The Failed Fellowship

by Michael R. Underwood

  King delivered a diagonal cut with a pacing step forward. It was one of the Meisterhau from German swordsmanship. In a kung fu movie, they'd be called “Ultimate Techniques”. In reality, Meisterhau were just refined versatile moves that formed the cornerstone of a style, serving simultaneously as attack and defense.

  Raven met the blow with one of the only viable counters—the same move. But she parried hard, making up for King's greater mass. He let her press through, flipping the blade around his head to cut at her jaw, just below her helm. She spun her blade into a parry, barely offsetting his blade, but striking at the same time.

  They both took cuts—hers a glancing gash to the jaw, his a cut across his waist.

  King dropped to a knee, years of training keeping him in form enough to slash at the woman as he fell. She stumbled back, retreating into her line.

  Pure stubbornness hammering his cry of pain into words, King shouted, "Push through!"

  Looking through the cracks in the line, King saw Leah jogging down the hall, Xan'De at her heels.

  King pushed himself to his feet, using the longsword scabbard as a cane. This gave him a vantage on the fight.

  With him a step back, they were outnumbered, four to five. But Raven had stepped back as well. The two commanders barked orders, though Raven's voice was weakened, one hand glued to her jaw to stem the tide of blood.

  The dark cleric raised his mace for a spell, probably healing, but Mallery batted his weapon down, white light clashing with black shadow.

  "Hold them!"

  Roman moved with the grace of experience, attacking and defending with every strike. He covered Shirin against the blades of Raven's Genrenauts while pressing the team's black-clad rogue, but it was costing him. His armor had gashes and rents, blood seeping out. But the fighter wasn't slowing. He was born for combat, born from action, and he would hold.

  Let's just hope the rest of us last as long, King thought.

  ———

  Leah huffed and puffed as she followed Xan'De and Alaria up the stairs. Even lightened by magic, the Hammer still weighed something, and she'd been in go-go-go mode for some time, on top of crummy tower-dungeon sleep.

  But she'd been training for this, endurance, cardio, weights. This was her biggest mission yet, in the genre she'd loved since she was a kid.

  So, she pressed on.

  Leah heard a voice in her mind, saying, Keep it together. You can do it.

  Surprisingly, it wasn't Mallery's voice, nor King's or Shirin's or Roman's. It was hers.

  She could do this.

  A chorus of moans echoed down the stairs, punctuated by a familiar scream.

  "Ioseph!" Xan'De said, racing ahead, leaving the other two behind.

  "Dammit!" Alaria answered, pounding up the stairs to follow.

  "Wait for me!" Leah called up the hall, huffing as she scaled two stairs at a time, wishing for the thousandth time she'd been born tall. Even like two inches taller. Assuming it was all legs.

  No big deal, just wielding the super-weapon here. No reason to hang out and protect me from evil death—blasts.

  The battle was joined before she crested the top of the stairs. The clang of steel on steel, spiritual moans detonating like grenades, and the thwipp of thrown blades.

  At the top of the stairs, she saw Alaria and Xan'De pressing the Night-Lord, while the Deathstone spewed death bolts. Alaria dodged and jumped, weaving under and leaping over the magical bursts, trying to take the fight to the sorcerer. The fist-sized sapphire that housed Ioseph's spirit floated beside the Deathstone, waves of purple energy battering the floating stone. Twinges of purple light invaded the edges of the sapphire, surging toward the center but being pushed back like waves upon a reinforced shore.

  "Bring me my harem pants...it's Hammer Time," she said to no one in particular. But she'd been saving that line up for weeks, and dammit, she was going to use it before the battle was done.

  Leah hit the landing and leaned forward into a sprint, the Hammer held in both hands before her.

  She zeroed in on her target.

  Just get to the heart. Get to the heart, break it, and that's game.

  Zaps of necrotic energy raced toward her, but she kept going. They screamed past her ears, most deflecting off the Hammer. One caught her in the left shoulder. Her armor aged and crumbled, as well as the clothes below. Her shoulder ached worse than the time she'd sprained her back, like someone had dumped thirty years of arthritis on it all at once.

  She kept going. Just get to the stone, she told herself on repeat.

  More blasts arced by as Xan'De and Alaria pounded away at the Night-Lord's defenses, purple shield fading with each hit, the impact rippling across the otherwise-transparent dome.

  Thirty feet away. Leah lifted the Hammer over her shoulder, left arm going from dull ache to a sharp, thousand-needles stabbing pain.

  But she held.

  Just keep going.

  The Night-Lord wound up a bigger blast. Like, turn-you-into-dust bigger. And he knew exactly where she was going. He'd barely have to aim. She leaned left, trying to circle around, maybe get the giganto-gem between her and the blast.

  But he was too fast. The Night-Lord tossed a ball of necrotic energy overhand like an all-star pitcher, and time slowed. But she couldn't move faster, couldn't dodge like in the movies. She just saw doom coming for her with a screaming skull image at its head, jaws wide, like it was going to swallow her entire life in one gulp.

  She ducked, diving, trying everything she could to get out of the way, but it was all too slow. Her brain was on super-speed, but her body wasn't with the program, and in the end, it'd all be for nothing.

  So, that's what it'd come to. A heroic death in the pursuit of saving a fantasy kingdom she'd only ever visited once, where stew was a real travel food, dwarves were masters of every craft except stand-up, where Jewish comediennes were holy paladins, and mouthy Chinese-American girls were bards.

  Less than six months onto the job and her ticket was already getting punched. She'd figured it might end this way, hero's death and all. But she was expecting she'd make it to fifty, maybe beat King's record. The old guy would come and speak at her funeral after his second hip replacement, gravely old-man voice telling jokes about her bad improvisational comedy and tendency for leaving her notebooks strewn about the ready room like dirty laundry.

  Except.

  Xan'De moved like quicksilver, like everyone else had gotten the slow-mo memo and he had responded by thinking, I laugh at these rules! They are not for me. The foreigner hero, warrior-poet and weirdo, threw himself in the way of the oncoming death bolt.

  It consumed him, layer by layer. It tore apart his clothes, then shredded his skin, muscles, and bones, the necrotic spell spending itself to consume the hero.

  The world snapped back to full speed, and Leah scrambled upright, only ten feet from the Heart.

  "Do it now!" Alaria cried, heartbreak cracking her voice. She saw the assassin lady drop smoke bombs like they were going out of style. A moment later, the floating stone was in reach.

  "Hammer, don't fail me now." She bound forward, throwing her entire weight, heart and soul, into the blow. She smashed straight through the gem, which shattered into gravity-defying pyramid-shaped shards around her as she plowed through now-empty space.

  Leah tumbled into a heap on the other side. Her landing was as ungraceful and embarrassing as her previous moment had been inspiring and heroic. You win some, you lose some. At least Mallery and the others hadn't seen that.

  She found her feet and stared down the Night-Lord. His super-weapon was a pile of brittle purple glass on the floor.

  And outside, the sky was clear, rose-red sunset untainted by magic.

  She pointed the Hammer at the Big Bad, savoring the moment. "This is where you give up." The appended comma, asshole! was implied but unsaid.

  The Night-Lord gathered another burst of energy, a blast as big as the one that had killed Xan'De.

 
But before he could strike, two serrated blades popped out of his chest as Alaria appeared out of the smoke.

  The bereaved thief raised the Night-Lord off the ground, then pulled them him apart in different directions, leaving the Would-Be Evil Overlord in several cloaked pieces on the ground.

  Whoa.

  Alaria's face was covered in blood spray, her chest heaving in deep, angry breaths.

  And like that, it was done.

  The room went silent. So silent, she could hear the barest strains of combat from down below.

  The sapphire clattered to the floor, still glowing. It shook, rattled, and then burst into a plume of blue light.

  And as the light faded, Ioseph Bluethorn stood in its place, his clothes fresh, his face clean-shaven. It made him look fifteen years younger. He leaned on his staff, then looked up, blue eyes as bright as ever.

  "Well done, my friends." He stood slowly, like he was shaking out a leg gone to sleep. "But the battle is not yet won. Secure the castle. I will return."

  He slammed the butt of his staff on the tiled floor and transformed into a ball of blue light. The light arced out the window, vanishing beyond the castle.

  "What in all that is weird and wonderful was that?" Leah asked.

  Alaria lowered her blades, looking between the window and the place where Xan'De had been. "I…I don't know. He's never done that before."

  Leah looked to where Xan'De had died. His axe lay on the ground, it alone untouched. Leah squeezed Alaria's shoulder. "I'm sorry about Xan'De. He… I didn't…"

  "He knew his role, and he will be remembered. You promised a song, and I expect you to deliver."

  "His deeds will be sung in taverns and courts across the continent for a thousand years," Leah said, mustering as much Bardic Dignity and Gravitas as she could manage.

  Alaria managed a sliver of a smile, and they regrouped.

  The adrenaline of nearly dying, shattering an artifact of world-ending power, and seeing the Night-Lord skewered all within a minute was as energizing as the time she'd pounded energy drinks to pull an all-nighter and finish her capstone project in college. Remembering that, she knew the only way to not collapse was to keep going.

  "Reinforcements on the way!" she shouted as they charged down the stairs. Leah watched her footing to avoid taking another epic spill right after her big triumph.

  Please let them be safe. The sight of Mallery falling in battle flashed across Leah's mind, and for a second, she couldn't breathe.

  Focus on what's real. Until you see her, you don't know if she's safe. If any of them are safe. Xan'De said that people would die before the day was done, and he was right. Dramatic Irony has been satisfied. Right? Worry and excitement made a vicious cocktail in her mind as they rejoined the battle.

  They hit the lower floor running. At the far end of the hall, the Tall Woman and her team raced to a dead end adorned with nothing more than two torches and a portrait of some old noble.

  Nolan pulled one of the torches and the portrait swung forward, revealing a secret passageway.

  Sneaky bastard, Leah thought. If they escaped, then there would be no physical evidence of the Tall Woman's appearance. Just more testimony. They needed to bring her in for questioning, find out how she traveled across dimensions, what she was doing to the stories and why.

  There was no way Leah could catch them.

  But the Genrenauts were in pursuit, bloodied and beaten but still whole.

  Leah's heart soared at seeing Mallery still up and running, as well as the others. Xan'De would be the only one to fall today. All five of the Genrenauts would be going home.

  King shouted something at the retreating villains, but the words were lost in the distance.

  The dark prince pulled a horn from his robes and blew, the crackling of magic enhancing the horn's blast. It rattled her very bones and raised every hair on the back of her neck.

  "What is that?" she asked as Alaria raced ahead to join the battle.

  Leah heard a deafening screech from outside the castle.

  But not far outside.

  The side wall of the hallway collapsed inward as an immense red shadow crashed into view.

  Great sweeping motion cleared the smoke, and revealed a thirty-foot-long mother-effing red dragon.

  The secret passageway was closed, the Tall Woman and her team gone, the dragon in their way.

  "Dragon!" Leah cried. All of a sudden, she was eight again. Not only was she the Chosen One to lift the curse on the land, she'd get to fight a for-reals dragon.

  Chapter Four

  Sword-ed Affairs

  Dragon dragon dragon!

  I'm fighting a mother-loving dragon!

  Leah's inner monologue continued to flip out even as her reflexes got with the program and her voice projected a Song of Courage, helping to negate the dragon-fear she'd read about in the Fantasy World gazetteer.

  Leah and Mallery fought hip to hip, the cleric covering her with the massive shield as they maneuvered Leah around for a clean shot with the Hammer.

  How many couples get to fight dragons together? Not so many. Probably almost none. Almost no lesbian couples, that's for sure.

  The dragon's claws were the size of Leah's torso, and the thing's tail was longer than any New Year's Day parade dragon she'd seen.

  This was an occidental dragon, of course. Proper dragons didn't just randomly attack people, not unless those people had been incredibly wicked. No, this was a straight-up red-scaled, flame-breathing, randomly murdering European dragon. Summoned by the dark prince guy's horn or some spell or the Night-Lord's final counterstrike, deployed too late to save his life, but not too late to threaten the team and prevent them from capturing their dimension-hopping quarry.

  The dragon let loose another gout of flame, sending the heroes scattering. Shirin's arcane shield deflected the flame but imploded under the pressure, singeing the woman's robes.

  This was supposed to be cleanup, but it sure felt like the main event.

  Epic fantasies and their nested stories.

  Kill the Dark Lord, then capture the evil Genrenauts, but defeat the dragon first, then bring peace to the realm. They had to wrap up every subplot as well, even as they'd tried (mostly) to keep the subplots limited.

  Less worrying, more fighting, she told herself. She swung the Hammer at the dragon's tail. It smashed scales like they were made of Legos. Chalk up another one for K'gon, she thought.

  The dragon roared in pain but fought on.

  It laid Roman out with a swipe of one clawed hand, then gouged Alaria's arm with a barely dodged bite.

  They were wearing it down but paying the price along the way.

  The dragon breathed fire at King. With Fantasy-World armor, there was no way he could dodge. Mallery leapt forward and took the gout on her shield, bracing against the flames.

  She didn't need to think, didn't even worry. She just jumped right in.

  My girlfriend is a hero, she thought.

  Pride gave way to worry as the dragon lunged forward to swallow Mallery whole.

  "Hell, no!" Leah shouted. She bounded forward and choked up on the Hammer. She let swing a horizontal slash, putting all of her weight behind the blow. The blow shattered several of the dragon's teeth just as it was about to snap its mouth shut over Mallery.

  Gotcha, she thought.

  The great wyrm writhed in pain, coiling up to protect itself.

  "Re-form!" King called, and the heroes stepped into formation.

  Mallery and King stood side by side, joined by a dazed but still-moving Roman. Leah joined them, playing the Song of Battle, her whole body buzzing with magic and adrenaline. Shirin stood a pace back, staff raised. And Alaria moved to flank.

  When the dragon uncurled, they were ready.

  To open their barrage, Mallery tossed a lance of light at the creature's rump and Shirin let loose with a cascade of ice bolts that fired at machine-gun speed.

  Alaria chucked a long dagger at the thing's eye, R
oman dodged its claw-strikes to bury a sword to its hilt in the creature's breast, and King cut three toes off at once.

  And then they kept going. They had the beast on the ropes but kept striking, kept casting, and kept swinging.

  Leah threw in the chorus from "We Will Rock You" as they pushed for the fight's endgame.

  "Stay on it!" King shouted. "We will be triumphant!"

  Leah swung once more, the Hammer shattering a patch of scales, exposing bloodied muscle. Then they pulled a Combined Arms Bard the Bowman, concentrating their fire on a single armorless spot, and struck.

  And like with the Black Arrow and Smaug, their blows struck true. The dragon swayed, then drooped and crashed to the floor, raising a cloud of dust. The heroes were knocked to the ground by the force of the creature's collapse.

  But only the good guys got back up.

  "Everyone alive?" King asked.

  "Slightly singed, still bleeding," Shirin said.

  Roman growled, "Left side's numb."

  Leah said, "Slightly necrotized arm, but I'll live."

  Mallery said, "A few cuts and a body's worth of bruises."

  King ran to the secret passage and pulled the torch handle.

  Nothing happened. He pulled again, then moved and pulled the other one.

  "Come on. Why won't you work!"

  Roman stepped up and pulled the painting from its fixture but revealed only a flat, seamless stone wall.

  "What sorcery is this!" Roman shouted, getting into it.

  King pressed his hands to the wall. "Everyone on me."

  They poked and prodded and searched. Shirin tried a spell of Opening, Leah sang a Song of Cleverness, but nothing they did could make the passage reappear.

  Shirin produced a scroll from her bag and read it, the words burning up as she went. The entire scroll vanished in a burst of magical flame, and Shirin turned a complete three-sixty, her eyes lit with green fire.

  "I cannot see them, sense them, or feel their presence on this plane. They're gone. All that remains is a lingering magic at the door. This must have been a spelled portal, designed to let them escape and then close forever."