by J. R. Ford
Edwin regained his assertive tone. “Now, if any of my apprentices surrenders, flees, or treats with any of these four murderers, they’ll be docked five positions on all rotas! That’s effective retroactively for you, coward!”
The apprentice we’d defeated in the sewers nodded shakily.
Edwin drew his sword and stuck out the hilt toward him. “Don’t disappoint me again! Yao!”
Yao signed something, but Edwin was grinning at Absame. What was the point?
A spell. Yao’s footprints burst into green light. He was a level 1 Hexer.
“And you’re next!” Edwin said, raising a hand writhing with arcane rhythm. When he pointed two blue-glowing fingers, thunder crashed.
Absame dodged the lightning and, in doing so, stepped off of Farrukh. I grabbed my dazed companion while Heather made for the gate.
She stuck her hands out like a mime in the space above the green footsteps. “We can’t escape!”
There were more Enlightened in the circle than Lancers. The Lancers bundled into a tight ball while the Enlightened fanned out, exposing their backs to the Lancers trapped outside of Yao’s prison. But they balked before Ana, intimidating with her armor and rune-emblazoned blade.
The twin sparks of Absame’s flash burn appeared among the Enlightened, then lightning cut between them, searing two apprentices. They hit the stone, but Absame didn’t stop symbolling, not even as a lightning bolt fried the Lancer between him and Edwin. He issued a flash burn in reply, which Edwin jerked away from.
I might be able to nullify Yao’s forcefield. But Farrukh was unsteady, and Yao and the sewer Enlightened cut me off. The apprentice was still bleeding from getting clawed and looked about ready to bolt again. Yao’s eyes were hard. I cringed before that razor cleaver.
Heather’s scream morphed into a bear’s roar as she attacked. Yao’s sword bit deep into her shoulder, but the apprentice was in my face. Farrukh managed to stay upright as I left him.
I was exhausted and couldn’t take my eyes off Yao’s cleaver. Good thing the apprentice was terrified and incompetent. I nullified a fireball and closed in with my rapier. He flailed with his sword, which I parried and riposted with the speed of muscle memory. I gave him a better death than the slow consumption of being recycled alive. Edwin might be proud of him, for what little that was worth.
But keeping one eye on Yao meant I saw him decapitate Heather. Blood fountained. Exposed muscles pulsed and strained. Her head rolled away, animal features twisted in pain, then it glowed yellow and disappeared. She was human again, standing where her headless body had been, whole but stunned. Yao raised his sword to do it again. I was too far away to stop him.
Ana interposed herself, and he retreated from her flurry of strokes. Then she had to throw herself out of the way of a lightning bolt. It took Heather in the shoulder instead and sent her to the ground, shuddering with electrocution.
Ana couldn’t protect her from that. One blast would fry her inside her armor. I staggered over, symbolling nullify spell, and spotted Edwin gesturing from across the circle.
He was grinning. “I don’t want you to forget how it feels to oppose me!” But he saw my null ring and knew any lightning he shot would be drawn into it. Instead, he returned his attention to the Lancers. The ground around Absame’s feet was littered with the bodies of those who’d tanked Edwin’s spells.
I took Heather under the armpit and hauled her to the barrier. It was smooth and curved inward like a dome. A notification popped up as I touched it: “Access denied. Will expire in 59:37 or upon death of Quan Yao.” Three quick gestures, and I pressed the null ring to it. The footprints lost their glow.
The Lancers, previously denied access, charged. The Enlightened drew together and began retreating.
Ana backed off sluggishly, Farrukh in tow. I could see how her chainmail weighed on her. She seemed as fatigued as I’d been, following the lotus kiss — weariness which adrenaline could only ward for so long. No way would she have been able to carry Heather out of there.
Strength and loyalty. Ana must’ve been glad for all the time she’d spent drilling me. I kept upright.
“The Recycler is dead!” Absame sang. “Emily, take a battalion to the Citadel immediately!” She sprinted off.
“After her!” Edwin cried, and the entire group of Enlightened gave chase. Absame managed to down a couple on the way out with one more flash burn, then he was running too, the Lancers following. We’d been forgotten, for the moment.
“I hope they tear each other’s throats open,” Farrukh groaned. Ana had him by the bicep and was steering him. He was shaking badly enough to give her a hard time.
I focused on dragging my own feet. No one pursued us. We were exiles, after all.
9
Dour evening. We stopped for the night at a roadside inn.
It served roast chicken and vegetables. The food was cold. We ate mechanically.
We stewed in the silence until Ana was boiling. Finally, she steamed, “What was that? Brawling like a schoolkid?”
Farrukh tore a chunk of chicken leg and chewed.
“I’m talking to you.”
Chomp chomp.
“We don’t need more enemies. We could’ve been out the gate before Edwin arrived. Instead, we nearly died!”
Heather had been decapitated, I didn’t add. Didn’t seem like it would help.
Farrukh swallowed. “He killed our friends. He killed Priyanka. He killed Jeremiah.”
She scowled. I got the sense that if it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been her, and she knew it.
Heather finished cleaning her plate. “Here,” she said, and reached out for Ana’s arm where it lay on the table. She symbolled reverse transformation and pressed her yellow-glowing finger to Ana’s flesh. Nothing seemed to happen. “Just in case,” she said.
Ana nodded. She hadn’t touched the fungus zombie, but we didn’t know enough about it to be sure those spores hadn’t had an effect beyond weakening her.
Which reminded me. I tried to think of a tactful way to say it. The last thing I wanted was that ire scalding me.
The part of my brain responsible for tact pulled the lever, and the slots came up with seven, lemon, and grape — big fat nothing. “You shouldn’t have attacked it,” I said anyway.
Ana glared. “I won’t apologize for instincts that have saved us more than once.”
Objective failed. But my foot was in the door, and it was time to shove. “I’m just asking you to listen. I warned you, and you ignored me.”
“Are you the leader now, then?”
“You know that isn’t what this is about. If you want us to listen to you, you have to listen to us.”
Forks scraped on plates.
Silence turned the walls of our room into mirror-blank screens. I suspected Ana and Heather hated what they saw in the reflection as much as I did.
Farrukh was outside performing his nightly rituals. Heather had gone mute and looked on everything with smoldering frustration.
Ana said, “I’m going for a walk.”
“Not afraid of orcs?” I asked.
“Since when have I been afraid of monsters? Heather, you coming?”
Gazing into silence alone was infinitely worse. Turning to imagination was no solace. Each screen showed a different way each of the rebels could’ve died. Ha-Jun’s breast pierced by a crossbow bolt; Chen skewered on spears; Priyanka and Jeremiah flash burned and shortly executed. I hadn’t known them well but missed them all the same.
Too much death. My friends list felt heavy in my pocket. I’d thought having friends dangerous because of the conflicts they could pull me into, but now another danger had been realized in full: the danger of heartache. I wiped my eyes with my cloak and tried to change the channel.
But the only other program on was the memory of Heather’s neck fountaining blood, and the morbid imaginings of what would’ve happened had Ana not intervened before Yao could repeat the stroke on her human form. I couldn’t stand it. Time to
check on Farrukh.
He’d set up his prayer tarp beneath the moon and stars, but was sitting back, speaking to his viewers. I lingered in the inn threshold.
His voice was choked, and I don’t speak Telugu. The only words I caught were “Priyanka” and “Prakash Nagar”. Was she watching, while waiting for her plane out of Luxembourg?
I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I returned to our room and stared at the mirror-ceiling until grief gave way to exhaustion.
The earth sank beneath my every step on the journey home. I shuffled along, shrugged away from Heather, and watched my companions walk ahead of me. Each footfall imprinted deeper into the soil, as if those lotus monsters were dragging me into the grave. Hauling myself out each time, straining such that the cuts on my side and leg threatened to tear open, only to again sink…the effort wearied me to the bone. The distance between me and my companions grew, an impassable gulf.
As we neared White Fir, the sun retreated behind the trees. Ana glanced back and noticed the gap, and for her, “impassable” was a challenge.
Heather grabbed her arm as she turned back to meet me, but Ana pressed past.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” If only it weren’t so rude to tell people to leave you alone. My feet ached. “I think I’d rather be left alone.”
Ana walked beside me for a time. The dirt path muted our footsteps. Why wouldn’t she just go away? Silence’s blank walls closed in, squeezing us until Ana could take it no longer. “Are you upset that we’re no closer to finding the Knucklebones?”
If I didn’t respond, maybe she wouldn’t say anything more.
“Is it about what Edwin said?”
His barbs had stuck fast in my mind, their presence a stench toxic like wood rot. “They’re idiots for relying on you.” I shook my head and tried pretending he was wrong.
Ana interpreted my gesture as negation. “What, then? The rebels?”
Damn it all. “Sure.”
“They’re not really dead,” she said. “Just out of the game. But I’m sad to see them go.”
“Yup.”
“I’ll have to give Jeremiah hell for dying like that, when I see him again.”
“Mmhmm.”
“We met at the local historical fencing club. He wasn’t quite as good as I was, but he was all right. Still, I wasn’t expecting Absame to get him like that. I thought he’d put up more of a fight.”
“You really care about this guy, huh?” She had to if she judged him important enough to waste my time talking about him.
“Yeah.” She barely seemed to notice me anymore.
Silence surrounded us again. I wished she would just go walk with Heather and Farrukh.
She sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
I did. “Smoke.”
Heather and Farrukh had noticed it as well. We hurried toward White Fir. At least moving quickly meant the earth had less time to ensnare my feet.
Farrukh drew up short and threw a hand out to stop Heather, then pulled her into the brush beside the road. We crept up beside them.
“Orcs,” he said. “Maybe twenty.”
Even with surprise, no way could we take that many armored monsters. “Maybe they haven’t found the cabin,” I said.
“What about the White Foresters?” Heather asked.
Farrukh said what everyone was thinking. “Odds they’re alive?”
Heather had the fastest fingers. “Luis is still streaming. I didn’t look up the others, but even one life is worth saving. I’ll go scout — I can move through the forest as a panther a lot easier than any of you can as a human.”
“Bold claim,” Farrukh said.
“You’ll waste all your mana,” I said.
“It’ll regenerate.”
“Go,” Ana said.
We were left waiting in tense silence. I sat back against a fir and tried to ignore the imaginary screens showing what the orcs would do to Heather if they found her. No one came down the road.
Heather returned in a few minutes and reverted to human. “The Foresters holed up in the inn. We have to go help.”
“We can hit them from behind,” Ana said. “The Foresters will be the anvil, and we the hammer.”
“There’s twenty of them,” I reminded her.
“Closer to thirty,” Heather clarified. “Most of them are busy looting and burning things, though.”
“Does the inn have a back entrance?” Farrukh asked. “Maybe we can get them out and back to the cabin.”
“If the cabin isn’t overrun,” I said.
“What are our other options?” he said. “Stick together. There won’t be many at the cabin, if any. We’ll stomp them.”
“What’s behind the inn?” I asked.
“Stables, then forest,” Heather said.
We looked at Ana. She nodded, and we padded into the brush.
I caught glimpses through the trees. One building was a bonfire, and the rest were being sacked. We retreated further into the forest to avoid notice. Within a few minutes, we were behind the stables.
Whickering and crunching footfalls inside told us we had company. We stayed low and watched as two orcs took armloads of hay around to the front of the inn. They returned empty-handed moments later. A third orc, clad in chainmail, loitered behind the inn’s shuttered back window, trying to peer inside.
“Pav, Farrukh. Make it quiet.” Ana traded her boot knife for his poleax.
I slipped around the back of the stable, creeping over the lawn so as not to alert either of the orcs inside or the one by the inn. For a moment I locked eyes with Farrukh, across the threshold.
As soon as the orcs stepped out, again carrying hay, we lunged. My right arm snaked around one’s head and clamped over its mouth, then I punched a sharp left hook right into its neck. The gauntlet-dagger pierced green flesh easily. A muffled noise escaped my hand, and the orc scrabbled at the wound. I dragged it backwards, off-balance, into the stables, out of sight of the third orc. It was still kicking, so I wrenched the dagger free and drove it in again. In the top of my vision, glowing blue letters appeared: “Kill an orc: +50.”
Farrukh laid his victim down beside mine before withdrawing Ana’s knife, wiping it on the orc’s trousers, and crouching just inside the doorway. I drew my rapier slowly, the steel sliding against the wooden scabbard. A horse snorted.
Clinking steps told us the third orc approached. As it rounded the corner, we struck.
Ana blindsided it with the poleax. Farrukh and I fell atop it like hyenas. I left the killing blow to him, then we rose from the mangled carcass.
My 50 points brought a twisted satisfaction. No one knew the conversion rate, but at our current pace, I’d likely be set with video games for life. The thought brought with it a pang of stress, reminding me of the life on Standard awaiting me upon death.
Standard Income wouldn’t be so bad with some extra cash for entertainment. In fact, it would be fantastic, barring the looks my parents would give me at Thanksgiving and the grief over losing Heather.
“The hay,” Heather said, snapping me back to the present. “They’re going to torch the inn! We have to hurry!”
There was no back door, only windows, all shuttered. I rapped on the widest. “Hey! Guys!”
“Who’s there?” The voice was feminine. I hadn’t spoken to Zhao or Maria enough to recognize them by voice, and I was crap at accents.
“It’s Pavel, and Ana and Heather and Farrukh! We’re here to get you out of there!”
“Farrukh?” The window burst open, and we were greeted by Priyanka’s smiling face. “Where were you?”
Farrukh did a double take. “Where were we? Where were you?” he managed, then coughed. “Why weren’t you streaming?”
“We didn’t want to give Edwin or Absame any information, not until we made it out of the caves. The Enlightened were everywhere down there.” She had a gash on her cheek, and her sari was grimy.
“It’s so good to see you’re ali
ve,” he said. “Come on, they’re trying to burn you out. You must be putting up some defense in there. Who else is with you?”
“There’s me, Jeremiah, and a couple who call themselves White Foresters. Zhao and Luis, I think are their names.”
Ana sighed. I suspected that she’d held that breath since she’d seen Priyanka’s face. Then she vaulted through the window and drew the Lightning Blade. “I’ll make them want to let the flames do the dirty work. If anyone comes to check on the hay gatherers, you know what to do.”
“Ah, wait!” Priyanka said. “I completely forgot! A couple of Enlightened deserters showed up earlier today too. I think they’re still upstairs.”
“I’ll go get them,” I said, before Heather could.
“I’m going with you,” she said, as expected.
Priyanka helped us up. The others were repelling orcs in the taproom, looking worse for Absame’s attentions. Jeremiah had suffered the worst — one leg was missing above the knee, and he was leaning heavily on a crutch. Ana recoiled when she saw him, then lunged into action.
We thundered up the stairs. Only one door was closed.
Locked. I pounded on it. “Troy! Linsey!”
“We don’t have time for this,” Heather said. She morphed into a bear and shouldered the door.
We barged in just in time to see Troy take a sword slash on the shoulder. She fell back, revealing an orc by the window.
Linsey screamed. Her sword clanged against the orc’s helmet and fell from her grip. The orc spitted her.
Heather attacked. The orc ripped its sword free and turned it on her. She drew short, and it lunged.
I came around the side and stabbed it in the neck. “Kill an orc: +50.”
Troy took Linsey’s side, who had slumped. Heather and I looked them over.
The sword had torn a chunk from her chest. She wasn’t breathing.
Troy wailed. Heather took her arm. “We have to go.” She came.
“Clear!” I told Ana on the way down. She’d shut the front door and barred it, but smoke was filling the room.
“They’ll be circling around,” she said. “Linsey?”
I shook my head. Ana cursed.
