War Aeternus 3: The Culling

by Charles Dean

  “Yes, sir. I’m proudly one of the first men recruited by the great Paladin Miller.” He puffed his chest out as he talked. “I served alongside you and the others in the battle to kill that bastard who was stealing our people and whatnot.”

  “Did you know anyone taken in the attack?” Lee asked, before adding, “And can you get me a plate of bacon, fried chicken and some eggs?”

  “Yes, sir,” he responded. The man disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before returning with the food. “And no. I didn’t. Everyone else seemed to, but I didn’t. I just wanted to be there. I wanted to do the right thing, to serve a higher power and make a difference for the town. I figured I don’t have a wife, the lad’s nearly grown, my father has two other sons besides me to carry on the line if something happened, and my mother has been dead for too long to worry about me. Seemed like the perfect time to make my mark in the world.”

  “Ah.” Lee nodded as he chewed on a piece of bacon. “That’s about where I’m at too,” he said. “I want to make the world a better place, but that man . . .” He thought back on Connacht’s messenger. “He doesn’t. He wants less to make the world a better place and more to make his lot in the world better. I’ve met his kind before, and I’d have killed him here and now if I had any proof of the atrocities that I think he and his master might commit for the sake of power. So, if I’m rude to him, you’ll have to just remember that it’s for that reason.”

  “Oh.” The bartender scratched at his head for a moment and then asked, “So, why are you going to help him at that meeting?”

  “I’m not sure what I want to do at that meeting will count as helping him, but I’m going there for the people that believe in me and because I believe in them. I want to make people's lives better, and I can’t do that if I don’t work with those I hate,” Lee explained. “It’s like your job. You might grow to hate me one day and curse me for what I’m doing, but if I’m the only one willing to pay you, you’ll probably still work for me just so that you can put food on the table for the people you do love and care about.”

  The bartender sighed. “That sounds just like my last job.”

  “What was your last job?”

  “I was a field hand for farmers that treated me like the dirt they toiled upon. Well, that’s not fair . . . They treated the dirt very well, so that example doesn’t hold. I’d say it was more like they treated me worse than if I were trying to steal their wives,” he chuckled, “not that anyone would want to touch my old boss’s wife. She was worse than he was.”

  Lee laughed at the image. “So, you might have had more than one reason to go off fighting for a cause?”

  “Yeah, and then when Cutty told me that someone had saved a bunch of people, someone who could perform magic tricks like he was a god himself and was off to kill the bad guy stealing women from the town . . . Well, it just seemed right.”

  “Did you know any of the women in particular?” Lee questioned between bites. He was really enjoying his meal this morning for some reason.

  “I knew a few,” Dewar answered. “I was close friends with this girl named Amber . . .” He trailed off and sighed. “I heard you were there when she died at Kirshtein, so you probably already know that story.”

  “Ah . . .” Lee closed his eyes against the image of Amber’s death replaying in his head. It was painful to remember how she had killed the Herald at the cost of her own life, the way she confessed her love for him right before she kissed him and the way she had died in his arms moments later. His body began to stiffen automatically as the memory surfaced, and he had to choke it down again. “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Dewar said. “These things happen. People die every day.”

  “It doesn’t make it easier though,” Lee countered.

  “No, no, it doesn’t. But”--the bartender reached behind the counter and pulled out another glass, filling it to the brim before topping off Lee’s--“if the boss doesn’t mind me drinking on the job, we can always have a toast.”

  “Well, you know how the boss is about people getting drunk on the job . . .” Lee picked up the cup and clinked his own glass against the bartender’s, and both men downed their drinks.

  “That if you’re not drunk, you’re not doing it right?” Dewar chuckled as he put down the beer and wiped his mouth clean of a few drops with his arm.

  “Good man,” Lee said. “Now, fill us up another one. I got a feeling I’m going to be waiting here for a while.”

  “On the girl? Ling?” Dewar asked as he looked over at the stairs.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I hate to break this to you . . .” Dewar said, eyes still looking at the stairs, “but she’s going to be out for a while if she finally went to sleep. That girl stayed up all night, stopping anyone from coming near your room while you slept.”

  “Oh.” She shouldn’t have done that. He knew Ling wasn’t the type that would listen to what he said, even if he had warned her against it. “Well, I guess we’ll be needing a few more beers to kill the time . . .”

  After that, Dewar began refilling Lee’s cup whenever it was even close to half empty. Lee didn’t want to leave while Ling was still sleeping upstairs, but he also didn’t want to waste the entire morning, so while he was drinking, he also began copying down notes and making plans for Satterfield. During his last visit, before he had been captured in Kirshtein and forced to fight in the arena, both he and the town had been relatively broke. Now, however, they were loaded. He had sold off barrel after barrel of the divine beer that he was able to craft with his Nectar of the Gods skill, and he had been able to rake in a fortune. He no longer had to be stingy now that he had a steady source of income, and so he began to map out exactly how he wanted to change the infrastructure in the small hamlet town. There were dozens of small improvements that he had wanted to start working on earlier, but he had been unable to afford those, instead prioritizing things like fixing the giant hole in the wall of his new church.

  Dewar shared a few drinks with him while he worked, but the bartender’s attention was soon called away to other matters as the morning wore on and customers began trickling downstairs. Ling’s father, Ying, joined him after that, and the two sat together quietly.

  Ling awoke a few hours later, and she came down looking a little embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized before Lee could even say good morning. “I’ll try not to sleep so late next time.”

  Lee shrugged and then rolled up the papers. ““It’s fine. Glad you got some rest. It looked like you needed it. Hey, Dewar, can you pass these on to Henslee? Tell her to take what she needs out of the town fund, but I need these projects finished as soon as possible.”

  “You got it, boss,” Dewar replied, nodding and disappearing with the papers.

  “I got your breakfast already,” Lee said to Ling as he stood up. “But we’re a little short on time, and we need to make our way to Kirshtein as soon as possible.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay leaving so soon? You don’t want to spend more time here? More time . . .” Ling trailed off while looking concerned, something she had done often lately.

  Lee took in her changing expression, and he knew exactly what she was trying to say--and not say. You’re trying to ask me if I want to spend more time mourning by Amber’s grave, but you don’t want to finish the sentence. “Yeah,” he said, sparing her the indecision. “I’m fine, and we have a lot of work that needs to get done.”

  “Work will always be there tomorrow,” Ling replied. “You can take a day off. It won’t be the end of the world.”

  “I can . . .” Lee acknowledged. “But, even if it isn’t the end of my world, it might be the end of someone else’s if I’m not at that meeting. So, let’s just get going. I’ve already had someone fetch the Krunklerump, and it should be ready for riding right away.”

  “Okay then . . .” Ling seemed reluctant to leave so quickly, but she didn’t argue. She just handed Weiser ov
er to her dad, and the two of them shared a brief hug before she left with Lee. The door had been repaired while he waited, but the new, unfinished wood stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the tavern-turned-church. “Did something happen here?”

  “Oh.” Lee glanced back at the damaged frame and thought back to the letter in his inventory. “Just an unruly customer. That’s all.”

  Ling’s face frumpled up, but she didn’t say anything else. Her face had regained its usual smooth placidity a minute later, and the two of them made their way to where their ride was being prepared. Thankfully, to Lee’s relief, he noticed that someone had taken extra care and provide the most comfortable-looking saddle he had seen yet for the six-legged, wide-ribcaged, turtle-like beast. The first time he had ridden the mount, he had been certain that it was going to cost him his chance at children in the future, and he was happy to see the additional padding.

  After exchanging a few brief words with the animal’s handlers, they mounted up and took off for Kirshtein. They were able to set an incredibly fast pace, a thing Lee was both happy and a little uncomfortable about; and, at first, it seemed like they were going to make it there without an issue before the sun even came close to setting--that is, until they caught up to Connacht’s man halfway through the journey.

  They found him on the road with a pack of four giant wolves circling around him. Two of the canines had fur as red as Miller or Lee’s hair, and the other two were as golden as a liter of German wheat beer. There was a strange magical-looking glowing symbol right in the center of their canine foreheads. The symbols on the two red ones were identical, and the symbols on the two gold ones were identical, but Lee couldn’t make out either to know what they meant.

  “Stay back!” Connacht’s man yelled. “Stay back, or I’ll kill you mangy mutts!” he shouted, waving around a pair of swords that were clearly meant to intimidate the four massive canines.

  “What in the hell?” Lee asked.

  “Those wolves . . . The symbols are just like the stories. Lee, those are Phoukas! They have to be!” Ling leaned away from Lee to give herself room and pulled out her bow. “Why are they so different in color from each other?”

  “I don’t know. I’d never even heard of a Phouka before today,” Lee answered. He had to restrain himself from saying ‘until earlier’ instead and pulled out his sword and shield.

  “Herald! Get back on your mount! I can handle this,” Connacht’s man shouted when he saw Lee dismount. You just need to make it to Kirshtein!”

  Really? The man’s words shocked him. As far as he was concerned, the dual-wielding human was a dead man walking as soon as the four wolves made a combined effort to attack him. The fact that he would turn down aid and a chance at survival just so he could ensure Lee made it to Kirshtein safely actually motivated him to assist him. Well, looks like I’ll have to find out what it’s like to fight a Phouka sooner than expected, Lee thought as he nervously gripped his sword and shield. He wasn’t afraid to fight, but he didn’t know how these new enemies would behave, and that left him a little on edge about the conflict he was about to engage in.

  “Ling, give me some good cover fire!” Lee yelled as he charged toward Connacht’s man.

  The four wolves reacted to Lee’s attack by fanning out and maneuvering around until they had the man perfectly surrounded. Rather than holding his position, however, the messenger turned and tried to run, ostensibly under the pretext of keeping the danger away from Lee. The moment he took his first step, the four wolves pounced.

  A rain of arrows fell down around him a second later, halting each of the wolves in their tracks before they could reach him. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that Ling hadn’t even dismounted from the Krunklerump and was firing from the back of the beast. Lee offered up silent thanks to Ling as the salvo continued to rain down. It didn’t appear as if she was able to do much damage, but she was buying him the precious time he needed to clear the distance and reach the messenger. Unfortunately, her attack also warned the giant wolves of exactly how dangerous Ling and Lee might be, and they instantly went from full-on attack mode to a defensive posture, backing up and angling themselves toward the newcomers. Then the two red Wolves charged straight at Lee.

  “Support him and keep him safe. I’ve got this!” Lee shouted. He hoisted his spiked shield up in front of him and prepared to receive the first blow. He didn’t know if he’d actually be able to take both of them down at the same time, but he was certain that he’d be able to hold his own against the dogs. He had plenty of experience fighting canines since he had killed so many when he first got to this world, so he wasn’t as worried as he might have been against a less familiar beast. In addition, there was also the shield that was covered with Spiddlendra goo and spikes, a hard-won souvenir from this time in the gladiator pits. The sharp spikes offered him an additional level of safety that his normal shield didn’t, and it had proved its worth many times over already.

  He positioned himself so that he could stop the first wolf as it approached. All he had to do was take the initial attack on his shield and then use a bit of footwork to prevent himself from getting hit by the second. As the two wolves came closer, however, something happened that caught him off guard: the lead wolf turned into a human. Instead of an open-jawed canine biting into his shield, Lee was suddenly confronted with a Firbolg holding a large tower shield with both of his hands. He slammed into Lee at full force and without stopping.

  There was a series of loud cracks as the spindles were broken off of his shield, and Lee was hammered by the blow. The impact didn’t do any real damage, but there was enough force behind it to send him flying back several feet and onto the flat of his back.

  What the--? he started to curse, but the second wolf came in behind the Firbolg, leaping onto Lee’s now-exposed chest and going for a bite at his throat.

  No, you don’t! Lee shifted his body and took the bite on his left shoulder instead. Pain exploded from the area, and he could have sworn he felt each of the needle-like teeth as they sank into his skin, shaving off a total of 62 hit points. A sharp, tingling sensation ran down his left arm that was followed by complete numbness and a loss of feeling in his appendage. He briefly tried to concentrate hard enough to send his spirit into his shoulder so that he could heal the wound, but there was simply no way he could risk dividing his focus with the massive beast on top of him. Instead, he punched his sword forward in a short stabbing motion. There wasn’t enough room for him to get a proper swing, pinned beneath the beast as he was, so this would have to do. The over-sized wolf yipped around his shoulder, but it refused to let go of its hold on him. Instead, its teeth somehow dug in even further, tearing away another 62 health

  At the same time, Lee swapped his vision and hearing over to the nearby golem, finally reconnecting with his creation. It was normally something he did almost instantly upon returning to this world, but he had been so caught off guard, first by the girl-turned owl in the bar and then preoccupied with his planning, that he had neglected it until now. It was a feeling he had missed greatly while in his original world, and everything around him exploded with new stimuli: the visual and auditory awareness of the battlefield as well as a feeling of connectivity with the three sentient clay golems. As he focused on the fight through one of the nearby Ethans’ eyes, he noticed that the shapeshifting Firbolg with the giant shield was moving in for an attack behind the wolf.

  Crap. Lee abandoned any pretext of making another attack and instead focused on using his healing magic to repair the damage to his left shoulder as quickly as possible. The healing started to trickle in, but then the third and fourth wave of 62-damage attacks from the canine took him under half health. Thankfully, the healing also restored some of the strength in his left arm. He used his newly-awakened shield arm to reach around and grab the wolf in a one-armed headlock. Then, in a well-practiced maneuver, he bucked his hips, pulled the wolf away from him, and used his foot to leverage himself around as he twi
sted his body. The end result was that he rolled over on top of the wolf, and the Firbolg’s attack crashed down into the ground where his feet had been just as he moved out of the way. And he kept rolling. Each turn drove the wolf’s teeth deeper into his flesh and ripped away another 62 hit points, and his healing ability was only recovering 54 hit points in the same interval, but the maneuver kept him away from the other attacker.

  The beleaguered Firbolg chased after the two rolling combatants as if he wasn’t sure when or where to attack in order to not hit the red mutt in the process of trying to kill Lee. He might have been able to pull it off if he had an actual weapon, but the only thing he carried was the gigantic wooden tower shield, and that hovered in a perpetually-ready state, threatening to smash down on Lee if he stopped rolling away.

  “Ling!” Lee yelled for support as he kept rolling. He was constantly taking damage from the clamped-down canine, and he was losing his mana even faster at a rate of 2% per second. He only had 5 to 6 seconds before he was dead--even with the healing--so he knew he needed back up.

  Ling answered the call quickly, shooting several arrows into the wolf on top of him and one into him, which punctured his side and shaved off 20 health. The canine didn’t die from the assault, but the wooden shafts that sprouted from its body prevented Lee and the animal from completing another rotation. The final flip resulted with Lee halfway on top of the Phouka and with it pinned between him and the ground--with the arrows threatening to leverage even deeper. Sensing his advantage, Lee pressed over on top of the creature, slowly digging the sharp points even deeper into the wolf. The beast cried out in a mixture of rage and anguish, and it suddenly began transforming.

  The once-massive, hundred-and-eighty-pound dire wolf monster that had pinned Lee to the ground morphed into a dark-haired, waiflike woman who couldn’t have been taller than five foot three if she were standing, and she stared at Lee with glossy, tear-filled eyes. She opened her mouth as if she were going to scream again, but no words or cries came out.