by D. R. Rosier
Katie said, “Back home, to his empty farm in Oklahoma. I’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t try to return to my home. There is far too much of precious value there to allow that. I’m sorry, Sean.”
He shook his head, “It’s behind us, and was never your fault. I’m sorry too, for your loss.”
Bria said, “That’s a wise precaution. John has a lot of angry rage in him.”
Katie nodded, and she looked absolutely miserable, “Bria, are you only here because of friendship?”
Bria frowned, “Our friendship has grown, and means a lot to me Katie. But initially I thought you two desperately needed the help and training. Maintaining the balance is dangerous and failure can lead to wars, suffering, and many other things. Fail enough times in your missions, and the world itself will fall. The last thing we needed was to lose another bearer of the mantle, and then have to break in a new one. So, that’s why I started training you daily. I’ve always liked you, but I think we’re closer than that now, right? I’m here to help.”
Katie bit her lip, “Will you accept the sword, and protect and follow me as I safeguard the balance, sister of my heart?”
Bria looked thunderstruck, and it was obvious she’d had no clue she was being interviewed when Katie asked that first question.
Bria said uncertainly, “The sword bearer has always been human.”
Katie shrugged, “Maybe the previous bearers never made friends and trusted a dragon with their life before, implicitly.”
Bria looked like a landed fish for several seconds, then said, “I would be honored, but I will lose some of my freedoms at my mating. So, I can only serve you in this lifetime, or for the next three hundred years, whatever comes first. You’ll have to find a new sucker when you wake up.”
Katie laughed through her tears. It was obvious she was falling apart, but he also thought that Nim would help her through it. The goddess obviously cared deeply for Katie, which was somewhat of a surprise. He’d always imagined the gods would be… aloof. Even the minor ones that walked the Earth.
She walked over to Bria and handed her the sword. There was a gravity to it, he felt like it was the kind of moment where legends were born.
Kim said, “I’ll start dinner.”
Everyone gave Katie space that night, and no one judged her for falling apart and taking comfort in the compassionate arms of a goddess. She’d lost a protector, a mate, and the future they’d planned together all at once. And not to death or danger, but to arrogant betrayal because John thought he knew better and thought her naïve and stupid.
Cassie asked, “What are you doing?”
He looked up innocently, his new rat Kerby cradled in his hand and munching on a free lunch. It was the next day, early afternoon right after lunch.
“Experimenting. I have a theory on why I’m failing to create a life force link, but I won’t know for sure for a while. So, what’ve you been learning?”
Cassie smiled, “I think I’ve taught her as much as I’ve learned, but I ran out of things to teach already, so I imagine those scales will tilt her way rather quickly. I’m going to stop using enchantments so much, and I’ll use spells instead on the fly. Except for the one in our basement, which runs our whole house. It will keep my mind more flexible, and if I’m used to doing things that way then I’ll be more creative on the fly without hesitation when it really counts. The staff she gifted me with changes everything, and she’s taught me enough that I think I can duplicate it.”
She paused for a moment and studied him, then continued.
“So, how are you feeling about what happened?”
He shrugged, “I was a little annoyed. I’m used to being misjudged and intimidating people even when I try not to. I feel more emotion for Katie’s loss and pain than I do for that idiot’s betrayal of me, if that makes sense.”
Cassie smirked, “Sounds about right. So, what’s your theory?”
He cleared his throat, “When I do things to other life force that isn’t my own, there’s resistance. I can force a life force out of a body, or absorb it, but only if I force compliance. I was thinking perhaps to connect two disparate life forces together there has to be empathy and trust. A willingness on my partner’s part to accept that link and not fight it as an invasion. If I’m right, I can safely do it with you or Mara now, but I want to make sure first. That means making Kerby here my buddy before trying again.”
Cassie giggled, “I love you.”
He winked.
Mara asked curiously, “What gave you that idea?”
He said, “What I’ve done already, with Cassie, on a subconscious level during intimacy. She gives herself to me as you do, with no hesitation or doubt, in love. My magic has kept her the same age, in perfect shape, and neither of us feels it working. In short, there’s no resistance to overcome, like I feel when I do everything else. That trust and connection between us is the only difference I can think of. We’ll know tomorrow. I’ll give it a try then.”
Bria rode up, “You don’t think we’ll have a problem getting through?”
He replied, “No. They watch the borders and they protect the towns and villages. Chances are the southern border won’t know about us before we arrive, and they should just let us leave. Their orders are to detain and question people coming in, and they only stop people escaping if they get specific orders for a specific group. Criminals on the run, usually.
“They’re not horrible people, but in some ways they’re no better than raiders.”
Bria raised an eyebrow, “How so?”
“The taxes are very high. The military acts as an internal police force as well, and there’s a lot of them. That means every community needs to pay their taxes in food, clothing, swords, and other nascent ancient production.”
Bria said, “That’s pretty standard in any civilization. It’s you that’s the odd one out, not taxing people to protect and police them.”
He nodded, “Agreed, but the ratio is off here. Too many soldiers to cover it all, for too few tax payers. If it was just mild taxing then I wouldn’t have mentioned it. The governor will also feel free to enlist a civilian by force if he deems them necessary for their defense. They justify it all by saying the new world is dangerous, and for safety purposes. He’s not entirely wrong, but the people are working hard and not flourishing like mine, because they take too much.”
Bria looked curious, “What would you do differently?”
He said, “Not assume anyone travelling is a bad guy. Cut down the forces on the border to the minimum needed to simply watch for an invading army, and a few fast horses to send word. Or just employ a sorcerer to speak with the border scouts once a day to get reports. That’d cut down on their deployment by thousands.
“They could also cut their presence in the communities back to about a tenth, for policing. The rest could have other jobs and contribute to society while they maintain readiness as a reserve. Then if they’re invaded by a larger force, they can be activated to deal with it. These are old ideas, and obvious, unless you’re a control freak and don’t give a shit about your citizens. Like I said, barely better than raiders, or some protection mob looking for protection money. The barely better part is because they aren’t too abusive with their power, and they don’t take unwanted liberties with women.”
Nim and Katie were riding on point, while the rest of them were scattered behind them and trying to give the two some privacy. Katie was still extremely upset, but she seemed to have a better hold over herself.
Nim wound up staying with them for two days, before going back to wherever she’d come from. They were only in North Carolina a little over three days. North to south, the state was about a hundred and eighty-seven miles or so across. So it was the morning of the fourth day when they crossed the border into South Carolina and saw the welcome signs on the interstate.
As bad as North Carolina was with taxes and all that, they were safer because of it, he just thought the balance had been to
o far in the wrong direction. What good was being safe, if they were working themselves to death and losing so much of the product of their labors? South Carolina would be a little more dangerous, at least given what Nichols had thought he knew about it. The communities would be clannish, and there were still raiders and worse around, so they’d have to keep their eyes open.
The clannish part wasn’t really a surprise. Unlike in Sean’s territory, where he connected all his communities together, the disparate communities in South Carolina had no tying connections or factors to bring them together.
When the problem he expected to run into finally came, he was surprised to find out it was closer to home. He should’ve thought about feathered sentries on the borders a long time ago, if he had perhaps things would’ve gone differently…
Chapter Eleven
They’d just set up camp at the end of that fourth day, a good thirty something miles into South Carolina already, when his zombies alerted him to a large-scale raid to one of the communities in Southern California. He didn’t get all that much detail, just that there were a whole lot of them. His ten zombies had cut down almost forty of the enemy before they were overwhelmed by numbers and taken down. It all happened pretty damned fast, but he wouldn’t be surprised if there was over a thousand of them.
He said, “We have to go, now,” then turned to Katie, “We’ll be back in an hour or two. Cassie, take us to Mecca, be ready for anything.”
Katie looked torn, as the five of them gathered together and Mara cast a protection spell over them.
He winked, “Not your fight, we’ll be back.”
Cassie finished the spell and they appeared in the government building itself instead of outside. Her casting spells on the fly with the staff would come in handy. He suspected if they’d shown up at the usual spot outside of town, then they’d have been surrounded and overwhelmed quickly.
On the good side, he wasn’t feeling any large life forces out there, which meant there were no magic users or creatures on their side. At least, not within a hundred yards of the town center. They raced over to the windows and looked out, and his stomach twisted.
“There must be a thousand of them out there.”
They were pulling his people out of their homes and businesses, and he could see they’d already swept the government building because the leader of Mecca was already dead at some officer’s feet. The rest of his people looked terrified, but they weren’t being harmed. None of the enemy soldiers were out of control, and they weren’t looting, fucking, or setting fires. This wasn’t a simply raid. It was a conquering invasion. They’d killed the leaders, and were no doubt planning to give a speech, leave some soldiers behind to occupy the place, and move their army along. Another clue to that, was they were all in uniform, which wasn’t something raiders did.
Cassie said, “Two thousand.”
He nodded, “Alright, I’m going to start killing and converting. I want you four to protect them out there as much as you can. Also, make sure I don’t go crazy.”
He was pissed, not just at the soldiers, but at himself. No doubt these assholes had come from either Nevada or Arizona. Another few weeks he’d have had that warning system up. He let that build up into a rage. A wrathful fury that would partially insulate himself from the pleasure of what he was about to do. It’d been a long time.
His power exploded out of him, as he started to rip twenty life forces out at once. The rush of pleasure, along with a rush of power that made him feel both invincible and like he just might explode, or that it’d burst his heart, was more than intense. While he pulled it all in, at the same time he sent most of it away from himself to his zombies. Despite that, it was still incredibly intense as all that power raced through him at once.
It was horrifying, how hard and turned on he was, as twenty men in uniform including the officer and his guards fell to the ground writhing in pain, as they screamed in agonizing confusion and agony. As soon as they were done, he hit the next group, and whimpered when he felt himself cum in his pants.
Two down, ninety-eight times to go? He’d go insane if he did it that many times. The third time was a little easier though, the sick pleasure a little less right after he’d… he didn’t want to think about it.
Cassie was muttering under her breath with the staff. She’d surrounded their citizens in a wall of fire, and the wall of fire was pushing them back toward the buildings. Eventually, they seemed to get the idea and dove into the buildings for cover. The large wall of fire guarded the buildings, so that the now very panicked soldiers wouldn’t start killing them.
Unfortunately, war wasn’t quite that orderly, and a few were caught among the enemy and slain, but it could’ve been much worse.
Mara cast a protection spell on the government building so they couldn’t break in, and Kim and Lin must’ve decided their charges were safe enough because they ran out like an arrow fired from a bow, and started killing with their daggers, absorbing life force all the while.
After his tenth group, instead of sending it all to his thousand zombies, he made two hundred more from the twenty groups of dead soldiers. They rose up and joined Kim and Lin, but he instructed them to break legs and disable, and ordered Kim and Lin to use them as shields to protect themselves, and to finish the kill so they’d get the life force.
Two thousand soldiers would double the life force he had on hand, and his thousand zombies would last for eight decades, instead of just four. That was pretty cool, and these dicks deserved to die. Even at ten to one odds, it was quickly turning into a slaughter. A few of his zombies went down, but far less than he was raising as the odds slowly improved. Zombies were faster, stronger, and since he was a good fighter now, so were they.
“How long can you hold that?”
Cassie frowned, “Ten more minutes? I can safely reload the staff two more times today, to maintain the spell. That’s a lot of fire, and it’s draining the staff relatively fast.”
He grunted, “That should be long enough. Don’t forget to save enough magic to teleport us back, if you’ll be out until tomorrow or the next day.”
Cassie nodded, “Tomorrow, but I’ll only load the staff once, then I’ll go back to twice a day the day after.”
He scowled as he got back into it, draining, power transfer, raise, rinse and repeat. So far none of the soldiers seem to even have a clue to where they were, and they were more worried about the three hundred zombies cutting them apart. It was a bit gruesome too, since only two of them had draining swords. He rolled his eyes, and he ordered ten of the new zombies to pick up and use the paired long daggers the old zombie guards had. That made things move faster, they were killing about twelve soldiers a second now, finishing up all the ones knocked down and broken.
Some died before they could get there, but not enough to concern him. They were winning, and he raised another hundred zombies, then ate twenty more. He was as hard as a rock again, and high on his power. Not to mention the powerful endorphin rush, but he was also very much aware of Cassie’s hand on the back of his neck keeping him grounded.
In the end, he killed almost a quarter of them by himself, five hundred invaders. The other fifteen hundred were killed by his zombies. Several fled, but zombies moved a lot faster, so none escaped or survived. He saw to it.
Cassie had almost half the energy left in her staff, more than enough to get them back.
He sent out orders. Ten of them would stay in this community as the new guards, the ones with the special blades. He also pumped up all his zombies to eighty years’ worth of life energy, which was a whole lot. There were a few he hadn’t been able to raise, so that plus the ten he was keeping, gave him an army of nineteen hundred and eighty-three zombies. He’d kept their life energy low. They had enough life energy to last about a month then they’d simply collapse. He didn’t need them for long, and his zombies would last a lot longer if he didn’t keep an additional two thousand.
Regardless, the invading army was now hi
s, and he sent them east at a dead run.
Cassie asked, “Where are they going?”
He grimaced, “I thought I’d give them back. They were here to secure California, and to kill any and all leaders plus anyone who resisted. The former United States general that took over and secured the state of Arizona decided he needed to bring the U.S. back together, by force. Their only mission is to get back, kill the general and all his top officers, then deliver a message to the rest. I’m hoping the rest of his officers get the point, and decide securing Arizona is good enough.”
Cassie sighed, “Why does he want that? Isn’t Arizona enough for him?”
He shook his head, “No, but not out of pure personal ambition like you’d think. He’s a big paranoid bastard about national security. He believes it’s only a matter of time before another country puts together a big army and invades us. Maybe he’s not wrong, but if we do join it all up again someday it won’t be at the tip of a sword.”
Kim and Lin came inside, and Kim said, “The community lost fourteen, including the leader. You need to appoint a new one before we leave.”
He grunted, “You two know more about the communities than me, any suggestions?”
He frowned, and he crushed down the desire he felt. So many lives, almost as many as he’d already taken today in this village. He could just reach out, and suck down their life. He longed for it, even as the idea disgusted him. He was still as hard as a rock, and he needed relief badly. The discomfort and sick thrill was worth it though, eighty years of life for his thousand plus zombies, to keep the people safe. He also wanted to get started on that bird watch idea, but he really didn’t have time for it in that moment. He’d do it after they saved the balance in Georgia, and then they’d take a short vacation before starting the community visits again.
Eagles, or maybe a hawk, something that could see really damn far, from really high up. He could secure the border with forty or fifty birds, and then he’d see the next invading army or even smaller raider force long before they got to a community. Even better, fifty birds would cost less life force to maintain than even one human zombie.