Wintersbreath was out of the vehicle in seconds, the flamethrower left on the seat in her haste. Becky watched her go with a melancholy expression, dropping her own tank in the back as she got out.
“I’d hoped with how well we’ve been getting along that she wouldn’t throw a tantrum like that,” Becky sighed.
“It was inevitable,” Kuro added as she copied the other two. “I don’t blame her for wanting to go right now. I honestly feel the same, but I’ve learned to trust you both.”
“Let’s get going. We need to look over this place,” Alvin said, heading for the doors that Wintersbreath had vanished through.
The interior was mix of wood and bone. Alvin had always thought the idea of bone used for building would be cheesy, but this place pulled it off with a sophisticated artistry. Following the sounds of slamming doors and drawers, Alvin found Wintersbreath in a study.
“Find anything?” Alvin asked as they entered the room.
“Letters bearing the King’s seal,” Wintersbreath snarled. “He’s been communicating with these outlaws for years. The Gate opening was what they were waiting for. This attack would have come in another year if not for the Gate. Damn him!”
“Take the letters,” Alvin said. “Your Queen will want them. Let’s just check the rest of this room, then we’ll go.”
Looking up from the papers she was scanning, Wintersbreath met his eyes, the edge of her anger ebbing. “Thank you.”
“You do have a point. Your people are vastly unprepared for what is heading their way. We’ll be able to handle it,” Alvin said evenly. “But the next time you question my orders…”
Bowing her head fractionally, Wintersbreath acknowledged his meaning without speaking, turning her attention back to the desk. The others pulled the room apart, and less than an hour later, they were ready to go. The only other thing of note they found was a series of letters from an anonymous person inside the Queen’s court which gave the necromancers valuable information, including how many guards were stationed in each of the towns. One letter with no signature expressed their love for Neldor Soulfist, promising to marry him when he killed the Queen. The last item was a text explaining how to pull the power from a forest heart, storing it in a gem to be used at one’s leisure.
“Neldor is said to be the King’s brother… but he was thought dead,” Wintersbreath said as they left.
“Well, that obviously isn’t the case, and now we have supercharged necromancers to deal with,” Alvin complained.
“Burn the vestiges down and then drive for the nearest town?” Becky asked as they all but ran to the Humvee.
“The letters named Gelinaholt as the next weakest town. That’s to the north,” Kuro said as they all got into the vehicle.
“Next stop, Gelinaholt,” Alvin said as he got the Humvee started. “This is going to be a really long day. Jarvis, we’ll be missing dinner, but we hope to be home for breakfast.”
It only took a couple of minutes to get the last remnants of the forest burning. The forest’s heart smoldered, almost like some small bit of it was still alive and fighting back. As they raced away from the tree, Alvin glanced back to see the entire thing suddenly light up like the world’s biggest bonfire.
“That’s the end of the Death Woods,” Alvin murmured.
“It will not be missed,” Wintersbreath added. “I pray we are in time to assist Gelinaholt.”
“Me too,” Kuro added.
~*~*~
Shortly after they started driving, Alvin summoned the portal for the base. When they came to a stop in the garage, Wintersbreath looked like she was about to snap.
“Stop,” Alvin said, cutting off the impending tirade. “I’m switching vehicles. Ruffian can easily double the speed of the Turtle. You’ll wait here with the other two. When I get close enough to see the town or an attack, I’ll come back. We’ll take the Turtle at that point.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Should only take a couple of hours to do it that way,” Becky said as she began to unstrap the flamethrower.
“But—”
“Champion, they are right,” Kuro said firmly. “It will mean we are there faster, and arguing only delays us.”
Alvin was already out of the Humvee and walking over to Ruffian. “It doesn’t delay me at all. Explain it better while I’m gone,” Alvin said as he slid into the seat of the Mustang. “You have an hour to rest and get some food and drink in you.”
“Sir!” Jarvis said, hurrying out of the kiosk room. “Take this with you.” Jarvis handed Alvin a travel cup and a sandwich.
“Thanks, buddy. Make sure they’re taken care of.”
“Of course, sir.”
Kuro and Becky smiled after Alvin as he drove the Mustang out of the base. When he was gone, Becky turned to the grimacing Wintersbreath. “Amara, have we misled you yet?”
Looking from the archway to Becky, Wintersbreath sighed. “No, but I don’t like sitting here when we could be going.”
“Let’s go have a drink and something to eat, and I’ll do my best to explain the magic that is the home base.”
With another long look at the glowing portal, Wintersbreath trailed after Becky. Kuro followed, looking hard at the portal. Don’t do anything rash, Hero, Kuro thought, but kept it to herself.
~*~*~
Alvin drove Ruffian like he was late for a date with Becky, the speedometer nearly pegged and his hands tight on the wheel. Eyes forward, his thoughts kept turning to the necromancers and how dangerous it was going to be for the group to deal with them.
He slowed when the light of a major fire became visible, looming in the distance. “Fuck, the town’s already burning,” Alvin muttered as he downed the last of his coffee. “Time to grab the girls and prepare for war.”
Summoning the portal, he pulled into the garage and parked. Becky, Kuro, and Wintersbreath were there already, getting their flamethrower harnesses back on. “Gelinaholt is burning,” Alvin said as he headed for the driver’s side of the Humvee.
“We’re too late,” Wintersbreath growled.
“For this town, maybe, but not for the next,” Kuro said, climbing into the front passenger seat.
“We’ll stop them here,” Becky added, standing up in the gunner’s position and getting the sling seat situated.
“Burn them all,” Wintersbreath said, slamming the door as she got in.
“Loot them when they stop burning,” Alvin said as he got the Humvee started. “We might not be able to save the town, but we’ll be stopping the attackers here.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Driving toward the fire in the distance, the group was tense but ready for the imminent fight. A half mile from the town walls, Alvin’s headlights swept across a handful of people atop sevras, watching the town burn.
“Your asses are mine,” Alvin muttered as he headed for them.
The five men turned their heads, but before any of them could move, the M240B opened up. One was knocked from his mount just as shields sprang up, and the other four took off at speed.
“Damn it,” Alvin hissed as he kept aiming at the wide-eyed Elf scrambling to get back on his feet.
Becky never gave the poor bastard a chance; the M240B peppered his shield with round after round. The barrier broke just before the Humvee got too close for the gun to stop being useful, and the Elf met the steel bars at the front of the vehicle with a solid thunk. That, along with the sound of something bouncing off the undercarriage a few times, let Alvin know he had been on target.
Making a hard turn, Alvin shouted to Kuro, “Mousie, on the ground! Light him up.”
Kuro had been waiting for her opportunity and saw it when the bloody Elf sat up. Her napalm hit him square in the face and he let out a high-pitched yell and started flailing around, trying to put the fire out.
“One down,” Kuro replied, vicious satisfaction clear in her voice.
“We’ll follow one of the others next,” Alvin said, heading the direction that one of
the other riders had run for.
The M240B fired when one of the Elves was briefly spotlighted by the headlights. “These shields are fucking annoying,” Becky complained. “His mount is dead, though.”
“Not surprised,” Alvin said. “Do what you can, Gothy. You two, be ready if we get close enough to anything for you to hit,” he told Kuro and Wintersbreath.
“Can you not catch him?” Wintersbreath asked.
“That sevra can outrun the Humvee and it’s more nimble, too,” Alvin told her. “In fact, we’ll have to wait for one of them to take a stand. We’ll go after the town, see if that prompts them to follow us.”
“Hero, we might not need to go inside,” Becky said, sounding slightly uncertain.
Eyes turning to the ruined gates, Alvin saw a stream of people pouring out of the town. “Those can’t be the townsfolk…”
“I think it’s the undead army you were waiting to see,” Becky said as she emptied the belt into the oncoming horde.
“Here comes the fun, ladies,” Alvin said. “Mind the windows; they might be smart enough to attack the gaps.”
“Ready,” Kuro said. She set the end of her nozzle in the window, then shut it as far as she could.
“I’ll be careful,” Wintersbreath said, waiting for the army to get closer.
Alvin’s jaw dropped, watching as more and more undead poured from the town like an unending tide. “Fucking shit. How many bodies did they have in the forest?”
“A multitude,” Becky said as the M240B was busy reloading. “I think I can—” She cut off with a sudden scream, flooding Alvin and Kuro with worry and anger.
“Gothy? What happened?” Alvin asked.
“You want to fucking go, bird!?” Becky yelled as her flamethrower sent a burst of fire into the air. “That’s right! Now you’re an extra crispy bitch, aren’t you?”
“Gothy?” Alvin snapped.
“They have night hawks or something out here,” Becky snarled. “I was hit. I’m not hurt, I was just startled.”
“You’re on sky duty, then,” Alvin said. The Humvee was about to reach the first ranks of the undead, who stopped rushing at them and set spears into the ground. “You think spears will stop the Turtle?” Alvin laughed darkly, plowing through the first rows without slowing.
The other three let loose with the napalm, coating undead in every direction. Becky made sure to hit the ones on the ground that the Humvee had driven over. Alvin felt the vehicle slowing, the sheer number of undead beginning to press in on them. A few of the zombies even attacked the tires as they went by, which worried Alvin a little.
“How many of you fucks are there?” Alvin asked in exasperation, turning away from the still massing horde.
“Lots and lots,” Becky answered him, switching back to the M240B while her flamethrower reloaded.
“We’ve lost thousands in the forest since the necromancers retreated into it. Plus, they’ve always taken all the dead with them when they’ve attacked towns over the years,” Wintersbreath added.
Alvin was barely past the first mass when the undead grew and turned to chase the Humvee. Becky, who was shooting at them, shook her head and yelled, “Drive faster!”
Looking in the side mirror, Alvin was startled when he saw the closest of the zombies easily keeping pace and even gaining on the Humvee. “Can you keep them off, Gothy?”
“Not that many,” Becky said, continuing to fire into the rapidly closing mass of flesh. “About to go hot again!”
“Might need to close up and fire from the back with Amara,” Alvin told her.
“I’ll drop after this round with the flamethrower,” Becky said. She finished the belt and picked her wand back up, spraying down the undead Elves closest to the Humvee. The moment her flamethrower ran out of fuel, she dropped down into the Humvee and latched the gunner’s hatch.
“I’m in—” Becky was cut off by several thuds as something hit the back of the Humvee. “We’ve got boarders, and that means we have napalm on the Humvee now.”
“Shit,” Alvin hissed as he jerked the wheel side to side.
Two undead bodies went tumbling off the vehicle and into the path of the horde. Alvin watched them in the rearview and shook his head. “We’re retreating.”
“No!” Wintersbreath said.
“Yes,” Alvin snapped. “We’ll do what we did with the beasts: throw out explosives, wait a bit, then come out again.”
“There are too many for us to deal with when they’ve been buffed,” Becky told Wintersbreath.
“Fine, a temporary withdrawal,” Wintersbreath growled.
Alvin summoned a portal and the Humvee vanished into it. On the other side, it stopped instantly, almost like it hadn’t been speeding at all. Alvin killed the engine and got out, heading straight for the kiosk. The three women got out a bit more slowly and took their tanks off, knowing they would be waiting an hour at least.
Jarvis was at the kiosk when Alvin came storming into the room. “Sir, I have been informed that I’m authorized to let you know that the ability to use the base as a retreat during encounters is being reexamined.”
Alvin came to a stop, anger written across his face. “They really want to do this? Now?”
“Nothing is changing immediately, sir, though it will likely change in the near future,” Jarvis explained. “What you are facing right now is being described as a raid encounter, and it’s thought to be a bit beyond the scope of such a small group.”
“You think?”
“What are they doing now?” Becky asked, coming in from the garage with Kuro and Wintersbreath trailing after her.
“The ability to retreat to the base while in combat is being reevaluated,” Jarvis told her. “It won’t be changed today, but it will be, probably soon. And as I was explaining to sir, you are currently in a raid encounter of considerably higher difficulty than anything you’ve faced. There should be well over a score of people to attempt something of this caliber, and you’re doing it with just four of you, using game mechanics in an… inventive fashion.”
“They think we should retreat and get help?” Becky asked frostily.
“I couldn’t say, miss. I was just given the information to pass along,” Jarvis replied with an apologetic expression.
Becky let out a deep breath, “Fuck these devs.”
“What’s the problem?” Wintersbreath asked.
“Hard to explain,” Becky said, “basically, we’re in way over our heads and the dumbfucks who could make it right are telling us to retreat and get help.”
“If we retreat, that just lets the necromancers advance. By the time we get back with a fighting force, they’ll have destroyed even more towns,” Wintersbreath said.
“Hero,” Kuro said, looking to him beseechingly, “what are we going to do?”
“What we did before,” Alvin said. “We’re not retreating. We’ll bomb the fuck out of the area around the portal and after the flames die down, we’ll go charging back out. If we need to, we’ll repeat it a few times.”
“I shall prepare snacks and coffee,” Jarvis said, heading for the kitchen.
“Mousie, I want you to assist Jarvis with cooking. Gothy, Amara, go relax for a bit. I’ll join you once I’m done with the fireworks.”
“As you wish, Hero.” Becky’s tone wasn’t pleased, though she didn’t argue.
“I’m ready to help,” Kuro said hopefully.
“I can, too,” Wintersbreath said. “I’d rather help than twiddle my thumbs.”
Alvin glanced at her and nodded, “Fine. We’ll do this in teams of two.” Becky, Kuro, and Wintersbreath readily agreed to Alvin’s idea.
Alvin ordered what he needed from the kiosk and carted it all to the garage. Becky watched him make the first flaming claymore. Kuro passed Alvin the items he needed and Wintersbreath did the same for Becky.
When they threw the last one through the portal, the four of them retired to the dining area. Jarvis had coffee waiting for them and the smell of
cooking bacon wafted from the kitchen. Alvin slumped into his seat, hit by a wave of exhaustion.
“I will have food ready in ten minutes,” Jarvis said.
“We’ll wait. It’s not like we can go anywhere for a bit,” Alvin yawned. Pouring a cup of coffee, he prepared for a very long night.
Chapter Forty-eight
Alvin backed through the portal with everyone braced for a possible attack. The area surrounding the portal was littered with remnants of the explosives they had thrown through it. There were no bodies, but the still smoking craters gave testament to the fury they had unleashed.
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