder-checked the bigger creature, knocking him off-balance and saving Cordelia’s life. She returned the favor, walloping the trog’s elbow with a kick to stop him from slashing at Ingo in retaliation.
But it wasn’t a one-sided fight. Not only did they have to contend with the lesser trogs interfering; no amount of damage inflicted on the champion appeared to slow him down. He must be a mountain of hit points, Cordelia thought.
Cordelia felt the bones jutting from the champion’s weapon scrape across her back, burning as the skin tore. All around them, carnage reigned; she saw the blade dance of Eriko and Tobias, heard the wet smack of Morgan’s war hammer, heard cries of rage and pain. It all felt stupid and pointless and thrilling and terrifying at once, these cave-creatures who had laid waste to Moderate Expectations completely unprepared for prey who fought back. And this champion, the oversized creature adorned in human remains, he laughed as Cordelia cut him again and again with her axe, kicked Ingo away like he was nothing more than a child.
Through the pounding in her ears she heard Morgan calling to her. She saw a flash of divine energy, but then she caught the battle priest out of the corner of her eye as he was knocked from his feet by a pair of trogs. Before she could yell out to him, Eriko was there, slashing away, defending their friend as he found his feet again.
Ingo seemed to sense the futility of the fight and charged in recklessly. He sunk his axe into the champion’s lower back as the monster turned to face Cordelia, a cruel and hungry grin turning into a grimace of rage. Cordelia saw an opening as the creature seemed to focus all of his attention on Ingo. She roared at him, weapon raised, an incoherent war cry on her lips that felt as if it were coming from a stranger’s mouth instead of her own.
The trog champion swiped at her without even looking, his garish weapon smashing into the haft of her two-handed axe, splitting the handle like a toothpick. Cordelia found herself holding a stick in one hand and the remnants of the axe head in the other. Without thinking, she threw the blade at the trog, which skimmed off his hide, drawing blood but doing little real damage.
The champion had her now, she knew. He turned his overwhelming bulk to crowd her, limiting her ability to swing her powerful arms, and even if she could, she had nothing more than a broken stick to defend herself with. She dodged a swing of the trog’s weapon to her left, to her right, the nasty blade kicking up bits of bone and rock as it smashed against the cave floor.
“Lass, here!” Ingo shouted above the din, and Cordelia saw him skim his axe across the floor, a perfect slide to land near her feet. She reached to scoop it up, ducking under what she thought was a strike from the champion intended to end her.
But it wasn’t intended for her.
There was a sickening, wet thump, and the sound of fabric tearing. Cordelia heard Ingo exhale hard, wheezing in a way she’d never heard him breathe before. There wa
s no cry of pain, no cursing, no berserker’s roar. She cast her eyes up to see the trog champion’s weapon embedded in Ingo’s chest, opening him from belly button to collar bone. The dwarf grabbed hold of the spiked club with both hands, eye to eye with the champion, blood pouring from his mouth and staining his gray beard.
“Do it, lass. Do it now!” he cried.
The champion seemed perplexed, unable to comprehend what had happened, or how this little man still had the strength to cling to his weapon. Ingo bear-hugged the club, cursing in the foulest of language at the trog leader.
Cordelia gripped Ingo’s axe with both hands and leaped into the air, body extended, arms pulled back like a spring ready to snap.
The weapon was smaller than she was used to, but perfectly balanced; a weapon of war forged with love and care. A flawless instrument of death.
She brought the axe down hard, still in the air, legs trailing behind her like a comet’s tail. Every muscle in her upper body burned as she unleashed her rage, becoming as much an instrument of death as the blade she held.
The axe parted the trog champion’s head without a sound, bifurcating left and right, not stopping until the raised metal heart of the axe struck the bones of his neck.
Everything seemed to stop moving then. The champion didn’t fall at first; it was as though he did not yet realize his life was over. He staggered around, eyes wide but not seeing, mouth open, blood running from his lips and ears. He abandoned his vile club, Ingo still impaled on it, and after what felt like an eternity, the champion collapsed, the ground shaking as his frame struck stone.
“No!” Cordelia yelled, watching in horror as Ingo fell to the ground. One of the few remaining troglodytes tried to stop her. Without thinking, she cut him down with a single swipe of Ingo’s blade. Absently, she could hear her friends shouting, but all she could do was stare at this dying man, this fool who had been so unpleasant to her and who had just hours ago seemed capable of redemption and change. The only thing you can hope for from someone with hate in their heart. And that potential for change was bleeding out on the cave floor.
Her throat swelled shut as Ingo pushed the spiked club off his body. Feebly, he pushed himself up against the nearest wall so he could sit upright. His legs didn’t seem to want to move, and one arm hung useless at his side, the fingers on his hand twitching.
“We’ll fix you,” Cordelia said.
Ingo looked down at the shredded wounds on his chest and smiled weakly.
“I know you’ve got a priest with you, but it’ll take more than a little healing magic to put me back together again,” Ingo said.
Cordelia called for Morgan anyway, helping Ingo say upright.
“Don’t you die on us. I was just starting to think you weren’t an irredeemable bastard,” Cordelia said.
“Good timing, then,” Ingo said, coughing. He pointed at the axe she still clutched in her hand. “You keep that. I made it… I made it for my son. He died fighting in the dark like this too. Never got to give it to him.”
“Don’t do this, you old fool,” Cordelia said.
Ingo patted the ground with his one good hand, looked around the now quiet cave absently.
“Good place to die. Good stone. It’s better for a dwarf to die beneath the ground. The sky’s too big. You get lost in it.”
“Ingo, is there anyone…”
“My wife’s gone,” he said. “But if you… if you ever find yourself east of Moderate Expectations, there’s a city on the edge of the God’s Jaws mountain range. My daughter. Clementine Hammerhand. Find her and tell her… I should’ve been a better father. Tell her I died well though.”
“I will, Ingo,” Cordelia said.
“I’m sorry I was cruel to you when we met,” Ingo said.
“You tried to be better,” Cordelia said.
“That’s all life is, isn’t it,” Ingo said. He smiled with blood-stained teeth. “A series of mistakes, and each of us trying to be better than we were the day before.”
“I think so,” Cordelia said.
“I wish I had fewer apologies to give at the end,” he said. “And I wish we had better words for all the wrong we do than I’m sorry.”
Ingo rested his head on his chest. Cordelia heard him exhale. He did not draw another breath.
Morgan fell to his knees next to her, gasping for air.
He looked up into the air, shouting to some unseen presence.
“Help him!” Morgan yelled, but Cordelia knew it wasn’t directed at her. Morgan was appealing to something else, a higher power. “Help me bring him back! Please!”
Morgan put his hands on the old dwarf’s body, but nothing happened.
“Why won’t you answer me?” Morgan said, again clearly not addressing anyone in the cavern.
Cordelia reached own and closed Ingo’s eyes with her fingertips. She slid the axe—a two-hander for Ingo, but one she could wield single-handed—into a loop on her belt. She put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder.
“He was ready,” she said. “Maybe your goddess understands that sometimes warriors don’t want to come back.”
“This was supposed to be a game,” Morgan said. He climbed to his feet. All around them, the trog raiders had fallen. It was a terrible sight. Cordelia felt a heat in her belly, shame at the blood they’d shed, even if, in the end, it was to stop more bloodshed down the road.
On the other side of the room, Eriko and Tobias struggled to move the stones where Tamsin and Jack had disappeared.
“Come on,” Cordelia said. “Let’s go help the people who need still need us.”
She stole one last glance back at Ingo’s body.
“Clementine,” she said, and walked away.
Chapter 18: Are we sure we’re the good guys?
Tobias clawed at the stones blocking the tunnel where his sister disappeared, fighting off the urge lose his mind with panic and rage. No matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t move the rocks fast enough. Beside him, Eriko did her best to help, and even Silence, Jack’s wolf, scratched and pawed, trying to get to his human companion.
“We have to get to them!” Tobias yelled, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
“We’re here,” Morgan said, joining him at the rock pile. Cordelia soon appeared as well, and with the two of them helping, they seemed to start making some progress.
“What if they’re…” Tobias said. “This place is real, right? If you die here you die for real.”
“They’re not dead,” Morgan said, but Tobias found his tone not even remotely reassuring.
Though Tobias thought he was the one closest to having a fit of anger, it was Cordelia who snapped first. Furious at the way the rocks just seemed to tumble and fall to fill in every inch of space they cleared, she started kicking the stone, an ineffective and almost petulant gesture, roaring in rage.
“Nobody else is dying today!” she said, hurling a football-sized stone across the cavern.
Then Silence stopped digging and walked away.
“Oh, that’s great, that’s real loyalty, wolf,” Tobias said. “Just walk away. Not like you were any help anyway. Stupid dog.”
“Yelling at the wolf isn’t going to make this rock pile move any faster,” Eriko said.
“Maybe I can…” Morgan said, standing up to his full height. He muttered a few words, reaching his hand out toward the stones. The faintest glimmer of light began to form around his fingers.
“Holy hell, look at this place,” a voice that was not supposed to be in this chamber said. “It looks like a nightmare. Are we sure we’re the good guys?”
Tobias whipped around to see his sister entering from a completely different opening in the cave, arm-in-arm with Jack as they supported each other to stay standing. Silence, clearly having heard them coming long before everyone else, was already walking by Jack’s side.
Tobias ran to his sister and threw his arms around her.
“Don’t ever knock a cavern wall onto your head again, okay?” he
said. “I don’t want to do this without you.”
Tamsin hugged her brother back. She was covered in dirt and dust, battered and bruised, but alive.
“To be fair,” she told him, “Jack caught most of the cave-in on his head.”
“It’s true,” Jack said. “I’m never going to be right again.”
Tobias pulled Jack into the hug as well.
“Thanks for saving my sister from herself, Jack,” Tobias said.
“Hey!” Tamsin said. “My lightning spell was super effective. It was super effective, right? I didn’t see how it panned out on account of dropping a wall on top of us.”
“It was pretty effective,” Eriko said as she joined them. She punched Jack in the arm. “I think your spell took out almost half of the war band.”
“Took out,” Tamsin said. “Let’s not be delicate about it. I killed half of these creatures. That’s… I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Where’s Ingo?” Jack asked.
Morgan shook his head. Jack nodded.
“We paid in blood, then,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Cordelia chimed in. “Yeah, we did.”
“Is this what this game is all about?” Tamsin said. “Do we just… murder our way across the world and hope nothing murders us back?”
“I think you’ve described one way of playing every RPG ever created,” Eriko said.
“But it’s not the only way,” Tamsin said.
“It isn’t,” Jack said. “You just have to decide you’re not going to be a roving band of killing machines.”
“Can we not do that?” Tamsin said.
“Talking your way out of things is always the harder option,” Cordelia said.
Eriko walked away and began poking through the items the trogs had stolen. Despite her usual glee at looting, her efforts seemed half-hearted this time.
“I just… I want to make sure we’re the heroes of this story,” Tamsin said. “I don’t want this to be our thing. Wiping out entire… whatevers.”
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