by Nancy Osa
Pa-twang! Three arrows lodged in Turner’s chainmail helmet.
“You call that cover?” he yelled.
Just then, a short, square-nosed griefer with three legs hopped up on a nearby mushroom and addressed them in a nasal voice. “We meet again, Turner!”
“Die, mutant!” Turner cried, sighting with his bow. He was too late. The griefer simply dropped down behind the mushroom and sent his skelemob forward.
The zombies that Turner had cut, but not killed, had spawned more of their foul kind. Now Rob fended them off with his sword. But there are so many of them! he thought, terror beginning to rise with the bile in his throat.
“Turner! Captain! Over here!” Frida called desperately.
She and Stormie had been surrounded by skeletons. Rob had to do something, fast!
He dropped his sword and put two fingers in his mouth, giving the loudest, longest whistle he’d ever produced, and then shouted, “Thing 1! Thing 2! Sic ’em!”
Their new wolf friend bounded down the mountainside to join its pack-mate. Snarling and slobbering, the two devoured Frida and Stormie’s captors. Bones showered the ground, clanging like the world’s worst xylophone.
Rob’s stomach tightened, and he had to acknowledge that they were still outnumbered. “Battalion Zero! Retreat!” He checked his compatriots’ stunned faces. “Don’t wait! Get out of here!”
The wolves held off the mobs just long enough to allow the troopers to pick their way back toward the boundary with their mounts. Turner shifted in his saddle and called over his shoulder, “You’re dead meat, Legs! You ain’t seen the last of me!”
A volley of arrows followed his retreat, so Rob and Saber brought up the rear and skedaddled out of there in a hurry.
CHAPTER 11
ROB WAS RELIEVED TO FIND KIM AND JOOLS AT the ready when Battalion Zero came galloping back their way.
“Is anybody hurt?” Kim called.
“Nothing that won’t keep!” Turner said, then added, “Let’s head for the hills!”
The two wolves came bounding after them as they made for the mesa. Kim acted as lookout from her perch on Saber’s rump, assuring them that no mobs were following them across the mountain ridge.
Safely back in camp, they each removed their armor, Turner ruefully poking his fingers through the damaged chainmail helmet. Jools offered the warriors plenty of cooked beef to restore their health after the hits they had taken from the skeletons’ arrows. Rob wrapped his hand, and Kim swabbed some cuts on Armor’s and Ocelot’s forelegs caused by the sharp thorns of the rosebushes.
One by one, the soldiers gathered around the daylight campfire, and after seeing to the horses Kim joined them. “You guys took some heavy hits. What went wrong?”
What went wrong, indeed? Rob asked himself, anger replacing his fear. He tightened his fists at his sides. Well, number one, I fell out of an airplane for no good reason and landed in the ocean in somebody else’s world. Then I survived my first night, when I would’ve been better off dead. He glanced at the battalion members, who sat in various stages of dejection. Next I had to meet up with know-it-all Frida, and bigmouth Turner . . . and Jools, and Stormie, and Kim, who now turn out to be massively incompetent and worthless! What went wrong?
“Everything!” he snapped. He lit into the group. “Frida, Stormie: Your intel sucks! Jools: Nice plan! Roofed forest was the one biome we shouldn’t have attacked. And Turner . . .”
The sergeant at arms sat up defensively.
“You couldn’t shoot your way out of a paper bag!”
“Now, wait a—”
“Kim,” Rob continued, livid, “why didn’t you prep our horses with potions of leaping? We were basically stonewalled.”
“B-but . . . you never asked me to.” Kim looked like she was about to cry.
“You’re the master of horses.” Rob stabbed a finger at her. “You’re supposed to anticipate what they might need!”
Stormie said quietly, “Casting blame won’t help us now, Captain.”
“Get out of my sight!” he growled. When they sat there, stunned, he stomped off toward the abandoned mine shaft on his own.
Once inside, he took the steps two at a time, down to the bottom of the pit that reflected his state of mind. At the dead end, he took a left. He dropped a lit torch from his inventory on the dirt floor and, grabbing an old pickaxe, he began hacking away at the stone walls.
What good were masterminds and powerhouses if they could still make mistakes? He had trusted Jools to devise a failsafe battle plan. He thought Kim understood that their horses had to be able to jump an entire squadron of armored skeletons if they needed to. And he had counted on Turner, Frida, and Stormie to annihilate their attackers . . .
So I wouldn’t have to, he confessed.
Shame stung his insides. What kind of a leader was he, anyway? Only a coward sends his troops up against an enemy that he won’t face himself. Rob dropped his tool and slid to the ground in defeat.
After a moment or two, he lifted his head from his arms and stared at the wall. Then he noticed that the spot he had chopped away revealed something square and wooden inside.
Rob retrieved the pickaxe and enlarged the hole. He pulled and tugged, and soon a sizable chest popped out. Brushing away cobwebs and coal chunks, and a few iron ingots, he revealed an old, dusty book that was falling apart at the binding.
“What’s this?” he said out loud.
As he pulled the book from the chest, a shiny glow rose from its surface.
This must be something important!
Forgetting his previous worries, he retraced his steps up the staircase and back to the center of camp. “Guys! Get a load of this!”
The others warily gathered around him, anticipating another tongue lashing.
Jools gave a start as he took in what Rob was holding. “Hand it over! That thing’s powerful.”
The rest watched as he turned the book over in his hands. “It’s storing an enchantment!” he reported with excitement.
Turner pointed to their captain. “Let’s test it out on him, then.” He reached for the prize.
Jools jerked the book away. “Not a chance. This thing’s good for one spell, and one spell only.”
“Like what?” Frida asked.
“We could use it to beef up our armor,” Stormie said knowingly.
“I got it!” Turner snapped his fingers. “We can use it to increase our take of loot. We could double or maybe even triple it!”
Jools held tightly to the book. “Or . . .” He grinned slyly and said, “We could use it to win our next battle.”
*
The new strategy was brilliant, even Rob had to acknowledge that. It made use of their existing traps and would deal exponentially more damage to the griefer army via an enchantment of thorns.
“Normally, this spell works on armor to backfire on your attackers,” Jools explained. “But I can tweak it to enhance our cactus traps!”
Rob considered this.
“That’s all well and good,” Turner complained, “but what do we use as bait?”
“Yeah. Those mobs are safely at the biome boundaries,” Stormie reminded Jools. “How will we get them out here?”
Jools cocked his head. “Let me ask you this: What is it that skeletons love most?”
Turner put up a hand. “Killin’.”
“That’s right. And in the dark, they’ll follow you through hell or high water to get within shooting range.”
Kim realized what Jools was getting at. “We already know they’re poor shots. They have to shoot ten times as many arrows as we do to strike a hit.”
Frida picked up on the train of thought. “So . . . all we have to do is ride about fifteen blocks ahead of them and hope for the best.”
Stormie nodded. “Leading them right into our traps!”
Rob clapped his hands. “It’s a solid idea, Jools,” he said, regretting his earlier tirade. “I’m sorry about what I said before. Everyone makes mistakes.” He gr
inned at Jools. “Smart people learn from them.”
Turner leaned closer. “And use them to kill dumb ones. I’ve got a score to settle with Legs, gang.”
“Let’s do it!” Stormie cried.
Rob wanted no more slipups regarding terrain. He should have known that a line of cavalry couldn’t advance through a dense forest unimpeded. And once they were divided, they were easy targets. Jools, having ridden Beckett solo for so long, had overlooked that contingency. Rob used the error to remind his troops how important it was to act together.
They stepped up their horse drills to focus on alignment, and Rob made sure that Jools and even Kim, whom he put up on Saber alone, could dress the line. Riders at either end checked with each other and sped up or slowed down if it was necessary to straighten everyone out. Then they could move as a unit.
Once they had acquired this skill, they had to apply it at every gait, and finally, over jumps. They would lure in the pursuing skeletons by jumping a camouflaged trap, leaving the mob to tumble in and die. There could be no wavering.
Their plan also required some extra scouting to locate the mob’s nightly assembly point at a likely boundary. Stormie noted on the map that three borders came together at one spot adjoining the mesa. “If we could interest the mobs there, we could kill three giant, ugly birds with one deadly stone,” she said.
“Skeleton mobs aren’t exactly birds,” Rob argued, “but I know what you mean. Three times the enemy troops, triple the damage. Great work, guys.” He noted that a little praise went a long way with these individuals, and he vowed to lead them with more honey than vinegar from then on.
He charged Frida with mounting a nighttime mission to scout out the best place to attack, which she eagerly accepted. “Let me do it alone,” she urged. “Stealth is my best weapon.” Rob agreed, so Turner and Stormie stayed behind, working on ammunition and traps until she returned in the wee hours. When all was ready, they would head out at dusk.
The horses would be key to the success of their ploy. “Is there anything you want me to give them besides a potion of leaping?” Kim asked Rob the next day.
“Yes,” Rob said, with a twinkle in his eye. His new method for motivating the enlisted players would sweeten the pot for the horses, too. “Give them sugar, Kim. Lots and lots of sugar.”
*
Later that day, as the sun marched eastward and sky-blue deepened to violet overhead, the members of Battalion Zero double-checked their armaments. Although they planned a false retreat, they might have to resort to skirmishing.
“Turner, weapons report!” Rob commanded.
The sergeant at arms ticked off their increased inventory of bows and blades, augmented by a half-dozen iron pickaxes gleaned from the abandoned mine shaft. “They’re old, but usable,” he commented. He proudly presented maximum stacks of sixty-four newly crafted arrows to each trooper. “Retrieve ’em after a strike if you can!” he reminded them. “Otherwise the mobs will.”
They did not expect to use the TNT cannon on this raid, as blowing off charges in their own camp seemed counterproductive. Turner deferred to Stormie and Kim, though, for the status of the cactus and suffocation traps. They had been mining, digging, and stacking in their spare moments until several booby traps had been rigged and then disguised. “Now, listen up!” Kim called. “You’ll want to recall the exact location of these traps. They’re meant for Dr. Dirt’s monsters, not our precious horses. We’ve hidden them from view; these spots are for us to know and them to find.”
Stormie had dyed swaths of wool with ore taken from the immediate area and stretched them over the pits. Now they looked just like the surrounding clay and sandstone, effectively shielding the traps from view. The battalion members walked off the locations on a grid lightly marked with sand and committed them to memory—except for Turner. Rob watched him write down the coordinates on the back of his hand. “Less I got to remember during a battle, the better,” he said.
Jools listed the supplies they could count on in the thick of things or after taking one too many hits. There were elixirs to increase speed and strength, and potions of healing and regeneration. “I’ve got some extra helmets if you need one,” he informed the group, “so come and see me before we leave if you do. And Rob found some horse armor in that mine shaft chest. But that might interfere with your jumping.”
They decided it would, and that they would trust the skeletons’ bad aim and the interval they intended to put between them to keep Saber, Armor, Ocelot, and Duff safe. Kim had suggested penning the wolves, so they wouldn’t be caught in the death traps while running down their prey.
“Good idea,” Rob said.
Once again, there was nothing left for him to do before the battle but check in with his trusty steed. Saber was awake this time, having finished a light meal shortly before Rob arrived at the fence. No words or whinnies passed between the pair this time, only fervent wishes and heartfelt promises.
The four cavalry soldiers mounted up, leaving Kim and Jools to hold down the fort . . . and to welcome their enemies.
The riders journeyed to a high point where they could watch the intersecting boundaries yet remain hidden behind a dead bush screen. There, they dismounted and waited for the sun to set. Before long, they saw movement in the forest below.
It was just as Frida had scouted. As evening fell, ragged processions of zombies and skeletons, and a few chicken jockeys, marched and lurched toward the central border where the edges of the wooded forest, roofed forest, and desert connected to Bryce Mesa. If the enemy held the area, the three biomes opposite their mesa would essentially belong to Dr. Dirt and his legions.
“This ain’t your land,” Turner uttered through clenched teeth as they watched the mobs converge.
Rob gave the signal to mount. He summoned every bit of his courage and called, “Battalion Zero, by file: March!” Off went Stormie on Armor, followed by Frida on Ocelot. Rob and Saber followed Turner and Duff. Who ever thought I would be riding voluntarily toward a pack of zombies and skeletons? Rob thought.
Then one of the zombies noticed the horses’ movements. The sentry quickly rallied more monsters, which groaned an alarm that sailed toward the intrepid cavalry. “Uuuuhhh, ooohhh, unnnhhh!”
“I dunno what they’re saying,” Turner mumbled, “but it ain’t ‘Happy Halloween’!”
Rob pressed his lips together. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Front into line . . . March!” The group picked up speed.
When they came within fifty blocks or so, they heard a shout from Legs, who sounded like he had a head cold: “Halt, intruders! These biome boundaries are the property of Dr. Dirt!”
Turner yelled back, “Only a weenie would do his dirty work for him!”
Battalion Zero continued their advance.
There was brief silence. Then Legs shrieked, “Cha-a-a-rge!”
Rob waited until the mobs were a dozen blocks away, and then instructed his riders: “Left wheel! And . . . forward!”
Like clockwork, the gang of four turned in sync, angling to the left until they formed a retreating line. Then they moved off as one, leading the bags of bones and staggering zombies away from the border.
“Faster, faster!” called Stormie, glancing over her shoulder at their pursuers and then down toward Rob to dress the line.
Arrows began to fall behind them.
“Don’t bother to shoot back,” Rob urged. “Just ride!”
The four horses, high on sugar and amped up on jumping potion, shot ahead.
“Slow down! Slow down!” Turner yelled. “Or they’ll turn back.”
It was a fine line to ride. They needed to bait the skelemob into giving chase without becoming human and equine pincushions that the trailing pack of zombies could fall upon and finish off.
“I’ll get you yet, Turner!” shouted Legs in his stuffy voice from his safe position behind the mobs.
“Bring it on . . .” Turner muttered under his breath. “Bring it on!”
The many days of drilling and planning were about to pay off. The tiny battalion swept over the mesa in formation, leaving just enough ground behind them to entice the oncoming undead. They topped the low rise before their camp and thundered toward their secret target.
Turner needn’t have wasted his time adding the pit coordinates to his tattoo collection. They were seared into Rob’s brain. He’d have to give the others the command to jump at just the right time . . . or they would each die a prickly death.
The sound of horse hooves, jangling bones, unearthly groans, and gasping breaths filled the air. “Stormie!” called Rob. “Count down!”
She looked back to measure the shrinking buffer zone between the defenders and attackers. “Twelve blocks! Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
The archers neared, but their aim grew worse.
“. . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .”
Now the agitated zombies in their wake wailed louder.
“. . . and . . . go!”
Rob prepared to give the order. “Jump, everyone! Jump!” In near-perfect timing, the four pairs of horses and riders communicated, responded, and leapt for the sky. Before they had even landed, waves of sprinting skeletons had permeated the wool-disguised cactus trap, cartwheeling in and being impaled by enchanted spines. It happened so fast that the second wave had no time to stop before gravity sent them forward, too.
The slower zombies, unable to detect even the most obvious danger, did not try to avoid the now visible pit. In they fell. Their griefer commander, however, recognized the decoy for what it was and jammed to a stop.
Legs frantically peered into the half-dark. His griefer reinforcements hadn’t arrived yet. Spying a chicken jockey that was none too spry, he swiped the baby zombie rider’s golden sword and knocked the green toddler into the pit. Then he jumped on the chicken’s back, wheeled it around, and took off for the hills.
Turner prepared to send Duff after him, but Rob held out a hand. “Let him go,” he said. “He can’t hurt us without his mobs. And we need him to report our win to Dr. Dirt.”
Kim and Jools released the stacks of sand into the churning pit, and by and by the creaking, wailing, and thumping ceased. It reminded Rob of the day he had killed the three zombies with his pillar of sand on the beach. That seemed so long ago now.