Cults of the Dragon Gods

by Brian McGoldrick

  After re-cocking his crossbow, Dacbold takes out another bolt and mumbles something under his breath. A reddish-silver glow surrounds the bolt, and he slips it into the flight groove.

  CRACK! BOOM!

  The bolt explodes on impact with the torso of the headless automaton, and the torso is turned into a cloud of shrapnel.

  At this point, over twenty of the automatons have been destroyed, but they still following the exact same pattern of circling and dive-bombing.

  More of the automatons are falling to gunfire from the gladiators with the SCARs, and arrows and bolts fired by others with bows and crossbows are slowly battering and chipping away at the armor of other automatons. Between Dacbold and myself, we take out another twenty-three of the automatons before anything changes.

  With more than half the total number destroyed the remaining automatons dive back into the ocean. On Elan's hologram floating over her scrying bowl, we watch the automatons reenter the submarine through the torpedo tubes.

  "This feels more like we're being tested them being attacked."

  Dacbold scratches his chin. "Hmm. There is definitely something odd about this. You may be right. From their appearance, those automatons limbs have a range of motion equal to or greater than a human. They would probably be more dangerous in melee combat than at range."

  "Dacbold. Valcrit. Angelique. Get ready. We're gonna pay a visit to whoever is on that sub."

  Dacbold looks at me with his eyebrows raised. "They know are here. They'll be ready for us."

  "I don't give a fuck. Do you want to stay behind?"

  Dacbold reveals a grim expression that some people might mistake for a smile. "No. I'm in the mood to piss in their cheerios and ruin their day."

  As I start stripping off my armor, Elan glares and opens a whisper channel with me. Why are you taking Angelique and not me?

  I need a Caster on the Night Raven that I can trust. Those two little faggots are useless without someone telling them what to do, and Angelique is acting weird.

  Elan's glare does not relent. Kanchek has decades of experience in battles with Casters as both allies and enemies. He can keep those two cowards in line.

  Angelique may be better with air, but she's also strong with water, earth, and fire. You're the one that told me that.

  Elan glowers at me for a moment before looking away. She does not say anything else, but neither, you should try to hide her anger and discontent.

  "Angelique, as soon as you enter the water, cast water based wards on your party." Elan's tone is clipped and precise. She is not happy about staying on the Night Raven, but I do not want both of my Casters isolated from the airship when there are hostile warships, both Chinese and US, in the vicinity. Probably, the only reason she did not continue arguing is that Angelique has a stronger affinity with air, earth, fire, water.

  "Yes, Mistress!" Angelique bows and does not meet Elan's eyes. Like myself from the other two, who are going swimming, she is wearing a breechclout, but she also has cloth wrapped around her chest like a Japanese sarashi. The nervousness radiating from her fills the air with unnecessary tension.

  Keep a look out for airborne watcher or attackers. The US became a tyrannical force on Earth through the combination of naval and air power, and the military sill uses a huge number of aerial drones. I use the whisper channel to pass my message to Elan.

  Elan stares at me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. I understand Dacbold's disgust with your education. You have a reasonable grasp of your world's current existence, but your understanding of its history is extremely biased. I have a few computers filled with historical data. The data contained in them is from the banned texts. It is fascinating. Once we are finished here, you should study it.

  When I have nothing else to do, I might look at it. Once it's gone, I want to forget as much as I can about this world.

  Elan smiles at me. You should learn about this worlds true history. You never know when some obscure knowledge might prove useful.

  I snort and look down at the ocean again. "Are you ready, Angelique."

  "Yes, Master."

  I look at Dacbold and Valcrit, and they both nod.

  "Okay, fly us down."

  "Yes, Master!" As she casts her spells, Angelique has on a smile that looks a bit forced. In a short time, she has changed more than I imagined she would in her entire life, but the timid girl that did nothing but try to hide herself is still lurking under the surface.

  Under Angelique's control, the four us fly over the gunwale of the Night Raven and rapidly descend to the water. Angelique halts our descent a few feet above the ocean swells. They are bigger than they look from Night Raven's altitude, ten feet or so from trough to peak.

  Angelique casts another spell. She appears to be rushing, but as the spell pattern forms, a little hesitation and fumbling in her movements does not seem to slow her down.

  Shimmering aqua bubbles form around the four of us and contract until they are skin tight. After a moment, the shimmering color fades, but I still feel the Power form a layer of something tightly against my skin. It is not exactly unpleasant, but it feels like I have sunscreen everywhere, including a membrane over every orifice and on my eyeballs.

  As she cancels the flight spell, Angelique's grin is impish, but that does not hide her nervousness.

  We fall into the ocean water, and I reflexively hold my breath. Even though I surrounded by water, it does not actually make contact with my skin. My breechclout soaks up the water, but my skin remains dry.

  I look at Angelique and see her breathing normally. Each time she exhales, bubbles of air float up from her mouth and nose. She flashes an almost relieved looking grin at me. She did not say anything, but she is giving the impression that something, maybe multiple things, about this mission are upsetting her.

  Angelique's slightly nervous giggle reaches me through the raid channel. Breathe normally, Master. My spell extracts nitrogen and oxygen from the seawater, and keeps the water from actually making contact with the interior of your body.

  It is not that I do not trust Angelique, but I have never had this type of the spell placed on me before. The underwater spells that were placed on me in the past kept a bubble of air a couple feet in diameter around my head. I take a shallow breath, and even though my mind says water should be flowing into my lungs, it feels like I am breathing air. The membrane of Power is extracting the gasses directly from the surrounding water. After a few more experimental breaths, I start breathing naturally.

  Ignoring the overreaction of Angelique's self-satisfied grin that makes a clown's painted smile look small, I focus on the impressions I am receiving of the water around me through my spatial awareness. While air, even in high winds, has a light almost nonexistent feel, the water around me creates a constant weight and pressure in my mind. It does not hide the fish swimming in the near vicinity, but there is a shadowy obfuscation that makes distance difficult to accurately judge. If we are attacked while in the water, I may not be able to rely on my spatial awareness for more than an early warning of attacks from outside my line of sight.

  Infusing Trinity into my spatial awareness, I expand its reach until the solidity of the submarine's hull. Its heavy presence stands out against the background pressure of the water much better than the fish, but it feels like I am looking at something surrounded by heavy fog. I can only guess at our distance form the submarine.

  As I start swimming toward the submarine, I point toward it. This way.

  Wait, Master! I need to cast wards.

  Looking at Angelique, I keep my face emotionless. Did and Elan tell you to cast those as soon as you hit the water?

  I'm sorry, Master. I got distracted. Angelique bows her head. Whatever is bothering her, it is impeding her focus. If she keeps going like this, she is going to make mistakes.

  This is not a pleasure excursion. We could be in the middle of a battle at any moment. Getting distracted and not doing your job might cost someone their life.
/>
  I'm sorry, Master. Angelique attempts to cast her spells rapidly, but she makes clumsy mistakes that force you to start over twice.

  Once the spells are cast, Angelique almost appears to shrink in on herself. I do not need empathy to feel her shame and nervousness that borders on outright fear.

  When you fuck up, getting bent out of shape and rushing just makes you more likely to fuck up again. In the future, keep in mind where you are and why you were there.

  Yes, Master. Angelique's voice is soft and timid, more like a little girl than an adult.

  From the information Delphi pulled out of the automated US submarine, the submarine we are chasing arrived in the current area two days ago and is patrolling in a roughly one hundred and fifty mile oval pattern at a speed that stays around 26mph. When we hit the water, we were almost two miles in front of the sub, but now it is already nearly under us.

  Let's go. Facing my direction of the submarine, I swim deeper into the ocean.

  Behind me, the other three follow, but only Dacbold is able to keep up with my pace. If I slow down to a speed that Angelique, the slowest, can keep up, the submarine will pass by before we can intercept it. Afraid of being left behind, Angelique casts another spell and her speed increases. She casts the spell three more times, on Valcrit, then Dacbold, and finally myself. With everyone under the effects of this new spell, we are able to travel at more than twice my original speed.

  The submarine,running at a depth of around eight hundred feet, has already passed by, but my group is now moving at a faster speed than the sub, around 35mph.

  As we close the distance, the water pressure does not feel like it is increasing. Since water pressure naturally increases the deeper you go, this must be an effect of Angelique's spell. During the Great Fuck Over, there were a few times that I free dove to depths of more than a hundred feet, and the water pressure must have increased to about three times what it was at the surface.

  By the time we are within three to four hundred feet of the submarine, it is clearly visible as a darker shadow against the dark depths of the ocean floor.

  I take a heavy spear that I prepared before setting out out of my storage ring. Its design is more like a bore spear in a combat weapon. The crossbar below the head should be useful in keeping an impaled shark at bay. My intention was to use it if we were attacked by sharks, and it is questionable how useful it will be against one of the automatons. I would prefer to use my bastard swords, but it will be easier trying to stab something than swing a sword at it with the resistance from the water pressure.

  The torpedo tube doors open once again and eight of the automatons head in our direction. As the automatons close to within two hundred feet, they come to a stop facing us. They raise their arms, and the blades unfold from each forearm and lock into place.

  They're not attacking. Is that good or bad?

  No one answers Angelique's question.

  Behind the automatons, the submarine cuts it engines slows down.

  "Rock ape traitor, I, Tie Quan, your grandfather, give you the chance to have the honor of dying at my hands instead of beneath my puppets' blades. Which death do you choose?" The deep baritone voice does not sound as though it has been distorted by the water at all. The overbearing condescension in it has to be the speaker's natural tone.

  He sounds like an arrogant fuck.

  Dacbold sneers. He sound like something out of a bad Chinese movie or novel from fifty years ago. I never liked or trusted those bastards.

  I have been getting the impression that Dacbold does not like anybody. I can understand that. On Earth, they all hate themselves and everyone else because they are cowards that live in a state or perpetual fear. They are split between the cowards are out to fuck everyone else over so that they can lie to themselves about being safe from everything hurtful and the cowards that roll over and let themselves be fucked. That is why the Earth and its inhabitants disgust me. Dacbold seems to be the rare Earthborn that has not lived his life in fear. His dislikes and hates are pure. They not arise from fear.

  The ass-fucker in the sub just sounds like an idiot in need of killing, but if he invites us in, if saves us the trouble of breaking in. Because you're a Dvergar, he seems to think that you are the badass in the group. Take him up on his offer.

  Dacbold shrugs. That should work.

  Dacbold laugh out loud. The underwater breathing spell that Angelique put on us allows him to speak normally, but the water still distorts his voice. Even so, it does nothing to remove the raw mocking tone in the sound. "Bring us aboard. It is the responsibility of an elder to teach a loudmouth turtle grandson his manners."

  Loudmouth turtle grandson?

  Dacbold seems to hastily conceal the vicious hate in his eyes. The way he was talking that should be a pretty insulting way to refer to him. I should have called him a bastard. That'll probably torque him off a bit.

  Torque him off?

  With your vocabulary, you have some of the oddest blind spots about idioms. I basically means to piss him off.

  With the exception of Special Agent Jones, I can barely remember you going out of your way to insult people.

  Dacbold shows a grim smile for a fraction of a second. *You were trained by Boran. Have you ever read The Book of the Dead?*

  I shake my head. No. What is it?

  Dacbold is probably unaware of the hate and anger that his expression reveals. The Dvergar keep records of their deaths. It's mostly just a list of the Dvergar's name and the battle where he died. It's different for the Valkyries. The records are explicit on how they died and the vengeance take over the death. The Dvergar mate with the Valkyries, even though they are really two separate races. Apparently, the True Dragon's made the two races to be like that.

  Dacbold pauses for a few seconds. There tens of millions of entries for the Valkyries that have things like gang raped to death by orcs for the pleasure or X Alfar from Clan A in the service of Y Dragon, skinned alive and boiled on the order of Z Dragon, impaled by the Alfar of Clan B. The shit goes on and on. Every one of those entries has a vengeance claimed by a list of Dvergar killing a number of Alfar from the Clan A, or a certain Dvergar killed Dragon Y, or sometimes both the deaths of Alfar and Dragons. All the description include the manner of death given during the vengeance, and with the exception of the Dragon killings, they're all worse than what was done to the Valkyrie. All of the vengeances were claimed during The War of Slaughter. The Dvergar put up with that shit for billions of years before they took their vengeance, and if they hadn't been put on the spot by Death, they would probably still be taking it from the Dragons and the Alfar. Despite their hatred, their loyalty to the Dragons was that strong.

  Dacbold shivers. I didn't think I was that strongly affected by the Dvergar's history, but it seems like being in this body has changed me more than I realized. Being talked down at by some pissant worshiping the wannabe successors to the Dragons, I got a little pissed off, but I was holding back a little with the insults.

  Dacbold was probably holding back more than just a little, and he is more than just a little pissed off. Even if I was not an empath, I would probably still feel the rage and hate that seems to be encasing him like a glacier.

  The loudmouth turtle grandson's silence stretches out in the wake of Dacbold's replay the arrogant fuck for almost thirty seconds, and then a hatch on the dry deck shelter opens.

  If that's his reply, I don't think you exactly torqued him off.

  Dacbold's only acknowledgment of my comment is a cold smile.

  Let's go. Suiting actions to words, I swim toward the open hatch on one end of the dry deck shelter. It is located about three hundred feet from the aft end of the submarine.

  The automatons move to what would be the eight corners of a cube around us and maintain their relative positions to us until we reach the submarine.

  The inside of the dry deck shelter has cleats and rings that are obviously meant for tying down equipment or cargo. In the back wall of
the compartment which is about three-fifths of the length of the unit, there is a sealed hatch. Once the four of us are inside, the outer hatch closes with a soft groaning of moving metal parts. As soon as the hatch is closed, the water begins to drain out of the compartment we are in.

  Elan, can you still hear me?

  I can hear you. Is there a problem?

  We are inside the dry deck shelter for the submarine. There's an arrogant fuck on it that wants to kill Dacbold and one-on-one combat. Since he is being dumb enough to let us in, were taking advantage of the opportunity.

  I put the spear back in my storage ring, and taking out my weapons harness, I strap it on. The other three also take out their weapons of choice.

  With the compartment we are in emptied of water, Dacbold spins the wheel on the hatch and opens it. The compartment on the other side is less than half the size of the one we are in, and what passes for its floor looks like the outer hull of the submarine. In the center of the smaller compartment, there is a hatch to enter the submarine proper.

  As I step into the second compartment, the hatch leading to the submarine opens with a hiss. It seems that the air in the interior of the sub is under higher pressure than the air in this dry deck shelter. The slightly brighter light, from the open hatch, has a yellowish tint to it that looks more like the light of a torch than an electric bulb or diode, even though it is steady and not flickering.

  Looking down, the walls of the compartment below are not visible. The floor is made of metal grates that appear to be suspended a few inches over solid metal plating. There is no sign of anyone visible, and even to my spatial awareness, the compartment seems to be empty. Other than the ladder and equipment, mostly weapons, racked along the walls, there is nothing else I can detect.

  I'll go first. Wait for my call to come after me in case I need to get out in a hurry.

  Getting nods of acknowledgment from the other three, I hold the scabbards of my swords tight against my body and drop through the hatch.