Brace For the Wolves

by Nathan Thompson

  Never. I’ll have them hunt you till they catch every drop of your blood. You have gone too far.

  Fuck. Off. I growled. Wincing, I fell back onto my old practice of shutting off that negative corner of my mind. I’d need a long-term plan for dealing with him, especially now that I had some idea from Chris as to what he really was. But once again, that could wait.

  Some time later, howls called out behind us.

  Karim stumbled, clutching Breena tighter as he ran.

  “Hostiles increasing speed and heading toward your position,” Avalon spoke out loud this time, where everyone could hear us. “Patterns indicate extreme haste and a willingness to engage in direct combat.”

  Of course they would finally decide to fight now, I thought bitterly. My team could barely handle a small pack of Mongrels right now.

  “How many?” I asked as I ran. “And is there anything you can do to mask our position?”

  “Attempting countermeasures now. Measures should be successful given the extreme distance between positions.”

  I sighed in cautious relief, and then everyone did what they could to run faster. We did not have another hard fight in us.

  Moments later, the most powerful howl I had ever heard swept out over trees, ruins and mists. If its pitch were just a little different I would have mistaken it for a gale-force wind or a freight train. As it sounded, the image of a wolf big enough to put its paw on the second story of a house came into my mind.

  “Foreign contaminant detected,” Avalon sounded. “Subject is Icon-level threat, projecting a small fraction of its power.”

  A dozen howls answered the first powerful moan. They seemed to grow louder as they called out, making me think the creatures themselves were enlarging.

  “Local remaining Horde are augmenting in response to Dark Icon's presence. Their speed is increasing accordingly.”

  Expletives puffed through my mind the way chainsmokers puffed through their favorite cigarettes.

  “Current attempts at concealment have already been thwarted. Hostiles number a dozen attackers and are moving on a direct course to intercept.”

  They must have been reacting to the rescue of Guineve, the destruction of the Horde Pit, or both.

  “Can we outrun them, Avalon?” I panted. Not that we weren't going to try anyway.

  “Projections indicate the Horde howlers will intercept several dozen yards before the warding threshold is crossed.”

  I was so tired of today.

  I thought of some order to give everyone, then felt like a jackass. What was I going to say? Hurry up and cast that spell you guys don't have the energy to cast anymore?

  Lightning bolt, I reminded myself. I have one more stored lightning bolt.

  And a dozen different targets to cast it on.

  I wondered if Guineve could help, but she just muttered feverishly in my arms.

  I tried to look down at the little bubble hiding in my belt.

  “What about you?” I asked desperately. “Can you fight at all, somehow? Do you know any magic?”

  “Ma-gic?” the little ball asked in its adorable way. “Di-rec-tive? Heal? Play? Friend?”

  “We just might possibly need a lot of healing in a minute or two,” I admitted grimly. But my new super happy fun ball had already convinced me that it wasn't meant for fighting.

  I finally had to accept that I had no idea what to do right now, and that I probably hadn't had any real idea what I was doing for a while.

  Sorry, Avalon, I thought to myself. I just might wind up being your shortest-lived lord yet.

  Assessment contested, Avalon said back in my mind.

  I hadn't meant for it to hear me, but that still made me feel a little better.

  “Final plan,” I shouted. “We're going to punch through! Just keep going forward and we'll make it!”

  Thankfully no one pointed out how stupid that sounded. So we kept running, jumping over stones and ditches and the occasional tree root. The mist did what it could to guide our course and conceal our passage.

  But we still heard the howls get closer and closer.

  And there wasn't anything I could do about it.

  In the end, I just had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, not dropping Guineve, until either we crossed the boundary wards or the howlers made contact.

  The rest of my brain turned on when I saw the clearing circle up ahead.

  The howls sounded all around us now. I could have sworn I heard one inches away.

  “Concealment failed,” Avalon intoned. “Adjusting local mist to provide the Challenger better visibility.”

  The nearby mist withdrew completely, to dozens and dozens of yards away. I saw lurching shapes darting between tall rocks and thick trees. Every time I noticed one another howl would make me turn my head and lose sight of the one I had noticed before.

  Karim adjusted his speed to run next to me.

  “Scrolls,” he said tersely. “Still have scrolls. Should have remembered... earlier.”

  “Scrolls?” I panted back. “You mean you can still cast a few spells?”

  He nodded.

  Click, my mind said. Plan.

  Whether it would be a good plan or not would be revealed in several (possibly gory) minutes.

  “Virtus!” I called out. “How heavy are the smoky people?”

  “Slightly heavier than real smoke,” the skeleton rasped.

  “Hand them to Weylin,” I ordered. “Karim, you take Guineve. And our new little bubble friend. I want you and Weylin to sprint with everything you've got until you get halfway into the warding circle. Then I want the two of you to put your passengers down and provide all the cover-fire you can. Then myself, Eadric and Virtus will rear-guard our way into the circle with you, where they can't really follow, and we'll pick everyone up and finish entering. Avalon, is the warding stronger, now that more of the shelter is online?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “What if that Dark Icon's close by and can join the fight?” Karim asked me.

  “Then we're screwed anyway, unless Guineve's less exhausted than she looks.”

  The woman in my arms muttered something incoherent and shifted, her eyes still closed. She made a sound of protest as I handed her off to Karim, and for a moment I was afraid she’d tear her fingernails or something by gripping my chainmail so hard. But she finally let go, and even blinked at me for a moment.

  “Wes...careful.” Then she nodded off against Karim, her arm still reaching for me from over his shoulder.

  Lying on top of her, Breena weakly buzzed something at me that I couldn't hear. I thought I saw her tiny hand stretch outward too.

  I shook my head again. Back to thinking straight. Focus on the monsters all around us.

  Another howl sounded to my right. Which meant a monster was moving through the copse of trees on my right.

  “Weylin, Karim, go!” I shouted, reaching for my weapons. “Virtus, Eadric, with me! Rear guard action!”

  I brought my spear out this time, the weapon my ancestors had been using to kill large beasts for probably millions of years. Or longer, if what I had found down here was true. But back on topic.

  I had deliberately stopped when Virtus and Eadric weren't looking. They ran an extra dozen feet before they noticed me stopping. If any of us had been thinking clearly they would have noticed my trick through the mind-link and stopped with me. Or read my plan and agreed with it. We'd never know. But I had stopped on purpose because I knew the howlers didn't give two fresh rat tails about my friends.

  They were for me. Had been all over the Expanse for me. And as soon as I displayed weakness they were going to pounce.

  I staggered on purpose, nearly going down on one knee. I shot my best impression of a terrified look toward the next howl I heard. I counted out five heartbeats, then pulled myself back up and thrust my spear in the one direction I hadn't looked yet.

  The howler was a bare-toothed, slobbering mess of bristling blue-black fur
. He had been running at me on all fours this time, fleshy maw opened wide. I had the satisfaction of seeing the thing's yellow eyes widen briefly as my spear lined up perfectly with his open mouth with less than a dozen feet to go. He swerved right at the last moment, turning my lethal strike into a maiming, mutilating blow that caught the side of his mouth and tore its way all along the monster's furry flank, finally tearing free in a bloody trail out of the monster's hind leg. The thing howled and whipped away from me. I whirled my long weapon around me and turned to face the exact opposite direction.

  A tiny part of me still wasn't tired. It's hard to describe. It was sort of like a fugue state, except I had never experienced any sort of vague, hazy state before all of the torture. So maybe that description was wrong. But I fell back into the state I had gone into when I was tortured to death all those times, where only a handful of brain cells in me worked, and only two or three things stayed important. Breathing was still important. The things trying to kill me were still important. The fact that I wanted to kill them too, and that they might try to kill my friends, were on the fuzzy boundary of possibly real information. Everything else was a pitch-black void. There was no more sky above me. No more grass under my feet. No more mist and trees and rocks and other nonsense.

  Just my spear, shapes I had to protect, and shapes that wanted me dead.

  The two friendly shapes closest to me shouted some angry noises at me and began to move closer still. Another hungry shape had started charging at me as soon as I attacked the first monster. This one stopped in time, though, and I couldn't rend it like I had the other one. It stopped less than a foot away from my blade-on-a-stick, snapping angrily at me. Because it wanted to distract me. I feinted my spear into a circular strike that came up and sliced the monster's muzzle and nose. It leaped back with an angry yelp and I whirled around to face the next creature trying to catch me from behind.

  This time, we got a piece of each other as my spear impacted the monster's torso and he reared up to swing a foreclaw across my armored sleeve. This time, part of the chainmail actually tore off in ringlets of what I suspected was discount-iron rings, and my vital guard had a new wound to manage on top of everything else. Assuming it was regenerating at all.

  I shouted in pain, then ripped my spear out to slam the butt of the weapon back into the monster I felt still behind me, then forward again into the howler in front of me. He took a second wound to the chest, but his vital guard was in a much better state than my own, and so he could afford to grab the weapon with both of his foreclaws and wrench it halfway out of my grip.

  I swore at his act. The cheating bastard barely had opposable thumbs.

  But I had to let him have the weapon because these damn things fought like wolves, and if a wolf had my attention, it was to help his three to seven friends tackle or hamstring me from behind. So I shoved forward on the spear, punched his head as he lowered, then leaped and kicked off of the howler as I turned to face his friend still behind me. The butt end of my spear must have knocked him in the eye earlier, because he was still recovering, shaking his head and snarling. I pulled out my short-bladed sword and went to work all over him, stabbing, grappling, and trying to keep his torso between myself and the other howlers while watching out for his own claws.

  I heard more howlers snarl all around me, but a moment later two thuds sounded as well. Virtus and Eadric must have slammed into the ambush. If I still could have felt my mind-link, I probably would have known that. But as it was, I was fully occupied with keeping a secure grip on the bouncing, bucking pile of hide and fur, while I stabbed and stabbed until my sword finally stuck into something important and it made more sense to start sawing instead.

  After what felt like the longest minute of my life, the monster's vital guard seemed to exhaust, and the creature I was riding made an odd groaning noise and slumped down. I noted that. These things could take more damage than a normal Mongrel, but not as much as the Spawn we had just battled. And it seemed like they couldn't cast magic either. That was good. Now back to killing.

  Then arrows and a storm of strange magic began to fall, and I paused to try and figure it out. Right, I thought. When that happened it was time to stop killing and run for the circle. I couldn't remember why, but I knew it was important, because it would keep me alive.

  I saw one of the friendly shapes, Eadric, I think was his name, pull me off the dead monster and say something I couldn't hear. He wanted me to run, I think. That was a good idea. I was going to do it anyway, because I needed to live.

  The arrows and magic light show that I vaguely recognized as powerful seemed to do the trick. I ran forward as fast I could, which was no faster than what Virtus and Eadric could. We had to run together to help each other. That way if something caught or pulled one of us—

  Something caught my leg. And I was yanked backwards.

  There was screaming from the friendly shapes. They wanted me back. I was important to them for some reason I'd remember when I was sane again. But I heard more snarling, snapping noises behind me and I knew the other monsters were between them and me.

  More sparks and arrows fell all around me. But then more furry bodies surrounded me, as if they were providing a shield for the monster dragging me away. I heard more howls, and then I realized I was not going to make it.

  And then the chanting began again.

  “Traitor-prince, traitor-prince, catch and kill the traitor-prince!”

  I stabbed tiredly at the creature carrying me. It wouldn't save me. Even if I killed him, another one of the damned things would've taken its place. That's the story of your life, a damaged part of me said. Fighting hopeless battles while something stronger than me took me somewhere I did not want to go.

  No, I said.

  Yes, Pain said to me. They will kill you this time. Because I have had it.

  Something snapped inside of me.

  Something more important than all of the things that had snapped before.

  Like one of the core cables of a wire-bridge, that needed to stay up or the whole thing would come crashing down.

  “Had it?” I asked in a shrill, somebody-needs-his-meds-right-now tone of voice. “You? You've had it?”

  They were still chanting, but they had stopped moving briefly because they didn't like the fact that I was still stabbing at them. A maw, or a claw, I didn't notice or care which, had grabbed my sword arm to try and restrain or destroy it. My free arm grabbed back.

  “You've had it? You're tired of not getting your way? You're tired of kicking and fighting with everything you've got, just to hold on?”

  My voice was getting shriller and shriller. I yanked the offending Horde off of my sword, stabbed the leaf-shaped blade back in all the way up to the handle, then began tearing along, as if I was cutting open a cardboard box, or slicing a hole in the plastic over my microwave dinner.

  “You've finally lost it?” I roared, my voice deepening. “You've had everything just take, and take, and take, until there was nothing left inside?”

  Another howler leaped at me. I swiped my aching, splitting nails across his muzzle and he yelped backwards.

  “You've lost friends and family and futures and dreams and goals and dignity and the ability to think clearly?”

  The monster holding my leg suddenly let go, making a mournful noise of pain. I grabbed at him, trying to widen the tear with my empty hand, feeling his vital guard struggle against my desire to scoop the damned thing's insides right out. I felt the large beast crash to the ground, and others snap all around me.

  Then the one I was grappling with rounded on me, twisting until he could bring his own snarling, fleshy mouth to bear. He opened wide and lunged at me.

  I opened wider and lunged at him.

  What? I heard Pain ask. You're actually...

  “SHUT UP!” I roared madly as the howler and I bit each other. “Shut up for good!”