by James Hunter
As I flicked the firing switch, those pouches burst and all two hundred shafts screamed through the air, propelled like a fleet of mini-rockets toward the Vogthar lining the wall. And with ten hwach’a in play, that was a full two thousand shafts unleashed in the span of an eyeblink. Even better, because of the ingenious design of the launching pads, the weapons would be ready to fire again in under thirty seconds.
Vogthar fell by the score, many dead on the spot, others shrieking as they fought to pull arrows free and failed miserably. The arrow tips were wickedly barbed, and the poison coating the tips enflamed skin and muscle, making the arrows virtually impossible to remove without a trained medic.
Meanwhile, Cutter opened up with our Javelin missiles, strafing the walls—targeting the enemy cannons that had already breached our hull once. Fifteen missiles landed mere seconds apart, and the resultant blast lit up the sky, heat and smoke billowing out in a plume as stone cracked and Vogthar burned. Instead of relenting, Cutter pressed, triggering our contingent of Arcane Shadow Cannons—finally off cooldown—cutting down the Vogthar ballistae and their crews.
I still had twenty seconds on the hwach’a, but I had more antipersonnel weapons at my disposal and I intended to use them all. With a thought, I triggered a series of Gatling guns and golden-bored cannons chock-full of potent grapeshot. The guns boomed and the cannons roared, vomiting fire and hot lead, pulverizing any defender out in the open, and slaughtering the handful of Vog medics and clerics diligently trying to patch up the wounded.
So far, things had gone far better than I ever could’ve expected.
The Vogs were fighting back, sure, and their defensive positions were no joke, but they just didn’t have anything powerful enough to do long-term damage to the battle rig—
The ground rumbled and rattled beneath us, the walls groaning in protest.
I had no idea what in the world was happening, so I retreated fifty feet, pulling away as I ran through the tower diagnostics.
“Bloody hell,” Cutter said, sounding more than a little awed. “I’d say we have Thanatos’ full attention now.”
He wasn’t wrong.
In front of us the wall lurched, rotating right and away from us like a giant wheel.
The Ritual
I WATCHED SLACK-JAWED at what I was witnessing.
I’d seen reports mentioning that Thanatos could somehow “shift” the wall defenses, but hearing a report and seeing it in action firsthand were vastly different experiences. In a matter of seconds, the damaged section of wall with its mangled defenders was simply gone, whisked away. The injured Vogthar had been effortlessly swapped out with a whole new contingent of guards—fresh-faced, fully armed, and ready to rumble. Worse, a small army of oversized monsters was also waiting for us on the top of the wall with fangs bared and claws ready.
Seven Ragna Wolves, a trio of Cyclopes, and five Vogthar Drakes built of char, ash, and burnt-out corpses.
The Cyclopes hefted enormous stones above their heads, each two or three tons, and hurled them at us with enough force to level a skyscraper.
I brought the shield arm into place, knocking away several of the stones with a clang that shook the tower and reverberated up through the metal and into my teeth. There were still three more boulders incoming, so I smashed one of the spell slots, conjuring a half-dome of glowing blue light, thirty feet in diameter, which absorbed the blows. The stones bounced harmlessly away, dropping a hundred feet to the ground below.
“Zendu!” I yelled, gaze still fixed on the creatures preparing to strike. “I think you’d better start on the ritual!”
“It will only help with the scripted Vogthar, not the other Horrors of Morsheim,” he replied, voice level and unperturbed despite the chaos. “Those, you will still have to contend against.”
“I can live with that.” At least, I hope I can, I thought. “Whatever you’re going to do, now’s the time to do it!”
“It will be so, though it will take a few minutes to complete.” The soft rustle of robes floated to my ears as the Lorekeepers shifted and began to chant, their inhuman voices rising in sad, sweet harmony. The words were in the strange language of the Vogthar—or maybe it was even older than that, harkening back to the days of the Thar—but even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I could somehow feel it echoing in my soul. Images of windswept villages danced through my mind, followed in turn by flashes of Abby and of my life before V.G.O.
I wanted to lie down and weep.
“Gods, what the bloody hell are you doing?” Cutter shouted. “It’s like you’re shanking me right in the emotional kidney. I hate introspection!”
There was no answer from Zendu, though, since the shaman was completely absorbed in his undulating song.
I pushed away the vague memories, grounding myself in the present. There were thousands of people in this rig, I reminded myself, and all of them were depending on me.
Working fast, I targeted the Ragna Wolves and hulking Cyclopes with my antipersonnel weapons, triggering the Gatling guns, the hwach’a, and the grapeshot cannons all at once, hoping to lay the monsters out cold in a single, nasty hit. Poison-tipped singijeon darkened the sky, brass shell casings rained down like a waterfall, and cannons roared in defiant triumph, unloading steel slugs the size of quarters. Instead of retreating, the enormous creatures surged toward the barrage of ammunition, lifting arms and extending wings, sheltering the more vulnerable Vogs behind them. For a moment the action made no sense—why run headlong into a hail of gunfire?—but once the smoke dissipated, it was clear what they’d done and why.
The antipersonnel ammo had proven deadly effective against the plain-Jane Vogs manning the walls, but against these behemoths, the arrows, rounds, and slugs merely bounced away, failing to penetrate thick hide and flabby bodies.
I toggled over to the heavy siege weapons, launching a bevy of Arcane Shadow Bolts and Javelin missles, but the creatures proved to be uncannily quick. Ragna Wolves bounded away and Vog Drakes leapt from the ramparts, taking to the air on icy currents. All easily avoiding my attacks. I managed to catch one Cyclops in the chest with a Javelin missle; Vlad’s signature weapon exploded, a column of gold and orange light billowing up while rancid black gore splattered out, leaving little of the unfortunate Cyclops behind. A Shadow Bolt clipped another Cyclops in the leg, oblitering everything from the knee down.
The creature toppled like a felled tree, mewling as it went careening over the side of the wall, tree-trunk arms pinwheeling as it fell to its death.
“Warhammer is back online,” Vlad yelled, “and full power on level two is restored.”
Perfect. Maybe the Gatling guns wouldn’t do much good, but I’d killed enough Ragna Wolves to know that a big heavy hammer to the face would do the trick well enough.
“Cutter, you’re on guns. Keep the Drakes on their toes, and lay down suppressive cover fire on the walls. I don’t want them to have enough breathing room to retaliate.”
“This is for making me work when I could be drunk!”
The weapons growled again, bullets pockmarking the walls and making the Vog defenders scramble for cover as I focused my attention on the Ragna Wolves, maneuvering into attack position.
Our siege weapons were deadly effective, but only at range. If those things cleared the gap and managed to get onto the tower itself, they could wreak some serious havoc.
A shaggy-maned brown wolf—its eyes blazing red, its teeth black as ink—angled left, then leapt with fearless abandon, paws outstretched, claws as big as a scythe blades flashing in the witchy green light swirling above the Necropolis. I brought my right arm around in a blur, and the mechanized rig reacted to my intention. The oversized warhammer batted the creature from the air, smashing it into the side of the wall like a line drive. The weapon landed with enough force to cave in the wolf’s ribs and pulverize one of its legs. The life faded from its eyes as its spine snapped, and its HP bar hit zero.
Another wolf lunged, thi
s one a sleek gray, but I maneuvered my shield into place, rebuffing the creature and knocking it back toward the ramparts—alive and unhurt, but also unable to get a clear shot at my tower.
I spun my torso, the tower swaying on its arachnoid limbs, and brought the warhammer down again, this time pancaking a black-furred wolf before it could get clear. Blood exploded out from the impact, spraying in an arc that coated every Vogthar in a ten-foot radius. I jerked my body right, dragging the hammer along the top of the wall, sideswiping any Vog too slow to get clear. I lifted my hand and twisted my wrist, spinning the warhammer so that the enormous spike on the opposite side of the weapon faced down. With a war cry, I raised my arm high and brought the weapon down with every inch of force I could muster.
The spike slammed home with a screech, digging into the magic ice and unyielding stone... Except the stone did yield beneath the raw force of the gigantic hammer. Then, spike firmly lodged, I jerked my arm backward. Gears clanked, and the sound of the steam engine chugging along at double time echoed up from the secondary engineering deck.
“Is too much strain, Jack!” Vlad called.
Despite his words, I kept pulling, sweat breaking out across my forehead, my arm physically trembling from the effort. Smoke trickled to my nose, but then there was a sharp crack—the sound of a boulder breaking loose from the side of a mountain—and the hammer lurched toward us. A chunk of wall thirty feet wide ripped free, taking twenty Vogs down with it, along with a Ragna Wolf who couldn’t gain purchase as it fought against the inevitable pull of gravity.
“Der’mo! Paren’, ty chto, rekhnulsya?” Vlad swore, frustration bruning in his voice. “Hammer is down! Again! Must be more careful, Jack!”
“Got a little overenthusastic.” I had to yell to be heard over the Lorekeepers’ chanting, which was building in pitch and fervor, coming to a crescendo as power gathered in the air like a dam just on the verge of bursting. I tried to raise the hammer, but the mechanical arm dangled uselessly at my side, a red status gauge blinking at the bottom of my vision. “Get it up and running as quick as you can. I think things are going to get worse before they get better.”
Although we were faring okay at the moment, the other rigs weren’t doing nearly so well.
Abby’s tower, three miles to the west, seemed to be mostly in fighting shape, her flamethrower extended, belching rivers of fire at the Vogs while javelins and Gatling guns bombarded the outer walls, pinning the Vog defenders behind the merlons and stranding them in stoney turrets. She’d sustained some serious damage, though. Her shield was scorched, claw marks crisscrossed the steel plating, and there were several ragged holes marring the tower itself. It almost looked like the Vogs had managed to board in places.
Osmark was faring even worse in the Imperial Blade.
Two of the beefy Ragna Wolves had managed to scamper onto his rig and were busy ripping siege weapons away with their ferocious teeth and mauling the operating crews trying to fight them off. A single Crystal Crab—its body built from snow, ice, and glittering glass—was wrapped around the spidery legs of Osmark’s tower, using its razor-sharp pinchers to sever the hydraulic pistons and fluid lines that powered the mechanical base. Stone Griffins circled the crab, desperately fighting to dislodge it, but the creature’s thick shell seemed impervious to their attacks.
“Earth to Jack!” Cutter called. “Get your head in the bloody battle, eh! We’ve got incoming!”
I whipped my sights back to the wall ahead of us.
Crap. The Ragna Wolves and their monstrous kin had only been a momentary distraction, meant to buy the Vogs a little time—and the gambit had worked. The Vogthar Drakes were rallying overhead, and they were coming in with some backup. Cruising in low was a full squadron of Abami, while high overhead, Corpulent Wreyven emerged from a sea of roiling, slow-moving green-gray clouds. Their enormous tentacles stretched tight beneath them, clutching the same drop pods they’d used against us in Yunnam.
Those pods could do significant damage on impact, and if they hit, it was possible the Vogthar hidden away inside the chitinous shells would be able to board the tower. Bad news all around.
At the same time, an army of Vogthar shamans swarmed out from conical-shaped turrets and rushed up winding staircases. I triggered the guns, but the Vogs were ready for my play. Flickering green shields burst to unnatural life, deflecting the rounds before they could spill corrupted blood. The shamans worked together in pockets, chanting in unison—just as Zendu and his fellow Lorekeepers were—to amplify their protective spells. More Vog shamans worked in the relative safety behind the shields, no doubt summoning offensive spells designed to topple even giants.
A round of ghostly green fireballs streaked across the gap, so I responded the only way I knew how: tapping our spellcasters again and summoning blue energy shields around us. A Spirit gauge popped up in the corner of my vision, draining fast as I burned through the collective power of fifty sorcerers in seconds. But the trick worked like a charm. The necrotic flames sizzled harmlessly against the conjured shield before guttering and dying. The Vog offensive casters rotated, moving to the back, while a new round of sorcerers shifted to the front—these decked out in robes the reddish color of old scabs.
These newcomers dragged glass blades along forearms and down exposed chests, spilling black blood by the bucketful along the ramparts.
A hailstorm of angry red fireballs filled the air, slipping through my summoned Spirit barricade like an assassin’s blade plunging into an unprotected back. They slammed into the exposed siege equipment, setting it alight with flames that couldn’t be quenched by water or even magic.
I groaned. Vog Blood Mages. Damn.
Blood Mages were the worst, powering their dark spells with life magic. I hated going toe-to-toe with them because they fueled their magic with Health instead of Spirit. There were a lot of downsides to that, of course—they could, for example, accidentally burn away their life to ash—but their spells were impervious to magical defenses. No mystic barrier could stop their brand of magic, and it completely ignored conjured armor spells like my own Night Armor. Worse, once blood fire landed, it would burn and burn and burn until it either consumed organic matter or the countdown timer on the spell lapsed.
So far, the siege weapons had performed like a dream, but I hadn’t had a chance to put the full spell system through its paces yet. There would never be a better time to try. Conventional siege weapons weren’t going to work against the Vog shamans and their protective spell shields, but there were other ways around that. True, I didn’t have blood magic on my side, but there were plenty of nasty surprises that would work just as well.
I turned my gaze to the display panel showcasing all the mass-effect spells I had at my disposal. Many of them were familiar, since this rig held over thirty Shadowmancers, their powers temporarily on loan to me.
I had a lot of options, but I decided to go with what I knew. I trained a spell reticle on a group of Vogs clustered together, and I triggered an icon for an oldie but a goodie, Umbra Bog. Shadowy tendrils of black power erupted from the ramparts and broke free of the nearby defensive turrets, reaching for any Vog inside a seventy-foot radius. Instead of wrist-sized tendrils of power, however, tentacles as thick as telephone poles snaked skyward, wrapping around Vog shamans with the crushing force of pythons. They slowly squeezed the life from a handful of victims while hopelessly miring others in place.
Wow. These amplification circles Vlad and our Arcane Scrivener, Betty, had come up with were no joke.
Feeling a moment of adrenaline-fueled glee, I activated a skill icon for the Frostlock spell Sleet of Ice. Icicles three feet long and honed to a razor-sharp edge fell in a torrent, slicing through Ragna Wolf fur and impaling Vogthar shamans where they stood. Bodies fell by the fistful, but there were so many of them, and they just kept on coming, pouring out through the turrets, replacing the fallen shamans faster than I could slaughter them. I activated another round of Sleet of Ice, taking out more of
the Vogs with icy spears, but it was a drop in the bucket—and the remaining Ragna Wolves were wounded, but still alive.
“Zendu!” I screamed.
“We are almost there,” he groaned, his voice pained and weak.
I stole a split second to toggle to the Command Center view. What were these jokers doing?
The Lorekeepers still sat in their circle, legs crossed, backs straight, hands touching. A nimbus of creeping red light surrounded them like a halo, and the floor was slick with blood. So were they—drenched from head to toe in the gore. Creeping horror dawned as I watched blood leak from eyes and gush from mouths. Oh no. The ritual they were performing was blood magic... and with that much blood fueling it... I glanced at Zendu’s Health bar and noticed he was at less than six percent. I scanned each of the Lorekeepers in turn and saw the same thing.
Not a one of them was above ten percent.
Zendu had said there was a steep price to pay to perform this ritual, but I’d never considered... well, that they were going to sacrifice themselves. That was why Zendu had said goodbye before starting. He’d known full well that we wouldn’t get another chance.
And he hadn’t told me so that I wouldn’t try to stop him.
Sometimes, folks you care about are going to do things that are dangerous, stupid, noble, brave, my dad’s voice whispered in the back of my head. This is their choice. Best respect it.
The voice was right. Zendu had known, and he’d committed to the ritual anyway. Besides, they were too far gone now, which meant the only thing I could do was ensure Zendu and the others had the time to finish their work so their sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.
