Conqueror

by Isaac Hooke

  Frank, wait until the ettin passes by, then step behind it and hit it in the back of the head.

  The ogre responded eagerly. Yes, Frank kill!

  Noooo, Malem sent. Frank no kill. Frank stun.

  Frank kill!

  Malem sighed. No, Frank stun.

  The ogre didn’t answer for a long moment. Then: Okay. Frank hit gently. Frank stun.

  The huge ettin passed in front of the tree where Frank was hiding and then paused to sniff at the air.

  One of the heads spoke in a booming voice that was eerily similar to Frank’s. “Smells like… ogre!”

  As the last word left its lips, the ettin rounded the tree and swung its arm in a punch at Frank. The ogre, which had been waiting for the ettin to pass by the tree entirely, was taken off guard, but narrowly managed to sidestep.

  Frank took only a glancing blow to the cheek, and lifted his club to make a strike in rejoinder. But the ettin was too close, and easily grabbed the bludgeoning instrument before it moved very far, and proceeded to head-butt the ogre with both of its heads.

  Frank dropped the club and stepped backward drunkenly.

  “Hm, your ogre isn’t doing so well,” Ziatrice commented. Like the others, she was peering past the ancient oak to watch the fight. “Need some help?”

  “Not yet,” Malem said.

  The ettin scooped up the dropped tree near the tapered base, and stepped forward hungrily. As it approached Frank, it flung its arm far back, poised to make a devastating strike.

  “Okay, intervene,” he said. “Don’t let that club make contact.”

  Ziatrice grinned. A fresh outflow of dark mist malevolently poured from her eyes.

  She shot out her arm and ghostly black chains erupted from her hand. They struck the upper portion of the tree just as the ettin had started to swing it and wrapped around the bark.

  The ettin tugged at the club a few times before realizing it had snagged on something, and then glanced at the tree to figure out just what that something was.

  In that moment Ziatrice pulled her arm down, yanking the tree to the ground. The ettin jumped in surprise as the club jerked out of its hands.

  Frank used the distraction to leap onto the ettin and toppled the monster to the ground. The ogre fell on top and used its weight to pin the bigger creature. Then it began unleashing a flurry of punches, each fist hitting a different head.

  The ettin swung left and right, hitting the ogre in the ribs—agony flowed in spurts from the energy bundle representing Frank in Malem’s head, and he thought that the ogre’s ribs were breaking, or at least cracking—but Frank ignored the pain and simply continued punching. The ogre was busting up the heads quite nicely. One had so many bruises it started to turn pulpy.

  Malem wrapped his will around the ettin and was pleased to see that he could now touch the weakened monster’s mind.

  That’s enough, Frank.

  The ogre continued to punch.

  Enough!

  Finally the ogre stopped. Frank gave one of the heads another punch for good measure, and then stood up. The ogre also gave the ettin a kick to the ribs, and Malem was about to issue another stern rebuke when Frank promptly turned away to retrieve its bludgeoning weapon.

  “Steal Frank’s club, will you?” the ogre muttered. “That’s what you get!”

  Malem was ready to drain Frank’s stamina if the ogre tried to hit the ettin with that club, but Frank seemed to have lost interest and began meandering through the woods.

  Malem wrapped his will around the ettin’s mind and the monster offered little resistance. In seconds he had secured the ettin into five mind slots, right next to the ogre.

  He granted the creature stamina, taking it from Frank, and the ettin stood up.

  “Weyanna, see if you can help Eddy there with his head injuries,” Malem said.

  “Eddy?” Xaxia said. “Your names get worse all the time.”

  “I’m not really in any condition to attempt healing, but I’ll try.” Weyanna struggled to her feet, and then made her way toward the ettin.

  Gwen offered her a shoulder as a crutch, but the half dragon turned it down.

  Weyanna’s form-fitting white dress was starting to show signs of wear: dirty splotches covered the butt region, and there were fresh tears in the hem.

  “See?” Xaxia commented. “This is why I don’t wear white.”

  The bandages underneath the torso area also gave Weyanna’s dress a lumpy and malformed appearance. Still, somehow she made it look good.

  Weyanna reached the ettin. “Lie down, please.”

  Eddy, lie down.

  The ettin complied. Weyanna held out a hand, and barely visible streams of white mist flowed from her fingers and onto the ettin’s two heads. That mist knit the different wounds, closing up the gashes caused by the ogre, and in moments the bleeding stopped. When the mist receded, the blood was still there, sitting on the surface of the skin, but the wounds were healed, as far as Malem could tell.

  Weyanna sagged.

  He promptly drained stamina from himself, Gwen, and Frank, intending to give it to Weyanna, but realized too late that he hadn’t broken her.

  Whoops.

  He restored the stamina.

  Gwen glanced at him. “What was that?”

  “Nothing.” He turned toward the southeast. “Now, let’s see if we can find those ghrips.”

  “You’re not thinking…” Gwen said.

  He bared his teeth in a grin. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

  9

  Malem had Eddy tear away a suitable tree so that the ettin had a suitable club like Frank, and then he had the pair take the lead. The party headed southeast again, and followed the trail of broken trees until they came upon the ghrips, which were resting in a nest surrounded by the skeletons of animals and monsters. They had freshly gorged themselves on spiders, from the looks of all the hairy, spindly legs lying about. There were five in total, including the bull.

  He sent Eddy and Frank in to pummel the bull. The big creature was caught by surprise, and was unable to mount a defense other than a weak emission of that poisonous ink before it was knocked senseless. He had Eddy and Frank retreat as the smaller ghrips closed to protect the bull, and the two monsters escaped the poisonous gas.

  The closest ghrip pursued the monsters; it launched its tentacles, but Rathamias managed to paralyze the creature with dark magic before the appendages struck.

  Malem was able to wrap his will around the bull and squeezed tightly. The creature writhed in his grasp with surprising energy, however. He wasn’t able to fully secure it—the creature wasn’t as stunned as he thought. The monsters would need to do more damage.

  Throw your trees at the bull, he ordered Eddy and Frank. Like spears.

  The two monsters complied, and a moment later the trees bounced away from the big octopus-shaped creature, leaving behind two gaping wounds.

  That did it. He tightened his will around the creature and secured it to six slots in his mind. He gave the bull stamina from himself, the ogre and the ettin, and instructed the creature to attack its brethren.

  The bull wrapped its tentacles around two of the smaller ghrips that were heading toward Eddy and Frank, and promptly crushed them to death. It bashed a third into a tree, and leaped onto the fourth, pressing its beak into the soft saclike body, tearing it open down the middle.

  Malem wrapped his mind around the smaller ghrip that just struck a tree, and was able to secure the weakened creature’s will, which took up three slots. He promptly instructed the bull to stand down.

  With these two firmly under this belt, he now only had one slot free. Enough to secure a low-level animal at some point, if he needed to.

  “Nicely done,” Xaxia said. “We’re well on our way to building our monster army.”

  The night elf laughed. “An ettin, an ogre, and two ghrips. I’d hardly call that an army.”

  “But it is a good start, you have you admit.”

/>   Ziatrice pursed her lips. “True.”

  “Do you want to hear the names I’ve come up with for the latest additions to our team?” Malem asked.

  “Probably not,” the bandit told him.

  “Tweedle dee and tweedle dum?” Ziatrice said.

  “What?” Gwen turned toward her. “A joke. You told an actual joke. That’s… surprising. We’re rubbing off on you, night elf.”

  “I was always the funny one among my people,” Ziatrice said.

  “I’ll bet!” Xaxia quipped.

  Abigail was leaning against a tree, holding her side. Pain flared from her energy bundle. He went to her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “The pain comes and goes,” she said. “I just need a moment.”

  He sensed the agony leaving her, and on cue she straightened. “Okay. I’m good.”

  “All right, we continue to the east,” Malem announced. He checked the sky, and noted the latest position of the sun as compared to when he had checked a few minutes ago. With that to determine his direction, he turned east.

  He beckoned toward the bull and the smaller ghrip. “Oh and, everyone, meet Hansel and Gretel.”

  Xaxia moaned.

  “I believe I’m missing the joke…” Ziatrice said.

  “They’re a pair of traveling jesters,” Xaxia said. “They move from kingdom to kingdom, performing for whoever will pay.”

  “Which one is Hansel and which one is Gretel?” Gwen asked.

  “The bull is Hansel, and the smaller one is Gretel,” Malem replied.

  “Figures that you’d give the larger one a man’s name,” Xaxia said. “You keep calling it a bull, but for all you know it could be the female, and the male the smaller one. You know that female black widow’s are ten times as big as the males, right?”

  “Sort of like me?” Weyanna asked.

  “If ever there was an insect to describe you, it would be the black widow,” Abigail agreed.

  “Thanks,” Weyanna said.

  “Actually, you’re both wrong,” Ziatrice said. “Ghrips are sexless. They reproduce by budding.”

  Malem reached out with his senses as they continued eastward. Eventually he sensed birds again, indicating that they’d left behind ghrip territory, and he broke an eagle to act as his scout.

  He sent the bird of prey ranging high into the sky and got a good estimate of how long the journey would be, based on the distance that the ocean of green carpeted the land below him.

  “It should take us two days to leave monster territory and reach the eastern outskirts of the Midweald,” he said. “The closest settlement is Greentree, by my reckoning. About forty miles south of Redbridge.”

  They continued in silence, with the monsters in the lead. The ghrips followed Eddy and Frank, with Rathamias trailing behind them. The bull made an effort to avoid the trees, but it was still too big not to break most of the upper branches, and as such the continual sound of cracking wood accompanied its advance, and echoed throughout the forest.

  “You think that racket is going to draw monsters?” Abigail asked him.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But it could also scare them away. Especially if they’ve ever heard it before, and know what produces it. Either way, we’ll stop when it gets dark, just to be on the safe side.” Night was when the monsters of the Midweald were the most active: their prime hunting hours.

  Rathamias slowed down slightly. “What a merry band we make. A princess, a queen, a Breaker, a bandit, a gobling, a white dragon, and an orak. And I’m not even counting the bigger monsters.”

  Ziatrice gave the orak mage a warning look, and Rathamias promptly increased its pace to return to its former distance ahead of them.

  “Let it talk,” Xaxia said. “I’m curious what the creature has to say.”

  “I’m not,” Gwen said. “It’s all I can do to prevent myself from riddling its body with arrows.”

  “Why do you hate oraks so much?” Ziatrice asked her.

  “Oraks murdered the villagers who adopted me,” Gwen told her. “They murdered my family.”

  The night elf nodded slowly. “Oraks murdered my family, too, but I welcomed their arrival.”

  “What?” Gwen said. “How could anyone welcome that?”

  “Oh, I had the oraks slain, of course,” Ziatrice said. “But you see, they helped clear my path to the throne. So when they came, I made sure the palace gates were wide open to them.”

  “Ah, I should have figured as much, from you,” Gwen told her.

  The night elf shrugged. “I’d rather the oraks did it, than me. I’m not a big fan of poison or daggers in the dark. Of course, I used both to eliminate any other competition that arose along the way.”

  “Why is power so important to you?” Abigail asked. “I’m happy in my current place. I’ll never rule my people. When my father abdicates, Jayden will take his place. I’m content to remain on the sidelines.”

  “That’s because you lack the ambition,” Ziatrice said. “The throne is not for everyone, certainly.” She glanced at Malem. “But some people are certainly more suited to it than others.”

  Abigail noticed the glance. “Why did you look at him when you said that?”

  “No reason,” Ziatrice said with a shrug.

  Abigail gave her—and Malem—one last suspicious look, then turned away.

  She could be a problem, going forward, Ziatrice sent.

  How so?

  Ziatrice gave him a firm look. She could get in the way of our taking power.

  He was unable to hold back a laugh; both Abigail and Gwen looked at him.

  “What’s so funny?” Gwen said.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just thinking about our situation.”

  “Nothing funny about that…” Abigail commented.

  I have no desire to take power, he sent Ziatrice. If Vorgon ever falls, I won’t take his place.

  We’ll see, she told him. Think about it, if we’re successful in this mission, and you Break Mauritania, you will have the power of a Balor itself. Perhaps you’ll even be able to Break Vorgon. Can you imagine that, having the Balor at your beck and call? There’s no reason why you couldn’t take the world after that. All the monsters of the underworld would be yours. Kings would tremble before your advance. They would throw their kingdoms beneath your feet without even a fight.

  All of that was indeed strangely tempting. But he quickly banished the idea.

  That goes against everything I believe in, he told her.

  Does it? She smirked. I don’t think so. Look deep inside yourself. You know you want this. I can feel the power lust inside of you whenever I broach the topic. You want this.

  He purposely cleared his mind, not wanting to give Ziatrice any more ideas. He was ready to block any further words she might speak into his mind, but thankfully she decided to keep her thoughts to herself for the moment.

  Weyanna quickly grew weary. Healing the ettin had been more of a drain on her than he had thought. Then again, Abigail, too, was flagging. Their Eldritch wounds were acting up.

  He granted Abigail some stamina, and that helped, but he couldn’t do the same for Weyanna. So instead, he had her ride Frank’s shoulders. He decided that Abigail should ride Eddy, meanwhile.

  Both were too tired to protest, and seemed relieved when they no longer had to walk. Weyanna leaned against Frank’s neck, while Abigail, perched on Eddy’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around the closest head.

  “Pretty lady,” Frank told Weyanna softly after she had taken her place, which elicited a weak grin from the woman.

  No other attacks came for the rest of that day, and Malem had the group make camp when the sun began to set. Weyanna and Abigail slid off the backs of their rides, and he ordered the monsters to form a defensive perimeter around the camp. They would sleep in shifts of two, with Eddy and Frank handling the first part of the night, Hansel and Gretel the latter.

  “I don’t trust monsters alone on watch,” Xaxia
said. “I’ll have to join the first watch, I’m afraid.”

  “And I’ll relieve you when the ghrips take over,” Gwen said.

  Malem nodded. “Probably safest that way. If either of you find yourselves growing too weary, wake either myself or Ziatrice, and we’ll take over.”

  “Don’t think I want to wake the night elf,” Xaxia said. “I don’t trust her not to slit me open in the night with that halberd of hers.”

  Ziatrice grinned, baring those sharp teeth of hers. “Oh, I wouldn’t slit you open, my dear. If I wanted you dead, I’d simply tear out your throat.”

  “See?” the bandit told him.

  “Now, now, Ziatrice, be nice,” he said.

  Ziatrice shrugged. “I am playing nice. She’s the one who provoked me.”

  Malem slid down his pack to retrieve the rations he carried. He’d packed them in the odd chance the journey took longer than a few hours. Good thing, too; though in truth he’d expected the delay to come when they reached Tartan’s vale, not here, somewhere inside the Midweald, so far from their destination.

  He ate the salted hare standing up, and Xaxia joined him, chewing on a similar piece of cured meat.

  “They’re a bit different than the pets you had with you last time we were here,” Xaxia commented, nodding toward the ghrips.

  “Just a bit,” he agreed.

  “Do you know what happened to them?” the bandit pressed.

  He glanced at her. “Who, Felipe and Bounder?” When she nodded, he told her: “They’re doing well. Back on the front lines, one of the Metal couriers always gave me an update whenever he arrived from the dragon city. They’ve been behaving well, for the most part, though they still occasionally sneak out of their stalls. Felipe does it to eat the sugar cube treats meant for the horses, while Bounder breaks out after dark to take care of the keep’s spider infestation.”

  “Nice,” Xaxia said. “They take after their master.”

  “They certainly do,” he agreed.

  “I’m cold,” Weyanna said. She huddled against a tree with Abigail.