by S. R. Witt
I don’t know how I did it, but in that one moment, I was in command of power so great it defied reason.
The Key recognized my control and bent to my wishes. Whatever lived inside the egg finally acquiesced to my control.
A faint voice echoed in my thoughts, sarcastic and bitter. “Good luck, kid. You’re going to need it.”
Time lurched back into motion, and Corvus screamed across the room at me. I rolled away from her first attack, and her weapon bounced off the stone floor in a shower of sparks. Her hooked sword slashed through the air, again and again, missing me by inches each time.
She was a better fighter than me, a better fighter than anyone I’d ever met. There was no point in trying to counterattack, it took every ounce of effort I could muster to keep from getting my head chopped off. Being the Master of the Burning Key didn’t do jack for me when it came to combat.
Corvus came for me again with a series of brutal slashes. I ducked beneath the first, sidestepped the second, and jumped over third and past the overturned table. We glared at one another around the obstacle.
“You don’t want to do this.” As long as I kept her talking, she’d have less time to slaughter me. “Killing me won’t fix your problems.”
Corvus cawed. “You really did it?”
I flashed the egg in the palm of my hand. “The key is bound to me, now. The followers you duped into doing your dirty work are all dead. You can’t repeat the ritual.”
Corvus glared at me as I tried to slip toward the room’s exit. She stepped to the side and cut me off, her blade leveled at my chest. “Killing you will free the Key from your control. That will have to be enough.”
My lips were dry, and the inside of my mouth felt like someone had poured a well-used cat box into it. With the rush of magic power that had healed me and got me back on my feet gone, I felt empty and alone. The Key was still there, a glittering, alien presence in my thoughts, but I couldn’t make it do anything. I was alone with a killer crow, and I didn’t know what tricks I had left in my bag.
“We can work something out,” I tried. Bargaining wasn’t my strong suit, but I had to try something to keep Corvus from carving out my spleen.
“I’d rather just kill you.” She snapped and lunged at me again.
Her angle of attack prevented me from moving toward the room’s exit. Instead, I dodged toward Bastion. His face was screwed up with pain, and I didn’t think he’d be up to any last-minute heroics, but I needed any edge I could find.
Because Corvus was a terrifying opponent. She was so fast I didn’t dare take my eyes off her long enough to draw a weapon. If Bastion couldn’t defeat her in a fair fight, her skills were way out of my league. If I had a sneak attack lined up, I might drop her. But in a closed room without surprise on my side, I was a dead man.
Corvus flicked her sword at Bastion. “Don’t think that one will help you. He’s already dead, he just doesn’t know it yet. This blade is poisoned, down to its very core. There are barbs lodged in his wound, worming their way toward his vital organs. He’ll be gone before he can help you.”
“Last chance,” I offered. “Let us walk out of here, and I won’t kill you.”
Corvus laughed at that, so hysterically that for one brief moment, she wasn’t looking at me.
That opening was the only chance I was going to get. My left hand shot to my hip, and my fingers closed around my stiletto’s hilt. In one motion, I drew and flipped the weapon at the aryx.
It was a wild throw, the kind of attack that had almost no chance of success. And yet, for a brief instant, I thought it would land.
But waiting around to see if it would work wasn’t in my plan. I kicked Bastion in the leg to get his attention, and snarled, “I would never have let you have the key. You’re a joke, a failure.”
Corvus took the bait, smashing my dagger out of the air and moving toward me with rage in her eyes and a burning hate in her heart.
She closed the gap with alarming speed, leaping through the air to cut me in half with her hooked blade.
Bastion lunged, not at her, but at me. On death’s door, he couldn’t see through my painful remarks. Just like I’d hoped, my brother had turned on me and lashed out with his longsword. He wasn’t playing around, he was trying to murder me where I stood.
I didn’t have a weapon in my hand. I didn’t have any room to dodge with Bastion’s attack coming from my left and Corvus’ from the right.
My brother’s brutal, death’s door attack was going to cut me in half. I’d misjudged, and I was going to die.
Then time skipped a beat, and my Friendly Fire talent kicked in.
With time stopped, it took no effort at all to step around Bastion’s lunge and shift the sword’s tip toward Corvus’ sternum.
Time shot forward. Bastion’s eyes went wide, stunned that he’d missed.
Corvus stared down at me from the height of her arc. Unable to comprehend what had happened, she had no hope to duck the attack.
Bastion’s burning blade shot through Corvus’ chest with a meaty crunch. Blood spewed from her beak, and her eyes rolled into her head.
But she wasn’t dead yet. She drove a kick into my chest, and her foot caught me in the sternum and pushed me back through the air.
Right through the gaping window behind me.
My left hand scrabbled at the edge of the window, but there was no chance to grab hold.
The bitter winter wind whipped at my face.
I fell, right down the side of the mountain.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Falling distorts everything. The world around me became a white blur that whipped past my vision with alarming speed.
In those few, scattered seconds, my own death only occurred to me in passing. I’d hit the steep slope of the mountainside and plunge into a ravine, never to be seen again. The Key would be lost, the Dominion denied to the Hoaldites and the nightspawn alike. Maybe someday, in the far future, some lucky asshole would find the little egg nestled in the splintered remains of my rib cage and figure out what it was and how to use it.
My greater fear was for Bastion. I worried about my brother, even after how we’d parted ways. Alone, wounded and bleeding, poisoned, Bastion would die. He’d lose his character, he’d forfeit the relationship link we’d paid for, and he’d have to start all over again. A whole month’s worth of bills flashed before my eyes, awash in red ink. Drugs, medical equipment rentals, rent, electricity, Internet access, food. There was an endless litany of things to steal my money away, and if I lost this character, I’d have no way to replace those funds.
I had no choice.
I had to survive.
My back slammed into the snowy mountainside, turning my spinning fall into a stomach-dropping slide.
The Key was still in my right hand, but I flailed my left hand out hoping to find some purchase. My fingertips grazed something smooth and hard. The impact bruised my fingertips, and I couldn’t grab the protrusion, but even that little bit of friction was enough to slow me down.
I spread my arms and legs wide, digging them into the freezing powder like snowplows. That slowed me down a little more, but it also turned me around, so I was leading with my head, not my feet.
The ravine I’d feared yawned wide ahead of me. Its lip was a solid sheet of curling ice. As soon as I hit that, I’d fly out into the void like an Olympic ski jumper.
I imagined the messages that would flash by when I splattered across the bottom of the chasm ahead.
CATASTROPHIC FALL
Your health has been reduced to zero by the impact of your fall!
You’ve suffered an explosive herniation of your spinal cord!
Both legs collapse like twin telescopes!
Critical injury to your internal organs! Your liver is now pâté!
Terminal damage to your lungs! Popped balloons have more structural integrity!
Explosive skull fracture! I guess you won’t be using that brain after all!
; You get the idea. The developers probably had a whole list of terrible ways to die, and I was going to get to experience most of them in the next second or two.
“It’s been nice knowing you, kid.”
Great. The last words I would ever hear had to come from the smartass Key at the heart of this whole mess.
“Who are you calling —”
My shoulder slammed into a rock hidden beneath the stone, and the impact threw me into the air. My teeth rattled in my skull, and my eyes bulged from their sockets as I flipped over and landed hard on my stomach. The breath gushed out of my lungs on impact, and my vision went black. The only thing I could think about was hanging onto the Key. I’d hold onto the damned thing until I launched into the ravine and shattered at its bottom.
Only, I didn’t shatter.
My boots dug into the snow, and it piled up in my crotch, then spilled over onto my back. I plowed deeper and deeper into the clinging white. And then, when I thought it would go on forever, I stopped.
HYPOTHERMIA WARNING
You are freezing! Unless you find warmth within the next 10 minutes, you will begin suffering the effects of hypothermia!
After what I’d expected to see from the system, this was a bit of a letdown.
Hypothermia! I can survive hypothermia. I’d already done that on my first in Dragon Web Online!
The snow was packed tight around me. It wasn’t white anymore, but black. How deep did I have to be before sunlight couldn’t penetrate through the ice crystals? How much snow was packed on top of me?
The answer, it turned out, was one hell of a lot.
Holding the key in my hand was no longer an option. I tucked it into one of my cloak’s many pockets and secured it as best I could. I needed all of my fingers to claw my way out of this mess.
I guess you don’t know any fire magic? The Key asked.
I didn’t feel like talking to the Key. The fact that it was talking at all bothered me, and the fact that it seemed to speak with an obnoxious Manhattan cabbie’s rough accent was even more annoying. Keys weren’t supposed to talk. And they weren’t supposed to ask pointed questions about my skills.
Or my lack of skills.
I guess you don’t know as much about keys as you thought you did. We can all talk.
That was it. My brain was frozen. Fine, if I was going to go insane, at least I could keep myself company. “No, I don’t know any fire magic.”
The Key didn’t respond.
Of course, now that I wanted to talk, it gave me the cold shoulder. The silent treatment would drive me just as insane as the damn thing babbling.
I scraped away the snow, pulled myself up. Scraped away the snow, pulled myself up.
The monotony chewed at me. The cold threatened to destroy me.
It went on for days. I’m pretty sure it was days. It might’ve been weeks, but that seems like a really long time to be buried in the snow.
But it was definitely days.
When my fingers finally pushed through the snow’s icy crust, I couldn’t believe it. The way my luck had been going, I assumed I’d burrowed down into some sort of hidden snow cave and was about to fall to my death.
Then sunlight hit my face, and I realized I’d done it.
I’d survived.
Crawling out of the snow was hard. My muscles ached, and the white death was loathe to release me. My health points were dangerously low because I’d been ignoring hypothermia warning messages for far too long.
I didn’t have the strength to go anywhere. I flopped over on my back and stared at the sky, waiting to die.
If this was how it was going to end, fine. Let it come.
“You are such a damned drama queen. Get up. Start walking. Build a fire.” The egg grumbled at the back of my head. “You’re bonded to me, and I’m not in the mood to be lost for another thousand years. Get moving.”
I ignored it. What was the point?
Pinpricks of pain flared in my toes. “Leave me alone.”
Get up. If you think you’re going to get some kind of peaceful snow-covered death, you’re out of your head. I can’t do much, but I can make you hurt. I’ll turn every second of your death into a waking nightmare.
Razor blades curled up the inside of my shins, flaying my skin to the bone and opening the muscle like a spatchcocked chicken. The Key wasn’t kidding.
It took more energy than I thought I had left, but I got back to my feet. “When this is over, I’m going to kill you.”
The Key laughed, a chuffing noise that reminded me of that stupid dog I’d seen in reruns of ancient cartoons. Laffalympics? Some bullshit like that.
“How are you going to kill a Key?”
I didn’t know much about magic keys, but I remembered that movie with the short guys and the evil magic ring they’d stolen from a wizard. “I’ll find a volcano and chuck your stupid ass into the lava.”
The key purred in response. It actually purred, like some sort of giant cat. The sound rumbled through my thoughts like a passing freight train. “I’d like that. Be my guest.”
It went on like that for another half hour. Every few minutes the cold would get to me, my health would drop, and I’d think about giving up.
Then the Key would torture me back into motion.
At last, I crested a ridge. At its bottom, there was an open, trampled down section of earth. The snow hadn’t been so much cleared away as transformed into a grisly slush, but I saw my salvation there.
I stumbled down the hill toward it, kicking up a little avalanche of snow in my wake. The snowballs I dislodged tumbled down the side of the mountain, growing larger and larger as they raced me to the bottom. I sloshed through the muck, and then fell to my knees in front of the only thing in the world that could save my life.
It was a campfire. Not a big one, but big enough. Someone hadn’t bothered to put it out, and its coals radiated a life-saving warmth.
When you’re on the verge of death, you don’t think too hard about why you’ve been spared or how it happened. Sitting there, soaking up warmth, was all I could manage. Bit by bit, the heat penetrated my freezing flesh and sank into my dangerously chilly core. It took a while, but the fire warmed me past the danger point.
Congratulations! You have thawed out. Hypothermia damage healing.
Little by little, my health bar filled back up.
Freed from the threat of imminent death, I had room in my head for some evil thoughts. Why was there a campfire right here? More importantly, why were dozens of other still smoldering campfire scattered around this one? What was going on?”
It’s about time you started thinking. It looks like whoever built this is heading east. Around the tower. You might want to take a look.
Leaving the fire was like walking away from an elaborate holiday feast with your stomach still rumbling. An almost physical pain, a yearning so deep it made me want to cry, tugged at me as I walked away and the cold settled into my bones once again. I’d miss that little fire.
A wide swath of trampled snow led around the tower. I clambered up the top of the hill to look down at its source, and my heart stopped.
Heading south around the tower, was an army.
I recognized the twisted banners and tattered pennants at once.
The goblins were on the march. And they were headed to Frosthold.
Fuck.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Armies stink, and goblin armies stink more than most. Trust me on this. I’ve been around a lot of armies in my day, and goblins are the worst.
This one was most of a mile away, and downwind from me, but the stench of unwashed bodies, raw meat, and burning torches still curled into my nostrils like a zombie’s rotting fingers.
The goblins stretched across the field before me like a tide of insects. I gave up trying to count their flags to estimate their numbers after a few minutes. There were just so damn many of the little fuckers.
Their sergeants marched among them, cracking whips
and banging on drums strapped to their hips. They slapped aggressive rhythms across the taut skin of the bongos, driving the soldiers before them.
The soldiers responded with raw-throated shouts. They bellowed marching cadences in a language I didn’t understand, but their broken syllables reminded me of violence and hate. It was a long way to Frosthold, but these little guys were already whipped into a frenzy. By the time they reached my town, they’d be champing at the bit to get to the killing.
Following the Army was easy. They were focused on the ground ahead of them, and their scouts ranged far afield before the main body of troops. No one watched their rear because the only thing behind them was an endless white waste and a path leading back to their miserable homeland. Even if they knew I was back here, I doubted they would do anything about it. There wouldn’t be a point. Why waste time and energy chasing down a lone thief who couldn’t hurt your troops even if he tried?
Despite being free of the Crumbling Temple, I didn’t feel like a winner. Havelock was dead. Bastion was almost certainly dead. Mercy might be dead. Indira and Cringer were more likely dead than alive, given that I’d last seen them all on the wrong side of the collapsing temple.
I was following an army of vicious monsters, and the key in my pack was a heavy weight reminding me of new responsibilities I had no way of fulfilling. I held all the power of Frosthold, which meant precisely nothing. If I couldn’t get the Key back to town and seated on the Burning Throne, none of this mattered.
And, if I did get back to town and took control, the army ahead of me would arrive to tear it all out of my hands. A quick tally of the guards I’d seen in town told me there might be a hundred men I could count on. Counting adventurers, that number might be as high as five hundred but trusting other players as allies was a risky bet. One-on-one they might be reliable, but in a big mob, half of them would turn out to be trolls or traitors and the other half would figure out a way to turn my death into a fat payday for themselves.
