by Han Yang
I did have to deny her request to make more goblin ogres. However, over the past two days she had adhered to me allocating our dwindling treasury to increase two types of mages. Spell nullifying (rare) and shielding mages (semi-rare).
The last battle had showed a different side of war on Nordan. Absorbing an enemy volley was everything because both sides had limited mana. In theory, two opposing forces of equal magical might would cancel each other out and the side with the better trained or equipped for non-magical combat would win.
The thoughts of tactics faded when we arrived at a section of the road where a black haze coated the trees. The odd material lightly lingered in this area, telling me this had to be the outskirts. A set of minotaur guards stood at the entrance of the woods, staring at us with vitriol.
Asha slowly rode up, the guards taller than he was on Charlie. When he passed by without a challenge, I figured we were good to go. Each of the guards eyed my undead with disdain, treating us as inferiors while we trotted by. They did, however, let us pass unchecked.
The moment we entered the forest, Asha stopped.
“I’ll be here, Boss,” Asha told me. The elva sneezed, shook his head, then sneezed again. “Maybe I’ll stay with Smiles and Giggles back there.”
Small problem. Charlie was pissed, angry to the point that without a doubt I’d have to let him fight until he likely passed out from the obnoxious gas.
The human hands made it easy to write, and the hard to come by parchment was in excess as of late. I scribbled a quick note, telling my friend that Charlie and I were hankering for a fight.
I handed the parchment to my friend, giving my best skeleton smile possible.
He grumbled, dismounting Charlie while complaining quietly to the horse.
“There’s rope in his saddle. I guess I can wait on foot. Probably get some of the anger out of him anyway,” Asha said, patted the stout neck of the powerful horse.
I smirked, accepting the reins. The horse knew I was inside this skeleton, no one could ever call Charlie a dumb animal. The moment I settled into the saddle, the asshole bolted.
I whispered in my real body to my minions, “Kill the Queen then cleanse her young.”
The entire scouting party - minus Asha - surged into the mists. I sometimes forgot how immense the matogators were, and I always found joy in their waddling run.
Charlie snorted, seeing the first spider high in a web that went from the top of a rotting tree to the ground. Whatever this mist did to knock humans out, it ruined the vegetation, shriveling everything until it remained brown or black.
“Charlie!” I shouted, of course, the skeleton I commanded said nothing and Charlie recklessly charged us right into the first thick wall of webbing.
I lowered myself, hugging his neck tightly.
The elastic nature of the material stretched before snapping, not even coming close to containing the big horse in his charge. A second after we smashed through the first barrier, we crashed through another and then another.
It became evident why living beings stayed the hell out of the area. I spent the whole time cleansing my frame of webbing. I could only imagine battling the material while fighting spiders and the toxins.
The matogators hunted, most following Charlie and all ignored the ineffective attacks from the minion spiders.
Time melded slightly, Charlie moving so fast we became a blur. When I didn’t feel the tug and snap of the webbing, I expected him to be tiring or struggling from the effects of the spider blight.
Nope. We entered a section of woods where the lower webbing held arched cut outs. My tracking skills told me something large had been walking through the area with four claws on wide paws.
I yanked on Charlie’s reins, pissing the war horse off. His head twisted, red bloodshot eyes glaring at me angrily. I pointed to what was likely a large bear, epic tiger, dragon, or some other animal. Hell, Nordan had all sorts of large predators.
My message to the horse was clear - this was not spider tracks.
He snorted aggressively, clearing the mist out of his nostrils. Quick rapid huffs, and he caught the scent of something that frightened him. A first, and I was shocked when he backed up.
“Yeah, you dummy. Why are you so bloodthirsty?” I complained, knowing Tarla would bug me later about talking into the air.
I yanked the lance out of the holder, glancing around and finding us alone because the matogators were unable to keep up. Their charge towards us created a thunderous trembling, and I wasn’t surprised when our foe revealed itself to inspect the commotion.
A spider the size of a two-story house came clacking over the forest floor. The head peered out from the thick webbing with at least a thousand eyes. The body gleamed with minor sunlight reflecting off its black carapace. Eight legs held up the massive frame, and two large pincers snapped webbing that delayed its assault.
The spider-scorpion hybrid’s curiosity denoted an intelligence that concerned me.
Right when I could see the matogators smashing their way through the dying forest, Charlie did the unthinkable.
He charged.
“You suicidal bastard,” I grumbled, leveling the lance.
The spider paused, not happy at the vibrations trembling through the soil or the fact a warhorse was daring to invade its home.
I manned up, readying for the inevitable death of this skeleton.
Charlie eagerly snickered, huffing from the exertion. He pushed so hard, when I glanced back, I saw he shot clods of decayed vegetation behind us. The monster’s eyes did something I didn’t expect; they shifted focus, watching both us and the eighty matogators surging through the woods.
The distance rapidly closed, and the looming Archa Queen decided to kill us before retreating.
Her shrieking roar of anger deafened my senses.
My crazy horse waited until a pincer committed before pivoting to the left.
Snip!
The pincers came so close a breeze washed over my skeleton.
One of the eight legs tried to stomp us in our curve around the behemoth.
I jabbed my lance out and Charlie leaped forward.
The spider’s leg slammed down behind us as my lance missed.
I concluded Charlie had a plan.
The spider turned. It was far more agile than I expected. She hopped to counter our rotation around her then lunged to close the distance.
Charlie dug his hooves in, rearing as he came to a sudden halt.
I barely held the lance and miraculously maintained my spot in his saddle. When we leveled off, Charlie burst forward mere feet from the monster.
My lance naturally leveled from the motion, and Charlie rammed us in-between the middle legs of the beast.
The tip of the lance drove deep, green fluid leaking from the wound, dripping down the body.
The shock wore off when Charlie collapsed, falling onto his side. My grip on the lance remained firm, holding me off the forest floor a few feet.
A dozen hard charging matogators arrived, only having a few hundred feet until they could help.
The Archa Queen had enough, deciding to flee and taking me along for the ride. I clung to the lance, enduring the jostling enough to glance back and see Charlie still breathing.
The eight-legged massive spider shrieked before it slowed, reaching back. The lance had to be bothering the beast because it gave up critical distance to try to remove the intrusion.
A pincher clacked onto the lance, inches from crushing my body.
I had to instantly decide to fly off with the lance or jump onto the pincher. Being the Chad skeleton that I was, I leaped off the lance and latched onto the claw.
When the lance came out, a sucking sound preceded jetting green blood. The lance clattered against the forest floor, and the spider queen limped forward.
I had to use both hands to stay attached to her arms, unable to draw my weapon. My issue became moot when I was discovered.
The queen flicked her
scorpion type pincer in a jerking motion from low to high with a sudden stop.
That broke my grasp, sending me high into the air.
I took a moment to reflect on what I wanted to do next. And yes, I screamed in terror even if I was in a skeleton body.
Flying without wings had never been on my to-do list.
I did manage to yank my blade free of its sheath, finding myself descending for the queen who spun to fight.
Hiss!
A big cloud of purple gas farted out of her back torso. The substance she emitted was so thick it left me blind to where I was falling. Last I saw, I was falling toward the back half of her immense body.
I descended into the cloud, hoping for the best with my sword pointed down.
Thud!
My body slammed into the spider, breaking ribs.
I clung to the blade, refusing to leave my advantageous spot.
Matogators finally entered the fray, their jaws snapping loudly. The spider shrieked, and I could feel the rolling twists of the attached gators.
Even though my minions and I couldn’t see, we also were not affected by the Archa Queen’s greatest weapon, her gas.
When her body collapsed from the attack, the sudden stability of her frame gave me an opening.
I ripped the blade free, ensuring my feet were planted.
I proceeded to stab into the torso, working my way forward with each repeated action.
The ichor surged and slurped out of the body, the goo slicking her torso.
I slipped, landed on my ass, and slid down her body. My cry of surprise never left the skeleton. I remarkably landed on my feet, weapon at the ready.
Trying to find my bearing through the thick purple cloud, a matogator almost ran me over as it tried to aid the others in finishing the fight. Even though I still held my sword, I decided to back out of the fight.
Matogators latched onto the monster’s body, contorting their skeletal frames with powerful twists. Their motions dissipated the mist in sections.
Loud rips told me they tore the queen bit by bit. Honestly, I didn’t hear her moving anymore. Not long after, a colorful orb appeared over the corpse.
Shrieks filled the air. The collective cry from thousands of smaller spiders arrived before the sound of the next challenge. I ran to find Charlie. The horse was unconscious from the mist but otherwise unharmed.
I glanced up, seeing the thousands of cat sized spiders darting to defend the corpse of their fallen mother. A lot of the matogators had gone the wrong way or deviated during our charge into the clearing.
Their late arrival resulted in them chomping, stomping, and kicking the feeble spiders.
A few gators were swarmed, rolling and flicking their tails.
The fight’s outcome was never in question. The small spiders would use webbing and eject gas, both useless to the large sized undead.
A trio of spiders parted the growing brawl, seeking the heat of Charlie. The first leapt high. I swiped down, letting its momentum part the creature into a gory mess. The next spider tried to run around me and I cross swung the blade. The metal became lodged in the torso.
Wap!
A thick coating of web smacked into my ribcage. I yanked the blade free, seeing the stunned spider not rationalizing why its efforts failed to affect me.
In a blur, a set of jaws snapped the spider away. The threat was gone in a blink of an eye. The fight turned into a slaughter. Eventually, the deaths weighed on the younger spiders until they broke, fleeing.
My minions didn’t relent, proving faster than the spiders. The slaughter turned grisly.
I reached into the satchel attached to the snoozing Charlie, ignoring the hisses and shrieks of the dying spiders.
While I created a make-shift harness for the horse, I thought about how I would have to get my carriage to push extra hard. Our two days of hard riding had only put us about three quarters of a day ahead of the main caravan. However, the main group was slowing, and if I was going to make it there in time to consume all the orbs, it probably meant I’d need to move ahead of my army.
Two matogators ignored me, taking an initiative and breaking my thoughts.
The one bit the rump of Charlie, picking him up gingerly but clearly causing some damage. The other laid flat. With a bit of teamwork, the horse was shifted until it rested on the back of the matogator.
I went about securing Charlie to the skeletal frame, ensuring he wouldn’t fall. A quick healing would fix his damage. The warhorse had won us the fight by stalling the big monster while she was on the ground.
When I finished, the sounds of fighting ceased. At least a thousand small orbs rested in the area. They wouldn’t be worth much, but after depleting our treasury, it was great to see. I just wished we could collect it all without having to consume it all.
Before I headed back to my real body, I patted the matogator who trotted away to return Charlie to Asha. The mist from the queen had dissipated some, spreading out into the surrounding area.
One question nagged in my mind. What were those claw tracks and broken webbing from?
I ventured deeper into the lair. The opening where the fight had happened led to a narrowing tree line. I walked hesitantly down the row of trees. At some point, the queen had teetered trees to build her home area. The fallen trunks were dragged into the decaying jungle to clear the space.
Matogators cleared a massively tall and impressively thick enclosure. I saw one had made his way into an area and I followed the path from the chomping jaws.
The five-minute walk through the tunnel of webbing ended when I found myself on the other side of the massive section of webbing.
“Okay, the queen must have been feasting from above,” I muttered.
I found the nearest tree and climbed to the top. When I could gaze down… I gasped. No wonder I hadn’t seen any cocooned prey on the way in. They were all here. Hundreds and hundreds of captured animals, humanoids, and beasts.
Eggs littered this upper nest. Tiny young suckled on the unconscious living. At least a dozen orbs floated over expired bodies. They hadn’t died from combat. No, they had likely perished from dehydration or blood drainage.
I sighed, seeing at least a dozen minotaurs. Most of the captured prey were orcs, goblins, and trolls. Something different caught my eye; five large sections of matted gray fur were exposed for feasting. Some sort of large sloth or mole more than likely. That had to be what the tracks came from because I saw no immense jungle cats or bears.
Whatever the animals were, they’d be great at becoming skeletons. This was the true prize of this conquest. The Archa Queen’s feeding supply would bolster our army.
I just need to hustle and figure out what to do with the minotaurs. I sure hoped Nick would have a good recommendation because I really could use some large infantry.
CHAPTER 65
Edge of Quari Jungle
“Absolutely not,” Ambassador Treolina said with folded arms.
I wagged a finger at her. “I could swear we had this situation before. Except this time, we’re negotiating and I’m going to need more wagons than one per.”
“Careful with how far you push, worm. We have more might than our brethren in the south,” Ambassador Treolina said.
I glanced around, seeing her escort talking animatedly with Nick. Off to the side of the road, seventeen minotaurs ate around a fire. All the brash and young adventurers who had been feasted on because they tried to slay the queen, falling prey to her mists or webs.
In a different clearing, a whole lot of orcs recovered from malnourishment. Everyone we found alive was healed, repairing the bite marks only. My minions had spent the last day doing nothing but hauling all the gear we recovered out.
The Archa Queen had killed far more than she left alive, leaving me with the logistics of trying to haul the valuable metal for now. After three fights, our metal supply was getting excessive.
The Ambassador showed up not long after our caravan caught up and I
was fairly certain we were being scried on.
When she arrived I pestered Ambassador Treolina about trading gear for supplies. But she shut that notion down right away.
I was able to claim the measly 428.002 Zorta from the small spiders and the 73.221 Zorta from the Queen.
My minions hauled everything small out to the side of the road and the five big sloth type creatures were still encased in webbing, waiting for me to convert them.
I had just started to negotiate a reward and it became clear that Ambassador Treolina was not my friend. Her gruff ways kept irking me, leaving me with a desire to shout that I had to suppress.
“I need wagons,” I repeated, this time adding, “seventeen won’t do. How about a hundred?”
She placed her meaty hands onto her armored hips. Standing twice as tall as me, Ambassador Trelina leaned over even further to intimidate me. “Seventeen wagons.”
I shook my head. “Okay, this conversation isn’t getting anywhere.” I sputtered my lips in frustration, adjusting the tight armor. “I’ve put on weight since we ride everywhere. Maybe running rotations is what we need. How much Zorta for each of the rescues?”
“Finally, human, you found our farming cave of wonders. Where Xastriban fights for Zorta, we amass our strength and use our excessive Zorta for diplomacy. One thousand Zorta for clearing the blight and five hundred Zorta per rescued kin,” Ambassador Treolina said.
I picked my jaw up, closing my mouth. Yeah… that was a hell of a lot of Zorta… But something didn’t add up.
Were wagons that expensive? Not a chance. Even with inflated Zorta to gold ratios, they were at most a few dozen Z… What was it then? Or… Or were they readying to go to war themselves?
The Koor Minotaurs remind me of the Zozo Dwarves in the fact they amassed power while the greater world brewed in conflict. The big difference was that the Koor Minotaurs were flush in Zorta. The only logical conclusion was Koor might be joining Torro’s invasion. If that were the case… the wagons were worth more than the Zorta to them. I could only imagine if someone wanted some of my wagons right now.