by Cale Plamann
“Micah Silver,” he said, his voice quiet but reaching every corner of the absolutely silent chamber.
“You honor me, Micah Silver.” Horrl lifted his glaive and spun the weapon with practiced ease. “Now watch, Micah Silver. It may be my time to die, but I die on my feet.”
Horrl sprinted forward, the glaive held right-handed in a low guard while his left hand grabbed and threw three needlelike daggers at the Luoca with methodical precision.
It didn’t move, observing him indolently. A flick of its wing deflected the daggers, sending them skittering into the distant corners of the cavern, where they hissed and melted from their brief contact with the daemon’s caustic essence.
With a blur that Micah could barely discern, the Luoca’s tail erased Horrl’s head. One minute, he was every inch the powerful Durgh warrior, charging forward with his back straight and fire in his eyes. The next, he was a torso tumbling to the ground while a spatter of something painted the wall distantly behind him.
Telivern shook slightly under Micah’s stroking fingers.
Unease. Illness.
“We did what we could, buddy.” Micah sighed, his hand still combing through the buck’s soft fur as he sought some comfort in its depths. “We’re walking down a dark road, and our hands are going to get more than a little dirty before we come out the other end, but in the end, we weren’t really given another choice.”
Ten minutes later, the rest of the Rokdur exited their home cavern. Chuth gently closed the gate behind them and sealed it by pressing her hand against the metal latch. It glowed briefly, sealing their home against predators and scavengers.
“Clan Head Horrl has fallen in honorable combat,” Chuth bellowed, her back to Micah and his daemons as they waited patiently. “This human has challenged our clan, but he is not without honor.”
She paused. Micah could see her hand quivering slightly as it gripped her great bone warclub.
“Noncombatants to the east tunnel.” She motioned with the club. A collection of Durgh wearing simple brown robes led hundreds of children away. Chuth turned to the remaining warriors and raised her club above her head. “As for the rest of us, it may be our time to die.”
“But we will die on our feet!” they thundered in response, almost four hundred Durgh charging as one.
The robed Durgh led the children in a hymn, a wordless dirge of lament. The entire procession of noncombatants stopped just far enough away to mark themselves as outside the conflict. One and all they clasped their hands together, witnessing the final moments of their clan.
Micah motioned with his free hand, sending his daemons surging forward to meet the charging Durgh. He cast Root Spears. Despite its low tier, Micah’s high Mind attribute and skill in the spell were enough to slow and injure most of the advancing clan.
Before the Durgh could respond to his spell, Micah followed up by casting Haste, touching the threads connected to his Brensens as they swooped down onto the stalled charge. Their claws extended and snicked through corded muscles and spines, beheading a Durgh with each swipe.
He cast Regeneration, this time on the Onkerts that formed a rough line as they advanced. Although powerful, the Durgh were capable of injuring or killing the big gorillas. Most of them would need healing before the battle was done, so Micah pre-empted their needs.
Then the two Luocas tore into the Durgh battle line, their human faces howling and snarling as their insect wings tore through the enemy warriors. Limbs flopped to the cavern floor, melting around the edges due to the daemons’ otherworldly energy eating away at them.
Quickly, the Durgh tried to flow around the Luocas, recognizing Micah as the real threat and sacrificing lives in droves to slip past the tearing wings and piercing tails of the great daemons. The survivors charged onward, harried by the flying Brensens until they hit the crowd of Onkerts.
Noting their strategy, Micah nodded to himself. It might be futile, but he couldn’t fault the Durgh for their bravery or intelligence. He began casting Haste on himself. The Onkerts would do their best, but against a determined foe that didn’t care if it lived or died, their power had limits.
After a moment of fighting, Chuth and two other Durgh made it past, leaving their weaker brethren to occupy Micah’s daemons. Telivern stepped away from Micah. Wordlessly, one of the Durgh accompanying Chuth broke off to fight the buck.
Micah removed the spear from his shoulder and shifted it to a guard position. First and foremost, he was a spellcaster, but even after all of the timelines, the spear was still Micah’s primary tool and weapon. He nodded to the two Durgh as he quickly mouthed the words to Foresight.
They moved quickly, trying to catch Micah in a pincer, the male armed with a huge two-handed sword coming from his right while Chuth tried to slip into his blind spot on the left to deliver a killing blow.
It wasn’t fast enough.
The spell took hold, and rainbow afterimages of probability stretched out from both of his opponents. Ten seconds. That was what his Mind attribute, skill levels, and Chronomancer specialization bought him. It would be enough.
He leaned slightly to the side, letting the male’s sword rush past him as he rapidly cast Paralytic Sting. Just as the blade hit the ground, the warrior’s hands stood still for a fraction of a second before he could withdraw his swing. Micah’s hand, covered in a sickly green glow, snaked out and tapped the warrior on the wrist.
Micah flowed forward, the warclub missing him by an eyelash, only to slam into the Durghish sword planted in the ground, shattering it. In a second, he was behind the twitching and frothing male Durgh. Micah whipped the butt of his spear into the back of his reeling opponent’s knee, causing the man to fall over backward.
He quickly planted his spear against the cavern floor, using the massive weight of the warrior’s limp body to do what his limited Body stat could not: punch through the Durgh’s thick skin, pierce its neck, and skewer up into the falling man’s brain.
“But you’re a spellcaster,” Chuth spoke in slow motion, her eyes widening in shock at a glacial pace.
He’d used four seconds. Plenty of time.
Micah unleashed the Pressure Spear he’d been casting while Chuth wasted time talking. The jet of air punctured her hand, forcing her to drop the club. Micah strolled forward, shifting his weight slightly to dodge the frantic barehanded swing from the Durgh, once again mouthing the words to Paralytic Sting.
He tapped her wrist, and Chuth’s eyes rolled up into her head. Methodically, Micah kicked out her knees, bringing the Durgh down to his level, and scurried onto her chest. He knew that he barely had a second left before the powerful warrior shook off the effects of his spell.
Touching his thumbs to each of her eyes and his forefingers to her sensitive ears, he cast Sonic Bolt. Paralytic Sting wore off, but the sonic attack had scrambled Chuth’s senses too much for her to resist properly.
Micah shifted his body perfectly with her struggles, moving in sync with her to avoid being unseated. He cast Sonic Bolt again and her body stiffened. He cast it a third time. A fourth.
The rainbow blur around her faded. There were no more potential actions for Chuth to take as her body breathed its last under the weight of a severely hemorrhaging brain.
He stood and took in the struggle between the final Durgh and Telivern as the prismatic display of probabilities began to fade. Both were covered in wounds from the quick and vicious fight.
Micah cast Heal on his friend, closing its injuries. The Durgh glanced backward at the two corpses and became frantic, struggling harder against Telivern. It activated a blessing, its ribs bursting from its back into skeletal, bladed spider legs.
A Pressure Spear took it through the hamstring, rupturing the muscle in a spray of gore. It stumbled, using the new limbs growing from its back to catch itself before it could fall entirely, but the distraction was enough.
Telivern lunged forward and thrust its glowing antlers into the Durgh’s throat. Blood slickened the floor a
s the light left the warrior’s eyes. He slumped, still suspended from the bone legs planted into the stone of the cavern.
Micah walked to the first Durgh, twisting his spear and kicking the massive corpse off of his weapon in order to retrieve it. Finally, spear in hand, he turned back to the battle.
Fundamentally, it was over. One or two Durgh warriors remained, but the Brensens were more or less hunting them for sport. Three of the Onkerts had been slain in the clash, but the rest were recovering rapidly. He nodded.
Next time, he’d need to be more careful. He’d won, but Chuth had been under level 35. The next time he was challenged to hand-to-hand combat, he might not be so lucky. Even with the help of Foresight, he was still primarily a spellcaster.
The final Durgh fell, a Luoca’s tail punching a fist-sized hole in its chest. Suddenly, the song of the noncombatants stopped. For a moment, all of them inclined their heads in a disconcerting, choreographed moment. Then, wordlessly, they filed out of the cavern.
Micah sighed, rubbing his gore-covered spear on the breeches of the Durgh he’d killed with it. He glanced up as Telivern plodded over.
“Almost done, buddy,” he said, slinging the spear back over his shoulder. “We just have to go and break up the Khanmoot. Then we can rest.”
44
Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of The Light
The cavern was gigantic, more than large enough to house Basil’s Cove in it. More than that, it was gorgeous. Every cliff face and stalactite was covered in intricate carvings and inlaid with metal filigree. Even the ceiling was inlaid with a vivid tile mosaic, displaying great battles of old in intricate detail.
Micah sighed and looked at the enemy—almost two thousand Durgh warriors standing behind rows of slavering warbeasts. Past them, the Khanmoot itself—a bastion of civilization in the wilds of the Great Depth—rose out of the rock floor. None of the buildings were more than three stories tall, but each of them was covered with a colorful array of metal-and-bone ornamentation.
Two Durgh stepped away from the armed and ready band of warriors and began walking toward Micah and his daemons. One stood almost twice his height, a towering monster of a man wearing armored fashioned from what appeared to be human bones. Over his shoulder, he held a handle attached by a finely crafted chain that ran across his back to the large, spiked metal head of a flail.
The other Durgh was much smaller, even shorter than Micah, and unarmed. He followed the warrior, trailing almost ten paces behind him and playing a steady beat in time with the larger Durgh’s steps on a pair of drums. The drums were simple, little more than hollow wooden cylinders with skin stretched over them, and each blow from the smaller Durgh’s hands took the entirety of his focus.
Micah stepped forward and walked a good ten paces from his daemons, enough that he could politely meet with the Durgh at a symbolic distance from his forces to match the two Durghs’ example, but not so far that his summoned creatures wouldn’t be on hand to aid him if the apparent parley turned violent.
Abruptly, with no outside sign, the leading Durgh and his drummer stopped simultaneously. Up close, Micah could see that the warrior’s thighs were as big around as his torso, corded muscle rippling under his thick black skin. He craned his head upward, only to notice the Durgh taking him in as well, dissecting him under his intense gaze.
“I stand before you, Krosst, Khan of the Southern Caverns.” The Durgh’s voice boomed out—clearly, he wanted to be heard by his own soldiers as he spoke to Micah. “The survivors of the Rokdur say that your champion bested their leader in a duel, and then you defeated their warriors in honorable combat. If it were not for the peace treaty between our races, I would raise a mug to honor your valor, but your King and I have a treaty. Tell me, human, why do you travel the Great Depths and make war upon our people?”
Even from a distance, Micah could hear the sounds of shuffling and talking from the Durgh lines as they took in Krosst’s words.
“In about four months, you will invade the surface anyway,” Micah responded blandly. “Without warning or formal declaration, you’ll overrun the surrounding areas, putting entire towns to the sword.”
The drummer drew in breath with a hiss. Behind Krosst, his soldiers stopped whispering. An electric tension filled the air. Apparently, Micah’s words were some sort of dramatic faux pas. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
Then Krosst let loose a great, booming laugh, his free hand slapping his chest as he struggled with his mirth.
“So I will, human!” Krosst reached up to wipe tears from his face. “You have courage. No one has called me a liar to my face in a decade. If you weren’t so small and pink, I’d suspect that you had some proper Durgh blood in you. Nevertheless, Ankros has called us to the glory of battle.” Krosst smiled, revealing a pair of rune-encrusted tusks. “Our youth must test themselves and win honor. It is the way of things.”
“My brother will die in that battle,” Micah replied, his voice steady despite the thunder of his heart beating in his ears. “After Westmarch falls, you will march on Basil’s Cove, killing many people that I care for.”
“I’m sure I will,” Krosst agreed cheerfully. “It will be a glorious raid.”
“I can’t let that happen,” Micah finished, struggling to maintain his calm facade. While Krosst wasn’t as powerful as Archmagus Ikanthar, the energy coming off of him was comparable to some of the most famous of the Royal Knights that he’d operated upon. There was no way to know Krosst’s exact level, but Micah would bet his last point of attunement that the Durgh had passed level 60 years ago.
“I admire your sentiments, human.” Krosst shook his head, a grin exposing his tusks once again. “Unfortunately, a god disagrees with you. Ankros has commanded that we test our youth in combat, and it is not my place to argue with the Lord of Night and Struggle.”
“It was worth a try.” Micah smiled back wryly. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me return to the surface and try this all again later? I seem to have miscalculated your numbers when I was putting together my little war party.”
“Of course not!” Krosst chuckled. “It would ruin the surprise of our raid if we simply let you return. Plus, it would be a shame for us to waste the opportunity to test our youth against a warrior as valiant as you. I’m sure your death will be one for the skalds to recite around the fires for decades to come.
“Monloff”—Krosst gently kicked the drummer—“that means you. I expect a proper poem about this young man’s nobility and valor for the feast tomorrow night.”
“Yes, my Khan,” the drummer replied in a musical baritone that seemed out of place coming from his tiny frame.
“Shit,” Micah replied, his eyes flowing over the army arrayed before him. “Well”—he shrugged at Krosst—“what’s that line your people say? ‘It might be my time to die, but by the Sixteen, I’ll die on my feet?’”
Micah slung his spear over his shoulder and turned to walk back to his daemons, already trying to calculate how to get away from the Durgh for long enough to teleport back to the cave outside of Basil’s Cove. It would take almost all of his mana given the distance, but it was theoretically possible. After that, it looked like it was time to lay low until Blessed Return came off of cooldown.
He wasn’t terribly excited with the idea of reverting to his thirteenth birthday once again, but after looking at the forces arrayed before him, this timeline appeared to be a dead end. The concept was good, but his skills were still lacking.
“Wait,” Krosst called out, halting Micah. “Human, what is your name?”
“Micah Silver,” he replied, pausing his slow walk back to his summons to turn and face the gigantic Durgh.
“Micah.” Krosst tasted the word. “You’re facing death with the demeanor of a Durgh rather than a human, so I thought it only fair to give you the advice I would give a Durgh warrior: You aren’t without options.” Krosst smiled, tusks winking in the dim light of the scattered patches of phosphorescent fungus. “All sapie
nts have the sacrosanct right to challenge the local Durgh Khan to single combat. If you win, you may make one request or undo one edict of that Khan. In this case, you could stop the invasion of the surface.”
Micah snorted. “Khan Krosst, unless I’m very wrong, you’re higher than level 60 and I’m sure you’re aware that I’m below level 40. I don’t suppose that you’d let me use a champion?”
“That isn’t how the old laws work.” Krosst shook his head sadly. “However, I do see your point. Let us make this sporting. We do not wish to declare war on Pereston; simply blood our soldiers. If you and your… companions can survive a half-hour of battle with my men and their beasts, you will have served our purpose. There will be no need to invade the surface and harm your friends. Does that seem ‘fair,’ Micah Silver?”
“It certainly seems like a better bet than fighting you,” Micah answered, turning and walking to his waiting daemons. “I look forward to entertaining your army.”
“And I look forward to ripping the wings off of one of your giant bugs.” Krosst nodded cheerfully. “Come, Monloff, we must let Micah Silver make his peace with Ankros.”
With that, the two of them walked away, leaving Micah to his thoughts. Telivern’s hooves clicked against the stone as it approached him through the mob of restless daemons. Unconsciously, his fingers twined themselves in its fur.
It was all coming down to this. The days of training. Almost a decade of not spending time with his friends and family, frantically trying to raise his skills and the swarm of daemons he would need. The sleepless nights, haunted by those he had to leave behind in each abandoned timeline.
Despite everything, he was outnumbered and outmatched. The Royal Knights had never mentioned how many Knights they sent to quell the Durgh, just that it had happened. Given the numbers before Micah, it must have been a decent portion of the order.
He removed his hand from Telivern’s fur and took the spear from his shoulder. He might be outmatched, but Krosst had given him an out. Even if the Durgh considered it a favor to a doomed man, it was only because they didn’t know his abilities.
