Bad to the Throne, page 43
part #15 of The Good Guys Series
“Motherfuck–” I got out before the first set of claws whipped across my face, opening up my skin like paper.
I grabbed the thing by where I thought its elbow should be, and then brought that joint down on my knee, cracking it back the wrong way before ripping it off the creature. Then I let the bugthing go over my shoulder, off the stage behind me.
Quickly bringing the half an arm around, I used it to slap the next oncoming bugthing.
Which surprised the guy, because it didn’t attempt to block the hit, and just took it on the face.
Bugthing four stumbled off course slightly. I managed to hip check him off the stage, and he tumbled into the seats, tangling himself up with the other bugthings down there and buying me half a second.
Which I used to charge towards the Empress. I threw the arm at the Hargbinger, hitting him in the back of the head. As he turned to the left, I went to the right, managing to get my hand on the Empress’s leg to start pulling her from the altar.
The Harbinger went all the way around and brought down his claws into my arm, digging deep into the muscles before yanking his hand back, ripping furrows down my forearm. Blood shot out, covering my arm and pouring down onto the empress before spreading across the altar.
My blood seemed to glimmer and glow, changing color as it was pulled within the stone of the altar, becoming a deep, impossible black. Remaining there for a moment before disappearing.
The Harbinger snapped his eyes onto mine, and shouted something.
I got garbled notifications on my view, and I mentally threw them to the side.
“-- nalso carf cablüd!” he said.
I’d picked up his language, but only sort of, because it was still difficult to understand, exactly, what he was saying. I could hear what he said, but the words weren’t coming through.
He snarled and whipped his hand toward my face.
I leaned back and while he missed, it wasn’t by much. It felt like the tips of his claws went through the blood coming out of my ruined face, spraying a fine mist of my O-positive out into the air.
I could almost see the surface of the altar reaching up to yank that blood down.
The altar wanted my blood. And the Harbinger was clearly planning on using the princess on the altar, so it probably meant her blood was special in the same way mine was, so maybe it was royal blood that the ritual needed to open the door? Regardless, it needed blood, that much was obvious.
A gust of wind blew the blood away, sending it back into my face.
The Harbinger looked over where the wind came from, and Clyde was there, smiling.
The elf whipped a bolt of fire out of his hand. The Harbinger just bent his head down, taking the fire on his carapace as if the heat didn’t bother him.
Meanwhile, I yanked on the Empress again, getting her off the table and onto my shoulder.
I took one step before there was a bugdogthing coming at me with a wide-open jaw filled with layers of inward curving teeth. Getting my shoulder around, I managed to keep bugdog from getting teeth on me, but I could feel him sliding along my shitty, too-tight robe, causing it to rip apart.
Taking my momentum, plus what the dogthing gave me, I spun myself around with a fist up, before bringing to down into the spot where the bugdogthing’s neck joined the creature’s back. I got a great hammer blow in, cracking the thing’s carapace in thre places while driving the damn thing to the ground. For good measure, I stomped on its head, which exploded in a foul shower of gore.
Just as I felt something tugging the Empress from my shoulder. I pulled my arm around her tighter.
But the thing behind me pulled harder.
I didn’t quite dare hold tighter — the poor girl was barely alive as it was. So to keep her from getting torn apart, I let go.
And turned to see bugmanthing number whatever take Regina from me around the circular stage, clearly looking to keep distance from me while also delivering the girl back to the altar.
I went foot over foot sideways, angling myself to intercept.
Someone grabbed my ankle and yanked, causing me to stumble.
But then another set of hands was around my other ankle, also yanking.
I fell forward, and was caught by six hands wrapping tight around my arms. Between arms and legs, I was hoisted into the air, and couldn’t really move any longer.
As the Empress was being delivered to the altar, the Harbinger and Clyde were tossing little bits of magic back and forth. It was truly impressive, as they were throwing spells while counteracting their opponent in equal measure.
One of the cultists leapt up behind Clyde, dagger held high in the woman’s hand.
“Behind you,” I shouted.
Clyde whipped around and shot green acid into the woman’s face, which immediately started to melt through her, causing her to miss her stab and die in what probably would have been a loud and agonizing manner, had she still possessed the means to scream.
But that also meant Clyde wasn’t paying attention when the Harbinger unleashed a particularly wicked blast of pure force. It hit Clyde, throwing him off his feet and shooting him in a blur across the space from the stage to the stone seats several rows up.
The elf hit his back first, right on the edge of the rock. His bones shattered, spine hyperextending in a grotesque way. It produced a resonant crack that echoed through the theater, a foul blend of tearing ligaments and snapping bones, until his lower back was against the rise, while his head was flat against the run.
No longer moving.
113
I flailed about, trying to wrest myself from the hands that held me, but I had four of the stupid bugthings, each with three arms, holding onto me and seemingly willing to do anything to keep their grip on me.
Despite my strength, I had no leverage, no purchase. No matter how I flung my body around, I couldn’t bring myself freedom.
And the Harbinger was being delivered the Empress’s body, ready to get to bloodletting.
“Elfboy,” I shouted. “They need her blood. Get your ass up and do something.”
He didn’t move.
I managed to twist a wrist free, just in time for another to grab it.
I did have one last card to play — I could still manabomb.
Mister Paul hadn’t said that he was out of juice, so there was a chance he’d be able to finagle a respawn.
But, then again, I was a god, sort of. Maybe I could respawn some goblins.
That hadn’t been listed among my dieific skills though. Just being able to bless someone. Believers and non-believers alike.
Only one thing I could do to help out in that moment: I blessed Clyde.
The Harbinger had a wicked looking dagger held up high in his clawed hands, the blade a horrible blend of twists and turns, spikey bits and slicey bits. Very clearly designed to maximize bloodletting. And he was prepared to bring it down into the poor Empress to unleash all her vital fluids over the damn altar.
“Don’t let him get her blood on the altar,” I shouted, hoping someone in the place could do something.
The Harbinger whispered something, bringing the knife up higher.
But just as the Harbinger hit the apex of his reach, an arrow punched through the Harbinger’s hand, nearly ripping it off and causing the knife to clang down pointlessly on the stone stage.
The Harbinger roared his displeasure, and sent a huge blob of power and magic over toward the archer. An archer I thought might have a fluffy tail. The blob landed amongst the fighting cultists, whose bodies were then used as portals to bring through even more bugthings.
Whereby those new things immediately jumped into the fight against the Underwatch, striking back much harder than the cultists had. The fight had been slowly turning against the cultists, with passion losing out over trained martialism. But the new fighters, being inhuman, able to shrug off some hits, and having three arms, seemed to get a newcomers’ edge.
Whatever pretense the Harbinger had held onto for the ritual was gone. He drove two of his clawed hands deep into the Empress’s abdomen.
The pain from that heinous act caused Regina to awaken, screaming.
The Harbinger, unbothered, rent the girl apart.
Blood poured from the massive open wound that had been her torso. As it flowed onto the altar, the altar seemed to soak up her vital fluids with rapacious greed, transforming the banal stone into a profound black. As it spread, larger and larger, it seemed less like I was looking at something that had turned glossy black and more like I was looking into the void of space. That I could see distant stars blinking in and out.
“Don’t… let… them… win…” I heard someone weakly eke out.
A massive fireball ripped itself free of Clyde, seeming to grow larger and larger until it hung over the stage, covering it completely. Flames licked out of it like a miniature sun. Then, as if someone popped the inferno of a balloon, liquid flames poured down directly on the altar, incinerating most everything it touched. It both stayed in place and remained alight.
The Empress of Glaton’s skin blackened quickly. The horrendous fire melted away her screams, and she turned into white ash in front of my face.
As the liquid fire flowed off the altar, it lit the legs of the assholes holding me. And the Harbinger. They didn’t seem to know how to deal with the whole being lit on fire thing, apparently thinking that their carapaces would save them. But then the one of the first to get hot had his leg pop. The heat caused its liquids inside to vaporize. They went boom.
It was like someone dropped some popcorn, as those chitin-covered crap-addicts’ chitin-covered appendages experienced explosive expansion.
They could no longer hold on to me.
Which meant I went into the lake of fire as well.
But I figured that was the way I was going, and even though the little bit of my hair I’d regrown since the last burnitiation was already disappearing, I had that heartbeat of fire protection. So as I landed, I leaped for the Harbinger, who had managed to put up some sort of magical shield to keep himself from immolation.
His shield, however, didn’t cover body checks by overzealous idiots.
I slammed into him, taking him out of his shield, through the liquid fire and into the stands beyond.
He screamed as his body started to boil from the inside.
I grit my teeth as my body started to char and burn from the outside.
I got myself over him and started to wail on his carapace with my fists. Pounding over and over until his shell cracked and his chitin burst apart. The hammering of my hands caused his gooey insides to spray over everything, his hot ichor providing the worst kind of relief to my Montana en Flambé situation.
Somewhere under my assault, he stopped moving. Dying as he called out in that language for something, someone, to come save him.
But nothing did.
And he died.
And that notification popped up in my vision:
GG! You’ve killed the Harbinger (lvl 82 Cult Leader).
You’ve earned 11500 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
Which really didn’t answer any questions I had about him.
But, to be honest, I barely gave it a second thought, being that I was still caught up in the moment, busy pounding the stupid Harbinger into a paste.
A hand touched my shoulder.
“It’s over,” Amber whispered. “You can stop.”
I did, my breath still coming in big gulps, my body destroyed. I stood upright mainly by sheer force of will. I looked around, and I saw that Amber was right.
And as the Harbinger died, as the other Harbinger look-a-likes finished being cooked by the lake of flames covering the stage, it seemed to take some of the fire (ha) out of the remaining cultists. Who were few and far between, because most had been wiling to give their lives for the cause, and it seemed the professional soldiers were willing to take them.
It was over.
And it was a massacre.
114
As my body was busy pulling itself together and Bertrand took control of the situation, I limped over to the ruined form of the elfboy, Clyde.
I expected to see a corpse, to have to grieve a fallen warrior.
Instead, I saw him looking at me, blinking once or twice. He didn’t look great, in fact, still looked a bit like his back was broken, but, you know, alive.
“You look like shit,” I said.
“Pot, kettle,” he replied.
I collapsed next to him.
“Do me a favor?” Clyde asked.
“I’m not carrying you out of here like that. You have to have a shower first.”
“Not what I’m asking,” he said, sounding like it was difficult to get each word out. “Healing potion, pouch on belt.”
“I don’t have one with me.”
“My belt, jerk.”
I smiled, and found his belt, found his pouch, and pulled out what looked like a really high quality healing potion. I popped the cork out and then put it to his lips, pouring it slowly into his mouth.
He drank the whole thing down.
“Help straighten–” he started.
I quickly but gently got him into a seated position, supporting his back and neck. As I did, I could see his body coming together, the bones popping into place. I winced, knowing how much it hurt.
He took it like a champ.
A minute, maybe two, and he was back to mostly repaired, although I could see that the ordeal took nearly everything out of him. He could barely keep his eyes open.
“All better now?” I asked.
“Yeah, but you still look like shit.”
“Bah,” I said, leaning back on the stone and resting my head on the step, “that’s just my natural state of being.”
For a moment, the two of us sat there in a comfortable silence, and I thought he fell asleep. Or, more like passed the fuck out.
But then he said, “Weird how, at the end there, Regina said it was all a big mistake.”
“What?” I asked, thinking back to at the end how mainly she’d just been screaming at the top of her lungs the base primal howl of ultimate pain and impending death.
“How she begged for forgiveness and then said the one thing we could do was see her will through.”
“Her will?”
“That all her votes in the next election would go to Valamir, to put him on the throne.”
I frowned.
He looked over at me, a smile on his battle-weary face.
“Oooh,” I said. “Yeah. It was weird how that definitely happened at the end there.”
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
June 4, 2024
HOLY SMOKES.
This was TIGHT. Up against the dang deadline, my dudes. But, here it is. The longest of the Guys books yet because there was a ton of story to get through. And we did! I think. Hopefully it’s answered some questions, and given y’all a bit of a ride. I know it was a tough one for me because there was just so much to do.
You might notice that there’s no preorder for the next book. The seres isn’t done by a long shot. None of the Guys series are. Lots more to come and I’m so excited to get rolling on the next arc now that the Emperor arc is kind of wrapped up. Sure, there’ll be a few things to put ribbons on in the next book, but it’s basically on to the next big thing. That said, I’ve had a preorder deadline constantly since Fall 2018, and I just need a bit of a break from the loom. I’m going to go the rest of this year just putting out books when they’re done, and see how that goes. I’m not exactly sure what the rest of the year will bring from a publishing perspective, but I’m hoping that by next year, I’ll be back to the old schedule of six books a year. And I’m planning on doing at least another Good Guys this year for sure, and probably a Bad Guys as well.
Next for sure for sure book is going to be the first in a new series, Master of Puppets. It’s… um… it’s something a bit weird, but I hope fun. Here’s a link if you want to preorder it: BOOM!
Meantime, I’d like to thank you all for reading my stories and telling your friends to read my stories. It’s making my dreams come true and I’m really having the best of times. If you want to get a hold of me, you can do so via email, or you can join my discord (click HERE!) where all the cool kids hang out (and they don’t even take our lunch money)! And if you want to talk about anything, hit me up. I love you all, I miss you all, even you Kent, and I hope you are having the greatest of days.
Smooches, friends, I’m off to take a quick breather, and then write some more stories.
Eric
Smooches,
Eric
ALSO BY ERIC UGLAND
Roseland - Private Investigator Mysteries
Series One
Series Two
Series Three
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
