Corsairs & Cataclysms

Chapter 21

I stood there with a glaring angel boring a hole into me with her eyes.

Coughing dragged my attention back to the celestial Kaes who tried to crawl away from me.

“Do you mind?” I asked and gestured with my sword to the wounded Crusader. Raven had killed Joktan but the post-slay gaze of disgust sent in my direction left me a bit unsure how she would react if I executed the downed warrior.

Raven’s eyes flicked to Keas. “Finish it. Her soul is blacker than the darkest of pits. They all are.” There was raw pain and fury in the timbre of her voice. “They slaughter indiscriminately, unarmed men, women, children…no one is spared. A quick death would be incomparable mercy for these villains.”

That explained the streaks of tears Raven had shed.

“N…Nu…No,” Kaes gasped and held a hand up to block me. I ignored her plea and brought the blade down and sliced through the fingers that vainly tried to stop the incoming death.

Notification of a hefty chunk of XP and notoriety reward for the fight came through and pushed me closer to level thirty-five. I suppose there is one benefit to an invasion by over-levelled opponents. Plenty of quick progression if you managed to survive.

“Trisha, are you okay?” I asked once the wet work was done.

Her head lifted from the ground, and she groaned in excruciating pain, tears in her eyes. “De…Define okay? I think he shattered my hip. Oh, fuck, I’ve never hurt so much in all my life.”

“Here, I can help,” Raven offered and knelt beside her, placing a hand on the injured area. There was a glow from her fingertips and Trisha signed with relief and her head flopped back down onto the grass. “Do not attempt to stand,” Raven warned her. “I have suppressed the pain and stabilised the injury. It will not worsen but the bone is still broken. You still require the services of a dedicated healer.”

“And here I thought you didn’t like me, Raven,” Trisha sighed from the ground.

“I don’t, but when my mother allotted you a pace under our wing, I pledged to protect your wellbeing if I were able. I do not break my promises. Saving you was a matter of principle.”

“Way to make a girl feel special,” Trisha muttered.

After looting Kaes, I walked over and checked the siren for any other injuries and offered the best healing pellet I had which she quickly swallowed.

“Thank you, anyway, Raven,” I told the winged woman who had moved four or five steps from Trisha when I approached. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d be with your father, protecting his greedy little ass.”

“Do not test me, demon scum!” Raven snorted. “I came to bear witness to the tragedy unfolding here. To prove Glastos wrong. The damnable man spoke truly. Beyond that, I stayed to do what I could. To give aid and succour to those in need.”

Now that I could see Raven up close, her clothing was dirtied and had fresh bloodstains, not a result of what she did to Joktan. Several of her feathers were crooked or showing other signs of damage. She had been in the wars for certain. I had no idea who Glastos was or if I was supposed to.

“I am not surprised to find you in the middle of this,” she continued, her dislike for me very plain. “Have you come to take advantage of the situation? Pillage what you can from the ruins and suffering.”

“On the contrary,” I huffed and lifted Trisha into my arms. She didn’t even wince. Credit where credit is due, Raven’s abilities were no joke. “We came to stem the flood caused by your father when he opened a gate and let monsters like the Liberation Army through. Even as we speak, my people are evacuating as many survivors as possible. It will be far too few. All this bloodshed to fill your father’s pockets.”

“You lie!” Raven screamed and more tears poured down her cheeks.

Trisha’s finger pressed against my lips and halted any verbal response from me. Where Raven was concerned, I was not always in control. The natural rivalry between Acheronians and Angelbloods interfered.

“Raven,” Trisha said softly, kindly. “You know that he isn’t. You of all people know that he isn’t.”

“Then he is wrong!” Then Raven let loose with a terrible, inhuman screech of pain and frustration. She offered no further retort. Instead, she turned her back on us, extended her wings, and flew off into the sky.

“And just like that, the deluded, crazy woman is gone,” I muttered.

“Raven did save my life, Torin,” Trisha reminded me.

I glanced down at the wounded woman nestled in my arms and let slip the ghost of a smile. “That she did.”

“You may not see it; you haven’t been around her as much as I have. Raven has changed.”

“How so?”

“Before she would merely have got angry. That was her habitual reaction to the cognitive dissonance of someone telling the truth and implicating the saintly Richard Reynolds in some wrongdoing. That cry at the end, though, was pure emotional pain, not anger. That was the cry of a woman whose carefully built mental walls were crumbling. Finally, she sees the father she loves for who he truly is. Perhaps beginning to comprehend how her blindness has made her complicit in his crimes. Can you imagine what that must feel like? That is the kind of thing that breaks people, I don’t know if we will ever see her again.”

“Not our problem,” I grunted half-heartedly.

Which wasn’t true. If RR hadn’t been ‘our’ problem we wouldn’t be here and none of this would have happened.

Carrying Trisha, we crossed the bridge and I put her down on the other side long enough to retrieve a couple of Sheamus’ explosive packages and place them underneath the bridge on the foundation struts. The trigger was a trip wire I threaded across the tracks. If the Lamers sent another track chariot it would activate the charges and take the bridge and vehicle out.

Trap-setting duty only took a couple of minutes, and then we were on the move once more.

Halfway back to the theatre, we came across the corpse of the Steel-tailed Razorhound. It was on a section of the track that acted as a kind of depot and the number of lines grew from two or three to ten or more. Transport carriages would be diverted into this exchange layby of sorts and stored there.

The Razorhound managed to derail the chariot and its train of cars before succumbing to a mortal wound. There were more than a dozen dead Lamers either around the beast or in the wreckage of the transport. Most of the surviving soldiers had dispersed into the surrounding area but there was a group of ten who attempted to right the decoupled chariot and get it back on the track.

That was too many for me to take on with a wounded Trisha clinging around my neck. But fortune favoured us once again with where the carnage had occurred. I recalled that during my sprint in the other direction, there were so many parked or abandoned carriages sitting on the layby tracks that you couldn’t see through them all to the other side.

I jinked to the right and threaded my way through long lines of tubular tankers that I presumed had been used to haul oil or gasoline. A safe bet in Texas. There was a short gap of almost one hundred metres where there was a single line of carriages blocking the view of the team working on the chariot. I raced past at a sprint and covered the distance with Olympic sprinter-level speed.

The dangerous section was made all the easier when an audible detonation roared further down the tracks behind us. Something or someone had set off the trap I’d installed on the bridge. With my speedy pace and the distraction, the pair of us passed the Lamer chariot crew unseen and unheard. Nothing came tearing down the tracks in the next few moments either, so presumably, the explosives I’d left had been enough to take out the bridge.

There were no experience notifications either, but that didn’t surprise me. The explosives had been designed to topple infrastructure, not take out the enemy.

The exchange layby faded back into a handful of tracks and the cover of abandoned carriages disappeared with half a kilometre to go. Still, I could cross over quickly and use a bit of sparse tree cover on the other side to stay mostly out of sight.

“We’re in the clear,” Trisha whispered in my ear. “The charioteers are too focused on what they’re doing. None of them were looking our way when we crossed.”

My legs didn’t stop pumping to answer her and it wasn’t long before I reached the break in the buildings that opened for the sizeable area of parking around the waypoint dungeon building. I ground to a halt and hastily backed up a few seconds the moment we ran into view.

Whatever apportionment of luck I’d been dipping into had run out. The former adult theatre was surrounded by a squad of Lamers who had control of the surrounding area and were involved in a fight to gain entrance into the building. I could see Cole and Brant fighting fiercely around the entrance with Doc and a few other squad members providing support from the back lines.

The corpses of scores of civilians lay on the tarmac around the building. Victims of the Lamers indiscriminate slaughter. Fifteen, maybe sixteen veteran warriors, most with valiant classes, were trying to force their way in.

Had I not been so focused on Trisha’s safe rescue and return, then I might have considered the possibility that one or more of the squads who had survived the chariot derailment would have found their way to the theatre my people were holed up in. The influx of fleeing refugees was practically guaranteed to draw their attention if they came anywhere nearby. Claudia had since deactivated the neon pointing arrow signal that she had created to help the refugees find us.

As nice as it would have been for Claudia to simply seal the building up, it officially remained a dungeon entrance. Dungeons could only close off all forms of ingress in certain circumstances. None of which applied in this situation. We would have to clear the scum away by hand and that would be tricky. They would all be well-levelled and competent fighters.

Trisha knew what I was thinking and tapped me on the shoulder. “I think this place has a flat roof,” she whispered referring to the L-shaped, one-storey building we’d retreated behind. “Jump us up. You can get a run-up and probably leap the gap. I’ll be safe up here until you’ve dealt with the Lamers.”

It was a decent call and with a quick crouch, I pushed off the ground and cleared the twenty feet necessary.

“Stay down and keep out of sight,” I warned Trisha when I laid her down on the roof.

She rolled her eyes and smiled fondly at me. “I’m not some maddened battle fiend who can’t lay low when they should. That would be Shana. It’s a damn shame she’s not here, though. Her arrows would be really handy in this situation.”

Trisha wasn’t wrong about the Shadepath Mistress’s lethality in a scenario like this. But given her current heavily pregnant condition, I was rather glad we’d made her stay behind.

“I’ve got a bow anyway, but I’m not especially good with it.”

“Don’t expose your position,” I warned her. “Worse comes to worst, we bring in a dozen squads of militia from Stormblade Harbour. Drown them in superior numbers.”

I was a tad concerned that didn’t seem to be the case already. The Lamers could have only surrounded the place a few minutes ago. Long enough for them to slaughter the locals outside. Claudia didn’t exhibit any hint of the type of arrogance that would convince a person they could handle a situation like this without backup. Nor did it make sense that they would rely on me getting back in time.

The tumultuous thoughts were purged from my mind as I moved to the back of the building. There were a few features in the way, but I had a fairly straight run-up. Planting the heel of my back foot on the edge, I pushed off and sprinted forward at top speed. I activated Dragon’s Leap with my final step connected with the roof at the other end of the building and I soared through the air, clearing close to one hundred metres.

Halfway through the leap, I realised I wouldn’t make the full distance. The plan had been to land on top of the adult theatre, but the building was too tall, and my trajectory meant I would come up short. On the fly, I switched up the plan, curled into a ball, and flexed my will to strip a bit of momentum from the leap.

Magic was handy for messing with the laws of physics like that.

To add the icing on the cake, I tapped into my Frost harmony and created sharp icicles over every inch of my armour. This turned me into a frozen porcupine meteor that crashed into the unaware backs of the three Lamers assaulting the front door. Batting them down like human-sized bowling pins.

It would be nice to say the Lamers broke my fall, but if they did, I certainly didn’t feel it. The armour I wore helped limit the bludgeoning damage, but the collision still left me feeling a bit winded and vulnerable in the gravel-strewn parking lot.

Two men stepped over me as I regathered my wits. Cole took the lead and swung his hammer in a wide arc to keep the shocked Lamers from taking advantage of my prone position. Brant’s outstretched hand hovered above my chest. I took it in mine and the big man hauled me to my feet.

“You do like to make an entrance,” he muttered, but that was all the time we had for discussion before the attacks from the Lamers poured in and we fought back-to-back, inching our way back to the building where we would be less exposed.

My eyes scanned the area and my heart dropped when a second smaller squad of ten Lamer soldiers joined the besiegers. It was the group who had been by the chariot.

“Shit!”

This fight just got a hell of a lot harder.

Chapter 22

Stormblade Harbour

Volnis and Furda hurried through the streets. A loud alarm blared across the harbour coming from the Slave Market on the other side of the bay. The distraction was in full effect. Most of the civilian population crowded around the dock area to get a look at what was happening. A few of the smarter or more cautious ones edged away from the harbour, unwilling to get caught up in whatever calamity had befallen the building across the small stretch of water.

The sleek black lines of the infamous flagship of the Shattered Storm, Marena’s Mercy sailed by and cut through the lake water smoothly. Off to lend aid and support for the crisis.

Several squads of the militia rushed past; their boots clattered on the hard street as they moved to surround the building. Several skiffs, loaded up with armed warriors took the direct route over the water.

Everything was going to plan. The pair walked steadily but didn’t rush. It was a practised, relaxed gait that ate up distance without alerting any nearby eyes that they were moving faster than you would think. Although with all the confusion, they could probably sprint to their destination and not draw much suspicion. Still, years of training deterred them from taking such a risk.

The twin gatehouses came into view. The edifice on the left led up to the Plexus Gate. Its proximity would be rather handy if they needed to escape should anything go wrong. To the right was the primary entrance to the Stormwarden’s Palace. It was the only one that they could feasibly pass through. The others were locked up tight and guarded by sentinel war machines.

Volnis didn’t want to run into any of those. They had a habit of being able to see through facades. It’s what they were designed for.

The background information on the target location came from the arrogant Li Qiang. He liked to show off the depth and breadth of his knowledge and influence while they worked. Directing his rambling boasts towards useful subjects was easy enough. Through him, Volnis learned many things about the city.

The two most relevant were information on the layout of the palace and the current affairs of the faction. Fortune favoured the infiltrators because Li Qiang had previously been assigned to agricultural work on the grounds of the palace. He had even been inside the building often enough to give Volnis a confident impression of where they needed to go.

Information about the world outside the walls was equally important. It was common knowledge amongst the population that another gate had recently opened on the planet and many of the mercenary groups in the pay of the Dominarius Consortium had come through. However, those groups had yet to reach the border of Carter’s kingdom, let alone surround the walls of this city.

Few had any genuine concerns this would happen. They believed the lake to be an adequate deterrent. Little did they realise that the merc groups would bring ships with them.

Ideally, Volnis and his infiltrator group would remain hidden in the city. Fomenting discord and carrying out acts of sabotage to further weaken Torin Carter’s grip on power. If they could bring the shield walls down when the mercenaries were in position, it would hurry the fall of the Shattered Storm considerably. But those were considerations for tomorrow, today they had an assassination to complete. Groundwork for the eventual fall to lay.

Along the way, Volnis and Furda had stolen some farming tools which they held prominently as they walked through the palace gate. The guards on duty barely glanced in their direction. They saw the tools and little more, their attention drawn back to the commotion occurring elsewhere in the city. Hushed conversations and concerned looks dominated their consciousness and this let the pair slip through effectively unobserved.

The two of them marched towards the trellises that filled the gardens which surrounded the huge palace. There were other labourers here hard at work who largely ignored them. The infiltrators didn’t have to worry about that for long. They rested the tools against a trellis the moment they were out of sight of the guards at the gatehouse and abandoned their worker disguises.

The cloaks they wore were discarded, while weapons and armour were donned in their place. The outfits they’d brought were carefully curated to give the first impression to anyone they encountered that they were members of a piratical crew. Hiding in plain sight. The staff would be used to seeing members of Carter’s crew wandering the halls and like most Corsair groups, they had no uniform beyond some vague colour coordination.

Torin Carter favoured black and ice blue. It was the iconic colouring of his armour and the sails on his dungeon ship. Naturally, the crew members gravitated towards clothing of the same hues. The infiltrators had brough a variety of different clothes for the job. Nothing they had matched perfectly, but they had enough items in black and blue to give off the desired air. It wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny, but it didn’t need to if they just passing people in the halls. All they needed was to not stick out.

There was a small door under the main steps that you could get to from the gardens. It was a better way in than going up to the large doorway at the top of that lengthy flight of external stairs. Two armoured sentinels stood guard at the top, but none were stationed inside the small breakout area.

The intended use for this room was an informal barracks for guards. To keep your sentries fresh, you could have a group relaxing or taking a break in here and then they could replace those on duty guarding the entrance every few hours. However, when you have tireless sentinels to do the job, a switchover station is unnecessary, and it had been repurposed for use by the garden workers.

Of course, it had an internal doorway that led deeper into the palace. That wouldn’t be a security concern if the room was used as intended and permanently populated with armed guards. But it wasn’t and thanks to Li Qiang, the infiltrators knew of a convenient way in past the upper floor sentries.

There were a few labourers taking a break inside when Volnis and Furda made their way in. The workers jumped up from the couches and chairs where they were sitting, some abandoning a game of cards.

“D…Do you need something, sirs?” one of the men half-stuttered.

“At ease,” Volnis smiled at them, taking control of the situation. “We’re just passing through. Taking a shortcut.” He winked at the speaker and kept walking. He didn’t want to give them a chance to think over what he said until it was too late. The less said, the better.

The bluff worked and they passed through the chamber and out the door which led into the servant floors of the palace. They left the flustered group behind them and heard a few chairs being shifted as the workers retook their seats. With any luck, they would simply be so grateful that their downtime wouldn’t be interrupted and forget to question the incongruity of two of Carter’s pirates wandering through a section of the palace they normally wouldn’t be found.

Nor ask questions of exactly where this was a shortcut too because Volnis certainly had no idea.

They passed a few more members of the palace’s staff and got a couple of curious looks but nothing that would derail their mission. After a few minutes, they found a set of stairs in the heart of the place which led up to the living quarters and ascended.

The upper floors were much quieter and Volnis began to feel confident.

They turned a final corner and almost bumped into a trio of young women. Volnis felt rather than saw Furda come to the wrong conclusion and he had to nudge his compatriot with an elbow to the solar plexus to prevent him doing something precipitous.

“My apologies, ladies,” Volnis mouthed and quickly bowed to keep his face out of sight as much as possible. Furda followed suit.

“Nothing to apologise for,” a sweet blonde young woman said. “But if you’ll excuse us, we are already late for an appointment. If you’re looking to update Shana on when Torin is due to return, she is in her rooms at the end of the corridor.”

The blonde ushered the other two past the bowing infiltrators and headed away, laughing lightly with her friends.

“Don’t forget to knock!” The blonde called out loudly as they turned the corner and walked off chattering away.

Once they were out of earshot, Volnis and Furda straightened. Furda looked at his boss with a quirked eyebrow, questioning him.

“Calie, Lindsay, and Keisha. Carter’s newest women,” he answered and set off down the hall.

“Then why didn’t we off them too when we had the chance?”

“And risk one of them screaming out a warning? There were three of them, one too many for us to take out quickly. His first wife and unborn heir are the priority. If we get a chance on the way out, by all means, take it.”

They reached the door at the end of the corridor, drew their weapons and barged their way inside. Shock and surprise would be their best allies in getting this done with a minimum of fuss. Volnis led the way and was six steps inside before the surroundings fully registered. The drawing room was large and spacious. The thick red curtains were pulled back, and the French windows opened wide to let the warm air inside.

The target was sitting calmly on a padded couch no more than thirty feet from him. His brain registered that something was horribly wrong a millisecond before the first arrow punched into his shoulder.

Shana Colton had not merely been sitting on a couch with an enlarged belly. She was sat there in full armour and with a shadowy, curved bow in her hands. A collection of arrows was artfully arranged on a blue silk pillow placed beside her within easy reach. Not just that, but there were four of the armoured sentinels, axes and shields at the ready, arranged around her person. Ready and prepared to intercept anyone or anything that tried to do her harm.

The first arrow was swiftly met by a second and then a third in the blink of an eye. Any thought of leaping out the windows and running away was quickly suppressed by the reality of the situation.

The power of the arrow strikes sent Volnis staggering backwards and spun him around. Just in time to see a red-skinned woman with horns materialise out of nowhere behind Furda. Two wicked daggers in the shape of very large teeth were in her hands and driven into the side of his companion’s throat and kidneys.

Volnis had just long enough to recognise the attacker from Li Qiang’s description. The cambion, Fang Mei.

His final thought before a fourth arrow pierced his temple and ended his life was one of defeat and despair.

They had to know he was coming. They were too prepared.

He’d never been a step ahead of the Shattered Storm, they were a step ahead of him.

***

“Happy now?” Fang Mei demanded of Shana with a degree of exasperation in her voice. “You’ve taken part in the operation.”

“It was over a bit quickly, but it will have to do, I suppose,” Shana sighed. “I mean they’re dead now, right?”

“Damn straight, they’re dead. I’m not risking leaving either of them alive. They came here to assassinate you.”

“Pfff,” Shana played it down. “I was never in danger with you or these tin cans hovering over me.”

Three pairs of shoes could be heard running down the carpeted hallway and Calie, Lindsay, and Keisha crowded into the room and almost slipped in the pool of blood seeping from Furda’s corpse that lay closest to the door.

“Eeewww,” the brown-haired Lindsay gasped and hop-stepped out of the way of the dead man’s vital fluids. The other two were forewarned by her reaction and stopped in time.

“You did it then,” Keisha asked and stepped around the body to enter the room and backed away from the bodies.

“Yep,” Shana said with satisfaction. “Calie, your warning was very useful, thank you.”

Calie curtseyed and beamed with happiness. “We just wanted to help where we could.”

“The three of you are almost as bad as Shana,” Fang Mei grumped. “It was a huge risk; they could have chosen to cut their losses and target you instead. We didn’t know for sure they were after Shana.”

“My people had eyes on them,” a new quiet, but masculine voice cut in. Doyle appeared from out of a secret passage located behind Shana. “But Fang Mei is quite correct, this was an unnecessary risk. We could and should have intercepted them earlier.”

“In Torin’s absence, the decision was mine to make,” Shana reminded him. “Separating and handling them out of sight was the best option.”

“I’m not sure he would have agreed, my Lady.”

“It also maximised the chances of us uncovering any additional contacts they may have made. Do we have an update on that and how has the rest of the plan unfolded.”

“I am cautiously optimistic that Li Qiang was the sole individual this group compromised. It was fortunate he had been under observation already. Had he not been, then these saboteurs may have operated in secret for longer before being discovered. Following them has uncovered a range of security risks that we can now address. The other two members of this little cabal were intercepted in the lower basement before they could release any of the more dangerous mobs. I will see to their interrogation presently.”

“And what of the protesters who stormed the market’s mezzanine?”

“Unfortunately, there were…a severe number of casualties before order could be restored and the freed mobs either slain or recaptured. Their presence interfered with the militia’s ability to act decisively. The scheduling of their unapproved protest was a true tragedy or poor timing.”

Doyle thought it best not to mention there had been nothing accidental about the timing at all. Ot with the three newer paramours of Captain Carter present. When Li Qiang started requesting access to the lower basements to assist in the cleaning, Doyle had correctly surmised the infiltrator’s intentions. It was not difficult to do, he only had to ask himself what he would do in their position.

His new team assigned to handling internal political threats had ferreted out the day of the protest. Therefore, they stalled on giving Li Qiang his access until the day of the event to make sure the two affairs clashed.

Two birds with one stone.

His new team would be among the lucky survivors, and that should make things easier for them to seize the leadership positions of the movement. With tacit control of the opposition, then future, potential troublemakers would be volunteering to identify themselves to the authorities.

“Speaking of timing, there has been a drawback to today’s operation. The Liberation Army chose the same day to make their move on Dallas. Miss Gattosi put in a request for support during the middle of the jailbreak. The team that could have been sent from the waypoint here had been called in to assist in containing the mob outbreak at the Slave Market. A team had to be assembled and despatched from the Grand Rapids garrison instead. It did mean a short delay.”

“You’re only telling us this now!” Shana yelled and pushed herself up from the couch, knocking the unused arrows onto the floor. Then she gripped her belly and slowly lowered herself back down.

“Are you alright?” Fang Mei asked with grave concern and crossed the room quickly.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Shana answered. “But I do think my water just broke.” Her fingers eased under her thigh and discovered wetness. “Yep.”

“What? The baby’s coming” Keisha squeaked with delight. “I thought you had another month to go?”

“Apparently not,” Shana grimaced.

“Somebody get Mathilda, quickly,” Fang Mei demanded, more shaken by the unexpected turn of events than Shana.

“I’ll go,” Calie volunteered and skipped out of the room to get the nurse who operated the palace infirmary.

“Doyle,” Shana gasped, and then the first contraction caught her by surprise and derailed her line of thought.

The former CIA man took advantage of the distraction to smooth things over. “I’ll get everything in here cleaned up. Spick and span. Ladies, help Shana down to the med wing. Don’t worry about Captain Carter, he has an uncanny ability to land on his feet.”

Chapter 23

The Lamer warriors drew in closer, and it was high time they felt some pain. Poison from my Breath Weapon filled the parking lot. As per usual, I’d been after Frost, but I would take Poison given the circumstances. The cloud of noxious green gas billowed forth. There was hardly any breeze, so it would hang in the air nicely and it enveloped most of the enemy.

Unfortunately, despite the lack of natural wind, there was nothing I could do to stop the unnatural variety. One of the Lamers had a wind-based class and created a small vortex in the centre of the parking lot that drew in the poisonous smoke. It was funnelled high into the air and away from where it would continue to be problematic for them. Nevertheless, it bought us a quarter of a minute to get back into position and allow Doc and the other ranged attackers to let loose a few volleys with their weapons.

“Reconfigure the raptor chariot!” The commanding voice of a grey-bearded veteran standing at the back shouted. A handful of warriors backed up to obey his command and rushed out of sight to the train tracks.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Brant grunted beside me.

“It isn’t,” I replied.

The only explanation I could think of was they planned to reconfigure the chariot’s runners into wheels and use it to batter through our defences. Having seen the fate of a couple of Dallas soldiers run down twenty minutes ago, I didn’t have a great deal of faith we could keep it out if it built up sufficient velocity.

Now that I was back at the entrance, I could see behind my people to the interior. Inside it was crammed with panicked civilians. It appeared that there had been a large influx of refugees just before the Lamers had arrived and started to cut down the stragglers. It would take a while to ferry all those people through the waypoint. Half the squad I’d brought with me were involved in maintaining order inside.

Claudia controlling what people could see on the outside helped on that front. They wouldn’t fully know how dire the situation appeared.

“How about letting me go?” Cole beside me complained and tugged on the collar around his neck. “It’s pretty God-damned immoral to force someone to die on your behalf.”

Cole’s welfare was the least of my concerns. “Take this for compensation,” I said and handed over the hammer I’d looted from Joktan. It was better than what he already wielded.

The guild mercenary couldn’t hide the expression of avarice when his fingers wrapped around the hilt and the details of the hammer’s stats filtered into his mind. He tried to force the smile back down but didn’t do a very good job of it. “It’s a start,” he coughed.

“Cover my flanks, I’ll hold the centre,” I ordered. “Here they come again.”

The Lamer soldiers had spent a little time healing up and purging any toxin debuffs from my previous attack. After that, they felt confident enough to come at us again.

Six armoured soldiers advanced. The sun, now high in the air as we reached mid-morning, glinted from the burnished steel of exposed armour. Their weapons swung in our direction. I exchanged blows with their front rank while Cole and Brant guarded the sides. The Goresteel Greatblade flashed out again and again, and it became coated in the blood of my enemies

I burned through my remaining charges of Shattering to weaken this wave and push them back. The strategic aim was to enforce caution and trepidation on the warriors in the second wave after watching the first wave pushed back with such serious injuries. The tactic didn’t work. These people were too fanatic or bloodthirsty to give a shit about the welfare of their fellows

Slowly, the Lamers began to succeed in wearing me down. My Hit Points had dipped below four thousand, under half of my starting total. But despite a single lucky swipe to the neck of one of the younger fighters which killed him from the bleed, they’d taken no casualties in return.

It felt like this was a losing proposition.

The Liberation Army fighters rotated out after I put a bit of hurt on them and there was little that could be done to stop the exchange.

It didn’t take long before my wingmen were forced to do the same. Doc and another squad member shuffled forward to take Cole and Brant’s place when their wounds threatened to overwhelm them.

But nobody could replace me.

I was the tankiest fighter in our ranks by far, Brant was the only one who had a similar if lesser profile. Had Danny been with us, things might have been a bit different.

Both sides exchanged ranged fire but neither could make much headway via that method with their fighters blocking the way. Time was ticking away, though. I didn’t know how long it took to reconfigure that chariot but once they did, their breakthrough was all but guaranteed.

Two minutes passed and my Breath Weapon came off cooldown. There was no time to waste, and I doused the current front rank in a cone of frost. Two of them were killed and the other four fell back, only to be replaced once again. This time the grey-bearded veteran stepped up to the plate.

He had an aura of murderous conviction that was palpable. The single consolation was that my ragged defence had forced a full rotation of their forces. Not a single Lamer soldier hadn’t felt the lick of my blade.

But that was the slimmest of silver linings. I hadn’t felt this kind of powerlessness since the doctors told me the truth about my shoulder injury.

I was separated from my ship, Summon Rift Beast and Breath Weapon were both on cooldown, and all the Shattering charges were gone. I didn’t have any clever tricks concealed in my inventory, the last of Sheamus’ munitions had been used on the bridge. Neither was the Shattered Goddess or Dean waiting in the wings to give me a leg up on the enemy. I would have even accepted the meddling presence of the green-clad sorcerer.

This was something I hadn’t faced before. Duels and battles with overpowered enemies were one thing, but this constant recycling of opponents in a manner that felt almost limitless left me struggling to come up with a strategy. Every card I knew of had been played.

Perhaps sensing my frustration and despondency, Quixbix uncharacteristically started to talk while I was in mid-combat with the grey-bearded veteran whose name aptly turned out to be Fallor Greybeard.

I had to trust he was telling me the truth and inched forward, blocking a thrust from Greybeard and swiping my blade upwards in a riposte that forced him to take a half step back to avoid. A shake of my head cleared droplets of sweat from my brow.

Time to put in that extra bit of effort.

I delved deep for greater resolve, deeper than I had ever pushed before. Mentally, I opened myself to everything and anything, beseeching the heavens for some inspiration. I searched high and low, everywhere I could think of. And that is when I found it. I couldn’t tell you if it had been my idea to immerse myself in the sixth sense of Preternatural Insight or if something external had called to me, but that is what I did.

Previously, the skill had been of little use in combat. It often helped me understand the inner workings of the Framework and clued me into things I shouldn’t know, but it had never been of practical benefit in the actual fighting.

Today was different.

Within, I found a reservoir of untapped potential, one that I grasped with both metaphorical hands and wielded as the weapon it was always meant to be.

My face broke out into a manic grin beaming brash confidence of unmatched magnitude. With this insight and strength I could not be stopped.

It was time to make the Lamers regret ever being born.

***

Trisha

Trisha shuffled her body across the flat roof, crawling commando style to spare her badly injured hip. The pain numbing which Raven had bestowed had started to fade away. The searing agony of a broken pelvis didn’t come roaring back, thankfully. But there was a throbbing ache that continued to build. Hauling her body across the roof hadn’t helped her situation, but she couldn’t help but overhear a gaggle of the Lib Army soldiers had returned to their raptor chariot.

It didn’t take Trisha long to figure out what they intended to do. The soldiers were hauling the chariot off the track and were reshaping the runners into larger wheels. When they were done, they’d use the vehicle to batter their way through the entrance and into the theatre. If Torin had continued to fight at the entrance, then that could only mean they were still trying to evacuate people inside. Otherwise, surely he would have lured them into Pandaemonium. It would have been easier to deal with the attackers down there with the help of Claudia’s dungeon mobs which guarded the place.

If that chariot entered the fray, many people would die. Trisha couldn’t allow that and prepared to do something incredibly noble. Both noble and utterly suicidal.

There was a tone that sirens could emit that she had never used before. It drew threat to the singer and acted just like a taunt. The taunting tone was meant to be used as an alternative method of drawing your prey into a well-laid trap when seduction failed. But Trisha had no trap unless you counted being on a one-storey roof which was not much of an impediment to the calibre of warriors fifty metres from her position.

Needs must, as they say, and she sucked in a deep breath ready to commit the ultimate folly only to be interrupted by the flap of wings and the soft footfall of a cushioned landing.

“I thought you’d be miles away by now, Raven,” Trisha craned her neck and whispered to the crouched Angelblood Justicar who had landed behind her.

“I didn’t save your life only to watch you cast it away so easily,” she snapped back in a hoarse, yet low voice.

Trisha waved her hand over at the theatre where the sounds of fighting could clearly be heard. “Torin and his people are fighting for the lives of hundreds of refugees as we speak. Risking themselves, why should I not be doing the same?”

“Because your plan means certain death. That despicable corsair has more lives than a blasted cat. He could stand in the path of a tornado and emerge unscathed.”

“Well, do you have a better idea? I can’t let them use that war machine. Will you fight them off?”

Raven rose a few inches and looked over the edge of the building at the soldiers. “There are too many and I have exhausted the few combat abilities I possess already. The last of them to save you,” she accused.

“Thank you for that, but that doesn’t change the need to pull them away.”

Raven looked downwards and scrunched her face in frustration. “Fine,” she barked. “Call them over, but I’m not leaving you here to die. The moment they climb onto this roof I’m carrying you off and dumping you on the pirate’s building. After that, you are on your own.”

That would only provide Torin a couple of minute’s delay. The time it took for the Lamers to run over, get on the roof, shake off the taunt once she was out of their range, and then jump down back to the chariot. But a few minutes would have to do and it’s not like Trisha wanted to die today.

Glorious sacrifice was difficult to commit if there was a viable alternative.

“Deal.”

***

Torin

The grinding melody of combat surged through my blood. Like the deep thrum of a guitar unleashing chord after chord of stirring music which coursed with adrenaline to drive feats of unstoppable ferocity. A monster had awoken in my soul and wanted nothing more than slaughter and victory.

“Captain! Captain! Hold with the line, for fuck’s sake, hold with the line,” Doc cried in desperation, calling me back to where my flanks could be protected.

I barely heard him; the deep throbbing bass line had been joined by the cacophonous percussion of drums, drowning everything out bar the hum of conquest.

At first, my opponent Greybeard believed the manic behaviour afforded him the advantage. He soon came to understand the foolishness of such an assumption. Greybeard’s every movement, gesture, and eye flick betrayed his intent and I reacted with grace and liquid reflexes. Each of his attempted blows were countered or avoided. Every time I flowed into the perfect position and posture to strike back with furious resolve.

The flurry of critical hits drove the older veteran inexorably backwards. The forward progress may have opened my back to attacks from his allies, but they were as nothing to a glorious conqueror like me. The swipes of their weapons were slow and obvious, often easily avoided and if they couldn’t be, I made sure the blow was merely glancing and minimised the damage.

Preternatural Insight blazed white hot in my mind’s eye. Feeding back a panoply of information that my brain processed in an instant. Wind speed, temperature, humidity, brightness from the sun, armour that was ill-fitted, gear heavier than it should be, a sword two inches longer than what was optimal for its bearer, a gait that favoured the right side. All of the data flowed in and combined to create a plotted path of the future.

Quixbix screamed in my head, but he sounded distant, miles away and he was easily ignored.

He couldn’t be allowed to distract me from destiny. From what was to come. I was a glorious God of Conflict and Conquest.

Unstoppable.

Indefatigable.

Today was but the first step towards the ultimate domination of the entire galaxy. It would all bow under my rule.

My birthright.

It was what I was created to be, to do.

Greybeard panicked and activated a halo-shaped pendant that hung from his chest. One look at the energy signature of the pulse it emitted told me all I needed to know about its purpose. It was a call to martyrdom. All those sworn by oath to his command would answer the call and give all they possessed to take down the selected target. Me.

A coward’s move.

Greybeard backed off and a score of Lamer soldiers threw themselves at me with wild abandon, all caution and self-preservation forgotten. My Greatblade went to work cutting and slashing. There were too many of them to dodge or parry.

But my skill did not let me down and insight flowed into my core.

Not about my enemies, this time it was about my gear and how the rules for its use could be overwritten if you had the right understanding and skills. There were always loopholes and Preternatural Insight had been specifically designed to take advantage of them.

With the skill’s help, I rapidly jury-rigged the last three charges of my Breath Weapon to circumvent the cooldown and to go off simultaneously in all directions around my head. The only cost was half the durability of the Hooded Dragonscale Coif and disabling the immunity to breath weapon damage the armour set provided. The armour could be repaired, that was not a problem and what was the loss of a few Hit Points to remove this mass of parasites swarming me.

Frost, flames, and lightning exploded from my position and the Lamer attackers were tossed away from me. Even Greybeard who had backed away was licked by the outer edge of the circle of destructive power I unleashed and battered to the ground. He had to desperately cast a healing spell upon himself to survive.

The enemy fell at my feet, blown down like sheaves of wheat in a hurricane. Their piddling act of self-sacrifice would not be enough to stop me. Experience notifications passed across my eyeline. Enough for half of my attackers.

That would not do!

All who opposed me had to pay the ultimate price. I stepped forward, breathing heavily with murder in my eyes. Ready to finish off the surviving enemies who lay prostrate on the ground.

It was Quixbix again. Louder this time. The imp was proving to be a distraction and a complete killjoy.

“I can hear you imp,” I lisped with a ragged breath. Discharging the breath weapon in a manner it was not designed to be used had done a proper number on me. In the back of my head, I understood that my jaw had been broken and dislocated. It was just one of many mounting inconsequential injuries that I could safely ignore.

It doesn’t matter, the urging voice whispered as it coaxed me to continue. The flesh is weak and can be replaced. Glory awaits if you only keep going. Every enemy will bow before you. You cannot be stopped.

Wait.

Whose voice was that? And where was it coming from? It wasn’t Quixbix or the Shattered Goddess. I would recognise them. Although it was familiar, I had heard it somewhere before but for some reason couldn’t quite place it. How could I be the receptacle of so much data on the surroundings but be ignorant of whom spoke to me?

Something was off. Had this voice been whispering to me from the moment I began my kamikaze attack.

The voice had to be suppressing the knowledge that it was even speaking and whatever Quixbix had done to breakthrough and make himself heard had the added side-effect of disabling that subterfuge.

My mind backed away.

No, the voice barked in anger. Listen to me and only me!

Whoever it was had just made a critical error. I could be a stubborn bastard when I wanted to be, and I didn’t like being perfunctorily ordered around. The voice wanted me to stay submerged in the secret channel and listen only to it. I did the opposite and mentally returned to the regular consciousness of Torin Carter.

*** - 3,000 Hit Points. 0/9,525 remaining. – 25 Health 62/87 remaining. ***

Immediately, the red-tinged damage notification that the voice had suppressed pinged for me to see. The burst of three breath weapon charges had stripped the last of my Hit Points and started to eat into my Health stat. I was in a bad way and understood how close I came to death in my mania-induced combat frenzy.

This had been the voice’s plan from the beginning. To fool me into isolating myself and encouraging me to keep fighting when all reason dictated that I should back away.

Now that I was free of its influence, I easily recognised the source of my brush with death.

Ashli.

Or maybe it was the fragment which had escaped the dimensional prison.

Ashli hadn’t been able to directly influence me using the secret channel access that came with the forbidden Preternatural Insight skill before. But this had been the first time I had actively tapped into it since the fragment managed to get loose.

The second realisation was that Ashli’s whispers weren’t the only thing that had been suppressed from my awareness.

Greybeard rolled away and rose to his feet, a wide grin on his face. The raptor chariot refit had been finished and it was rumbling directly towards me at speed.

***

Brant

Brant returned the used potion bottle to his inventory and let the squad medic work on his wounded thigh. He had stood side-by-side with Captain Carter for as long as he could.

The tired soldier’s eyes flicked around the room.

Half the people who had been crammed in here earlier had been ferried down the stairs, but it would still take ten, perhaps fifteen more minutes before the last of them were safely underground and they could fall back. Then Claudia could take over and reshape the dungeon to confuse the Liberation Army soldiers long enough to get the fleeing refugees to Grand Rapids and safety.

Cole was laid out on a fancy couch not far from where Brant was sitting being tended. The guildsman looked to be in a bad way and the seeping blood from his wounds had ruined the upholstery, but he would live. Madame Silk hovered over the blonde Texan and whispered in his ear, stroking the side of his cheek in a manner more sexually suggestive than caregiving.

Brant huffed out a tired breath and closed his eyes. Who was he to judge others? In a world filled with danger and calamity, people should be allowed to find joy wherever they could. Provided it didn’t hurt or negatively impact others, of course.

The moment of contemplation didn’t last long before reality intruded.

“Captain! Captain! Hold with the line, for fuck’s sake hold with the line,” Doc cried out from the doorway.

Brant’s eyes opened instantly. There was a hint of genuine panic in Doc’s voice. Something serious had occurred and he began to rise from his seated position. Flashbacks of his own recent experience of being forced to act contrary to his will.

“I’m not finished,” the cleric admonished him and tried to push him back into the loveseat.

The cleric didn’t stand a chance. Brant was too big and strong to be denied. “It will have to do,” he grunted.

If what Doc cried out was accurate and the captain had pushed forward, then Brant knew he was the best option they had available to take Torin’s place at the entrance.

Free of the fussing man, Brant limped the short distance to the doorway. The three backline squad members who had been shooting crossbows over the heads of the others made way for him when he tapped on one of their shoulders. Now he could see exactly what was going on.

The captain had indeed gone battle crazy and abandoned the defensive position. He traded blows with the Lamer Commander. Brant had never seen Torin like this. He was a blur of action, his movements graceful and fluid. It was almost as if he could anticipate the enemy’s actions before they knew what they were going to do themselves.

He forced Greybeard back but that left a gap for the rank-and-file Lamer soldiers to move into. Many of them turned their weapons on Torin’s back but a handful understood the defensive line had been weakened and attacked the crew members guarding the doorway instead. Doc had shifted into the middle to cover Torin’s absence, but he struggled badly. Being in the centre of the battle was not his forte.

Brant summoned his broadsword and shield. Within a few seconds, an opportunity arose when an enemy soldier ducked away to avoid a bolt to the face and Brant took the opening to shove Doc to the side, step in and take his place. Doc gratefully let him move his big body into the gap and the fighting continued.

Captain Carter kept pushing forward. He killed several enemies and then Greybeard fiddled with something in his chest.

There was a bright flash and that led to some respite for Brant, Doc and the others. The fighters in front of them retreated from the entrance and as a large group assaulted the captain in a swarm. Brant was forced to cover his eyes with a forearm as Torin did something unexpected. Lightning mixed with flames and cold air almost blinded him as it exploded from his position and pulsed outward in a wide circle.

The roaring circle of destruction didn’t quite reach the building entrance, but Brant was unsure if that had even been a consideration for Torin. He seemed lost in an oddly calm berserker state.

Brant blinked off the afterglow and drank in the sight of the aftermath. The Lamers were down but Torin did not look to be in good shape. He looked worse than Cole did, but he was still standing which was more than could be said for most of those fighting against him and that was when Brant heard the rumble.

A chariot with a ramming piece in the shape of an eagle in flight came trundling across the grass verge over by the railway tracks. It was gathering pace and heading directly for Torin who stood in the middle of the parking lot in a bit of a daze. Brant took a step forward, intent on running to his leader only for his wounded thigh to buckle under the weight and take him down to a knee.

“No need to bow in me presence, Branty,” an all too familiar and annoying voice chirped behind him. “The calvary has arrived.”

Sheamus was behind him, tugging on the back of his armour as he climbed up his back to take his perch. Tavar Aenarion, the elven Elemental Mage was with him along with two squads of replacement warriors. They’d had to struggle past the frightened refugees to get to the ground floor but had finally arrived to give aid.

“The Captain!” Brant said by way of warning and pointed at the approaching chariot.

“Don’t you worry, Branty my boy,” Sheamus declared gaily and balanced himself when he reached his shoulders. “I’ve got a promise to Bessie to keep.”

Once in place, the bombardier summoned his blunderbuss creation, kissed the barrel lovingly, pointed it directly at the chariot, and squeezed the trigger.

The roar of the blunderbuss was deafening. Quite literally. Sheamus had fired the damn thing right by Brant’s ear and the thunderous explosion burst his eardrum. The recoil of the weapon sent Sheamus flying backwards, forty feet through the air, and he landed on the gut of the recovering Cole winding him.

“Hmmm,” Sheamus coughed with a feral grin. “Perhaps a little less kick for the next batch.”

Meanwhile, the projectile flew true and collided just under the left wing of the bird of prey. The front of the chariot was torn apart, and it was knocked up into the air, spilling the riding warriors onto the parking lot gravel before it rolled over them adding further insult to injury.