“You can’t call it that,” Rai said.
“Huh?” Ambrose said.
“You can’t call it ‘Indian’.”
“It’s on all the signs.”
“The right term is Native American. It’s like the Negritos back home,” Rai explained.
“Okay… I kinda get it,” Ambrose nodded.
“So, any luck with Spicy?”
“Nope.”
“Good, because you shouldn’t be trying to hook up with girls in the middle of a dangerous quest.”
Ambrose chuckled. “My experience has been the exact opposite. You definitely can and you definitely have more luck. I think it’s cause of the danger. You might consider it. You’ve been on a long cold streak.”
“I’ve had more important things to worry about. Undead before and now, slavers.”
“But what about after. You should at least lay down the ground work.”
“We don’t talk about after,” Rai frowned.
“Superstitious nonsense,” Ambrose waved a fork dismissively, splattering a bit of chili mac and cheese on Rai’s face.
“You—” Rai stiffened. “Putang!” he shot up from the bench. “We’re about to be attacked! Alert the camp!”
The rangers in the mess hall sprang into action. It was as though a malicious child had kicked open the top of ant’s nest for giggles.
Ambrose shoveled the last of his chili mac and cheese before rushing out after Rai. “What the hell!”
The ranger’s alarm system rang through out the reservation areas they had claimed.
“My spirits…”
“Yeah, the ones you set up outside the perimeter?”
“Several just warned me that fast, big and hairy things ran by them heading toward us.”
Ambrose cursed. He took out a shrunken animal head from one of the pouches at his belt. It crumbled to dust in his hand as he drew its power into his body. He raised his nose to the air and took a tentative sniff gagging immediately.
“Same smell as that night?” Rai said.
“Yup…” Ambrose grimaced, “tell the captain that I think that skunk ape theory is a good one.”
“You’ll probably find out first.”
Ambrose drew his Igorot axe from its sheath and a large caliber revolver from his holster. “I’ve got to go to my station.”
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
Ambrose reached the defensive position with time to spare, so he stuck his axe in the soft dirt and quickly absorbed power from several shrunken animal heads.
Speed, strength, agility, quickened movement and perception.
He did kill his enhanced sense of smell, however. It was too distracting.
“You ever try a person’s head?” Spicy said.
Ambrose regarded her with shock. The thought had occurred to him, but he’d never voice it out loud. Though he was a headhunter and historically they were known for taking and shrinking human heads that was a line he didn’t really see himself crossing.
“What? Obviously, I mean bad guys’ heads,” Spicy continued. “You should look into it. You could steal Skills or even spells.”
“Um… sure,” he nodded.
“Maybe one of these slavers. The captain probably won’t have a problem with that.”
Loud hooting accompanied by thrashing leaves and snapping branches interrupted his answer.
There was a fifty yard gap between the rangers in their defensive positions and the tree line.
Ambrose held the rear entrance to the earthworks bunker where Spicy and two other shooters waited to open fire through the narrow slits facing the tree line.
The building a few dozen yards behind the three bunkers had shooters on the roof and melee fighters on the ground currently staying in cover behind the small wall of raised earth.
This setup was repeated throughout the old reservation turned ranger base camp.
“What do you think we’re facing,” Corpse Flower said as he loaded a special bolt into his custom X-bow.
“Spiritwalker said it was skunk apes,” Ambrose said.
Corpse Flower cursed.
“You owe me 50!” Spicy crowed from where she aimed down the sight of her assault rifle. “I had it pegged from when you smelled them that first night, Creepy Chipmunk.”
“So, I should get some of that then?” Ambrose said.
Spicy only laughed.
The trees continued to shake as the hooting sounds seemed to grow louder and more numerous.
“I can smell them from here,” Tenor said from her position behind the .50 cal. “Almost as bad as Corpse Flower.”
“That was one time,” he muttered.
“What are they waiting for? I’m already intimidated,” Tenor said flatly.
All defensive positions hold fire until they attack! Captain Butcher’s voice crackled over the radio.
“We should hit them first. Take the initiative,” Corpse Flower said.
“That’s what we’re doing,” Ambrose tilted an ear to the sky. He gazed up, but couldn’t see anything. The clouds were thick and low on this day. Dark. Rain was on the horizon. He heard a bit of rumbling, but over that he heard the beating of enormous, leathery wings.
The tree line suddenly erupted in fire.
“Well… shit,” Spicy gaped.
“Boom!” Corpse Flower cheered.
All around the ranger base death rained from above.
Wyvern and drake riders dropped explosives onto their still hidden enemies.
“I hope those magic squigglies that friend of yours put up all over place will do their job. Otherwise we might’ve just let the slavers know we’re out here,” Tenor said.
“No worries, Lilah kept an all-powerful fog entity away with those squigglies. And that was when she was a little girl,” Ambrose said with pride in his fellow countryman… woman.
“Just saying,” Tenor muttered. “Here they come!”
The monsters charged out of the dense undergrowth, some with their thick, matted hair on fire.
Skunk ape was an apt description.
They resembled a great ape, if twisted into a more monstrous physical appearance. They were as big as gorilla’s but leaner. Sharp fangs promised death and clawed fingers tore up the ground as they charged across the open space.
The stench they gave off was enough to water the eyes at fifty yards.
Tenor had the ma deuce sing as she weaved a stream of bullets across the skunk apes like an old woman stitching a seam in a quilt.
Ambrose cut his enhanced hearing a bit too late, which left his head ringing and swimming.
A stupid oversight not to have ear protection like the other three.
Corpse Flower’s bolt exploded into an expanding green mist that melted flesh.
Spicy emptied her magazine in a few seconds and continued to fire for another three seconds before reloading.
The rangers in the other bunkers and the rooftop added to the withering fire cutting the skunk apes down by the dozen with every yard they covered while their fliers continued raining death from above.
Valentine guided Maverick into a wide, circling bank around the mass of charging skunk apes with a light pull on the reins.
The she-drake responded with perfect precision earned after years of training and practical experience.
Behind him in the second flight saddle, Griddle, sprayed bullets from his M249 SAW.
Valentine felt an urgent tap. He glanced over his shoulder to see Griddle flashing hand signals. He turned his gaze to the burning tree line. Beyond it the treetops shook.
More skunk apes.
He pulled on the reins.
Maverick leveled out from her bank and shot forward with a mighty beat of her wings.
Griddle readied a grenade while they flew threw the plume of smoke.
Valentine urged Maverick to drop elevation.
The treetops suddenly exploded with a spray of branches, leaves and skunk apes.
Valentine cursed as he yanked the reins back in desperation to regain altitude.
The skunk apes made what should’ve been an impossible leap.
Nearly fifty feet straight up.
Taken by surprise and jostled by the chains and straps securing him to the saddle, Griddle dropped the grenade without pulling the pin.
Valentine triggered their Speed Boost Skill.
Maverick shot forward, but a couple of skunk apes reached them.
The drake’s mouth snapped shut like a steel trap around a skunk apes torso, piercing with dagger-like teeth and crushing bone. Her forelimbs snatched a pair of skunk apes, one in each clawed grasp.
The monsters bit and punched at the drake, but her scales proved tougher.
Their weight, however, slowly dragged her toward the ground.
“Drop them, Girl!” Valentine yelled as he frantically wiped skunk ape blood from his goggles.
Maverick felt and understood Valentine’s thoughts more from the bond they shared than from the words that struggled to be heard in the loud chaos of a battlefield.
She discarded the dying skunk apes and climbed.
Grenades, then strafing, Valentine flashed hand signals over his shoulder.
Affirmative, Griddle relied.
Valentine brought Maverick around, but this time he kept her out of the skunk apes’ reach.
Back at the open field, Skyrat urged Neo Bahamut lower with the reins and through their bond. “Hold fire, we’re coming in low and hot,” he spoke into his throat mic to warn the rangers on the ground and the rangers seated behind him on the wyvern’s wide back.
A wyvern was the tank to a drake’s fighter jet.
Neo Bahamut loved nothing more than plowing into enemies, crushing them with powerful muscles and armor-like scales.
Skyrat brought Neo Bahamut down to a few feet off the ground and let the wyvern take it from there.
He snapped a skunk ape in half with a bite while smashing several with his chest and trailing hind legs. He whipped his long, spiked tail back and forth as he zipped across the open field killing several more before rising back into the sky with a powerful beat of his wings.
Skyrat loved how a wyvern could get the enemy coming and going.
And he hadn’t even had to use any Skills.
A tap on his shoulder.
More enemies, tree line, Kettleball, his co-pilot signaled.
He guided Neo Bahumut over so that the rangers riding him could drop more munitions.
Back at the bunkers individual skunk apes were beginning to breach the firing lines.
One landed heavily on the reinforced roof of Ambrose’s bunker. Thudding steps brought it to the rear entrance, only for it to eat an Igorot axe to the head. The heavy, concave blade sunk deep into the monster’s brain.
Ambrose had to plant a foot on the dead ape’s chest to pull his axe free.
He eyed the ape’s face with discomfort.
The eyes were almost human-like.
Another thud on the roof.
He shot the skunk ape as it landed in front of him.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
.44 magnum blasted through the monster’s face leaving behind a bloody, gaping hole with bits of brain, skull and teeth splattering against the dirt wall.
“How’s it looking?” he called back without taking his eyes off the bunker’s entrance.
“Like a horde mode!” Spicy said.
He heard the smile in her voice. He did like them crazy.
The afternoon turned out to be a long one for the rangers.
Captain Butcher sat at her desk taking reports as the sun slowly began its descent over the western horizon.
So, many skunk apes.
An impossible number if one considered the food needs of the typical predatory creature.
But, reality stared her in the face as it always did, so she wasn’t surprised.
“There’s a spawn zone somewhere out there,” Lt. Muttley said. “Might be a couple that we’re right in the middle off. Why haven’t the slavers dealt with them? We never let spawn zones exist for too long this close to our borders.”
“They’re using the monsters for their tournament,” Captain Butcher said without taking her eyes of the reports on her desk.
Plenty of casualties, but thankfully no KIA’s.
Ammunition was a problem.
And their entire complement of wyverns and drakes took injuries, nothing serious, which was, again, fortunate.
“Damned stinky apes,” Sgt. Brighteyes muttered as he entered the office.
“Sergeant?” Captain Butcher said.
“Sorry, sir, just that there’s too many to burn without risking concealment according to the girl,” Sgt. Brighteyes said.
“Lilah said it held through the battle,” Lt. Muttley said.
Sgt. Brighteyes shrugged.
“This is going to hurt our ambush op, Sir. One week isn’t enough time to even begin replenishing ammo and munitions. After the op we’ll be looking at around 40% of our small arms being as useful as clubs and rocks,” Lt. Muttley said.
“We’ll just need to lean heavier on arrows, bolts and spells,” Captain Butcher said. “Get me a personnel list by tomorrow. I want light duty for them so that they’re fresh for next week.”
“Understood,” Lt. Muttley saluted and left.
“Sergeant?”
“Yessir?”
“Please have Madalena come to my office. I need a word.”
“Er… yessir, right away!”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, sir… well… I don’t think she likes me.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem, Sgt. Brighteyes.”
“It’s only cause she can turn me into a pretzel and I’d like my limbs to work properly.”
“Dismissed.”
----------------------------------------
Georgia-Florida border, North of Jacksonville, December 14, 2036
The slaver kingdom convoy was led by two old military Humvees. One had a .50 Cal on the turret, while the other had a 40mm grenade launcher.
Naturally, they had to go.
Ophrys, Ranger Scout, acted as the coordinating spotter from atop a drake circling miles overhead. High enough that any eyes that spotted them in the clouds would assume they were a bird. Telescopic Vision combined with another set of Skills relayed the precise location of the convoy and all the vehicles positioning as it snaked southward on the interstate.
In the distance to her southwest, hidden behind an embankment along the interstate, was a small cadre of artillery mages and their escorts.
The class was only a few years old. Discovered or perhaps created during the height of the undead war.
These mages specialized in combining their spells and mana to create more powerful versions of the typical attack spell greatly enhancing range and damage potential.
They began to cast as Ophrys relayed coordinates.
A mile away a large orb of ice magic shattered upon the two lead Humvees encasing them and the slavers inside in a mound of ice.
The trailing vehicles slammed on the brakes but didn’t have enough time to avoid crashing.
The rest screeched to a halt and immediately crossed the median to use the northbound side of the interstate.
A second orb barred their path.
Before the convoy could backtrack two more orbs completely sealed them in.
Slave soldiers poured out of old military troop trucks to take up defensive positions. Shields and spears out front with ranged fighters behind.
Slavemasters barked orders while protected behind magic shields cast by their enslaved bodyguards.
Non-collared fighters spread out behind the lines.
The typical slaver force tended to have a 10:1 ratio of enslaved to free people.
This particular convoy had 500 of the former to roughly 50 of the latter with the remaining few dozen comprised of the masters and noncombat personnel.
Clouds of smoke suddenly engulfed the embankments on both sides of the trapped slaver convoy.
Arrows and bolts whizzed out a moment later.
Explosive ones knocked holes in the lines of slave soldiers.
Acidic ones forced them to cast their shields aside lest the liquid ate through their arms.
Gas ones stung their eyes and forced them to their knees, coughing uncontrollably.
The slavemasters exhorted their slaves ferociously.
That was the thing about the collars. It made a person incapable of breaking. The pain meant nothing. There was no fear. The only thing in their minds was the happiness that came with obeying their masters.
The slave soldiers that were still capable of physical movement charged into the smoke heedless of the danger.
Captain Butcher had taken that into account.
Her mandate had been to do her best to avoid casualties to the collar-wearing soldiers so long as it didn’t endanger ranger lives.
The rangers had already melted away from their positions.
Illusion spells and faked-voices Skills filled the shrouded areas with confusion.
Slave soldiers stabbed spears into bodies of light.
They wasted Skills on shadowy figures.
And in one case a winking young woman that turned into a small log with a loud pop after taking a spear to the chest.
Captain Butcher directed Skyrat to take his wyvern to the rear of the convoy. Her Skill, Company: Seamless Coordination kept the chances for friendly fire down to nearly zero. “A single truck with our targets is trying to get around the northbound barricade. Skyrat, keep it in the party,” she said into her throat mic.
“Copy that,” Skyrat replied.
The young ranger practically dropped his wyvern on top of the big troop transport.
The driver slammed to a halt before hitting the enormous winged beast.
Perched precariously on the grassy embankment, the truck threatened to tip over to its side.
“Skyrat, don’t let it fall!”
The wyvern used its powerful head and neck to brace the truck and keep it steady.
“Secure the targets and move them to safety!”
The squad of rangers on the back of the wyvern jumped off and rushed the truck.
The two slavers in the cab threw out their weapons and held up their hands as the rangers circled the truck.
Captain Butcher took a moment to watch her men and women quickly ushering the bound people out to lead them behind the embankment.
She saw the whole battlefield with the near perfect awareness through the eyes and ears of her rangers.
A large chunk of the slave soldiers were busy fighting nothing inside the smoke.
The slavemasters were arrogant in their perceived superiority. They had been unchallenged for too long. Gunfire, arrows, bolts and spells fired into the smoke, heedless of their own soldiers.
A few turned their fire to the icy mounds blocking their way.
There was no coordination.
“Move in.”
A second wyvern dived out of the sky, slamming onto the roof of an SUV that was serving as cover for what appeared to be the lead slavemaster judging by the apparent quality of his bodyguards and the large number of slave soldiers that he surrounded himself with.
The wyvern screeched as it bit a slaver down to his waist. The man’s scream was still on his lips when the wyvern swallowed the top half of his body.
Ambrose leapt from the wyvern’s back with a loud war cry to bury his Igorot axe blade through an uncollared neck. He darted through the middle of the enemy formation with all the quickness of a jittery chipmunk, slashing with the axe and stabbing with a long knife, never staying in one place for more than a split-second.
The rest of the rangers were a step behind him.
“Taunting!” Oatmilk called out. “Bulwark!”
Everything the slavers threw out went to him and his massive tower shield.
The shield’s metal coating cracked and failed. The stout wood base barely held.
“Go! I can’t take another one like that!” he cried out. His arm felt broken. “I’m too old for this shit,” he muttered.
“Don’t say that!” Curious darted out from behind the big man with a knife twirling around each index finger. “Duplicate Knife Throw.” Two became four. One found a slaver’s eye. Another found a neck. The last two were intercepted by slave soldiers at the cost of grievous injury.
Curious cursed. “My bad! Sorry…”
“Never mind that, ranger,” Sgt. Useful said. “Our safety comes first.” The highest level mage in the attacking force hurled spells with precision and power.
Slave soldiers and slaver mages could only defend.
The slavemaster’s face displayed a mixture of fear and fury. The former at what was obviously a losing battle, even to him. The latter at the audacity that people dared to attack him. A nobleman. The first son of the third most powerful noble in the New American Republic.
“Damn it!” Sgt. Useful snapped. “I don’t like the look on that shithead’s ratface. They’re supposed to have an ability to enrage their slaves. Is this one high enough level?” she spoke more to herself than the ranger squad around her even as she continued to bombard the magic shields protecting the slavemaster. “Panda!” she barked.
“Sir?” Sketchy Panda appeared at his side.
“Your mind whammy goes through magic shields, right?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Use it on that bunch around the slavemaster,” Useful pointed. “Multicast: Fireball.” Three fireballs shot out from her hand in quick succession.
Sketchy Panda focused ignoring the explosions that rocked the air. He thought of the appropriate words for the situation. His type of magic wasn’t as straightforward as the standard mage. There was a necessary feel to its casting. Themes needed to be adhered closely to. The better the words the more powerful the effects. The more precise the words hewed to his intent the more the effects were what he intended them to be.
“Witchcraft: Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.”
Good enough.
Close enough.
A glowing spectral tome book appeared in his hands.
The pages flipped on their own.
The pages suddenly tore loose and flew toward the men and women behind the magic shields.
They passed through and adhered to each face.
“They’ll only forget for a few seconds!” he warned.
“Good enough. Ambrose get in there and make sure that slavemaster can’t give orders!” Sgt. Useful barked. “The rest of you back him up!”
The rangers charged as the magic shields vanished.
Looks of confusion appeared on faces of the slavers and the slave soldiers, but only for a moment.
That moment was enough.
Ambrose darted through the midst headed for the slavemaster.
Curious’ knives sprouted out of a pair of slavers baring the path.
“In the Zone!” Wet Dreams. “Sweeping Strikes!” he bludgeoned everyone in a wide arc in front of him as he ran into the enemy formation.
“Confusion Aura,” Oatmilk said.
The slavers and the slave soldiers acted slower.
A slave soldier stabbed a slaver in the back.
A slaver mage cast a magic shield that blocked a blow meant for Wet Dreams’ back.
The slavemaster was too high leveled to be affected for long. He drew a rapier and a pistol.
Ambrose was quicker with the stolen attributes of a forest rodent.
Bang!
His revolver barked.
The slavemaster swayed to one side, impossibly quick.
Improved Dodge. Greater Enhanced Reflexes.
“Triple thrust!”
The rapier snaked out once but struck three times in quick succession.
Ambrose practically ran right into it.
The first strike dented his chestplate.
The second pierced it.
The third drove the tip through tough, padded clothing and into the flesh of his shoulder.
He drove his Igorot axe upward from right to left on the counter.
“Expert Riposte,” the slavemaster sneered.
The clang of steel meeting steel was loud in Ambrose’s enhanced hearing. His right arm flung to the side, almost sending him into a spin.
“Heartseeker Thrust!”
The impossibly quick blade sought the center of his chest like a viper.
That insignificant forest rodent saved his life by giving him just enough agility to slip and dodge.
The blade scored a line across his cheek and tore through his ear as it slipped beneath his helmet.
He darted back.
The slavemaster took aim with his pistol.
Ambrose was a hair quicker with his.
Shots fired.
Shots exchanged.
Both men too quick to eat a bullet despite the close range.
Ambrose dropped the revolver to reach into one of the pouches on his belt.
“Triple Thrust!” the slavemaster used the momentary distraction to strike.
The same shoulder, right through the hole.
The blade ground into bone.
But, Ambrose already found what he was looking for.
His newest addition to his shrunken head collection.
Great strength surged through his body along with a terrible odor.
Though a tenth of the full skunk ape’s, it was still strong enough to sting the nose and water the eyes.
Ambrose grabbed the rapier blade and ripped it out of the gagging slavemaster’s hand.
He lunged in and severed the man’s left hand at the wrist causing the pistol to drop to the ground.
He grabbed the man by the throat with a grip that could crush coconuts and placed the tip of his Igorot axe to the side of the man’s head.
“Tell them to drop their weapons and surrender or you’re dead,” he growled.
The slavemaster spat in Ambrose’s eye.
He blinked as though it was nothing.
“Dead it is…” he pressed the axe point until it drew blood.
“Wait… okay,” the slavemaster wilted. He cleared his throat. “My slaves… Die for your mas—”
“Putang!” Ambrose snapped. He dropped his axe and choked the words out of the man’s mouth. “You asked for this.” He took the man’s tongue between his fingers and pulled.
In the end without the higher level slavers the slave soldiers couldn’t put up a fight against the rangers.
They were disarmed and bound as rangers came out of the smoke to lend a hand to the squads fighting on the interstate.
Captain Butcher oversaw the separation of the enslaved soldiers and the surviving slavers.
“Administer the substance,” she ordered.
The rangers went through the ranks of bound enslaved soldiers and anointed them with the liquid given to them by Cal.
The effect was nearly instantaneous.
They dropped into a deep, magically induced coma.
As for the much battered and abused people in the transport trucks.
They were the reason for both the convoy and the ranger operation.
People taken from communities throughout the region, bound for the auction houses in Miami.
“Listen up, pay attention, no questions,” she addressed the hundred plus people. “I’m going to need some drivers. We’re going to take you back up north. We’ve got an agreement with Atlanta. They’ll provide food, water, protection while we wait and see what we can do about getting you back to your old homes if that’s what you want. Alternatively, I’m authorized to inform you that Atlanta is willing to take you in on a permanent basis as long as you agree to live by their rules. You’re also invited to move to our community under similar conditions. Details of that will be provided at a later date. Make sure you register your information when you get to Atlanta. Of course, you are free to go to your homes right away. We will provided vehicles if possible, however, you will not have an escort in this scenario. You will have an escort to Atlanta. Thank you. Anyone willing to drive, please speak to Sgt. Useful,” she gestured to the woman beside her. “The rest of you, please stay together and wait.”
Captain Butcher oversaw the rest of the mop up.
The handful of surviving slavers were already on their way back to base camp hanging underneath Neo Bahamut in uncomfortable harnesses.
The remaining wyvern and two drakes were going to accompany the convoy back north to Atlanta.
The rangers needed to drive and provide ground bound protection for the freed people and the unconscious enslaved would need a quick and safe-ish method of travel to get back to base. What was safer then a big, dangerous, flying beast.
They crammed people into vehicles and sent the convoy on its way.
“What about the bodies?” Sgt. Useful said.
“There are Skills and spells that allow the dead to tell their stories,” Captain Butcher nodded. “The river is close. Have the drakes drop them there. They’ll either be taken out to sea or be eaten.”