Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  But the compartment the blanket occupied was open to the inside as well.

  And now the blanket squeezed its way inexorably up through the fleshy mass of the daemon engine, towards the thing inside.

  Threadbare saw none of this as he ran, trying to close with the Cataclysm as she hurled fire into the sky, shrieking, fireballs exploding in midair and burning daemon and flier alike. He shoved the remaining mend golem beads in his mouth and ran. One of the fliers caught a fireball square on and disintegrated, hurtling toward the ground, and Threadbare could only hope his friends survived as he leaped...

  ...and caught ahold of the edge of the carpet.

  The daemon snapped her face down to him, stomped down hard, trying to kick him off her ride.

  Threadbare was having none of it. He ignored her, clung on with both paws. She wasn’t his target. anyway.

  “Disenchant,” he told the carpet.

  Your Disenchant skill is now level 24!

  They fell to the ground, as blue reagents rained down, and she fell. He hit first, tumbled to his feet, and launched himself at her.

  “Fool!” she shouted, clambering up, and then the world was fire... but he had beads left, and he waded in, slashing, ignoring the blindness as his eyes melted, ignoring his face turning to ash, just lunging in and striking. Whenever he felt his paws start to burn he bit down on the beads, triggering the healing, and staying on her.

  And then the fire was gone. He bit down on the last bead, snapping it, and his eyes returned to him.

  She lay crumpled, with enough crossbow bolts in her that she looked a bit like a porcupine. Turning, he saw the surviving golems behind him, reloading their crossbows.

  But she still breathed, so with a final slash, he ended that.

  You are now a level 14 Cave Bear!

  CON+10

  WIS+10

  Armor+5

  Endurance+5

  Mental Fortitude +5

  You are now a level 11 Duelist!

  AGI+3

  DEX+3

  STR+3

  You are now a level 14 Ruler!

  CHA+3

  WIS+3

  LUCK+3

  And while Threadbare rejoiced to see her fall, he felt bad that only fifty, barely fifty of the golems were still up. Reason and stray fire had left the bodies of their friends and families strewn across the rocky ground.

  He spoke, found his mouth full of clay fragments, and spat out the remnants of the beads. “Soulstones. Retrieve the...”

  Reason groaned, and he turned to see the great machine on the ground, tendrils flailing from its cracks, thrashing the earth. Its cockpit was open, gore gushing forth, dark blood staining the ground. A trail led from it to Cecelia. The little doll moved toward Threadbare grimly, tugging with all her might at a squirming, blanket-clad form, dragging it along in fits and starts.

  “Got her,” Cecelia said. “Alive. For now.”

  “Dreadbear!” he heard above him, and the bear and his girl looked up to see Zuula ghosting down on spirit owl wings with Kayin in her arms. “We need to go! Legion is too strong!”

  A shadow rose over Threadbare. He turned to see the final daemon descending on its batlike mount. Around it the swarm of daemons swirled, four times the size it had been just minutes ago. “Is everyone in the fliers all right?”

  “Madeline be out dere somewhere wit’ Garon. Jarrik...” Zuula shook her head. “Don’t know. We tore daemon asshole up good, but... no more fliers. Can’t finish de job!” She caught ahold of the winds, threw them at the skies, and the swarm swirled, then recoalesced as the last member of the Hand headed straight for them, and the first imps started their descent. “Get to de tunnel!”

  “No time,” Threadbare said, softly. “Get to the wards—”

  Light lanced through the sky.

  Light pierced through the batlike daemon, and its rider. An arrow of light, leaving a contrail of shrieking ichor behind it as it tore through the cloud.

  Followed immediately by six more.

  “Rapid fire arrows of light,” Zuula whispered. “Burnin’ so much fortune...”

  “Wards!” Threadbare shouted, and they ran, ran as the lesser daemons kept on coming, tearing at the golems. Threadbare jogged over to Cecelia, grabbed ahold of the blanket, and helped her pull it up to the edge of the wards... then stopped. “She’ll die if we take her in here!”

  “We’ll die if we stay out here!” Cecelia pointed out.

  “I need her alive!” Threadbare insisted, as imps tore and ripped at him, trying for his eyes, and he laid about with his scepter, scattering them. They couldn’t do much damage, but there were a LOT of them.

  “Alright, I can do this!” Cecelia decided. “Pommel Strike! Pommel Strike! Pommel Strike!” Drawing her sword, she smacked the blanket-clade form with the blunt end of her blade again and again. Yellow numbers flew as she beat the stamina out of her daemonic self, and Threadbare kept the imps off her as best he could. “There! She’s unconscious!”

  The two of them retreated behind the wards, and oh, Threadbare’s heart broke to see the state of Cecelia’s clothes and hair, and the long scratches down her face. “Mend Golem,” he told her, laying a paw on her, relieved as her injuries repaired. “I’m sorry. But we DO need her.”

  The imps swirled around them, breaking on the wards, daring it a bit and hissing as it burned them. A few of them worried at the blanket, and Threadbare swung his scepter across whenever they got organized about trying to open it.

  The golems got into the act, shooting into the cloud, using the rest of their crossbow bolts on the screeching, birdlike daemons.

  But as the minutes passed, the swarm shrank.

  “They’re disappearing,” Threadbare said, watching as holes opened up in the air, and swallowed them. Back to someplace full of red light, someplace they did NOT want to go.

  “He works like a conjurer. Lots of things, some of them pretty powerful, but they don’t stick around for long,” Cecelia sighed. “Is that reagent over there?”

  “Yes!” Threadbare went and gathered up the scattered bits that were all that was left of the magic carpet. “Good. I can use this. Right away, actually. Well, once the daemons are gone.”

  “What I want to know,” Kayin said, as the imps slackened, and the last of the swarm returned to whence they came, “is who shot those arrows.”

  “Funny ya should ask that,” an old, familiar voice drawled.

  Threadbare whirled, as from behind part of the wall, a gray-cloaked figure blurred into existence.

  Save for that gray cloak, he wore brown from head to toe and stubble adorned his chin. His face was a mass of wrinkles, and what hair he had left was on the sides of his head, stark white and unruly.

  “Ullo Mister bear. Been a while, yeah?” Mordecai said. Then he squinted at Cecelia. “Oh, ya got a little doll what looks like Celia now? S’cute.”

  “Mordecai...” Zuula whispered, stepping out from behind Cecelia.

  And the old scout froze. His jaw worked up and down, and he stared at the little doll. “What?” he barked, hands trembling. “What is this! What kind of... no. Mad. It’s the madness come ‘gain.” Mordecai dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands, fingers white as he squeezed his skull. “Out! Na really there! Na really there!”

  “No,” Zuula said, trembling herself. “Is Zuula. Is...” She whispered, then fell silent. She looked to her spear, cast it aside. “Dreadbear. Loan her your club.”

  “It’s... more of a scepter, really.”

  “Do it.”

  Wordlessly he passed her the bear-headed scepter.

  And the golems watched in silence, as Zuula strode up to Mordecai’s trembling form and bopped him, HARD, in the knee. He yelled in surprise, jumped up with wiry strength, and his bow was in his hands, nocked with an arrow drawn, head right in Zuula’s face.

  “You is late!” Zuula thundered.

  Then she bit the arrowhead, twisted her neck to the side, wrestling it fr
om his grasp. It hummed as it went past Threadbare, and he watched as she started wailing on her husband with all her might.

  “Hey!” Kayin yelled, starting forward—

  —but Cecelia whipped her arm out to block the wooden catgirl. “No! This might work!”

  “What might work? What might work?”

  And as Mordecai danced backward, running from his wife, a wondering grin filled his face. He pulled out his knife, and the golems around him raised their bows... only to lower them as Threadbare waved his troops down. “Just go and harvest the soulstones. That’s more important. Let’s, ah... let’s give them some privacy.”

  “Yes. Best not to stick around for what follows,” Cecelia said, looping her arm around Kayin’s shoulders and walking her away.

  “What follows?” the assassin asked.

  Cecelia told her.

  “Um. But she’s... and he’s... how?”

  “I’m not actually sure, and I don’t want to know,” Cecelia said.

  Kayin agreed with that on general principles.

  So they concentrated on saving their dead.

  A few had broken soulstones, and a quick speak with dead saved some of them... others had expired too long ago in the battle for it to make a difference. Threadbare mourned with each one that came up missing. They were lost for good. This was war, this was the cost of victory.

  But the battle wasn’t done, not by a long shot. Judicious use of Cecelia’s telescope showed that the fray had shifted to the south. “The giants are down that way.” Cecelia said, from the top of a nearby hill. “They’re having a hard time of it, looks like— oh fump.”

  “What?” Threadbare asked.

  “Emmet. He’s down there. Along with a whole lot of troops.”

  “An’ our daughter too,” Mordecai said, walking over to Threadbare and the two doll haunters, cuddling Zuula in his arms.

  The half-orc glared at them. “Not one word.”

  The trio nodded in unison.

  “Graves and Missus Fluffbear were over with the giants,” Threadbare said, worried.

  “So are the rest a’ the dwarves,” Mordecai said. “But there’s too many troops still up. Dwarves can’t stop that lot if Emmet breaks past them giants.”

  Threadbare looked around at his team. Then he looked south. “I suppose we’re not done yet, then. But before we do, Celia, you’ve got a choice to make.”

  “A choice?”

  Threadbare walked over the blanket and pulled it free, revealing the white armor beneath and the unconscious daemon within. “It’s very risky. It’s also maybe a bad idea. But if it works, I think, just maybe, I can give you your body back...”

  INTERLUDE 4: SPOILS OF WAR

  Mastoya hated fighting giants.

  The big sons-of-bitches (and daughters of bitches,) hit hard, took a lot of hits, and scared the shit out of troops that weren’t expecting them.

  Which was why, instead of beating ass, Mastoya was stuck behind the lines, charging Petunia up and down them, and yelling “Rally Troops!” to rally her soldiers.

  Honestly, if she hadn’t had Goliathan in her battlegroup when the blue bastards had popped up out of a suddenly-opening tunnel, she wouldn’t have bothered. Just sounded the retreat, and moved north, turned the feint up that way into a real strike.

  But no, the Steam Knight had reached the level where she was Named and Feared, and also the giant she’d battered to pulp with her enormous flail still lay there, crushed, in mute testament to her might. The giants had lost momentum then, fallen back and played keep away with it, tried to get at the troops behind Goliathan instead while a few of their smarter sisters barraged him with rocks.

  That was one anchoring point.

  The other was Emmet.

  With Inquisitor Layd’i just behind him, Emmet marched across the battlefield, and things died. When the dwarves came out to support the giants, Emmet was there. When Goliathan faltered, caught between three axe-wielding giants at once, Emmet was there.

  Whoops, no, Emmet was here, Mastoya realized, reigning Petunia in as the massive armored shell loomed out of the lines. The daemon followed in his wake, frowning. “Why are you taking prisoners?”

  “Why are you not on the front lines?” Mastoya bellowed, waving her sword between the two of them. Anise stepped back, eyes opening wide as Mastoya continued. “This is my battle! Fucking get back in position!”

  “This is against the King’s direct wishes—”

  “GET BACK TO IT!” Mastoya bellowed, riding directly up to the Inquisitor and rearing Petunia’s hooves over her head.

  Anise backed up quickly. Then she looked to Emmet.

  Emmet who was moving back to the front lines.

  “What?” and oh, the daemon’s face was beautiful to see in its outrage.

  “The General gave us orders,” Emmet said, moving through the ranks of the archers, and Anise followed, complaining, her voice fading as she chastised the golem.

  Not that Mastoya listened for long, she was already moving again. Explosions northeast meant mortars, and the advance was slowing there.

  “Unyielding,” Mastoya whispered, protecting herself against critical hits. She sheathed her sword. “Lancer,” she said, reaching into the air and pulling a steel spear out of nowhere, twirling it between her fingers before snapping it into place. “Last Crusade!” she yelled, passing through her front line, bellowing it, and hearing her troops roar as they followed her, straight towards the thin line of dwarves and the mortar teams behind them. “CHARGE!” she commanded, and Petunia sped up, sped as the bombs fell around her, as her troops crumpled from shrapnel and concussion, charged straight through the fire, leaped OVER the double-line of axemen, and landed amongst the first artillery nest.

  She wanted to rage. She NEEDED to rage. It was there; it was hungry, and this was its feeding ground. Blood would sate it, she knew, more blood, even if it ripped through her like a glorious storm, even if her own blood spilled...

  ...but no. No, she had to keep to the plan or all was lost.

  And in the split second before Mastoya landed, she sighed, fought her rage down, and said “Pommel Strike.”

  Her lance reversed with a quick flip, but she STILL knocked the poor bastard with the telescope back about fifty feet. Then swipes took down the rest, and before the axemen could turn, she was galloping hell for leather towards the next nest, and her troops were roaring, too close for the axemen to turn anyway, unless they wanted seventy-five riled up infantry up their asses.

  Mastoya beat down the artillery crews or sent them running, running back toward the newly-opened holes that they’d come from.

  Once it was done, she allowed herself a moment of respite, looked around. Took stock of her battle.

  She’d started with a wide advance, putting the northern forces out in front. The Wark Knights made it look like a regular assault, like many she’d tried before. Then enough of the line troops that it looked like both fronts were even.

  All this had been to mask the major push that she was with, the one moving up the southern front now. The plan had been to draw the bulk of the dwarves’ forces north, retreat the northern front west, and push hard with the southern front through the diminished dwarven forces, and straight on to the mountain. Once there the siege engines could do the work.

  But she hadn’t counted on the Hand tearing north and leaving the forces they were supposed to support in the lurch. She hadn’t counted on the dwarves having artillery that could reach that far or the loss of most of the Wark Knights. Hadn’t counted on fliers, fucking fliers, with swarms of tiny monsters that had driven off the Dragon Knights she’d deployed to cover the northern flank’s withdrawal.

  So instead of pulling their forces north, then having her troops do a disciplined retreat back to threaten the dwarves and keep them from rejoining the battle in the south, she had been forced to put everything on the southern push, while the dwarven forces held firm to the east and were starting to tunnel in and drop
off their troops from the north. The western rally point was full of injured soldiers and broken warriors. They were no threat to the dwarves, not anymore.

  The dwarves were way off script. Fliers, long-range guns, and giants. Three wild cards she’d known nothing about. Combined with her own unreliable elites going off on a wild bear chase, the plan’s chances of success were dropping by the minute. Too many more surprises, and she’d have to order a retreat. And then, if she was wrong, the Inquisitor would ensure she had a long, painful death.

  One chance, Mastoya knew. Once chance to win this.

  She looked back to the very rear, to the massive wagons, animated and driving along under their own power, the drills and cannon and catapults and the carts of explosives that would crack the mountain wide open, break open the dwarvenhold to the point where the dwarves would be forced to surrender. All they had to do was get them intact to the mountain. Five more miles, and they could do this.

  She shook her head, threw a Greater Healing on herself and headed back south—

  —only to be brought up short as a figure loomed out of the dust on the horizon.

  Reason.

  Battered, covered in seams, staggering, it moved with ponderous speed, smokestacks still for once. Its arbalest was a shattered mess, but the monstrous machine still gripped its sword in one hand.

  Mastoya stared at it for a second, something niggled in the back of her mind, but... it was gone.

  No time to think. She had a battle to run. “You alright in there, Ragandor?” Mastoya bellowed.

  “I’ve been better,” the heir spoke, her voice faint, barely audible. And again, something niggled at Mastoya’s mind.

  No. It was Cecelia’s voice, or the voice of the thing pretending to be her, if Mastoya’s suspicions were true. Either way, it was in no shape to take on giants. But... “Go guard the engines!” she shouted. “Protect them with your life!”

  There, that should keep her happy. She spent the last couple of weeks fixing those damned things anyway; she’s invested in them.

  Without another word or thought, Mastoya turned and wheeled Petunia away, back to the lines.