Shadow Rogue Ascendant

by Mike Truk

  I exchanged a look with Cerys. “She’s right.”

  “They spill out, take the first few hits,” said Cerys, “then just as the ambushers realize they’re not their real targets, we send Pony out to charge at them. He can take the brunt of the damage, and Havatier and I hit them with ranged attacks while you and Yashara close.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Iris, how quickly can you bring some of your dead here?”

  “They’re always close,” said Iris, and the sound of shuffling feet sounded in the tunnel behind us. “Always close by my side. Go, my children. The wide world awaits you.”

  We pressed to the sides as the undead streamed past us, a good fifteen or so of them, most of them freshly killed, to shove open the grate with their shoulders and fumbling hands. As predicted, the rusted hinges shrieked in protest. I watched, frost blade in hand, as the dead stumbled forth into the dawn, emerging from the mouth of the tunnel to flounder in the mud.

  A half-dozen crossbow bolts slammed into their heads and shoulders, dropping three of them, and then muffled curses and a quiet bark of command stopped their fire.

  I looked to the war troll. “Ready Pony?”

  He set Tamara and Netherys down carefully, rolled his great head around his scrawny neck so that a series of violent staccato pops filled the air, then unslung his hammer and lumbered out past the grating. Just as he reached the mouth of the pipe he broke into a charge, swinging himself around by grasping the edge of the pipe and roared as he ran out of view up the bank.

  Screams sounded from above, and I couldn’t help but grin. I bet half the ambushers had just dropped a load in their pants. Being charged by a war troll will do that to even a seasoned soldier.

  “Havatier, with me!” Cerys ran forward, arrow at her bow, and then peered around the edge of the pipe to take her first shot.

  Her whole body tensed and she ducked back in. “Shit! Kellick! There’s too many of them!”

  “Too late!” I jogged forward, Yashara by my side. “We can’t lose Pony. Go, go, go!”

  Cerys nodded. She stepped out and around, Havatier following, both of them moving on the wooden boards that lay over the treacherous mud.

  A second later I rounded the other side and gazed up the bank at where the River Walk swept above. My heart sank at the sight of a score of crossbow men lining the berm, all of them frantically reloading as Pony churned through the mud toward them, but it was the sight of the Gloom Knight perched upon a lone pylon off to the left that really felt like a kick to the teeth.

  “Cerys, the knight!” I shouted as I leaped from wooden plank to wooden plank, angling wide to approach the pylon. The knight was crouched nearly five yards up like some maleficent crow, draped in a black and iridescent green cloak, two bandoliers of miniature knives crisscrossing their chest.

  One of which they then drew. The knife was no wider or longer than my index finger. A flick, and it blurred through the air to sink to the hilt in my chest.

  I’m dead, I thought as a wave of shock washed through me. There was no pain, just a profound sense of wrongness that came from having two inches of steel slide between your ribs.

  I slowed, almost stopped. Stared up at the gloom knight’s ornate mask. It was shaped like an owl’s face, slivers of jade radiating from the pinprick eyeholes to imitate the night bird’s great eyes. The knight stared back down at me, waiting for me to fall.

  I swayed. Dug my fingertips into the wound and found the rectangular pommel of the miniature blade. Pulled it free, flesh tearing as tiny prongs slashed me apart on the way out.

  I held up the tiny knife. It was slick with my blood. I felt my chest prickle as the wound began to heal. With a laugh I hurled the blade aside and resumed my march toward the knight.

  Off to my side and above I heard Pony reach the rank of crossbow men. An ensorcelled arrow flew overhead from Cerys’ bow at the knight, but they simply swayed aside so that it missed. This time it drew two blades, held them up in each hand by the points, then flicked them down together at me.

  I turned at the last second to present my profile, but the knight must have anticipated this dodge as both were thrown at my center line and sank deep into my left arm. Pain blossomed like roses of fire, but now I was close enough that I let out a roar of fury and sprint over the last few boards to leap, frost blade drawn back to swing with everything I had at the base of the wooden pylon.

  The knight leaped just before the black blade hit. There was an explosion of splinters as the blade cleaved clean through the seven-inch thick pole, severing it neatly in twain. The knight did a flip, landed in a crouch on another, shorter pylon, even as the first toppled over to collide wetly with the bank and send mud spattering everywhere.

  Cerys let loose another ensorcelled arrow, forcing the knight to dodge once more as I closed, pulling its blades free of my arm. I could sense its frustration as it cast Cerys a glance - it clearly wasn’t used to any battle lasting more than a few seconds - and then let out a cry of horror as it flung a blade her way.

  The flicker of steel was lost in the dull gray morning light as it flew toward Cerys, only to blaze with purple fire and miss her head by an inch. Relief turned my cry of horror into elation - Netherys had appeared at the pipe’s mouth, holding onto the ancient iron side for support.

  Iris was right behind her. She extended her hand and four of the undead who were wading up the bank suddenly imploded wetly. Their bodies rippled, tore, collapsed upon themselves as bones were sucked out and into a floating flail that sharpened and merged into a cataclysmic whip which she whirled once about her head and then snapped at the gloom knight.

  I just stood there and stared, awed by the necromancer’s power. The gloom knight let out an unlady-like curse and backflipped off the pylon just before it exploded into shards of rotten wood, the bone flail moving so fast it shrieked as it tore through the air.

  The knight landed on a wooden board which sank a good four inches beneath her weight, causing her to wobble just as I threw myself at her, frost blade coming in fast and low. The pain in my chest was already fading, my left arm stinging as if a horde of fire ants were burrowing into my flesh, but I used that to fuel my anger, my strike.

  But by the Hanged God’s turgid hopes for a good night’s sleep the knight backflipped over my blade as she threw a blade into my neck and another in Iris’ direction. The knife dug into my right forearm, causing my grip on the frost blade to weaken so that it slipped from my grasp. I couldn’t track who the other one hit, because I simply turned my charge into a tackle and threw myself into the gloom knight’s side as she landed anew on another board, plowing her into the mud.

  It was like tackling a giant snake. The knight was all muscular, wiry strength, flexing and contorting beneath me as we sank into the foul mud. My left arm was sufficiently healed that I was able to embrace her around the hips. We rolled down the bank, the mud sucking at us but failing to arrest our descent, then out over a lip to fall into the Snake Head itself.

  The crash of frigid water was all around us and then we sank into the darkness. Bubbles exploded from my mouth before I was able to clamp it shut, and then pain lanced into my shoulder and side as the knight stabbed at me.

  I tucked my chin and held tight, wriggling around so that I held her from behind, my cheek pressed between her shoulder blades as her cloak rippled around us.

  Down we went. She contorted and stabbed at me over and over again - into my thighs, into my ribs, up and into my shoulders, scoring deep cuts along my scalp.

  Down we sank, the Snake Head’s slow current carrying us along, deeper into the silty blackness. My body was a mass of lacerated flesh, and still the gloom knight fought to break free, turning her blade upon my interlocked fingers, cutting at them and stabbing into my wrists.

  The pain was terrible, but the cold and rush of combat made it feel distant; I brought my legs up and clammed them around the knight’s waist, then released my grip just long enough to bring my forearm up around her throa
t, clutching my wrist with my other hand as I hauled back and choked her as hard as I could.

  We sank deeper, pulled down by her voluminous cloak and my own chain shirt, and darkness danced before my eyes. My head was pounding as if it were being battered from within by a hammer, my lungs were swelling, demanding air, overriding my common sense, begging me to suck in a deep drag of the Snake Head.

  The gloom knight was flailing now, her attacks no longer precise, bubbles erupting from beneath her mask, her whole body shaking and writhing. I squeezed, ignoring the pressure in my chest, the agony that seared every length of arm and leg and my sides where I’d been stabbed dozens of times. I squeezed harder around her throat, clenched her to me as if my whole body were a fist, and then she went limp.

  Almost I let go. My need for air was overwhelming. Yet I bit down on my desire, courted my own death, allowed darkness to cloud my mind, my whole universe exploding in one frenzied desire to breathe, and held on, a little longer, a little longer –

  Suddenly, the knight exploded into frenzied flailing once more, a final burst of clouds erupting from beneath her mask. For three, four, five seconds she flailed, and then she went limp again. Twitched, shook, and went still.

  Enough. If she was trying to trick me a second time I’d concede the field to her cunning. I released her and fought to swim up - but couldn’t tell what direction to go. The dark waters of the Snake Head were inscrutable in all directions. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t reason. It was my turn to flail, to fight free of her smothering cloak and claw and kick as I finally released my last breath of air and screamed as the waters rushed into my mouth, thick and cloying.

  Something wrapped around my waist. A snake. No, an iron chain - something - I couldn’t tell what. It hauled me sideways, yanked me through the water, and then I burst back out onto the surface, my vision blurred, to be hauled up onto the muddy bank and there lie choking and gasping as someone slid down to where I lay and turned me onto my side.

  I couldn’t breathe, but a series of hard thumps on my back caused me to gag and then vomit a stream of Snake Head water out onto the mud. I felt like I’d been raked over a bed of live coals, and every part of me ached and burned. I dragged in a heaving gasp of fresh, delicious air and closed my eyes, focusing on not passing out.

  “He’s alive!” Cerys’ voice, coming as if from a distance. “Barely.”

  I don’t know how long I lay there, just breathing and letting my body start to heal, but it couldn’t have been longer than a minute. The crash and screams of combat ended, and then arms slid under my armpits and hauled me up.

  “Pony, put Kellik over your shoulder.” Yashara’s voice, no nonsense. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

  “No,” I said, wiping my wrist across my eyes, clearing them. I staggered away a few steps, then bent over to rest my hands on my knees. “I’m fine.” This assertion was met with silence, so I looked up through my wet hair and saw everyone exchanging glances. “What?”

  “You’re… you’re bleeding out from over a dozen wounds,” said Cerys. “You can’t be fine.”

  I gazed down at myself. My hands were a gory mess from where the gloom knight had raked her knife over them again and again. My clothing was dark with river water and blood. The pain that was generalized all over me seemed to be coming from a dozen very specific stab wounds.

  I grunted and forced myself to stand up straight. “It’ll pass. What’s the situation up top?”

  More looks, but then Pony reached us, Pogo standing in the crook of his arm. The war troll was plucking crossbow bolts from his body and flicking them away, brow lowered in concentration. Pogo, however, was almost vibrating with urgency.

  “I caught a glimpse of the River Walk,” he said. “Alas, reinforcements are en route. I fear that we need to move with all haste.”

  “Havatier?” I glanced around, saw the mage standing by the main pipe, Tamara lying unconscious at his feet. “Can you still conjure a wind?”

  “I believe so, yes.” His face was gray and drawn, but he still stood tall. “Enough to get us out of the bay, at any rate.”

  I cast around. There was nothing moored by the outflow pipe. The closest wharf was a block closer to the bay, a morass of drunkenly tilted boards on hoary green posts before what looked to be a half-sunken warehouse. Beyond that? A larger port, a dozen reputable ships at dock.

  “Go with Yashara and Cerys. Requisition a ship, then bring it back here.” The thought of trudging through the mud all the way there was too much to consider. “The rest of us will hole up in the pipe. Bring the boat up before us and we’ll board.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the best plan, but too many of us were injured to risk a scramble across several blocks while under fire. Havatier gave a curt nod, glanced at Yashara and Cerys both, and then began to hurry along the river’s flowing edge, pulling his boots free with an audible sucking sound with each step.

  “Back in the pipe,” I said, walking over to where my frost blade lay. My strength was starting to fade on me. King troll blood or no, I was clearly not invincible. “Hurry.”

  We piled back into the pipe, but didn’t pass through the grating into the farther dark. Instead, we crouched just within the lip, listening intently as the river flowed by, the southern bank a distant line beneath the overhanging buildings and distant docks.

  I refused to sit. Fought to remain on my feet, waiting, hoping that my strength would recover. “Netherys? You all right?”

  The dark elf had no such qualms; she’d slid down into a crouch, shoulder pressed to the ancient pipe’s side, cheek propped up on her palm. She didn’t even open her eyes as she answered, her voice smooth as crushed velvet. “I live, which is miracle enough. Mother Magrathaar must have need for me yet. If we can get out of this filthy pipe then I’ll have real reason to rejoice.”

  “Pogo,” I said. The squat little goblin was peeking around the pipe’s edge. “How’s Tamara?”

  Pogo hurried to the fallen healer’s side and pressed fingers to her neck, then peeled up an eyelid before pressing his large ear to her chest. “Alive,” he said, pulling back with clinical fastidiousness, “though her pulse is erratic and her temperature low. She needs rest, heat, and good nutrition if she is to pull through.”

  Voices called from above. Iris sighed. “My last child has been killed. The forces of the enemy are here.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Would that I could see through their eyes,” said Iris, voice distant. “That would be one step closer to slipping into their skin. Would that be a form of death? It would be too tempting to remain, to slip into a penumbral state, to taste, to… no.” Her eyelids fluttered and she smiled at me. “I’m sorry. I can grant them some modicum of self control, but cannot use their senses.”

  There was nothing else to do but wait. Nothing flowed by on the Snake Head. We all listened in aching silence, and I thought I could hear the sound of something sliding and squelching its way down toward us with extreme caution.

  “Someone comes,” said Netherys. Her eyes remained closed. “Let us hasten their approach.”

  A cry of alarm sounded out and then a squelch as someone fell and slid the last few yards into view. A young soldier, his mouth a dark ‘O’ of alarm, eyes widening in terror as Pony leaned out to slam his fist down upon him like someone else might swat a bug, burying the youth’s shoulders and head a foot deep in the mud as a bunch of bones cracked and gave away.

  “A scout,” said Netherys. “He served his purpose.”

  Indistinct voices sounded from above, the terse tone of someone giving commands. Feeling a little stronger, I moved up alongside Pony to block the tunnel’s entrance. “What do you think they’ll do?”

  Pogo was a smaller shadow within Pony’s own. “If the commander is wise, he’ll order crossbow men down to the edge of the Snake Head, positioning them out as wide and far away from us as they can get while still retaining an angle of fire. We’ll then either be driven deeper into th
e tunnel by their continuous shots, or tempted out to charge them and therefore exposed.”

  More shouts, and then the generalized squelch and slurry of many people making their way down the bank.

  I held my frost blade tightly. Retreating into the tunnel was a losing proposition. Taking a deep breath, I risked a glance around the side of the tunnel, little more than a quick peek up the bank at what was coming.

  I snatched my head back in as a crossbow twanged, and a moment later the whole pipe bonged as the bolt bounced off its iron side.

  “Shit,” I said. “There’s at least forty of them out there. Ten coming down on either side, twenty lined up to shoot at us as we emerge. I think I saw four or five city trolls with them.”

  “Not good,” said Pogo. “No, no, not good at all.”

  Netherys grimaced. “It’s a risk, but I might be able to beseech Mother Magrathaar for the aid of one of her servants.”

  “How big a risk?” I asked.

  She opened one eye, squinting as if even the dawn light pained her. “I’m weak. I might lose control of it, in which case it could very well attack us instead.”

  Another barked command, and then the crossbow men moved into view, shuffling nervously a good ten yards out on each side, down to the water’s edge where they had an oblique line of sight into our tunnel.

  Pogo stepped judiciously behind one of Pony’s legs. “Orders, Master Kellik?”

  “Netherys? Can you help them miss?”

  “Some,” said Netherys, voice faint. “My mind… my focus. It’s hard to summon my reserves with this… this splitting headache.”

  I glanced down at the terrible knot of raw flesh at her temple. “Pony? Mind, ah, stepping in front?”

  Pony grunted and lowered himself slightly into a crouch, arms out wide as he filled the center of the tunnel.

  “Ready?” The command was barked from someone out of view. “Aim!”

  Twenty crossbows came up, bolts already loaded. Fuck me if that wasn’t a harrowing sight.