Hammer Out A Path (Cart-Dragger Saga Book 2)

by Billy Wong

  If you don't have what it takes to do what you're supposed to, then I will! a voice—Maximilian—said in her head.

  "Wha-what? I wasn't giving up, I was just momentarily sho-"

  It does not matter! This body belongs to me now! Her hand swept up without her willing it, and a blade of flame larger than herself shot skyward to shear the descending tentacle in half. What power! Having your vigor to fuel my magic—this is glorious!

  Tentacle Nest stared at its severed limb falling to the floor. "How?! You never displayed any magic before."

  "What was that?" Lars asked behind her. "Don't tell me it was..."

  Cart-Dragger felt her body step forward, her mental commands for it to stop going unheeded. "It's Maximilian!" she cried, at least still able to speak at the moment. "His will has gotten stronger somehow..."

  Tentacles reached down attempting to grab her—Maximilian—er, whoever. Her hammer lashed about, warding them off, then Maximilian blasted Tentacle Nest in the face with a roaring cylinder of fire which sent it reeling back. You don't understand? he asked her in a mocking tone. While you, weak minded simpleton that you are, were getting so flustered over such intuitive techniques, I was taking them in, using them to strengthen myself. Now sit back and watch a true leader put your undeservedly gifted body to proper use.

  She supposed that made sense in a way... with his years of intense training to be heir to the empire, discipline in learning would come more easily to him. "But it's my body!" she said in frustration. "Give it back, do you really want to be a girl?"

  No. He drew one of her javelins and hurled it deep into the squid head, then blasted jagged lightning into it. Tentacle Nest shuddered in agony, limbs curling around it in an effort to protect itself. But I'll bear it in exchange for being the mightiest warrior and leader of the world. He guffawed. And after I finish what you couldn't, I'll make you watch while I kill your friends.

  Cart-Dragger felt a frightful heat build in her breast. "No you won't!" Her willpower rose with her anger, and she mustered the resolve to stop Maximilian from taking another step. "This is my body, it'll never be used to harm my friends! Their strength is my strength and Jen's spirit is with me too, together we're more than enough to beat some shitty druid tricks!"

  What are you doing?! Maximilian demanded as they jerked around vying for control. You'll get us both killed!

  "You're the idiot who said you'd kill my friends! I won't let you have my body—never ever!"

  Stupid bitch!

  Recovering from the lightning spell, Tentacle Nest saw them dance clumsily in place with their struggle and abandoned its defensive stance. It struck out with multiple appendages. Maximilian swung her hammer one way, putting the spike into one tentacle, before Cart-Dragger swung it the other, smashing another back. A third tentacle jabbed straight at them, and though they blocked with the haft, the sheer mass launched them flying away. Pain exploded through her back as it hit something hard, which then gave. She crashed partway through a wooden counter and saw wincing that she had ended up in a store, thankfully empty.

  Maybe you should be called Wall-Crasher instead, considering how often it happens to you lately. Maximilian's attempt at humor only made her more irate, as his threat towards her friends had reminded her of him murdering Jen. He tried to get up, but Cart-Dragger let her legs buckle so they fell back down again. Are you serious?

  "I won't allow you to do anything using my flesh! Get back in your tomb or we'll both perish if need be."

  You don't have it in you.

  Maybe not. She definitely wasn't ready to die. But she couldn't let him have his way either, so she'd continue to fight him. If one of them didn't relent when they faced a powerful enemy, though... Tentacle Nest's eye filled the hole they had made in the wall, then the whole storefront came away as limbs tore it apart. She stood up, thinking momentarily that since she didn't experience any unwanted movements, maybe Maximilian had decided to back down. But as she charged the monster and jumped, he used his magic to lighten her body so that the leap carried them much higher than anticipated. "Stop it, what are you-"

  They flew above Tentacle-Nest's face and fell down towards it, the tentacles which snapped forward to intercept them having been aimed much too low and unable to retract in time. I'm helping you, he said as she saw her opportunity and took it, bringing the hammer down on its forehead.

  "I still don't want it! Stop doing anything with my body!"

  I'll do everything with your body. They leapt back off Tentacle Nest's countenance to avoid the reaching appendages, then she felt a crushing pressure around her—no, inside her skull. Dammit, it was Maximilian, trying to suppress her spirit as she had his before. She couldn't let this happen... her friends and the world didn't deserve for this bastard to have power over them. Tentacles darted at them and Maximilian laughed, waving her arms around to drive them back with blasts of magic.

  Imagining that she rooted herself to the ground, she let Maximilian's will flow around her while gathering her own. "Get out of my head!" She hoped to drive him back into the depths of her mind, powerless once more. The actual result, however, quite surprised her.

  As she threw the full force of her self against him, she watched a translucent image of him burst from the front of her body—and shoot into Tentacle Nest's face. Her jaw dropped. Had she ejected him, and transferred him into the elemental? If so, this would be a perfect opportunity to kill them both. But then his likeness flew backwards out of Tentacle Nest, and she saw that he remained connected to her by a thin strand of foglike—soul material? She couldn't say, but he returned to her and sadly, appeared to enter her again.

  "What just happened?" Ruth asked, staring at her from nearby.

  "It looked like she threw Maximilian out of her, but then he came back..." Lars replied, expression equally dumbfounded.

  I feel strange. He sounded groggy, disoriented. For an instant I seemed to be in the depths of the ocean, almost another world, and the landscape shuddered at my intrusion.

  Tentacle Nest looked even worse off than him. It sat there with its arms down, gazing blankly straight ahead with no apparent thought for defense. Cart-Dragger put two and two together. "It looks like I hit Tentacle Nest with Maximilian's soul when I threw him partially out of me, and the contact between their very different minds stunned both of them!"

  You're far... too lucky...

  "It's not luck, my heart overpowered yours. Although I guess it is a little lucky what happened to Tentacle Nest, but it's not like I haven't beaten it before." She pictured his rocky prison closing around his exhausted form, sealing him once more, and hoped it would hold. Then she returned her attention to Tentacle Nest and grinned. "Now it's squishy time!" She leapt atop one of the tentacles moving weakly along the ground and ran up it, then jumped from it onto the head and raised her maul. She whacked away again and again, and though hammers might normally be thought of as bludgeoning weapons, the spike on hers allowed her to bash a large hole into Tentacle Nest's head pretty fast. It fell limp altogether, probably dead, but she wouldn't settle for probably this time around. She jumped inside the wound and continued to make it deeper and deeper, until she could glimpse the shining blue core within. Reaching forward, she tried to grasp and pull it out.

  Despite her prodigious strength, it proved too big for her to get her arms around well enough for a decent grip, and the hole might also need to be wider for the core to exit. She looked back to see a good sized crowd had gathered to watch, which included Jasper and Brennan, and Lars and Ruth stood at its head. "Lars, can I borrow your axe for a minute? I need to tear Tentacle Nest a new hole through which to remove its essence."

  He frowned. "It already looks pretty dead to me, a bit odd to see you keep beating it from inside like that. But it looked dead before too, and if we want the core out anyway..." He tossed her the axe, and she went to carving.

  Some time later, Cart-Dragger emerged from the tunnel she dug through Tentacle Nest, rolling the round core mu
ch bigger than herself before her. It made her feel like a miniature person, pushing around a giant marble. After stepping onto solid pavement, she bent forward gasping for breath. The multifaceted struggle with Tentacle Nest and Maximilian had taken a lot of energy, and it'd been quite stuffy inside that rubbery body too. Now that the thrill of battle wore off, her guilt at the deaths she'd failed to prevent came rushing back and she swallowed. How disappointed in her must many of those whose eyes rested on her be, for leaving them to suffer Tentacle Nest's wrath again?

  "What exactly happened here?" she asked, her voice coming out shaky and meek. "When did it wake up again, and where is Strength?"

  "Don't play dumb when it's your fault so many more have been slaughtered!" shouted a gangly soldier while he waved his halberd. "When we made to cut it apart as you suggested, it revived with a fury and massacred the cleanup crew before turning its sights on the rest of us. We were able to drive it back once with ranged weapons, but nobody dared attempt to finish the job and since our ammunition had been depleted in the last two battles, we found ourselves at its mercy after that. As for your friend, ha! Don't try to fool us into thinking you don't know that she left."

  What?! She'd feared Strength had been killed, but that worry now quickly gave way to anger. That overgrown ape, untrustworthy after all just like her former master... "I did not tell her to leave, she never even got permission to do so for that matter! When I see her again, I'm going to have a stern talk with her."

  Jasper glared at her. "A talk? Are we supposed to be impressed with that, will a talk bring back the countless souls who were lost this day to your negligence? You purport to help everyone through difficult times, yet how much has your presence really helped us? Get out of my city. I never want to see your fat, unjustifiably cocky face again."

  "You ungrateful turd!" Ruth snapped. "You blame and insult Cart-Dragger, yet don't realize she just saved you yet again? If the elementals launch another attack, even without their leader, are you confident you can repel them without our aid? For your own sakes, you should reconsider cutting ties with us."

  Lars said, "This mayor has irritated me for some time. Perhaps we should leave him to his own devices and see how long before he comes running back to us for help."

  Their words seemed to give Jasper pause as his lips parted anxiously, but then he shook his head and stammered, "W-well, maybe we'll learn better ways of handling things ourselves without your 'guardianship' stymieing our growth!"

  "I'm sure you don't actually believe that."

  Cart-Dragger sighed. She would certainly have been angry at Jasper under normal circumstances, but knowing how many perished owing to her carelessness, she raised a hand. "Let's not fight needlessly and widen the rift even further between us. We'll leave as asked, and perhaps with some time to reflect, the benefits of cooperation will become clear again in spite of the mistakes which have been made." She looked at Jasper. "But we'll need to take the core with us. Is it all right if we buy a cart?"

  "Pay for one?" Lars asked tersely. "After all we've done..."

  "Just bear with it. Fucking Maximilian showed better discipline than me lately. It's about time we behaved like adults—and since I don't fault you or Ruth for anything that's happened, by we I mean me."

  "If you insist. But the way he treats you is hardly warranted." He might view it differently if it had been hundreds of Lars' neighbors, friends and kin who died because of her poor decisions, though.

  "Fine, buy a damn cart," Jasper said, "and get the ugly thing out of our sight. A reminder of those dark times and your folly will help little in our recovery."

  They bought a large wagon and loaded Tentacle Nest's core onto it. As Cart-Dragger started pulling it towards the exit, Brennan who had followed the crowd silently until now said, "I don't think Jasper should have talked to you the way he did. You did your best."

  She bowed her head. "Thank you for being gentle on me. But I surely could've done better."

  The party departed from Athendar, E and the two bird-lizards flying overhead since Cart-Dragger needed to be on the ground to pull the transport vehicle. "Do you think I'm a bad leader?" she asked her companions softly while they walked.

  "No, why would you say that?" Lars replied. "I know it's because you didn't account for Tentacle Nest being able to revive, and people died for it. But how could you have known when the same method of attack killed Leviathan off for good? We can only make judgments based on what we know. It's only if we refuse to accept things changing when they're right before us that we become blameworthy."

  "I still should have taken more care though, when for once one of my grand struggles took place so close to many people. I admit you have a point, but even then I feel like I've been unprepared for trying to reach towards my new goals. I've ruled Galantria for all these years, but attempting to expand my influence beyond that might have dampened my focus."

  "Yeah, no offense," Ruth said, "but you have been seeming a bit sloppy lately. Between the attacks, Maximilian's possession and everything you normally have to deal with though, it's nothing any reasonable person wouldn't understand."

  She gave a faint smile. "I'm grateful for you two's continued support, but I'll still try to do better from here on."

  Lars glanced towards the elemental core filling up her new cart. "By the way, how are we going to get that to the druids? Don't tell me we're just going to hoof it all the way there."

  One might have thought he was just complaining about the long walk, but she knew he had their more pressing interests in mind as well. She'd already been away from Galantria a while, and shouldn't delay returning there anymore if at all possible. She nodded. "I can't picture this thing fitting through that tunnel either. I wonder if our elemental allies could fly it there together?"

  "Are you sure we can trust them with this?" Ruth asked. "Especially after what just happened..."

  "They haven't done anything to think we shouldn't trust them, and have fought alongside us risking their lives. I mean, so did Strength, but I'd guess Jasper did something that made her want to leave as soon as the danger appeared over. If E and the others agree to deliver the core, I doubt a similar issue will come up for them to change their minds. Are you okay with it?" she asked the elementals flying above.

  E examined the object in question and exchanged looks with the bird-lizards. "It does not sound like an unreasonable request, but the weight might be too much for any one of us over a distance."

  "We'll have to rig something up to hold it in and distribute the weight among them," Ruth said, "but we don't have any supplies."

  Cart-Dragger thought about it. "Brennan doesn't seem to mind me too much. I think if one of us sneaks back into Athendar and asks him, he might be willing to help us get what we need."

  "I'll do it. People don't know me as well, so if somebody sees me I'm not as sure to be recognized and cause Jasper to throw another fit."

  The rest of them waited outside the city that night while Ruth went about her task. When she took more than a couple of hours, Cart-Dragger grew anxious. But she returned shortly after midnight, her content look indicating things had gone smoothly. "Talked to Brennan as planned, though him being out drinking made me have to wait a bit. He was a little tipsy when I met him, but promised to have the materials delivered to us at the west hill tomorrow morning."

  They relocated to the hill, where the next day one of Brennan's aides arrived dragging a cart of his own in which lay the thick fabric and rope they requested. Cart-Dragger thanked him and they went to work making a sort of giant triangular sling, which would allow the three flying God Soldiers to share their burden and lower it into the forest. As E and the two bird-lizards each gripped a rope attached to a corner and prepared to take off, Lars asked, "Is it really alright for them to go by themselves? We were discussing before how the druids might be put off by seeing the 'adjustments' the empire has made to them."

  "I already told Vana about the imperials tampering with the eleme
ntals they subjugated for war," Cart-Dragger replied, "although I don't know whether she understands the extent of it given she hasn't seen any herself. If we're worried about that, maybe one of us could go with them—if the extra weight of a passenger wouldn't be too much."

  "Between the three of us," one of the bird-lizards said, "it should be fine."

  Cart-Dragger looked to Lars. "Do you mind doing it? Um, sorry about asking you to travel back and forth again, but you were the first who came to mind since you just did it before. If you don't want to, maybe Ruth could, assuming she's-"

  "Doesn't bother me. I was a mercenary, we're used to it."

  "Then have a safe trip, and we'll wait for you here."

  They separated, Lars accompanying the elementals to the Merciful's valley while Cart-Dragger and Ruth stayed behind. "I was just wondering," Ruth asked after a while, "is there any particular reason why you couldn't have just gone yourself?"

  She chuckled. "I could have, but... I'm definitely not taking up that meditation training again, seeing as it helped Maximilian more than it did me. Since I don't know if my refusing to do so would sit well with Vana, though, I'll let Lars deal with it under the pretense that I'm busy."

  "Not the worst move I could think of, politically. By the way, what do you plan on doing about Strength? I know you probably don't intend to kill her, since that would be extreme by standards other than my old country's, but are you going to let her keep working for you? Do you think the two of you will fight?"

  "I... I don't know. I probably would've said yes for sure a year ago, but nowadays I feel like we—meaning humanity—shouldn't fight among ourselves unless it's absolutely unavoidable. So while both of us might be inclined to settle our arguments with arms, I'd hope I can control it enough that it doesn't come to violence. Hey, if need be, maybe you can help calm things down between me and your abnormally tall countrywoman."

  "It's insensitive to say 'abnormal' when describing someone. At least, that's what Scott told me."

  Cart-Dragger waved dismissively. "Scott is starting to get too cautious in his word choices. I doubt Strength would take offense to being called abnormally large, given it also hints at her abnormal strength."