The Azure Dragon

by Vladimir Vasilenko

  "No, but I can let someone down on my rope," I pointed at the Stinger. "And quickly pull them up. We just need someone who's not very heavy. Why don't you try?"

  "Yeah, right!" The archer snorted, leaping backward even further from the expanding cloud of ants. "Never in my entire life! They'll eat you to the bone!"

  "You can't cope with them without magic!" Viper echoed from afar—he has galloped to the very edge of the crater. "Need fire!"

  Only Doc, Karachun and I were left at the top of the central anthill. We could barely fit on the free island formed by the aura of death. But this island gradually narrowed, as if melting.

  "Karachun will kill them! Frosty breath!"

  The Hounds hesitated for a few seconds, considering my words. Finally, Edge came back to us. She jumped but didn't quite make it and landed right in the midst of the ants so that they made a distinct crunch under her soles. I grabbed her hand, pulling her toward me.

  "I'll try!" She exhaled.

  I nodded silently and placed the tip of the Stinger in her palm.

  "Be careful, it's sharp. Hold on to the rope, not the tip."

  She threw the rope around her wrist, wrapping it a couple of times to be sure.

  Bers, Sting, and Viper were running away like crazy, and rightly so. Not far from us, like a huge abscess, opened another anthill, then another. The insects came in waves.

  "Oh, guys, that's a risky plan," Doc shook his head, nervous. "But let's give it a try. All right, step aside!"

  We let Doc and his ward get closer to the rift leading to the core of the anthill.

  "We're not gonna have much time because he's devouring my mana!" Doc warned. "So, girl, dive immediately after I tell you!"

  Edge nodded, shaking the pests off her pants—the most tenacious ones broke even through the aura.

  Karachun opened his bony mouth and leaned over the fissure. Hissing loudly, frosty breath escaped his mouth, spreading like hefty fire extinguisher foam. Everything around was shrouded in a frosty vapor. I even thought I heard thousands of thin screams coming from dying insects. The breath killed them instantly—cascades of tiny frozen corpses showered down like snow from the disturbed branches. Ten seconds later, the inside of the anthill sparkled with frost, like the walls of an icy well.

  "It should be enough!" The necromancer nodded, stopping Karachun.

  Edge turned her back to the breach, and our eyes met.

  "Don't drop me," she said nervously.

  I didn't have time to answer, so I just nodded, and she stepped into the dark abyss. The rope stretched under her weight, and I was pulled even closer to the edge—the surface of the clay dome was icy from the lich's breath, and my feet slid on it. Doc grabbed me by the shoulder and threw a few glowing spheres to lit up the inside for Edge.

  Ants, that backed up from Karachun's breathing, again flooded from all sides. To our right, the top of another anthill collapsed inside with a loud crash, and another several thousands of reinforcements arrived outside. All around us grew the sound of the rustling of countless tiny feet, and it was more frightening than the roar of an angry lion. Actually, these creatures weren't so tiny—they were at least twenty times larger than regular black ants and bit harder than wasps. Actually, wasps just sting. And these ants literally bit off chunks of flesh.

  "Edge, hurry!" I shouted, trying not to sound like I was beginning to panic.

  There were so many ants there by now that they swarmed around us in a layer of six inches thick, and many of them fell directly to our feet. I felt a few bites on my legs, and one small bastard managed to get to my head and dug into the earlobe. It hurt so much that I screamed and shook my head.

  The vanara cub came to the rescue—he deftly grabbed the ant with his paw and immediately devoured it. The insect's body crunched on his teeth like a seed. He got several of them before they could reach us.

  Another anthill, right next to us, seemed to explode from the inside—down fell large fragments of soil, and then, as if from a broken dam, went another wave of ants.

  Doc gave Karachun a command, and the lich breathed frost at the live mass with a loud hiss.

  "Girl, hurry!" The necromancer yelled, and he didn't even try to hide his panic. "I think it's cracking under my feet. If we fall down now…"

  He did not finish, but I had a clear picture of how we would be falling down, and then literally drowning under a layer of insects.

  "Yes!" I heard Edge screaming. "Pull me back!"

  I literally yanked her up. She was disheveled and covered with ant corpses and cobwebs, but had burning excitement in her eyes.

  "I got it!" She boasted, showing a hefty nugget that flashed in the bright sun like melted mirror.

  "Let's get outta here!" Doc commanded, not letting us enjoy the moment.

  It was just a few steps to the edge of the crater, but it wasn't easy to overcome even this small distance. There were already so many ants around that we couldn't even see where we were going—everything drowned in a single moving mass. Doc let Karachun in front of him and, obviously saving mana, cleared the way with short bursts of Frosty Breath. But, when we finally left the clay pillars, we realized that we weren’t out of danger’s path.

  The giant ant pack had already climbed out of the crater. Screaming obscenities and cursing the world, the guys tried to escape the creatures by running into the small lake that was gleaming in the bushes. For some reason, I doubted that the water was going to stop the ants. I thought that nothing could stop such an army, except maybe a river of boiling lava. But the water gave at least some hope, so all of us rushed to it.

  Karachun's aura no longer saved us. The ants were rushing like a living river, and in some places, the waves of this living mass reached our ankles. We tried to shake them off on the run, but it didn't really work. I felt like darts were fired at me from all sides. Every second, my whole body was pierced with pain in the most unexpected places.

  This was another pinprick of this misfortune. Pain in Artar is neutralized, both in intensity and especially in duration. After all, players are not masochists. At least most of them are not. But in this case, this system didn’t really help, because it simply did not have time to react. The bites were small, and the pain pierced you with bright flashes. Although they faded quickly, but after one came another, and another and another—dozens, hundreds of bites. This was torture. It'd be better fighting an angry tiger than falling into the trap of these tiny predators.

  "Dan! Dan, here! Hold on!" Bers and Terekhov shouted, trying to grab the big man and direct him in the right direction.

  From under the massive helmet of our tank came an endless roar. He frantically darted from side to side, no longer seeing anything in front of himself. His screams made me uncomfortable. I remembered a movie in which there was an episode about an ancient torture called "copper bull"—some unfortunate souls were placed inside a hollow copper statue of a bull and roasted alive. Daniel wasn't doing well—the ants crawled under his armor, and he couldn't get them off.

  In a little bit, our giant stumbled and fell to his knees. We rushed to help him up, but he was waving his hands and inadvertently hit Sting in the face. He seemed to be so dazed by the pain that he didn't know what was going on. He clutched his hands to his helmet, scratching at it obtusely.

  "Dan, deactivate your armor!" Bers yelled in his face. "Through the interface! Dan!!"

  It seemed that Daniel heard him. The large helmet and cuirass flickered for a couple of seconds and then disappeared altogether. Kata screamed, clutching her mouth with her hand. My heart skipped a beat.

  A lot of small creatures got under the poor man's armor—they were literally swarming on his body, covering him in a dense layer, especially on open areas of his skin. His face turned into a bloody mask, and in some places, it was gnawed to the bone. The fact that he ran, without paying attention to the road, and could not even activate the interface, was clear: he was almost blind. One eye bubbled with blood, and the other one turned
into a barely visible crack between the swollen eyelids.

  Sensing blood, ants rushed at him with a vengeance, covering him with a thick layer. He was yelling and trying to shake them off, scratching his face.

  Kata screamed in horror, others also stopped, not knowing how to help, and not paying attention to the bites of the attacking ants on their own bodies. Soon this avalanche of insects would cover us, too.

  Someone pushed me to the side and jumped toward Daniel. It was Terekhov. We did not have time to even gasp as he drew his sword and drove the blade into the chest of the big man so that the tip appeared from the back. Daniel wheezed, wrapping both of his hands over the blade, but quickly went limp and fell on his back. Terekhov staggered back, releasing his sword. The ants immediately covered Daniel like a stirring thick carpet.

  "What?!" The paladin barked at us. "Run to the lake! Quick!"

  We ran into the water, raising a whole cloud of spray. At that moment, we didn't care what might be hiding in this muddy lake. Even an angry and hungry gbahali the size of a subway car would now be preferable to an eerie assemblage of tiny killers that followed us everywhere.

  We huddled back to back, standing waist-deep in the water, and the ants flowed around the lake on the shore. Some of them still fell into the water and floundered helplessly in it. Doc released a few bursts of Frosty Breath at this moving crowd, using up the remnants of his mana. He didn't mean to frighten them as it was no longer necessary. He just did it out of revenge for Dan. Apparently, I wasn't the only one with the visual of his pitted face and the echoes of his crazy cries.

  At first, I was horrified by Terekhov's act, but then I understood that it was an act of mercy on his part. Dan could not be saved. And to be eaten alive by these small scions of Uobo was a far more terrible death than being killed by a sword in the heart.

  "When Siafu go through the jungle, all living things scamper about," Viper said in strangled voice. "Their flow is several feet wide, and they devour everything on their path, even grass. But they become especially savage when they sense blood. I think they could gnaw an elephant to the bone."

  "Very educational. But you could have told us earlier!" Bers growled.

  "How did I know that?! I only heard about them from the guys who play longer. I've never seen them myself. And even more so, no one knows where they come from."

  "Now we know," Terekhov said grimly.

  He turned to me.

  "Well, at least it was not in vain?"

  "Edge got another tear," I said, fighting the lump in my throat.

  The assassin nodded and patted her inventory.

  "Hey, what's that noise?"

  To the north of us, behind a small bamboo grove, loomed a fairly large open space. From there, we heard furious screams and the sound of powerful blows. There were also flashes of bright spell. A battle!

  I turned my head, focusing, and the pieces of the puzzle quickly fell into place. We made our way to the crater, making a fair detour to get around the Whispering Oak at a respectful distance. But Genghis's party, if he had come from Kongamato Nest in a straight line, led by a compass, had landed right in the camp of the black vanaras.

  The cub on my shoulder froze again, its paws gripping my shoulder. Hanuman's voice rang out.

  "Why are you soaking in this lake like crocodiles? The head shamans are going to get back to the Oak. And then your friends will not last long!"

  "That's what they deserve!" Bers snapped.

  "They can't outfight the shamans! You won't be able without them, either. You can only win if you attack them all at once!"

  "Fuck you!" Bers barked again. "We aren't going to help these assholes!"

  "Then how do you intend to keep your end of the bargain? Or do you want to deceive the Great Hanuman and incur his wrath?"

  It was said quietly, insinuatingly, but the words of the oracle made me feel uncomfortable.

  The cub quieted down: these conversations were always short. Either Hanuman or the messenger spent a lot of energy on it.

  We looked at each other.

  "Well, what are we going to do, Hounds?" Sting asked grimly.

  Chapter 19. The Whispering Oak

  Battles, in which the Steel Hounds and I took part were comparable to a raucous street fight—with wham-bam, swearing, dirty tricks, screams of the wounded and the eerie battle cries of Bers, that sounded more like an animal roar. So when we saw Genghis's squad fight, I had to appreciate the difference.

  Maybe at first, they were caught off guard, but by the time we picked up Dan at the nearest menhir, and crept closer to the Whispering Oak, the fighting machine of the Hounds worked to its full extent.

  The first thing that caught my eye was a perfect battle formation. Bison, Kir, and two more tanks, whose names I didn't know, moved forward, scattered in a semicircle. A little behind them, closing the gaps in the front, lined up less armored, but more mobile close combat fighters—some had a shield and sword, and some had spears. A few more fighters covered the rear and flanks of the central group, which had healers and mages. Genghis’s powerful figure towered in the center of the line—it seemed that he was ready to replace any fighter at the front or in the rear in case it was necessary.

  Oh, yeah. Mages. This is the second thing that caught my attention. In our squad, only Doc used magic, and Kata threw ice arrows. So our fights looked like a regular battle without any special effects. In Genghis's squad, mages and healers seemed to be a key element of the group. Like artillery in the army.

  Laurel could be seen from afar, in his massive heavy armor with ornate shoulders, converging like an arch over his head. Here he shouted something, lifting his scepter-looking mace to the sky. A beam of bright light fell on him from above, and then a huge hole, thirty feet in diameter, opened up in the ground. It was patterned with a thin web and glowing runes. The circle covered the entire battle line, and a shimmering bluish outline glowed around each fighter for a few seconds.

  It looked like some kind of a powerful buff. Then Karim joined in. He was a follower of the shaman healing school, so he used ghost totems. Around him, exuding a glow of greenish waves, rose as many as four intricately carved pillars with the figures of some animals on top. Bison was being attacked by three huge vanaras, so Karim extended a broad winding beam towards him. That must have been some healing spell. The tank, who was almost hidden under the hairy carcasses of the vanaras, suddenly found strength and threw off his opponents with a broad blow of the shield.

  Black-haired Kali, dressed in silk and lace, glowed with an ominous crimson flame, and from a distance, it seemed that she was standing in the middle of blazing fire, like a witch burned by medieval peasants. She just wasn't tied to a post. On the contrary, she proudly threw up her head, and stretched her hands with splayed fingers out towards the opponents. Her spells were like gray-and-scarlet birds, woven from burning embers and dense smoke. They slipped off her hands and flew away, leaving a long ghostly train behind them. Then they hit the vanaras like homing missiles, and the huge monkeys were thrown back as if hit by an explosive wave.

  There were only three archers in the unit, but they could shoot so fast that there were constantly a dozen arrows in the air. One of them had incendiary arrows—they made a smoky trail in the air that could be seen from afar. One of the vanara yurts was already burning, and the fire slowly spread to the neighboring ones.

  The squad slowly but surely moved forward. The tanks had reached the outer ring of the yurts. On the ground around them lay several dead vanara bodies. Powerful gorilla-like monsters growled furiously, trying to push back the insolent, but there was despair in their roars. It seemed that vanaras were taken aback by not being able to crush the little people with one powerful onslaught. Perhaps, they never had to deal with opponents who could give them a robust response.

  However, their monstrous strength manifested itself. Genghis’s tanks were clad in thick steel armor, and Karim and Laurel, buffed to the eyeballs, but they still could barely t
ake their blows. Without the support of the healers, the squad would already have been done for. It didn’t make much difference how good your discipline and armor were when you were fighting against three dozen brutal gorillas, each weighing a quarter of a ton.

  And now, we were witnessing the turning point in the battle. It all started with a giant vanara entering the brawl. He had hair that was so black that it seemed to be made from purest darkness. Only the whites of his eyes and fangs glittered in the black background of everything else. He dragged a hefty snag, thirteen feet or so in length, and joined the battle by flinging the log in the crowd of enemies.

  Genghis's men rushed to the side as if from a grenade, but two of them were hit by the snag, which knocked them down. Then the huge weapon rolled further into the broken crowd of the fighters. The next moment, as if finding a gap in the dam, other vanaras flooded in with malevolent cries.

  "It's time!" Viper shouted, looking at the Hounds desperately trying to fight off the offensive.

  "Stop!" Terekhov said, grabbing his elbow. "I haven't decided yet."

  "What's there to decide? They're about to be killed! And the shamans aren't even here yet! Do you suggest standing here and watching?!"

  "Well, go ahead, run to your buddies and help them!" Bers shook his red head.

  However, he has already pulled out the axes and was nervously playing with them as if making a beat to inaudible music. The others also stood with weapons at the ready but waited for Terekhov's command.

  "We must intervene!" I said. "They won't be able to take them out without us. And we have even fewer chances without them. Hanuman lured us all here on purpose."

  "Fuck Hanuman!" Bers snapped. "Are we going to dance to the tune of some half-witted NPC? We already got adamantite from him, so we don't need his help anymore."

  "You think you can just screw him over like that? Well, unless you plan on never going back to Uobo again…"

  "It's not about Hanuman!" Sting intervened. "Stan is right—we need to help Genghis. For ourselves. Don't you understand? If we pull Genghis out of this mess now, we'll rub our success in Clam's face!"