Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  “It may be a lingering ghost,” Weylin answered. “Those are unheard of outside of legends.”

  “And supposedly very difficult to harm,” Eadric growled, reaching for his hammer.

  “She hasn’t hurt anyone, though,” Breena spoke up. “She just wants to be left alone.”

  That was a good point. Not that I knew what to do with it.

  “Well, since we’re all going to be roommates now, we can either ignore her and hope she doesn’t find a way to kill anyone in their sleep, or find out as much as we can without provoking her. Neither idea is safe, but our needs still stand. So we have to move forward.” I tried addressing our local ghost again. “Are you still there? Is there a certain direction I can approach? I have to move forward. I do not wish to offend you if I can avoid doing so.”

  No answer.

  Figures.

  “Alright,” I said to my group. “We’re going to try and see if there’s a certain direction she won’t object to us taking.”

  We tried moving forward at different angles. But every time we got anywhere deeper into the dying woods, the young voice would speak.

  “No, don’t.”

  “Please turn back.”

  “Please. Don’t look.”

  That last one finally stopped me.

  “Don’t look at what?” I shouted out. “We can’t even see you? What is it that you don’t want us to see?”

  Again. Silence.

  “Is this what stopped you before, Breena?”

  The little fairy nodded.

  “She always sounds hurt,” Breena said sadly. “And we could never find a way to fix her. So we just sort of left her alone.” The little sprite shrugged helplessly. “We hoped she’d get better on her own somehow, but…”

  I sighed. I didn’t know what to do. I hated the thought of this woman, or whatever she was, feeling violated by our intrusion. Her voice had gotten more desperate the deeper we had gone, and it was getting harder to justify the idea that we might find anything useful in such a decayed part of the woods.

  “Well, it feels like we’re making things worse here,” I said in defeat. “And given just how dead everything looks, I think it’s safe to say that we won’t find any grain-type plants out here. And I don’t think intruding upon a girl or young woman will help us in dealing with the howlers outside. I think we’re going to have to call this mission a failure.”

  I turned back to take a single step away.

  No, the small quiet voice suddenly spoke up.

  Do not leave her. I rage.

  What does your rage have to do with me? I growled back in my mind, at the presence who had for all intents and purposes let me be tortured to death a hundred times.

  Everything, the voice said, and then fell silent again.

  And as it left, the faces of Val, Sam, and Kayla leaped into my mind.

  “I’m about to leave,” I said out loud, not looking back. “But before I can do that, I need to know if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

  No answer. But this time I waited. And waited.

  The others looked at me uncomfortably. But I didn’t move a single step.

  “No help,” the girl or woman said back. “No one can help.”

  There was bitterness in that voice.

  I would know.

  “Why?” I growled, as I turned back around. “Tell me, or I’ll never leave here, ever. I’ll just sit right here, where you don’t want me. Why can no one else help you?”

  Silence. I waited. Then…

  “Too late,” the voice finally said back. “We are lost.”

  They are not lost, the voice inside answered back. I rage.

  “Turn back. Don’t look.”

  That did it.

  “Don’t look at what?” I suddenly screamed. Breena gave a little yip of surprise as she jumped off my shoulder. “Don’t look at what you’re going through? Just mind my own business and feel guilty anyway? Just sit there, feeling like I should be doing something, anything, while you sit over there going through who knows what? While you go through something I might very well have the power to change? Because that’s the right thing to do? Fuck that!”

  I could feel the stares that the Testifiers were giving me now. I ignored them.

  “‘You can’t help them, Wes!’” I mimicked. “‘Just leave them alone, Wes! Give them space and privacy, Wes! Leave them be, so that they can heal on their own. Because that’s the appropriate thing to do, Wes!’” My voice choked for a moment, but after I swallowed I found I could shout my way past the rock in my throat. “Well you know what? It wasn’t the right fucking thing to do!” Spittle flew from my mouth as I pointed toward wherever the invisible voice was at. “Two years! Two and a half years I spent listening to that stupid fucking advice, wallowing in my own guilt and self-pity! Two and a half fucking years I sat there feeling helpless and guilty, like everything was somehow my fault! And after two and a half years I found out it was! I found out they were being abused in ways they still won’t come forward and share, all because I respected their stupid fucking personal space! All because myself and everyone else in my stupid fucking town decided to be polite, instead of being the protectors they needed!”

  “Wes,” Weylin said carefully. “I don’t think—”

  “They were family!” I roared, and everyone flinched back from me. “They were gonna be my new sisters, and I left them alone with wild wolves! And you sit or float or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing over there, and you tell me you’re hurting and can’t fix it on your own, and then you tell me do it all again! Just mind my own business and ignore all the screaming and blood and lost innocence happening a few fucking feet away! No! I! Will! Not!”

  The Challenger’s Defiant Heart is engaging, my mind-screen beeped, as it whispered more text into my mind.

  The Challenger’s Battleform is re-engaging.

  The Challenger has taken another step on the Path of War.

  The Challenger has taken another step on the Path of Kings.

  My skin crackled as it hardened. My breath whooshed as it rolled out and around my body. My fingers twitched as they suddenly sparked.

  And my teeth itched. I was too angry to care why.

  “I’m taking another step in your direction,” I said to the formless ghost hiding from me. “I’m finding out what hurt you, because your hurt deserves to be known by someone who fucking cares about you. And if no one cares then that needs to fucking change. So hate me and call me names and tell me I’m making things worse. I’ll own that. But I refuse to never find out if I can help you.”

  Silence.

  “Can’t help,” the voice said haltingly, a moment later. “No one can help.”

  “By the authority given to me as Lord of Avalon,” I growled out, drawing my long arming sword. “As well as the authority granted to me by the Steward of this world, I hereby Challenge that statement.”

  The air cracked, then boomed.

  “A Challenge of Authority has been confronted by the Lord of Avalon,” the mists boomed around me. “Avalon hereby bears witness.”

  “Let’s go,” I said without looking back. “And weapons drawn. Because whatever pain exists here isn’t leaving without a fight.”

  Chapter 7: Hunger Pains

  We marched on for a while in silence. Even the ghost stopped talking to me.

  After a while, Breena flew up next to me.

  “Wes,” she whispered. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head ever so slightly.

  “Not yet,” I admitted quietly. “But this is how I’ll get better.”

  “Okay,” she nodded. “I’m here for you.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “And thank you.”

  She bobbed once, then flew off.

  More marching. The skin under my armor crackled, and bits of it gleamed like tiny specks of feldspar or other minerals. Air whipped quietly around my feet. And my sword gave off a faint blue glow, occasionally sizzling like an
old bug zapper. That might be bad for the blade, I remember thinking, but it was hard to put any importance to that thought right now.

  Finally, the trees opened up again.

  “I’m sorry,” the invisible voice said. “I didn’t want you to see.”

  More ruins greeted us.

  But this time the marble was blackened.

  “We didn’t want you to see,” the voice repeated.

  The ground between the blacked buildings was pitted, like the ragged, barren earth of a battlefield.

  “Avalon,” I said out loud. “Confirm whether there have been any battles on Avalon prior to my arrival to Avalon.”

  “Data not found,” the supercomputer replied. “Records concerning the planet’s earliest civilizations are incomplete.”

  “Fine,” I began. “I…”

  “Suspecting intentional damage to record systems,” the planet said abruptly, as if it were confiding something difficult.

  “What?” I asked, surprised. “Could that have come from Cavus or Rhodes’ people?”

  “Negative. Damage predates the arrival of the mentioned Umbra and Malus warlocks by several millennia.”

  “Really?” I asked, incredulous. That would have meant that Avalon’s records had been faulty since before Stell came.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice repeated. “We didn’t want you to see.”

  Several thoughts suddenly clicked together. The fact that Avalon was littered with old ruins. The fact that this place was known as a last-resort shelter, for some reason.

  And the fact that there wasn’t a single person here on this place other than the Starsown Stell and her satellites.

  “This was your last stand, wasn’t it?” I asked the ghost. “Your last refuge, before your planet fell? You were one of the last of your people. Right?”

  Again, I just waited through the person’s silence.

  “You weren’t supposed to learn,” the voice whispered. “No one was supposed to know.”

  “No one was supposed to see us like this,” she added quietly.

  I sighed, and bowed my head.

  The enormity of it all hit me in that minute.

  I wasn’t the party leader in one of my sister’s Pathwalker campaigns.

  I wasn’t a temporary leader of a group of refugees.

  I wasn’t even a hero from another planet, summoned to save an entire system of worlds.

  I was the global leader of a dead world.

  A ghost planet.

  A lost, doomed, and empty place.

  No, something defiant inside of me said. That is not true.

  All is not lost.

  “Right then,” I said firmly. “We’re moving further in.”

  “No,” the invisible girl begged. “Don’t go further. Please. Don’t.”

  “Tell me why,” I commanded, pressing on something inside of myself.

  “Not.” The voice grew distant. “Safe.”

  In that moment, I could somehow feel her drifting away from us.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Then that presence was gone.

  For a moment, everyone just stood there, listening for her to speak again.

  “She… left?” Breena asked, tilting her head. “Why?”

  “Because she had to run,” I growled. “Ready your weapons, and raise your wards.”

  Thankfully, Breena’s question had been mostly rhetorical. Everyone had finished shaking out of their shock and began invoking magic that would supposedly help us deal with ghosts. Script-made wards shimmered over us. Sparkling dust fell from Breena and landed on our weapons. And Weylin began to hum in a tone so low I had no idea how we all heard it.

  Then a tree branch cracked ahead of us. And something moaned.

  “Nooooooooo.”

  I pretended not to shudder, and pointed my sword toward the direction of the noise.

  “Nooooooooo,” the wail repeated.

  Further into the distance, another wail answered the first.

  “Noooooooo….”

  “Onnnnnnnnnne,”

  More branches cracked. This time they sounded close.

  Further in, deep into the blackened buildings and collapsed trees, I saw something gray move.

  “Nooooooooo…”

  The gray object moved. I couldn’t quite make it out. But I thought I saw flesh and fabric.

  “Onnnnnnnnnne,” the second voice groaned, also sounding much closer.

  “Herrrrrrrrrre,” three more voices hissed from much farther back.

  “Well that isn’t creepy at all,” Eadric muttered, hefting his hammer.

  “Shhh,” Weylin hissed, keeping his bow nocked and drawn.

  “Noooooooo…” all the voices moaned in unison now.

  “Onnnnnnnnnne.”

  “Herrrrrrrre.”

  Gray shapes moved forward.

  I could see them now. Shriveled husks of things that walked on two legs. Torn tatters of what might have once been clothing hung off of them. They lurched, and swayed, and fell, then worked themselves upright. And always, their hands reached forward, almost aimlessly.

  “Nooooo,” they moaned again. “Onnnnne. Here.”

  I heard hisses and intakes of breath behind me.

  “The hungry dead,” Karim whispered.

  “Are those zombies?” I asked dumbly, still watching the monsters in horrid fascination.

  “No,” Breena whispered. “But close.”

  “Right,” I said after a moment, watching one creature’s leg pass right through the remains of a former building. “Zombies can’t walk through walls.”

  My peripheral vision picked up Karim shooting an incredulous look in my direction. My main gaze was directed to the sight of another not-zombie tripping over a loose rock, then slowly working its way back up. It continued to wander in our general direction, but like the rest of the semi-mobile corpses it didn’t look in our direction. It was more like watching a blind person grope toward the direction he knew his glasses had fallen to. The dozen or so creatures in view moaned again, and this time I heard dozens more voices answer from the trees and ruins further ahead.

  “Avalon,” I whispered. “Quietly provide me more intel. What am I looking at? Are these former Avalonians?”

  Even as I asked that, I felt these creatures weren’t my former people. I had seen Guineve, and knew that though she was one of Stell’s Satellites, the race her body had been made from was of Avalonian DNA—how that happened I still didn’t know. But I did know that her proportions and features were far different from the walking corpses in front of me, even when I took their decay into account.

  In fact, they didn’t even match within their own bodies.

  They all looked roughly humanoid, but each one had legs that didn’t match, arms that didn’t match, even chest muscles that didn’t match. The closer they came, the more disproportioned they looked. One arm would be shorter or longer. One foot would have a different number of toes. It should have kept them from moving about at all, but still they stumbled forward.

  “Negative,” Avalon said in my mind, answering my earlier question. “Objects are unidentified, semi-corporeal foreign contaminants devoid of working bio-systems and composed of genetic material from multiple organisms. No further data available.”

  “Detrite,” Breena whispered, her voice catching. “They’re the Detrite. The Castoffs…” She trailed off, shaking her head slowly. “No, oh no, no-no-no.”

  “What are the Detrite?” Karim asked quietly, staring intensely at the floundering figures ahead of us. “Our records have never mentioned them.”

  “That’s because we didn’t want anyone to know about them,” Breena said with a quiver. “They’re supposed to be all gone.”

  Even with all the surreal creepiness going on, I had to suppress an angry remark. Because this was far from the first time something supposedly extinct had shown up to try and get a piece of me.

  “Tell us everything right now, Breena,” I demanded quietly.
/>   “They’re… pieces of lost wars. Put together by something even worse. To be battle fodder.”

  Then she shrank down to a very small size and flew next to my ear.

  “The Umbra were the last to use them,” she whispered in a small voice.

  I winced. Because that was a very bad fact.

  The lead Detrite limped closer toward our direction, still reaching forward uselessly.

  “Noooooo… Onnnnnne…”

  Its head suddenly snapped to look straight at us.

  “Here!”

  “Here!” the others nearby suddenly shouted, snapping their heads to look at us.

  “Here!” others we couldn’t see suddenly shouted.

  “One… here!”

  The moan became a chant taken up by nearly a hundred voices. Jerking bodies now lumbered forward toward us, moving a step faster than they had before.

  “One… here!” the lead Detrite shouted, pointing a withered finger at me.

  “Here!” another a few steps back groaned, pointing at Karim.

  “Here!” Another pointed a tracing finger at Breena’s fluttering form.

  “Right, then,” I decided. “Eadric and myself in the front. Everyone else hang back and light ’em up.”

  Everyone snapped out of the horrible trances these things had put us in. Arrows flew out next to pink or blue fiery darts. Many of them thudded into the Detrites, but some of them flew right past, phasing through their semi-corporeal bodies.

  The attacks slowed the monsters. But almost none of them were brought down, even when our three archers focused fire on one head at a time. They would fall over, but they would almost always get back up. I swore as I realized what was going on.

  “Battle fodder,” I repeated Breena’s description. “They’re designed to take our attention and the brunt of our attacks. Avalon, identify any new forms of incoming contact, other than the Detrite.”

  “No new signs of movement, sound, light or magic within one kilometer detected toward your position. Exception detected: approximately fifty more Detrite are moving slowly toward your location.”

  “Fantastic,” I snarled as our small group of artillery finally destroyed an undead head, putting a single monster down for good. “Breena!” I shouted over the sounds of magical missiles and eerie moans. “You said these things were discontinued. What made them obsolete?”