Chapter 62 - Prep For Combat

We stopped by the greenhouse before setting out. That’s where they’d buried Kat and the other casualties from the goblin attacks—just outside the greenhouse, on the lawn, was a row of five simple mounds with wooden markers. Alfred explained they’d picked the spot because the greenhouse tools were right there, which made it easier. A few of their braver people had slipped back into the Jeffords building after the goblins departed, collecting their dead.

I stared down at those graves for a few minutes, trying to parse how I felt. I was crying, which felt weird. It wasn’t like Kat had been a close friend. She was a short-term roommate I’d had for a couple of weeks.

But she was someone I’d tried to help, tried to save—and I’d failed. It was like I’d taken all the pain, anger, and frustration I’d felt in the days since the Event and poured it all into that one death. Maybe it was just because one death was easier to grasp, understand, and mourn? If I tried thinking about the billions of people across the planet who’d died or were dying, it was too much.

One person, though? One person was something I could feel fully.

I turned away from the graves and gave Alfred a nod. “Thanks for burying her.”

“Least we could do. I’m sorry she didn’t make it.”

“Me too,” I replied. It had always been a long shot, her survival. Kat wasn’t a strong person to begin with, and then she’d lost her foot. Losing her hurt, anyway.

I mounted up again, climbing aboard Sue for the trip. Kara joined me. She had her bow and a quiver of arrows, so she could still fight from Sue’s back. Her NightVision would guide us and help us avoid ambushes, too—and she’d see better from a higher vantage point.

The rest of my undead were spread out in a pair of skirmish lines ahead of us, ready for anything. Kara would clue me in if there was trouble hiding up ahead, then I’d tell my undead to stomp them.

Alfred and his people made up our rear guard. Most of his people were noncombatants, without even a single crystal, so I had his combatants back there guarding them and making sure no one snuck up on us from behind. Once we made contact, we could move some of his people forward, but keeping his people safe was a top priority for me.

It was about an hour before sunrise when we started down Carrigan Drive. Moving Sue down the center of the roads was tough. There were too many stranded cars, and she was agile, but moving between them just wasn’t possible in some places, and she wasn’t quite tall or large enough to just crush them underfoot. Instead, I sent her down the grass on the roadside. We had plenty of room there.

That road turned into Centennial Woods Way right before the turn-off to the police station. The building where I’d slept that first night after the event was a gutted ruin, now. One more thing destroyed by the goblins. We kept moving past it. I wanted to hit the goblins at first light, if we could, and that meant making good speed for the rest of the journey.

As we were passing the police station on our right, Kara sat up straighter, her attention more sharp. “Contact front.”

“Where?” I asked.

“There, and there,” Kara replied, pointing at dark patches of the wood line. It still wasn’t light enough for me to make out anything there besides shadow. “Two goblins, one at each post. They took off running as soon as they saw us coming. I only spotted them after they moved. They were pretty well hidden.”

So the bad guys knew we were coming, now. That meant everything relied on speed, at this point. The longer we gave them to get ready, the harder this fight was going to go.

I halted Sue and ordered her to crouch. Then I turned to Kara. “Come on—we’re not going to want to be riding her for what’s coming next.”

“You know Sue isn’t a she, right?” Kara asked.

“Huh?” I blinked at the apparent non-sequitur.

“Sue has they/them pronouns,” Kara replied. “Said so right on their BlueSky account. They were named a girl name early on, but there was no actual evidence of the bones being from a female T. rex, so the museum switched their pronouns to ‘they/them.’”

I rolled my eyes, but bit my tongue. You know what? Kara had been an awesome friend through some nasty crap. If she was worried about the gender of the sixty-something million year old fossil, I’d roll with it. “Got it. Sue is a they. But we still need to get down from their back—this isn’t going to be a comfortable perch when she’s busting down goblin fortress walls.”

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“Right!”

We both slid down from the titan. I set my army in motion, moving them forward into the forest, and quickly walked to Alfred. “You’ll want to keep your people safe. I see two options. You can all hide in the library storage building over there, or you can use the distraction I’m about to give you to bust through the forest and get out the other side. We can link up with you on the interstate after.”

“Why not just come with us?” Alfred said. “Stick together, bust through, then come back later when we don’t have helpless people to protect?”

I shook my head. “The goblins are all through this forest, and it’s their home turf. We try to just walk through it and they’ll hit us from all sides. They have the numbers, and allowing them to bring those numbers to bear is only going to get us all killed. Our best bet is for me to give them something else to think about.”

“Fine. If you’re insisting on this crazy path, I’ll leave my people back in the library annex. But I’m coming with you. We’ve got a few others who can fight, to guard the rest. You’ll need as many hands as you can get, though,” Alfred replied.

“I’ll take it,” I said. There was no point in arguing with an offer for help. He was right—every additional weapon would improve our odds of success. My undead were entering the woods, and I rushed to catch up. “Anyone coming with had better get moving, though—we’re getting left behind.”

As we walked, I surveyed my crystals again:

Magical Stones

Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Control Undead

Point 1, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 2) - Curse

Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Animate Dead

Point 2, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 2) - Contagion

Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Drain Life

Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Will

Point 5: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Agility

Spare Stones

Black: Animate Dead (Tier 3), Animate Dead, Augment Undead (Tier 3), Augment Undead, Control Undead (Tier 3), Drain Life (Tier 2), Harm (Tier 2), Harm, Health to Mana, Heal Undead (Tier 3), Heal Undead

Clear: Strength (Tier 3), Agility (Tier 2), Agility, Stamina (Tier 2), Stamina (Tier 3), Charisma (Tier 2), Charisma, Will (Tier 2)

Gray: Minion Augmentation (x2)

I wanted to use a Minion Augmentation on Sue, but I realized with a start that I couldn’t. As soon as I picked up the stone, I understood that to apply a stone and augment a tier four creature, I’d need to apply a tier four stone. The good news was, it would boost their effective tier without making them cost more Control Undead points. The bad news was, I needed a tier four stone to make it work, and I wasn’t interested in giving up my Will or Agility stones.

Much as I wanted to do it right away, boosting Sue would have to wait. I could hit Hope with an Agility or Stamina stone, though. After a moment of thought, I opted for Stamina. It would let her take more damage and heal faster on her own. I scooped both crystals into my hand and called her over as we marched. Then I gently pressed the stones into Hope’s forehead. They sank into the bone the same way they’d have disappeared into a human hand.

There was a deep blue flash which spread from her skull down her bones. As I watched, Hope grew slightly larger, her bones thickening and strengthening. She was noticeably sturdier now than she had been before. It was a start.

With one of my minions boosted—I was saving the other ‘pet rock’ for Sue—I had one more thing I wanted to do to prep for the fight. Hoping this wasn’t going to be a mistake, I wrapped mental fingers around the Contagion stone and gently pulled it loose.

There was a snapping sensation in my hand and I groaned, looking down. The crystal had shattered when I removed it. Not terrific, but it couldn’t be helped. The power I needed most at that point was stuff to amp up Sue. I socketed my tier three Heal Undead stone. Keeping her on her feet was going to be the entire fight.

Maybe there was a way to make her tougher, though? I glanced at that Curse stone. It was a tier two rare, and I really didn’t want to break two of those in one night. But I wanted Augment Undead slotted, so I gingerly removed the stone. It didn’t snap. I slipped it back into my pouch and pulled out the tier three Augment Undead, slotting it into the space where Curse had been. I immediately dropped the Augment spell on Sue, making her much stronger than she’d already been. Since the spell was only tier three, it wasn’t enough to raise the dino to tier five—but stronger was stronger.

Now I was as ready as I could be.

Magical Stones

Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Control Undead

Point 1, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Augment Undead

Point 2: Black Stone (Tier 5) - Animate Dead

Point 2, Outer Ring: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Heal Undead

Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 4) - Drain Life

Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Will

Point 5: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Agility

Spare Stones

Black: Animate Dead (Tier 3), Animate Dead, Augment Undead, Control Undead (Tier 3), Curse (Tier 2), Drain Life (Tier 2), Harm (Tier 2), Harm, Health to Mana, Heal Undead

Clear: Strength (Tier 3), Agility (Tier 2), Agility, Stamina (Tier 3), Charisma (Tier 2), Charisma, Will (Tier 2)

Gray: Minion Augmentation

My troops were still marching steadily uphill. We hadn’t run into any goblin defenders yet, but I knew they were somewhere ahead, getting ready for us. The stockade they’d built couldn’t be more than a couple hundred feet away.

“Kara, any sign of them? Be careful to watch the treetops,” I said.

“I am. Nothing. If they had any scouts through here, they’ve already withdrawn.”

Dawn was already starting to light the sky. I could see it in the few gaps between the trees. But not much of that light was making its way to the forest floor yet. I wasn’t sure if that was an advantage for us, or them. My suspicion based on what I’d seen so far was that the goblins were mostly nocturnal, which meant we were basically hitting them when they’d be their most exhausted, most spent.

I wasn’t a lot better, of course. Even with the afternoon nap, Kara and I had been up and moving all night, running from one fight to another. But this would be the last fight. After this, I could get these people over to the houses on the far side of the forest, and we could all get some decent rest.

My army continued up the hill.

A rain of arrows answered our advance, barbed heads barely visible in the low light as they flashed through the air toward us.