by Rachel Aaron
Unfortunately, the nearby undead answered him first.
The yell had barely left his mouth when a dozen armored zombies came lurching into the crater at him. Desperate to keep them off Roxxy, SilentBlayde leaped forward, landing with his feet on a zombie’s chest as he stabbed the creature through the head with both swords. The zombie staggered, and for a horrible moment, SB worried that these were two-skull monsters, too tough for one player to manage. But the zombie must have just been too stupid to die immediately, because it fell to the ground a moment later, collapsing into dust with a soft urrr.
With the utmost elven grace, SB flipped off the falling zombie and landed next to Roxxy to block the rest of the pack. Silver blades met rusty ones as SB deflected hit after hit, bouncing the decaying axes and swords back into their owners’ faces. A brush of wind on his back made him spin, avoiding a decrepit-spear thrust by millimeters. He sliced the head off its owner as his spin finished, coming back around with his blades up for the next one.
While he was fighting, SB kept yelling. “Roxxy’s unconscious! We need a heal! Anders! Someone!”
But no one came. Only undead. A centuries-dead elven woman slipped behind him and grabbed Roxxy by the head, opening her mouth to bite the stonekin’s face. SB kicked the zombie he’d been fighting away then back-flipped and landed with both feet on the woman’s head. The zombie elf’s face was driven into the ground by his weight as he slashed off her arms with a silver swipe of his blades. For good measure, SilentBlayde kicked the rest of her into her friends and fell back, guarding Roxxy as more undead poured into the crater.
Somewhere above him, Grel’Darm’s step boomed very close, and he realized with a chill that the giant had probably reached Frank’s position. SB looked down at Roxxy in despair. He was going to have to cut her armor straps to get her out alive. It would be painful to sacrifice a legendary set of end-game tanking gear. Irreplaceable, really, but he wasn’t going let her die. She could be mad at him later, if they lived through this.
He cut down two more zombies and dropped to the ground, digging into the dirt on Roxxy’s side to see if he could find the fastenings for her chest plate. After a few frenzied seconds, he realized the armor wasn’t strapped on at all. It was held together by ancient elven binding scripts, each one glowing with a unique golden light of its own.
The moment he saw the scripts, SilentBlayde knew exactly what they said. He had no idea how he could read the elven words, but they told him exactly what to do to disengage the armor’s locks, and that was good enough for him. Immediately, he started to dance his fingers along the sequence, following the glowing lines with shaking fingers. He was nearly done when he sensed something huge above his head.
He’d taken his eyes off the enemy for too long. Letting go of Roxxy’s armor with a curse, SB raised his swords to block the massive weapon swinging toward his head, but the huge ax wasn’t aiming for him. Instead, it bit into the zombies behind him, cutting all three in half with a single stroke. The armored corpses gurgled as torsos flew and legs toppled, then a gruff voice spoke in the dark.
“Yo, ’Blayde boy.”
SilentBlayde looked up to see the towering shape of Killbox standing over him with a cocky grin on his blood-splattered face. “I got this,” Killbox said, pushing SilentBlayde out of the way like he weighed nothing. When the elf was clear, the hulking Berserker used his ax’s spike to hook Roxxy’s armor and pry her out of the ground, dumping her in the dirt at SB’s feet.
If Killbox hadn’t been there, he would have cried in relief. It was still a near thing as he reached down to check Roxxy’s breath. The weak brush of air against his fingers made his heart skip several beats, and he lowered his head. “Thank you,” he whispered.
The Berserker nodded and reached down to grab Roxxy, hoisting the giant stonekin into a fireman’s carry across his ridiculous shoulders. “Cover me!” he yelled as he stood up. “We’re getting the hell out of here!”
With that, the guy started to jog away, vanishing over the edge of the crater as suddenly as he’d appeared. His feet sank several inches into the ground with every step, the only indicator of the true weight he was carrying. SilentBlayde watched in silence before he remembered to close his mouth. Just how much Strength gear was Killbox wearing?
As the Berserker carried Roxxy out, SB became uncomfortably aware of the greater situation. Off to his left, he could still hear Frank yelling, “That’s right! You kick like my grandma! That big boot of yours ain’t so bad! These ankle-biters hurt more than you do, I bet!”
SilentBlayde’s blood ran cold. Frank was yelling at Grel’Darm to keep the giant’s attention. It was same tanking technique SB had taught him, but in this situation, it was a suicidal move. Grel’s stomp had knocked out Roxxy in one hit. It would turn Frank into paste.
Desperate, SB leaped to the top of the hole made by Grel’s boot print. He didn’t even see Frank when he first came up, then he spotted the Knight a dozen feet away, buried under a mass of biting, clawing undead. He couldn’t tell if the zombie swarm was trying to eat him or just hold him in place for their colossal master. Either way, it was a deadly situation and one that was entirely his fault. Frank was in over his head because he’d been doing exactly what SB had asked him to, to a degree that bordered on blind faith.
Guilt stabbed into him like a knife in the back. He needed to get to Frank somehow and kill all those undead so the newbie tank could run. Before he could take a single step, though, he was forced to duck as Grel’Darm pulled back his leg for a kick.
As the knight’s doom wound up for delivery, Frank brandished his shield in front of him. “That’s right!” the old man yelled. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
“No, Frank!” SB shouted frantically. “Defensive! Use a defensive ability!”
But the knight didn’t seem to hear him. He just stood there watching the incoming foot from behind his shield. Cursing, ’Blayde started to run toward him but had to drop to the ground again as Grel’Darm’s foot passed overhead like a low-flying jumbo jet, landing on the knight’s shield with a deafening clang.
SB squeezed his eyes shut. There was no way a sound like that didn’t end in a blood explosion. When he forced himself to look a second later, though, there was no blood. There was no Frank, either. DarkKnight’s gear must have been better than he’d realized, because instead of killing him instantly, Grel’s kick had sent Frank rocketing backward out of the pile of undead, through several trees, and down the hill before finally smacking into a rock. SB was still gaping in astonishment when the knight sat up and waved at him, grinning through his visor.
“Did you see that?”
SilentBlayde grinned so hard it hurt. He was about to yell back when a rusty sword stabbed into the soil inches from his face. Twisting to avoid it, SB suddenly realized that he was alone and surrounded. The rest of the raid was long gone, retreating as they’d been ordered, which meant it was now just him and the undead army on the hill. High overhead, Grel’Darm looked down with white beacon fires for eyes, his black mouth opening in a hollow laugh.
SB smiled back. “See ya, suckers,” he whispered, crossing his swords for the Blade Flash blinding move. He’d been saving his wide-area blind for a special occasion, and now definitely counted. But when he scraped his swords together, the flash didn’t happen.
He stared at his swords in horror, cursing in his newfound elven. He knew all of his abilities’ descriptions by heart, and the text of Blinding Flash was very clear—his swords bounced sunlight to blind all enemies in a glaring explosion. It had never failed before, but as he struggled to understand what had just happened, SB realized how dark it was around him.
That made him curse again, at himself this time. Of course. In game, abilities worked whenever they weren’t on cooldown, but now that things were real, Blade Flash must need actual sunlight to function. In the dust, at night, in the Deadlands, there was nothing bright enough to trigger the explosion. The only light here was the cold glow
of the ghostfire shining from thousands of eye sockets around the clearing, all of which were looking at him.
Sheathing his blades again, SilentBlayde crouched down, glad no one was around to see what he was about to do. He’d had a theory for a while now, something the other assassins hadn’t figured out yet. If a hundred Strength made him four times stronger than an average human, what did over a thousand Agility do?
He’d assumed “as fast as all hell” was the answer. Now, though, cornered by a raid boss and surrounded by an entire army of undead, SB was desperately hoping it was more like “become the Flash.” There was no time like the present to find out, so SB dug his boots into the ground and put on the speed. Not the usual speed he used in raids when he was trying to show off or get to a monster first so he could do max damage. His real speed, kicking off the dirt as fast as he could go.
The moment he started to move, the air turned to syrup. The world of screeching undead slowed to a crawl around him, leaving him free to kick the zombies over as he flew between them. Laughing with sudden delight, SilentBlayde danced across the seemingly immobile undead, plucking their arrows from the air as he raced out of the deathly forest and down the hill. Finally, a hundred yards and less than a second of real time later, he slid to a halt at Frank’s side, throwing up a wave of dust.
“Whoa!” Frank said, surprised. “Where did you come from?”
Gasping for breath, SB pointed at his face. “Assassin, remember?” He looked at the Knight’s armor, which was badly dented but mercifully bloodless. “You okay?”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Frank drawled, shoving himself to his feet. “Big-and-Ugly just dented my monkey suit is all.”
“I thought you were gonna die,” SilentBlayde admitted, trying to keep the shaking from his voice. He was really glad he hadn’t actually gotten Frank killed. Now that Roxxy was safe, the guilt of what he’d done was eating him alive, but Frank just laughed.
“Pshaw! I had a plan,” the old knight said cheerfully. “Turns out, they take insults to heart, and with physics being kinda wonky around here, I figured I’d line up my own firing line.” He pointed at all the trees he’d crashed through on his way out here. “I’m just glad that Big-and-Stompy didn’t miss the field goals I set up for him. If those trees hadn’t broken my momentum, I’d have splatted on this rock for sure.”
“Frank, you’re awesome,” SB said with a grin, still trying to catch his breath. “Now let’s get moving before we get caught.”
They both glanced up the hill at the undead, who seemed reluctant to leave their giant—but very slow—leader, then started jogging in the other direction. Thanks to his dented armor, Frank was moving more slowly than usual, but SB was still finding it hard to keep up, which made no sense. Even when he was exhausted, SB was normally faster than everyone. No matter how hard he pushed now, though, he kept falling behind.
This wouldn’t do for the world’s fastest elf, so SB put everything he had left into picking up the pace. But a few minutes later, he was no closer to Frank, and his breath was coming in ragged gulps. Even when he stopped completely to focus on gasping in air, it didn’t seem to help. No matter how hard he breathed, it wasn’t enough. His whole body was screaming for air as if he were suffocating from the inside. Falling to his knees, SilentBlayde tried to call for Frank only to find he didn’t have the air left to form the words.
Frank! he mouthed silently as the Knight’s back as it vanished into the darkness ahead of him. Fraaank!
But Frank was already gone, leaving SB gasping on the ground as the night grew darker and darker.
Chapter 8
James
“You filthy traitor.”
James sighed, tossing away the poisoned arrows his magic had pushed out of Arbati’s flesh. “You’re welcome for me saving your life.”
“If you can heal, then healing is your job,” the warrior snarled back. “Is that not how players work? Do you expect the tanks to owe you their lives for every spell you cast on them?”
James’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t realized Arbati understood how player parties operated. He supposed it made sense given how much player chatter the cat-man had had to listen to as a quest giver, but this new knowledge gave him an idea.
“Well, then,” he said, smiling smugly. “You can’t say I didn’t do my job. I healed you back from nearly dead.”
“Except you shouldn’t have let me get that bad in the first place! Why didn’t you cleanse immediately? And where were my mid-fight heals?”
“I had gnolls on me!” James cried. “If you’re the tank, then you screwed up by making me deal with them for so long.”
“You had plenty of time to heal the enemy,” Arbati growled back.
James winced. “I don’t suppose having a crisis of conscience means anything to you?”
“Sounds like a crisis of loyalties to me.”
“It wasn’t,” James said. “I just…” He looked down at the ground. “I didn’t want to kill them. It’s not their fault they’re being used by the undead. They have lives and families, too.”
“You killed those four easily enough,” Arbati said, pointing at the charred corpses of the gnolls James had hit with his lightning. “Kill these gnolls, don’t kill those gnolls—make up your mind! What about your promise to end the Red Canyon threat? Will you pick and choose there, too?” He looked away with a sneer. “I was right not to trust you. You are now as you were in the Nightmare, saying and doing whatever pleases you at the time. Playing at being a hero.”
James clenched his fists. “I’ll keep my promise to help save your sister,” he said angrily. “But I never said I’d commit genocide! I’ll kill the undead, but the gnolls are as much victims of this as Lilac.”
“The gnolls are putrid scavengers,” Arbati snapped. “And you bragged you’d ‘slaughter the camp.’ Your words, player.”
James bit his tongue. He had said that, hadn’t he? But that was before he’d known. Before he’d…
He looked at the charred corpses again, stomach twisting at the stench of burned fur. “I promised to end the threat,” he said quietly. “And I will. But I’m not going to kill again. Not if I can help it.”
“A worm-worded excuse,” Arbati said, turning up his nose. “Why bother going on a raid if you’re not going to kill? Not that it matters now. You’ve already shown yourself to be a traitor and a coward, which means this trial is already a failure.”
James shook his head. “No. It’s not over until Lilac’s dead or I am.”
“That last one can be arranged,” Arbati growled, rising to his feet. “I still need what little help you can offer to save my sister, but I’m watching my back for your dagger, coward. The moment you show your true colors, my blade is ready to take off your head.”
“Thanks for the second chance,” James muttered, standing up as well only to stop again when he spotted the arrow-riddled corpses of their mounts. “I guess we’re walking to Red Canyon now.”
Arbati shot him a look of utter scorn. “Of course a fake jubatus like you wouldn’t know,” he said, stalking over to yank the pack off his dead runner. “We go like this.”
With that, Arbati fell to all fours and took off down the road, his long legs and arms propelling him over the rutted track only slightly more slowly than their runners had moved. James watched in awe. The sight of the cat-warrior racing through the savanna on all fours was the most alien thing he’d seen yet. There was nothing human or even Earthlike about the scene in front of him. He was still trying to wrap his brain around it when Arbati stopped, glaring over his shoulder with an impatient hiss.
Not knowing what else to do, James dropped down to his hands in the dirt road. To his surprise, the position felt natural to his body, but his mind was completely out of its element. His first attempt at running on all fours ended up with him tripping over his own feet. When he tried again, he ended up with his face in the dirt. Spitting the grit out of his mouth, James decided he was overthink
ing things and resolved to let his body decide how to move on its own.
After that, running got a lot easier. It was still awkward at first, but once he matched Arbati’s long, bounding gait, his body found its rhythm, and running started to be fun. Jubatus weren’t as fast as the beasts they’d ridden here, but he seemed to be able to sustain speeds an Olympic sprinter would have been proud to hit. Racing down the road at a pace he never could have dreamed of in his human body put a smile on his face until a bug smacked into his teeth. After that, James learned to keep his mouth shut, pumping his body even faster to keep up with Arbati as they ran through the evening light.
They raced across the savanna for the next several hours. It was dry, dusty traveling, but James was quickly discovering that jubatus were amazingly well adapted for running through the hot grasslands. The tough skin on his hands didn’t get scraped by the rocks, and his short claws were excellent for getting a grip at those times when the road was sandy. His short fur protected him from the sun and the abrasive wind, yet it wasn’t so long that it trapped sweat. Everything evaporated as it should, keeping him cool.
While he was lost in the rhythm of long-distance running, the sunset snuck past him. He didn’t even realize how dark it had gotten until he noticed stars glittering on the horizon. He skidded to a stop at once, terrified of breaking a leg in the dark, but to his surprise, the landscape looked just as bright as it had when they’d started running. Despite FFO’s complete lack of a moon, everything was still sharp and clear though strangely lacking in color. James was wondering how that was possible when the truth suddenly hit him.
Jubatus can see in the dark!
A giddy smile spread across his face. Back when FFO had been a game, nowhere was truly dark. Even in the dead of night, light filters had been applied to make sure night-owl players wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. Now, though, the empty savanna was pitch-black save for the faint light of the stars, not that it seemed to matter to James. He could still see everything perfectly, including Arbati’s scowl when the warrior looked back to see why he’d stopped.