The Cursed Princedom (Realm of Arkon #2)

by G. Akella

  "Dar, we would like to say that we get it—we shouldn't expect to win every time..." Ayim and Salta had approached without me hearing them. "So we might as well get used to it."

  "Diddly-squat is what you get," I grunted, stashing my pipe back into inventory. "You should expect to be victorious each and every time—I won't have it any other way, since none of it would make any sense then. Why take the sword in your hand if you don't believe it?"

  "Or the bow," the fair-haired demoness standing just behind Ayim beamed a smile. At that moment, standing against a background of trees, caressed by sunlight filtering through the canopies, she looked like an elven princess out of a fairy tale. I shook my head, trying to clear my mind, and when I raised my eyes at the smiling archer girl again, she met my eyes with a straightforward gaze that conveyed perfect understanding, mischief twinkling in her eyes. I stared into those eyes for a few seconds; then Salta winked to me, spat out the blade of grass she had been chewing, spun around and started toward the waiting archers with that signature gait of hers.

  "Tell me something, Ayim," I said pensively. "Why is your bridge in such a sorry state? Is it that hard to fix?"

  The bridge was indeed in a horrible condition, so I had waited for everyone to get across first, and followed with Gloom only afterward. There was reason enough to worry—two of the four spans had less than five percent durability.

  "Why would it be hard?" the lad shrugged. "Nearly everyone in our village had some woodworking skills. After all, we would send a wagon train to Xantarra and Farot every month with arrows, axe handles, and all kinds of other wooden articles." The demon looked at the gaps in the planking and the broken railings, drawing a heavy sigh. "Thessa overflowed a week ago—it rained like never before. Old Cert kept saying it was a bad omen, but few listened..."

  "I get it!" I cut him short before he got overcome by sad memories yet again. "Save it for later! Let's get going!"

  "Listen up, I'll repeat myself one more time!" I announced, sitting on the boar's back and looking toward the village, which I already hated. "We will have to retreat a few more times. We are not running away. It's a tactical ploy. So stuff your emotions and trust me. Tanks, archers, take your positions!"

  My voice sounded perfectly confident, but I still felt enormous tension inside. What if we don't make it? In that case, all I could do was charge the razorback into the six warriors in plate at the gate, and try to take down two or three of them. The worst bit was that I'd have to do it with two dozen archers firing at me from the walls, and an unknown number of them firing from behind the walls. The risk would be enormous, but, should it come to that...

  "We're ready, dar!" Salta reported for the archers.

  "Tanks?"

  "Standing by for orders," Aritor turned toward me and gave a slight nod.

  The six-foot-six demon stood rocking on his half-bent knees, holding up a huge rectangular shield.

  "Let's move!"

  Just like the first time, the first six arrows made the first archer drop behind the palisade. My tanks took five quick steps forward, entering the aggro zone of the four neighboring skeletons. The undead drew their bows with a single motion. One of them gave an awkward wave of the hands and followed the first one down, but the rest stood fast. Three arrows hit Aritor's shield at once with a dull thud, and his HP bar flickered just a tiny bit. The warriors at the gate, as well as the archers from the adjacent wall, disappeared behind the palisade, just like the last time. Come on! I clenched my teeth and squeezed the hilt of the sword till my hands hurt. Show yourself, you swine!... Yes!!!" The very moment the last skeleton disappeared behind the wall under concerted fire of my archers, the first one reappeared over the palisade. It had more than one half of its HP intact—the mobs that had captured the village had healers of their own, but none of it mattered anymore.

  "Finish off the bastard!" I bellowed, and, seeing the skeleton's skull shatter in an array of shards, marking our first kill, realized that we would probably win this battle, after all...

  "You see, dar? There's no one there," Ayim nodded toward the charred watermill with gaping black holes where its windows had once been. "Those bastards left when they destroyed everything they could."

  "Lucky for us," I shrugged and took another look at the terrain around the burned-down building.

  The ground was overgrown with burdock, brambles and tall nettles. All that remained of the building were ruins of stone walls, a rickety shed and the deformed rim of the waterwheel with fragments of charred planks. I walked around the debris toward one of the mill's walls, darkened with soot, and asked, gesturing at the falling water.

  "Is it deep there?"

  "Twelve feet at least," Ayim leaned over a wall fragment, took a look inside for some reason, then sighed and looked at me. "Must be the same up there. Father said it took them three years to build this dam," he explained. "But are we going to fish here? Or..."

  "You have caught enough already, now! Others wouldn't mind having a go," a grinning Reece squatted near the wall, sticking his hand into one of the torn and charred sacks strewn across the yard, and scooping out a handful of burnt flour. He sighed, then quipped, "Looks like the pies didn't come out right this time..."

  "Ayim, look!" Reena approached from the direction of the rickety shed, stepping gingerly amid pieces of debris, holding a large black cat at her breast. "It's Coalie!"

  The cat in her arms stared in panic at the grinning demons who had gathered around the girl, ears pressed close to his head which kept turning from side to side, but wasn't trying to escape.

  "It's Uncle Storkh's cat," the black-haired demon smiled. "And he didn't wander off anywhere—it's as if he had waited here for us."

  "I see," I nodded, looking my subordinates over, and gave my orders, my voice amplified by magic. "Remove all the debris from the building. Quickly. You can play with the cat later—every minute counts."

  "What for, dar? Are we planning to spend the night here?" Salta turned toward me. When she met my hard stare, she shouted, "Aye aye!" and hurried toward the ruin together with the rest of them.

  It took my squad a little over an hour to clear the building of the fallen roof fragments and other kinds of debris. I smiled at the sight of their sooty faces, walked to the door that had faced the water, nodded at the narrow stone path across the river, and asked:

  "And how did you intend to mop up the remaining sixty-something fighters led by the two-headed skeleton?"

  "Just like the archers and the mages," Salta shrugged. "Is there any other way?"

  "Didn't you see that your twelve arrows only took off a little over half the HP of the armored skeleton defending the gate? Warriors aren't the same as archers—and we got lucky with those exposing themselves to our arrows, so that we only had to retreat a couple of times."

  "But there are skeletons with shields at the gate!"

  "So? You suggest that we drag that whole horde behind us and shoot at them from a distance?" I chuckled, looking back at the black smears on her face.

  "How else are we going to do it?" the girl wiped the sweat from her brow. "We could let them follow us in this manner for as long as we need."

  "Can you be certain you'll stay out of range of their fighters' charge, or that the two-headed stiff won't throw his axe at you? No? In that case, run across and wait for me there. The tanks can block the path easily from the other bank, and the mobs will line up along the dam—they can only cross one at a time," I motioned toward the falling water.

  "But half of them will drown," Aritor, who had been leaning against a wall, scratched the back of his head. "What about the loot?"

  "You can dive for loot later," I grunted. "Which is more important to you, loot or survival?"

  Ayim slapped his hand on the charred wall, peeked out of the door frame, then turned toward me and asked, adjusting the handle of the sword on his belt.

  "Why couldn't we draw them out here from the very start?"

  "How would you stand ther
e with arrows hailing down? There are no buildings on the other bank, are there? Had Feator been over there," I pointed at the bank across, "we would have done that, of course. No arrows could reach us if we had tanks here and here," I took Ayim by the shoulders and placed him near a wall, taking a position nearby. "They could have shot all their arrows from the other bank, and the mages' range would not have been sufficient, so RTFM." As the demon looked at me quizzically, I just slapped him on the shoulder and headed for the exit, where Gloom had already managed to fall asleep.

  "RTFM?" Ayim's question reached me from behind.

  "Yup," leaning against the doorframe at the exit, I turned to my clanmates gathered inside the building. "Is anything unclear? Get across the river, all of you. Tanks and archers, get ready. Also..." I frowned as I looked at their grimy faces. "You might wash your faces while you're at it—you look like fiends from the netherworld..."

  Everything went without a hitch. The only complication that arose was getting the boar across the river. Gloom flatly refused to take one step along the narrow path that lay maybe eight inches underwater, so I had to resort to the carrot method—or, rather, the apricot method. Taking one of the few remaining fruit from Kirana's magic grove out of my inventory, I let my valiant mount smell it, and stepped onto the narrow underwater path.

  "Gloom, buddy, let's go, shall we? It will get very hairy here soon. You don't want to resurrect just yet, do you?" I could just release the razorback here, then re-summon him from the other bank, but my gut was telling me not to do it.

  Bewitched by the enormous, melon-sized apricot, the boar drew a heavy sigh and followed me. Sometimes it pays to be aware of your pet's weaknesses, even if the pet in question is an aquarium fish. And if you decide to go for a larger specimen, knowing those weaknesses is absolutely vital.

  As soon as Gloom and I caught up with the demons waiting for us on the other bank, the first skeleton I'd brought to the slaughter emerged out of the destroyed mill's doorway. The creature looked at the flowing river, its eyes aglow with a blue sorcerous light, and took a confident step onto the edge of the dam, with other pursuers trailing close behind. Success!

  "Let the first seven skeletons reach the tanks. Salta, focus all your damage on S'art, but don't even think of finishing him off midway. He has got to have some HP left, or you'll dive for the loot yourself! Aritor and Hurd, try to go easy on the first skeleton. Ayim and Surat, you two move aside while those seven shuffle their feet between the boss and the tanks.

  I took another look at the skeletons wading across the river along the narrow path, then gave the apricot to Gloom. Taking a swig from my flask, I mounted the chewing razorback and readied myself.

  "Salta, are you sure you don't want to take a dive?" Reece hurled another Ice Spear at the monster roaring on the dam, glancing sideways at the focused archeress. "Now that's a sight I could never get enough of."

  Salta shot back an unprintable reply without so much as looking his way, whereas I told the mage to shut up lest he wanted to take a dive himself, right there and then.

  In the meantime, the two-headed freak entered its second battle phase, having lost half its HP. Translucent streaks of blue started to swirl around its bulk, freezing the water within fifteen feet around him. For a while, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the ice exploded in a myriad icy needles that scattered like grenade fragments.

  The impact wave knocked around a dozen skeletons off the dam, throwing them into the water, at which point S'art made a huge leap over the heads of the tanks, targeting the archers that stood about a hundred feet away.

  "Yeah, right!" I shouted, expecting something of the sort, and instantly popped Charge.

  My spear tore through the breastplate's chainmail, piercing the skeleton's right side with a screeching sound. Then the boar's tusks hit the monster in the groin, and his nine-foot bulk crashed to the ground.

  "All damage on the boss! Tanks, hold your ground!" Popping Fortification, I thrust my shield forward to block the swing of the two-headed monster's enormous axe—the creature had bounced back onto his feet instantly.

  A horrendous blow numbed my left arm for a moment, taking about a quarter of my HP. I clenched my teeth and started to hack away at S'art with my sword, happy to have drawn his aggro. The second blow of the poleaxe hit Gloom, dazing him for a moment. The razorback skidded to the side, and S'art, sidestepping to us, got my unprotected back with his third blow. A flash of pain, and my body felt like it was being torn apart. I saw treetops flicker before hitting the ground, the wind knocked out of me.

  "Kria-a-a-an!" the head archeress' voice pierced my ears as a cool wave of healing magic rolled over my body. I opened my eyes in time to see the poleaxe, ablaze in blue light, fall right upon me, only managing to roll aside at the very last moment. The enormous axe smashed into the ground inches from my head with a hideous thwacking sound, and I sprang to my feet, glimpsing Ayim and Surat frenziedly hacking at the skeleton's sides. Gloom's tusks were plunging into the boss from behind, and the archers, having run closer, were loosing one arrow after another into the roaring beast virtually at point-blank range. I don't remember turning on his Frenzy, I reflected, attempting to locate the shield I had dropped. S'art pulled his poleaxe out of the ground with ease, singled me out unmistakably with his gaze, swung again, and, suddenly, froze for a moment, stunned! After Charging into the skeleton's side, Aritor used Provoke to draw the boss' aggro to himself.

  "Heals on Aritor!" I pounced on the two-headed freak and started to slash at its poorly-protected side, disregarding the lost shield.

  The second swing of S'art's poleaxe knocked the six-and-a-half-foot demon aside as the boss turned toward me again, only to freeze into an icy statue in mid-swing. The razorback, who had been assaulting the skeleton all along, used all his weight to topple the enemy to the ground, while I grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands and drove the blade into one of its throats, gaping open in a silent cry, with a cracking sound. The enormous bulk shuddered, and the skeleton's eyes stopped glowing blue. We did it!

  "Aritor, join Hurd," breathing still came hard, "Salta and Reece, finish off the bastards."

  "How do you feel, dar?" asked the archeress concernedly, without pausing the process of mopping up the undead stuck at the edge of the dam.

  "Fine," I assured her, giving the boar, who had run over to me with a guilty look, a hearty clap on the side, suddenly overwhelmed with that warm and fuzzy feeling. It is truly pleasant sometimes to see someone genuinely concerned about you, even if all Salta saw in me was a means to get her revenge. Still, it didn't matter to me.

  I stayed away from the fray of the battle—there simply was no place left for me. Hurd had the exit from the narrow underwater path blocked completely, and there was only enough space for a single fighter next to him. Ayim and Surat took turns fighting there. The archers fired at armored warriors stuck on the dam as if in a shooting gallery. Arrows struck the armor, making a loud noise as they pierced helmets and breastplates, getting stuck in shields, and very occasionally ricocheting.

  "We wiped the floor with them!" Reece's Ice Spear knocked another skeleton into the water; he spat in disappointment and turned toward me. "By the way, dar, did you get hurt? You flew like an experienced air mage," he shook his head respectfully.

  "Yeah, but I landed like a crappy earth mage," I grunted, recollecting my less-than-successful landing. "Focus, now, don't let yourself get distracted."

  "Bah, this is pretty much over," the demon chortled, gesturing at the last ten skeletons on the dam. "Salta could handle them alone—she's really pissed off now," the mage threw a sideways glance at the archers, and continued in a conspiratorial tone. "For some reason, she didn't like it when you, uh, hit the ground like a bag of jelly... I mean, like an earth mage, that's it..."

  What a wet blanket! My good mood was ruined completely—I shook my head dejectedly, sighed, and bent over the monster's carcass.

  Chapter 13

  We got lucky w
ith the loot: three rare items, each of which suited someone, seven ancient bones, gold, alchemy ingredients, and, finally, the Symbol of Feator—the grand prize we had come here for in the first place.

  Any object in the game held by non-player characters was considered captured when you smashed its symbol, dropped by the slain commander of the conquered settlement. I didn't remember all the details, but I thought the symbol needed to be smashed on the premises of the captured settlement's main building—the local village elder's house, in our case. Well, even if we failed to take the village under our control—not that we really wanted to, anyway—we could at least claim everything we found in the local storage vaults.

  "Here you go!" I threw Reece a rare staff which was exactly his level—145, with 250 intellect and an added 50% to cold damage.

  Reece caught the item deftly, and proceeded to examine it with affection. The staff was smooth and slightly curved at the tip, with a blue iridescence running down its length. An expression of pure joy lit up the mage's face.

  "Thank you, dar!" Reece shouted, turning toward the dam and cursing loudly—there were no more enemies left in sight.

  The morale of your party has risen by 3 points. Your party's current morale is +17 (a 17% increase to your party members' physical and magic damage).

  "If anyone feels like diving, go right ahead," I looked at my fighters celebrating their victory, and motioned toward the river. "But be quick about it—we have already lost a lot of time. Aritor and Hagedia, come over. These are for you."

  The boss dropped a good shield for a tank and plate gauntlets with intellect. Both would have to level up a bit before they could use them, but I wouldn't want to lug them around in my inventory lest I forget. I didn't know how player clans distributed their loot, so I shared it out the way I saw fit.