by Paul Barrett
“Let this one go,” I told him. “You made a good effort of it. Hell, I support your cause. I’d be happy to discuss it over some cold ale. But this isn’t how you’re going to do it. Leave.”
I saw it in his eyes. He had conviction, but not enough. He looked at his mate. She nodded. Head downcast, he gave me a nod. He was giving up. We were going to win.
Then the roof of the warehouse exploded inward with a thunderous crack of rafters and shingles. The raining debris probably killed at least twenty of the gobs outright. Zombies and skeletons fell into the hole like ants boiling out of a mound.
“I’m… getting… really tired…of this,” a familiar voice of insanity said. The bulge-eyed mage floated down amidst the dropping undead.
Couldn’t this guy die like a normal person already?
15
The gobs tried. They really did. They were hopelessly outmatched from the onset by the animated corpses and bones pouring through the new skylight. We pitched in. I fired my wand until I ran out of charges. My axe cleaved any enemy that came at me. Liz launched arrows until she ran out. Then she waded in with knife, claws, and teeth. Quinitas blasted off shockwaves and lightning and magic I had no name for. Insano the Wild-Eyed countered almost every spell and launched a few of his own. His mad giggle echoed over the melee.
From what I could see, the hob and his mate gave a good accounting, but she fell, torn apart by zombies, and he disappeared from my view.
Before I went down from a meaty zombie fist to my head, the warehouse made the world’s largest bonfire, Crizlyk had gone missing, Quinitas bled from multiple cuts, and both his bodyguards had been decapitated by fire bolts. It was a massacre, and we were on the losing end. So much for the revolution.
I awoke with my head pounding to find myself on the floor of a cold stone room. My axe and wand were gone. I still had my clothes.
I wasn’t alone. Quinitas, Liz, and the hob were with me. We had no weapons, but I saw the gleam of the hob’s chain shirt. Quinitas sat against the wall, eyes staring at the door. He was as disheveled as I had ever seen an elf. Rips showed pale skin beneath his dark clothing, much of it darkened by blood. More blood clotted on his forehead. Though none of us had been chained to the gray stone wall, the elf had short-chained manacles around his wrists. Probably made of anti-magic metal. The rest of us had no such shackles.
Liz and the hob were still unconscious on the floor. They both looked beat to hell, yet still breathed. I didn’t see bites on either of them, so zombie fever wouldn’t be an issue. I groaned as I sat up and asked Quinitas the top question on my mind. “Any idea why we’re still alive?”
“Oh, yes,” Quinitas said. “Two possibilities. Either my sister wants to gloat, or she needs more blood to activate her machine and sees this as some sort of twisted justice. I suspect it’s a little of both.”
I nodded and crawled my way over to Liz. I lightly slapped the side of her face. “Liz, wake up.” She didn’t move. I slapped a little harder. “Liz!”
She stirred, rolled her head to the side and coughed. I could see only one of her eyes since the other was pressed against the floor. Her visible eye narrowly opened and stared at me. “Why are we still alive?”
“Because I’m too ugly to die and you’re too pretty to kill,” I said. I sat back and waited for her to pull herself up. She released a few of her own, non-ladylike groans. Dark green splotches showed where she had bruised. She had long, shallow cuts on both arms. Blood and bits of undead flesh caked her claws.
“Thanks for the compliment,” she said, “but I don’t need the ego boost. What’s going on?”
I told her Quinitas’ theory.
“You do manage to work for the most interesting clients,” Liz said.
“What happened to Criz?”
She shook her head, then stopped and put her hands on it. “Ow. I told him to stay put when I ran out of arrows and jumped off the bales. For all I know, he’s still there.”
“I hope he ignored you, or he’s a briquette now.” I wasn’t too worried. Criz had survived an entire war under the harshest conditions, so he had a strong sense of self-preservation. Hopefully, he had escaped and would live a long, healthy life. Which was more than it looked like we would manage.
I stood up and walked to the wooden door. Rattled it. It was locked. No great surprise. “Any ideas on how to get out of here?”
“We could use your thick head to bash down the door.” This came from the hob lying on the floor, eyes still closed.
I walked up and kicked him in the ribs. He groaned and curled up, protecting his stomach. “That’s for your wiseass comment.” I delivered another kick to his face. His head rocked back, and blood squirted from his nose. “And that’s for punching me in the face.”
I felt like giving him a few more for being a general pain in my ass, but I’m not the kind to kick a downed opponent. Usually.
I walked away. “Anybody have any better ideas?”
“Why couldn’t we use your head?” Liz said. At my hard look, she said, “I mean, what’s inside your head.”
“Why Liz,” I said in my most innocent voice as I shook that same head, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“She’s talking about your psionics,” Quinitas said. “Which I know about, so you can stop being coy. It’s nauseating.”
“First your sister, now you? Do I have a sign on my forehead?”
“Elves are sensitive to the power,” Quinitas explained. “Which is why it’s not outlawed in elvish lands. We don’t fear it, so we have no reason to hate it.”
“Once we take over Mage City,” the hob said, still curled up. “It will be welcome here, too.”
“Shut up,” I growled. “You’d be lucky to take over a fishmonger’s stall. Your rebellion got crushed, in case you didn’t notice.”
He must have decided I wasn’t going to kick him anymore. He uncurled and looked at me. When he saw I had walked out of striking distance, he sat up. One of his long ears hung useless, tattered and bloody. His right eye was puffed. His lip was split. Those had been there before I hit him. “You think what you saw at the warehouse was all of GOBLET? Not by a long stretch. We’ll rise again, and we’ll make Mage City suffer. I’ll do it for Hilda’s memory.” Tears sprang to his large brown eyes. His lip quivered.
“Was that your mate?” Liz asked. The hob nodded. “Sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” I said. “She messed with the wrong people; she got killed. Shit happens.”
“And those same people are going to kill us. Is that ‘shit happens’ too?” Liz said. “Crizlyk may well be dead by these people.” She shrugged. “Shit happens. Quit being such a heartless asshole.”
That took me aback. First, I didn’t accept the idea of Criz being dead. He had escaped. He was good at slipping through tight places. He had freed himself from slavery; he could get out of a burning building. Second, Liz and I had our differences, but she had never snapped at me like that.
I looked at the hob. Tears flowed freely from his reddened eyes. I still had hope Criz had made it out alive. The hob could have no such illusions. He had seen his mate die. I didn’t think hobs could have such deep emotions. After all, they were nothing more than savages with a veneer of civilization forced on them by the humans. At least that’s what we had always been taught.
By the humans.
I began to wonder if they said the same things about dwarves.
I also considered the hob’s statements before everything went to shit in the warehouse. I was marginalized. Not as bad as the gobs, but humans did tend to turn their noses up at me. Some of it was my doing. My drinking and ill appearance didn’t endear me to many. Still, it wasn’t all me. Some of it was human prejudice. And elf, if I was totally honest. Even though I still couldn’t condone the hob wanting to revive a pair of demons to settle his grievances, I began to understand what could drive him to it.
I walked toward him and put out my hand. He flinched. When I
offered no slaps, he extended his hand. I took it and shook. “Sorry about your mate,” I said. “I’m Snazdaggin. My friends call me Spade.”
“Is that what we are?” the hob said, voice laced with bitterness. “Friends?”
“Not yet,” I said, “but people who’ve gotten their ass stomped with me get a special pass.”
He didn’t do anything for several seconds, then a ragged smile of yellow teeth appeared. “Klaus. Pleased to meet you.”
I laughed as we shook hands. “Words I never expected to hear from you.” I sat down and put my head against the wall. “I need a drink.”
It was the hob—Klaus’s turn to laugh. A thick, guttural sound. “I can help with that.” He lifted the leg of his leather pants and took out a black lacquered flask. He tossed it to me. I grabbed it, smiled, and popped the cap.
“If you had offered him that when you met him at the Dragonport,” Liz said, “this whole unpleasant mess could have been avoided.”
I was about to argue, then decided I’d rather take a drink. The harsh liquor burned like a fireball rushing down my throat. The warmth spread and set up prickling pins of delight throughout my body. “Good stuff,” I said. I tossed it back to Klaus, and he took a swig.
“Okay, now I can think,” I told them. I looked at Klaus. “I don’t agree with your methods, but I understand your cause. Perhaps when we get out of here—”
“If we get out of here,” Quinitas helpfully reminded me.
“—we can seriously discuss these issues. If I can help, I will. Until then, you have to accept that we can’t let you summon the Demon Twins to possibly start another war and certainly destroy an entire city just to make people take notice. Agreed?”
Klaus didn’t say anything for at least a minute. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes. Then he sighed and took another swig. “Agreed.”
I blinked. I hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Evidence that a severe ass kicking can change your perspective.
“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s work on that ‘getting out’ part of the plan.” I looked at the door. Wooden. No iron bindings. A not too fancy lock. Crizlyk could have picked it like it was his toes. I pushed away the thought that he might never pick anything again. The door ran almost flush with the floor. Not enough gap for Liz to slip through, even in her smallest incarnation. The manacles Quinitas wore were thick iron, the chain between them solid links half an inch thick. No chance of getting them off so he could work his magic. Klaus and I might be able to break it down with sheer strength. If it was barred on the other side, however, we would end up humiliated, possibly with broken shoulders. If we had—
I looked at Quinitas. “Hey, sorry about your bodyguards, too.” I almost felt bad that I hadn’t thought about them until now.
Quinitas nodded. “Thank you. They’ll be difficult to replace.”
I hadn’t liked them. I certainly wished we had them here now. It couldn’t be helped. If we were going to get out of here, I would have to make it happen. I took a deep breath and let it out. “Any more of that left?” I asked Klaus.
He nodded and handed the flask back over to me. I downed the last of it. More tingling. I felt better than I had since before Stinkhole exploded. I walked over and put my hand against the stone. With my dwarvish senses, I could tell we were at least thirty feet underground. I sensed something wrong, like the emanation I got from the falchion, but much stronger. “I think we may be in the same place as your sister’s machine. Where would that put us?”
“In the halls under our primary manor.”
I stared at the elf. “The machine was here in your home all the time? Why not just destroy it instead of going on a chase for a sword?”
“I seem to recall mentioning the heavy guard she has on it,” Quinitas said. “I couldn’t get anywhere near it. I couldn’t get any of my people near it. I lost more than a few trying. But now that we’re here, this close, I think destroying it is our best option.”
“Now you want to destroy it?” I asked. “What makes you think we’re going to stand any better chance than your other people?”
“I don’t know that we are,” Quinitas admitted. “But I know this is going to be our last chance. Siralanna has the falchion and tomorrow is the darkest night of the month. She’s going to complete the ritual. So we die trying to stop her, or we go sit in a tavern for a day and die drinking until the demons destroy the city.”
“That second option has a lot of merit,” I said.
Liz nudged me in the back.
“What?” I growled. “What can the four of us do? We don’t know anything about the machine. We don’t know who or what is guarding it. We can’t do much with only our teeth and hands. And the elf is pretty useless wearing that jewelry.”
Quinitas held up his cuffed hands, studied them, and then nodded. “If we can get to my chamber, we can fix this. It’s a necessary delay. You’re right; I can’t do much like this. Hopefully, we can get to the armory too.”
“What about the Clan in the manor?” I asked.
“I’ll deal with them,” Quinitas said.
“How?”
“I’ll deal with them,” he repeated. His gold eyes flashed with anger, so I decided not to push it.
“What about her undead legions?” Klaus asked. “You know, the ones who slaughtered my friends and family.”
“Your people made her pay dearly,” Quinitas said. “They did you proud. I suspect your resistance destroyed a year’s worth of her necromantic work. She’s weakened, and as long as I have my magic, I can take care of any that remain.”
“And if they show up before we get those cuffs off you?”
The elf shook his head. His hair still glimmered despite all we had gone through. I don’t know how they do it. “She would never have undead in the house, she—”
“She already has,” I said. “Her little fake attack when this whole thing started.”
“That was her residence and a ruse. She wouldn’t have them here and risk any of the Clan seeing them. I’m the only one who even knows her secret, and I discovered it almost by accident. She won’t risk exposing herself, especially now.”
Now would be the perfect time to expose herself, I thought. This was her big gambit, what did she care? She was going to raise demons. That made her necromancy almost quaint.
“What about Great Wizard Gosley?” I asked.
“What about him?” Quinitas said, a snarl on his face. The hackles also went up on Klaus’s back.
“Saving cities is the shit he specializes in. Let’s get him to take care of this.”
“He’s a major part of the reason this whole thing happened in the first place,” Quinitas said.
I wanted to remind him his insane sister was the rest of the reason but managed to keep my mouth shut. Although I damn near made my tongue bleed doing it.
“Assuming Gosley would even see us at this hour, a highly unlikely prospect,” Liz said, “I doubt he would react in time to do any good.”
“Fine,” I said, “then we better get going. I get us out of this room, you can get us to the machine?”
Quinitas nodded.
I looked at Liz. “You up for it?”
She smiled her fang-filled grin. “Let’s take this bitch out.” She looked at Quinitas. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Quinitas said. He shook his manacled hands and set the chain clanking. “She can be a real bitch sometimes.”
I stared at the door and concentrated. I pulled in my mental power and flung it at the door. It flew off the hinges and toward the opposite wall. Rather than the slam of wood on stone, we heard a muffled squishing sound. A pathetic, gurgling whine followed. I fell on my ass. Blood poured from my nose and into my mustache. At the same time, the door dropped to the floor. An elf in thick leather armor and the Greenstreet tabard lay on the door like an appetizer on a serving platter. Blood also dripped from his nose.
Liz ran over to me. “I’m okay,” I said. My head pounded with each wo
rd.
“I think you overdid it,” Liz said.
“I expected the door to be heavier. And barred.” I hadn’t expected an elf to be on the other side, although I should have. They wouldn’t leave us unguarded. I stood up and wiped the blood on my sleeve. My head still thumped, but the double vision subsided. I looked at the unconscious body on the floor. “At least that’s one we don’t have to try to persuade.”
Quinitas stepped over his Clan brother to exit the room. He looked left and right to get his bearings, and then went left. I took up the rear, mainly because I still didn’t entirely trust Klaus. Even though he wasn’t working with Siralanna, he had his own agenda. It’s easy to accept a proposal when you’re in a locked room. Now that he had freedom, he might change his mind.
We hadn’t gone far down the stone hallway before we reached a door. Quinitas opened it. A chill wind breezed out past us. He walked in and down a flight of stairs to a dark wooden floor ten feet below. An extensive wine cellar, filled with racks of bottles. My liver winced at all the alcohol on display. It sang me its song of bliss. With an effort I ignored it. It was elvish wine, and I had consumed more of that in the past day than I would have wanted to in a lifetime. I would force myself to survive until I could find a proper brain-killing liquid.
Klaus and Liz walked down the stairs. I followed. The chill went to my bones. I shivered. The hob and the elf drew away as Liz slowed down. Her feet dragged. Her eyes drooped.
“We keep it chilled magically,” Quinitas said over his shoulder. “Keeps the wine crisper.”
“We don’t need the tour,” I told him. “We need to get out of here before Liz goes dormant.”
We kept following Quinitas. I took Liz’s frigid hand and dragged her along, forcing her to move. We went up a short flight of stairs and through a door into another stone hallway. In comparison to the cellar, the corridor was a sauna. Liz’s eyes regained their life. By the time we reached the stone stairs at the end of the hallway, her skin had deepened from pale lime to healthy chartreuse, except where the bruises had turned her the color of mold.
