by Hugo Huesca
Ed looked at the direction pointed to by a long, hairy leg, and saw a semi-circle of spiderlings and three warriors surrounding a pair of women who had their backs against the half-collapsed wall of a tannery.
The people were armed, and for the moment they were keeping the creatures at bay. The smoke parted, and Ed got a better look at the humans.
“Everyone, stop!” he said, as he recognized Kes and Lavy. The Witch had her hand raised, no doubt readying to cast a spell.
“Edward!” Lavy exclaimed when she saw him approach. “Look out, next to you!”
“No, don’t move!” Ed ordered, sensing the mercenary and the Witch were about to turn his spiders into mincemeat. “These are my spiders!”
They didn’t belong to the group Laurel had with her, so he had to hope these warriors had heard the news about the change in management.
“What?” said Kes, looking away from the warriors in front of her and to Ed.
To prove his point, he pointed at the spider warriors that surrounded his companions, and said:
“Step back. Now.”
“They killed half of my sisters,” the warrior at the front told him, her mandibles hissing angrily. “The big one even killed Princess Calomis.”
“And you invaded her village. Let’s call it even,” he told the warrior, “because the Bane won’t be as understanding.”
Reluctantly, the spiders broke their semi-circle and allowed Kes and Lavy to step away from them. They reunited with Ed.
“What’s going on?” Lavy asked him. “The spiders are obeying you, now?”
“I killed their Queen,” Ed explained, “and the new one is more reasonable.”
“Dungheap! And here I thought we were the ones heading to rescue you,” Lavy said.
“You killed Amphiris? How?” asked Kes.
“Huh…well, I founded a Dungeon underneath Burrova,” he said, unsure of the mercenary’s reaction. “And used tunnels to trap her.”
The mercenary’s eyes widened in surprise. She looked around like expecting to see the dungeon carvings in the tannery ruins.
“Well, the Inquisition can’t kill us any harder,” she muttered, then shrugged.
“That’s the spirit,” Ed said. “Now, what about you two?”
“I killed the Princess after Gallio’s fireball, but lost track of you two,” Kes said. “Instead, I found Lavy, who was looking for you with Alder and your batblin friend.”
“Where are they?” Ed asked.
“We left them with Ioan,” said Lavy, “and sent them to the marketplace to rescue the villagers. Since I still have my two spells left, I went with Kes to look for you. Now that Amphiris is dead, I guess there’s one battle left. Looks like we may win the day, after all.”
Ed barely heard a word after Lavy mentioned Ioan. A part of his mind that had been nagging at him since he entered the village came back to the front of his mind.
The two soldiers with their throats slashed. The gates barred.
Amphiris and her daughters strolling through the grass, accusing Ed and the adventurers of carrying the Bane’s smell about them.
The Dungeon Lord paled, like he had seen a ghost.
Oh, shit.
“Edward?” Lavy asked.
The man turned to Kes, so quickly the mercenary jumped a step back in surprise.
“Kes!” he said. “Has Ioan been acting strange at all, lately?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Has he left town? A trip south, perhaps?”
“Not at all,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “On the contrary. He regularly goes north, to Constantina, to get us provisions. He went on such a trip shortly before you and I met.”
Ed scratched his chin, and thought hard. He knew so little about Ivalis…but Constantina, he had heard a bit about the city, before.
A nasty place, almost lawless, filled with cutthroats and thieves. And, perhaps, with smugglers?
Who knew what a man could find in such a place? An egg, perhaps?
But, why?
There was no time to figure it out.
“Follow me,” he told the entire group, spiders and humans alike. “We go back to the market!”
Without looking to see if he was followed, he set on his way. A second later, Kes and Lavy reunited with him.
“What are you doing?” Kes urged him. “The mindbrood is not there! It’ll avoid concentrations of people until it’s strong enough to face us—it’s basic predator behavior!”
“I think Ioan brought it here,” Ed said.
“The Ranger?” asked Lavy. “Why do you think that?”
He shared with them his suspicions. The dead guards, Amphiris smelling the Bane in the forest and mistaking Ed for the guilty party, and Ioan’s absence from the battle until now.
Who else was left to suspect? Vasil was dead, Kes had a pact with Ed, Alvedhra was clinging to life, and Gallio was fighting the mindbrood just like everyone else. Only Ioan remained unaccounted for.
It wasn’t much, and it was very flimsy as an accusation. Why would the Ranger do such a thing? Where had he found a mindbrood egg?
When Kes pointed this all out, Ed shook his head.
“There’s just one other thing.”
“What?”
“He knows I’m a Dungeon Lord,” he said. When his companions failed to understand the implications, he added, “and he knows you are my minions, right? He was in the forest, he saw the same thing as Gallio. Why was he so quick to ally with you before I caught up with you two? Because an innocent person, like Gallio, would’ve assumed I—the closest Dungeon Lord around—was behind the mindbrood’s appearance without any other evidence, and would’ve been distrustful of my minions.”
The mercenary paled, just as Ed had, and cursed under her breath.
“We have to hurry!” she said. “If he’s infected and gets away…he has straight access to Undercity!”
And the port. Ed nodded, shook his head to clear his face of sweat, and urged his legs forward to match the mercenary’s brutal speed.
As it turned out, there was no need to hurry.
When they arrived at the marketplace, Ioan was already waiting for them, his hunting knife against Alder’s neck. The Bard looked at Ed with pleading eyes, but he didn’t move. At Ioan’s feet lay the broken corpses of the two bodyguards of Laurel, although there was no sign of the Queen herself.
“We meet again, Dungeon Lord,” the Ranger said, and he smiled at Ed with a rabid glint in his dark eyes. “You’ve kept me waiting.”
25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lord Wraith
While he stared at the knife in front of his friend’s neck, Ed was in little mood for talking.
“Let him go,” he told the Ranger.
“That would defeat the point of taking a hostage,” the man said.
Ed ignored him, then commanded the drones by his Seat underground to start digging a tunnel under the Ranger’s feet. While he did so, his Evil Eye flashed for half a second, although he tried to avoid it.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Ioan said. “I saw your fight with Amphiris. If the ground does so much as to shake slightly, your Bard here is going to have two smiles instead of one.”
There was no room for doubt in his expression. Ioan meant business.
Ed stopped his drones, but he managed to sneak a good look at the Ranger’s stats:
Ioan, Human Ranger. Exp: 900. Unused: 0. Brawn: 14, Agility: 15, Spirit: 11, Endurance: 16, Mind: 13, Charm: 8. Skills: Melee: Improved III, Sharpshooting: Advanced I, Knowledge(Starevos): Improved III, Survival: Advanced II. Talents: Explosive Arrows, Precise Shot, Multi-Shot, Minor Healing, Advanced Reflexes, Greater Endurance, Starevos’ Son…
He’s a fucking killing machine, Ed thought with dismay. If it came to a fight between the two of them, he had little doubt the Ranger would come out on top.
“Ioan!” Kes stepped in his direction before a warning gesture from the Ranger made her stop. “Wha
t do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like?” said Ioan. “I’m heroically facing, by myself, the evil Dungeon Lord that brought Sephar’s Bane to Starevos!”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it.”
Ed glanced at Kes’ sword arm. If the mercenary lost her temper, Alder wouldn’t be walking out of this.
Is there any way we can repair a slashed neck in time?
Kes lacked healing magic or skills, and Lavy’s magic was combat-related.
How far could he abuse the transmutation rules? As far as his powers were concerned, they were standing in his dungeon, so he could order the drones to create a medical wing—
Not fast enough, he thought, then discarded the idea. I’d have no idea what to do.
“Drop your weapons, Edward,” Ioan told him, while ignoring Kes. “Come closer, but remember, if you flash your Evil Eye even for a second—”
“Yeah, I got it the first time,” Ed said. He let his sword fall to the ground and did the same with his knife.
“Don’t do it,” Lavy muttered. “He’ll kill you as soon as you are in range. Stay where you are and we are in a stalemate.”
“Not exactly,” said Ioan. “Stay where you are, and I’ll kill your Bard, and then I’ll use my bow to kill you. Haven’t you seen what my explosive arrows can do to a body?”
He’s lost it!
“You can’t expect to get us all,” said Kes.
“So, who’ll be first? I’ll kill at least two, and that includes your Dungeon Lord…unless he’s willing to sacrifice all his minions to kill me. Will you do that, Edward? That’s what the Lords of old would do, without hesitation.”
Ed looked the Ranger in the eye while he walked toward him. He stopped a few feet away from him, far away enough from Ioan’s knife to activate his reflexes if needed.
“That’s what I thought,” Ioan said.
“Let him go.”
“Come closer, and we’ll see.”
Ed’s gaze darted away from Ioan for a brief instant, anxious to find anything around that could break the stalemate in the Dungeon Lord’s favor. Where was Laurel? Amphiris’ body was lying there, uneaten. Perhaps Ioan had killed her…
Movement. By the smoldering ruins of the governor’s house. Ed hid his reaction and returned his attention to Ioan.
“At least tell me something,” Ed said. “Why do it? I get why you want to blame me, but I don’t get why would you bring the Bane here in the first place.”
“He’s working for Lotia!” Alder exclaimed. The Bard’s knees trembled, and a pearl of sweat dropped down his forehead and onto his lips. He clearly did not expect to survive the next few seconds. “Run, Ed! You must warn Heiliges!”
Ed bent his knees, ready to jump at Ioan if his knife hand did so much as tremble…but instead, the Ranger laughed.
“Ah! Once again, the word of a Bard proves useless. Lotia! What would I want with Lotia? Murderous cultists playing at nobility, the lot! No, they are only useful for one thing, and that thing is to be conquered by Heiliges.”
“Is that what you want?” Ed told him. “War with Heiliges? The Inquisition’s going to come here, you’ll tell them a Dungeon Lord released a mindbrood, and that you killed me. You tell them I am Lotian, and somehow they believe you. Then, if I understand how they work, the Inquisitors kill you and all survivors. Then Heiliges goes to war with Lotia, which is something they don’t need any encouragement to do. Doesn’t sound like you are getting anything out of this.”
“A fast learner, eh? Perhaps I am truly doing Ivalis a favor by killing you here. Who knows what you would have become otherwise?” Ioan’s tone was mocking. “Well, Dungeon Lord, you’re starting to understand our world, but there’s still much to learn. Doing all this gets me three things.”
He nudged Alder forward, and the Bard almost lost his balance. Ioan forced him to remain still, and slowly, he made his way to Ed.
“First,” he said, his voice rising above Alder’s complaints, “by killing the Dungeon Lord who brought us Sephar’s Bane, I’ll become a hero.”
“The mindbrood is still out there,” Ed told him. “You are forgetting that part.”
“I’ll deal with it, easily. Everything is accounted for, friend Edward. After the egg hatched, I made sure the worm infected a little farmer girl. You know why? It makes the hatched brood smaller. Weaker. Less food while it’s in the womb, you see. And the brood is young, inexperienced, easy to trap. It won’t be able to lay eggs for a couple days more, time enough for me to kill it.”
More steps. Ed calculated that he was now in range of the knife, if the Ranger lunged at him. He would strike soon. But first, he would kill Alder.
“Second, by dying by the hands of the Inquisition, I’ll become a martyr to the people. The hero who saved thousands of lives, killed by the Heiligians? Oh, that will give the Bards something to sing about!”
A third step. Ed tensed all the muscles in his body. He could feel the adrenaline being pumped into his veins, his mind going into overdrive, time slowing down even without his improved reflexes. The next couple seconds would define who lived and who died.
“And third—” Ioan’s smile was manic, and his knife hand trembled slightly. The blade nicked Alder’s neck, and a line of blood flowed down his skin. The Bard whimpered and closed his eyes “—while the stupid Lotians and Heiligians go kill themselves, Starevos will finally regain its independence!”
He said so with the aplomb of someone who knows himself a hero, and it almost floored Ed as his mind refused to parse the fact that, even in a different world, a man had become a mass murderer because of his personal politics.
There was no time for that knowledge to take root. The Ranger’s arm tensed. Ed’s Evil Eye flared, and he opened his mouth, ready to release a spell—
And a shrieking batblin jumped out of one of Ed’s tunnels, carrying a wooden spear longer than he was. Ioan turned to the batblin’s charge, but Alder’s body got in the way, slowing him down.
Before anyone could react, the wooden point of the spear pierced the Ranger’s side an inch above his right hip. Ioan screamed, and his arms jerked instinctively down, forcing the spear out of his body. In doing so, he dropped his knife, and Alder ran away from him with a long, jagged cut in his neck’s skin, but no deeper. The Bard stumbled and fell on his face.
The batblin pushed the spear an inch deeper into the Ranger’s side, using every ounce of his strength.
“Klek!” Ed exclaimed—
The batblin flashed him a fierce smile and said, “Everyone always forgets about me.”
“—look out!”
The Ranger’s kick caught the batblin square in his soft belly, hitting him so hard that Klek was lifted inches off the ground and launched away, coming down hard against the rocks and rolling away several feet until he came to a stop, sprawled out and unmoving.
“Fucking pest!” Ioan said, tearing the spear out and tossing it away while blood flowed down his leather armor and stained his trousers. He looked at Ed and unslung his bow from his back. “This ends now.”
“Now, Laurel!” Ed screamed.
The web came from behind one of the destroyed stands, a gooey string thicker than a man’s arm. It almost hit the Ranger.
Ioan saw it coming, and moved faster than Ed thought possible. He ducked under the shot, so fast that he was a blur, and jumped away from it like a dancer, all of that in less than a blink. As he did so, he loaded two arrows to his bow.
Kes and Lavy rushed at the Ranger, and a crow made of arcane energy flew into view like a projectile, going straight at the Ranger’s face.
In one fluid movement, Ioan swatted the crow away using his bow, and then opened fire on Kes and Ed, one arrow for each.
Ed barely had time to summon a drone in one arrow’s path. The other one passed him by so fast he felt the breeze as it went. It hit something behind him.
“No!” The Dungeon Lord turned back, and saw the arrow broken at
Kes’ feet, her sword raised in front of her like a barrier. The blade had a long scratch across its middle, and the mercenary seemed as surprised to be still alive as everyone else.
Ioan cursed all the gods whose names Ed recognized, and then more. Still moving monstrously fast, he loaded three arrows and tensed his bow.
“Can you create three of those fucks at once?” Ioan spat, glaring at Ed.
No, I can’t, the Dungeon Lord thought. Not fast enough, at least.
Laurel rushed away from her hiding place, shooting strands of web at the Ranger. They were smaller shots than her first one, and slower, so Ioan dodged them easily, but it bought Ed some time.
The fight was getting out of control, and fast. They could overwhelm the Ranger, but he was faster than all of them, and the range on his bow made him deadly.
Worse, something was eating Ed’s drones, the ones he had working underground, trying to open a new tunnel under the Ranger’s feet, which was a doomed plan anyway, since the Ranger wasn’t giving him enough time to dig.
If Laurel was hiding by the stalls, what did I see moving next to the house?
His eyes widened in realization. Maybe, just maybe…
He improvised a new plan.
The first step was not dying within the next second.
He activated his improved reflexes just as Ioan loosed the three arrows toward him. Ed vaguely saw in slow-motion how the Ranger loaded yet another arrow while his first shot was midway through the air.
Even with his extra speed, the arrows were too fast for him. He fell face-first to the floor and saw the arrows ripple through the air. He caught the middle one with a sacrificial drone as he fell, and twisted his body away from the second arrow’s path. The third one passed a hair-breadth above his head.
Time resumed just as Ed hit the ground. His body shot out waves of heat from the effort of using his talent, and all the muscles in his body felt taut to the point of tearing.
Ioan wasn’t faring much better. His version of improved reflexes was more powerful, but much more taxing, and his face was red with effort, veins bulging inside his neck and through his arms, which were trembling furiously, like he was fighting exhaustion.
