Late to the Party

by Ramy Vance

  There was no way the few MERCs he had seen had a chance, even if the MERC encampment were tripled. And how many did Middang3ard’s army have? Suzuki tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. His head was swimming, and he felt he needed to sit down.

  “Uh, nothing,” Suzuki squeaked. “Just daydreaming.”

  Stew laughed and turned his axbeak around so he could face Suzuki. “He’s probably just blue-balling,” Stew said. “Fred wouldn’t let him jerk off last night.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, the familiars got this whole familiar Skype or something so they can talk to each other. Sounds kinda weird to me.”

  Either Fred respected my privacy and hadn’t updated them or hadn’t gotten around to it yet, Suzuki thought, realizing he needed to be a bit more careful. He had no control over what Fred told the other familiars, and by extension, what the familiars told their hosts. It all made for a very messy situation.

  “Talk,” Sandy interrupted. “More like gossip.”

  Suzuki nodded and pointed to his crotch. “Yeah, that’s it,” he lied. “Just super horny.”

  Stew laughed and shook his head. “Come on, dude, you gotta stand up for yourself. You can’t be getting pushed around by a giant lizard that lives in your head.”

  As Stew tried to turn back around, his axbeak took the opportunity to balk, tossing Stew off its back. Stew hit the ground in a crash of steel and broken pride. He tried to avoid Sandy and Suzuki’s eyes as he climbed back onto his bird.

  Not that Suzuki was really paying attention. His head was still reeling from what he had seen. In real-time, too. They were fucked, and at that moment, it dawned on Suzuki that getting Beth was just the beginning. The war for Middang3ard would be epic, and it scared the shit out of Suzuki.

  Sandy slowed down to match Suzuki’s pace. She nudged him with her foot. “You sure everything’s okay, Suzuki?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” he lied. “Ahh, so, how often does your familiar talk with Fred?” Suzuki asked.

  “Just about every night.”

  “Hmm. I’d assumed he was as crotchety with them as he is with me.”

  “Nope. Seems like they get along fine.” Sandy reached out a hand, placing it on Suzuki’s shoulder (not easy to do while on the axbeaks, but Sandy seemed to have full control of hers). “Suzuki, you know if something is up, you can talk to us about it. Just cause you’re the one making plans and everything doesn’t mean you have to be up in your head the whole time.”

  Suzuki thought about telling Sandy. Sharing the images with both of them, even. But that would only rattle them like it did him. And they needed to stay focused if they were going to finish José’s quest. “Yeah, I know. Trust me, nothing’s wrong. Just enjoying the view. It’s beautiful out here.”

  Sandy nodded in agreement. She looked out at the meadow they were riding through. “Maybe getting off the road for a little bit might not be a bad idea. ‘Sides, I’m pretty hungry.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Sandy led them off the road and up a nearby hill. They tied their axbeaks to a tree and sat around a small fire, where they cooked a quick meal of pork and fresh vegetables courtesy of Wendy’s kitchen.

  Suzuki tried to keep his mind focused on his friends as he listened to them talking, but he was still spacing out. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the army of the Dark One marching through the MERC encampment, laying waste to everyone who stood in their way.

  Stew tossed a piece of raw meat in Suzuki’s face, snapping him out of his obsessing.

  “What the fuck, Stew?”

  “You looked like you could use some meat,” Stew answered.

  “I looked like I could use some meat?”

  “Yeah. You know you’re a growing boy and all.”

  Suzuki picked up the piece of pork and tossed it onto the skillet. He watched the porkchop sizzle as it browned. But he couldn’t help thinking that the war was already in Middang3ard and if it spread, he doubted anyone would survive.

  At least he had these idiots around to die with him.

  Sandy snatched the piece of pork from the skillet and held it over the fire. “I’ve been working on my elemental resistance with charms. Check this out.” She plunged her hand into the fire and pulled it out after a few seconds. Her skin was undamaged, and the pork chop was cooked to perfection. “I figure it might help if I could tank for us, too. I don’t think that Stew can take any more axes to the chest,” Sandy explained.

  “Psh,” Stew disagreed. “I’ll take as many axes as are thrown at me. It’s going to take more than an ax to kill me.”

  “You’re right. Maybe three. At the same time.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Suzuki pulled out his map and checked how far they were from their destination. José hadn’t told them too much about what they were riding toward, just that it was a small hamlet to the east. Suzuki wondered if they would recognize it when they got there. So far, there hadn’t been any signs of civilization, just idyllic nature.

  “You know, I don’t really know what we’re up against this time,” Suzuki said. “I didn’t even think of that when José sent us off. Even Milos told us a little bit about what we were getting ourselves into.”

  “Diana said that’s part of how vets do the quests,” Sandy explained. “Each quest is kind of like a test, I guess. They take assigning them pretty seriously. That’s why we were given the run around so much before. I thought it was just MERCs being assholes. Turns out, nobody wanted to take responsibility for us getting killed.”

  “Guess that makes sense.”

  Stew bit into his porkchop as he dumped dirt over the fire to extinguish it. “Still feels like they were being assholes.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that we could get really hurt if we don’t watch out for each other. Your head gonna be in the game, Suzuki?”

  Suzuki nodded as he stood and walked toward his axbeak. “Have I ever let you guys down?” he asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I’m gonna keep it that way.”

  The Mundanes rode off into the afternoon sun. The little break was exactly what Suzuki had needed. Even if he was worried about the looming war, he knew that the Mundanes were going to have his back. He was going to have theirs as well.

  They rode for the rest of the day, hardly taking any time to rest. Their axbeaks were exhausted by mid-afternoon, and Sandy talked the guys into taking a break next to a river that flowed through the meadow. Then they were up and moving again.

  The meadow faded around them, and they came to a village. The doors of all of the houses had been boarded up, and the streets were filled with glass. The smell of death and decomposition hung heavy in the air. As they went farther into the town, the smell got less bearable. The Mundanes stopped riding once they got to the center. There were piles of dead elves stacked as if they were going to be burned.

  Stew jumped off his axbeak and approached the closest pile as he pinched his nose. “Holy shit,” he murmured. “Guess this is why people don’t go far from the Red Lion on a regular basis.”

  Sandy walked up beside Stew. She looked like she was going to cry or vomit or both at the same time. “Yeah, Chip told me most recruits hardly ever get sent this far out. This is fucked up. I wonder what happened.”

  “Looks like they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “It’s fucked up when your home is the wrong place,” Stew said.

  Suzuki looked down at one of the piles of bodies. This was what the forces of the Dark One did. He knew it was them beyond a doubt. “We should get going,” he said finally.

  “Hold on,” Sandy said. She looked around and raised her hands to the air. “Inferno,” she whispered.

  The piles of bodies caught fire, and the flies laying their eggs rose in a large black swarm. The sky filled with dark clouds.

  Sandy walked back to her axbeak and mounted it. “It’s the least that we can do. The dead shouldn’t be l
eft like that.”

  The Mundanes departed from the village and continued to ride until sunset. They hardly spoke to each other, ruminating on what they had seen in the village. When they stopped to make camp, they ate a silent meal, the flames flickering and their shadows growing long and strange.

  No one said goodnight.

  They each went to their tents in their own time, and Suzuki asked Sandy to cast any warding spells she knew. He also cast Alarm and Clairvoyance for good measure. The spells should warn them of any danger.

  It took Suzuki a while to fall asleep. He couldn’t get the sight of the dead elves’ eyes out of his mind. When he did finally fall asleep, his dreams were black and frightening.

  Not that he remembered any of them, for when sleep came, it took him as swiftly as death whisks away one’s soul.

  12

  The Mundanes broke camp as the sun crested the green hills to the East, setting the sky ablaze in a spectrum of colors.

  Suzuki hardly noticed it.

  He packed up his tent, his sleeping bag, and his books, working in a haze. The world seemed dull around him. He felt like he was in the opening of the Wizard of Oz. He had stepped back into Kansas, back into a gray, sterile world.

  Sandy and Stew were no better. Neither of them spoke during their quick breakfast: runny eggs and undercooked bacon. Sandy hardly looked up when Stew leaned over to give her a kiss before they mounted their axbeaks. The sight from the night before hung over them all like a guillotine blade ready to fall.

  Suzuki knew he should probably say something. He was the leader of the party. He’d given rousing speeches to dig them out of a funk before, and this really wasn’t that much different. Except it felt different. Something deep within Suzuki made him feel as if the carnage they had seen last night held some higher meaning. It was an omen of sorts.

  They traveled in silence toward the East. Even the axbeaks didn’t give them much attitude, barely acting up in their usual way.

  The terrain of the country was changing as they made their way East. The flat plains had disappeared and there were rolling hills in the distance, some to the side. Suzuki pulled up the map on his HUD and tried to figure out exactly where they were.

  Suzuki couldn’t focus. He didn’t see roads or terrain on the map. All he saw were lines that he knew were supposed to mean something, but he couldn’t figure out what they were. His hands were trembling, and he shakily turned off his HUD.

  Suzuki felt Fred uncurling from around his mind. You humans seem to be lacking in banter this morning, Fred said.

  Just tired, Suzuki responded.

  You slept for ten hours last night. Are human bodies so frail that they require twelve hours of sleep?

  I’m not in the mood, Fred.

  No? All this week, you’ve wanted nothing more than to trade quips and sarcastic comments with me. Now all of a sudden, you’re too tired to talk?

  Suzuki sighed. Fred, I’m not in the mood.

  Perhaps you aren’t, Fred hissed. Neither are your companions. You all seem to be…disturbed.

  No, we’re cool, Suzuki said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Stop worrying.

  Fine. Have it your way.

  The Mundanes rode until noon, crossing a valley and descending into a low field that was surrounded by hills on both sides. The hills were covered with a bloom of orange and pink flowers which filled the valley with a sweet, perfume-like scent which carried undertones of stone and damp moss.

  Suzuki thought the scent was familiar. Something about it reminded him of home, of a time that he and his father had spent together camping up in the hills near his home.

  If Suzuki closed his eyes, he could almost see the river that he and his father used to camp beside and the trees that stretched overhead in a canopy that filtered light so that it looked as if shards of light lay between each blade of grass. He could see his father, silhouetted in the rising sun, smoking a cigarette, face haloed in wisps of smoke.

  Suzuki couldn’t keep his eyes closed. His axbeak was trying to buck him off its backside. He tapped its forehead roughly and looked up ahead. Even Sandy’s axbeak was giving her a hard time. It tried to veer off the road, and Sandy was barely able to catch its attention before it would have tossed her off. Suzuki wondered what all this was doing to their travel time.

  The map Suzuki had been given was very concise in some areas and in others, completely lacking. What the map lacked in quest clarity was made up with specific notes on time and distance. According to the map, they should have already reached the village that they were riding toward. That was not the case. From what Suzuki could figure out, they were running a few hours behind schedule.

  Suzuki snapped the reins of his axbeak and trotted to catch up with Sandy. “Hey, Sandy,” Suzuki ventured. “How are you holding up?”

  Sandy turned around. Her eyes were foggy. A smile hung on her face like a painting placed over a crack in the wall. “Huh? What am I holding?”

  “No, I asked how you are holding up. You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m good. I’m just hoping that we aren’t lost or anything like that. It feels like we’ve been riding forever.”

  “Ass sore?”

  “Huh?”

  “I asked if your ass is sore.”

  Suzuki desperately hoped that Stew would say something. He had set Stew up for the punchline. Even though Stew was riding next to Sandy, he didn’t bother saying anything. His eyes stared blankly ahead as he absentmindedly thumped the back of his axbeak’s head. Suzuki would have killed for a sex joke. It didn’t matter how crass or awkward it was. Anything would have been better than the silence, the ever-growing, deepening silence.

  It was a silence that echoed. Or rather, didn’t echo…like the village they had ridden through.

  There had been no sounds of children playing.

  Suzuki pushed the thought out of his head and focused on the road. He tried to listen to the sound of the axbeak’s claws as they dug into the ground. There was a rhythm to their movement, almost like a chicken scratching a beat.

  The ground in the village had been scratched as well. Whatever had torn through that village was the owner of a particularly nasty, large set of claws. The ground surrounding the pile of dead bodies looked like a massive rake had been dragged through the dirt.

  Suzuki forced his mind back to the present. They were riding East. They were looking for an ancient item José needed. They were the Mundanes, the victors of multiple battles, friends who cared deeply about each other, who were going to rescue…

  No one had come to rescue those villagers. Maybe no one knew. Maybe no one cared.

  It came rushing up before Suzuki realized what was happening. He jumped off his axbeak and ran to the side of the road. He fell to his knees. All of his body was shaking. His skin was hot, it felt almost too hot to touch. He wanted to rip his clothes off, to crawl out of his skin, to run screaming into the hills.

  He vomited instead.

  Stew and Sandy dismounted their axbeaks. Sandy ran over to Suzuki and knelt beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder as Suzuki trembled. Suzuki was repeating something under his breath, but it was muted through his tremors. Sandy leaned forward to hear better.

  “No one rescued them.”

  Suzuki repeated this over and over. It was boring itself into his skull like some kind of sadistic mantra. No one had saved them. There were piles of unmarked graves a mere two days ride from the MERC encampment—and there hadn’t been one MERC body.

  Sandy shook Suzuki, and they both tumbled onto the grass. The contact woke Suzuki up. He pushed Sandy away, rolled over, and stumbled to his feet. The haze was starting to clear, the heat was fading.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Stew shouted.

  Suzuki whipped around as he closed his eyes as hard as he could until everything was black, and he took a deep breath.

  “Suzuki, what the fuck are you doing!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Suzuki
shouted back.

  Suzuki opened his eyes and took a deep breath. The air felt good in his lungs, almost like it was pure light.

  Stew and Sandy were standing next to each other, clenching hands. Sandy’s face was as white as a sheet of paper. Stew looked as if someone had slit his throat and bled him slowly.

  Suzuki took a step forward, determined not to let their weird behavior get under his skin. Both Stew and Sandy took a step back when Suzuki approached them. “What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Suzuki asked.

  Stew pointed to Suzuki’s hand.

  Suzuki looked down. His sword was gripped tightly in his hand.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Stew asked.

  Suzuki dropped the sword. It fell mutely to the ground. He backed away as the sword cracked and split into a million different pieces that disappeared. “What the fuck?” Suzuki murmured as he stared at his hand. Even though it had been said a couple times already, Suzuki couldn’t help but think it again. What the fuck was going on?

  Stew and Sandy were still watching Suzuki with alarm. Sandy was biting her fingernails, and Stew was picking at the skin on his arms.

  Suzuki laughed. He tried to make it sound as natural as he could. It sounded phony even to him, and he covered it by coughing. “My fucking HUD,” he stammered. “The fucker’s been acting up all day.” Suzuki smacked his HUD for added effect.

  Sandy took a step toward him. She looked extremely calm.

  Suzuki had seen that look before. It was how she looked at something she was about to light up, like he was a threat she was about to deal with.

  Sandy raised her hand. Suzuki closed his eyes, waiting for the heat, the kiss of flames against his skin.

  Suzuki felt Sandy’s hand on his temple. He cracked one eye open.

  Sandy had taken Suzuki’s HUD off and was turning it over in her hand. “Fucking Chipmaster,” she muttered. “I let her install an SD last week, and my HUD kept pulling my coin pouch out every time that I activated it. We should get her to check it out when you get back. You can just restart it for now. That should help.” Sandy handed Suzuki’s HUD back as Stew came up beside her.