I looked to Rowley. He had finished with his boots and was ready to go. “What now?” I asked.
“We should run to town hall,” said Rowley. “There’s a shelter for emergencies, but space is limited. We’d better hurry.” Rowley hefted a bag he’d taken from the larder. Who knew how well stocked the shelter was or how long they would be trapped down there?
“You go ahead. I want to see these beastmen,” I said.
“What?” Rowley did a double take. “You want to die? Come, hide in the shelter. Worst case the beastmen will kill a few guards and take some supplies. They’ll leave once they have their fill.”
“I don’t fear death, Rowley. Immortal, remember. I want to see these beastmen.”
Rowley and I separated outside. He headed north, town hall was only a few blocks away while I followed a few straggling guards towards the eastern fence.
The narrow streets were crowded. Men, women and children flowed like an unyielding stream, all going in the opposite direction of me, slowing my progress to the fence.
By the time I got there, the fence had taken a beating but still held despite a dozen bulls ramming it at regular intervals. Each time a bull struck, a ten-foot swath of the fence visibly leaned a disturbing amount. The guards tried to strike back by jamming swords and spears between the pickets, but they had little success. Each bull wore decorative helmets custom fitted to conform to their horns and thick plates of armor covering their shoulders, running the entire length of their bodies, all the way down their legs.
Suddenly, I heard a large crash. A particularly fierce blow from a large black bull snapped one of the fence posts and a five-foot segment gave way.
“A gap,” the guard captain yelled over the groans of stressed wood and the pounding of steel. “I don’t care if you have to ram your half dead carcasses in there. Fill it in or we’re all dead.”
In marched heavily armored guards with shields that ran from shoulder to ankle. They stabbed at the bull’s eyes with long halberds to buy enough space to fill in the hole. Behind them, other men moved into position with wood beams to brace the shields, but before they could set them, a pair of tigers leapt over the frontline of heavily shielded guardsmen. One of the tigers immediately turned around and took out several of the guardsmen before they could firm up the shield wall. The other raced down the street towards me.
I brandished one of my spears and prepared for the enemy attack. Like the bulls, the tiger wore a set of plated armor, but the armor was lighter than the bulls with many gaps between plates to allow greater speed and mobility. As the tiger approached, its body shifted. Mid-step, the tiger lifted onto its hind legs. The hair on the tiger’s vibrant orange coat receded. The digits on its paws grew and reorganized into hands and feet. The tigers protruding jaws and snout retracted revealing a hard grizzled man with bright orange hair and beard. As he transformed, the armor plates rearranged themselves to better suit his new shape. The armor didn’t possess any magical shapeshifting ability. The reorganization was simply mechanical. Mid-transformation, the tiger’s thundering roar changed into a fierce battle cry and the man’s newly formed arms reached back and drew a large axe from his back.
I stabbed at the tigerman with my spear. He casually batted it aside contemptuously as if he was facing a child with a stick. Given my relatively little experience with the weapon, perhaps his reaction was justified. Then the tigerman continued on to me. He didn’t even bother to dirty his blade. The tigerman simply charged right through me. I went tumbling on the ground for a few feet and lost 20 percent of my health. I propped myself back up to watch the tigerman move to the guard captain.
The captain already had his blade ready and it wasn’t long before he and the tigerman were exchanging blows. The captain’s swordsmanship and footwork were superior to the tigerman’s crude berserker swings, but he was still losing. The eight-foot tall muscle bound tigerman’s strength and speed were superhuman. It was only because a half a dozen guards came to his aid, that the captain wasn’t finished off immediately. The outnumbered tigerman put up a fierce fight taking out three guards before succumbing to a dozen wounds any one of which would have been fatal to a normal man.
Meanwhile, more guards ganged up on the other tigerman and shored up the makeshift wall of shields. The defenses were holding, for now, and the bulls were back to bashing on the walls.
Once things had settled down, the captain pulled me aside, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help,” I said.
“This is no place for the likes of you. You know nothing of our tactical formations or command signals. If you want to help, you can escort these two.” The captain had a couple of his men bring out a pair of boys that looked to be around seven years old. “Like you, these two wanted to see the action, only to get in our way. If you could take them down to the shelters, it would spare me sending a man.”
I agreed to the request. I had already gotten what I wanted. I saw the beastmen, and this battle wasn’t something I could help much with. My brief clash with the tigerman proved it. I had only been fighting the few months since my arrival to this world. These men had spent their whole lives fighting and training, building up the experience and skills of a professional warrior. I just wasn’t strong enough.
I started down the street, dragging the two boys behind me. They still wanted to see the fight. Just as we were getting out of earshot of the battle and I was getting the children to move with the urgency the situation required, I heard another loud crash.
‘A second breach.’ I pushed the children onwards.
“Come on, hurry. We don’t have long,” I said. I kept pushing the kids faster and faster but their little legs just couldn’t keep up. One of the boys tripped and fell, skinning his knee. I picked him up and kept going, swinging him around under one of my arms.
I started hearing voices behind me, some human, some not. We could be caught any second. I pulled out one of my recently completed smoke bombs and lit the fuse with a flint strike.
The bomb made a small pop. A dense cloud of smoke emanated from the canister filling the entire street, preventing anyone from seeing ahead more than two or three feet. I moved the two boys through the smoke to the edge of a building behind some barrels.
“Stay here,” I told them. “I’ll lead the bad men away. Wait until we’re gone then continue to the shelter. Do you know where that is?”
The two boys nodded so it felt best to leave them. Their chances were better than mine were.
I continued down the street a dozen yards until I made it out of the smoke and waited. In a moment, I heard some coughing coming from the other side of the wall of smoke.
“Where’s all this coming from?” said a deep baritone voice.
“Hurry,” said another voice. “Must be using this to slow us down. Must be close.”
A pair of human-form beastmen emerged from the smoke and noticed me. I dashed to the side through an alley, being sure the beastmen followed. They were fast but the alley was so narrow the two large men had a hard time getting through.
After a couple blocks, I stopped. I’d gone far enough that the boys should have already escaped and I couldn’t run forever. Since two beastmen were this deep in the city, the guards must have already fallen. I couldn’t waste time giving these two the run around. Swarms of beastmen must already be combing the city. If I stayed out too long I was sure to run into more of them. Taking on two of them at once were long odds, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve.
I set off one smoke bomb at the end of an alley and a second in the middle of the street just to be on the safe side. Smoke gushed out from both devices, concealing me.
“Menu,” I said calling up the familiar blue text boxes. “Options. Graphics. Particle effects. Off.” The moment I gave the command, the smoke vanished from sight as if I was a god. Such was the power of a game character. I manipulated graphics options to remove smoke effects from my vision. The smoke was still there and to everyone
else it was blinding, but to me it was invisible. I tied a piece of cloth around my nose and mouth. Even if I couldn’t see the smoke, it still burned my lungs and throat.
I watched the two beastmen stumble out of the alley, weapons drawn and pulled close to them, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. They slowly inched forward, gazes shifting side to side in a sweeping pattern. I was only ten feet away, but in the dense smoke, they couldn’t see me. I quietly circled around behind them, careful to keep enough distance. So long as I was invisible, I had the advantage. I pulled out one of my collapsible throwing spears and aimed the plain cylinder at the back of one man’s neck between his helmet and body armor.
“Javelin Toss,” I said, activating the technique as I let lose the spear. At this distance, I couldn’t miss. As I let the spear go, I pressed the button on the handle. Midflight the pointed tip of the spear sprung out of the metal rod casing before lodging in the back of the beastman’s neck.
The man roared in immense pain. Javelin Toss was a technique that caused thrown spears to do four times the damage. A special feature of my collapsible spear was that it did double damage when it sprang out. I may be weak, but at 8 times the damage, my attack was far from it.
The warrior charged towards where the spear came from, but I was already gone. I pulled out another spear and let it lose at a gap in the other soldier’s armor. It was working so I simply rinsed and repeated. After several precision strikes from the smoke, the two warriors fell.
You gained 537 EXP
You gained 483 EXP
You gained a level
I recovered my weapons from the beastmen bodies and collapsed them back into their condensed form. Blood dripped into the grooves and ridges between spear sections. I sighed. It would be a pain to clean out later. ‘One more thing to improve.’
“Hey, what doing there?” I looked up to see a lone beastwoman. Like all of her race, she was tall, standing at just over 7 feet. However, unlike any others I’d seen of her kind, she was beautiful. Not even her thick brass armor could fully conceal vivacious curves. The torch she carried revealed long golden hair that flowed straight down her back. As I looked her over, I noticed a strange thing; her bright blue eyes had met mine.
‘She’s staring back at me. She sees me.’ I took a deep breath. The air was clear and I cursed my forgetfulness. The protective smoke blocking enemy vision was gone.
A look of rage marred the woman’s lovely face as she charged me. I retreated and as I did so lobbed another bomb ahead of me so by the time I caught up to it a cloud of smoke covered the area.
I suddenly gagged mid-step, nearly falling over. ‘That must be the smoke,’ I thought, wishing the graphics had a semitransparent smoke setting. I hid in the invisible smoke and turned around. The warrior woman was surprisingly close only half a dozen yards behind me. Like the two beastmen soldiers I faced earlier, she was meandering slowly through the blinding smoke, blade at the ready.
I confidently pulled out my collapsed spears. I had made quick work of the two beastmen blinded by smoke.
‘I should have no problem with this woman.’ I thought.
“Javelin Toss,” I said, throwing one of my extendable spears at the blind woman as I moved aside and prepared my next strike. At the first syllable, the woman head snapped in my direction and she dove to the side. My spear went sailing by her. Even falling, the warrior woman never let an opportunity get away from her. On her way to the ground, she extracted a dagger from a steel wristband and threw it in my direction, piercing the exact position I had been seconds before.
The beastwoman’s ears shifted. They became large and triangular, gaining visibility as they protruded through the sides of the woman’s long blond hair. White fur replaced pale pink skin completing the transformation. In the absence of sight, the woman grew wolf ears to enhance her hearing.
I threw another javelin. This time the beastwoman was ready. As I fired off my spear, she instantly fired back. She was faster than me, or at least her dagger was. Again, she dodged my spear, but I didn’t fare as well. The dagger hit me straight in the chest. Fortunately, I wore a thick leather breastplate and the dagger only dug about a quarter of an inch into the flesh underneath.
‘This isn’t working. She’s tracking me by sound,’ I decided, retreating into the cover of smoke while being careful to make as little sound as possible as I gathered a few rocks and other rubble from the ground.
I threw one of the rocks a few yards to my left. The rock thumped against the hard dirt road. The woman’s head turned, ears pointing to where the rock struck ground. I threw another rock, this time to my right. This time the woman turned to the source of the sound then suddenly as if changing her mind turned back to look straight towards me.
‘Can she see me?’ I wondered. I put the idea aside and weighed how best to use the decoy noise to my advantage. As I thought about it, I started passing my spear back and forth between my hands.
‘Wait, her eyes are following the spear,’ I realized. The woman’s eyes shifted left and right matching the movements of the spear. One side of the woman’s mouth rose in a smirk. ‘She can see me.’ I gasped at the sudden realization. Only then did I notice I could smell the air was clear. My smoke bomb had run out.
The beastwoman charged. I reached for another smoke bomb, but there were none left. The woman swung her sword straight for my throat. I was somehow able to deflect it with the shaft of the spear. Attack, feint, parry, riposte, for the next 20 seconds we exchanged blows never for a second did I have the advantage. Then the woman made two deft slashes across the backs of my hands. The sudden burst of pain forced me to let go and the spear tumbled onto the ground.
The beastwoman snatched my throat in a single strong yet soft hand and lifted me out of reach of my spear. My feet dangled a foot off the ground as she brought my face to her level. My lungs burned as my mouth lay agape silently screaming for air. I struggled, arms and legs swung and kicked out at her, but without oxygen, my blows had no strength behind them.
“Surprising,” said the woman as she tightened her grip on my throat. “Wouldn’t have thought so small and weak would be such a hassle. Even took out two men.”
The woman pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “When see Tigerpupil and Dingomange let know Capsain has fulfilled the blood debt.”
I was out of time. My vision blurred. In a moment, I’d pass out then dead. ‘I won’t go yet,’ I thought, reaching into my pants pocket and pulling out one of my collapsed spears. I pointed one end of the compressed cylinder at a narrow gap in the side of the woman’s armor and tapped the bright red button. The point flung out and pierced the woman side. The force of the spring drove the point several inches deep.
The woman groaned in pain and relinquished my throat. I fell to the ground. Finally freed, sweet relief rushed through my lungs. I rapidly breathed in and out, trying to restore oxygen levels throughout my body, but before I could catch my breath and make a getaway, the woman was back on me. She stood over me, her giant metal boot placed firmly on my chest, preventing me from moving.
She casually pulled the spike from her side and examined the weapon. She was silent the next few moments as she located and pressed the small latches all along the spears shaft, collapsing it back to its initial size.
“Where did get this?” the woman asked indicating the spear. Her eyes focused on my maker’s mark, the small † icon engraved on the spear’s side.
“If you’re going to kill me, just kill me,” I said, ready to begin again.
“Tell where got this,” the woman ordered. She moved her boot from my chest to my throat and started to press down slightly. Not enough to cut off my air supply but enough to make breathing difficult. “Will die, but get say in how die. If cooperate, make death quick and painless. If not…”
The beastwoman’s foot pushed down harder, completely cutting off my air. “Death will be slow and painful and last as long as need to get answers. Do self a favor and talk.”
>
“Alwight… Alwight…” I choked out. The woman’s foot eased off my throat. “I made it.”
The woman took another look at the collapsed spear, weighing it in her hands. Then she did something quite unexpected. She reached down, grabbed me by the ankle, and calmly walked back towards the eastern fence, dragging me behind her.
“Hey, what’s going on,” I said. “Let me go.” I struggled weakly, making a few kicks with the leg she was hanging on to and trying to grab debris with my hands as I went by. The struggle was for show more than anything else. I knew I didn’t have the strength to get away.
She ignored my protests and returned to where the fence had been breached. As we passed, I saw the results of the beastmen invasion. Small beastmen bands searched every structure in the village. Money, food, weapons, everything of value was systematically extracted and exported to a small encampment they’d set up near the fence. Not even people were ignored. Men, women, and sobbing children found hiding in their homes were dragged out and tied up to ensure they wouldn’t cause any trouble.
As we passed other beastmen, they stopped to face the woman dragging me and brought a couple fingers to their right temple in a two finger salute. Apparently, this woman was their leader.
A massive hole 4 times larger than the gap I’d seen before marred the regular pattern of upright logs stretching the length of the fence. The ground around the breach was saturated with blood. I could feel it in my hair as I was dragged through. The bodies of the fallen Mill Valley guards were stacked to the side of the hole, clearing room for the supplies and people moving in and out.
The woman set me down in the middle of the beastman encampment. A few of the soldiers greeted her and exchanged salutes. “Who’s this?” asked one of the oldest of the bunch as he looked down on me.
Arrival Page 11
