The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  “I am forcing,” Tina snapped. “I’m stomping the crap out of that fire!”

  “Anyone can stomp and clap. That’s not what’s important. You have to stop focusing so much on the physical motions. They’re only there as guides. Will is what actually makes the technique work. You have to reach out of yourself and challenge that Fire Tornado until it charges you like the mad bull it is!” She stepped back with a clap of her hands. “Do it again!”

  Those words made Tina want to cry. No matter how many times the Knight explained what she needed to do, it never got any clearer. But even when the thought of being burned yet again made her want to curl into a ball and whimper, she gritted her teeth and kept at it. She would not let this beat her, dammit.

  And maybe that was the secret. Tina didn’t think she was getting any better, but as she refused to admit defeat again and again and again, the Fire Tornadoes stopped rolling over her like avalanches and started getting smaller. She couldn’t say what had changed, if anything, but pure stubbornness was also a form of will. Fortunately, it was one Tina had in spades, and the longer she kept at it, the better she got.

  By the time the sun had fallen to the horizon, she was manhandling Richard’s tornadoes like they were unruly farm animals. She hadn’t even realized how much time had passed until she looked up and saw the Roughnecks and Gregory standing in a ring around her.

  “Holy shit,” Neko said, her cat eyes wide as she took in the blackened trade road. Everything within a hundred-foot radius of Tina’s position had been burned to cinders. But while the ashy remains of her earlier failed attempts were everywhere, the ground surrounding Tina was cool and still without a trace of smoke.

  Neko whistled appreciatively. “So did you figure it out?”

  Tina gave her a shaky thumbs-up. “I got it,” she said in a smoke-roughened voice. “Though I think I might have picked up a new fire phobia on the way.” She laughed at her own joke, but no one in the Roughnecks laughed with her.

  “You shouldn’t push yourself this hard.”

  SilentBlayde’s voice cut through the nervous murmurs like a knife. She hadn’t even realized he was here, but when Tina raised her head again, there he was, standing in the back of the rapidly parting crowd, his face white with fury above his ever-present mask.

  “This is too much, Tina,” he said, the words shaking with anger.

  “You don’t get to tell me what’s too much,” Tina snarled back in a voice so bitter and sharp that even she didn’t recognize it as hers. “You didn’t get a say before, and you sure as shit don’t get one now.”

  SB stiffened, and Tina braced for a fight. It never materialized, though, because the elf just turned on his heel and stalked away, his body pulled up tight with rage.

  “Wow,” NekoBaby said as he left. “He’s been Mopey McMoper-Pants all day, and now he busts out?” She shook her head. “He must really hate seeing you get all burned and hurt and stuff.”

  “I don’t care what he thinks,” Tina said, but there was no more bite in her voice. After a day of burns and screaming at tornadoes and now this, she was drained dry. All she wanted to do now was bury herself in the dirt and cry. Or maybe scream; she hadn’t decided yet. She was still thinking it over when Neko hopped onto her shoulders.

  “Hey there, Rocky Road-On-Fire,” the cat girl said in a suspiciously cheerful voice. “You get a chance yet to look at what James has been doing? ‘Cause it sure as shit looks like he’s building a new version of Stonehenge over by the lake.”

  That was just weird enough to make Tina forget about SB for a moment. She blinked furiously, wiping the wetness—pain tears, not tears-tears, she told herself furiously—from her eyes before looking over at the water that ran along the town’s edge. Sure enough, she could see the black silhouettes of huge monolithic rocks against the setting sun.

  “Whoa,” Tina said, rubbing her eyes again. “What the hell are those?”

  “We don’t know,” King Gregory said, gently pushing his way to the front even though, at his height, he could have easily spoken over the crowd. “But we are all dying of curiosity. I intend to go and investigate this personally.” There was a pause, and then the king added proudly, “With my homies.”

  Killbox and Neko burst into fits of muffled laughter. Rolling her eyes at what was clearly way too much nonsense for her to deal with right now, Tina turned to thank Fiona and bid her farewell. When the Knight captain was gone, Tina put her armor back on slowly, wincing every time the metal bumped her skin, which was still sensitive despite gobs of healing. Apparently even magical stone got weak when you rapidly heated and cooled it over and over. She didn’t see any cracks, though, so Tina ignored the pain. When she was back in her equipment, Tina fell in behind the king as he led the Roughnecks through the town toward James’s rocks.

  “So how’d it go today?” she asked Zen when the Ranger fell into step beside her.

  “Pretty crazy without you there,” Zen admitted. “I had to put some people in time out, which works a lot better on adults than you would think. Everyone pulled it together in the end, though, and we discovered some, umm…unique tactics.”

  “What do you mean ‘unique’?” Tina asked, slightly terrified. “Did you defeat him with the power of song or something?”

  Zen’s mouth quirked in a smile that was gone in a flash. “Not that unique, but I might have spent all our remaining money buying several hundred feet of enchanted chains.”

  “Chains?” Tina wrinkled her nose. “How does that work?”

  “I’ll have to show you later,” Zen said. “It’s pretty complicated and more than a little stupid, but what matters is that we’ve gotten our time up to fifteen minutes against Gregory before things start to fall apart.”

  “That’s great!” Tina said excitedly. “Huge improvement, but why the hell are they making you pay for chains? We’re saving the world here.”

  Zen shrugged. “Artisans still have to make a living just in case the world doesn’t end. And it was a lot of metal, which isn’t exactly in ready supply right now. He gave us a good price, though.”

  That was something, Tina supposed. “Well, if it got us from zero minutes to fifteen, then it was money well spent,” she said. “Thanks for managing everything, Zen. One more question, though…”

  Zen’s long ears bobbed as the elven Ranger glanced at her. “Yes?”

  Tina nodded up at the king, who was walking at the front of the raid with Killbox and NekoBaby crowded around him, thick as thieves. “What the hell have you been letting them teach Gregory?”

  “So you’re telling me you don’t have a harem?” Killbox said at that exact moment, loudly.

  “What about a posse?” NekoBaby cried. “Please tell me you’ve got a posse!”

  When Gregory shook his head, both players groaned in dismay.

  “No posse? Who gets you the hook-up on your weed, then?”

  “And chicks!” Killbox added frantically. “Elf chicks, cat chicks, human chicks. This world is full of fly hunnies! Who’s lining them up for you if you don’t have a posse?”

  “I-I have no need of such things,” the king said, his ears turning redder by the second. “Concubines and harems would be extremely disrespectful to any future wife I might take. There’s also the problem of bastard children. I would never—”

  “Killbox,” NekoBaby said, super seriously. “We’ve gotta teach the OG here how to king right. Dude is missing out hardcore. He is a literal boss. He should be ballin’!”

  The Berserker nodded gravely. “True dat. We gotta fix this.” His face brightened up. “I call chick-wrangling duty! You do plant magic ‘n shit, so you’re in charge of the chronic. He’s tall, so we’re gonna need a lot. We need a DJ, too. A player who can drop an actual beat so we’re not stuck with some medieval bard shit.”

  “Would you two knock it off?” Zen hissed, darting away from Tina to shove herself between Neko and Killbox. “What have I told you two about not corrupting Gregory?” she sc
olded. “Do you have any idea how lucky we are to have a king who is a decent human being and not some overgrown man-child evil prince?!”

  Tina bit her lip hard to keep from laughing. The last thing she wanted was to undermine Zen’s new authority, but this shit was just so funny. She could almost imagine the Ranger with a spray bottle spritzing Killbox and Neko like they were a pair of misbehaving cats. The two Roughnecks certainly scattered like scolded pets, leaving Zen furiously glaring at their backs as they dove for the safety of the larger raid.

  “Please don’t listen to them, Your Majesty,” Zen said, schooling her face and tucking her leaf-green hair back behind her long brown ears as she turned to face the king again. “They’re idiots.”

  King Gregory blushed faintly as he smiled at her. “Do not fear, Ranger Kayla,” he said in his rich baritone. “I’m committed to the dignity of the Holy Throne. That said, their teasing does not bother me. It is fun to talk of things of no consequence on occasion.” Then the king stroked his red beard and added thoughtfully, “Though I do like the player idea that breweries should be open to the public with food and regular events. That’s a change we should definitely implement.”

  “Breweries are a lot of fun,” Zen admitted, slipping away from the king with a graceful bow before fleeing back to Tina with her inhuman speed.

  “So,” Tina said as the Ranger reappeared beside her. “Since when are you ‘Ranger Kayla’?”

  “Since I was born and baptized as Kayla Johnson,” Zen replied irritably.

  Tina blinked in surprise. “You mean that’s your real name?”

  “Yeah,” the Ranger said, eyes narrowing. “Why?”

  “Nothing!” Tina said quickly, waving her hands. “It’s a great name! It’s just…you’ve been going by Zen this whole time, so I figured you had some dark secret or something.”

  “Sorry I’m not as dramatic as the rest of you,” Zen said with a huff. “I just like my character’s name is all. Ranger Zen is beautiful, stylish, and deadly. Kayla Johnson is a forty-two-year-old nurse from Philly who lives alone in a fourth-floor walk-up with her three cats and plays too much FFO. Why wouldn’t I choose to be the cool one?”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Tina said with a grin. “I still can’t decide between Roxxy and Tina. I’m much more curious as to why you’re on a first-name basis with the king, though.”

  “So are you,” Zen pointed out. “He calls you ‘General Roxxy.’”

  “That’s because we’ve got the whole ‘fellow commanders’ thing going on,” Tina said dismissively. “I’m also a rock. You’re a hot elf. Totally different vibe.”

  Zen rolled her eyes.

  “Sooooo,” Tina said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Did you two have any ‘moments’ during training today?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Oh, you know,” Tina said, her voice dripping with innuendo.

  “Tina, this is not a high school drama,” Zen replied firmly. “We’re just two sensible people forced to team up against the crazies.”

  “Awwww. So there was nothing? No moments at all?”

  The Ranger shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Tina leaned closer. “Would you have minded if there was a moment?”

  “Would you stop?” Zen huffed, hunching her shoulders. “It’s not like that! We’re just...” She trailed off, her lithe body going still. Then she asked, “What happened to the lake?”

  Tina was about to accuse her of dodging the questions when she realized all the Roughnecks around them had stopped as well. Straightening up from the stoop she’d been using to get into Zen’s business, Tina looked over the heads of the crowd to see that Windy Lake was much lower than it had been that morning. The formerly glittering expanse was now a small pond ringed on all sides by a large collar of exposed mud. She was trying to figure out where the water could have gone when she heard yelling to their left.

  “Pull!”

  All the Roughnecks jumped as the tall yurt taking up the street beside them suddenly collapsed, and it wasn’t the only one. Looking around, Tina saw that all the hide tents in Windy Lake were being disassembled. Up the road ahead of them, Lord Rends Iron Hides—AKA James’s cat dad—was watching the controlled destruction from the steps of the Naturalist Lodge, his long arms folded tensely in front of him. At the sight, King Gregory detached himself from the latest group of Roughnecks that had glommed on to him and started hurrying forward. Stretching her long legs, Tina followed right behind him, jogging up to the king’s side just as he reached the center of town, or what was left of it.

  “Lord Rends,” Gregory called, looking around at the rapidly vanishing jubatus village. “What is the situation?”

  “Not good, Your Majesty,” Rends replied, his old tail lashing. “Our scouts have reported that the quickest undead vanguard units have already been spotted in the northern grasslands, only a hundred miles from here. That’s much faster than expected. We’d hoped the chaos of the runaway Spring Cleaning event would slow them down a little, but apparently even bandits know better than to get in the way of the undead.”

  “What is the plan now, then?” Gregory asked gravely.

  “Same as before, just a bit faster,” Rends replied, pointing down the road they’d just come from. “As planned, we’re retreating to the Red Canyon fortress. It’s got less water, but it’s much more defensible. The gnolls left this morning to start preparations, and we’ve already drained most of the lake into the water wagons so we won’t get caught dry if there’s a siege. There’s still much to do, but our skirmishers have ridden north to buy us what time they can while we move the rest of the town.”

  “Wait,” Tina blurted. “You’re moving the whole town?”

  Rends gave her a disgusted look. “Of course. We’re nomads. The only reason we’ve lived at Windy Lake for more than one season is because the Nightmare forced us to. We don’t build a permanent settlement out of tents.”

  “Oh,” was all Tina could say to that.

  “And what of our assault on the Once King?” Gregory asked.

  Rends pointed a sharp claw in the direction of six stone pillars rising above the remaining yurts. “My brilliant son James has figured out a ritual, but Gray Fang says it won’t be ready before sunrise tomorrow. Our goal is to have everyone packed and ready to leave by the time it is complete.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?” Tina asked.

  Rends gave her a fanged smile. “Then I hope you’ll join us for our glorious last stand.”

  Tina ground her marble teeth. She didn’t like how quickly their options were vanishing. They were only two days out of Bastion, and already they’d reached the “everything has to work perfectly or we’re dead” stage. If anyone could pull off the miracle they needed, though, it was James. Her brother could drone on about FFO’s magic for hours. If there was ever a time when that obsessive level of nerddom would pay off, this was it.

  “I fear the time has come to end our training,” the king said, his face grave as he turned to Tina. “We have learned much from one another these last two days. I pray that you are able to use those lessons to best the Once King and save us all.” Gregory clenched his massive fists, whose strength all the Roughnecks had learned to respect. “For my part, I vow that I shall use what you have taught me to its fullest against the enemy. The Blood General Sanguilar will find no easy prey this time.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tina said, putting a hand on the huge king’s shoulder. “You’re going to be a rock star, and we’re gonna teach the Once King just how terrifying we can be.”

  Behind her, the Roughnecks started to cheer and whistle, and Gregory smiled. “I believe you,” he said, grinning at the raiders. “But it is not yet the time for goodbyes. See to your troops, General Roxxy. I must go to mine.”

  Tina winked. “Give ‘em hell, Your Majesty.”

  Gregory smiled once more and left, striding away down the street that was now little more than a break in
the chaos of collapsing tents. Staring after him, Tina lifted her hand and ordered everyone back to camp. She really wanted to go over and see what James was making, but it sounded like he didn’t have time for distractions, and the sun was already setting. She still had to get everyone packed up and resupplied for a march through the Deadlands, not to mention get some sleep, since they might not have a chance to rest again before the fight.

  But these practical concerns didn’t stop her from worrying. After fidgeting around camp for several minutes, Tina gave in and ordered one of Zen’s Rangers to run over to James’s ritual site and ask if he needed her yet. When the answer came back “not until dawn,” she was a little disappointed, but at least she knew the timeline.

  “Okay, guys and gals,” she boomed once everyone had eaten their dinner. “Get to your tents and enjoy your last night of being warm, ‘cause we’re hitting the Deadlands bright and early tomorrow.”

  There was much groaning when she mentioned the Once King’s cold, ashy zone. If she hadn’t been up front setting a good example, Tina would have joined them. She’d hoped never to set foot in that horrible gray landscape again, but here they were. “This won’t be like last time,” she promised. “We’re the attackers now. We’re going to march into the Dead Mountain Fortress like bosses, and then it’s gonna be payback time!”

  That got the raid cheering again. Tina let them rally for a good five minutes before ordering everyone to bed. When she was sure they were all moving to their tents at appropriate speed, she crammed one of the stupid magical rocks stonekin ate into her mouth and trundled off to her own bed-ditch in the ground, never noticing the elf-shaped shadow watching her silently from the shadow of the spindly trees.

  Chapter 6

  James

  James stood in the middle of the dew-damp field, thankful once again for his superior jubatus night vision, which made it possible to read the rug’s six-pointed diagrams in the predawn light. Behind him, every Naturalist in Windy Lake was sleeping on the mats Gray Fang had found for them, utterly exhausted. It turned out that raising six pillars of deep bedrock to the surface was one hell of a mana-intensive task, but they’d done it.