by Ramy Vance
Gill came over, grabbed Alex, and hugged her tight. “Your first one?” he asked.
Alex nodded as she hugged Gill back. He pulled away and held Alex’s chin in his fingers. “If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us. It’s that simple. They will kill you, and they will not hesitate. Neither should you.”
Alex wiped away a tear and smeared blood across her face. “Yeah, yeah. Come on.”
“Hold on,” Gill said as he leaned over the orc Alex had killed. “Take this.”
Gill pulled the orc’s head away from its body and tossed it to Alex, who caught the head, surprised she hadn’t jumped back in disgust. “This’ll help get Brath off your back.”
Alex leaned over and grabbed the orc’s rifles. “And this is just being practical,” she said.
“Good point. Let’s see what else they have.”
Alex and Gill looted the orcs’ bodies and found three knives and two scimitars, but other than weapons, the orcs didn’t have anything on them. Then they made their way back to Jollies, Manny, and Brath.
When Brath saw the two of them coming back, he shakily asked, “Is that you guys?”
Alex tossed the orc’s head at Brath, who grabbed it out of the air before realizing what he had caught. He dropped the head and jumped back. “What the hell?” he yelped.
Gill came up beside Brath and handed him a sword. “That was Alex’s,” he explained. “Cut straight down to the bone. Nearly decapitated him.”
Brath looked at Alex, his eyes wide and filled with awe. “Oh, that’s… I mean, that’s pretty cool,” he said.
Alex tried not to look too smug and shrugged. “Just figured we needed to be able to catch our breath before we go back out there,” she said. “And we can’t do that with orcs snacking in here.”
Manny rubbed his face with his tentacles. “What exactly were they snacking on in there?” he asked.
“Manny, this is not the time to be thinking about food!”
“Well, when is? I’ve been starving since we got kicked out of here.”
Alex sighed as she realized Manny’s body was probably burning more energy than usual since he was supporting both Brath and Jollies. “All right, go grab something to eat but hurry back,” Alex said.
Manny didn’t wait for Alex to say anything else. He rushed off, severing his ties with Jollies and Brath, who squeaked when their eyesight disappeared. Alex had completely forgotten how close Manny had to stay to keep the connection going. It looked like he had to stay even closer if he was running two at the same time.
Alex sat down next to Brath and took his trembling hand. “Hey, Jollies, could you get brighter for me?” Alex asked.
Jollies didn’t answer but started to glow a deep blue as she fluttered over to Brath and Alex, who let go of Brath’s hand. “Can you guys see all right?” Alex asked.
Jollies landed on Alex’s knee. “How did you do this?” Jollies asked. “It’s been fifteen minutes, and I already feel like I’m losing my mind. This was your entire life?”
“It’s not that bad if it’s all you’ve ever known. I never thought twice about it. I’ve heard of people losing their sight later in life, and that seems horrible. But this? It’s all I ever knew.“
Brath stared into the darkness. “Yeah, this is pretty hard. Must take a lot of guts to decide to jump on a dragon without even being able to see five feet in front of you.”
“Makes it a lot harder when people are treating you like a lazy freak.”
Brath didn’t bother meeting Alex’s eyes, but he nodded to show he understood what she was saying. “Yes, it would. So, what’s the game plan?”
Alex wasn’t expecting an apology from Brath, just an acknowledgment and she had gotten that. They could worry about their squabbles later. For now, they had to figure out how they were going to make it to the dragon stables with a Wasp’s Nest full of orcs.
Manny came floating back toward the group, quietly munching on whatever grub he’d found. “We could take the service tunnels,” Manny suggested. “They’re not quite tunnels, more like invisible hallways. It’s what all the extra regular staff use.”
“Extra regular?”
“Like the cooks, cleaners, things like that—the staff who don’t interact with students all the time. Can you imagine how annoyed the lunch lady would be if people tried to talk to her about lunch when she wasn’t working behind the line? She’s already pretty irritable.”
Gill pulled up his HUD and looked through the schematics of the Wasp’s Nest. “How do we get to them?” he asked.
“There should be an entrance somewhere in the back of the kitchen. We should be able to follow them all the way to the stables.”
Alex stood up, sheathed her knife, and slung the rifle over her shoulder. “All right, what are we wasting time for then? Let’s get going.”
Chapter Three
Alex and the group made their way to the back of the kitchen. They had to tell Manny to stop grabbing more food, but the harder they tried to stop the Beholder, the more they found themselves grabbing food.
Stress was making everyone hungry.
Alex had only just stopped shaking since her encounter with the orc. She had managed to put up a brave front for Brath, but now she was replaying the whole scene in her head.
Alex was glad she had had her eyes covered. She didn’t want to imagine what the gory mess would have looked like if she could have seen normally.
They were all crouched around an overturned platter of mashed potatoes and another food with a similar texture but wildly different in taste. Once everyone had had their fill, they got up and continued toward the back.
Manny stopped the group and motioned toward a door with his eye tentacles. “This would be it.”
Gill walked up to the freezer and gave it a once-over. “Isn’t this just a freezer?”
Manny shook his head, his tentacles swaying. “Only to the uninitiated. Most of the entry areas are disguised so cadets won’t waste their time trying to get in. We were using broom closets for a while, but instructors quickly found out what teenagers use closets for.”
Manny opened the freezer. Past the threshold was a portal that breathed cold, fresh air out at Alex and the rest of them. Even if she had been able to see, she probably would have assumed this was a freezer. “All right, let’s go.”
Alex and Gill went first since they were the ones who could see best. They stepped through the portal, which was unlike the first portal Myrddin had sent her through. There was no disorientation or anything like that. She merely walked through it and was somewhere else.
The somewhere else was a long hall much different from the glass corridors of the Wasp’s Nest. These halls were bare and not crystalline. They looked as if they were made of simple wood and stone. “What’s with the lack of magic?” Alex asked as she peeked through her blindfold.
As they walked, Manny explained the reason. “These are meant for quick transit. The whole Nest uses a large amount of energy. When they were putting these halls together, they figured just building them would be an easy way to keep from wasting energy.”
Gill ran his hands across the walls, collecting cobwebs. “And no one ever made a plan for using these in case of an evacuation?”
“If I’m honest, Myrddin isn’t the humblest man in the realms. He never thought anyone would have the gall to attack the Nest. And as we’ve seen tonight, that meant we were not running tight enough security.”
Brath tapped his knife on his dragon anchor. “I’ll say.” He chuckled. “You’d think the place Myrddin spends most of his time would be better defended. Doesn’t look good for the Resistance, does it?”
Alex turned to Brath despite not being able to see. “Wait, are you saying Myrddin is here?”
“I mean, he might not be here right now, but he usually is. From what I’ve heard, the dragonriders are his pet project, after the MERCs.”
“Well, why doesn’t he just blast these orcs out of here and stop all of this?�
��
“Beats me. Trust me; I wish he would too. Walking around in the magical back alleys of the Nest with a bunch of kids isn’t my idea of a good time.”
Alex almost regretted having engaged Brath, but he was right. It wasn’t a particularly great idea, and it also didn’t do much to make her trust Myrddin’s foresight. Why would he have left this place so poorly defended?
Gill pulled up his visor HUD and scrolled through a map, trying to find out where they were in the Nest. “Come on, guys, talking trash on Myrddin right now isn’t going to help any of us. Let’s just focus on what we can control. We follow this for a while, then turn right and hit the stables.”
Alex and the rest of them moved through the dark hallway in silence. It was welcome since Alex was finally able to be alone with her thoughts. She had been trying to roll with the punches since the invasion. Truthfully, since she had arrived at the Nest. It wasn’t getting any easier.
Myrddin had made it seem like she would be safe—as if her mother and father didn’t have anything to worry about. Alex had been at the Nest for less than a week, and she was already fleeing for her life, with Myrddin nowhere to be seen.
Crap, Alex thought. Did my parents respond?
Alex opened her HUD and checked for messages. Her parents had responded almost instantly. This wasn’t the time to answer, but Alex promised herself she was going to make it through this if only to speak to her parents again.
Gill raised his hand to signal to the group to stop. “Wait. I see heat signatures up ahead through the walls. I want to check and see what they are.” Gill looked down at his map. “Oh, no. Those are cadets. They’re hiding. They’re not too far from here.”
Alex didn’t wait for him to say anything more. “We have to go help them. We can’t just leave them there by themselves.”
Brath forced his way up from the back of the group. “Weren’t you the ones who were saying we had to focus on getting to our dragons and that it was the adults’ job to figure out how to save the cadets?”
“Yeah, but that was before they were only a couple of feet away from us,” Gill countered. “I thought it was stupid to try to fight our way through half of the Nest to get to them, but these guys are right here. It’s a considerably smaller risk.”
Sometimes Alex hated the way Gill talked. He sounded like a walking computer program. She wondered if he was even capable of feeling anything. The way he had handled killing that orc was positively cold, even though he had been right.
Jollies shimmered from pink to red as she flew up to Alex’s face. “We can’t leave them behind,” she pleaded.
Alex swiped her finger across Jollies’ face. “Dude, don’t even worry about it. That was never an option. We’re supposed to be training to be heroes, aren’t we? Might as well start now. Take us there, Gill.”
Gill nodded as he turned his attention back to his map. There was a little bit more light in the hall, so it was easier to move around. They must have been off the main power grid of the Nest. Alex wondered if that meant they were more protected or less.
It didn’t take long to find where the cadets were being held. Gill looked through his map one more time and cross-referenced the surveillance videos. As it turned out, the cadets weren’t hiding. They had been captured by orcs patrolling the area.
Gill pulled up a couple of videos that had been taken before the power shut off. It looked like the orcs were regularly patrolling the area, making sure no one came for the cadets. “Great, this just went from stupid to impossible,” Brath grumbled.
“Are there any breaks in their pattern?” Alex asked. “Or are they just checking in every couple of minutes?’
Gill scrolled past a few videos. “It doesn’t look like there’s a pattern,” he admitted. “I think they just come in when they want. They aren’t even checking up that often.”
“So, all we gotta do is slip in and out fast. Real sneaky-like. Sounds easy enough.”
Gill chuckled softly, the sound reverberating in the silence of the corridor. “You know, you’re a little reckless.”
“Yeah, just a little.”
Chapter Four
The cadet dragonriders pressed their ears to the walls, hoping the walls were thin enough to hear through. Gill had brought them to where he said the other cadets were being held. Alex couldn’t hear anything. The walls weren’t as thin as she had hoped.
Gill looked at his map one more time, checking to see if there were any orcs patrolling the area. It looked clear. “Where will we take them?” Gill suddenly asked, realizing there was a massive gap in their plan.
Alex wracked her brain, trying to think of a place the other cadets might be safe. “Uh, I guess we’ll just bring them with us,” she finally said. “They’re all cadets too. That means they’re probably bound to dragons as well. More fighters for the battle.”
Gill’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you didn’t say anything about a battle!”
Alex turned to face the drow. “What did you think we were going to get our dragons for? To run away? We can’t leave everyone here without helping.”
Gill nodded that he understood before looking back down at his map. “It’s just that you weren’t specific about wanting to fight.”
An arm broke through the wall and wrapped itself around Alex’s throat. Alex let out a sharp yelp as she was pulled through the wall by the muscular gray arm of an orc.
The orc tossed Alex across the room, and she hit the opposite wall with a heavy thud. She would have assumed the force of the impact would knock her out. It didn’t and Alex, surprised, got to her feet. Her back still hurt like hell, though. “Huh, that’s new,” she muttered.
There wasn’t any time to revel in her realization because the orc who had grabbed her was running toward her.
The cadets in the room started screaming and asking for help as Alex tried to get her bearings.
The room was still pitch-black. Even though the orc had managed to snag her through the wall, it didn’t seem to be able to find her in the dark room. The place was larger than Alex had assumed, based on the map Gill had shown her.
That was when Alex remembered the Nest was plugged into everyone who was residing within it—everyone other than the invaders. The room had probably expanded based on Alex’s need, and she needed a very large room at the moment.
Alex turned and ran as she shouted, “Jollies, find me. I have an idea!” She knew she was going to give away her position, but it was more important that Jollies know where she was. If Jollies came for her, the rest of them would as well. Then they’d have a chance against the orc.
Alex wasn’t sure she could take the orc by herself. She preferred not to think about it chasing after her, gnashing its teeth and waiting to sink its blade into her chest. She had managed to kill one before, and it hadn’t been too hard.
There’s no way I could have done that back on Earth, Alex thought as she realized she wasn’t having any trouble breathing. She hadn’t been unfit before, but physical education wasn’t her strong suit.
It seemed like Alex’s body had been given an upgrade since she had arrived at the Wasp’s Nest. Maybe her Captain America theory wasn’t wrong after all.
She wasn’t sure if it was the realm she was in (honestly, she was still confused as to exactly where the Nest was) or if it was her armor.
Suddenly, the prospect of fighting an orc didn’t seem as terrible. Maybe she wasn’t as weak and defenseless as she’d thought. Maybe she was just scared, and being scared was something she could deal with.
Alex ran straight ahead, hoping she wasn’t going to run into a wall, but the wall never came. She could still hear the orc behind her.
It was time for the first step of the plan. Alex stopped, turned around, and sprinted straight back the way she had come.
As Alex ran, she could hear the orc getting closer, but it was somewhere to the side. She had figured the orc was going to be searching, walking back and forth, unaware of exactly where Alex was
.
It didn’t take long to sprint past the orc and around the corner.
Now was the hard part. Alex stopped running and pulled up her blindfold a little bit. She could see the faint outlines of her friends in the darkness, and she ran toward them. “Jollies!” she whispered as loud as she could.
It was enough for Jollies to hear. The pixie came racing over to Alex. “There you are,” she exclaimed. “Where are the other—”
“We’re going to worry about them in a second. We have to deal with that orc before he catches us again. Can you control your colors?”
“Yeah, if I try hard.”
“Can you make them brighter?”
“I might be able to.”
That was enough for Alex. It was going to be a gamble, but Alex realized she was comfortable taking risks in these kinds of situations. “All right, come with me. Gill and Brath, can you stay with Manny and start helping the cadets?”
Brath stepped forward and pulled out his dagger. “Don’t you want backup?” he asked.
“I’d love some, but more people with me means fewer people to help the cadets. Also, that would put three of us in danger for a really stupid plan I’m still not sure is going to work. Sorry, Jollies.”
Gill rested his hand on Brath’s shoulder and turned the gnome around. “Come on, we need to help the other cadets.”
Brath, Gill, and Manny went back in the direction they thought the other cadets might be in. In the dark distance, there was a roar from the orc.
Alex reached out to Jollies. “Could I hold you?” she asked. “It’ll make moving in the dark easier since you’re going to be farther from Manny.”
Jollies flew into Alex’s palm, and she closed it as loosely as she could to keep from hurting Jollies. Then she took off in the direction of the orc’s shout. “All right, Jollies,” Alex explained. “On my signal, you’re going to turn bright white, okay?”
Alex could feel Jollies nodding. Then Alex stopped for a second, trying to calm her heart so she could listen for the footsteps of the orc. It was going to be a race to see who heard the other first. Alex had a slight upper hand, or at least she thought she did. She wasn’t sure if orcs had better vision in the dark.
