Dungeon Master

by Eric Vall

  I quickly glanced at the petite cat. Carmedy gulped and ran a shaky hand through her black hair. She didn’t seem at all pleased by her discovery and obviously thought that this wasn’t going to go well.

  Rana and I peered out from behind the bush. The Bardens were indeed there, about thirty yards away. They walked in a tight group with their heads each turned in different directions to cover all blind spots, something which should have been a part of our strategy. Each of the dark-haired men had their weapon drawn, and Luke led the way through the woods with an angry yet determined expression stuck on his face.

  “Any of you know where that whistle came from yet?” Luke said to his brothers with a frown.

  “I think it came from over there.” The tallest Barden pointed in front of them in the complete opposite direction from where we currently hid. Carmedy struggled to keep back a snicker, but Rana elbowed her and gave a severe look to quiet her.

  “No, I think it came from over there,” the twins said in unison, but one pointed to their left, and the other pointed to their right.

  “You guys really are useless sometimes.” Luke shook his head and continued to scan the trees.

  “Okay,” Rana said quietly as she turned to Annalíse. “So what are we going to do now?”

  “What I said before,” Annalíse whispered as she unsheathed the sword on her hip. “We rush them.” With that, she stood up from our hiding place, walked around the bush, and jogged toward the group of brothers.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” The fox sighed in frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is madness.”

  We all gave each other quick glances and hesitated to follow, but we too rose to our feet. We had agreed to follow this plan, or rather I had made the decision that we would do so. And even though every bone in my body screamed at me to run grab Annalíse and bring her to her senses, I had to see this through, or more importantly, she had to, at least until it was made clear to the freckled human how wrong she had been.

  The rest of us hurried behind Annalíse, who zig-zagged through the expansive forest and quickly closed the distance between herself and the troop of dark-haired men. That’s when she stepped on a branch, and it made a loud crack from the sudden weight pressed upon it.

  My breath caught in my chest. That sound would have been noticed in any normal forest with the typical wildlife sounds, but in these silent woods, she may have well beat a drum. We no longer had the element of surprise, and it would not be long before our presence was discovered.

  Luke and the rest of his siblings stopped in their tracks and began to turn in the direction of the sound, and Annalíse froze in place. Her eyes darted to either side of her, and she rushed to hide behind one of the trees, but it was too late, she had already been discovered.

  “There!” Luke shouted and pointed to Annalíse before she concealed herself behind one of the mighty trees.

  Had she reacted more quickly, the men wouldn’t have seen her, but truthfully it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have known we were there regardless because of the sound of the branch being snapped. Besides that, the reaction time of the other women had also been a bit slow, even if Annalíse hadn’t been seen, they would have been.

  Annalíse huffed as she pressed her back against the wooden giant’s trunk. The rest of us rushed to take cover behind trees as well, but I was sure that we too had been spotted. Annalíse’s plan was already falling apart, but I would bide my time for now before intervening.

  With sword drawn, Luke rushed toward the tree where Annalíse was hiding as the swordswoman poked her head out from behind it. She released a raspy grunt, stepped out from her hiding place, and planted her feet firmly on the ground with her sword held out in front of her in preparation of his attack.

  Luke let out a guttural yell as he swung his sword over his head and brought it down toward Annalíse’s skull. The female warrior took a step back, knelt slightly and raised her weapon to block his attack. The sound of metal clashing against metal rang throughout the forest.

  Just then, a few more warlike cries reached my ears. The other Bardens had spread out to take each of us on and ran toward us. Without hesitation, I drew the God Slayer from my void pocket and tapped it hard on the earthy floor to summon its blades. Rana, Morrigan, and I came out from behind the trees and stood poised to meet the Bardens’ charge. Carmedy, however, crouched down behind her tree and peered out fearfully from behind its thick trunk.

  “Carmedy, what are you doing?” Rana hissed. “Get your fuzzy butt over here!”

  “N-no thanks,” Carmedy stammered. “I’ll stay right here if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” Rana said sternly. “This plan is ridiculous enough as it is, we don’t need you pulling a disappearing act now. We have to stand together.”

  “Oh, alright,” Carmedy mumbled, and she reluctantly stood to her feet and joined us. She grimaced at the sight of the approaching enemies and placed a shaky hand on one of the pouches on her belt.

  “Ready?” Rana nodded at the cat.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Carmedy said, her voice barely audible.

  Then the chaos began.

  The tallest Barden brother was the first to reach our group, and he swung his sword toward Rana’s neck as he let out a shout. The fox-girl ducked at precisely the right moment and sent a well-executed kick to the man’s kneecap. The lanky dark-haired man stumbled backward as he yelled out a string of pained curses. Rana shot the man a haughty smile, and she moved to strike at him again before he could recover.

  My opponent was the shorter but bulkier Barden brother. Once he reached me, the man repeatedly sliced wildly at my stomach in an effort to spill my innards onto the forest floor. The first few times he slashed at me, I easily sidestepped his sword like an adult would avoid a toddler’s clumsy attacks, but the last time, I raised my sinister looking weapon to block his strike.

  The pole of my halberd met with the metal of the brawny man’s sword. A lesser weapon would have broken under the force of his blow, but what I held in my hands was no average fighting implement, it was the forged embodiment of rage, torment, and death. He snarled at me when he saw that the pole hadn’t cracked, and he pushed toward me. He was strong, but I was stronger and held my ground easily. Then I pushed forward with enough force to cause him to stumble backward.

  The man quickly steadied himself and lunged toward me once more. With a savage look in his eye, he slashed at my chest. I sidestepped again and immediately swung my halberd at one of his arms. The brawny man moved to avoid the swing, but he was too slow to move his girth. The Barden brother cried out in pain and clutched at the wound in his arm as the blood began to flow down his limb. Had he reacted a second slower, his arm would have been severed. I used the distraction of his pain to my advantage and punched him square in the face. His jaw shattered, and then he flew backward and crashed to the ground unconscious.

  I turned away from the downed Barden with a snort. I didn’t need to use my necromantic abilities, nor did I need to fuse my power with the God Slayer. Using my halberd as a common weapon would be enough to keep all the Bardens at bay. Besides, if I ended this too quickly, Annalíse wouldn’t be able to use this as an opportunity for improvement.

  Suddenly, I heard a shriek come from my left side, and I glanced briefly to see who it had come from. Carmedy was darting through the trees trying to escape from one of the twins. The cat hastily plucked one of the bundles from the belt around her waist as I moved toward her and tossed it over her shoulder without looking.

  I sighed in relief when I saw the small sack hit its running target and explode into a cloud of pale, pink powder, but my relief was short-lived. I had expected the man to cry out in pain or to at least be slowed down somehow.

  To my dismay, the twin didn’t stop his sprint when the bundle struck his chest. Not only that, moments after the pouch hit him, his speed increased. The freckled twin’s face twisted in confusion, but it quickly c
hanged to a sinister grin. I wasn’t sure what Carmedy had thrown at him, but whatever it was, it had made him stronger.

  The cat-girl quickly looked over her shoulder and yelped when she saw that the man was rapidly gaining ground.

  “Morrigan, give Carmedy some help,” I calmly asked the pale elf who had just begun a soul exorcism on the other twin Barden.

  The man’s back was pressed against one of the tree trunks and shoved ten feet off the ground by the dark magic. His arms hung limply, and his head was tilted to one side, his eyes full of fear. Morrigan turned her head slowly to me, her eyes swallowed in darkness, and sighed. She released her hold on her victim and rushed away to help Carmedy.

  The big Barden I’d knocked unconscious was somehow starting to awaken, so I strolled back to him. As I approached him, I observed that Rana was still engaged with the lanky Barden brother. The fox woman darted back and forth to avoid the man’s sweeping attacks, and every so often she would land a punch or kick. Why wasn’t she using her daggers? This would have made her task much easier.

  The burly brother raised himself up to a seated position, groaned, rubbed at his head, and then clutched his blood-stained arm and broken jaw. His sword had fallen from his grasp, and he started to reach for it, but right before his hand reached the hilt, I pointed the God-Slayer at his throat. The man gulped and scowled up at me as he held up his hands in surrender.

  “I want you to keep one hand up in the air,” I seethed. “Use the other to slowly reach for your token. Make any sudden movements, and I’ll cut off your arm.”

  The Barden brother glowered at me but obeyed and slowly moved his left hand toward his trouser pocket.

  At that moment, I heard movement behind me. I instinctively dove to my left and rolled away as a sword’s blade crashed down where my shoulder had just been. I didn’t really need to dodge, since my powerful armor would have absorbed a mere mortal’s sword stroke, but my body’s natural reflexes had kicked in to preserve this form’s life.

  I turned to see the angry face of the twin that Morrigan had released when she had gone to aid Carmedy. The muscular man that I had been so close to overtaking chuckled wickedly and rose to his feet to join his brother. Both turned to face me with their weapons in their hands, and a bit of excitement blossomed in my stomach when I saw their smug faces. These men thought they had the best of me, but in a few moments, their faces would wear looks of horror when I gutted them.

  Before I could engage the brothers, Annalíse let out a raspy cry. I heard the clang of swords and turned to see that my minion had been completely disarmed. The sword that she always carried at her hip was now in Luke’s hand, and her new sword Bloodscale had been knocked several feet away from her. With an evil smile, Luke slowly walked toward a very furious Annalíse who backpedaled to stay out of reach. As she moved, the warrior woman turned to look at us all, and I saw her face pale when she realized we were about to lose.

  “So you thought you could sneak up on us, huh?” Luke sneered. “Stupid woman, you’re in way over your head.”

  I sighed and then shook my head. This had gone on long enough, and it was time for me to take control of the situation.

  “That is enough,” I said, and then I used a fraction of the power I had obtained from the last dungeon deity to cause the sword in Luke’s hand to heat up. The weapon instantly turned orange around the hilt, and he let out a surprised scream as he let go of it.

  Then I snapped my armored fingers, and the group of brothers all stopped moving as if they were statues.

  “Minions,” I called out to the four women. “Come to me.”

  “Uhhh, what happened?” Rana said as she hesitantly reached out to the man she had been fighting. He stood with his sword held back as if he was about to swing it, but he was frozen.

  “It is time to learn from me,” I said, and then I turned to Annalíse.

  “Come here,” I instructed her as I beckoned with my pointer finger.

  The warrior woman’s brown eyes were wide, and she nodded quickly before she picked both of her swords off the ground. Then she trotted over to where I stood as Rana, Carmedy, and Morrigan all came to stand beside me.

  “What did you learn, Minion?” I asked as I set my eyes on Annalíse.

  “I-I should have listened,” she said as she glanced at the ground.

  “Precisely,” I said. “I will not belabor the point, but the four of you are all equal parts intelligent, wise, cunning, and clever. I value you all as my servants, and I do not choose my minions unwisely. I expect you to all have respect for each other’s opinion and work together to please me.”

  The four women were silent for a few moments, but then Annalíse nodded.

  “Soooo, what did you do to them?” Rana finally asked as she gestured to Luke.

  “It is just a small part of my magic,” I explained, “but they are paralyzed.”

  “So… we win?” Rana asked. “Let’s grab their tokens and--”

  “No,” I growled. “Luke and his brothers won this round because our team had a terrible plan of attack. We will fall back, regroup, and then you four will come up with another plan that will be more successful.”

  “But they are right there!” Rana groaned. “They are frozen in place! I can just take the tokens from the pockets and--”

  “No,” I repeated.

  “I can’t believe this,” the fox-girl groaned as if she was actually in physical pain.

  “We do what Master says,” Morrigan said, and Carmedy nodded.

  “Let’s fall back,” Annalíse whispered as she hung her head. “I’ve let you all down, and--”

  “One of them grabbed my token,” Carmedy squealed. “Should we at least get that one back?”

  “No,” I said as I turned to walk away from the frozen men. “They won this battle fairly, so they can keep their prize. When we next meet, you will have a better plan, and then we will win the war.”

  The four women didn’t say anything. They silently fell in step behind me as we walked away from the scene of the clumsy battle. I guessed that they must have thought I was angry with them, but that was not the case at all. Despite Annalíse’s clumsy plan, they had all performed well.

  They simply needed a bit of mentoring to reach their potential.

  “How long will the men stay frozen with your dark powers, Master?” Morrigan finally asked after we had walked for about twenty minutes.

  “A few hours,” I answered.

  “Wow,” Carmedy gasped. “Master is so powerful.”

  “He is,” Morrigan agreed as she slowly blinked at me.

  “Yeah, it was good we had demon man here with us,” Rana huffed as she glared at Annalíse.

  “I agree,” the freckled warrior woman said.

  “So, now are you convinced that your plan was crazy?” Rana hissed. “That was a complete disaster.”

  “I will admit that my plan had a few… snags,” Annalíse said under her breath as she furrowed her brow.

  “A few snags?” Rana snorted at the human woman in disbelief. “There were not a few snags, there were a ton. Better yet, they weren’t snags. Snags implies that they were small and insignificant. No, I’d call them gaping holes.”

  “You did make some rather egregious errors in your planning, Annalíse,” Morrigan chimed in with her usual unemotional tone. “Though truthfully, there seemed to be very little planning that went into this. It seems as though you went with the first plan that came to your head.”

  “Exactly,” Rana said as she shook her head. “And now we’ve lost a token.”

  “Alright, alright, you’ve made your point,” Annalíse grumbled. “I made some mistakes.”

  “Big ones,” Rana pointed out.

  “Fine,” Annalíse said with a slight groan. “Big mistakes.”

  “Did you see what happened back there?” Rana huffed. “We could have gotten slaughtered, and it didn’t help that you stepped on that branch.” The fox shook her head disapprovingly. “
Now do you understand why I said your plan wasn’t going to work?”

  “Yes, Rana.” Annalíse furrowed her brows as she wove around one of the trees. “I get it.”

  “I’m just making sure.” Rana continued her criticism. “You can be stubborn sometimes. Your way isn’t always the best way you know.”

  Annalíse grimaced at the red-haired woman’s words but said nothing. Rana wasn’t dropping the subject, and Annalíse had probably run out of retorts. It was plain to see that the swordswoman already understood the error of her ways, so there was no need to scold her further.

  “Rana isn’t trying to make you feel guilty.” I cleared my throat to break the uncomfortable silence. “Right, Rana?” I narrowed my eyes slightly at the fox.

  “Oh, uh… no, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad or anything Annalíse,” Rana sputtered. “I only wanted you to understand the consequences.”

  “I think she understands,” I said gently. “Don’t you, Annalíse?” The freckled woman was quiet for a moment.

  “Yes, I understand.” She finally sighed. “My plan was foolhardy and dangerous. Someone could have gotten hurt.”

  “Patience is as important to a warrior as their weapon,” I said kindly. “The best warriors that the continents have ever known were extremely skilled in battle strategy and knew the importance of consulting with their war council.”

  “You’re right,” Annalíse said softly. “I’m sorry.” She pulled a blade of grass from the ground and absently twirled it in her fingers.

  “It’s alright.” I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “The important thing is that you grow from this experience.”

  “That’s right.” Rana nodded. “You gotta forge ahead. I’m uh, I’m sorry I kept going on about it.”

  “It’s okay,” Annalíse said with a faint smile. “You’re right. I am stubborn. I guess it takes a lot to convince me that I’m wrong, huh?”

  “Kinda.” Rana winced. “Don’t worry though, you’re still our favorite human in the group.” The fox-girl’s lips spread into a wide smile.