Mask of Humanity

Nicolai crouched and peered over the crenellated wall on the outside of the castle, the sun shining down on him, wind whistling past. He would have been watching the archers hovering over the bridge and working out a plan, but his eyes had been drawn to something else.

On a bridge lower down, one that did not have any undead protectors, a large group of over a dozen people were crossing. They wore the same mismatched armour and rags as him and everyone else, with a selection of random weapons. They seemed quite relaxed, chatting and looking around to take in the scenery as they crossed. He could understand the reason for their relaxed nature, as not only did they number more than twenty, but a few of them seemed relatively augmented, arms and legs bulging with artificial muscle, a few glinting camera orbs in place of eyes.

Light glinted from the back of one of them, the sign of a reflex-enhancing spinal augment, slightly more expensive than the one belonging to that man with the longsword he’d killed the other day. Overall, not a group Nicolai wanted to be spotted by. Unfortunately, they were crossing from the bastion on the far side, to his side. He didn’t know how to get down to their bridge, and he hoped they didn’t know how to get up to where he was.

He kept watching until they’d disappeared inside, then turned his focus to the bridge and the archers above it. His plan was to lure one of the archers towards him, catch it with the hook once it was close enough, then drag it into the tunnel behind him which led to the living area. He was sure once he started striking at it the others would come, regardless of whether it managed to alert them with a whistle, but he hoped to have a bit of time before that happened.

From what he’d seen the archers had a preference for drawing close to a target, shooting at them once or twice, and only then would they sound the alarm and call the others. Perhaps a measure so that the whole lot wouldn’t leave their positions to come over and shoot at something if it turned out one archer could do the job.

He’d left his polearm in the tunnel behind him, so he’d be able to use both hands hauling the archer towards him, moving into the tunnel, then once he was there his polearm would be waiting for him. The hook rested on the ground beside him, it’s chain neatly, obsessively coiled.

The archers were drifting aimlessly over the bridge, as they tended to. Currently they were clumped up with none near to him, so he would have to wait until they dispersed a bit. He wanted to lure only one, not a whole group.

The sun crawled across the sky as Nicolai waited, observing the movements of the archers and keeping himself alert to his surroundings. He didn’t like to be sat out here, it made his skin itch being so in the open. But needs must when the devil drives. He remained as still as he could, except for his occasional searching scans of the area. Humans were adapted to notice movement, and from what he’d seen these undead were much the same. His position was just to the side of the tunnel he intended to drag an archer into, so that if someone entered from the other side he’d be able to hear them coming, but not be seen.

While he sat there and waited and watched, he spent time connecting to his Seed, briefly activating its Soul Sense and spreading the tendrils around him, then retracting them and de-activating it. Simply connecting to the Seed was still difficult for him, and any distraction would lead him to the connection breaking. Utilising the Soul Sense tendrils was even harder.

It would have been useful to be able to do so earlier, when he fought the patrol for the hook and chain. But with his current abilities, using it in combat wasn’t an option. He intended to spend every free moment practising.

His focus sharpened some time later. The archers had scattered again, and one of them was drifting in his direction, looking in his direction. The time had come. He broke the connection to his Seed, rose smoothly to his feet and waved at the archer. It didn’t react, didn’t see him. Still too far.

So Nicolai jumped, and spun, and danced across the stone, his feet tap-tapping to a song only he could hear. Come and get me, his dance said. The archer paused, staring, then it began to float towards him, speeding up, its movements gaining purpose. It was pulling an arrow from its quiver.

Nicolai ducked back down behind the wall. The eagerness he felt—now the moment had finally come—stretched his face into a grin, and he let out a manic little giggle like a child playing a prank. He forced his face back into order. Focus, he told himself.

He waited a moment then peeked through the crenellations, seeing the archer still coming, its arrow now nocked and half-drawn. It saw his movement and drew the arrow the rest of the way but Nicolai had already ducked back down. The chain rattled as he took hold of the hook, cool metal in his hand.

He peeked again and immediately ducked as the archer’s bow snapped and an arrow zipped over his head to ping with a crack off the stone behind him. It was a bit closer, but it was also depressingly smart and had already stopped moving directly towards him, instead rising higher into the air, looking to get above him so it would have an angle to shoot behind the wall.

Continuing on its current trajectory, it would find that angle while remaining at quite a distance. The further away it was, the harder the throw of the hook would be, and the more time it would have to react. Change of plan.

Nicolai grabbed the chain and dashed into the tunnel while it was busy nocking the next arrow. There he dropped the chain but held the hook and waited, his mind on the speed of its movement, the direction it had been headed in. With Nicolai in the tunnel its position high above would no longer do it any good. It would have to come lower down. Nice and close.

The air hummed as he spun the hook in a circle, just as he’d seen the undead do, just as he’d practised a short time ago. Nicolai had found great success when hooking the pieces of furniture he’d used as practise targets. Would it be as easy on the real thing? No.

If it was coming down to shoot into the tunnel, it should come into his view very soon. He would have to snap his shield up to block its first shot, which was why he spun the hook in his right hand, his left free to move the shield. His body was relaxed and ready.

A piercing whistle sounded, penetrating the tunnel. A call for aid.

‘Coward,’ he hissed as he darted forwards, but he knew the archer had made the smart choice and in truth there was nothing cowardly about that. The hook was moving so fast that it blurred and produced a whining noise as he stepped out the tunnel and lifted his head, looking for his Target.

It was there, right above him, staring down, one hand still raised after whistling, bow unready, and closer than was wise. Nicolai hurled the hook, chain snaking over the stone below him and between his fingers. The hook slithered behind the archer which twisted in surprise then Nicolai gripped tight and pulled, feeling and seeing it catch, the archer pulled into an ungainly spin and down towards Nicolai.

The fish catches the fisherman. Nicolai grinned hungrily as he dragged it towards him, finding it surprisingly easy. The archer’s Imbued didn’t seem to hold too much power, which explained their slovenly movement through the air.

The archer regained its balance, straightening back up. The hook was dug into the armour on one of its legs which left its upper body free to move. With admirable calm it nocked an arrow, drew and loosed in one smooth movement.

Nicolai would not be denied. He stopped his pulling for the instant required to raise his shield and slap the arrow from the air, letting out a ‘ha!’ as he knocked it aside.

In that moment the archer got a hand onto the hook, and, twisting and wrenching, it actually got the thing out but Nicolai wrenched on the chain, mouth forming a desperate snarl at the sight of his prey getting away, and the blessed hook caught it now on one of its gauntlets, dragging it back down towards him, only a couple of metres between them.

The archer squirmed in vain, unable to resist Nicolai’s pull. ‘Let’s see how you do on the ground, you fuck!’ he seethed as he dragged on the chain, his mind filling with the remembered pain of an arrow in his back and forced out his midsection.

He forced himself back to calm, his focus turning beyond the caught archer to where he saw the others floating towards him, bows at the ready. Twangs and hissed sounded, a hail of arrow streaking towards him.

Nicolai took several steps back into the tunnel, still pulling, but he couldn’t pull hard enough and he let himself fall, the arrows drumming on the stone around and within the tunnel. He wasn’t worried, because he knew none of them had a good angle on him.

He hauled hard on the chain, pulling it hand-over-hand, seeing the archer coming towards him. The archer dropped its bow to extend its free arm and caught itself on the lip of the tunnel’s roof, but Nicolai jerked and pulled and shrimped backwards and it slipped off and spun through the air towards him.

Then he didn’t need the chain because the archer was crashing into him, the two of them turning and rolling on the stone, Nicolai snarling, the archer silent but the blue light in its eyes surging. He got to his knife and tried to stab through the eye-holes of its mask but its head twisted and his knife let out a rough metal squeal as it scraped along the side of its helmet. He’d brought his arm back for another try when its foot slammed into him from somewhere and he pitched backwards, taking the momentum and rolling with it.

It shoved itself up, drawing a long knife from a scabbard on its hip. Nicolai felt himself roll over something solid. His polearm.

He was on his feet with the polearm in his hands in time to meet the archer’s rise, matching its furious tempo as it dashed towards him. It moved with bent knees, low, quick and crafty. His eyes tracked it as it darted left and right.

Nicolai took a stomping step forwards while raising his body up, the polearm’s warhammer high, poised, then he began to rock forwards, taking aim at the archer as it skittered towards him at an angle, the hammer rushing out towards it.

The archer saw it coming and its body shifted, preparing to avoid the attack. Then Nicolai froze, all movement stopped, every muscle tense, his teeth gritted tight in a rictus grin.

The archer ducked and dashed to the side, then it immediately sprung forwards, dagger aimed for the side of his chest. If he’d struck for real it would have easily dodged, and he would have been in no position to avoid the stab. But he hadn’t. He’d tricked it, and he wasn’t off-balance and recovering from the missed swing, as it might have hoped.

Nicolai’s leg flashed out and his body twisted as he pivoted on the other, his foot crashing into its centre, the weight of his whole body behind it.

The archer was smashed back to crash into the wall which it bounced off of, while Nicolai took another step forwards.

The polearm’s hammer described a shining circle through the air before it crashed into the side of the archers helmet, caving it in and crushing the archers skull with a surge of blue light which poured out from the mask’s eyeholes. The archer collapsed.

There was a whistling buzz, a flicker of movement, and his arm jerked, polearm falling from limp fingers as a terrible pain burst from his bicep. He’d taken too long.

Nicolai dove for the archer’s body, dodging another arrow, heedless of the pain and injury as he wrenched at the dead archer, getting it between him and the enemy, gripping the front of its armour to hold it before him as he forced himself up. Nicolai stepped back, grunting as arrows slammed into its back like kicks, peering between its neck and shoulder to see beyond it.

One of the archers had landed on the stone of the walkway, another balanced effortlessly on the stone wall in a crouch, and a third floated just behind the wall, all of them drawing and loosing, drawing and loosing.

Nicolai walked backwards, keeping the dead archer between him and them. The arrows slamming into his decayed meatshield made his walk into a stumble, a struggle to stay upright.

His legs and arms were burning but he would not give up his prize. He just had to reach the end.

More arrows came and the dead archer jerked in his grasp as though throwing itself at him in revenge, knocking him back. He grit his teeth and held it in place, his arm radiating pain, stumbling back, struggling not to pitch over.

And then, somehow, he was there, he’d made it, and he laughed madly as he stepped back out the tunnel, only needing to step sideways to be free from their arrows.

The archers, as though they knew he’d won, stopped shooting.

Nicolai stared at them and they stared at him. The blue light shifted and spun in their eyes. They didn’t look happy, not at all. Nicolai grabbed at the chain that extended down the tunnel, still attached by its hook to the archer. The chain clattered over the ground as he reeled it in before they could think to grab it. Then he smirked at them.

The one in the lead stepped forward into the tunnel, too late, he thought, and smiled at it. It stood out a little from the others, having a white dot marked on its mask. It stopped, staring down. Nicolai frowned, wondering what it was doing. It stooped, and when it rose it was holding his polearm.

Nicolai’s eyes narrowed. The white-marked archer took a step back, then another, its gaze fixed on his own.

‘No…’ he muttered as the archer stepped to the wall, beside the one that balanced atop the crenellation, all of their gazes fixed on him. Then it held his polearm over the drop, and stared at him. Nicolai didn’t move and neither did it. His breath came in tight bursts.

The white-marked archer dropped his polearm with a dismissive little flick of its wrist.

‘You stupid cunt!’ Nicolai frothed, his voice booming. ‘You stupid, stupid, fucking arsehole!’

The archers watched him to see if he might do anything more than scream at them. He knew that to run out there and try to kill them would only bring his death, and his body tensed, teeth gritting tight as he fought the urge to do just that.

The white-marked one leaned down and picked up the bow its dead comrade had dropped, then with a bend and push from its legs, the archer rose back into the air, the others following.

Nicolai gaped at where they’d stood, his mind roiling, the rage shocked into confusion. Then he started laughing; mad, hacking gasps of mirth. He let the limp, dead archer fall, and he collapsed on top of it.

‘It’s only a weapon!’ he screamed into the archer’s smashed face, tears blurring his eyes. ‘Only a magical fucking weapon I never got to do any magic with! Not in a real fight!’

‘It’s just, that I really liked it!’ he sobbed to the pitiless shards of broken bone. While he ranted, a different, less emotional part of him worked to keep his injured arm still and protected, to not jostle the arrow. ‘I’ve still got the spear and the swords,’ he wailed. ‘But they’re no good against fucking skeletons!’ He let out another shriek of miserable laughter.

This might have gone on for quite some time, but his paranoia knocked him out of the spiral. He was making himself an easy target.

‘Things are ok,’ he whispered, eyes flicking left and right down the corridor. ‘I’m ok. It’s just a polearm. Just my polearm.’ Don’t dwell. No point in dwelling.

He began searching the archer for what he needed. Its armour was composed of plate on top of padding and leather and chain, and it had all been through some strange process, shrinking and tightening to wrap the archer as tightly and well-fitted as possible.

He quickly realised he wouldn’t be able to remove anything to see what was beneath without cutting the armour free, and with the arrow in his arm he was too weak to quickly do so, and getting weaker all the time as blood slowly flowed from the wound and every movement tore his flesh.

He had to move, stop sitting in the middle of a corridor, find somewhere to hole up and set to work.