by Nancy Osa
“Uuuuhh . . . ooohhh-oh-oh!” The zombies’ cries echoed and carried across the foothills and into the plains.
“They’re closing in!” Frida said, steeling herself.
“Wait for my orders,” Rob reminded the battalion.
Then the first wave of skeletons hit the gravel slides. Frida saw the victims slip, throw back their skulls, and lose grips on their weapons. The sound of bone on bone rose frightfully as they slid into the pits.
Turner fiddled with his bow. “Now, Captain?”
“Wait,” Rob said through tight lips.
The zombies directly behind the fallen skeletons could not fight gravity’s hold. Mighty moans were unleashed as the pits swallowed dozens of flailing zombies. The unharmed skeletons, though, were able to plant their bony feet and change direction. They avoided the pits as more of their undead counterparts fell in.
When the skelemob leaders were within about sixty blocks, Rob stood up. “Battalion Zero: Attack!”
He crouched and aimed his bow at the hillside marauders. He, Frida, and Turner let arrows fly, dealing extra damage from their power-enchanted bows when they hit their marks.
P-twang! Sh-oof! Th-oop! The sound of bowstrings and arrows in action punctuated the bone clacking, groaning, and audible results of bodies hitting gravel and pit trap floors.
“Stormie! Give them a taste of TNT,” Rob yelled above the noise.
Now came the fizzle and click of the dispenser’s trigger, and all-encompassing explosions filled the night. Half a dozen rounds knocked out random gangs of zombies and skeletons, sending limbs, bones, and bits of armor into the sky. The stench spread.
In the bunker, Frida and company fell back to reload, while the newbies put up a decent offense with their bows—Judge Tome included. Turner scuttled over to Jools at his supply chest and grabbed more stacks of arrows.
Turner clapped the quartermaster on the back. “Hang onto your helmet, pal. It’s about to get interesting.” Then he dropped to his belly and shimmied back to the bunker.
The cobblestone blind caught most of the arrows sent by the skeletons, but one finally tagged De Vries in the arm as he exposed himself to make a shot. This enraged his sister. She dropped her bow and picked up another one enchanted to ignite ammunition. Then she sent a succession of flaming arrows at a ring of dead spruce trees, engulfing the shooter skeleton and a trio of zombies in a fatal ring of fire. Practice had, indeed, perfected the miner’s aim.
The blaze jumped from tree patch to tree patch until a fire line zigzagged halfway across the hill. In the increased light, Frida spotted a cluster of agile bodies picking their way down the cliff. She pointed them out to her battalion mates.
“Do you see what I see?” Stormie called with unwelcome recognition in her voice.
One of the creatures was much more substantial than the rest—and sported a pair of very large wings.
CHAPTER 17
THERE WAS NO TIME TO MOUNT AN OFFENSIVE ON the descending griefers. The mobs must have been reinforced with multiple spawn eggs, for Frida had never seen such a relentless stream of them. With every ten lost to the pit traps, twenty more seemed to spit from the summit onto the moon-shadowed mountain. On and on they swarmed down the extreme hills, diverted from their village target by the intervention of Battalion Zero.
Thirty blocks and closing . . . now the bunker defenders could see the hostiles’ black eye holes and smell the zombies’ rotting flesh.
“Stormie! Another round!” Rob yelled. It might be their last chance to use the TNT dispenser without putting troopers in the blast zone.
The artilleryman discharged the weapon—once, twice, three times . . . but only the first block ignited. A moment later, both remaining blocks blew, supercharging the air with their explosive power. This knocked Stormie from her turret and jarred the brainpan of every trooper in the bunker as chunks of flesh, bone, and armor rained down on them.
Frida struggled to regain her self-control. From her post at the stable, Kim saw an opening. “Jools!” the horse master cried at the top of her tiny lungs. “Load the dispenser with sand . . . I’ll cover you!”
The quartermaster did as the corporal ordered, running from his supply chest just as she galloped Nightwind across the foot of Zombie Hill. Kim held the reins in her right hand and a smite-enchanted sword in her left, locking her elbow and tearing at the nearest line of zombies and skeletons like a letter opener through onion skin. Her golden armor kept their grasping limbs from dealing serious damage. The near-suicidal charge gave Jools enough time to stuff sand blocks into the dispenser and gave Stormie a chance to recover her footing and hit the ignition button.
Kim retreated behind them. Chunks of sand shot in perfect arcs over the bunker and burst upon the approaching mobs, suffocating them in moments. As Stormie had noted, however, the dispenser’s aim was less than perfect. Some groaning, clacking monsters escaped hits entirely and now homed in on the battalion mates clustered in the bunker.
Sixteen blocks and closing . . . this short distance rattled the newest recruits and sent Turner into overdrive. He jumped to his feet and taunted their enemies as he fired arrow after arrow, and finally, an enchanted axe, from his long bow.
“Looking for hot water? Don’t cry when you get burned—”
Sh-oo-oop!
“Want your mommy. . . ?”
Sh-wang!
“Find out who’s your daddy. . . .”
Th-wack!
Turner’s enthusiasm bled over to the rest of the troopers, who rallied to empty their bows . . . and soon did. With walking carcasses closing in from ten blocks away, only splash potions might hold them off.
“Battalion! Bottles at the ready!” Rob shouted.
The bunker mates fumbled for bottles. De Vries and Crash grabbed them first and used their bows to propel the sticky black brews at the mobs.
To everyone’s horror, these had no effect. Nine blocks, eight blocks . . .
Frida flashed on the problem. “Wrong potion!” Spells of harming would heal the undead. She scrambled for bottles of red fluid. “Everybody! Toss these . . . quick!”
The more experienced players realized the newbies’ mistake and lunged for the red potions, hurling them with rapid fire at the looming monsters.
Bam . . . bam . . . BAM!
Healing elixir splashed in a curtain before the bunker, taking down hostiles left and right. Fortunately, the excess drops only aided the troopers’ health.
In the relative calm that ensued, a gravelly voice sailed down from the foothills. “Battalion Zero! Give up . . . your time has come!”
*
YEARS EARLIER
Little Frida crept through the underbrush, listening hard for signs of an ambush. Her very first Apple Corps experience could not end in failure. She must achieve the goal: reaching the jungle temple and retrieving the golden apple from its stairway. Inching along the ocelot path, she knew the temple was close but could not see it through the vine-strewn wall of tall trees. She came to a clearing where the path split, disappearing into three different thickets.
Which one—?
She chose the left . . . and the next moment a body popped up in front of her.
“Mother!”
But there was no response. A loaded dummy! she realized, moving off to the right.
Another body blocked her way . . . Gisel again. But Frida’s call received no reply.
She took the middle path and ran all the way to the moss-covered temple steps. There, shining in a ray of light that had broken through the tree canopy, lay a golden apple. Again, an image of Gisel appeared, at the foot of the stairs.
“Mami?” Frida called uncertainly.
This time, to her intense joy, her mother answered, beckoned, and clasped her hand. Together, they moved toward the golden fruit, and Frida claimed it.
“But . . . what was my lesson?” she asked.
The small girl could not be expected to comprehend it on her own. Gisel said, “Always ask y
our heart. To trust is not to love. But to love is to trust.”
*
Frida tried to guess what the griefer boss’s next move would be. Lady Craven could now be seen a good fifty blocks off, distinguished by the set of iron wings that she used for protection, not flight. Wearing them revealed her anticipation of a counterattack forceful enough to inflict damage . . . which meant that she could be harmed, after all.
“Captain! She’ll be sending her legions to unlock Bluedog’s Nether chest. We’ve taken out so much of the skeletons’ weaponry that they need to rearm.”
Jools heard her. From his post, he called, “That means our valuables are at risk! We’ve got to secure the portal.”
Rob knew they were right. “Battalion . . . fall back to the portal. Corporal Kim! Bring the horses.”
As they scrambled to obey his orders, a new threat crawled with terrifying speed down the hillside.
A file of spider jockeys advanced like a line of fire ants in their direction. The skeletons atop the spiders carried swords, and the arachnids, themselves, might deal doses of poison if they’d been cave spawned.
“Captain!” screamed Kim. “Spiders aren’t just arachnids—they’re arthropods!”
Turner stopped in his tracks, adding two appropriately enchanted axes from his inventory. “These is my kinda chopsticks,” he growled.
Crash tugged at Rob’s sleeve, swinging her pickaxe, and the captain nodded. “You two! Hold them off while we get our supplies moving through the portal. Then rejoin the troops at my order.” He left Turner and Crash in front of the bunker to meet the oncoming gang of ghouls.
The eight-legged steeds now jumped whole blocks in their haste to close the space between the hillside and the enemy bunker. They jostled their skeleton jockeys in a deafening crunch of bones and clanking of armor—which nearly drowned out the thumping of Frida’s heart in her chest. As she made for the battalion’s Nether portal, she felt a boost from Turner’s defiant voice.
“Hungry little spider? All ya hafta do . . . is axe!”
Frida heard the sound of two diamond blades slicing through eight spider legs. Then she glanced over her shoulder to see Crash dealing death blows to two skeletons at a time, swiping first forward, then back, with her lethal pickaxe.
Turner copied the technique, planting himself and swinging his torso to and fro, using his bane-enchanted axes to welcome his victims to the deadly party: “If I knew you was comin’, I’d’ve baked a cake!”
In short order, the tactical team of spiders and skeletons was exterminated. Turner and Crash stared at one another, then grinned and crossed their blades in victory. The captain called them back, and they hustled to rejoin the rest of the crew.
Undeterred by the spider jockeys’ failure, from a safe distance, Lady Craven announced, “It is you who will be my just desserts, Battalion Zero. . . . Have a taste of this!”
Out of a cavern on the hillside poured a flood of zombies—whole families, mutations, disembodied heads, transformed villagers, cursed animals—even little, old lady zombies armed with canes. Frida could scarcely believe the magnitude of the mob . . . and, for a moment, regretted giving her protective medallion away to her no-good brother.
She eyed Stormie, who stood nearby monitoring the hopper clock that was sending their necessaries into the Nether. The talented rebel wanted nothing more than to be free to roam the Overworld on a whim. If she felt overmatched, she might depart at any moment—and Frida wouldn’t blame her.
Jools tapped his foot anxiously beside Stormie, ticking off the inventory in his near-photographic memory. The quartermaster had, once upon a time, remained neutral, seeking out profitable conflicts but placing his loyalties on neither side. Rob had convinced him to throw his weight behind the battalion in the last fight . . . but how long would the captain be able to count on that support?
Frida wiped her sweaty brow and acknowledged Turner’s shoulder punch as he dashed by, heading toward the ammunition stacks. Her old friend and adversary had, perhaps, the simplest of objectives: making money. While she had often complained about his one-track mind, now she envied him his black and white choices. With the enormous amount of loot transferred to the Nether, he might yet choose riches over solidarity.
The three newest recruits stood to lose the most in this battle, though. They had less invested in the war effort and greater chance of capture or death. Trying to gain experience as one wielded a sword was more likely to result in AFK than XP.
Now Kim approached, leading Saber and trusting the rest of the herd to follow him. They were all saddled, except for little Rat, whose packhorse days might be over. If only Kim could take him back to her ranch in the plains, far on the other side of these mountainous hills. If anyone deserved to be reunited with her equine friends, it was the battalion’s horse master.
“Captain! We might be able to outrun those zombies on horseback.”
“But—not Beckett.” Jools choked on the words.
“Supplies are almost through the hopper, sir,” Stormie alerted Rob. “Do you want us to follow?”
They all stared at the hillside, which had become a dark sea of writhing green bodies.
Rob hesitated. Frida knew where he’d rather be . . . and instead, he had taken it upon himself to keep all of them alive—to continue a fight they might not be able to win, for people who couldn’t fight for themselves.
She noticed movement in the moonlight, up near the minecart tracks.
They might still have one more chance.
*
Frida spoke to Jools, and they explained their idea to Rob. He agreed with it, but now he had to make a very difficult decision. Seven troopers could not hold off a sea of zombies for long. If they stayed here, and Frida’s plan didn’t work, Battalion Zero and the people of Spike City might be wiped out. But if Rob sent them to the Nether, and the plan failed, the villagers would definitely die.
Rob had the presence of mind to consult Judge Tome, who was practiced in thoughtful decision making, after all.
The judge glanced over his shoulder and said, “When in doubt, son, take a vote.”
It was the quickest unanimous resolution ever reached. They would stay.
“Are you sure, Quartermaster?” Rob asked.
Jools waved him away with his hands. “Go, go! Just make sure you do exactly as I said.”
With that, Rob and Frida mounted Saber and Ocelot and turned toward the hillside. The battalion placed all their torches, for both a show of force at the portal and to stave off the mobs as long as possible.
“Go get ’em!” Turner shouted.
Frida and Rob urged their mounts along the western edge of the promontory, with the minecart tracks between them and the parade of zombies. Now she and the captain could clearly see action on the tracks: it was Lady Craven and a couple of guards in the minecart, headed toward the portal sites.
“We’ve got to intercept them,” Frida said.
Rob just grunted, and Saber and Ocelot, with their keen vision, continued their diagonal climb. The trees that had been set on fire earlier gave off eerie wisps of smoke, and the horses picked their way around them. Again, Frida was struck by the mare’s reliability in the worst of situations. How had she ever survived without Ocelot?
The horses were gaining ground on the intersection with the minecart, which must have been moving at a preprogrammed speed—slowed for the downhill. When they came within twenty blocks, Rob and Frida drew their bows. A few moments later, they sent warning shots at the cart. Lady Craven unleashed a gritty laugh. They sent more arrows her way, hitting the griefer queen’s cohorts but bouncing off her iron wings.
Suddenly, Saber stumbled and fell to his knees, tossing Rob sideways in the saddle. They slid back two blocks, but Rob regained his seat, and Saber struggled to his feet. When the warhorse tried to jump up the blocks, he faltered.
“Frida! It’s his bad leg. He’s lamed it again. You’ll have to go on alone!”
Frida reined Oce
lot back to where the horse and rider stood. “I . . . can’t, Captain.”
“Yes, you can, Corporal. If anyone in this world can stop Lady Craven, it’s you.” Rob swallowed hard. “I knew it that first day in the jungle—you were the strongest, bravest person I’d ever met.”
Frida couldn’t help but feel she didn’t measure up to that description.
Rob implored her to go. “I . . . have extremely complicated feelings for you, Corporal. But I know what you’re capable of. Trust me.”
Frida looked at him with tears in her eyes. Then she turned and rode off across the slope.
She did trust him, and she trusted her horse. Riding any other animal at this speed on these rocks would have been sheer madness. They’d lost precious moments . . . but they could still catch up.
The roar of zombies overcame even Lady Craven’s construction-site voice, and Frida could not make out what the griefer boss shouted as she approached. The survivalist had never been near enough before to see the woman’s chalk-white face, black lips, and emerald-green eyes sticking out of a pair of huge iron wings, which were wrapped tightly around her as a shield.
As Ocelot drew alongside, Frida pulled her sword. She could only hope that blood flowed through the villain’s veins.
The sight of the weapon caused Lady Craven’s bodyguards to dive out of the cart and take their chances at falling down the steep precipice. But the rigid pair of wings would not allow Lady Craven to exit the high-sided cart.
Frida galloped a few blocks ahead of the slow-moving vehicle, jumped down from Ocelot, and jammed a gold ingot beneath the cart wheels. It ground to a stop, with the thunderstruck griefer still trapped inside. She punched at the computer keypad with long, black fingernails, wildly trying to override the inert program.
The survivalist crawled up and leveled her double-bladed sword at the griefer’s throat, looking her in the eye. Lady Craven grabbed for the enchanted medallion that hung around her neck.
“Too late!” Frida hooked the pendant’s chain with her blade and flicked it away, into the rocks. The clamor of zombies was fading as the legions rushed down the hill. “Your mobs aren’t here to save you.”
