by Rachel Aaron
"I'm not a stupid guard trapped defending a drunken king anymore," he snarled in her face, his fingers biting down on her runed blade so hard the enchanted metal groaned. "This time will be different. This time, you will be the one who gets trampled under."
He sneered at her one last time, and then he punched her shield with his free hand. The force of the blow slammed Tina's shield back into her, throwing her off him. She landed staggering a few feet away, but at least he'd let go of her sword. She raised her blade and shield again, eying the captain with new caution. She was trying to figure out how the fuck he'd stopped her sword with just his hand when she remembered.
Captain Malakai wasn't just a ludicrously tall elf. He was a mini-boss. She'd only ever fought him during the Oktoberfest event, where he'd always gone down like a chump, but that was with a full raid at her back. He might not be a Dead Mountain level raid boss, but Malakai was still a level-eighty four-skull. His strength was balanced to challenge ten same-level players, and she was facing him alone.
"Roughnecks on Roxxy!" Tina bellowed, lifting her sword high so the others could see her through the smoke and the chaos. "Anders, get over here!"
Malakai looked at her in disgust. "Calling for help so soon, player?"
"Did I challenge you to a duel?" she said, lowering her blade again. "This ain't a fair fight, asshole. I'm here to kill you for all the players you've dicked over."
"Like you can--" Malakai started, but his back exploded in fire before he could get the words out. He screamed in pain, and Tina looked up to see KatanaFatale standing about ten feet behind the tall elf captain, staff already glowing for a second fireball.
Chest still heaving in pain, Malakai looked up at her and then whirled around, following her gaze to the Sorcerer. "Uh-uh," Tina said, smacking him with her shield. "Eyes on me, jerkoff."
He glowered at her, and Tina opened her guard, inviting him to attack her and ignore Katana. Now that she had a damage-dealer with her, it was time to teach this asshole the true meaning of tank-and-spank. But as she got ready to snatch her shield back up to block his hammer-like fists, Malakai turned his back on her and lunged at KatanaFatale.
"Shit!" Tina yelled, charging after him. "He's untauntable! Defensive, Katana! Use a defensive!"
Eyes wide in panic, KatanaFatale vanished in a flash of purple energy seconds before Malakai swung a devastating left hook through the empty air where the Sorcerer's head had been. Relieved at the narrow miss, Tina took a swing at Malakai's back, but he dodged at the last second then snatched a dropped sword off the ground and lobbed it over his shoulder.
It looked like a shit throw at first. The blade rocketed by her left side with a good foot to spare. But just as Tina was opening her mouth to taunt him for his crap aim, there was a gurgle of pain followed by a wet splash of blood. Stomach dropping, Tina looked over her shoulder just in time to see KatanaFatale drop to his knees, clutching the sword that had skewered him right through his throat.
"Short-range teleport skill," Malakai said as the Sorcerer's blood poured onto the grand square's flagstones. "Always goes fifty feet and always in the direction the Sorcerer is facing. Must obey line-of-sight. Eight-second cooldown so they can't 'spam' it."
Tina snatched her eyes off Katana to find the captain grinning evilly at her.
"After eighty years trapped watching your kind, you have nothing I haven't seen a thousand times."
"Bastard!" Tina snarled, stabbing at the captain.
He ducked and rolled at the last second, letting her sword slide through the empty air. Rage boiling in her chest, Tina followed up with a kick, catching Malakai in the face with her steel-covered foot. His head snapped back as she connected, blood spraying from his nose. Grateful to finally land some damage, Tina slashed at him again, but Malakai rolled away and kicked back at her in midair. She almost managed to dodge, but his boot caught the tip of her jaw, rattling her teeth. Damn, he hit hard. She was still making sure her teeth weren't broken when he rolled back to his feet with infuriating elven grace, sneering at her like he could do this all day. She was trying to come up with an attack he couldn't dodge when she heard a warbling voice behind her.
"Don't worry, Roxxy! I've got you!"
"Anders!" she barked, never taking her eyes off Malakai. "Forget me! Heal KatanaFatale now!"
"Okay!" came the panicked reply, then the fish-man yelped. "Shit! He's dead, Roxxy! He already bled out!"
The words hit harder than Malakai had. "Cast Raise Ally!" she ordered, glaring at the captain as if her hate could make him combust. "We've still got six minutes!"
"As if I'd let you," Malakai sneered.
"As if you could stop us," Tina snarled, charging him.
"So predictable," Malakai said, leaping to the side to avoid her. Tina slid to a halt where he'd been and whirled to face the captain again, but he wasn't even looking at her. He just leaned down and punched the flagstones, cracking the stone in half with his strength so he could grab a jagged chunk and hurl it at Anders.
Surrounded by golden symbols of floating power, Anders never saw it coming. The resurrection spell he'd been shaping shattered like golden glass as the gray stone smashed into the fish-man's face, but the Cleric himself didn't even make a sound. He just toppled backward, landing on the ground with a wet thud, out cold.
Blind with rage, Tina threw herself at Malakai's back, her sword clattering to the broken flagstones as she tackled him to the ground. "I'll kill you myself!" she roared, bearing down on top of him with Roxxy's full half ton of body weight as she wrapped both arms around the captain's neck and squeezed with all her strength.
Choking and gasping, Malakai clawed at the broken stones under his hands. Then, veins bulging in his neck, he started to get his feet back under him. Tina frantically increased the pressure on his neck, squeezing until her arms felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets, but it did no good. His face was purple, but he still managed to stand up, lifting her entire body off the ground as he did.
Counting on her metal bones, Tina hauled back and head-butted Malakai right in the top of his skull. Unable to roar or shout anymore, the dark-haired captain seized in pain, but he managed to get his hands up to grab her breastplate and belt, anyway. He was about to pull her off him, so even though her head was still swimming from the last one, Tina hauled back and head-butted him again, pounding her metal skull into his over and over until she saw stars.
But no matter how many times she hit him, Malakai refused to go down. He'd already gotten a grip on her armor at the shoulders, prying his neck out of her grip in a head-on battle of sheer strength. Tina cursed that his head was so small compared to her arms and that her bracers were slick with blood. No matter how she squeezed, she couldn't keep her hold, and eventually he slipped out of her grasp.
Gasping for breath, Malakai roared as he upended Tina, slamming her into the ground so hard, her back sundered an entire ten-foot section of flagstone. As she hit, something inside her--a metal rib, perhaps--bent instead of broke. Searing pain racked her side as the twisted metal poked into a vital organ, and Tina's arm went stiff, preventing her from getting her shield up fast enough. Seizing the opening, Malakai grabbed the bulwark in both hands and started trying to yank it off her arm. When it didn't slide off immediately, he pulled a dagger off his belt and stabbed her through the gap in her armor at the inside of her elbow.
Though not nearly as bad as the agony in her side, the new flash of pain still made Tina gasp. Far worse, the cut nicked the tendon that controlled her arm. Her silver blood was still trickling down the blade when her hand spasmed, and she lost her grip on her shield.
Crowing in triumph, Malakai yanked the bulwark off her and flung it behind him. The god-forged shield flashed golden in the smoky sunlight, sailing twenty feet before crashing like a meteor into the tent beyond the carts. Burned face pulling into a horrifying expression, the captain raised a boot to stomp her exposed head.
Tina saw it coming, but she couldn't seem to roll away.
Her head was swimming, her arm was limp, and her side was a mass of agony. Lacking any other options, she crossed her arms over her face and yelled, "Earthen Fortitude!"
As she activated the stonekin's ultimate damage-reduction ability, Tina felt the kiss of the Bedrock Kings. Their power grew a mountain within her, turning her body, even her hair and her armor, into the hardest of stone as Malakai's boot crashed down.
The stomp smashed her several inches into the ground. Teeth bared like an animal, Malakai kept stomping her as hard as he could. Each blow drove her deeper into the crater and sent aftershocks vibrating down her metal bones, but the very stone that protected her kept her frozen in place, unable to move.
That was a serious problem, because Earthen Fortitude only lasted for eight seconds. Due to the industrial pounding Malakai was giving her, Tina's head was spinning too hard to think of a plan. By the time the mountain within her began to fade, she still hadn't figured out a way out of this, and Malakai definitely wasn't showing signs of stopping.
The last of her protection faded seconds after a stomp came down. As the power of the Bedrock Kings drained out of her, Tina stared at the raised metal boot with fatalistic calm. This next one was going to hurt, she knew, but there was nothing to do but take it. She couldn't move, couldn't even roll out of the crater he'd bashed them both into. All she could do was brace and wait, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the hit that broke her skull.
But the blow never landed. Instead, there was a scream of pain as hot blood splashed across Tina's face. She opened her eyes in confusion just in time to see Malakai stagger back, and then something else was over her, something deadly and made of shadows that shouted at her in SilentBlayde's voice.
"Tina!"
She came back to herself with a gasp. Above her, Malakai was punching and swinging desperately at SilentBlayde, whose entire body was wrapped in living shadows. Shadow Dance, her stumbling mind informed her. It was the Assassins' big cooldown, their version of her Earthen Fortitude. So long as it was up, SB was untouchable. The trouble was, it only lasted ten seconds.
He'd used his time well, at least. Much to Tina's gratification, Malakai now had a pair of sucking chest wounds from SB's swords. The injuries must have enraged him, because despite the fact that nothing was landing, he was still swinging at SB with fury. Wrapped in a cloak of shadow, her friend weaved around the blows with inhuman--in-Elven--flexibility. He even managed to counterattack, slashing Malakai whenever and wherever the captain left an opening. Every silver flash of his swords left a huge rent in the older elf's flesh, but as much damage as he was clearly doing, it wasn't going to be enough to take Malakai down in the ten seconds Shadow Dance lasted. Several of which were already gone.
Shit.
Body pounding in pain, Tina forced herself to get up. She had to get her shield back and turn this around. If she didn't get Malakai back under control in the next few seconds, he was going to kill SB, and it would be her fault.
That was enough to get her broken body moving. She scrambled to her feet and lurched forward. Since she was still in the crater, this meant she had to pass right by Malakai, but when he reached out to snatch her back down, SilentBlayde stabbed a gleaming silver sword straight through his upper arm.
Malakai released Tina with a howl of pain, and she scrambled away. The captain was already turning to chase after her when SB slashed a blade across the back of his neck.
"Show me your back if you dare, NPC," he snarled, stabbing Malakai again, in the ribs this time. "I do a lot more damage than she does. I will slice off any finger you lay on my Roxxy!"
Malakai turned away from Tina with a sneer. "You lack her health pool, Assassin," he said, eying the shadows that covered SilentBlayde's body. "When your ability ends, I will finish you in an instant."
SB probably had a witty retort to that, but Tina couldn't stick around to hear it. She was already sprinting toward the tents Malakai had thrown her shield into. She'd just dropped down to pry it out of the crater its impact had left in the ground when she found herself face-to-face with NekoBaby.
The jubatus healer was prowling on all fours through the tents. She squeaked when she saw Tina then slapped a hand over her mouth.
"What are you doing?" Tina whispered at the jubatus healer.
"I saw what happened to Anders," NekoBaby whispered back frantically, pointing through the gap in the tents, where Tina could see Malakai and SB were fighting. "Fuck if that's happening to me. I'm gonna heal from hiding."
"Good plan," Tina said, surprised despite herself.
"Want me to get you now?" the Naturalist offered.
Tina's whole body ached at the promise of healing, but she shook her head. "Cast Raise Ally on Katana first. He's almost out of time. When that's done, I want you to cast Verdant Glory. We'll bathe the whole battlefield in AOE and heal everyone in one go."
Neko bit her lip. "Are you sure? Big raid heals have a long cast time."
"SB and I will keep you safe," Tina promised. This time, she added to herself.
"I'm on it, boss," Neko said, bringing up her staff.
Tina slammed her shield on her arm and ran out of the tent, leaving Neko gathering up glowing green energies behind her. She got back to the battle just in time to see SilentBlayde's Shadow Dance end. As the darkness evaporated, his eellike flexibility vanished with it, and SilentBlayde finally had to parry an attack he couldn't dodge.
Malakai's fist crashed into the silvery sword in SB's right hand. Blood flew from the knight's knuckles at the impact, but the strike was still powerful enough to rip SilentBlayde's sword from his grasp. Blayde ducked the next attack and stabbed Malakai through the top of his foot on the way down. He was on his way back up when Malakai lurched forward, driving a powerful knee into the Assassin's chest.
Tina went still as SB flew off his feet. He landed hard on his back in the wreckage of a cart. He kicked to his feet at once but then doubled back over as he started to cough up blood.
The sight made her whole body go cold, and then she turned on Malakai with new fury. It didn't matter what happened from here out. She could not let Malakai land a hit on anyone else. He was just too dangerous, too lethal. But even though she was running, she was still too far away to stop the dark-haired captain from closing in and taking another swing at SB.
That was the moment when Tina's heart stopped altogether. But then, just when she was certain--certain--she'd just witnessed Haruto's death again, SB managed to sway out of the way. He even got another hit in on Malakai in the process. It was a weak hit, barely enough to drive an inch of silver blade into his target, but it was more than Tina had managed. She was still staring in awe when Malakai grabbed SilentBlayde's outstretched arm and hurled the elven Assassin all the way back to the front of the camp.
There was no rolling to his feet this time. SB crashed into the piled stone barricade they'd come through in their first assault like a meteor. He hit so hard, he actually broke through the rubble, smashing through the stone to slide into the Royal Mile beyond. The air filled with new screams as the lowbies who'd been hiding back there scattered, and Tina held her breath.
Only to let it out again when she saw him move. He was still alive, thank god. His arm was bent back at an unnatural angle, broken in multiple places, but they could heal that. What mattered was that Malakai hadn't killed him. Not that that slowed Tina down in the least when she plowed her shield into Malakai's smug face at full speed.
There was a satisfying snapping sound as the captain's sneering expression met her wall of sun-metal with her entire weight behind it. He bounced gracelessly across the ground, sliding several feet before he managed to stop himself. That was much slower than he'd been before, but his whole body was riddled with cuts. His legs and knees especially were stabbed to bloody bits, and Tina felt a surge of pride. He'd only had ten seconds, but SB had really carved that asshole up, proving yet again that he wasn't the Roughnecks' number-one damage dealer for nothing.
; Now she just had to keep the bastard occupied until Neko finished her spells. It would be hell to wait, but once Neko cast Verdant Glory, all of them would be returned to full health. Not only would she be fresh, but a fresh SB was going to join her as well, plus Anders and KatanaFatale. With that much firepower, they'd turn him into bloody, burned, knight-captain chunks.
All she had to do was hold out. Just hold out, she told herself as Malakai rose to his feet in fury, turning on her with fists clenched. Hold out!
Somehow...
Chapter 5
James
Five minutes prior, James was standing with the other healers on top of the camp's outer barricade, watching the spectacle of violence that was the Roughnecks' assault with bile in his throat.
He wasn't sure which part shocked him more: the power of players in top-tier equipment or the slaughter they were making of the Royal Knights. With Tina's raiders killing two men with every swing, it had only taken a few minutes for the front half of the camp to turn into a corpse-strewn bloodbath.
The back half of the camp was no better. The Rangers and spell casters had mercilessly rained down elemental destruction, leaving the once-elegant Grand Square a battlefield of charred flagstones and smashed stone. The air was choked with smoke from the burning tents, but on the few occasions it cleared, it was obvious that the bodies littering the ground were all wearing the king's red and gold.
As the enemy thinned out, so did the raiders. What had started as a melee at the front of the camp was now a free-for-all. Berserkers and Knights circled the edges of the camp, killing any knights they came across. It was just like a mob of players competing for monster kills in an over-populated zone back in the game, only this time the people who died screaming were real, their bodies breaking in a very messy, very not-video-game-fun sort of way.
Forced to look away as a Roughneck Berserker crushed a young knight's head like a ripe melon, James turned to Ar'Bati, who was standing very quietly beside him. "You okay?"
