The giant golem continued to give chase until its long stride brought it level with the town’s walls. It bent down and tore a building out of the ground before turning to hurl it at Katie and Avraniel. The elf shouted a warning, and Katie banked sharply to one side, giving a cry of alarm as the building missed them by inches. Not content with being used for target practice, Avraniel gathered her power. The elf was wreathed in blinding light before she sent a river of fire pouring at the golem’s head. It lurched back and raised one hand to take the brunt of the attack. Smoke rose from its armour as it stepped forward, one hand raised to swat Katie out of the sky. Timmy scowled. He was not about to let some stupid golem kill his apprentice. He sent his zombie wyverns in to distract it as Katie dove toward him. He could already tell that she was going to muck up the landing. She was going far too fast and coming in at far too steep an angle. He gestured with his shovel, and the ground where she was about to land turned into a large pool of soft mud.
“Ah!” Katie screamed.
Squelch.
Katie hit the pool of mud with enough force to send up a geyser of muck. Avraniel gave him a vicious glare as he went over to them and yanked Katie out of the mud. The girl scrubbed at her glasses and muttered several impressive curses as more mud dripped down her face and into her mouth.
“Language, Katie.”
“I don’t think now is the time to worry about my language, master.” Katie spat more mud onto the ground. “Yuck. I even got mud in my mouth.”
“Honestly, I send you guys over there to do one simple thing, and you come back with a massive, killer golem.” Timmy sighed and picked Katie up. He gave her a good shake to get all the mud off, earning an angry growl from the girl as he dodged a swipe of Rembrandt’s sword. The rat was more brown than black, and he looked distinctly unimpressed about being covered in mud. “What am I going to do with you?”
“That isn’t just a big golem.” Katie turned as Gerald and the other rats reached them. “It’s a factory. It’s what’s been making all of these golems, and their power source is inside it too. The golem that escaped must have built more golems until they could finally build that.”
“Wonderful.” Timmy covered his face with his hands. “The Council neglected to mention that these golems could improve their own design.” He nodded at Gerald. “It’s a good thing that I planned for something like this. Gerald, do it.”
“Do what?”
Timmy sighed. “That thing we talked about earlier.”
“Oh.” Gerald paused. His eyes were glued to the titanic golem headed their way. “Right now?”
“Yes, unless you’d rather be killed by a giant golem.”
“Oh. Good point.” Gerald took a deep breath, and his magic roared to life. “Give me a second.”
Timmy stood back and looked on with an expression of utter serenity. The key to winning was preparation. He’d learned that the hard way. The air above the golem shimmered. Their last mission had taught him that he’d been going about things the wrong way for years. Why try to bludgeon something gigantic to death when he could just drop a tower on it instead? It had worked a treat on the dragon, so it should work on the golem too. This whole thing would be done in a second, and then they could all go home and savour the spoils of victory.
Gerald’s magic tore the air over the golem apart, and the same tower that had slain Black Scales hurtled down toward the golem. Timmy smiled. The tower still had some dragon brains on it.
The golem looked up – and took a big step to the left.
Oh.
The smile on Timmy’s face vanished as the tower thumped into the ground. The golem glanced from them to the tower before it picked the building up and tested its weight. Then it turned back toward them, its newly acquired club held high.
“Okay…” Timmy cringed. “That was not part of the plan.”
Avraniel gaped and then grabbed him by the collar. He almost choked. “You stupid, stupid idiot! What the hell was that? Now that damn bastard golem has a giant club to kill us with! Do something!”
“Uh…” Timmy wedged the handle of his shovel between them in a bid to pry her hands off. It wasn’t working. As his air supply dwindled, he managed to brace one foot against her stomach and push her way. “Don’t worry.” He gasped. “I have a backup plan. Gerald, it’s time for Plan B.” He paused. This was usually where Gerald would start raving about their impending death. “Gerald?”
He looked back and stifled the urge to scream. The bureaucrat had passed out, most likely from a combination of magical exhaustion and sheer, mind-numbing terror at the thought of what the giant golem was about to do to them. Damn it.
“Katie!” Timmy grabbed Gerald and heaved him at his apprentice. She quickly formed some shadows to catch the bureaucrat. “Take Gerald away from here and wake him up.” He reached into his pockets and handed her several vials of shimmering liquid. “Give him these. All of them.”
“What are they?”
“They’re for his magic. They’ll give him a horrible headache, but they should give him enough magic to pull off Plan B.” He winced. “He’ll probably throw up afterward too, so unless you want vomit on your shoes, stand back. Just make sure you tell him to use Plan B. Trust me, he’ll know what to do.” He paused. “Oh, and he might also hallucinate and confuse you with a carnivorous plant.”
“What?”
“Look, there’s a reason magic-restoring potions are banned in most places.”
“Fine.” Katie made a break for it, several shadowy hands carrying Gerald behind her. No one needed to tell her to run away from a giant golem.
“Avraniel.” Timmy hefted his shovel in what he hoped was a suitably heroic pose. “We need to stall that thing until Gerald can use Plan B. How much magic do you have left?”
“Plenty. I can’t remember the last time I ran out, actually. But that thing’s armour isn’t half bad. Unless I hit it with something strong enough to blow up everything around us for a few miles – including you, the twerp, and the other idiot – I don’t think I can take it down.” She paused. “Although I could always do that and tell the Council I had no other choice. I might even get all the reward money –”
“No!”
“Fine.” The elf threw a few bolts of flame to destroy some incoming projectiles. She could feel the golem’s magical weapon charging again. “Then I guess we have a problem, idiot, because I don’t think that stupid golem is going to give us the time I need to muster up an attack big enough to hurt it.”
“That’s okay.” Timmy frowned and sent his more exotic zombies at the giant golem. They were probably all going to die – not even a zombie hydra-salamander-bear could last long against something that big – but they should buy them some time. “I’ve got an idea. Are you ready to cause some serious property damage?”
Avraniel cackled. “I can do that.”
Cezanne gave a quiet squeak, and he and the giant, glowing rat moved in front of them. The implication was obvious: he’d deal with any projectiles until Timmy and Avraniel were ready to strike. The golem continued its advance, crushing zombies underfoot and kicking others out of the way while its hail of projectiles continued to thin the horde. The earth shook with each step it took. Timmy shook his head. This battle was getting more costly by the moment. The golem’s shadow fell over them, blotting out the sun.
“Just a little longer,” Timmy told Cezanne. “I can’t work that fast, even with my shovel.”
The rat nodded, and the glowing rodent reared up onto its hind legs as it swatted aside projectile after projectile. Beside Timmy, Avraniel had begun to throw radiant spheres of heat and force at the golem. The machine barely seemed to take any damage, but it had slowed down. Some of his surviving zombies clambered up its legs and raced for its knees, only to be swept aside by its hands. In the meantime, Timmy continued to shove magic through his shovel and into the ground below them.
His master, crazy, evil fool that he’d been, had always emphasised the
importance of making a big first impression. He’d forced Timmy to come up with bigger, ever more impressive displays of magic. And once Timmy had worked out how to make his shovels properly, he’d pushed himself even further. There was no telling when he’d have to do something crazy.
The ground in front of him trembled. His jaw clenched. He needed more power. He closed his eyes, and magic filled the air around him as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. More. He needed more. The ground began to liquefy, huge sections of it turning into a seething mess of mud and sand. It took every ounce of control his shovel gave him to grab hold of it and yank it up into a wall that rose first dozens of feet and then dozens of yards into the air. Sweat broke out across his brow, and his jaw began to ache. He needed to make the wall bigger, and he needed to make it move.
He poured more magic into the wall until it towered over the battlefield, almost as big as the golem itself. His magic screamed in protest – trying to control this much was almost impossible – and he gave a ragged growl as he shoved the wall away, imagining a wave breaking over some distant shore, sweeping inland and crushing everything in its path. The wall of mud and sand became that wave – a wave that thundered toward the golem, swallowing the landscape in its wake.
Timmy dropped to his knees and reached into his pocket for some potions like the ones he’d given to Katie. He downed three in quick succession and somehow managed to keep from throwing up. Oh, he’d be feeling this tomorrow. At least he hadn’t started hallucinating. “Avraniel,” he shouted, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand. “Set that wave on fire!”
The elf’s eyes widened, and then she smirked. Magic rushed out of her, so much that Timmy had to turn away. She was so powerful. It was a miracle she hadn’t killed them during their fight against her. Blinding, searing streams of fire turned the wave of mud and sand into a tide of molten lava. With the last of his control, Timmy jerked the wave to the side as the golem tried to dodge the attack.
The golem went down as the wave of burning earth struck it. It stumbled and tried to regain its balance as some of its armour began to melt under the assault. It lost its footing and then toppled over, vanishing under the wave of lava that engulfed the landscape. The rock began to cool the instant Avraniel withdrew her magic, entombing the golem.
“Is it dead?” Avraniel asked.
“I wish.” Timmy forced himself back onto his feet as one colossal fist smashed out of the impromptu coffin. “But it is damaged, and if we’re lucky, Gerald should be up by now.”
* * *
“Wake up!” Katie shook Gerald. “Come on! You have to wake up!” She winced as the ground beneath her shook. The golem was getting back to its feet. “Rembrandt, do something.”
The rat – still caked in a thick layer of mud – hopped onto Gerald and poked him in several places. Like any self-respecting ninja rat, he was an expert in pressure points. The bureaucrat woke with a harsh cry, his eyes glazed. Her master was right. He was pretty much out of magic.
“Don’t let the golems kill me!” he wailed before realising who was in front of him. “Katie?”
“Drink these.” Katie shoved the vials at him. “All of them. We need the backup plan. Use Plan B.”
“What?” His gaze drifted to the gigantic golem. “Ah!”
“Yes, that sums it up. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, but my master thinks it will work, so do it!”
Gerald downed the vials in record time. Magic-restoring potions were mostly illegal, and he’d be useless for days after this, but they’d all be dead if they couldn’t come up with something. His ears rang, the world turned a funny shade of purple, and then he used his magic again. The space in front of the golem ripped open, and Katie stared as the zombie titan that she and her master had put together appeared.
So that’s where it had gone.
* * *
Timmy cackled as his zombie titan got to its feet. “Ha!” He shook one fist at the golem. “How do you like that? You’re not the only giant thing around here.” Yes, this was going to be fun, and he was dying for some payback. He reached out with his magic, glad that he’d re-animated the zombie titan before letting Gerald store it away. He had wanted to march it alongside the rest of his army, but apparently, that was completely illegal. Honestly, some people had no appreciation for the finer zombie-related things in life. He linked his will to the zombie and drew its nightmarish form up into a fighting stance. The golem watched it for a second and then raised its tower-club.
“Avraniel,” Timmy said, squaring his shoulders. “Watch and learn.”
The zombie titan rumbled forward, and his senses went into overdrive. Controlling something this huge was extremely taxing. The golem might be a little bigger than his zombie, but it hadn’t shown any real skill in hand-to-hand combat yet. Timmy knew how to fight, which meant that his zombie titan did too.
The golem unleashed a hail of projectiles that bounced off the dragon scales that Timmy had stitched onto his zombie for armour. When that didn’t work, the machine swung the tower around in a bid to take his zombie’s head clean off. The zombie ducked at Timmy’s behest and then pivoted, twisting up and into a punch so hard that the thunder of its impact snapped over the plain, a wave of sound that all but deafened him. Reinforced flesh plated in dragon scales met the metal armour of the golem. The tower hurtled out of the golem’s hands as it reeled back. The tower sailed through the air and crashed through the town until it came to a rest against the mountainside.
The golem’s jaw cracked beneath the force of the zombie’s blow, and the zombie struck again with another tremendous punch that threatened to cave in the golem’s chest. The golem stumbled back, its ragged steps carrying it more than a mile as the zombie rushed forward to close the gap again. Timmy winced. His zombie had broken its hand on the golem’s armour, and he quickly directed as much of his magic as he could spare to try to repair the damage. The golem steadied itself, and one of its fists retracted. There was a low hum, and the air was torn by a sizzling blast of magical power. His zombie jerked to the side as the attack annihilated the hill behind it and then leapt forward to tackle the golem to the ground. The kraken tentacles on his zombie’s chest flailed at the golem, trying to pry off its armour as it lifted one hand and hit the golem over and over again until it took all of Timmy’s concentration and magic to keep up with the damage the zombie’s hand was taking.
Finally, the golem managed to grab his zombie and yank it into a head butt before kicking it away. His zombie smashed through a hill and a small wood before getting back to its feet amidst the ruins of several farms. The golem charged, and the pair of giants met again in a hail of blows. Chunks of battered flesh and scales joined slabs of twisted metal on the ground. Their feet carved trenches into the earth, and each time one of the behemoths fell, the landscape changed yet again. His zombie lunged forward for another punch, but this time the golem was ready. It grabbed his zombie and threw it – destroying another hill – but his zombie replied by tearing a handful of trees out of the ground and breaking them over the golem’s head. The machine staggered back, an awkward step obliterating a nearby stream.
“This,” Katie said as she, Gerald, and Rembrandt returned. “Might be the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.”
Timmy grinned. “It is. And one day, I’ll even let you try it.”
Controlling a zombie titan was a massive undertaking. He could have left it to its own devices with a simple command to destroy the golem, but the golem was too dangerous for that. He had to control it himself. Not far off, Avraniel continued to throw fire whenever she could, slowing the golem down as Timmy pressed his attack.
The golem reared back and hit his zombie with one enormous fist. The zombie bobbed out of the way, and the blow tore off part of its shoulder instead of its head, and then replied with an uppercut that wrenched the golem’s head up and back. Armoured plates the size of wagons tumbled to the ground. The golem fired more projectiles as it fought to recov
er its balance, but Timmy refused to let up, even as the battered scales on his zombie’s chest gave way and allowed the golem’s attacks to hit home. It was okay. His zombie could take that kind of punishment. He tackled the golem again, his zombie wrestling it to the ground.
The land shook as the two giants grappled. His zombie came out on top, but the golem fired its magical weapon again and tore one of its arms off. Thankfully, the kraken tentacles on his zombie’s chest managed to pin the golem down as his zombie continued to punch it in the chest. The golem swung the arm it had torn off around and cuffed the zombie over the head with it. The zombie jerked away, and the limb slipped out of the golem’s hand and flew through the air, barely missing Timmy and the others.
The two combatants scrambled back to their feet again, and Timmy’s zombie finally managed to break the golem’s chest armour, exposing its inner workings. A moment later, the golem landed a thunderous kick, smashing his zombie’s shin. The zombie titan went down but grabbed onto the golem’s legs to prevent it getting away.
“Go!” Timmy shouted. “Katie, take Avraniel and get into its chest. You two should be able to take out its power source. My zombie won’t be able to hold it much longer.”
* * *
Katie broke into a run and then leapt into the air, her shadows giving her a boost before she turned them into wings. Avraniel grabbed hold of her leg as she flew past. Katie winced and fought the urge to shake the elf off. Avraniel was heavy – wait, some of her rats had hitched a ride too. She wrapped one shadow around the elf and then angled toward the golem’s damaged chest. Knowing their luck, it could repair itself or something. They had to take it down now. It saw them coming, and she was forced to cover her eyes as Avraniel unleashed a brilliant wave of fire to deflect the golem’s projectiles. They landed inside the golem’s chest and were immediately attacked by a swarm of smaller golems like the ones they’d faced earlier.
“Oh, come on!” Avraniel punched through the chest of one golem and hurled it out of the hole in the gigantic golem’s chest. “We need to move. This stupid thing has to die.” Another golem lunged at her, and she melted its head before grabbing it and swinging it like a club to knock the others behind it aside.
Unconventional Heroes 2 - Two Necromancers, an Army of Golems, and a Demon Lord Page 12