Now, Tennessee
Cal ripped the stout wooden doors off their hinges.
The screech of the rent iron echoed into the fort.
He could tell that the kids inside were terrified, yet they all grimly readied themselves for their last stand.
They trusted in Ms. Teacher and her words that none of them would die but the fake goblins looked and felt so real. And hadn’t they seen several of their classmates clubbed to unconsciousness?
Every one knew that was why one wore helmets in battle.
Why weren’t they wearing helmets?
Why didn’t they have weapons?
Cal withdrew his gaze from their surface thoughts. He had to be fair. The horde lord didn’t have mental powers. He just had dark and fell magics. Speaking of which.
“Surrender and I will grant you safe passage,” he called out. Had to play the role.
“Fuck off, old man!” a boy’s voice shot right back.
He snorted.
“Alright, not-goblins… begin the assault. Remember, flats and butts only. No stabbing and biting.”
The fake goblins poured into the entry way.
He knew that the kids had set up a trap.
Hot oil rained down on the first group of fake goblins.
“Fall back!”
Fireballs fell from the murder holes above.
A dozen screaming fake goblins went silent as the blaze scorched them in seconds.
Why did she have to make them scream like that? Wasn’t the stench of their too-realistic skin and flesh enough to traumatize the kids?
He sniffed the air.
At least she hadn’t simulated piss and crap.
He smothered the flames and ordered the fake goblins forward again. “Shielders… testudo formation.” That was what that was called right?
Apparently, there was something lost in the language.
Shield-bearing goblins did move to the front of the mass. However, they failed to do so in any semblance of a formation.
“Shields forward on the front line. The rest of you hold them over your heads,” he sighed.
No more attacks met them.
They reached an iron gate.
He ripped it out of the wall and let it crash to the floor on the other side… carefully.
The fake goblins advanced only to be met by a cloud of white powder.
“Where’d they get flour?” he sighed. He knew what was coming next.
More fire spells sparked a huge explosion.
He was down to less than thirty fake goblins.
“Attack…”
The fake goblins spread out into the side passages from the great hall.
Tunnels and hallways were interspersed with closed doors leading into rooms.
There was nothing more brutal than close combat in confined spaces. It was a real knife fight. Dogs in the trenches. Tigers in the jungle. So on and so forth.
Cal watched everything closely to make sure that the fake goblins stuck to his orders.
Children fired spells from one end of a long corridor then ducked back around the corner as the surviving fake goblins gave chase.
The ambush was perfectly set up.
They rounded the corner right into a barrage of magic attacks.
In another area the fake goblins finally succeeded in battering a barred door down only to find an empty room. When they turned to search another room one of the kids dropped her concealment spell. The two other kids with her opened up with their magics.
And so fell a handful of fake goblins.
The best… er… worst action took place inside what looked like a lord’s council chambers.
The expansive space had a large round table in the middle with filled book shelves against two of the walls.
An enormous fireplace was set into the far wall. The roaring fire crackled and spat sparks as a kid standing next to it stoked it with gestures.
“They’re gonna break through!”
“Shields up front. Fire at will.” Emma’s voice was weak. She remained standing solely due to Jennylyn’s support.
Kids cast translucent shields just in time for the door to burst open in a shower of jagged splinters.
One thin, long piece was headed straight for a gap between shields and into the kid standing there concentrating on his attack spell.
Cal nudged it with a thought and sent it swerving through the thick knot of children to strike the back wall.
“Use mage hands,” Emma wheezed. “Bring the bookshelves down on their heads.”
One second.
Two.
The first fake goblins slammed into the mage shields. Battering them with crude weapons.
The shields wavered and began to crack under the assault.
Ghostly hands appeared and grasped the nearest bookshelf.
Cal saw the strain on the children’s faces. Saw the blood begin to leak from their noses. “Been there…” he nodded sympathetically.
With a collective roar the children toppled the heavy shelf filled with heavy books.
Cal wondered if they were only for display. He didn’t recognize the titles. Books from another world sounded interesting.
The avalanche buried the first rank of fake goblins.
The rest swarmed over the top to continue the assault.
One shield shattered a few seconds later.
A fake goblin leered. Sharp teeth gleamed in the dancing fire light. It leapt toward the nearest kid arm cocked back to land a devastating blow with the flat of its rusty cleaver-like blade.
One of the kids pointed at it.
A harsh yellow beam shaped like a ragged knife blade materialized. It lanced into the fake goblin’s chest with a sickening squelch.
A mixture of triumph and disgust mingled on the kid’s face.
The rest of the shields broke.
The fake goblins were too quick.
They concussed kids left and right. Taking more than they lost.
“Rupes! Watch out!”
The boy in question turned too late. He had just sent a fake goblin to the grave with a touch that sent freezing magic into its eyes through to its brain.
The butt of a spear conked him right between the eyes.
Cal winced.
He heard the crack of a broken nose.
Rupert wasn’t out yet.
Unfortunately, it was his first experience of true pain. He wasn’t going to be able to concentrate enough to fire of another spell.
Rand tried, but his magic missile got intercepted by another fake goblin’s shield.
The spear’s butt descended once eliminating Rupert.
It looked like the kids were running out of juice.
“Everyone, come to me!” Emma called.
A handful made it through the fake goblins.
Shields went up around the last remnants of the defenders.
Cal regarded the boy doing something with the fire place.
Uh oh.
They were either dangerously reckless or they really believed Ms. Teacher when she had said that death wasn’t a possibility in the crucible.
For his part, Cal didn’t.
He gathered the unconscious kids in the chamber and placed a telekinetic shield over them. He also readied one over the boy and another over the kids huddled behind their magic shields.
“Do it, Willy!” Emma rasped.
The boy by the fireplace sucked the roaring flames into a ball in between his hands. He pointed it toward the fake goblins and let it loose.
An inferno filled the chamber. Burned the books, the shelves, the table and most of the fake goblins.
A few had ducked behind their crispier comrades.
Cal’s telekinetic shields protected the children from their foolishness. He had just about had enough.
The last handful of fake goblins advanced on the kids.
They didn’t have anything left besides the magic shields.
Cal caught a glint in the air. Then he saw the tiny clay golem soaring through the air.
Emma pointed toward the fake goblins.
A ghostly mage hand appeared for the clay golem to leap off and plunge the long needle into a fake goblin’s eye.
More mage hands joined the first acting as platforms for the clay golem to dance around the fake-goblins faces.
The red-slicked needle plunged into an ear.
Another eye.
Up a nostril.
The ordeal was finally over.
Cal walked through the ruined doorway and snuffed out the fires with a thought. He noted the kids trying to sneak up behind him.
“Congratulations, I guess. This has been terrible display of child abuse, but you’ve all done pretty good. Very brave.”
“Aren’t you going to attack?” Jennylyn said.
“Nope,” he sighed.
“Don’t trust him!” Rand warned. “He can’t take all of us!”
“Young man, you have a lot to learn about what a real fight is. Anyways. This crucible,” he rolled his eyes, “is over. For what is a horde lord without a horde?”
A hand shot up.
Emma.
“The polite young lady has an answer. Go ahead.”
“Um… a…” she hesitated, “lord…”
“Absolutely,” he pointed at her. “Good leadership. That was very reckless though, with the explosion.”
“We won?” Rand regarded Cal with suspicion.
“That’s up to your teacher. Though… don’t get too cocky, kid,” he didn’t need to read Rand’s mind to see what the little brat was thinking, “if this was a real battle. You’re going to have to bury,” he looked around, “21 of your classmates. Actually, nope, none of you would be around to do the burying. If it wasn’t for me that stunt at the end would’ve finished the rest of you off.”
“Just us in the room,” Rand pointed at the kids coming in from the hallway, “they’d be alive.”
“Nope, they be dead too when my next army came.”
“You don’t have one. We killed them all.”
“I’m the horde lord. It’s in the name. That means I’d have reinforcements.”
“Yeah, well… so do we!”
“No you don’t. You have one class and they’re all here.”
“That’s not fair you can’t just make up new rules in the middle of the game!”
“Rand,” Cal eyed the brat, “this isn’t a game.” He waved as he left the chamber. “Alright, game’s over.”
Ms. Teacher agreed.
The fake goblin bodies vanished. Followed by the chamber. Then the entire fort.
In a few seconds they stood in the middle of a grassy field.
True to her word the children that had been knocked out of the battle earlier stood next to her on the sidelines.
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They looked to be in perfect health to all of Cal’s senses.
The ones that fell in the keep slowly roused from unconsciousness blinking in shock then amazement.
There was no pain at least not physical.
Cal knew that some if not all would have nightmares over the following days.
“Trade fulfilled?”
“Your performance was adequate. You coddle too much. True enemies will not be as kind.”
There was something like sadness in those too-large eyes that sparkled with the stars in the night sky.
“They can learn that when they’re older.”
“Age is not a shield from the horrors across the worlds.”
“I’ll bring you enslaved and the collars.” He didn’t want to debate. He wanted to move forward.
“As bargained. I offer you additional information that will be helpful in your Quest.”
“What Ques—”
A loud chime rang in his ears.
He dismissed the notice for later.
“You’re not going to explain that, are you?”
“Why ask a question you already know the answer to?”
“Okay… what do you have for me.”
“Two places. I strongly suggest you travel to them before you seek battle with the slaver kingdom.”
“I should just fly straight there. Kill the king. Free the people.”
“You would kill one and in doing so doom ten thousand.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“No… it is a suspicion. To learn the truth I will need to examine the enslaved and their collars.”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“The first is to the south of our location. May I?” she gestured to his head.
He nodded and cautiously opened a sliver of space in his mental walls.
An image appeared in is thoughts.
A large sign.
Blocky, white letters on green.
“Atlanta?”
“You must go there first. You must depart within the hour.”
“Okay… and that’s it? No other hints. You do know that since we’re sorta working together on this it’s in your best interests that I get as much information as possible. Being cryptic is not good.”
“The impertinence of youth.” She regarded him with mild disappointment. “The second location.”
He saw another sign.
He didn’t recognize the name of the city or town.
“In Mexico?”
“You do not need to go there immediately.”
“Why there?”
“I believe you will find something beneficial toward your Quest.”
“Okay. Thank you for your assistance. I will return with enslaved. Our goal is to free them, understand? Learning how the collars work is complementary to that singular goal.”
“Of course. None shall be in fetters without just cause.”
“Also,” he lowered his voice, “these kids are going to need emotional support. Making them strong magically is pointless if you make their minds brittle.”
“Do not lecture me on my purpose. I have created many great individuals over millennia. My students are strong and resilient.”
“Just making sure.”
He glanced at Nila, who glared at him.
“Let’s just go,” she said.
“Big boom!” the little guy threw his hands into the air.
He reached down to pick him up but Nila beat him to it.
She stomped off toward their RV parked in the school lot.
“This is your fault,” he said.
Ms. Teacher regarded him with mild amusement.
----------------------------------------
Now, Atlanta
The drive south to Atlanta was done in frosty silence. Except for the little guy, bless his heart, he had no idea that Nila was mad at Cal.
A few encounters with monsters didn’t do anything to cool the one-sided tension.
“None of them got permanently hurt. I went out of my way to make sure that nothing too traumatic happened,” he tried to explain for the dozenth time.
“You let institutionalized child abuse occur. Worse you participated.” Nila’s tone was frosty.
“She was going to put them through that regardless.”
“You could’ve tried to stop her.”
“I’m not fighting someone that can create pseudo-life out of nothing, matter out of nothing. At least, not until I know what she’s really capable of. Besides, she’s teaching the kids pretty good. They’re, like, the equivalent of people a handful of levels higher. Plus, she’s protecting the town. The kids love her. The whole town loves her. I didn’t find anything weird or suspicious in any of that. It seems genuine. Besides, this slave kingdom is a bigger problem. You have to agree with that, right?”
“Yeah, but still… those kids were barely ten.”
“I agree, but it’s the world now. We teach our kids to fight at a young age.”
“Not like that!”
“Maybe, but this might be better. You weed out the ones that aren’t meant to fight. They can then be guided to their true passions. Listen, we took my nieces to kill their first monsters at around that age. They fought and survived some crazy stuff. There were a lot of close calls. I wonder if they had that same kind of training would they have been safer?”
“And look at what they did.”
“Yeah, okay, so them and their friends are stupid reckless. Remy and Megan will track them down before they get in real trouble.”
Nila looked back to the sleeping little guy strapped into his car seat. “Is he going to have to go through the same things?”
“We have time to make things better.”
“Do we? Cannibals. A Zalthyss cult. A fishman cult. The Cabal. A city of undead. Now a slave kingdom.”
“Don’t forget the bat people?”
“This isn’t funny.”
“Sorry… I’m actually hopeful that the bat people won’t be an automatic threat. They seemed reasonable and they’re stuck in that cave system for awhile.” Cal stared out at the open road. There had been a lot of rusted vehicles that he had to push to the side along with the occasional monster that jumped out of the overgrown foliage on the side of the road or swooped down from the sky. “We’re doing good work. Took care of the Deep Azure. Of Zalthyss. Now on to the Vitiator, his cabal and the slaver scum.”
“The fishmen are still out there.”
“Oceans are huge…”
“The cannibals are still fighting the church.”
“I see that as a win. They’ll weaken each other for us to finally smash them later.”
“What about all that other stuff around the world that Eron mentioned?”
“Hey… it’ll be fine,” he rubbed her arm.
She didn’t try to move away.
Progress.
“That’s why we’re traveling, right? We find allies. Build alliances and such. Unless you’d rather I do like Eron and fly all over. Only stopping long enough to say hi and grab some rest in between putting down the next evil that rears its head.”
“You better not leave me and the little guy alone.”
“And I won’t, which is why I’m trying to play nice with the ancient elf lady Archwizard.”
“You didn’t?” her eyes widened.
“I did,” he smirked. “Turns out her mind magics weren’t quite up to my level after all. Just had to be super stealthy about picking out that bit of information. It’s also why I think she’s on the level… at least on this. She genuinely wants to turn those kids into archmages, archwizards, archwarlocks… well, you get the point. And I figure that it might be a good thing that they’ll remember me from that ridiculous crucible and those matches.”
“Yeah, as the mean old man that hurt them and made them cry.”
There was less of an edge to Nila’s voice then there had been all day.
“They’ve got to learn not to cry in the middle of battle,” he shrugged.
The tension in the RV ebbed away as they talked of lighter things and future plans.
Nila expressed excitement at traveling to Mexico. She had never been, but had always wanted to visit.
Cal had been to Tijuana once back in college.
The less said about that the better.
She was in the middle of pressing him to spill when he suddenly slammed on the breaks.
They were about an hour north of Atlanta.
“What the hell?” Nila regarded the hand-shaped dent she had put in the dashboard when she reflexively braced herself. “That’s your fault…”
Cal cursed.
“Language!”
“Get in your armor. Get ready to drive back the way we came.”
“Cal, what is it? We’re not leaving you.”
“If it was just you, I’d agree,” he glanced to the sleeping little guy. They really needed to give him a name. He could talk, maybe it was time to ask him what he wanted. “There’s a huge battle going on ahead.” He grabbed a plain black baseball cap and a black cloth face mask from the back.
“Your gun?”
He shook his head. “I want to retain my anonymity until I know more about the situation.” He already knew that one side had to be from the slave kingdom. He saw the collars. Their thoughts were incongruous. They didn’t fit the situation. He didn’t know the other side. Eron had told him a little bit about his travels through the former USA from years ago. There had been a story about what his brother had gotten involved with in this general area. “Just wait here.” He sent a powerful thought radiating out in all directions. “Nothing will bother you for awhile. I should be back way before that wears off.”
“Be careful, Love,” Nila kissed him.
“You too, love you.”
He stepped out of the RV and up into the sky.
Battles always smelled terrible.
You had the acrid smell of fire, natural and magical, mingled with all sorts of esoteric aromas from the dozen spells criss-crossing the air. You didn’t really need to add the stench of human waste.
The defenders had a five to one edge.
About 500 fighters were close to encircling 100 fighters, a pair of buses and a few other vehicles that the latter had used to reach just outside of Atlanta.
The collars on a majority of the beleaguered force were what drew his eyes.
He probed the enslaved’s thoughts and was disturbed to gain confirmation on what he had first picked up on several miles ago.
Without exception, every enslaved individual was happy. Even as they died for those that put them in chains, there was no other place in the world they would’ve rather been in at that moment.
He itched to break the collars but remembered Ms. Teacher’s warning.
He needed to stop the battle quickly.
But how to do it without revealing his true self?
He remained hovering above the battlefield.
The combatants down below suddenly found their strikes missing by the barest margins, their spells going astray.
“Please stop.”
Everyone heard him.
They hesitated as he descended into view.
Each side backed away from each other eyeing him warily.
Barked orders to the fighters.
Demands directed to Cal.
Their thoughts laid bare to him.
He nudged them just a bit away from the red rage, away from the rush of adrenaline.
One huge man stepped into focus.
He had a huge mane of curly black hair and a thick beard, which made him resemble a lion. Tattoos covered the dark surface of his bare torso.
One had to watch out for anyone that went into battle without a shirt let alone any other kinds of protection.
Cal had already scanned the surface of the man’s thoughts.
Around 30 years old.
No class.
A bruiser. A brick.
The result of a magical ritual years ago. The sacrifice of dozens in the past then hundreds more over the years.
The Atlanta community’s single greatest protector.
Cal knew of the man, though vaguely, from Eron’s story.
The man should be fairly reasonable.
“I’m here to—” he began.
The car rocketed toward him like a missile.
The superstrong man had thrown it at him.
He let it fly right by him because he wasn’t in the exact position that he let them think he was.
Anonymity was great but not at the cost of unnecessary violence.
He descended ripping every weapon out of each fighters’ hands.
He then put the enslaved to sleep and held the slavers in place.
“I’m not on their side,” he addressed Atlanta’s defenders.
“I thought you were him, but you look different,” the muscular man said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied. “But I’m not here to hurt anyone… except, maybe them,” he jabbed a thumb back toward the slavers.
“Whoever you are we can offer you anything want!” one of the slavers said.
“Quiet you,” he shut the odious woman’s mouth shut. “Listen, I want to help them.”
The muscular man immediately knew what he meant. “You can’t. Those collars ain’t no joke.”
“Yeh, bruh,” a younger woman stepped up to stand in front of the muscular man. She was almost as tall but about a third as wide. “You ain’t got nothing to do for them.”
The muscular man stepped in front of her with a sigh. “We tried everything before. Ain’t nothing worked. The magic’s too strong.”
Cal eyed one of the collars.
“You best not try nothing less you wanna blow the poor bastard’s head off,” the young woman said as she tried and failed to get back in front of the huge man.
“Easy enough to break. I can do it with my bare hands. Ain’t gonna make that mistake again,” the muscular man said. “Tried putting a shield around them. That kept them alive but their minds were never the same. Either they went crazy or they went vegetable.”
“Well… what about him?” Cal pointed to one of the slavers.
The man was trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible which was impossible considering Cal was holding him immobile.
Cal walked over and grabbed the man by the screw of his neck. “You tried using this?” he pulled the metal baton from the man’s belt. It was as thick as a thumb and a little shorter than an arm.
“Control rod. Yeh, bruh, we done tried. Ain’t no good. Only slave lords and masters use em. Anyone else and the poor bastards go crazy or… boom,” the young woman opened her fingers wide.
“Slaver… is that true?” he held the man’s double-chinned, pasty face up to his own. “Only you can set those people free?”
“No… only the King,” the slaver hissed.
“Guess you’re useless then,” he tossed the man to the ground.
“If you ain’t an enemy then I’ll kindly ask you to get going,” the muscular man said. “We got business to take care of.”
The defenders picked up their weapons from where Cal had dropped them and cautiously advanced toward the slave kingdom’s force.
“What are you going to do?”
He already knew the answer but he wanted to force them to say it out loud.
The muscular man looked down at him with wary determination.
The defenders eyed the grim and unpleasant business in front of them.
Many hoped that perhaps, this once, the stranger would somehow spare them their grisly duty.
“The slavers get interrogated. The ones that ain’t complete shits get prison and maybe a chance to redeem themselves. The ones that are get executed. The slaves… they get the only freedom anyone can give them,” the muscular man said.
“I don’t care about the slavers, but here’s a deal. I take the enslaved so you don’t have to kill them and you share everything that you know about the slave kingdom. And maybe we work together to end them.”
The big man mulled it over for an uncomfortably long time.
“Aight… I ain’t in charge, but you can take em. You’ll have to come back later for word on the rest of your deal.”
They shook on it.
Cal sensed that the big man was relieved that he wasn’t going to have to kill any enslaved people today.
The muscular man’s bear paw-like hand completely engulfed Cal’s hand and he had to use telekinesis to bolster his strength up to an equal level.
Grudging respect emanated from the muscular man.
“The King will put you and everyone you care about in chains. You’ll serve and you’ll be happy!” the slaver man spat.
The muscular man reached down and picked the slaver up by the throat. “I don’t know what you can do for them poor bastards,” he eyed the sleeping enslaved, “but maybe if you keep that thing close to them nothing bad will happen,” he nodded at the control rod in Cal’s hand. “As for this trash… I’ve interrogated plenty of his kind.”
“Yeh… we don’t really need that doughy white boy,” the young woman grinned.
“Hear that, slaver shit… we don’t need you. You ain’t worth nothing.”
“I’m a Slave Lord! I can pay you! Make you richer than you could ever hope to be!”
“Lord?” Cal said.
“Yeh, like one of dem things. Masters ain’t lords, but lords be masters,” the young woman said.
“Ain’t none of that complicated logic stuff,” the muscular man shook his head. “There are slave lords and slave masters. They’re all masters. Least that’s what they like to think of themselves as. Ain’t that right?” he tightened his grip around the slaver’s neck and lifted him so that they were eye to eye. “Naw… I forgot. I don’t care what you got to say.”
“Ni—”
The rest of the slaver’s vile words vanished almost as quickly as the man did into the sky.
The muscular man eyed Cal with a challenge.
“They attacked you and they’re slavers,” he shrugged. “Maybe just don’t torture cause that doesn’t give you good intel anyways.”
“We ain’t no CIA,” the muscular man snorted. “What you gonna do with the slaves?”
Cal glanced at the buses.
There were less than 50 enslaved left alive.
He sent Nila a telepathic message.
It was only a three hour drive back to Ms. Teacher.
With luck they’d be back there before sunset.