Knives in the Night

by Nathan A. Thompson

  I had glanced toward the prisoners while she was speaking, but at the critical note, I turned back to face her. I was about to verbally tear her head off for giving me shit when I had done nothing but help since my arrival, but I reined in my temper at the sight of the pained grief still visible in her eyes.

  So I put on my big boy pants, and kept my tone level as I answered her.

  “The planets and ancient civilizations recognized my authority on their own, without my request, or even my consent,” I replied as patiently as I could. “I have accepted their allegiance because it enhances my ability to stop Tumults and drive out the Malus invaders. And no,” I added, letting just a bit of displeasure bleed into my tone, “I am not going to be like the previous Challengers, who were all able to leave Avalon and her sister worlds once all Tumults and Trials were defeated. When Avalon was invaded and their call for aid went unanswered, I was captured and repeatedly tortured to death. I won’t go into the details beyond that, but the end result is that I can no longer return to Earth, and likely never will be able to. So you will all have to deal with my existence for some time. That said, I am not interested in managing your daily affairs. Undoing the current occupations and apocalypses are taxing enough.

  “That also means I’m not going to tell you what to do with your former colleagues,” I continued, making sure to hold her gaze with my own. “I’m just one man, no matter what fancy titles and powers I have. I simply don’t have time to weigh the matter as a proper judge should—and I especially don’t have time to convince you all that I can be impartial and fair in determining their fate.”

  Headmaster Yama frowned at that, apparently recognizing that I noted her distrust for me.

  “I will say this,” I finished with a slash of my hand, “do not deal with them in a way that would cause any of you to undergo a Descent. If that happens, you will move from grief into something darker, and everyone in your world will be the worse off for it. Work with each other to make sure none of you go too far. And yes, that is one thing my people and I will help with, if asked.”

  I was about to add that if I could manage to avoid Descending somehow after everything I had gone through, then the woman in front of me could do the same. But something told me that she would react badly to my pain claiming to trump her own, so I focused on what abusing her anger would cost her, and left my message at that.

  The way her gaze softened at my words led me to hope that I had made the right choice.

  “That is…a fair and generous request,” Headmaster Yama replied. “Thank you. We will still punish them, and punish them harshly, but hopefully in a way that still saves our own minds. Thank you,” she repeated, bowing respectfully and then walking away.

  I let her and the other Testifiers have the time they needed to work through their emotions, and then we moved to the next item of business: ensuring that we had completely cleared the city of dark Earthborn, slaughtering any Hordebeasts on patrol in the streets, and finally planning the destruction of the Horde Pit and reclamation of its victims.

  That was where things finally started to go wrong.

  We chose to slow down a bit, because the Horde patrolling the city seemed more dangerous to the locals than those guarding the Pit. That part was the right call, because we knew that any loose Horde in the city could decide to go on a killing spree, while the ones near the Pit wouldn’t think to hurt the Pit victims, which were still powering their growth. With that knowledge in mind, I assigned the Wealthwalkers to work with the local Testifiers in tracking down the remaining Horde patrols still roaming Mejem’s streets. As far as I knew, we got to them all before they decided the city was lost and began indiscriminately slaughtering civilians.

  But that took time; most of the day in fact, since we were so thorough about it.

  And apparently, the act somehow notified the Horde back at the Pit.

  That was a guess on my part. I still didn’t understand just how sentient the actual Pits were. I knew they could talk, and that they could pledge themselves to other powerful creatures, and possibly even physically attack someone in their vicinity. I also knew that they could be tricked into destroying themselves, and that my doing so had somehow created the first Ball-ee.

  But I had forgotten that the Pits now reacted differently to my presence, ever since they had realized that I intended to destroy all of them, and that they could produce more Hordebeasts when threatened.

  For whatever reason, the one near Mejem felt very, very threatened.

  We hadn’t noticed at first. The trek to the site had been encounter-free, and the Wealthwalkers had found the tunnel in the sand quite easily. In fact, they had been concerned over just how easily they had found it, and most of them had wanted to stay outside because they suspected some kind of ambush—and because the tunnel was too narrow for them to be useful with their bows.

  Instead they insisted upon guarding the entrance and promising to try to dig me out if the tunnel collapsed, which was when I finally began to feel concerned.

  But there was nothing to be done about it. The remainder of my team was fairly small and elite anyway, so we ventured forth into the long underground hallway of warped stone and black-oil torches.

  We eased slowly down the gloomy corridor, with Eadric checking the stonework for traps, and Weylin, Salima, and Val watching the shadows for ambushers. Despite our combined efforts, we found absolutely nothing for the first several hundred feet.

  No Horde guards. No echoes of Ilklings or Wretches cackling and cavorting deeper within the dark passages. No trapped stonework that would trigger a rock or spike trap. Just empty, narrow tunnels interspersed with torches and the typical Horde artwork of mutated stick figures doing horrible things to non-mutated stick figures.

  Which had to mean that we had already triggered their trap, and we all knew it. The Horde never left their dungeons completely unguarded. We would have encountered either some kind of alarm trap or some oily little Ilklings running around doing maintenance.

  And the Pits were already paranoid about me. That should have gone without saying, but ever since I had convinced the first Avalonian Pit to destroy itself, the rest of the monster-making oozes commanded their bestial children to engage me in combat as early as possible in order to prevent me from coming any closer to them. Stopping me was literally a religion for them by now. One they constantly proclaimed, in freaking Earthborn English, spoken out loud and scrawled on the walls of their homes: kill the traitor-prince.

  The wall writing, I said through the mindlink suddenly, and Eadric, Karim, and Val all said the exact same thing at almost the exact same time.

  The writings and murals were devoid of Script and Shaping magic. That had been one of the first features that my three Testifiers had checked, and one they still glanced at periodically. Not to mention the fact that the Horde had never used their creepy cave-art for anything but self-expression in the past.

  But as we all examined a specific area a little more closely, we found that the words ‘kill the traitor-prince’ had begun to leak Horde oil.

  When we all leaned in to inspect it more closely, the oil flared with green fire, sending a burning trail along the walls, leading us all the way back to the tunnel entrance.

  Rumbling sounded from that direction, and the still-trailing daylight dimmed and vanished.

  Cave-in, Eadric said as the roof of the tunnel continued to rumble, and it’s coming this way.

  We did the only thing left to do, running deeper into the Horde tunnels as sand and stone began to tumble behind us. I swore and drew Breaker as we ran, but there were still no creatures and no traps in front of us, aside from the still-blazing wall art.

  But the rumbling faded in less than a minute. A cloud of dust filtered toward us, but no more rocks fell and we still had air to breathe. The Horde torches still continued to burn as well, so we still had enough light to see with.

  The non-panicking part of my mind decided that made sense. The creatures of
the Horde needed air to breathe and light to see with, as no one could see through total darkness without magic. That told me that the Pits themselves still valued self-preservation above all else. They wanted to kill me without losing anything more in the process.

  Which meant that either we could help the Wealthwalkers dig us out, or that there was another tunnel somewhere in the subterranean labyrinth that led back to the surface.

  But then the halls began to shake again, and I realized it wasn’t another cave-in.

  It was the rumble caused by hundreds, possibly even thousands, of feet striking the ground, and half as many voices crying out a familiar phrase.

  “Traitor-prince! Traitor-prince! Catch and kill the traitor-prince!”

  CHAPTER 11: AMBUSHED

  It was amazing just how many times a person could call themselves “idiot” in the span of several seconds. I should have planned better, my brain screamed. We use traps all the time; we should have expected our enemies to catch on and do the same. I’ve gotten complacent.

  The damned thing yammered on while my team and I communicated quickly through the mindlink, rushing ourselves into a position that would assist us in dealing with the untold thousands of bodies heading our direction. Just how big is this Pit? my brain finally stopped screaming at itself long enough to ask.

  It was more important to finish getting into position than to answer my incoherent thoughts. I drew my Woadfather shield and locked it in place, together with Breyn and Eadric’s barriers. Gabin and Karim took position on either side of us, their longer weapons buzzing slightly with Script magic. Breena and Petal flew over our heads to secure a firing position on the ceiling, while Salima, Weylin, and Val slunk into the shadows to better ambush anyone who managed to get through our front line.

  Organizing ourselves all happened in a manner of seconds, even though we were a much larger team, with the very recent addition of Salima. I was immensely proud of everyone, reflecting on just how fortunate I was to have such efficient team members, and on just how freaking painful the massive green fireballs landing among us were.

  The hideous chartreuse flames burned through our hastily raised wards and seared against our armor and flesh. They weren’t enough to kill us, both because of said wards, and because even Val and the fairies had powerful vital guards by now. They did, however, hurt like hell, they affected our concentration, and I had every reason to believe that more would follow, based on my previous encounters with Spawn Hordebeasts.

  I peered down the hall to see if I could spot the enemy casters, but the torches further ahead had dimmed, and a brown haze concealed every detail but the blurry outlines of tall, lanky figures.

  Even that scant amount of evidence was enough for me to go on. I traced Script magic into the air with a finger, intoning the proper Song inflections, while also arcing my movements to bring aspects of Shaping magic into play, in order to single-handedly create an augmentation field for our Ideal spells. Breena and Petal reacted immediately, firing off their stored respective fireballs and lightning bolts, while Eadric raised, then Shaped, a waist-high earthen barrier to protect us from further fire. Not to be excluded, Gabin and Karim reinforced the barrier with a wall of glowing Script.

  Another green fireball arced toward us, but the new barriers absorbed most of the damage, and Breena began repairing our burns with Wood and Water spells. I let her work uninterrupted as Eadric, Breyn, Karim, and I began our own artillery barrage of fire and lightning.

  Our output turned out to be several times greater than that of our enemies, thanks to my enhancement spells and the sheer number of magic users in my retinue. Our projectiles tore apart the haze in the distance and created their own cloud of magic devastation.

  But by the time said cloud had cleared from the end of the hallway, only a handful of broken bodies were revealed, only one of which was large enough to have been a Spawn.

  From further within the murky depths, a throaty neigh bellowed out, and the cacophony of angry footfalls resumed.

  They had baited most of our stored magic right out of us, losing less than ten Hordebeasts in the exchange.

  I swore in frustration, angry that I had led us into a trap, and that I was still so off my game.

  Easy, Wes, Breena piped encouragingly into my mind. We still got this.

  Her words calmed me, which in turn helped to settle everyone else through the mindlink. We fell back into our tactics and began hastily crafting as many trap spells as we could manage.

  We didn’t have much time, but the ten of us were still able to turn the entire hallway ahead of us into a cleverly concealed hellscape of arcane aggression.

  And then our enemies rounded the corner, and I felt the stones on the floor rattle in sync with my ear drums.

  High-pitched voices screamed in agony as tiny bodies were torn apart by kaleidoscopic blasts of magic. I frowned as I recognized the Hordebeasts as Ilklings, the weakest and most common variety of Horde. They were supposed to be the workers and fodder of the bestial army, so it wasn’t too surprising to learn that they had been forced to lead the charge.

  Still, I wasn’t expecting there to be so many of them. Their corpses practically formed a carpet of oily, wrinkled bodies, one that another small army of Wretches utilized to walk over our traps when they rounded around the corner. The deer-like monsters cackled and brayed as their feet and hooves crunched over their kin, but it was a long hallway, and the Ilklings hadn’t reached the halfway point before the last of them had blown apart on a Script-enhanced Earth Spike. As soon as the first short, antlered thing cleared the protection of his gory carpet, he sizzled with lightning, locked up, and fell to the floor as a scorched husk. A few of the Wretches behind him brayed out in fear, but an angry roar sounded somewhere in the distance behind them, and they kept charging.

  At least everyone is holding their fire, I thought as I suppressed a grimace. These days, we were usually able to clear out far more powerful Hordebeasts with our traps and preparations. I couldn’t remember the last time we hadn’t at least cleared out a Mongrel or two by the time our enemies finally came into melee range.

  But the Horde had predicted me perfectly this time. They had gotten the drop on us, forced us to waste a chunk of healing magic and stored attack spells, and now were depleting our traps with the kind of creatures we could kill by punting them to death with our feet. No more than a handful of Wretches would live to make it to us, but it would still be enough to make us use our active magics on whatever next wave of disgusting monsters came running around the corner.

  Calm down, I reminded myself, calling to mind the lessons from Dad, Virtus, and Stell. The worst thing you can do after making a mistake is to beat yourself up over it instead of trying to correct it. So I burned mana and refreshed my signature spells as the last of the cannon fodder died to our floor traps.

  One seared Wretch in blackened chain mail crawled his way through the last of the explosive cobblestones far enough to look up at our Script-warded, earthen wall. He whined in pitiful protest before Karim’s new Atlantean staff reached over and smashed into the monster’s antlered skull, crushing horn, helmet, and brain.

  We savored the few moments of blissful silence, but then the arcane smoke finally cleared from the hallway, and the roars and footsteps resumed.

  And this time, they were even louder.

  A bonafide army came rushing around the distant corner, armor and weapons rattling in accompaniment to the footsteps and growls. Miscreants and Mongrels, the real soldiers of the Horde, charged forward, outfitted in a mix of high-quality chain mail reinforced on the limbs and shoulders with obsidian-colored plates, along with open-faced helmets for their heads. The dog-and-cat-faced Miscreants led the way with their shields, managing to run in formation, while the Mongrels with their heavy cleavers followed closely behind.

  It was the most coordinated assault I had ever seen the Horde launch by far, including all the times they had been led by supposedly more intelligent beings
.

  Worst of all, skittering sounded along the walls and ceiling, revealing that another wave of Ilklings and Wretches were somehow scampering toward us on another front. If we ignored them, the monsters would swarm over us and leave us vulnerable for the spears and swords of the Miscreants and Mongrels.

  So we were forced, yet again, to waste our stored attack spells on creatures that most of us could have easily killed with a well-placed backhand, while significantly more powerful Hordebeasts were rushing toward us. And since they were attacking from multiple angles, the need to expend mana on our non-instant attack spells was increasing exponentially with every passing second.

  Even my heightened Intelligence and Wits couldn’t come up with an easy solution, and the rest of my team felt the same. The best we could do was to quickly coordinate targets through the mindlink and let loose.

  Terrain control actually saved us. Eadric used some Shaping technique to reinforce his Earth magic again, causing the cobblestones to temporarily transform into a sinking hole filled with one layer of sinking mud, one layer of sucking sand, and finally, one layer of sharp rocks at the bottom. It was a High Practitioner-level spell, one almost at the Adept level. And it was powerful enough to make even the mighty Mongrels stumble and struggle within the unstable sediment.