The Black Mage’s hind legs bent backward at the knee, like a bird, and its hips rode up and down behind its shoulder. An arching plate protected its head from above its eyes to the naked spinal column. It moved at a walk before the smoking facility. It tracked the red-cloaked figure, the robot, the three blanket-wrapped people, and a dog.
Ben warned that their hunter wouldn’t stop to rest and would catch up inevitably. His wheel tracks rode on top of the incline of snow. “I will need sunlight or a charging port. Otherwise, I’ll be stranded in a few miles.”
Spenser Pheonix had led them along his old footprints. The prints had melted to show the stubbled earth beneath. Ben could only go a few miles. That would take them to the hilltops, somewhere in the vicinity of where the sabertooth had attacked him. “So you’ll run out of battery, and we’ll collapse from exhaustion, but it will keep coming?”
“Correct. It’s a purpose-built killer. Its general intelligence is lacking in some respects, but its narrow focus makes it very dangerous.”
Ado strode beside the robot. “It’ll rip us apart. We should not meet it in a straight fight.”
Daz’s ears and nose were flushed from the cold. “We’re fucked.”
Spenser couldn’t argue with that logic but needed to give them hope. “There’s a spot just beyond those ridges where we can mount a defense.”
“That’s your plan?”
“It’s the best option because it’s the only option.”
“There’s the option to turn around and fight while we still have the strength.”
“Daz, you heard Ado and Ben. There’s a more strategic place ahead. Now, how many times have we faced crazy odds together? And sometimes we win. But only when we work together.”
Daz nodded gravely. “There's no respawn. This is it. One loss, and it's game over.”
“Time to sweat. Are you with me?”
“Yeah.”
The plan was simple, and Spenser explained while he tried to ignore the burn in his legs. Ado will stand to face the hunter since he’d already proved himself a threat. Spencer and Daz would hide in the boulders to either flank to leap out and take it out.
The familiar landscape of the strangely blue lakes came into view over the crest, and the others stood and gaped at the vast basin. He knew how they felt, having spent his whole life trapped in an apartment only to be loosed into the open world.
It unnerved him when the Black Mage was out of sight. It shouldn’t matter since it moved as steady as the sun behind the dreary sky. It was an irrational fear that it would suddenly rush up behind them and attack. But, no. He had time, just not a lot of it.
Jessica and Luna buried themselves in the snow. They were invisible fifteen paces from the outcroppings of rocks and strewn boulders, and they smoothed the footprints as best they could. Ben pretended to be out of juice between the boulders, which wasn’t much of a stretch. Ado stood with the robot, ready to face the Black Mage head-on. Spenser took one side and Daz the other.
And they waited. From the enemy’s perspective, the hill fell away steeply enough that the humans may have continued ahead. That’s what they needed it to believe.
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Spenser used the reflective tip of his lightning staff to look around the boulder. He kept it low to the ground by a skirt of ice. It shouldn’t stand out.
The enemy appeared, and its faint green stare locked onto Ben and Ado. It stopped and swept the area. It didn’t move forward. Damn, if it took any route but a straight one, the plan fell apart.
Ado took a rock from the ground and chucked it. The stone hit its shoulder with a ting. Two curved blades rang as they extended from its forearms. It came forward, and everything happened at once.
A blade extended from Ado’s metal stump, too. And they came together with a clang.
Ben caught the other blade with a metal hand and held it. Sparks flittered from his grasp.
Daz struck its leg with his bolt dagger, and it flashed. It popped, and bells filled the muffled air.
Spenser rammed the lightning staff into its body. Everyone fell back away from the fingers of electricity.
The enemy spasmed and smoked, but it grabbed the weapon and pulled him into it. If that barrage hadn’t defeated it, they were all doomed.
Nightingale grabbed a mouthful of leg and shook but the leg flung her aside. She growled, the hair standing along her back.
“You,” Luna said from behind. “Look like a bug.” She put the shotgun under the armor of its head and pulled the trigger.
The Black Mage moved jerkily as if the attacks were taking their toll. Its blade sliced down and through her lower leg. Her leg fell in two at an angle in the middle of her shin. The enemy jumped then, propelled by some emergency burst from its feel, and landed by the ridge.
Luna screamed and rolled on the ground. Spenser held her but didn’t know what to do. She was going to bleed to death.
Ben rolled over to stand over her. “Hold her. I must corterize the wound if I have enough energy. Daz, come here and help. I need you to unplug my auxiliary power distributor.”
Luna struggled in Spenser’s arms until he heard Ben say ready, and there was a sizzle of flesh, a smell of it burning. She passed out, limp in his arms but still breathing.
Ben’s eyes were dim. “Spenser, leave me. Come back if you can, but I’m done.”
Spenser kept an eye on the ridge but saw no attack incoming. “Nonsense, there’s a village nearby, and it’s all downhill from here.”
“You’ll waste your energy. Though I think you damaged the Black Mage, but it can make minor repairs to itself. It will be back.”
Spenser carried Luna, and Daz pushed Ben. “I have a feeling we’re still going to need you, Ben.”
Once the others lent a hand, they were moving again. The way to the Neanderthals was uneventful, thankfully. The heavy-browed people weren’t happy to see Ben. They lacked trust for robots, didn’t understand why they brought one and feared it. But after Ado explained the situation, they brought a stiff Ben down into the canyon and sat him in the shelter. It wasn’t long before children played around the motionless metal man.
They carried Luna to a shelter where women attended her. A woman rolled up the bloody pant leg, and the burned stump stopped far short of her other foot. She’d never walk right again. How would she even continue?
It wasn’t long before the chief had him in a dim shelter and spoke of a seer. He smoked and offered food and wanted the whole story. His face split with a smile at hearing Ado’s part, and he blew smoke from both nostrils. Then he said, the seer comes.
And there she was, an old woman with milky eyes pushed deep into crinkled skin. Her voice was thin. “I’ve seen a black figure that will kill you. Or, will lead to your end.”
Spenser was a little shocked at the coincidence. “There’s a Black Mage after us. It is trying to kill us.”
“No, this you haven’t seen. You will not believe me unless I bring you to the Side Realm. When the antigod appears, so too the gods’ champion.”
He should have protested or left. But he remained, sitting cross-legged in the chief’s shelter as they burned plants in the fire and filled the air with smoke. He realized they’d drugged him when he moved, and the world lagged and seemed more colorful. This is how she planned to convince him. A sober mind wouldn’t fall for a witch’s tricks. Well, he didn’t want to break it to her, but he didn’t think he’d fall for them even now.