Around noon we had to stop. Frankly I was amazed we made it that long. Anyone who has been part of a road trip knows you are gonna have to stop. Regardless of how well you plan, something was going to bring everything to a halt. That assumes you are dealing with a van full of people. This was six figures worth the people. Logistically speaking we never should have gotten started.
We stopped for a full hour. Potty breaks and handing out food takes a minute.
Toad had stopped us close to the middle of the line. He had wanted to check up on his kids. His wife eyed me from across the distance. I knew the look. It was that ever more common, ‘you’re the giant that is going to get my family killed’ look. Three other folks were giving me the same look. Most others were purposefully gazing at anything that wasn’t me.
Spine found me pretty quickly. “Can you get me off the bus with Nanny Shank? They got me singing kid songs and changing diapers. All anyone over six is talking about is sleeping arrangements and meal prep.”
“And they are including you?” I asked.
“Yeah, after the break, Nanny wants me to hop onto a skipper and pass messages to the other Nannies and Pappies.” Spine complained.
“You will be off the kid car,” I pointed out.
“I’ll be a mailman,” He whined, “Do you have any idea how cold and miserable it is to hop from one truck to the other. You get icicles in places.”
“Spine, you understand Nanny Shank is grooming you right?” I asked.
“What the fuck? Eugh!” Spine started.
“For leadership,” I explained.
Spine blinked at me, “Huh?”
“You’re the Grand Mugwump,” I told him.
“That is not an answer,” Spine accused, pointing at me.
“Think about it, what is the most important part of any society?” I asked him.
“I get you’re trying to lead me to a realization, but we don’t have that kind of time,” Spine said. “I got to get back and do headcount in like ten minutes.”
“It’s people,” I told him, “and without the next generation there won’t be anymore people. You are being positioned to lead the young while working with the elders. You are in a very powerful position.”
“Yeah but she’s just handing down orders. I know folks who could knock this list out in like an hour. Nanny Shank thinks this stuff is going to take until the next stop.” Spine looked frustrated.
“Did you tell her that?” I asked.
“Kids aren’t supposed to argue with Nanny or Pappy,” Spine said. He kicked a piece of ice.
“You’re not a kid. You’re a Grand Mugwomp. Don’t argue. Talk with her. Make your case, but take her answer.” I told him.
“How is that different than just doing what she tells me,” Spine asked.
“You are looking at it wrong,” I told him. Toad had finished with his family and was coming back. “You don’t want to be right. You want to make things better. Take the opportunity to make a case and trust her to do the right thing. Worst case scenario you spend the day doing the things you were complaining about having to do anyways.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said, turning to leave.
We spent the rest of the day looking at the layout of the tower. While it is true that technically there were 360 degrees to approach from, circles and all, in practicality there were four options. There were viable paths on the North, South, Southeast and West. The rest of the area was either too rough or exposed. The tower was surrounded by a massive moat-like chasm, and a sprawling web of fissures were in the ground around it.
Unless you could fly you were basically stuck knocking on one of those four doors. The Demons knew that too and set the place up so that those four entries were hardened as hell.
“It looks like the main entrance is the south gate,” Toad said. “That makes sense. There isn’t much north of this place, at least to my knowledge.”
“So what are you thinking then?” I asked.
“I think you should hit them at the south gate,” Toad said. Then our breaching force will hit the South East. This will get us the best path to extract everyone we can.
“You want me to take a gate myself?” I asked.
“Yes. stand out in front of it. Make a lot of noise. Break the damned thing and pull the demons toward you. If possible destroy this gun overwatching the southeast gate. That will pull focus and allow us to break the Southeast gate, and help you if need be.” Toad looked up from the map at Angelica.
“I like the idea. That pulls focus from the Northeast, and I will hit them from there,” she said.
“I was thinking of the same,” Brand agreed.
“The Southeast gate will be my target.” Sunit said. “I will be part of the second wave, and break the back of any resistance trying to stop you, or head off the counter-attack.”
We talked through a bunch of other things. The minutiae of troop deployment, and contingencies all sort of scenarios. It was becoming increasingly obvious, to me at least, that I was the Warlord, but I was a figurehead. I didn’t know jack about the day to day anything for soldiers. This wasn’t a major blow to my pride. Frankly it was a relief that Toad could read the room well enough to understand he needed to take charge.
The way I saw it, the best way I could contribute to this effort was to become the biggest force multiplier possible. Trouble is I wasn’t sure the best way to do that either.
Eventually we stopped for the day. The evening turned from twilight to dark in the space of twenty minutes. There were clouds to the north but currently the sky was clear. Stars blinked into existence as everything outside the bustle of the goblin convoy grew still.
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“I’m concerned something is going to happen tonight,” I said. Internally I flinched. I didn’t want to hand Wilson any greater leverage but this needed to be said.
“Same,” Angelica agreed.
Everyone else agreed that risk was high.
“How about this,” Angelica offered, “I will take up a spot at the front, Doug can take a spot at the back. Brunhilda can take one edge, and Sunit, Brand and Aiko take the other side. That plus the regular guard should at least give everyone else a warning when something happens.”
“Alright,” Brunhilda agreed.
Sunit and Brand didn’t see any problem either. Aiko clearly had concerns, but didn’t voice them.
That left Toad and me at the ass end of the convoy. Which was also down wind of everyone. The air was thick with the scent of diesel. Funny how she volunteered me to be here, while she was in the crisp unscented part of the world. Toad may not have been laughing but I was a little tickled.
May as well get some business done. I sent Toad the prompt for Warband perks, “Which one do you recommend?”
To my surprise he had to consider that for a long time. “The answer is complicated. All For One is honestly better for you. That said One For All will help more of us survive the fight to come,” Toad sighed, “Long term it has a broader use and will work as a stronger recruiting tool, but you would be walking away from a significant amount of personal power.”
I selected One for All.
Toad blinked as he checked through his prompts. “Thank you.”
“Level with me Toad. How is morale?” I asked.
“Honestly it is getting better, but it is middling at best,” Toad admitted.
“Because they are afraid of me?” I asked, gazing at the stars.
“Terrified,” Toad said. “Goblins may not have an easy life. Especially not out here in the wastes, but we aren’t under the boot of a Patron. We have watched others be chained and crushed under their control. That is what the so-called gods do.”
“And I am a Titan Spawn leading you to a gate to hell,” I understood the concern.
Toad was quiet as he considered his words, “But they are going to follow.” We stood there for a while not speaking. Eventually Toad pointed up at the sky. “There’s the north star.” His hand traced up, “The little dipper” he drew and S through the sky with his finger, “Draco” he pointed with his left hand, “Virgo, and below her Leo and next to that Ursa Major.” He smiled gazing at the vast mural in the sky.
“You really like the stars.” I said, to his credit, out here in the dark away from the light of a city the night sky was beautiful, at least until the clouds rolled in.
“Of course. Just look at them. They are beauty and grace dancing orderly across the sky. When I was young, my pappy showed me the constellations. As his pappy showed him. They are part of a shared history. He would tell me, ‘As different as we are, we all live under the same stars.’ It is a small thing, but it is a commonality. I have studied constellations my entire life. Ask me about any of them?”
“Have you ever heard of the Southern Cross?” I asked.
“No,” Toad admitted immediately.
“You have to be near the equator or the Southern Hemisphere to see them.” I kind of felt like a dick. I didn’t want to pull some gotcha bullshit on him, but I didn’t know very many constellations.
Toad just gazed at me in wonder. He almost sounded child-like as he asked, “There are more stars?”
Before I could respond something flashed. I turned to look at the clouds rolling toward us. The wind was picking up. It almost felt like a thunderstorm was brewing. Just as I decided it was too cold for that to happen. The deep resonate rumble of thunder hit my ears.
We both watched the coming storm. The flickering of lighting was getting more common. The following thunder took on an almost drum like beat. The storm wasn’t going to hit us but it was going to run past us.
“Is this normal?” I asked Toad.
“No, I have never seen anything like this.” He said watching it suspiciously.
Some… thing made a noise. It was a deep and impossibly loud note that overpowered the rumble of thunder. It continued for almost a minute. As it cut out I realized it was a roar. Whatever was out there, it was bellowing at the storm, issuing a challenge.
There was a massive impact. The ground shook. This was followed by another roar. Something massive flitted over the pulsing light of the storm's electric discharge. Another catastrophic impact rattled the earth. I had to fight to keep my feet. Toad was launched into the air. He seized my leg to not fall.
The ice around us shifted and folded as it flowed from the incredible force of what just happened. The noise of this movement was unbelievably loud. Imagine the crash of a sledge hammer crushing a rock. Then multiply it by ten thousand and have it repeat that every second for twenty seconds. That was the sound of whatever creature that was out there made as it slid across the ice. It was so loud I couldn’t hear the screaming.
We were lucky. The packing of the ice from the convoy had made a hardened plane in the snow. The creature was moving parallel to our path. So when the monster fell like a building, we were on solid ground as everything around us bucked and rose. Wicked, jagged stalactites of ice erupted out of the ground as the drifts flowed.
That is when I saw it. The monster had crashed about a half mile from us. It was massive. It shook off the impact with the ground and let loose another defiant roar. It rose to its feet. This took some time. It just kept standing up until its head was three stories high. No, that under-sells this thing. Whatever it was, it was serpentine. The long coiled body was probably close to two hundred feet long. It had two muscular but relatively stubby legs, maybe arms. But then its wings unfurled, and I stopped short of moving. It had a wingspan of over two hundred yards.
On the underside of the wings a vast array of glowing channels of power burned with near volcanic heat. The ice around it melted and began to boil. Energy flowed up the winding neck and concentrated into its mouth. A miniscule sun manifests between the tips of its forked tongue.
It was a fuckmothering dragon!
With another contempt filled roar it unleashed a column of fire. The flame in front of the dragon was white hot and resembled the almost knifelike focus of an acetylene torch, except it was nearly half a mile long. From there it unfurled into a cone of red and orange burning hate. The dragon launched this attack into the sky at the wall of clouds. It slammed into a barrier of pounding rain and then streams of lightning. Now I am no physicist, but I don’t think you can block fire with lightning even if you chuck some water in beforehand.
The attacks clashed and for a brief moment roiled off of each other in an awesome geyser of heat, noise and force. As the attacks pushed against each other we were hammered by the wind. Hail and rain pelted us relentlessly . The scent of ozone was overpowering the stink of diesel.
The dragon couldn’t maintain the stream of fire. It brought its wings down faster than a hummingbird could and launched itself into the sky. The damn kaiju dodged lightning bolts. Without the heat the rain became snow and steam flash froze into an icy haze around us.
“The hell was that?” I asked, as a ringing silence followed.
Toad tried to answer but the deafening explosion of thunder drowned his words out.
Angelica and the others found us and for the next four hours we watched as a literal goddamn apex predator exchanged fire with a storm that had malicious intent. Thankfully both were uninterested in us and both were drifting away from our location. Also the Goblins had refrained from firing on either. Maybe it was good sense or maybe they had been stunned like I had been. Either way we weren’t stuck fighting one or both of these things.
“I think that is Verechelen,” Brunhilda shouted over the noise.
“That or Lindworm!” Brand called back.
“What’s it fighting?” I asked in a pause of the thunder.
“Giants, they live in the clouds,” Angelica said. “They trade with Zach and he hates dragons so…” a roar drowned out the last of her words. In another moment of relative silence she added, “This is going to be a very long night!”
It was too. Oddly enough the quiet after we could no longer see or hear them was way worse than the noise. These things were fast, powerful and had a hell of a reach.
Zach claimed to kill these things. I think Cole worked with dragon. The Titan made it sound like they paid Cole. Maybe I should watch my mouth around them more… maybe.