by Rachel Aaron
"Worse than we are," SB reported, his voice bleak. "Cinco's group is a machine, but they've still got less gear and fewer veterans than the Roughnecks, and Assets's team on south bridge was always a weak link. I saw their healers cast Raise Ally on their main tank twice during the last assault. Even healed to full, that's a lot of damage for one player. I don't know if he can take another run."
"Well, shit," Tina said, glancing back at the looming stone fortress behind them. "All that talk, and we might end up using plan B soon, anyway."
"We might not have to," SB said hopefully. "They could try to siege us out. They have the supplies for it, and they have to be sick of this by now." His voice wavered slightly. "We sure are."
"It is pretty gross," Tina agreed, looking down at the bloody river with a wince. "But I don't think they're going to stop. Have you seen what Malakai's been doing?"
"No," SB said, squinting across the river. "I haven't seen him since after the hostages, actually."
"Well," Tina said, straightening up. "I'm a bit taller than you are, and I could see him just fine. He spent the whole last attack screaming at his men from on top of his wagons. The dude didn't even look like he was giving orders. He was just yelling at them to kill us. He can't stand that we're alive, which means he's not going to do something as smart as a siege."
"Is he still there now?"
Tina got up on her tiptoes, but the overturned wagon where the captain usually stood was empty. "Not right now," she said. "But it doesn't matter. Even if he wised up and ordered them to back off, every knight over there has been whipped into a damn froth. They're not going to stop hammering us until we break or they do."
SB's face was pale when she finished. Tina hated that she was the one who'd made him look that way, but the truth was the truth. The knights weren't going to stop, and if the raiders were going to avoid using the wind-fire powder, they had to be just as dedicated.
"Looks like they're going to try for the water again," she said as the knights across the river spread out along the bank. "Frank and I will keep holding the bridge. You take the rest of the raid and get back to the riverbanks. Don't let the our sides fall."
"We won't," he promised. "But what if you get overrun? If you send us all back to the main island, you'll have no backup here."
"I'll signal for help if it gets bad," Tina promised.
"I'll watch for it," he said, his blue eyes gleaming above his mask. "I've got your back, Tina." He always did.
"Thank you," she whispered.
SB pulled down his mask just long enough to flash her a smile before calling for the rest of the raid to get back to their previous positions in the grass. As they shoved the last of their food into their mouths and shuffled after him, Tina turned to Frank.
"You okay for one more?"
"Not really," her fellow tank muttered, lifting his visor to push his blood-stiff hair out of his eyes. "But it seems we ain't got much of a choice. Here they come."
The knights were indeed gathering at the end of their bridge. Tina hadn't counted how many had come at them last time, but this felt like more.
"How many of these bastards are there?" she snapped, getting her shield up again. "I thought knighthood was supposed to be a rare honor."
"It is for a whole kingdom," Frank said, popping his visor back down. "Not much point in having a military if you don't field a big one."
As if they'd been waiting to prove him right, the knights chose that moment to start their charge. The sound of horns rang through the air, followed by shouts as the next attack plunged their horses into the gory river. On the bridges, the mounted knights began their charge, making Tina's knees rattle as the horses thundered toward them.
"Here we go again," Tina said, ducking behind her shield. "Frank, lock in!"
Frank dutifully locked his shield against hers as the horses came closer. Just like before, the trained war mounts leaped at their riders' command, flying into the air to come down directly on top of Tina's shield. With no one to brace against this time, Tina had no choice but to dig her boots into the stone of the bridge itself, planting her knee on the ground as she activated her cooldown.
"Steady Ground!"
Next to her, Frank called out his ability as well, and the two of them locked into place just in time as the mass of armored men and horses crashed down. It was the same as before, a bloody mass of riders smashing to a halt against their defense as the force of their momentum met the immovable wall of the tanks' defense, but with one horrible exception.
As the charge hit, the lead rider leaped high off his mount. He flew up so high, Tina saw his shadow flash over her head before he flipped over in midair and landed with flawless elven grace on the bridge behind them, all while wearing full plate armor and with four swords strapped to his back, no less.
"Someone's spry," Tina grumbled, thrusting her shield to knock the other knights off them. "Back to back, Frank! I'll take the front. You handle Sir Du Soleil back there!"
Frank grunted a reply, hauled himself up, and whirled around so that his back was against Tina's and his shield was facing the knight who'd jumped over their defenses. Left to guard the rest of the bridge alone, Tina planted herself wide, swinging with her sword and shield out to stop any who tried to pass.
Frank's armored back banged into hers as they faced off against their respective opponents. It was a pretty big stretch, but most of the men in front of Tina had been injured in the crash, which took the edge off a bit. She blocked a thrown lance, sliced open the knight who charged her on the left, and shield-bashed two more off the bridge and into the water. She was repositioning herself at the center of the bridge when Frank vanished from her back.
She jumped at his sudden absence, whirling around just in time to see her fellow knight flying through the air toward Camp Comeback. He landed nearly a hundred feet away, plowing a line of dirt and rocks before cratering into the stone side of the smithy. She was still trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened when the knight who'd leaped over their defense took off his helmet and threw it aside, shaking out his long gray-streaked black hair with a twisted sneer of hate.
"Time to die, Roxxy."
"Shit!" Tina snapped her shield around to block Malakai, which left her back open to the knight who'd been trying to attack her before. Not willing to take her eyes off the four-skull captain for a second, she head-butted backward, crushing the charging knight's face through his helmet. He went down with a scream of pain, but the bridge behind her was still crowded with knights, and with Frank gone, there was no one left to stop them. It was just her with Malakai in front and the knights at her back, trapping her in the middle of the bridge, well out of range of the rest of her raiders on the riverbank.
"Shit, shit, shit." Tina spun with her back to the stone railing while stabbing the knight who'd been going for her back. She didn't have a plan for this. She could bail into the water, but then there'd be no one to stop Malakai and his men from charging straight into Camp Comeback. If she stayed, though, she'd be facing Malakai alone. That hadn't gone well for her last time, and she was pre-injured this time. None of the knights had gotten a serious hit on her yet, but all the little scrapes added up, as did the exhaustion from a full morning of fighting. Facing him here was a terrible idea, but she couldn't let him get to the shore.
Still swearing under her breath, Tina pushed off the railing and turned to face Malakai. After dropping the broken swords he must have smashed on Frank's shield, the dark-haired captain charged her barehanded. That seemed like a stupid thing to do until Tina remembered how crap the knights' gear was, and how hard Malakai's fists could hit. The four-skull's blows hammered her shield like cannon shots, pushing her right back to the railing. She was trying to steady herself when he grabbed her shield.
Tina was at least ready for that part. Keeping her sword hidden behind the massive tower shield, she let him pull her defense down, and she slashed at his face the moment her bulwark was out of the way. Mal
akai shrieked and staggered backward, clutching his bleeding face, but two more knights surged into the gap. Tina's second attack was spoiled as one man grabbed her sword arm, so she turned and drove the edge of her shield into his neck, crumpling his throat. As he fell, she hooked the other knight with her now-free sword arm and slung him at Malakai.
The armored knight crashed into the captain like a catapult shot, and they both went down in a blood-slicked pile. Grinning at the destruction she'd caused, Tina used the chaos to take out a few more of the knights who'd followed Malakai onto the bridge. She was cutting them down as fast as she could to buy herself some breathing room when Malakai suddenly appeared right beside her.
She'd been so focused on clearing the bridge, she hadn't even noticed him getting up until he was in her face. His fist collided with her jaw as he decked her on the chin, snapping her head back so hard she was amazed her neck didn't crack. She was still trying to get her head back down when Malakai grabbed a broken lance off the bloody ground and drove it through the chain armor covering the gap in her knee plates.
Pain exploded through Tina's leg. Malakai's iron lance had pierced all the way through her knee and out the bottom to crack the bridge itself. Silver blood was pouring out of her, adding to the swimming feeling his punch had left in her head. The world began to dim as she tilted sideways, her huge weight carrying her over the railing toward the foul water below.
No.
With a roar, Tina grabbed the bridge, her huge hands crumbling the stone railing as she pushed back to her feet. She couldn't go down here. There was no one else to stop Malakai, no one else to take the hits. If she failed, she'd let all of Camp Comeback down, so she forced herself to stand again, ripping the lance out of her leg with a bloody snarl. Malakai snarled back and swung for her head. She saw the punch coming this time, though, and managed to duck, swinging her shield low as she did to slam the sharp metal edge into the side of the captain's knee. She was rewarded with a roar of pain as the captain lost his feet and fell over, landing on his back on the bloody bridge.
Frantic to make it count, Tina shot back up and slammed her boot down on the captain's chest as hard as she could. A knight's sword broke against her exposed back as she did, but Tina ignored the attack, stomping down again with her full weight on the captain. She stabbed him at the same time, plunging her red-runed sword through his armor and into his shoulder.
Again and again, she hit him. Weapons bounced and broke off her armored back as the other knights tried to stop her, but Tina paid them no mind. Her whole world was focused on Malakai, stomping and slicing the captain until he was as bloody as the ground she'd trapped him on. She was working on cutting through his neck when one of the knights from behind leaped onto her back and got his arms around her head, covering her eyes.
Swearing, Tina halted her assault to reach up and rip the idiot off. It was only for a second, but it proved to be a second too many. The moment she let up on the pressure, Malakai grabbed the foot she still had planted on his chest and pushed up with all his strength.
Tina gasped as her feet went over her head. The knight she'd been tearing off her face let go with a cry, then everyone went down in a heap on the blood-slicked bridge. Tina and Malakai made it back to their feet at the same time, but despite her best efforts, the captain had no serious injuries at all. He was bloody, and his armor was shredded, but below the sundered metal, the cuts on his body were depressingly shallow--a fact that Malakai was only too happy to rub in her face.
"How's it feel to be on the receiving end of your Nightmare?" the captain asked, pulling down his slashed-up breastplate to show her his chest, which her stomping hadn't even bruised. "I have too much HP for any one player to kill, especially a tanking-geared class like yourself. Give up and die. You can't beat me."
"Fuck that," Tina snarled back. "I already killed you once before. I'll do it again."
Malakai laughed in her face. "Don't flatter yourself. The only reason you were able to do anything last time was because you had two healers and an Assassin helping you, but you're alone now." He flashed her a bloody grin. "Today, you will die by my hand, monster."
Tina's answer to that was to throw her shield at Malakai's head. He ducked it easily, but she hadn't actually been aiming for him. Her goal was the giant crash her shield made as it bounced off a rock on the Camp Comeback side of the bridge--a crash loud enough to get SB's attention. The Assassin finished off the knight he'd been dueling and raised his sword in acknowledgment. Satisfied, Tina nodded and turned back to Malakai, who was staring at her warily.
"Throwing away your best defense?" He shook his head. "I didn't think you, of all players, would give up so easily."
"I'm not giving up anything," Tina said, sheathing her sword so she could face Malakai with open, empty hands. "Just taking the gloves off."
Malakai sneered at that and waved at his knights, who were still clumped up on the bridge behind Tina, waiting for their chance.
"Attack!"
At his command, the whole bridge charged Tina as one. Tina responded in kind, lunging forward to tackle Malakai off his feet as the knights crashed into her back. They all went down together in a stabbing, kicking heap, but while Tina wasn't stronger than the four-skull captain, she was heavier. Her stonekin body, wrapped in metal, hit him like a freight train, and she used the chance to wrap her arms around his body, getting Malakai in a bear hug just as she'd ended their fight with last time.
"I knew you'd do this," he gasped as she locked her arms behind his back and started to squeeze. "But it won't... work twice..."
He was right. The other knights were piled on top of them, stabbing her with their swords. With her arms locked around Malakai, she couldn't defend, and the damage was already piling up. If choking him out had been her plan, it was going very badly, but that wasn't Tina's intention at all. She'd known from the moment she'd thrown her shield that this wasn't a battle she could win. The best she could do was take Malakai out of the equation, so she held on just long enough for SB to reach the bridge. The moment she saw him running toward her, she left the rest to him and rolled sideways, taking Malakai with her as she crashed through the bridge's stone railing and off the edge.
For a moment, there was nothing but air. Malakai was squirming like a fish in her arms, punching and stabbing at her head with his broken swords. Tina didn't even try to stop him. She just focused on holding on, crushing the captain's body against hers as they splashed into the gore-filled river.
The light vanished as soon as they hit. Blinded by the muck, Tina quickly lost sight of which way was up. Vile, bloody water poured into her mouth and nostrils as they sank, while the swift current pushed slimy, unidentifiable chunks into her armor. If she hadn't been made of stone, she would have barfed her guts out, but she was. She was a rock--the same inert, unfeeling stone she'd cursed this morning. Right now, though, she'd never been happier to be a stonekin, and not just because it saved her from the trauma of the bloody river. She was happy because she was a rock and Malakai was not, and as they sank into the depths, that made all the difference.
Malakai realized he was in trouble the moment they hit the water. He squirmed and thrashed in her grip, churning the water and knocking them around. But as strong as he was, even Malakai couldn't punch properly underwater. His blows still hurt, but they were nothing compared to what they'd been before. As the seconds ticked by, they grew weaker still, until finally the captain stopped attacking her altogether and focused everything on trying to escape.
Grinning in the bloody depths, Tina just hugged him tighter. As she'd learned during the Wind-Fire-barrel incident, she could hold her breath a long-ass time, much longer than any fleshy critter could hope to. Malakai might have the advantage in every other category, but when it came to this, Tina had him beat. All she had to do was hold on, wrapping her stone limbs around him like an octopus as he struggled desperately in the dark, bloody, heavy cold of the river bottom.
After thirty seconds
of this, Malakai started to panic. She could feel the shift in his movements as he stopped struggling and started really trying to kill her. She couldn't see what he was doing in the dark, but she felt the knife in his hands when he started stabbing it into the gap in the armor around her neck, cutting into her windpipe with all his strength.
The feel of blood flowing freely out of her sundered throat made Tina panic. She almost fucked everything up by letting go of Malakai, but she got ahold herself at the last second, forcing her arms to stay locked as she closed her eyes and pulled on the stone inside her.
Earthen Fortitude.
The embrace of the Bedrock Kings came up through the muddy river bottom like a blessing, hardening her flesh against Malakai's attack and turning her into even more of a boat anchor. As the spreading stone snapped Malakai's knife in her neck, Tina was gladder than ever that she'd saved her ace in the hole. For six beautiful seconds, she truly was a stone prison binding him to the ground. Then the gift of the Bedrock Kings started to fade, taking Tina's good feelings with it.
It felt like she'd been drained. As the magical protection left, her body went from rock solid to stiff and crumbly. That last one in particular was a bad sign. Crumbly meant that she'd lost too much blood again, probably from the hole in her neck, which was now bleeding freely again. She needed to get back to the surface and get some heals, but damn, Malakai was still kicking. If she let him go, he'd get his air back, and this would all be for nothing, so Tina dug her feet into the mud and held on, ignoring the silver blood she could taste floating by her in her dark current.
It took forever. Years seemed to pass while the captain struggled and she bled. It was too dark at the bottom of the river already to see her vision darkening, but Tina knew from the growing stillness in her head that she was getting closer to the point of no return. There were healing potions on her belt, but she couldn't reach them without letting go of Malakai, and she couldn't drink them underwater, anyway. A heal would have solved everything, but there was no way any of the Roughneck casters could see her through all the muck. She had to do something, though. Her body was hardening faster than Malakai was drowning. If they didn't stop this soon, she really would end up being his tombstone.
