by Elliot Burns
There had once been a path through the maze of hills here, but this part of Jack’s land was so rarely travelled on that the grass had grown out of control. It had been left unchecked so long that Jack was caught by surprise when something grabbed his leg and yanked him to the ground.
He had his dagger out by the time he hit the ground, but there was no need. It was Sarna. She had her haladie in her right hand. The two soldiers with her, dressed in standard brown leathers, held steel swords that had been supplied by the weaponmaster.
Mav was next to them, having reached Sarna and the soldiers before Jack. He took an apple from his pocket and peeled a slice of it away with his Mughal.
“How many?” asked Sarna.
One of the soldiers nudged her and nodded at the onset of the five raiders.
“Never mind,” said Sarna. “Leave one alive. Knock him out if you have to, but don’t kill them all. You don’t go fishing by murdering all the trout.”
They waited as long as they could. The raiders showed little caution, and Jack guessed that they’d held the flek fields for so long now that they didn’t imagine there was anyone around who would dare fight them. They probably thought that Jack and Mav were peasants straying too far away from the village.
Jack caught Sarna’s eye, and she nodded. Just as the tallest raider stepped within reach, they leapt up from amidst the overgrown grass like a dagger-wielding, leather-bound surprise party.
Two raiders stepped back out of instinct. Up close, Jack saw that the couple on the left side were women, but they had shaven their hair off to the scalp. One of the men on the right was overweight but carried his bulk like he was used to it. He would be the wrong one to capture – Jack didn’t fancy lugging him back to the castle. The raider in the middle was the obvious choice; he was taller and looked good with a weapon. This would make the plan seem more legitimate when Lord Veik was involved.
No words were said by either party; the raiders were seasoned warriors, and they had no need for speech because they knew that the only language today would be that of blades.
The fight began with Sarna edging closer, haladie drawn and twin curved blades shined to perfection, with two soldiers beside her. She seemed to want to keep distance between the raiders and Jack.
At level twelve, Jack’s hitpoints dwarfed what they had been when he got to Royaume. There was no need to him to be protected from the fight, and he wouldn’t let her. “The one in the middle,” he told Sarna and the soldiers. “He’s the one we want.”
Sarna nodded, stepped forward and parried a blow from a woman who had closed the gap. With that first ring of steel, the battle had begun.
Fighting people was much different from levelling up in the forest. Critters tended to attack without logic, and only a few higher-level pack animals like wolves showed any sign of tactics. The raiders were savage, but they weren’t stupid. A few grunted as they lurched forward with their weapons, testing Jack and Sarna’s ranks for weaknesses. Iron sung against iron.
Jack tried to remember what both Sarna and Mav had taught him, resulting in a mishmash of a fighting style that was halfway steel baroque, the little of it he could master, and half just ‘focus on hitting the bastard in front of you,’ as Sarna had instructed. He used smoke twist to avoid the swipe of the raiders’ blades, and he responded with counter attacks of his own. He shattered one raider’s defenses with armor break, and then hit another with chain slice. The chain damage rebounded through all of them, causing fresh wounds to appear on their chests and arms.
It wasn’t long before sweat pooled on his forehead. He and a soldier fought side-by-side, each guarding the other’s flank. In the few days Sarna had had with them, she already instilled the basics of formation in the men. Jack was glad to see that his new soldiers were a step above the watchmen.
Mav got the first kill, gliding out of the way of a woman’s blade only to stab her in the ribs with his Mughal dagger. The woman screamed and stepped back, but not far enough to escape the second stabbing of Mav’s weapon. She fell to the ground.
The urgency of their situation must have hit the raiders, because they closed together to form a tight pack, longer weapons on the outside, with the falchion-wielding man in the centre. This made them harder to hit because it was impossible to strike at one of them without the others swinging their swords.
Rocks tumbled down a hill to their right, and Jack saw that a pack of wolves were running down it, intent on joining the fray. No sooner had Mav noticed them then the wolves were among them, snapping at legs and leaping up to take bites out of the soldier’s necks. One soldier lifted his iron sword at the last moment, narrowly avoiding losing a chunk of his throat.
“They’re not attacking the raiders,” said Sarna.
“Aye,” answered Mav. “Because they belong to them.”
Faced now with a pack of beasts as well as their human enemies, the odds had changed.
“Stage two,” said Sarna. She gave a nod at Jack, which was their sign to fall back.
Not one to leave things to chance, Sarna had prepared a trap of sharpened sticks behind them, hidden by the overgrown grass. Jack and co edged back, none of them taking their eyes off their enemy for a second. They veered backwards and to the right, taking deliberate steps to avoid being skewered in their own trap.
The wolves had no such caution. One snarled and then leapt forward, only to be impaled through the stomach by the point of a stick. The smell of blood filled the air. Although the wolves seemed blood-thirsty, jack noticed that none of them even looked his way. He guessed that his Apex Predator status meant that they feared him now. He’d come a long way from when he’d first fought wolves, back in the forest.
Another wolf followed, only to be met by a stick in its guts. After spending hours in the forest Jack was used to fighting wolves, and in one deft strike he had cleaved the legs off one of them. Its pitiful whine of pain sent a shudder through him, and he quickly put it out of its misery. A soldier dispatched the last remaining wolf, gutting it in the side before wrenching his blade free. The metal of his sword was stained crimson.
The fight was even again now, but the raiders hadn’t advanced on them. It was a sign of caution not usually present in the way the raiders fought, from what Sarna had told him.
The taller man opened a leather pouch that hung by his side. He pulled out what looked like a thin patchwork of vines knitted together.
“The vial,” he said. One of the raiders took a glass vial from his pocket, unscrewed it, and poured a blue solution over the net.
“Get back, now, you slow-arses!” cried Sarna to her men.
Jack, Mav, and one soldier heeded her orders, but the other soldier wasn’t quick enough. As the taller raider threw his net of vines out, Jack’s soldier was caught underneath. A blue energy lashed over the vines, and the man cried out in agony. The vines were burning into his skin, disfiguring him with a patchwork of lines.
“Mana net,” said Sarna. “Fuck knows where they got one, but just make sure it doesn’t touch you.”
Jack quickly saw the second effect of the net; the soldier, zapped by burning blue mana, struggled to move, but the net trapped him in place. Jack could do nothing but watch as one of the raiders impaled him with his sword.
The eastern raider pulled a second net from his pouch, and a raider next to him produced another vial of mana.
“Spread out,” said Sarna.
As the raiders went to meet them, blades outstretched, the eastern man cast out net after net until Jack was avoiding not just the stabbing of swords but the paralyzing patchworks of mana-enthused vines.
Leaving Sarna, Mav and the soldier to deal with the raiders, Jack took the cover of the overgrown grass and crept around the outskirts of the fray. His heart hammered so hard that he thought his chest might explode, but on and on he crept, making a careful circle until he stood just five feet behind the taller raider, who was fumbling for his last net.
Dagger gripped, Jack took a
few steps until he was behind the man, and then lifted his blade and held it against his neck. “Don’t move an inch,” he told him. “One slice is all it will take.”
The man seemed to heed his predicament. He moved his hands away from his leather pouch and held them in the air as if to surrender. Jack made him watch as Sarna and the others made light work of the raiders.
The battle ended with each of them coated in sweat and their nostrils clogged with the stench of blood. There was just one raider left now, and he was held to attention by the cold steel of Jack’s dagger.
With the wolves gone and all of the raiders dead but one, smoke-text filled Jack’s vision.
Level up to level 13!
Level up to level 14!
Level up to level 15!
-Hp Increased to 872
-Stamina increased to 752
-Mana increased to 789
-Att increased to 27
-Def increased to 12
Speed increased to 40
Steel baroque levelled up to level 3!
Power gained: Ground Spike
[Draw a line on the ground with your blade. Anyone crossing the line will received an unwelcome surprise, in the form of a spike up their bottom.]
Before leaving for Castle Halberd with their prisoner, Jack and Mav looted their fallen enemies, stripping them of their weapons, armor, and a handful of flek coins.
It was nighttime when they got back to the castle, though the darkness of Castle Halberd’s dungeons was so ever-present that it could have been daylight and the shadows would still be as thick. The adrenaline from the battle hadn’t quite left his system yet, and Jack found that he was on edge as he stood near the doorway of a dungeon cell and watched Crowley Drach at work.
The captured raider hadn’t said a word since they’d caught him. He didn’t even protest when they led him down the crooked steps and into the gloom of the dungeons. It was only when he saw Crowley Drach that he betrayed any sort of emotion. A sharp look of panic had crossed his face.
Now, he was bound at the hands and feet by rope. They’d sat him on a stone block next to the wall. Crowley had lit two mana torches, and below their orange glow he had unrolled a strip of cloth. On top of this was all manner of metal implements.
“Do you plan to torture me, then?” asked the raider. These were the first words he’d spoken.
“Nothing as nice as that,” answered Crowley. “The Lord has bigger plans for you.”
Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to watch, but he didn’t want to be the sort of ruler who gave orders he couldn’t stomach. He’d stay through the whole sorry ordeal. “What now?” Jack asked.
Crowley tipped a vial of liquid into a metal tankard and offered it to the raider. “You must be thirsty,” he said.
“Poison?” asked the raider.
“That would be the quickest way, to be sure. But as I said, the Lord has bigger plans for you. Drink this, and it will all become clear as Kiele crystal.”
Crowley turned to Jack. “I commend you wanting to spectate, Lord,” he said, “But for the false memory to be implanted and then stripped away, I will need to work in solitude. Leave me with him, and my work will soon be done. Come and find me when the screaming stops.”
Truth be told, Jack was glad to leave. The gods of chaos had smiled on him today, and with the plan working, he needed some sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Henry Veik sat on his throne and thought about how much he it. The whole design of the game was boring to him now. He was sick of forests and castles and all the crap that came with it. He dreamed of sky scrapers, of burger bars, and of television. He thought about the pizzas he used to order from his favorite takeaway restaurant, and his mouth watered. He wanted to attack Jack Halberd soon, but he couldn’t. He had to do this right, and make sure he didn’t make the same mistake as last time. Still, it wouldn’t be long before he was ready.
Over in the corner of the room, two masons worked on the east wall. With the added flek he was receiving from the raiders on Halberd’s flek fields, Henry had decided to remove the bronze wall trim and replace it with gold. He didn’t really know why. It didn’t matter. He was doing it just…because.
The throne room doors opened without a knock of invitation. That meant only one man was going to walk through those doors. Who else would dare breeze into his chamber without being announced? It must have been Bruce Frier.
Veik was surprised, then, to see a tall man stumble through. He didn’t recognize him, but he knew where he was from. This man had the blacking beard and moustache favored by those in the eastern isles, but he wore battered leather armor. This was a raider; that was plain enough from how all the parts of his outfit were unmatched, as if stolen from different people.
Bruce Frier followed the man into a room, giving him a shove so that he lurched into the centre. The masons were dying to turn and look, but the diligent men kept chiseling away at the wall as though their lives depended on it.
Henry was happy to see his friend. He was a reassuring presence, a man who would die in service for his lord if need be. Although Veik often trusted him with some of the more sensitive tasks, he had to admit that he would be loath to send him in the way of real harm. If Bruce were gone, nobody could replace him.
“You two can leave now,” said Veik to the workers. “Go to an inn and have a beer on my account. Work can wait until tomorrow.”
One of the masons, the older, bowed. “Your grace,” he said. Then he nudged his young apprentice, a boy of thirteen whose face bore the start of his first facial hair.
“Grace,” repeated the boy.
“Grace what they call kings,” said Veik. “Just Lord will do.” Then, he thought about it even more. He thought about how sick he was of being called lord. He thought about how he’d been roleplaying in this damn game so long that he was beginning to forget who he really was. “Actually, you can call me Henry, from now on,” he said.
The raider stood at the bottom of Henry’s throne steps with straight shoulders and his arms crossed, though there was a somewhat absent look on his face. The masons filed passed Bruce, giving as much space between them and him as possible. It always made Veik laugh at how much people feared Bruce. He was a buttercup, really.
“I didn’t expect visitors today, Bruce,” said Veik.
“We found him wandering the outskirts of Holuum, just past the crossing. Couldn’t get a word out of him until I slapped him a bit.”
Now that Veik looked carefully, he could see the red marks on the raider’s face. “There are easier ways to make people talk, you know. Anyway, carry on.”
“He’s one of the fellas in the camp near Halberd’s flek fields. Apparently, Lord Halberd abducted him and imprisoned him in his castle dungeon.”
“This is all well and good, but what is he doing here? Pack him off back to his shitty camp.”
Bruce approached the steps to Veik’s throne, careful not to place a single foot on the marble. It was as though the fancy steps were hallowed ground. Veik supposed that in Bruce’s eyes, everything in the throne room was hallowed, such was his respect.
“Thought you’d want to see this,” said Bruce. He held a crystal in his hand.
Veik beckoned him closer with his hand. It was a silly game of respect that they played; they both knew that Veik didn’t need permission for his friend to approach him.
“It’s a memory crystal,” said Bruce.
“Yeah, I guessed that. What does this have to do with me?”
Bruce gave him a grim look. “Watch it,” he said.
Veik grasped the crystal. As he knew it would, the scene around him changed until he was no longer in his throne room. Instead, he was in Castle Halberd, and this part was entirely a surprise. He stood in a dark dungeon with grey stone walls covered in moss glinting under the flames of mana torches. In one cell, he saw the tall eastern raider.
The first part of the crystal memory showed the raider’s escape from Castle Halberd.
He somehow managed to break a lock on his cell door and was free to find the dungeon exit. The raider took his time walking up the stairs and into the ground floor of Castle Halberd, before passing through the cramped hallways of the ancient building.
Guards with glinting metal armor and well-sharpened swords patrolled the hallways, showing that Halberd had a lot more soldiers than Veik had realized. When the raider snuck outside and onto the drawbridge, Veik saw that archers were posted on the castle turrets. The moat was filled with murky water, and sharp-finned creatures swam in it. Somewhere in the distance, dogs barked and yapped. The noises were coming from the castle kennels, which meant that Halberd had begun breeding beasts to add to his defenses.