In Service of the Pharaoh (League of Losers Book #2)

by Michael Atamanov

  Despite the departure of four of the garrisons, the sherkhs still decided to go to war with the veichs, but it was tough, bloody and lasted over half a year. In that time, the humans took root, united around the Pharaoh — a cruel warchief and leader of the strongest human guild, which had swallowed up all the others and become a serious problem. And the third wave of new arrivals, upon which the sherkhs laid all their hopes, still hadn’t appeared…

  “Father,” Avelia pulled the clan leader from his thoughts, “why doesn’t anyone even consider other options besides war with the humans or a fight for survival against them?”

  “What do you suggest, daughter?” The Shadow Master tensed, frowned, even placed a hand on the pommel of his blade. “Abandon our shelter and go beyond the barrier like those traitors?”

  Avelia felt it; one wrong word and her father would kill her with his own hands right there in the tent. Yes, the Swordmaiden knew perfectly well that the chief was worried sick about his brother, who hadn’t wanted to take part in the war and had taken his guild beyond the barrier. The subject was taboo in the family.

  “No, father. I speak of something else entirely. Why can the sherkhs not live in peace alongside the humans, in the same lands? Or even side by side in the same settlements? The more I observe the humans, the fewer differences I see between our races…”

  A sharp slap interrupted Avelia Un Ponar’s speech. The Shadow Master’s voice rang with displeasure:

  “Silence, fool girl! And thank the skies that the Councilwoman didn’t hear that! That Beast Catcher truly has addled your mind. You can no longer tell friend from foe!”

  “Sergeant has nothing to do…”

  “SILENCE!” Her father’s fearsome shout put a dead stop to Avelia’s timid attempts to explain herself. “Since these conversations obviously do you so much harm, from now on, I forbid you from ever speaking to humans! Carry out your orders — gather intelligence and immediately report everything you see to your superiors. And go and finish your challenge in Hundred Skull City already! I’m starting to see looks in people’s eyes — as if the chief’s daughter is incapable of dealing with a task that serves to make talented commanders stand out from the crowd. If you don’t complete the challenge within three days, then your brother Arvedo will be scout commander! Consider yourself officially warned. That is all. Now begone from my tent!”

  The Swordmaiden bowed to the guild leader with a stony expression on her face and held herself upright as she silently walked out of the tent. As soon as the tent flap shut behind her, a figure in black separated from the shadows in a far corner of the large tent, approached the guild leader and stopped a step behind Al’tair Un Ponar’s chair.

  “You were right, Arvedo,” the Shadow Master declared glumly, not turning round. “Something ill is afoot with your sister. Whether due to her failures in the challenge or flattery from that Sergeant, your sister never used to give seditious speeches. Keep a close eye on her! Or better yet,” now the guild chief lowered his voice to a whisper, “kill the one called Sergeant! He has offended our family. Take his lives, all of them. One after another.”

  “With the greatest pleasure, father!” The young man spread his dark cloak, baring his right arm, bound in bandages after his fight with the human. “I’m going to make that Beast Catcher pay! Even with only one arm.”

  “Good, my son. You will find Sergeant at the ancient ruined tower. But do it quietly, so that the human never knows where his death comes from time and again. The sherkhs truly do not need a serious conflict with the humans right now.”

  “I will be careful, father. But what about Avelia’s challenge? Can I forestall my sister? As I’m sure you understand, with the conditions that you have voiced, I do not want Avelia to succeed in Hundred Skull City at all.”

  There was a long silence before the Shadow Master answered. The chief stood and started pacing back and forth in the tent, hands behind his back. Finally, Al’tair Un Ponar stopped, raised his head.

  “I allow you to attempt to stop your sister from completing the challenge. But not if your interference costs Avelia any lives. And I now declare a new condition: the one of you who brings the most valuable treasure from the ruins of Hundred Skull City will be declared commander. Not of five sherkhs, but of five hundred. I have spoken!”

  Chapter 2 [Sergeant]

  Ancient Fortress

  I NEARLY SPRAINED my arm on the reins and barely bit back a curse when my mount, until now meandering slowly through the stones and bushes, suddenly took a sharp leap forty feet into the air and snapped her mandibles.

  “What was that?” Julie said, shaken from her reverie. She sat up next to me on the arachnoscorp’s back. I just shrugged in confusion.

  “Must have been some creature hiding in the bushes. I didn’t see it. The Marsh Mistress killed it too fast.”

  While the Marsh Mistress devoured her prey, the bluish-purple Atlas following behind us took advantage of the breather to start tearing branches off bushes with his beak-like mouth. Both beasts were hungry, and the Cruel Arachnoscorp, unused to long journeys, was exhausted. She’d begun to limp again. The giant spider’s speed had dropped noticeably, and I suspected that we wouldn’t make it back to the river meadow by nightfall.

  Although the tireless giga-komodo Atlas was still at full strength, it was the Marsh Mistress who limited our movement speed. We couldn’t abandon the arachnoscorp — the giant death-dealing beast was our only defender in these wild and dangerous lands. If it weren’t for the Marsh Mistress, who knew if we could have defeated the massive creature whose skin our many-legged mount was just now spitting out. Nonetheless, only three hours remained until dark. We needed to do something. Especially with the weather getting worse; the sky was filling with dark storm clouds, promising a downpour before nightfall. I stood up atop the giant spider’s back and looked around.

  All I could see were yellow-brown hills covered in faded grass, with the occasional island of thorny bushes. Although… My gaze caught on some ruins of an ancient fortress on the horizon. I noticed them on the way to the barrier forcefield, but the group of settlers I’d been leading hadn’t wanted to turn from the path and waste precious time to explore the ancient ruins. What if we stopped there now? It looked like we’d make it before dark. It might even offer some cover from the bad weather. Anything would be better than spending the night under the open sky in a deluge.

  It wasn’t that I feared the dark or the night beasts that came with it — there were just two of us, my sister and I, so the creatures’ maximum level could only be two, which was easy to deal with. Well, three at the most — using my thermal vision, I’d spotted a semi-transparent red silhouette tracking our group a few times throughout the day. A sherkh, and a small one. Just a child. I didn’t know what he or she wanted from me, but the watcher followed us a long time before finally falling back. Or perhaps they just wanted to keep a little further away, and that was why I didn’t see them again. The range of my thermal vision was only twenty to twenty-five paces, and Sergeant’s Perception was very low, so I wasn’t much good as an invisibility detector.

  I would have easily dealt with three low-level Feelers without help from the Marsh Mistress. But there were plenty other dangerous creatures in this primordial world apart from the night beasts. The idea of hiding away for the night in an old fortress was tempting.

  “Let’s go check out those ruins! We can spend the night there!” I pointed them out for Julie, and the cat sitting on my shoulder meowed in approval.

  Whiskers had been slumbering on my shoulder practically all day. He hadn’t even eaten with us, and only woke up toward the evening. What a funny little critter! Sometimes I felt like he must understand human speech. His feline ‘comments’ sometimes seemed so… appropriate. Outwardly, he was completely harmless — a fluffy and cute little kitten. And yet he was a level 19 Hexxer, and the blue nameplate above his head meant that my furry pet had better combat stats than other creatures of his level. I
have to admit, I still don’t understand how a tiny cat can fight anyone, but the traveling Cartographer insisted that Whiskers could cast spells, so I guess it’s possible. The only thing I noticed throughout my close contact with the cat was that fatigue quickly passed when he was near. And not only for me, but for anyone else nearby too. Even now, as soon as Whiskers woke up and shouted his displeased “meow!”, the Marsh Mistress perked up, started working her legs faster. That cat was definitely doing something.

  Riding skill increased to level thirty-six!

  Although… Maybe it wasn’t Whiskers, but my leveled-up skill? Riding not only increased speed, it also boosted the mount’s stamina. My girlfriend Shelly, whose game class was Rider, had told me that she’d replaced all her now inactive skills for other ones related to controlling animals. And after she gained a few levels of Riding, her creeping crocodile Katy never seemed to tire! Ah, Shelly, Shelly… How was she doing out there in the big wide world? Would she survive, with her critically low Luck? Would she catch up to her packmates? And would they take her back, with her reputation as a walking disaster?

  As if reading my sad thoughts, my sister stirred:

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t make it back to the river village tonight! You know, I’ve been really worried about you since what happened with Shelly, bro. You’re too impulsive. If you’d have told the new leaders everything you thought of them, they would have chased us both out of the village. Or worse, you might have gotten into a fistfight with that damn Warrior and died…”

  I gently stroked my sister’s mussy hair, tucking disobedient locks behind her ears, trying to calm her down. I promised her that when we returned to Rumbler’s Refuge, I wouldn’t pick a fight with the new leaders or accuse them of treachery and breaking their word. If I’d been alone, that’s exactly what I would have done. But since I had a younger sister who needed taking care of, who needed a safe place in the village, I had to be diplomatic. No, I had no intention of forgiving Rumbler or the others for their misdeeds. I still wanted to take vengeance, but only when my sister and I were better situated.

  My words calmed Julie. I didn’t voice the thought that I’d never be able to trust Rumbler again after what had happened. He and I wouldn’t get along for long, and that meant we needed to make plans to leave the river village. But we couldn’t do it spontaneously. We needed to carefully gather the clothes, provisions and tools we needed, and ideally without anyone noticing. The most important thing would be to talk to others who were displeased with the new order. And try to take them with us.

  * * *

  “Brother, why didn’t the humans or veichs settle here?”

  “No idea. It would only take a couple of months to turn this place into a strong fortress. And it would be great protection against the night beasts.”

  My sister and I walked the perimeter of the outer stone wall, at least twelve feet tall at its shortest. We looked down on a decently preserved moat only half full of mud, with the remains of sharp spikes at the bottom. The four defensive corner turrets equipped with narrow arrowslits seemed to be in perfect shape. A squadron of archers could take up residence in them today. A fifth giant turret had been guarding the bridge to the fortress, but that had collapsed, filling in the moat and the inner courtyard with stone. The giant outer gates with their wrought metal hinges sat atop the bridge on a heap of stones. I went down to look at the gates up close, even crawled under them and inspected them from beneath. The hinges definitely needed changing, as did some of the rusted metal bindings that held together the thick stained wooden beams. There was no problem with the wood itself — it would last another thousand years. On the whole, it wouldn’t take much to restore the gates. Even I could probably have done it, but a professional Builder, Engineer or Blacksmith would do it even faster.

  The buildings within the fortress were in far worse condition. There was barely anything left of them. The two large stone houses had collapsed and were now just big piles of stone with broken wooden beams jutting out here and there. We found no well or other source of water. If there was a well, it was beneath the ruins now, so we had no access to water. At the very center of the fortress stood a round tower at least nine floors high, with a collapsed roof. The tower caught my interest at once — if there were any valuables left in these ruins, they’d surely be there. But unfortunately, the entrance to the tower was blocked up, and the nearest windows were far too high to reach.

  I remembered my low Luck Modifier and didn’t even bother thinking about climbing up to the windows — I’d just fail the Luck check and fall down. Then I saw some strange movement in the windows of the upper floors. Something was living in the tower. Probably huge bats or some species of bird.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level twenty!

  The sky was already thick with dark clouds. Thunder echoed in the distance. I herded Atlas into the inner courtyard, left the Marsh Mistress to guard the bridge and started making dinner with my sister. There was still some tea left in our flask. At first we planned to warm up some leftover fish and meat, but we opened our supplies to find disaster — all our supplies had gone bad in the day’s heat. We’d need to open the second to last can of food I’d brought into this new world and dip into our rice, boiling it with precious water from our flask. Just as I was lighting the fire, an unexpected game message appeared before my eyes:

  Taming skill increased to level fifty-eight!

  What the hell..?! What was happening? I span my head and saw nothing. Atlas was wandering around the courtyard, pulling up green shoots from between the stones with his sharp beak. The Marsh Mistress rested with her legs folded up beneath her. The cat was still sitting on my shoulder. Who could I be taming?

  Taming skill increased to level fifty-nine!

  Something was definitely happening. I wandered around the fortress courtyard, even looked down into the moat. I couldn’t figure it out… And then a frightened cry from my sister brought me running back. A large gray-brown lizard almost three feet long stood frozen just a few paces from Julie, the front section of its torso raised. But more interesting than the reptile itself was the nameplate above its head:

  Sharp-Toothed Rock Lizard. Level 34 Male. Sergeant’s pet.

  My pet? Another lizard joined the first one, this time emerald green. It ran to the fire without a glimmer of fear and stopped by my sister’s feet. A level 25 female. This one was my pet too! I started to suspect something. Julie and I walked over to the hole where we’d discarded the rotting meat and fish. I carefully looked down into the darkness, but all I saw was some vague movement. And then, as if specially for me, bright forked lightning lit the sky and I reeled back from what I saw — twenty more of the large and agile lizards teemed in the pit, and one of them showed as my pet! Right before my eyes, an anthracite-black level 50 male also started showing as my minion. Then a bright gray level 11 female with a colorful crest on her head.

  ATTENTION! Pet limit reached! Maximum number of pets your character can control: 10. Use the Beast Master skill to increase the limit!

  Well, thank God! I was already starting to worry that the entire creeping mass of reptiles would become my pets. What could I need so many lizards for? Incidentally… Apart from their level and gender, each of ‘my’ lizards showed the number five above their heads. But the wild ones had the number eighteen. What could that mean? Unfortunately, my character didn’t have enough Intellect to figure it out, a fact which the game wasn’t shy about sharing. Julie couldn’t figure out what the number meant either.

  “Brother, give me that white one with the pink crest on its head!” Julie asked. I indulged her.

  The girl extended a hand without the slightest fear, picked up the lizard as it flitted up a vertical wall, and put it on her shoulder. It suited her. It even seemed as if the white female started to look down on the other reptiles with a sense of superiority — look at me, I’m the chosen one and you’re all losers!

  As soon as I gave it to her, another liza
rd became my own pet again and I got another message about reaching the limit. In the meantime, the number above the heads of my tamed creatures changed from five to six. For the wild ones, it actually went down to seventeen. It was starting to make sense. The lizards were herd animals, and their stats got a boost with each new member of the herd. The ‘herds’ for the wild reptiles and the tamed ones were different.

  At that moment, it started to rain. First with rare heavy droplets, but ten seconds later, the heavens opened. I lifted my hood and Julie and I ran to the nearest watchtower to hide from the rain.

  “Meow!” I heard from behind us. The cat sounded disgruntled, maybe even scared. I turned.

  Some winged shadow appeared for a moment by the fire, barely visible through the thick veil of rain. There was someone there! Whiskers was in danger!

  “He took our stew, brother! And he’s stealing our things!” my sister wailed right into my ear. She had the best Perception among us and could see what was happening better than I could.

  I ran back to save my pet and my backpack by the fire, taking out my axe as I went. Only the melee weapon turned out completely useless. The thief was a veyer — a member of the winged race. Clearly overloaded, he slowly took off, flapping his leathery wings and holding my backpack tight to his chest. The veyer was young, still just a boy. But that didn’t mean he could steal my stuff!

  Damn it! He was getting away! If I had a crossbow, I could easily shoot down the slow and clumsy target. But I had no crossbow. The winged thief climbed slowly, with great effort, up toward the top floors of the tower where he seemed to live. It must have been him or a relative of his that I’d seen in the tower.

  I cursed, spat, then lowered my axe — there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t fly, and there was no way I could catch up to the thief. In the meantime, my cat screeched out piercing complaints, apparently terrified by the stranger’s sudden appearance. Then a miracle happened!