by Atlas Kane
“What did you do, Vormer?” he asked, his voice cold. Regardless of the confidence he felt in facing Vormer, he knew there would be lasting consequences.
“I was attempting to summon a champion. You’ve interrupted me, stopped me in the middle of a great and wondrous work. But,” Vormer continued, glancing down at his arms. “Now that I think of it, I feel more than capable of finishing you three right now.”
The grin that crossed the lion’s face was maddening. Then his form rippled and shifted. He fell forward, his leonine features becoming exaggerated. A long, black tail lifted above him, and he crawled on all fours. Gone was any hint of Vormer’s humanity. He wasn’t a man who was prideful and vain, one that delighted in music and fine wine as well as power and politics. No, this was the beast within unleashed by the shadow substance that bound him.
He charged, relentless and half blind with fury.
His first attack was aimed at Ketzal. Her whip lashed out, the golden weapon sparking in the air as it met and deflected the blow. Cade fired his ring’s acid attack while Satemi upped them all by summoning and throwing a Boom Stick. The blast forced them all back another few feet, but when they looked up, more of Vormer’s body had been blown apart and was already being replaced by the shadow substance.
The lion hissed, whipping his tail and striking the ground before Satemi. The ground erupted, chunks of stone flying into Satemi’s face. The warrior rolled away and stood back up, blood spilling down her gorgeous face from a dozen small cuts.
His tail lashed out once more, this time aimed at Cade. The man only had time to lift his buckler and trigger Shroom Shield. The attack landed like a peal of thunder. Cade felt his arm shatter, and the weapon crumble apart, still attached to his body.
Seeing two of his foes held at bay, the lion focused once more on the demoness he’d once bound so closely to his purpose. Vormer lifted his paw, a crackling ball of fell energy forming on the tips of each talon. Then he struck. Ketzal held up her shield and blocked, the force shield emerging instantly to protect her. Skill-enhanced as it was, Vormer’s claws still cut through the shield’s surface. The soul weapon seemed to flicker out, the sheen that characterized the quality of its steel going dim.
Stumbling back, Ketzal threw down the weapon. “It’s dead! He killed the weapon!”
“He did with mine too. This is no longer Vormer. Whatever it is we fight, it is not of Antinium,” Cade said, throwing the remains of the buckler he’d come to care for to the ground beside him. He held his left arm close to his chest, the bones broken beyond immediate repair. Even if the buckler were still functioning, he wasn’t sure if he could count on Restoration of the Grove to heal him.
The lion rose up taller than ever, his chest puffing up with the gloating pride of imminent victory.
Satemi, ever the one to spoil a party, held out her gloved hand and a javelin made of ice exploded from her palm, piercing the lion’s shoulder. Vormer roared in pain, but the shadow ate away at the weapon and began healing itself once more. Targeting Satemi next, the lion sprinted forward, claws flashing.
Cade thought maybe that was what the woman had wanted, for as soon as he did so, she activated her ultimate skill. Just as she had the last time she faced Vormer, Satemi’s sword grew longer, turning a bright crimson, and when she moved to dodge his attack, she was a blur.
The warrior danced with the lion, who’d continued to grow in size, the umbilicus of dark energy still pouring out of the void to feed him. Her swords were devastating, tearing through the lion’s flesh with ease. She struck three times at his front leg, the final attack cutting through the lion’s leg. Vormer toppled forward, snapping at Satemi with savage teeth. She dodged easily and slashed the lion across his chest then pulled back, driving her sword directly into his throat.
Any normal beast would have died twice over. But the shadow was alive now. It had consumed the man they once feared. Even as Cade looked up in horror, the golden light that had filled his eyes, the pervasion of Aten, winked out, orbs of shining onyx taking its place.
“I am not flesh and blood any longer. You cannot hurt me, only feed my hunger,” Vormer spoke, his voice like an echo through a dark canyon.
Satemi fell back, and as the wound closed up, it pulled her sword into the monster’s chest. “No!” she screamed, lamenting the lost blade. The woman growled in fury and unsheathed Vormer’s old weapon, facing the demon lion fearlessly.
“Wait!” Cade met Satemi’s eyes, signaling their final plan. “Let’s use it now. We’ll all be dead in a few moments if we don’t try.”
The lion roared, and a dozen beams of dark power exploded from his back. Each portion of his body that had been removed began to sprout writhing tentacles, and when those had finished forming, each of these grew barbed mouths. Holy shit. We are so absolutely fucked, Cade thought, despair falling on his shoulders like a thousand pounds of stone.
But instead of falling to his knees like he wanted to, Cade, the Chimera Lord of Camp Casmeer, held his axe up with his one good arm. “Do it! Now, Satemi!” he shouted, and fired an Explosive Shot in the lion’s face to buy them a second more. The blast tore away part of an eye, but it grew back, blacker than ever, in less than a moment.
Satemi ran to Cade’s side, shouting to Ketzal. “Come quickly. I don’t think we have much time.” The demoness arrived at Cade’s side just as Vormer’s tentacles seemed to grow aware of their presence. A dozen mouths opened wide in savage delight, and the lion roared once more. He was now the size of Bellows if not the shape. The massive lion stretched over thirty feet long, his head large enough to devour Cade whole. And when he roared, Cade stared down into the darkest pit of hell and found himself wanting.
He felt the cord wrap around his waist, cool and unyielding. Ketzal gripped the other end, and then a surge of power ripped through him. They were bound, the Lasso of Cleaving pooling their power together into a single tangible river. He felt like screaming out and defying the shadow beast with his voice alone.
Instead, Cade dropped his axe and held up the necklace he’d found. With Satemi and Ketzal’s Attributes, mana, and very life force pounding in his veins, Cade activated Finger of the Sun God.
A pin of light shot forward, straight down the lion’s still-gaping maw. For a fraction of a second, Cade imagined he saw fear or recognition in the cat’s terrible eyes. But then a column of fiery light exploded from the necklace, a waterfall of sunlight. It wasn’t the foul golden light of Aten, somehow evil in its glory, but pure and unadorned sunlight.
The lion that was once Vormer roared in torment, the tentacles that had grown across its back incinerating into dust. Its great body shuddered with suppressed strength. More and more of the sun’s power poured down the monster’s throat, illuminating every particle of its body with light.
Then the beam tore through the lion’s back, burning out of its tail and striking the portal itself. The silver metal that was left shattered, and the light burned through the hole that loomed before them. Cade marveled in the power coursing through his mortal frame. He wasn’t designed to contain such power, but the combination of the lasso and the necklace had turned him into a god killer.
And when the beam of light ceased, he fell to his knees beside Satemi and Ketzal. All three shook with the strain of expended mana. They exchanged looks of awe and horror, for they knew their act had nearly taken their lives.
In front of them, the lion stood defiant until the last. Its body was rigid, the liquid black that composed its muscles now rigid and dry. A breeze tumbled up from the city below, and the great beast shattered into dust, billowing away in a cloud of midnight. Behind it, where the portal once stood, was a fist-sized ball of black power.
As they marveled at the thing, it began to expand, just a little at first, and then more quickly. It had an unstable quality to it, sometimes contracting and then expanding in jerks. Around it danced tiny sparks of shifting mana.
“I don’t know what that is,” admitted Cade, haul
ing himself to his feet. “But I think we should be gone from here before it gets any bigger.”
Satemi nodded and helped Ketzal stand once more. Unwrapping the lasso from around Cade’s waist, the three turned their back on the growing orb and ran through Tanrial.
Each step wracked Cade with jarring pain. The shattered bones in his arm cut through his flesh, but all he could do was clutch it to his chest and run as fast as he could. The city seemed empty until they passed the vast hanging gardens Ketzal had shown him so many weeks ago. They were picked clean, and a few apes still climbed to retrieve what was left.
“Ketzal. You have to tell them to leave. Everyone needs to get out of here.” Satemi and Cade waited a minute while Ketzal ran to deliver the message. She spoke to the apes in frenzied gestures then turned back and rejoined them. Looking up the hill on a whim, Cade saw an ever-expanding sphere of onyx energy, now audibly thrumming with charged energy.
Pointing, he fell into a run, Satemi and Ketzal staring wide-eyed until they too ran after him. A handful of apes followed, and Cade only hoped everyone else had gotten the god-damned memo.
At the edge of the city, they found Bellows. On his back were the others from Camp Casmeer and a host of guards and servants, all free of Vormer’s influence, waiting on their instructions. The Kotani tribe stood by, their leader sitting proudly on his haunches and ignoring the scores of wounds he bore from the fighting.
“Everyone, we need to leave now! Try to keep up as well as you can. If anyone falls behind, make sure they get help. Is there anyone incapable of walking?” Cade asked the crowd, and a few soldiers were brought forth, already strapped down to makeshift stretchers.
Cade ordered the rest to head off toward Camp Casmeer, entrusting the Kotani Ma himself to spearhead the retreat. Those that were grievously injured were given Healing Tinctures and herbs to stabilize them, then, lashing the stretchers together side by side, he roped them to Bellows’ harness.
Climbing aboard himself with the help of Satemi and the others, Cade fought a bout of dizziness. The pain in his arm throbbed, and his head spun. Focus, Cade. Pain is just… he began in his mind before shrugging the cliché away. Pain is pain. I’ll just need to suck it up.
“Move out!” he shouted, then barked an Alpha’s Call, surprising even himself at the number of those around him who received the buff. This action inspired a few others with party-enhancing skills, and soon, they were all moving quicker, feeling stronger, their bodies healing at an alarming rate. The potential of traveling or fighting in a large group suddenly dawned on him. This could be truly amazing. And then of course he remembered the extent of Vormer’s betrayal in Antinium. The engineers of this world had intended for this compounding effect, yet the golden lion had taken it away for himself. Rather than live amongst a society that thrived on cooperation, he’d sequestered the power to himself and ultimately made for a weaker, more vulnerable humanity.
The group fled across the open field, getting farther away by the second. Just before they reached the forest, Cade stole a glance of the city. Atop the hill at its center shone the black sphere. It was massive, almost as large as one of the great domes of Tanrial. “Faster!” he bellowed, and the refugees fled deeper into the jungle.
A handful of minutes later and the world cracked open. The sphere had collapsed in upon itself, the unstable energy erupting outward in all directions. A shock wave made the jungle shudder, every plant and leaf feeling the quake as it passed. Then a terrible storm of shrapnel followed. Trees were cut down in swaths and the foliage shorn away.
Those fleeing the city had made it far, but for some, the distance was not great enough. Having survived the wars that led to Vormer’s command, then the brutality of his iron-fisted regime, many were cut down by twisted chunks of golden metal as they spun wildly through the air. Their friends and loved ones held them, their bodies torn to shreds. Another dozen at least of the already-dwindled ranks fell in that blast, more than a handful of the Kotani apes as well.
The retreat stopped then, for a few were injured badly, but thanks to skills and remedies, were given a third chance at life.
Cade sat atop Bellows and stared at the wreckage behind them. The forest was mostly cut down, leaving a partial view of Tanrial. The top of it was gone, blasted away in the explosion. Smoke rose in and gathered above, and for minutes afterward, fragments of metal showered around them. It was a perverse rain, the intermittent sound of which Cade would never forget.
Feeling inspired to lead those around him, he called in his loudest voice. “Look to those around you! These are your brothers and your sisters. We will show you your new home, but let us rest an hour before we begin the journey. If anyone is hungry or thirsty, come to the boar and ask one of us. We have supplies in plenty.”
In the time that followed, Cade met many of the refugees. A few he recognized, the musicians and servants that had danced before him, one of the women who’d bathed him. It was odd, seeing them unbound from Vormer, and yet it gave him a feeling of great comfort. Though they’d lost many, these were lives that had been saved.
He dismounted after the wave of refugees had come for food and water. Approaching the apes who’d made their own little gathering off to the side, Cade winced to see they only numbered fifteen or twenty. The beasts had given up over half of their warriors for this fight. Cade found their chief, the Kotani Ma, and bowing before the massive ape, summoned the skull.
Immediately, the apes fell silent. The Kotani Ma bowed in return and picked up the relic. Shattering every preconceived notion Cade had developed in this world, the ape made the huge skull disappear in his own Inventory.
Then he waved a few of his fellows over and set an assortment of fruit, plant stalks, and seeds, all of which Minda scooped up. She begged Ketzal to tell them how grateful she was, and then with the help of the demoness, they invited the Kotani to come and visit in one month’s time. The Kotani Ma agreed, then scared Cade half to death when he gripped the man, his hand wrapping around his shoulder and upper body, and pulled him in for an odd embrace. The huge ape pressed his forehead into Cade’s and a jolt of power entered his frail body.
Afterward, the ape rousted his group of warriors and charged off into the forest on their own path home.
As the new members of Camp Casmeer stood up and prepared for a long march to a home they’d never seen before, Cade marveled at what the ape had done to him.
Examining his Character Sheet, he found he’d gained a status called Kotani Touched. Not only did he grow several inches as the women around him watched on in awe, but he gained 3 Attribute Points in Strength and in Constitution. The second made his already-healing bones finally click back into place, the pain at last subsiding.
He breathed easily as Bellows began to amble along. They’d succeeded, and he was lucky enough to have become stronger despite the costs.
Minda called to Satemi, looking at her friend across the boar’s back. “I don’t know about you, but I always like watching my man grow.”
They all laughed at the lame joke, grateful to be alive and able to make such petty comments. Cade smiled, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything to throw back. Oh well, he mused. I have a lifetime ahead of me to think of something clever.
28
Vocations, a Vote, and Victuals
The march back to Camp Casmeer had been difficult, many of their numbers still slowly healing from injuries received in either the fight for or retreat from Tanrial. Yet despite the foot-sore quality of their group, there was also a spirit of relief and pervasive hope.
That night went long and late. Despite the intermittent buffs that members provided, amping Stamina, Strength, or Dexterity, it took a lot longer on foot than it had on Bellows. They were safe though. Nothing but the Kotani would attack such a large group, many of which were armed and well trained. The Kotani were their allies though, a boon which Cade planned on cherishing.
It was late afternoon the next day when they passed
below the trees of the Earthen Apes. Cade stood below them, eyeing their alpha and hoping none would dare attack his group. If they chose to, this might very well be the moment the apes were put down. His buckler was shattered, so his Canopy of Occlusion was nothing more than a memory. The soul weapon would be sorely missed.
Yet touching the necklace that hung around his neck brought up the trove of recovered weapons they’d taken from Tanrial’s armory. Part of him still ached at how many beautifully crafted shield, swords, spears, and suits of armor were left behind. The soul weapons though, they would prove to be the most effective way of handing power back to the many people who passed by with little more than the clothes on their back. A few of those wore sheer veils that could hardly be called clothing. Minda and Satemi had singled these out as the cold settled around them the previous night. To those, women one and all, the two gave the extra hide clothes. Ugly and ill-fitting, the previous sex slaves clutched at the thick furs as if they were mink coats.
Exhausted but grateful, the people of Tanrial streamed into Camp Casmeer as the sky was aflame with sunset. Minda and Satemi set to roasting as much meat as possible, recruiting help from a few trusty guards who were grateful of being freed. Ketzal announced that the waterfall would still be warm for a while yet, and most of the travelers made their way up the slope and bathed. Many of the soldiers took their armor and washed off the blood of those they’d fought beside or against, all while under Vormer’s mind control. Weeping was heard all around, some fierce and raging, but most quiet and privately expressed. It was the relief they felt as well as a lingering sense of guilt for having survived while so many others did not.
That night, every shelter was filled, the two large extra shelters the original group had constructed holding ten sleepers at once. The rest were put up in the few tents Minda held so dearly, or under a broad swath of hide hung between two shelters. In total, thirty-one survivors of the Battle for Tanrial slept that night. Cade and the other five members took turns pulling guard so nobody else had to. When Cade woke Sholl, who’d found a place beside the bird woman Polde, he felt a growing anxiety he could not identify at first. Lying behind Minda and sidling closer, he examined his thought. At last, he realized that with such an influx of new people, he could not trust those around him. Surely, as people often do, others would dissent, go against his wishes, perhaps even act to harm him or those he loved.