by Pirateaba
It was working. It was working. The dead were filling the trenches, but they hadn’t broken past the Workers yet. It was working—
Skinner had reached the bottom of the hill the inn was on. He raised his head, and looked up. Two crimson eyes flashed at Erin and suddenly she knew fear.
Fear.
“No…no.”
Skinner’s eyes flashed at her in the moonlight. His gaze touched Erin and held her. It caught her and made her feel fear beyond anything she had felt. She was helpless.
She shook. Erin was consumed by horror, pure, unfiltered terror that paralyzed her to her core. The crimson stare was death. Hers.
She couldn’t even move. She couldn’t even scream.
Erin felt something tugging at her. Knight grabbed her and pulled her backwards, towards the doors of her inn. He shoved her inside and she stumbled, partly free of Skinner’s gaze on her.
“This creature projects fear of some kind. Please, move back. We will handle this.”
Erin stared at Knight. She worked her jaw soundlessly.
“I—”
She wanted to say she’d keep fighting. But she couldn’t. She glanced outside and Skinner stared at her. He was grinning, his toothless, empty mouth a gaping hole. She froze up and Knight blocked the door with his body.
“Stay behind me.”
The undead surged forwards as one. The Workers met them as they tried to leap the moat and failed and knocked the undead into the pit. Several zombies managed to tug one Worker into the pit where he disappeared under a pile of discolored limbs. But the line was holding.
Was holding.
Skinner’s gaze moved from the inn for one second. He seemed to regard the ditch and then looked back towards the inn. For a second, Knight wondered what had happened. And then the ranks of the dead drew back and a larger creature lurched forwards.
A Crypt Lord stood on the other side of the trench. But he—or rather she—didn’t try to cross. Instead, the Crypt Lord began spitting, sending huge gouts of black blood raining over the Workers.
Several Workers hurled their weapons across the ditch, but they bounced off the Crypt Lord’s thick, discolored skin. It spat blood back at them, and the Workers shielded their faces ineffectually with their hands.
Suddenly, the moat was no longer a barrier but a liability. The Antinium could not cross to fight the Crypt Lord, and instead had to retreat while it poisoned them.
Knight watched as two Workers fell, curling up into balls as the poison killed them. He stared as the undead swarmed into the trenches and up the other side. He sighed.
Chess was not at all like battle. There were some similarities, and the [Tactician] class leveled with chess. But it did not teach fighting. It did not account for unpredictability. Chess was a beautiful thing. But battle—
Battle was uncertainty.
“Ah. Alas.”
Knight made sure his body was covering the door. The other shutters around the inn were closed, and the second floor was also shut off. Any dead creature could break in, though. He gestured and raised his voice.
“Close ranks.”
The Workers stepped back, forming a wall around the inn. There were just over twenty left now, some injured, many without weapons. They had learned something of fighting though. They would not die easily.
Knight turned his head slightly and saw Erin was still staring out at the undead as they cleared the moat. Her face was pale. He tried to smile, but all he could do was lift his mandibles slightly. What would Pawn say at a time like this? What was the right thing to say?
“Please stay inside. You will be safe here.”
She tried to say something. But Skinner’s stare paralyzed her, took away her words. Knight closed the door and put his back to it.
Twenty workers. A hundred undead creatures. Skinner. They would hold with all their might. As long as they could.
Until they could no longer move. Until they were no longer alive. Each Worker was resolved to die. That was simple. Knight only wished—he only wished—
He only wished it were enough.
—-
Rags sat on the hilltop, watching. She was no longer watching the city of Liscor. That place would fall or burn. It mattered not to her.
Instead, she was watching a small hill, covering in flickering motion. Rag’s eyes were good. Even in the night she could see the Workers, struggling against the undead. She was also good at counting. That was why despite her entire tribe sitting with her on the hill, she did not order them to move.
It was a sensible choice. All of Rags agreed with that. Aside from Skinner, the terrifying monster that struck fear into her heart, the undead were too numerous, too deadly. Goblins weren’t good at killing things that were already dead, and they would have been outnumbered by the dead even if they joined the Workers. Not a good fight. So why fight?
All of Rags agreed with her choice, even if not all of her tribe did. The frightened, pitiful Goblin part of her told her to run. And the cold [Tactician] self she had learned told her the battle was unwinnable. Rags knew this. But another part of her hurt.
It was a small part. It wasn’t a practical part, or a particularly useful part. It knew there was no other choice. But it hurt. And it distracted her as she watched the battle.
Absently, Rags’s hand went up and poked at her flesh. No. It wouldn’t stop hurting. She knew she couldn’t do a thing. So why try.
A Goblin shifted next to Rags. He wanted to go down there. But one glare from her and he stopped moving. She was Chieftain. She decided. And she had decided not to interfere. It was only logical.
She just wished that part of her would stop hurting.
Rags touched her heart again. There was nothing she could do. Nothing but watch. She would watch until the end.
That was all she could do.
—-
Knight stood against the doorway, arms stretched wide, putting his entire weight against the wood behind him. His legs buckled. But he refused to fall.
The undead had broken through the moat. They had reached the inn itself, and it was there the Workers were making their final stand.
They were doing well. Well enough. The lone Crypt Lord had fallen, taking five Workers with him. But the remaining Workers fought together, shielding the inn, letting their strong bodies take the brunt of the assault to protect the fragile wood.
They had learned. A few short minutes—or was it hours?—of battle had made them stronger. They fought with weapons, methodically, killing, guarding. They were holding.
It was just that the dead were relentless. And they clustered thickest around the door of the inn, seeking entry.
Knight blocked them. He took the swords and claws, not even bothering to block. He couldn’t move his arms anyways. He just had to cover the door. Simple enough. Simple. But so difficult.
Green blood trickled down his sides. He was cold. He had been stabbed. Was being stabbed. A group of the undead savaged him, stabbing, biting.
A Worker hurled a zombie off him. Two more joined him, and they crushed the others, breaking them, taking them apart like a building or a carcass to be butchered.
Knight tried to move, but felt himself sinking to the ground. No good. He had to stand. He had to be a shield. A Knight. He moved in an L-shape, but his name was more than that. He was a protector. A champion of the innocent. She had told him that. He remembered. He remembered everything.
One of the Workers paused before Knight. Knight struggled to remember his name. Garry? Yes, Garry. Named after Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest Grandmasters of all time. A good name.
Garry stood beside Knight as the others covered them. He spoke.
“You are dying.”
Knight could no longer feel his body. But he could see. Green blood—his blood—stained the ground.
“Yes.”
It was a pointless comment to make. He strained to ask the more important question.
“Is she still safe?”
/> “She is.”
“Good.”
There wasn’t much else to say. Knight’s vision was growing dark. But he struggled to move, to block the doorway with just a bit more of his body. It was important. He rasped at Garry.
“Protect her.”
The Worker nodded.
“Of course. Until we perish.”
“Good.”
The world was growing dark. And cold. But Knight didn’t care. He just wanted to play another game of chess again. He was sure he was better. And if—if she was alive, maybe she would remember. He had loved playing with her. Each time, no matter how few they had been, how short.
He wished he could play another game. He would open with the Danish Opening, risky, but push her as hard as he could. Just to hear her laugh in delight or praise him. If he could play another game in that warm room, it would be perfect bliss if—
Knight didn’t close his eyes. He had no eyelids to close. But he stiffened, and something left him. The other Workers took no notice. They were fighting, bleeding, holding the enemy off. Only one person noticed among the dead and the living. Only one person cared.
Erin.
—-
They were dying. Erin sat in her inn and heard it. She knew it. They were dying.
All of them.
The Workers fought outside, so close she could hear them as they spoke. They were short phrases that tore pieces out of her heart.
“I have fallen.”
“My arm has been torn off.”
“Continue on without me. Protect her. Please.”
Passionless inflection. But not passionless words. She heard them fall and die, begging the others to keep fighting. To protect. Protect her.
It hurt more than anything else. More than being stabbed, more than physical pain. But she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but hide.
Hide in her inn while her friends died.
She didn’t know their names. She’d forgotten them as they’d spoken. But she knew them. She’d played chess with each of them. Taught them. Klbkch and Pawn had brought each one countless times and Erin knew their every move in chess.
And they were dying. For her.
She tried to move her legs. They shook, trembling against the floorboards, refusing to carry even a bit of her weight. Her hands were the same.
They were dying. She had to do something.
Erin grabbed at her frying pan, and then let go of the handle. She covered her ears with her hands and curled up. She was afraid.
Afraid.
The fear was overpowering. It wasn’t even a conscious thing, something Erin could fight against. It was like a basic math equation, an unchangeable part of the universe. If she fought, if she tried to fight, she would die. She couldn’t overcome that.
But she could still move. Erin felt it. She could run. The Workers would protect her. If she ran—
Something in Erin rebelled against the thought. Run? Run while they died for her?
It was the only sensible choice. But they were dying. For her. And that made running wrong.
Even if it saved her? No. It was impossible. They were all trapped. The undead were everywhere. That thing was coming. Running was just a slower death.
Erin shuddered. She had heard Knight’s last words. They cut at her, pulling pieces out of her soul. She wished she could move. She wished—
Her foot trembled, and knocked against the table. Erin heard something clatter to the floor and flinched. She looked down.
In the moonlight, something rolled next to the chair and stopped. Erin stared at it.
She saw a chess piece lying on the floor. It was a broken knight piece, a Drake holding a sword and a shield, only someone had snapped it off so only the legs and base remained.
Slowly, Erin bent to pick it up. She held the chess piece in her hand, and felt at the sharp edges.
She put the chess piece on the board. She stared at the two sides, white and black, bathed in the red light from Skinner’s eyes. Her heart was filled with fear. Her mind was broken by terror. But her soul cried out as her friends died.
Erin’s hand moved. She pushed the white pawn piece forwards. She hesitated, and then pushed a black pawn two spaces forwards.
Pawn to E4. Pawn to E5. Bishop came next, to C4. A classic opening.
Slowly, Erin began to play. It was wrong. It was the wrong thing to do as the Workers bled and perished. But she played anyways, mechanically, playing out the game on pure instinct.
The pieces moved mechanically. Erin played the game and time slowed around her. Time stopped. Time—
Time was a strange thing. It didn’t matter at times, and mattered the world at others. For Erin, time had always disappeared when she played chess. That was why the skill she had learned was so fitting.
Such a silly thing. A useless thing. It made one moment longer. It was good for a little bit, but only that. It only made a second into an eternity. It couldn’t level mountains or grant her luck or do anything else.
It just made a moment immortal. So Erin played. She played as the undead slaughtered her friends and Skinner’s gaze touched her heart. She played.
A useless game. A worthless game. She lost to herself with half her pieces still on the board. But that wasn’t important. Erin reset the board and played again, moving the pieces with reckless abandon.
It wasn’t about chess. It was just about the time. Every second, fear etched itself into her mind, always present, always there. It was part of her, and part of the endless games she played. Again. And again. Playing, always playing, until fear and living were one and the same.
“The king is smart and uses his head. For if he moves, he’ll soon be dead.”
Erin muttered the words again. She remembered her dream, and the certainty of it. The dead Goblin Chieftain. The blood. The smell of oil.
Death and violence.
If she were a king, moving, fighting, would only lead to her misery. And death. She had lost friends because she’d fought. But she would lose them again if she did nothing.
“If he moves, he’ll soon be dead.”
But that was just it. Someone died, even if the king didn’t. The king was a selfish jerk, letting people suffer in his place. Erin’s hand moved on the king, and slowly tipped it over.
“I am no king.”
Erin stood up. The fear was still in her, still biting, still trying to hold her down. But it was part of her now. It still tried to paralyze her thoughts, but it was old now. And there was something more important than fear. More important than pain or death.
“I am a queen. And this is my inn.”
How many minutes had passed? How many seconds? It felt like years, but the battle was still raging. The only difference was that Erin could move. She seized the frying pan, and then hesitated.
Slowly, Erin walked into the kitchen and came back carrying a huge glass jar. It was one of the big jars she used to store the bulk of the acid fly’s acid in. She pushed the door slowly open and saw Knight lying in front of it.
For a second Erin wavered. The jar of acid tipped in her hands. She steadied it, and then looked around.
The dead were everywhere. But down the hill, Skinner was looking upwards. He was commanding the flow of the battle. Like a general. Like a king.
Erin supposed that made her the other king. And this was check. Well. She was promoting herself to queen.
Skinner stared at Erin. The crimson gaze fixed her, sending tendrils of terror into her to squeeze at her heart. But she had felt it before. It was an old trick. She lifted the jar of acid.
“Come on you bastard!”
Her voice echoed from the hilltop, cutting through the sounds of battle like thunder. Erin surprised herself, but remembered her Skill. [Loud Voice].
Skinner didn’t blink. He couldn’t. But he seemed surprised, as far as Erin could tell. His gaze moved sideways and she sensed undead moving towards her. The Workers cut them off.
&nbs
p; The jar of acid sloshed in her grip. Heavy. Without her [Lesser Strength] skill she would barely have been able to lift it. But she raised it up onto one shoulder and then heaved it into the air like a giant shot put.
The glowing green projectile flew down the hill towards Skinner’s face, straight as an arrow. He raised his hand, too slowly. It broke on him and green liquid drenched the giant monster.
Acid covered Skinner’s face and body. He screamed, a high-pitched sound that made Erin’s teeth hurt and the Antinium clap their hands to their ear holes. But he didn’t die. He ripped his own flesh away, tearing layers of skin away. Then he looked up at Erin and screamed.
The dead flooded the hilltop and Skinner shrieked in rage, pulling himself up towards Erin, hands digging into the soil and earth.
“Come on!”
Erin stood on top of the hill, frying pan raised, as the Workers surrounded her. Her blood was on fire. Her heart hurt. But she would keep fighting.
Skinner stared at her. Erin stared back. Neither one blinked. He was her target. She could keep fighting until he was dead.
She wouldn’t stop. She would keep going, regardless of fear or death.
Until the moment he stopped moving. Until her last breath. Until her friends were safe, or they were all dead.
Until the end.
The dead rushed at Erin, and she raised the frying pan and hit the first zombie hard enough to break all of its teeth free. The darkness moved, and the dead were everywhere.
Everywhere.
1.44
She knew when the first skeleton cut her that she was going to die. Erin stared down at the open skin on her arm and wondered if she could push the two red halves together. She raised the frying pan and hit the skeleton with all her strength.
It fell down. Erin kicked it until the lights in its eyes went out. She was strong. Strong as a man? Strong enough to kill. She’d hit a dead Drake until the iron frying pan had dented and his skull had caved in and bits had squished outwards.
But the dead were everywhere, and somehow, each time Erin turned around, there were less Antinium around her. But there were always more undead. Their glowing eyes watched Erin, and their clawed hands sought her life.