Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  “Yes. Eh, it don’t smell worse than the barn on a hot day. I reckon.”

  Gods, he was laying it on thick. Madeline kept her camouflage going, feeling the sanity drain.

  “Well, it’s no worry,” said Arxus. “The Crown makes war on traitors, not their relatives. So you were bringing supplies in?”

  “Yessir. Bunch of fishermen came through Pads and traded for stuff. We’re simple farm folk and fish disagrees with us so we decided to tithe it to tha troops.”

  “How patriotic. You know, I’m from Riversend, myself. My folks weren’t peasants, but they weren’t far from it, and I don’t ever recall knowing any peasants who would give up food.”

  Graves shrugged, uncomfy. “Well, I didn’t make the choice. New Alderman’s a shit, probably wanted to kiss up to the Crown.”

  “New Alderman?”

  “Baron down there went bad. Royal Knights rooted him out. Put in an Alderman in his place.”

  “Oh? See, that’s interesting. Because I heard that my old colleague Graves was one of those royal knights who did that, back before he went traitor.”

  BOOM.

  Madeline studied Graves’ face. He was sweating, and using the time to think, she could tell. But if she could tell, she rather thought Arxus could, too.

  “Yeah. I did talk to my son after he did that,” Graves said, bowing his head. “Didn’t want to mention it to ya because he went traitor a few weeks after.”

  “Mm. I know why you’re here.” Arxus said.

  “You do?”

  Madeline shifted slowly, slowly under the bed, angling for a good pounce.

  “You’re here looking for news of your son.”

  She relaxed a bit.

  “I am,” Graves admitted. “Do you know anything?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know if I’d tell you if I did. He thought he was better than us. Felt bad about the soulstone archives. Kept asking questions about where the bodies came from.” Arxus chuckled, an oily sound. “First rule of the necromancer corps, you never ask about that. He thought he was above that rule. Better than us. But we got him back.”

  “Did you?” Graves asked, and there was something in his voice, something that Madeline had never heard from the thoughtful, nervous Necromancer she’d come to like.

  “Oh yes. His fiancée came back from the front, dead. One of MY friends had a contact in the morgue. Guess which body we had shipped over for training, when Wight day came?”

  “You— you did that,” Graves said, forgetting to put the quaver of old age in his tone. There was a quaver there all right, but it wasn’t from age.

  “And guess which trainee ended up with her body, staring up at him, when he pulled the sheet off?” Arxus said, sneering.

  “You son of a bitch,” Graves said, standing.

  “Hello, Bertie,” sneered Arxus, whipping a wand from a holster, and pointing it straight at him. “How’s tricks?”

  BOOM

  "Chomp!" Madeline lunged. Arxus screamed as Madeline’s fangs went into his calf. The wand fired and black energy went wild, and Graves shouted words that were lost in the thunder of the cannon, as red life burst from Arxus and flowed into him. Over and over again he stomped forward, pounding his cane on the ground, shouting until the echoes of the cannon faded, and Arxus was a shriveled husk on the floor. “-Life! Drain Life! Drain Life!”

  “Stop!” Madeline howled, crashing into him, and sending him off balance.

  “You jackass!” howled a spectral voice, and both of them whipped their heads around to see Arxus’ spirit, standing over his corpse. “You are so fucked!” And then he dove through the floor.

  “He’ll get help,” Graves said, and from outside, down the corridor, shouts were already starting to rise. “I’m sorry. I’m...”

  “Glub!” yelled Madeline, grabbing up her pack. “Get ready to move!”

  Wind’s Whisper Threadbare, she thought. “We’re made! Need an escape route!”

  And then it was Garon’s turn...

  *****

  “She hated me,” Mastoya said, slurring her words. The second bottle, empty, crashed to the floor as she fumbled for it. “Nuts. That’s alcohol abuse, it is.”

  “She didn’t hate you,” Garon said. “She loved you; she was just awful at showing it.”

  “No. It was... it would have been fine, I guess, if it was just us, y’know? But she let Dad take me into th’ town to play. An’ I had friends. An’...” Mastoya slumped back in her chair. “An’ they got to play with dolls, and wear pretty dresses, an’... but not me. Not Nasty Masty. Had to wear furs and loincloths, an’ get my ears pierced early even though it hurt, and fight off the rats she called to eat me. The rats. Garon. She tried to eat me. With rats.”

  “Yeah. We, uh, we got her to stop doing that after they nearly got Jarrik that one time.”

  “I... shit. And Dad... what’s he do? He like acted all supportive and stuff, but whenever it was him ‘gainst her, he’d crumble. Weak. Just... good man. She didn’t deserve, him, him. Hm?” She reached for the bottle, found nothing there. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Listen, do you believe me? Believe what I said about what Anise is doing?”

  “Oh yeah. She’s a shit. Thing is...” Mastoya chortled. “The King is strong. He’s just... just giving her rope. He needs ’er now. Needs ’er till the dwarves’r dead. Then she’s nexx, nexp on the chokking blopp.”

  “But what if she’s not? What if she’s playing him? From what you told me about Taylor’s Delve, it sounds like SHE was giving the order to scrub it.”

  “You. You have no idea how much that hurt, Gar.” Mastoya said, staring at her hands. “My ol’ friends? Gone. Dead. But... it was... final test. It was what I had to do, to finish HER. To move on from ‘th past. In the end... Anise, the King... in the end it was gonna happen. An’ if I didn’t, then someone else would. So why shoodn’t I benefit from it?”

  He opened his mouth...

  ...and Fluffbear squeaked up. “Because it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter who ordered it, it’s wrong either way. Killing innocents is never okay.”

  “Yeah, well, Ritaxis don’t care. War happens,” Mastoya said, glaring at her.

  “That’s bull hockey! Those were the people you were fighting to protect! What good is a war if you kill your own people? That’s worse than losing!”

  “Wash your mouth, li’l bear!”

  “You’ll never be a paladin that way!”

  “Psh, what’d you know ovvit. Ain’t no paladins no—”

  “Clarifying Aura!” said the little bear, and the office filled with light as she glowed, holy radiance easing in and around the toys and the drunken half-orc.

  BOOM!

  “There are,” Fluffbear said, as the echoes faded. Her aura did its thing, buffing mental fortitude and restoring sanity, bit by bit. “And I am one. And I tell you now, there’s good ways to wage war, but the ends never, ever, ever justify the means.”

  Mastoya looked at her, mouth opening and closing.

  And Garon stiffened, as Madeline’s message screamed in his ear. “Oh hell. Look, Mastoya... this isn’t right. You know it. At the heart of it, you haven’t changed!” He said, the words tumbling, coming faster. “You’re still my sister, you still don’t deserve the crap you go through, and you still want to be an awesome paladin! You can! Come with us! We’re fixing things! We’re putting it right! Come with us and help!”

  Mastoya looked at him. Then she stood, wobbling. “Gar...” She sighed, and put her hand to her head, rubbing the crewcut black hair, and the scars under it. “Curative.” She said and instantly straightened up, cold sober. “Innocents. Good men. Yeah. Thing is... I’m commanding a lot of’em. Not all innocents, but...” She moved around to where she’d put her sword and picked it up. “They’re relying on ME.”

  “Masty... don’t do this...”

  “They swore to the Crown, but they’re my family now, Gar. The one I chose. And if I turned? I could never look them in the eye
again. Yeah, I killed my mother, and it didn’t help like I thought it would. I just felt bad. I killed you too, and I’m sorry, and I can never make that up to you. But them? They’re my redemption. They’re the one good thing I did, the one thing I tried that hasn’t turned to shit. They TRUST me. They know I’ll have their back. Just as I know they’ll have mine.” She sighed. “Holy Smite. Divine Conduit!” She said, and light burst from her, eyes erupting with holy glow, as a halo formed around her head, and she raised the shining golden sword high.

  “Now surrender, Garon,” She said, in a voice that reverberated like thunder. “I don’t want to have to kill you a second time.”

  And then Reason screamed, and all hell broke loose.

  Long and high, like some sort of undersea crustacean thrown in a fire, Reason screamed, and the wail tore out of the machine bay, breaking the silence between cannon shots. And like everyone else in the fort, Mastoya’s head whipped around toward the window.

  “A distraction!” She assumed, turning back toward Garon and the toys...

  ...to find an empty office and dissipating green flickers, as the golems’ waystones did their work.

  Garon materialized at the foot of the bed...

  ...which was no longer there. Graves was rummaging inside the pack, pulling out different soulstones, looking for the right one. Glub and Madeline were shoving the bed, along with a few others, in front of the only door out.

  From beyond the makeshift barricade, the group could clearly hear approaching metal-shod feet.

  BOOM!

  For a bit, anyway. Reason might be wailing, but the guns weren’t stopping.

  “Threadbare’s not answering!” Madeline shouted.

  Garon thought quickly. “Trouble. He’ll need our help and we can’t stay here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Graves said. “I fucked up.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Glub insisted. “Dude had it out for you. Speaking of that, here.” The fishman grabbed the withered corpse on the floor, jumped up, and slam-dunked it into the pack. Graves nearly dropped the pack and cursed.

  “What the heck?” Fluffbear squeaked.

  “Evil dude. Magic items. Search later,” Glub summed up, then went back to building the barricade. There was hammering against the door now and angry voices.

  Garon growled low in his throat. “Right. Graves, Madeline, get in my party.” He threw invites, then he threw a quest.

  “Follow you?” Madeline said.

  “Yep. That simple. Do the Job. Organize minions to follow me!” He pointed at the barricade, and the door slamming against it repeatedly, as the guards battered against the recalcitrant portal. “Burninate that, buy us some time.”

  “Bahninate!” Madeline yelled, and then there was fire. Glub screamed and jumped clear, barely.

  “Dude! Warn a bro first!”

  The angry shouts outside turned to panicked shouts, and Garon nodded, pointed to the window. “Out we go. We get to Threadbare as fast as possible.”

  “We’re four stories up, give or take!” Graves said, gesturing at his withered arms. “I can’t climb!”

  “Fff... can you fit in the pack?”

  “No,” Graves said, sparing it a glance. “It’s just a bit too small. Pulsivar barely got in there.”

  “I could adjust it with tailoring.” Fluffbear offered.

  Graves coughed, as the smoke from the burning beds started filling the room.

  “No,” Madeline snapped. “Can’t alter the pack when it’s enchanted or it’ll lose the magic. No way weah getting the cats back in now if they get out!”

  “Okay. Waystone shenanigans with Graves, would they work? Get clear, make a waymark somewhere else, and get him a waystone?” Garon looked to Glub.

  “Dude, those things cost fortune. I’m low. And we’d still have to get him the waystone, how are we gonna do that?”

  “Shit.” Garon hopped up, looked out the window. The courtyard below was distracted, with civilians getting clear and armored men advancing on the portcullis of the machine bay. A flash of metal, then the portcullis groaned and bent outward, as something heavy slammed against it.

  “I have a different idea,” said Graves, coughing. “Fluffbear, can you quickly sew me a pair of gloves? Garon, please kick me out of the party.”

  A minute later, Graves was coughing helplessly, unable to move a muscle as he cleared his lungs of smoke.

  But he didn’t have to, because he was an animator, and his gloves, shoes, pants, and tunic were all animated, and they climbed him down the wall with slow and careful grace.

  Garon watched as a few fleeing civilians paused, then came over to help, offering hands up to the rogue necromancer and helping him down once he got to the courtyard. He pointed up to the window, which now had smoke oozing out of it, and Garon ducked. “We’re good! He can blend in with the crowd. Madeline, you ready?”

  “Get ahn!” She said, just as the door sizzled and burned to nothing in the space of a second. A bare female hand pushed through the ashes where a door had been, and a beautiful woman wearing a diaphanous red halter top and harem pants pushed through the barricade contemptuously, black eyes narrowed behind her red domino mask...

  ...just in time to see a small wooden dragon with its back full of toys go careening out the window.

  The creature who the knights knew as the fifth member of the Hand, called only “The Cataclysm”, sighed and turned her attention to extinguishing the flames. Really, calling her in here had been like asking a sledgehammer to crush a cockroach.

  As to the culprits who had fled, well, she’d leave them to her friends. That should be more than enough to take care of the matter.

  *****

  Reason screamed, the sound filling the machine bay with the shrieks of the damned, and Cecelia ran for cover.

  “Celia!” Threadbare shouted, staring as the great Steam Knight suit rose, and started stabbing its sword into the piles of junk around it. “No!”

  “Cecelia?” Emmet rumbled, loudly this time, voice rising as he managed to shake off the command keeping him quiet. “She is here?”

  “Yes!” Threadbare said, running toward Reason...

  ...which turned.

  Yellow light glimmered inside its helm, and tendrils poked out, slimy tendrils, with glowing orbs like eyes that trained down upon the little bear as he smacked his scepter on the moving barricades. “Hi! Over here!” he called. “I challenge you! Er, Guard Stance!”

  Your Challenge skill is now level 10!

  Your Guard Stance skill is now level 20!

  But as he did, there were heavy footsteps behind him.

  “No!” Emmet said. “I must guard Reason!”

  “That’s not Reason!” Cecelia wailed, as the massive machine turned from her and glared its eyestalks down at Threadbare. “There’s a monster in it!”

  Emmet stared at her, gems glittering under its helm. “You... are Cecelia!”

  “Yes!”

  WHAM! Threadbare twisted desperately to the side as Reason shuffled toward him and tried to kick the little bear. It missed, barely-

  Your Dodge skill is now level 9!

  I don’t have nearly the skill to keep doing that, Threadbare knew. So he ran past a row of barricades, slapping them with his paw. “Animus Animus Animus Animus, invite barricades one through four, get that thing,” he said, calming a bit now that Cecelia was out of danger.

  Your Animus skill is now level 36!

  Your Creator’s Guardians skill is now level 27!

  The heavy barricades rolled on their sturdy wheels, slamming into Reason’s legs as it stepped back, surprised.

  “What has happened to you?” Emmet said, gazing upon the little porcelain doll. “You are smaller and not armored!”

  BOOM!

  “It’s a long story and we don’t have-”

  WHAM! Reason brought its wrecker blade down on an animated barricade, splitting it asunder and sending a red ‘303’ up into the air. Then it turned to th
e rest of the barricades and drew back the ten-foot-long sword for a wide sweep. Hastily Threadbare directed them to scatter, but Reason just turned toward Threadbare, lunging forward and sending more barricades into the air, chopping through chains and resting siege engines alike as it tried to skewer the little bear.

  “I command you to kill the monster inside Reason!” Cecelia shouted, desperation making her voice squeak as its strings stressed to their limit.

  “Alright,” Emmet decided. “I can do that.”

  On anyone else it would be a boast. But there was nothing boastful in his tone, nothing save for quiet confirmation of a thing self-evident.

  And so as Threadbare ran from Reason as it wrecked its way across the machine bay. The little bear used barricades to slow it down and animated new ones just as fast as they were destroyed.

  Emmet thumped his chest with a hollow CLANG and started toward the infested machine that stood twice his size, speaking with his booming voice as he went.

  “Always in Uniform. Shield Saint.” Emmet said, for his forearms WERE shields, with gauntlets on the end of them. “Unyielding. Fight the Battles. Take the Hits. Get that Guy! Build up—” he finished with the first run of buffs, drawing a hand back as he broke into a sprint. “The Bigger They Are... Fast as Death.” He intoned, running through all the applicable tier one melee buffs.

  And then he switched over to his melee tier two skills. “Ablative Armor,” he commanded, and barricades flew up to coat him, along with broken chains and other surrounding metal items. He continued as they slammed into him, forming a shell of his own. “Unbreakable. Unmoveable. Unstoppable. Always Angry...” Then a dip back into tier one, for the last skill. “Rage!”

  Emmet roared, and Reason twisted to face him and nailed him point-blank with an arbalest bolt.

  It hadn’t shot at Threadbare because the target in question was tiny. But Emmet? Emmet was big.

  The bolt, which could punch through plate armor like a longbow through cardboard, hit Emmet... and sent a spray of barricades from the armor golem’s back.

  A big, fat ‘0’ drifted up.

  Realizing too late its danger, Reason twisted, tried to get out of the line of Emmet’s lumbering charge—