“How did you know?” The Star Spear stepped back for a second before grinning. “You’re a sneaky one, Squire.”
I pushed a lizard-man back with my forearm before splitting its skull with my weapon’s pommel. Another four took the place of their fallen comrade, and a female scream set my teeth on edge. I looked to Casey and saw a nasty gash on her left arm. A Warrior shot toward the enchantress, but Elle jumped in front of the monster, sidestepped its wild swing, and burst open its gut with a deep thrust of her dagger.
The two women were close to being overwhelmed, and a tide of enemies prevented me from saving them. A quick mash of my prot-belt activated my speed sequence, and I dashed between the four Grendel Warriors in front me. They were too slow to fend off my sword strokes, and they dropped dead before they could attempt a counterattack.
The Dax fell behind me, and together we fragmented the enemy lines. Every slash and swing brought death to my foes until I was standing in front of my two friends. Grendel blood caked Casey’s silver enchanter uniform and Elle’s curved dagger. The aliens had killed two of the cyber alchemists, but a few survivors remained inside the booths.
A runesong’s powerful melody entered my ears, and my limbs revitalized with renewed vigor. There was only one herald knight on this planet that could play the enchanted music, so I knew Flanagan and the others had finally come to the Watchtower.
A smile touched my lips as Elle planted her dagger into a Warrior’s chest, and I finished with a two-handed sweep. The point clerk rushed to retrieve her blade before attacking again. I had been wrong to underestimate her martial skills, and even Casey was proving effective with her enforcer staff.
We weren’t losing anymore.
The sweet taste of potential victory made me smile as I came to blows with a lizard-man. I leaped forward and backward as the Grendel attempted to cut me down with its overcompensating attacks. I saw its tail uncoil to my right, and I twisted aside as it attempted to wrap around my sword. I’d failed to realize the potency of a tail-attack before, but not this time. With a downward slash of my blade, I severed the lizard-man’s tail. The Grendel’s agonized screeching was cut short as I spun back and lopped off its head.
“For the queen!” a chorus roared from behind me.
Moses exploded into the room, his tower shield mowing down the Grendels like a bulldozer. Twin axes flew past me and burrowed into the back of a lizard-man before bursting into flames. The Grendel dropped, and Olav sprinted to it before tearing his smoking weapons free from the enemy. A blurred form rushed past the berserker, and it materialized behind a lizard-man. Leith plunged his daggers into either side of a Grendel and cackled as green blood sprayed over his exposed face.
The chiming I’d heard earlier grew louder as Flanagan Reeves entered the Watchtower. He jumped atop a console and strummed his axe-harp. His face was split in a grin of pure glee, and his golden hair swayed.
I re-entered the fray with passion, glad to fight alongside the Stalwart's Space Knights. We forced the Grendels back until we were only fighting as many as could squeeze through the doorway.
“Looks like you’ve been having fun,” Nathan said, and I saw all three squires had joined the battle.
I shoved my longsword into a narrow gap and struck something I couldn’t see. “What took you guys so long?” I pulled the weapon back, and the blade was soaked to the hilt in Grendel blood.
Richard stepped aside as a Grunt burst through the doorway, and he cracked its skull with the edge of his shield. “Kinda hard to run when you have a belly full of beer.”
The chiming music kept coming from Flanagan’s axe-harp, and the runesong strengthened us with arcane power. The herald only paused his playing to strike down any Grendels that dared ascend the computer console.
Moses had replaced the spear he’d lost on our last mission with a naginata. The one-meter-long blade pursued the Grendels as though it was equipped with a homing mechanism. Olav and Leith fought like they were in a competition, each knight more concerned with their number of kills than their own safety.
By the time all the Grendels were slain, my longsword felt like it weighed a hundred kilos, and everyone looked as though they’d taken a bath in a tub filled with green ink. There was complete silence for a full minute as we took in the incredible number of enemies we had killed. Piles and piles of scaled corpses rose up from around the Watchtower.
The knights started moving through the dead enemies to finish any survivors. I joined in with the other squires, careful not to get snagged by any of the aliens still living. A blade through a lizard-skull fixed that problem, and guilt tugged at my heart for killing prisoners of war. While the Academy training had made me think of them as monsters, and I had seen firsthand their savagery, there was something about taking the life of a helpless creature that struck me as wrong.
Even so, I didn’t hesitate to use my sword when a Grendel Warrior struggled to lift itself up from beneath a mound of the dead. With one sweep, I decapitated the creature, and its head tumbled down.
With the Watchtower clear and all the Grendels confirmed dead, Moses cast a wary glance at the Dax. Then the knights moved swiftly to surround Sir Uram and his initiates.
“You Dax have anything to do with this?” Olav thrust his bearded hatchet toward the Star Spear.
“We only came to assist in the fighting of Grendels,” he answered as he wiped the blood from his spear. The Star Spear lifted the polearm, and the knights angled their weapons toward him at once. I could feel the tension like a thick mist, and I didn’t want the knights to butcher the man who’d come to my aid.
“He speaks truly,” I said.
“Oh, of course he does.” Olav sneered. “Just like you never meant for that fucking sorcerer to attack the Stalwart.”
“Easy, Olav.” Moses touched the berserker’s arm lightly, but Olav shoved the other man away.
“Lyons is cooking up some scheme with the Dax. This portal business has to be his fault.”
“Why would he stay and fight? Seems to me the lad is risking his life for these people,” Leith said, and I was thankful to have won him over earlier.
“Probably found himself stuck in this place along with his Dax mates,” the berserker said as he glared at me.
“Is this man insane?” Sir Uram asked Moses after the berserker threw himself into a new crowd of Grendel Warriors attempting to invade the room.
“Yes,” Moses said. “We have a Grendel portal to clear! Knights! Forward behind Ola--”
“Better make sure Lyons and the Dax don’t get in the way of my blades!” Olav screamed over the sounds of battle. He was cutting a path of corpses away from us with his axes, and it looked like flames were beginning to appear around the edges of the blades.
“Nick, what can you tell us about the situation?” Moses asked.
I watched Olav finish killing the Grendels while I relayed what had happened so far. I stopped before recounting how my mutation increased the portal’s level. I didn’t want the Dax to learn about my ability, nor did I think the captain would appreciate me revealing it to a foreign kingdom.
“The same thing that happened on Tachion happened here,” I said to the shield knight. He nodded, immediately understanding the hidden meaning in my words.
“And these?” Moses gestured at the alchemists behind the consoles.
“They control real warsuits through the helmets,” I said.
“And they’re still operating them?”
“I think so. They’re probably somewhere inside the fortress.” I motioned toward the doorway.
“Do you have access to a layout?” the shield knight asked me.
“I can get one,” I confirmed before moving to the console where Alin was plugged in.
The empath was still wearing the VR helmet, but its surface was charred black. A tiny trail of blue blood stained her right cheek, and I slowly lifted the helmet. Her eyes were wide and unmoving, and I wasn’t surprised to see her dead. Her warsuit had sustained far to
o much damage. She had given her life to kill the Ogre and save her people.
“Go with honor, my friend,” I said as I pulled her eyelids down.
I had barely known Alin, but she fought valiantly against the Grendel hordes. Although she appeared to me as a simple attendant, the battle had proved her far more. Without her controlling the warsuit, the Ogre might have killed us all.
With a heavy heart, I took the tablet from her lap. I couldn’t read any of the details, but thankfully I didn’t need to go elsewhere because the map of the fortress was already open. I handed the tablet to the shield knight.
Moses scanned the layout on the screen and then nodded after a second. “Alright, crew. Looks like we should have an easy time clearing this portal. There are five narrow, curving corridors until we reach the center.” He glanced at the Star Spear and his initiates. “I guess you Dax can fall in behind us knights.”
“Behind us?” Olav questioned. “They’ll bloody stab us in the back!”
“They won’t do anything,” Moses said as he gave Sir Uram a threatening stare.
“Yeah,” Leith said as he inspected the edge of his dirk. “They try it, and they’ll be dead before they blink.”
Sir Uram chuckled. “You Caledonians are quite humorous. A welcome change from these initiates.” The lightly armored Dax surrounding the warrior glared at him, and I guessed they weren’t too pleased to be serving under the man.
Olav growled a little before turning to Moses. “If they come with us, there will be less kills for me.”
“You’re already too far behind to catch up,” Leith said. “I’m at least fifteen ahead of you.”
Laughter boomed from Sir Uram’s mouth. “You Caledonians have a thirst for battle. I like it!”
“Let’s get this portal cleared,” Moses said with a slight smile. “Squires, you remain here and get this place cleaned up.”
The knights went through the doorway first, followed by Sir Uram and the Dax initiates. I crossed my arms and watched the doorway while the warriors vanished behind the corner. I was annoyed they hadn’t asked the squires to accompany them into the fortress. We could be genuinely useful in there rather than inside the Watchtower among the dead.
“I think I’m going to head to the safety zone,” Casey said to me. “I figure Grandpa Jo would want some company.” Her voice trembled a little, and I guessed her first confrontation with the hated enemies of humankind had rattled her.
I put my hand on her shoulder, and suddenly she buried her face in my chest. I held the back of her head and felt the slight tremor of crying through my armor’s sensors. I hugged her for a few moments, but she eventually sighed and then stepped away.
“Thanks, Nick,” she said after sniffing.
“You did well. The first battle is never easy.”
The enchantress offered me a forced smile. As she left the Watchtower, I wondered how the battle might scar her. Enchanters weren’t meant for the field unless they underwent special training, so it was no wonder she had been so affected. Even those with Academy schooling struggled after seeing the deaths of allies and facing the terror of Grendels.
“You should go with Casey,” I said to Elle. “It isn’t safe here.”
“I can handle myself,” she said. “And I can help with the door security if more Grendel push past the knights.”
“I don’t know, Elle,” I said. “I would prefer if you left the Watchtower.” I’d seen Elle’s Medusa-link do some unbelievable things with computers, but she’d already risked her life by being here when the Ogre got through the door. I didn’t want to bet on the luck goddess twice.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Nicholas,” she said as though reading my thoughts. “I am a point clerk. We train to be present during portal clearing, and I’ve already proven that I can fight.”
“Yes. You did well.” I said to her. I knew the raven-haired woman wouldn't budge, so I turned to Neville. I could barely offer him a smile after seeing so much carnage. All the enforcers were dead, and their grey corpses stuck out among the horde of dead Grendels.
“Where’s the captain?” I asked the squire.
“He and the prime minister are preoccupied,” Neville answered as he finished cleaning his rapiers and then attached them to his prot-belt.
"Preoccupied?" I raised an eyebrow, and the squire shook his head to tell me it wasn’t like I was thinking.
“They are on a call with the leaders of the other Arks,” he answered.
I guessed they were requeseting refuge in case we hadn’t been able to repair the runic generators. Now, we knew there were much bigger problems on the Den Ark than faulty runes.
Richard and Nathan plopped themselves down, deactivated their helmets, and rested their backs against a wall. They no longer seemed to care that the organic substance shifted and moved. Their chins dropped to their chests in either exhaustion, drunkenness, or a combination of both. Their sorry state made me realize why the knights hadn’t invited us inside the fortress. These squires were yet to develop an incredible tolerance to alcohol like the knights. The call to arms had probably come when they were midway through a glass of ale. I might have thought it negligence if this mission’s purpose wasn’t R&R.
“How’d your date with the doctor go?” Richard asked as he glanced up at me with half-open eyes.
I was surprised he had asked when we were still in the middle of a battle with high-level Grendels, but my surprise was totally outmatched by Elle’s.
The point clerk snapped her head toward me. “Date?”
“Uh . . . it wasn’t really a date,” I said.
“No need to be modest,” Richard said. “The doctor wanted him to accompany her to grab some medical supplies. But she was all dolled up in this skin-tight containment suit.”
He was obviously still drunk. It didn’t seem to affect his combat abilities, but it definitely lowered his social tact.
“Really?” Elle’s pencil-thin eyebrows curled upward.
“I wouldn’t say she was ‘dolled up’, I just went with her to the--” I paused as a noxious smell entered my helmet. I checked my visor’s HUD, but it didn’t register any toxins in the air.
“So, where did you go with the doctor?” Elle challenged, but I didn’t have time to answer her.
I walked by the point clerk as I searched for the location of the scent. The strange smell was coming from somewhere in the room. It reminded me of burning electricals, so I inspected the computer consoles for any sign of smoke or sparking.
I circled the machine Alin was seated behind. It didn’t take long to confirm that the smell was coming from this terminal. The corner of the outer casing was ajar, and a few of the bolts were missing. I pulled the corner, and the metal sheet buckled before the remaining bolts snapped off. I discarded the sheet and took a closer look at the wiring.
Instead, I found a rodent no larger than a possum. The creature jumped out from the terminal and scurried through the ranks of computer consoles.
Neville acted immediately, diving with his arms open. The critter bounded ahead, pouncing over the squire like a rabbit. Nathan and Richard came at it from both sides, but it skidded across the ground between them.
“I’m too fucking drunk to catch it!” Nathan said as he trailed after the agile creature.
Richard sprinted for it, but he tripped over a pile of Grendel corpses and landed on his face. “Damn it!” he yelled.
The squires chuckled as it headed in the direction of the fortress, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the commotion this tiny creature was causing. It added some brevity to an otherwise terrible day.
Elle knelt and ensnared the creature in her hands. She held it up, and then her eyes widened. “It has scales!” she screamed and tossed it aside.
My smile turned into a scowl as I realized the critter must be a Grendel of some kind.
“Kill it!” I shouted. I didn’t know what danger it might pose to us all, but it wouldn’t have come through the po
rtal unless it was useful in battle.
The lizard-rodent leaped onto a cyber alchemist’s helmet and then bent down to tear a chunk of the man’s flesh. He didn’t have a chance to react, and the creature exposed its fangs before tearing into the alchemist’s throat.
Neville drew his rapier and sprinted to the console, but the rodent dashed away before he could attack. Suddenly, the critter started to glow, and I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I wanted to tear my heart from my chest, and my longsword quivered as I considered driving it through my stomach. Negative emotions weighed down my soul, and I fought against the suicidal feelings.
“It’s affecting our emotions!” Neville screamed, and I turned to see Nathan with his hand wrapped around his brother’s throat while Richard fought against driving his sword into the other man’s stomach.
Elle snatched the critter from the ground, and it stopped glowing like a floodlight. The lizard-rat struggled in her hands, and she fought to keep it from getting free.
“We . . . have to . . . kill it,” I said through ragged breaths. Its ability to change my emotions left me exhausted, and I shuddered to think what it might have made us all do.
Elle tightened her grip around the creature’s neck with one hand, and she let go with the other so she could draw her dagger. With only one hand to keep it trapped, the critter burst from the point clerk’s grip. It snaked up Elle’s right arm before running down her back and curling around her midsection. The Grendel rodent's mouth widened like a crocodile, and it sunk its teeth into her left hip. The fangs must have penetrated her armor because she let out a high-pitched scream. The point clerk thrust her dagger down, but the critter released its embrace before she could skewer it.
As the creature scurried up the wall, Elle removed a medkit from her coat and flipped it open. With the practiced ease of someone who’d aced their medical tests, the point clerk applied the kit in less than three seconds. It glowed a little as the rune magic sealed itself to her armor, and then she glared at the creature perched on the wall.
“What kind of Grendel is it?” Richard asked as he rubbed his neck.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 17