“Chris is done. I’ll get control of the turrets, soon,” I said for the Vizier’s benefit and caught him breathing a sigh of relief.
“God is with us today, Sultana. The Old Guard are many things, and not all of them good, but they are as loyal to you as my fiercest warriors.”
“Still need a bit more time. Program’s compiling.”
“Ah Sultana, it will be done in time, inshallah.”
I forced my aching jaw to relax, tightened Pharus’ chain around my arm, and braced myself for the assault to come. The plan was to mark each enemy as they approached, and then do my best to keep Zephyro’s back as he dealt with them, one after the other.
We didn’t even have to kill them all. We just had to stall until Chris finished compiling the turret control program.
Just a little more time, was all.
The Ferals approached with surprising caution, which was confusing at first. I had come to expect that sort of behavior from Ferals at the lower end of the spectrum, like the rats and the spiders, but the scorpion seemed as strong as the wolf we had killed earlier— if not stronger—and I didn’t even want to think about The Eternal Riddle. If all of them piled in on us at once, I’d…
We’d…
In that funeral of a moment, a peculiar twitch of the scorpion’s tail caught my attention. It wasn’t pointed at us, but at the spiders. The arachnids were also not fully committed to us but had split into three groups, each led by what looked like a truck-sized Server Rack on eight cable-bound legs.
And was there an uncertain tilt in the snake’s misshapen head?
My hope shone a little brighter.
As if to confirm my suspicions, a low growl rose from the snake’s many mouths, endlessly rising and sour and poison-violet. My breathing quickened, and not just because of the horrible sound worming its way into my mind. The scorpion and all the spiders froze in place, staring at the snake, and that told me everything I needed.
“Zephyro…” I whispered, careful not to break the stained-glass silence left after the snake’s growl ended.
“Yes, Sultana?” He answered in the same tone, hand on his sword, yet undrawn.
“They’re not part of the same group. If we’re lucky, they’ll wear each other out.”
I was about to suggest we head back into the palace, wait to see who survived, and then return for the coup de grâce when I caught Zephyro’s frown.
“What?” I asked, but I knew the answer before I finished the word. “Ahhh shit, the Logic.”
“Indeed, Sultana. We can ill afford the beasts to feast off each other.”
“But…” I turned to find the last of the refugees heading into the palace. A single guard stood in front of the small side gate, grim and determined, signaling the all clear and motioning for us to come inside, to safety.
For a second, all I wanted was to run toward that little frame of warm light, toward the heavily armored woman promising to make all my problems go away. Weak, my anger snarled, and unfortunately, I agreed. The thought sent me reeling on that thin line between action and despair, and I turned around before I could think further and risk falling.
The moon above had halfway been consumed by red light again already, but I was determined to make use of its benefits while it lasted.
I set my shoulders and sighed, and somehow that helped.
“Into the fray, we go,” I said, wistfully.
“Into the fray, Sultana,” Zephyro echoed.
The monsters had started to move.
The spiders from one side, the scorpion from another, the snake from straight ahead.
Every second, they inched closer to each other.
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Closer to us.
“I’ll mark the Scorpion, then focus on killing the smaller spiders and marking the big ones?”
“There are big spiders?”
“Yeah, about as tall as a tru— a really big cart?”
“Hafizani allah min hadha alhura' almutlaq” Zephyro mumbled, exasperated.
“What?”
“I do not like Spiders, Sultana.”
“We have so much in common,” I grunted, circling Pharus with my wrist. The chain clinked quietly like it was getting ready, too.
Zephyro laughed. “Indeed we do, Sultana! Indeed we do!”
“Anything else?” I asked while anxiety swallowed our mirth, and the moon devoured itself above the plaza.
“My people are safe, and for this I owe you a thousand thanks. Now, after all my selfishness, I will pay what is due in the blood of your enemies. And as it is spilled, so is your Blessing liberated. Do not let them take it, Sultana. Remind yourself it is sacred, and yours alone.”
I snorted, but I felt his words settle onto my shoulders like guiding hands, and the urgency of his voice made my jaw tense in determination.
“Indeed, Vizier,” I said, and it was his turn to chuckle.
[>>compiling… 10%]
Then the spiders surged.
[T3h_skitt3ring_m1nd]
[DPM filesize: XX LKB]
[>>Calculate exact filesize?]
[ThY_ski1töring_t|d3 #28]
[DPM filesize: XX LB]
[>>Calculate exact filesize?]
More hope. While the large spiders looked imposing, their power seemed to hover in the same range as the fog beast I had fought earlier. The smaller ones were even weaker, and I was sure I could probably kill them in one hit.
As the mass of twitching metal screeched closer, I scanned a few other spiders at random and found that they all ranged in the same two-digit LB and LKB area respectively. Considering what Zephyro said, that was a necessity. If they didn’t retain an equilibrium, the cluster would tear itself apart until only one last Feral remained, most likely stuffed with more Logic than it could process.
Why the larger spiders hadn’t killed the smaller ones, I couldn’t say, but it made me worry they weren’t as mindless as Zephyro thought. Their strength lay in numbers, and somehow, they had evolved to leverage that fact. Perhaps there was a hint in their names, and the larger spiders served as some sort of hub for a hivemind? Everything was possible, one option more terrifying than the next.
And that wasn’t even including the scorpion and that… thing with the mouths.
I suspected the fact that those two had actual names instead of numbered letter salad wasn’t a good sign, either.
[>>compiling… 11%]
I wished I had the time and resources to check their exact strength, but I needed my CPU to stay cool before the next fight and didn’t want to risk a sudden spike, or even worse, tipping over at the worst possible moment.
{CPU Load: 27%}
{Core Temp: ▼ 63° C}
It turned out to be the right choice, as the spiders rushing at us put on a burst of speed on the final stretches, one wave crashing into the scorpion, cresting over it as if to envelop it in full, the second slammed into the snake who seemed startled at the sudden attack, and the third was almost in range.
“Ready?” I asked, letting the censer fall from my hand and unwinding the chain from my arm. They rattled as they hit the ground, and the sudden lack of pressure on my forearm made me feel weirdly exposed.
“Of course, Sultana. Light the way.”
And so I flared Pharus, pulled back my arm, and sent the head surging forward with as much force as I could muster, aiming straight for the hulking arachnoid server rack. It hissed, its bladed fans whirring and server blades opening, revealing an orb of searing hot magma inside its “mouth”. Pharus was flying straight at its side, but to my surprise, several of the smaller Ferals jumped up to meet it. The fiery orb met them in mid-air and while most of them died instantly, they robbed me of my momentum, and the censer fell away uselessly until I yanked it back.
They all released a puff of Logic, but before I could even attempt to absorb it, it got sucked into the red-hot mouth now towering above me. A shudder went through the hulking monstrosity, then it leaned back, shivered, and regurgitated a splash of even smaller spiders onto the floor. I was pretty sure it didn’t convert the Logic one-to-one, losing several spiders’ worth of mass in the process, but somehow, it just didn’t feel like a victory.