I was startled as text suddenly flickered across my visor. I read the notification before realizing my helmet’s Detect rune was displaying the details of the enemies moving toward us.
Grendel Type: Grunts
Runes: Poison Talons
Grunts didn’t usually have enchantments, so I was grateful for the helmet’s Detect rune. I was familiar with the Poison Talons rune since a modified version was the first rune I inscribed while apprenticed as an enchanter.
“Those Grunts have poisoned talons,” I whispered to Olav as the clicking sounds grew louder.
“Then we’ll just have to avoid getting hit by them,” he replied before he charged into the enemy ranks. The lizard-dogs came at him like a scaled wave, and streams of green blood sprayed the walls after the berserker’s axes slashed.
A few Grendels managed to get through Olav, and I threw a forcewave at them before they could close in on me. The energy field struck them, and I heard their tiny bones snap like a hundred triggered mousetraps. More Grunts surged past Olav and climbed over the corpses of their fallen kin.
Unlike the berserker, I was more cautious about their Poisoned Talons, so I focused on keeping my distance. I traded my longsword for my falchion and activated my shield. The energy charge thrummed to life over my left gauntlet, and I battered a Grunt as it leaped at me. My falchion carved another in two, and then I was doing my best to fend off their talons. The sharp appendages glowed a faint green, and the color made their enchanted talons visible whenever they shot toward me.
Soon, a Grunt horde completely surrounded me, and I couldn’t keep them at bay. I felt one latch onto my armor, and then its talons cut through my back and seared the flesh beneath. I winced in pain and tore the creature away before ending its life with a sword thrust.
The poison’s effect was immediate, and my blocks and strikes slowed to a crawl. I used my shield arm to activate my speed sequence, and the runic magic surged through my limbs. I couldn’t waste any energy, so I pinpointed my attacks to ensure that every swing ended a Grunt’s existence. By the time I finished clearing the horde, green ichor bathed my armor, and my chest heaved with the effort.
“How many did you kill?” Olav asked as he moved through the corpses and finished off any survivors.
“I don’t know,” I said as I attached my falchion to my belt and deactivated my energy shield. “Maybe fifty?”
“Damnit! That’s fifty I could have added to my tally. They’re only Grunts, so they don’t count for much. Leith is probably a hundred ahead at least. Hey, you don’t look so good, Squire.”
“One of them snagged me with its talons,” I said as I removed a medkit from my pouch. My head was light, and my hands felt clammy beneath my gauntlets. I reached over my shoulder and applied the kit to the poisoned wound. The sudden pain made my jaw clench while the enchanted patch siphoned the toxins from my body. It wouldn’t be able to remove them all so I would be slower for a while.
I followed Olav into an antechamber, and we were suddenly blasted with a flurry of plasma rounds. The white-hot balls struck my forcefield, and my visor displayed Prot-field: 34%. The projectiles had reduced it more than I had expected, and I spun behind a blade-turret for cover while Olav charged into their ranks. The turret was still fully operational, so I ducked every few seconds to avoid its massive swinging saw-blades.
The Detect rune presented text on my visor, and I used my prot-belt to maximize it.
Grendel Type: Warriors
Runes: Searing Plasma
The rune explained why my prot-field had taken such a beating from a small amount of firepower. I activated my speed sequence before breaking out from cover and zigzagged toward the squad of lizard-men while their weapons blared. Orange plasma balls hurtled toward me, but the Speed and Agility runes allowed me to dodge most of them. A few tagged my prot-field, but it absorbed the fire. My prot-field dropped to 8%, so I couldn’t throw a forcewave or summon a doppelganger. I spun away from enemy fire, returned my longsword to my rear magnetons, and gripped my new short sword.
I danced around the Warriors with Olav at my side. The rune-turret activated, and the giant blades whirled around the metal rod in the center of the chamber. I swung my falchion at a lizard-man, and he grabbed my sword arm before I could complete the move. His clawed fingers bit through my armor, and I cracked his unprotected skull with a head butt. I spotted the turret’s blades coming toward me, and I jumped over them with both knees tucked into my stomach. I managed to dodge the giant cleavers, but the surrounding Grendels weren’t so lucky. The blades diced them into tiny pieces, and I rolled away from the turret’s weapons.
“Alright,” Olav said as I stood. “This chamber is done. Let’s keep moving.”
“I think something is wrong, sir,” I said as I surveyed the room. “We’re encountering too many Grendels, and there are only lizard corpses in the areas with rune-turrets. I don’t think the crew have been through here.”
“You haven’t figured it out yet, Squire Lyons? This isn’t the Gor Ark.”
“You knew this whole time?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Olav said as he gutted a Grendel Elite like a fish.
“We should leave,” I said. I couldn’t believe how ignorant I’d been, and I felt a little betrayed since the berserker hadn’t informed me earlier. I remembered the Ecomese translator acting strangely, and it wasn’t only the language barrier.
“You caused this problem with your little mutation,” the berserker said. “So I’d say it’s your responsibility to clean it up.”
“The Dax fleet could already be here!”
“Leith is probably a hundred kills ahead of me, and I need to catch up to him somehow. We leave, and he’ll be too far ahead.”
“You cannot be serious, sir,” I muttered.
“Relax,” Olav said. “I’ve done the math. Even if Uram contacted the nearest Dax base as soon as he saw the Grendel portals, the message would take a half day to get there. Then it’ll take three LR portals to get here. It’ll be at least six hours before they show up.”
“Six hours! That’s hardly enough time to clear this portal let alone report to the captain and prepare a defense!”
“Then you better quit yapping and get to killing!” the berserker bellowed before sprinting into the next passageway.
The only Grendels we faced along the way were Grunts and Warriors. There were fewer enemies than I would have expected from an upgraded portal and no Grendel Elites, so I figured it had only reached a Level Five.
We arrived in a corridor outside the central chamber. The narrow horizontal windows in the wall provided a view of the portal, and I watched it spark and swirl. Ten sentry machines hovered along the ground, and I noticed they were connected to the floor by a system of interlocking grids. The sentries were three-meters-wide circles, and spinning buzzsaws extended from their edges. Mangled lizard-men lined the floor like someone had put them into a giant blender.
The rune-turrets on this Ark were much larger and more efficient at killing Grendels than those on the Den Ark. All the enemies I could see were dead, but the magical gateway was still open, so one of the corpses on the ground was definitely alive. We would need to confirm the kills to close the portal, and then we could leave this place and unite with the Stalwart’s crew.
“Which one do you think is alive? Not any of the headless ones,” Olav commented as he stared through the window at the piles of enemies. “I’ve never seen a Grendel live through decapitation.”
I was still struggling with the knight’s deception, but the man’s lust for battle truly knew no end. He probably wouldn’t have minded if the Dax fleet did arrive on the planet since it would give him another chance to fight.
“We’ll need to maneuver around the buzzsaws, sir,” I said to Olav.
“It’s a pity there isn’t a lot of room to jump in here. Our jetpacks could have been quite handy.” The berserker glared at the ceiling as though it had slighted him personally. He really se
emed to like the jetpacks, and I wondered why the captain and Moses were so adamant against Olav using them.
“The ceiling looks higher in the portal room, sir.” I gestured beyond the window.
“Excellent!” Olav beamed and tapped the harnesses on his shoulders. “These boosters will get another chance to shine today!”
I started to think I might not have upgraded the portal that much, but then I was proven horribly wrong.
Two giant serpents emerged from the pulsing rift, and my visor flickered as the Detect rune activated.
Grendel Type: Naga (1)
Runes: Speed (+3), Agility (+3), Pierce (+2), Writhing Plague.
Grendel Type: Naga (2)
Runes: Speed (+3), Agility (+3), Pierce (+2).
The Pierce and Writhing Plague runes were foreign to me, but I recognized the Speed and Agility runes since my armor was inscribed with lesser versions of them. My speed sequence made me incredibly fast, but these Nagas would be even faster. The last time we faced such powerful enemies, we had defeated them only because Captain Cross wielded the late king’s equipment.
Terror gripped my heart, and I considered fleeing a battlefield for the first time since Tyranus.
Chapter 18
Olav placed a steady hand on my shoulder that kept my knees from knocking together.
“Alright, Squire,” he whispered. “I might need a hand in there. Normally I charge in and kill fuckers, but those last few Nagas gave the crew a hard time. So, I’m gonna need you to actually work now.”
“Uhhh, sir, I have been work--”
“You’ve been dancing around like a drunken idiot at a feasting party. Now it’s time to kill some Grendels for real. Got any ideas?”
“They don’t move very well when their tails are pinned,” I said. “And they aren’t invulnerable to my forcewaves. So maybe I’ll target one of the Nagas, and you can try to pin its tail. There are a lot of buzzsaw sentinels inside that room, and all the corpses in there make me think they’re quite effective against Grendels.”
“But will they be able to pierce the Nagas’ armor?” Olav questioned.
“Maybe,” I said. “The edges of the buzzsaws’ blades are glowing with runic energy, so they have an enchantment of some kind.”
We didn’t have much of an alternative, and I no longer wished to retreat. There were rumors of what berserker knights did to their comrades who attempted to flee, and I didn’t want to confirm their truthfulness with Olav.
“If we can trap the Nagas within range of the buzzsaws, we should kill them,” I continued. “I think that’ll work for one of the enemies, but I don’t know if both will fall for the same trick.”
“We kill one, and that’s half our problems solved! We’ll figure out how to take the second monster once we’re done with the first.”
“Another thing,” I said, and then I listed the enemies’ runes for Olav.
“How do you know all this?”
I tapped the helmet I’d taken from the Dax initiate's corpse.
The berserker’s mouth dropped. “You’re telling me your mutant brain allows you to determine an enemy’s runes just by looking at them?”
“Not my brain,” I said. “My helmet. It’s Dax.”
“Looks good on you, Squire.” Olav grinned as he rapped his knuckles on my helmet. “Now, it’s time for us to slay some serpents.”
He brandished his twin hatchets, crouched low, and entered the doorway. I moved behind him and then saw the two scaled monstrosities weaving through the buzzsaws. For now, they were evading the proximity weapons with ease, but they couldn’t navigate their way past the maze to leave the room.
I took my longsword in my right hand and held my left hand over my prot-belt. After Olav gave the signal, I activated the jetpack. Roaring flames gushed from behind me, and I was thrown upward. While I was in the air, I sent a forcewave hurtling toward the closest Naga. As soon as it left my longsword, I was propelled backward. The jets kept me in the air, but I tumbled sideways before skipping along the ground.
A roaming sentinel moved toward me, and I rolled aside to avoid its spinning blades. I shot to my feet and saw the Naga I’d hit was stunned. Olav leaped toward the monster with his weapons raised, and he made to slam the spiked ends into the serpent’s tail.
But the stun suddenly wore off, and the Naga whirled around. The monster’s glowing trident struck the knight directly in the chest, and the blow hurled Olav across the chamber into the path of two sentinels. The machines seemed to move faster now that there was a target to attack, and their blades spun with increasing speed as they closed in on the berserker.
I sprinted through the moving buzzsaws while the Nagas attempted to strike me. I was slowed down by the Grendel corpses snagging my boots, but the machines impeded the Naga’s movements as well. The two monsters halted as three of the spinning blades cut them off from following me, and I finally reached Olav. I hauled him over my shoulder with a grunt and moved out of range of the bladed sentinels before they could chop both of us into pieces.
When I let the berserker down, he clutched his stomach and groaned. I saw crimson soaking through his armor where the Naga had struck. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but he was going to have trouble fighting while wounded.
“I’ll be fine in a few seconds,” Olav said with a wince. “Just waiting for my backup runes to kick-in.”
The Nagas were inching toward us, and I sent a forcewave toward them so they wouldn’t get too close. The attack missed them completely, but the roaming buzzsaws detected the projectile like it was a target. They all moved in the direction of my attack, and my lips spread into a smile.
I had a plan.
My prot-field registered 82%, so I could send out at least a dozen minor forcewaves. The Nagas were too far apart for me to perform my planned maneuver on both the monsters, so I picked the one on the left.
I sent as many minor forcewaves as I could in the left Naga’s direction, and they purposefully missed. The sentinels’ proximity sensors detected the forcewaves, and they all moved toward the Naga. Not all of them could reach the monster since they were gridlocked, but six buzzsaws closed in on the serpent. The Naga let out a bloodcurdling screech as the blades carved, diced, and grated the scaled creature. Green blood exploded from the center of the machines, and chunks of Grendel flesh tumbled around the room.
“You’re a bloody genius!” Olav roared before coughing, and specks of blood flicked from his mouth.
I looked at him with concern, but there was nothing I could do. A medkit was already attached to his wound, and I guessed it was far more powerful than any of the other kits inside my belt pouch.
The remaining Naga opened its mouth and screamed. With all the sentinels gridlocked, its movements were no longer impeded. It raised its trident, and the three-pronged ends glowed a purple color. Then the light took form, and they became three snakes with barbed hoods. The summoned serpents weren’t as large as the Nagas, so they suffered no difficulty weaving through the buzzsaw sentinels.
I slashed one with my longsword as soon as it came within range and then sidestepped as another snake flicked its head toward me. A downward slash cut it in two, and then I stomped my boot on the third one’s head.
The snakes seemed a little too easy to kill. When I saw a Naga moving toward me in a red and blue blur, I realized the summons had been a distraction. Olav was still vulnerable, so I needed to act quickly.
I activated my Shadow Self rune, and the twin doppelgangers appeared in front of me. With a practiced weapon swap maneuver, I exchanged my longsword for a Knife of the Storm. With my new blade in hand, I triggered my Shroud rune. The Naga closed in, and it attacked my doppelgangers while I skirted around it under a cloak of invisibility. I buried the knife in the monster’s tail, and the barbed end flicked up. The spikes failed to find me when I dodged, and I pulled out a second knife before embedding the blade higher on the Naga’s thick tail.
I considered activating the Storm Bolt
rune now, but I didn’t think two knives would be enough to paralyze the creature. They were our only hope of defeating the Naga, so at least they might slow it down a bit.
Before I could activate the rune from my prot-belt, my invisibility wore off, and the monster’s golden eyes locked onto me. The Naga’s muscular arms thrust the trident in my direction, and I jumped to avoid the attack. The prongs clipped my boots, and I fell to the ground. When the giant serpent slammed its weapon down, I rolled away a second before the sharpened tips would have ended me. The monster moved impossibly fast, and I realized I’d been lucky to avoid injury for this long. My luck would surely run out soon, but I couldn’t back down from this fight.
I jumped to my feet and removed the third knife from my thigh holsters. While the Naga rushed toward me, I punched the button on my left gauntlet and my energy shield appeared. As the Naga’s trident sliced the air, I raised my left hand. The weapon pounded into the shield, and the impact forced me to drop onto my right knee. I tried to thrust my knife into the creature’s body, but the gap between us was too great.
“I’m ready!” Olav yelled as his power armor burst with an orange brilliance. The berserker caught the Naga’s attention, and it turned to face him as he charged. Twin axes sliced through the air, but the monster’s trident blocked the attacks.
Distracted, it had forgotten all about the minor annoyance who’d jabbed it with tiny knives. I sprinted after the serpent and planted the third Knife of the Storm even higher up its tail. All three paralyzing weapons were now inside the Naga. When I activated the Storm Bolt rune, blue sparks rippled along the creature’s scales.
I heard a massive thunk as Olav drove his axes into the paralyzed Naga’s chest. The monster swayed and then toppled before I could move out of the way. Its massive form landed on me, and I fell backward. A giant serpent maw stared me in the face, and bloody saliva oozed onto my visor.
Olav roared with laughter and rolled the Naga’s corpse off me. The berserker dropped his hand, and I gripped it as I stood. I inspected myself for injury when a bright speck of light caught my attention. I walked toward it, and my eyes widened when I realized what it was.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 29