by Rachel Aaron
When she got the first hint of the falling-out-of-her-body feeling, Tina decided to take a chance. Moving slowly, she transferred Malakai from a bear hug to a one-armed headlock. The captain's struggles doubled when she unwrapped her arms from his middle, but she wasn't the only one on her last legs, and it wasn't enough for him to break free. Satisfied Malakai was still on lockdown, Tina tightened her arm around his neck and started walking up the slant of the riverbed toward the shore. She hoped it was the right shore.
Popping and cracking like rocks in a mine, Tina trudged her way up the river bottom. Her feet sank deep into the soft mud, making every step a challenge, but at least Malakai wasn't fighting her anymore. She didn't know if he was dead or just conserving his strength for the next opening, but a dead weight was a lot easier to haul than a fighting one. Tina just wished she knew where she was hauling it. She felt like she'd been walking for ages, but she still hadn't spotted the river's surface. She couldn't even see the sun through the gore, which was a problem, because her breath was finally starting to run out.
Fighting not to panic, Tina kept trudging up the bank, telling herself over and over that the river wasn't that wide. It had to end sometime. Had to.
The blackness around her broke like lightning. Thanks to the gore flowing into it, the surface of the river was covered in a layer of scum, blocking all the light. She hadn't even noticed it before she'd broken through, her head bursting into the glare of sunlight and the roar of battle.
Tina opened her mouth with a gasp. The dank air tasted better than anything before in her life. She sucked in a huge gulp before going back down to make sure Malakai was still secure, but the captain wasn't moving at all. Satisfied, Tina grabbed a healing potion off her belt with her free hand and broke the surface again to dump the healing liquid into her mouth.
She drank all three of her potions in rapid succession. The euphoria of magical healing surged down her throat and spread to her limbs, washing the terrifying crumbling feeling away. Her flexibility returned, as did her strength, making her feel like she could jump straight out of the water--which, if she hadn't still been holding Malakai under, she would have.
"Ick, ick, ick!" Tina cried, gagging as a wave washed the disgusting river water into her open mouth. She spat it out and slammed her trap shut, keeping her lips pressed together as she looked around to see she was on the wrong side of the river.
At least that explained why the walk out had taken so long. She was standing in the shallows near the opposite side of the bridge, facing the plaza where the knights were still rallying. A shout went up as she was spotted, and Tina was forced to duck back under as a volley of spears flew into the water. She was bracing to walk all the way back across to her side when she realized Malakai was floating in her grip, completely still. He wasn't quite dead yet, but he was definitely unconscious, and that gave her an idea.
Grinning under the water, Tina surged back up, using her new strength to march up the riverbed straight into the enemy. The knights formed a ring as she emerged from the water, but they held back when they saw Captain Malakai dangling from her arm like a wet blanket. Widening her grin, Tina grabbed the elf by his soggy hair and held him aloft, shaking him at his men until the bloody water from his clothes splattered at their feet.
"That's right, assholes," she said as they scuttled back. "Your captain lost. He's not dead yet, but I can change that anytime I want, so why don't we make a deal?"
"We don't deal with players," spat a stern-looking blond man with a gold rope on his shoulder.
Tina shrugged. "Then I guess you don't care about your captain."
She wrapped her hand around the captain's throat as she finished, and the officer went still.
"That's more like it," Tina said smugly. "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to let me walk down that bridge, and I won't rip Malakai's head off."
"Why should we agree?" the officer demanded. "You'll just kill him when you reach the other side."
Tina scoffed. "I'd never be so wasteful. I know how much Terminator Elf here is worth to you." She shook Malakai at them one more time before tucking him back under her arm. "Maybe you haven't heard yet, but I'm a mercenary. I'll be happy to sell Malakai back to you at an extremely inflated price after we win, but if you don't want him to die in front of you, you'd best back off before I decide he's more trouble than he's worth. Just make it quick. He's almost gone. It'd be a real shame if he croaks by accident while you were busy making threats you can't back up."
The knights began whispering together in hushed voices as she finished. Tina could hear them assuring each other they'd free Malakai after they won, but she didn't really care. All she wanted was to get back to her side of the river without having to fight her way through an army, so she let them talk until, at last, the knights moved out of her way.
Tina wasn't above swaggering her way out of the water, nor did she deny herself the joy of dragging Malakai behind her by his hair. But as satisfying as it was to rub her victory in the knights' faces, she stopped caring about them the moment she saw her bridge.
The span the Roughnecks had guarded all morning looked even worse than it had when she'd thrown herself off it. Mounted knights were everywhere, but to her surprise, they all seemed to be in retreat. Quickening her pace, Tina pushed through them to see what the hell was going on. She was terrified the bridge had fallen and these were actually soldiers retreating from the battle on the banks. When she finally made it past the fleeing soldiers to the halfway point, though, fear transformed into relief--then pride.
The last ten feet of the bridge was a blood-soaked scene of slaughter. There were no bodies on the ground, but there were arms, limbs, and broken weapons, and standing in the middle of it all was SilentBlayde. He was dirty and panting, but his silver swords were gleaming through a thick coating of crimson. Most important of all, not a single gib of Bastion's knights had made it to the island behind him.
"Tina," he gasped, his tired face lighting up when he saw her. "You're all right!"
"And you held the bridge!" she cried, running toward him.
His mask hid his face, but Tina knew he was grinning. "I told you I had your back."
He did. He always did, and she'd never loved him more for it. If she hadn't been so disgusting, she would have picked him up and whirled him around. But she didn't think he'd appreciate being hugged by someone who looked like she'd crawled out of a blood-based oil spill, and there was still Malakai to deal with.
"Whoa," SB said when he saw the captain under her arm. "Is he still alive, or did you just take a trophy?"
He was so still, Tina had to hold her fingers under his nose, but sure enough, she felt his breath, faint but there. "He's alive," she said, sliding the captain back onto her shoulder. "But he probably needs CPR to stay that way."
SB looked confused. "Do we want him to stay that way?"
Tina nodded. "Hell yeah. We've scored ourselves a legit prisoner of war. Maybe we can use him as leverage to get out of this mess."
As SB knelt down to thump the water out of Malakai's lungs, Tina hopped up on what was left of the railing to look over the battlefield.
The knights were still giving Tina space, so their bridge was clear, but down on the riverbank, the other Roughnecks were up to their eyeballs in spearmen. The defense was still holding, but everyone she saw was drenched crimson, and the other bridges looked even worse. Cinco's front was solid, but Assets's line had been pushed almost back to the grass, and the random raids were awash with cavalry fighting tooth and nail for a hold on the beach. Behind them all, the grassy hill was streaked by trails of red from all the casualties who'd been dragged off to medical.
"Damn," Tina said, hopping down again. "We're holding on by the skin of our teeth. We gotta end this somehow."
She glanced back at SB, but he was still busy giving the elf captain mouth to mouth. A few seconds later, Malakai coughed and choked, causing SilentBlayde to jump away like he'd kissed a nuclear weapo
n. Tina had her sword out before she realized the dark-haired elf was still unconscious.
"He's gonna need a healer," SB said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "I think he might have been under for too long."
Tina nodded and waved over a squad of white-headband-wearing players. After giving them firm orders to "chain him up like Superman" and "only give him enough healing to keep him alive," she let the support team haul Malakai off and moved on to other problems.
"Where's Frank?"
"In medical," SB said grimly. "The fall broke his neck clean through. The healers were able to save him, but they couldn't get him back up to fighting shape. We're almost out of healing on all fronts, so Zen said to put him in a bed and don't let him move until we get more mana."
"Damn," Tina said, scowling. She was well aware that would have been her, too, if she hadn't weighed so much, but it was still shit luck being down a tank. She was about to tell SB to return to the fight and leave the bridge to her when a shout split the air.
"Stop!"
The baritone command boomed across the battlefield. It was so loud Tina felt it in her chest, and she wasn't the only one. Every combatant--player or NPC--jumped at the sound, then the whole battlefield turned to the opposite side of the river, where an enormous man was sitting astride an even bigger draft horse. He was as tall as Tina and covered in glorious sun-metal plate armor. His chest and arms were draped in the royal red and gold, and the sword he'd lifted above his head glittered like condensed sunlight in his massive hand, lighting up the riverbank.
"Crap," Tina muttered.
"Tina," SB said at the same time. "That's--"
"The king," she finished angrily. "The goddamn king. He would show up when we're all worn out."
"This battle is over," the king said in a voice that shook the ground. "Armies of Bastion, I order you to retreat."
For a moment, the whole battlefield stood dumbstruck at that, then the enemy turned and fled. Spears were cast down as soldiers abandoned the gore-drenched river fortifications. Some retreated across the bridges. Cinco's group took the opportunity to kill a few more, but Tina was happy to step aside and let them run. When they were gone, all the player raids flopped to the ground. People dragged themselves away from the bloody shores to fall on the first clean spot of grass they reached. Only the support players kept moving, dragging the wounded back toward the medical area as fast as they could before things started again.
"I wonder what he's up to," Tina said quietly as she and SB watched the soldiers scramble back to the other side of the river. "The Buffoon King's not a hard fight, but he's still a five-skull. We were barely holding together as it was. If he'd come in, he could have turned the whole battle. He has to know that, so why order everyone to fall back?"
"Maybe he's tired of losing people," SB said, his face slightly green as he looked down at the bloody river. "I would be."
"Yeah, but you're a good guy," Tina said. "I bet they've got something else up their sleeve now that they know we're not just gonna fold. But we've got options too. We've got Malakai, and we've got plan B. If they come at us again, I think we should roll out the big..."
Now that his armies were in retreat, the king was riding toward the Roughnecks' bridge, and he wasn't alone. There was another figure beside him, a tall jubatus wearing weirdly mismatched armor and carrying a black staff--a very familiar jubatus.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
It was James. Her brother was riding at the goddamn king's side. His pet NPC and the suicide mage were there as well, but James was all Tina could see--that and a very dangerous wash of red tingeing her vision. SB was frantically saying something beside her, but Tina couldn't hear him over the rage that her brother had gone and fucked everything up again. He'd run off and ended up a fucking hostage, and as always, she was the one who was going to have to pay.
"Tina," SB said, grabbing her arm. "Tina, please, you're scaring me."
"He's the one who should be scared," Tina growled back, yanking her arm out of his grasp. "I'll deal with this. You go and tell them to bring Malakai back out. They're not the only ones with hostages."
SilentBlayde didn't look happy with that order, but he obeyed, flashing away so fast, he was little more than a blip in the sunlight. Alone on the bloody bridge again, Tina marched forward to meet her enemy. She'd just about made it to the midpoint when golden light flashed in the sky.
Tina froze, eyes going wide. The Bastion, the golden shield that had been hanging over their heads in the sky for two days now, was flickering like an old lightbulb. It pulsed several times in rapid succession, then with a final flash, it died, leaving the sky clear and pure blue again. But that wasn't why Tina kept staring. She barely noticed the Bastion's fall, because she was too busy looking at the thing waiting behind it.
It was almost as big as the sky itself, a monster of shadow and flame with claws the size of telephone poles and wings that blotted out the sun. It landed as she watched, sliding through the space where the Bastion had been to dig its claws into a line of sturdy limestone buildings just up the hill. The giant stone blocks cracked when the creature's weight hit them, but it still didn't seem wholly real. Even sitting in direct sunlight, its body was wreathed in shadows much like SB's was when he activated his Shadow Dance cooldown. She was still staring at it in dumbstruck horror when SilentBlayde leaped out of her shadow.
"Tina!"
"The fuck is that?" she demanded, too panicked to notice shadow-walking was apparently back on now that the Bastion was down. "Since when does this game have a shadow dragon?"
"It's not a shadow dragon," SB panted, his face pale. "That's a Bird."
Tina went still. "A Bird," she repeated quietly, glancing down at him with round eyes. "As in capital B Bird?"
The Assassin nodded. "I felt it lurking in the Lightless Realm right before the barrier went down. That's Xthr, Fourth Born. The Great Bird who owes a debt to Bastion."
A debt the king had clearly just called in.
"Fuck," Tina swore, stomping her foot so hard the bridge shook. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" As if James and a five-skull king weren't bad enough, now they had a raid boss no one in the game had ever fought before. Tina didn't know if they could have handled all of that fresh. Wounded and out of mana, they didn't stand a chance. But the king was still coming. They had to do something, so Tina did what she did best.
She acted like a raid leader.
"SB!" she shouted, making the elf jump. "We're about to have serious incoming. I want all the Roughnecks healed and mana'ed up to full. Especially Frank. I don't care if we have to drain Camp Comeback dry. I want every raider filled up and in position at the end of this bridge stat. Go!"
The Assassin saluted and vanished into the shadows. Satisfied that was at least going as planned, Tina turned and ran back across the bridge to reclaim her shield from where she'd thrown it. Across the grass, the other two guild leaders broke ranks and hurried toward her.
"What the hell is going on?" Cinco yelled. "Why is there a goddamn space dragon?"
"And the king," Assets added, his already-pale face ashen. "What's the plan?"
"The new plan's the old plan," Tina said firmly, slamming her shield onto her arm. "Everyone who's not in Dead Mountain Fortress gear needs to get inside the warded buildings. Cinco, don't let anyone panic. Break arms if you have to, but you keep everyone inside and in position. Assets, make sure the wind-fire powder is ready to go."
Assets nodded, but Cinco crossed his arms over his chest. "What are you going to do?"
Tina looked over her shoulder at the giant shape darkening the northern sky. "If I'm lucky, bluff like hell and see if we can't negotiate. If I'm not..." She sighed. "Just get ready to hunker down."
The other guild leaders nodded, and they broke. By the time Tina made it back to her bridge, the Roughnecks were waiting for her. Heals were still going off to get everyone to full, but the whole raid was on its feet--including Frank, which was a relief.
&nb
sp; "How's your neck?" Tina asked. "Sorry you got thrown."
"I'm sorry I let him throw me," Frank said, tilting his head gingerly as if he were afraid it would fall off. "He had quite the arm for such a scrawny fella. Glad you whupped him."
"Whuppin' is what I do," Tina said with far more bravado than she felt. "And we've got a lot more to go."
"You say that as though 'whuppin'' is even on the table," Richard said, wiggling his way through the crowd to point frantically at the battleship-sized winged creature of shadow and claws sitting casually on Bastion's skyline. "That is Xthr! The Last Great Bird! He wasn't supposed to be a combatable boss until the next expansion. I don't even know if he has stats! How can we kill something that doesn't have stats?"
"The same way we kill everything else," Tina snapped, banging on her shield to get her raid's attention. "Everyone, get in formation! Casters and ranged in the middle, melee to the front. Anders, you're healing me. Neko, you watch Frank. All other healers are on the raid. Don't let anyone die! I want everyone on their A-game. We do not have leeway to fuck this up!"
The whole raid leaped to obey, rushing into position with a speed that would have made Tina cry if she'd had room for such soft emotions. As it was, she just stomped up and took her position beside Frank in the grass, watching the end of the bloody bridge they'd held all morning as the king's procession slowly rode over it. They stopped at the end, then like he was the one leading this farce, James climbed down from his horse and walked out alone, striding across the trampled, bloody grass with a scroll clutched tight in his hands.
Chapter 18
James and Tina
Fifteen minutes earlier.
"I'm glad you keep parchment and quill in your saddlebags, Sir Townsend," James said as he wrote out yet another copy of the treaty he and the king had just hastily drafted.
