Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  "These things haven't faced a serious threat in forever," Eadric continued. "They don't how strong—or rather how much weaker—they currently are, and they have no idea what we're capable of."

  "So we need to move faster, like you said," Karim added. "But in a way that takes advantage of the element of surprise."

  "Okay, so we should head out as soon as our spells and vital guards are refreshed," I concerned. "Got it. That was kind of my point."

  "They're also saying you should stop talking to these things so much whenever you meet them," Breena clarified helpfully. "Just skip the part about asking how the weather is and jump straight into 'kill it with lightning'."

  "That's probably a really good idea," I admitted. "I've been hoping to either finding another Virtus or finding someone who can break his contract. But if they're trying to eat souls, and they all attack us in the end anyway, then I'm probably wasting our time. Last question—" I turned to face the whispering mist—"did we kill your friends, when we attacked the Warden? Because I got the impression he was using them as shields."

  "We are fuel," the first voice said sadly.

  "Each jailer puts us to a different use," another bemoaned.

  "We get hurt, spent..."

  "But we can never truly die," the grumbling voice finished. "Try as we might."

  "That's useful, and thank you." I turned to my friends. "The ghosts can’t die, and each Warden will have different powers. How many Wardens are there?" I asked.

  I have a problem with asking 'last questions.' Still working on it.

  "No more than four."

  "No more than three, now."

  "Can he slay the rest?"

  "We'll never know unless he's worthy."

  "Alright," I said. "Enough procrastinating. Let's go."

  We tore down the hall at an increased speed, realizing now that if the enemy had been patrolling these same halls for thousands of years then there probably weren't any traps left, unlike the way out, which they just began bothering with recently. We didn’t try too hard to be stealthy, because however quietly we moved, nothing changed the fact that I was dragging along a bunch of spooky ghost voices who kept commenting on every semi-interesting thing I did.

  We found another warden on patrol fifteen minutes later. He seemed to be pulling the mist towards himself, and I heard whispers and moans as it whirled into him. I don't know why he didn't hear our last enemy’s shout of alarm, but he looked up in surprise, turned toward us, pointed his hand and fired a blast made out of smoky mist. Eadric rushed forward and took it on his shield, then he staggered to his knees and began shivering. Breena flew over him and began casting Water and Air magic, looking for the best way to heal him. The rest of us laid into the undead legionnaire with lightning, arrows, and arcane bolts. Unlike Calphus, this monster had neither a shield nor a protective shroud, so we were able to see all of our attacks land on his armor and torso. His vital guard let him withstand the first volley, but when he raised his hand to fire off another smoky blast Weylin knocked the arm out of position with an arrow enhanced with Air magic. That was another spell that Breena had apparently held out on me. I'd have to get around to making her teach me that. But for now I focused on bringing down our current opponent and began slinging Friction Slices into him as fast as I could.

  He was tougher, and probably had greater magic, than any of us. But his own magic took more time to cast, and he was still trying to have a spell fight with five other mages. A group of finger bolts from Karim followed behind his normal, scripted blue bolts and the warden suddenly went rigid from the lightning magic, locking up despite the apparent lack of nerves. Another enhanced arrow from Weylin took him in the eye-socket and a Friction Slice from me took him in the knees. As he fell forward, I used my Air-enhanced speed to rush over to him, pull out my mace, and send an underhand swing directly into his unarmored chin, discharging my Outer Current spell as I connected. The blow tore through the remainder of the monster's vital guard and sent broken pieces of his skull flying through the air. Then the monster's armored torso clattered to the floor and lay still.

  "Free," new voices suddenly spoke up from the mists.

  "We are not eaten," another answered.

  "Why are we not eaten?"

  "Why are we free?"

  "Are you a king?" a child-like ghost asked me. "Is that why we're free now?"

  The cynical, hurting part of me wanted to mock the ghost for asking that, wanted to point out that a person who has a king isn't really free.

  Then my dad's voice came back into my mind:

  “And you know what that makes us, son?” he said in my mind, still smiling, still picking up other people's trash. “When you're strong enough to make sure no one who lives near you is bullied? When no one's starving? Or cold? When everyone who lives near you is safe, healthy, and respected?

  “It makes us kings,” he answered for me, like he had done thousands of times, until the lesson was drilled into my subconscious child-brain. “Whether anyone knows it or not. Because serving, helping, and protecting are all jobs of a king.”

  I kneeled down, trying to face a spirit I couldn't see.

  "Yeah, I'm a king," I answered. "Or at least I'm trying to be. It's a king's job to make you all free. And I don't know how to be anything but a king right now. So I'm going to try and make you free."

  "I heard him," the young ghost said excitedly. "Everyone heard him!"

  "Do we have a king again?"

  "Can we be free?"

  "If..." the grumbling voice began again, but this time it sounded hopeful. "If he's worthy."

  I turned to look back at Eadric, who was getting up while shaking his head.

  "Are you alright?" I asked him.

  "Yeah," he said slowly. "Just got a little cold and dizzy there."

  "It was a soul attack," Breena said as she hovered over him. "From the Spirit Ideal. Those are hard to defend against, and hard to heal."

  "That's why I took it," the dwarf grunted. "Figured I had the most training for that kind of thing. No offense, Challenger."

  "Huh?" I asked. "Training? What training?"

  "Can't talk about it," the dwarf answered. "Probably shouldn't have brought it up."

  "Oh," I answered awkwardly. "Sorry."

  "But he's gonna keep asking you about it," Breena admonished. "Even though he's sorry and doesn't mean to. But until you teach him whatever fancy-shmancy skills you have, he's gonna badger you about it without realizing."

  "Fair enough," Eadric stoically shrugged. Then he winced and rotated an armored shoulder. "Will save it for later though, when we have time and I don't feel like shit."

  "Thank you," I said in surprise. "We'll move as soon as the healer says you're ready," I nodded at our fairy. She flew over him, did one last check, then gave a satisfied nod.

  "Gotta say though, Wes," my familiar muttered as we refreshed our magics and began to move forward again. "I'm surprised you haven't bothered me about trying to learn their special magics. Grateful, but surprised."

  "Yeah, I've been waiting on that," I answered. "It's lower on my list because we've been so crunched for time, but maybe when we get everyone safe and clear all the monsters out you can tell me ab—"

  "Ugh," the pink-haired tiny woman moaned, covering her face with her hands. "Why did I even bring it up?"

  "Don't worry about it," Weylin said as we moved forward. "We'll give you a hand, if things ever slow down enough."

  "Really?" the fairy piped up hopefully.

  "Later though, after all of this," the elf confirmed, and Breena let out the largest sigh of relief I had ever heard out of her.

  The next few hallways were completely empty. That worried me, because by now we had clanged on enough metal and thrown enough lightning around for at least somebody to realize we were home. Maybe my earlier comment about the dead not relying on sound and sight to find us was being proven right now, but it still felt like we should have been noticed by some other security.
Especially when I considered that these guys were part of a military unit. Yes, they were sloppy, and we had started counting on it. But so far we had only battled four soldiers total, and the surviving unit had to be bigger than that.

  Which meant that they had finally realized we were here, and that we were probably going to find them at the next chokepoint, if we were lucky.

  If we were unlucky, then we were going to find all of our enemies at the next ambush.

  Everyone seemed to have come to the same realization as I did, because we all started slowing down at once.

  Then I cursed myself for being an idiot.

  "Avalon," I groaned as I put a hand to my face. "Somehow I forgot to ask this earlier. Can you give us information on the enemy location?"

  "Yes," a voice whispered from the mist.

  "Help him, world of ours," another spoke up.

  "So that he can free us."

  "No," the bitter voice protested. "It cannot help him. Not until he's worthy."

  That refrain was kind of getting old, I thought to myself.

  "Negative," Avalon said, finally answering over the ghosts. "Surveillance is not possible during the Rite. Furthermore, the current condition of Avalon's citizens prevents most processes from functioning in this area."

  "Great," I grumbled. "Well, I don't want us to just charge in blindly. We've been getting lucky with these things because we've been fighting them all on our own terms. Anybody have any other ideas?"

  "We can go slower, and I can try looking more carefully," Karim answered, his eyes taking on that strange glow again. "I might be able to spot traces of their magic, assuming I can filter out the residue from all of Avalon's lost souls."

  I've got to learn how to do that, I thought to myself.

  "Why filter us?" another voice said from the mist. "Why not let us help?"

  "Can we help?" another voice asked. "Is it allowed?"

  "Why wouldn't it be?" the first voice asked again.

  "They will punish us," the second voice warned fearfully.

  "They always punish us," the first voice said back. "They always torture. They always devour. This will change nothing if he fails."

  "But it will change everything if he wins," a third voice said hopefully.

  "But can he win?" the second voice insisted. "He is one. They are many."

  "He is five," the first voice retorted. "And he has not lost yet."

  "Let us help him," the third voice decided. "We have been down here long enough."

  "Fine," the bitter voice grumbled. "If he's worthy he will survive."

  "They wait for you," the first voice whispered. "Far down the halls."

  "They hope you will grow impatient," the second voice added.

  "They hope you have grown proud," the next voice said.

  "They hope you will see them too late, and die."

  "They hope you will not prove worthy," the last voice groaned.

  It turned out that there wasn't really a way around the ambush. The semi-helpful whispers took us to a meandering path away from the main chokepoint, down a few more pitch-black halls that didn't have anything whatsoever in them, and finally down a bigger hallway that would lead to a less defended part of the same unavoidable room that they said the ambush was located in. It came at the end of the hallway, the walls widening and widening until it looked like we were about to enter some kind of underground amphitheater—which was probably just a normal theater. We couldn't make out anything in the inky blackness, and the misty ghosts were completely unhelpful as to the number and location of the remaining monsters. I asked Eadric how many of those 'totem-grenades' he had left, and he just shook his head and pointed to the ceiling above our heads.

  "You sure that's a problem?" I asked. "I can't even see the ceiling in all of this blackness."

  "That's how I'm sure it's a problem," the dwarf grunted back. "If we can't see the walls, floor and ceiling then it's a bad idea to test whether or not we can blow any of them apart."

  "Damn," I said, accepting his point. "Any other ideas? I don't want to fight them on their terms but we can't shoot what we can't see."

  "You could try talking to them again," Weylin offered. "You might annoy them into making a mistake."

  "That actually might work," Karim said with a nod. "Go for that idea."

  I sighed.

  "Great, thanks guys. I appreciate your input. As always. Let's just move a bit forward and prepare before we try that."

  A few steps and some hastily-conducted trap spells later, I called out ahead of us.

  "Parley!" I called out. "The new lord of Avalon seeks parley with the forces occupying the next room!"

  The stillness in the room beyond felt like it shifted slightly. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I heard a hiss.

  "Parley!" I called out again. "The new lord of Avalon, Wes Malcolm, along with the Steward of Avalon, seeks to negotiate with the forces attempting to occupy this small corner of his world!"

  Again, silence.

  I waited for a few moments, gradually began to grow frustrated, then looked behind me back at the others. Breena tapped me on the shoulder and signaled she should take over. I nodded.

  "The Steward of Avalon now speaks!" she shouted, sounding surprisingly controlled and formal. I realized I needed to stop forgetting that she was centuries older than me, famous in multiple worlds, and had probably taken part in numerous world-shaking negotiations. "Explain your unauthorized occupation on our world, or risk destruction!"

  A few more moments of silence stretched. Breena didn't let it get to her.

  "You can talk now, or I can come back later," she called out in a dangerous tone. "You won't like it if I have to come back later!"

  Another moment of silence, and then voices answered her.

  "You can try, but we know you're bluffing," a scratchy voice finally answered. "If the steward really had discovered us, we'd already be dead. She wouldn't need to 'come back later'."

  "That's an unfortunate assumption," she replied. While she talked, I tried to get a feel for where the voice in the room was coming from. I also listened for any other sounds I could hear—shifting of feet, armor rattling, anything to help get an idea for my enemy's positioning. "Because part of me is here, part of me will be back, sooner or later, and all of me will be unhappy with your decision. I'm giving you a chance to explain yourself to me and with the new lord of Avalon, who is standing right next to me." I scooted away from her as she said that, because snipers are a thing. She flew sideways a little bit as well. "Don't make me regret my generosity."

  We shared a look, and then I spoke up again.

  "Seriously. Think about the fact that we're already talking to you, instead of leaving you rotting on the floor after meeting your patrols. I'm giving you a rare opportunity to leave my planet unscathed and you can even ransom one of your men back."

  "Which soldier?" the same voice called out. My ears noted that he had moved slightly, so I kept his new position in mind.

  "Virtus," I called back. "Your favorite."

  I heard a snort to the voice's left and a stifled snicker to the voice's right. Then the scratchy voice hissed angrily at both of them.