The Azure Dragon

by Vladimir Vasilenko

  A long, vibrating cry echoed through the jungle, literally crushing us to the ground. Like many people, I stumbled and fell to my knees, clutching my ears. It felt like someone had started drilling into my skull in several places at once, using blunt rusty drills and blender knives. My body could almost feel the sound waves. The wind that blew in my face made my eyes water and pinched my skin.

  It took me a while to figure out that this terrible attack was coming from the Tree itself. It opened its monstrous and cave-like mouth and lashed us with its wailing like an invisible whip. This sound wave didn't affect the spiky giant minions and arachnoid apes as they rushed toward us with renewed vigor.

  It lasted ten seconds, fifteen at the most. If Jubacca had a little more powerful lungs, it'd have been over. We barely managed to get up to our feet as we were hit by the walking driftwood and surrounded by the remnants of the goggle-eyed army. On our side, the armor-clad warriors couldn't really tank the big guys because of the difference in weight categories. This fact also proved that Uobo was a tough cookie for us. Maybe in a few months, when the soldiers would reach an appropriate level of strength, comparable to the Greek demigods, they would be comfortable enough to fight such monsters. At that moment, these ten-foot tall bumpkins passed through our formation as armed police through crowd of peasant protesters. Unfortunately, they had enough brains to not be distracted by the tanks and move straight into the center.

  Our mages and archers suffered greatly from the sound wave. After all, they were much weaker than the soldiers. Most of them just fell into the mud and now floundered, trying to get up. Only the trio of Whispering Oak shamans were still standing strong. But instead of turning their spells against the enemy, they just hammered their pointed poles into the ground.

  Geez, they are trying to build an altar!

  "There is no time for this shit!" Terekhov yelled at them, emerging from the darkness. "The fight isn't over yet!"

  A flash of lightning lit up his figure, angular because of his armor, and for a second, it seemed that the lion's muzzle on his massive epaulet of his right shoulder bared the fangs as if it was alive. Ngali's reply drowned in the burst of thunder, and all I heard was the wisp of a phrase. It was something like "give me time".

  I remembered the discussion we had with the shamans after Bao had left us to go back to the Gray Peak. Terekhov and Genghis reasonably expressed their doubts about the idea of going to Jubacca. Even if the shamans would be able to put the totem up near the Tree of Death, the Jubacca vanaras could simply destroy it later when we left.

  It turned out that, united by magic, the altars reinforce each other, and now, when they were feeding on the power of the Celestial Tree and Whispering Oak, they were almost invulnerable. Even Hanuman wasn't able to destroy them. Having received the power of the third tree, the shamans would be even more powerful. This should have been a turning point in their entire war with the monkey king.

  However, to activate the altar, they needed to conduct their ritual. I've seen it once before, and it didn't look like it was something that could be done quickly.

  Unfortunately, the rain was getting stronger, and because of the water jets, gushing from the sky, it was difficult to see anything around. Our battle order collapsed by now, and the remains of the detachment no longer acted like a well-oiled fighting machine but looked a desperately straggling pack of scruffy dogs.

  Are we going to fail?

  I pushed the thought away, terrified that its mere presence in my head could already affect the outcome of the battle.

  No, no, no! The Hounds don't give up!

  A pillar of bright light suddenly struck from the sky. In a moment, bright flashes splashed around, projecting intricate runes on the wet ground.

  Laurel's back!

  The effect of the buff was not very long, about twenty seconds. But it was enough to spring the spirit of the fighters from the front lines, so they once again leaped to the attack, almost throwing themselves under the feet of spiky woody giants, who were already very close. I backed away, retreating further to our shamans, thinking that my staff was obviously useless against these thugs, as was any ordinary weapon. Only magic could do the trick here.

  One of the giants was suddenly doused by a frosty cloud. Doc, squeezing out the remains of mana and directed Karachun’s frosty breath at the monster. It didn't last long, but the monster slowed down, and then slipped on a frozen puddle beneath his feet. Two of our tanks pounced upon him from the flank with wild screams. One of them was Daniel, who could be recognized a mile away by his disproportionately large helmet and shoulder pads with long spikes.

  Clumsily raking his hands in the air, the giant slumped to one side. Everyone here broke out into joyful cries as if we just won the battle. I heard an almost inhuman squeal behind me that made me involuntarily stagger to the side, almost falling into the mud.

  Kali's signature war paint was smudged by the rain, and her face had the remnants of her makeup mixed with blood from the cut on her forehead. Wet and partially torn clothes looked highly erotic, despite the fact that her exposed body was badly smeared with mud and revealed fresh abrasions. Only the face distorted with rage and glowing cat eyes ruined the image. Although, perhaps, it added a special charm.

  Hunched over, the sorceress threw her hands with long black nails in front of her and showered the fallen Jubacca guards with five or six signature spells. Obviously, she went all-in, much like Doc. Hissing and leaving a smoky trail under the rain, her fire birds crashed against the ugly carcasses of the monsters, leaving behind black wounds with red-hot edges, like burning logs. After all, these things weren't made of flesh and blood! They were more like living trees.

  The second prickly bumpkin hesitated as the body of his brother blocked his way. Remnants of our detachment surrounded him, simultaneously finishing off the ordinary arachnoid ape. Having spent all his mana on the last attack, Doc was defenseless for a while, so I rushed toward him, just in time to help him to fight off one of the freaks, moving in from the behind. I charged the Water element combo-attack at the creature, shattering its skull like a ripe melon with the final blow. Recoiling from the spray of acid slime, Doc slipped and flopped his butt in the mud, right in front of Karachun. The lich was also restoring his mana, which put him out of business—he could only look around, bulging his terrible glowing eyes and moved his disproportionately large bony hands in the air.

  I stretched my hand to the necromancer, helping him up.

  "Thanks, Stan!" He exhaled, spitting and wiping the water from his face.

  The rain gradually began to subside, and lightning flashed much less often. It made it easier to examine the situation, which was depressing. All the vast space in front of the Tree of Death was littered with corpses, and less than a dozen of our fighters were left, along with the shamans and the Whispering Oak. However, the Jubacca didn’t have many more soldiers left either and the monstrous tree closed its mouth as if it was hiding like a turtle in a shell... Or preparing for its next screaming attack. If it could lash out again, it would be game over. We wouldn’t survive the second sound attack because we could barely stand on our feet from our wounds.

  "Hurry! Stan, come with me!"

  Doc pulled my sleeve and was the first to run straight for the tree, occasionally slipping in the liquid mud.

  "Where are you going, Doc? Are you crazy?!"

  Close up, the huge yawn of the carnivorous tree looked even uglier. It glowed slightly from the inside, exposing slime-covered pulp that was as red as fresh meat. Judging by the sharp smell, the goo was the same kind as one of the arachnoid vanaras, so I didn't really want to stick my bare hands in it.

  Also, Jubacca could breathe! The huge sloping sides of the tree rose and fell, and the air hissed through the slit of its covered mouth. As it exhaled, Doc and I smelled a wave of terrible stench, covering our mouths with our hands and darting to the side.

  A Jubacca vanara that was sitting in the dirt like a gnarly bump, jumpe
d out at us all the sudden. But, alone, these creatures were not so dangerous—a couple of Karachun's ice arrows and a few good hits with my staff sent the opponent back into his hiding place with a shrill cry.

  Then it went even easier. There was some sort of an exclusion zone around the Tree of Death, which kept even the Jubacca vanaras away from the trunk. It looked like the only ones who could be in direct contact this ancient beast were the prickly giants, but the Hounds kept them busy at the moment.

  Doc ran to the tree, skirting it from the left in a wide arc.

  "Where are you going?!" I shouted.

  "You want fruit, right?" He turned.

  Yes, that's right, I forgot what we were there for because I was overwhelmed by the fight. To challenge Hanuman, I needed one of those ugly stumpy arms, that was swaying on the branches of Jubacca. Did I hope that part of them just falls down to the ground, without me having to climb? Of course not.

  The downpour eased, turning into a drizzle, but the soil around the tree turned into a solid mess, and we wouldn't be able to find fruit in this mud, even if it did fall down. I rushed forward, ahead of Doc, targeting the right branch, and hurled the Stinger. I hung on the rope and quickly pulled myself up, kicking my legs against the moving side branches. They normally raked the air chaotically with their knotted skinny limbs, but at my approach, they deliberately tried to get me.

  Grasping the Jubacca branches with my hands was unpleasant because the bark was wet, rough and slimy like loose skin on the decomposing body of a lizard. Up close, the fruit looked like severed hands—fleshy, red, with short pointed fingers. Fighting the feeling of disgust, I tore off a few pieces and threw them into the inventory.

  Going down, I found Doc, grabbing one of the moving side branches and pulling on it.

  "Doc, I have the fruit! Let's get out of here!"

  "Just... a minute!" The necromancer puffed, twisting the branch in one direction and then the other, obviously trying to break it off the trunk.

  "Hurry up, you freaking judo boy! What's your deal?"

  "It's... the Jubacca wood!"

  Doc's eyes glittered feverishly as if he had found a golden nugget the size of a pumpkin. Old fool! It's funny to see an old man lose his head because of a rare item.

  We had to cut down the stubborn branch, but there was nothing suitable to work with. I took out the chakram and tried to use it for cutting. It worked quite well. The silver-plated blade easily cut through the wrinkled bark and the flesh beneath it. Dark juice splashed in all directions, thick and oily like blood. Doc was incessantly pulling on the branch, and finally, it broke off, ripping a long narrow piece of bark from the trunk at the same time.

  The branch was a little more than three feet long. It was curvy and black, ending in flexible fork-like smaller branches, forming something like a brush with six long tentacles. It wasn't very thick and could be grasped with two fingers.

  Sitting right in the mud, Doc examined the trophy and shook his head.

  "It won't be enough for the staff…"

  The branch suddenly bent and caught him by the beard with its long black fingers. The necromancer cried out in surprise and pulled off the naughty limb, sacrificing a solid tuft of hair.

  "Damn it…"

  Not knowing how to describe the malicious thing, he just shoved it into his inventory.

  "Hurry!" I shouted to him, helping him up. "Let's go back!"

  The shamans of the Whispering Oak were still busy with the altar, rattling their wooden ratchet, while their guttural howls interspersed with short cries in an incomprehensible language. But things were moving in our direction. I could feel the increasing emanations of Qi and even saw thin luminous threads stretching from the altar to the north.

  We needed to win some more time, and the remains of the Hounds tried their best to make it happen. They managed to divert the attention of the last Jubacca barbed guard. He was chasing them, sometimes dealing sweeping blows. He moved even more awkwardly than before, and when he turned in our direction, it became clear why. The Hounds managed to blind him—in place of the huge glowing eyes gaped holes, and a spear was sticking out of the right eye socket.

  Doc suddenly grabbed my sleeve, pulling me aside.

  "Now what?"

  The necromancer silently pointed to Jubacca. The flaps of its mouth parted wider and wider, revealing the bottomless black throat leading somewhere down. Yeah, that's true, the Tree of Death is always hungry and never satisfied.

  "I think it's going to do it again…"

  Doc was right. With a hiss, Jubacca sucked in some air, something that could be felt standing twenty feet away.

  "Let's go back!" Doc pulled me. "Let's hide behind it!"

  Good idea. The monstrous cry of the tree stroke a wide cone in front of it. We could try to hide on the opposite side of the trunk.

  "And what about the others?"

  "How can we now help them? I have zero mana left!"

  I clenched my teeth and rushed forward, spraying mud with my feet. We took refuge just in time—after a long inhale, Jubacca slowly stopped, and there was a pause. And then…

  Although we were not in front of its mouth, the sound wave covered us with such force that I was afraid that my skull would shatter from the vibration. The second scream was much stronger than the last. Perhaps, it just seemed that way as we were much closer to the source this time.

  I think I passed out. I came around from the feeling that someone was slapping me on the cheeks. As I opened my eyelids, I saw a dark, muddy spot before me, gradually taking Doc’s shape.

  "Alive!" He laughed, shoving me in the shoulder.

  It was difficult to get up. My armor was soaking wet and full of dirt. There was dirt inside the collar, boots, and sleeves. It was disgusting. Most of all, I wanted to tear off this wet heavy harness and get into a hot bath.

  It was dark and quiet. The rain had barely dripped, and light oozed out only from the local rotting turf spots and fireflies, whole flocks of which were drifting in the air.

  "Looks empty," said Doc, flopping down into the mud and leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "As the saying goes—that’s it, folks.”

  "What are you talking about?" I muttered.

  "Everybody's gone. It's just the two of us. I hope our fight was not in vain."

  I staggered and took a few steps to the side, with difficulty tearing my legs out of the thick mud. Then I peeked out from behind the trunk of Jubacca.

  The whole field was littered with corpses, in some places covering it in a couple of layers. A terrible sight. Right in front of the Tree of Death, thirty paces ahead of its tightly closed mouth, stood a familiar altar with horned skulls on top. At its foot, clutching his staff with mighty paws, Ngala sat hunched, barely breathing. His powerful figure was surrounded by the halo of the emerald glow of Qi. At a closer look, the altar itself was a bizarre vortex of Qi directed downward, as if screwed into the ground.

  Now that I knew the purpose of these altars, this transformation in the flow of Qi made sense. It was not like the Sources that looked like fountains, exuding energy and sharing it. Altars, on the contrary, used Qi to suppress. It was like they were holding back something that was trying to get out of the ground. And at the same time, they transmitted energy through the channels connecting them. Like a network of traps that were tens of square miles long. It was interesting. Especially if you knew that the target of this trap was just one red vanara with delusions of grandeur.

  "No, Doc, not for nothing," I said. "We did it."

  Chapter 22. Debriefing

  The door to Genghis’s office was slightly open, but I knocked before entering anyway. No one answered, so I stuck my head inside.

  "Come in," said Terekhov.

  Just like Genghis, he sat in a leather chair, and on a small glass table between them stood an open bottle of whiskey and a few glasses. Genghis was in his usual dress-up suit and polished shoes, Terekhov, on the other hand, was wearing training camouflage cl
othes and ankle boots. It was unusual to see them sitting peacefully in the same room, and even drinking. They looked like they felt out of place.

  The four chairs in the room were squared and turned toward the center. Genghis pointed me to the place in front of himself. I barely had time to get settled when I received an incoming call on my NCI. It was an invitation to join a conference call. When I accepted the call, it became clear that we had another participant. The 3D-image projected through the NCI took the last chair.

  That was Clam in person, or rather his avatar. The secret head of the Steel Hounds looked exactly the same as the last time we met. The monastic robe that he was wearing looked doubly strange in the modern scenery.

  Clam sat with his elbows on the armrests and his hands clenched in front of his face. He seemed imperturbable and even bored, but the impression was dissipated once I looked in his watery gray eyes. He was studying all three of us, trying to make a decision regarding us.

  I was not offered a drink, but it didn’t bother me because I was indifferent to alcohol anyway. Especially hard liquor. And especially in the morning. But both commanders of the Hounds looked pretty tipsy already. Genghis finished his drink and put the glass on the armrest, clinking ice cubes.

  "Hi there," I nodded to ease the tense pause.

  "Hello, hello, Stan," Clam responded in a flat voice and gave me a careful look.

  The commanders were not saying a word. It felt like all of them didn't say a word to each other until I showed up. I wasn't going to act as a facilitator and kept quiet myself. As I walked here, I felt like a naughty schoolboy summoned to the principal's office. However, as soon as I entered the room, I became absolutely apathetic. There was no fear at all. I was even curious about what was going to happen next.

  Clam grunted softly as if he had finally come to some conclusion. He started speaking without changing his position.

  "You know what's funny, gentlemen? When I entered this market, I had two options. The first one was to recruit a team of all sorts of pimply-faced brood, consisting of cybergamers. But I decided that they would be very unreliable people, so I placed my bets on the pros. Ex-military men. Serious grown-up men. So, what came out of this?"