by Erik Reid
The redness in her cheeks started to fade. Her attack slowed for a moment, then she reached for his throat. Her fingers curled around his neck. Only half-conscious, he fumbled in an awkward attempt at prying her grip loose but he was in no shape to fight anymore.
A dozen draykin guards moved toward us now, carefully, with their weapons drawn. They seemed to sense that sudden movement on their part might lead to Kaylee killing their friend, but they weren’t going to watch passively.
“Kaylee,” I said. “Let go of him.”
She growled and tightened her fingers. “He hurt Dani. He hurt Dani!”
I stepped behind her and looped an arm around her stomach, pulling her up from the ground. She lifted the guard with her at first, but her hold on him released as she turned her attention toward me.
“No!” she yelled. “Let me go! I have to protect her!”
“Shh,” I said. “Let me worry about the protecting around here. Let me protect you, like I did last night.”
I hugged her tight, pressing her back against my front while she kicked and flailed. Her monkey-like tail whipped in every direction. The gash in her forearm still seeped fresh blood, but she paid it no mind as she writhed against me.
I held her across the stomach with one arm while I reached into my pocket and found the noxyweed candies Dani had distilled the night before.
“Just sleep through the fighting,” I said, pressing two of those candies against her lips. “It’s the only way I know how to help you.”
Kaylee’s anger turned into confusion as those sweet, minty sugar balls touched her tongue. Her constant flailing slowed and the warm peachy glow of her skin returned. The spark of crimson inside her pupils subsided.
“I…” she started, suddenly becoming aware of herself again. “I have blood on my hands.”
“It’ll be okay,” I said, watching her eyelids droop lower. “Just go to sleep and we can talk about it in the morning.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“Yes. I promise.”
She nodded faintly and closed her eyes, yielding to the sleep-inducing candies that dissolved in her mouth.
I stood up and lifted Kaylee, holding her vertically while her arms dangled at her sides. When I finally looked back, I saw draykin guards with their swords pointed at Clara and Dani. Dani’s scabbard and belt sat on the ground, her sword still in its sheath.
“I don’t know who you are,” one guard said. His face was mature and his expression stern. The streaks of gray in his mane of brown hair and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes spoke of experience and wisdom the younger guards lacked. “I don’t know if the queen sent you or why. Hell, maybe we’re making a grave mistake here, but we cannot let you near Benoch. He’s too important to the future of our kingdom.”
I spun in a circle, eyeing the dozen guards that surrounded us. Kaylee was light in my arms, but I couldn’t hold her and protect her at the same time, not with all these armed men glowering at us. I set her down gently, careful not to disturb the slice-wound that ran down her arm.
“Nor,” the guard continued, “can we let you leave now that you’ve found this secluded location.”
“I could have let Kaylee rip you all to shreds,” I said. “I’ve seen her do worse, in fact.”
“I’m grateful you had the sense to sedate her,” the guard said. “There’s no need to lose more lives here than necessary.”
“No,” I said. “Just ours? Well, to hell with that. I can take half of you down without batting an eye.”
To show them what I meant, I balled up my fist and pounded the ground. The metal plates that covered Oscar’s knuckles protected my hand from the impact as I punched hard into the rocky earth. An audible rumble accompanied a violent vibration that shook the ground beneath us.
The guards looked worried, though the one who became their spokesperson maintained an even stare at me.
“I don’t think you want to hurt anyone,” the guard said.
“You don’t know what the fuck I want,” I said. “Bring me Benoch. He’ll know why we’re here the second he sees this.” I lifted Oscar higher, but they didn’t recognize the glove for what it was.
“We can’t do that,” he said.
“And here I thought calming Kaylee would buy us some goodwill,” I said. “Come on, bring your best.”
The guard aimed his sword and bent his knees. I stretched my neck and back, waiting for him to get close enough for Oscar to grab that blade in his palm and bend it to a right angle.
Dani and Clara were still captive under the blades of other guards, and these men wouldn’t hesitate to slit their throats the second their new leader here commanded it.
The guard spat to the side and narrowed his eyes. His legs tensed as he prepared to launch into a sprint with that sword pointed firmly my way.
“Stop!” an old man yelled.
The guard that prepared to attack me stood straight again as he and the other draykin all turned toward the bunker. An old man approached us, his hands clasped in front of him and wrinkling his purple robe. The small rounded cap on his head was the same color, no larger than a yarmulke but worn closer to the front, an inch away from his forehead and supported by a tuft of gray hair.
“Benoch,” one guard said. “You shouldn’t be outside.”
“Oh, stuff it, Marsten,” Benoch said. “The whole bunker smells like armpits. You open the hatch, I’m going to get some fresh air for once. Now what’s going on here?”
“I’m a human man, wearing the fist of Oscar,” I said. “Queen Zolocki—”
“They killed Gretna!” a guard yelled.
“That monkey tried to eat Ernie’s face off!” said another.
“Queen Zolocki,” I said, louder than before, “sent us to—”
“They stole horses!” a third guard yelled. “Royal horses!”
“Reclaiming my time!” I yelled. “Reclaiming. My. Time.”
“Let him speak,” Benoch said.
“Thank you,” I said. “Varrowsgard is under siege by—”
“Did you say the fist of Oscar?” Benoch asked.
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Blades ready, boys,” Benoch said. “Take them inside, dead or alive.”
CHAPTER 18
A dozen guards raised their swords at once, though none of us made a move to fight with them. Dani nursed an injured wing, Clara was shy even when there wasn’t a fight breaking out, and Kaylee was passed out on the ground by my feet.
I picked her up and walked toward Benoch while the guards escorted us with suspicious glares and sadistic smiles.
“Oscar,” I said as I walked. “Do you have a self-destruct mode?”
Point of Information: Onicite Skin Cohesion-AR is capable of withstanding blasts of 80 terajoules
“Great,” I said. “Prepare to self-destruct on my command.”
Point of Information: Onicite Skin Cohesion-AR is capable of withstanding blasts of 80 terajoules
I get it, I thought. You’re impossible to blow up, but shut up already. It’s a bluff, you idiot.
“Everybody behave and no one gets hurt,” Benoch said. “That goes for the guards and our unexpected visitors.”
The old man was the first to climb down the hatch, and a few guards went after him before the others forced Clara, Dani, and myself to descend. I laid Kaylee over my front so that her waist rested on my shoulder, thrusting her tight little ass in the air. I grabbed that ass with one hand to steady her while the other worked the ladder. Having already had my hands on every square inch of her, I doubted she’d mind.
The bottom floor of the bunker was solid rock, the base of a long, smooth tunnel cut from the foothills of the northern mountains.
“This is kobold work,” Clara said as we walked together down a long, curving corridor. She frowned as her eyes scanned the smooth rock walls and the etched patterns that added an artistic flourish. “It must have taken a hundred kobolds to create this home for you.”
“Thirty years they worked, and not a single crack in a century’s time,” Benoch said. “Sturdy stuff.”
“Givens are meant to work for seven,” Dani said. “Followed by an apprenticeship. Kobolds already know how to dig; it’s surface skills they lack. What useful trade did these men and women walk away with?”
“A hundred years ago?” Benoch asked. “I doubt they walked away at all. Most probably died here, their hands still working away at Silura’s crusty mantle until the bitter end. Times were different then.”
“Nothing like today,” I said. “When slavery has grown to be so civilized.”
Benoch turned back and pushed his way toward me. He had to tilt his head to look up at my face and lock eyes with mine, but he didn’t seem to fear what Oscar and I were capable of.
“Don’t make trouble,” he said, his voice low and his tone earnest. “The simki is cursed, the draykin injured, and if I’m not mistaken, you have a Goddess-touched kobold in need of rest and guidance. I am not only perceptive, I’m deeply resourceful, and you stand nothing to gain by alienating me.”
He turned away then and marched back to his position at the front of the line, leading us and the guards deeper into the cavernous compound.
“Take them to separate quarters,” Benoch said, not looking back. “Divest them of anything extraneous.”
Guards closed in on me, reaching for the simki draped over my shoulder.
“Wait,” I said. “Be careful with her!”
A guard took Kaylee and carried her away, her arm still dripping blood. Clara didn’t resist when a pair of guards took her by the arms and led her onward. Dani glanced back with sadness on her face. Maybe guilt.
“We’re in this together,” I said. We’d get out of this together, too. I wanted her to know that what I said earlier was true. Even without Gretna guarding the glove, I would stay.
The guards that pulled me were rough, but one dropped his hands altogether when he grabbed hold of Oscar. Something about the black, skin-like coating on my hand seemed to freak him out. He grabbed my elbow after that. It really didn’t matter what he held, though. I wasn’t fighting this. My little group was weary and hurt. If Benoch could help us, I’d let him.
Guards brought each of the girls to a different door. I supposed there were no jail cells in this bunker; it was designed as a royal refuge for secret knowledge, a place where the draykin heir apparent would take her lessons and grow to become a future monarch. It wasn’t equipped as a prison, though the dark hallways, brusque guards, and lack of exits sure made it feel like one.
I was the last to find a room of his own. After the guards pushed me inside, they started undressing me, but here I fought back. Pushing them off me, I raised my hands for a second to signal surrender, then pulled off my white T-shirt. It was torn, and brown all over from dirt and old, dried blood.
My sneakers went next, and my pants with everything still in the pockets. They handed me a loose white gown, like an oversized shirt, and left.
I put on my new cloth robe. This whole situation was reminiscent of a hospital stay, without the gaping slit down the back of the paper-thin garments they hand out there. At least here I didn’t have to worry about being properly insured.
The guards locked the metal door behind them and left me in a small room with rock walls, a single bed, and a small wooden table with one chair. If this was meant as a bedroom for a guard, it didn’t look used. There were no personal possessions anywhere.
I paced the small bedroom. Three steps across, and then a wall. Three steps back, then the other wall. The longer I stayed there, ignored inside that cramped confinement, the angrier I got. I could blast that metal door off its hinges with a single touch. Did they know that?
It took all of my resolve not to. Gretna lost her life to get us here, and Benoch was my best shot at understanding Oscar, the storm that brought me here, and whether I’d ever see my home again.
My home. What a stupid nowhere place that was. The only good thing about it was Selena. I suddenly missed her, in a way I never had before. Deeply enmeshed in this Siluran whirlwind, I finally accepted the fact that it was impossibly away from her.
My knees felt weak, so I sat on the bed. The mattress was firm and uncomfortable. I reached for my phone, eager for the comfort of a few photos of the girl I had ditched for my date with Jasmine, but my possessions were all elsewhere. All I had was this flowing white robe and a pitch black glove.
The one thing I could do was set a waypoint. Benoch’s Bunker, I thought. A blue pillar of light shot up from the floor beneath my feet and then faded to a small glowing disc.
I laid my head onto the lumpy pillow and stared at the ceiling, hoping sleep would whisk me away from my boredom and frustration. Instead, my ears trained on the sound of shouting and slamming. All men’s voices, so they didn’t involve the girls. All loud, like they were upset about something. All muffled thanks to the echoing rock and thick metal doors.
No matter how hard I strained to listen, I couldn’t make out the words. Eventually the sound of boots filled the hallway, then silence. The whole ordeal took about an hour. It was an hour I wish I had spent sleeping.
Closing my eyes and thankful for the quiet, I had no time to relax. The metal workings of my room’s door clinked. My body stiffened and sat upright as the knob twisted and the door edged open. Benoch slipped inside and closed the door behind himself.
“You’re here alone,” I said. “What is this, some kind of test?”
“Isn’t everything?” he asked, arching an eyebrow and flashing me a snide smile. “Truly, I didn’t want the royal grunts to think I was being soft on you. Guards need to feel important, and drawing their swords gave them that. I let them think you’re all prisoners here for the time being. If I welcomed you as guests they’d have treated me like shit for it, which I get tired of real fast.”
“You don’t think we’re a threat then,” I said.
“I’ll know better what I think when I’ve taken a look at your possessions,” he said. “All of them. We’ve hitched the horses to a post and brought the saddlebags in. They were packed masterfully, clearly Gretna’s doing. I am saddened to hear of her fate.”
My eyes hit the floor. “Me too. She was a good woman.”
“I’m also sorry to hear that it was bloodhounds that did her in,” Benoch said. “In all my life, those monsters were a matter of historical fact, but never a present one. If they’ve awoken, that means A’zarkin—”
“Popped into the castle to say ‘hi,’ ” I said. “He traded insults with your queen and tried to steal this glove, but I beat him to it. It’s a part of me now.”
“Is the syncing process complete?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Only six percent so far.”
“Then it’s not part of you yet,” he said. “Not fully. I have a series of notes from one of my predecessors about how the suit functioned. Its precise design is surely beyond our draykin understanding, but I might offer some basic assistance.”
He reached for the door and opened it again, then turned back to stare at me, still sitting upright on the bed.
“Kyle,” he said. “This is where you come with me.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The rock floor was cold against my bare feet, but there was no use in complaining. I followed Benoch into the long hallway ahead. The sound of our breathing and his shoes against the floor were all I heard.
“It’s quiet,” I said. “Where are the guards?”
“They left,” Benoch said.
“What do you mean, ‘left’?” I asked.
“After the guards confiscated your possessions, they unfolded the parchment tucked so carefully inside the pocket of your weird blue pants. The letter bearing the queen’s insignia.”
“I doubt the queen meant to recall the guards posted here,” I said. “I picked that up in a remote town.”
“Be that as it may, your letter sparked a lively debate,�
� he said. “Well, as lively as small minds are capable of. Some suggested killing the prisoners before setting out for Varrowsgard, but the majority voted to leave immediately.
“The queen is so very protective of her egg, and if the siege against the city results in losing the heir to her throne she will not hesitate to blame the guards who joined the fray a day too late. They know all too well our highness’s temper.”
“But you stayed?” I asked.
“Those meatheads ‘protected’ me from ever leaving this laboratory,” he said. “I love my work, but a man needs some sunshine every now and then. You did me a service. Now I hope you’ll do me another one.”
“A service,” I said. “After your goons stripped me nude and treated my companions like terrorists.”
“Any favor for me is a favor for you,” he replied. “The fist of Oscar is one part of a larger apparatus, but it is the only part we have here. It is a highly advanced piece of equipment, but one that depends on power to meet its full potential. I may have a way to provide that power.”
“And you would provide it to me?” I asked.
“I don’t see any other five-fingered Hero of Silura prepared to slay the demon A’zarkin,” he said. “You’ll set out tonight. Every moment we lose is another our enemies gain.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Late,” he replied. “In another hour, it might become ‘early’ again, but for now it is not. Come.”
I followed the old man along the curving rock corridor, passing closed doors along the outer edge. The inner wall was smooth and uninterrupted, not counting the ample carvings dug a century ago by kobold hands. They were all geometric designs, decoration as far as I could tell. Finally, after a good ten minutes of circling the compound, we stopped at a metal door held by massive hinges that bolted into the inner rock wall.
Benoch slipped a key into the lock, turned it, and pushed.
When the door opened inward, it revealed a circular room with a round dome ceiling that must have taken up the lion’s share of the space beneath this hill.