by Jake Bible
I knew that vibration well, having lived close to a railyard when I was a little kid. At night, as I tried to go to sleep, my bed would vibrate. At first, it would keep me awake, then slowly it would lull me to sleep. I loved that feeling.
I did not love the feeling so much in EverRealm because there were no trains in EverRealm. That meant that if something was large enough and powerful enough to vibrate the ground like a train, then there was no way it was a good thing.
I knelt and put the palm of my left hand to the dirt. The vibration was getting stronger by the second. Whatever was causing it was getting closer.
“Coz!” I yelled. “Coz! Where the hell are you?”
He was suddenly at my side.
“I feel it,” he said, his eyes on the others as they beat the ever-loving shit out of the Ghost of the Beast. “Damn. They’re walloping that son of a bitch.”
“Let’s ignore the Ghost for a second,” I said. “We need to go see what’s coming at us.”
“Good call,” Coz said. “You go to that side of the village and I’ll go to this side.”
The Ghost of the Beast roared in agony, making us both jump, but the others refused to let up. Their attack was relentless. Good for them because that gave Coz and me time to see what was heading our way.
“Go,” I said.
We moved off in our respective directions. I had to keep from puking again as I came across a particularly gruesome scene. The Ghost of the Beast really had a way with entrails.
Keeping my gorge at bay, I made it to the outskirts of the town. I was facing the direction that we’d come into the village by. Not so far off was that dust cloud I’d spied earlier and it was getting closer and closer.
“Riders?” I asked aloud.
“Nah, we’re too far from the plains,” Coz said.
I yelped and almost stabbed him with the Dark Blade.
“You’re supposed to be looking the other way!” I snapped.
“I did,” he said and shrugged. “Nothing that way except the mountains on the horizon.” He pointed his chin at the dust cloud. “We should wrap up here and go.”
“What about the Ghost of the Beast?” I asked.
“Hopefully the others have killed it by now,” Coz said. There was another roar and he frowned. “Or not.”
Then we heard screaming and yelling.
“Shit,” Coz said. “That was Trish screaming.”
He was gone before I could blink. I was close behind, but not before I thought I caught a glimpse of horses cresting a hill about half a mile away. Then the dust was too thick to see anything else. I sprinted as fast as my ankle would let me back to the others.
The Ghost of the Beast was incorporeal again, and the spells that Ming was throwing at it were sailing through its body like bullets through water. That was terrifying enough, but what was worse was that Kip and Sandra weren’t even trying to take down the thing. Instead, they were crouched over by a collapsed house down the dirt street. Coz was running up to them then skidded to a stop.
“Goddammit!” he cried and shoved Kip out of the way. “No!”
I looked from Ming to the others and couldn’t decide which way to go. They’d left Ming to handle the Ghost of the Beast by himself and he wasn’t fairing so well. But, obviously something very bad was going down where Kip, Sandra, and Coz were.
Where was Trish?
Ming cried out as he was flung from out of the ruins of the house where the Ghost of the Beast stood cackling.
“You think you are king of this land!” the Ghost of the Beast roared. “You are nothing but a sad man that cannot decide what he wants to be! You are neither warrior nor master of magic! Your power is weak, old man!”
The Ghost of the Beast closed quickly on Ming, but I was quicker. I stepped between the two, the Dark Blade held up and pointed at the Ghost.
“Back off, asshole!” I yelled.
“The blade will belong to me soon,” the Ghost growled. Then it snarled, looked past my shoulder, and grinned. “But not today, you joke of a human. Today, I let others do the work. I will claim the blade once you are dead and your bones have been picked clean by those that eat the flesh of the living.”
“Which is it, dickhead? Will I be dead or living when my bones are picked clean? Learn the language or get out,” I said.
The Ghost looked confused for a second, which it should have since I wasn’t exactly making sense, but it was the best I could come up with at the time.
“Goodbye, imposter,” the Ghost of the Beast said then it dove into its pool of goo and was gone.
I stared at the goo for a few seconds to make sure it wasn’t going to pop up in some lame surprise attack. But it didn’t, so I sheathed the Dark Blade and spun about to check on Ming.
The guy looked like hell. Half his face was blistered and the other half was swelling with dark bruises. One hand was cramped into a claw and the other was spasming like it was having its very own, private seizure.
“Ming! Ming, can you hear me?” I asked as I crouched next to him.
I checked his pulse, which was stupid since he was obviously alive, the spasming hand was proof of that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I looked up and was ready to call the others when I saw pieces of burnt wood shaking on the ground. Shaking hard. Harder than Ming’s hand was.
“Oh, crap,” I said as what had been causing the ground to vibrate burst into the village, racing full speed right for us.
And we were not prepared for what they were.
Twenty-Four
Centaurs are freaky.
Human torsos with horse bodies.
But the real freaky part is if they have horse bodies, does that mean they have horse dicks or human dicks down there? I guess even thinking that question probably makes me the freaky one, but I can never help but wonder about it whenever I come across their kind in EverRealm.
Not that what thundered into the village was like any kind of centaur I’d ever seen before.
Nope, what came roaring at us was a herd of goddamn, undead centaurs.
You heard that right: Goddamn. Undead. Centaurs.
They galloped through the ruins of the village, their undead mouths wide open, screaming their war cries, but with an undercurrent of that ubiquitous undead groan. We were lucky that the undead were shit at using tools. Centaurs are known as masters of archery and could have wiped us out in seconds, but instead, their bows hung unused across their backs.
“Ming, get up!” I snapped, slapping the guy across the face. “Get up!”
He stirred, but even a hard slap to the blistered cheek didn’t get him motivated. So I grabbed him by the front of his robes and yanked his ass up onto his feet. I put my face right up to his and shouted, “Undead centaurs, Ming! There are undead centaurs coming to kill us!”
“Undead…centaurs?” he asked, dazed and confused. He blinked a few times then focused on my face. “Steve? Did you say undead centaurs?”
“Yes!” I shouted and shook him.
“This is not good,” he said and tried to pry my hands from his robes. “Please let go of me.”
“You gonna stay standing and start fighting?” I asked.
“I will do my best at both,” he said.
I let go and he fell back to the ground.
“Goddammit,” I said and yanked him back up.
I was going in for another slap, but he waved me off.
“No, no, I can stay standing,” he said. “Give me a second.”
“We do not have a second, dumbass! Undead centaurs!”
I spun him about to face the oncoming herd. That sobered his shit up fast.
“There are undead centaurs attacking,” he said like he’d discovered fire. “We must defend ourselves.” He looked back at me and frowned. “Wasn’t I fighting the Ghost of the Beast only a moment ago?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it fighting,” I said. “Losing well, maybe.”
“Yes, thank you, Steve,” he said and brush
ed himself off.
Then he clapped his hands together. His staff appeared once more and he struck it against the ashy ground. A streak of lightning shot high into the sky and wind began to whip around us.
“Centaurs! As your high ruler, I command you to depart from here!” Ming shouted.
“Seriously?” I cried. “They’re undead! You can’t command them to do shit!”
“It was worth a try,” Ming said then aimed the tip of his staff at the front of the herd and fired another bolt of lightning.
Two centaurs screeched as they were burnt to a crisp. All that was left of them was more ash to add to the already abundant quantity that was flying everywhere amid the piles of scorched bones.
That attack accomplished two things: it gave me new respect for Ming’s fighting ability, because that was a wicked attack, and it gave our position away so that the rest of the herd knew exactly where to attack.
One check mark for the win column, one check mark for the loss column. It was a wash, really.
“We need to leave now,” I said, tugging at his shoulder. “None of us have the Health to take on a herd of undead centaurs.”
“You are correct,” Ming said, winded. Just shooting a couple bolts of lightning really took it out of him. “We must find the others.”
The others…
“Shit,” I said and pulled Ming out of the ruined house and in the opposite direction of the undead centaurs.
It was also the opposite direction of the rest of our party, but there was nothing I could do about that. We’d have to circle around to find them then run our tired asses off. Where, I had no clue, but anywhere other than where the herd was.
Thunder suddenly erupted above us, causing both Ming and myself to cry out. Just a second ago, the only clouds in the sky were the smoke clouds from the village. Now there was one hell of a thunderstorm brewing, growing bigger and darker by the second.
“Did you do that?” I asked.
“It was not I,” Ming said as he stumbled along behind me.
The Ghost of the Beast really rang his bell because even with my messed-up ankle, Ming was barely keeping up. I had to continually look over my shoulder to make sure he was there and hadn’t fallen behind.
The ground beneath us shook and shuddered, and I skidded to a halt as a wall of undead horse and man flesh cut us off. Part of the herd had broken off to come at us from the other direction. I drew the Dark Blade and prepared to fight.
That’s when the flames decided it was time to show up.
The entire blade lit up just as I had seen it do when the Dark Enforcer had wielded it. I had no idea why it was working that way all of a sudden, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Nope, I was gonna stab an undead man-horse in the mouth.
A centaur came galloping towards me and I swung high and hard, cutting its belly wide open. It screamed and collapsed as it passed me, its huge body sliding in the ash and dirt, only coming to a stop because it collided with a pile of half-burnt timbers.
The congealed blood from its guts sizzled as the blade burned.
I ran at the oncoming herd and struck with wild abandon. I wasn’t the greatest swordsman. Hell, I wasn’t even a mediocre swordsman. But with the Dark Blade aflame in my hands, I felt like I could take on a God.
Power coursed up my arms and my mind became so clear and focused that I could make out the individual chest hairs of the six undead centaurs that were bearing down on my. All I wanted to do was burn those chest hairs right off their deceased bodies. Those chest hairs pissed me off.
I slashed and struck, spinning between the centaurs as they reached me. I lopped off legs, cut open more bellies, set afire ratty tails, then turned about to do it all over again. The centaurs screamed and groaned as they fell under my onslaught.
Then I was down on my knees, the back of my head engulfed in pain and wetness soaking my tunic. I looked over my shoulder in time to see a second hoof coming at me. I threw myself to the side and rolled and rolled until I was sure I was clear of the attack.
I was wrong.
Hooves stomped down by my head, by my legs, by my chest, and all I could do was keep rolling, keep moving, and pray I didn’t get trampled to death.
I slashed with the Dark Blade and a centaur screeched in pain as I took its legs out at the knees. Then it fell. Right on top of me.
Well, almost. The screeching thing stopped about two inches above me. I could see the body shaking and knew that someone had saved my ass.
“Get up!” Ming yelled. “Move now, Steve!”
I rolled out from under the levitating centaur and Ming let it drop. It tried to grab for me since I’d only chopped off its legs and not its arms, but I was well out of its reach.
“This way!” Ming said as the sky opened up and rain so powerful that it hurt came pouring down upon us. “The others are there!”
He pointed through the deluge, and I could just make out the shapes of the rest of our party. We ran that way as fast as we could, careful of our footing since the ground was quickly turning into ash gray mud.
The Dark Blade continued to burn. The rain didn’t touch it, it was so hot, yet I couldn’t feel any of that heat. Then it brightened to such an intensity that I had to squint my eyes to keep from being blinded.
“Look out!” someone yelled, and I turned in time to see three undead centaurs bearing down on me.
I tried to twist about to slash at them with the Dark Blade, but my feet went out from under me, slipping in the ever-thickening mud, and I landed hard on my ass. I could hear yelling, but couldn’t make out the words over the roaring of the storm. All I could do was scramble backwards on my hands and feet, the Dark Blade cooking the mud into a divot of hard clay as I went.
The centaurs were almost on me when the one in the lead lost its balance and its front legs collapsed under it. Even over the thunder, I could hear the snap of one of those legs. There may have been a centaur scream of rage to go with that snap, but it was hard to tell when the two centaurs behind it bellowed and screeched as they were tripped up and also fell into the mud.
I stopped crawling backwards when my wounded head bumped into something solid. I twisted about and expected to see the solid legs of a centaur, but it was only the stonework of a chimney. I gripped a large stone and used it to pull myself up out of the mud then rested my back against it not only for support, but as a defense as I surveyed the destroyed village.
The storm cast everything into a dark twilight and the rain made visibility even worse. All I could see were large shapes moving this way and that. I couldn’t make out a single detail, and there was no way I could know if something that moved off to my right was friend or foe. It was nothing but chaos everywhere I looked.
Then out of that chaos came a light. A single, small light that cut through the darkness and moved towards me. I held the Dark Blade up, but was sadly disappointed when I saw it was just a normal blade again. Okay, maybe not normal since it was made of obsidian, but the fire had gone out. Still, it was a sword, and whatever that light was it was going to get a cutting and bad.
Except it wasn’t someone I wanted to cut. It was Sandra.
“Steve!” she cried and hurried as fast as she could to me, her boots squelching in the mud.
The light was her dagger, and I almost thought she was going to stab me with it. But she didn’t. She wrapped her arms around me in a huge hug and clung on so tight I thought I’d stop breathing. All I could do was hug her back.
A crash of thunder and lightning so bright that I was blinded by the aftereffects, reminded both of us that were in some seriously messed-up danger and we each pulled away from the embrace.
“Where is everyone else?” she yelled over the thunder.
“What? I thought you were with them?” I yelled back.
“We got separated!”
“Then I don’t know! Ming was with me, but I lost him!”
“We have to leave!”
“I know!”
“Come on!”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me around the chimney, and we stumbled through the remains of someone’s house. Through that and into the two feet of mud the street on the other side had become we went. It was painfully slow going as buckets upon buckets of rain came down on us. But, eventually, we made it to the outskirts of the village that was no more and our feet found the grass of the rolling hills.
Neither Sandra nor I spoke a single word as we fled. All we did was concentrate on keeping our feet moving. We may have been out of the mud of the village, but the rain was still coming down hard and the grass was slick as shit.
We had to have been slipping and sliding for hours before we were able to get free of the storm and finally collapsed next to a stand of beech trees that stood on the side of a hill. I don’t remember anything except that we clung to each other, both shivering so hard we were basically convulsing, until our body heat joined and we were able to drift off into exhausted, long overdue, sleep.
Twenty-Five
The warmth of the suns on my face woke me and I slowly, painfully opened my eyes. Sandra’s face was only an inch from my own and I held my breath, not wanting to waft any morning stink on her. Nothing like holding a beautiful woman in your arms and waking up to the taste of death on your tongue. It humbles even the greatest of us.
Her eyelids flickered and she came awake. She focused, saw me staring at her, gave me the tiniest of smiles, then shoved me away and sat bolt upright.
“We have to go back,” she cried, scrambling to her feet.
She fell back to the ground, her legs not quite ready for the standing up thing.
“Chill, Sandra, chill,” I said, grabbing her shoulder. She tried to pull away, but I clung tighter. “Calm down. We have no idea where we are let alone where they are.”
She had a panicked look on her face then very slowly her taut muscles relaxed under my grip and she nodded. Then she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.