Back near the central control unit, Howard and Death’s Dancer had built a wall using bodies as bricks and blood as mortar.
Drake gagged at the stench of piss and shit.
He kept his distance firing spells with his spear at the stray monster or slaver that managed to escape the kill zone.
Sure, he had been in battles with other humans, but his kill count could be counted on one hand.
Monsters were easy.
People were not.
Even if they were slaver scum.
Howard snarled in a slaver’s face as he gutted the man.
Silence descended over the trio.
That had been the last one.
“You guys aren’t even breathing hard,” Drake shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be, seeing as how you barely did anything,” Death’s Dancer snorted.
“Cool it, kid. Styles make fights and this kinda blender is meant for strong and tough guys that can take hits,” Howard said. “Twitchy’ll get his chance if I know anything about battles.”
“Uh… thanks.”
“Wasn’t a compliment,” Howard grunted. “So, we got some time. What kind of benefits do you people give?”
“Huh?” Death’s Dancer’s eyes narrowed through his mask.
“If I re-up. Do I keep my old rank? What about my pension. By my count you owe me for the last seventeen years.”
“We don’t fight for money.”
“Seriously? Just for room and board,” Howard laughed. “Listen, my skills are valuable. I can get food and shelter anywhere. You ain’t doing this right. You need to make it worth my time.”
“What about your duty—”
“Not that B.S. again,” Howard waved his hand. “I ain’t a young dumbass falling for that patriotism crap. Fool me once…”
“I don’t have the authority—”
“Shut up,” Howard hissed. “You hear that?”
“No.”
“Sounds like a tank.”
Drake strained his ears.
Nothing.
Howard raised his nose to the air like a hound and sniffed. “Better wipe your asses, boys, we’ve got incoming.”
“What’re you talking about?” Death’s Dancer sighed.
Drake heard it then, along with the shaking.
Like a small earthquake.
Dust and debris rained from the high ceiling.
The foul wall shook.
The sounds of breaking wood and masonry suddenly erupted.
“No way they’re driving a tank straight through here,” Death’s Dancer muttered.
“They wouldn’t risk the central control unit,” Drake agreed.
It wasn’t a tank or any sort of vehicle.
The wall showered them in jagged projectiles.
Drake dived for cover behind an overturned desk.
When he chanced a peek, a huge monster stood in the cloud of dust and debris.
It was a huge mass of thick gray skin and muscle.
A huge, blocky head contained dark, beady eyes underneath a thick, protruding brow. It roared revealing tusk-like canine teeth.
It pounded the ground like a gorilla with arms as thick around as the stocky, muscular Howard’s torso.
Short, stumpy legs, as thick as tree trunks shook the floor with each step.
Drake didn’t miss the collar around the monster’s thick neck.
More slavers appeared, but they were content to stay well behind the small hill of muscle.
“They have a troll,” Howard sighed.
“It’s an ogre,” Death’s Dancer muttered.
“You’ve fought one before?”
“No, but trolls are green and more lanky.”
“Nah, it’s a troll.”
“Call it a trollogre for all that it doesn’t matter! Just kill it!” Drake snapped.
He hurled his spear, casting a spell to increase the speed the farther it traveled.
The spear zipped between the trollogre’s legs, slamming into a slaver’s chest.
Drake reached out—
— riding the slaver’s body across the blood-slicked floor like a skateboard behind their formation.
The other slaver’s turned and fired.
He twirled the spear, conjuring a magic shield.
Meanwhile, Howard climbed up the trollogre’s arm using an axe and knife like a squirrel uses its claws.
He aimed for the collar and if that didn’t work the eyes were always a good target.
Experience had taught him that the vast majority of monsters needed their eyes.
Death’s Dancer caught the other arm descending on him like a toppling redwood.
Knees cracked at the impact.
The floor broke beneath him.
“Huh? Not that much stronger than me,” he grunted optimistically.
“Shut up and fight!” Howard transitioned to the monster’s broad shoulders and pried at the collar.
Death’s Dancer ignored the asshole.
The monster pushed down while he pushed up.
He could press a little under 10 tons.
So, neither he, nor the monster could gain an advantage.
“Hurry up!” he snapped.
“Kids…” Howard grumbled.
The collar wasn’t budging, so he switched to the eyes.
Two quick stabs and the monster was blind.
“There you go, kid, all yours,” Howard leapt off and went to help the other kid with the squishier slavers.
Death’s Dancer growled.
He could turn invisible, he didn’t need it blinded.
He danced underneath the blinded monster’s clubbing blows. Got in close and stabbed it in its dirty loincloth.
Did it come with that? Or did the slavers put it on?
Idle thoughts tended to crop up when he wasn’t particularly challenged.
The next spear thrust went underneath the trollogre’s fleshy chins.
Its face twisted in confusion before it toppled forward.
Death’s Dancer rolled out of the way.
“It looked a lot more dangerous,” he sighed. “The smell, though…” he held his breath while he lifted its head in search of his short spear.
He rushed to help the other two.
If the slavers were bringing out the big monsters then they were close. Battles had a rhythm and his gut was telling him they were reaching the end.
Meanwhile, Shrewed ducked behind a corner, plugged his ears and opened his mouth.
The boom rattled his cage.
Slavers had tripped his grenade trap.
He drew his submachine and leaned around the corner, putting bursts into anything that looked like they were still moving.
A dark spell lashed back, eating into the wall and his shoulder.
He grit his teeth against the burn.
A curse slipped through his teeth.
The spell melted armor, clothing and skin.
He tossed an incendiary around the corner and retreated to the next.
Screams chased after him.
Shots ripped into his backplate knocking him forward.
The slavers were selling their lives to give chase.
Some kind of command Skill pushing them forward through their self-preservation instincts. It had to be.
One last hallway until the chamber.
Just one more door between the slavers and the most important Quest of his life.
He thought about calling for back up, but knew that if there was any they’d already be with him.
So, he turned and emptied his magazine.
Switched to his Desert Eagle.
More ego than function.
Eight rounds didn’t go far.
One mag.
Two.
Three.
Last one.
Switch to the mace.
Heavy iron head caved a skull in despite the helmet.
Didn’t even need a Skill.
Power Strike to get through a shield on the next blow.
A nick across the bridge of the nose with his knife. A Skill to make it bleed like he’d cut an artery.
The kid keeled over from blood loss.
A steel-clad boot to the face finished him.
Dirty Fighting.
But, they were looking awfully young.
He saw the whites of their big, round eyes in the dim light from the scattered fires and glowing remnants of errant spells on the walls.
Shit!
A spell seared across his face, blinding him.
His helmet got hot.
Too hot!
He ripped it off, jammed it into another kid’s face.
The sizzle and smell of bacon assaulted his nose.
The slavers must’ve been pulling on reserves.
That was good, meant that things were winding down.
They were dragging the slavers into deeper waters.
Wouldn’t be long before they drowned.
Spirits raised by the thought, he bludgeoned, stabbed, elbowed and headbutted his way back up the narrow corridor.
It felt like he killed with every step.
Dozens of wounds piled up, but he was drawing deep on every Skill he had.
No sense in leaving anything in the tank.
This was the culmination of everything that mattered
All that he had done after the spires had appeared had been to balance out the scales.
He had never been a good kid, you see. Grew up into an even worse man.
Fighting, stealing and dealing.
Every crime they had… he had done with one exception.
That one line he had never crossed.
The spires opened his eyes. Gave him a second chance.
But, the good didn’t make up for the bad, not really. Although, the bad didn’t cancel out the good.
He’d be judged on all of his deeds.
The corridor ended back were he had started.
A blown out door in front of him with a carpet of dead bodies behind him.
He looked out at all the lights and weapons pointed in his direction.
So many slavers.
“Fucking bastards,” he gasped for air. The fight had taken a lot out of him. “You sent your kids to die cause you was too chicken shit to do it yourselves!” he snarled. “Well, c’mon, let’s fucking go!” he shot a rude gesture before retreating deeper into the corridor.
The barrage that chased after him could’ve woken the dead.
He dived behind a corner to catch his breath.
Boot steps followed him.
Only a moment to rest.
Not much left.
Damn shame he hadn’t reached Level 50.
That would’ve been a great Skill.
Roaring, he faced his end the way he had lived his life.
Two fists clenched in front of him.
The slavers never got past Shrewed.
He had plugged the corridor with their dead, fighting beyond his death for a few seconds longer, as though he was reluctant to leave without getting to see what happened next and if his efforts had been worth it.
----------------------------------------
Drake got shot.
That made three times in the last few years.
Coincidentally, that was just about how long he had been part of the team.
Hurt just as bad as he remembered.
From the way he couldn’t move his shoulder, bullet probably shattered it.
Howard was a cool dude for carrying him back behind that disgusting wall of monsters and slavers.
He couldn’t help but notice that the short, hairy man was covered in all sorts of bloody bits.
There was no chance he wasn’t going to be contaminated.
A problem for after.
The slavers pushed in force despite the trollogre dying.
They were willing to carpet the floor with their dead.
No sense of self-preservation.
Howard grunted something about reinforcements before leaping back to join Death’s Dancer.
It must’ve been nice to be bulletproof, Drake thought. Gamely, he leveled his spear with his good hand on top of the body wall and tried not to think about the wet stuff he was prone in.
The battle moved back into the front lobby.
Death’s Dancer dipped in and out of invisibility, seemingly killing with each move.
Bullets didn’t bother him and though some of the spells could’ve he was too quick even when not accounting for the vanishing.
Howard, on the other hand, made for a great bullet and spell sponge.
The slavers’ problem was that they could only slow him down.
Still, they could’ve eventually buried them in bodies if it hadn’t been for the timely arrival of a third faction.
True Patriot and her supersoldiers hit the slavers in the rear.
The statuesque woman glowed with white light as she smashed slavers with each swing of the glowing stick she had picked up back in the Slaver King’s hedge maze.
Hulking supersoldiers mowed slavers down with automatic fire.
Magic shields and defensive Skills had limits.
Lt. Contrary and Lt. Rico stayed close to their commanding officer. They didn’t have much to do but pick off the occasional slaver that noticed them flanking the glowing white woman.
The slaver commander met them in a clash of Skills and spells.
A crackling black claw ripped out of his hand, tearing up the ground before turning a hulking supersoldier into bloody chunks.
True Patriot batted the next claw with her best home run swing.
Lt. Rico sent a burst of automatic fire at the slaver commander only to see it swallowed by a strange void and sent back his way. He hit the deck with a curse.
Lt. Contrary had his back, triple-tapping the slaver mage with one squeeze of the trigger.
The slaver commander exhorted his troops to fight to the death with a Skill that sent them into a suicidal rage.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Three grappled a supersoldier and despite her strength they managed to hold her long enough for a fourth to blow them all to hell with a spell that left a glowing green rent in space.
Lt. Rico shot the mage in the back of the head.
“Fire in the hole!”
The thoom of a grenade launcher sent a knot of slavers to their just reward.
True Patriot dueled the slaver commander in the midst of the carnage.
Glowing white stick clanged against a blade sheathed in crackling black magic.
The slaver commander had to be high level to last as long as he did against the superstrong woman.
In the end he lay in the middle of the concrete path with a stick planted in his head like a flag pole.
The fight went out of the slavers.
They threw down their weapons and fled.
“Ma’am,” Death’s Dancer saluted while Howard watched warily.
“Report, lieutenant.”
“Collar control unit is being destroyed, if it hasn’t been already.”
True Patriots brow furrowed, the white light behind her blood-stained blindfold flared.
“Your orders were to secure it. Not assist in its destruction.”
Death’s Dancer hesitated.
“I determined that was impossible,” he said after a moment. “I made a judgment call that destroying it was the next best option.”
“Not like he had a choice,” Howard chuckled.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” True Patriot brushed past them and entered the facility.
“Um… ma’am, not that I’m ungrateful, but what are you doing here?” Death’s Dancer said.
“I received intel that our secondary objective is beyond our reach. That our presence here would be most impactful,” she didn’t elaborate.
----------------------------------------
Lyta doubled over.
The damn baby didn’t like the sounds coming from outside.
Too many screams of dying men and monsters.
The show down inside the central chamber wasn’t any better.
There was something nauseating about that sickly white light pulsing off that magic machine the guy said was the source of the slavery collars’ power.
She couldn’t bear to look at it for more than a few minutes before she had to turn away from the window.
Not that it helped much.
She had to sit down on the floor and breathe.
Being pregnant didn’t help.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
The other kid sat at one of the desks.
He didn’t seem bothered by any of it. Just had his head down humming some kind of song while coloring away in his little book. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t want to see something she might recognize in his features.
He was about the right age—
“No, don’t think about it.”
She focused on the present and future.
Soon.
She’d be free soon.
She had to trust that guy.
He was her only chance.
If it didn’t pan out then she’d use the gun she picked up from one of the slavers.
Whatever happened she wasn’t going to let the Slaver King use her again.
“Maybe I can find someone to get it out of me. Not too late.”
Although, that’d be a task and a half.
Not many clinics left out there.
What were the chances anyone would help her?
Not good, she figured.
They’d probably be all about repopulating the world. Never mind that it was forced into her.
Fuck them.
She’d do it herself if it came down to it.
The light pulsed and the windows rattled.
They began to bow inward, like the pressure inside the chamber was growing, ready to pop like her stomach.
“Shit!” she saw what was about to happen.
She rose to her bare feet and activated her power.
Friction-free, she skated across the command center.
The baby kicked. Made it difficult to maintain her balance. She almost face-planted, but managed to right herself.
The windows exploded.
She wrapped the kid up in her arms and turned her back to the spray of shattered glass.
The shards shredded her shirt, but slipped right off her skin.
The kid cried.
“Shut up, you’re fine,” she tried not to snap.
It wasn’t his fault.
The light pulsed.
She blinked.
A cool breeze blew in from the sea.
The sand felt warm under her toes.
“Water!” the kid pointed.
That wasn’t what drew Lyta’s eye.
It was the slaver machine and the man standing next to it with his hands over it.
Check that.
One hand.
One stump.
How had she missed that earlier?
She could’ve sworn he had both.
“Uh…”
The man turned his head at her voice.
The kid toddled toward the ocean.
“Hey! Kid! Get back here! It’s not safe… probably?”
“It isn’t,” Cal said. “You guys shouldn’t be here.”
“Where is here exactly? And what the fuck are those?”
Strings of light flowed from the great, glowing orb that hurt her eyes to look at. One of the strings was as thick around as one of those giant snakes out in the swamps.
A tiny hand tugged at her sweatpants.
She looked down at the little girl.
She thought it was her for a moment.
Then became horrified at dawning realization.
“Aw, man. That’s not good. You shouldn’t be here little one. Why don’t you go to sleep?” Cal said.
The little girl vanished.
“You too.”
The little boy disappeared before he got smashed by a wave.
“What is going on!” she snapped.
The beach vanished.
They were inside a living room.
Her. Cal. The magic machine.
It was hers.
From her childhood.
Just like it was before the gremlins scattered blood all over it.
“I’m going to lose it if you don’t explain,” she growled.
Cal had returned his attention back to the machine. “Sorry, I thought this might be more soothing. Long and short of it… you got pulled in by accident. The Slaver King’s doing one last fuck you to us all and I’m trying to cut off the signal, so to speak, to a few thousand souls, minds, whatever you want to call it. They’re going out everywhere, dozens, hundreds of miles away. Needless to say, I’m being pulled in way too many directions.”
“Okay, you do that. Just get me out of here like you did those two— just get me out of here.”
“I’m trying, but you’re fighting.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I know it’s a difficult ask, but you have to trust me. I promise I won’t do anything beyond getting you out of this place.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“And you have that right, but you’re in danger if you stay. The backlash could fracture your mind on the low end and completely fry it on the high.”
Lyta took a deep breathe.
She hadn’t realized that she had been close to hyperventilating.
“You promised to help me. Seems like I don’t have a choice. I want to live. I want to get past this.”
“And you will. There’s a place for you. If you want it. As safe as there is in this world. Where you can heal and do what you want. No one will push you to use your powers to fight or do anything you don’t want. You’ll be free to live as you wish. Just relax, close your eyes and breathe.”
She listened to the soothing words.
Like her father’s hand rubbing her back until she’d fall asleep.
She had forgotten the feeling.
When she opened her eyes the tears flowed freely.
The light from the chamber was as bright as the sun.
The little boy slept in her arms.
As for the baby girl—
Lyta didn’t want to think about it.
----------------------------------------
Cal had to spend precious attention to protect the three from having their psyches shredded by all the power being thrown up by the central control unit.
The Slaver King pulled a last second power up bullshit move.
The odious man had come to a realization and the spires had rewarded his burning determination to win.
Whatever kept the conflict going to greater and greater heights.
Damn things played with lives like a gamer sitting in front of the computer.
He fractured his mind, chasing thousands, racing the Slaver King’s Due.
It was a simple modification to the Soul Tithe.
Instead of waiting for the subject to die, the king ripped it out.
Cal knew that it would leave an empty husk.
And unlike the original Skill, the modification took all of it. Not just a part.
He didn’t know what that meant.
Would the enslaved forever be bared from any sort of afterlife?
Assuming there was one and they wouldn’t just all be recycled by the spires.
Proponents of the simulation theory had some dark ideas.
Distracting thoughts swarmed through his split mind.
A hundred different things happening all over the city.
Notice impending death for the young Watch and rangers.
Trip and drag the Meat Parade.
Notice too late as an old ally from the beginning sacrifices herself to save her charges.
Father and mother battled a demon.
Unable to lend aid.
But the mere instant of hesitation led to a dozen enslaved in far flung places having their souls stolen by the Slaver King.
Stop a flock of harpies from snatching Captain Butcher off the back of a wyvern.
Fail to save too young rangers from a swarm of monsters.
Slow a behemoth of a monster long enough for bar patrons spurred by a rocking band to bring it down.
Fail to notice one smashing into the flank of Captain Doran’s spears.
See Rino chased by a true monster, but lose sight of her before he could do anything.
The red tally grew frighteningly quick.
For every command he stopped on the light string another handful slipped through his multitude of hands.
Amber was about to die.
A child enslaved a hundred miles away, sleeping on a pile of rags died in agony. Her tiny soul a drop in the raging basin within the Slaver King.
Jake was going to trade his life in order to give Amber a few more seconds. It wouldn’t be enough.
An enslaved man toiled in a brothel on an island to the southeast. His soul remained his. Though it would take time and work to heal it from what evil men had done to him.
Basilisk, Sally Clark, struck a tiny blow, but it was going to cost her her life.
On a military base at the northern border of old Florida, her mother, Sammy, rested from her serving duties. She had a few hours before starting the overnight shift. Part of her remembered her daughter and husband, who she didn’t know was killed weeks ago by a beast pretending to be a man. Part of her didn’t care. A blank smile on her face at the enforced happiness in doing her duty.
Cal raced the decree.
Sally became an orphan in truth.
A martially-inclined lord, competent, re-entered the fray with his best guards.
It meant approaching death to one of the Furies.
An enslaved bathed her young master. Her death was the baby’s. He drowned in foot of water.
Gearlok, Luthor Collins, his magitech limbs were ripped apart by powerful hands. His son, Colin, would throw his life away in a doomed attempt to save him.
The Emerald Bomber, Marion Johnson, flying above the fray, picking her shots, having used up her best armaments. Her focus was below, which meant she didn’t see the furry shadow hiding in the massive chandelier.
The magus did, but her warning was too late.
Ray, the young Silver Axe. Wounded and out of his depth, but he’d give anything for his hometown to be finally free of the monsters. Even his life. The clown would test that resolve.
The Blackstar 3 became the Blackstar 2.
Malcolm, Undefeated Champion of the Hard Rock and newly appointed King’s Champion made a choice based on the slim hope that his family was safe as promised. Gladiators turned on each other. Some honored their oaths to the king. Others saw their chance at true freedom.
Tabitha sat in a warm room, wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking hot chocolate while the rangers kept her and the other freed safe from the monsters outside.
Shrewed— was gone and he hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
A few hundred feet away and the grizzled old brawler might as well have been on the other side of the Atlantic.
Over a thousand times the story repeated.
Succeed.
Fail.
More the latter than the former.
Until mercifully, it was over.
Now, Cal had to pull his mind together before the Slaver King killed more of his friends.
----------------------------------------
Dozens of gaping wounds turned black and white fur black and pink.
Too many, too fast, pushed her healing past her limits.
Much of her armor and clothing had been shredded.
She clambered up a wooden pillar to reach the second level mezzanine.
Slavers fired down on the chaotic melee down below.
She tore through them in passing.
The greater beast caught up.
Garou, the werewolf, tripped her, tearing through the back of her ankle.
He was on her in a flash.
Dagger teeth sank into the back of her muscular neck with bone-crushing pressure. Claws sank into her back, seeking the gaps through her ribs.
Truth be told she would’ve been dead already had it not been for her newest Skills.
Her claws shined in the light. She ripped and tore at Garou’s muzzle.
The werewolf yelped.
Rino pulled free and ran.
Silver Claws.
The werewolf didn’t like them.
They hurt more and they stopped his ability to heal quickly.
Gray fur pressed tightly to muscled body matted by the blood from dozens of gaping wounds.
She ran.
Instinct triumphed over the rational part of her brain.
Three sharp barks caught her eye amid the cacophony of the dying.
Kare ran across ground level with another werewolf on her tail.
The pair smashed aside people like bowling pins in their deadly game of chase.
Rino saw the angle Kare was taking.
A quick gauge of their relative distance forced her to turn and fight.
Garou was faster in a flat run, but she was quicker.
He fought like a savage animal without any of the tactical considerations a sapient being took.
The monster had completely torn through the facade of the man.
Rino ducked a wild claw slash, to land two of her own to the werewolf’s gut.
Claws sheathed in silver parted tough fur and dense flesh like a newborn calf.
A backhand slammed her through the wooden wall and into a small dining room.
Garou widened the hole, eager to end her.
She ducked under a hardwood table, flipping it over and sending it flying with a two-legged kick.
He caught it and tore it like paper.
She flowed over a downward slash, tearing deep into his arm and kicking off his back to get back out on the walkway.
Kare leapt.
Rino sprinted to reach her packmate’s outstretched hand.
The other werewolf’s snapping jaws closed over a bit of golden fur.
Rino spun Kare, whipping the golden-furred weredog around for a two-footed kick.
The other werewolf careened down the walkway, right into Garou.
The two were so consumed by bloodlust that they turned on each other.
Blood and fur flew.
The smaller werewolf suddenly whined and tried to disengage at the realization.
The larger alpha didn’t let him.
Rino regarded Kare.
One arm hung on the elbow with only a few scraps of red flesh and white ligaments. The side of her head was torn open, floppy ear turned into wet strips of string.
They exchanged a look and attacked.
Close to two tons of teeth, claws and muscle whirled in a ball of savage violence.
Kare fell away first with a gaping rent in the side of her neck. Her healing had been overtaxed as well.
The smaller werewolf yelped with animal pain.
Rino and Garou played tug of war with his body.
The former had his leg, while the latter had jaws clamped around his midsection.
Realization dawned in Garou’s eyes.
Rino let go first, sending the werewolves stumbling.
A jet engine whined.
“Fire in the hole!”
Fire bloomed, engulfing the werewolves.
The Emerald Bomber banked away for another approach.
Rino flinched from the combined heat of the explosion and the flying wing’s main thruster.
The werewolves charged out of the smoke.
The sick stench of charred flesh and oozing blisters stung her sensitive nose.
Despite her grievous wounds, Kare leapt alongside Rino.
Carrion stench and heat from Garou’s mouth filled her face as he opened wide for a deadly bite.
She caught something staring at her from out of the corner of her eye. So, she stopped and pushed Kare out of the way.
A large round eye levitating over the railing blinked.
The werewolves froze.
Ruined flesh and fur slowly turned gray.
Rino leapt in, slashing with desperate fury, silver claws carving up Garou’s huge head.
Kare did the same to the smaller werewolf.
The magus floated away, drawn back into the battle on the ground floor.
Garou suddenly howled, driving Kare away with primal terror.
Rino froze, but held her ground.
Her mistake.
The petrification spell ran out.
The gray flaked off to reveal bloody flesh.
The werewolves treated Rino like a rabbit.
Kare returned, latching on to Garou’s back.
“Incoming!” the Emerald Bomber had returned.
The missile screamed his head off as he let go of the rope.
Kare surged with one last gasp of impossible strength courtesy of her only remaining Skill. She pried Garou’s muzzle from around Rino’s stomach and twisted it around to face shining silver.
Ray, Silver Axe, screamed, eyes wide as saucers through the slits of his helmet. He had lost his main weapon in the clown’s thick skull. The crazy bastard had played one last joke even as his brains leaked around the blade of the battle axe. The spear in his hands had been taken randomly from a fallen fighter when the Emerald Bomber had yelled at him to grab the rope. The triangular head was narrow and stiff. The point shined.
He thrust it into Garou’s gaping mouth. The silver-covered point pierced through the palate, skipped off bone and finished its downward journey in the werewolf’s brain.
Garou erupted into a frenzy.
He snapped the spear, driving it deeper.
Kare slammed into the wall.
Silver Axe’s vision went black.
Kare saved Silver Axe and robbed Garou of his revenge by dropkicking him through the iron railing.
The dead werewolf crushed a handful of slavers and former enslaved. He rampaged through the melee, killing anyone within reach.
Seconds became minutes and he continued on despite the absence of all conscious thought.
Max spied Garou coming toward the Watch’s position around their fallen Watch Commander.
Bodies went flying.
He turned his hand of wood and earth into a thorn-wrapped shield to protect himself and the others.
Dull thuds shook him.
Shield became sharp spears, stabbing across the twenty-foot distance.
Spears piercing the werewolf became ropes fixing him to the floor.
“It’s a last gasp!” Max cried. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, but my vines are definitely going to break first! Someone better do something!”
“I got it,” Hammer rumbled past them, leaping into the air and landing on top of the dead werewolf. She stomped until there was nothing left but a wet smear on the cratered floor.
Up on the mezzanine, Silver Axe woke up to the acrid stench of piss and shit. For a moment he was back in his childhood, in the caress of vague memories about how nature documentaries had never said anything about how bad animals smelled. That first trip to the zoo had been an illusion-shattering eye opener. What didn’t remind him of his youth was the taste of iron choking him.
He gagged, spitting up viscous red.
The side of his face hurt worse than anything ever.
Something was cutting into him.
He touched cold steel slick with something wet and sticky.
His vision blurred.
Until he noticed a clawed hand at his feet.
He scrambled back.
The smaller werewolf was straining to reach him.
Revenge for slaying the alpha.
Rino had saved his life.
She hung on to the werewolf.
Muzzle clamped tightly to a leg, while clawed finger dug deep, red rivers down from the werewolf’s buttocks to his knees.
It didn’t look like she had enough in her to do more than that and the light was fading out of her eyes as they implored him.
Silver Axe went to his belt and came up empty.
No more weapons.
One last container of liquid silver.
Kare was down. Tongue lolled out of a slack mouth. Her chest heaved, straining for air.
The werewolf inched closer as Rino faded.
The world spun. His vision darkened. For how long? He didn’t know.
All he knew was that the werewolf was inches away.
He backed into a pile of debris or bodies.
His hand fell on a jagged wooden splinter about the length of his arm.
He needed a weapon to coat in silver and what was the oldest weapon aside from the classic rock?
The slavering werewolf managed to sink a claw into the end of his boot.
The steel-toe gave about as much resistance as wet tissue.
Only luck saved his toe as the claw cut right between the big one and its neighbor.
Coat the jagged splinter.
Activate the Skill.
Stab the eye.
Find the brain.
Kill the werewolf.
Unlike Garou, this one didn’t keep killing.
Rino rolled over.
He gagged at the sight and smell of what looked like ropes of sausage falling out of her stomach.
Her eyes fluttered.
He looked around.
No one to help.
Panicking he shot to his feet and almost blacked out again.
Somehow he made to Rino’s side and acted before thinking.
One thought filled his mind.
Inside stuff needs to be on the inside, not on the outside.
Emerald Bomber swooped by on her next circuit.
“Two bad furries are down,” she spoke into the comms they had provided her. “Good furries also down. One looks really bad. Get me a healer and I can fly them to her on my next pass. No eyes on the third furry.”
Her last thought was prescient.
The magus’ warning was too late.
A furry shadow clung to the largest chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
The Emerald Bomber had her eyes on the ground.
She didn’t see him.
Gator.
The last werewolf.
Despite only having half his lower jaw left he was still dangerous.
He pounced on the Emerald Bomber and sank his claws into her green and purple armor. The light scales had been enchanted to provide a similar level of protection as thick plate. Other enchantments added impact absorption, inertial dampeners, G-force reduction and other effects to help her fly at high speed and altitude.
She panicked, zooming up through the massive sky light and into the waiting talons of several dozen flying monsters drawn in by the battle or following slaver commands.
For a brief time the rain falling through broken sky lights turned red with their blood.
Out in the Everglades, howls echoed through the rain-drenched night.