Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  But the whispering brought me back to the real issue at hand.

  "A warden comes."

  "Turn back, nascent one."

  "You cannot help us from him."

  "Unless you're worthy," the sullen voice stubbornly added.

  I began to hear it then.

  Clank. Clank.

  Eadric held up his hand, then slung out his shield and warhammer. Karim began quickly tracing symbols into the air, refreshing all our shield wards. Weylin and Breena both muttered a quick chant, causing a lightening of our spirits and our weapons to glow softly for a moment, respectively. I reactivated all of my signature enhancement spells, and hissed as the power flowed through me. My proficiency in Earth and Air magic allowed me to now increase my Strength and Dexterity to the same limits my Wisdom, Intelligence and Constitution were at. The result was that I was now almost three times as strong as the strongest person back on Earth, and had nearly three times the speed of an Olympic sprinter.

  That still, apparently, was less than what the vaunted super-humans of ancient Earth were capable of, according to Damaged-Avalon. But it would have to do.

  The clanking sounds came much closer. I didn't have time to begin to set up the other magic Breena had taught me, the 'trigger-trap' spells that had wiped out Tovius' troops. We'd just have to make the best of things.

  Clank. Clank.

  We took formation. I stood next to Eadric with my spear and shield ready. It was a tough call picking the right weapon for this crowded hallway and I could only hope I made the right choice. Karim and Weylin took position behind me, arrow nocked and spear at the ready.

  Clank...clank.

  A humanoid shape finally came out of the inky blackness and into view.

  It was another skeleton, this one in a segmented Roman-style cuirass with the long rectangular shield I had seen Tovius use. He had a plumed, open-faced helm as well as bracers and shin guards. The only thing he lacked was the elaborate and gaudy cape Tovius had draped around himself. I could only hope he would be as stupid as Tovius.

  Then I noticed something else.

  Tiny gray wisps seemed to crawl along the legionnaire’s armor and bones. I thought I heard a howling sound as they moved, like wind when it whips between buildings or hills and creates that famous creepy moan.

  "Intruders," the skull rasped. "This is a first. Did the Starsown finally discover us?"

  "Technically, yes," I said, casting a sideways look at Breena. "But so did Avalon's new lord. Hi. I’m Wes Malcolm. I'd like you to stand down, surrender your hostages, and leave my planet. But before any of that," I added thoughtfully, "I'd like your name. So that when you predictably refuse my demands, I don't have to keep saying 'hey you' over and over."

  Sorry about that, Mom, I thought. Next time I'll be quicker about remembering manners.

  "I'm Warden Calphus," the creature hissed. "And no. I'm not leaving. And neither is the rest of the company. Or anyone else here in this place. We won this world fair and square, in honorable combat."

  "Really?" I asked sarcastically. "Because I got the impression a lot of you were stuck down here, judging by all the bony floor decor. That or this is just fantastic real estate."

  That earned me a snort, from a flesh-less nasal passage no less.

  "If you met Tovius and Virtus outside, I hope you at least killed them before talking so much."

  "That's surprisingly sympathetic of you, considering you appear to be wreathed in captured souls," I replied without missing a beat. Very briefly I wondered if I used to be this mouthy before all the torture. Then I decided I didn't care.

  The ancient soldier just shrugged.

  "When you depend on mana to stay animate, you can't be picky."

  "I would think you can," I argued. "Because I know Virtus outside didn't eat or torment anyone. And he had been living here for as long as the rest of you."

  "Virtus was also an idiot that let himself get pushed out of the company," Calphus growled. "You saw how he ended up. In fact, you probably caused his death."

  "No I didn't," I replied. "I forced a surrender, and he accepted. But since you said he was forced out of the company, does that mean he's hire-able? My kingdom has a whole lot of openings in our 'non-asshole' department. Heck, I'd offer you a job, if I thought you'd qualify."

  "My, you think highly of yourself," the monster said with another snort. "Is there a reason you think you can handle a soldier that's battled Earthborn warriors in the past, and won? Just who are you? And where did you come from?"

  "Several reasons," I replied carefully, choosing to answer the first question for now. "My understanding, though, is that you've given up at least some of your old power when you all began to Descend."

  "Maybe," the creature growled. "Descents and Rises aren't compatible. You begin to do one, you lose the other. But Descending guaranteed longevity and an eternal food supply. Rising, as the Earthborn found out, guarantees nothing. And I've lost count of the number of years I've had to make up on that lost power."

  "What about honoring your contract?" I replied. "I couldn't enter this place unless Avalon acknowledged that I had authority here. And you're supposed to surrender upon contact with a new Lord of Avalon."

  "That clause was there to give us a loophole to keep the job forever," Calphus growled. "There can be no new lord! None of the Avalonians that got away would ever qualify! And neither can you! You probably just forced the door open, same as we did!"

  "Really?" I asked, genuinely startled. "I could have done that? Avalon?"

  "Confirmed," the voice boomed from the mist. "However the nascent lord did not need to, given recognition of his authority. Challenger Wes Malcolm has been recognized as Lord of Avalon. The Rite is merely conducted to increase his power."

  "See?" I said to the skeleton. "Job's done. You can collect your bonus and go home. Provided your bonus doesn't include any of my people here," I added with narrowed eyes.

  "The dead have no home," the monster growled back at us. "They must either beg for one, as Virtus insisted we continue to do, or take one by force. Virtus would have had our company be at the mercy of the ever-vanishing grateful, while our new direction guarantees our survival. If I and the others listen to you, then our company goes back to praying for another war—a just one at that, which does not truly exist. He was part of the old guard, an idealist that believed that 'good' people of other races would both need our services and be able to pay for them at the same time. He was wrong. And so are you. We're not leaving a sustainable, practical source of mana just because a small, squeamish group in the Expanse labeled our actions as war crimes. Your coming here was a mistake on your part, and free extra power for us. And you will have an eternity to see my point." He drew a gladius that crackled with purple energy and began walking forward. "Attend me," he commanded, and the howling wisps suddenly billowed around him, forming a swirling cloud of red eyes and moaning mouths. He began to advance forward at us.

  We let him have it.

  Eadric cast a spell causing the terrain to spike and break apart right in front of the warden. He stepped through it easily, but it still slowed him. Sensing each other's intent through the mind-link, Weylin began firing his heavy-tipped arrows at the monster's upper torso and helm, shouting as he released each time. The faux Roman skeleton blocked them easily with his shield, but the enhanced force of the arrows gradually knocked his shield out of position, leaving his lower torso vulnerable. Breena and Karim exploited that immediately, firing a lightning bolt at each leg. The shroud of souls seemed to absorb the blasts, shrinking and moaning under the powerful electric current. The warden pressed on, almost clear of Eadric's blasted terrain.

  My Friction Slice managed to tear its way through most of the souls and nick the monster's armored shin. He grunted, but kept on coming. We managed to get one more volley off, shredding most of his soul protection, cracking his shield, and causing a few scorch marks and nicks to appear over portions of his bones, and then he was upon
us. I heard him snarl in surprise over the amount of magic we were able to throw at him, and then his shield caught my spear thrust and his sword flashed at Eadric.

  Eadric, in turn, caught the monster's blade on his own shield quite easily, twisting the weapon outward and swinging his hammer into the monster's lightly armored arm. There was a loud crack, and a rush of air as the spiritual cloud dampened even further, but the arm remained whole.

  Acting on my own advantage, I pushed my polearm deeper into the monster's shield, trying to force his barrier out of position. Calphus was strong and tall, much like Virtus and Tovius had been, but each of his arms was currently occupied by an enemy combatant, and he couldn't risk bearing down on either of us, at least not the same way we could to him.

  Still, he nearly wrenched his shield back into position before Karim stepped next to me and put his own spear to work. The warrior-scribe took careful aim, thrust past me and pinned his weapon into the monster's shield in a way that added his weight to mine. Sensing each other's intent through the mind-link, we managed to twist and wrench the monster's shield arm nearly all the way to the wall. Eadric used that moment to step further into the monster's guard, his own shield pinning the creature's sword out of the way. I heard a series of loud cracks from his hammer before the monster finally lifted a foot and kicked him. But the dwarf just grunted from the hit and kept working his hammer into the undead soldier's bony body.

  As he did that Weylin and Breena continued to fire darts and arrows into the remnants of the monster's shroud, until it finally dissipated and their attacks began to knock into the warden's helmet. He snarled and jerked his head back, grunting as he took another hit from Eadric's hammer in the process. At that moment I had let go of the grip on my shield just long enough to fire my stored lightning bolt straight into his upper torso. He shuddered, but didn't go down like Tovius did. Instead he swung an armored knee into Eadric's helm hard enough to finally knock the dwarf back a step. Then he twisted out his shield, freed his sword arm and began raining blows onto my upper torso.

  "Alert!" he called out. "Invaders!"

  "A little late to raise the alarm," I grunted, taking his blows on my shield, armor and protection spells. The fact that he was able to cut through three different layers of protection so often was disturbing, but his blows still weren't enough to bring down my vital guard as fast as he needed to. The next time his weapon swung down I deflected the blow, then reached around with my now-empty weapon hand (I had dropped my spear when he tossed his shield free) and gripped his forearm just past the bracer. I triggered both my five finger bolts and my Outer Current spell, sending as much lightning as I could into his body all at once.

  The arm exploded.

  The undead soldier cried out in pain, falling backwards. Eadric pursued him, swinging his hammer into a thigh and cracking it hard enough to finally knock Calphus off of his feet. I followed up as well, hammering into him with my shield until I could summon my mace.

  In the end, all three of us—Karim, Eadric and I—dogpiled on top of him while hammering any part of his body with the blunt ends of our weapons and shields. His legs, ribcage and neck finally cracked apart, leaving him as nothing but a helmeted skull. It rolled away from us, and as I stomped over to it, his empty sockets looked back up at me.

  "I... shouldn't have lost," the now torso-less undead moaned.

  "In fairness," I replied. "You did try to take on five people at once. Who all knew magic."

  "I've battled... worse odds... back in the day," Calphus sighed. "Earthborn paladins... Avalonian mist mages..."

  "You used to be more," I said sadly. "That's okay. My people used to be more, too. But we started making the same choices you did." I looked down at myself. "I think I used to be more, too."

  "Earth...born?" I heard surprise in the dying creature's gasp. "No... wonder...lost...got...sloppy."

  The last of whatever mana powered the monster's life fled from his body. The undead legionnaire made one last sigh, and then was silent.

  "Wes?" a tiny hand tapped at my shoulder. "You okay?"

  "Yeah, Breena," I said after a moment. "We need to loot his body."

  "You haven't diminished, Wes," my fairy companion protested quietly. "You're still great. You're still strong. You're still good."

  "Thank you, Breena," I replied sadly. "But I remember a time in my life when I wasn't about to break. And that's not true anymore."

  My friend's face scrunched up, but in the end she bit her lip and didn't argue with me.

  "I'm still here for you," she said finally. "You know that, right?"

  "Yeah Breena," I tried not to sound numb. "I do." I shook my head. Hearing so much about how great and powerful my entire planet used to be, along with processing the fact that they still failed here, along with the fact that my home world was now a rotten mess, seriously depressed me. Especially when I thought of how, instead of traveling to different planets to defend them against oppressors, my people were now subjugating worlds, enslaving their people, and sacrificing them to monsters straight out of either a horror movie or an old-school, Catholic version of Hell.

  All is not Lost.

  My head suddenly whipped around. Who had said that?

  All is not Lost.

  The traceless voice repeated itself.

  Failure is Non-permanent.

  All is not Lost.

  "All is not Lost," I mumbled. Something lifted inside of me.

  "Wes?" my fairy companion asked worriedly. "You still with us?"

  "Yeah, I'm here, sorry. Had my head in the clouds for a second. I'm back now."

  "Okay," Breena replied, not sounding assured. "What's next?"

  "Have we already checked his body for a magic pendant? Like Tovius used?"

  "It was in his ribcage," Karim answered me, pulling out a rusted old chain with a gray stone attached to it. "How he kept it there I have no idea. But it seems to store mana, much like Tovius' pendant did, only in a far greater amount. Do you want to take a look?"

  "Sure," I replied, stretching out a hand. Karim passed the pendant over to me, and my hand hummed with power as I took it. "Wow," I said. "This is potent. Makes me wonder just how high-ranking that guy was."

  "He was one of the wardens," a voice whispered from the mist.

  "You slew him," another voice whispered, as if in disbelief.

  In my mind he sort of slew himself, but I wasn't going to argue with them right now.

  "Maybe he can slay the others," a young voice piped up. "Maybe he can help us?"

  "Only if he's worthy," the stubborn voice grumbled at the end.

  Love you too, grandpa, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue for now.

  "We need to hurry up and move," I said instead. "He called for help at the end. It would be stupid of them not to respond."

  "Which means they may not respond," Eadric grunted.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "And that sounds like a dangerously positive assumption."

  "Not really," the dwarf continued. "These guys weren't expecting company at all. Because they haven't had any for probably tens of thousands of years. They couldn't even tell you were an Earth-human, because you weren't seven feet tall and decked out in glowing magic armor."

  Was it wrong to have suddenly gained a new wish-fulfillment fantasy? Focus, Wes.

  "He does have a point," Weylin spoke up. "These beings are powerful, but unused to actual threats. Had the last warrior fought intelligently and brought help, he might have had us. But instead he charged headlong into a group of armored, braced, warrior-wizards."