I watched the whole thing happen in horrified silence. Brindar did the same.
“That was disgusting,” he finally said.
I agreed. “I hate nature,” I said, and we turned to go.
We only took a step or two, when a new noise caused us to turn. The slug was moving again, only now it had four legs, and what looked like a long, pointed snout, wriggling about on the end of its cylindrical body.
It turned what passed for its head toward us, and then began to move forward. If I didn’t know better, I would have said that it was on the attack.
It turned out that I did know better. The thing did the trick with the tendril again, this time the slimy, pink string attaching itself to my boot. Unbelievably, I felt it give my leg a tug. It wasn’t strong enough to actually move me, but I shouldn’t have even felt it.
Biter swung down and severed the string, causing it to snap back in both directions, some of it landing on my boot, the rest back on the once slug. Brindar stepped forward and swept his axe down again, cutting the thing in two.
There was no blood, or anything else that oozed out of the creature. It simply fell in two halves and lay still on the alley floor, two pink blobs.
“That got a whole lot grosser,” he said, sliding Biter back into the loop on his belt.
“I think I need that ale,” I said.
That night, I told Lilly about what we encountered.
“That’s one of the more disgusting things you’ve told me about,” she said.
“Yeah, but if I have to see it, then you get to hear about it.”
She looked thoughtful. “You know, I’m thinking about the fact that it started to take on that rat’s shape. That doesn’t seem like something natural.”
“No, at least nothing I’ve ever heard of. But who knows what weirdness nature has to offer up. It’s why I hate leaving the city.”
“You hate leaving the city because there’s too many taverns here. This thing you saw concerns me, though.”
“Why?” I knew what was coming, but I didn’t want to face it. Not yet.
“I’m worried that it’s another attack on the city. Imagine if you and Brindar hadn’t seen and killed it. What was next? A dog? A person? And would it have kept growing?”
“Aw, come on Lilly. Can’t someone else handle this one? We’re getting hitched in a few days.”
“You’re right,” she said. “We’ve done enough for now. I’ll tell my bosses about it tomorrow and they can deal with it, if need be. For all I know, you’re right, and it’s some gross slug that’s perfectly natural. Weird and icky, but natural. If not, let them handle it. I’m working tomorrow, and then that’s it until after we’re married.”
I have to admit, I was shocked. It wasn’t like Lilly to let someone else take responsibility for something. Shocked or not, I was certainly happy about it. One of the things that I love about Lilly is her ability to surprise me.
But things are never as easy as they appear. I was going to the watchhouse the next day to take one last job off the Board while Lilly was at work, so I walked there with her.
“Duke, Lilly,” Sarge said as we walked in, his nose buried in his ever-present newssheets.
“Hey, Sarge,” I replied, then kissed Lilly goodbye and headed over to the counter, rebuilt after the bird explosion.
“Almost the big day,” he said to me, glancing up.
“Yep. You’re going to be there, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. It should be fun to watch you squirm.”
“Squirm? Who’s going to squirm? I’m happy as can be about it.”
“Sure. Now. But when Father Magnus starts talking about being married forever? Well, we’ll see.”
“You’re not getting to me, Sarge. Not about that anyway. I know when I’ve got it made.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess you do, at that. Working today?”
“Yep. Anything good on the Board?”
“Not sure about good, but certainly weird,” he replied, his mouth twisted into a wry grimace.
“What do you mean?”
“See for yourself.”
I walked over to the Board, expecting that it would be mostly empty. Instead, it was full, with notices posted one on top of the other. There were plenty of the run-of-the-mill nuisances, like ogres out of hand, or goblins burning down someone’s business. But mostly there were slugs. Tons of them. Descriptions varied from ones that were a few inches long invading someone’s house, to larger ones who, as Lilly had feared, had eaten someone’s dog.
“You’re kidding me,” I muttered.
“Nope,” Sarge said. He followed me to the Board and stood looking them over with me. “Like I said, weird.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not taking any of them. Lilly thinks they might be another attack on the city, and we’re taking a break. Let someone else deal with them. Me? I’m taking this one.”
I pulled a notice almost at random, and then glanced down at it. It was a simple goblin, wanted for trying to set fire to a daycare over near Silver Tree Lane. My opinion of goblin intelligence sank to a whole new level. Not only stupid enough to target kids, but to target rich kids? Pure idiocy.
“Well, that one should earn you some money anyway,” Sarge said, returning to his newssheets. “But let me know what you find out about those slug things.”
“I told you, I’m not doing those!” I protested.
“Sure, Duke. I know.”
I walked out muttering. I wasn’t getting involved. Not now.
The goblin was a piece of cake. I talked to the complainant, got paid, and headed for the daycare. The goblin was still there, trying hard to light fire to a stone building with a flint and steel. It was almost pathetic, but the problem with goblins, especially one like this, was that they couldn’t take a hint. I did what I needed to, and eliminated the nuisance. I surprised him, and didn’t even need to set my gun to “Goblin”. The normal little, metal ball did the trick.
Sarge was right. The money for this one was very good. The type of folk who lived on Silver Tree Lane could afford the best, which is why they got me.
I was heading home, winding my way through the streets and feeling pretty good, when I heard heavy foot-steps pounding along behind me. I turned and saw Brindar running after me.
“Grandfather!” he said, coming to a halt and taking a moment to catch his breath. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Oh, no. We don’t have a problem. You might have a problem, but I’m doing perfectly fine.”
“Cut the comedy. I need you to come down to the docks. I need your help.”
Dammit. That was hitting below the belt. Friends or not, it wasn’t easy for Brindar to ask for help. It wasn’t easy for me to do it either. If he was straight up asking, it must be bad.
“It’s those stupid slugs, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I guess you could say that. Not sure if they’re really slugs anymore. Not after they overran an orc compound.”
“Tell me it wasn’t like with the rat.”
“Worse. Much worse. But you have to come see.”
“Hold on,” I sighed. I located one of the messenger boys that inhabit the city like fleas on a dog and sent a message to Lilly, telling her that I might be late tonight after all.
But I wasn’t going to tell Sarge where I was going.
I never knew Brindar to exaggerate and he certainly wasn’t this time. What we saw the slug in the alley do was multiplied many times over by what we saw now. I don’t know how they managed it, but there were several roughly orc shaped pink, slimy masses shambling around the dock area. What looked like arms, legs, or heads would grow out of the masses, be reabsorbed, and grow anew elsewhere. People scattered, and the slug-orc things had the run of the place.
“This is gross,” I said, as Brindar and I stood in a nearby alley, peering around a corner.
“It’s worse than that. They spit out those same sticky ropes that the little one did, only these are much thicker. See tha
t big one?” He indicated one particular shambling mass, much larger than the rest. “That was an ogre. It fought like mad, but the thing pulled him in anyway. Look, you can see one of its arms.”
Coming out of the back of the shape was what appeared to be a rough drawing of a huge arm, flailing around like it was trying to swat flies.
“It pulled an ogre in? That’s not good. Have you tried to take one out yet?”
“No, I haven’t been able to get near. I tried sneaking up close enough to use Biter on one, but it saw me coming. I barely dodged the rope thing it shot at me. Otherwise, you’d be seeing one with a big axe shape growing out of it. Think your gun can do anything?”
“I don’t know. I can shoot them, sure. But since I’m not sure what they are, the little, metal ball is only going to do so much damage. If I knew what to call them, it’d be different.”
“Well, try it anyway,” he said.
I stepped out from the wall that we were hiding behind, pulled my gun, aimed and fired. I got off a quick three shots, and saw them all hit dead on. But to almost no effect. I saw three holes appear in the shambling mass, but they quickly closed up again. The only noticeable effect was that the slug-orc oozed around and thick, ropy tendrils of pink slime shot out at me.
I dove back behind the wall as the tendrils hit where I was standing a moment before. If I hadn’t been ready for it, I would even now be getting pulled toward the thing. There was no doubt in my mind that if they were strong enough to pull in an ogre, they could easily do the same to me.
“No luck,” I said.
“There’s luck,” Brindar replied, “but it’s all the bad kind. Look.”
Not only was the one that I shot heading in our direction, all the others were too. If they had some way of communicating, I couldn’t see or hear what it was. But they certainly seemed to be acting as a unit.
As they neared, they drew closer to each other also, until the inevitable happened. Two of them bumped into each other. It was like watching the two little ones that I saw a couple of days ago. When they collided, they didn’t move apart again. Instead, they flowed into each other, with a weird melting kind of motion. Their pink, slimy skin engulfed each other, and then they were one.
The new one was like the orc-ogre-slug hybrid bringing up the rear, but not quite as large. It had an arm that was sticking out of the top of it, and a leg jutting from its side. It moved in a jerking motion, that was half a stumbling walk and half a slide forward. Watching it was fascinating and horrifying all at once.
“Now what?” I said.
“What if you draw their attention, and I get close enough to take a swing? Maybe Biter can do some damage.”
“What? I’m the bait?”
“Sort of, yeah. But move off enough that they can’t get to you.”
“How far is that?”
Brindar shrugged. His guess was as good as mine. We had no idea how far these things could shoot those ropey tendrils. But he had a point. The gun didn’t do much damage, but it did draw their attention. And we couldn’t let these things go, or they’d continue doing what they had been, absorbing more and more people.
I sighed. “Stay out of sight, and give me a minute.”
I turned and ran off through the streets, circling around so that I could come back to the docks from the other direction. It took me a few minutes, but I came out behind the things, which flowed further up the way, toward where Brindar was still hiding.
I pulled my gun, aimed and shot one of them in what I hoped was the back, again getting off a quick three shots. No difference in the effect. The holes closed over, but the slug-orcs did turn back toward me, and started flowing in my direction. I fired again, at a different one this time, hoping that I was out of their range.
If I wasn’t, then they weren’t trying to snare me for some other reason. They didn’t shoot their ropes at me, but did continue to shuffle and ooze toward me, odd appendages appearing in their bodies and disappearing.
Two more of them ran into each other, reducing the number of individuals, but increasing the size and danger of the ones that were left. It wouldn’t be long until they all found each other and became a giant blob, intent on sucking up the entire city.
I fired, moved back, and fired again, keeping an eye out. When they all seemed to be fully focused on me, I saw Brindar sneak out from the alley where he was hiding. He walked slowly and carefully, Biter at the ready. As he neared the back of the rear most one, it must have sensed him, because it started to turn.
But Brindar was faster, and his axe came whistling around. It sheared completely through the slug-orc thing, cutting it almost perfectly in half. The top half slid to the side and then fell with a sucking noise. The bottom half stayed where it was, quivering. Like the slug-rat from the alley, no blood or other fluids ran from the wound.
Brindar carefully stepped around that one, and staying low approached the next. I kept firing at them to keep them focused on me. But as he moved forward, the two halves that lay behind him moved. Sticky tendrils shot out from both of them. Some of the ropes went toward the other half, and some of them shot toward Brindar, connecting with the backs of his legs.
The two halves began drawing themselves together, while the other ropes stopped Brindar in his tracks. He looked down at the backs of his legs in surprise. He was a professional though, and had been in plenty of sticky spots before this one. He kept his head, reversed his axe, and brought it down through the tendrils attached to him. Biter swept cleanly through them, and he sprang away before more could trap him. He took off running, gaining the safety of the alley before the two halves of the slug thing could reform.
I stopped firing, turned and ran, back into the streets, working my way around until I was with Brindar again.
“That half worked,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s our answer.”
“No, I don’t think so either. Any other ideas?”
“Not without knowing what they are.”
“How smart is that gun of yours?” he asked me.
“What? I don’t know. What do you mean?” It never occurred to me that my Ultimate Weapon could have any sort of intelligence.
“Think about it. You’ve run into some pretty bizarre things and somehow the gun always knows what you mean when you name it. What if you don’t have to have the exact name, but it will know what you mean anyway?”
“That’s crazy,” I began, but then stopped. What if? I mean, I told it to kill darkness and it did. Maybe there was something to that.
I shrugged. “Worth a try, I guess.”
I stepped out from the alley, pointed the gun at the shambling masses and said, “Those things!”
I fired, and the little, metal ball that came out was a brilliant white color, and it left a trail of vapor in the air behind it. When it hit the slug-orc, it made a hole, but this time, it didn’t close up. Instead, the edges of the hole turned a bluish, white color. The color began to spread throughout the thing’s body and there was a cracking and creaking sound. Within seconds, the thing was frozen solid.
I looked back at Brindar, eyebrows raised.
“See?” he said.
I shook my head, turned back to the horde and continued to fire. One little, metal ball for each one was all it took. A few minutes later, the dock area was covered with what looked like disturbingly carved ice sculptures.
“Now what?” Brindar asked, coming up next to me after I shot the last one.
“Biter?”
“Let’s see what happens now.”
Biter shattered the first one, and we stood back to see what would happen. Nothing did. If the slug thing was still alive, it showed no signs of it. Brindar moved on, shattering one after the other. He seemed to be having a good time.
Soon, all of the frozen slug-orcs were destroyed, and icy pieces of them lay scattered across the dock area. We stayed alert, watching for any signs of them thawing, moving, or trying to reform. Yet, despite it being a fairly warm day, they
stayed frozen, and when I worked up the nerve to try, ice cold to the touch.
Dock workers began to make their way back to the area, thanking the two of us for handling the problem. I looked at Brindar. “Ale?”
“Yep. Not that weak human stuff though. This time, we’re going to go to one of my places.”
That was fine with me. Dwarven ale is good stuff. The only problem is the ceilings in those places tended to be low, and I always banged my head. Luckily, I liked to sit down at a table to do my drinking.
Brindar led the way and I followed along with him, thinking of the peculiarities of my gun. For years, ever since I got it, I thought of it in the way that I had always known. Mostly, that I needed to specifically name what I wanted it to kill. But recent events, which all seemed to start when the Death Knight named it, made me think otherwise.
At some point, I was going to have to do some research into the thing. Maybe after the wedding Lilly and I could start looking.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a tug on the back on my shirt. I spun around, half expecting to find a slimy, pink tendril attached to me. But it wasn’t.
Instead, there was a small rat-man, who stood about waist high, looking up at me. He blinked in the sunlight, and rubbed his hands together in a nervous sort of way, while the whiskers on his snout twitched. It was unusual to see a rat-man during the day. They tended to do their business, whatever distasteful thing it was, at night. I think they saw better in the dark than in the light, but it also could have been because no one really wanted them around. Me included.
“You come,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“What? Come where? I’m not going anywhere with you.”
My fairly recent change in outlook led to a much greater tolerance for those that were different from me. I drank with dwarves, ate with orcs and held conversations with ogres. I didn’t even have anything against goblins, if I could find one that showed any sort of intelligence. Hell, I even stopped outright loathing Raven, and started to tolerate him.
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 52
