Liar King

by Adam Elliott

  Nor did he have time to gawk and ruminate over strategy, not as the first of the Warden soldiers reached the crest of the ladder, spear in hand.

  Three blades pierced the Terracotta warrior before he could even lay a foot upon the battlement itself. In an instant all semblance of life drained from the creature, the unnatural elasticity of its earthen limbs taking on a sudden rigidity as it toppled from the ladder, no doubt to shatter on the ground far below.

  A cheer ran through his men, many of whom pressed forward in an attempt to get a swing at the next warrior as it arrived. First blood was theirs, such as it was. As was second, third, fourth and fifth.

  Aleph had never had the misfortune of assaulting the walls of a keep, but he could not imagine how any Elan could rush into the waiting point of the enemy’s blade the way these Wardens could. They were relentless and without fear, arriving two or three at a time and being struck down nearly as quickly. Each tried something new, a few taking faint swings at their Elan executioners, others trying to block or parry from their awkward position.

  Eventually, a strategy paid off. One of the advancing Wardens took the blades of his attackers, a sword to each shoulder and a third through her abdomen, but the stone-faced woman kept coming. She threw herself bodily onto one of her attackers, unyielding hands closing about the man’s throat as she bared down upon him. She was slain a moment later, but not before her distraction allowed two more of her comrades to find purchase on the battlement.

  Slowly but surely, Aleph’s forces were pushed back, until a small pocket of the Warden soldiers had formed. A brief skirmish erupted, one of his men falling under a crooked dagger held by one of the dirt-fleshed monstrosities. Then the tide swung again, the Elan pushing forward, laying low the few Wardens who had dared to challenge their supremacy.

  And so it went. In the thick of combat Aleph could spare little thought and even fewer glances up and down the line of the battlement, but what he did see looked remarkably similar. The Elan were giving better than they got, but it was by no means the sure thing they had hoped for. Here and there a failure produced a threat, exhaustion leading to further mistakes that cost yet more lives. A small breakout to their left threatened their flank in a way that might have been fatal had reserve forces not stepped in to cover them.

  Time was barely a thought in the maelstrom of combat, only that persistent reminder at the back of Aleph’s mind. Just a few hours.

  “Heave!” Aleph shouted, throwing every ounce of his strength into the aching muscle of his shoulder as the latter in turn was braced against the back of his shield. Behind and beside him, his men did the same, putting all their weight into driving yet another successful cluster of Warden soldiers from the crest of the wall.

  Each of the six stone soldiers were somehow heavier than they looked, and the footing was treacherous with a tangle of limbs, but the Elan prevailed. The weight lifted in stages as the stoneheads toppled one by one from the edge of the wall, back down onto the ladder from whence they’d come. “Now!”

  The mass of soldiers parted as the axemen returned. Their work was almost done, and the warriors they had toppled back down the ladder had opened just the gap they needed.

  A sharp crack accompanied each swing of the ax, loud enough to be heard over the ever-present sounds of combat. Each impact was music and salvation to the Elan soldiers who watched their fellows, balanced precariously on the edge of the battlement, taking swing after swing with reckless abandon. The sound of splintering was heaven itself as the head of the ladder gave way, parts of it plummeting to the ground below while remnants clung to the wall where their metal spikes had pierced it.

  It wasn’t perfect, the opened gap only three feet wide, but with a few men left to dissuade jumpers, it would be enough. The Wardens weren’t coming up this ladder.

  Only twelve more to go.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Day 10 - Evening

  Resources – F – 700 +20, Z – 750 +30, M – 260 +5, I – 620 +20, P +40, R +20

  Completed – Keep Repair III (Library)

  “Is everyone in position?” Cayden whispered. A chorus of affirmations resounded through his display, some voices he recognized, almost with many more that he didn’t.

  One voice came through more clearly than the others, with a soothing calmness he certainly didn’t feel. “You can stop worrying. It is going to work.”

  “Prepare for the best, plan for the worst,” Cayden said wryly.

  “I am ninety-nine percent sure that isn’t how that expression goes.” Came Shifty’s reply.

  “Well, you sure as hell better hope it is.” Cayden laughed. “You’re sure you don’t want backup?”

  He could almost hear the Carnivalist’s eyes rolling through the audio. “We’ve got two stealthy characters, one at each gate. So unless you’ve got an extra one you’re just planning to spring on me, no-”

  “Okay, okay. I get it.” he relented.

  A quick glance at the timer in the corner of his display told him that it was almost time. The Warden evening turn was going to begin any moment now, so it wasn’t like they had time to fix things if something had gone wrong.

  Not that anything as simple as that would stop him from worrying.

  “Roberta. You’re sure he wo-”

  “For the third time, Field Marshall, Yes.” It had taken considerable prodding to get the Elan woman to travel back to Islo when he’d concocted this plan, but it had taken far more to get her comfortable enough to use a player mirror that they had left in the Royal Quarter. “I have reinforced and jammed the four remaining gates, and no, the enemy will not be able to detect it unless they physically try the gates.”

  “Hey, can you blame me for-”

  “Yes!” Came a chorus of voices too numerous to count.

  Apparently, he’d been a bit neurotic about the plan.

  “Time is coming up.” Silver said quietly.

  “Okay. Good hunting, everyone. Silver, you give us the word.” Cayden said.

  With that said he sunk back against the wall, the final rays of the setting sun cascading in through a nearby shattered window in a way that sent a rainbow skittering across the floor of what had once been the common room of the Inn of the Dizzy Sheep.

  This had been the part of his plan that he’d liked the least, the one that pained him still. And he’d only spent a few months with this city as his home. He couldn’t imagine what the Elan had felt when they’d been ordered to smash everything in sight, to pile books and clothing, to topple buildings that had once been their homes. Some had nearly rioted at just this indignity, let alone what would come next.

  And then there was Sarah. Her reaction had been one of just barely restrained violence. Cayden couldn’t even say he blamed her.

  The sound of heavy footfalls shook Cayden from his ruminations and caused him to sink even deeper into the shadows behind the bar. It wasn’t the first patrol that had marched past his hiding place since the Wardens had taken the city that morning, but with luck, it would be the last.

  Cayden wondered if the sight of Warden troops in motion would ever stop being eerie. Eventually, probably just in time for him to be faced with some equally unsettling creature.

  It was the fluidity that bothered him. When they stood still they looked like any picture he’d ever seen of the Terracotta army he’d first heard about in a second-grade social studies class, even down to the individual wear and tear. He’d seen a fully functional Warden soldier with a head half crumbled away due to imperfection in its craftsmanship. When they moved, it was uncanny, as though he were seeing a different statue in each instant. They didn’t move like people; they moved with the facsimile of how a person should move.

  He shuddered as the two soldiers marched out of sight, his revulsion put on hold as a text message appeared in front of him.

  Bammer: Cayden, I’ve got someone special here.

  �
�€œSpecial how?” Cayden asked. The message wasn’t from one of his party members, but the name was familiar. Samuel, the other thief. Bammer, as his fellow soldiers called him.

  When there was no immediate reply, Cayden frowned and pulled up his display, typing out the same question in text. Bammer was in a very precarious position, so it made sense he didn’t want to talk. But it was still strange he wasn’t on the call at all.

  Bammer: Special as in officer.

  Cayden: Can’t be an Officer.

  A prompt interrupted Cayden before he could explain further, an text box materializing on his display, informing him that Bammer was trying to bring him in on a video call. He quickly accepted, and the center of his AR display was soon dominated by a video of a Warden officer on horseback.

  Special was indeed the correct word to use, as was officer. Possibly even general. If he’d been on foot, the man would have stood a head taller than any Warden soldier, or even any Warden officer, that they had seen thus far. More telling was the intricate way this one had been constructed. He was painted, and appeared to be dressed in fine silks as well as armor, silks that moved so convincingly, and yet so unnaturally that it made Cayden’s eyes hurt to look at them for long. This was a Warden built to stand out.

  “Okay. So maybe it is an officer.” Cayden admitted begrudgingly. “Back to the drawing board on that theory.”

  “Skill use: Observe.” The words were barely more than a breath, but they had an immediate effect as Cayden’s view of the officer was further enhanced with a less than helpful status readout:

  Temüjin

  Level 35(Boss)

  HP: ????/????

  MP: ????/????

  TP: ????/????

  Skills: Unknown

  Resistances: Unknown

  Weaknesses: Unknown

  Special: Construct Traits

  “Yeah, that certainly looks like final boss material.” Cayden murmured. A few more figures wandered into frame as the officer passed, a compliment of soldiers Cayden suspected to be bodyguards followed directly in his wake, with a second set forming a close rank around a robed Warden that Cayden suspected must be the caster.

  “Level 28.” Bammer seemed to be of a mind with Cayden as he continued to whisper. “If that is the caster, we might want to try and make a run at him. Make things at Bastion a lot simpler.”

  “Too risky.” He replied. “If you can keep an eye on where he goes, and we get a good shot then maybe. But if he keeps sticking around with his boss he’s too much for any of us to handle.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we’ll get him in the bargain,” Michael said, adding his two cents to the conversation.

  Cayden scoffed. “We should be so lucky.”

  “Quiet down boys.” Silver said abruptly. “Looks like it is almost time.”

  He started to reply, then thought better of it. Instead, Cayden took a moment to draw a few deep breaths focusing on the rise and fall of his chest to steady his nerves. If this doesn’t work.

  Seconds passed in silence, as Cayden turned his focus once more to the timer at the corner of his display. Six minutes into the Warden turn, shouldn’t he be able to hear the start of the battle? Or was he just too far away. He began to stand as Silver’s voice cut through his thoughts with a single command. “Do it!”

  A heartbeat passed, then the sound of an explosion rocked the city of Islo. Another heartbeat and a second equally powerful detonation shook the already profoundly damaged exterior of the Dizzy Sheep, the rainbow on the floor of the inn vanishing as what remained of the windowsill crashed into the empty street outside.

  The signal was hard to miss, but even still, Cayden lingered longer than he should have. By the time she’d been told, Sarah didn’t have much say in stopping the plan, but she did have just enough to guilt him into being the one stationed at the Dizzy Sheep. What was the Game of Thrones quote? He who passes the sentence should swing the sword?

  He who burns the city should set the fire.

  “Natha Ierith.” Cayden invoked, a wave of flame erupting from his hand to engulf the nearby staircase. The runic spell was large on area yet low on damage, but it didn’t matter, no, it was actually better. Too strong of a fire much burn itself out before it really got going, and for this to work, it needed to go everywhere.

  He cast the spell six more times, depleting the majority of his MP as he made his way to the door. By the time he exited, the inn was fully ablaze, as were buildings on either side of it, and part of the broad street that had been piled with anything and everything flammable they could find.

  Why did he always end up burning things to the ground to solve his problems?

  Cayden continued to discharge waves of magical fire as he began a lazy jog along his slated route. He knew his fellow players, twenty in all, would be doing the same. Bit by bit, they were putting nearly every inch of the now abandoned city to the torch, save for a few narrow corridors that would, or at least should, allow them to reach the Royal Quarter before the conflagration grew entirely out of their control.

  The Wardens would not be so lucky. Barricades that had appeared useless when the Elan soldiers had retreated to the Royal Quarter would prove remarkably effective once doused with alchemist’s fire. Not that they were needed after those two explosions. No, the barricades existed only to sew confusion for the enemy commander, to make him waste time and movement trying to find an escape route rather than throwing himself against the Royal Quarter’s now weakened defenses.

  There was no escape. If Silver had given the go-ahead, that meant the enemy had stopped marching troops into the city. As much as half the Warden forces, along with their commander, should be trapped in the furnace they were creating. Trapped because Shifty and Bammer had just collapsed both of the remaining gates into a pile of impassible rubble. Trapped because if they tried to use any of the other exits, they would find them bound and reinforced by Roberta’s creation magic.

  His jog turned into a run as he ignited the last building on his list, the street behind him awash in flame, while the ones ahead of him were already beginning to be scorched by that same cruel mistress.

  The paths they had laid out in advance to avoid getting caught in their own trap were serpentine, most large enough for one or two people abreast, so as to preclude the possibility that any substantial Warden formation could take advantage of them. Cayden’s, for example, took him through two tight alleyways and through three half-collapsed houses, before at last depositing him at the southernmost edge of the Royal Quarter.

  From there it was down a trip into the cringe-worthy sewers. Asch’s investigations had indeed found an unsecured link between the city and the Royal Quarter, one that would have proven exceedingly dangerous if the Wardens had ever been given enough time to locate it. As it was, the entrance provided a stealthy, if somewhat distasteful, method of entering and exiting their secured position.

  “How are we doing?” Cayden asked as Michael grasped his forearm and helped him over the last lip of the sewer exit.

  “So far so good. You’re the third one back.” Michael replied. “One of the toy soldie-” A sharp glance from the nearby Dinah cut the derogatory nickname short. “One of Asch’s men ran into a patrol, but he managed to lose them on his B-route. Everyone should be back within a few minutes.”

  “And the army?”

  “Holding,” Asch replied, looking up to the battlements overhead. “For now. Most of the rest are through the portal already, but it is going to be tight. We probably should have put a few dozen more on the battlements.”

  Cayden shook his head. “Every man we put up there is a man we’re going to lose.” He said, his heart stinging at the fact that he had to say it at all. To get the most out of their one trap, they had to allow the Wardens one more turn to move troops into the city, but that came at a cost. Someone had to guard the Royal Quarter, and the hundred and
fifty men they’d left behind to do it were not going to be able to escape with the rest of them.

  Fighting to win was even harder than he’d expected it to be.

  “Everything set up and ready to torch here?” He asked, turning his attention away from the uncomfortable knot in his stomach.

  Michael grinned wickedly. “Ready to blow. The Ducal Palace turned out to have an alchemy lab.”

  “I’m sure the Duke will be happy we’re putting it to good use.”

  “I’m sure the Duke would have us all hanged if he could get away with it,” Dinah said with something just barely approaching humor in her tone. “He was… uncooperative when we finally removed him from the Palace.”

  “That will be a fun conversation. I’m sure he’ll be reasonable ab-”

  Before he could continue, a voice cut in over his audio feed. “Are you guys seeing this?”

  “Yeah, but who the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s tearing through them like tissue paper.”

  “Guys, cut the crosstalk.” Silver barked. “Someone with eyes, give us a feed.”

  “I’ve got it.” Came an unknown voice, followed by another video call notification.

  The video feed was not great, both in the sub-par device recording and streaming it, as well as the nauseating head bobbing as the source, struggled to get into a position with a clear shot. Twice the feed hung and skipped rapidly to catch up before at last, it stabilized into something resembling a sensible image.

  A blue-haired young woman tearing her way through Warden soldiers with her bare hands.

  ***

  “Command: Call Sarah!” Cayden shouted in a mixture of panic and fury. When the device replied with an angry buzz, it took every ounce of his self-control not to scream at the top of his lungs. “Oh for f-Command: Call Desdaemona.”

  This time he was rewarded with a soft chime, followed by a quiet jingle as the software embedded in his AR display paired off against his mirror to make the call. A few seconds later, another chime, a moment of dead air, then the sound of ragged breath. “A little busy right now Cayden!”