The Duelist 7, page 3
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
“I am, I promise, now keep Shay safe and hidden because if the hive mind finds out who’s to blame, she’ll be their prime target,” I said and handed her one of my blades for protection.
“I understand,” she said as she gripped Decisiveness in her hand. Then we came together in a quick kiss before going our separate ways, and I knew Amaya would keep Shay safe.
My feet flew over the ground as I sprinted toward the fray, and my ears snagged on a very fierce and familiar sound.
“Riiioooowwlll!” Zoie cried from somewhere, and I pumped my legs harder in order to lessen the distance between us.
“The tower!” someone yelled, and I jumped over a smoldering campfire.
“Skreeeeet!” The worst ringing shriek that sounded like twisting and tearing steel erupted at the same time as a veritable tidal wave of bat-like naked mole creatures exploded over the ridge where the remains of the sentinel tower were still standing.
The swarm appeared to be attacking the large spheres of the grubs where I knew the children and the feeble were often kept inside for protection, and I automatically knew what the swarm of mole-bats was hoping to accomplish.
I skidded to a halt when I saw a group of the beasts land next to a grub. Their skinny naked mole bodies and skinned over red eyes should have been a disadvantage, but I remembered they were referred to as a hive mind and figured that came with some perks.
Currently, they were grouping together and attempting to get the giant pill-bug to move and thereby roll itself over the edge.
I took aim with my crossbow and shot at the mole-bat hovering over the Volkswagen-sized grub, and it was dead before it hit the dirt. This caused the rest of the mole-bats at the base of the curled-up grub to scatter like roaches under a spotlight.
Maybe the one I killed was like a little bat satellite, but the signal was only knocked out for so long until another flapping beast took its place over the grub and tried to rally the others.
I cocked my crossbow again and loaded another bolt so I could take out the mole-bat.
The whoosh of an arrow flew up from behind one of the tents, and I recognized it as one of Horus’.
I wanted to try to make my way over to him if I could, so I tossed my crossbow back across my chest, unsheathed my remaining Swiftness blade, and rushed over to the scattering mole-bats. Some of them tried to get away from my slashing sword by attempting to burrow into the ground, but I was too quick for them and severed most of them while they were halfway sticking out.
“Nasty,” I grunted under my breath when I sliced through the last mole creature, and a slew of swamp-green goo and viscera splattered against the ground.
“Riiiioooowwwwll!” Zoie’s battle cry sounded much closer now, and I jumped up on top of a wagon in order to get a better vantage point.
“Alex!” I turned at the sound of Thas’ voice.
“Thas,” I said and jumped down. “Do you know what these things are?”
“No, but they are after our younglings,” he said and hoisted one of the rock cannons higher up on his shoulder.
“Use that to shoot the ones that hover above the clusters,” I instructed. “These beasts are a hive mind, and killing the hovering ones disrupts the signal. Try to keep them from getting away.”
“Will do,” the big man said as he aimed the launcher like a bazooka and shot a rock at the closest mole-bat. The rock exploded in a shower of pebbles, and the pest shrieked as it fell to the ground.
“Roooooiiiirrrr!” That sharp yowl pierced the air off to my right near a copse of trees and scrubby brush followed by a huge crash, and I veered off in that direction.
“Zoie!” I yelled and slashed the wing off one of the hovering creatures, and it spiraled to the ground like a cartoonish biplane with a smoking engine.
“Skrreeeeet!” I rounded a collapsed tent and smashed a mole-bat in its blind face.
“Roooooiiiirrrr!” A flash of bright pink caught my eye, and I hurried to load another bolt into my crossbow at the sight of Issa being carried off in the claws of one of the mole-bats, and then I fired my shot through its neck.
Unfortunately, the beast was a little higher than I first assumed, and it and the cat-woman ended up landing on top of a wooden flat-bed carriage with a thunderous crash.
“Fuck.” I loaded and fired another two bolts in rapid succession in order to take down two more of the pests that were taking an interest in the fallen Varthan warrior, and then I ran over and helped the poor woman out of the broken carriage.
“Th-Thank you, Ambassador,” she said and wrapped an arm around her torso, but she otherwise seemed whole, thank Mercedes.
“Have you seen my wife, Zoie?” I asked.
“I heard her Fighting Call earlier,” the pink-haired woman said as I helped her limp to the relative safety of the base of a large black tree.
“Rest here,” I told the woman as I lowered her down against the tree’s trunk so she would be a little more comfortable.
With Issa taken care of for the time being, I returned to the task at hand and slashed my way closer to the crumbling tower.
“Skkrreeeet!” More and more of the angry horde flooded up from the depths of the chasm, and I was eternally grateful for the Swiftness of my blade.
One, two, one, two.
I kept doing my best to slash them down along the path as I ran across them, but there were just too many, so I stopped and looked around as the screams filled the air.
Something was going to have to give.
The battle raged on all around me, and I spotted people falling to their fates left and right as I looked frantically for any type of solution. A time-trance wouldn’t really do anything because the horde was so massive. I needed something that would disperse the beasts all at once and for good.
The mixed core in my herald blade winked at me under the moonlight, and I gazed down at it as an idea began to take shape in my mind. Then I rummaged in my pocket for the small silver medallion I knew was in there.
When I fought Councilman Hess, he demonstrated how lethal it was when a herald core and a medallion came in contact with one another. Apparently, the reaction was enough to topple the sentinel tower, and now it just might be enough to disperse the mole-bats.
The only question was where to set it off.
My cat-wife’s battle cry could be heard once more rising above the air, and I finally spotted the black-haired beauty in the middle of fighting off three different mole-bats. She spun around like a ballerina, if ballerinas wielded katanas and had perfect striking accuracy.
She was doing an excellent job as usual by keeping the creatures at bay, but she seemed to be unaware of the one hovering above her, so I loaded a bolt into my crossbow and fired it at the thing.
Zoie hacked down her three attackers with a combination spin move that I wanted to keep on repeat in my brain, and at the same time, my bolt found its home embedded in the gross skinned-over eyeball of the interloper. When it landed on the ground in front of the cat-woman, she hissed and jumped back with her ears flattened against her head and her blade pointed threateningly at the corpse.
It was kind of cute.
If only the circumstances were different.
For now, I jogged up to Zoie, gave her a once-over to make sure she was alright, and then bent down and yanked out the bolt from the dead creature.
“Yuck,” I said when the eyeball came with the arrow with a sickening squelch. I shook it off until it went flying into the brush, and then I reloaded the same bolt into the stock. “Waste not, want not.”
“There’s too many of them Alex, what are we going to do?” Zoie asked as she wiped the sweat off her brow.
“They seem to be coming up from the center of the chasm,” I observed as I craned my head back to look at the swarm in the sky. “If we can scare them and force them back down somehow, that might be our only chance. These creatures are all connected with one mind, which makes them hard to fight but relatively vulnerable to the power of one suggestion. Let’s hope they pick up on the fact the suggestion is to retreat.”
“What do you need me to do?” my pragmatic warrior wife asked me as she wiped off her blade.
“I need to get on the back of a squaller so I can set off an explosion that will hopefully block the throat of the chasm and keep them from flying up,” I explained as we hurried toward the frontlines where the battle seemed to be raging even more violently.
If Hitchcock was still alive, he would be pleased by this recreation of his famous film The Birds. Black wings battered the people on the ground in a hurricane of flapping and screeching, but there was only so much a single person could do against the swarm.
“Mozz and Thas brought the squallers into the trees for the night,” Zoie said, and I rushed after her as she pelted toward the tree line.
I followed behind her in hot pursuit, but I took time to slash apart any mole-bats that got too close or were trying to escape through the ground. When we broke through the trees and into a small clearing, I saw the squallers were still tied to their trees and huddling in scared groups, but as I approached the blue squaller, El, she popped her head up and gazed at me.
“Hey, girl,” I said and stashed away my weapons. I then held my palms out in front of her in the universal “I come in peace” gesture, and the pterodactyl-creature calmed down enough to let me stroke her spear-like head. “Do you think you can help me with something real quick?”
“Here,” Zoie said as she came over with the desiccated corpse of one of the pests and held it out for El.
The majestic creature sniffed it curiously for a moment before she gobbled it up and swallowed it in one motion. After her little snack, she seemed much more agreeable to do whatever I would ask of her, so I grabbed her another mole-bat and let her eat while I clambered up into her saddle. Then I offered my hand down toward my cat wife so she could settle in behind me.
“Hold on,” I warned her, and then I gave the command for El to launch us both in the air with her mighty leathery wings.
Flying in the frenzy was easier said than done, and I needed most of my concentration to navigate us in and out of the swooping and hissing horde.
Zoie’s fingers tightened in my belt, and I had to hand it to her and her bravery because I knew how much she hated heights. That didn’t stop her from coming along with me, of course, and for that I fell in love with her all over again.
For now, though, I stowed away any wandering thoughts no matter how pleasant or endearing because I needed to make sure we both got through this alive so I could show her my appreciation in the future.
When we finally broke through the dense storm of flapping wings and started to make our way further down the chasm, the sounds of battle ricocheted off the canyon walls and made my gut turn. It really sounded like people were dying left and right above us, so I knew time was of the essence, and we were almost out of it.
“Look.” Zoie pointed at the thin column of mole-bats flying up along the central updraft of the canyon. “That’s where they’re all coming from.”
“We need to get closer,” I said as I readied my Swiftness blade as well as the medallion, but I made sure to keep them in separate hands until the main event in order to prevent any tragic accidents. Then I steered my mount closer to the plume of creatures flying upward toward the sky and made us hover there.
“What do you mean to do, husband?” Zoie asked me as she helped keep the reins steady.
“I intend to go Chicken Little on their asses and bring the sky down,” I said, and then I held the medallion close to the mixed orange and green gem at the base of my sword’s blade.
The medallion snapped against the herald core like it was magnetized, and I knew at that point I was only working with maybe a few seconds, so I threw the sword as hard as I could down toward the cliff face below. It stuck blade first in between two rocks, and that was the last I saw of it before a large explosion rocked the canyon.
“Alex!” Zoe screamed, and I felt her bury her face in between my shoulder blades.
“Hold on!” I yelled back and attempted to maneuver us to safety in the shower of rock debris, dust, and confused mole beasts.
There was a sizable crag running down the rock wall adjacent to the remains of the tower, and it looked just big enough for El to perch on, so I steered us carefully over there in order to wait out the chaos.
The vile creatures seemed to be scattered to the wind without any sort of harmony or order, and I knew that at least the hive signal was disrupted for the time being. As we watched, a sense of triumph grew within me as the explosion started a modest rockslide, and this had the desired effect of pushing back the flock of creatures as they sought refuge from the chasm below.
“It's working!” my wife cheered as we watched the retreat take place.
There was still the matter of the flock above us, but now that their numbers weren’t constantly being replenished, we actually stood a chance to beat them as long as nothing else happened to come along and change that.
Almost as if I’d jinxed myself, the moonlight was suddenly blotted out by a large and imposing shadow that bathed the chasm in darkness.
Chapter 3
“What is that?” Zoie gasped at the sight of the thing eclipsing the moon like a harbinger of the apocalypse.
For a moment, I almost thought my explosion had caused the rock shelf of the Upper Echelon to break free from the rest of the island, and my heart attempted to crawl right out of my throat. But when I took a closer look, I could see the object obstructing the moonlight was independent of anything on the island itself and also came equipped with familiar gauze-like sails…
“Holy shit,” I said under my breath and then looked over my shoulder at my wife. “Zoie, it’s the airship!”
“You mean--?” the cat-woman trailed off as she gaped at the large flying structure slowly coming to hover directly where the rope bridge used to be.
“Jenner must have figured out how to get it up and running, or rather flying,” I commented as I watched in awe.
“It’s amazing,” she said as she clutched my waist, and we both spent a moment just gazing up through the sheer sails backlit by the moon. It made the descending airship look like some sort of ethereal animal that could have belonged to both the air and the sea.
Suddenly, a mighty roar echoed throughout the chasm, and the ring around my finger resonated in harmony. It was like the signet ring knew when its owner was near, and a large grin lit up my face.
Lord Mec. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
“It seems as if Jenner brought more than just our airship,” I said as I gathered El’s reins in my left hand. “He brought some reinforcements as well.”
I then maneuvered my mount toward the ridge we were perched on and launched us into the sky so we could get back to defeating the rest of the mole-bats.
“Where are Shay and Amaya?” Zoie asked when we landed back near the forest with the rest of the squallers.
“Amaya is with Shay, and they should still be past the infirmary tent,” I informed her as I gestured with my hand in the direction I meant. “There is an outcropping of rock where I left Shay to hide, and I also instructed Amaya to go there. She has my second blade to protect herself, but Shay wasn’t doing the best when I left her.”
“I will go find them and make sure they are okay,” Zoie said.
“Thank you,” I said with a relieved breath before we quickly embraced. “Be safe.”
"Always," she replied, and then we went our separate ways, her back toward the infirmary tent, and me toward the rubble at the base of the sentinel tower.
“Die, fiends!” The murderous roar of Asher Lord Mec reverberated through the air like a thunderclap.
In both hands, he wielded a large broadsword with deadly force and accuracy, and with one swing, he was able to take out two to three mole-bats at a time.
At his back was Asher Sskern, who cracked his rock-bladed whip in harmony with Mec’s loud threats. Together, it was like listening to a heavy metal band in someone’s garage, only instead of music it was the sound of battle and carnage.
I loaded my crossbow with one of my trusty bolts and ran to join them.
“Alex, my friend!” the ram-lord greeted just before he stabbed his blade into the ground where a mole-bat was attempting to tunnel away.
It squealed loud enough to be heard even under the mounds of dirt.
“Decided to go away on a vacation, huh?” I asked the big guy and then fired my crossbow at the pest flapping noisily over all our heads. The carcass landed in the center of all three of us, and without missing a beat, the Lord of Nata Island punted the mole-bat.
The creature wailed as it arced over the edge and down into the canyon squealing all the time.
“I’m not so sure this is very much of a vacation,” the ram-lord joked as he nudged the Regent with his elbow. “You never told me your home isle was such an inhospitable place, you old snake.”
“Why do you suppose I stayed away for so many seasons?” the raptor-man snarked back and then thrashed his whip to scatter more of the panicking pests.
The mole-bats were truly on the back foot now that it seemed like their hive signal had been disrupted for good. Now, it was only a matter of running off and wiping out any lingering beasts that couldn’t burrow underground or fly away. I made a mental note to check in with Amaya and Shay later about the status of the mole-bats because it would be nice to know if they were thinking about attacking us again in the near future.
Finally, just as the sun was turning the sky from a dark navy to lavender, the last of the foul creatures were dispensed with, and peace flowed through the campsite like the early morning breeze.
“Seems like you just showed up at the right time,” I remarked as I wiped the sweat off my brow and returned my crossbow to the strap across my back.
“Yeah, after the hard part was all over,” Sskern said with a teasing edge to his tone. He then coiled his whip and buckled it back to his armored belt.
