Wild Wastes Omnibus

by Randi Darren

  And so… here I am. Staring down those who want to kill me because Al’s a dick. I’ve probably personally freed more slaves than I can even count.

  The very cause they fight for, and yet here I am.

  Being hunted by them.

  Vince shook his head, wishing again that he’d slaughtered Al when he’d had the chance. The only reason for Al to bother Vince now could be revenge.

  That or some elaborate plot he had no idea about, but that didn’t seem likely.

  Real life didn’t work like that.

  The horses were charging up the hill now.

  Taking several quick breaths, Vince thought hard on what to do. They were moving towards him at full speed. Apparently they planned to simply run him down rather than fight him.

  Rocketing forward, Vince chose his fate.

  Sprinting, he closed in on the riders in the front. Seeing him flying their way they began to attempt to redress their ranks and close up as they rode.

  Slipping in between two of them, Vince slashed at the arm of the one on his right. Then he dug a furrow into the side of the horse on his left. The horse was innocent in this, and Vince’s only goal was to take a leg off the rider himself. Didn’t matter though.

  Shrieking furiously, the horse bucked sideways.

  Turning with the attack, Vince danced in front of another horse, the tip of his sword spearing its throat as he passed.

  He pitied the horse for a millisecond, then moved on.

  Grabbing a hold of a passing leg he pulled savagely, tumbling a woman from her saddle.

  Vince pierced her chest as she hit the ground with a quick stab from his blade. He looked up to reorient himself.

  Just as he did a boot smashed into his face as a rider blew by, sending Vince careening to the turf.

  Rolling with the hit, Vince found himself fetching up beside a dying horse.

  Getting behind the twitching and shuddering mount he found the rider. They were trapped underneath the horse with one leg pinned underneath.

  The Elf held his hands up in supplication, as if to beg for mercy.

  Vince’s sword struck sure and fast, taking off several fingers as the tip exploded through the man’s neck.

  Turning his head one way, then the other, he found that the vast majority of the riders were wheeling around back to face him for another charge.

  Sliding to the other side of the now dead horse Vince could only wait. Taking a heaving breath he gave himself a shake, trying to keep his anger and fear in check.

  He didn’t want to lose his mind. To fall into the rage that befell him last time. He needed to plan. To think.

  To look for every and any possible opportunity.

  Finishing their wide turn the horsemen closed ranks and then charged him again.

  Vince lifted his left hand and murmured in a sing-song voice.

  Speed, strength, and power flooded into his muscles as the spell finished. The drain on the grove was noticeable, but not significantly.

  His spell had been clean, efficient, direct.

  Leila had done her best with him after all. He wasn’t talented in sorcery, but he was well trained.

  A number of small fireballs and even a lightning bolt flew out from the horsemen’s ranks.

  Preparing a channel from his arm to his leg, Vince lifted his blade up. He caught the bolt of electricity on the tip of the saber and directed it down his side and into the ground with a quick incantation.

  Everything suddenly smelled of bacon and burnt hair.

  He hurt terribly along the side he’d magically grounded the bolt, but he was alive.

  For the fireballs he simply dodged them. They weren’t moving fast enough to catch him with his enhanced speed.

  Then the horses were on him.

  Running forward, Vince leapt upward. Crashing into the lead riders he sent a number of them tumbling. Smashing bodily into one in particular though, Vince wrapped himself around the woman.

  Her blade skittered off his shoulder and split his armor where it hit.

  Grabbing her by the throat, Vince pushed her backwards off the horse. She fell screaming into the thundering pounding hooves of all those who came after her.

  Struggling to force the horse to stop, Vince fended off a few attacks with one hand. Several slipped through his guard, drawing blood or carving his armor.

  Vince got his horse to slow down enough for the first and second rank to flow around him. The ranks that followed had no idea what was going on and went by him, their horses unwilling to slam into Vince’s.

  Someone had a keen eye though, and slashed outward with their blade at Vince.

  Dodging the attack, Vince could only watch in pessimistic horror as the blade smashed into the back of his horse’s head.

  The animal dropped, and Vince found himself fighting to not get trampled.

  After a time, that felt like hours, the thundering passed.

  Bleeding, battered, and feeling like a road, Vince stood up over the dead horse.

  Looking around, there were a number of fallen riders and mounts around him.

  He’d killed some, knocked others down, and created anarchy with every pass.

  Except that he was losing this battle. In two passes he’d been battered terribly and was now bleeding from several places.

  I can do this. I can do this. If they come again… we’ll… we’ll just…

  Vince flogged at his fuzzy thoughts, trying to get them into order.

  The horsemen completed their turn, wheeling around on him again.

  Instead, this time, they slowed down. Those with weapons that had a long reach were filtering to the front.

  Rather than try to rush him again, and risk whatever he might do next to them, the riders began to fan out around him, encircling him.

  They’d surround him and bring him down over time.

  “Shit,” Vince said, blood from a cut on his forehead running down into his eyes.

  Panting, Vince looked around himself, trying to figure out what to do next.

  Before they could finish encircling him, there was a screaming roar from above.

  It was loud, vicious, and it hit him right in the primal part of his brain. Vince wanted to get low to the ground and scan the skyline for whatever was hunting him.

  Then a blurred form smashed into an attacker in front of Vince. The rider was knocked forward like a cannonball, shooting from his saddle and blasting into a second person.

  What hit the rider floated towards him with two beats of their wings.

  The horned head turned towards him.

  Ramona’s short silver hair framed her reptilian blue eyes. She gave Vince a once over with those eyes and looked back to the horsemen.

  They fixed her wings already?

  Leila hopped free from between the Dragonnewt’s wings and scampered over to him. She waved her hands back and forth as she did, her voice inaudible but her lips moving. Air gathered up beneath her and formed itself into a disc.

  “H-hey there,” said the Gnome, floating up beside him.

  Vince blinked at her, staring into the Gnome’s big eyes.

  “Hey,” Vince said woodenly.

  He almost felt drunk. It’d been a while since he’d been pressed this hard.

  Ramona spun in the air and touched down beside him, putting her back to him.

  “Everyone is on the way. Red will be here the soonest. Probably about a minute out. Kitch and her people are coming at a trot but they’re probably fifteen minutes from here,” Ramona explained. Her wings flapped once more and then folded up behind her.

  “Oh,” Vince said, pulling his eyes from Leila and looking to the riders. “Glad to see both of you, and that your wings are healed.”

  “Grove of bored Dryads who took a much deeper interest in me when they realized I was living in your home,” Ramona said neutrally, her hands flexing. “That and you apparently made an offer to them on my behalf.”

  Around them, the riders had been conferr
ing with each other.

  One in particular seemed to be leading the conversation.

  Looking to Leila, Vince held up a hand towards the obvious leader. “Leila, co—”

  A ball of dark twisting nasty flew out from Leila’s hands and splattered all over the man. Vince hadn’t even noticed she’d been whispering a spell.

  When it struck the man, the miasma of awful behaved like a fluid, splashing all around everyone near him.

  Screaming as the purple nightmare crawled over his skin as if it were alive, the leader fell to the ground. Everyone around him who had been struck began to screech and howl as well.

  Blinking, Vince wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  Leila swung one arm around and a lasso of dark blue hell came free of her wrist, encircling another two riders. They were dragged to the ground when Leila tugged on her end, the two staring blankly at nothing, unmoving.

  The lasso passed through them, and white mist was ripped free from their bodies.

  Leila began panting heavily at Vince’s side, her shoulders shaking. To Vince it seemed as if those two spells she’d thrown had taken a massive toll on her.

  There was a howl from the side followed by a deafening bang. A rider was sent flying from her mount. Latched tightly to the woman was Red. Her fingers were sunk deep into the woman’s chest and neck and only came free when the two women hit the dirt.

  Holding up her arms, the pale skinned Cursed Beastkin howled to the heavens.

  It was a cry that was unnatural, that actually pulled on the darkness inside of herself. Matched with the pair of bright glowing red eyes, Red was truly nightmarish.

  Having lost so many of their people, and leaders, the attackers began to melt away from the hill. They took off in the direction of the woods they’d come from.

  Perhaps to get reinforcements. Maybe to retreat.

  Either way, Vince wasn’t about to let this chance slip away.

  “Go,” Vince commanded, setting off at a jog towards the last spot he’d seen Eva.

  “Thanks. Each one of you, thank you. Without your timely intervention I’m not sure I’d have made it out of that in one piece,” Vince said, his words a bit slurred. Looking around himself at the trio of women he felt deeply indebted to them. “Consider me in your debt. Deeply so.”

  Red gave him a feral grin, her eyes crinkling as she loped along easily beside him. The crazed monster from moments ago gone.

  Leila nodded her head, sitting down on her floating disc. She looked winded, but pleased with herself. “I’m sure I’ll think of something,” said the Gnome with a tired smile.

  Ramona returned his gaze evenly when he put his attention to her.

  She took another step as they ran, and then flapped her wings, taking off from the ground. She got twenty feet above him and remained there, going no higher, no lower, or any faster.

  Vince spent a few moments watching her fly. Her flight didn’t seem quite natural, certainly not very birdlike with the way her legs hung down beneath her, but he was sure there was some type of magic at work here as well.

  Turning his eyes forward, Vince ran on.

  Linking up with his people on the outskirts of the plain, Vince couldn’t help but feel relieved. For a bit there, he really wasn’t quite sure how he’d be getting out of that mess.

  Even dropping into a berserk state probably wouldn’t have finished it.

  Out of everyone though, Kitch was particularly angry. Her rage at him being attacked, and at being completely unable to assist, knew no bounds.

  There was no hiding that everyone was curious about how this had happened though. Quite a few eyes jumped to the squirming sack at Vince’s side.

  The rest of the trip was planned to be made swiftly, at a pace that allowed no possibility of being chased, flanked, or ensnared.

  Fes, Petra, and Kitch would have no discussion.

  Vince was treated more akin to precious cargo than a person.

  That didn’t change until Kitch had personally escorted him up to the front door of his manor.

  Elysia, Fes, Leila, and Red accompanied him to a quiet room which had once stored all of his “trophies.” Now it held a table, a few chairs, empty display cases, and nothing else.

  Opening up the bag with the Fairy in it, Vince dumped the occupant out onto the table.

  The bound Fairy flopped onto the table limply.

  Vince had done away with the gag the moment he’d linked up with the others. At the time the Fairy had refused to say a word.

  With a cursory sweep of her mind Vince had found it was protected and hardened.

  Apparently news of his abilities, or abilities like his in general, had been shared. Along with how to defend against it.

  I should probably teach my own people how to defend against it, after having encountered it twice myself.

  Seating himself at the table Vince stared at the Fairy.

  She really was a huge specimen for Fairies.

  “I’ll make this very simple, and very straightforward,” Vince said, holding his hands open to the Fairy. “I want information. You have information. I can torture you for it, and you’ll tell me, or you tell me, and we avoid all that unpleasantness.”

  The Fairy got herself sitting upright, then turned herself around to face him.

  “What do I get out of that?” came a tiny voice.

  “I’m really not sure yet, to be honest. I might let you go, I might give you a very swift and clean death. Your alternative is that I pull your wings off. I imagine that can’t be fun, or quick. After that, I’ll start to cut pieces off of you while feeding it to a dog,” Vince said evenly. “I’ll start small. A finger here, a foot there. Eventually you’ll be nothing but a torso. I figure at that point, maybe I let one of my Trolls chew on you for a few hours. Tell them to be sure to take hours to crush you to death.”

  The Fairy hung its head and sobbed softly.

  Vince let the silence hang over it. Silence was a weapon as much as a blade was. It could cut almost as deeply if given time.

  Several minutes later, the Fairy lifted its head.

  “We got intel that you’d be leaving the Emperor’s home two months in advance. We began filtering in immediately and lay in wait. There were a hundred and fifty of us at the start.

  “We lost some here and there through regular patrols and just being unlucky,” said the tiny Waster. “Then we got word that you were only a day out. We called everyone in and began preparing for an assault. Then we moved to wait at the river crossing.”

  “Why the river crossing?” Elysia asked. She and the others had remained silent, hanging back in the darkness.

  “We were told that’s the way you’d be going the same day you left,” said the Fairy.

  Vince snorted and put his chin in one hand, staring at the prisoner.

  “It’s true!” responded the Fairy angrily.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that, actually. I’m wondering more about how much the emperor sold me out for. I admit I’m not exactly a citizen anymore, and that Yosemite isn’t part of his empire, but all the same that’s rather cold,” Vince said.

  “The emperor?” Leila asked from behind him.

  “He can read minds. Pull information right out of your head,” Vince said, deciding to tell everyone. “I didn’t want to say anything till we made it back home but… yeah, he can read minds. I imagine he read our people’s minds and figured out which way we’d be going on the return trip. Then sent a missive off to our would be killers.”

  The Fairy shook her head slowly, frowning. “No. The emperor is your ally. You were there to talk about an alliance.”

  Grinning, Vince shook his head. “No. We were there to trade for food so that Yosemite can remain free and self-sustaining. We were admittedly forced to trade in Dwarven forged goods, but that’s the extent of it.”

  “No! You lie… you’re a city full of enslaved. Enslaved and used and—”

  “Hmph. I think we’ve got our answer,” Vince s
aid, standing up.

  The Fairy blinked, staring up at him. “Are you going to kill me now?”

  Shaking his head, Vince pulled out a thin leather rope he’d grabbed on the way in.

  “No. I’m going to turn you into a pet for now while I think on this,” Vince said. Pushing the Fairy down onto its stomach, he checked the tiny bindings around its wrists.

  They were tight and neat. The Fairy’s fingers and hands had no discoloration and were warm to the touch.

  No issues.

  Looping the thin rope around the Fairy’s waist, he slipped it into her wrist bindings, and then tied it off around her hips.

  Taking the other end of the rope, he lashed it into one of his belt loops and then picked up the Fairy and set it down on his shoulder.

  Damn thing is so big it takes up my entire shoulder.

  “Feel free to fly around, but don’t go too far. And one more thing, what are you? I’ve never seen a Fairy so big.” Vince said, eying the Fairy.

  “I’m a Fae, not a Fairy. And my name is Sam,” said the creature, her entirely blue eyes staring at him.

  “Sam? That’s an odd one for Wasters. And a Fae to boot, huh? Haven’t met one of you yet. Interesting, interesting,” Vince mumbled under his breath. Turning to face Elysia, Leila, and Red, he smiled. “I don’t want to hold a meeting or anything like that. I’m no merchant prince, but I want to know. Are we in the clear? Did you have time to check in with Felicity?”

  Elysia grinned at him and tilted her head to one side. “Yosemite will stand, my liege. We’re well and truly safe. The first shipment from everyone is due to arrive this month, and after that, we’ll be in the clear in actuality rather than on paper.”

  Vince sighed and closed his eyes.

  A massive weight that had been squatting on his chest vanished, just like that.

  Chapter 27

  Vince had a solid three weeks of being able to pawn almost everything off on his people.

  For his part, Vince was on vacation.

  He ate, slept, played with and held his children, relaxed in the grove behind his home, and generally did whatever he wanted.

  By the time that things changed, Vince was actually ready to get back into the swing of things.

  This change was signaled by a message from Elysia to go to his library. And there a giant map had been spread out on a large table. All of the desks, tables, and chairs had been cleared out to make room for this change. The size of the map was staggering in truth. Equally staggering was the amount of detail on it.