by Hans Bezdek
“This is their true form,” said Dhot. “Guess I can’t really blame them for hiding their looks. Maha!”
The three Babas raised their hands together, and the hut began to violently shake.
“I knew this was a bad idea!” shouted Cassandra, running for the door and dragging Dhot behind her.
I backed away towards the door, looking at each of the Babas in turn as I left. Maybe I should’ve listened to Cassandra on this one after all.
“Oops.”
Chapter 12
We ran made it out of the Babas’ hut and quickly tried to figure out which way to run. Before we could think twice, bone hands, claws, and arms burst out of the ground all around us.
“Quick, try to kill them!” shouted Dhot, reaching into his bag.
I didn’t need to be told twice. Cocking my arm back, I charge at the undead closest to me trying to get above ground. Jumping up, I punched down with the goblin glove, knocking back whatever was trying to pop out. I jogged from location to location, punching out as quickly as I could.
Explosions went off all around as I ran, compliments of Dhot. I glanced up to see the goblin lobbing grenades liberally and in every direction. Everywhere he threw one seemed to have an arm or seven popping up, trying to rise above the earth. Even if they made it their feet, the explosions would send the undead’s bones all across the field.
I punched out at a large undead, possibly an orc, as it tried to drag itself closer to me without any legs.
“Are the Babas conjuring all of these out of nothing?” I asked, knocking the orc’s skull fifteen yards away from its torso. It was looking like they had a near infinite supply of undead soldiers.
“No,” shouted Dhot, pulling out his two metallic arms. “They can only raise the dead where they’re at.”
“You’re saying all these bodies were already here?” shouted Cassandra. I looked over to see the elf spinning around in a large circle with the Shattered Sword, breaking various limbs away from any undead that were unlucky enough to be near her. The blade was not glowing, but seemed to work well enough.
“Somehow,” nodded the goblin, taking out two large sledge hammer heads. Dhot screwed a head to the end of each of his metal arms, grinning in satisfaction when both were firmly on.
I took a swing at an undead elf, who exploded in a burst of bones. I was starting to get a bit out of breath, and spun around to see how many more we had to deal with. Surely there weren’t many left between Dhot’s bombs, Cassandra’s legendary weapon, and my knock out punches. I quickly added the undead up.
I lost count at around a hundred.
“How are there so many dead people in this spot?!” I shouted. We had only gotten rid of maybe a fifth of the undead, with all the rest out of the ground now and ready to fight.
“And why are there so many different races?” called out Cassandra, cracking open an undead gnome’s skull with the bottom of her hilt.
“I don’t know! I don’t have all the answers, okay?!” shouted Dhot. The goblin had both of his metal arms attached to him now, and was testing them out on a nearby undead elf. Dhot batted away at the creature, knocking several bones away from the elf with each swing. The goblin jumped into the air, bringing both of the hammers down at the same time on the elf’s head. “Maha!”
Laughter broke out from behind us.
Setting off the goblin glove again on another undead orc, I looked back at the hut. The three Babas, completely indistinguishable from each other now, were laughing in the open door of the hut as they watched us. The hut was still shaking for some reason, even though no more undead were springing up. Why was it doing that? That surely was messing up their concentration.
“What do you want from us?” shouted Cassandra.
“We wanted to feast upon you in your sleep,” said one of them. “Unfortunately, you had to go and ruin that, now didn’t you?”
“Maybe put a better story together next time!” shouted back Cassandra.
“Why not just let us go?” asked Dhot, knocking the closest undead out with another down strike from his metal arms. “You can try to eat the next group in their sleep!”
“Now that we know about the Shattered Sword, we want that instead,” shouted back one of the Babas. “Give it to us, and we may let you live.”
“That ain’t happening,” said Cassandra, sweeping the legs out from under three undead in front of her.
“It’ll be your death then!”
The three of us continued taking down the undead masses all around us. Aside from their number, they weren’t too much to deal with. I took a few weak punches, and Cassandra looked like she only had one or two light scratches. I couldn’t get close enough to Dhot to see how he was faring, but he appeared to be fine. Every so often I would hear his distinct laugh and an explosion of bones.
After what felt like an eternity, Cassandra finally knocked the last undead down with a swing of the Shattered Sword.
“Looks like you’ve got a problem,” she said, catching her breath and turning to face the Babas. The hut was still shaking as they stood in it, but still there they remained.
“We do?” asked one of them.
“All of your undead are defeated,” shouted Dhot. “It’s three verse three now. Maha!”
“I don’t think that’s quite correct,” smirked one of them.
The bones all around us started to shake, slowly moving back together and reassembling.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” breathed out Cassandra, raising her blade again.
“How are there even this many bodies to raise?” I shouted at the Babas. “Did you bring them in from all over Yaerna?!”
The three howled with laughter, taking a moment to calm down enough to talk again.
“You think we chose this spot randomly?” laughed one of the Babas.
“I guess I didn’t give it much thought,” I shouted back, summoning a ball of fire in my hands. I chucked it at them as fast as I could, hoping to hit them, or at least burn their hut down. Before it could reach them, an undead troll jumped in front of it, absorbing the blow and falling apart again.
“We chose this spot because of a great battle that was waged here when we were just young ones,” laughed one of the other Babas.
I racked my brain but couldn’t think of any battles waged in this part of Truska. At least, not for a long time. My eyes widened as I realized which one they were talking about.
“Wait… were you children during the Dragon War?” I called out.
“Very good,” laughed the first Baba.
Panic shot through me.
“We need to run away!” I shouted at the others, trying to punch my way out towards the woods.
“There’s too many of them!” said Dhot, spinning around frantically with his metal arms out wide. He looked absolutely ridiculous, but I couldn’t really doubt his results. The arms kept the undead from getting within a few feet of him, and the hammers seemed to be knocking the fight out the ones that tried to get closer. “We won’t get far before they catch up to us. It’s best to just take care of them all now if we can.”
“Yeah!” shouted Cassandra, knocking a couple more undead down. “Besides, the Babas will just keep sending them after us if we don’t take them out now.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I think this might’ve been one of the battlefields during the Dragon War!”
“So?” asked Dhot, knocking down two more undead.
The ground around us shook, throwing us and the undead off balance. Cassandra and Dhot were able to stay on their feet while I fell over.
The hut rose from the ground on the back of a large set bones that broke free from the earth. Bone wings spread out as a giant undead dragon leaned back, finally free of the ground, raising its head to the sky and letting out a horrifying screech. I don’t think I’d ever seen a dragon that large before, dead or alive.
“Oh…” said Dhot, staring up at the dragon. “I see what you mean now.�
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The dragon roared again, looking down in our direction as it stretched out its wings several times. This wasn’t looking good.
“We’re going to die,” sighed Cassandra.
“That’s the spirit,” I said.
“Even if we manage to kill that thing, it’s just going to rise up again… and again… and again,” she said.
I tested my magic, feeling it run through my body. It felt like I had gained some back while we spent most of the afternoon walking. I believed I had just enough left in me for one more lightning ray, but it was seriously cutting it close.
“Dhot,” I called out. “I need you to distract the dragon, but keep it facing us. Do you think you can do that?”
“Of course,” he said, knocking out a nearby undead. “Won’t it just breathe fire on us all, though?”
“Let’s hope it won’t be able to since it’s dead,” I said, getting back up to my feet. This was going to take a lot of luck. “Cassandra, can you keep the rest of the undead away from me while I prepare my spell?”
“No problem,” she said, cutting a path to me.
I cupped my hands, flowing as much energy as I could muster into them.
“Hey, giant lizard!” shouted Dhot, disconnecting his metal arms and running up to the dragon. “I got something for you!”
The undead dragon roared again, swiping out at the goblin. Dhot was prepared, and threw something immediately on the ground. It exploded before the undead’s claw could get to him, sending the goblin high above the claw. The rest of the undead army weren’t so lucky, and were torn apart by the dragon’s swipe.
“Going to have to be faster than that!” taunted Dhot, running and digging in his bag some more.
I mumbled the invocation as quickly as I could, focusing on the opening of the of the hut. The three Babas were still there, hands held high and watching the goblin with amusement. They must have assumed it was just a matter of time before the dragon grabbed a hold of him. They were right, too, if this didn’t work.
The dragon bit at Dhot, who leapt backwards and threw small familiar looking squares into the undead’s mouth. Dhot held up his hand, pressing his thumb on his detonator. The dragon’s jaw exploded, sending bits of bone all around.
“Better find a good dragon dentists!” shouted the goblin. “Maha!”
Lowering it’s head, the undead dragon let out another roar a few feet away from the goblin. This was my shot.
I pointed my palms, letting out the blue and yellow lightning ray. The beam shot out at an angle, higher than any of the undead around me could jump in case they had wanted to block the shot again. It traveled up above the undead dragon’s neck, slamming into the Babas in the doorway.
The three Babas let out a horrible scream as the lightning absorbed them. There were three poofs of smoke, and suddenly they were all gone.
I let go of the beam, nearly falling over as I leaned to my side. I had used up every drop of magic I had, and was exhausted.
The dragon collapsed without finishing its roar, several of its bones cracking and falling away. All of the undead around Cassandra and I fell, their bones completely disconnected from each other.
“Maha!” cheered Dhot, jumping up and down. “You did it!”
Cassandra sat down near me, letting out a big sigh.
“Good job,” she said, glancing around at all of lifeless bones.
“Thanks,” I smirked. “I had to make up for falling for their trick, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Yes you did.”
The two of us watched Dhot, somehow still full of energy, jumping up and down around the undead dragon’s skull.
“We’ll need to find a safe place to setup camp,” said Cassandra looking off into the trees. “I can’t fight anything else until we get some rest.”
“Why don’t we just stay here?” I asked, wiping my hands on my pants.
“What, among all the undead?” asked Cassandra with a grin. “That won’t creep you out at all?”
“Oh no, it’ll creep me out,” I chuckled. “But I meant the hut.”
“You want to stay inside the evil Babas’ hut?” asked Dhot, walking by and pausing. “Maha! I love it!”
“I don’t know…” said Cassandra, looking uneasily at the building and the bones of the dragon underneath it.
“Why not?” I asked. “There’s food and beds still in there. The Babas are dead, so we don’t have to worry about them raising the dragon or anything else up again.”
“Also won’t have to worry about wolves,” added Dhot. “Like you said, they stay away from this place.”
I reached my hand down to help her up. Cassandra looked between my hand and the hut a few times, shaking her head with a smile.
“Let’s get this over with,” she laughed, taking my hand and getting to her feet.
Chapter 13
“Are we sleeping all day, or are we trying to get the Time Shield? Maha!” asked Dhot, waking me the next morning.
I was exhausted from our battle with the Babas, not to mention the whole ordeal we had in Vorova. Still, I could feel some of my magic returning to me, and the goblin was right. We didn’t have the luxury of resting for a whole day.
We ate a quick breakfast of leftovers before raiding the hut for other food to take with us. They were well stocked, and Dhot was able to fit quite a bit into his bag. I didn’t fully understand how his bag worked, but guessed it must have had an enchantment on it to hold significantly more than it should.
After Dhot examined his map for a few minutes, the three of us headed off, leaving hundreds of bones in the field behind us. I couldn’t help but laugh thinking about whoever stumbled upon the area in the future. They would be so confused.
“Was that a real dragon?” asked Cassandra after a few hours of walking.
“What do you mean?” I asked, yawning.
“The undead dragon that we fought last night… was that really just one dragon, or a combination of several?”
“It was probably real,” I shrugged. “Why would you think it was several combined?”
“You guys said you killed Stalrik, right?” asked Dhot. I nodded. “If that’s the only dragon she’s seen, then she might have thought they were all that small.”
“I’m not sure if I would’ve described him as small, exactly,” she said.
“He was pretty small, as far a dragons are concerned,” I nodded. “I wish they were all his size… they’d be much easier to deal with. Unfortunately, dragons can range in size based on a number of factors. Some are even bigger than the one we fought with last night.”
Cassandra looked back at me with wide eyes.
“I’ve seen a red dragon even bigger than the undead one was saw yesterday, if you can believe it,” added Dhot. “Maha!”
“Really?” she asked. “When?”
“One of the ones that was with Stalrik when they burned down my village,” he shrugged. “He didn’t seem very smart, and was kind of fat, but he could breathe more fire than any of them.”
“Seriously?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at the goblin. “Why would a dragon bigger than Stalrik follow him?”
“Who knows. Come to think of it, all the dragons that were with Stalrik were bigger than he was,” said Dhot, scratching a spot behind his ears. “I always just figured he was the brains of the operation, and that’s why they yielded to him.”
Cassandra gave me a quick look. I nodded slightly, breaking away from her gaze.
I, and probably Cassandra, assumed all of the dragons that were with Stalrik were his size or smaller. If he was really the smallest one… then that was frightening. Not because of the power of the other dragons, but because Ulrich mentioned he killed all of them by himself.
He must be a lot stronger than I originally thought. Maybe it wasn’t so far fetched that he would be able to unite all of the black and reds behind him after all.
We continued through Truska without saying too much more. Any excite
ment we had when we first left had disappeared, filled instead with concern and regret. Cassandra and I were coming to terms with how difficult it would be to defeat Ulrich if that time came, while Dhot seemed to be remembering the loss of his family, his friends, and his home.
Dark clouds began to roll in from the west as we neared Rexford, bringing a constant stream of light rain. I pulled my hood up a bit more, while Dhot produced hoods for Cassandra and himself out of his bag.
Up ahead, we could just make out the buildings of our destination through the rain and wind.
“Is this Rexford?” asked Cassandra.
“I believe so!” cheered Dhot, rotating his Goggles. “Yes, it is! Maha! I knew we’d… make it…”
I glanced at the goblin as he trailed off, his smile slipping away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, putting my hand above my eyes to try and get a better look. “Is Nicole’s group up there, or something? The Guild, perhaps?”
Cassandra let out a gasp and ran up ahead, followed shortly by a jogging Dhot.
“I can’t see as far as you guys!” I called out. I had no idea what was going on, but chased after them. Hopefully we weren’t running into a fight.
A hundred feet out, I realized what caused them to run off.
Next to the entrance to the town, a woman floated in the wind, a noose around her neck.
Cassandra took out the Shattered Sword, the blade glowing blue, and ran for the rope tied around a nearby tree. Before she could get there, Dhot ran up and grabbed her arm, struggling to hold her back.
“Stop, Cassandra!” he shouted.
“Let me go!” she said, trying to yank her way out of the goblin’s grasp.
“It’s too late!” he shouted. “It’s… it’s too late.”
Cassandra looked up at the woman again, able to see her more clearly now. She lowered her arm and stopped fighting against the goblin.
I caught up to them, able to see now what I suspected all along. The woman looked to have been dead for at least a couple of weeks.
“What is this?” whispered Cassandra. “Why execute a woman in front of your town’s entrance?”
