Tucked in the alcove- the killbox- the gatling gun chattered a hail of bullets in a short arc across the rooftops directly in front of them in a lethal arc.
Daveth jumped out of cover and glanced around; there was a line of buildings alongside part of the street they’d broken into. Directly across the street, which was divided by some sort of chasm was another road crowded with cubical structures.
“It’s a fucking city.” He breathed, and then flattened himself against the wall as some of the gunners on the roofs that weren’t in the killing arc of the crank-gun’s range shot at him.
Daveth glanced up; he could hoist himself up to the rooftop of this building if he was careful.
He leapt up, catching the edge in his hands, and was vaguely aware that the crank gun’s crew was pushing the gun out to expand its range of fire. He’d have to move quickly.
As Daveth moved around to the side of the roof, several bullets shattered against the stone wall he was moving past, showering him with brittle shards of stone. As he moved, he glanced to the side and frowned. Down on the ground floor, between two buildings, one of the creatures, obviously female huddled with a number of smaller creatures in some sort of garden.
What could possibly be grown down here in this hell-pit?
Daveth Leapt up and grabbed the edge of the roof and one of the dwarves on the roof reversed his rifle and smacked Daveth across the face with the butt of the gun. Daveth laughed and grabbed the man’s foot and spat blood up in the man’s face. “Y6ou’re coming with me.” He snarled and jerked the smaller man down and hurled him down, snatching up the man’s gun. Daveth gave it a casual once over- how did you use such a thing?- and then dropped down, pulling the dwarf over him as cover against the gunfire from the other rooftops.
The gun was incomprehensible to Daveth, so he stuffed it into his weapon pouch for the time being, and remembering Aldric’s lectures about ammunition, patted down the corpse of the dwarf, discovering several pocketfuls of ammunition.
The gatling kicked up again, and the dwarves that were firing at Daveth started shooting at the gunnery crew.
Daveth climbed to his feet and hoisted himself up to the next level; there he found a sack of ammunition that refused to go into his weapon pouch. Was ammunition not recognized as a weapon by the magical container? That couldn’t possibly be right; he had javelins, arrows, and caltrops stored in his pouch, so why not ammunition?
The answer dawned on him and he frowned at the realization. None of the ammunition he carried- none of the arrows or knives or darts were in a container. He’d have to pour the bullets into his pouch.
“Fuck it.” He muttered and stuffed the ammunition sack into his belt and secured it with several tugs. It was time for him to move, but he stopped to eye the women and children huddling, hunkered down and hiding for protection.
No. The gunner across the next rooftop was the higher priority. He took a couple of running steps and leaped across the gap, arms spread wide.
He caught the edge of the first rooftops dn slapped into the wall, bloodying his nose and splitting his scalp. He hauled himself up and hurted to the next obstacle, leaping and yanking himself up to the second floor, buttonhooking around to the front, where he leapt up to grab the edge of the third story.
He hauled himself up just far enough to yank the gun out of the dwarf’s hands, followed by thye dwarf himself.
He tangled his fist in the thing’s ropes, lifting it up and slamming it into the wall repeatedly until it went limp. He absently stuffed the other gun into his weapon pouch, hauled himself up to the third floor, where he picked up a second sack of ammunition. He moved to look at the gap between the buildings and hesitated; the dividing strip between one side of the street and the other was a channel where molten material, brilliant yellow and amber, poured in an unceasing river.
If he were to jump that chasm, he’d fall to his death for sure.
“Nah, fuck that. I can make it.” He urged himself, and backed all the way up and leaped as far and as hard as he could.
He sailed across the gap, his intended landing point disappearing far above him as he fell.
*****
Aldric watched as Daveth dashed out, and he twisted his head back. “Mages! Get those guns down here on the double!” He twisted back around and hollered at Derrik to move his men to protect the crank gun.
“Archers! Move! Infantry! Get down there and set up a turtle around the crank gun!
The lighter infantryman’s shields weren’t likely to hold up very long against rifle fire. They were boarswood, banded with good steel, but the shields weren’t made to stop bullets. The second gatling and the cannons would put out enough hurt to heep some heads down... Aldric hoped.
“Stoppage!” The gunner yelled, and icewater splashed into Aldric’s veins. The crank gun had jammed.
The crank gun’s ammunition was gravity fed from a hopper. As the barrels were fed ammunition, they fired, as they spun back around the spent casing would drop into a second hopper located under the gun. A jam meant an almost complete disassembly of the gun in order to clear the jam. Under ideal conditions, the gun would undergo a complete disassembly, cleaning and lubrication, and reassembly.
“Abandon the gun!” Aldric yelled to the crew. If they pulled the gun back into the alcove, they couldn’t drop the other gun. The alcove was simply too small to accommodate that many wagons. They’d force out the other gatling, and then move outward, dropping in the two cannon.
Aldric turned to the mages. “Drop in the two cannon.” He shouted up towards where Moore and his team were struggling with the mages to get the cannons ready to levitate down.
“We’ll push out the two cannon and give them something to chew on while you drop the second gatling. He turned to the horseless cavalry who looked pretty powerless without their horses to force a proper charge. “You guys get ready and standby for a rush. You’ll look silly, but we have to make do with what we have.”
He eyed the ranks of scouts and archers. “When the cavalry rush, you’ll reinforce the Wolf Sisters with ranged fire. Hopefully the Wolf Sisters will catch the signal and push forward with the rush. The goal is to push ourselves out of this killbox and establish a proper beachhead that we can use to complete our mission.”
*****
A ‘rush’ was something Daveth and Aldric had worked out between the two of them; a move made in desperation where cavalry were somehow deprived of their horses. The cavalry would dash toward the enemy at a breakneck pace, shoulder-to-shoulder, lances out and ready to lunge and thrust. If a man fell, they’d close ranks quickly and press forward, never breaking ranks. A boulder rushing downhill could be said to be just as effective, but it was a costly maneuver.
As soon as the cannon was ready to be dragged out into the square and prepped to fire, the infantry would cover the cannon team enough to do their work while the cavalry rush would then charge to take care of any individual threats, the infantrymen following not soon after.
Still, it seemed as if the cavern was much larger than they had anticipated; the pocket in the earth seemed to contain a small city.
There was still at least one or two gunners out there.
Alysia, Lynnabel, Arcene, and Orelia were having a conference. Their job was to draw fire, which was certainly easy enough to do, simply waving a shield from the doorway was enough to get the enemy to fire on them.
Unlike the infantry, of the Seventh Seal, the Order of the Wolf’s shields were made of layers of steelthat were welded and then bolted together at key points so that the stress of impact was deflected across the entire surface of the shield, making it much more effective at stopping gunfire.
In the dimly remembered past when the Order of the Wolf was formed, the guiding philosophies were simple: go to war and die honorably, valiantly, so that the sin of your existence would be expiated.
The times had changed, and the guiding principles had changed, but they had not, they were still the Order of the Wolf. They would fight with honor. They would take the fighting to the hottest points, take the dangerous jobs, the suicidal charges, attack the impregnable enemy strongholds from the front because only they had the strength, the fortitude, and the honor to prevail.
“Less gunfire, for now.” Orelia muttered, prowling around in the building they’d secured. It was made for a creature that was two feet shorter than her, and resembled something of the shops and stores she’d seen in human cities, though she could not understand the wares being offered.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Alysia asked, and then clamped her lips shut and compressed them together in a thin line. They’d all seen Daveth’s reckless leap across an impossible gap and watched him fall. He was very much like them, the kind of person to take the change, the risk, the gamble and charge headlong into the fray.
“What’s the plan, now?” Lynnabel offered. They’d accomplished their objective for the most part. There were only a couple of gunners left out there.
“We take out the two gunners.” Arcene replied simply. She peeked out the shop window, drawing a couple of shots that spatted ineffectually against the stone. “There’s a bridge that looks to cross the gap from this side of the trench to that side. From there, we do what Lord Commander Daveth did; leap up to each successive story and clear out the gunners.” She paused. “I don’t understand firearms, but the humans do.” She touched the bits of her armor that had been mended. It had only taken heartbeats for that metal demon to put her out of the fighting. She had no idea how to use such a weapon, but she could understand its brutal lethality. “We kill the gunners, collect their weapons, and return them to the Lord Captain.” She finished.
“You silvers, always plotting.” Orelia sneered, but in an indifferent, distracted way. There was no heart in it, it was spoken merely as a matter of reflex. She wanted to hunt, and her prey was out there. Arcene was not wrong, there was a bridge out there, and straight up the building’s sides was the most effective method.
“While you sit on your thumbs and decide which of you gets to mate with the Lord Captain and the Lord Commander, I’ll take your plan.” She spat insultingly and dashed out, her shield up, her sword sheathed. Bullets spanged off her shield, off her gauntlets, a lucky round glanced off the plating on her thigh, causing her to stumble a little as she pounded across the bridge, but then she was below their sightlines and no longer had to worry about gunfire. She leapt to the roof of the first tory, and immediately hauled herself up to the second, drawing her sword aty the last moment to spit the screaming little thing with its rifle on her sword. She tossed the creature away and several bullets clattered against her breastplate; the gunners from the next roof over were still in it.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
She glanced at the gap between the buildings and understood why The Lord Commander had leapt between buildings; the gap was not insurmountable. The gap between their side of the street and this side of the street was much, much wider, and she could not imagine understanding the thought process where a jump of that distance could somehow be accomplished.
As she contemplated that gap, Arcene, Lynnabel, and Alysia had accomplished their objective before Orelia had time to leap the gap and do it herself. She’d have to fight them to prove to them that she was the strongest- again- but it would be worth it to see them squeal.
She picked up the rifle the little man had dropped and eyed it curiously. She had no experience with firearms, but the Lord Captain would want it, she assumed, and absently stuffed it behind her belt. She hopped down from her perch to the next building over and raised her eyebrows at what she saw; a gatling cannon that looked to have been stripped from one of the tall metal machines they’d fought back in the Manufactorium. It had somehow been mounted onto a tripod, and the belt feed went into some sort of box.She tugged at it, and although it was heavy, it seemed as though she could carry it. Lord Captain Aldric would be pleased, she thought to herself.
She turned to leave, and then took a long look at the street they’d just taken for themselves. There was a branching street that lead out of this ... neighborhood ... and into another cavern just beyond. From her sight-line, the rest of the city stretched out for miles.
*****
Arcene, Lynnabel, and Alysia watched as Daveth dragged himself up the cliff’s edge, a sheer drop into liquid rock a single misstep away. As soon as they could assist him, they grabbed onto him and hauled him upwards onto the ledge.
“Everything hurts.” He complained bitterly.
“Lord Commander, we’ve noticed a number of non-combatants in this area. What shall we do?” Arcene asked suddenly.
“Aldric hasn’t called for no quarter yet.” Daveth decided. “If he calls for it, then that’ll be what it’ll be.” He stated, and they nodded. “For now, let’s go down.”
They headed back across the stone bridge that covered the seething magma that slid by in the trench.
“You collect their guns?” Daveth asked, and Orelia nodded and passed him the rifles she picked up. He tucked them into his weapons pouch and waved his hands in a signal. The two cannon rolled out, followed by the second crank gun. The troops began falling into ranks as they eased out of the alcove they’d found themselves tucked into. The streets were deserted and empty, no sound but the seething, bubbling sound of boiling magma.
“So... was that it?” Daveth asked, and Aldric, moving to stand near him, shook his head.
“I wouldn’t believe that for a second.” He gestured at the golem.
Daveth jerked out the spear, and made it disappear as well. “All right. Let’s see what other horrors they’ve got to unleash on us.”
They headed down the street, eyeing the broad, flat stones that paved them. They turned down a side street that opened up into an avenue.
The Seventh Seal peered down into the vast chasm that opened up in front of them revealing street after street, building after building. To the left and the right, cubical buildings lined the sides of the street. Daveth pulled out Aldric’s spyglass and peered through it.
The cavern was crammed with streets, with buildings. The streets were filled with dwarves, tens of thousands of them, maybe even hundreds of thousands of them.
Aldric reached for his spyglass and glared up at Daveth when he discovered it missing from his belt.
“Asshole.”
“Look you bastard.” Daveth pointed out past the cavern dozens of miles across. Beyond that, they could see yet another cavern, and the faint outlines of buildings there, too.
Daveth took a breath, glanced down at Aldric, and handed the man his spyglass.
“So, who do we kill first?”
“There could be millions down there.” Morden muttered behind his facemask.
“And only three hundred of us.”
“We could just go in there and start killing.” Daveth offered. “We’d run out of food and ammunition- well, unless whatever they eat is edible- and just keep swinging our swords.”
“We could have the mages apport down us our food and water from the Tross.” Audra mentioned.
“You really think that’ll work?” Daveth asked
“It’s an idea. I didn’t say it was a good one. We could carve ourselves out a chunk of territory, but eventually we’d be overwhelmed.”
Daveth twisted back and waved Corwin and Nicola over.
“What’s the best way you’d fuck ‘em up?”
Corwin thought for a moment. “Collapse the Spire. It’d flatten the city.”
Daveth’s eyebrows rose at that. “Could your mages do it?”
The man barked a bitter laugh. “You’d need ten thousand mages to make that happen.”
Nicola waved at Aldric and gestured at the spyglass. Reluctantly, the captain handed it over.
“Seems like they’ve got a pool of magma there, in the center of town. We might be able to encourage that to erupt.”
“What’s the downside?” Aldric immediately asked.
“We’d have to be down there to trigger it.” She finished, and passed the glass back.
“Retreat?” Daveth asked.
“Reasonable, given the circumstances. Still, I want them to know we were here.” Aldric muttered, combing his beard with his fingertips. “How would we trigger an eruption?” He asked, and Nicola nodded. “Magic. The node seems to be right there in the magma. Corwin gave me the idea when we were using magic circles. We could set up a bunch that’d cause the flows to force back on themselves. An eruption would be inevitable at that point.”
Aldric laughed nastily. “They’d know we were here, all right.”
Morden spoke up, then.
“That seems like it’d be genocide, cap.” He paused, looking down into the city. “You sure you wanna walk down that road?”
Aldric shot him a look, and then immediately turned back to the city.
“I... think they’re already doing something with the magma, there.” Corwin muttered, his hand reaching out towards the pool of liquid rock in the center of the city.
“What?” Daveth asked. “What could they be doing-” He cut off as he leaned over the railing dangerously as the pool on the heart of the city ballooned upwards with a swelling bulge.
“The fuck is that?”
*****
A massive magma and stone arm erupted from the pool and slammed down, gobbets of liquid rock splattering everywhere. A head emerged next, somewhat lupine, but large enough to gulp down the entirety of the Seventh Seal. A second forelimb arced up out of the pool and slapped down.
The rest of the body of the magma-beast heaved itself up from the pool of magma, its skin cooling into blocky chunks of stone that glowed from an inner heat.
“Motherfucker.” Stronghammer gasped as it took its first wavering steps. Aldric eyed it through the spyglass.
“We’re fucked. It saw us.”
“Ice magic?” Corwin offered. “If we cool it down enough, it’ll just be a pile of rocks.”
“Can you do it?”
“I’ll get the whole fucking Ebon Hand on it.”
“Nicola, you’re a healer, right?” Daveth asked, and she nodded.
“Good. You hang back.”
Audra climbed up on Daveth’s shoulders and scanned the area. “If we keep it in the city, it’ll be a liability for them and a boon for us.” She slid down. “We need to move.”
Just then the magma-hound vomited a spray of searing hot liquid in an arcing jet that easily cleared the rooftops. Daveth scooped up Audra and bolted to the side; The Seventh Seal scattered as the wave of molten rock spattered everywhere.
Moore opened up with the cannons; the steel shot hammered the dog as the freshly captured gatling and the one remaining they had raked across the dog’s face. It launched another volley at them and the guns instantly went silent.
“Shit, that can’t be good.” Audra muttered in Daveth’s arms.
A flight of arrows arced out over the city towards the dog; the immense heat baking off it caused them to combust in the air before they reached the target.
The dog stomped inexorably towards them; Daveth spat a curse. “How did they know that we’d be there, from all the way over there?” He complained.
“Shut up and keep moving!” Audra urged.
The air erupted in front of the dog's face in an explosion of pyrotechnics that popped and fizzled in rainbows of color. The dog ignored them and plowed through streets, crushing buildings, hot chunks of stone dropping from its hide on screaming duergar.
“There!” Audra pointed over the railing; Daveth leapt without thinking, hitting the roof of a building in a roll as he struggled to protect Audra.
The dog was already at the avenue, paws on the railing as it lunged and snapped at whatever was left of the Seventh Seal.
Miraculously, bafflingly, a cannonblast went off and part of the hound’s face shattered.
“Daveth, there!” Audra pointed, and Daveth leapt across to the next building, Audra pointing the way.
A wave of ice suddenly coated the hound from nose to tail and then instantly boiled off to steam.
“Shit.” Daveth cursed. Audra pointed, and Daveth leapt to the next building.
A gun chattered to life and was silenced with a lunging bite.
“Daveth! There!” Audra pointed, and Daveth leapt.
Another sheet of ice encased the dog, and again it melted and boiled away to steam.
A sudden thunderbolt lanced through the steam, followed by the pitiful crack of pistol fire.
Again it was hit with ice, and again it flashed to steam.
“Daveth, doesn’t that look like a water tower to you?” Audra pointed next to the dog.
“I sure as fuck hope so.” He panted as he leaped again.
Derrik’s Templars battered the dog’s snout with their shields; The hound lapped them up and swallowed them whole.
Arrows continued to fall on the beast, flaring to pithy flames before they even had a chance to land.
Another wave of ice rolled over the molten hound and Audra yelled at Daveth to tip over the water tower.
He planted his feet and shoved, the water tower groaned and buckled as Audra fired arrow after arrow into its side to no effect.
Another cloud of steam, another thunderbolt danced across the magma hound’s flank.
The water tank tipped and slammed into the magma hound’s side, water boiled and splashed across its flanks as another wave of ice covered it.
The giant dog toppled over this time and Corwin, eyes bright leapt off the ledge after it, ice streaming from his hands, a scream as shrill as any woman’s from his throat.
The ice thickened, steamed, cracked, and still he forced ice down on it, shrieking.
Daveth tottered over and fell down as the dog exploded in a spray of ice-coated rocks; Corwin himself exploded, his flesh ripping off his body, his skeleton collapsing into its constituent bones.
Audra had heard of such things. Use magic too much, go past your abilities, and the magic overwhelmed you.
“Rally to the Seal!” A voice cried out.
Audra turned towards Daveth; he was completely limp. She scanned the city, looking for a way up onto that broad avenue. The building they were on trembled with the weight of the lava dog pressing against it, and slowly, inexorably, it collapsed.
*****
Aldric looked over the tattered remains of his command. The cannons were slag, the gatlings gone. He’d lost most of his troops. The Ebon Hand was gone. Tsubame was the only pirate left.
There were only a handful of infantry and archers. The cavalry was decimated. The scouts were obliterated. Where was Daveth?
The magma pool in the heart of the city ws swelling and bubbling again.
“Sound... sound the retreat.” He spat bitterly to Morden, who was nursing a shattered arm.