I make a quick fire and begin boiling water. As Wolf chomps down on the jerky I’ve given him, Sam produces two square packages that remind me of bento boxes. They’re made of wood and the contents are wrapped in leaves.
She removes the leaves almost the way a person would husk an ear of corn, and places the gelatinous contents back into the wood box, which, as it turns out, has been cut with slits on its bottom side so it resembles a grill.
“I need a way to warm them over the water, rather than submerge them,” she says. “Luckily, I have this.” She produces a grill about the size of a large pizza. “It’s a bit big – supposed to be used to cook for several people.”
“I still can’t believe you made these.”
“My cooking trade skill is at level six.”
“Damn! You got me by four levels.”
“I took an interest in preparing food here as it isn’t quite a buff, but it does make you feel better to have something in your stomach. I wish it were a buff, actually. I’d continue to improve my skill if that were the case.”
Sam places the grill over the boiling water and puts the food on top, keeping them in their wooden boxes. The smell that emerges from the food gets Wolf whining again.
“You’ve had your jerky.”
“You’re so cute, Wolf, a big bad cutie wolfie!” Sam laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you one.”
“We don’t want to eat you out of house and, um, inventory list. Also, you’re turning him into a softy. He’s supposed to be ferocious.”
Sam shrugs. “It’s fine. I’m stocked up. No food worries when I’m around and I’m pretty sure he’ll be just as ferocious after getting pampered as he was when you were neglecting him and filling him full of jerky.”
“Nothing wrong with jerky!”
She produces another box, unpeels the food, and places it over the grill. Once it is good and red, she hands me my box along with a spork. I stab into the mush and it squirts me in the eye.
“Shit!”
“Careful,” she tells me, a little too late. “It’s a variation of a piroshki, with a rib-broth soup inside.”
I take my first bite, ignoring my stinging eye. “Nice!”
I’m no foodie, but I’d bet good lira that a Brooklyn food critic would travel all the way to the Bronx just to stand in line for this stuff.
Wolf swallows his portion whole.
“Damn, boy,” I say with a chuckle. “That’s one way to do it.”
I decide to give Sam’s soup piroshki the Wolf treatment and slurp the rest of it down. I’m rewarded with burnt lips, but at least my hunger is sated.
“That good, huh?” she asks.
“Fucking amazing. Seriously. You’ve got to give me this recipe.”
“You’ll have to earn it,” she says with a wink.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I think as I stab my spork into a small piece that got away. The flirting between Sam and me has heightened over the last day, and it seemed like something might have happened in Governor Talonas’s seaside manor last night. But she retired to her room, and I retired to mine.
At some point in the middle of the night, Wolf snuck out to sleep with her.
The traitor.
As Sam finishes eating, I clean up the mess and return the lingering items to the list.
“You ready?” I ask both her and Wolf. She nods, and once she’s washed her hands in the water, she hops on.
I get onto Wolf’s back and pull her in close.
“Hey,” she says, but she doesn’t move away.
“Let’s go!”
His tongue wagging out the side of his mouth, Wolf tears through the sand dunes, past a few shaman huts, and into the underbrush that separates the coast from my humbly stolen abode.
The sun is a few winks away from setting, yet it still tries to hold on, rays cutting through the crimson skyline. But the dark will come, and no sun born fails to set.
As we ride, my thoughts settle on one thing: The Drachma Killers must go.
I’m surprised the Obelisk didn’t sense the feeling of revenge brooding inside me. It’s an extended detour, but I don’t plan to ride all the way to the far north of Unigaea without seeing that the Killers get their just desserts.
But our levels will prove to be a problem, I think.
Sam looks over her shoulder at me and scoots back a little, pressing her body into mine. I feel a spark between us. My thoughts are suddenly less macrocosmic, less poetic, more carnal, primal.
But game brain takes over pretty quickly, especially since there isn’t much we can do on the back of a wolf. I’ve got five free levels, great; Deathdale is now at level eleven, and Sam at level six. This is chump change compared to the Killers, who are at least in the fifties, or were when I last saw them.
We’ll have to go about it a different way, I think as Wolf slows. Loosely scattered patches of trees separated by clusters of rocks make it so he has to travel a bit slower than normal. The scent in the air has changed from the smell of the sea to that of blooming flowers. I glance around, semi-familiar with our current location.
“Having fun yet?” Sam asks over her shoulder.
“Anytime I ride Wolf, it’s fun.”
She snorts.
“Yeah, laugh it up. You damn well know what I meant. It’s up ahead, by the way. I can tell because of the hill.”
I hop off Wolf, gain my footing, and start running ahead, leaving Sam and the Tagvornin canine behind. I burst through some bramble, nicking my arms a bit but enjoying the speed. Wolf’s hot on my tail, and with less weight on his back, he’s swiftly approaching.
“Faster!” Sam yells and not seconds later, Wolf crashes through the brush, sees me, and leaps.
“Shit!” I roll out of the way just in time. He lands; Sam flies off, flips, and lands on her feet. “And that,” she says, slightly out of breath and after a full bow, “is how you do it!”
“You really are something else, aren’t you?”
“I’m just me.” She turns to the bandits’ hut. “This the place?”
“You were expecting something bigger?”
She gives me a coy look. “Not going to answer that one.” Sam turns, walks up to the place, and begins examining it while I dust off my armor.
“Watch where you’re going next time,” I tell Wolf under my breath. He sits and paws at his nose in a cute way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s gone, by the way,” Sam calls from inside the hut. “Left the door unlocked too.”
I run up to meet her to find her sitting on a chair, one leg crossed over the other.
“It’s not very cozy and you could use a new roof.” She points up at the rafters. “There’s a leak there.”
“It’s not supposed to be cozy; it’s supposed to be a getaway hut.” I take a big whiff of the air. “Hey! It’s not too bad in here, smells like blue melon.”
“Someone cleaned.”
“Wasn’t me,” I say as Wolf enters the hut, his nails clomping against the wooden floor. “Wasn’t him either.”
“A dog that cleans, that’d be something,” she muses. “Hey, what’s this?” She retrieves a letter from the table and unfolds it. “Tin Ingot.”
She hands it to me, and I see the two words hastily written on the torn piece of parchment. “Tin Ingot.”
Quest update!
Deathdale has left you a note to meet her in Tin Ingot. Ride there to meet with her tomorrow.
“Not one for words, your friend.”
“I don’t know if Deathdale is my friend or not.” I run my hand through my hair and tuck some of it behind my ear. “Regardless, she’s gone to Tin Ingot, so that gives us somewhere else to go. Although … ”
“What?”
I think back to the botched kidnapping of Drake Farmrot, orchestrated by the Tin Ingot authorities and ruined by three stray arrows from that asshole Czech Meyout. “I don’t know why she’d go there.”
“Who cares?” Sam’s b
ottle of stolen Stater Sea Fruit champagne takes shape in her hands and she sets it on the table. “Let’s celebrate.”
Chapter Four: Crimson Moon
How I ended up on the bed with Sam Raid on top of me can be chocked up to luck, good timing, and an abundance of fine wine. Wolf rests near the door, not quite sure what to make of the scene.
Her legs straddled around my waist, Sam drops and bites at my lips. She wraps her hand around the back of my head and pulls me up harshly, pressing her lips into mine.
I fall back, laughing. She’s topless, her panties still on her body but not for much longer. I’m as nude as the day my avatar was created, my pants, armor and Splintered Sword on the floor.
Our intimacy shatters as a rock comes sailing through the window, sending glass onto the floor.
“Shit!” I reach my hands up to pull Sam down, but she pushes me away, equipping her weapon instead.
Wolf jumps just as the door kicks in; he lands on top of the first bandit to enter and goes to town.
“Sam!”
An arrow zips through the window right into Sam’s temple.
She falls to the side in slow motion, where she smacks the side of her face against the wall. Before she can even slouch, another bolt comes through the window and goes right into the side of her neck.
Confusion and anger set in; I scramble to get myself out from under her weight and the tangle of the blankets as more arrows come.
I hit the floor and roll towards my gear, Sam’s blood streaked across my body. Another bandit bursts in and I go to meet him with my Splintered Sword, buck-ass naked and filled with fury.
Instakill!
My blade goes into his stomach and I use his body as a shield.
Thunk! Thunk!
The arrows sail into his back and the man relieves himself, urine and shit pouring down the inside of his pant legs.
Running to my right, I lift the impaled bandit with my blade and stuff him into the shattered window, blocking more arrows. I yank my broken blade out just in time to meet another bandit with a curved sword.
Instincts take over, my reptilian brain, even this deep in the game, and I rise to meet the guy’s sword with my weapon.
Behind me, the guy I stuffed in the window falls and I step aside just in time for an arrow to sail through and get the bandit accosting me in the eye.
-358 HP! Critical hit!
Dead or dying, I push the guy away and keep low to the wall. Wolf is on the other side of the open door now, breathing heavily, his teeth red with blood. He snarls and barks at the door, daring anyone to try to enter.
My brain kicks into high gear.
It’s a fatal funnel scenario, for sure; even though we have advantage in the room as of now, they could smoke us out like Wolf and I did to the bandits that originally owned the place.
But if we go out now, we’ll be prone, I think as I try to level my breath.
I look back at Sam, feel a sob come on, and swallow it down. At that moment, I hate Unigaea with a passion; I hate the harsh rules of the world that so easily strip people of their lives. If it were any other fantasy world, I’d be able to heal her, bring her back.
She can still come back as another avatar, I remind myself, but she won’t be who she was before.
The thought of rebirth does little to quell my anxiety. Sam, the Sam Raid I know, is dead, an arrow through the skull and another through the neck.
The single word comes to me, a whisper at the back of my mind:
Rage.
I feel my muscles tense and something tingle in my chest. I look down to see the Unigaean tattoo glowing blue.
Has it been activated? Something inside my head tells me it has, and I know instantly what needs to happen next. But first, I need my armor.
As my vision starts to blur, I whistle for Wolf and nod towards my pants. He gets the gist and quickly crosses in front of the door, his body low to the ground. Wolf retrieves them and drops them at my feet. As soon as I touch them, they appear on my body – no time to go about doing this the correct way.
Activated by the pants, the rest of the armor takes shape, even as the world starts to tremor and splinter around me.
Rage, I think again, and my blood starts to boil. My muscles pulse, my veins swell, and a sense of total abandon washes over me. “Let’s do this!” I growl.
My Splintered Sword in one hand, I take the lead, bursting out the open doorway and veering towards the right, towards the archer. It’s a suicide mission, I’m sure of this, but sheer animosity clouds my thoughts.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see a group of Tagvornin warriors at the top of the hill outside the hut. Their leader points his sword at me.
The rest charge.
(^_^)
I sprint towards the incoming group and somehow, in the midst of the chaos and fury writhing through me, my reptilian brain turns my Splintered Sword upside down, so I’m holding the blade with the tip pointing towards the ground.
I’m running faster than I ever have, my actions no longer my own as I leap into the air, oblivious to arrows zipping past me, and bring my weapon down onto the shoulder of the first man I encounter.
-439 HP! Critical hit!
His knees buckle and with one foot on his shoulder, I pull my blade out and use my upward momentum to climb even higher. I crash-land into three or four Tagvornins with their shields up, scattering them like dominoes.
Wolf soars past me and cannonballs into another man with a shield.
My mind buzzes with excitement as I pick up speed, homing in on the pair of crossbow men who are desperately trying to take me out.
Their arrows won’t stick. They plink off my armor as if I’m the teflon don, and even though they have complete advantage firing down at me as I’m lit by the moon, I reach them and get to work, hoping to hasten the death of the fuckers that killed Sam.
The first loses his hand as he tries to block my attack with his crossbow.
-250 HP!
The second lunges at me with a dagger; I strike him in the face with my elbow, sending teeth flying. I follow up with my blade, still upside down. My strike tears into his upper neck and cheek, practically giving him a lobotomy.
Instakill!
Infamy +1!
Instakill!
With a quick swipe, I finish the now-handless NPC archer and return my attention to the shielded Tags, who have half-surrounded Wolf and are narrowing in with their pikes.
Rage at full blast, the world spinning and pulsating around me, I machine-gun towards them and come up on their blindside, bringing my blade in an upward swing that catches three of them.
The men cry out in pain as I turn my blade around and go to meet one of their compadres. He jabs his pike at me; I dodge right and bring a swipe down across his shoulder that brings him to his knees.
-421 HP! Critical hit!
I simultaneously knee him in the face and yank the blade out.
Filled with utter fury, I cut down another Tag and kill him instantly. Leaving Wolf to mop up the rest, I charge the rest of the way up the hill towards their leader.
[Tagvornin Commander, Level 12]
He brandishes a buster sword not unlike the St. Lucia blade given to me by Governor Florin Talonas of Stater.
Rather than start off toe-to-toe, I reach for the front of my armor and grab two of my throwing knives, zinging them off as a distraction.
He bats them away just as the image of Sam flashes across my mind’s eye.
She was just there, alive, on top of me, her light olive skin shimmering in the candlelight of my hut. We were drunk – shit, I may still be drunk – and the sexual tension that had built between us had just come to a head. All was well, all was set …
“And you fucked that up!” I scream into the face of the Tagvornin leader. A stupid thing to scream, sure, but I’m surprised I’m able to get anything out aside from grunts.
Suddenly, my vision pane is alive with red tendrils.
I do
n’t know how long the tendrils have been there, but with tunnel vision at full capacity, all I can seem to do now is swing my sword blindly.
I keep swinging and swinging, until I’ve overpowered the Tagvornin leader and brought him to his knees.
Instakill!
His head flies off and I barely feel my blade go through his neck. I turn, wipe his blood out of my eyes, and advance towards the shielded men still surrounding Wolf.
My arms move on their own accord, my legs carrying me faster than I’ve ever moved before.
I hack at the shields in front of me – the men in front of me – and as rage surges through me, I close my eyes and keep hacking away.
The sound of metal on metal, metal moving through flesh, Wolf snarling and snapping his teeth, the men left standing crying out in pain, our feet kicking up dirt, their bodies falling, my body falling on top of theirs – as rage becomes me, I notice a percussive cadence to it all, a maniacal pattern of doom and terror, the sick discord of death churning all around me.
Chapter Five: Follow the Rhino
Two vultures wait on the periphery, their wings arched forward, their necks long and angled. One has a strip of flesh in its beak.
“Fuck you.” I spit blood and push myself off a stack of bodies.
Where … ?
It’s then I start to become aware of my surroundings.
I’m resting atop a pile of dead Tagvornins and their shields, my back to them as I stare up at the crimson morning.
“Damn.” I slide off the stack of bodies. My palm naturally lands on one of their helmets, and I toss it at the vulture’s tree, scaring them away.
“Not dead yet.” I grit my teeth and stumble to my feet.
No need to whistle for Wolf. He’s asleep near the hut, and as soon as he sees me, he trots over and looks up with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth as he pants.
“Good boy,” I tell him as I survey the damage.
I killed twelve Tags? Shit. Pretty sure one was a Player Killer …
A glance to my life bar, which blurs into focus on the top of my viewing pane as soon as I think of it, and it shows me I’m at three-fourths health, which should be impossible considering the amount of scattered bodies around me.
The Drachma Killers (The Last Warrior of Unigaea Book 2) Page 3
