Duchy Unleashed

by Zack Finley

  By now everyone was through eating and were pitching in to clean up. A member of the guard was placing light globes throughout the building. I asked Cleon about it.

  “They are emergency lights designed to go on all at once on a command from a member of the guard or Ellte. We will test them as soon as they are all in place,” said Cleon.

  I was happy to see most of the militia had put away their farming and forestry gear and were all sporting their kukris and sheathes. Many of the farmers and foresters I’d worked with the prior day carried their sheathes tucked into their sashes or attached to their belts. This group was not going to be caught unarmed in the fields.

  Some of the militia had spears, some kukris, and some clubs, but everyone was ready to defend our keep.

  We had a quick battlemage conference before moving to our assigned bunking areas. With no insight into our expected attacker, we were left with very little to preplan. With so many of our own people on any likely battlefield, we reminded one another about the need for deploying defensive screens and the like.

  Alba and Loma were sleeping in the Klee HQ hospital. We reminded our mage apprentices and non-battlemages, their main assignment, once the shit hit the fan, was to get any wounded to safety. Loma promised me she would keep them pumped up on force magic as needed. She had some fancy amulets she was going to put on them to mask what she was really doing. She had already topped off Alba with flesh magic and was ready to keep her well supplied as needed during the night.

  I slid into my assigned bunk on the ground floor in full armor. Argon sent me a sweet dreams message. I put my kukri across my chest and dozed off. In combat, you learned to sleep when you could.

  I snapped awake when the alarm sounded. The bright emergency lights turned on, and I saw our nemesis when I sat up. Roaches. They were three deep on the floor and crawling everywhere. I stood up and fashioned huge force fly swatters to squash them. I didn’t dare use fire, and the damn things had stingers.

  I opened myself to Inoa’s battle weave as she deployed industrial-sized vacuum cleaners. Argon, Cleon, and I were in the weave with her, Tobron and Clive had their own assignments. While the creatures weren’t really roaches, they shared a lot in common with them. They were hard to kill, with a heavy carapace. If you squashed them, they exuded vile yellow ochre gunk, that felt like acid on your skin. And did I mention the stingers?

  I didn’t know where Inoa was sending those I vacuumed up, but I could now see the floor in the area around my bunk. I caught glimpses of Clive and Tobron conjuring slabs of stone to help the people around me get to an upper floor. Inoa was maintaining a large force barrier keeping any more roaches from getting upstairs.

  In a shorter time than I thought possible, Clive, Argon, and I were alone on the ground floor. Along with a trillion stinging roaches. Did I mention some of them could fly?

  Now that our people were out of harm’s way, I figured we could really go after the roaches.

  “Should we start burning them out?” I sent on the battle-net.

  “No,” came a loud chorus from my teammates.

  “Let’s get them all vacuumed up, then we can talk about what to do about their nest,” Inoa added in a slightly less alarmed fashion. “Find out where they are getting in.”

  I couldn’t imagine how we had been so overrun with the roaches before anyone raised the alarm. If someone had been asleep on watch that could be a court-martial offense.

  I set the thought aside, there would be plenty of time to understand what had happened.

  “Where are these roaches going?” I asked, watching another thousand sucked into my cleaner.

  “Clive and Tobron are expanding the storage, now,” sent Inoa.

  Storage? What were we going to do with a trillion roaches? Deciding it was another Jaloan thing I couldn’t understand, the three of us kept moving forward, vacuuming away.

  As we cleared the food court, we still had roaches pouring in through all of the doors.

  Inoa told me which doors to bar with stone to prevent the roaches from getting in behind us. When I suggested putting a vacuum hose at the bottom of the blocked doors, Inoa agreed. Argon pushed me to help Cleon, saying she’d take care of it.

  By now Tobron had conjured iron pipes threaded through the walls from outside. He and Argon set up a slightly different vacuum system for the blocked doors, tied into the through-wall pipes.

  “The unmanned vacuums are only pulling on my air magic, they require very little force magic. Inoa doesn’t want to deplete everyone’s force magic. The portable vacuums teleport the jervins to the container, the unmanned vacuums just suck them there,” sent Argon.

  The jervins, I had been corrected they were not roaches, were still plentiful. I was glad they acted confused by the vacuuming, as they never really tried to fly away or attack. They just got vacuumed.

  We noticed signs of entry in several rooms and Argon posted one of her vacuums at each hole.

  As we methodically cleared each room, we were joined first by Inoa and then Tobron. We had nearly 20 entrance holes, but in less than an hour from when the attack began, the last jervin joined its fellows in the vacuum cleaner bags, or boxes or whatever Clive had built.

  I had a raw area along the side of one foot and up one leg burned by the ochre gunk created if you squashed them and a handful of welts on my feet and legs where I’d been stung. I healed them quickly, although the stings took more work than I expected. Inoa and Tobron had been on the second floor and had no stings or burns.

  “Has everyone’s injuries been treated?” I asked on the net.

  “Oh yes, that part of our response went well. Most of the injuries were minor except for two who had a bad reaction to the stings. Alba says they should be fine later today. All but those two are already back at the Keep,” sent Inoa. “You were right to split us up in squads. Large numbers of jervins generate a soporific hallucinogen that delayed the sounding of the alarm. I’m glad Argon suggested the vacuum cleaners because I was stymied to counter so many of them.”

  “Now we have them all in storage, what are we going to do with them?” I asked.

  “Tobron has already called Ronar. Ronar’s company is also quite experienced with jervin infestations. He was relieved we avoided killing very many jervins. He thinks we can negotiate a reasonable long-term peace with them,” sent Inoa.

  “That is better than just feeding them to the fish off our wharf?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, this invasion was likely just a mistake. Eliminating a whole colony or nest is hard. Survivors usually then bind themselves into a blood vendetta, and those can get very messy. Much better to avoid them,” Inoa sent.

  Argon came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my chest. She knew I still struggled with the way Jaloans interacted with their natural world. “Save your killer instinct for slavers and demons,” she teased on our private channel. “Sometimes when a nest goes bad, there is no option but to kill them. When we must, we do what is necessary, but always with some regret. We are not at war with nature, we are part of it.”

  We still had a few hours until the cleansing. Those involved in that were sent to bed on the higher floors. Loma arrived and took charge of the cleanup, sending Clive and the rest of the pathfinders not needed for monitoring the situation to bed. The emergency lighting was turned off.

  As I drifted off, I was glad the younglings had missed out on tonight’s adventure and were safe at HQ.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 6

  Argon kissed me awake. My time sense insisted I’d been asleep for hours, but I knew better. She handed me an energy bar and promised we could pick up a cup of chee in the food court.

  The memory of the jervins attack flooded back through me and I doubted there would be any chee.

  “You don’t know Loma if you believe that,” Argon teased, pulling me off my sleeping mat.

  I was sore and uncomfortable after the earlier battle. Sleeping in sweat-soaked underwear and stiff armor
hadn’t helped. I was beginning to chafe in areas that really needed a shower. It wasn’t that I didn’t have lots of experience living raw for weeks and months at a time, but it was amazing how quickly I had adapted to clean clothes and a nightly shower.

  Argon sent me after chee as she joined the Avia acolytes.

  Grumpiness was the uniform of the day. I was by far the youngest of the four of us assembled in the food court drinking chee, so I wasn’t surprised the others looked stretched.

  Inoa asked us to verify our magic levels.

  I checked my magics. Only my air magic was a little depressed. I nodded.

  That was the signal for us to file out of the building and into the night.

  The magical lights installed the day before still looked like tiny Christmas lights on a string. They barely pushed back the blackness of night, while providing just enough light to banish your night vision.

  When Inoa began tossing up lights to mark our passage, I added mine to the mix. If we were charged with eliminating the forces of darkness, more light couldn’t hurt.

  I hadn’t examined the lich nest before. I kicked myself because we missed it on our earlier tour. Argon was monitoring me because she supplied the explanation before I could ask.

  “High-powered undead take much care to hide their nests, to avoid getting them cleansed. It played mind games with anyone within detection range. Just making you uneasy will keep most people out. I remember seeing this room and ‘remembering’ I had already searched it. Fortunately, its magic began dissipating with its final death,” Argon sent.

  Of course, that just meant we might have several more we hadn’t found yet.

  Argon and Avia’s acolytes had been busy, waiting only for our arrival to begin forming their spiritual sphere.

  Inoa assigned us quadrants and launched our protection shield moments after the spiritual sphere took form. She seemed satisfied with that and touched off our individual invincibility shields.

  We stood guard against darkness, but nothing came to call.

  While time passed slowly, the first glints of dawn arrived eventually. There was a sense of peace in the palace as we dismantled our wards.

  It took only a few moments for Avia’s acolytes to pack up and I helped Argon ‘port them to Avia’s temple. The acolytes were exhausted but exhilarated.

  As tempting as a shower and a bed were, Argon and I returned to the Keep. I really wanted to hear what Ronar expected to do with our load of jervins. Tobron extracted an earlier promise from me to leave the negotiations to him. But I was still trying to understand Jaloan sensibilities. I was still unclear about when it was okay to kill the wildlife and when we needed to negotiate with it.

  Ronar looked as cheerful as I felt. Apparently being summoned in the middle of the night wasn’t something that happened to him very often. Despite his grumpy looks, he took his job quite seriously. He brought a young apprentice with him who had a sensitivity to jervins.

  Several from my Duchy had also come forward with similar sensitivities. They spent the rest of last night by the two large stone boxes full of jervins apparently soothing them.

  Ronar, his apprentice, Tobron, and the Duchy jervin talkers got into a heated discussion, with arms waving and much drama. I wanted to slip forward to overhear them, but Argon kept me out of it.

  “Don’t even think of it,” she sent, noticing I was readying my eavesdropping app. “This is just part of the drama between Ronar and Tobron. They both love it so. If you intrude, it will just irritate them both.”

  They must have reached some type of negotiated settlement because the jervin talkers from both sides led a group of several hundred jervins that Tobron had released from one of the tanks into the building where we spent the night.

  Ellte sent out an all-hands warning not to harm the jervins but to allow them through. I was puzzling over that announcement when Tobron reached me.

  “The queen wants out of Toffad’s Keep,” Tobron said.

  “The jervin queen?” I asked.

  “Yes, she is quite angry we have most of her nest locked up, but since we killed so few of her workers, she is willing to overlook it. I’m sending Cleon and a few guardsmen to escort our jervin talkers and the jervin scouts to locate a suitable home for them. She isn’t happy I’ve insisted on her moving a minimum of several miles away, but she also understands separation will reduce any conflicts. She also provided Ronar with the locations of several other vermin nests. She expects they will eagerly embrace a similar settlement.”

  “Sounds like a win-win?” I offered.

  “Except that Ronar is in, “I told you so mode,”” grumbled Tobron.

  “How so?”

  “He had offered his exterminator service earlier, for a substantial fee. I didn’t think we needed it so turned him down. Now he’s charging twice as much.”

  “Where did he go?” I asked

  “He’s gathering his various vermin talkers to discuss the situation with the other queens,” Tobron said in disgust.

  I was too tired to laugh, as well as a little irritated we hadn’t let Ronar rid us of a bunch of headaches. Argon tugged me away from Tobron before I voiced my thoughts.

  “While I have the greatest respect for Ronar, I suspect none of the vermin would have been willing to actually relocate without a substantial show of force, which we provided. No one was seriously hurt, and everyone is feeling good with how it worked out. Your warning meant no younglings were injured, so let it go,” Argon sent. “You are just tired and hungry. We need to get ready to unload the next ships.”

  Breakfast was sparse as the jervins had contaminated much of the fresh food but we had plenty of chee and energy bars. Yum. As usual, Argon was right, as those around us regaled one another with details of their exploits. There was fresh energy in the room, buoyed by survival and not affected by either lack of sleep or bad food. Everyone was eager to greet today’s challenges. It was hard to keep my grump on.

  We checked in with Ellte and were dismayed to learn Argon and I were on warehouse clearing duties, again.

  No rest for the wicked.

  We broke for lunch after clearing the last warehouse on the ground floor. We determined we no longer needed the massive air vents after getting better at pulling the water out of the stone. As far as the force bulldozers, I found I could keep five going at once. Argon was still struggling to keep four moving, but she was making progress. We found it was more comfortable to keep our forced air helmets on, if only due to the stench of rotted glappner skin. We were lucky the smell dissipated once we incinerated the debris, but we left some of the air blowers in each corridor to be sure. We didn’t want any stored materials to pick up that disgusting odor.

  I told Ellte we were taking a break and were headed to Klee HQ to wash up.

  We were so dirty the shower was just for cleaning. While the forced air mask had kept the stench out of my fur, plenty of crap splashed on my legs and coated the oso armor.

  I washed my armor first and hung it up to dry and air out before stripping for a thorough scouring. The shower was playful and certainly more efficient with both of us scrubbing each other’s hard to reach places. Even though hands lingered just a little longer in some spots, we were washed and dressed in a reasonable time.

  I was prepared to leave our armor behind until after lunch, but my armor dried quicker than expected. Osso armor might absorb magic, but it really repelled water.

  We checked in with Ellte as we left our suite for lunch. We planned to eat at the HQ’s food court, in part to catch sight of Allo. We could tell through our mental link she was fine, but we hadn’t spent any real time with her for days. In hindsight, we should have put a higher priority on her freedom.

  “We have a man in Losan livery at the HQ entrance insisting he needs to talk with you,” Ellte told me when I checked in.

  “Any idea what he wants?” I asked.

  “Not a clue, he stops just short of being rude about it. He says he is prepared to
wait as many days as it takes.”

  I was irritated enough with Losan’s King Arvich to consider making the emissary wait but decided that was childish. After all, the guy might have important information on the dark sect.

  I was about to say we’d be down after lunch when Argon bopped me. She made it clear that forcing a king’s emissary to wait, even one from Losan was not done. That I was hungry was not deemed a sufficient reason.

  “You are always hungry,” Argon said, grabbing my arm as we ‘ported to the front entrance. I didn’t recognize the young woman minding the desk, but she looked very happy to see me. The Duchy Guardsman beside the desk braced to attention and clasped his unarmed hand to his chest.

  “Emissary, you wished to speak with me?” I asked, just as the young man whirled around to face me.

  “Duke Steve?” He asked. He flushed with relief when I nodded. I was tempted to suggest he seek someone skilled in mind magic to give his mind shield a tune-up.

  ‘My king asked me to give you this,” he said handing me an elaborately decorated envelope. “I’m to stand by in case you have a response.”

  The handwriting in the card was exquisite.

  “King Arvich wishes to meet with you to discuss matters of mutual interest at your earliest convenience.”

  In my prior life if a senior officer sent me a message to meet with him at my earliest convenience, it meant pronto, without delay. I wondered what it meant on Jaloa.

  Argon sensed my quandary. “Does your king have a suggested time which would be convenient?” she asked.

  “If you are free, he hopes you will join him for lunch?”

  “We would be delighted,” she said, “Do you have the closest teleport location?”

  He provided the teleport location, and I assumed warned the king we were on the way.

  We warned Tobron we were heading to Losan and I could feel his excitement. He really wanted an armorer for our keep. We let Ellte know we’d be out of the country, then teleported to the provided location.

  My location sense placed us in the middle of Losan Keep. The small anteroom where we landed was adjacent to a small dining room. The dining table was resplendent in white table coverings and sparkling china. The flickering intimacy of candles combined favorably with the steadiness of magical wall sconces.