by Eric Vall
I sat down beside Nia even though she still hadn’t talked to me about that kiss we’d shared. Even if I didn’t know where things stood between us, I wouldn’t let that interfere with our mission. On the plus side, she smiled faintly when I sat down beside her and our arms brushed.
“I feel like this room is too nice for just a small response squad,” I commented as I took in more of the luxury. The lights on the ceiling were trimmed in gold, paint, I hoped. There was a bar at the back with a wide assortment of alcohol fastened behind a glass cabinet. Nia didn’t seem at all fazed or surprised by that though.
“Airships aren’t only used by the military,” she answered as she crossed her arms and leaned her head back. “The wealthy use them too, though usually they hitch rides with high-ranking military officials. There are smaller airships for squads like ours, but I assume they were unavailable.”
“Ah, I see,” I said with a nod. Like trains, it was rather ridiculous that regular people couldn’t use them. It would make travel immeasurably easier, but I understood that trains and airships weren’t exactly common. Their advantages needed to be used appropriately.
A staticky buzz echoed through a speaker above the passageway to the cockpit, and Arwyn’s voice came through it a moment later. “We’re taking off. Be sure to fasten in.”
This was it, my first flight experience. I strapped myself in place. The belt went over my arms like the straps of a backpack and then fastened across my chest. It kept me in place, but I could still move my neck and look out the porthole next to me. I licked my lips and gripped my pants tightly. My heart was racing, and my palms were sweaty. I didn’t think anything would go wrong, but still, my body hummed.
Nia noticed this and smirked at me. “You have never flown before,” she stated. It wasn’t a question.
I chuckled. “As you like to point out, I’m a wilder yokel. So no, I haven’t.”
“Hm, true,” she said with a smile, “but I would have thought that you would have been brought to Varle on an airship after what you did at Ralor’s Stead.”
“I would have,” I explained, “but I passed out right after Headmaster Sleet arrived and woke up the next day. They couldn’t spare the airship for that long to wait for me.”
Nia nodded, sighed, and looked out the porthole between us. “You are in for a treat then.”
“Good.” I smiled. “I’ve wanted to fly for a long time.”
The ship suddenly jerked. There were a loud groan and a click, and then we rose.
I felt heavier. My heart raced as I readied myself. As we rose higher and higher, my stomach seemed to drop, and my ears popped. And then we were zooming over the landscape.
It took my breath away. It was like running with a speed slug, except I could actually appreciate the scenery below. We were birds, gliding on the air, not a care in the world. The view was like a dream, too beautiful and perfect to properly describe. We glided at a leisurely speed that let me take it all in without missing a thing.
The only thing that could beat this was if I could sit atop the ship and let the wind whip through my air and blow against my face.
Nia laughed at my awed smile. “I take it you are enjoying this so far?”
“Definitely.” I didn’t take my eyes off the view. “It’s… it’s breathtaking.”
“Yeah, it is,” she agreed, and I could practically hear the smile in her voice. “It never gets old.”
I grinned wide, my cheeks straining. No, no, I didn’t think I would ever grow tired of this.
Before long, Arwyn returned from the cockpit and took a seat near Nia and me. She ran her fingers through the tangle of her red hair before she tied it back in a ponytail. With that, she cracked her fingers and smirked.
“Okay, time for our briefing,” she said. We all leaned forward, eager for the information. “We’re headed for a river town west of the Enclave, Helvetia. It is a quaint little town with a decent port and a timber mill half a mile down the river. Rather large, though not big enough to warrant having a train track built through it.”
I nodded as she spoke. My mind flew to what I could remember about Helvetia. I’d passed through it once a few years ago with Maelor, though we’d only stopped to buy more supplies and grab a bite to eat. From what I could remember, it was as Arwyn said, a nice, quaint town, despite its size. A good place to live.
“From our intel,” she continued, “the rift is located inside the cathedral there, in the center of town. So far, it hasn’t spit out anything higher than a grade C, and only a few of those at that, but the reports say that there are dozens upon dozens of grunt level monsters which means clearing out the whole town might prove time-consuming.”
I supposed it was for the better that it was a bunch of weaker enemies rather than a few strong ones. Grade D and E monsters like goblins, trolls, and the like could be lethal, but they were at least fairly easy to kill, even for regular civilians, and they wouldn’t destroy half the town either. That just left the grade C as the real threat to them because I knew those could take out trained soldiers pretty easily.
“We’ll land, sweep our sector of the town while the soldiers take theirs, and we’ll close the rift, easy as that. Any questions?” When none of us offered one, she stood and smiled. “Good. We should land in about an hour or so. Be ready.” She turned to go back to the cockpit, but she swiveled back to Nia and me instead.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. She dug into her pack and produced two small devices.
“What are these?” I asked as Arwyn pushed one into my hand.
“They’re communicators. They allow us to communicate over long distances.”
“Ah, I see.” It looked like a wrist watch, with an adjustable black leather strap. The top was not a watch though, but a round blue crystal that reminded me of an essence crystal, but I didn’t sense any magic in it. I strapped it to my left wrist.
“You press and hold the crystal in the center and speak into it,” she said. Nia put hers on, but she didn’t seem like she had any questions. That made sense since she’d been around response squads all her life.
I looked at the device with great interest. “How does it work?”
“Well, it’s a combination of magic and science,” Arwyn explained, “so I don’t know all the specifics about it, but the essence crystal, when activated, records your words and sends them out using a special radio wave frequency to any nearby communicator. We’re still working on being able to send it to individual devices instead of the group.”
“Neat,” I replied with a nod. I only had a marginal clue of what she was talking about, but I trusted that it would work. With that, she turned and returned to the cockpit.
After that briefing, we flew on for a little under an hour. The sun was low on the horizon, but we still had a few hours before sunset. The light only made the scene even more beautiful as it painted the countryside in brilliant golden light. Eventually, the ship began its slow descent.
Arwyn’s voice crackled over the speaker. “We’re approaching Helvetia. Get ready for landing.”
As we decelerated and descended, we circled around the town, and I caught a glimpse of Helvetia from the window. It was large, perhaps a tad smaller than Barrec’s Crossing. It sat on the edge of a large grassy plateau that dropped steeply at the eastern end of the town. A river cut through the middle of the town though not quite as wide or fast moving as the White River that ran around Varle. Where the river plunged down the hill, a water wheel churned, the heart of the lumber mill that flourished at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by piles of timber.
The buildings were made of thick gray stone and steep metal roofs, with larger windows than most towns. Trees bloomed throughout the town, the differing greens in stark contrast to the rest of the town and the bright colors from their flowers.
That was Helvetia, a beautiful place to visit. We had to make sure that it stayed this way.
As Arwyn had mentioned, a large cathedral to the One True M
aker stood at the center of the town with large stained-glass windows and a towering steeple that doubled as a bell tower. It sat against the river and also had a water wheel built into it.
That was where the rift was.
As I looked closer, the stained-glass windows were cracked and broken. The massive wooden doors at the fore of the cathedral had been ripped from their hinges. Smoke billowed from the inside as monsters streamed from the entrance and milled about outside or chased down anything that moved.
Things didn’t look good at all.
Our ship rushed past the cathedral and landed on the outskirts of the town. Arwyn joined us from the cockpit and led us down the stairwell to the cargo bay without a word, her gait long and determined. Her usually rosy and joyous face was set into a serious expression, fierce and determined. This was combat Arwyn, a side of her I’d never seen. Once the bay doors opened, we rushed out, ready for action.
I had flashes of my first combat experience at Ralor’s Stead. I remembered all the smoke, and the stench of blood and the sight of all the bodies, good friends, that were dead. Above it all, the ever-present stink of the rift, like rot and death, pervaded it all. That was all here too. The stench hit immediately and invaded my nostrils though it didn’t bother me as it once did. There wasn’t as much fire or smoke thankfully, but that would change if we didn’t stop this invasion.
This town was a lot bigger than Ralor’s Stead.
Arwyn barked orders at our armed escort. “Soldiers, rescue as many civilians as you can. Direct them back here. Only bring the wounded here if they can be saved. Beyond that, you know your assignments. Fan out!”
“Yes, ma’am!” the soldiers exclaimed in unison, then they filed out ahead of us.
After they split into squads of four, they started their sweep of the town. It wasn’t ten seconds later before I heard the pop of gunfire. A moment later, one of the soldiers that had rounded the corner with his squad was thrown back against a wall and smashed through it with bone-crunching force.
That wasn’t a good start.
What rounded the corner after him sent a chill down my spine. It was a shadowcat, a grade C monster. It resembled a tiger or jaguar, but its fur was so black that it seemed to engulf all light. Its eyes were orbs of bright gold without pupils, and jagged spikes ran down the length of its spine and legs. It appeared that shadows rolled off of it like tendrils of smoke.
Shadowcats were said to be incredibly strong, but what made them so dangerous was the magic that seeped off of them like a smell or aura. It affected people’s emotions and made them panic or feel depressed, made them cry and give up. It wasn’t something that you would want to feel while fighting the already formidable beast.
That’s what I felt then, a sense of dread that engulfed me like a physical wave. Thankfully, my knowledge of the monster had prepared me for it, and my strong will helped me push away the fear that tried to clutch at my very soul.
As the shadowcat eyed us, it started to trot our way. I took a step forward, but Orenn pushed past Arwyn and me as he strode toward the monster. In mid-stride, the metallouge slammed his fists together, and a crackling spark of magic ran up and down his form. As it passed over his skin, it shifted from soft, weak flesh to unflinching metal. Orenn’s transformation complete, he sprinted for the beast.
The shadowcat roared at the adept, a sound very much like a jaguar, but Orenn wasn’t fazed in the least. It pounced at him in mid-charge, but Orenn met that charge with a big metal fist. It smashed against the cat’s face and sent it flying into the wall of the adjacent building. The stone cracked before its body slid down to the street in a heap. The shadowcat tried to get back up, but Orenn was on it before it could. He pounded its face with his fists, punch after punch until it was dead and his metal arms were coated in the slick sludgy blood of the beast. It was over in seconds, the shadowcat’s body decomposing into nothing but the loot it left behind, such as its fangs and claws, and clumps of its shadowy fur. It looked like a writhing mass of darkness.
Orenn shook the blood off his arms before he changed back into his regular self and flashed us a smile.
I blinked. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Nia said next to me. “Definitely a wow.”
Three soldiers came into view at that point to check on their squad-mate that had been tossed by the shadowcat, and Arwyn strode toward them.
“I’ll look after him,” she commanded. “You go do your duty.” The soldiers were reluctant, but they complied.
We formed a defensive circle around Arwyn as she saw to the fallen soldier. There was a lot of blood amidst the cracked stone and debris, and the look on her face told me everything I needed to know.
“He’s gone,” she said, her voice solemn. “We need to move on.” We steeled ourselves and followed her command. As we moved down the street, Arwyn pointed to our left. “Orenn, Varleth, clear our left flank. Nia, take the right.” She pointed to the other street down an alley. “Gryff, you’re with me. If there’s a high-grade monster in your path, double back to me. Got it?”
I nodded, as did the others, and they went on their way. I understood why she split us up. As the other soldiers had gone to different sections of the town, this one was left open to us, so we needed to clear out any monsters that they didn’t and do it as quickly as humanly possible. The longer the town was filled with monsters and the portal left open, the worse it would be for everyone involved.
We battled through the next few blocks to the city center where the cathedral sat. We didn’t face much in the way of truly dangerous monsters, mostly grunt level grade E monsters like goblins, trolls, and imps. I matched them with my own summoned beasts, and they brawled, claw for claw. As I pressed forward with Arwyn at my back, I could hear Nia as she tore down the adjacent street, the zap of her lightning spells and the roar of her flames. Even though she was alone, I didn’t worry about her. She was a one-woman army.
While Arwyn was a healer and didn’t have offensive magic, she was a master swordswoman with the blade she magically created, and she showed it here. She stood side by side with my monsters as she sliced through waves of grunts with ease. They combined to form a defensive wall in front of me, and only a few of the enemy got through them to come at me.
A couple of axe goblins were the first to rush me, but I summoned a cementroll and pinned their legs in place. With a throw of a crystal, I summoned one of my wallerdons in mid-air, flat side down, and crushed them into a pulp. A minute later, a large mountain troll, its muddy skin covered in rock-like armor, smashed through my own axe goblins. Each of the troll’s long strides let out a crash of thunder as it charged me.
It swung one of its huge fists at me, but I had a bullet bass summoned, and it coated me in metal right before it hit home. The blow smashed me full in the face, but it didn’t hurt my metallic flesh, though the force did send me flying through a window. I surged to my feet right as the troll pounded through the wall of the kitchen that I’d landed in. While its eyes adjusted to the dust and debris, I sprinted and ducked through its legs and back to the street.
Wasting no time, I snatched a pair of crystals from my bandolier and tossed them down. As they hit the ground, the crystals disappeared in a flash and a flourish of smoke, and two drillmoles appeared in their place. They resembled regular moles, only their skin was brown, rough, and jagged like rock, and huge dagger-like buck teeth extended from their snout that helped with digging. However, the most dangerous things about them were the large claws on each foot and the large drill-like horn that jutted out of the crown of their heads. For obvious reasons, they were employed frequently by mining companies.
As the mountain troll shrugged off debris, I ordered the drillmoles to dig, and they dove into the earth like it was water. The troll recovered from its confusion and spun to face me, its ugly face turned into what appeared to be a sneer. It took a large, bounding step toward me, ready to grab me, but I didn’t move because I didn’t need to. I only smiled at the ugly brut
e as its feet hit the street once more.
Suddenly, the earth beneath the troll gave way as if it had opened up wide to eat him whole. The troll roared as it fell in a cloud of dirt, and by the time the dust cleared, the monster was buried up to its shoulders by the earth. It struggled to free itself, but it couldn’t manage, at least not quick enough to avoid my drillmoles who burst from the earth on either side of it.
They tore into the sorry troll, their claws and horns rending it to pieces as blood and viscera flew. Once the head was gored away in a spray of brain matter and skull fragments, one of the moles dug into the spurting mess of the neck and shoulders and clawed its way down to the submerged rest of the troll. It was already dead, but drillmoles could be right vicious monsters.
I recalled them. I didn’t need to see anymore, and besides, the troll had already begun to decay into dust and bones. Its skin faded away, leaving a few organs behind to harvest as well. Gross, but luckily I wasn’t the one who was going to use them.
I turned back to Arwyn who roared and slashed her sword through the skull of a daggerdillo. That was the last of that wave, so I recalled my monsters and strode toward her.
She gulped down air and swiped at the sweat on her brow. Her eyes took me in.
“Are you alright?” she asked, always the concerned healer.
I grinned. “I reckon I’m feeling great right now, Miss Hamner.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said as she returned my smile and started forward to the cathedral square once more. The clamor of battle still echoed all around us though I didn’t hear any of the telltale sounds of Nia’s magic. She might have already been waiting at the square.
“Keep pushing forward everyone!” Arwyn said as she spoke into the communicator on her wrist. Her voice echoed a half a second later at my wrist which made me jump. I guessed they worked. “We’re almost there!” she added.