by Eric Vall
“I didn’t mean to be cold to you.” Maron sniffed and wiped a stray tear from his sad green eyes. “You were always good to her, and she told me how much she liked you. I should thank you for that.”
I smiled a little despite the heavy feeling in my chest. I didn’t know Anya well, at least, not as well as I knew the women I was with now. She was always kind, though, and could hold her own when men tried to pick her up.
“You’re grieving,” I told him. “You’re allowed that.”
Maron sighed, then nodded a bit as he folded his hands in his lap and sat back in the chair I’d brought for him.
“Things haven’t been the same around here,” he said as he cleared his throat. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that. Lots of people moved to the Enclaves after the attack last year. They felt safer there. Then word about the rift opening up in Varle came. Nowhere is safe.”
“It’s true,” I agreed, “but we’re doing everything we can to end everyone’s suffering for good. Also, she might still be alive. There were survivors to the attack.”
I looked to Varleth for backup, but he wasn’t looking at us. Instead, he stared agape out the window that overlooked the main strip. His face was pale, and his eyes were concerned as they darted around.
“What?” I asked, and Varleth stood abruptly.
“We have to go,” he muttered as he stepped onto the table and leapt toward the double doors that led outside.
I didn’t question what had him so worked up. I didn’t need to. I just stood so fast I knocked my chair over and followed him.
“Wake up our friends and take cover, Maron,” I ordered him calmly.
“What’s going on?” he asked me, though from the blanched look on his tired face, he already knew what I was going to say.
“Monsters,” I replied simply, and then I ran out the doors to continue following Varleth into battle. He hadn’t gotten far though, and I nearly barreled him over when I ran smack into his backside.
“Sorry,” I apologized as we righted ourselves.
“Look.” He ignored me, or he didn’t care in the first place, and pointed to the outskirts of the town where Erin had landed her ship upon our arrival yesterday.
“Son of a bitch,” I swore as I saw the telltale signs of a rift. Black smoke, the stench of rotted death permeating the air, and of course, the monsters that came with it.
“Should we wait for Erin and Ashla?” Varleth questioned as his fists balled at his side. He didn’t have his sword on him, why would he? There wasn’t any time to go back inside to grab it, either. We needed to fight now, and he seemed to know that.
“No. They’ll be along,” I answered as I tore a crystal from my bandolier. “We have to do what we can to preserve what’s left of this town.”
Varleth nodded. He didn’t need anymore convincing.
“Let’s go then,” he grunted, and then he was off. He sprinted through the streets and warned anyone nearby to take shelter somewhere safe.
As for me, I slammed the crystal in my hand to the ground, and my baroquer emerged with what sounded like a long, metallic yawn. He immediately reached an arm down and allowed me to climb onto it so I could take my spot upon his shoulder.
“Rise and shine, big guy,” I told him. I wasn’t sure when I decided my baroquer was a male and not an it, but it somehow didn’t seem appropriate to refer to a monster I was bonded to as a simple thing.
So, it became a him. I was progressive like that.
I looked out over the town from my new vantage point, and my stomach dropped. Already, there were fires along the outskirts that were quickly making their way inward. Imps and trolls of different variants stomped and skittered through the hillside en masse. There had to have been at least a hundred of them, maybe more.
The baroquer raised up his arms, sword and all, as though he was stretching, and then brought them back down. Then, one step at a time, he picked up speed until he soared over Varleth. True, the baroquer was big, and he moved pretty slow because of the armor, but that was no reason not to fear his charge. He was massive, and the lesser monsters seemed to know that because they started to cower and scatter as we approached.
We didn’t allow them to get far, however. A few of them scrambled to get away from him, but quick as they were, their size was a disadvantage in this instance. I heard their bones crunch and their blood squelch from their organs as the baroquer mowed them down. Then he readied his sword over his head and simply awaited my command to bring it down again.
As soon as we were far enough away from the houses that still stood, I gave the order.
“Now!” I bellowed.
With a thunderous roar, the baroquer brought down the large great sword he carried and slammed it into the ground.
Chapter 3
With a percussive sound, a ring of fire and broken earth shot outward from the impact of the baroquer’s sword. The force of the shockwave sent vibrations rattling through my bones, and the nearest trolls were felled in the blast with their chests crushed inward and their fur charred instantly from the heat. Imps caught in the air when the shockwave hit tumbled to the ground, only to be crushed under their larger comrades’ bodies and feet.
Dozens of monsters were taken out in a single blow, and I surveyed my work with swelling satisfaction. Last time I fought a battle in Ralor’s Stead, I’d exhausted my mana just from using monsters like daggerdillos and wallerdons. Now, I had returned armed to the teeth with powerful monsters I’d captured by myself and a team of allies I could trust to have my back.
This town wasn’t going down under my watch.
My baroquer crushed any who had survived underfoot as he stomped his way through the field toward the rest of the horde. A group of electric imps flew by to try to skirt us and enter the town, but icicles shot from the sky and slapped them from the air to the ground. Ashla’s work, surely. As I watched, she leapt at the imps with her glittering axe and finished them off with a few deft blows.
As they died, Erin ran up with her comet of orange hair trailing after her. Then she took Ashla by the shoulder and turned her around for a lingering kiss that seemed to take the ice mage by surprise. The two girls drew close, and Ashla pressed her hands into the mimic’s back. Just as Ashla began to melt into the kiss, Erin drew back with a grin and a playful wink.
I shook off my distraction and turned back to my work as my baroquer came face to face with a dozen fire trolls. They were impervious to the flames from his blade, and when he swung, they scattered out of his way, just barely avoiding the metal itself.
I smashed a speed slug crystal between my hands and slapped it onto my baroquer’s head. It gave him the boost he needed to pin two of the trolls down with a foot and crush the life out of them. That seemed to get through the thick skulls of the survivors, because they roared and turned tail to flee.
Before they could escape, Erin and Ashla appeared with their hands outstretched. They caged the trolls in with a sweeping gesture that bloomed into a wall of ice. Crystalline shards grew outward from it and impaled several of the trolls before they could halt their own momentum. The others narrowly avoided being stabbed only to get caught between me and the wall.
I grinned. With the trolls lined up like ducks in a row, I gave a command, and my baroquer leveled his sword and swept it wide through the remaining monsters. The blade sliced through their stomachs in a single line, and their dismembered bodies slumped to the ground.
I looked around. We were doing a good job of keeping some nasty incomers out of the village, but something needed to be done about crowd control inside. The narrow streets made for difficult fighting, and my baroquer was too big for that task. Instead, I pulled out a bullet bass and my collection of daggerdillos. Then I asked my baroquer to put me down before I focused on keeping monsters away from the village.
“Erin!” I called and beckoned her over as I ran back into Ralor’s Stead.
She sprinted over to meet me on the main street.
�
�Ashla has enough mana to handle big groups of monsters, but I need your help here,” I told the mimic. “Can you ice the streets? Just a thin sheet will do, but I need them slippery.” I took out a speed slug and handed it over so she could attach it to the back of her neck.
She gave me an odd look, but nodded and responded, “Sure thing,” before she set to work.
I turned my attention back to my baroquer to give it directions in the fight. Meanwhile, Erin ran back and forth through the town that teemed with low level monsters. Her feet slid on the slick sheet of ice she laid down as she went, and I saw her stumble a few times, but the speed slug let her slip out of situations with ease so she didn’t fall.
“I killed as many as I could while I went,” Erin huffed breathlessly once she ran back to me, “but I just can’t keep up. I hope you have a plan.”
“Don’t I always?” I winked at her and grinned broadly.
“Yep.” She smiled back with warm trust in her eyes.
“Watch,” I said as I threw out my daggerdillo crystals, several speed slugs, and a bullet bass. With a few silent commands, the daggerdillos were coated in metal and sent sliding and rolling through the streets at high speeds.
I watched as one slammed into a group of goblins, and it obliterated them in a flash of metal spikes and blood before it rolled onward.
Like this, the streets would be kept clear with almost no effort on my part. The villagers were already inside their homes as they tried to huddle away from the threat, so this method was both effective and safe.
Erin whistled. “How’d you think of that?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Daggerdillos curl up so easily, and nothing slides on ice better than a ball of slick metal. Lots of kids in the Wilds play a similar game in the winter with a lump of iron and some sticks.”
Erin giggled. “Too bad I can’t borrow some of that brain of yours. I’ll settle for this.” She leaned in, kissed me deeply, and sent a delicious thrill of pleasure up my spine.
I pulled her in close as the connection between us thrummed to life. I could almost feel my magic flowing through us as I infused her with part of myself. She moaned, and I shivered. It seemed like this kind of power transference grew more pleasurable and potent every time it happened.
Reluctantly, we broke apart.
“Wow,” Erin said as her cheeks flushed pink. “That mana of yours tastes better than I remembered.”
I grinned and thought maybe it wasn’t just the mana that had improved.
Despite her flustered appearance, Erin gathered herself quickly and took a few steps back. “Thanks for the pick-me-up, gotta go!” she said over her shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” I yelled after her.
“Varleth needs a ride!” she called, then winked and ran off.
Erin’s spunk alongside Varleth’s droll, levelheaded approach?
Well, wouldn’t that be a sight.
I pulled out my rhin dagger as a chatteroshi bounded toward me. I ducked as it leapt and stabbed it upwards through its breastbone. Blood gushed over my arm, and I stumbled away from the body while I pulled out my daggers.
Time to get back to my baroquer.
I could sense him fighting through our bond as our awareness of each other subtly influenced his decisions in battle. Behind me, I could barely feel the weaker sensation of my daggerdillos and speed slugs as they did their jobs. Catching my own monsters was clearly worth the time and effort. My attention was stretched thin by keeping track of the daggerdillo operation, but it would hold.
I ran out from around the corner of the town smithy only to run straight into a mountain troll. His muscles flexed under a layer of rock-like armor as he roared and came for me, and I pulled out my father’s dagger and brandished it alongside my rhin dagger.
In the final feet before the troll barrelled me over, I rolled sideways and slashed at the heels of the monster as it passed. Tendons severed, it howled, and then crashed over sideways. Mindless with pain and rage, it grasped for me with arms outstretched to crush and maim.
My baroquer’s sword slammed into it suddenly and cleaved its head from its shoulders. The grossly muscled arms twitched in death throes, and the baroquer grunted in satisfaction.
I looked up at my baroquer and gave a thumbs up. “Thanks, buddy. Even though I definitely had that covered.”
He rumbled out a metallic sigh that seemed to disagree and stretched his hand out for me.
I grinned and clambered on. The baroquer was a long way away from having the attitude of my roosa or pyrewyrm, but it seemed like he was willing to sass me over my safety. It was cute, in a way.
I climbed onto his head just in time to spot Varleth and Erin below on her stagi. I’d seen the horse-like monster used as transportation before, but I’d never witnessed it in action.
The mimic and banisher left behind a trail of celestial dust and blood as Varleth’s sword flickered left and right, lopping off pieces of monsters. Even if the wound wasn’t fatal, the dark aura around his blade drained each monster of its life force. Together, the pair of mages left a wide swath of crumpled, disintegrating bodies in their wake. It was an odd team, but it was incredibly effective.
Maker, this was Erin’s idea? I wasn’t sure why she’d wanted a piece of my brains if she had plans like this stored up her sleeve. I supposed it made sense she was good at new strategies on the fly. As a mimic, she could never rely on the same set of powers for every fight.
Not to be shown up, I ordered my baroquer to swing his sword and release another shockwave of fire and debris. The earth trembled around us, and the scalded bodies of monsters sent out clouds of smoke and the smell of burning flesh.
I glanced behind me to see the tiny figure of Ashla putting out fires in the town. Monster corpses lined the streets, and from what I could see and sense, my daggerdillos had essentially run out of enemies to obliterate. I recalled them, their speed slugs, and the bullet bass, and then I sighed in relief as that drain on my mana ended.
We made our way across the rest of the field as my baroquer smashed imps and swept trolls into ash. Eventually, the rift yawned before me, but no more monsters came out. I got down to the ground and recalled my baroquer. Then Varleth and Erin pulled up on the stagi, which snorted and pranced in place before the portal.
“It looks clear,” Varleth said. “Ashla’s coming, and then we’ll have enough members for a full monster response team.”
“Like that’s ever stopped Gryff before,” Erin piped up.
“Hey,” I complained, “that was only a few times. All special circumstances, I swear.”
Varleth frowned, and Erin tilted her head and hummed.
“Well, except that one time when you jumped into the Academy portal that opened during combat training,” she mused. “Or that other time with Gawain and the ice troll. Or that time when you--”
“Oh look,” I interrupted hastily, “here comes Ashla.”
She ran up with her axe, Bessie, propped over one shoulder, and the double-sided blades dripped with blood and melting ice.
“Hey, everybody,” she greeted. “Thanks for waiting on me to start the party.”
“It’s no party without you,” Erin said sweetly.
Ashla smiled wide, and her eyes lit up with coy delight. Tension crackled between them, and I realized the kiss earlier must’ve reignited some of last night’s passion.
Maker, nothing made me happier than watching them like this.
“Well, come on then. World’s not going to save itself,” Ashla said cheekily, and then she strode past us into the rift.
Not about to be left behind, the three of us followed hastily.
Inside the rift, I coughed as the stench overwhelmed me. The smell of rotting flesh and death pressed on my mind. I regretted following through the portal with so little foresight, but Varleth started passing out gas masks.
“You’re lucky I picked up the rest of our supplies when I went back for my sword,” Varleth said drolly.
At least he was on top of things.
Ashla flexed her arms and cracked her knuckles with a series of pops. Then she picked up her axe and twirled it by the haft.
“Ah,” she sighed. “No action on this side yet. Kind of a pity.”
I took a moment to note our surroundings. Nothing seemed too unusual. In one direction of the Shadowscape, I could see the dilapidated crumble of buildings that stood in for Ralor’s Stead on this side. In the other direction, twisted dead trees and cracked ground made up the rest of the landscape. Overhead, the usual dark roiling sky of the Shadowscape rumbled and swirled fitfully. Otherwise, the area was uneventful.
“Looks good,” I said. “Ashla, Varleth, you two go find the catalyst. Erin and I will cover the gate here.”
Everybody nodded, and Erin planted a quick kiss on Ashla’s lips. It was chaste in the name of speed, but Ashla licked her lips hungrily anyways. She seemed a little disappointed.
“Next time,” Erin promised with a wink. “And remember, I wouldn’t have to kiss you at all if I didn’t love to. A touch is all it takes.”
“As Gawain well knows,” I joked.
Everybody but Varleth chuckled, though his lips quirked slightly anyways.
Then the gypsy’s head tilted, and his eyes closed in concentration for a moment. A moment later, he blinked and looked up.
“I’ve got it,” Varleth said, “The catalyst is this way.”
He and Ashla took off at a jog toward the ruins of the village and left Erin and I alone.
For a while, the Shadowscape just grumbled and stank. I waited for some terrible monster to show its face, but nothing happened.
“Not a bad rift,” I commented. “Sure, the hundreds of grunt monsters weren’t fun, but we seem to be getting a good deal just standing around here.”
Erin smiled. “Your standards are getting lower.”
“Who, me?” I asked. “If anything, my standards are getting higher. A man can only have so many beautiful girls coming onto him before he raises the bar for himself.”
The mimic gave me a flirtatious glance. “Then I’ll aim to keep the bar high.”
