Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  It was a shorter weapon than my own by at least a foot, but it still knocked my blade out of the way. Then the side of his shield also slammed into my weapon hand’s wrist, nearly disarming me right and there. I slammed back with my own shield, but I was off balance, and Virtus’ next shove nearly me knocked over. I backpedaled again, trying to regain my footing, but he just wasn’t having it, and he followed me step for step, still bashing me around with his shield and slashing at my extremities with his sword.

  This was a great idea for an interview, Wes, the back of my mind pointed out. Ask your newest employee to show just how many times he can knock you on your ass. And to think your second-best idea was reference checks!

  I growled at my own frustration, finally predicted his next attack and managed to barely step out of the way, and his sword stabbed past my shield arm. I swept my foot out, armored shin hitting his own armored shin, and then I leaned forward and slammed my shield into his back, doing my own awkward version of a judo leg sweep. Virtus staggered without going down, but I finally had the range and opportunity to swing at his unprotected back.

  He, apparently, had the opportunity to twirl completely around before I even finished my swing and riposte my attack. He struck my sword somewhere around the handle and sent the longer weapon flying out of my reach.

  I darted backwards as he swung his blade out again, now down to my last weapon, and drew my Celtic-style short sword.

  “Just so we’re clear, you’ve been holding back this whole time and could probably end this fight whenever you feel like it?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about, sir,” the centurion grunted. “You’re doing great. Keep it up.”

  Ass.

  He didn’t press his attack yet, but held his weapon out at the ready, close to the edge of his large round shield.

  It was then that I noticed that he had been knocking me around with a stone sword.

  Basically a long flint knife, molding into the likeness of a xiphos, a hoplite sword.

  “How…” I tried to ask as I gazed at the weapon.

  “The company’s been around that long,” Virtus admitted. “And I used to be better with this weapon than I am now. It’s not that I’ve been holding back,” he added quietly. “It’s that, having been starved for so long, you’re fighting me at my very worst.”

  Okay then, my mind said. New plan.

  Finally accepting that the thousand-year old warrior knew way more about swordwork than I did, and that he was currently fighting with his best weapon, I gave up on fighting him head-on. I briefly let go of my shield to fire off my remaining five finger bolts, and then I backpedaled away from him as quickly as possible.

  Once again, he charged forward and caught my lightning on his weapon. All five of my bolts dissipated harmlessly—and probably against the laws of physics—allowing him to charge me unimpeded. Cursing, I threw my own shield at him and charged back at him. He deflected with his own shield, and when he did so I grabbed his barrier with my now-free hand and wrenched it aside to swing at his torso. My bronze sword scraped off of his bronze armor, sending another electric jolt into him, and then his elbow swung at my face.

  I dodged the armored elbow, twisted to avoid most of the follow-up bash with his knee, and then swore in surprise as I was yanked downward somehow, feeling his weapon cut partly into my neck, just enough for my vital guard to manage the damage.

  I looked up to see a thin line of blood—my blood—run down the weapon. Beyond that was the skeleton’s expressionless face.

  “I surrender,” my enemy said calmly. “Let all observe that I have made an honest attempt in bringing down an Earth-man.”

  Right, I reminded myself. This wasn’t a duel to the death. I hadn’t been really fighting for my life.

  Somehow, that realization made everything so much worse.

  “Good fight, Wes!” Breena called out, after flying up to see that I was really okay. For once, the three stooges next to her kept silent. That was the real victory here.

  Virtus carefully removed his sword from my neck, and then held out a hand to pull me up.

  “Good fight,” he said. “You turned around at least three near-defeats back there before you finally went down. If you were a brand-new recruit I’d say you showed the most talent I’d seen in years.”

  “Let’s both pretend I haven’t had any prior training then.” I said, wincing painfully as he helped me up. “You’re hired. Assuming your earlier oath of never harming me holds, and you can reinforce it with another oath of service.”

  “I can’t until you cut off my head.”

  I looked up at him.

  “Try saying that in a way that will make sense to my poor fleshy meat-brain.”

  Virtus snorted at that.

  “If I encounter an officer that I directly answer to, I can be commanded to resist you. I am still bound to the contract until my employer breaks it first.”

  “Okay, but I thought you wanted to live,” I pointed out. “You see, if you were to cut off my head, you wouldn’t be taking advantage of a silly loophole. You’d be killing me for good. Are you different?”

  It had taken a lot of deaths to get me to that point, but that knowledge was irrelevant right now. And I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “I’m different,” Virtus nodded. “I’d lose most of my body, but it could recover if I got access to my mana pendant. And if you agree to provide me with daily mana, I could return to my old strength. Eventually,” he added uncomfortably. Which led me to suspect it wouldn’t exactly happen overnight. “You could demand a ransom for me, and if they failed to rescue me or refused to satisfy your demands, they’d break contract and I’d be free.”

  “Will they suffer some kind of magical backlash too if that happens?”

  “No. They’re the employer. The contract is meant to favor them. They just lose my service when they refuse to ransom me.”

  “Okay then,” I said after thinking. “Are you sure it will count though? I mean you surrendered while literally having me at swordpoint.”

  “You wounded me during the exchange, and afterwards I’d still have to face your four friends, who were not bound by oath to let me go. I wouldn’t have been able to handle the four of them after dealing with you alone.”

  “Damn straight,” Eadric grunted. But the rest of them didn’t seem too pleased by the implication that all of them needed to gang up on Virtus to win. Even Breena made a pouty look at that.

  “Alright,” I said out loud. “This is quite possibly the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, but if you need to be incapacitated anyway, I’d really like to have you on my side for the military intelligence value alone. Can I just slash at your neck?”

  “Give me a moment to lower my vital guard and it should be fine.”

  After a brief wait, he nodded to show he was ready. I drew back my short sword and slashed hard into his neck bone. His head came free and his body tumbled to the ground. His headless body clattered bonelessly to the floor in a jumbled clump of armor and bone. I waited for a moment, but nothing else happened.

  “So,” I began. “That worked, right? I didn’t just accidentally murder the guy I was trying to hire?”

  “Still… here,” Virtus’ skull grunted hoarsely. “Conserving… strength.”

  “Crap,” I said. “Can you whistle twice if we’re on a time limit for taking care of you before you run out of power?”

  No answer.

  “Avalon, try to monitor our current prisoner/intern and provide any aid you can to ensure his survival.”

  “Command confirmed,” the faint mists on the ground intoned. “Opening a small mana channel for entity named Virtus.”

  “Virtus, take a deep breath if you’re still alright,” I commanded.

  It should have been a stupid command, since skeletons didn’t have lungs, but the same magic that allowed him to walk, talk and fight apparently allowed him to move air in his mouth. I heard a deep exhalation from his mouth.
>
  “Okay everyone, bag his armor, since I’m not even sure it will fit any of us, and let’s get out of here.”

  “Mister Dragon?” I heard the little ghost speak again. “Is Mister Sergeant going to be okay?”

  “He should be,” I replied carefully. “Are you going to leave again though, Miss ghost?”

  “Miss ghost,” she said, trying out that name. “I… don’t know,” she said haltingly. “I was supposed to stay at the border… but now people came in. Good people,” she finished firmly. “Mister Dragon… if I help you…” She hesitated again. “Will you give us names?”

  “Sure,” I answered. “Everybody needs names. I can give you one now if you want.”

  “No,” she said suddenly. “Not safe. Not safe yet.”

  “Fine,” I responded, a little tired of all the mystery in this place. “How do I make it safe for you to have a name?”

  “Follow me,” the little ghost answered.

  Chapter 9: Buried Truth

  “Miss ghost?” I asked, hoping that wouldn’t count as a name. “Where are you taking us?”

  “To the second edge,” the young woman, or girl replied. I was having a lot of trouble pinning down her exact emotional age, and I doubted she remembered herself, so I didn’t ask.

  “What is the second edge, little ghost?” I asked as we continued to pressed deeper in, watching for her signs. Being invisible, she was a little hard to follow. But every few feet when we caught up, she would make a sound, somehow by making a twig break, or rattle some loose pebbles. I suspected she was a lot like how some people argued ghosts were back home, able to barely cross the threshold into our world if they spent a lot of their energy. These little movements had to be taxing her, but she still preferred it over making too much noise. The only time she talked at all was when it seemed that she was right next to us, and then only in a whisper.

  “The second edge is where the bad ones are,” she replied quietly.

  “Who are the bad ones, Miss ghost?” I whispered back.

  “The takers,” she replied. “The castoffs. And the bad mister sergeants.”

  “Alright,” I said, giving up on getting more detail from her for now. If her names for those creatures were that vague then we weren’t going to learn much about them from her directly.

  “The takers are the worst,” she volunteered, surprising me and contradicting my recent thought. “Much of what we lost was their fault.”

  She darted forward again and rattled another group of pebbles. When we caught up with her, I asked, “Why is it their fault?”

  “Because they are the takers,” my ghost replied. “They take from others. That was why they came.”

  “Came?” I asked. “What do you mean they came?”

  “I mean I remember now,” the little ghost said. “This was not their home. They came from somewhere else. To take from us.”

  “Where did they come from?” I asked.

  “Many places,” she responded. “They all looked different. But they all thought we had too much. So they all came here together, to take everything from us.”

  An invasion from another world? Was that even possible?

  “Hey Breena,” I asked. She flew up to answer me. “Can different worlds invade each other?”

  The little sprite shook her head furiously.

  “Definitely not. Stell and all of us Satellites would never allow it, for one thing. And the Icons of each world would throw a fit, and probably launch their own massive war. But it’s never come up. And why would it? There’s just so much open space on each world. So many un-tapped resources, even with the population growing constantly.”

  “Really?” I asked. “That last part’s different from Earth.”

  “No it’s not,” Breena argued. “You guys haven’t even come close. You’re just overusing the same resources. And weirdly, a small group of people who already have a lot of wealth still try to get you all to keep using the same resources that are running out. That’s confusing.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed bitterly. “I don’t feel like explaining it either. Back to your worlds though. You’re saying there are mountains and mountains of wealth just laying around?”

  “Well, it’s not like that,” she protested. “People still need to work for their resources. Life is hard sometimes, even if you don’t take the Challenges into account. But basic travel across their own planets is hard enough. No one has the ability to gather up an army, hop to another world and take all of their stuff.”

  “Is it theoretically possible?” I asked. “Could the Icons do it, for instance?”

  “They could,” Breena conceded. “But they’d give up most of their power in the process. That’s why Dark Icons… lay low…” She started to trail off, eyes wide in realization. “When they arrive at a world.”

  “Where do Dark Icons come from?” I ask.

  “We’re not really sure,” Breena admitted. “Sometimes they seem to pop up naturally, but sometimes they seem to come from somewhere else. Stell’s either never been sure about it or she’s never shared it with me.”

  “Could Avalon’s invaders have been Dark Icons?” I asked.

  “Maybe?” she said hesitantly. “But I’m not sure the rest of the Expanse even has Icons at all. We only know about our own little group of worlds. If Stell hadn't made sure to tell us all that Avalon wasn't our home planet, and share the stories her family gave her of different worlds, I wouldn't have even known there were worlds outside of our little group."

  "Speaking of that," I replied. "How did Stell travel here? And is there a way back to her world? Could someone else from her world have come here?"

  "No," Breena said in a small voice. "Her world is gone. The Umbras came. There's no one left now," Breena took a deep breath, and continued. "Starsown can modify the technology on certain worlds and use it to power gates or personal portals. Somehow she was able to get here, and then the gate that led to this world was destroyed behind her." Breena looked around to make sure the three Testifiers weren't eavesdropping, then she leaned forward and continued speaking. "According to Guineve, Stell came here when she was very, very young by her people's standards. She was so young she couldn't even remember much of her world. She came here somehow with the vague memory that her world had been destroyed in an accident, but that her family saved her, and that they loved her very much. They left a few devices with her to teach her a little more about her powers and to help her make her first Satellite. That was Guineve."

  Breena looked around sadly before speaking again. "The devices from her homeworld helped her gather traces of genetic material leftover from the Avalonians, even though they went extinct thousands of years ago."

  "Really?" I asked. "Because that sounds impossible."

  "Linking with Avalon directly helped, according to her," Breena added. "That was one of the first things she learned how to do as a Starsown."

  "So you're saying—" I took a breath—"that Stell had no knowledge about the Umbra until she saw Cavus again?"

  My little fairy shook her head rapidly.

  "We all know about Cavus. No matter when Stell makes us, or what she tries to tell us. We all remember a little bit of him. Stell and Guineve remember the most." Breena sighed, looking forward as we moved to the next spot that our little ghost had directed us to. "I think her family tried to convince her somehow that Cavus and all the Umbra weren't real. I don't know how. Maybe they wiped her memory somehow before they threw her through the gate. Somehow they put in her head that the planet blew up or had some kind of accident and Cavus never happened. That—" her voice caught—"that everyone who loved and raised us had passed on to paradise instead of the maw of an Umbra. Don't..." My little fairy shuddered. "Don't ask me much about that, okay? Not about that part."

  "Fine, fine," I said gently. "You don't have to talk about any part of that you don't want to. I was just trying to figure out what happened here."

  "Yeah, that's fine," Breena said quickly. "I'
m sorry, Wes. I..."

  "Hey," I interrupted, stretching out an arm. I didn't exactly know the appropriate way to hug a foot-tall woman, and all my hang-ups starting firing as soon as I put my hand up. But I couldn't not be there for my friend, either. I held my hand straight and next to her, so that she could grab it, and she did. She immediately wrapped her hands around my palm and nuzzled it with her cheek.

  "Thank you, Wes," Breena said into my hand. "Thank you for understanding me."

  "Accepting," I corrected. "There's a lot about you I'm still figuring out, Breena. And that's normal. But I'll take you as you are, mysteries and all."

  "Bestest Challenger," the little fairy said as she nuzzled my hand again, and then let go. "Okay," she said, getting serious. "Starsown, and by extension their Satellites, all know this. It's possible to travel between worlds. It's even inherent for Stell's kind. They are the best at creating portals, at transferring themselves to different locations. In fact, they have to, or they'll go crazy. That's why they make Satellites, even subconsciously when they have to. So it's really easy for them to figure out a way to set up a portal or gate between worlds for others to travel."

  "Stell said she had some set up for every world," I offered. "Do those still work without her?"

  "Some do," Breena admitted. "Technically. The small instant portals that only one or two people can take depend entirely on her or a Satellite that she has imparted that power to, such as me. No one else can use them. But there are also giant pathways that can be activated in case a world fails a Tumult so badly that it dies. Those theoretically can be operated by anyone she's trained, and she makes sure that there is at least one trusted group of guardians managing such a gate on each world."

  "Okay," I replied. "So are those still around? And are the societies in charge of them still around?"

  "No idea," Breena admitted, looking behind her at the three Testifiers talking among themselves. "The gates themselves are probably indestructible. But it sounds like the societies have either all been lost or gone into hiding. The Testifiers should know about them, though. And the fact that they don't anymore is a bad sign."