by DB King
After taking a moment longer to examine his spells, Marcus turned and headed back toward the grove.
Chapter 13
The next few days were spent peacefully. It was Marcus’s intention to make sure that his gang benefited from his good fortune as soon as possible. To this end, he distributed his gold among the leaders of the Gutter Gang, as well as giving a cut to Old Jay. He took another trip to see Salla at the Ragged Sail, too, collecting the rest of his gold. No trouble on the way back this time, though.
He heard an interesting rumor on the docks. Near one of the smaller wharves where ork traders from the Gronwold tied up, there were a group of heavy iron cages, big enough that they could have fitted mules inside. When Marcus paused to look at them, a passing sailor stopped and started chatting with him.
“You don’t see that kind of thing on the docks much these days,” Marcus said to the sailor, nodding at the cages.
“Aye, that’s true enough,” said the man. “And I’m hoping it won’t be long before they’re gone either.”
“Why?” Marcus said. “What’s wrong with them? What are they for?”
The sailor turned and spat. “Wargs from the westlands,” he said. “That’s what they’re for. We’re expecting a ship in from the Gronwold any day now, carrying a consignment of wargs for some lord up in the city.”
“Wargs?” Marcus prompted. “Surely not?” Marcus knew that the way to keep a man like this talking was to pretend he didn’t believe him.
The sailor glared at Marcus. “You think I don’t know what I’m talking about? There’s a consignment of trained and battle bred wargs on the way in, sure as my name’s Mad Jim. Damned orks, them and their fancy war goods. Though I suppose they can’t be blamed for trading, and it’s whatever fool lord wants to buy them that’s to blame. Don’t suppose you’d spare a silver coin, by the way? Payday’s been delayed this trip, and I’ve a thirst on me.”
Marcus rolled his eyes and gave the man his tip. Wargs in the city; that was concerning news. The orks bred the wargs to ride into battle as heavy cavalry, and they were a terrible prospect in battle. But aside from the usual clashes with pirates, there was little open warfare these days, even in Doran and the Gronwold itself. It seemed to Marcus that nobody could have a need to buy battle wargs in Kraken City.
He filed the information away and continued on his way to the Ragged Sail to see Salla.
Salla told him that rumors of a dungeon were spreading through the city. Most of the tales were outlandish enough that Marcus was able to just raise an eyebrow and not comment, but it was interesting to note that a certain group of three men from one of the duelist guilds had already gained notoriety for their exploits and the gold they had brought back from a mysterious adventuring session.
Marcus bought himself a sword at an armorer in the city, and upgraded his wardrobe too. He replaced his threadbare cloak with a plush, fur-lined piece with plenty of pockets. He also bought a set of hunter’s armor—boiled leather jerkin and britches, light mail, new boots, and even a leather helmet. He talked to the armorer about getting several sets of this kind of light armor made up, and the armorer agreed that it could be done. He looked at Marcus strangely—it was unusual for people to buy multiple sets of armor and blades—but Marcus paid him half up front and the gold was good so he didn’t ask any more questions. It would take a few days, the armorer said, but Marcus could come back at the end of the week and collect his new armor.
It was important to Marcus that his gang be well-fitted out with weapons and armor. The Gutter Gang sent regular scouting parties out into the Underway, and lately they had been coming back with reports of the gathering of the new alliance between the Sewer Slayers and the ratmen. Mixed groups of enemy scouts had been encountered, though they’d never fought. Marcus could feel in his bones that a fight was coming, and when it did, he wanted to be ready.
He had taken to carrying his new dungeon chambers with him in his pockets, in the form of glass spheres. He had two now, the Shadow-Duelists chamber and the Bladehand chamber. He’d left the Grove chamber at home for Ella to live in. The possibilities of his new powers were in the back of his mind all the time. New dungeon chambers, new possibilities for creating monsters—new benefits and advantages he could buy for the members of the Gutter Gang.
As he traveled toward the Underway, Marcus’s mind was on progression. His new sword bumped against his leg and his new boots moved softly across the stone floor of the curved tunnel as he made his way back home.
A sudden noise made him stop. His heightened senses alerted him in an instant. He had heard a faint scuffing noise from up ahead. What was it? A rat? But it sounded bigger than a regular sewer rat. He held his position, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to fight. One hand moved down to the hilt of his new blade and cupped the pommel of the sword.
A long hiss of breath broke the stillness. It was unmistakable. Something up ahead was breathing, a hissing, tense breath as if through clenched teeth.
Marcus scanned the corridor ahead. It curved away to the left, back toward the Gutter Gang’s base, but on the right, just up ahead, a small narrow passage plunged downwards—toward the domain of the ratmen.
The dungeon dwellers seldom went that way, and when they could avoid it, they didn’t pass the entrances to the lower levels of the Underway. Mostly, the ratmen kept to themselves, but recently there had been more and more rumors of them since their alliance with the Sewer Slayers. Marcus’s preferred route to the city passed this one entrance to the lower levels, but he was used to passing it without issue.
This time, however…
The long, hissing breath came again, and Marcus was no longer in any doubt. Something—something big—lurked in the entrance to the ratmen’s domain. Was it waiting to spring on anyone who passed? Marcus gripped the hilt of his sword, ready to draw, then activated his Ultimate Stealth spell.
On tiptoes, he approached the narrow entrance, hand on his sword’s hilt. When he was nearly on top of it, he sprang forward, drawing his new blade in a flash of bright steel.
The ratman in the doorway was a big, ugly creature, a rat nearly the size of a full-grown man, standing upright on powerful back legs. It was dressed in a filthy outfit of rusty chainmail and boiled leather, covered with a brown cloak of badly cured hide. A deep hood cast a deep shadow over its face, but Marcus could see the long snout and sharp, yellow teeth jutting out.
His enemy became aware of him at the exact moment Marcus drew his sword from its sheath, and screamed in anger and fright as it saw him. The sword sang from the sheath, whispering death. It was a good blade, a long rapier with a basket hilt, similar to the ones used by the duelists but wider in the blade. It was slightly shorter, too, because Marcus wanted to be able to use it within the cramped confines of the Underway.
The ratman drew a weapon of its own—not a sword, but a two-handed axe with a heavy blade of dark iron and a thick wooden shaft. The ratmen of the Underway often favored such weapons because they could bludgeon an enemy just as well as cut them to pieces. ratmen were very strong, but not particularly agile, and so their weapons often reflected that.
A ratman’s main advantage in a fight was pure brute force. That meant that Marcus’s main advantage was his natural speed and agility, as well as the diversion capability of the Ultimate Stealth spell. He would use both of those to their fullest effect.
The monstrous creature lumbered from the doorway, spitting curses in its foul language. It was making a lot of noise, and Marcus immediately suspected that it was trying to alert others who might be nearby. The ratman was obviously confused by the Ultimate Stealth spell, but it swung wildly in his direction with the axe anyway.
Marcus caught and turned the powerful overhand blow from the huge axe with a clang, then replied with a low, sweeping cut at the ratman’s legs. His enemy moved more quickly than its size would suggest possible, dropping the shaft of the axe to block the blow as Marcus felt Ultimate Stealth wear off.
Marcus wrenched the sword free and brought it up just in time to stop a blow aimed at his chest. He leaned into the blow, catching the axe with a grunt and sweeping it away, then bringing the blade back into a vicious backstroke toward the ratman’s head.
Instinct made him duck suddenly, as something thrummed through the air just above his head and crashed into the wall. A short, black projectile, from a glance, but he didn’t have time to look further—the ratman pressed the attack.
A huge sweep of the axe went for his head, but he dropped and rolled to the side. The axehead came whistling down and smashed into the stone floor, striking a bright flurry of white sparks as it dragged across the ground. The ratman had over-reached.
For just a moment, his enemy was off-balance, trying to raise his axe up for another blow. It was a moment too long. Marcus recovered and pushed up from the ground, aiming the point of his new sword at the center of the ratman’s body. The keen point plunged in, punching through cloak and chainmail cleanly and sinking into the monster’s heart.
Blood gushed from the wound as Marcus hauled his blade out of his enemy. He was about to stab again when another deep thrum came from further up the tunnel. This time, when he dropped down, he heard a wet thud. When he looked up, a feathered crossbow bolt stuck out of the dying ratman’s head.
A loud cursing and yammering came from up the tunnel. Marcus looked that way as the ratman crumpled to the ground, and saw three more ratmen standing a little way up the tunnel. They were blocking his way back to the Gutter Gang’s base, but equally he was blocking their way back into their lair.
The blood of their companion dripped down Marcus’s sword blade. He bared his teeth at them and advanced up the corridor. These three had their hoods thrown back, and he could see their mangy, matted gray-brown fur and their big, red eyes.
The crossbowman stood in the middle. It desperately reeled back the string of his bow, cranking the handle with fear in its eyes. Up came the weapon. The ratman took aim down the length of it and let fly.
The string made its deep thrum again as the bolt shot through the air. Marcus let instinct guide his hand. The sword came up like a living thing, smashing the bolt out of the air with a single perfect sweep. He laughed—these monsters were no match for his abilities. He was closing the distance, and the crossbowman would not be able to load another bolt before he was on them.
But the crossbowman didn’t attempt to load its weapon again. Instead, to Marcus’s surprise, it dropped the bow and reached down to grab something else. Marcus couldn’t tell what it was. The ratman held it like a crossbow, one hand in front and one at the back, but instead of raising it to his shoulder, he seemed to be about to fire from its hip.
Sudden doubt hit Marcus, and he slowed. The thing the ratman pointed at him was long and thick, a hollow cylinder of black metal about three feet long and two inches thick. The end was flared, and the black hollow space yawned at him as the ratman aimed it.
There was a click, and a small flame appeared in the hollow. Then the weapon hissed. The ratman screeched, and Marcus flung himself backward as sudden understanding flooded him.
“Burn!” screeched the ratman, and a thick gout of dirty orange flame suddenly filled the corridor.
A flamethrower, he thought as he leaped backward from the blaze. The ratmen were said to have such things. Through some ingenious engineering, they had created a weapon that sprayed a jet of some flammable liquid out, ignited by a pilot light at the end of the barrel. He had never seen one before, and it had nearly caught him off guard, but he was learning to lean on his magically augmented instincts, and that had saved him from being roasted.
The ratman’s flamethrower filled the tunnel with orange flame, and the roaring noise made Marcus’s ears hurt as it boomed through the small space. Thankfully, the terrible weapon seemed to have a fairly limited range. Marcus was able to avoid the blast by keeping his distance. As the flames cleared, Marcus dived forward and grabbed the massive two-handed axe that the slain ratman had wielded. He screamed, “Hero’s Might!” to activate the strength-enhancing spell, then swung the axe through the air, launching it at the ratman with the flamethrower as he appeared through the clearing smoke.
The tunnel reeked like burning pitch and his eyes stung, but his aim was true. The axe was heavy, but Marcus’s enhanced strength carried it through the air in a powerful arc and smashed into the flamethrower-armed ratman. The curved blade sank into the monster’s face. He screeched as he was thrown backward, clawed hands flapping as he crashed to the ground. Blood spurted, black and thick.
Marcus braced himself as the other two ratmen charged in. They were armed with tridents and nets. The three-pronged spear and weighted net combination was a favorite of many lightly armed fighters in Kraken City, and the ratmen were no exception.
It could be very deadly. The nets, made of thick cords and weighted with iron bearings at the edges, could incapacitate even a strong fighter quickly. It only took a moment of confusion and entanglement in the confines of a net for the handler to finish an opponent on his razor-sharp trident blades. Marcus heard the deadly whistling as both ratmen’s nets cut through the air toward him at the same time.
He knew he had only one chance to slash the nets effectively. He had to catch them with the blade as they fell, otherwise he would be caught in the trap. With a mighty swing, he slashed above his head as the nets fell. His steel whistled through the air and made a rapid pop, pop, pop, noise as it severed the thick-woven cords. The cut had been aimed perfectly, and the nets fell down in pieces on either side of him.
“It’ll take more than that to catch me!” he shouted fiercely as he sprang free of the tattered nets.
The two ratmen had been closing in fast for the kill, but now one of them wavered and fell back. Its companion, the bigger of the two, charged in, howling for blood. Marcus met the ratman’s blade and deflected it, then stepped in.
He tripped.
The net, though it had not caught his body, had caught his right ankle. His own momentum worked against him, sending him sprawling onto the ground with a mess of tattered netting tangled around his ankle.
With no time to spare, Marcus flung himself onto his back, just in time to see the gleaming points of the ratman’s trident descending toward his face. Yelling in anger, Marcus smashed the trident away with a great sweeping two-handed blow of his sword. But he couldn’t rise. The netting prevented him from getting up. Stealing a glance downward, he realized with horror that both his feet were caught up in the mess of weighted cordage.
The ratman recovered from Marcus’s last blow, swinging its trident up again. Marcus rolled out of the way as the trident-blade struck sparks against the stone floor—once, twice, three times. He was lightning fast, and that was the only thing saving him from being skewered, but he knew he couldn’t keep that up forever. The second ratman, seeing Marcus’s plight, had recovered its nerve and rushed in to join the fight. Marcus knew he couldn’t fight both of them at once, not from the ground.
He had to turn the odds in his favor. Taking aim at the ratman’s knees, he swung the sword in a deadly arc and felt the satisfying crunch of the blade biting through the ratman’s scrawny leg.
Black, foul-smelling blood splattered his face and hands as the ratman’s legs came off, and the monster toppled to the ground with a howl of pain and fury. Marcus rolled toward him, heaved himself up and drove his sword into the monster’s neck. He twisted and leaned. The ratman twitched and then lay still.
The last of the three ratmen stopped where it stood. Seeing its friend defeated had made it reconsider. Marcus used his free moment to draw his dagger and frantically slash at the netting that tangled his ankles. He got himself free after a moment and leaped to his feet, his s
word in one hand and his dagger in the other.
With a roar, he sprinted up the corridor in pursuit of the now-fleeing ratman. He was gaining, and felt that a burst of speed would close the distance between them when the ratman played an unexpected trick. It darted around a corner, and when Marcus gave chase, it switched direction and darted past him, fleeing back toward the scene of battle.
Of course! It only wanted to get back to the entrance to its lair.
Marcus turned, activated Fleetfoot, and continued to give chase, but the ratman was fleeing for its life. At the last moment, just when Marcus was about to catch it, the small, nimble ratman hurled itself down the narrow flight of stairs and vanished, squeaking, into the darkness beyond.
Spell: Ultimate Stealth Level 1
Level Increase: 14%
Progress to next level: 60%
Spell: Hero’s Might Level 1
Level increase: 3%
Progress to next level: 16%
Spell: Fleetfoot Level 1
Level Increase: 3%
Progress to next level: 29%
Good level increases. Marcus was starting to understand that the size of the level increases were directly proportionate to the effectiveness of his use of spells in battle. Here, as with his last dungeon fight, he had used the spells at critical moments, and that had boosted their progress.
At the doorway to the ratmen’s lair, Marcus stopped. He leaned a hand on the edge of the narrow doorway, looking down the black stairs and catching his breath. The blood was rushing in his ears, and the lust of battle was on him, but he got control of himself.
The only reason Marcus had felt able to pass by this doorway with confidence was that it was almost never used. He had not expected to see enemies here. Now, as he caught his breath, he thought the matter through. This had been a scouting party. Four of them, well-armed. They had been out here for a reason.
