by Alan Baxter
“You’re sure?”
“These are rezzers. They could have been here for years, decades, without the magic refreshed, so they’re starting to rot, that’s all. There’s probably a lot more.”
Jet reached up and slapped Taipan’s cheek. “Stop being such a buttercup.”
Smoke put a hand on Raven’s shoulder. “You were quite something to watch there. Like a razor-sharp godsdamned ballerina or something.”
The others nodded, smiled agreement.
Raven couldn’t help smiling too, wondering if she’d earned her place a little more securely. “It’s my gift.”
“Fall out,” Boss said. “Go wide, and listen for more.”
They proceeded more cautiously than before, fanned out across a wider area, eyes peeled. Moaning and guttural coughs erupted now and then, homing in quickly on the Squad. Taipan took out a pair of rezzers with quick double-handed machete strokes.
“I thought you said these things were intelligent like regular people,” he said.
Boss stepped sideways, slammed a fist into a rezzers face, collapsing its head with inhuman strength, then threw a scowl at Taipan. “It’s not only the flesh that rots when the magic is left to degrade. The orders remain, but their brains have moulded out too.”
Jet grimaced. “That’s fucking horrible.”
“Yeah. I’m guessing they have two over-riding commands. Stay within a certain area and kill anything that enters that area. The necromancer would check in on his more active thralls, keep the magic fresh and therefore the rezzer would retain its humanity. These ones, he’s just left to nature.”
Raven shivered at the thought, imagined their active brains understanding their fate as their sense of self slowly decayed. “This is actually a fate worse than death. I thought that was just a figure of speech.”
Boss glanced over at her, slight shake of the head. “There are many fates worse than death. Concentrate, people.”
Something swung down from a tree limb directly in front of Raven, leering and drooling, it howled as arms thrust forward, fingers wriggling like hard, hungry worms. Raven bit back a yelp of surprise, ducked and slashed upwards. Her jade dagger clipped one arm and it stiffened immediately. She spun to one side, whipped around a heel kick, and the arm shattered into a thousands shards of frozen meat. As the rezzer strained about, its remaining arm clawing at the air, she ducked back under and slammed the dagger into its back. Hard ice spread like a fast-blooming flower across its body and she punched right through, destroying its spine and organs. It fell limp from the tree and she stepped over it.
“Damn fine knife,” Smoke said. “You made a rezzer ring donut.”
Raven grinned. “Yeah, long story attached to this.”
“You’ll have to tell me some time.”
“Sure.”
The night was largely starless and the darkness under the trees wasn’t much relieved when they emerged from the densest part of the forest and began the slow climb up the mount on which the castle sat. It loomed over them, massive and foreboding, a black silhouette against the slightly lighter sky. Night goggles on, marked for silence, the Squad crept over rocky ground, hunched low, eyes everywhere.
They gained the foot of the castle wall without incident and Boss gestured to his left. Tight to the huge grey stone blocks, they moved single-file in the wall’s shadow towards a corner. As they rounded the corner, they found themselves beside a rectangular lake some twenty feet across that ran along the entire front of the building. Halfway down was a large portico that led to a bridge over the lake that in turn led to an imposing double door.
“A fucking moat,” Taipan whispered. “This is like Disney’s last nightmare.”
“Moat’s go all the way around,” Smoke said. “This is… a fucking pond, who cares.”
“We going in the front door?” Jet asked.
Boss pointed across the bridge. “Those doors are thick and heavy, but it’s the only ground level point of entry. Short of some serious grappling or climbing, it’s our best bet.”
Jet sighed. “We’re going in the front door.”
Smoke chuckled, low and rumbling. “The time for stealth appears to be over.”
“We’ll see,” Boss said. “This is as little warning as we could give them. We’ve no idea what we’ll find inside. Certainly more rezzers, but who the fuck knows what else. Smoke, you wanna check, let us in?”
“Sure thing.”
Smoke vanished.
“The fuck does he keep doing?” Raven asked. “That’s some skill.”
“He’s a planeswalker,” Boss said. “He can step from our realm into another and back again. Right now he’s walking however far he estimated he needed to go to get to the other side of that door. Then he’ll step back into our realm and be inside to open up for us.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. There’s not a cell on earth that can hold Smoke, or a building that can keep him out.”
“Where does he go?”
Boss laughed softly. “No idea. He won’t say and I’ve given up asking.”
“Huh. And you throw fire around?” Raven asked Taipan.
“We all have many skills, but my specialty is pyromancy, yeah. And Jet here has a fucking powerful voice of command she can turn on.”
“Which is apparently useless against those mindless things.” Jet’s face was set in frustration.
“A necromancer’s commands are designed to always be the foremost thing in any rezzer’s thoughts,” Boss said. “Seems that even overrides your voice.”
“Great.”
“And my flames don’t even slow them down,” Taipan said. “If anything, when they’re burning they’re more dangerous! Fucking nightmare.”
The double doors clunked and one side creaked open. Smoke leaned out with a grin and waved them in. As they hunched to scurry across the bridge Smoke called out, “Don’t worry about being careful. There are cameras everywhere in here like mushrooms in a wet field. We’ve been made.”
They stood tall and sprinted to him. As Raven stepped inside she saw the interior was completely at odds with the outside. The ancient fortification housed a modern interior of expensive décor and up-to-the-minute technology. Smoke wasn’t lying about the cameras, they sprouted from every wall and corner.
“Get ready to engage,” Boss said. “He’s sure to send something against us now.”
As the words left his mouth, a ravening roar and howl rang through the tall, wide hallways. Then more than one, then dozens and claws skittered and scrabbled on the wooden floors.
“Fucking dogs,” Jet said. “I hate it when they make me kill dogs.”
“Yeah, not so much dogs,” Taipan said.
They turned to see where he was looking. A crowd of huge, leathery creatures with wide maws crammed with sharp teeth tumbled around the corner, clambering over each other in their need to get to the prey first. They bore the barest resemblance to dogs, more like massive dog-shaped beasts with some parody of a crocodile’s head. Jaws snapped and slathered. The barking and growling doubled as another crowd of them hurtled around the other end of the hallway.
“Great!” Taipan said. “Dark Squad in a giant teeth sandwich.”
“Rain fire!” Boss yelled.
Raven swung her AK47 into play simultaneously with the others and they dropped into a ragged formation. She stood beside Smoke facing one way while Jet, Taipan and Boss faced the other. The corridor exploded into thunder and lightning as the automatic weapons barked and kicked. Armour-piercing ammo filled the air and the leathery flesh of the beasts erupted and split. Raven had a moment to marvel at the accuracy of her team mates. She thought her marksmanship was top notch, but these guys were a class above. Then she was distracted by the realisation that no blood came out of the perfectly placed wounds. The monsters didn’t even slow.
But the things were almost on them.
Raven re-sighted, carved full auto low to the ground and took off the legs of the lead two beasts. They went down, still snapping and wriggling as more tumbled over them. The pile-up barely slowed the rest and those behind were already clambering over their fallen. She got a couple of bullseye shots right through eye sockets and two more dropped. Then Smoke blinked out beside her and Raven faced a hoard of monsters on her own.
First mission and this was it. What the fuck even were these things? She’d never imagined anything like them and they were so close she could smell their fetid breath. She let the AK go and pulled the jade dagger. As the one closest lunged for her, she slashed out and leapt up, put one foot to a sturdy table against the wall and flipped. As she turned over in the air she exulted to see the beast she’d slashed falter and collapse. Its head shattered as it hit the ground.
At least the dagger works! she thought, and came down on her knees on the back of another beast.
As it twisted and writhed, teeth slamming together only inches from her leg, she stabbed down into the back of its neck where she hoped some spine might be and leapt again. I’ll show you a fucking ballerina. She jumped and danced between the beasts, slashing for legs and heads wherever she could. If she stopped moving she was dead, but if she changed direction often enough, and had a little luck, she could avoid the worst of their attack.
As she turned in one leap, she spotted Smoke appear far down the corridor, the other side of Boss, Jet and Taipan and the beasts they were fighting.
“Hey, motherfuckers!” Smoke yelled. Several beasts turned at the sound, then took off after him. Smoke bolted around the corner out of sight.
Boss and Taipan were ducking and shifting, chopping with machetes and firing with high-calibre handguns, taking a decent amount their enemies down. With the reduced numbers thanks to Smoke’s distraction, they gained the advantage and turned to help Raven.
She paid a little more attention to their magic as she kept moving, trying to learn as she cut and froze flesh, moved again. She couldn’t count how many there had been or how many she had killed but she suddenly found herself standing alone in the corridor, some distance from where the fight had started. Heaped mounds of dead and broken leathery flesh lay between her and Boss and the others. Beyond them, more fallen beasts. Several of the things still snapped weakly and writhed, bodies quivered, but none had the ability to attack any more, spines severed or brains crushed.
“Rezzed fucking hellhounds,” Boss said. “As if the fuckers aren’t bad enough alive. Who’s hurt?”
“Who isn’t?” Jet asked.
Raven felt warmth over her left hand and looked down. Blood ran in rivulets from her sleeve. Her arm just below the elbow was opened in a wide gash. As she noticed it, the pain set in. She knew that once the adrenaline eased it would only get worse. She looked up, lifted the arm. “Err…” Then everything went black.
* * *
Raven came around to Boss’s voice. “...be all right. You know he can take care of himself.”
“Sure, but let’s hope he can find us again.” That was Jet.
Raven opened her eyes. Boss had dressed her arm, the others had a variety of bandages on arms, legs, heads. Taipan had half his head covered, his left eye obscured by dressings. But they all seemed in good enough spirits.
“Welcome back.”
Raven looked at Boss, felt her cheeks redden. “Fucking hell, I can’t believe I passed out.”
“They have venom and you’re not inoculated,” Boss said. “Well, you are now. You’ll feel queasy for a while, and you lost some blood, but you’ll be okay.”
A spent syringe lay on the ground beside her. Boss glanced at it. “Yeah. One of many parts of our standard medkit. They’re a bit different to what you’re used to.”
“No shit.”
She sat up, and did indeed feel quite nauseated. She took a few slow, deep breaths, felt herself slowly centring again.
“Now I need your help,” Boss said. “You operational?”
No way would Raven say anything but yes to that question on her first mission. “What do you need?”
“Your little friend. We need a recon mission, find out where the target is. We spend too long fucking around here with his pets and we’re giving him time to slip away.”
“You got it.”
Raven spoke the word and the samjok-o stepped onto her shoulder. “We know what this guy looks like?”
Boss pulled a grainy photo from his pocket. It wasn’t much, clearly taken at full zoom, it showed a Caucasian man, perhaps somewhere in his forties, cropped dark hair and a linen suit. “That enough?”
Raven took the photo. “It’ll have to be.” She stared at it, made sure the three-legged raven familiar took a good look too, then asked it to go fetch for her.
The samjok-o took wing and vanished. Raven closed her eyes and stayed with its thoughts. It did nothing for her nausea, flitting in and out of existence, room to room, searching the vast, sprawling complex. Then it found him, stood in the middle of a huge protective circle in the open courtyard at the centre of the castle.
She thanked her friend and opened her eyes. “Looks like he’s waiting for us,” she said.
As they moved out, Boss radioed Smoke but got no response. When Jet cast a hooded look at him he just shook his head and jogged on. Raven worried how they might feel if something bad had befallen Smoke. They had only recently lost Blinder and that clearly bore down on them heavily. To lose another so soon would be more than harsh. Then again, if Smoke were dead and needed to be replaced, at least she wouldn’t be the new kid any more. It was a mercenary thought, but mildly comforting, especially as she hardly knew Smoke. But she had already grown to like the man a lot. She wanted to tell him the story of her dagger.
Come on, you fucker, she thought to herself. Let’s all go home from this one.
They tracked their way through an ostentatious ballroom, eyes sweeping left and right, alert for further attack. But everything seemed still. Almost too still, if Raven believed in clichés. It was as though the castle itself was waiting for something. For some trigger to be tripped.
“I’m on fucking edge here,” Taipan said. “I don’t like having no depth perception.”
“Your eye going to be okay?” Raven asked.
He shrugged. “It’s still there. Whether it’ll be okay or not remains to be seen.” He grinned and looked down at her. “Remains to be fucking seen! Geddit?”
She couldn’t help a laugh escaping, shook her head. “You people are…” She couldn’t find the word.
“All right?” Boss threw back over his shoulder. “Is that what you meant?”
And she realised it was. “Yeah. You people are all right.”
Boss nodded without looking around. “Wind it up, now. Let’s concentrate.”
The ballroom led into an ornate dining room. Polished rosewood table, intricate chandeliers and expensive-looking artworks. The table was laid with enough silver to pay off the national debt of some island nations.
“Looks like the fucker is planning a party.” Boss pointed to a door on the far side. “That way.”
The door had glass panels, light net curtains inside and wan moonlight beyond. They vaguely made out bushes and a stone fountain.
“Seems the cloud cover has cleared a bit,” Jet said.
They slowed, took their weapons up in a casual ready position and advanced slowly. As they neared the doors, there was a click and they swung open. Boss paused, then straightened up. “Seems we’re expected.”
He strode out into the courtyard.
The others gathered beside him. The courtyard was huge, maybe a hundred metres across. It had garden beds and s
hrubbery all round, mostly Italian in style. Stone fountains sprayed and burbled all over, everything lit in monochrome by the half moon now clear of clouds. What had once no doubt been a central pond was now a raised dais of stone. The circular edge was old granite, carved with runes and sigils of protection. It crackled with power, warding pretty much everything a mage could throw at it. Raven had never felt such concentrated magic in her life. The man in the linen suit stood in the centre, arms casually at his sides.
“Hello, there,” he said, his voice heavily accented Eastern European. “I have to admit, I’m impressed you got this far.”
Boss raised his AK and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He frowned, looked at the weapon, then back at the necromancer. “I expected your wards to stop the bullets, not render this entirely inoperative.”
“More fool you.”
“I guess so.”
The air crackled with tension and magic. Raven found herself useless, impotent. Their firearms were inert, the target was caged against their magic. It was a sudden and seemingly insurmountable stand-off.
“Let’s hope you’re better at hand-to-hand than you are at recognising wards,” the necromancer said.
Movement from either side sent a ripple of alertness through them. The square between the necromancer and the Squad filled with black-clad, fast-moving figures. Some flipped and tumbled as they ran in an ostentatious display of athleticism.
Boss groaned.
Taipan made a tight sound in his throat. “Are you fucking serious? Undead fucking ninjas now? They’re rezzers, right?”
“Almost certainly,” Boss said, his voice tired.
The rezzers gathered in a group, at least twenty of them. Raven looked around, realising that beside the bushes and fountains there was little to no cover. This fucker seemed to have an endless supply of minions.
“Remember,” Boss said. “Take out the spine, brain, or decapitate. No amount of incidental damage will slow them. And it looks like they’ll be a far greater challenge than the abominations in the forest.”
