My mom handed me a single piece of… bread was the wrong word. It was more like an edible brick. In order to break off a piece small enough to gnaw on, you had to place the bread against the stone floor and hit it as hard as you could with your fist. The bread would then shatter into a dozen pieces small enough to put into your mouth.
“Mom, what exactly is this?” I said, staring at the brick of bread with a skeptical gaze.
“It is called Hardtack. It is a common food for sailors and military campaigns. It does not spoil easily and is very compact, so I grabbed a box of them when we left Bastya fortress.”
I hesitantly stuck a piece of the bread in my mouth and tried to bite down, but it was as if I had bit into a rock. Worse, it tasted like a salted piece of wood. It was only after nearly a solid minute of chewing that the hardtack was soft enough to attempt swallowing.
“Never thought I would see the day where I missed dried meat and cheese,” I mumbled as I stared at the rest of the hardtack in my hand with reluctance.
“Sorry, but we are out of cheese,” My mom replied while shaking her head, “We still have a little dried meat left, but I am rationing that out so that we only eat a little bit of it during dinner. This is all we have left.”
I looked over at Charly as he gnawed on his hardtack while purposefully not meeting anyone’s gaze.
“You seriously did not get a single bird all day yesterday?” I asked.
Charly’s face immediately flushed bright red as he stared intently at the hardtack in his hands.
Esben broke out laughing as he patted Charly on the back. “He did hit one. It blew up into a thousand little charred pieces before plummeting off the edge of the island.”
Charly’s blush deepened and he looked like he was trying to sink into the floor as he became the focus of everyone’s gaze. His mumbled reply was barely audible over the laughter of the mercenary. “It is not that easy hitting a small moving target. It is not like you did anything to help.”
“It is ok, Charly. It will take some practice, but I know you will be able to do it.” My mom said with a comforting smile.
I nodded as I gave a sidelong glance at Donte. “At least you are trying to help, unlike a certain someone that decided to give us all an impromptu lesson in altitude sickness.”
“I was just trying to avoid going around the mountain. How was I supposed to know we would get sick?” Donte protested.
“Because I told you the air gets thinner the higher we go so, keep us close to the ground.”
“I was close to the ground. I didn’t know you meant I could not go over mountains.”
I shook my head in annoyance, more at myself for not properly explaining how altitude worked than at Donte. Luckily, I had caught Donte before it was too late and we only had an afternoon of feeling like our head was pummeled with a hammer instead of days.
My mom clapped her hands together, stopping Donte’s protest. “We all make mistakes. Donte has learned his lesson. Now, finish your breakfast. Your father has already started preparing to tackle our water problem. As soon as you are done eating, go and help him.”
I nodded and after several minutes of trying to stomach as much of the hardtack as I could, I set the rest aside for later and rushed outside. I was still hungry, but not hungry enough to chew on that rock for any longer.
On the edge of the floating island of rock, my dad was already hard at work. He heaved a large piece of rusted metal that might have once been a complicated machine onto a makeshift wall of rubbish and debris.
Over the edge of the floating island, I could see hundreds of orange eyes following us just out of range of Charly’s crossbow. The hoard of undead soldiers and Demonkin had no problem keeping up with the leisurely pace of the floating island and seemed intent on following us until the very end.
Most eye-catching among the horde was one Demonkin that looked more like a moving mountain than a creature. The giant rat Demonkin was easily just as big as Naga, with just its head alone being as big as a mansion.
I did not know if the explosions Irene could create when detonating her undead was related to the size of the creature, but if they were, I shuddered to think of how dangerous an explosion from an undead that size could be.
My dad grunted as he struggled to lift another piece of rusted metal onto his makeshift wall and I ran over to help. The metal was heavy and I struggled to share to load with my dad as we heaved the piece into place on the wall. My dad nodded in satisfaction before moving on to grab another piece of metal.
I bit my lip as I watched my dad heft another piece of metal onto his shoulder. “I really do not like this plan. Are you sure we cannot just wait for rain and collect that?”
My dad threw set the piece of metal into place and looked up at the sky with a sigh. “It rarely rains in this region this time of year. We will run out of water tomorrow. We do not have time to wait. Our only reasonable choice is to set down in a lake long enough to refill our stock.”
I nodded solemnly as I stared down at the hoard of undead following us. we had crossed two bodies of water the day before and I had hoped it would be a simple matter to get water, but it was not. Most of the undead were able to keep up with us even while swimming. They never once slowed down enough to give us a window to restock. If we set down in a lake, the undead would be on us in less than a minute.
From a few test runs, we learned that it took Donte just over thirty seconds to switch on the valve that allowed the Preateritum ruin to gather water. This left us with only two choices. Either we set the ruin down for only a few seconds to fill our water skins ourselves and take off before the undead could reach us, or we could try and hold off the undead long enough for Donte to completely refill the tanks.
Both options had their merits and problems. The first was obviously safer, but it would force us to set the ruin down every day or two in order to keep refilling our waterskins. There was also no guarantee that we would always be able to find a body of water deep enough to submerge the ruin in as we continued traveling north and Irene was not stupid. She would realize we were low on water after the first time and act to keep us from refilling as much as possible. The second option would require us to remain in the lake for several minutes. The walls of the Preateritum ruin were strong, but nobody was willing to test if Irene’s self-destructive undead would damage the ruin’s ability to fly. I felt that it would be fine, but my dad and Esben had other ideas.
The two of them noticed that the giant rat Demonkin as well as a few other of the larger creatures had much more difficulty swimming across large bodies of water than the normal undead did. This meant that only the smaller undead would be able to reach us before we finished refilling the water tanks.
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Within seconds of the two of them noticing this, my dad and Esben started coming up with a plan to thin out Irene’s numbers. so, the giant wall of trash on one side of the island was born. Hopefully, it would not be necessary, but if our plan failed, my dad was hoping this wall would slow the undead down enough for us to safely retreat back inside the ruin.
Stacking all the rusted metal rubbish into something that resembled a wall was hard work. Even when everyone else finished their breakfast and came out to help us, it still took hours of labor before we reached the point where my dad was satisfied. The wall surrounded less than a quarter of the edge of the floating island and looked like it would fall over with a strong breeze, but we had run out of trash to stack. This would have to do.
By the time we finished, I was sweating and hungry, but the only food we got for lunch was more of the awful hardtack. Even though I was hungry, I had trouble swallowing the terrible food. Once again, I left most of my meal untouched.
My mom and dad seemed to have no trouble stomaching the awful food and somehow Donte even seemed to be enjoying it.
“Are you going to eat that?” Donte asked as he pointed at the half piece of hardtack I had not touched.
I pushed the uneaten half towards Donte and he snatched it up as if someone was going to steal it. “How can you stomach that stuff?” I asked incredulously.
“My mom and I ate hardtack all the time back in lower Aktey,” Donte replied as he popped a piece into his mouth, “My mom made it herself. Since it was so cheap, there was always some in the house no matter how bad the month had been. I was practically raised on this stuff.”
“That sounds terrible.”
Donte just shrugged as he continued eating. “Get hungry enough and even mud will taste like a luxury, let alone hardtack.”
I grimaced and was about to say more, but was interrupted by my dad. “Look alive everyone. That should be Casus Lake on the horizon.”
Donte stuffed the final piece of hardtack into his mouth and brushed off the crumbs off his shirt before hurrying inside. He needed to be in direct contact with the core in order to control the Preateritum ruin with more precision. Even a few seconds delay now could allow the undead to close the distance. That was a mistake that could be deadly.
Everyone else took up positions on the makeshift wall of trash. We stared down at the undead following us in anticipation. Silence blanketed the island as waited. Within a few minutes, the trees below gave way to water.
Just like the previous two times, the undead did not hesitate to continue following us across the lake. A few of the undead swam easily. These were our biggest threats as they would be able to catch up to us the fastest. However, some of the undead in the back struggled to keep up as they splashed through the water with less coordination than a toddler wearing concrete shoes. One lizard creature directly sunk to the bottom of the lake without even bothering to swim at all. Unfortunately, the undead did not require air so the sinking undead did not drown and just walked along the lake bed as if it was normal ground.
The mountain-sized rat was much the same. It waded through the water until it got too deep. Then, struggled to swim in a repeated series of sinking down to the bottom before bobbing back up and sinking back down again.
It was at this moment that our plan started. Without warning, the entire island came to a stop before moving back the way we came. Even though I expected it, I was still nearly tossed to the ground by the sudden shift in direction. I was only able to remain standing by holding onto a rusted metal bar that stuck up from the wall of trash.
The more nimble undead were able to react quickly to our sudden shift in direction, but the ones that were already having trouble swimming could not change direction fast enough. Explosions sent walls of water into the air as Charly fired his crossbow into the hoard below. Spikes of ice rained down without restraint as my dad’s bracer glowed like a small sun. Even my mom was able to help. Her new control over her electricity allowed my mom to sling lightning bolts down like an angry deity.
Despite my family’s ferocity, only about ten of the undead were struck with any meaningful damage before they were able to safely escape out of range of our attacks. It was less than I had hoped, but it was fine. Damaging the undead was only a bonus. Our true aim was what came next.
Irene’s reaction to our sudden shift was exactly what we expected. All the sluggish swimmers moved further away from our floating island so that they would be able to stay out of range in case we repeated the same tactic.
Donte drove the point home when he made the island move in an unpredictable zigzag fashion that chased after the slowest swimmers and cut off a few others that could not retreat in time. Any time a single undead came within range, my family rained down a storm of elements on their head. By my count, we managed to seriously debilitate at least twenty more of the undead before Irene was able to get them all to shore.
Irene’s caution was our true goal. Donte moved the island towards the center of the lake and hovered there for a minute as if taunting Irene to follow. A vast majority of the undead stayed on the distant shore of the lake, safely on dry land so that they would not become targets again. Only a few dozen of the hundreds of creatures under Irene’s command were agile enough to risk following us into the center of the lake.
While the undead were still cautious at our actions, Donte lowered the entire island until water flooded over the rock. A few seconds later, I heard the valve open and a small whirlpool formed around the base of the mansion sucking in all the water.
At first, Irene’s undead hesitated. When the island lowered itself into the water, she seemed to think it was another taunt. She was probably afraid that the moment her undead got close, the island would rise back up and we would get another opportunity to do some damage.
It was only once the whirlpool formed around the base of the mansion that the undead reacted. Roars of rage thundered through across the lake as Irene realized she had been tricked.
The closest undead creatures dashed through the water in a mad dash towards our island. Because of Irene’s caution, it took more than half a minute before the fastest Demonkin got close. Technically, we had enough water that we could leave now but my dad did not give the signal.
Irene had hounded us all this time and we had not been able to do anything to her. We were not going to give up this opportunity to vent our frustrations.
My dad’s bracer glowed with a bright light as he reached down and touched the water flooding across the island. In a flash, Ice spread out in every direction. The fastest of the Demonkin did not even have time to react before it was completely encased in ice.
The second undead Demonkin was a creature that looked like a giant alligator covered in spikes. The creature smashed into my dad’s realm of ice without hesitation. Shard of ice went flying as the Demonkin shattered my dad’s attack and freed the first Demonkin captured. However, neither Demonkin had the time to get any closer before Charly’s explosive arrow slammed into the side of the alligator. The creature was nearly blasted in half as chunks of meat flew through the air. Despite this, the undead Demonkin did not stop moving. Even with its lower half missing, the alligator creature crawled forward with eyes locked on Charly. Wherever the glyph was that animated the creature, Charly had missed it.
Charly had become the center of attention for all of Iren’s Demonkin now as a third creature reached the platform of ice my dad had created. The monstrous fish-man hybrid charged at Charly with its fish mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
The Demonkin never reached Charly as Esben stepped forward, swinging his giant axe with the might of a dozen men. The other mercenaries moved to the front, blocking any other Demonkin that tried to reach my family. This time, they stayed far enough apart that even if a Demonkin self-destructed only a single person would be caught in the explosion.
Fire, ice, and lightning were fired freely. The battlefield became chaotic as more Demonkin arrived by the dozen. While the main hoard was still a ways off, all the fast swimmers were about to surround us. Finally, my dad gave the signal and everyone started to retreat back towards the entrance of the ruin.
Charly hopped down from his elevated position on the wall of rubbish and quickly made his way back towards the mansion with me right behind him. The mercenaries acted as a rearguard covering our retreat, but the Demonkin charged without fear. A few of the Demonkin started to glow as they leapt towards anyone within range. My dad was prepared this time and a silver protection covered the mercenaries from head to toe.
Even with my dad’s protection though, the resulting explosions still threw the mercenaries back. The ice under our feet shattered into thousands of pieces as the shockwave from one of the bigger Demonkin was much larger than normal, utterly demolishing the wall of rusted metal we had spent all morning making.
A large piece of metal from the rubbish wall flew through the air and clipped my leg. I tumbled to the ground before rolling upright with my dagger held ready. With our makeshift wall gone, six Demonkin made it onto the island before Donte could raise us out of reach.