by Galen Wolf
Bernard has already lobbed two light flasks into the enemy riding the second waggon. They explode in a blinding flash and the hobgoblins stumble and fall off the waggon holding their damaged eyes.
Tye sneers. ‘You want some too?’ And shoots off another fireball into the third waggon which obliterates it into a heap of charred and smoking firewood. A big hobgoblin’s running at Tye from behind, swinging his axe. Tye hasn’t seen him so I urge Spirit at him and take a swing, hacking into his shoulders and causing the hobgoblin to fall, dropping his axe before it does any damage.
That wasn’t even a crit. There’s a grunt and another comes at me from the right. I cut down.
That was a crit.
Fitheach has white fire coming out of his eyes that snakes out, wraps around the enemy, paralyses them and breaks them like dolls until they lie dead on the ground. Man, that saint is truly scary.
Then the enemy break and run. Tye fires Flaming Rays, picking them off as they go. When they’re all dead a message pops up.
Nice, and I hardly did anything. Then I frown, I wish it hadn’t happened. ‘Good work everyone.’
Tye doesn’t notice I’m being sarcastic. ‘Yeah, we cooked them good.’
I have to tell him. ‘I was being sarcastic.’
He stops, a puzzled look on his young face. ‘Oh?’
I point at the smoking ruins of the dwemmers and their carts. ‘Yeah. What happened to discreet?’
‘What do you mean?’ He seems genuinely perplexed.
‘Like we have a hundred plus miles to go and every step of it is in enemy territory. Things would be a lot easier if they didn’t know we were here.’
‘They really do know we’re here. Look.’ Bernard’s pointing to the sky where the black silhouette of a pterosaur circles on leather wings way up. The pterosaurs are the eyes of the Enemy. Without doubt the dinosaur thing has spotted us.
‘Hoods up.’ It may be too late, and they may now be tracking us, but no point painting big white dots on ourselves.
‘I enjoyed that,’ Fitheach says. ‘Striking down the unrighteous makes me—‘
Bernard put up his hand for silence. ‘—Enough! I don’t want to know how it makes you feel.’
Fitheach is abashed. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything like that.’
Tye breaks down again, he can hardly stay on his mule, he’s laughing so hard.
‘Focus people,’ I say. ‘We’ve a long way to go and we don’t have any friends where we’re headed.’
‘Except Cuthbert,’ Fitheach says. ‘He’s my friend.’
We go on more miles until we see the land rising ahead of us. There is a river in front, and beyond it, a steep slope rises, its slopes sprinkled in trees, stark and black with their spiky winter branches poking the sky. Beyond the forest is a ridge. On the ridge is a long black structure.
‘Hey there’s a wall,’ Bernard says.
‘A big wall too,’ Tye says, lighting up a cheroot and puffing on it with a satisfied noise.
‘That’s the way we’re going too,’ Fitheach says warily.
‘We’ll just have to go another way,’ I say and touch the reins so Spirit turns right.
As I ride, I study the structure. It looks like the enemy has built a huge black wall. It looks to be maybe a hundred feet high and it’s dividing what was King Arthur’s realm of Logres from Scotia beyond. They must be using it to funnel travellers. But why do they want to do that? But I know the answer to my own question: for lots of reasons: tax, control, intelligence. The enemy wants to know who’s moving around his newly conquered realm.
East leads to the enemy town of New World Order. I was hoping to skirt it, whatever Fitheach had planned about finding and destroying the Smoky Crystal warehouse. Not that he was wrong wanting to destroy it, but it would be a distraction from our main mission. I want to get quickly to Lindisfarne, extract the Jabberwock blood and return. I’ve even figured if I enhanced my mining skill, I might find this Smoky Crystal in the walls and tunnels of Silver Drift.
Getting the Jabberwock blood is the mission. We can’t afford distractions.
But now it looks like we are headed into the town of New World Order. The road gets busier. The pterosaur that was watching us has long disappeared, but I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. They could have lost us, but how? More likely they have something in store . I have no rational reason for thinking that, but I feel it in my guts. Then I dismiss such an irrational fear. I must think positively. I can’t allow my stress to show because it’ll spook the guys, never mind the horses.
The black wall snakes down off the hill and cuts across, still a hundred feet high and patrolled by trolls, until it joins with a gatehouse in the town walls of New World Order.
’The warehouse will be in there,’ hisses Fitheach. ‘We should destroy it.’
Ignoring his comment, I turn to them all. ’Try to not draw attention to yourselves. There’s lots of people going through this gatehouse. We’re just more of the crowd. Leave me to do the talking.’
It’s true. The road is now busy. All sorts of traders are coming in and out of the gatehouse that’s a couple of hundred yards ahead of us. Some are clearly minions of the Evil One, both NPCs and player characters, but others look like they were maybe once on our side but have now decided that trade and the mighty groat is more important than loyalty to their king. But the gate is busy. That’s our best chance — to mingle with the crowd.
I try to keep my head down so the hood keeps my helm in shadow but at the same time I can peer forward through the gap under my raised visor.
There are lots of guards. Hobgoblins, trolls, hill giants. A huge werewolf stands there like an enforcer just before the entrance gate to the town. None of them would be any problem to me, one on one, or even ten on one, but there are more than ten of them. In the town, there will be more than a hundred of them. Maybe even more than a thousand of them. We wouldn’t survive such a big fight and if we die, we’ll be right back at Silver Drift and will have to do this journey all again, and if we persist at it the enemy will eventually figure out where we are going, put the puzzle pieces together and take the Jabberwock for himself.
I sigh. Lots and lots of guards.
We get closer to the gate. I hear the jingle of Spirit’s harness.
The guards are looking through papers. They slap the heads of some peasants and send the back the way they came. I hear their voices. ‘Next.’ I can almost smell their breath.
We’re very close now. Then I hear Bernard. He’s come right up beside me. ‘Boss,’ he says. ‘They’ve got a Hound of Tindalos.’
‘Damn.’ I can’t resist glancing up and searching around for the hound, even though I know it’ll draw attention to me. Then I see it, a bony one-eyed thing. But its eye gleams with the gold fire that allows it to see through things. It has a permanent True Seeing spell. And I know that being stealthy and relying on our hoods won’t work. The Hound will instantly see right through us and know us for what we are.
We’re within twenty yards of the hound now and I see its nose wrinkling as it looks around. It sniffs. It’s not interested in the everyday traders and peasants passing in front of it. It can smell something far more exotic and enticing. It’s got our scent.
‘So what are we going to do?’ That’s Tye now, the other side of me from Bernard.
I look forward. We could take a chance. But if we fail in our bet, if I fail in my bet I mean, then we’re right back to square one and the enemy will be better prepared next time.
I scan right and left. The black wall goes on and on. The only way through is the gate.
‘Are we going through boss?’ Tye asks.’ With the hound and all. Will we risk it?’
‘Let me think
,’ I say.
‘We need to make a decision,’ Bernard says.
I snap, ‘I know, Bernard.’
Then Fitheach mutters, ‘We should kill them all.’
Not helpful. Not helpful at all. But then again, maybe the old guy has a point.
Elizabeth Bathory, Heretic
‘Let’s get out of here.’ I hiss at the others low enough so they can hear but not so loud that the guards take any interest. I pull the reins and Spirit’s head turns. He snorts in protest and I bow so I can apologise into his big brown ear.
The others turn and we come out of the line leading to the gates of New World Order. There’s a hubbub of protest and scolding from the NPCs and players we were in the queue with and who we’re forcing our way past now, but the authorities don’t take any notice. We pull off the road. I glance up to see if any pterosaurs are paying particular attention to us. There are a three or four up there, circling but there’s no sign that we are the focus of their attention.
Bernard comes up close, from under his hood he whispers, ‘What’s the plan now then?’
I jerk my head to the heavily guarded gateway that leads into New World Order. ‘We can’t get through there.’
‘We could fight.’ That’s Fitheach. I’m getting used to this new bloodthirsty version of the mild old man, but fighting isn’t what I want to do. It’s not smart. I shake my head. ‘Let’s try to find a way round. If we go through that gate, they are going to sus us.’
‘Sus?’
Tye’s from San Francisco and he doesn’t understand my British slang. ‘Sus, means suspect. Sus out, investigate, find out.’
‘That’s cutty. Why can’t you just speak English though?’
I ignore him. I’m frowning so hard I’m getting a headache. ‘Let’s just turn now. We’ll go east past the town wall. Maybe there’s a way over.’
Bernard says, ‘Do you remember how high the wall was?’
I’m curt with him. ‘I remember. But it might not all be like that.’
‘What if we find no way over the wall?’ Fitheach asks.
‘Then we fight if we have to. I’m not scared of fighting.’ My voice is tetchy.
Bernard talks for me. ’They’ve got armies, Fitheach. Just saying. We’re just four.’
‘Four top-notch fighting dudes,’ Tye adds.
‘But four,’ Bernard says.
‘Five.’
I glance down. That was Henry the mule. I laugh despite myself. ‘Well said, Henry,’ I finally stop the shaking in my shoulders. This is no place to laugh really. But that damn mule.
‘So east?’ Bernard asks.
I nod. ‘Let’s go.’
It takes a half hour before we’re beyond the east walls of New World Order. I take a minute to halt and, sitting there in my saddle, I gaze up the hillside. At its crest is the hundred-foot black wall. I see tiny figures of enemy soldiers on the ramparts with their spears like pins.
‘It’s tall,’ Tye says.
‘It looks smooth,’ Bernard says. ‘Hard to climb.’
Fitheach’s shielding his eyes so he can see better. ‘I see no breaks. No gates through.’
‘Maybe we can scale it even if it is smooth?’ Bernard muses.
‘I can’t scale it.’ Henry speaks again. ‘I’m a mule. He can’t either.’ He points his nose at Spirit who snorts in disgust. He never likes the mule talking about him. But Henry’s correct. We’d have to leave the horses and mules and then it will take us forever to walk to Lindisfarne.
I say, ‘Let’s go take a look at the wall up close.’
And so we take the horses and mules off the main road that cuts east from New World Order to Hellsmouth on the east coast by the German Sea. We go across the rough ground, bumping our way over the hillocks and sinking hoof deep in the soft ground until we’re about fifty yards short of the wall. It’s huge. I look at it as it gleams in the cloudy sunlight. It’s made of black glass, and I remember a conversation I had with Oliver Stone my architect — that black glass is obsidian, and is the most durable material you can build with. The wall must be a hundred feet high or more. I crane my neck to look up at the battlements. Two guards have gathered and are peering down at us. That’s not good. I say to the others, ‘Let’s go guys. They’re becoming far too interested in us.’
When we get back to the road, I insist we ride three miles east along the so-called Military Road towards Hellsmouth, just in case there is a breach in the big black wall that cuts us off from the north and our destination. But there isn’t. There’s no gate either. I sigh. ‘How the heck are we going to get through?’
Tye chews his finger. Bernard shrugs. Fitheach says, ‘We’re going to have to go through the gate at New World Order.’
Bernard grimaces. ’There’s no way we could get through without realising we aren’t paid up members of the evil team.’
’So we fight?’ The saint says.
Bernard says, ‘And pull the whole town down on our heads? And even if we do fight our way through the town, they’ll dog our every step and if they don’t kill us before we get to Lindisfarne, we’ll take them to St Cuthbert and the Jabberwock. You’ve got to think things through before you say them, Fitheach.’ I know Bernard and Fitheach are cousins in real life so I guess that’s why he’s speaking so plainly to him.
Fitheach rubs his head. ‘You’re right of course. It’s just so frustrating.’
I nod. ‘It is.’ Then we all go quiet, lost in thought and despair.
Then I say, ‘There’s Elizabeth Bathory.’
‘That evil bitch?’ Bernard says.
‘She offered to come over to our side. Maybe this is the time to test her.’ I say it and they look at me, suspicious to a man. I put up both hands. ‘I know. But she could come through for us.’
Bernard snorts and spits. Fitheach gives me an indulgent smile like I’m an innocent fool.
I say, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose. Either she’s loyal to us or not. She either gets us through or betrays us, and if she betrays us, we fight.’
Fitheach looks up. ‘So you’re coming round to my way of thinking after all.’
I laugh. ‘Not exactly. Let’s give her a try.’
No one says anything so I take their silence as a yes. I compose a personal message to Elizabeth Bathory and a dove appears in my hand then I open both palms and the white bird flutters aloft.
I’ve told her to meet us on the road south of New World Order. My little troop heads off in that direction as a drizzling rain blows in from the west. When we’re a mile or so south of New World Order, we shelter under a stand of twisted and sparse thorn trees. They don’t really keep the rain off and we’re soaked when I see a black cloaked figure approaching on a black mare from the direction of Carrionburg.
‘That her?’ Bernard asks.
I nod.
‘I’m ready to fry her at a word, boss.’ Tye says, brushing his damp fire-red hair from his face.
‘It won’t come to that.’
But it might. She still has to prove herself, despite her fine words down in the dungeon.
When she comes close, she looks anxious, keen to please but wary, as if she thinks we’ll kill her again.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘We need your help.’
‘Ah. Okay. What can I do?’
Her dark hair is slick with rain. She brushes it back. Her face is wet and her blue eyes are uncertain, she has no idea what I’m going to ask her.
‘New World Order,’ I say. ‘You know it?’
‘I know it some. I’ve been there a bit.’
‘Up to no good, I bet,’ Bernard says.
She looks to him, a half-smile playing on her face. She’s wondering whether he’s joking, but he’s not.
‘What do you need?’ She asks me, ignoring the others.
‘We need to get in,’ Tye says.
I say, ‘Get through really. Just in and through to the other side. No lingering. Do you have any influence there?’
; ‘Well, I’m a member of the Fangs of Koth. The guild is well respected.’
‘Respected?’ Bernard snorts. ‘Murderers are respected?’
I exhale deeply and look at Bernard to shut him up. Then I turn back to Elizabeth. ‘Can you get us through that gate? That’s all.’
‘I’m not sure.’ She looks very vulnerable on her black horse in the rain on that wild moor.
‘You could say we were your prisoners,’ I offer.
She nods slowly. ‘Maybe, yes.’
‘That you were taking us to Hellsmouth for interrogation.’
‘Okay.’ She nods. ‘Yes. I could try.’
Bernard narrows his eyes. ‘Because that’s the kind of thing you bastards do. Take prisoners.’
‘Hey, hey, Bernie. The lady says she wants to be on our side. This is her test run.’
She smiles wider now. ‘Yes. If that’s what it takes to get you trust me. Then I’ll do it.’
Bernard says, ‘To trust you? It might take more than that.’
‘And if you make any false move, I will cook you, I swear I will.’ Tye sits up on his saddle as he says it, fixing her with his eyes and twiddling his fingers menacingly.
‘I won’t betray you,’ she says quietly. ‘When do you want me to do this?’
‘Like now?’ I’m smiling. I don’t trust her completely either, but this will be her try out for the team.
I click my tongue and Spirit moves out, glad to be doing anything other than standing in the rain.
We head north up the main road and there’s the queue again to get into New World Order ahead. The town walls are made of the same obsidian as the black wall that cuts the island in half.
The line is as busy as it was with NPCs carrying chickens and cheese and player characters queuing up to get through to Hellsmouth. Some of them are rowdy, pushing in; they don’t see why they should wait for the NPCs. I see two players with Dead Souls insignia going through, a rogue and a ranger. ‘Hey!’ Tye mutters as they push past, but I glance over and he goes quiet. Elizabeth is at our head as if she’s in charge. We inch forward until we’re close to the toll gate where the guards check our papers. The Hound sniffs and raises its head.
