The Goblin and the Empire

by JD Cole

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Kelli screamed as the effects of Ercianodhon’s life-stealing magic touched her. Her heart raced with fear as she struggled harder against her unseen restraints, trying to figure out what kind of magic was even holding her like this. As she writhed in the air, her breath coming quicker, she noticed that the spot where Petriz had landed was empty. She screamed again as a more powerful wave of necrotic magic pulled the life from her body. Her muscles felt like they were shrinking on her bones, and her lungs were on fire. She looked down and saw that Ercianodhon had picked up a sword from one of the numerous bodies around him. Another fifty feet or so and he’d be able to reach up and grab her legs, which didn’t matter because another minute or so of this necromancy and her armor would be protecting a corpse. Her wings pulled against the necromancer’s webs with all their might, her cape fluttering and whipping about like ink in turbulent water. Then, inexplicably, she was free, and she rocketed into the sky and away from the Goblin King’s invisible killing field.

  Gasping and coughing with huge tears falling out of her eyes, she spied the necromancer atop the apartments, struggling with Petriz. The necromancer shoved the weakened sprite onto his back and drew his sword. Kelli raced down and grabbed hold of the blade along with the necromancer’s neck.

  “You. Will. Not.” She ripped the vampyre’s sword from his grip and tossed it to Petriz, then pulled the eyeless helmet off the necromancer and threw his face into the roof. Petriz was there in an instant, removing the necromancer’s head as he struggled to rise.

  Another necromancer appeared from around the corner at street level, and Kelli sensed a blood curse of some sort being deflected off of her armor. Having seen the threat these vampyres posed, Kelli spared no thought to conserving her armor’s energy and called up a shikuvim spell, which instantly crushed the necromancer into canned vampyre. Kelli instantly sensed the power drain in her armor. “I’d better not do that again.”

  She looked at her hand where she’d lifted the first vampyre off his feet, then looked down at the disgusting mess she’d just made of the second. This armor is incredible. The fear and adrenalin were the only things that kept her from dwelling on the violence she was committing. She silently thanked her brother-in-law, but was drawn to the sounds of battle where her guards struggled against another necromancer. The vampyre was somehow tearing their wings apart faster than they could summon them, forcing them to face him on the ground where he attacked with masterful sword skills and powerful spells. Not far away, Kelli saw the elves and dwarves from earlier surrounded by goblins, but they seemed to be holding firm against the growing horde. The necromancer suddenly trapped one of the sprites, in the same way Kelli had been trapped. The helpless guard was thrown back toward Ercianodhon.

  “No!” Kelli screamed, but it was too late. The Goblin King ran to the sprite, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. The royal guardsman was already convulsing, but only continued to do so for just a few moments before slumping lifeless. The King threw his body to the ground, obviously rejuvenated as he commanded more goblins to rise from the endless corpses around him, including the dead sprite.

  “Petriz, with me!” she summoned her distant cousin, or nephew, or whatever he was as she zoomed to the aid of her remaining guards. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said as he caught up to her.

  “You honor me with your concern, Highness!” he replied, obviously still shaken from his brief encounter with the King.

  “Make sure you stay alive! I’m not losing anybody else today!” The Sprite Queen narrowed her eyes at the vampyre and willed the armor to carry her even faster. The vampyre turned just in time to see her crashing shoulder-first into his chest, sending him viciously into a nearby building, leaving a huge hole in the wall. Kelli ran inside before he could get up, grabbing him in a similar manner to how Ercianodhon had picked up her guard. The armor’s enchanted strength allowed her to lift the vampyre with ease, and she ripped his helmet off before tossing him to her guards. They did not need to be told what to do.

  Kelli leapt into the air again when she saw Ercianodhon limp-running toward her other soldiers surrounded by the goblins. “No you don’t!” she screamed, using the Birthright to summon moisture from the air around the Goblin King, and pushing all of it into the ground beneath him.

  Ercianodhon nearly fell as the dirt transformed into a pool of mud several inches deep. He looked up at the queen and snarled, using some of his newly regained strength to retaliate with a fireball from his claw. Kelli neatly dodged, but the fireball swerved and followed her, striking her full in the back but scattering harmlessly.

  Kelli sensed the armor was running low on magic. Another few big hits like that and she’d be vulnerable again. She suddenly remembered that there was at least one more necromancer nearby, but she couldn’t see or sense him. Was he hiding or did he go after the slaves? The King drew her attention once more as he rushed for the elves and dwarves, eager to feed his necromancy with their lives. She couldn’t let that happen.

  ~

  “I told you it’d be undignified,” Jezrimeli said, squatting between the elf rangers as they laid on their backs, hugging their bows, and their quivers-full of enchanted arrows lashed upside-down about their waists. They had also stuffed their cloak hoods down inside their collars. “But,” she added, “it will truly be an honor to fight alongside you both.”

  “Yeah yeah, just make sure you don’t drop us,” Nim told her, raising his left leg up. Jezrimeli shook her head and grinned. Beside Nim, Kassak raised his right leg, and Jezrimeli stood and grabbed firm hold of both their ankles, lifting the rangers with a modicum of effort.

  “Ready!” the zerivade said.

  The mages quickly opened a wide ethergate just above the floor, and everyone peered down at the battlefield of Matari. Jezrimeli lit her wings and floated down through the ethergate, followed by Taryn, who had transformed his arms into an enormous pair of bat-like wings. He was obviously not a skilled flier, as he simply stretched his wings out and spiraled lazily toward the ground, his legs dangling below him.

  “I’ll see you on the ground!” Derek casually saluted Samantha by bouncing two fingers off his brow, then tilted head-first into the portal and shot past everyone else. The Paladins and sprites who were left behind watched them descend for several moments before the gate closed up.

  “How’re you holding up, Mae?” Derek asked aloud, switching off his mic.

  “If I was around half-strength before Gedaschen,” she replied in his mind, “I’m about half-again that now after holding that concealment for so long.”

  “It wasn’t too stressful, I hope?”

  “I will admit, holding that level of concentration for that long fatigued me far more than I would have guessed, but in terms of magic? That is one of the lowest-powered spells I’ve ever used.”

  Derek scanned the battlefield below, which was a complete mess of bodies, some lifeless and others engaged in vicious battle. He spotted who he assumed was Kelli inside Matari’s walls, and took stock of all the enemies it looked like she was facing. “You probably have crazy spells that could wipe out all those guys down there, don’t you?”

  “A few,” she admitted. “Though we run the risk of depleting my magic entirely if I overuse those spells.”

  “Let’s just keep those in the drawer for now, then… but help those soldiers trying to rally with Kelli, if you can.”

  The Hood pressed his arms tightly to his body, and his legs together, commanding a new guise for his uniform. The hooded faery outfit shifted colors and the hood disappeared completely, leaving his dark-gunmetal helmet exposed. His new uniform was all black and dark grays like the Hood’s uniform, but less military and more X-Sports athlete. The uniform wrapped around the borrowed rifle strapped to his back, holding it firmly in place. Derek spread his arms and legs, allowing his new wingsuit to catch the wind as he turned his dive into a controlled, high-speed glide through Matari’s airspace. With a thought-command to
his interface, he determined where he wanted to land, and the computer drew a navigational line in his visor for him to follow.

  ~

  “Full of surprises, that one,” Jezrimeli said watching the Hood somehow turn himself into a bird of prey. Nim and Kassak had each drawn an arrow and held them ready with their bows, dangling upside down as they scanned the battlefield below. There was some fiery action happening in the trees, but that was overshadowed by a huge force of shadowlanders pouring from the eastern wall, pursuing a crowd of soldiers and slaves fleeing back toward the camps. “If there are no objections, rangers, I believe that’s the party I’m crashing.”

  The elves swung their gaze in the direction she’d lifted her chin, then both looked up at her and nodded. She wanted to drop right between the slaves and their pursuers.

  The zerivade grinned. “If either of you kill less than fifty of those cidowa-chomping vermin, you’re paying for the drinks tonight!”

  “Please remember to fetch me when you hit the ale barrels,” Taryn radioed. Far to their right, he was slowly gliding his way into one of the hospital sections of the sprite camp.

  “Don’t forget about the Paladins,” Derek added.

  Nim turned his eyes back to the north, watching the Hood. “The kid’s really movin’.”

  The vigilante was already soaring over the treeline on the other side of Matari and was making a wide turn to come back around. “If you guys are handling that pile of goblins chasing the slaves,” Derek radioed, “I’m going into the city to help the Queen.”

  “Good luck, friend!” Kassak replied. Jezrimeli was descending quickly, and arrows soon began reaching up to bring her down. Nim and Kassak used their standard arrows to deflect enough of them that Jezrimeli could dodge the rest, and both rangers had a healthy supply of enchanted arrows from Windham that they began putting to use now, killing multiple enemies at a time. Nim launched a red arrow into a crowd of goblins that created a huge fireball. This was followed by a sudden explosion elsewhere in the sea of shadowlanders below, destroying a large number of irenaks and goblins, and even a couple of vampyres.

  “Was that you?” Jezrimeli asked.

  “Not us,” Nim answered, firing off another red arrow. “The humans.”

  ~

  Derek found and decrypted the channel for Sean’s team. “Attention, Strategic Sciences troops on the ground, this is the Hood. You have friendly reinforcements dropping in from above, do not shoot at us!”

  Sean’s outdoor voice yelled into his comms. “How the hell did you get on this chann-! You know what, nevermind. We’ll steer our fire clear of your positions. Quit breaking into our classified stuff,” he growled.

  “I see you went ahead with your wingsuit idea,” Boss added. “Good job recovering the queen’s dad.” Derek zoomed his visor in to the group of ValianTs helping to shepherd the slaves along, and saw a soldier looking his way to give a thumbs up.

  “Same to you,” Derek replied, “I mean I was expecting you guys to make some noise here but holy crap!”

  Without the computer’s help, he calculated his speed and trajectory, adding an edu-guesstimate of the windspeed along with Boss’s position as variables. Then he flicked the capsule he was holding in his hand out behind him, knowing it would land roughly near the ValianTs. He could only hope that the capsule would shatter in the grass. Failing that, he still had two more of Flashback’s capsules.

  The curving navigational guide in his visor was minutely adjusting every few moments as he rocketed toward a creature right out of Dungeons and Dragons. He could see an anime-looking knight flying nearby who could only be Kelli, which meant the armored lizard man was the Goblin King. A veritable horde of zombies surrounded him and were engaged with a group of Kelli’s faeries while the King and Queen traded magic blows with each other.

  “Okay, Mae,” Derek thought at the elemental. “It’s violent-vigilante time. Watch my back, will you?”

  “Always, Hood,” he could feel her smiling at him.

  ~

  Crash pulled a goblin elf off of his shoulder; the wretched thing was banging away at his ValianT’s headpiece with a rusty sword. A flick of his wrist and the pest was flung off into the mass of goblins behind him as he smashed another goblin, this one formerly a vampyre, with his other fist. More goblins scrambled up onto his battle platform as often as they could, though the weapons they carried were thankfully harmless against him. He was grateful to be piloting the VT-4 as he watched Boss and the others fighting a bit more desperately in their MIRK suits, alongside the faery soldiers who were somehow both more and less vulnerable at the same time. Their armor and weapons were, in most cases, far inferior to the MIRKs and immers, but the fae were obviously well-versed in this extreme-close-range form of combat and were handling themselves well.

  There turned out to be several cases where the faeries outclassed the “Earth” soldiers. Wizards and warriors who carried titles like “battlemage”, “blademaster” and “rangemaster” fought with skills that defied human understanding. Crash watched in disbelief as one of those rangemasters, a dwarf, pulled three arrows onto his bow and released them, sending one into the eye of an alligator, and two others careening off several armors of both enemies and allies to strike the skulls of a pair of lightly armored vampyres who had made the mistake of not wearing helmets. He hoped his ValianT’s video recording of that feat wasn’t too blurry, he wanted to watch it again later.

  Boss was much further up the line from Crash, part of the larger battle group putting themselves between the pursuing goblin forces and the slaves. The ValianTs continued leading a smaller force behind them —a single battleprok along with the five VT-4 battle platforms— to handle the enemies that made it past the first group. Boss growled in frustration as he hammered the butt of his rifle against a goblin for the third time. The disgusting zombies were easy to knock down; it was keeping them down that was the trick. He had a sturdy combat knife on his utility harness, but he regretted not arming himself with a machete like some of his troops had. He noticed there was a pair of knight-looking warriors toward the back of the pursuing hordes, vampyres by the size of them. They seemed to be driving the goblins, while also throwing lightning and fire over their forces at Boss’s group like magic artillery.

  The sprite wizard who’d been assigned to Boss’s sapper team, Ermik, appeared beside him. “The necromancers,” he pointed at the armored warriors. “If we can fell them, the goblins will become less of a problem.” Ermik blocked several quick attacks with his short sword, using a spell to trip his goblin attackers where he neatly dismembered them while simultaneously creating a brief shield that absorbed several fireballs from the necromancers. “But they will be hard kills,” he added.

  “We’ll see about that,” Boss tapped a few buttons on his wrist controller, then tapped the air in front of him to virtually mark the two necromancers. He quickly dodged a spear thrust at his head, grabbing it and pulling it over his shoulder, kicking the goblin that came with it. An irenak lunged at him from the other side, slicing a sword down at his neck.

  Boss stepped aside, but before he could react further, the irenak’s sword struck another, larger blade that shone like gold. Jezrimeli lifted the irenak’s sword back into the air, sheathing her own sword with one hand while using her other to hook three fingers inside the irenak’s right eye socket. She pulled the creature’s head forward into her armored knee with a sickening crack. As the new corpse bounced off her, she used her grip in its eye to spin it around, releasing it and using the leather armor on its back to wipe her fingers clean of most of the gore.

  The zerivade gave a quick nod to Boss before swimming into the sea of goblins before her. Blades, bludgeons and claws were all smoothly blocked or parried by the infamous battlemaiden, while she used highly skilled strikes from her hands, feet, elbows and knees to crush the zombies’ bones and muscles, rendering them practically immobile. A troll was making its way toward Boss from his right, a big ugly beast that
looked exactly like most human legends depicted it. Boss lifted his immer and put two rounds of 6.8mm into its forehead, but the monster merely seemed to be debating on whether or not to die. Wobbling on its feet, it lifted its warhammer, looking to strike its nearby enemies while blood poured from its head wounds. Boss was about to fire again when two arrows zoomed past either side of his head, curving to avoid him, then curving inward again to drive into both the troll’s eyes. This time the creature pitched backward, dead. Boss turned to see Nim wielding Kassak’s hyru, unlatching its blades to attack a quartet of goblins that lunged for him. Nearby, Kassak was making adept use of his trinigar sword, cutting down one enemy after another.

  Suddenly, a bright flash caught Boss’s attention not far away, and he saw Samantha Vox immediately begin laying into the live shadowlanders around her with her VECs. Now that he had a moment to breathe, he opened his radio. “Okay, team, I’ve tagged two HVTs for you, we need these guys deader than the goblins ASAP!”

  “Roger that, Boss!” came from Greenbay. The sniper team and their ground security forces broke through the treeline, having dealt with most of the enemies that had been sent in to kill them. Boss saw Greenbay’s Valiant wrestling with a minotaur. The monster pummeled against the VT-4 with its fists and head, even managing to kick Pieman’s ValianT and knock it over while Pieman was trading punches with a wolf. A squad of elves leaping and climbing about the wolf’s body cut the beast down before Pieman even had the chance to get back on his feet.

  Matrix rushed over and grabbed the minotaur by one of its horns —needing to leap up to reach it even in his ValianT— but the hellbeast unleashed a bone-crushing kick into his leg, rupturing one of the cabling bundles under the armor and causing alarms in his HUD. From up in trees, Dez aimed his .50 at what to him was practically point-blank range. The entire right-side of the minotaur’s head disappeared in a bloody spray, and Dez quickly unloaded the rifle to replace the standard ammo with his four remaining hummingbirds. There were more necromancers to kill.