“This is pointless,” Timmy shouted. A surge of his magic brought some measure of stability to the crumbling plain. They’d gotten the best of the golems around them, but the others had simply retreated back into the town. “There could be thousands more of these golems. We need to take out their power source. I can handle the battle out here. Avraniel, take Katie and Gerald and get into that town. There’s an entrance into the mountain on the far side.”
Avraniel felt another manic smile slip onto her face. Impossible odds? Killer golems? A twerp and an idiot to take care of? She could do that. “Try not to die, Timmy. I like living in your castle, and I know the twerp will throw me out if she gets the chance.”
His lips twitched, and he bashed another golem to death with his shovel. The plain had finally stopped shaking. Zombies and golems crawled out of the wreckage. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
Katie hitched a ride on the back of her favourite zombie ogre, Billy, as he lumbered toward the town. She’d given him some of the best armour they had, dwarf-forged and legally obtained, and then infused him with enough of her magic to heal him from all but the most devastating of blows. Making a quick detour, they grabbed Gerald. The bureaucrat let loose a piercing shriek of terror until he spotted Katie on Billy’s back and realised that he was not, in fact, about to become zombie food. Avraniel kept pace alongside, the elf easily keeping up with the zombie ogre’s long strides.
“Hold on!” she warned. Although she’d never admit it, she was a little bit worried about her master. The golems were tough despite their comical appearance, and there were a lot of them. All it would take was for him to miss one crossbow bolt or blade and – she shook her head. He’d be fine. He even had a squad of zombies helping him right now as he pummelled golem after golem with his shovel. “We’re going to break through the front lines!”
As she said that, clouds of flame raced ahead of them, melting zombies and golems alike to clear a path. The remaining zombies under her master’s command waited for the fire to pass before moving to cover their flanks, throwing themselves at the golems as Billy broke into a jagged run, the zombie ogre smashing his way through the rubble of the walls and onto the street beyond. She could feel it now. There was something powerful inside the mountain, and it felt similar to the crystals in the golems. They had to destroy it. A squad of golems up ahead levelled their crossbows at them, but a single arrow flashed through the air from Avraniel. It struck the lead golem in the chest and exploded. Bits of metal flew everywhere, and they charged headlong through the debris.
More golems appeared – perhaps they had realised what Katie and the others planned – and Katie called up a giant fist made of shadows. Her attack crushed half a dozen of them before a spectral scythe hacked through the others. Her jaw clenched. She needed to use more magic than she was comfortable with to make sure she could cut through the golems. In the meantime, Gerald did his best to help by throwing a variety of pots and pans. His aim wasn’t very good, but he did drop one or two of the automatons with lucky shots. One of them went down with the handle of a skillet buried in its eye.
A golem leapt off a roof and landed on Billy’s back. Katie shoved Gerald behind her and moved forward to meet it. Its fist rushed past her head, and her shadows surged forward to tear off its legs and toss it aside. Inky jaws formed from the shadows beneath it as it hit the ground and then snapped shut.
“Rembrandt!” Katie shouted as they rushed down the street. “Keep them off us!”
The rat nodded and then reached for the sword on his back, the one he’d been given by whatever gods the rats worshipped. Katie had to turn away as he unsheathed it. It seemed to be made of crystallised light so bright it hurt to look at. Rembrandt leapt off Billy’s back and met the golems trying to jump onto Billy’s back in mid-air. Katie bit her lip. If it was only her, then Rembrandt could have turned them invisible. But there was no way he could hide her, Billy, and Gerald. They’d need at least a dozen rats for that, maybe more.
Then her attention was drawn back to Rembrandt. He was showing everyone why the rats held him in such high esteem. He rocketed through the air, little more than a blur of black fur and blinding light, as he cut through golem after golem. Whatever that sword was made of, it could cut through solid metal like it was paper. Every single one of his strikes was aimed at one of his opponents’ weak spots, and he was always one step ahead of the blades, fists, and crossbow bolts that were meant to kill him. On the few occasions that one of the golems almost managed to hit him, he simply raced down their outstretched limbs to cut off their head or pierce their chest.
They were more than halfway down the main street now, and the golems weren’t done with them yet. Avraniel blasted some, and Katie conjured a vast, shadowy hand to clear the way. But the golems changed their approach. She’d seen firsthand that the crystals inside them could explode if overloaded with magic, and now the golems were doing exactly that. They hurled themselves forward and self-destructed in a desperate bid to slow them down. Avraniel was cut off for a split-second, forced to seize control of the explosions around her before she was overwhelmed. In that instant, as another squad of golems leapt right at her and Gerald, Katie knew she had to do something. She grabbed the bureaucrat and Rembrandt, wrapped them in shadows, and ordered Billy to shield them with his body.
The world came apart at the seams – but only for a moment.
Avraniel had managed to grab hold of the flames around them, but Billy had already taken too much damage. His flesh was blackened and charred. One of his big legs gave way beneath him, and he tumbled to the ground with a low groan. His armour broke off and crashed onto the scorched stone beneath them. Katie hurried back to his side. Her connection with the zombie was already fading.
“Billy!” She tried to shove more of her magic into him, but he was far too damaged for even her magic to fix. She’d have to salvage what she could and try to repair him later. Her eyes stung, and the shadows around her howled. She’d worked so hard to put him together, and he’d done so well to get them this far. She tore the nearest golems to shreds and tossed them aside. “I’ll make them pay. Nobody kills my zombies and gets away with it!”
Avraniel patted her on the head. “Relax, twerp. He’s a zombie. It was his job to protect you. Still, that was almost scary. Keep it up, and maybe one day I’ll actually have to be worried about fighting you.” The elf glanced ahead. “I can see the entrance into the mountain. It’s right there. We can’t waste anymore time here.”
Katie pursed her lips. “But we can’t just charge in either. There’s still so many golems left.” She paused. “Wait… Rembrandt, come with me. Can the rest of you hold the golems here? I’ll take care of things inside the mountain.”
“Are you giving me orders, twerp?” Avraniel’s lips curled.
Katie drew herself up to her full height, but she was still much shorter than Avraniel. “If you start throwing fire everywhere inside the mountain, you could bring the whole thing down on top of us. I don’t plan on dying yet. I still have to overthrow my master.”
“Fair enough.” Avraniel cackled. “I can have plenty of fun out here. Get a move on. We’ll keep the bastards here busy.” She pointed at Gerald. “You, idiot, don’t just stand there gawping. Hide behind what’s left of the zombie ogre. We can use it for cover.” She nodded at the rats that had hitched a ride on her cloak. “Start laying down those landmines of yours. I don’t want any of those metal jerks getting behind us.” She glared at Rembrandt. “As for you, go with the twerp. Make sure nothing happens to her. Her idiot master will be an incredible pain in the ass to live with if he has to find a new apprentice.”
Rembrandt nodded and hopped onto Katie’s shoulder as Cezanne climbed out of Gerald’s pocket and gave a few squeaks. The old rat looked a little frazzled, but he was smiling. Katie guessed that this was probably the most fun he’d had in years.
“Cezanne says that there’s a hidden entrance not far fro
m here. It leads into the mines inside the mountain. It should be able to get me and Rembrandt around most of the sentries.”
“How does he know that?” Gerald asked.
“A spirit told him.” Katie smiled fondly at Cezanne. “The spirit of a rat who used to live here. He can talk to them, you see.”
Katie turned and reached out to a handful of zombies nearby, ordering them to accompany her and Rembrandt. Golems immediately emerged to challenge them, but she sent the zombies ahead to occupy them before turning her shadows into claws and ripping them apart. She’d have to ask her master about the golems later. Whatever the golems were made of it, it had a dampening effect on her magic – nothing she couldn’t handle, but it had begun to add up over the course of the battle. A little bit of extra magic for each golem didn’t sound like a lot, but she’d already fought a lot of them.
As she neared the main entrance to the mines, she sent her zombies toward it and let Rembrandt turn the two of them invisible. With the battlefield so close and with her zombies to provide a distraction, she hoped the golems wouldn’t notice her using the hidden entrance.
They made their way into the mines through the hidden entrance, and she used her shadows to take out the two golems standing guard before they continued onward. Soon, they were plunged into almost total darkness. Of course, she thought. The golems likely didn’t see the same way people did. She’d have to take one apart later to be sure. It might even help her make better zombies since zombies, as a rule, tended to have relatively poor eyesight unless special effort was taken to preserve their eyes, which was costly and time consuming.
Luckily, Katie didn’t need light to get around either. Her magic gave her control over shadows and darkness, and all it took was a few minute traces of her magic scattered through the surrounding area to give her a perfect picture of what the corridor was like. She could perceive everything the shadows and darkness touched. Rembrandt, of course, had extremely good night vision, and his other senses were incredibly keen. He could actually feel the minute currents of air brushing past them, driven by some gaping chasms deeper within the mountain. He gave a few quiet squeaks warning her to be careful and then told her which way to go. He could feel the magic emanating from inside the mountain even more keenly than she could.
As she rounded one corner and continued toward the heart of the mines, there was a shift in the air. Rembrandt hissed a warning. She jerked back just in time to avoid having her head smashed in. Had the golem seen her somehow? Even as she retreated, its gaze followed her. Yes, it had definitely seen her. Her magic flared to life and banished the invisibility Rembrandt had draped around them. This golem was larger than the others, and its eyes were different. The golems must have left some of their elite behind to protect their power source.
The golem’s fist retracted and was replaced by a blade. She tensed. Rembrandt leapt off her shoulder, and the golem swung its blade out to cut him in half. The rat twisted in mid air to avoid the blow, and Katie had the opening she needed. Her shadows lanced into the golem’s chest – this one’s armour had much stronger resistance to magic – and she grit her teeth as sparks flew. She managed to break the crystal inside its chest, and it collapsed – right as two more emerged from the walls. Rembrandt bounded toward them, making short work of one with his glowing sword before the two of them worked together to bring the other one down. She winced. The golems had not gone down quietly.
“Come on. We must be getting close. Those ones were much tougher than the ones outside. Hopefully, there aren’t too many more of them.”
They reached a broad hall that was split in two by a deep chasm. There were golems waiting for her, still and silent. They turned to face her as one. Her eyes narrowed. They were just like the ones she’d faced earlier, so there was no point in trying to remain invisible. She frowned. There was so much magic here. The shadows quivered. They had to be close, but there were too many golems for her to fight head on. She’d have to try to get around them.
She took several quick steps and then vaulted into the air with her shadows, forming wings to carry her across the chasm. Crossbow bolts pierced the air around her, and she barely managed to clear the chasm before her wings came apart. She landed awkwardly, but Rembrandt sprang forward to keep the golems away as she stumbled back to her feet. He darted up the arm of one golem, severed its head, and then leapt through the air, spinning end over end to saw through the chest of another golem before he dealt with a third in similar fashion. Katie took a deep breath and then drove one fist forward. There was so much magic in the air here and so many shadows that she didn’t have to worry about holding back. A titanic fist wrought of darkness smashed its way through the golems in front of her. They tumbled back but quickly found their feet again. Hmm… their armour was too tough for her to just smash through. She needed to cut or pierce it.
More golems poured into the hall, and needles streaked past her to blind them. Rembrandt hadn’t skipped a beat, continuing to carve his way through the golems while throwing needles to buy her more time to ready another attack. But she could already see that they’d be overrun unless she did something drastic. Her jaw clenched. She knew what to do. She called Rembrandt back to her and drew her shadows in to form a seething sphere of inky darkness around them. She pulled in more and more shadows and poured in more and more of her magic, tightening her grip on them until the darkness around her roared to be set free.
Her master had once told her what it had felt like to let his magic rage out of control. It had been like a storm, an explosion of raw power. That was what she wanted now. She sharpened the shadows, weaving them into impossibly fine ribbons of darkness. Only when it hurt to hold them in, only when the pounding in her head reached a fever pitch and Rembrandt gave a worried squeak, only then did she let them go.
The shadows burst outward like a bubble made of raw magic. The fine ribbons she’d made sliced through everything they touched, carving gashes into the stone and tearing through the golems. Something inside her roared and fought to get free, but she forced it down. She ruled her magic, not the other way around. Rembrandt waited for the last of her magic to fade before he climbed out of her pocket and finished off a golem that was still twitching. Then he hurried back to her as she dropped to her knees.
“I’m fine.” She panted and wiped sweat out of her eyes. Her shadows weren’t good for things like that. They were better suited for making small numbers of moderately sized things. And although she might have a lot of magic for someone her age, she had nowhere near as much power as someone like Avraniel. She took a deep breath and got back to her feet. She’d have to practice that sort of thing more when she had the chance. As her master was always fond of saying, it never hurt to have an extra card up her sleeve in a fight since there was no such thing as cheating in a fight to the death. It was all about who could cheat better. “Let’s go. We can’t be far now.”
They pressed onward, delving deeper into the mines and then paused. In front of them was the last hall before they reached the huge source of magic they’d felt. Its power radiated through the mountain and far beyond the town. It matched the power she’d felt inside the golems’ crystals. But in front of the door were dozens of golems. These were even larger than the others she’d faced and far sturdier. She took a step back to consider her options only to see a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She ducked and stumbled into the hall. She was surrounded.
“This could be trouble.” Katie winced as half of the golems replaced their fists with blades and half replaced them with crossbows.
Rembrandt didn’t say anything. Instead, the rat slowly reached for his eye patch. She’d never seen what was under there, but she’d heard rumours – and then the golems around them were stumbling back in disarray as white flame filled the hall.
“You have a real knack for trouble, twerp. You’re lucky I got bored outside.”
The stone floor glowed from the heat, and the air was suddenly stiflingly hot. A
vraniel had arrived.
* * *
A detachment of killer golems advanced up the main street toward Gerald and Avraniel who had taken cover behind the remains of Billy, the zombie ogre. The pungent odour aside – the zombie had begun to decay the instant Katie withdrew her magic – Billy’s large body had done a fine job of shielding them from crossbow bolts. Gerald peeked over the body and then huddled back behind it. The golems’ artificial eyes were alight with pure malevolence and the urge to mangle and kill – at least, that’s how it looked to him.
“Can’t you do something?” he wailed, grabbing a nearby rock and hurling it at the closest golem. By some lucky chance, it hit the machine in the head, but it was more annoyed than seriously damaged. Its crossbow bolt nearly took Gerald’s head off. To make matters worse, that was the last rock within reach that was small enough for him to throw but big enough to do damage.
“These damn things are so annoying.” Avraniel fired another arrow wreathed in flame at the approaching horde. The only thing keeping them from being completely overwhelmed was the fact that most of the golems were still fighting Timmy’s zombies outside the town. The arrow hit one of the golems and vaporised it, along with the golems and buildings beside it. Oops. “How are we supposed to keep the property damage down and get out of this alive? It would be much easier if I could go all out. That armour of theirs can take a beating.” She gestured, and another wave of flame scorched the street. “Come on, paper pusher, don’t you have anything stored away with that magic of yours, something we can actually use? I’d rather not get my reward money cut in half because I blew up most of this town, and I’m sure you’d rather not fill out all the paperwork involved either. Don’t you have a legendary magical weapon or something, you know, something that can slaughter our enemies?”
Unconventional Heroes 2 - Two Necromancers, an Army of Golems, and a Demon Lord Page 10