by Jez Cajiao
“Yeah, and believe me, it wasn’t easy.” I gestured at the rooms ahead of us. “Let’s get a move on; we can talk about it later.”
Ignoring the low barrage of sounds Bane and Flux exchanged, I forced myself to walk forward, stepping over spider corpses which I worried, at a deep level, were just waiting to bite me still. Even though I knew intellectually that they were dead.
“Thank you,” I said to Bane as I passed him, putting my hand on his shoulder, and squeezing once before letting go and moving on.
We went back to moving as stealthily as possible, which meant Bane and Flux were utterly frigging silent, as near as I could tell, and I just tried not to clatter and clank too much. My notifications were still going nuts, but I tuned them out. We crossed the spider room and found Cheena waiting for us in the next corridor, gesturing for us to move back a bit to talk.
“The end of this corridor, there’s a hallway. The right leads to a single room, and a handful of goblins are barricaded inside. At least, I think they’re goblins; they sounded small, and the air tastes foul.” She shrugged. “The left-hand side leads to two more rooms. One is the kitchen; there are a lot of dead bodies in there, but otherwise, it’s abandoned. The final room…” She paused, taking a deep breath.
“It’s where the boss and its guards are all holed up, waiting for us. There’s maybe a dozen of your people there from the ship, and T’lek is there as well. The…the rest of the crew and little Gaul are in the kitchen, dead. What’s left of them, anyway.”
“How many guards, and what’s the boss look like?” I asked, feeling sick that so many had died already.
I thought back to when I’d viewed the ship through the Arcane Eagle’s vision, and there had been several more crew than that on deck at that point. I didn’t want to know how many were dead in here, killed by goblins. I tried to keep my rage tamped down, but I could feel it bubbling away, building.
“Maybe twenty goblins in the last room, but the boss is… huge. I think it’s a matriarch.” She said meaningfully, evoking a growl of horrified rage from Flux. I turned to him.
“What’s a matriarch? I asked, and Flux shook his head in disgust, his tendrils waving in agitation.
“Goblins breed like wildfire. Clans either have a nursery with a handful of breeders that constantly drop more of the vicious little bastards, or…” He was cut off by Cheena, who spoke up in a flat tone.
“Or they have a matriarch, a single greater female that has mutated. It births fewer goblins at a time, but they can pass on genetic traits from the creatures they eat to their spawn.”
“Wait, so…”
“So, these goblins we’ve been killing were normal goblins, the base species. Matriarchs are thought to be responsible for the creation of Orc and Hobgoblin tribes; they’re slaughtered whenever they’re found, with good reason!” Cheena said.
“And those twenty goblins in the final room?” I asked, a sudden horrible thought occurring to me.
“They’re mutations, bigger, stronger looking…she’s eaten sentients and birthed whatever she’s using as her personal guard.”
“Why only twenty? And hundreds of the weaker ones?” I asked, and it was Flux that answered.
“Either she ran out of the…genetic material…or they mutated in ways she didn’t like…and she ate them.”
“Okay, so I suggest we kill that fucking thing before it can whip up a new batch, then!”
“Definitely!” Cheena agreed, then looked back to the end of the corridor, where Bane had moved to keep watch. He was gone.
“Oh no…” She whispered, and she and Flux set off running. I scrambled after them. Coming to the end of the corridor and glancing right, I saw the doorway to the room barricaded by wood and stone, before dismissing it and setting off running towards the other end. I arrived just in time to see Cheena and Flux dart into a room on the left, and I followed, noting that the last room, the boss room, must be to the right at the end of the corridor.
I slowed down, moving cautiously into the room, and found Bane on his knees, clutching what looked to be a Mer’s leg in his hands. He was rocking back and forth and keening. Cheena knelt beside him and started to speak quietly to him.
“What…” I asked before Flux gestured to me to stop.
“Gaul was one of Bane’s companions, his friend…” Flux said quietly to me, as we quickly checked the rest of the room. “We need to…”
He was cut off as Bane suddenly roared with rage. He threw Cheena aside and took off, running down the corridor.
“Bane! Wait, you fool!” Flux cried out. We exchanged a stricken look and then we were off, Cheena forcing herself to her feet to follow us.
We hurtled down the corridor, just in time to see Bane disappear around the corner to the right, and we followed him. I knew we’d lost the element of surprise, but running in like he was? I just had to hope we all survived this.
I hurtled towards the corner, actually taking it fast enough that I had to jump and kick off the far wall. Digging deep and pushing off as fast as I could, I passed Flux and was drawing closer to Bane when he ran through the open doors ahead.
I had a split second to check my HP, stamina, and mana, finding that my health had climbed to eighty percent, stamina was nearly full, but my mana… my mana was at thirty-six…and as I watched it, it dropped to eleven.
Fuck. Oracle had clearly needed it, but…I shook my head, resolving to do this without mana if need be, then dismissed the thought and ran on. Seeing Bane leap to the left, I angled myself to do the same. As I ran through the large double doors, I realized the room was larger than all but the first we’d fought in. It was easily fifty meters on a side, square, and had a vaulted ceiling. A large fire crackled in the far left back corner, casting flickering shadows across the walls. There were piles of debris still, but they seemed ordered, and at the right, embedded into the wall, was a row of dust-covered figures. I dismissed them as soon as I saw they weren’t a threat, in favor of the twenty goblins that stood between Bane and the matriarch.
I took in the cages on the rear wall; dozens of poorly constructed stone and metal sections that had been twisted together to hold a rag-tag bunch of beings, and nowhere amongst them was a purple robe, the one I’d seen Decin wearing.
“Oren’s gonna be pissed…” I groaned, coming to a sliding halt next to Bane, who was already fighting two goblins. Lashing out with my naginata, I deflected a third goblin’s attack from taking Bane in the side.
I twisted my grip, lifting my back hand and pulling my forward one down, dipping my weapon down and punching the impossibly sharp tip of the naginata through the upper thigh of the goblin facing me. I twisted it viciously and yanked it back, ignoring the screaming, falling foe. I knew it wasn’t going to live; the artery in its leg looked like it was around the same place as in a human, and it was spraying hot, black blood across the floor.
I moved further to the right, gaining some space to use my weapon more effectively, and frantically ducked, weaved, and stabbed as I faced three more goblins. I used the base of the naginata as a club, deflecting blow after blow, and I soon took dozens of small cuts. I could hear the battle all around me, and I knew that Flux and Cheena were as sorely pressed as I was.
The goblins we faced weren’t the barely conscious animals we’d fought before. These creatures were bigger, around five to five and a half foot, well-muscled and covered in armor. They used a variety of weapons and gear, obviously scavenged, but of far better quality than those we’d fought so far. The worst thing was that they fought as a group.
They used shields and advanced when we looked in the other direction, they attacked in pairs and trios, and they were fast.
I sliced my naginata across at throat height, making two in front of me jump back, but a thrown dagger almost took my eye, and I screamed, backing up and switching to one handed slashes while I grabbed at my face. The distraction of me backing up let another goblin jump forward, slashing at Bane’s leg. He frantically
blocked the attack but missed the chance to strike against his own opponent, who stabbed at him, giving him a glancing wound across his hip.
I let go of my face, feeling a flap of skin shake with the movement, and I raised the naginata overhead. Bringing it down as hard and fast as I could, I smashed it into the goblin’s helm, driving it to its knees.
We fought back and forth, frantically trying to take the other side down, blood flying from dozens of light cuts. Flux shouted to me suddenly.
“We have to kill her! It’s our only chance!” I shifted my focus to the enormous creature that reclined on a handful of benches pushed together. I’d done my best to ignore her so far, trying not to get bogged down in details.
The matriarch was huge. While she was probably only eight to ten feet tall, if she could stand upright, she was at least that wide as well, almost round, and she held in her hand… a mirror image of the leg that Bane had been clutching earlier. She stared at me, her piggy little eyes locked on mine as she bit down, tearing flesh free and chewing it with sharp, pointed teeth.
The leg was clearly small, smaller even than the first Mer I’d fought, and while I’d always known that Bane’s group were young, and even had a few children amongst them, fighting with Bane had made me assume they were all like him, strong, deadly, and fast.
The first one I’d fought wasn’t deadly at all, once it couldn’t get away, and the thought that something had slaughtered an even younger one? That this fucking thing was eating it and enjoying it?
That we were a fucking cabaret act for it to watch while it ate our people?!?!
“NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!” I screamed, my rage finally bursting past all the boundaries I’d tried to impose. I heard an answering shriek of rage in the distance and just knew that Oracle was losing her shit as well.
I lunged forward, going from a balanced fighting style, mixing defense and offense equally, into an insane, all-out attack.
I felt Him awaken, watching as he always did, silent, but his mind seemed to link with mine easily, as it had since we had shared memories back in the Tower when fighting the SporeMother.
We didn’t speak; there was nothing to say to each other, there was just an extension of awareness. He took over watching out of my peripheral vision, enemies seeming to pulse when they moved in my direction, their weapons glaringly obvious, allowing me to dodge, to weave, and in one case, to kick them aside. I stabbed forward, driving the nearest goblin back, the tip of the naginata kissing the underside of his chin and slicing his rough skin like butter.
The blade slid in and out and away, cutting down on the inside of my next target’s arm, opening the wrist, before the first had time to clutch at its ruined throat.
I twisted, pivoting around, and struck out with the heel of my left foot to connect with the side of another goblin’s helm, sending it reeling long enough for Cheena to end its life with a dual stabbing of spears.
I smacked the tip of my naginata down on the ground, speeding my spin up, and I crouched down low, spinning the weapon over my head, and swinging the bladed end around. Dipping low again, I sliced through another goblin’s ankle, sending it toppling to the ground with a scream.
I popped upright, lifting the naginata overhead and swapping my grip in an instant, the chance I’d been waiting for given to me with that goblin’s fall.
I threw the naginata as hard as I could, and had the satisfaction of seeing the piggy eyes in that bloated face go wide in fear, then the blade hit, punching through the rough skin high on the right side of her chest. A screech of pain was quickly followed by a burbling cry that told me I’d scored a good hit.
I grabbed my swords, a hilt over each shoulder, and I pulled hard. I’d had to practice this maneuver so many times; despite what the movies showed, it was difficult, but I brought both swords down just in time to block the nearest upright goblin’s attack.
The world shrank into a frantic blur of steel, bronze, and teeth as all the goblins seemed to fixate on me, attacking with manic ferocity.
I cried out as a blade got past my defense, stabbing into my right upper arm, glancing off the bone, and making me drop that sword from suddenly numb fingers. I roared in rage and punted the goblin in the balls; I didn’t know much about their reproductive capabilities, but from the way it lifted into the air, and the high pitched squeal that came from it, I’d just ended that aspect of its existence. I then slashed out, determined to end the rest, only to have a mace crash into my sword, deflecting it enough that it skittered off my target’s chest plate.
I roared in pain again as a hammer hit me in the left wrist, the bracers barely cushioning the impact, and my second sword flew from nerveless fingers.
I stepped back quickly, finding that there were only three goblins left, and that Bane, Cheena, and Flux were battling two of them now. All three Mer bore various injuries, blood streaming from them. The Matriarch was squealing and pulling herself across the top of her cradle, frantically trying to drag herself close enough to grab a pack that sat nearby.
The last thing I noticed was something that I’d missed in the ferocious melee: the prisoners.
They were screaming encouragement! They were pounding away frantically at the makeshift cages that held them, bloody fists and feet ignored as they tried to get free to come to us, determined to stand on their own two feet and help.
I grinned at the goblin I faced, my mental passenger focused in tight on it as well; he’d warned me throughout the fight, keeping me alive this long, but there was only so much that was possible when the fight was that fast and vicious.
Now we both focused in with laser-like precision. The goblin growled, its jaw a mix of under and overbite working from one side to the other, yellow and black teeth interspersed with rotting… bits… made a concoction of halitosis that would kill a dentist just from looking at it. The goblin glared at me, shifting its grip on the hammer that had broken my left wrist and licked its lips nervously, nearly cutting its own tongue off.
I shifted to face it fully, teeth gritted as I glared at it, daring it to attack. It let out a growl that was mixed hatred and fear and swung the hammer two-handed at me, aiming for my chest and swinging right to left.
I stepped back, my useless arms dangling, and my Capoeira sessions suddenly came to mind as I began to move lightly, balancing on the balls of my feet and shifting from one foot to the other. I made sure it was watching me, readying for another swing. I could feel my companion getting closer, going faster and faster, our twin rages feeding each other and spiraling higher with every beat of my heart.
It swung again, right to left, then yanked it back as fast as it could, aiming to catch me with the spiked head on the back of its hammer, I dodged, barely quick enough, and I grinned at it as I leaned back. The hammer beat through the air in front of me, close enough that I felt the wind of its passage.
I’d bent back as far as I could, keeping my left foot planted, and I brought my right up as fast as possible, smashing my heel into the goblin’s face and causing it to stagger backwards, lashing out blindly with the hammer. I backed up a step, waiting for it, and as it focused in on me, I could see the hatred on its face clearly, then the confusion as I dropped to one knee.
Both emotions were wiped from its face by the terror that followed as Oracle shot over my head at tremendous speed. She used the mana I’d regenerated to make herself solid at the last second as she hit its face, fingers shifting to claws that drove deep into its eyes and burrowed into the brain behind it.
The goblin gasped in pain and collapsed, a momentarily insane wisp shredding its face while screaming incoherent swearwords. The goblin was dead before it hit the ground, but Oracle’s fury lasted much longer.
I stepped around her victim, finding the matriarch panting in panic as she managed to get her pudgy claw into the backpack at last. It came back out clutching a gleaming red potion, but before she could raise it to her fat mouth… Bane was there.
He slapped the potion aside w
ith his lower right hand, the upper hands each grabbing a wrist and holding the matriarch still. She squealed in terror again, and tried to wrench herself free, but despite her huge size, there was little muscle. She had a second of uninhibited writhing, and then Bane’s lower arms went to work.
He clutched a dagger in the left and slowly dug it into the creature, making her cry out in pain as it slowly cut through layers of fat.
“Bane!” I called out, and he turned furious eyes on me. I stepped in close and nodded toward my belt. He found the dagger there, nodding in thanks as he reached down and yanked it free. I spoke for his and the Matriarch’s benefit.
“It’s called the ‘Dagger of Ripping’…have fun.” Turning at that point, I was just in time to see Oracle lift herself from the corpse of the goblin I’d been facing. She looked around the room, her rage clear in her eyes, and I made sure the enemy were all dead. Once I had no doubt, with Flux and Cheena moving to free the captives, I closed my eyes and went to work at tamping down my anger, getting control over myself, and feeling Oracle calm as well.
It took several minutes of careful breathing, and it wasn’t surprising how difficult that was, what with the matriarch screaming in pain behind me, but eventually, she wheezed out her last, and Oracle and I grew calm.
I opened my eyes again, having heard Flux and Cheena talking to the prisoners, but I’d blocked the words down to a buzz. The freed prisoners had all gathered around Flux; he was helping a small Mer to walk, clearly having to half carry it, it was that badly injured and dehydrated.
The people went silent, even Flux’s words drying up as I stepped forward. I was covered in blood again. Oracle hovered over my left shoulder, liberally covered in the goblin’s black blood, and Bane appeared on my right, facing the group.
“Who are you?” asked one of the elves amongst them, barely speaking above a whisper.
Chapter Eleven