by James Hunter
For a split second, I wanted the spider pigs and nagas and werewolves back. Then I had to grin. Wasn’t that one of the wonders of video games? Endlessly grinding the same old monsters got tiresome, which is why the designers threw in new, unique, and nastier villains to wipe out. Still, even at a glance, it was clear only mentally ill programmers would’ve come up with the insidious creatures we had to face now.
Towering stone golems, twelve feet tall, loomed above a crazy carpet of smaller creatures. The hulking monstrosities were cobbled together from grit, dirt, and jagged rocks, all held together by scraggly jungle moss and generous globs of gossamer spider webbing. That and dark magic—even from a distance I could see the noxious green power radiating out in a halo around them. They tromped down the hill, leaving massive, uneven footprints in their wake.
Much faster than the golems were the battalions of three-headed dogs that scuttled in front of them. Cerberus—the mythic three-headed Hellhound who guarded the gates of Hades—must’ve found a lot of action somewhere on the island because he’d spawned hundreds of pony-sized mutts, who barked and growled from triple-packs of slavering maws, studded with yellow fangs. And naturally, malformed midget-sized imps rode the Hellhounds like horses. They were green-skinned, long-eared, long-nosed monsters clad in leather tunics and armed with hooked spears, jagged-toothed swords, and short bows.
The imps had a very Harry Potter house-elf feel to them. But like, if house-elves were rabid and strung out on meth.
“Great,” I whispered, “we’re being attacked by Dobby’s evil cousins riding baby Hellhounds. That’s just what we need.”
But worst of all? The imps, the dogs, and the rock golems weren’t the end of the story.
Ah nope.
Lumbering meathead giants, nine feet tall and bulging with muscles, marched toward us. The pale-skinned goons had misshapen faces, slack jaws, and big, wet lips. A vacant stupor filled dark, deeply recessed eyes, which sat under sloping Cro-Magnon brows. They looked dumber than a box of rocks, but I knew from experience that stupid could turn ferocious in a heartbeat. Heavy, spike-studded iron armor covered their bulky bodies, and wrapped around each wrist was a long length of chain, which ended at a monstrous Morningstar mace.
But Earl hadn’t stopped there. Mounted on the shoulders of the meathead thugs were Gatling guns operated by gimpy goblins, which looked like the weakling imps that hadn’t made the cut. Some had withered legs, others were missing their lower limbs entirely, and all were painfully thin. The denizens of Mad Max: Fury Road had just come to call.
I squinted, straining my eyes as a final horror show stomped into view. It was an enormous war mammoth, each of its tusks longer than a Claymore sword, heavy armor strapped over its shoulders, back, and head. On the mammoth’s back was a rider. A man, clad head to toe in wicked armor fashioned from yellowing bone. In the fading light of the setting sun, he glowed with a putrid light—fallout green like a toxic waste spill. I’d played more than enough video games to know a necromancer when I saw one.
The real question was how Earl had managed to make the creature. Was he some sort of general, like Myrina?
I wasn’t sure, and right now the how didn’t matter so much. As I glanced at the sprawling army I noticed something we could use to our advantage: they didn’t have air support.
Asteria, I sent out in a mental shout.
Asteria’s voice hit me in all her whaleness. Yes, footling land breather! I hear you!
Good, I messaged back. We need you by the southern gate. We’re under attack and what we’re facing … Well, it’s hard to describe, but it ain’t good. On the plus side, they don’t have air troops, so I’m going to need you to bring the thunder. Got me?
Yes, land breather! I will be there anon! The connection died.
Myrina sped up next to me, her training gear gone, replaced with the real deal. “Jacob, we can use our eagle riders and winged horses to harass the troops before they hit the trenches and the razor wire.”
“My thinking exactly. Asteria is already on her way,” I said, simultaneously messaging my ranking Beastiamancer. Toxaris, take your troops and hit the incoming forces, but watch out for their Gatling guns. Keep high and use your projectile weapons if possible. Myrina and I will guard the walls along with a handful of Wardens.
Yes, War God! Toxaris responded.
Warriors on winged horses and giant eagles flashed into view above us. They soared into the darkening sky and leveled out before dropping down, strafing the marching army with arrows and javelins.
Wooden shafts splintered on the stony skin of the golems, but they absolutely pin-cushioned the meathead morons. Unfortunately, said meatheads kept right on stomping toward us, largely unfazed by the attack. A few of the gimpy goblins fell dead from their gunner seats, though, so that was a small win. One that didn’t last for long. In short order, other imps left their three-headed dogs to scamper up the spiked armor of the meatheads, quickly replacing their fallen brethren.
Imps with bows returned fire, but their crappy weapons were no match for our English longbows. But then the Gatling guns opened up …
The thunder and smell of the gunfire brought me back to my training, and it was surreal to be dealing with more modern-day weapons again.
The imps on the meatheads filled the air with smoke and lead. Toxaris and our air force dodged and ducked away from the onslaught of bullets, though a few of the horses and some of the eagles were hit, blood spattering down. But Otrere and I were on the wall, ready to heal them.
The eagles and winged horses wheeled around to the back of the army and then turned for another salvo.
Toxaris, I messaged, focus on the dogs and imps. Your weapons are doing a better job on them than on the golems or the goons.
As you wish, the Beastiamancer replied.
Then overhead, a blue-feathered eagle—three times the size of the rest of the eagles—streaked by like a semitruck with wings.
With her talons extended, Asteria went low and raked her claws through dozens of dogs and gun-toting giants. Her razor-sharp talons tore the Hellhounds in half, beheaded meatheads, and turned imps into greenish goo.
She banked left, latched onto a rock golem, and took off with the creature in her grip. Her wings pumped, great gusts of air beating down on the earth as she climbed. The whole while the golem bucked and fought, its legs swaying uselessly. At thirty feet up, she launched the struggling golem into the tide of monsters; it struck like a falling meteor. It sent three-headed dogs and warrior imps flying. Stony arms and legs burst into deadly shrapnel, which took out more of the incoming army. A deadly blow, but still the army advanced undeterred.
The first of the imp-laden dogs leapt over the trenches. But then they hit the Burmese Tiger Pits. Down they went, one after another after another, into the deep holes, onto the spikes and biting thorns.
Pegasus riders feathered the monsters desperately fighting to break free from the pits with arrows. The creatures never stood a chance. Even with their leather jerkins, arrows found faces, necks, and other exposed flesh. Goblins died screaming as their mounts yowled in pain.
The trenches were too wide for the stone golems and meathead shamblers to step over. However, whoever was leading the army got smart. The golems laid their rocky bodies over the trenches, and the bumbling meatheads strode over their backs. The whole while, Gatling guns screamed, rounds thudding into our walls, brass shells raining down onto the gore-soaked earth. The little rail-gun goblins didn’t seem to have especially good aim, but I didn’t want to risk taking a gut full of lead, so I hunkered down behind the protective stone parapet and motioned for my Wardens to do the same.
Fight smarter, not harder.
Is the gatehouse ready? Myrina messaged.
Phoebe responded. Yep, locked and cocked. Let’s rock these fuckers.
Perfect. High time we saw how these new shitheads handled some superior firepower. I switched to my gaming display to watch.
Two of the ball
istae thumped, hurling a pair of sapling-sized bolts into goblin-toting goons. The first bolt slammed through a neck as thick as my thigh, ripping the poor sucker’s head clean off and taking his goblin gunner out in a stroke of pure luck. The second bolt smashed right through another meathead’s bulky armor, blood spurting as he toppled over, crushing the gimpy goblin on his back.
Imps leapt from the backs of hounds that had survived the pits. They didn’t get two steps before the Amazons manning the gate tower unleashed the flamethrowers, charbroiling the deformed, green-skinned munchkins on the spot. Other imps and their dogs charged through the barrage of arrow fire and columns of flame, only to find themselves ensnared in the gleaming tangles of razor wire. Myrina popped up and sent her enchanted javelin into the chest of a mini-Cerberus. Lightning flashed, and thunder boomed as the dog exploded.
Then, the magic missile appeared back in the leather quiver on her back. Magic rocks so hard.
I rose and thrust one hand out, palm up, and triggered Lightning Lance. My Essence dipped as the miracle exploded out in a blue-white arc, sandblasting an encroaching goon right in his dopy, slope-browed face. The shambler convulsed, blunt teeth rattling, arms rigid, smoke rising in plumes before the bolt arced again, zapping the imps and Hellhounds around him. The bodies fell smoking to the ground, ruined and dead.
A fresh wave of gunfire strafed the battlements, forcing us back down. The gatehouse rotated again, and more ballistae bolts streaked through air followed by arrows from the Battle Wardens up top. The tower shifted, more quickly this time, and our own Gatling guns rattled off rounds. The bullets tore into the bodies of meatheads, imps, and dogs alike, keeping them off our walls and away from our gate. A few wily imps scrambled forward, hoping to take cover at the base of the walls where the gunfire couldn’t reach.
Great bucketfuls of burning oil did them in.
The stone golems rose from bridging the trenches and joined the attack.
But Asteria wasn’t having it, not even a little.
She swooped in again—deftly avoiding their stony fists—and seized a second golem in massive talons, climbing once more before launching the monster to the ground like a cruise missile. More golems died, ripped apart by the sheer force of their falling friend. But there were too many of the golems for her to deal with alone, and so far, our weapons hadn’t affected them. The flamethrowers, Gatling guns, and ballistae bolts simply didn’t have the juice to put ’em down.
One reached the southern gate and smashed a fist into the wood. The entire gate bulged inward, the wood groaning, rivets popping, as it threatened to give.
For a beat, I thought about simply opening the gate and letting my bear riders and bull riders deal with the stone giants, but I wasn’t sure Euryleia or Ariadne would be able smash through their skin.
Sabra, my recently leveled-up Forest-Witch, darted up the steps and raced to the battlements. Raising her arms, she cast a Combat Growth spell. Writhing vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around arms and legs and torsos like pythons. More vines joined the fray a heartbeat later, squeezing stony throats and pulling the rocky golems to the earth, miring them in an awesome AOE holding spell. The Forest-Witch trembled under the effort, though, sweat coating her face as her eyes grew hazy.
She couldn’t keep it up for long. Thankfully, Asteria was already exploiting the temporary weakness. She cannonballed from the air, the ground cratering around her as she landed, kicking up a dust cloud. As the dust faded, a blue-furred bear that would’ve made a grizzly look small emerged with a bone-shaking roar. Asteria: at least four thousand pounds of muscle, fur, claws, fangs, and pure fury.
She barreled forward, giant arms lashing out with incredible strength; her paws ripped off limbs and blocky heads. And the golems couldn’t do a damn thing. They were sitting ducks down there, bound and immobile from the vines. Myrina and I joined the effort. My Battle Warden threw her lightning javelin and I unleashed Lightning Lance after Lightning Lance. Together, we struck the golems until their rocky flesh crumbled.
Otrere and Calla took out another golem together. First Otrere would hit the stone creature with a spray of magical water, cooling the surface of the monster. Then Calla sprayed superheated fire from her hands. It hit the brittle rock and caused the golem to explode in a bank of white steam.
Eventually, though, Sabra faltered. She reeled drunkenly before toppling over, her vines withering away as she lost focus. But it was okay. She’d held the line, dammit, and that had bought us the time to deal with the attack without losing a single Amazon and without major damage to our fortifications. Oh, hells yeah! I was getting good at this God of War thing.
An alert flashed in my gaming display. Incoming message. That was odd.
A feeling of dread hit me as I answered and Earl Echo Earl’s voice hit my mind like a sucker punch. You did pretty good against my latest batch of monsters, dickweed. Too bad it was just a little test. Now, how about we play for real?
I looked down at the battlefield.
I’d forgotten about the green glowing Necro mounted on his War Mammoth … Which is when it dawned on me: That guy wasn’t some random Boss Monster. No, it was Earl Echo Earl in the flesh. What in the hell happened to him? I wondered.
It seemed he was no longer Earl Echo Earl, but Earl Necro Earl … Ba-Dum-CH!
Necro Earl raised his armored fists high, green power swirling around him like a tornado as a terrible chant rolled from his mouth, the words jagged and painful to hear. Like rusty nails driven into my eardrums. Across the field, the corpses of the creatures we’d just painstakingly murdered groaned as they slowly climbed to their feet.
Damn, Phoebe messaged me. He’s going all Game of Thrones on us.
Earl’s voice echoed laughter as he stood on his saddle. “Charge!” he boomed, the ginormous mount breaking into a lumbering run as he led his zombie horde into battle.
SEVEN
Earl Echo Douchebag
As Earl Necro Earl barreled toward us on his war mammoth, the decrepit skeletons of long-dead werewolves and half-rotted nagas—victims of earlier skirmishes—pulled themselves from the muck and dirt and shambled toward us. Headless meatheads, imps with their entrails dragging on the ground, and three-headed Hellhounds, clearly dead, joined the fray too. At least the stone golems stayed down. It seemed Earl’s power only worked on dead organic matter.
Undead imps cranked up the Gatling guns on the zombie meatheads, and once more rotating barrels vomited fire and smoke; bullets sparked, whined, and ricocheted off our battlements. Amazons took damage. My combat display flashed red as HP bars shrank. Dammit!
I messaged my Amazons. Euryleia, Asteria, we’ll need the Beastiamancers to engage the incoming dead. Toxaris, supply air support. Vara, Sophia, Loxo, we need you to take out the necromancer on the mammoth. Every other available warrior, get up here now!
I knew my Huntress and the Teleporters could strike and disappear, but still, I worried I was sending them on a suicide mission.
The first of the undead army hit our defenses like a tsunami made of rotten meat and splintered bone. The smell wafting up was horrendous. Spider pigs, missing legs and slick with death juices, scurried into the razor wire and stuck there. But they didn’t care. Nope, not one bit. They mashed themselves into the wire, oblivious to pain, giving the other monsters a grisly staircase of bodies they could use to climb onto the walls.
Calla thrust both hands forward and launched a gout of brilliant flame, charbroiling all the arachnaswine within a ten-yard radius, but there were too many for her to toast completely. She took an arrow to the shoulder and dropped to a knee, eyes suddenly hazy. My other Elementalists were doing their part. Otrere rushed to the gatehouse to heal archers who had taken damage. Sabra had used up her Exousía in the golem attack, but she had grabbed a longbow and quiver. She’d pop up, fire, then bop right back down, nocking another arrow.
Our gatehouse rotated. Arrows, ballistae bolts, and bullets tore into the undead army, but these weren
’t like The Walking Dead zombies. Simple brain damage wouldn’t stop them. Only complete and total destruction would do.
And speaking of complete and total destruction … the gates below me thundered open and my heavy cavalry burst forward. Bear riders and bull riders surged out, hitting the shambling, weaving undead like a sledgehammer through drywall. Euryleia had used her Shift Form ability and had become a golden grizzly herself. Behind her were five other lesser bears—conjured with her Summon Animal skill—and Buttercup, the uber bear. Euryleia led them in a ferocious charge. Paws swept off heads, sent limbs spinning away, annihilated hip joints, and left the zombies twitching uselessly on the ground.
Ariadne merged with her bull to become a twelve-foot-tall minotaur wielding an enormous ax. She whirled her weapon around and decapitated six enemies before striding forward on giant hooves, her colossal steps rattling the earth. Other bull riders kept the zombies off her as she struck again and again with her ax. The bull riders used swords and spears to destroy their enemies, but their bulls were equally affective against the zombie invaders. Soon, rotted flesh and coagulated blood covered their horns and black gore painted their front legs and sharp hooves.
Asteria was in a constant state of flux. She flowed like quicksilver from giant eagle to saber-toothed tiger to bear to mammoth. She left a trail of savage butchery in her wake: bodies cleaved in two, others missing legs or whole torsos—swallowed by a blue-furred tiger. And nothing seemed capable of standing against her mammoth form. Her huge trunk crushed pelvises while she used her tusks to rend muscle and break bone. Bits of the undead carpeted the ground.
Fighting the living was hard enough, but unfortunately, fighting the dead proved even more difficult.
The arms that Asteria removed continued to grasp at legs. If a torso still had an arm and a weapon, it would hack at anything around it. While my Amazons were doing okay, it wasn’t long before we started taking casualties.
