The Azure Dragon

by Vladimir Vasilenko

  We came across cacti of different sizes more often. They were like gourds covered with huge needles, long as fingers. Some of them were wrinkled and skinny, and some were big and round like barrels. Looking at one of them, Kata screamed in disgust and turned away. After getting a closer look, I realized what it was. From the top of this so-called plant, a goat's leg was sticking out. It had a forked hoof, brown hair, and covered with some type slime. And, worst of all, this leg was still kicking, and the walls of the living gourd were shaking.

  "Looks like the soil here is lacking nutrients," Sting said thoughtfully. "So the local plants switched to a carnivorous diet."

  One of the vanaras pulling our cage turned over his shoulder and growled:

  "This is Jubacca. Death is everywhere."

  Soon we saw one of the carnivorous cacti in action. The upper part of it was opened and framed by large fleshy petals of reddish color. Its insides were facing us—wet, red, with a glistening clear liquid at the bottom, emitting a strong smell. Surprisingly, the smell was quite pleasant. What mattered was that at the sight of this water, I was getting terribly thirsty. The ground around me was dry and hard as cement, and we hadn’t come across any streams for a long time, so my mouth was already dry.

  "Yeah, it's not a very sophisticated trap," Sting snorted, pulling a bottle of water from his inventory and taking a big gulp. "But it seems to be effective."

  "Hey, buddy!" Doc called to the porter. "Could you pull some needles off this thing? It'd be even better yet if you could break off a good piece of its flesh?"

  The vanara only bared his teeth in response, but his eyes clearly read that he gave it some thought.

  "That's too bad," sighed the necromancer. "I'd like to experiment with those ingredients…"

  "To each their own," Kata rolled her eyes. "Watch out! Don't get eaten."

  The sorceress was right. No curiosity would make us come close to this barbed bloodsucker. It was weird that the carnivorous cacti weren't considered mobs—I didn't see the standard Qi chart on them.

  The further we went into the possession of the Jubacca, the darker it became. It was already twilight, and the surrounding forest reminded us more and more of something from a nightmare. The prisoners fell silent, looking around warily. Kata and Edge were sitting, hugging their knees, and shuddering from each rustle. Although they really weren’t fearful girls—on the contrary, they were usually the ones who brought terror.

  Right on cue, the sky was shrouded with bluish-gray clouds. Occasionally, it was illuminated by distant flashes of lightning. The echoes of thunder rolled to us after a long pause, muffled as if coming from the ground.

  "I wonder if it'll reach us," Doc winced, looking up at the sky. "Because all we need is to get soaking wet now."

  "How far is it to the destination?" I called to the porter.

  "Not too far," he snapped. "We're coming to the thorn wall. Shut up."

  That wasn't very polite. But I couldn’t blame a talking gorilla for having bad manners. Besides, our jailers, too, were clearly too close for comfort. They were walking, hunched over and looking around every minute, and the fur on their backs bristled like porcupine needles. It was unusual to see these formidable mighty apes so frightened. Could these Jubacca vanaras be so terrible? We haven't yet run into any of them, even when our procession stopped to negotiate with the owners of these lands. We heard indistinct uterine voices, but we weren't able to see their owners because our cage was in mid-caravan, closer to its tail.

  I wanted to ask what the thorn wall was, but I soon realized that no explanation was necessary.

  The thickets ahead got even thicker, where the tree branches intertwined. All the space between the trunks was filled with thorny bushes without leaves. From afar, it seemed impossible to get through this thicket. But a faint trail led us into a narrow passage, illuminated by strange faded spots of greenish and bluish color.

  Large wet growths on the trees glowed green—a kind of swollen boils, entangled with whitish threads like a web. The bluish gleam was emitted by mushrooms with elongated cone-shaped hats, growing on the ground and on the fallen tree trunks in close groups like oyster mushrooms. When the branches closed over our heads like the vault of a tunnel, the darkness around us thickened even more, so that without these spots of light, I couldn't even see the people in my cage.

  Soon enough, I saw the first Jubacca vanaras.

  At first, I thought they were huge spiders, hanging from the branches of trees and looking at us with convex cloudy eyes without pupils. Looking closer, I realized that they had four limbs like ordinary monkeys. But their legs were skinny, long, with sharp, angular joints, and their fur was rare and hard like bristles. Their faces looked strange. They were stretched forward and wrinkled like wilted buds. When one of them opened his mouth, I flinched in disgust. He had three jaws, which opened to the sides like petals, and a disproportionately large tongue tossed between them like a blood-red incanaby.

  The thorn wall proved to be a serious obstacle. Our caravan dragged along a narrow path for a long time, the cages kept clinging to the low hanging thorny branches of trees. This protective lane was probably three hundred feet wide. When we finally emerged from the thicket, we found ourselves in an open space, which now seemed like a wasteland.

  However, there was grass here. It was low, ankle-deep, and kind of rotten. In some places lay rotting driftwood, on which those same glowing mushrooms grew closely in groups. Small pot-bellied fireflies curled in the air like fireflies.

  In the center of the clearing stood the... Jubacca—the Tree of Death. Although, this damn thing didn’t really look like any tree I’ve ever seen.

  It seemed that the carnivorous cacti we came across on the road were miniature copies of the local master. In the twilight, the Jubacca resembled a huge eviscerated carcass with gaping wet red insides, framed by fragments of ribs. Like its younger brothers, it was covered with needles, but these were the size of a spear. The ugly trunk of the plant narrowed at the top and ended with a growth that looked like a tree crown—crooked thin branches with thin foliage and large dark fruits. The jaws of its huge mouth opened like a gate. On both sides of it, grew rare branches without fruit and leaves. Tentacles would be a better description, considering that they deliberately moved, raking air.

  I think Doc said that the Jubacca fruit was similar to severed human hands. However, it was hard to see from here, and I had no desire to get any closer.

  "Jeez..." murmured the necromancer, standing up and clutching at the bars with both hands.

  Spellbound, he gazed at the tree and the vanaras crowding around.

  The Jubacca savages moved on all four limbs, almost crawling on the ground. Their joints were sticking up, which made them look even more like spiders. The manner, in which they moved, intensified that impression. The movement was broken, sharp, and some of the monsters were in some weird trance, shaking their heads, opening creepy mouths without seeing anything around.

  What sucked was that there was a ton of them. At least a hundred, not counting those that were hiding somewhere in the depths of the thorn wall. I was certain that their leaders were hiding somewhere, too.

  My thought became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  From the ugly, bloated Jubacca trunk, separated two beings, which we earlier mistook for huge barbed growths. They didn't look like vanaras. They didn't look like any other normal animal. They were a sort of ten-foot tall bipedal hedgehogs. They had thick curved legs and were all covered in rags of moss and scraps of vines like animated driftwood. Their gaping elongated jaws with long uneven teeth took a good half of the front part of their bodies. Those teeth were more like rows of hastily hewn stakes. The creatures' eyes were huge and bulging, like those of owls. Their paws looked like wings because of the huge flat palms, disproportionately large relative to the torso.

  I felt someone's fingers squeeze my hand. Kata. She didn't look at me, and her gesture must have been instinctive. But I answered it—o
ur fingers intertwined and clenched into a single fist.

  "I told you I had a bad feeling this morning," she whispered. "We die here."

  "And then we'll be there," Doc nodded grimly toward the dark red throat. "Dead or alive."

  "Well, no, I'm not going to feed these vampires!" Sting protested. "Let's have some fun…"

  The porters already put our cage on the ground and huddled close, looking at the Jubacca army gathered around, just as horrified as us. One of the vanaras heard our conversation and turned around.

  "Yes, many will die here today. But it will be a glorious battle," he said in a muffled voice.

  Awkwardly rolling from side to side, the thorny giants moved slightly forward and stood on the sides of the insatiable jaws of the Tree of Death. Judging by their paws, I figured that they would help the victims to quickly go inside its mouth. The goggle-eyed Jubacca moved up closer to us, growling gutturally. The roar sounded pleased, and sort of anticipating, but that didn't make it any nicer.

  Crouching, Doc fumbled with Karachun’s bones, preparing to resurrect his familiar. It was time. The prisoners in the cages, including myself, had long been on their feet, waiting for the signal to break free. The Whispering Oak vanaras huddled in a close group and glared at the arachnoid apes with undisguised aggression. Our masquerade with the voluntary sacrifice was about to be revealed, and this fact was clear to all. But the local vampires didn't care—we were in the heart of their land, and their deity couldn't wait to be fed some fresh delicacy.

  "Hurray!!" We heard a friendly shout from the front cages where Terekhov, Genghis, and the other commanders were.

  Given the situation, this battle cry sounded strange, but it was also inspiring. I pulled the hidden wooden levers, and the cage literally fell apart under our pressure.

  Don’t forget to slip an aura on myself...

  I chose Transience because it gave an increase in Agility and the damage caused by the Water Element, which was more important to me at the moment. Besides, these skills were upgraded better than others for me. As far as the Wooden skills, I've decided to only use the Heart of Oak for armor and Dragon Tail just because it gave additional cool effects, such as stunning opponents and helping strengthen my own body. Mastery skills of Water, Water Sphere and Levee Burst, would be used sparingly. They took two charges of Qi at once, and I was running short on those. The last pearl of pure Qi looked lonesome in the quick access slot. Meanwhile, I had a feeling that the battle was going to be protracted and severe.

  Negotiating the plan with vanaras, Genghis and Terekhov spent half an hour, trying to explain to them the basics of martial formations, but these guys were stubborn as mules. The only thing we managed to agree on was that vanara soldiers would help to strengthen the outer ring of defense, and their shamans would join our mages and archers inside the formation. Everyone understood that ordinary gorillas got the role of cannon fodder. They were going to take the first and the most terrible blow, and hardly anyone of them would survive even before the mid-stage of the battle. It seemed that they also understood this very well and made the decision to die for the cause quite consciously.

  Looking at the desperate determination in their burning eyes and the anticipation hidden in their clenching huge hairy fists, I unwittingly imbued with respect for these beasts. After all, this whole world was just an imitation. We got scared and hurt here. But we could not cross the last threshold. We were immortal here. And this, perhaps, was that boundary that helped us remember that Artar was illusory.

  I felt a chill behind me and involuntarily shrugged. Doc raised Karachun. The lich hissed, opening wide his bony mouth, displaying malevolent anticipation in a long exhale. He was also hungry for blood, just like everyone else there.

  And blood flowed.

  It would seem that a fight is a fight, even in Uobo—it shouldn't matter how many people die in it. I have already participated in large-scale battles, such as the one in the Temple of the Black Snake. And the recent battle of the Whispering Oak was also quite large. But this time was different—inhuman screams, growls, hisses, coming from all sides were mind blowing. In the gathering darkness, it seemed that there was only an ocean of terrible bloodthirsty creatures. And our squad in this ocean was not even an island but just a fragile tiny raft, which was about to be crushed by the waves, wrecked and plunged to the bottom.

  This feeling was intensified because the Jubacca vanaras were pushing forward mindlessly like a single mass of ants. They did not seem to be scared by the screams of their wounded comrades, nor of their own wounds. Their terrible three-lobed mouths opened up, revealing round as the gun vents black bottomless throats. Judging by their structure, these monsters didn't even use their teeth to tear their victims apart—they just swallowed them whole like a boa. They were about the size of a man, only with longer limbs and a large elongated head. As it turned out, their saliva, which was profusely dripping from the jaws, burned like acid, and their bites pierced through average armor and even metal if they tried hard enough.

  Until we formed a more or less clear battle order, I was afraid that we would simply be swept away. Jubacca surely had quantity on their side. As soon as they realized that their lambs, who had come to the slaughter, were going to buck, the whole crowd rushed at us with a solid reinforcement coming from the thorn wall. So we were hit from the front, from the rear, and from the flanks. If not for the soldiers of the Whispering Oak, I don't think our tanks could have hold up. But the mighty gorillas fought selflessly, with blind, frenzied fury.

  In those moments, I realized that the expression "to the last drop of blood" may not be just a beautiful phrase. Before my eyes, one of the big hairy porters, the one who pulled our cage, ignored the blood gushing from his wounds, giving blow after blow, crushing the skulls with his bare hands, breaking limbs, tearing pieces of flesh from bellies. It looked horrible even in comparison with a meat grinder, in which axes and swords were used. In a moment, he disappeared in a pile of long-armed opponents. My knees started to weaken from the sickening sounds, coming out of a dozen mouths tormenting his still living body. But I was horrified even more when the vanara, in the last effort, throwing away some of the opponents, stubbornly crawled on his stomach, grabbing the ground with his front paws. He wasn't crawling toward us, but on the contrary, into the midst of enemies—to give us a little more time.

  When we finally managed to make a formation and began to make our way towards the Tree of Death, the sky opened up above us. The downpour came at once, without warning, pouring over us with streams of water that turned the gray ground under our feet into sticky dough-like mud. Flashes of lightning alternated with flashes of spells of our mages, and together they tore the darkness into shreds, as if at a hellish disco. Thunder rattled very close. It seemed as if huge concrete slabs were getting crushed above, the heavy fragments of which were about to fall upon us. After each sound, my ears rang for a few seconds, and other sounds came muffled, as if through a thick wall. Combined with the outbursts, it was completely disorienting. The sense of time was lost; it was hard to see anything around, where to run or whom to hit. Sometimes it seemed that there was no one left alive from our team, and that this whole crowd of enemies was going to jump on you alone.

  Terekhov’s and Laurel’s war cries helped a lot. I could hear them from time to time in this hubbub. I must have been too far from them to receive any buffs from those battle cries, but hearing their voices gave me hope that the squad backbone was still intact, and we moved in the right direction.

  I kept throwing the chakram as soon I had it back in the quick access slot. Honed to a mirror luster, the blade of the ring plunged deep into the flesh of the arachnoid apes. Their squealing was remarkable: it seemed that they were affected by bonus damage from silver, as well as evil spirits.

  It was impossible to spare Qi charges. In the first minutes, before we lined up a full wall of tanks, I used Levee Burst Dragon Tail several times to push back the waves of enemies; otherwise, they
would have just swept us away. As a result, I had only five charges left, and I was determined to save them until the last moment. Of course, I could replenish the charges with a pearl, but I thought that I might need it later in case I had to dive into the Misty Hall.

  The ends of my staff were dark with blood. I had to use it a lot, despite the fact that I was in the second line of defense. The Jubacca vanaras had a foul habit to come in as a living wave, that's when part of them jumped on the backs and heads of their compatriots and passed through our line of tanks. We needed to hold the uninvited beasts and keep them from breaking through to the archers and mages. Only because of Lizard's Tail and my own agility was I able to not get seriously injured. The Jubacca vanaras weren't particularly agile, so as long as we didn't let them get a hold of us, we were going to be fine. Unlike their gorilla relatives, they didn't fight one by one, they attacked as a crowd, pushed everyone down to the ground, and immediately started to bite and gnaw, relying on their powerful jaws and burning saliva.

  Glowing clots of Qi flew to me from all sides. They were colorful and ranged in size from a small pea to a quail egg, depending on how much the system appreciated my contribution to the killing of any specific monster. There was simply no time to sort out this experience and take the element I needed for a bonus, so I absorbed everything, ignoring the vibrations of my medallion.

  We literally walked over corpses and dirt mixed with blood up to our ankles. Some of the bodies were still floundering. Unfortunately, some of them were our fighters. By the time we got to the Jubacca, our detachment had greatly decreased in size. Vanara soldiers were almost all gone, and there were not many tanks left.

  What happened next made me think that it was the end.