“Ha ha! See, she’s cool,” Glub said, disengaging. “In a sorta spiky, might tear your head off randomly, kinda way.”
“She’s Zuula.” Threadbare said.
“Yeah, that works. You doing okay, bossman?”
“I came to check on you all.”
“I’m doin’ okay.” He shrugged. “Singin’ to a good audience, chilling with peeps and old, uh, friends. Turns out they’re pretty cool, now that I can talk to ’em all. I’m glad we’re on good terms again. That whole cult thing was weird, in hindsight.”
“I think that’s how most of them are, from what Celia told me.”
“Dude. Well, s’all right. I’m doin’ okay. Just kind going with the flow. Y’know?”
“I think so.”
“Never seen a war before. Don’t have anything like that at home. Got a lot of cool stuff here we don’t have at home.” Glub filled his air bladders, let them sigh empty again. “Know what I’d like to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’d like to travel around some, after this is all done with and see everything. Then go home and tell stories and sing songs about it.”
“Can you go home?” Threadbare asked. “Celia was pretty sure the Crown forces destroyed the gate.”
“Eh, I’m pretty sure there’s others around. And where there’s gates there’s cults to my old one. Just gotta find one.” He shrugged. “I’m immortal unless someone kills me, right? I got time. And this explorer thing is pretty cool, so leveling it up is only gonna make it cooler.”
“It really has helped us.” Threadbare smiled. “And so have you.”
“Thanks, man.” Glub gave him a squeeze, then let him go. “Welp, gotta get back. Hand out waystones to groups going in, so they can teleport out if they get in over their heads.”
“Okay.” Threadbare nodded and waved. Then his laurels slipped, and he pushed them up on his forehead.
One last person to check with.
Given the choice between going into the dungeon and waiting with Zuula, he opted for the latter. He watched doll haunters in their new bodies enter the tavern, collect waystones from Glub, and head upstairs... usually staring at him the whole while or whispering to each other, with awestruck looks on their faces. His adorable skill chunked up a few more times, and he was pretty sure that he was getting model experience as well. To pass the time he put up buffs from that job.
Eventually, all the groups that went upstairs returned, coming back down the stairs or teleporting directly to Zuula, usually torn all to hell and back. And slowly they made their way out to let their pools recharge or perhaps just to experience moving around in bodies again. All told, it took a long time.
But golems are patient, and golems have no trouble with time. And after a couple of hours, Garon came down the stairs.
“We done yet?” Zuula growled.
“Almost. Figure it’ll be morning soon, we can go hang with Jarrik. Oh hey, Threadbare!”
“Hello.”
“Just in time. I wanted to talk with you.”
“Zuula headin’ back to de temple. Come get her when you done. Glub, you coming?”
“Sure, ma’am.”
And then they were alone in the tavern.
“It’s going well, before you ask,” Garon said as he pulled up a chair. “We’re letting them sort out their own jobs. We don’t have a prayer at teaching them dwarven battle tactics before the big fight, so they’re mainly going to be skirmishers. Skirmishers with seriously good endurance, who don’t feel pain, and have a racial armor that stacks with the armor the dwarves are giving them. It should work out pretty well.”
“That’s good. How are you holding up?”
Garon tilted his head. “This is what I trained for, for most of my life. War. This isn’t how I was expecting to come to it, but I’m excited to finally get to try out my lessons.” He sighed. “And a little sad that I’m going to have to go up against my sister.”
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Garon folded his hands. “It’s about Mastoya, actually. I think I know how to reach her. But we’re going to have to beat her first.”
Threadbare nodded. “Okay.”
“When we meet her on the field, if we meet her on the field, and I’m sure we will, I want you to follow my lead, okay? No matter what I say.”
“Can you tell me what you’re planning? So I know how to follow it?”
“That’s the hard part. I can’t, because it’s all going to depend on the circumstances and how it plays out. But...” Garon spread his hands, slapped them on the table. “It’s one last try. My last chance to save her. I... I need this. You know? And Mom needs this, even if she won’t admit it.”
“Zuula said something about you being in a flier.”
“Then Wind’s Whisper me when you come to her. You’re staying on the ground, right?”
“Oh yes. I don’t know how to fly.”
“Then she’ll come to you. I guarantee it. Stall her until I get there. Fight her, talk to her, whatever.” Garon shook his head, tossing his horns. “Please. I need this.”
Threadbare didn’t look at Garon’s face. Garon’s face didn’t move, save for his jaws. It wasn’t like humans, whom he’d spent most of his life studying. Instead he studied Garon’s posture, the way his fingers moved, the way he sat.
And Threadbare nodded. “Okay.”
“Thanks. I owe you. Big time.” Garon leaned back.
“Madeline.” Threadbare slapped his forehead. “I forgot to talk with her.”
“She was chilling on the roof of the temple, last I saw. Wanna walk there together? I can’t leave Mom alone too long; she’ll burn something down.”
“I don’t think she can. Most of this place is made out of stone.”
“You don’t know Mom like I do. She doesn’t do well with boredom.”
The two of them headed back, and sure enough, there was a flash of red on the temple roof as they approached. “There she is. Want a toss?”
“A what?”
“Some of the new guys invented this. The stronger ones just up and threw the weaker ones across a big chasm I put in their way. It bangs you up a little, but you’ve got mend.” Garon laughed. “Here I was set to be the guy training them, and they’re teaching me.”
“Sure, toss me.” Threadbare held his arms out.
The dwarves on the street gaped as the little wooden minotaur whirled around a few times and threw the bear up to bounce off the steeple.
He flailed, caught ahold of the edge of the roof before he fell, and hoisted himself up.
Your Climb skill is now level 14!
“Hey,” Madeline said.
Next to her, Pulsivar looked up and immediately hurried over. The Bear no longer smelled like him! This could not stand! Threadbare scrambled for footing, as Pulsivar rubbed his invisible face all over him, the image five feet away rubbing against air. The rank up had made the black cat strong.
Threadbare managed to find his voice. “Hello. I’ve been checking in with everyone.”
“Why?”
“Celia suggested that I do it. And I want to make sure you’re alright.”
“Oh. Yeah, mostly.” She put her head down, listened to Pulsivar purr as he groomed his bear.
“Mostly?”
“I’ve done a lot of things. Never done wah. Theah’s a lot of stuff that could go wrong when the bacon hits the pan. I mean...” she flexed her wings, “We’ve gaht more chances of sahviving than most, so long as they don’t take down you and Graves, but we really ah gonna be risking everyone in this. Nothing’s fah shah.”
“For sure?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I’m sorry. We have to do this.”
“I know. Gotta beat the bad guys, win the Kingdom back. But aftah THAT, we gotta go take on the King, and maybe the Hand if we don’t stomp ’em in the field. And he’s a badass. And the people wahking for him are badasses. I’m...” She looked at Thre
adbare, and he’d never seen her like this. “I’ve lost so many people, you know? I’ve fahked up so many things. This heah, this is the best group of friends I’ve evah had, and I don’t want to lose any of them, and I’m so godsdamned scahed—”
Threadbare pushed Pulsivar gently away, marched over and hugged Madeline.
CHA+1
She sagged into his arms, shaking, and he held her, rubbing her ridged spine. After a bit, Pulsivar came over and curled around them, because why not.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling back from him, after a few minutes. “You give good hugs. I see why Cecelia keeps ya around.”
“I do my best.”
“I’ll be fine.” The dragon took a breath, let it out. “Will you?”
Threadbare thought about it.
“Yes,” he said. “I think it will be hard, but we’ll win. And I’ll fight hard so none of us die.”
The dragon smiled. “Then yoah fine.”
“I should be animating more golems. But... I think they can spare me for a moment. Just a moment. If anyone asks please tell them I’m resting.”
“You chose a good spot foah it,” Madeline settled into Pulsivar’s furry bulk.
And so, the little bear rested and prepared for what was to come.
Days fled as he animated golem after golem, gaining a level from his work. They managed to get every one of the soulstoned ex-cultists embodied and somewhat trained. Celia managed to get her Steam Knight armor up and running. And a myriad of other preparations with the leftover reagents helped gain Threadbare another two enchanter levels.
But even so, when the alarms rang through the hold, and the scouts returned saying the Crown’s army was on the move, Threadbare did not feel prepared....
CHAPTER 11: DEATH FROM ABOVE
The Dwarven language has fifty-two words that all mean defense. They only have five for offense, and one of those five invokes both concepts. That word is “Lavasten,” which means, “Cleaning the foe from a more defensible position, so that we can take it and dig in later.”
Most human tacticians treat this as a joke, until and unless the time comes when they find themselves in conflict with dwarves.
When that happens, they usually don’t find the word and its meaning funny anymore. Or anything else, really, unless they’re tough enough to survive and smart enough to make sure the dwarves don’t take the battle PERSONALLY.
Dwarves have fifty-two words for defense.
They have eighty-nine words for grudges.
And hoo boy, had Melos made it personal.
So when the Crown forces moved in, they moved in the way that years of losses had taught them to do.
Slowly.
From up on one of the foothills surrounding Brokeshale mountain, a massive part of the stone that had peeled away from it like bark falling from an old log, Threadbare watched them come. Well, as best he could. His perception was good, but they were very far away.
Cecelia was having an easier time of it.
“What is the word for that tube thing?” Threadbare asked, looking up at his little girl.
“It’s called a telescope. A nation east of here invented these things, back before the Oblivion. Want a look?”
Threadbare took it carefully between his paws. It was heavier than he expected.
He nearly fell over when he looked through it, though. The teddy bear had NOT been expecting the extreme close-up.
But Threadbare adjusted and stared through the telescope, sweeping it around from one end of the valley to the other.
It didn’t take long. The Valley was only perhaps fifteen miles across and just a bit wider from the Crown-controlled lines to the Mountain. He could tell the Crown’s territory by the moats that they’d carved out in front of their observations posts, put there to help detect dwarven sappers. The dwarves were big on earth elementalism, along with traditional mining techniques and devices that humans just couldn’t match. So the moats were an imperfect defense, but they’d kept the dwarves from breaking out and encircling them, which would have been the end of the war.
“What are those yellow bird things out in front?” Threadbare asked. “The ones with the riders.”
“Wark Knights. It’s not actually a job; they’re just tamers who learned how to be decent fast cavalry and skirmishers. They’re our first task, actually. They’re sensitive to noises transmitted through the ground, so Mastoya’s using them to find out which tunnels the dwarves are in right now.”
“When you’re fighting an army, first put out their eyes,” Garon said.
“We don’t have to do that, do we? That sounds rather cruel.” Threadbare worried.
“No, it’s just an expression,” Cecelia reassured him. “All we really have to do is scatter them, then get down to the checkpoint.”
“Then it’s ah tahn,” Madeline grinned, glancing back at the far end of the peak and the winged dolls climbing aboard Beryl’s fliers. “So let’s get this pahty stahted, huh?”
Cecelia took the telescope back and snapped it shut, handing it to Garon. “Here. You’ll get more use out of this, maybe.”
“Well, Kayin will. I’ll be busy trying not to crash.” The three toys walked toward the flying machines and the dwarves waiting beyond.
Garon peeled off, and Cecelia and Threadbare kept walking, back to the mouth of the tunnel, and the enormous steel barrel poking out of it. Dwarves called back and forth to each other, rolling spheres the size of tables along the ground. For all their size, they were light. They were, after all, mainly filled with cloth.
“You’re the last,” Beryl said. “And the heaviest. We can probably put you the most on target, but everyone else is going to have some variances, no help for it. So don’t get fucking stupid all right? I don’t care what dungeons you’ve done, you can’t take on an army without help. Just... oh, just don’t die.”
“That’s actually the decree I gave everyone.” Threadbare smiled. “They liked that. They liked the quest more though, I think.”
“Quest?” Beryl raised an eyebrow. “Shit, if you’re just giving them away—”
“You have to be one of his subjects.” Cecelia pointed out.
“Yeah, fuck that noise. Uh, sorry bear. Grundi’s my king, that’s not changing anytime soon. Hopefully.” She coughed. “Just out of curiosity, what’s the quest?”
“Win.”
She laughed, braids bouncing. “Alright. Get in the ball. We’re starting the sequence in five.”
The dwarves nearest them cracked open the sphere of the bronze orb, showing layers and layers of cloth and padding, with twenty of the new teddies clustered around it. One waved and almost tumbled some of the padding out of the sphere until one of the dwarves cursed him out and tucked it back. “Stop moving! Time for that when you’re all in.”
Cecelia moved into the padding, nestling herself carefully. Threadbare piled in next to her, mend golem beads at the ready. Then darkness, tight darkness, as the dwarves sealed the orb... followed by movement as they rolled it upslope.
“Alright,” Threadbare said, there, in the middle of the pile of golems. “Everyone hug, just like we practiced, please.”
“Sir?” One of the smaller bears squeaked. “Can I say it’s just an honor?”
“I think you just did. Oh, wait. Thank you!”
“He thanked me! Eeeeee!”
“We’ll only be hearing this for the rest of her life,” another bear grumbled.
“Ah, let her have it, Frenk, let her have it.”
Rumbles from outside, clanking, metal scraping against bronze. “They’re lowering us in,” Cecelia said. “This won’t take long.”
“Right. First rule?” one of the bears spoke. “Nobody fart.”
They all got a laugh out of that. Except Threadbare, he’d never really gotten why fart jokes were funny. It was just a thing humans did.
The minutes crawled by, in that dark, cramped space.
And then—
WHAM!
&nb
sp; The impact pushed him back into the cloth, pushed them all against each other, with the Steam Knight armor at the very back, and the soft toys flattening out, all surrounding Cecelia’s ceramic body in their center.
It would have broken bones in a normal person’s body, but as it was...
Your Golem Body skill is now level 33!
“Woo!” Someone yelled. “Easy skill up!”
“Easy? Easy? Shit man, you’re nuts!”
“Packed nuts!” Someone else yelled, and they all laughed again. The pressure eased, bit by bit, until the toys almost felt like they were drifting.
“We’re falling now,” Cecelia said. “This is going to be the hard part. Hug tight!”
Beryl had listened with wide eyes when Cecelia told her of how they’d escaped Fort Bronze.
Then she’d started sketching and doing math.
The dwarves had steam cannons; they’d been developed early on as counters to Fort Bronze’s armaments. But the steam cannons had never been able to get the range they needed to shell enemy territory.
However, super-light shot, filled with stuffed animals and other toy golems, packed into a wooden shell that broke away and allowed the round to fire without disintegrating... well, that was different.
And when you threw Zuula into the mix, Zuula who’d recently re-learned her twentieth level skill that let her call winds... well, things got INTERESTING.
It took far less time than it seemed.
CRUNCH!
Red numbers drifted up, golems screamed-
-and golden light flared, as their innocent embraces fired off, a massive flare of golden light that drowned out the sunlight now flooding in from the broken shell around them. Padding exploded outward, as did teddy bears.
And Cecelia, who tumbled across the ground, coming to a rest with Threadbare grimly hanging onto her hands, digging his heels in to slow and stop her.
“Are you alright?”
“I think so. Status.” She nodded. “Only down a bit- uh oh.”
“Hum,” Threadbare said, as he looked up at the big, yellow birds and their armored riders staring down at him.
Down and past him, to where golden feathers fluttered to the ground, and a pair of big bird legs twitched under the mass of the broken bronze ball that they’d used to traverse the battlefield.
Threadbare Volume 3 Page 26
