by J. R. Ford
His buddy got angry and tried to get past my next ring with quick spear-work, but he forgot about the dagger. I parried a thrust old-fashioned-style, nullified his spear’s momentum, and grabbed it. He tugged, and I went with it, dagger-first.
He ducked and drove a shoulder into my stomach, then tackled me. My head banged the floor hard enough that I forgot what I was doing for a second, which he used to begin raining metal fists.
I took the first on the side of my helmet, which sent my head lolling, then the second hit my nose with a wet crunch. I raised my dagger in meager defense while groping for my spare and resisting encroaching blackness. He leaned away from my point, giving me the space to drive my other dagger into his armpit. The chain links gave way, and my steel squelched into flesh.
I shook my head to clear the pain and dizziness. Didn’t work. My back thought it had been flogged. My neck was wet. I tasted copper.
And we’d taken too long. Three more orcs had arrived and came for me, while the remaining two had Ana pinned in a corner.
I leapt at one occupied with Ana. Dagger plunged into neck, and Ana charged at the same time, catching a spear on the helmet but delivering a killing thrust in return. Together we broke for the window. A spear skittered on my gauntlet, and another along my shoulder plate, but I stumbled through to the window.
The bat was flying right for us. No hesitation. We jumped.
I dropped my dagger and twisted out the three somatic shapes. Ana screamed and grabbed my shirt. I pressed the null ring to us, and the world spun to a stop five feet above stony soil.
I landed hard and fell onto my side. Ana rolled away, nearly onto my dropped dagger.
Footfalls warned of approaching orcs. I wiped my eyes and nose and tried to focus. Wallowing in hurt wouldn’t save Heather and Farrukh. I roared my pain out and drew my rapier.
Three orcs came out of the front doors immediately behind us. The two archers moved gingerly, black scorch marks visible where Ana had scored their armor earlier. The third moved with poise and wielded a rapier in one hand. His other was clenched closed.
“You take the adds,” I said. Against arrows, chain was better than Null magic. Even battered as I was, I had the swordplay to fend off one dude. I hoped. I had no idea if this guy had had an Ana of his own who had drilled him into an expert duelist. Or maybe he was the Ana.
I stepped forward to meet him. He threw a fistful of pellets at the tower wall beside me.
With a bang like a firecracker and a burst of yellow Alchemy light, they exploded in gouts of flame. I stumbled away, and through the jets of flame I didn’t see the archers taking aim.
One arrow whizzed past my head; the other caught my left arm beneath the pauldron and sent me stumbling. I waved my rapier defensively, but the fires died quickly, and Ana charged the archers while they fumbled with their next arrows. I was half a step behind her, jabbing at the leader, drawing his attention. My left arm burned when I tried to bring my gauntlet-dagger up. Rapier alone it was.
My opponent parried and countered. I retreated, binding my rapier against his, tip to tip, both pressing hard to try to gain the center line.
Then his sword slipped under mine, and the force I’d been pressing against him put my sword on the wrong side. His sword whipped back up in a lightning thrust.
I cursed with my desperate parry. His sword pricked my bicep with a hot sting.
The pain was making me sloppy. I’d pulled the same trick on plenty of poorly trained apprentices. Ana had taught me better than this.
We returned to the bind, my forearm straining with the tension. I waited for him to try the same trick — if I was quick enough, I could turn it against him.
He feinted straight instead. I remained stalwart, his sword grating past. He weaved back before I had the leverage for a riposte. I feinted instead, the same move he’d pulled, and he parried in kind, barely moving his sword.
I could stab wide and circumvent that parry, at the cost of completely exposing my chest. If he countered instead of defending, we’d meet each other when we woke up in Luxembourg. Of course, he could issue the same attack against me.
His red eyes flicked to the side. Ana had downed one of the archers, but the other was mounting an impressive defense.
Time was on my side, and he knew it. He’d have to try something risky. My mind raced. My forearm burned.
My eyes were still watering. I didn’t notice him grabbing another fistful of fireworks until they were midair.
Damn! He could rush Ana or skewer me when I lunged blindly to defend her. The pellets exploded against the tower wall, and fire roared between us. I had to move.
There was only one answer, and it involved breaking a promise.
I lunged, twisting my blade wide, leaving myself exposed. If he parried that same tight parry, my blade would pass right by it. If he thrust, we were both going down.
The flames seared my arm and forward leg. My blade bit into chain links, and I barreled forward.
Fortunately, humans, even green-skinned and red-eyed, are creatures of habit. He’d done his same perfect parry, and my blade had punched into his chest. I drove him back under my momentum, shoving him to the ground, then rolling down beside him to smother my smoldering clothes.
I rolled up to see Ana dispatching the second orc with a thrust clean through the face. I collapsed. A blurry “Kill an orc: +50” appeared as my foe bled out.
“You okay?” Ana asked.
Every part of me hurt. But there was still work to do. Heather needed me…
I wiped my eyes on my shirt and recoiled. Still hot. I tried rolling up but forgot about the arrow in my left bicep. It snapped against the ground, sending a fresh lance of pain through me. I fell onto my mincemeat back and screamed. The agony almost made me wish he’d stabbed after all.
“Rest for now. I’ll clean up.” But her armor was split, her maroon jacket beneath stained black.
“How many?” I gasped. “I can’t think.”
“I killed two in the tower,” Ana said.
I tapped my fingers to check my notification log. “I’ve killed five total.”
“And these make nine dead. After being left with the bats, I doubt the rest are in great shape.” Her fingers worked through her own log. “But not dead. I don’t have the points.”
Shouts came from above, where orcs contended with trollbats. “Not dead yet.”
Ana pursed her lips. “Three came for us around either side, and six were inside. That leaves three healthy, if the bats don’t get any of them.”
Good thing she could still think. “Just tell me where to go.”
She rolled the rapier orc over, searching for loot. His Alchemical firework pouch was empty, but she found some dried meat and a deerskin tube in his satchel. The tube contained a map of the region, labeled in orc. I circled around back, planted a foot on my first victim, and tugged the Javelin of Impaling free.
Ana strode back in, and I followed. Floorboards muffled a mishmash of orc shouts, bat screeches, and the scream of weapons on stone. Ana took the stairs two at a time.
I was out of breath after the first flight. After two, I paused to lean on the windowsill. The fighting was only one floor above us. It sounded like more than one bat.
“Let’s wait here,” I suggested, though Ana was poised to race into the fray.
Her determined gaze softened. “Okay.”
After a minute, the sounds died down. Then Ana bolted, and I loped after.
The scene was carnage. There were three trollbats and eight orcs, mostly dead. Their weapons were embedded in the bats, each of which had three spears in its breast, the flesh regrown around them. One bat was whining, its flesh still bulging and trying to knit itself back together. I pressed nullify spell to it, then ended its misery. “Kill a trollbat: +10. Quest complete: clear tower north of White Fir of trollbats. Collect your reward from any shopkeeper.”
The two orcs still alive were slumped against the walls, breathing hard.
In the dim light, it was hard to tell, but I think they were crying. They had no fight left.
“Where’s Farrukh?” Ana demanded. She held her hand horizontally next to her nose, which was accurate enough to how tall Farrukh was, then rubbed at her chin and cheeks as if scratching a beard. “Uh.” She got down on her knees and mimicked praying. Then she scowled. “How do I tell them what I’m looking for?”
Skin, eye, and hair color would provide no information if they truly saw us as we saw them: green-skinned, red-eyed monsters.
One of the orcs grunted something and made a drinking motion with an empty hand. His canteen was lying a few feet away, rent open, its contents seeping into the floor. I gave him mine and helped him remove his helmet. His skin was pale green, and his curly hair was the color of pine needles.
Ana held the map in front of him, and he pointed at a small dot in the middle of the forest. The script was a jumbled mess of orcish symbols, but I recognized the terrain well enough.
I laughed. “He’s at White Fir!”
Ana gave a wan smile. “Makes sense. It’s not far from here and near a main road toward Bluehearth. What about Heather?” She held her hair around her head in a mimicry of Heather’s volume, then waved her hands around her thighs in an imitation of a dress.
He traced downriver, to Bluehearth. “En route,” Ana said. “Farrukh first.”
I stood up, though I left my stomach on the floor, weighed down by the dreaded question. “What do we do with them?”
“They’re the enemy,” Ana said. “We can’t even tell them to abandon the army.”
We looked upon the sorry pair. One of them seemed despondent, staring into nowhere, but the one I’d given water to looked at me with pleading in his evil red eyes. It didn’t take language to know what we were discussing.
“If we leave them, they could tell Pradeep we’re coming for him,” I said.
“We could tie them up,” Ana said, but I shook my head.
“Their friends could come find them.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” she said gravely, putting her knife to his neck and miming UI commands with her other hand.
Every orc left alive was an orc in the way of getting Heather and Farrukh back. I’d known it might come to this.
It wasn’t easier to watch than any other death. To him, I looked like he did to me. It could’ve been my green fingers logging out as he threatened execution. Did he know we were players? Would our knowledge of the log out command clue him in?
Regardless, better him than me. Maybe he had a Heather of his own whom he’d now failed. Better her than mine.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d ripped lovers apart. I remembered the feel of my rapier sliding into Guilherme, the weight on Heather’s features after she realized Lukas was dead. Better to rip than be ripped.
Apparently, I was the last player to deal damage to the orc before he logged out. “Kill an orc: +50.”
20
I howled when Ana jerked the arrow from my shoulder, and again when she plugged my broken nose with strips of orc jerkin. If only I had the luxury to sit around feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I peeled her hauberk off, being gentle for both our sakes. Her padded jacket beneath, originally maroon, was dark and torn. None of her wounds were too serious, just bloody. Wrapping her up netted me “Render Aid: +1.”
She smashed the captain’s chest open with the pommel of her sword. Within it waited a pair of leather boots which, while old, were in better condition than my current ones. And, more interestingly, they were inlaid with dull purple circuitry. A notification appeared: “Acquired Boots of Nullify Sound: +100.”
When I got up and walked over to Ana to show them off, their purpose became apparent. They made almost no sound against the floorboards. I would’ve jumped with joy and landed silently, but I could still barely move.
I brought up the leaderboard for the first time in a while. All those orc kills had paid off, and with my two new magic items, I was over 300 points ahead of Edwin. And with 7 million viewers, my share of ad revenue would be racking up.
Guilt surged. Heather was still top 10, but Farrukh wasn’t even top 100, and he was the one who actually needed the winnings. I’d just blow them doing nothing with my life. The only worthwhile expenditure, visiting Heather, would get me denied at her father’s gatehouse.
At least I could be bourgeois in my misery.
While I was changing, Ana gutted the bats. Eventually, she cursed and said, “Those orcs did a thorough job. I could only get one undamaged sac.”
The words “fuck walking” adopted a new intensity on our journey to White Fir. I’d endeavor to use tamer language for my everyday walking hatred.
We shuffled under some bushes to get a good look at the waterfront. White Fir was bustling. The forge was smoky. A timber frame rose from the inn’s ashen husk.
We settled in to watch. The earth swallowed me within seconds.
Ana woke me violently.
“Chill,” I groaned.
“I tried being gentler. I was afraid you’d died on me.”
“Not yet.”
“The orcs brought food to that one,” she said, pointing to the tailor’s shop. Two orcs stood guard outside.
A party half a dozen strong was gearing up outside the forge. “They’ve gotten suspicious,” Ana said. “They might be going to check on the bat hunters.”
“How many left?”
“If they run in packs of a dozen, eighteen, once these leave.”
Too many to fight head-on, even with surprise on our side. We didn’t have a tower we could run them around in, or bats to lend a helping claw.
We took the long way around, looping near the cabin. A tree leaning over the river offered vantage. Nullify momentum made our landings soft.
Walking sounded weird, especially with Ana clinking along beside me. My boots muffled the crunch of fallen leaves and twigs.
“You’ll have to do this alone,” Ana said. Just what I’d feared. Still, I nodded. If I showed any weakness, she might give me another fully clothed pep talk, and I didn’t know if I could handle one.
The sun dipped below the treetops as we rounded on the town from behind. Ana pointed out the tailor’s shop through the tangle.
I padded toward it. A back window looked onto a clearing, which I slipped across.
The window had been boarded up from the outside with planks and nails. I peered in and discerned a lump in the dimness.
“Psst!” I said.
Farrukh, moving very carefully, approached the window. He looked even more haggard than after our spelunking trips. There was nothing to say.
I poised my gauntlet-dagger to pry out a plank. One side came easily. After the other, I realized I’d underestimated its weight. It fell onto my boots with a muted thump. I hissed air.
Farrukh leaned his torso through the gap to bear the next one on his shoulders while I levered it free. Then I grabbed him and pulled him through headfirst.
Ropes tied his wrists and ankles. My gauntlet-dagger’s edge was nothing special, and it took several seconds to saw through his ankle restraints. Between my Boots of Nullify Sound and his practiced stealth, we were silent creeping back into the forest.
Ana greeted him with a hug. He looked shell-shocked. He stammered something, then shut up and let it happen. His hands were tight behind his back, bound by Ana’s arms and the ropes.
“I told you I’d get you back,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” he whispered. “My hands.”
Ana flicked out her boot knife and began sawing. “Here I thought you didn’t want to hug me back.”
As the bindings fell free, he flexed, stretched, and muttered a prayer. “That place was hell. I hate handcuffs more than I hate caves.”
“But you still chose to give yourself up,” Ana said. “Maybe this mercenary has a heart, after all.”
Farrukh’s joints popped as he stretched again. “That’s probably the closest thing to
an apology I’ll get out of you. Well, it’s good to be free. Now, what about those orcs?”
“What about them?” she asked.
“They don’t know you’re here, and a whole bunch of them just headed out. We can get revenge, and some points while we’re at it.” He eyed the weapons we’d brought for him: a spare machete and poleax from the cabin, and his bow.
Ana looked at me, and my weariness must’ve shown on my face. “We’ve had enough bloodshed today, and it’s a long road to Bluehearth.”
I groaned at the mention of roads. I wondered if the orcs had horses we could steal.
Farrukh opened his mouth to protest, then, flicking his eyes over our injuries, reconsidered.
“You were with them,” Ana said. “When do you think they’ll reach Bluehearth?”
“Pradeep questioned us and, when he learned the Citadel had been opened, packed his things in a hurry. He took me and Heather downriver but stopped at a camp to gather soldiers. I’d guess they’ll arrive tomorrow morning. If I can get an angle, I can shoot him before any of them sees us. I’ll make him regret wearing such a skimpy outfit.”
“Don’t forget, our friends need us,” Ana said. “The rebels, the White Foresters, Troy. They’re in danger right now just for being near Edwin and Absame.”
“If they don’t die before we get there,” Farrukh said. “And even if we can help them, we’re not stopping that army. Let’s grab Heather and make for Frostbank, or the Sunlands.”
“We’re not leaving them,” Ana insisted, final determination in her voice. “Maybe we can’t stop the orcs. But they need us.”
Farrukh paused, then nodded. “If you’re sure. I trust you.” I could see he bit back some final retort. “Even if it costs us game over,” or some other grim tiding, if I knew him.
“And Farrukh. Thanks. It took guts to leave yourself to his mercy like that.”
His mustache quirked in a smile. “Someone needed to do it, and I was the more valuable prisoner. Plus, I knew you’d rescue me. For all your arrogance, you take your promises seriously.”