by Kirk Dougal
“I'm so tired.” One shadow laid her head on the shoulder of the one beside her. “I need to sleep before I try to heal anyone else.” Bree's voice rose and fell with each breath, as if the words needed to be pushed out with effort.
Silence fell over the group for a few seconds before Card laughed again. This time it grated in his throat, ending short as if it was sliced clean from his body.
“Holy shit, RJ,” he said. “Have you had to put up with this whining the whole time? Why didn't you just cut them loose and do the job you were sent in here for?”
“Wait a minute,” DeBrest said. “I'm trying to avenge my family's deaths at the hands of the Farwolaethans and restore our kingdom! I don't need to answer to you or…”
“A leader with no one to lead is just someone shouting orders into an empty room,” Card said. There was no hiding the disgust in his voice this time. If I could have seen his face, I am sure a sneer was riding on his lips.
“Leave them alone, Card. They aren't like us. They didn't sign up for the real deal.”
I stood up and walked back to the road, staring down the mountain. Across the plain, a glow rose above the walls of Dinas Farwolaeth, and I wondered if the men inside were meeting, planning their next terrorist attack somewhere in the real world.
“What the hell's wrong with you?” Card asked. “You're moping around like the boy wonder back there, still tied up in a game that he's not winning. Boo fucking hoo.” He stepped closer, and I faced him, the pale light settling on his beard and face, making them appear to float above his dark robe.
“People are dying out there, man,” he continued. “You're the great RJ Dowland, The Beast! And you let someone else lead an army that got its ass kicked. What's going on here?”
“It's not that simple,” I said. “I needed a way to get to Farwolaeth, to investigate if it was where the terrorists were making their plans. I needed DeBrest and the others.”
“And so you went along like a sheep?” Card took a step closer. “Well, you got slaughtered.” He backed up, and then turned away, facing the plain like I had a few minutes earlier. “There's our case, the killers we've been told to find so we can protect the people who count on us. If you can't do that anymore, then get the hell out of Quest Call and have Tower send in someone to help me who can.”
Card walked back toward the wagon.
*****
The air grew colder throughout the next day until I saw my breath with each exhale. Saleene and Bree were riding on point, and DeBrest had assumed his position in the rear with only a mumbled complaint. That left me alone with Card, and he had not spoken a word to me all day. The sun was still hanging high when I had enough of that.
“You didn't see how bad I screwed this up,” I said.
Card flapped the reins. “Happens to all of us.”
I shook my head. “Not like this. I thought Samson was one of the terrorists. The way he acted, always sneaking around, popping up out of thin air, and then disappearing again. He didn't talk to any of us, didn't try to make friends.”
Card laughed once, a smirk on his face. “That's the pot calling the kettle black. You're not exactly the friendliest son of a bitch.”
I ignored the remark. “Yeah, but then I compounded the whole thing by putting my trust in Pagul, and he ended up running straight to the castle when the Farwolaethans attacked. He was long gone by the time the dragon swooped in. I didn't even suspect him as a traitor. He probably was the one who killed Spoon, too.”
The silence fell between us again until a hard bump in the road jarred Card back into the conversation.
“What was his plan?” he asked.
“Who?”
“What was Pagul's plan?” Card glanced over at me. “Why did he go along with DeBrest, slowly make his way across, what, three kingdoms? Why not just get a good horse and go by himself? He would have been to the castle a lot faster.”
I opened my mouth, but then let it close. Card was right. I had no idea what Pagul had been thinking. “I don't know.”
Card shook his head and stared forward again.
“Saleene told me that they called you Wolf. I thought at first it was because they saw your tattoo, but she said it was because you were a lone wolf and would go off and take on Eaters or someone in a fight by yourself. She also told me that you attacked a holy crusader of your own faith without even trying to talk to him. That's balls before brains crap. You can't just muscle your way through the game. What happened to someone inside The Kindred who tried to do that?”
I let my head drop. “I showed them who was the real muscle.”
“And did you do that inside The City? Did you figure out who Raven was by beating up everybody until they talked?”
Card knew I had taken worse beatings than I gave in The City. He had read all the mission reports. “No.”
“You've got to respect the game, RJ. Use your brain, think it through. You've got to own your character just like you owned The Beast. Hell, you were The Beast! You treated The Kindred like real life, and I'll bet you don't think about The City as a game when you're inside of it. It's all real to you. You haven't even tried to do that in Quest Call.”
My thoughts turned to Evelyn and what she had done for me. I also remembered how I longed to be inside the game, barely waiting for Tower to finish asking me to join the FBI program before saying yes. The real world was a mystery to me, a mystery filled with the pain of DIOD. But inside the games, I was alive. Card was right, and for his own part, so was DeBrest and all his emotional talk about avenging his family. I needed to start acting like Quest Call was my life.
I settled back against the seat and tried to make myself comfortable. I had a lot to think about.
*****
“With a good pace tomorrow, we'll make White Hall Pass,” Saleene said. “Then we're back in Bretonia.”
“At least we'll be warm again,” DeBrest said. “Right now, I'd take a little of that dragon fire.” He coughed and huddled under his blanket in the corner of the wagon. It was so cold this high on the mountain, the decision had been made to sleep inside so we were at least out of the wind that flapped the canvas top.
“And then what?” My words were quiet, but everyone stopped moving around when I spoke. My mind had been wrapped around my time in Quest Call since the conversation with Card in the afternoon, and I had not spoken since. “What are you going to do then, DeBrest? Saleene? Bree?”
“I…I don't know,” DeBrest said after a few seconds. “I wanted to make Farwolaeth pay for what they did to my family…” His voice died away.
“You've got something in mind,” Saleene said. The handful of words were the most she had said to me at one time since we left the Temple of the Soaring Eagle. Again, I wondered how much of my conversation with the oracle she had overheard.
“Card and I are going back to Dinas Farwolaeth. It's very important that we get inside the castle.”
“That's suicide,” Bree said. “You still can't sit up straight because of your injuries. I don't want to die just for fun. I don't want to leave.” She was silhouetted against the opening in the wagon top, and I saw her glance toward Saleene.
“We don't have a choice,” I said. “People are dying and we believe the answer to those deaths is inside those castle walls.”
DeBrest snorted. “I thought the answer to my quest was inside there, too. You see where that got me. We could—”
“Your meeting with the oracle at the temple was not just the game,” Saleene interrupted. “I heard some of your talk, and it sounded more like the two of you were passing messages back and forth rather than some kind of prophecy. You talked about the outside.”
I glanced at Card, but his face was hidden in the shadows. I waited for a few seconds, but he did not respond.
“You heard me giving my report on my findings inside Quest Call. Card and I both work for the FBI, and we're in here on an investigation.” I swallowed and took a deep breath. “So was Trellac. The oracle w
as someone the programmers placed inside the game so we could get messages out without my needing to leave.”
“That's how you get around the game time regulations,” Bree said.
“Oh, man.” DeBrest's voice had risen again. “I've skimmed a few hours here and there, but don't kick me out and take my game privileges. This is my time—”
“Easy, Duke,” I interrupted. “Card and I aren't here looking for anybody going over in game hours. When I said people were dying because of things happening inside Quest Call, I meant it.”
“And you want us to help.” The way Saleene said the words, they were a statement and not a question. “Otherwise you two could have just ridden off and not told us about why you were really here.”
“Yes, we need your help.”
Card fidgeted against the wagon wall and coughed. “Everyone here should know that this is dangerous. It's not a game.”
“Now I know this is all bullshit,” DeBrest said with a laugh. “This isn't like a movie. What happens inside doesn't affect you in real life. I knew you were just making this all up.”
“Yes, it's true that what happens to you here doesn't hurt you outside,” I said. “But every avatar inside a game has an IP tag. That tag can be tracked and will tell people where your body is in the real world.”
“And when the wrong people find the tag, they can kill you outside,” Card said. “The people we're looking for now are terrorists who are meeting inside the games to make their plans for attacks. If you've been outside the game, you've seen them on the news channels. Last year, RJ hunted down a serial killer who had killed seven people by tracking their victims in games. They'd murdered even more outside.”
I flinched at his mention of Gwen and my hunt for her as the Raven. My thoughts turned to her being locked away in a federal prison under psych control, and I asked myself for the millionth time how much of it was my fault.
“So, what's our next move?” Saleene's voice held an edge.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Don't even try to leave me behind,” she said. I did not need to see her eyes to know they were flashing like the night I had knocked her unconscious and taken her dagger. “I had a friend who died in the Paris attack earlier this year.”
“I'm in, too.” Bree did not sound as sure.
I stared at the corner where DeBrest sat in the dark. I could not see his face but his breath was short and quick.
“If we help, can we let people know after we're done?” he asked. “I mean, like my parents. Will the FBI tell them that I helped you do something good?”
“How old are you, really?” Card asked.
“Twenty.”
“If we catch these bastards, I'll see that it happens if I have to tell your parents myself,” I said. “Besides, if we do this right, you'll probably still get to take revenge for your game parents as well.”
“Yeah!” DeBrest's voice rose on the word.
“So you still haven't answered my question,” Saleene said. “What's our next move?”
“We need to take care of the biggest problem facing us first,” I said. “How do we survive the dragon?”
We all sat in silence for a stretch. After a few moments, a switch turned in my thoughts.
“Card, you said you held off the dragon when you rescued my on the battlefield. Can you kill it?”
“No, it took everything I had just to make him flinch. I could probably keep him occupied for a couple of attacks. Maybe a few minutes but not really hurt him.”
This time the quiet drew out, seconds turning into long minutes. At one point, I was afraid all my companions had dozed off, and I was the only one still awake. Finally, I heard rustling in the corner.
“Maybe we can start all over again raising an army,” DeBrest said as he settled his seat. “We just need to stay away from people like the Horde.”
The final piece fell into place, and I groaned at how slow I had been to think of the solution.
“I'm just trying to help,” DeBrest went on. “You don't have to act like it was that bad an idea.”
“No, no,” I said. “It's not a bad idea. It's just the wrong beginning. DeBrest, tell me the truth—you learned about your family inside the game from Spoon.”
“Yes.”
“I'll bet he found you inside the tavern when you first joined the game.”
“Yeah, he said I looked just like Bear Killer, his old duke. We talked, and then I went off to find out where Farwolaeth was. That's when I met Pagul and the Horde. We made some gold and agreed they would come fight for me.” He snorted. “Yeah, fight for me.”
“That doesn't matter now,” I said. I leaned forward, my excitement making it hard to sit still. “But the same thing happened to me. It happened to all of us. We came into Quest Call and the programming offered us standard adventures to start with so the game was interesting. I was told I looked like a Lord's son. I was told about a lost treasure and other adventures. But that doesn't mean we can't use parts of the programmed stories to help us now.” I took a deep breath. “When I first came inside, I heard a story about searching for the last dragon slayer. That's where we start. We go back to the tavern and find the last dragon slayer and convince him to help us get into Dinas Farwolaeth. Tomorrow morning, we leave the wagon and all of us ride horses out of here. We'll be able to move faster.”
“Sounds like we have a plan, RJ.” I still could not see Card's face but his words held a note of satisfaction.
“RJ?” Saleene asked. “You said that earlier. Is that what you want us to call you instead of Wolf?”
“I'll take the first watch,” I said as I crawled to the back of the wagon. I hesitated in the opening, one leg dangling out into the open. “And no, call me Beast.”
Chapter 26
Saleene had been correct, we breached the White Mountains a little after noon the next day and crossed through the White Hall Pass back into Bretonia. As we rode through the cleft in the peak, every blanket we owned wrapped around our bodies while breath streamed out in billowing fogs, I understood how the opening received its name. The rocky sides were covered with ice, thick enough to turn dazzling blue-white in the sunshine, slick and shiny. The walls created the appearance of a snow giant's hallway painted white, towering above our heads another two hundred feet before finally ending at the top of the ridge.
On the west side of the mountain, the weather began warming again at once. More importantly, clearing the passage also meant we could have a fire and real food again. There still was not much game this high, but Saleene found a half-grown mountain goat she was able to bring down with a shot I thought was just a waste of an arrow. But a long second after the bowstring twanged, a bleat escaped before the goat tumbled down the rocky side of a sheer drop. The hardest part proved to be recovering the animal. Later, we found a depression in the rock, not deep enough to be called a true cave, but it provided us with a break from the wind that constantly swirled around us on the trail.
“We need more supplies,” DeBrest was saying around a mouthful of goat when I returned from taking Card some food. The other detective had volunteered for first guard duty and was stationed down the path where he could see below.
“What's that?” I asked.
“He wants a full larder,” Bree said. “Maybe we should just pop down to the market for some greens and potatoes.”
“No, no. That's not it at all,” DeBrest said. “Well, kind of, but not really. I mean that we'll need more bread and other things besides the meat we can catch out here.”
“I hate to say it, but he's right,” Saleene said. She moved over so I could sit with my back to the stone. Bree glanced away and turned her shoulder to me.
“And I don't carry an endless mound of these arrows,” Saleene continued. “I've already cut into Bree's supply, and she told me last night she need more poultice materials for when she is too tired to heal us. I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking of, too.”
I kept chewin
g, but I thought of my own injuries. Bree had stopped the bleeding from my knife wounds, saving my life, and healed me with her hands the best she could while they dragged me away from the plain in front of the castle. But since then, she had let my wounds heal on their own.
“I can understand that,” I said. My shield and sword were still somewhere on the battlefield, leaving me with only a knife and a couple of Farwolaethan spears to protect myself with if we were attacked. “I think we all need to resupply. So what's the nearest place to make that happen?”
DeBrest shoved the last of his travel biscuit and goat into his mouth and reached in the pouch on his waist. A moment later, he pulled out the map he had shown me earlier when he sent me off to see the oracle at Dziewona's temple.
“We're here.” He pointed at the drawing of the mountain, but then took the time to wipe away some crumbs that had fallen from his mouth. “If we angle to the north once we reach the forest floor, the map shows several towns not very far away. But…” He stopped.
“But what?” I asked.
DeBrest rubbed a hand through his hair. “But they're all in Qunader. I don't know what we'll find there.”
“Why not?” Saleene asked.
“The Long Night.” My words hung in the air between us. “When Spoon told me the story of how he survived the sneak attack by the Farwolaethans on Breton, he said that there had been rumors of attacks on Qunader before and that destroyed cities and villages had been left in their wake. The cities on the map might be exactly like the ones we found when we were traveling in Breton—just burned out husks with no one living there.”
“Then we head straight for Breton,” Bree said. “We know there's an armory and other supplies we can use.” She remained half-turned away from me.
“That's no good,” I said. “That doesn't solve our long-term food problem.”
“Bear Run.” DeBrest was quiet but firm when he spoke. The whining that had been so present in his voice since Pagul's betrayal and the lost battle was gone, and he sounded once again like the young duke. “It's out of the way to the south, but we know there are people there. The Gargians must have food, and maybe we can barter with them.”