The Dungeons of Arcadia

by Dan Allen

  I can fly after all.

  He began the transformation once more. His legs drew upward, his toes transmogrifying into razor sharp claws as the silken shirt unraveled into golden plumage. He was aloft, his broad golden wings flapping as he lifted toward the open windows at the top of the castle.

  Even as an eagle, with the worries of the human world veiled by simpler thoughts of food and shelter, the king’s words thrilled him.

  “Find my daughter Ruby. Save the prophecy.”

  Chapter 4: The Chaos Kitty

  A wicked breeze whistled across the white expanse, biting at Nyan-Nyan’s orange body fur with tiny crystals of ice and whipping her chin-length black hair across her face.

  There were times Nyan-Nyan wished more of her body was covered with fur. True, she liked the way the occasional human visitors to the Frostbyte Reach stared at the shimmering white skin of her neck, middle chest, and forearms as if they hadn’t ever seen it on their own bodies. But at least the tiger-striped coat of orange and black fur covered everything else—tail and all. It was enough to keep her alive, at least if the weather didn’t get any worse.

  Nyan-Nyan turned her triangular, fur-tipped ears into the wind, listening. The cold, dry air carried only the slightest suggestion of danger, but the freyjan recognized it at once.

  Ravager orc.

  Probably a scout.

  Nyan-Nyan flexed her clawed fingers as her tail dropped low. The hair on her neck bristled.

  Orcs came in several varieties recently, all equally foul: Neck Splitters with their brutal ax blades, Face Beaters with their stone-headed cudgel hammers, and Knuckle Smashers with their cursed iron gauntlets that sapped strength the moment they made brutal contact.

  If there was one orc, there would be more.

  The storm had hidden their approach. Getting out of this sneak attack would take all the luck she had.

  Luck.

  It was the hallmark of a freyjan. No other race—native Crystalian or chimera—could boast of such an ability.

  Luck kept her alive.

  Nyan-Nyan’s stomach growled. She wondered for a moment whether orcs were edible but decided against it. Even though she was a chimera, a race spawned from the darkness bleeding into Crystalia, eating something as foul as orc was bound to wreak havoc with her digestion. And she couldn’t afford to have her fur fall out again or turn pink like it had when she had taken that dwarven cold remedy out of curiosity.

  Nyan-Nyan licked her sharp canines and squinted against the glare. A shape materialized out of the haze of drifting snow. Nyan-Nyan reacted on pure instinct, accelerating straight toward the mortal threat.

  Knuckle Smasher.

  It lumbered right for her with an awkward gait that belied its dangerous speed. Its steps were huge.

  Nyan-Nyan stood four foot eleven. She had reached her full height at age ten. Freyjans aged partly in cat years, accelerating their maturation, but also shortening their lifespans. A fifteen-year-old cat of Nyan-Nyan’s age was expected to be raising cubs.

  “Not likely,” Nyan-Nyan said under her breath. She crouched as the charging Knuckle Smasher drew back its gauntleted arm, preparing to knock the strength—or the brains—right out of her.

  Nyan-Nyan pounced, leaping seven feet vertically and bouncing off the horned helmet of the Ravager orc.

  The tipped-down helmet temporarily blocked the Ravager orc’s vision.

  Nyan-Nyan dashed away, sprinting through the snow at a tangent to the orc’s original path. “Catch me if you can!”

  The game was afoot.

  Nyan-Nyan looked over her shoulder. Behind her, the Ravager orc pounded the snow as he built up speed.

  “Can’t keep up?” Heading up the slope, Nyan-Nyan was able to bound with all fours, something she couldn’t do on a flat or downhill slope. She raced through the fresh snow like an orange and black lightning bolt, kicking up a tail of powder.

  She almost didn’t see the narrow edge of the swinging ax until it was inches from her bare neck.

  Nyan-Nyan flattened her ears as she darted sideways. “You can do better than that!”

  An ax-wielding Neck Splitter stepped from behind a boulder and collided with the Knuckle Smasher.

  Another lucky break.

  She was very near the barrier pass now.

  Nyan-Nyan couldn’t see the pass. She couldn’t see anything in the blizzard. Her feet guided her, with a sense of direction that had nothing to do with memory.

  Instinct.

  If she stopped to kill one of the intruders—not that she thought she could, even if she wanted to—she would be surrounded by the others.

  The only idea that seemed to make any sense was to keep them all behind her until she found a way to lose them.

  If her instincts were right—and they nearly always were—there would be another orc in their party.

  Hiding.

  Nyan-Nyan traversed the slope, heading straight for the next obvious hiding place: a stack of barrels tied by anchor ropes, waiting to be rolled down the long slope to the underground halls of Dwarfholm Bastion. Nyan-Nyan’s village lay not far from the entrance, an assemblage of comfortable cabins and dugouts on a summer-sun-facing slope. The village lay near Felicity Springs, a geothermal spring that provided both warmth and fresh water. Bathing in the hot springs was an acquired taste for cubs, but to Nyan-Nyan it was one of the great luxuries of life in the Frostbyte Reach. Wielding her claws, Nyan-Nyan scrambled over the stack of wooden barrels only to find a stone-tipped hammer the size of a smith’s anvil descending towards her.

  Face Beater!

  Nyan-Nyan leapt to one side and the hammer crashed into the barrels, sending up a white powder with a pungent smell she didn’t have time to analyze.

  “Oops.”

  She’d been warned about going near the dwarves’ shipments.

  Nyan-Nyan charged into the saddle near the top of the pass. To her right, a great wall of ice spanned the gap between steep cliff faces. The ice wall had been raised by dwarven mystics to keep out the bulk of the orc raiders. Only isolated scouting parties could scale the bordering cliffs to kidnap unlucky sentries on this side of the Reach and haul them back to the Dark Realm for interrogation.

  The saddle dipped into a smooth canyon where the barrels were rolled, one at a time, down to the dwarf-built receiving dock at the base of the hill. She could try to slide down the slope, but the dwarves wouldn’t be happy if she led the orc scouts right to one of their secret entrances to Dwarfholm Bastion.

  Short of running in circles until she or all of the orcs collapsed in exhaustion, Nyan-Nyan was out of options. She hurried across the gully and raced up the far slope. Coming to another set of piled barrels—this set with a distinct pine smell—she scrambled for footing, desperate to get some distance between her and the three Ravager orcs charging down into the saddle of the barrier pass, who were also being chased by three dozen or so loose, rolling barrels from the first pile.

  “Eat this.” Nyan-Nyan said, slicing through the binding ropes with her claws. The pine-scented barrels tipped, tumbled, and rolled down the slope toward the orcs, who had stopped in their tracks, now pinned between two sets of oncoming barrels.

  That was when Nyan-Nyan noticed the bright red and orange markings on the sides of the careening barrels.

  “Conflagrant . . . then the other stuff must have been—what was it? The name of the white powder was on the tip of her tongue.

  “Ammonium oxidizer!”

  The two sets of well-separated barrels were ingredients for gnomish musket powder.

  What a magnificent chance! Dozens of other collections of barrels lined the sides of the pass, but Nyan-Nyan had found the lucky combination that was about to be very unlucky for her pursuers. Nyan-Nyan clapped her hands. “Oh, fun!”

  The three Ravager orcs ducked and dove to avoid the barrels rolling at them from both side slopes, occasionally smashing or crashing their way throug
h.

  It was only a matter of seconds before the Face Beater with his stone cudgel dripping with conflagrant, hammered his way through a barrel of the oxidizer powder.

  Nyan-Nyan’s eyes grew wide as the massive fireball blossomed in front of her, before the blast wave knocked her a hundred yards back into a snow bank.

  Ears ringing, eyes blurry, head wobbling, Nyan-Nyan climbed to her feet, covered in snow. The noise in her ears did not stop as the ringing gave way to groaning and creaking and finally a dull roaring that shook the ground.

  At the top of the pass, the great ice barrier cracked from top to bottom. Slabs of ice fell from it like shards from a broken mirror until the entire barrier collapsed in a thunder of breaking, crashing ice. The pass filled with a landslide of snowy debris that swept past Nyan-Nyan’s safe location at the base of a cliff. The barrels were all carried away by the avalanche.

  Horns blared out across the Reach. First the trumpets of the freyjan from the village across the valley, then the deep bass trumpets of the dwarves signaled the alarm.

  The magical glacial barrier was gone. The pass was open. The army of orcs would not be long in coming.

  Nyan-Nyan’s ears lowered. Her tail dropped as the valley filled with debris that would bury the nearest entrance to the Dwarfholm Bastion. Her own village was high enough to survive the avalanche, but not the horde of orcs that would soon be charging through the pass.

  “Goddess—did I do that?”

  She fell to her knees in the snow, shivering with guilt and fear.

  The luck of Nyan-Nyan, the Chaos Kitty, had struck again. She had survived the orc attack, but her luck had come at a price.

  Nyan-Nyan could only hope the village of Felicity Springs had time to evacuate the cubs and the elderly before the orc raiding parties arrived.

  With a shudder, she began to make her way across the snowy expanse. With the pass open, the wind suddenly shifted. The fog of drifting snow cleared, and by the time Nyan-Nyan had trudged back to the scene of the detonation, the air was clear, and the sky was bright and blue.

  Sunlight glinted off the snow, and Nyan-Nyan, unable to resist the sparkle of exposed metal, drew closer.

  Both of the Knuckle Smasher’s iron gauntlets were lying in the snow.

  Loot. There’s luck!

  Nyan-Nyan pulled on the oversized gauntlets, finding them to be leather-lined. Though hopelessly oversized, they were slightly warmer than uncovered hands.

  It was a small consolation. Her heart sank deeper with every anxious footstep that sunk into the snow.

  Several hours later, she reached the first refugee camp hidden in the jagged peaks above her now-deserted village. She trudged past the hastily erected tents of silent freyjans, driven from their homes by the imminent prospect of prowling orcs. Ears turned in her direction as she approached, but the faces of the freyjans she knew did not turn to acknowledge her.

  This would be the end. There was no avoiding it this time.

  Two freyjan guards, Keeldar and Zarraf, her cousins in the Melorian pride, flanked her as she entered the shelter of a large boulder field and approached the largest tent in the snowy encampment.

  “You know the drill,” said Keeldar. His gaze was even fiercer than usual.

  Nyan-Nyan winced as Zarraf opened the flap of the tent and gave her an encouraging push inside.

  The village council did not need any announcement of who had arrived in the tent. They would have all picked up her dejected scent minutes before, enough time to put suitably grave expressions on their faces.

  Nyan-Nyan seated herself on a low stool facing the four freyjan council members, one from each of Felicity Springs’ tribes. The council members standing in front of her were varied in coloration and age. Old Grimhed stared down at her, his hunched back covered in grizzled, black fur that only made his large, white-tipped ears more distracting.

  Next to him was a woman with cool grey fur and an icy expression on her face. Calliope was the youngest of the council, though already an empty nester at age thirty-four. She stood there like some kind of paragon of virtue to admire. Nyan-Nyan barely managed to keep down the gag that formed in her throat.

  Stantius was tabby and shabby, but every time Nyan-Nyan saw him, she could only think about how incredibly old he was. For a freyjan, turning fifty was no small feat.

  Lastly, there was Lang-Lang. His tiger-striped markings were so similar to her own it was impossible to miss the relation.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Nyan-Nyan,” her father said. “This council has been more than patient. But we can only endure so much chaos. This is the last time.”

  Nyan-Nyan bowed her head, unable to look her father in the eye. “I ran into the orc scouts on patrol,” she said weakly. “I . . . escaped.”

  “It seems our village—strike that—our camp,” Calliope said, “has once again become the beneficiary of your ‘good’ luck.”

  “Every time that daughter of yours escapes from some perilous situation,” Grimhed growled, “something terrible happens to everybody else.”

  Stantius lowered his spectacles. “Conservation of luck. We’ve all seen it. One wins, the others lose.”

  “But never such a concentrated dose in one freyjan,” Grimhed grumbled. “If she keeps running into trouble and lucking her way out of it, the rest of us are doomed!”

  Calliope leaned forward, her eyes focusing on Nyan-Nyan. “We give you a choice. Either leave the village or—”

  “I know.” Nyan-Nyan’s lip curled in disgust. “Settle down, take a mate and have cubs.”

  “And stop seeking out adventures.” Lang-Lang pounded his fist into his hand. “For the sake of the pride—for the sake of the freyjan. We can’t stop this Ravager orc invasion if you keep undermining our defenses. The enemy attacks are becoming more organized, more coordinated all the time. Something is orchestrating their movements. There aren’t enough warriors in the pride to—”

  “Wait,” Stantius said. His ears twitched as they always did when he was having an idea. He looked at Nyan-Nyan. “You want to keep having adventures?”

  “I want to help! I can’t just sit by and do nothing.”

  Stantius’s brown and orange tail swished back and forth slowly. He looked at Lang-Lang and raised a bushy eyebrow. “What about the tonnerian proposition? Arcadia is not far from the edge of the Frostbyte peaks near the Wandering Monk Mountains. Our cousins that left—”

  Lang-Lang swept his arm to the side, dismissing the idea. “Out of the question.”

  Nyan-Nyan had heard of the lion-like tonnerians, a race not unlike the freyjan, but larger and stronger—more feral. But what was the tonnerian proposition? If her father had dismissed it that quickly, it was bound to be interesting.

  Nyan-Nyan raised a questioning claw. “What’s the tonnerian proposition?”

  “Stantius, look what you’ve done.” Lang-Lang gave a disgusted groan.

  “No, he’s right. We need allies now more than ever.” Grimhed gave a decisive nod. “The tonnerians are fierce warriors, but they left the Frostbyte long ago for a secret oasis in the Arcadian desert.”

  “But to actually find the Desert Drop Oasis in that vast desert,” Lang-Lang waved his hand about hopelessly. “The odds are staggering. That’s why they went there—so they could live undisturbed and in peace.”

  Calliope chuckled.

  Nyan-Nyan shoved her gauntleted hands on her hips and glowered. “What’s so funny?”

  “Undisturbed . . . and you’re proposing sending Nyan-Nyan, the Chaos Kitty. It’s just too much.”

  Grimhed’s belly jiggled with silent laughter. Stantius gave a suppressed snort. Finally, Lang-Lang—her own father—was hyperventilating with laughter.

  “Have you all had a good laugh?” Nyan-Nyan finished the words with a hiss. The fur on her neck stood on end.

  Grimhed placed a hand over his mouth to stifle his chuckle.

  “Either w
ay, we win,” Stantius remarked. “If she does manage to find the tonnerians and rally some help for our cause, we might be able to turn the tide on this orc invasion.”

  “And if she doesn’t,” Grimhed griped, “at least she’s gone.”

  “All in favor?” Calliope asked.

  Three furred hands went up.

  “Opposed?”

  Lang-Lang raised his hand.

  “It is the decision of this council,” Grimhed concluded, his yellow eyes boring into Nyan-Nyan’s, “in view of her refusal to take a mate and raise cubs, that Nyan-Nyan the Melorian be sent to the tonnerians of Arcadia to bring to them our plea for aid against the Ravager orcs.”

  Nyan-Nyan flexed her hands in her gauntlets.

  It had all seemed like a game up until this point. Now the game was over.

  Did I lose?

  She had just lost her welcome and her village—her family as well. She was essentially being banished. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. She winked it away and gave a twitch of her ears to hide the gesture.

  The stony silence in the tent wrapped around her like a blanket of ice.

  She breathed out, the air condensing in front of her, fogging her view of the council.

  What do I know of the deserts of Arcadia?

  She would have to trust her luck.

  It’s gotten me this far.

  “Are you going to say goodbye to your mother?” Lang-Lang asked.

  Apparently, I won’t be missed, Nyan-Nyan thought. She bit her tongue, not wanting what might be her last words to her father to be bitter ones. Instead, she heard herself reply, “She’ll be fine. You’ll all be fine.”

  Better off without me. “Time’s wasting,” she said, her voice scarcely louder than a mew.

  “Nyan-Nyan—” her father began.

  A determined grin spread over Nyan-Nyan’s face. “It will be luck if I reach the Hearthsworn tunnel before dark. I’ll be on my way.” She dashed out of the tent, turning her back on those who had turned their backs on her.

  In moments, she was out of the village. Despite the lingering feeling of betrayal, leaving it behind almost felt like the snapping of a string tied around her neck. The farther she got, the freer she felt.