by Hugo Huesca
HOME INVASION
Kes raised her shield to meet the incoming projectiles and ran for her life as she did so. If Sergeant Riashia had been alive to watch her go, the old stout warrior would’ve swollen with pride. Kes didn’t stop to look at her attackers, didn’t waste time issuing a defiant challenge, didn’t try to dodge the attacks. She simply charged at the nearest source of cover—a jagged outcrop at the bottom of the slope. Her shield rattled on her arm as several impacts smashed against it. A normal shield wouldn’t have done much against the spells, but her defensive talent shield master paid for its experience cost several times over at that moment.
Still, it did little to protect her against the raw strength of the impacts. The force of the lances rattled her to the bone, caused her to grit her teeth, and made her see stars. She lost her footing, and the last part of her charge to the outcrop she made rolling. She smashed against the jagged rocks, ass-first, and she lay there for an instant, out of breath, stunned, barely knowing what had happened. At least the snow had slowed her fall.
Move, boot! Sergeant Riashia’s voice came from a distant part of her mind. Have you learned nothing I taught you? Never give your enemy a static target!
Kes whimpered, then forced herself to crawl behind the outcrop, seconds before a second volley peppered the rocks and showered her in sharp splinters. By the gods, I’m still alive. Battered, yes, hurting all over, and bleeding from a dozen scrapes. But scrapes could heal.
“Long time no see, Ria,” she said aloud, like a madwoman. Kes stood and stole a glance over her cover. The leader of the cultists—that had to be Nicolai—had ordered a ceasefire and was maneuvering his forces to surround Kes’ current position from both sides. From where she was standing, she could see the villagers well. They had stopped in their tracks, paralyzed by fear.
“Don’t just stand there!” she hurried them. “Run! They can’t shoot you inside the Haunt!” She showed them her shield—the round wooden surface had taken a battering, and was barely still holding itself together. “I’ll go first, don’t stop for anything or anyone!”
The trick with civilians was to not give them time to think things over. Kes roared with all her might—as much to embolden the villagers as herself—and jumped away from the outcrop, running like Kharon himself was on her heels.
It’s like Wartrak all over again, isn’t it, boot? Sergeant Riashia laughed inside her head. Us grunts leading the charge and hoping the assholes behind us are following!
Arrows and ice bolts smashed all around her the instant she started moving, but the cultists had to deal with the treacherous terrain of the Haunt’s rocky hills, and their aim was off.
She saw the Haunt’s entrance coming closer and closer. She was going to make it.
A section of her shield’s edge exploded, and she felt the wooden shards scrape her neck. The impact was so strong it pushed her shield away, and almost made her fall over. An arrow, just at the right angle… the shield had deflected it, but barely.
Someone behind her screamed in pain. Shit! To stop would be to die with them. She forced herself forward and somehow found enough strength to raise her shield again.
She reached the tunnel—a fire bolt scorched the wall, a stride away from her face. She turned back—the villagers were running for their lives, scant feet away from safety—and Nicolai’s cultists were unloading on them.
A young boy fell, an arrow embedded in his neck, blood spurting out like a fountain. The woman he had been carrying stumbled, and was cut down by a shower of rocks and dust and steam—
They’re reaching fireball range!
“No!” Kes heard herself scream, saw her legs propel her out of the safety of the tunnel, like a spectator in a Bardic play. The scared men and women passed around her like a river, blinded by panic and fear. She held her shield in front of her with both hands, her head pressed against the reinforced iron, her cheek burning in pain after each impact. Arrows and spells rained around her. Bryne’s ugly face rolled on the ground a few feet away. A long shard of ice had pierced him right under his eye.
Something punched her in the belly, drew the air out of her, and forced her to one knee.
I’m dead, she realized. Maybe she could draw fireball impacts away from the villagers if she jumped out—
Dead? You’re wearing armor, you stupid fucking boot, Sergeant Riashia screamed at her. Move your ass, you’re the last one!
Kes roared again. Her feet were as heavy as lead, but she forced them up and down. With one hand she kept her shield up, and with the other she grabbed Bryne by his hair and dragged herself and him into the tunnel. Something struck against her back, and she heard the deafening ring of her iron armor breaking. She went down and tasted blood.
Several hands grabbed at her armor straps, then carried her inside.
“It’s the Traitor, leave her!” someone said.
“Shut the fuck up, Darla.” This voice was closer. Through her blurred vision, Kes recognized Heorghe’s wife. What was her name? She had known the woman for years, but she couldn’t remember her name. Half of the woman’s face was covered in blood, caking her hair to her cheek and neck.
Fight isn’t over. On your feet, boot! Was that Ria or herself speaking? It made zero difference. Ria was dead, split in half by a minotaur’s axe, a long time ago. Kes was the only one left, and the fight wasn’t over. Andreena’s potions. She blindly rummaged through her belt, hoping that the flask hadn’t fallen out during the fight. She found it, drank it all in one go, felt the disgusting substance reach her stomach—felt the energy surging back into her battered body.
Her vision came back into focus. She stumbled up. Scared men and women were all around her, old and young. At her feet, Bryne had an ashen look to his face, and he wasn’t moving. No way to tell if he was still alive—people could shrug off worse, or die of less.
“What do we do?” Heorghe’s wife asked. Ivona. Her name was Ivona.
“Go back,” Kes told her. “Left tunnel, all the way to the end. You’ll find your husband’s forge there. Hide, grab the spears along the way. Don’t make a sound.”
Ivona nodded. With the help of two men she picked up Bryne and headed for the tunnel. “What about you? You’re hurt.”
Kes could hear the blood dripping down from her back—she could feel its warmth soaking her clothes.
“I am Volantis’ wall in the sky,” she said. Her sword arm was unhurt. She cracked her neck left and right. She could sense her minor regeneration fighting back the blood loss. “When my enemies rise past the clouds, they will break against me and be cast down.”
“Let’s go, Ivona! She’s gone mad!” One by one, the villagers left the tunnel, heading for safety.
She could hear the cultists coming nearer; their footsteps fighting for purchase, their curses, and the crisp orders of their leader.
A red cape flapped in the wind, crimson against the moonlight’s silver. Kes’ training took over, and her body reacted before her mind. Her sword flashed at the man—her edge found resistance, then pushed through. The cultist let out a gargle as blood poured out of his torn throat. He fell back—the two cultists behind him tried to catch him, but they slipped and fell with him.
Two more cultists took their place. One of them, a woman that could’ve been Ivona’s cousin, lifted a finger in Kes’ direction. “Fireb—”
Kes activated her power strike, and the mage’s head exploded like a melon dropped from a high surface. “Cleave!” Her blade surged with magical speed and precision to the other cultist, who barely had time to react. He tried to parry with his short sword, but misjudged the distance. Kes cut the tendon of his wrist, then jabbed with the tip of her sword and drove three inches of steel into the man’s belly, whose screams of agony began to fill the air. Behind him, people were screaming curses at her. She pulled her sword out of the man—which did more damage on the withdrawal. He collapsed, blood and guts pooling under him.
The effort of using both power strike and c
leave in quick succession almost floored her in her weakened state. Just a few more seconds, she thought. She had to make sure Ivona and the others had enough time to hide.
Someone else stepped through the opening and rushed at her. Power strike!
The man had the presence of mind to lift his longsword and attempt a parry. Metal struck metal with a deafening screech—red sparks showered Kes, and the smell of burnt hair filled her nostrils. The impact rang through her bones like her sword had been a part of her, and both weapons fell to the floor, ruined and bent. The man smashed against the wall, wincing in pain. Kes stumbled, fought for purchase, and pushed against the opposite wall to retain her balance. Her sword arm had gone numb and unresponsive. Broken? She wasn’t in any pain, but that didn’t mean much. Pain would come later.
“Now then,” the man told her. “You’ve had your fun.” He smiled coldly, a gleam of madness in his features. Nicolai. His sword arm flapped, as broken as his sword. Or was it slithering, like a serpent? “Now it’s my turn.”
Kes was trained to react instantly to unknown magical effects, just as any self-respecting soldier was. But she had to do a double take when she saw Nicolai’s arm stretch and shift, like meat and bone were but mere suggestions. The forearm grew brown ridges of exoskeleton, covered in slime, and the hand elongated and split itself in two. There was no blood, only fingers melting into each other, forming two fang-like appendages. Around the split where the palm had been but instants ago, tiny, sharp teeth grew in several rows, and it now looked like she was staring into the mouth of a giant leech.
Somehow, it was a familiar sight to Kes, and that was what scared her the most. “What are you?” she asked.
“I am Starevos’ sword,” Nicolai said simply. His monstrous arm flashed like a whip in front of her.
He missed, she thought. Then the pain came, burning, piercing, terrible. She looked down—her shield had splintered in a thousand pieces, her arm was covered in blood—her blood—and she was missing two fingers.
Back, boot, back! the sergeant barked at her from a distant corner of her mind. But Kes couldn’t help but stare at the wound. I didn’t even see it coming.
Nicolai kicked her in the chest, forcing the air out of her. She could feel her ribs compressing against her organs, trying to keep everything from bursting. She smashed against the wall.
Roll away! Too slow. That monstrous arm flicked again. What has it eaten from me this time? A line of burning pain spread across her belly. Kes had lived long enough to fear wounds to the gut—had seen enough friends suffer terrible deaths because of them. She instinctively pressed a hand without even looking at the damage, trying to keep her insides where they belonged for as long as she could.
Nicolai returned to her field of vision. He took a long sip from a flask, then his arm slowly returned to normal. “There we go. Another one of my enemies broken at my feet. The only question left is—” someone handed him a new sword, and he pointed it at Kes’ neck “—are you part of Wright’s twenty? Let’s go with yes. You’ll be the first.”
Kes closed her eyes. She was too weak to protect herself. She had reached that point of exhaustion where even the energy expenditure of her minor regeneration—which she couldn’t turn off—was enough to threaten her life. “Go fuck yourself,” she whispered weakly.
“What?” came Nicolai’s answer. He was as surprised as Kes. Because she was moving.
Or, more precisely, she was being dragged through the ground. In her bloodloss-induced delirium, she believed that she was dead, and Kharon himself was dragging her soul to hell.
It was a sad prospect. On one hand, her chance at the avian afterlife had been stripped from her the instant she lost her wings. On the other, for years she had hoped she at least qualified for the afterlife of some neutral god. Hogbus would’ve been acceptable.
Someone screamed in a rage. There was a brief explosion, and shards of rock smashed against her.
Groggily, she looked up. A monstrous visage stared back at her, black eyes without sclera glinting maliciously at her. Long ears, elven-like, but there was nothing elven about the creature. It was Dark-aligned, through and through, but it wasn’t Kharon. She wasn’t important enough for the Boatman.
“What are you looking at?” Nicolai’s voice said, screaming in anger. “Don’t let her get away!” Then he cursed, and a different voice screamed in pain. “No fireballs in an enclosed tunnel. Ancestor’s balls, are you stupid?”
Wait, Kes thought. Wait a second. She looked up again. The creature’s tunic had a gray monster emblazoned on its purple-and-pink cloth.
She was being dragged away by Ed’s drones. Four of them. She saw more of them past her boots. They were jumping in front of Nicolai, sacrificing themselves to buy a second or two for her.
Well, look at you, Ria’s voice was distant now. Everything seemed distant. You never ceased to impress me, Kessih. Of all the boots in your batch, you’re the only one who managed to hit rock bottom several times in a row.
Oh, go fuck yourself. Kes laughed and laughed, leaving a bloody trail on the ground under her.
NICOLAI WAS NOT in the mood to withstand any slight, and at the top of the list of slights he wasn’t willing to withstand was being harassed by summoned imps while his prey escaped from his grasp.
He cleaved through all the drones in one single strike. The puff of smoke as they were unsummoned blinded him for the briefest instant, and when he could see again, the crippled avian mercenary was nowhere around.
Of course, he only had to follow the trail of blood. I should have hit her harder when I had the chance. He glanced down at all the people the woman had killed. Her suffering at his hands was but justice.
One of the fallen was Peter, his intestines sprawled across the floor in a steaming pile. The tunnel stank of warm shit. Fourteen years old, wasn’t he? It wasn’t the best age to die, but he had been a man of fighting age, trained by Rolim himself. He joined us when he was but a boy. Heiligian tax collectors hanged his parents when they couldn’t pay, then burned down their farm.
Peter wailed suddenly, his face contracting in agony. Still alive? Not really. Peter’s wound was lethal. A high-level Cleric might have been able to restore him, maybe even get him back in fighting shape with a single spell. But there were no high-level Clerics around. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing anyone could do for the kid. Except…
Nicolai bent over Peter’s wailing shape and cut his neck from ear to ear. Peter’s friends, who had just arrived inside the tunnel, tried and failed to contain gasps and curses. “My apologies,” Nicolai told them. “This is the only mercy I can give him. He’s with his ancestors now, and I’m sure they’re proud of him.”
Brondan and Rolim, who had been covering the rearguard, arrived seconds later. Rolim glanced at the dead rebels, and at the gore that covered the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel. Then he noticed Peter, who wasn’t moving anymore. “Fucking hell.”
Brondan slumped against the wall, pale faced, and covered his nose with his sleeve. “Now I regret purchasing my improved hearing talent. It was as if I could hear these poor sods’ souls leaving their bodies.”
Rolim pushed the Thief away from the gruesome sight. “Later, elf. We deal with it later.”
“We keep moving,” Nicolai said. “We’ve lost much of the element of surprise thanks to that suicidal bitch.” We can’t afford to mourn our losses. We all knew what we signed up for.
To the rebels, Nicolai’s word was law. They left the bodies there. Brondan took point, searching for traps as quickly as he could. The Thief found a couple minor ones, none magical. An alarm bell, which was redundant now; a small batch of well-hidden spears with rough iron tips; and a rope connected to a net stuck to the ceiling, holding up small boulders—big enough to hurt, though probably not to kill.
Non-lethal traps for the entrance, in case an ally accidentally triggers them, Nicolai thought with grim satisfaction. You’ll soon wish you hadn’t been
so careful, Edward.
The rebels arrived at a wide circular hall, reinforced stone walls decorated by pelts and tapestry the same color as the drones’ tunics. There were three tunnels at the end of the hall. A rough linen rug covered the floor. There were a few items strewn around the floor: baskets, plows, a kid’s coat. Most of them lay in the general direction of the tunnel to the left. Nicolai took mental note of all details, but the most important one was the trail of blood heading into the middle tunnel. There, partially covered by shadows, was the figure of the avian bitch that had killed Peter and the others. She was resting against the wall, watching the rebels, breathing heavily.
At once, his rebels made for her. Nicolai lifted an imperious fist. “Halt!” he called. “I’ll handle her.” We can’t afford to lose any more time. With any luck, the wraith would make short work of Edward Wright, but if it didn’t, Nicolai would rather not face an angry Dungeon Lord on his home turf. “Brondan, secure that tunnel.” He pointed his new sword to the left tunnel and assigned five rebels for the Thief to take. “Rolim, secure the one on the right.” He gestured at five more rebels to follow Rolim. That left Nicolai with only three.
“Are you sure?” Rolim asked him, while Brondan and his group ran past them and headed for their tunnel. “You’re awfully under-manned.”
“Please, my friend,” Nicolai said with a confident smile. “What’s she going to do, bleed over my boots?” Besides, I can regenerate almost any wound, and you cannot. It was no coincidence that he had left the middle tunnel for himself. Historically, dungeons were more heavily guarded at their center than at their wings, if only because the Seats were usually there.
Meanwhile, in the middle tunnel, he saw out of the corner of his eye how the avian warrior gestured weakly at one of Wright’s drones. She was shaking her head. “Wait,” her lips seemed to enunciate. She won’t have to wait for long.
“Yes,” Rolim said with a sigh. “I guess you’re right. Take care, Nicolai.” With that, his group ran for the right tunnel.