The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  “Those fucking rocks,” he swore, his eyes locked on the wall bristling with bowmen. “They dropped us right on the Order’s doorstep. We gotta find cover. I remember the Order’s NPCs hit like girls, but with that many arrows, it won’t matter. We’re going to get pincushioned.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tina said, hopping up on a nearby rock. “It’s all under control.”

  “How is that under control?” Cinco snarled, stabbing an armored finger at the battlements, which were getting more packed by the second.

  Rather than waste more time explaining, Tina took a deep breath, drawing on the full capacity of her stonekin’s booming voice as she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey up there!” she bellowed. “It’s cool, we’re friendlies! Go tell Garrond that the Roughnecks are back!”

  Her shout echoed off the towering mountains, the words bouncing down the pass loudly enough to be heard all the way to the Verdancy. Up on the battlements, not a single weapon was lowered. A guard did run off, though, which Tina decided was good enough.

  “You know these guys?” Cinco asked as she lowered her hands.

  “’Course I know them,” she said proudly. “Remember that epic fight against Grel’Darm we keep telling you about? This is where it happened.” She nodded at the imposing fortress. “They know us just fine. I’m just hoping Garrond has gotten over being pissy at me for demolishing the front of his fort enough to let us back in.”

  “Hopefully? Demolished?” Cinco repeated, his brown eyes roving nervously over the crowded battlements. “You sure like to leave big footprints, don’t you?”

  “Size twenty-two, man,” Tina replied, leaning down to rap her armored knuckles against her metal boot. “I don’t do anything small.”

  Cinco arched a bushy black eyebrow at that. Before he could say anything else, though, the crowd on top of the wall parted, and a massive man in gleaming white-and-gold armor stepped onto the battlements.

  “Why have you returned to my fortress?” Commander Garrond boomed from the walls. “Have you decided to accept my offer and join the Order of the Golden Sun?”

  “Sorry, but we’re not becoming paladins today,” Tina shouted back, waving her arm at the army of top-geared players behind her. “But we are here to kill the Once King. Mind opening the doors and letting us into the Deadlands? Our ride dropped us off on the wrong side of your fort.”

  It was a really bum deal that they were so far away. Tina would have given an arm to see Garrond’s face after that one. But while she couldn’t see if she’d made the eternally grumpy commander crack a smile, his voice sounded more excited than she’d ever heard him before when he shouted back.

  “If that’s the case, then you are very welcome!” He turned back to his men. “Open the gates! The Roughnecks have returned!”

  Tina let out a quiet breath of relief as the fort’s huge wood-and-iron back doors began to open. The rest of her raid wasn’t nearly so tactful. They whooped in surprise and delight, talking loudly about ungrateful, trigger-happy NPCs who’d better open those doors. Thankfully, they didn’t have giant stonekin voices, and their impolitic comments were quickly drowned out by the crunch of hundreds of armored boots as the army made its way down the pass toward the now-open gates.

  Despite Garrond’s warm welcome, Tina was still half expecting to find the entire Order arrayed to trap them again. When they entered the fortress this time, though, the tall commander met her on foot with only a dozen of his soldiers. Everyone else was busy.

  Only the side of the Order Fortress that faced the Deadlands had a double gate. The back door to the Verdancy opened directly into the fort’s inner courtyard, which was even crazier and more busy than the last time Tina had been here. She couldn’t see the front of the base, so she had no idea what Garrond had done with the collapsed gate-keep or the rubble pile they’d left Grel’Darm’s body buried under, but the commander had definitely been busy. In addition to the soldiers coming down from the battlements, the yard was packed with the scores of covered wagons and ready troops waiting to muster out.

  “What’s with the wagon train?” Tina asked as Garrond walked up to her. “You guys going on safari?”

  “It is good to see you as well,” Garrond said dryly, nodding to the wagons. “And those are for our campaign. Three days ago, my scouts reported that all signs of movement within the Dead Mountain Fortress had ceased. We dread to think where they went, but so far as we can tell, the Once King’s stronghold now sits empty. The legends say that the Enemy of All Life cannot leave his fortress or the ghostfire for long, if at all. If he is truly alone in there, then we would be fools to waste this chance.”

  Tina chuckled. “Great minds think alike. We’re also here to take advantage of the fact that the Once King’s home alone.”

  Garrond’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “I usually regret asking you for explanations, but how is that possible? I sent your raid to Bastion. How did you get back here so quickly? And how did you know of the enemy’s situation?”

  “Well,” Tina said, looking back at her army. “About that…”

  ***

  It took an hour of explaining and several corroborating witnesses, but eventually, Tina got Garrond to believe that she really had been sent here by King Gregory in a Hail Mary play to save the world. Once the commander got that straight in his giant raid-boss head, though, he’d launched into action with impressive efficiency. That was how, not three hours later, Tina found herself at the head of an honest-to-god army.

  “This is so fucking sweet,” she said, breathing in the Deadlands’ dusty air as she led the raiders—and two thousand of Garrond’s Order soldiers—through the ruins that had once been the Order Fortress’s front gate. “Does anyone else feel the pure fucking awesome that is this moment?”

  “I gotta say, I did not see this coming,” CincoDeMurder confessed, looking over his shoulder at the glittering holy army behind them. “It’s boss as hell, though.”

  It was more than boss. They had two full raids of top-geared players, all the soldiers of the Order—who were the best undead-killing NPCs in the game—and an entire wagon train of the supplies, tents, and skilled artisans needed to keep it all rolling. They also had their very own level-eighty-two, four-skull paladin badass, which was the cherry on top. The commander’s stats were almost as good as Gregory’s, but unlike the Teddy Bear King, Garrond had the guts to actually use them. The salty old man looked ready to take on the Once King with nothing but his teeth. Truly, it did not get better than this.

  “I can’t believe it’s really happening!” Tina said giddily, hopping over the rubble pile that was all that remained of their epic fight with Grel’Darm. “Something is actually going right for once!” She cracked her huge stone knuckles. “I’m soooooo ready to get some revenge on this place! We’re gonna pulverize everything and anything undead that stands between us and that mountain.”

  “Save some for us, killer,” Cinco said, bumping her shoulder playfully.

  Tina pushed him away. “No way. I call dibs on everything. It’s payback time! Roughnecks to the front!”

  Grinning evilly, Tina ignored Cinco’s eye-roll and jogged ahead, leading her guild to the front of the pack as they crossed the cratered battlefield where they’d beaten the first army the Once King had sent after them. Seeing all those smashed siege engines filled her with joy and a renewed sense that the momentum was finally on their side. Even the cold dust that was already working its way into the joints of her armor couldn’t bring down her good mood as Tina led the glittering column down the broken road and into the long, narrow, claustrophobic valley that led to the Dead Mountain.

  To her great dismay, they saw no undead in the first hour of marching. They were close to the Order’s patrol area, though, so she didn’t think too much of it, and she didn’t let down her guard. She aggressively sent out five-person hunter-killer teams ahead of the main army with orders to smash anything that moved without a pulse. But despite everyone’s eagerness t
o kill something evil, all the teams came back empty-handed.

  As morning turned to afternoon, Tina stopped dispatching squads and went back to the far more efficient—but much more boring—tactic of using Rangers and Assassins as scouts instead. She kept a team of grade-A ass kickers assembled and waiting, though, all of them holding their weapons and walking right behind her for the ambush she knew had to be waiting around one of the jagged, rocky bends.

  But it never came. The army marched in nervous silence made all the more ominous by the sheer desolation of this place. For her part, Tina couldn’t decide if the state of things was good or bad. The empty zone reeked of a trap, but while she looked at every cliff and cave as if it might disgorge the entire contents of the Deadlands’ patrols on top of her head, she never spotted so much as a single skeleton.

  It was enough to make anyone paranoid. The first day of marching ended without a single sword swing, but Tina felt like she’d been in a fight since dawn. Too agitated to sleep and stuck in a body that didn’t really require such niceties anyway, Tina volunteered to take the role of night watch commander so the softer, fleshier leaders could rest. She paced and checked sentries all through the dark, freezing night, but when the weak dawn finally broke over the mountains, all was still eerily quiet. Even the vultures were gone.

  As the second day’s march got moving, they passed the wooded hill where Grel’Darm had ambushed the Roughnecks what felt like forever ago. Everyone avoided looking as they passed, but Tina couldn’t help looking through the clump of dead trees for the crater the raid boss’s giant club had left in the ground—the crater that probably still held David’s crushed remains.

  We got your revenge, David, she thought wistfully, looking up at the eternally cloudy sky no sunlight had ever penetrated. I hope you saw it.

  There was no reply, of course. Just the wind and the scrape of armored boots as the army wound its way down the cracked road.

  At least they made good time. Tina was amazed at how the miles flew by when everyone had food and water, didn’t have to fight random undead, and were all following orders. Garrond’s troops couldn’t move as fast as the ultra-geared players, but even with the Order slowing things down, the second day’s traveling ended just a few miles shy of the Dead Mountain Fortress’s front gate. They made camp in the black mountain’s towering shadow, trying not to look too hard at the barren, sky-high slopes crisscrossed with endless battlements and twinkling cauldrons of ghostfire. Even trying to avoid it, though, there was no denying that their suspicions appeared to be correct.

  Every other time Tina had stood on this plain, the giant mountain dominating her view had been covered in undead. Flying undead, climbing undead, huge patrols of undead soldiers marching on the battlements. This time, though, there was nothing. The mountain was as still and empty as every other bit of the Deadlands they’d walked through, and while that was the entire reason they were here, seeing it with her own eyes made Tina more nervous than ever.

  She didn’t sleep the second night, either. Instead, she stayed up and studied the fortress, going so far as to borrow Garrond’s spyglass just to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. After months of raiding, she knew that stupid mountain inside and out. There were plenty of rooms she couldn’t see, but from the outside, at least, it really did look empty. A couple times, she thought she saw something in the shadows behind the giant pillars of blue-white fire that lined the upper battlements, but she was never able to tell for sure. She was certain, however, that the same couldn’t be said for them. They were an army camping in his front yard. The Once King had to know they were here. He was undoubtedly watching them at this very moment from his terrace on the mountain’s peak, but no matter how many times she looked, Tina never saw him.

  Finally, dawn came. As the gray sky began to lighten, Tina, Cinco, and Garrond gathered in the large command tent the Order had set up at the center of camp to plan their attack. Since moving everything would take too much time, they made the decision to leave all the supply wagons and tents here. The army would march the last few miles to the fortress with only basic backpacks containing the food and water they’d need for today. Once they took the bottom of the fortress, they’d move their camp inside the walls to continue the siege from there. Assuming this siege took more than one day, of course.

  After that, there wasn’t much left to discuss. Everyone had been up and ready since first light, so Tina took the lead again, marching their army down the last few miles of crumbling road to the mountain. When they reached the broken stretch where the Roughnecks had first woken up after the transition, Tina saw that the enormous black doors to the raid dungeon were closed tight. That was a new development. Every time she’d been here in the game, the gates had been open to allow the armies of skeleton patrols to walk through. She didn’t think doors were going to be a problem for their group, but the unexpected change made her wary as they crept closer through the heavy silence.

  When they were less than a hundred feet from the heavy doors with their carved skulls and ghostfire sconces, Tina lifted her fist to bring the army to a halt. The Roughnecks lined up in an orderly rectangle to her left, while Red Sands stopped in perfect rows to her right. Behind them, rank upon rank of golden Order soldiers waited. Over the rustling jingle of heavy armor, the tick-tick of catapult cranks could be heard as the Order’s siege weapons were loaded and aimed at the mountain’s empty battlements.

  “Okay,” Tina told her troops, her booming voice feeling both too loud and too small for the huge, silent fortress behind her. “This is it. Time to knock on hell’s door and—”

  A chorus of gasps interrupted her. Hands shot up from the orderly ranks of players to point at something over her head. Stomach clenching, Tina pulled her sword and whirled around, scanning the courtyard and the battlements. But the enemy wasn’t on the battlements or at the door.

  He was in the sky.

  A lone figure was gliding through the dusty gray air above the mountain. He flew as silently as an owl but graceful as only an elf could be. Clad in glittering black armor that looked unsettlingly similar to her own sun steel tanking set, the figure should have been far too heavy for flight, but the weight didn’t seem to bother him at all. He swooped down as lightly as a falling feather, his huge ash-gray wings spreading to check his speed as he alighted on the broken steps right in front of the fortress’s closed doors, less than a hundred feet away.

  Tina took an involuntary step back. The winged elf was enormous. Not as big as Grel, but definitely taller than King Gregory. Bigger than her for sure, and just as heavily armored. An elegantly curved sword of Eclipsed Steel hung from his hip, but the last Celestial Elf did not draw it. He simply stood at the gate, his flawlessly beautiful face lit by the ghoulish, bluish light of the ghostfire braziers as he gazed down on them, his thin lips curled in a slight, sad smile.

  “Welcome,” he said, his voice somehow soft and booming at the same time, filling the valley that his mountain dead-ended. “To the end of this miserable world.”

  Tina gripped her blade hard, her breathing coming so fast she would have hyperventilated if she’d still been human. Shit. Shit. Behind her, she could feel the fear spreading through her raid as they all came to the same realization, but no one panicked. That detail didn’t escape the Once King.

  “I commend you all for facing your fate so bravely,” he said, his slight smile widening. “Surrender now, and I promise your deaths will be painless.”

  “Not likely,” Tina growled, pulling hard on all the bravado she could muster as she stepped forward and pointed her sword at the winged elf’s chest. “I am Roxxy of the Roughnecks, and we didn’t come here to surrender.”

  The Once King looked down at her, a novel experience for a stonekin. “I remember you,” he said, his voice amused. “Of all the children who made a game of the Nightmare, you faced me the most tenaciously.” His lips quirked. “Foolish girl. How many times have you lain dead at my feet? You should know better tha
n any that you cannot defeat me. Why do you waste your people’s lives? You know it is hopeless.” He waved his black-gauntleted hand at her army. “Abandon this act of desperation, and I will send the ghostfire to consume your souls and set you free from this shackled eternity.”

  Tina’s answer to that was a bloodthirsty grin. The Once King remembered her! Sure, he remembered beating her, but that was only because the bullshit game mechanics had been on his side. Tina had the missing piece now, though. She had One For All, she had an army, and she was going to use both of them to shove those haughty words right back down his graceful throat.

  “Big talk from a king who’s home alone in an empty castle,” she yelled back, lifting her own voice until it boomed off the barren slopes just as loudly as his. “You gonna flap back up to your roost, or are you going to step out here and save us the trouble of digging you out of your nest?”

  She knew he’d say no. What boss would agree to fight his challengers on an open field where they could fully use their advantage of numbers? But she needed to show her people—and herself—that she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t know why the Once King had decided to come out and talk to them, but Tina fully expected him to throw a few more threats in their direction and fly back to safety. That would have been the smart thing to do, so she was shocked when the Once King drew his sword instead.

  The black Eclipsed Steel blade burst into brilliant blue-white ghostfire the moment it left its sheath. The flare of it was so bright after the dimness of the Deadlands that Tina was forced to shield her eyes. When she could see again, the Once King had taken a step forward.

  “I do not need my army to face such a small threat,” he said, pointing his flaming blade at her. “I showed you great respect just now, Roxxy of the Roughnecks. I gave you the chance to save your people. But it is ever the burden of a king to do what others can’t. If you are not wise enough to free your followers from the shackles of life, then I will do it for you.”