by Ramy Vance
This was the perfect chance. Suzuki motioned for Diana to move forward and they rushed through the last stretch of trees until they were practically inside the goblin camp. Suzuki pressed himself against a tree and cast a glance at Diana, who was doing the same.
Across the clearing, Stew, Sandy, and José were also moving into their positions. The orcs were still drinking and talking loudly. None of them noticed as the three MERCs moved through the trees and surrounded them.
Suzuki watched the MERC group. José met his eyes, smiled, and nodded. Then he pointed ahead, signaling to Suzuki to pay attention to what was in front of him. Suzuki turned his attention back to the goblin party.
The two goblins were still fighting each other, their steel clashing loudly in the night. Even if Sandy hadn’t cast a sound-dampening spell, the goblins probably wouldn’t have heard them. Suzuki motioned for Diana to move around to the back of the camp and flank the goblins.
He wished that he had gotten a better idea of what Chip was planning on doing, but she had slipped away too quickly once she had rendered herself invisible. She’ll figure it out, he thought to himself. There’s an obvious reason she’s one of the Horsemen.
Once Diana was in position, Suzuki signaled to her that it was time. Diana waved her wand through the air and a clear, golden light shot out from it and spread over the camp, creating a bubble. None of the goblins seemed to notice.
Suzuki knelt down to see where the edge of the bubble touched the ground. It looked solid enough. This would give him and Chip a bit more time.
Activating his Scent SD, he changed his scent from “Cedar Branch” to “Raw Human,” and even though the scent was extremely specific and not in the SD card’s database, Fred helped bridge the gap between intent and practicality.
Then Suzuki readied his ax and waited. He checked his HUD, but it didn’t give him a percentage chance of success, instead displaying “???.” “Huh?” he muttered to himself. “What the fuck?”
Too many variables, Fred said. Your plan isn’t fully formulated in your mind. That is why the HUD displays what it displays.
I see.
Plus, you have the Horsemen with you. And their HUDs are not integrated with yours. Normally HUDs will communicate with each other, take in as many variables as possible. But the Horsemen’s HUD’s are blocking communication, so any attack that involves them will always come out muddled.
Suzuki blinked his eyes. Blocked? Why?
Because the Horsemen don’t use their HUDs to calculate their chances of success.
What? Suzuki said. They don’t use their HUDs?
“I didn’t say that. SD cards, maps, inventory, yes. But calculating success? That is a crutch they rarely use.
Humph, Suzuki muttered to himself. No percentage success calculations. That’s why these guys are legends. He turned his attention back to the camp.
The goblins were still fighting, their caustic shouts muffled under the golden umbrella of Diana’s spell. None of them seemed to notice that they were slightly less audible than before. As the goblins circled each other, the wargs sleeping by the fire woke up, their noses twitching.
Before any of the goblins noticed what was going on, the wargs stood and bolted toward Suzuki. Only one of the goblins lost interest in the disappearance of the wargs. There was a fight going on.
The first warg leapt over the few bushes separating Suzuki from the goblins, its red eyes searching as its nose twitched with anticipation, its jaws foaming with hunger. Suzuki knew that he only had a few seconds to act.
He whistled while laying low to the ground. The pack of three wargs turned their attention to the source of the noise. They bounded toward Suzuki. A warg pounced, sailing through the air and connecting with Suzuki, who lifted up his flaming ax and caught the warg in the mouth. The beast refused to die and continued snapping at Suzuki as the two other wargs began to circle, ready to come in for the kill.
Up in the trees, there was a clicking sound accompanied by the quiet whir of gears. The two wargs dropped dead, two circular saws in their backs.
Suzuki grabbed the warg’s mouth and pried it off his ax as he scrambled away. He held his hand out, and the ax returned to him instantly. He raised it high and brought it down on the warg’s head. In the distance, he could still hear the goblins dueling with each other. Suzuki motioned toward the goblin camp as he moved forward. In his peripheral vision, he could see Diana advancing as well, her wand pointed out directly in front of her.
When Suzuki was satisfied with his vantage point, he raised his open palm in the air. The goblins were still fighting each other, one scrambling on the ground, the other standing over his former peer, sneering and spitting, his black teeth gnashing wildly.
Suzuki closed his hand into a fist.
Diana waved her wand toward the goblins and there was a bright flash of light. Suzuki tossed his ax through the air and it sailed clear over the hedges, landing square in the largest goblin’s chest.
The goblin went flying as it screamed.
Suzuki thought of his ax, and it pulled itself from the goblin and returned to his hand. He threw the ax again, this time taking off the head of another goblin before he recalled it back to his hand.
A shimmering shadow fell into the center of the camp. The light refractured and bent and Chip sizzled into existence. She pulled a thin metallic slab from her back. As she turned to face the goblins, the slab extended and took the form of a bow. She ran her fingers down the top of the bow to the bottom, and a thin, silk string appeared as she nocked an arrow and let it fly, impaling a goblin through the eye.
Suzuki had never seen anyone move so fast. It was as if Chip’s body were made of water. He didn’t even see Chip drop her bow, but she was now holding two small daggers.
She rushed forward between the three remaining goblins. There was the sound of tearing flesh, and blood splattered across the ground.
The goblins fell, and the camp was silent.
The three MERCs checked through the camp for any other bodies. They gathered up the corpses and shoved them into one of the tents, closing the opening. Then they took the warg bodies and tossed them into another tent. When they had finished taking care of the bodies, they slunk in the direction of the orc camp.
Suzuki saw only the tail end of the destruction that had been unleashed on the orcs. Sandy was floating back down to the ground, her body nothing more than ash and skeleton, crackling with energy as she peered down at the scorched orc bodies beneath her. Stew, crouched down next to an orc nearly twice his size, pulled his sword out of the orc’s neck, while José, who held an orc over each of his shoulders, walked through the fire to toss the bodies in the cover of a tent.
The six MERCs looted the camp, grabbing what gold they could and looking for anything of value.
One of the orcs had a keyring which Suzuki tossed to José, who gave it back to him. Suzuki looked through the keys and then hooked them to the side of his armor. “Can you track where the orcs came from?” Suzuki asked Chip.
Chip shrugged. “Can and will, but I’d have to say, José has the nose of a truffle pig if you’re looking to hunt down anything,” she confessed.
“All right. You scout ahead. Stay up in the trees. If you see anything, let us know via the familiars. We’ll be behind you on foot.”
“Got the sound of a leader croaking through your voice, eh?”
José nodded and slightly touched Chip’s shoulder with a small, almost unnoticeable gesture before leaping into the trees. Chip followed closely behind him and they were soon lost in the greenery.
The rest of the MERCs made their way slowly through the forest, stopping every few feet to survey the area around them or to check above and see how far Chip and José had gotten. Suzuki didn’t think that there would be too many sentry parties located around the Dark One’s defensive rings. They already seemed like overkill. It didn’t hurt to be safe, though.
The forest was thinning, and Suzuki assumed that meant tha
t they were getting closer to the first outer defense ring. Suzuki thought about using the clairvoyance spell to survey the area but remembered that he would need a specific spot. If he wanted to look for Beth with the spell, he would need to know specifically where she was.
Otherwise, he would just be choosing places at random. There was no certainty that he’d be able to see Beth at all or work out a strategy based on what he could see. Making their way through the forest until they could come to a better vantage point made more sense.
Suzuki was surprised that the attack on the goblin and orc camps had gone so well. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in Sandy or Stew but, rather, they had never tried to do anything like that before.
Usually, the Mundanes were thrust into situations that they didn’t quite understand and had to make sense of on the fly. This was the first time that Suzuki could remember them taking their time to formulate a solid plan and implement it since their old days of playing Middang3ard together. And they had pulled it off effortlessly. That was probably one of the perks of working with the vets. It was almost like being around the Horsemen was serving as a reminder to slow down, to take everything in and reduce needless mistakes.
The sound of chanting broke Suzuki’s concentration, but he couldn’t tell where it came from. Briefly, he thought he’d imagined it, but then he noticed the other MERCs stopped too and he realized that it must be real. He cradled his ears and tried to listen.
The chanting was coming from within. It felt as if someone had inserted a chant into his head in words he had never heard before, in a nonsensical language.
Suzuki didn’t need to raise a hand to signal that the party should stop. Stew was looking around, trying to find the source of the chanting. Sandy was harder to read. She only floated by Suzuki as he wracked his brain, looking for answers. Diana was the only MERC who seemed to have a handle on the situation. She pointed to the right, near an alcove embedded in the trees.
“It’s coming from there,” she whispered. “Magic.”
Sandy floated over to Diana so she could get a better look. “What kind?” she asked.
“Necromancy, I think. We’re going to have to be extremely careful. Numbers don’t mean anything to a necromancer. They don’t need to move fast. They don’t need to hit hard. So we need to instead.”
Sandy couldn’t hide her surprise. “Orcs can use magic?”
“They have the ability. As with humans, most have lost touch with what they were capable of. Most magic users are necromancers, basic necromancers as well.”
A voice broke through Suzuki’s head, much like when Fred would speak to him. It was José’s voice, and it sounded distant and fuzzy. Hey, kid, he said. We got eyes on the orc. He’s got a small camp. Couple of undead, but nothing serious. What are you thinking?
You and Chip hit him from above. Take care of the undead, and we’ll neutralize the necromancer.
Neutralize? I like the sound of that. On your mark?
No, we’ll move when you’re ready.
All right. Gimme a moment to get into position. Shit, Chip, will you stop fucking around and pay attention. We’re on the necromancer. Yeah, we’re gonna drop in. Sorry about that, kid. We’re all ready. Moving on the bastard right now.
Suzuki leapt over the last of the trees blocking him from the necromancer. He landed, skidding slightly as he raised his ax and assessed the situation. He heard the other MERCs landing behind him.
The orc necromancer standing before them was a diminutive creature. It was the same height as the usual orc, but it looked to be atrophied, its skin hanging loosely, its eyes gaunt and sallow.
Its skin was a filthy gray, and it stared dumbly at the MERCs in the small, circular clearing. The undead orcs that surrounded the necromancer looked much livelier, even though they were corpses. They hadn’t started to rot yet, and their eyes glowed a sickly red. The clearing smelled of decomposition.
An arrow struck one of the undead and it fell forward, its eyes staring lazily ahead. The rest of the undead formed a tight ring around the necromancer as it started to wave a bone wand.
A volley of arrows rained down from the trees as José jumped into the clearing, bringing down his sword as he screamed.
One of the undead stepped forward and took the brunt of José’s attack. It fell lifeless on top of José as the rest of the MERCs sprang forward and tore through the circle of death protecting the necromancer. Suzuki hacked off the head of one of the undead creatures and tossed it to the side as he stepped closer to end the necromancer.
The necromancer was gone; the only trace remaining was a singed section of grass where his body once stood. Only the bodies of the undead remained.
Suzuki and José knelt down to inspect the grass, then looked at each other, both very confused and suspicious. “Did you kill him?” Suzuki asked.
José shook his head as he stood up and looked around the clearing. “Nope,” he finally said. “Hands up, who killed the weird, witchy guy?”
None of the MERCs raised their hands.
Sandy drifted over to where the necromancer was, the trail of her ashen cloak casting small ash particles that drifted up to the full moon above. “Wish it had been me.” She sighed. “I was really hoping to pick up a relic or something. Get my undead on.”
“He’s got to be around here someplace. But we’re getting too close to the outer ring to be chasing any noisy orcs around. What’s the game plan, kid?”
Suzuki ran his fingers over the singed earth. It was warm as if the necromancer had spontaneously combusted.
But there had been no explosion. There was no way that the necromancer had just croaked. This was Middang3ard, and nothing was that easy.
“Uh…honestly, I wouldn’t mind a little help on this one,” Suzuki finally said.
“That’s a good trait to have. Being able to ask for help is one of the defining characteristics of a good leader.”
“All right, Dad. Thanks for the lecture.”
José laughed as he paced across the small clearing. “All right, I’ll lay off the lectures.” He chuckled. “I say we make camp here for the night. Have Chip and Diana scout ahead so that we can get a clear idea of what we’re going to be up against in the morning.”
“What about the necromancer?”
“That’s why we’re camping here for the night. He’s an orc. He’s not going to want to leave a kill. If we stay here, odds are it’ll draw him back and we won’t have to worry about him alerting anyone. In the rare occasion that he’s an orc with half a brain and does go to alert someone, we’ll already have a defendable position that we’re comfortable in. We’ll sleep in shifts tonight since we’re so close to the outer camps. We’ll keep the clearing defendable, catch a little sleep, and slip on in tomorrow. Sound good?”
“Sounds good to me,” Suzuki said as he turned to Sandy and Stew. “What do you guys think?”
Stew shrugged as he sheathed his sword. “I don’t know, dude. Sleeping in the middle of enemy territory doesn’t sound like the greatest idea.”.
“What about you, Sandy?”
“I want to get my hands on that necromancer. See what his entrails tell me.”
“Uh, so that means you’re in favor of the plan?”
“Yeah, why not? We all saw how huge the Dark One’s camp is. It might take us a week to make our way through the whole thing.”
“Looks like you’re outnumbered, Stew.”
Stew walked over to a rock and squatted as he yawned. “Works for me, dude,” he said. “Just think it’s a little weird taking a nap at the enemy’s doorstep. I really don’t want to call any attention to us with all the sounds of satisfying love that are gonna be coming from my tent.”
“Or you could use that sound-dampening spell.”
“Sometimes the sounds of ecstasy cannot be silenced.”
José stepped between Stew and Suzuki. “All right, then, if you two are done flirting with each other—”
“Uh, bro, I was
talking about fucking my girlfriend. Not Suzy.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night. As I was saying, let’s get started building camp while the rest of the Horsemen do some recon. Then we can get some sleep and start over in the morning.”
There weren’t any complaints from the MERCs. Chip and Diana leapt into the trees and disappeared. Those who remained got started building the camp for the night. The work went quickly enough, and it wasn’t long before José, Sandy, and Stew were sitting around a small fire, roasting some meat and talking quietly.
Suzuki sat in his tent, staring out at the flames of the fire. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something felt off to him. As he lay back in his tent, he chalked it up to exhaustion. The day had been long. Hell, the last few weeks had been long. He was surprised every morning that he was able to make it out of bed.
It was nearly an hour before Chip and Diana returned to camp with news. As it turned out, the MERCs were fairly close to the first ring of the Dark One’s defenses. Luckily, they were still out far enough that they wouldn’t be noticed. Neither Chip nor Diana had been able to find any other sentries.
The necromancer must have been the last line of defense before the Dark One’s camps were exposed.
Even though Suzuki knew the Dark One was the scourge of Middang3ard, he hadn’t expected there to be so much resistance. Why would Beth be held at such a central location? Suzuki didn’t doubt Beth’s abilities as a fighter or those of her compatriots, but it seemed like such an extreme prison for what, at best, were a couple of grunts.
There were so many things that didn’t feel like they added up. Suzuki could have thought about them all night, except José broke his concentration to figure out the guard shifts.
“Groups of two sound like they’ll work best,” José said. “I say we do a veteran and a rookie. Any of you used to taking night watches?”
