by James Hunter
“What’s the plan for us, Jack?” Abby asked, forehead creased as she tracked the Cthullu behemoths drifting across the velvety dark sky like bloated clouds.
“I’ll message you as soon as Nikko has the full scoop about the extent of the invasion. In the meantime, we need to knock those things”—I jabbed at the floating horrors—“from the sky. Cutter and Amara are rallying the guards, and Otto and Arcona are on their way to lock down Darkshard. I’ll push out notifications, put Devil on aerial mop up, and man the cannons. Can you take Valkyrie and start putting out the fires around camp? Well, metaphorically put out the fires,” I added after a second.
She grinned at me, though there was nothing happy in that smile—it was a thing of rage and anger. A grim promise that someone was going to pay for ruining our evening.
“On it,” she said, reaching into her inventory.
She pulled out what looked like like a baseball-sized ruby filled with pulsing flame, constantly shifting hue like a broken kalodiscope. With a murmured prayer, she tossed it straight up into the air, where it hung, unsuspended, for a long beat. A flash of blinding golden light rippled out from the stone, lighting up the training yard, now pitted from explosions and splattered with the gore of the dead. The blaze lasted for seconds at most, and when it finally subsided, an ultra-rare Golden Hoardling Drake loomed before us.
Valkyrie was a female Drake, just a hair smaller than Devil, with golden-red scales, an arching serpentine neck, and brilliant crimson wings. Embedded directly in the center of the Drake’s forehead was the pulsing ruby that had given her life moments before.
“Be careful, Jack,” Abby said, the words solemn. “Don’t do anything too brave, huh. I fully expect to finish my dance for you.” She swung up into a leather saddle edged in gold and grabbed the reins. Valkyrie lurched into serpentine motion before leaping skyward, great red wings pumping, turning the charred remains of the Vogthar into swirling clouds of sooty ash.
I took one more look at the war zone and grimaced. All around me I heard the moans of the hurt and dying mingling with the shouts of defenders and the clang of steel. We needed to stop this quickly, and the best way to do that was to take out the disgusting Corpulent Wreyvens before they could finish dropping their payload. Time to bring out the big guns.
I summoned Devil.
Counterstrike
I CROUCHED LOW AGAINST Devil, knees dug in tight, reins clenched, eyes squinted against the battering wind as we rose into the night.
I need you to get me over to the nearest guard tower, I sent. Somehow these things got the drop on our overwatch positions.
Easily done. But then what? came Devil’s gruff reply. Surely you do not expect me to sit around while you play with some human toy? There is battle here. The scent of blood on the wind. Enemies to kill and meat to eat.
Yeah. Don’t worry about that, big guy, I replied, pulling up my interface and toggling over to the officer chat. I selected the Regional Faction option, manually including Osmark and Sandra, adding them to the chain, before dashing off a quick speech-to-text message.
<<<>>>
Regional Faction Message: Yunnam
Alert!
To all Crimson Alliance members in Yunnam proper and the surrounding Storme Marsh Areas, Vogthar are inside the city walls, likely trying to capture our guard towers and other key defense locations. If you are in range to take back the guard towers, do so. Get the Arcane Shadow Cannons up and running and bring down the Wreyvens. Everyone in the Malleus Libertas, coordinate among the strike groups to secure our gates, then ensure Chief Kolle, the clan elders, and any other visiting dignitaries get bunkered down inside the Crafter’s Hall, just like we’ve drilled for. Everyone else, fight back, stay safe, and rally to Abby. If your position is being overwhelmed, send up purple flares so she can help you.
—Faction Commander, Grim Jack
<<<>>>
Just get me to the nearest tower, I told Devil, focusing on the battlefield once more, and then I’ll let you off the leash. Eat whatever you kill. Though, if you could focus on those big nasty things in the sky, that would be great.
Devil snorted and breathed deeply—a sense of repulsion carrying through our mental bond. I think not. There are Vogthar here to fill my belly, but those things above are rancid. Fit only for burning. Devil paused, cocking his head slightly to the side as though lost in contemplation. But there is pleasure in burning, too, he finished. I will do what I can.
I glanced down and noticed a group of revelers fruitlessly trying to fight off an encroaching band of the Vogthar soldiers pressing in on all sides, cutting off any sort of retreat. At a glance, it was clear these weren’t fighters or adventurers, but unarmed merchants mixed with a handful of women and children, all dressed in their Sunday best. A few of the adults held cutting knives, and one wielded what looked like a shoddy mace as long as my forearm, but against a band of elite Vogthar, they wouldn’t last more than a minute. A flicker of movement caught my eye and a second later Frank Senior—of Frank’s Old World Pizza fame—barreled into the mass of creatures.
He shoulder-checked one of the lanky warriors, throwing the creature to the side, then wheeled around, brandishing a rolling pin covered with a cloth sleeve speckled with flour. He was wearing a thick apron dotted with crimson splotches, more likely marinara sauce than blood.
Quick detour, I sent to Devil. Just give me a low pass—Umbra Flame anything you can without catching the civilians.
Devil growled in reply, dual plumes of smoke drifting from his nostrils.
The Drake dipped his neck and lifted his left wing, banking hard right and swooping low like an avenging angel. We didn’t have time to spare—every second, the Wreyvens were dropping more and more of the Vogthar egg-pods—but even with only a single pass, I could give Frank and the others a fighting shot. I thrust my warhammer out toward the Vogthar patrol, channeling my anger into one of my most potent spells of all, Night Cyclone.
With a ten-minute cooldown and a Spirit cost of 1,100, Night Cyclone was a spell I couldn’t use frequently, but when something—or a bunch of somethings—positively, absolutely had to be obliterated right this second, there was no better option in my arsenal. Especially with friendlies in the area of effect. Arctic power built in my chest, pressure mounting for an uncomfortable moment before finally surging down my arm like a bolt of lightning, coalescing around the head of my warhammer in a nimbus of violet light. The air above the Vogthar shimmered and rippled as the fabric of reality tore along the seams, revealing a twisted landscape of roiling purple skies, enormous black cyclones, and an endless sea of yellow hardpan.
I suspected the place was somewhere in the Shattered Realms, though no one I’d ever talked to had seen it during their travels.
One of the night-dark cyclones howled like a banshee as it surged through the now open rift, descending on the nightmare invaders with preternatural hunger. The civilians cowered away, frightened, though they had nothing to worry about. The single best thing about Night Cyclone was that it didn’t even so much as ruffle their hair. The Vogthar, however, weren’t so lucky. The screaming, partially sentient tornado snapped limbs like twigs before tossing several of them away with crippling, back-breaking force. Others, it snatched up like rag dolls, lifting them from the ground and into the tornado’s vortex.
Those unfortunate few, Devil treated to a burst of searing-hot Umbra Flame, burning them to bone and ash while they were still airborne.
“Find Abby or get to the Crafters Hall,” I yelled down over the wail of the summoned tornado.
Before I could get any sort of response, we were gone, Devil’s speed and sheer momentum carrying us past the skirmish.
We climbed in a flash, Devil readjusting course so we angled toward one of the stone watchtowers sticking up like a hitchhiker’s thumb from the palisade wall a hundred feet ahead. Yunnam’s outer wall wasn’t much to look at—certainly not compared to Rowanheath or even the formidable stone barrier surrounding Dar
kshard proper—just double stacked ashwood poles, twenty-five feet high and sharpened on the ends. But they’d done their job and kept us safe. Or, at least, they had until now. Although that was probably due more to the deadly nature of the swamp itself, the constant Ak-Hani ranger patrols, and the watchful eyes of the Spider Queen and her many children.
Lowyth and the spiderkin had never eaten so well—a fact the Spider Queen was more than happy to share with me whenever she could.
We were approaching the tower, a square building cobbled together from weathered gray rock and gobs and gobs of gossamer spider webbing, which the natives used for just about everything. The stuff was like duct tape around these parts. And understandably so, since it was readily available and more resilient than almost any other material in Eldgard.
Vlad had once crafted a rope made from powdered diamond and spider silk that was powerful enough to hold an ancient dragon the size of a 747.
Get me close, I sent to Devil, pulling my feet from the iron stirrups, then ever so carefully moving into a balanced crouch on top of the Drake. You know what to do from there.
I would wish you luck, Devil replied with a growl, but our kind makes our own luck. Let your enemies feel your fury! he bellowed inside my head, banking sharply a handful of feet from the tower. I pushed off as he turned, using the momentum to propel me over the gap and the thirty-foot drop to the ground below.
If the distance or the fall had been any greater, I would’ve triggered Shadow Stride to mitigate the brunt of the impact, but the leap was a sure thing, and thanks to a healthy dose of Acrobatics—a general ability that I’d picked up through tons of reckless maneuvers just like this one—I was able to easily turn the leap into a lightning-fast roll that brought me back to my feet. There was no sign of the Murk Elf guard who was supposed to be manning this post, but there was a liberal amount of blood slicking the floor beneath me and more splashed against the far wall of the tower in a crimson streak.
I stole a look over the edge and immediately spotted the body below: a white-haired Dokkalfar in black leather armor, his eyes vacant, his throat split from ear to ear.
It was an ugly death, though it had probably been a quick one, which was a small mercy. Truthfully, I was just thankful that whatever Vogthar invader had done the deed hadn’t been bright enough to turn the hulking siege weapon inward on the inhabitants of the city itself. The cannon was a beastly thing built of heavy rivets, blackened wrought iron, flashing Umbra runes, and fist-sized chunks of polished Darkshard Ore. It reminded me of the unholy love child of a Civil War-era cannon and a Tesla Death Ray. And it could cause a massive amount of destruction in the wrong hands.
Without missing a beat, I rushed over and spun a wheel, turning the cannon, then cranking on a series of levers responsible for the angle of the barrel. I pressed one eye shut and used a set of simple iron sights protruding from the top of the barrel to home in on my target: a slowly drifting Wreyven loaded down with Vogthar drop pods ready to be deployed at the twitch of a suckered tentacle.
I didn’t intend to give the thing a chance.
Taking a deep breath, I slapped my hand against the arming plate. Runes flickered to life along the length of the barrel, and I activated the runic trigger.
A furious kaboom rattled the tower as the weapon kicked like an angry bull, belching an orb of volatile purple light the size of a basketball at the flying horror. The shot hit dead on, smacking into the thing’s guts from below. The blob of raw energy erupted in a bubble of umbral power that swelled outward, enveloping the Wreyven and all the capsules clutched in its many arms. The light pulsed once, painfully bright, then contracted, shrinking down to the size of a pinprick before vanishing entirely. There was no sign whatsoever of the Wreyven. No ash. No raining body parts or cloud of gore. It was just... gone.
A circular cooldown gauge appeared above the cannon, its singular black needle firmly in the red, though creeping back toward the green second by second. A forty-second recharge time, but with the kind of damage this thing could do, it was no wonder it took so long. It also provided me with the time I needed to sight in on the next horror, diligently lining up my shot so that I could make it count. While the needle was still in the red, a cannon two towers over from me thundered, launching a purple-blue blob of light all its own, which sideswiped another of the troop-deploying Wreyvens—turning it into less than pink mist.
That had to be Mighty Joe and Kong at work. That or one of the other Alliance members who’d gotten my message.
The needle edged back into green, and I went through the process again: Sights steady. Arming plate on. Runic trigger activated. Orb of utter annihilation unleashed at will.
The blast tore through another of the floating monstrosities like a battle-axe through a rotten pumpkin, leaving behind no trace of the creature who been occupying the airspace a moment before.
Once more the cycle began, needle slowly climbing while the battle raged on around me; but just because I wasn’t currently doing anything didn’t mean things weren’t happening. Bursts of roiling black flame lit up the night like heat lightning in late summer, but those blasts were all courtesy of Devil as he swooped and wheeled among the still living Vogthar troop carriers, destroying the things as mercilessly as a wolf among a pack of sheep without their shepherd. Along the wall, more and more Arcane Shadow Cannons lurched into action, peppering the fliers above while also turning on pockets of resistance located out of sight below.
Despite the drunken nature of most of the partygoers, our forces had somehow managed to rouse some level of defense. Thanks to my vantage point—and the Night Eye ability that allowed me to see more keenly in the dark—I watched as tight-knit groups of fighters pushed through the streets, striking down any errant Vogthar and simultaneously rallying to the heady thump of war drums and the blare of horns. Imperial Legion units fell back on their skill, discipline, and training, forming orderly triple lines. They blocked off streets with effortless efficiency and hemmed in the invaders while allowing less-prepared civilians to slip through their ranks to safety.
At the front of the line stood the velites, using blocky rectangular shields and barbed spears, while the hastate, principes, and triarii lurked behind them with swords, axes, javelins, and deadly magic.
The human forces had also been augmented by a cohort of very inhuman allies: spiderkin. They flooded over the palisade walls, shrieking and buzzing as they moved, falling on the Vogthar like hungry junkyard hounds that hadn’t eaten in weeks.
Most were the more common spiderkin—bloated brown things, larger than Rottweilers, with hair-covered legs—but I also spotted a fair number of chitinous gray Sword-Slayers, black Poison Darters, electric blue Portal Crawlers, and even the tank-sized Colossal Spiderkin. Lowyth had showed up to play, and she and her ugly kids were taking no prisoners. I winced as a pack of common spiderkin, led by a Portal Crawler, descended on a lone Vogthar troop who’d had the misfortune of being separated from the rest of its squad. The Portal Crawler zapped in and out of reality, twining thick strands of webbing around the Vogthar, ensuring it couldn’t escape. The spiderkin effortlessly dragged the unfortunate Vog to the ground, disemboweling the creature alive.
The cooldown timer had finally lapsed on my cannon, so I let loose another blast, this one slightly off target. It clipped the tail end of one of the Wreyvens—who were quickly dwindling in number, thank God—blasting it from the air, though not completely disintegrating its torso.
I turned at the roar of steam-powered Gatling guns screaming in the night.
The Hellreaver.
Cutter manned the helm, bellowing orders that sent his Goblin crew scuttling about the rigging, while Amara and Jake Blackblade worked the ship’s two guns—one mounted on the bow, the other on the stern. Cutter hadn’t opened up with a salvo of cannon fire, but that was probably because he was firing into Yunnam itself. Unleashing a blast of cannon fire would tear through friendly buildings and bystanders just as much as the Vogthar
invaders. The Gatling guns were slightly less effective, but far more controlled.
As smoke curled up from the tip of the artillery barrel, a familiar voice caressed the back of my mind. Manling, Nikko sent, voice hazy, distant, most of the Vogthar have already been contained. This attack, it reeks of a scouting force, not a true offensive. The dark gods of blood and bone smile on us tonight. I will observe and wait for orders.
The ape’s voice faded, but that was fine. I didn’t have any orders for the time being anyway. Nikko was as smart and as devious as the shrewdest scouts I’d ever met, so if she said this was a minor incursion, and mostly contained, then I had no reason to doubt her. Still, the raid was beyond troubling, and even if it had been a relatively minor skirmish, there would doubtless be casualties. With a grimace, I turned and leapt from the wall, slipping in and out of the Shadowverse in the blink of an eye to negate the fall damage. I needed to find Forge and Vlad and figure out what had gone wrong, and how.
Uneasy Thoughts, Unwelcome Guests
HOURS LATER, AFTER the fighting had finally died off and the clean-up work was in full swing, I lay on the balcony outside my private master suite in Darkshard Keep, staring up at the winking starlight. Beneath me was a layer of furs and blankets, insulating me from the cool stone; Abby was curled up next to me, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing meaningless swirls across my skin. The soft caresses sent goosebumps racing along my spine, the hairs on my arms standing at attention. I was ungodly tired and wanted nothing more than to drift off, cradled in dreamless sleep for a few hours, but I couldn’t get my mind to shut off.
Not after the attack.
Nikko had been right in her assessment—this hadn’t been anything more than a scouting force, a fact both Forge and Vlad had quickly confirmed.
