Uluula pointed at the strangely quiet monsters trotting towards them from the nearby forest and ordered, “You need to protect the Battlewagon. I am going to help the spies.”
In the next couple seconds, Mareen began to better understand why some races felt as uneasy about Areva as they did Fideli.
Uluula activated almost all of her enchanted equipment at once. Her cloak shimmered and she became harder to see, almost blending in with the fog surrounding them.
Uluula’s faux jaalba, her plasma halberd, burst into life, the blade hissing with angry orange light. A shield of pale blue energy sprung up on her arm. The monsters were only a couple steps away when Uluula held up an arm, her enchanted bracer shooting a line out toward the massive mud monster, making a solid thunk when it embedded into the creature’s back.
Uluula nodded once before shooting off into the fog, the flame of her halberd trailing her like a comet’s trail. Most of the approaching monsters began chasing after Uluula’s light, but several were literally almost on top of Mareen.
Mareen was eternally grateful that she was wearing her heavy, wooden armor. She dodged away from the closest monster, some sort of giant cat with insect parts. Her hammer flicked out and crushed its front leg.
The sheer desperation of the group’s situation hadn’t sunk in yet, and it wouldn’t for a while. There was no time to think. The strangely quiet, slow-moving monsters crowded around her, and Mareen snarled as she whirled into them.
She would not be a burden to her group, to her friends. She refused to ever be useless again. The old Mareen, the cowering Mareen, was dead. She was orb-Bonded now and wearing armor that weighed more than she did. She thought again of Aodh, dazed on the floor of the Battlewagon, and realized the stakes were too high to fail.
She hated fighting, but she’d hate letting everyone down so very much more.
* * *
Thirsty had never been so scared in his life. He wasn’t screaming anymore; he didn’t want to attract anyone or anything’s attention. The music was still playing from Keeja’s device, but he was too terrified to turn it off.
The fog kept getting thicker, and he could barely see Aodh in front of him. The boy wasn’t completely lucid yet; he’d taken a hard fall. Thirsty knew what was happening. They were under attack, it was actually happening. Before the fog had become too thick, he’d seen dozens of monsters moving directly towards them. Mareen had been battling them. He could still hear her fighting for her life—for their lives.
Thirsty didn’t like Mareen very much, mainly because it was obvious she didn’t like him. But still, she was standing between him and danger, putting her life on the line to do so.
Suddenly, a monstrous head appeared over the side of the Battlewagon, its eyes milky white. It looked like a cross between a pig and a bird, beady eyes below a feathered crest. Its snout had tusks. Thirsty screamed, the sound ripping from of his throat with desperate intensity. He fumbled at his wrist and activated one of the shield bracelets he’d made.
A bubble of solid air formed over the back of the Battlewagon, pushing away the pig monster and the cloying fog. Thirsty collapsed near Aodh, holding his knees and sobbing. His diaphragm shook as he just reacted to the complete horror of the situation. He couldn’t think straight through his terror. He didn’t know what to do, and his helplessness was only making him more hysterical.
Thirsty’s tall frame rocked back and forth in the fetal position. “Please, God, please, God,” he whispered to himself. Outside the shield, the porcine monster began to probe the shield with its crude spear.
* * *
Bezzi-ibbi ran for his life. So far, the only thing keeping him alive was a lifetime of experience running through alleys from the Mirana Guard and the strength training his Clan had introduced him to at a young age.
Dodging through the underbrush and the deadfall wasn’t quite like his adventures in Mirana, but he was using a lot of the same muscles, and he was Jaguar Clan, after all.
The last few moments had been confusing, scary, and his heart still hurt, but he was suppressing the pain. He’d been riding on a magicycle when the caravan had been attacked. Yanno-ibbi had been riding the other vehicle, so Rark-han had been riding behind Bezzi-ibbi. Sometimes they doubled up so everyone in the back of the Battlewagon could have more breathing room.
At the same time the huge creature had appeared from the lake to stop the Battlewagon, a few other swift-moving, smaller monsters had attacked the Mo’hali on the magicycles. Bezzi-ibbi should have been dead. His vehicle had been hit, and he’d been thrown to the ground. A monster had reared up to finish him off with a wicked-looking clawed arm…and Rark-han had jumped in the way.
Bezzi-ibbi had watched in horror as the big wolf man had been impaled by the dead-eyed monster. Rark-han’s mouth had moved, but nothing had come out but a bloody froth, dripping from his teeth. The big man had locked eyes with Bezzi-ibbi, trying desperately to communicate with the Jaguar Clan heir. His eyes had been at peace and before the light left his eyes, he’d simply given a Mo’hali grin before falling limply to the ground.
The creature had moved towards Bezzi-ibbi again, but before it could take another step, Yanno-ibbi had cracked a large, dry branch over its head. The unnatural thing had dropped like a stone.
The fast-moving, ambushing monsters had been deadly, but fragile. Yanno-ibbi had been able to unsheathe his claws and kill another one with his bare hands. Bezzi-ibbi had eventually gotten his wits together and killed another with a dagger he’d made from his metal arm. However, a large, armored Terran woman and a huge Adom had followed the monsters to attack. Bezzi-ibbi had immediately known they were much more dangerous than the initial attacking creature. Yanno-ibbi had yelled at him to run, and the Hero had obeyed his uncle.
Unfortunately, the huge, reptilian Adom was right on his heels. He could tell she was female, but didn’t know what tribe she came from, not that it mattered. He could practically feel her hot breath as she barreled through the forest after him.
As he sprinted, he occasionally caught sight of the attacking monsters, their movements strangely sluggish, all focus entirely on the distant Battlewagon. Bezzi-ibbi tested a theory and manifested his Hero field while running near one of the creatures. His awareness moved outward and he could feel the ugly thing like a dark, prickly void.
Bezzi-ibbi reached out to the void and squeezed. It hurt, the feeling was like the pain from eating ice chips too fast. He could sense the void disappear and the lethargic monster fell to a heap like a puppet with cut strings.
Thralls. Bezzi-ibbi had heard of them. Mages or Bonded with extremely rare magic could create and control them. No wonder he and Yanno-ibbi had been specifically targeted. A proper Hero could destroy a lot of them before the pain became too great.
Suddenly, Bezzi-ibbi tripped. He almost panicked; falling would mean certain death. The Adom was only ten paces behind him. Luckily, he barely kept his head. He whipped his left arm out, willing the metal to change shape. He elongated the metal to form a tool, a new skill he’d been praticing.
He barely managed to snag a tree limb with his new arm hook, pulling himself up and preventing himself from falling. That was close.
Bezzi-ibbi’s chest pumped, his breathing harsh. He needed to get back to his team. They needed his help and he needed their muscle. He didn’t have any ideas yet. The Jaguar Clan heir thought furiously, willing himself to think through the problem. He tried to ignore the thundering steps of his pursuer slamming closer and closer.
Bezzi-ibbi loved the way he usually dressed, but for once he was willing to concede that wearing formal shoes all the time as an adventurer might not be very practical. As Henna-ibbi always said, “The wise hunter dresses for the hunt.”
Bezzi-ibbi continued to run and wondered if he would ever see his family again.
* * *
Liangyu stood with her arms crossed, her eyes closed. Controlling so many thralls was difficult. She could choose to inhabit one at a time,
but other than that she could only get a general idea of what they were doing. Orders could otherwise be given singly or in groups, but the thralls tended to be stupid.
The fog was helping less than she’d thought it would. True to her word, Ghinsja had covered a large area in her power and allowed the mercenaries to see better in it than their targets, but it was inhibiting the sight of Liangyu’s thralls.
Matilda had only gotten off one good shot with her bow. Now she was on standby along with Raquel, waiting for further orders.
Liangyu turned to her second-in-command. “Report,” she snapped.
Ghinsja’s eyes lost focus for a moment before replying, “As you know, a few thralls are down. Two of the Mo’hali are down. The Areva woman with the flaming spear is attacking the bog shambler demon; they are both heading towards the two at the rear. They are completely surrounded.
“Anz’wei is chasing the Mo’hali boy, who is now confirmed to be a Hero. Most uncertainty is with the main vehicle, where a shield of some is pushing the fog back, and the girl with the big hammer is still alive and beating off your thralls. She doesn’t seem to be putting many down for good, though.”
Liangyu pursed her lips in thought. On one hand, the fact the target group wasn’t all dead yet was worrying. On the other hand, they’d confirmed that there were at least two, probably three bounties to claim.
It was a high-risk, high-reward situation.
Liangyu tried to observe the operation from multiple angles as dispassionately as possible before making a decision. She nodded and said, “Relay a message. Tell Raquel to move towards the rear fight with the bog shamble. Tell Matilda to head towards the larger vehicle to support the thralls if she can. I will be directing most of the remaining thralls still in the forest towards the large vehicle. I want that area cleared.”
She thought further and nodded, saying, “Let Matilda know to prepare the artifact weapon.”
“But it only has one shot,” stuttered Ghinsja.
“I know. It’s worth throwing all we have into this fight. Let’s fully commit. That means you and I are going to head there as well. You need to be closer to use your fog as a weapon, correct?”
Ghinsja mutely nodded.
“Okay, let’s go. Also, I haven’t heard about Mourad doing anything useful in the last minute. Tell her to head to the large vehicle, too. Let’s finish this.”
Liangyu smiled. It would all be over soon. She was a bit worried about the Mo’hali Hero, but he was just a little boy. The greatest wild cards right now were the enemy leaders. One had disappeared as soon as the attack had started—literally disappeared. The other had gotten shot by an arrow and clawed in the back by one of her thralls.
He should be dead, but Liangyu didn’t believe in assumptions. It was time to personally ensure the job was done right.
She walked with Ghinsja into the thick fog, towards the screaming and other sounds of combat.
Parry
Jason stared down at the huge fog bank in frustration. He had to keep teleporting himself back to his starting position with an upward vector; he was yo-yoing in midair. It wasn’t taking much power to do so, but his magic reserves were not unlimited.
He’d discovered a weakness of his signature power the hard way; he couldn’t teleport to what he couldn’t see through the magic fog. He still wasn’t entirely sure how his power worked, but he got the overwhelming feeling it would be a bad idea to teleport into the fog bank. His current assumption was that teleporting through someone else’s magic would end badly for him.
What’s more, he could faintly hear the sounds of combat down below. Henry was down there. Uluula was down there. Bezzi-ibbi was down there.
When he’d been attacked, he’d teleported straight up before the fog had started rolling in, and had quickly found himself with nowhere to go. Jason clenched his fists in frustration. For all his new power, he was helpless.
He teleported in place a few more times while clenching his jaw in thought. He mentally explored all his options and eventually settled on the only viable course of action. With a grunt, he began traveling as fast as he could to the edge of the unnatural fog. He was going to find the road at the closest point he could actually see it, and he was going to run back to his friends as fast as he could.
* * *
Henry woke up next to the Battlewagon, covered in mud. The surrounding mist was cold and his armor was covered in condensation. There was a scaly, nasty-smelling creature lying on top of him.
Henry listened carefully. He could get a general feeling of what was happening around him with his enhanced hearing, but sounds echoed strangely in the fog. He could hear his friends fighting for their lives and he knew he needed to help them, but it wouldn’t do them much good if he ran off and immediately got killed.
First, he examined the creature. It looked sort of like a giant praying mantis with a fish face. It was missing half its head. Henry realized that he had reflexively killed it with an exogun after being attacked. The creature smelled horrible, like swamp and rot. Its skin was mottled grey and looked like it was about to decay.
So, so disgusting, Henry thought. It was going to take hours to get the smell out of his armor and his nose. He felt around his body and realized he still had almost all his gear, but he was missing his rifle.
He ran his hand over the chest and back of his armor. He had holes on both sides from the creature’s attack and the arrow that had hit him. Both strikes had been enormously powerful. They’d actually made him bleed; the arrow in particular had penetrated a half inch into his chest before bouncing out.
That meant it had gone through his bronze armor, through his thick steelskin, and penetrated his natural toughness from his first level Durability skill. That arrow must have hit like a rocket. He didn’t want to catch another one of those, that was for sure. He might not be so lucky next time.
The jagged holes of his ruined armor were easily fixed with a trickle of magic. Henry gritted his teeth, pushing the carcass of the creature off of himself. Almost immediately after he was free, the mist swirled to his right and another monster attacked him.
The creature swung a sword and Henry cursed, springing sideways in a spray of filthy mud and water. He drew his short sword in time to block another heavy strike. As Henry got his bearings, he got his first good look at his attacker and grunted in shock.
It was a zombie. Its undead condition was obvious. The creature used to be a man, but now its eyes were milky white and its teeth showed through a cut in the side of its face. It also moved a little unnaturally. In retrospect, the creature that he just pushed off of himself had been a zombie, too.
Fuck this, thought Henry. He reloaded his exogun, took aim, and put a gold bullet through the zombie’s head. The creature crumpled to the ground, somehow pitiful upon dying the second time. Henry absently loaded up all three of his exogun tubes and attached them to his metal forearm. Then he tried to find his rifle in the muck at his feet. Its sling had probably been cut when he was attacked.
I hate zombies, he thought as he tried to search for his weapon as quietly as possible. He could hear the unnatural zombie fuckers shuffling all over the place. The sounds coming from Mareen’s battle weren’t good, either.
He grunted with the reality of his situation. It could take forever to find his rifle, and his friends needed him now. Henry hissed through his teeth as he stood up and began walking forward with purpose-driven steps. He was extremely pissed. Zombies weren’t smart enough to pull off an ambush. He needed to find out who was pulling the strings behind the scenes and deal with them.
As Henry strode toward the fighting he could hear, he wondered where the rest of the Delvers were. He could hear Uluula and the spies in the distance behind him, but even with his hearing cranked up all the way, he couldn’t locate the rest.
* * *
Mareen was getting desperate. She felt like she’d been fighting nonstop for ages. Her lungs burned, and sweat ran freely under her thick, woo
den armor.
The armor itself had saved her life multiple times. It was peppered with quills, barbs, cuts, and even a burn. Luckily, the heavy mist made everything wet, and an odd-looking beetle monster that ejected flames out its rear hadn’t been able to catch Mareen on fire.
The strangely diverse horde of monsters she’d been fighting weren’t particularly fast; in fact, their jerky movements made them look sick. They also seemed to have a hard time seeing. On the other hand, there was obviously some sort of foul magic at play. The creatures didn’t bleed much, and they stood right back up after receiving mortal wounds. They didn’t cry out when Mareen crushed limbs with her hammer.
The monsters were slow, but when they got close enough, they could put on a surprising burst of speed and almost act as they would if they weren’t gripped by whatever dark magic held them. Right before one would start moving quickly, its milk-white eyes would take on a glow. Mareen’s attention to detail was the only reason she was still alive. She’d been carefully conserving her energy and preparing for a flurry of attacks whenever she saw a shuffling monster’s eyes change.
Still, she knew she was about to die. They were closing in from all directions, and they got right back up after she shattered entire bodies with her hammer. One was even crawling towards her on the ground. It was hopeless.
Then she heard the familiar, pop-hiss of Henry’s exogun through the fog. She didn’t think he was too far away, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t see very far and had no idea where she was. Just in case, she started humming “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” between her hacking, rattling breaths. With Henry’s hearing, he should be able to find her. Hopefully.
The monsters moved in for the kill. One monster’s eyes flashed. Then another. Mareen wasn’t giving up, but there were just too many. She hefted her hammer and prepared for one last clash. She had no regrets. She hadn’t been useless. She’d given her all to protect her friends.
Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred Page 20
