“Too weak to resist!” Her friends were too far back to save her, and he rode alongside the motionless figure. She was quite pretty; it was almost a shame to detach her head, but he did so nevertheless with a skillful stroke of the Moonsword that used its heavy weight to generate the necessary power to send those shining tresses to the ground.
Except that she was not dead. At the very moment when Ragnok had anticipated a slight jarring sensation in his arm from the impact of hitting her beautifully pale slender neck, she had ducked. As his blow sliced empty air and drew him off balance, the thief twisted the Executioner’s sword arm and suddenly, stunned, he was on the ground, looking at the clouds, pin pricks of damage from nonmagical weapons into the joints of his armor beginning to lower his health.
How did they know? Ragnok was sweating, not from concern, but from shame. She had tricked him! She had not been held by the “fear.” With a roar of anger, he sprang up, leaving the Moonsword in the grass until after this encounter, and drew Acutus.
She was laughing at him, and gave him a curtsey.
#swing
Acutus cleaved the air itself, crisply parting the very molecules, tearing at the fabric of the world. But she had cartwheeled at extraordinary speed, kicked an incoming orc in the face, and from the momentum of the kick somersaulted right back over him. The Executioner spun around to face her, but his movements felt clumsy and slow in comparison to hers.
“Oh, I’ve broken a fingernail. Look!” Cindella held out a hand.
At that moment, Ragnok experienced the Executioner stagger forward and felt the tingling sensation that indicated he had been hit. The drop in his health was shocking, more than half, and worse, it was still slipping away.
The assassin character of Harald Goldenhair, having just stepped out of the shadows, had plunged two ichorous blades into his back and was watching for their impact, warily, a good distance from the reach of Acutus. Blood and vengeance! The Executioner was dying. Blinking back tears that suddenly came into his eyes, Ragnok fought back against panic. Unclip? Try a potion first. He scrambled to the horse, all the time his health slipping away remorselessly. Apparently totally unafraid of him, the thief was resuming her small but now alarming contribution to his wounds, picking out the weak points in his leg armor to stab through them with her rapiers. He waved Acutus about him to fend her off, but she easily avoided the blade. A moment or two before death, he got the stopper off the bottle and threw the blue liquid into the mouth of the Executioner. Immediately his health gave a leap up. But it was still less than half and sinking fast.
Shaking with rage and fear, Ragnok unclipped, unsure if the Executioner would be alive when he risked attempting to return to the game. In any case, unless he had a University healer right at that spot and ready to cast when he clipped up, the Executioner was going to die of the powerful poison that Harald had used. The battle was no longer in his hands.
“Good work!” shouted Bjorn enthusiastically over his shoulder, as his great sweeping ax blows kept the orcs at bay.
“Pure class,” agreed B.E.
“Nice.” Anonemuss picked out a charging orc chieftain and loosened his crossbow, the bolt flying into its mouth and sending it spinning backwards.
“Now what, Erik?” asked Injeborg.
“Let me see.”
All around was chaos. Very little pattern remained to the battle as the two armies had interpenetrated one another. All the way down to the sea, the sky was filled with streaks of silver and blossoming spheres of fire as sorcerers unleashed their spells. The whistles and crashes of magic missiles, fireballs, lightning bolts, and the occasional ground-shaking thud of a huge rock striking the ground drowned out the constant roars from the seething mass of monsters.
It was shocking to see how few gray figures were left.
“We’re losing,” Erik said glumly. “Badly.”
“Make for the tower then?” suggested Harald.
“Yes. Wait!” To the right, the paladins were a bright source of hope. Although mostly reduced to fighting on foot, they still appeared to be a formidable force. Around the knights, dark masses of trolls were crowded close. But all the University players seemed to be down. “Over there,” Cindella said, pointing. “Let’s try to join them.”
“Gotcha!” B.E. still sounded confident and led the way, hacking an uphill path through the orcs that came on relentlessly.
“That’s half my ‘heals’ gone,” announced Sigrid as she replenished Bjorn again.
“Erik, I’m going to do my own thing. This kind of fighting doesn’t suit me. Let me try to assassinate a beholder or two.” Harald was in a crouch, recoating his blades with thick black syrup, carefully watching for inrushing enemies.
“Good idea, Dad. Good luck.”
“You too.” The wood elf deftly stole between two large ogre bodies and was gone.
For a long time, they slogged their way onwards, barely speaking, other than to call out for heals or for a spell to aid them. The two bears were looking battered; the she bear was limping heavily.
It was clear that B.E. was still full of energy. His warrior was magnificent, barely pausing between great strokes of his powerful weapons, parrying, dodging, and then crushing the orcs, often with a single strike. In a few hours, B.E. had probably slain more monsters than any other character in the history of the game, and he was still going strong.
A storm of tiny incandescent white flares tore into Sigrid and she was dead instantly.
“Magic missiles!” cried Bjorn.
“Where?” Erik was panicked. The barrage that had just taken Sigrid from them was more violent than any he had experienced. An immensely powerful sorcerer was close and was probably preparing another spell, perhaps one that was about to wipe them all out.
“There! Rakshasha!” Injeborg pointed to the left. A humanoid with a tiger’s head and tail, dressed in eastern silks, was glaring at them as he cast, waving his claws.
An incredibly furious howling of fire burst through their group, instantly consuming the grass in a great circle around them. But they had been lucky in the sorcerer’s choice of spell, for their fire resistance potions were still in effect and the damage to the group was minimal, whereas the blast had utterly destroyed the nearby orcs, whose boots stood empty but for trails of smoke drifting up into the sky.
Without Erik having to give any instructions, they all ran for the creature, hoping to prevent it from casting further spells upon them. The rakshasha dropped to all fours and, with a growl, rushed away from them; so lithe and swift was the monster that Erik’s heart sank. Even Cindella in her magical boots would not catch it. The monster would wait its moment and come at them again, next time with ice or lightning.
But suddenly the rakshasha slowed, the bushes and grasses around the tiger reaching up, snaking around its arms and legs. Roaring angrily, it pulled hard, but could barely take a step.
“Go. Go! This won’t last long,” urged Injeborg. She had saved them with an ensnaring spell, and Erik’s heart leapt with admiration and warmth.
They fell upon the creature, and while it gave a savage slash to Bjorn with its one free claw, it stood no chance against the multiplicity of blows that they dealt.
No sooner had they dealt with the tigerish sorcerer than they had to begin cleaving their path through the orc army once more. Not far ahead was the ringing of sword on shield and the shouts of war.
“Sir Warren, Sir Warren!” Cindella shouted as loud as she could.
“Here!” A response that delighted Erik.
“To me!”
A last orc spun away, blasted by B.E.’s stroke with Thunder, and they were together. Only three paladins remained, all on foot now, and showing the marks of tooth and claw on their tarnished armor.
Sir Warren saluted Erik with his great sword.
“Your orders?”
All over the battlefield the gray player forces had been annihilated. Hundreds of thousands of players had lost their characters. The once-
strong corps of centaurs lay still, a long trail of half-equine bodies marking their progress across the field. The dark forces had triumphed comfortably; hordes of goblins and row upon row of silent skeletons remained on the field. Slowly, the piles of dead trolls were stirring; given enough time, those of them who had avoided death by fire would be back on their feet.
“We’ve lost the battle,” Erik said with a sigh, sorry for those, including Sigrid, who had lost everything.
“But we can still make it to the tower,” urged Injeborg. “And that’s all that matters.”
“Come on then!” B.E. led the way. “Let’s make sure my sister hasn’t died for nothing.”
“To the stones it is!” Sir Warren took up a stance to B.E.’s right, Bjorn on his left. The two surviving female paladins guarded the back of the group against the attacks of the remaining orcs.
There were still some two hundred yards between the players and the stones, and now it was swift-moving skeletons that jabbed and struck all about the group. Their blows were not lethal, but these undead soldiers were skillful enough to strike home more often than did the orcs. All of the remaining characters began to suffer a slow erosion of their health.
“I need a ‘heal.’ ” Harald materialized among them.
“Dad! How did it go?”
“Got them all.” The assassin was staggering, marked with cuts. “Sigrid dead?” he asked, guessing the answer.
“Yes. No more ‘heals.’ ” Anonemuss stated the grim fact that troubled them all. The dark elf had thrown away his crossbow on running out of bolts and was now fighting in the second rank, alongside Cindella, with a silver short sword and buckler.
“I have a potion left,” offered Injeborg.
“Save it for B.E. It’s more important that he keeps going than me at this stage,” Harald replied.
Reluctantly, as Harald was clearly nearly dead, Erik had to agree.
They continued, fighting step by step towards the stones.
“How close do you have to be to summon the tower?” Erik called out to Injeborg over the clatter of weapons.
“I’m not sure. Sigrid seemed to think I would be able to do it fairly easily. I wish she was here; she knew the most about it.”
“Want to unclip and ask her, while we guard this spot?”
“No, that’s going to waste valuable time. I’ll just keep trying.”
With fifty yards to go, one of the many goblin arrows that whistled through the air around them struck Harald in the head. He was down. Anonemuss dropped out of line and tried to remove Harald’s boots, but it was taking too long and they could not wait. Every time the warriors at the front killed a skeleton, they had to take a step forward, or attrition would bring them all down before they got to the tower.
“Leave them!” Cindella called back over his shoulder as she parried a skeleton. It was almost impossible to kill skeletons with a rapier, so he no longer tried, content to stay alive and keep moving in the wake of the warriors.
“Low health,” shouted B.E.
“Bjorn, Sir Warren, cover him. Come back for the potion, B.E.” Erik called out.
A few moments later and B.E. had safely disengaged, hurriedly lifting the wolf snout visor of his helm to pour the blue liquid into his mouth.
“Ahh, that’s better. This is awesome, huh? The swords are just incredible.” Without waiting for a reply, B.E. sprang back to take up the drive towards the ancient stones again.
“He’s crazy,” gasped Injeborg. “This battle is far too important to be having fun. The whole world’s future is at stake and he’s thinking about his toys!”
“Yes. But that’s his way. And look at him—he’s amazing.”
Crashing and blasting about him, B.E. was lashing out with Thunder and Lightning, swift skillful blows, feinting beneath the swords of the skeletons and riposting with destructive energy.
Forty yards to go.
A great shadow fell over them, and at the same time their ears were engulfed in a whirlpool of hissing sound. Above them towered the medusa, furiously staring down from burning scarlet eyes that, despite the protection of the “resist petrification” potion, caused Cindella to freeze momentarily in horror. She reached down effortlessly and grabbed Anonemuss in her fist. He was kicking and hacking at her fingers with his sword until brought close to her face, where the hundreds of snakes that made up her hair struck at the dark elf. He convulsed and was still. Casting aside the limp body, the medusa turned again—this time reaching for Cindella! She dived away from the hand in a roll, barely able to avoid the thrusts of skeletons that stabbed eagerly in her direction as she recovered her feet.
Crack!
B.E. had caught the medusa on the wrist of her groping hand with Lightning, severing it from her arm. With a terrible shriek, she reared up, ichor pouring from the wound, filling the air with steam, and burning them all as acid drops sprayed amongst them. With a new chorus of hissing from her snakes, the medusa tried with her other hand, this time reaching over to make a grab for Injeborg.
“No!” cried Erik. She had to live to summon the tower.
Bravely, despite their wounds, the two bears rose to their hind legs and let out a roar to match the howls of the medusa. They heaved the hand away, tearing great chunks of skin from the fingers with their claws and teeth. The medusa furiously thrust her head down among the group, snakes striking in all directions. Weaving a path between snake and sword, Cindella gave the greatest leap she was capable of to reach the medusa’s neck. Then she plunged both her rapiers into the soft skin as deep as they would go. At the same time, B.E. was hacking at the snakelike body with shocking, powerful blows. Acidic blood was pouring out of the medusa, obscuring their vision with steam.
A great shudder racked the creature’s body, swiftly followed by another. With a terrible pungent gasp, her head sank, and a wave passed down her trunk, all the way to her tail, which shivered and rattled, then collapsed to the ground.
“Poisoned,” announced Bjorn glumly.
“Same,” said B.E.
“Keep going! Keep going! We’re nearly there.” As the steam from the burning blood of the medusa dispersed, Erik saw that both bears were dead, as were the female paladins. There were just five of them left, and both the warriors were poisoned.
Thirty yards.
“I’m going down. Hope you make it.” Bjorn staggered, falling first to one knee, leaning exhausted on his ax. Then as the skeletons clattered in, jaws clamping gleefully, he collapsed to the ground, dead.
With B.E. ahead, Sir Warren behind, they struggled on, but now their progress was terribly slow. Parrying and dodging, Cindella was at full stretch, for Erik had to try to keep Injeborg alive as well as cover threats to his own character.
Twenty yards.
With some surprise, Erik heard Injeborg casting a spell.
“I thought you were all out?” He caught her eye. She was looking past his shoulder with as much of a smile as a gray polygon face could manage.
“Look.”
Hope rising, Cindella turned. There it was, towering above them. Great blocks of dark silvery light, piled to a great height. The tower was featureless, other than a large shimmering black portal, in the shape of a door, but looking as though dark water was constantly flowing back and forth across it.
“Good,” B.E. panted. “Because I can’t last much longer; the poison is taking me down fast.”
“You can make it!” Injeborg tried to cheer him, with some effect, as B.E. straightened up and dealt more crushing blows to the skeletons ahead of them.
With ten yards to the gaping mouth in the tower wall, B.E. suddenly stood erect, and flung his swords away, leaving his arms spread wide.
“What a way to go!”
The skeletons around him paused, suspicion written all over their bony postures. Then, with evil glances at one another, they charged him and finished him off in a rush of stabs.
“Erik, you have to go on. You can make it. Leave me.” Injeborg was
flailing desperately with her staff.
“I want you inside with me. I need your advice.”
“You can unclip, once you are safe. Now go! I can’t make it there.”
With a wince, Erik had to admit that Injeborg was right.
“Get inside the tower if you can.” Cindella turned to Sir Warren, who just grunted a tired response. Then she took off. A shield provided her with a perfect angle to kick and leap into the air; twisting, she landed two-footed with a crunch through the ribs of a skeleton soldier, then a roll as swords slashed the space she had occupied moments before. She lurched to the left, before spinning back to the right, catching a shield arm and almost dancing with the skeleton as she parried the blows from its comrades. Howls of anger rose up from the final guards, the great hounds, who bounded towards her with slavering jaws. Then a last tumble and desperate leap through the flames that the hounds roared forth in order to guard the black portal and Cindella was through the entrance to the ethereal tower. And all was still.
Chapter 31
THE TOUCH OF THE VAMPYRE
With some anxiety, Ragnok’s Sidhe elf kept his mount half turned towards Newhaven as he addressed the orc. “Count Illystivostich, I want to see Count Illystivostich. Do you understand?”
The orc scowled and cowered slightly each time Ragnok mentioned the name of the vampyre, then it grunted and shuffled away.
Left to himself for some time, Ragnok looked out over the battlefield and wondered at the result. The sun was setting behind thick layers of cloud, so that the valley was heavy with shadow. Huge piles of bodies lay in uneven clusters, occasionally making strangely symmetrical patterns that marked the impact points of lightning bolts and fireballs. It was clear that the army of evil creatures had won; thousands of them still roamed through the valley. But ominously a new feature had replaced the ancient standing stones—a tall, featureless tower, thin as a spike, reaching up into the sky. It reflected the pale silver light of the two moons with a pale translucent sheen. The remaining goblins and trolls were camped around the tower. Did that mean those children had reached their goal and were inside? Or was this just a precaution by the vampyre?
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