by Bryan Fields
Harmony curled up on a fifty-foot wide futon, tucked her nose under her tail, and dropped off to sleep. Rose found a slab of rock set over the hypocaust for the boiler and settled in there. We Humans dined on warm balls of rice wrapped around sweet red bean paste, grilled chicken with teriyaki glaze, and mint tea, all provided by a ghostly, half-seen wait staff.
Ember curled up between Harmony’s claws while Miranda and Jake found an empty room to retire to. Rose’s rock was far too hot to touch, much less sleep on. I dragged a futon out onto the grass as close as I could get to her and sacked out there.
Breakfast came early. The little spirit-people populating the road house left us two Dragon-sized portions of tea, two whole Bluefin tuna, a kettle of rice and a dozen eggs. Jake made more coffee, and we ate outside, wrapped in blankets, watching the suns come up.
I asked, “Is there any chance the criminals camping in town will help us? Have them spread out and check other buildings to give a broader search area and then we buy all the boxes they can find from them.”
“It’s possible,” Harmony said. “I wouldn’t count on it, however. I think the best we’ll be able to do is convince them to stay out of our way.”
“What if they get hostile?” Ember asked. “I have no desire to become a Redshirt.”
“We give them a choice,” I said. “Let Rose and I go in first to talk to them. Harmony, you stay on station and cover us. They can help, or stay out of our way. If they get violent, well, we’ll deal with it.”
Jake said, “If they do, I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.
Things were quiet as we broke camp and got under way. Jake’s words might be intended as a joke, but that was exactly the worst case scenario I was picturing. I tried to keep it out of mind while I prepared my speech for our arrival.
Half an hour isn’t enough time to plan a good speech, but as we circled the settlement, I decided that fancy wordplay wouldn’t go over well with this crowd. Most of the structures weren’t even tents or shacks; more like lean-tos or scrapyard huts. We circled twice, and I held my hand up in greeting. After the second circle, a group of toughs escorted a middle-aged man out to the middle of a weed-filled field. I patted Rose’s neck and we came down about twenty yards away.
I took off my helmet and climbed off Rose’s back. “Good morning! Are you gentlemen authorized to speak for this settlement?”
The older man nodded. “I am Tyron, chief advisor to Warlord Vikan. What do you want?”
“My name is David. My friends and I are here to search the ruins for some specific items. If your people are willing to help us, we are willing to pay for their services and any of these items they find. I’m sure we can find a way to express our gratitude to Warlord Vikan as well.”
Tyron’s mustache twitched. “And if we refuse?”
“We search the ruins on our own.”
He shook his head. “You will not return. You are not the first to seek riches among the ruins. They are protected, and you will die. We will not help you. Leave with your lives, and be happy you have breath.”
“We’re not here for financial reward. The stakes are a little higher than that for us. We’re going in, with or without your people.” I waited a handful of seconds before adding, “I won’t try to force you to help us, but I do suggest you stay out of our way. Don’t try to complicate things.”
“I will take your words to the Warlord. Wait here.” Tyron gestured for the toughs to stay and started walking back to the settlement.
The police radio on my belt crackled to life with Jake’s voice. “Get out of there! They’ve got some kind of arrow launchers pointed at you!”
I vaulted into the saddle and Rose surged forward. She was airborne in two steps and climbing as we passed over the settlement. An arrow banged off my helm and two more glanced off Rose’s scales. I heard a familiar-sounding hiss, like a model rocket engine or a large pop-bottle rocket, and something streaked past Rose’s head.
Rose pulled a hard right bank, still climbing as fast as she could. I looked back over my shoulder and spotted plumes of smoke rising from two swivel-mounted boxes. Each one had a grid of hundreds of holes in the end pointed towards us. I’d seen contraptions like that before, and they were one myth that was far from busted.
I kicked my heels into Rose’s shoulders. “Climb, climb, climb!” More arrows hissed past us—the fuses were almost finished burning. I grabbed my radio and called out, “They’ve got hwachas! Stay high and look for more fuse smoke!” As I spoke, two dark clouds of smoke billowed up as the propellant for the arrows caught. Both hwachas were obscured by the smoke trails of hundreds of rocket-propelled arrows filling the sky.
Rose and Harmony were both too high and too far outside the cone of attack for the arrows to threaten us. I clicked on my radio. “Keep an eye out for smoke and hope to Hell they don’t have any more of those!”
I pulled my bow out and settled a broadhead on the string. Common soldiers and thugs were of no consequence, but someone with a foot bow could be real trouble. Thankfully none of this rabble had anything like that to call on. Rose executed a sharp turn and came back around, putting the sun behind us.
As she settled in, I spotted a punk wearing a helm with a bright red horse’s mane and a bull’s horns stuck to either temple. That had to be the warlord. I shifted my knees and leaned, prompting Rose to slide into the approach I wanted.
Rose turned her head and called back, “We can’t flame them. We could destroy the boxes.”
“Don’t worry about flaming them. Bring me in toward the guy in the funny hat.” I drew, doing my best to adjust for elevation and wind. Archery ranges don’t offer ‘shooting from Dragon-back’ practice.
Vikan puffed out his chest and made a ‘come get some’ gesture. I obliged him.
Rose went into a glide just as we went past Vikan. I turned in my seat and loosed my arrow, aiming back over my shoulder. The aluminum arrow flashed in the sunlight and went true, pinning Vikan’s stupid-ass hat to his skull and spraying brains out the exit wound. I punched the air and shouted.
Gotta’ shoot ’em in the head, right?
Miranda came on the radio. “Good shot, boss. Hey, we’ve got a full case of tear gas grenades over here. Why don’t we unload some on these assholes?” No one had any objections.
Harmony made a wide circle to get some speed up and came in from out of the sun. Jake, Miranda, and Ember tossed three grenades each, blanketing the ground with nasty yellow smoke. The inhabitants broke from cover and ran, holding rags, shirts, anything they could find over their faces.
Rose felt my question before I asked and turned her head back to me. “They evacuated the women and children while we were circling. They’ve been ready for an attack for a while.” I nodded, but it didn’t help my mood any.
Jake tossed a handful of flash-bangs, dislodging a few more die-hard defenders. Not enough, though; we heard a resounding ‘TWANG’ and saw a harpoon screaming toward Harmony, trailing a barbed chain. It went wide, and I saw the ballista crew scrambling to re-arm it.
Harmony doubled back on herself and exhaled lightning. The bolt danced around the ballista, killing three of the crewmen in mid-step and setting fire to the ballista itself.
A woman stepped out from behind a tree and made a throwing gesture aimed at Harmony. A lightning bolt of her own arced from her fingers, but Miranda brought her riot shield up in time to block it. Jake turned, looking back over his left shoulder, and squeezed off three rounds. The woman dropped.
Miranda came on over the radio. “I think we’ve got them on the run. We’ve probably got a few hours before they regroup enough to counterattack.”
I shook my head, but I knew she was right. “Agreed. Let’s go in.”
I kept my helm on and loosened my sword in its scabbard before stepping down from Rose’s shoulder. Harmony stayed on the ground while Rose took off again, as Harmony had the st
rength and size to fly all four of us out if the natives got restless. I took point, with Jake and Miranda behind me on either side of Ember. The map indicated a dozen possible locations to search, with six being on two adjacent streets. We decided to start there.
The ruins were in terrific shape, with only minor weather and wildlife damage. The first time we saw one of the spirits was a bit unnerving; all of them looked pretty much as they had when rigor set in. A number of them had died by violence and a small number were too horrific to look at. Thankfully, they were content to ignore us for now.
For a moment, I let myself think it was going to be easy.
Chapter Six
“Kill Skull First, Then the X…”
Dwarven architecture is a bit hard to describe. My first impression was that the buildings looked like something from the Stone Age; solid rock walls with a slab of stone for a roof. On closer inspection, though, I realized that the walls were cut and dressed so well the seams were imperceptible. The roof was a series of interlocking panels that fit together without cement or mortar, yet still managed to be waterproof. Even the larger buildings were built the same way, giving the whole city the appearance of a Zen rock garden arranged by giants. The interiors were mostly flagstone floors and wood-paneled walls. Every flat surface had some kind of decoration, either painting or carving.
The first building we entered had been partially ransacked already. The artisan’s personal effects had been tossed, but the workshop and storeroom doors were still closed. I opened the workshop door and found the artisan’s spirit glaring back at me.
I waved. “Hello. We’re not here to hurt you or destroy anything. We’re looking for some wooden boxes. Can you help us?” Miranda handed me the sketch of the boxes. I unrolled it and held it up so the spirit could see it. “We are looking for these,” I said. “Do you have a problem with that?”
The spirit ignored me, busy grasping tools he couldn’t touch and working stone that wasn’t on the work bench. I handed the sketch back to Miranda and walked into the storeroom. I grabbed a not-too-decrepit broom, brushing away a few spider webs and a lot of dust. The store room held assorted slabs of raw jade, spare tools, and row upon row of foot-tall wooden boxes.
Gleaming in the beam of my flashlight, I spotted three boxes with the coveted bamboo-shaped rune. I handed them to Ember, who slipped them into one of the cargo bags. None of the other boxes had the same symbol, so we moved on to the next building.
We were in the third building and on our fourteenth box when we heard Harmony roar, followed by a rapid succession of thunderclaps. We ran outside in time to see Rose firing off small, fast-moving fireballs just over the tops of the trees to the west. The commotion startled a number of spiders living in the scrub under the eaves of the building and sent them scurrying away. Fine with me; they were about the size of my palm and looked like they were crusted with rock fragments.
Rose did a low-altitude pass and waved for us to continue. We made our way to the next street over. Jake caught a motion out of the corner of his eye and dropped another spider, this one closer to the size of a dessert saucer.
Looking down at the splattered spider, Jake got on the radio. “Got a spider bigger than my fist, hairy, red and orange marks on the carapace. These things poisonous?”
“Sunset mandarins,” Rose replied. “Not deadly, unless you get bitten several times. Very painful, though. Stomp them.”
“Roger that,” I sent. We moved on. The next shop had half a dozen spirits in it, all working away as we went through the place. We bagged another two boxes and started to leave, but Ember started shouting profanity and firing arrows at the wall. Another spider, but this one was the size of a dinner plate. She didn’t bother retrieving the arrows stapling it to the wall.
Ember put her hand over her mouth and took several deep breaths. She managed a smile. “Ding! That had to worth a butt-load of experience points. Having the Dragons around makes me feel like I’m being power-leveled.”
“A wizard and a ranger once tried to power-level a halfling by running him through a Dwarven ruin. You know how that turned out.” I shook my head at the spider. “I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about how big these spiders are getting. Get ready for big game.” I opened the door to the shop and started out. Jake yanked me backward and his shotgun went off right over my head. I heard a screech and a thump as something fell off the ceiling. The bastard could have had small dogs for lunch. I drew my sword and moved it to the side.
Outside, the street was lined with silent, staring spirits. Behind them, more spiders were forming up. These went from German Shepard to riding pony size, at least a dozen of each. We lined up, guns and bows at the ready. The spiders tensed to charge, and Rose’s strafing run turned them into a row of crispy critters.
The surviving spiders scattered, and suddenly I was seeing movement in every bit of greenery around us. The spirits turned to stare up at Rose, and one by one they vanished.
“Not good,” I said. “Let’s hit the rest of these shops fast.” I started jogging toward the closest shop on the map.
“Did we scare them off?” Ember looked around as she trotted along, keeping an arrow nocked.
“Not in any dungeon I’m running,” I replied. “If I were running this adventure, it would be either reinforcements or boss fight time. Watch for ground tremors and hope it’s just one giant mother coming for us.”
Ember shuddered and screamed, “I hate spiders!”
I nodded and kept going.
Rose met us at the shop. “The Humans are coming back, but they’re not in an attack formation. They’re spreading out to block our passage to the south and west. All the open country is blocked, and they have at least two more of those arrow launcher things.”
“I think they set those up for use against the spiders, not us. If they knew the spiders would come, no wonder they attacked us.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “If I were in their shoes, I’d wait until we’d engaged the spiders for a good bit, then carpet bomb the crap out of the town and pick up the pieces from our arrow-riddled corpses. This shit is why Elven sages never do their own field work.”
I consulted the map. “We have four shops left to hit after this one. Let’s go fast and dust off.” I stepped in to the shop, and found a spirit with an axe and half a head staring me down. I drew my sword and he charged.
I dodged the first blow, but my return stroke cut air. Jake pulled out a motorized water pistol and let loose with the holy water. It got the floor wet, and the spirit’s axe sliced the water pistol in half.
I blocked Dead Guy’s next swing and brought my sword in a full circle, chopping down on him with both hands. The blade sliced through his axe handle and left a bright blue line through him from shoulder to groin. He disintegrated from the inside out, but the look in his eyes was almost one of thanks.
My sword had some green stuff along the edge. Just as I had done a thousand times in the dojo, I spun the blade and snapped it down. What didn’t come off, I wiped away with a square of silk before sheathing the blade. Chiburui and noto. Sword clean, soul clean. I moved toward the back room to look for boxes.
This time the spiders didn’t wait for us to open the door. The wood shattered and giant, hairy bodies launched themselves at us. I cut two down with one stroke, then stabbed a third through one of its eye sockets.
Ember fell back, outside my range of vision. I heard her kiai and a loud, wet splat. No screams, so I advanced.
Jake pulled his Room Broom, a pistol-grip pump action shotgun, and emptied shell after shell into the mass of spiders filling the work room. Miranda was keeping an eye on the ceiling, blasting any creepy-crawlies trying to flank us.
The mass of bodies parted enough for me to glimpse two large boxes on the floor, almost the size of shipping crates. “Fall back! Don’t fire into the storeroom! Choke them at the door!”
Ember skipped outside, turning to scan the area while she kept her meteor hammer s
winging. A Rottweiler-sized spider jumped at her from the underbrush. She caught it across the mandibles, knocking it to the side. It sprang back to its feet and charged right into the point of my sword.
Miranda ran out of shotgun shells and drew her Glock. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and started pumping rounds into spider heads, two shots at a time. Double tap works for spiders as well as zombies.
Outside the shop, I stabbed my sword into the ground and drew my bow. “Jake! Fall back, now!” Even with an extended magazine, his shotgun was empty as well. He tossed a flash-bang and ducked outside. The concussion stopped the mob for a few seconds, but it was enough for Jake to get his AR-15 unslung.
As the spiders reached the shop’s doorway, I aimed and fired as fast as I could, trying to block the exit with their corpses. It was a good plan, but I didn’t have enough arrows. I drew my sword again and looked around, trying to spot our air cover.
Rose and Harmony were laying down a wall of fire partway up the mountain side. The slope seemed to be a solid mass of spider bodies, but for now the Dragon-fire was holding them at bay.
The wall of spider bodies blocking the doorway heaved and the bodies spilled out onto the ground. Jake fired three quick bursts into the shop, but there was no response. Miranda loaded the last of her loose shotgun shells into her magazine and moved to the side to cover the door.
“I think we should look somewhere else,” Jake called out. “They really like this place.”
“Negative,” I replied. “I saw two big crates in there. If they’re the ones we need, we can wrap it up here.”
Ember screamed, grabbing at her back. Miranda knocked the spider away and shot it as it landed. She got Ember’s arm around her shoulder and shouted, “Ember’s bit! Find out what’s in there, fast!”
Jake tossed me a big can of pepper spray and pulled his gas mask down over his face. I put mine on as well and we charged the door, spraying everything in front of us. I checked the corners and didn’t see anything moving; by the time I looked up it was almost too late. A kick from two hairy legs knocked Jake into the storeroom while a stinger the size of my forearm stabbed me in the chest. It knocked the wind out of me but my armor held. I staggered back as the spider shifted to try again. I flooded the base of the abdomen with pepper spray, hoping to hit the lungs. I must have succeeded, as the thing dropped to the ground. I took its head off with one stroke.