The Battle of Zombie Hill

by Nancy Osa

  “Huh?” Rob knew they didn’t have any bread in their stores.

  Jools said, “Colored mesa clay will do nicely as path markers once we’re on the move. The first order of business, though, will be to wall in the portal and build a base shelter near it. That way, if something does happen to the portal, we’ll have somewhere to hole up.”

  Rob gulped. The thought of not being able to get back here felt too much like not being able to get back home . . . and only one other thing was worse than that. “I understand that in the Nether there’s a higher probability of . . . death. What then?”

  “You’ll respawn up here,” Stormie answered. “Then just use your flint and steel to reactivate the portal and rejoin us. So, if anyone goes missing, the rest of the battalion will rendezvous at our temporary base.”

  “But that can severely slow us down,” Jools pointed out. “So, don’t.”

  “Don’t die?” Rob sat up straight. “Not if I can help it. But how about hunger?”

  “With all the fires and fire starters, at least we won’t have to worry about cooking meat,” Frida said with a wry grin. “Wish we had some marshmallows.”

  Rob imagined himself as a human marshmallow skewered on a stick and roasting over a flaming lava pit. He could hardly wait. Not.

  Aside from taking food and defensive supplies, there wasn’t much more they could do to prepare themselves. The question was what to do with the horses.

  “We can’t ride them through the portal,” Jools explained. “It simply won’t work. We can, however, lead them through.”

  Rob wondered how well they would like that.

  “You’re projecting your thoughts on them,” Kim reminded him. “Forget what you know about the underworld. Think like a horse. They don’t know they’re going to the Nether. They don’t anticipate. They only know they’re going where you ask them to go, and that they trust you.”

  “So . . . just walk right through confidently, then?” Rob offered.

  Kim gave a shadow of a smile. “And bring lots of treats!”

  They filled their inventories with sugar, carrots, weapons, and ammunition, leaving items for crafting torches and brewing potions in their stash at camp. Glowstone would serve as a passable light source below, and Jools could set up an alchemy station in the Nether, if necessary, where ingredients for base potions were plentiful.

  Rob wished he had apprenticed with Turner in crafting arrows, though. The ones he made were nearly as clumsy as the skeletons’ ammo. Stormie and Frida added better ones to the stacks, while Kim concentrated on filling their cobblestone, wood, and iron inventories. They would find none of those shelter-building resources in the land of netherrack and fire.

  Compromised though his command seemed to be, Rob took stock of the situation as best he could. Addressing the four troopers, he said, “The horses will be our best assets on this mission. We’ll be able to move faster than on foot or teleporting. So, Kim, except for going through the portal, I want you mounted on Duff.”

  She nodded silently. The missing rider on everyone’s mind went unmentioned.

  Rob turned to Jools. “Quartermaster, since you’re the only one of us who has had direct contact with Colonel M, you’ll be our liaison. We’ll need your active participation in this assignment.” He paused. “Will we have it?”

  “Unquestionably,” Jools replied.

  “Right on,” Stormie said, approving of the more equal battalion footing. “I volunteer to mark our way. Even without the map and compass, if one person keeps track, we’ll have a better chance of staying on course. Less arguments.”

  “No arguments,” Rob insisted. “We must act as a unit. The world depends on it.”

  They donned their armor and plied the horses with treats. At last, there was nothing more to it but to be on their way. The portal was built, the fire activated, and their hellish subway gaped open, waiting.

  One by one, they led their horses through—first Stormie and Armor, then Frida and Ocelot, Kim and Duff, and Jools and Beckett. Their captain took one more look at the sunshine, chirruped to Saber, and walked into the portal block. Purple light diffused and reformed around them. The sounds of a thousand whimpering children swirled about the space.

  Once again, Rob entered the unknown. His panic triggered an all-too-real memory of his initial freefall from the airplane and plunge into the ocean. Were it not for Saber at the end of his lead rope, he would have screamed until it killed him, he was sure. But a man had to lead a horse, or the horse would end up leading the man—and not always where he wanted to go.

  All of the riders had learned this lesson the hard way during training. They steeled themselves, which was less of a stretch for survivalists Frida and Stormie, and in a few moments each reanimated in the lower dimension. Kim had been right; the horses followed them right through and onto sharp netherrack, which their shod hooves handled nicely.

  They moved forward by file. The air smelled of sulfur and carbon, and left a dank residue on exposed skin. Rob’s eyes adjusted to the gloom just in time for him to avoid stepping off a narrow ledge and into a broad lake of shimmering lava.

  “I’ll find us a clearing where we can mount,” Stormie whispered from her place up front. “It’s impossible to try to fortify the portal with stone from here. We can barely move on this ledge.”

  The high netherrack cliff on one side and the deep-looking lava pool on the other made Rob dizzy. He quietly reached forward and grabbed Beckett’s tail, trusting the sure-footed beast to lead him onward. Suddenly, a blaze erupted just behind Saber, who was bringing up the rear. Feeling flames near his bottom, the horse jumped forward, bumping hard into Rob, who kissed Beckett’s behind and created a chain reaction.

  “Hey!”

  “Oof!”

  “Oww!”

  “What th—?”

  Fortunately, their motion was forward, not sideways and down.

  “Sorry, guys!” called Rob. “I didn’t have time to practice ring-of-fire exercises with Saber.” In fact, his horse was noticeably spooked and scrabbled along the precarious netherrack ledge until Stormie found a side trail that led to a clearing. Here, they stopped and got their bearings, such as they were.

  Rob sensed that as long as they remained somewhat calm, their horses would, too. He fought off fears of all the wicked mobs he had heard about and started giving orders in what he hoped was his normal voice. “Frida, Ocelot should be able to navigate these weird trenches pretty well. Scout the immediate area for a base site.”

  “Yes, sir!” She rode off warily.

  “Stormie, Kim. Put your heads together to choose the quickest route to the Nether fortress we’re looking for. Jools, you’ll determine a way around obstacles that will keep us alive until we get there.”

  “How are you doing, Captain?” Stormie asked, concerned.

  “I’m all right,” Rob said, thinking, I’m scared spitless. “I’ll keep a lookout,” he promised, thinking, For all the good that will do.

  It was fortunate that he could be at least marginally useful as a sentry, because all Rob could manage to do was goggle at his surroundings. He had never been so awestruck, had never laid eyes on anything like this place. The completely unfamiliar landscape reminded him of the time he had eaten a horny toad. A friend had killed and grilled the lizard while they were camping together once, and Rob remembered the sensation of putting something in his gullet that had never before entered his system. He had worried for a moment that he might turn into a spiky reptile, himself. Nothing happened, of course, but he couldn’t help thinking that, from that moment on, he was a different person. Even if by a molecule.

  What does that make me now? he wondered, surveying his surroundings. This dimension appeared to be sandwiched between bedrock, with glowstone light from overhead blocks, though not quite enough to actually see—he had to make out the outlines and imagine the rest. The area adjacent to the lava lake was brighter, but there was nothing really recognizable except a few desiccate
d trees. The formations that rose from the ground might have been crafted by a sloppy giant that chewed up netherrack and vomited it all over the place. Some blocks were broken by sharp crevasses, while others were whole and burned endlessly.

  This dark and strange underworld, Rob feared, would become lodged so deeply in his soul that nothing would ever be the same again.

  *

  They heard snorting, and Rob made out a group of squat, pink and green zombie forms. “Pigmen!” he whispered, and Jools waved his hands silently, indicating that nonaction was best.

  “Ignore them,” he advised. “Treat them like Endermen, and they won’t bother us.”

  So Rob fought off the instinct to attack the mutant zombies with his iron sword. He jiggled the lead rope a little to take Saber’s attention off of them. When they had passed by and Frida returned, the rest of the riders mounted and followed her a short distance to a relatively flat area that was wide enough to hold a small shelter.

  Kim held the horses and sang to them a bit while the others set to forming cobblestone walls and a roof and crafting iron bars for the windows. “I hate using a wooden door,” Frida said, placing it last, “but it’ll have to do for now.”

  Stormie crafted a few reddish-orange clay pillars to mark the spot. “If you get separated or if you die and respawn, find your way back to this spot. The rest of us will meet you here,” she said. The group left some spare supplies there in a chest.

  They moved off in the direction Jools had figured out would lead them to the fortress where Aswan said they could find Colonel M. Stormie’s sensible horse, Armor, was certainly the right choice to lead the group. Ocelot, Beckett, and even Duff had broken a nervous sweat, compounded by the warmth of the bubbling lava lake that they were skirting. Rob held Saber back a few more lengths than usual because he kept wanting to bolt forward, and starting a stampede was out of the question.

  Rob’s resolution to remain calm was soon undone. In the eerie silence, a squeaking arose like a screen door on a rusty hinge. A string of babyish moans followed, but Rob saw nothing. As the battalion veered away from the burning lake, though, a huge, hovering cube swooped down on them.

  “Ghast!” yelled Jools.

  The colossal, bulky creature floated much more smoothly than Rob thought it should have. Its top-heavy cube was offset by half a dozen wriggling legs, like a badly drawn jellyfish. How dangerous could that be?

  As if in answer, the ghast loosed a massive fireball at them, then two more. Toom! Toom, toom! The bombs all landed nearby, splitting the netherrack apart and causing the horses to buck and everyone to hold on for dear life. No wonder the terrain was so messed up, Rob thought, pulling Saber’s head around so he would stop crowhopping. These ghasts either couldn’t see or couldn’t aim, or both.

  The hovering ghast chortled and launched another fiery rocket. Frida and Stormie shot useless arrows at the blob, but Jools had the presence of mind to wait until the fireball came into range. As Rob and Kim watched, he punched at the thing. Instead of exploding, it ricocheted back at the ghast. Whoom! One ex-ghast.

  They cheered, and Jools ducked his head modestly. “I was quite the batsman in cricket,” he said.

  Frida went to retrieve the gunpowder and ghast tear that dropped when the mobster exploded. “Go ahead!” she called. “I’ll catch up.”

  They had to keep moving at all costs. Their health and hunger would be much more difficult to manage down here, and the sooner they found the colonel, the sooner they could leave.

  They followed a largely diagonal path, sidestepping pits, trenches, and small lava pools. But when they came to a burning stream that rushed off the side of another cliff, they realized they’d have to cross it. The less experienced riders were not thrilled.

  Rob muscled Saber up to the bank. “Let me go first,” he urged. “Follow my lead. Keep your speed up, and for goodness sake, don’t look down!” If he could trust Saber to do one thing well, it was to jump almost anything. But a flaming ribbon of molten lava?

  Rob clapped his heels against Saber’s sides and did his job as rider—thinking them over the fence, centering himself above Saber’s own balancing point, and, most importantly, not looking down. That was all the horse needed. If only Rob could have watched the pair of them, hurdling the burning barrier as though it were just another jump in a steeplechase. When Saber’s front feet hit netherrack, Rob called over his shoulder, “Battalion, charge! Jump!”

  He didn’t dare turn around, or the other horses might falter. He reined Saber to a stop and waited. Armor arrived, puffing; Ocelot pulled up, nostrils flared; Duff thundered up, barely winded. . . .

  “Team!” came Jools’s plaintive voice from behind.

  They had to look. Beckett danced on the other side, refusing to leap the fiery river.

  There was nothing for it—Rob whirled Saber around and repeated their performance back to the other side. Then he tossed Jools one end of a lead rope. “Kick him!” he ordered, and both mounts took off at a nervy gallop, Saber ponying the stouter horse along. “Again!” Rob cried, and with a desperate nudge Saber launched, followed by Beckett, landing neatly on the other bank.

  “Now, pet him,” said Rob, doing the same to Saber with a shaky hand. Horses were amazing animals. Certainly more amazing than humans.

  Kim distributed sugar blocks for all.

  They continued on the path that Jools had worked out, with Stormie placing clay markers as they went. Suddenly, she halted Armor and scratched her helmeted head. Here were clay pillars of the same color in front of them. They walked a bit farther and found another . . . and another.

  Was someone trying to disorient the battalion? Had another party coincidentally laid the same trail markers?

  Rounding a bend in a netherrack wall, an immense, dark structure towered before them made entirely of bricks, with a pile of reddish-orange clay blocks in front of it. From within, they could hear the rattle of brittle bones and the crackle of fire. Smoke hung in a dead cloud around the edifice. A sliver of torchlight appeared as the brick gate swung open.

  Somebody was home.

  CHAPTER 14

  “I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU,” CAME A DEEP MALE voice that was both hollow and rich, like a solemn drum beat.

  The riders held their breath as the gate swung wider.

  The space filled with a huge human face, with skin like well-worn Havana leather, eyes brighter and sharper than ghast fireballs, and wild silver hair that stood on end in some places and flopped over in others. Behind the powerful stare was a measure of humor that Rob was thankful to see. It was the most approachable looking gigantic head he had ever encountered—and, of course, the only one.

  Oddly, he could see right through the facial features to a row of torches burning high on an iron grid and something writhing in the half-light behind it. Rob elbowed Jools.

  “Y-yes, right,” Jools stuttered, flustered for once. He pressed the reluctant Beckett forward. “Colonel M? We met awhile back.”

  “I remember you,” thundered the head, causing the rest of the horses to sidle back a few steps. “You played a small role in helping my friends liberate their redstone generator from the hands of the syndicate.”

  “Well, I—”

  “And now you want me to return the favor.”

  “Not that you owe me . . .”

  “. . . anything. Then why do you seek me?”

  Jools looked at Rob. “Well, we—”

  The head cut him off. “I know why you have come. Why are you not riding these horses against your enemies in the Overworld instead of wasting time at my door? I do not take kindly to solicitors.”

  This made Rob angry. “We’re not selling Girl Scout cookies, sir,” he said, with a touch too much emphasis.

  The head’s mouth opened as wide as the gate. “Silence!” it boomed, causing horses and humans to quake. “You have no right to request aught of me without payment of some sort.” The colonel’s head waited. “Well?”

  Kim
pressed a reluctant Duff up to the gate. From her inventory she took the pink pony halter that had belonged to one of her stolen herd. “For your horse, sir.” She cleared her throat. “It’s adjustable.”

  “Well, perhaps the diamonds could be of some use. . . .” the head murmured, punching every other word like a bass drum.

  The gate swung wide and the head dipped in lukewarm welcome.

  There the riders dismounted and led their skittish horses into the fortress vestibule. Rob could make out a large, brick room with an iron grate for a back wall, which held back the rattling, jittery creatures that pounded against it from the other side. They resembled the skeleton mobs he’d fought off before, but they were as black as coal and held stone swords instead of bows. The swords made a jackhammer racket, clattering in and out of the iron crosshatching.

  “Wither skeletons,” Jools commented. “Nice guard dogs.”

  “They do my bidding,” Colonel M said as his head floated backward to make space for the players and their horses.

  “Nice of you to set up this skeleproof room,” Stormie said, trying to break the ice.

  “For approved visitors only,” the colonel stated, eyes flashing.

  In the additional brightness, Rob saw something move in a corner of the entrance hall. He turned and, startled, fell against Saber’s shoulder.

  “About time you got here,” came a familiar gruff voice.

  There sat Turner, intact and alive, with his feet casually propped up on a small magma cube. The black footrest radiated heat from its red, yellow, and orange eyes.

  As the group recognized him and stared, he said, “I was just telling the colonel here about forcing old Legs to retreat on chickenback.”

  Colonel M huffed a chuckle. “Wise move, those pit traps,” he acknowledged, then cocked his head at Rob. “Is this the innocent you mentioned?”

  “Newbie, yeah. Colonel M, meet Captain Rob. Newbie . . .”

  The ghostly head sized up Rob and his horse. “Ender Dragon fodder,” he spat. “But you may rest here briefly. Then be on your way.”