by Ben Bequer
The remaining manta rider was now the nominal leader of the army, and all the others were subservient to him. His armor was metallic silver with gold trim, the most intricate etching pattern I had ever seen. It was heavy, yet he looked as agile as his companions. The heavy plates protected him without restricting his movement. This fellow, unlike the two I had faced prior wielded a different weapon, a menacing two-handed axe, easily a foot longer than I was tall, and bladed with the same metallic-blue material as Shivver’s dagger.
He conferred with a wizard-looking fellow, who wore a mixture of robes and armor of white and black lacquer. The wizard’s armor was patterned with colorful sigils and runes and adorned with red gems that pulsed with power. He held a long spear, tipped with an orange glowing blade. A gleaming helm concealed his face, and muffled his strange language, which despite being different than his commander’s.
Surrounding them were a series of humanoid warriors, all in the same type of armor and colors, wielding a motley variety of weapons, including pistols, rifles, shields, swords and spears. Within the uniformity of colors, they varied widely, from a rifle wielding few with full heavy armor and gem adorned helms to a lightly armored fellow, holding two machine pistols, his tall helm topped with a high hair crest much like a Spartan helm.
Yet another, obviously a female wore tight fitting armor on the upper body, which was proportioned much like an adult woman’s, with overlapping, plates over the shoulders and arms, but the legs were free, save for knee-guards and heavy boots. There were six of them, probably skirmishers for they wore light pistols and swords.
Towering above us all were two armored stilt-walker creatures of strange design, in similar black and white colors as the rest, but out of place. The main body was a carapace, like that of a tough beetle but metallic, painted white with black trim, standing upright on two rickety legs, each almost ten feet long. Two offset crimson eyes, separately mobile and stereoscopic, watched me closely. They held long, formidable spears, also painted with the heavy white/black lacquered motif, and had a shoulder mounted weapon of some sort, along with multiple antennae jutting from the back of their carapace.
I stepped down into their midst, and they formed a semi-circle around me. I tossed on the floor the heart of the pigrilla warrior that had taunted and beat me aboard the transport.
“Anyone fucks with me, you get the full treatment,” I said as menacing as possible so the meaning wasn’t lost, even if the words might not be understood.
Then I strained at my holds.
Their strategy to hold me wasn’t scientific. They figured to tie me to a large piece of metal, and lasso the strongest metal cable they could find around each of my arms so many times that my skin wasn’t visible below my elbows. But the cables couldn’t hold me, and the big piece of metal groaned under the punishment.
I felt a few pokes with weapons, trying to subdue me, but nothing could stop me now. The metal behind me popped, cracking across the straining back muscles, and the restraints snapped like twigs. Both pieces of metal fell behind me and I freed myself from the cables that remained around my arms. They all readied for a fight, ranged weapons locked, melee weapons poised to strike, but the Lord stood forward and held his arms out to his forces, easing their concerns for a moment.
He spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand his yipping, “S”-heavy language. It seemed like it took him three minutes to say one word, it was so involved.
He motioned to himself and said, “Varshantas.”
“That your name?”
Varshantas repeated it, nodding.
I pointed at myself, “Blackjack.”
“Brackshock,” he said, butchering my name and motioning beyond. He moved away from the platform as if for me to follow.
Only then did I bother looking around.
I stood on a circular landing platform, high above Shard World, with many dozens of shards sailing behind. I couldn’t spot the shard where the village lay from a cursory glance, but I did notice pieces of planets of all sorts, covering the entire color spectrum. Some dead husks, devoid of all life, while others were teeming with it, much like the shard where the village lay.
Where Varshantas meant me to follow was a long platform that led from the landing pad, to an open archway, tall enough for the huge warriors to pass unimpeded.
An archway that led into the Lightbringer’s citadel of silver and gold.
* * *
They led me into the citadel, and quickly my mood turned. It was similar to when I had seen it before, peace filled my heart, all my rage at Apogee’s death, my shame for failing to save her, it was all swept away as if by a cool summer breeze.
Varshantas led the way, his entire entourage following. Even the huge long-legged warriors had no problems with the high vaulted ceilings. The walls and floors were made of the same silvery material, but up close it looked more like hardened gelatinous material, like the sides of a dried jellyfish. Another thing that struck me was how organic everything looked. No two sections looked the same, and everything was rounded, with no sharp corners or angles. It reminded me of a termite mound. The only difference was that the raw materials here were opalescent and glistening.
They lead me to an open courtyard with glowing disks of light on the floor. The wizard stood atop one and it floated upwards to one of the many other platforms. Moments later, another glowing disc appeared in the same spot and Varshantas motioned me to step on. When I did, the disc followed the wizard up. Looking down, I saw he didn’t come along, nor did most of his host save for the two large soldiers.
When I landed on a pad, the wizard was ready, casting a spell on me. Raw magical energies surrounded him, like dancing streaks of power. His incantation was finished before I could react, and in a second, I was paralyzed. The thudding impact of the two huge warriors landing beside me was enough for me to fall over.
They reached down and picked me up, carrying me face down through a hallway towards a dead end.
There, the wizard recited another hex making the wall turn from a hardened jelly to a semi-permeable membrane, a fact I discovered as the two warriors threw me through the slushy material into a small holding cell.
With a wave of his gloved hand, the wizard reverted the “door” back to a wall, and I was fully enclosed, entrapped and helpless.
* * *
But not alone.
The cell was a twenty-foot cube, with hard walls that filtered out most of the light, and it was teeming with life. The first thing I noticed was small insects, like a colony of ants, except these were like army ants on steroids. Each was about three inches long, with massive hooked mandibles. They swarmed me moments after arriving in the cell, and only after stamping out about half the bunch did they slink back to their hiding nooks, leaving me alone.
Other creatures loomed amidst the slimy underfoot, including strange yellow tapeworms, inch-long planarians, and tiny glow worms that were apparently the main food source for the inhabitants of this cage, when I wasn’t around.
A large spider-like creature hung from a haphazard web on one corner. It was white and powdery, with legs as long as my arm, but it seemed content to stay motionless and out of my way.
One green/blue flying insect, looking like a cross between a wasp and a scorpion kept approaching me, making strange hissing sounds, as if trying to communicate, but I batted the sucker away. It danced around my blows easily then settled on a perch near me, watching my every move.
After the ant assault and the wasp/scorpion flyby, things settled down a bit and I managed to lean back on the spongy walls and get some rest. But I couldn’t sleep. Not with those creatures threatening to return.
So I watched them, and they huddled in their hiding places, waiting for me to inevitably fall asleep.
* * *
They kept me hidden away for so long that I lost track of time. I was forced to relieve myself in the corner opposite the spider (no sense in going looking for trouble) and before too long my stomach ach
ed something awful.
The ants made another try at me but it ended with most of the ant army in sticky tatters, spread like jam beneath my boot and fists. I watched the remnants retreat, burrowing directly into the hardened gelatin wall. It gave me the idea of how to escape, but in practice it was a lot harder. Digging my fingers into the walls revealed them to be comprised of some sort of fibrous tendrils, held together by clear syrupy glue. I could easily tear through the walls, but they self-repaired almost as fast as I could destroy them.
I gave up on that and settled on one of the neutral corners of the cell.
Only after I had settled down did I realize how freezing cold the whole place was. I huddled as best I could, but that only drew my attention to my injuries.
Blood and dirt caked my body, and I counted nine arrows or quarrels sticking it of my legs and midsection, including one particularly painful quarrel jutting from my knee. How I had endured the blood loss and pain, I couldn’t say.
I grabbed the nearest arrow, dug into my belt and midsection and tested it. Only the very tip had gone through the tough canvas belt, but it had caught a large blood vessel because my whole hip was drenched in crimson. I pulled the arrow and studied the head and noticed it wasn’t barbed.
With simple heads, arrows would come out quite easily. I tested them one by one in case there was a barbed one to surprise me. None were, and I managed to pull them all out without too much trouble. I had nothing to close the wounds, so a few of them spilled precious blood down my pant leg.
The one benefit of the cold was that my body was so numb that I couldn’t feel anything but pulling the quarrels would prove to be a more difficult affair.
I looked over at the ant horde, but they were content to watch. In any case, I would probably bleed out in a few hours, giving them a veritable feast. The huge spider sat motionless, still ignoring me, but I wondered for how much longer that would last.
The three quarrels stuck to me were serious trouble. One jutted out of my knee, another from the fleshy part of my thigh, dangerously close to the femoral artery. The final one was actually the most painful, sticking out of my shin, from where it had impaled itself into my tibia.
I tackled that one first, gently grasping my pant leg on either side of the tear, and ripping it apart. As I had feared, the quarrel was embedded into the bone, but fortunately, hitting the bone meant it hadn’t dug in the barbs on the arrow head. I held onto the shaft of the quarrel, and touching it, sent a wave of agony up my leg, as if the quarrel tip had pressed against a nerve. There was nothing else I could do, so I gritted my teeth, screamed, and pulled.
It was white, blinding pain shooting through my leg. I pounded my head back against the wall repeatedly, but it would not fade nor diffuse. I roared and cursed, punched the walls, and pounded my head some more, and only after a few moments, that seemed like long minutes, did the pain begin to dwindle.
Only one down and that was the easy one.
The other quarrels were about eight inches apart, both dug deep. I tore the pant leg up, noticing my hands were shaking badly. I had feared that the quarrel stuck into my knee area was too low, too near the major tendons of the joint, and my worries proved right. It was deep, about two inches to the right of the center of the patella, the kneecap, and about an inch above it.
I had put so much pressure on my legs, during the scrum after my arrows ran out, that both crossbow bolts had broken at the shaft, leaving me with a sliver wood sticking out of the skin to have leverage with. Aggravating the wounds with all that activity had caused a great deal of bleeding and flesh damage, but that gave me a bit of space to try to feel into the injury for the arrow head.
Sticking your finger into a wound, even when numbed from the cold and exhaustion, isn’t something I would recommend to anyone. My fat finger probed into my knee, and I bit down on my teeth, feeling them give.
I pulled back and took the time to remove my left boot, untying the laces breathlessly, then ripping the boot off and folding over the leather ankle and stuffing it into my mouth. Returning to my knee wound, I bit down hard, tearing into the leather.
Digging into my leg, pain flashed into my face, like a bright light waved near my eyes in pitch blackness. I probed and searched, following the arrow shaft into the injury, and pushing back the flesh so my fingers could fit downwards. I could tell my breathing was spasmic, scattershot, and closing my eyes I went by feel. I feared that I would pass out, providing the denizens of this cage with a large meal, but I bit harder into the boot, feeling my teeth shred the heavy leather.
Finally, I touched the tip of the quarrel’s barb. It was sharp, and I felt it prick my finger. Trying to be as gentle as possible, I reached for the flat side of the barbed head, and saw it was a three-blade broad-head tip. There was only one way to get the barbed head out of my leg, and that was to use my strength to bend the blades of the arrow head back into each other, making them effectively one barb, then use my finger to ‘cover’ the blade’s reverse edge as I dug it out of my leg. The special metal was strong enough to pierce a super’s skin on the sharpened edge, but it bent just like aluminum of the same gauge. I twisted the blade into another, using only one finger, and grasping what I could of the bloody quarrel shaft as leverage. The blade bent easily, but the pain caused me to flinch violently, and draw my hand out of the wound.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I raged, pounding my head back into the wall.
I dug in again, faster than I should have, and almost faded out, but I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. Slowly this time, I reached the bent blade, and dug for the second blade, but it was around the other side of the quarrel. Instead of tearing through tendon and muscle, I got the idea to twist the quarrel around, and immediately regretted it, as the agony caused my whole body to convulse and I had to turn over to vomit, clearing I had in my stomach.
My finger remained inside the wound, thankfully, and I had successfully twisted the quarrel to reveal the last free blade. I bent it back into the two others, and pulled it out of my leg, using my finger to protect against the reverse edge of the quarrel blades, and in one swift motion, I ripped the quarrel free.
I tossed the quarrel a few feet from me and looked down at my hands, covered in blood, shaking in fear and pain. Spent, I leaned back against the wall and wanted to fade out, sleep a welcome friend, but I knew I might not wake from that slumber, either from blood loss, or getting munched on by the ants.
“Ok, one more,” I mumbled through the boot to no one in particular.
It was the same process on the last quarrel, only easier, since it was in a meaty part of the thigh, as opposed to the tendon nightmare that was the knee. I dug my finger in and found the tri-bladed head of the quarrel quickly, bending the first tine, then the second. Once the three blades were one, I used my finger to as a guide and pulled the quarrel out much the same as the first two.
I had worked so fast, and only by feel, so I didn’t even need to look at the wound, but once I gave my leg a once over, I was frightened by how badly they were bleeding. The thigh injury in particular was pouring blood, so I tore strips of my shirt and made a half-assed compress, and tied it around my leg, then made another for the knee.
My leg was awash in blood, and I fought off another dizzy spell, biting into the boot, but it was to no avail.
I leaned my head back on the wall, and slowly faded out.
* * *
It was by far the most vivid dream I’d ever had.
We were in a house unlike any other I have ever seen, like a combination of my lair’s bottom floor and the inside of a tree-house, except narrow, wooden and claustrophobic.
Zundergrub was nearby, banging a hammer, fixing something, but what I couldn’t tell. I asked him to keep it down, but he ignored me.
Cool heard me screaming and ran over to see what the hubbub was about.
“Hey,” he said. “Zee has to fix that or we’re fucked. Why don’t you grab your tools and get to work.”
I not
iced that he carried a small ball of fur in his arms, caressing it gently. It was a tiny rabbit, with machine guns instead of hands.
“Let’s get the job done!” the rabbit meeped, almost inaudibly.
Cool returned to fixing whatever it was he was working on, and I got a good look around. A bunch of Retcon’s droids were working on the walls, as was his daughter, Dr. Walsh. All at once, the sound of banging was everywhere, as a score of hammers came down in succinct order.
A hand grabbed my shoulder, and when I turned it was Apogee, dressed in full costume.
“I told him to go suck my dick,” she said.
“What?”
She waved her arms in frustration, “It won’t stop bothering me!”
“Who won’t?” I asked.
Apogee pointed at a green ball of light that came closer. Inside the illumination was a face I couldn’t recognize and when it spoke, I could barely understand the gibberish.
“Who is that?”
“Like I know,” she snapped, exasperated. “Can you make it stop?”
The light faded, but I didn’t care about it. Something from above drew my attention. The leak was drip-dripping on my head.
“What the hell?”
I climbed upstairs and discovered that our home was narrow, but tall, and like Retcon’s building, each story was different and unique. I climbed past a study similar to Dr. Retcon’s, and onwards to a room above, with fish tanks lining the walls. The tanks were empty except for bubbles that floated upwards, popping on the water’s surface.
Then I was inside the tank, submerged and fighting to swim upwards. When I came to the top, I looked down and saw the roof of the house, which from here seemed more pyramidal, but with the colors and decoration style of Shivver’s home.
I broke the surface and saw a low mist obscuring everything but the shore nearby.
The house must have slid below the waves, so gently none of us noticed, and now they were all going to drown unless I pulled them out.
Taking a deep breath, I dove back in and snuck back into the house, breaking a window and easing in. The water didn’t rush in as I had expected, but was held back, as if by an invisible force field.