by J. R. Ford
“To me I am.”
“You’re lucky I like you.”
“You’re lucky I’m so likable.”
“You’re lucky I love your best friend.”
“You’re lucky you’re the first boy she met here. And that I’m so good at letting boys down.”
My lungs were working overtime to keep up with her. “Wait, you let me down intentionally with that ‘little brother’ line? I knew it!” I hadn’t even considered it. Guess I was even more transparent than I’d thought. “And then telling me Heather liked me?”
“Pretty good leader, huh? Looking out for you.” She was having trouble breathing too, between the stairs, the armor, and the laughing.
“Looking out for your investment. I’m a pawn you drilled into a queen, and getting me to fall for Heather was a guarantee I’d never leave.”
“Please, this isn’t chess. You’re my friend, too. I want you two to be happy.”
The din grew louder, until we were just half a rotation around the central pillar from the melee. The two factions had slowed each other’s progress, aided by the steep stairs. Still, we had to be close to the topmost level, where the Sanguine Knucklebones waited. Hopefully.
One body caught our attention. Luis lay bleeding, staring at the ceiling so his viewers wouldn’t see his guts spilling from a gash across his stomach. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
“Luis!” Zhao knelt by him.
Luis coughed and smiled. His words were a weak rasp. “I’ve messed up pretty bad here. I should’ve run, or played dead…now I think I’m done for. But I didn’t want to log out until I saw you again…”
Zhao wasn’t so accepting. “Farrukh, potion!”
He shook his head. “All out. I’m sorry.”
Ana was shaking. All traces of our former lightheartedness spilled down the stairs with Luis’s blood.
He gasped air, then spoke with conviction. “I’m glad I could help you all. Especially you four, after everything you did for us in White Fir…”
“I could’ve done more. If I’d done more, you wouldn’t be dead,” Ana said.
“We’d be dead from trollbats, or orcs, or probably even normal beasts without you all. So thank you.”
Ana still looked distraught, but she’d stopped shaking. Her grip on the Lightning Blade looked rock solid.
Zhao looked down at her dying friend, tears glittering on her cheeks. “Goodbye, Luis. Your son will be proud.”
He checked his viewer count one last time, the gestures slow and deliberate. “You think so? I suppose I’ll find out soon.” Then he smiled, tapped one last command, and went limp.
For a moment, I stared at his lifeless body. Once upon a time, I might’ve envied him his fate. Now it horrified me. What if Heather had found my corpse on that cliff ledge?
We all looked to Ana for direction. She stood tall, in her bloody chainmail and grimy helmet. Jeremiah was heaving breath and leaning on a wall. Priyanka nervously stroked the fletching on a nocked arrow. Zhao looked already spent, tears running down her cheeks. Only Troy seemed ready, even eager, to wet her sword.
“How do we get past them?” Priyanka asked.
“Only one way past,” Ana said. “Through.”
The battle was a mess of the ragged and exhausted, scratching and scraping and climbing over one another to try to reach the top. Absame was near the lead but bogged down by a horde of apprentices. We spotted Edwin in his blue-trimmed red robes upright near the outside wall, and close. Troy screamed a shrill war cry — “For Linsey!” — and attacked. She smashed into the melee, her saber drawing bright spurts of blood from those in her path. We crushed those reeling from her impact.
Ana angled for the central pillar, where the steps were narrowest, and Edwin’s adepts pressed through the yellow tide to stop her. Edwin faced me and Troy.
We both cycled symbols. “So you aren’t dead after all,” he snarled at her. “I should’ve known you’d abandon your comrades.”
I nullified his lightning bolt, and before I could blink away its imprint, Troy charged. Edwin flicked the Lightning Whip, but she spun to the side, scrambled on all fours up the last steps between them, and hit him like a football player. His head cracked against the stairs, and he lay dazed as she pummeled him with the hilt of her sword.
Apprentices closed in. I blindsided one with a dagger to the neck, but another thrust at her with impunity. His sword entered her shoulder and pushed her off Edwin, who stirred and spat blood.
“You bitch…and you! Gone and got a new girlfriend, have you? Troy, do you know what happened to the last girl who relied on him?”
His barb missed the mark for once. Still, before I could act, he turned on Troy.
She was ready. She took cover behind an apprentice but kept slashing at anyone within reach. I lunged into action, thrusting furiously, driving the Enlightened up the stairs. A few lucid Lancers, seeing their opportunity, pressed him from the other side. They packed in too tightly for weapons. Troy struggled to gain an angle on Edwin.
He roared, and I caught a glance of him symbolling through the crowd. He completed his casting before I could.
He exhaled a dense cloud all around him, and thunder crackled. I instinctively shielded my face, feeling the hair on my arm singe. When I completed nullify spell, the null ring sucked the cloud into it. Everyone around Edwin was down, clutching at burns.
I steadied Troy, who was reeling back. Her forearm was a hot red, far worse than I’d gotten. I could only imagine the intensity for the Enlightened and Lancers who’d been closer.
There was a clamor from downstairs, and I turned to see Yao leading a group of Enlightened. My stomach dropped. If he was here, now, did that mean Heather had failed? Had I failed her again?
Either way, we had to scram. I grabbed Troy and ran for Ana’s wake before it could close. Some Lancers bunched up behind us to oppose Yao’s advance.
I’d expected Troy to be angry at leaving Edwin alive, but she was gleeful. “Did you hear the sound his head made? I’ll have to do it again next time, because he won’t remember it!”
We pressed through the passage of stunned and bleeding. My rapier dissuaded any attempts to hinder us. We took the steps two at a time.
Ahead, the fighting was even fiercer. Absame was clawing his way up, flanked by a small contingent of Lancers. Stone warriors opposed them, decorated with red circuitry stylized like veins and muscles. The Lancers focused on tripping them, while avoiding devastating blows from their stone fists.
One Lancer glanced our way as she fought.
“Chen!” Troy and Priyanka cried in unison.
Recognition made Chen pause. Then determination crossed her face.
She tripped one Lancer with her spear shaft, then leapt over him and cracked the spearhead into the side of Absame’s helmet. He stumbled, and she shoved him onto his side.
We hadn’t reached her before there were three spears through her. She died wordlessly.
“Chen!” Troy screamed.
Our friends drew level with Absame and his crew just before the landing where the gates to the final chamber stood. The Lancers turned, panting from their victory over the tower’s guardians. Emily was grim-faced among them.
Their clash left both sides bleeding, but none of our friends fell.
Troy and I arrived. “You survived!” Emily said.
I was too out of breath for a quip, not that I had one.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not that words were worth anything.
“Go,” Farrukh said, then started jabbing. I feinted wide, flicked my rapier under my target’s parry, stabbed him in the stomach, and ducked away from his retaliation. I stumbled into Troy, who stabilized me then bounded forward.
Ana made for the gates. Absame rushed after her, forcing her to stop and turn his spear thrust aside.
Then Farrukh’s thrown poleax hit him in the back. The blow sent him stumbling but hadn’t pierced his chainmail. Ana broke for it. Farrukh was quick af
ter his weapon, but not quick enough to reach Absame before he could recover. Farrukh drew his machete and deflected one thrust, then a two-handed swing crashed through his parry and crunched onto his arm. He fell to his knees, but even through the clamor, I heard him say, “I’ve won.”
“You’ve not,” Absame chanted. The door to the final chamber was ajar when his lightning bolt struck Ana.
“No!” Farrukh cried, then grunted as a Lancer struck his head with the steel-capped butt end of a spear. He slumped back, eyes unfocused, blood trickling from beneath his helmet to the corner of his mouth.
Absame paid him no more heed. Nothing stood between him and Ana’s twitching body, and I doubted he had capture in mind.
Troy, Priyanka, and Jeremiah were hard-pressed but holding their own. Even with one wooden leg, Jeremiah’s movements were precise. He reminded me of Ana, not in his defensive swordplay, but in the heat he emanated. His resolve was mirrored in Troy and Priyanka.
I’d have to trust them. I’d trusted Heather.
There was a strong chance I’d die. No way could I defend against Absame’s Storm magic and spear both, not with one hand. If I got up there, I might never see Heather again.
But I’d trusted her. I could trust myself.
I ascended the last stairs and planted myself before him, rapier in hand.
“You too?” he asked. “I’m getting rid of all my enemies today.”
“Let him go,” Emily pleaded. I hadn’t noticed she’d broken off from the melee. “Just take the Knucklebones. The orcs are on their way!”
“I would, if he’d let me,” Absame said.
I shook my head. “If I let you past, you’ll kill Ana.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“Am I to trust the word of a bloodthirsty tyrant?”
He growled. “Bloodthirsty? When I captured your friend Chen, I offered her mercy. Do you think I wanted her blood on my boots?”
“You killed Ha-Jun,” I said. “Did you offer him mercy, and kill him in cold blood when he declined?”
“Ha-Jun was killed in action. We only shoot when we have no other choice, so we always shoot to kill.”
I did the same — both thrusting for the kill and telling myself I had no other choice. But admitting that wouldn’t help the situation. Instead, I said, “No other choice? Is that what you tell yourself?”
He growled. Emily put a hand over his chest. “I’ll handle him,” and advanced on me. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“And yet.”
“I couldn’t convince Absame to go defend against the orcs, not until he has the Knucklebones. So I’m going to make sure he gets them.”
“You still think he’s a good person?” I asked.
“He wants what’s best for the city,” she said. Absame was lingering behind her, his eyes still locked on me. Good.
“You really believe that? All he wants is power.”
“The power to protect!” Emily said.
“Yet he took the Storm’s Breath and left the city defenseless. Because if he can’t have Bluehearth, no one can. He’s just a petty bully who makes himself out as some wannabe warlord.”
“You don’t know war,” Absame said, pushing past Emily. I kept my eyes on his. “If you knew the history of the Horn, you’d know the difference between a warlord and me. A warlord only cares for himself. What I do, I do for my people. You call me bloodthirsty, but I am the opposite — I would do anything to keep my flock safe. And I cannot do that without the Knucklebones. You and Edwin are the ones responsible for all this blood!”
He took a breath. “When I joined this game, I wanted to use my strength to protect. And I will be strong enough, once I get my hands on the Knucklebones. Not you, nor Edwin, nor an army of orcs can stop me.”
“Hey man, everyone has a right to an opinion.”
“That’s it!” he roared. “Go secure the Knucklebones,” he commanded Emily. “I’ll deal with this whelp.”
I then noticed, perhaps too late, that Priyanka, Jeremiah, and Troy had surrendered. The remaining Lancers sealed any possibility of retreat. Not that retreat was conceivable.
There was only one option left to me.
“Emily please,” I said, meeting her gaze. “If you leave him here with me, he’ll kill me. He seems to care about what you think of him. Are you going to let him kill me in cold blood?” My sword clattered to the ground.
“Don’t kill him,” Emily said.
“It’s a ploy,” he said, correctly. “Go! I won’t make you watch.”
“Absame!” she cried. “He saved my life once, and then I left him for dead to try to fend off the orcs. Meanwhile, you’ve sat in your tower, sapped the defenses, and now will kill the only person who has truly tried to defend this city, when half its citizens have instructions to kill him on sight!”
Is that what she thought of me? Best not to correct her.
“Go!” he screamed, and she cringed away. “The longer you dally, the more time the orcs have.”
“You go,” she said, taking a wide stance and folding her arms.
“Is this how you imagined taking power?” I asked him, before he could heed her advice. “Paddling up a river of blood? When your compatriots watch your stream, will they see you as a righteous defender, or just a tyrant?”
“They will see me deal with scum with an iron fist!” He attacked.
I deflected one thrust with my gauntlet-dagger, then a second with nullify momentum, but the third pierced deep into my thigh. I took a knee and tried to lunge for him, but he backed off and let me fall to the stairs.
Nothing like death’s looming shadow to remind me why I feared failure so. I’d do anything for even another minute in that same land as Heather, and Farrukh, and Ana, who I saw from the corner of my eye rising to her feet. Finally.
I scrabbled at Absame’s boots, gasping, “Finish it, coward.”
He sneered down at me. Emily looked on with pity. The other Lancers seemed uncertain. None noticed my desperate fingers forming the three somatic shapes for nullify momentum, nor Ana slipping into the chamber where the Knucklebones waited.
Absame raised his boot. Emily turned away and made for the chamber.
My null ring caught Absame’s heel before it crushed my skull. He stopped, off-balance, and I grabbed his foot and rolled. He toppled with me, and we tumbled down the stairs into the melee still raging between the Enlightened and the Lance. We bowled someone over, directly onto my fresh thigh wound. I crawled out as fast as I could, disoriented and battered, and found myself face-to-face with two Lancers’ spearpoints.
I readied my final nullify momentum. If they had a shred of competence, I was dead. But before they could make their case, lightning crashed from above, and they turned to look.
Emily’s head thudded down the stairs, rolling to a stop at Absame’s feet. Her body was still upright on the landing, spasming and spewing blood. One horrifying moment later it collapsed, revealing Ana, a blood-red aura emanating from her hands.
25
Ana tore through our foes like a goddess of war. She’d ditched her helmet and cap, and her hair was slick with sweat. She’d lost her gauntlets as well, exposing her arms, which had been dyed deep red up to where they disappeared beneath her chainmail sleeves.
Absame and his lackeys were busy staring slack-jawed into Emily’s glassy eyes. I crawled away, sheltering in the chaos and fear.
Most of the mooks had lost their will to fight. I didn’t see Edwin or Absame retreat, but they must’ve gotten away in the chaos. Ana cut swathes through the enemy ranks.
Her off hand formed unfamiliar shapes as she fought. Both hands glowed sanguine red.
Normally, Ana fought with precision and grace; here, behemoth strength. She wielded the Lightning Blade in one hand, cleaving powerful strokes faster than she had with two.
As one inexperienced apprentice stumbled down the stairs, she leapt down and decapitated him, then held him up and let the gushing blood cas
cade over her face and neck. As he crumpled, she turned to me, sputtering, though her face and neck were clean.
“Disgusting!” she said.
“Why’d you do it, then?” I groaned.
“You going to live?”
“Probably.” My leg wound throbbed fiercely, but I wasn’t bleeding out.
She knelt by dazed Farrukh and began a long series of gestures. She set down her sword, and her other hand twitched, likely navigating to the spells menu where the shapes were displayed. Then she made a sanguine fist and punched his bicep.
He gasped and doubled over, clutching his broken arm. When he recovered, it was healed. He met her gaze then, their faces less than a foot apart.
Ana rose, the glow around her hands fading. “Blood magic. Heather got shapeshifting, you got cool anti-Edwin kind of noise, and I get a class where I need to bathe in the blood of my enemies to gain mana.”
Suitably visceral.
She snapped her fingers at Farrukh. “Now help me out of this chainmail. There are still a few of them down there, and Pavel needs a new hand.”
Visceral indeed.
Farrukh seemed eager to help shimmy her chainmail off. After she’d departed for more slaughter, I nudged him. “Looking forward to that date?”
“Once she’s had a bath, maybe.”
“Not a mistake then? Asking her?”
“Only time will tell.” His teeth shone, brilliant amid his dark beard. “But even if it was, for this feeling, it was worth it.”
Ana’s heal spell felt a lot like the warmth of drinking one of Farrukh’s potions. As my flesh began to bulge and take shape, I shut my eyes. When I opened them, bam: new hand.
I flexed the fingers and used them to scratch my leg, which had also healed.
“Good as new,” I declared.
Ana smiled at me, radiant.
When she returned, her arms were stained scarlet with the mana to regrow Jeremiah’s leg. His eyes were pools of gratitude, though he didn’t say a word. Maybe he’d overheard me and Farrukh. Between that and the way his gaze avoided Chen’s corpse, he was having a rough day.
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Ana said. “Your swordsmanship, or your leadership. They needed you, and you waded up a river of blood on one leg for them.”
