Company Unknown 5, page 22
The most shocking thing of all was that when Lyre shot toward him for another go, he was still alive. This time, I was just as fast. With my new buff-aided brawn and speed, I held her back.
“Questions first,” I said. “Pummeling second.”
“But there will be pummeling,” she replied.
“I’m involved. So much yes.”
Her grin thawed a little part of the heart I forgot I had.
The groupie had panic in his eyes, but not as much as I felt the situation demanded. I shook him a little until it was at the right level.
“What happened in the city above?” I half growled.
“Immigration.” He wheezed a little. “It’s up 1.1% the last month, and there’s a cold front coming in.”
“It’s 1.2%.” I shook him a little more. “And I hate that I remember that. But anyway, not what we’re interested. The battle. What happened in the battle? Who attacked the city?”
“Oh, my data must be out of date. I’ve been down here a while. As such, I can’t possibly know what happened since it was more recent than that.”
I tapped my foot and looked at Lyre more as a companion in frustration than anything. Her reaction was not what I expected. Incredulous annoyance was my move. Just because she also used it did not mean we were related. I was very glad Dink wasn’t here to see it.
“How does he know the battle was so recent if he was down here?” she whispered to my midsection. “These waystations are soundproof.”
Though he probably couldn’t hear her question, my expression when I turned back said it plainly enough. His mouth opened in response, but I shook him a few times anyway—to keep him honest, but mostly for fun.
“Stop it, please,” he said. “No more tricks. I promise. It was us who attacked the city.”
My mouth dropped open as I turned back to Lyre. “How many vampires would that take? Thousands?”
The dark look that came over her face was completely undone when she rubbed her little chin. It was too adorable for me not to smirk. Fortunately, she was absorbed in thought and did not notice. Or maybe she was so used to it she didn’t care.
“A city this size . . .” she finally replied. “Depends on their age and levels. How much they’ve fed recently. If more of them got the lucky end of the draw on their special vamp powers. Not to mention how competent and powerful the mundane followers they’ve gathered are. Vampires always neglect to take into consideration how useful those can be. Best guess, though? Ten thousand at least.”
If I thought I was shocked, the groupie was even more so.
Lyre cleared her throat. “But I don’t believe for a second that’s what happened. Makes no sense. Why destroy such a juicy food source? Not drawing any attention is one of their cardinal rules, and this is extreme. Not to mention getting that many of their kind to work together. Cooperation is as far from their nature as peaceful negotiation is to you, Pops. They only do that when the prize is too big to pass up. What prize would there be for them to do this?”
I gave Old Skin & Bones a shake.
He cried until I stopped. “I didn’t mean ‘us’ as in my masters. I meant ‘us’ as my birth people: the Al Mazonins. The forces that attacked the city were our own.”
After that, I tried for more specifics—but he was either dedicated to hiding something for his masters or telling the truth about not going out into the city. Made sense that he avoided it since he was alive (in the narrowest sense) and no one else was. I tried my best to get more information, and Lyre tried even harder, but her methods only ended in his health stat reflecting his appearance. Perception confirmed he was finally as dead as he looked.
With nothing more of use in the small room, we returned to the city. Lyre’s nose for blood found nothing after a few more hours of searching. However, the new knowledge allowed me to get some confirmation that the vampire groupie was telling the truth. Way too often I saw that the wounds in the civilians matched those of the weapons found on soldiers nearby. In more than a dozen occasions, the weapons were so unique that the wounds must have been made by them. There was still the slimmest chance they weren’t, but only a pain-in-the-ass like Metric would fail to be satisfied, or . . .
“They could be plants,” Lyre said. “The real killers left their weapons behind next to the enemy soldiers to make it look like those soldiers did the deed.”
“And even if they didn’t, we don’t know who these soldiers owe allegiance to,” I said. “This place is an elected monarchy or something. Lots of powerful princes and princesses running around who would love nothing more than to become the new king or queen.”
“And people think vampires are cold-blooded.” She shook her head as she stared at a corpse no older than her—or no older than she looked, anyway. “Keep looking?”
“Yes, but not here. We . . . no, I need to check this army out.”
Amusement lined her face. “Like you can stop me from following.”
“You can’t turn into a bat, right?” I tapped my hammer.
“Rare power for vamps, but no dhampirs can. We don’t get special powers as we age like they do.” She finally noticed my hammer. “I already kept up to you last time you flew.”
“Which I totally noticed but didn’t care about since I thought we were headed toward a peaceful city. This time I’m definitely headed toward hostiles. Even nearly me-like in your awesomeness as you are, you can’t take on an entire army.”
“Neither can you.”
“Don’t plan to, but if it comes to it, I have a ton of escape options. You can run pretty fast, but you can’t outrun an encirclement.”
She snorted. “Like I’m dumb enough to let them surround me.”
“The real reason is I don’t want to worry about what could happen to you if we do get in danger.”
“Awww, you do care, Daddy. What a load of crap.”
“I’m not joking. Worrying about you will be a distraction. And before you say you will not be in danger, you’ll be on your best behavior and extra careful, know that you just being there will prey on my mind, as if you were one of my soldiers. I must be in perfect form to avoid an entire army, and having even a small distraction on my mind—pun intended—will make that too difficult for me to allow. You. Are. Not. Going.”
She tapped her little foot, knocking up a cloud of dust. “Fine, then I’ll go separately. Approach from a different angle.”
“No . . . wait. What if you didn’t go toward the enemy but away?”
“Pretty sure I just said the biggest of nos to that. I am your daughter, and like you I’m no coward.”
“Not to run away. We need to prove who this army is, right?” I asked.
“By looking at them now.”
“Or another way to do that is to see where they have been.”
“Follow the trail to their home base. Know where they came from, know who they are.” She rubbed her chin in thought. “But there won’t be any fighting that way.”
“There might be. But I won’t lie to you, likely a lot less. It would really help us out,” I said. “Probably a much better chance of success. You do like winning, right?”
Her eyes rolled, but playfully. “Still your daughter in that regard.”
“A race? First one to get the answer and report back to town wins?”
In lieu of an answer, she sprinted off into the distance. I yelled that she was going the wrong way, but she had already corrected course before the first syllable left my lips. With nothing left to do, I took to the air. Who were these guys really, and why had they destroyed such a large city? Dergenstein still made the most sense, but it being some Al Mazonin usurper didn’t make a lot less.
I might not get the answer by finding this army, but I had to try. At least it would be a lot easier now that I didn’t have to babysit. Of course, Lyre was probably thinking the same thing.
30
LOCATING THE . . . ENEMY?
At first, tracking them was so easy a blind person could do it. One of the good things about a massive army is that it’s impossible for it to travel without leaving ample evidence of its passing. Even the most careful and disciplined soldiers still leave behind fresh dug dirt to cover their waste and debris. This army was neither of those things. Hugely trampled earth, trash everywhere, destruction in abundance. Not to mention the smell. Gas, poop, and urine may all be words that make me giggle under normal circumstances, but not so much when they’re wafting through my nostrils. For the hopefully only time ever, I wished I had more brawn not so I could smash heads like melons, but so I could lift a giant tank of water and dump it over them.
But unrealistic as that dream seemed, it was only relevant if I found the army. Ten miles out, all those signs ended in a nice, neat line. If I were Metric—and knew how to do it—I would have measured the line to see if it was indeed perfect. Magic or skills (or probably magic skills) had to be involved for such an abrupt switch.
After carefully scouting out the spot where it stopped with both Tiny Eye and squinting as hard as I could with Dimensional Shift, I slowly and stealthily made my way toward it. Metric and Dink would have said I was being careless for not taking more time before going in, but theirs were the very lives I was trying to save. Besides, everything pointed to this army having left the area about half a day ago.
I started with the area that was less mysterious, but after thirty minutes couldn’t find anything on the normal side to suggest how they’d disappeared. With way more caution than anyone would have thought I possessed, I went to the line where the army’s passing abruptly ended. Like a child—though a wise one—I tossed a few sticks and rocks over it. All landed on solid earth with no distortion or flicker of magic to mark their crossing.
My next attempt was full of magic. Though I’d sent my Tiny Eyes through the spot high above several times, this time I sent it near ground level, and then at actual ground level. The only difference came when the floating eyeball connected with the ground and winked out of existence. After a few more such attempts, that oddity proved to come from the eye suffering damage. Tiny Eyes only had one health, and the ground had evidently caused that.
With time not on my side and without any other ideas, I slowly extended my least favorite finger over the line. As it crossed the threshold, it occurred to me I could have tried a few organic things that weren’t attached to my body first. Some beef jerky or loose hairs would have been the smarter choice, but my patience had again gotten the better of me. I would never admit it out loud: this time, at least, it was largely due to worry for my friends. I’d already wasted a lot of time searching the destroyed city.
My finger, however, was fine. So was the rest of my arm when I misjudged my balance and sent it through too. Given how perfect I am in every way, that should not have happened. I was pretty sure something had pulled it. Something magic.
Not wanting to put myself in more danger than I had to, I tried the jerky, hair, and trimmed fingernail ideas. They behaved no differently than had the rocks or Tiny Eyes before, even as I paid more careful attention to any slight changes in their trajectory as they passed the line.
Thoughts of Kickinstein, my squad, and all the other people who depended on me forced my hand—and arm, torso, head, and the rest of my body. Not one for small measures, I crossed the spot in one leap. If I was going to die, it would be in action. “Closed-casket funeral or bust” would always be my motto.
In the split second I passed through the line, a tingle and slight tug washed over me. Having gained a lot of recent experience with portals, I knew that feeling all too well. I knew the feeling of having a dozen pikes and bows pointed at me even more. I got to experience both in short order.
The high elf barely got the H and A out for the word “halt” before my hammer was in his suddenly less perfect face. A couple of arrows tickled me as Multidimensional’s fifty-percent chance favored me.
The pikes, however, did more damage to their side than my own. I’d gotten in too close and too in the middle of their formation for them to help the elf. Not that it mattered two bashes later. I added a fourth to send his body to the archers as Knockback activated. The screams and crash alluded to my being successful; the lack of arrows afterward proved it.
I tapped the button to turn that ability off again. With their pikes so tangled, the last thing I wanted was to send any of the enemy away. Two more went down before it occurred to one of them to abandon that weapon for the short swords at their waists. Naturally, that smart guy was my next target. I felled him before he finished pulling the weapon free.
My plan had been to take out any others who tried that in the order they reached the same conclusion, but my plans are always fluid for a reason. The tromp of many boots and clang of moving armor alerted me to the need for a change. Staying put and gaining a little more experience loses its appeal when you won’t survive to use it.
Shoulder-slamming one of the still entangled pikemen into his fellows bought me a few seconds to glance around. To the north lay an enemy camp, and everywhere else was nothing but forest. Though I’d lost my bearing as to which direction I’d come from, I just looked at my first victim and assumed it was the one he was facing. Picking out the least entangled archer on the end, I activated Swap.
My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. A couple of seconds later, explosions erupted behind me. It took all my willpower not to look back and admire the destruction I’d caused, but it had been beaten into me since I was a boy not to do that. “Hesitation means death” and all.
I needed every bit of my concentration. I’d surprised them at first by taking to the air, but that didn’t last very long. Arrows, magic, and possibly a catapulted cow sailed by me. I still needed to work on my evasive maneuvers, but randomly changing direction every few seconds mostly worked fine. Multidimensional and Swap, whenever that ability was up, saved me from the worst of it, but the enemy caught me a few times. By the time Flight wore off and I made it to the safety of a well-hidden cave, I finally closed my eyes for a second to check my status. Any thought of saving all my regenerating mana for another go at Flight ended there. As soon as I had a little extra money, I needed to buy some pieces with more fortitude. Finding myself with single-digit health happened a bit too often for my taste. One more hit would have taken me out yet again. All my mana went for Restores until I was back to full.
Either they thought me not worth pursuing (ha!) or my hiding place was too good because fifteen minutes later there were no signs of the enemy when I stuck my head out of the cave. I’d wisely chained a Swap to an immediate Dimensional Trip before landing, almost reversing my previous trajectory while keeping low enough for them not to see either the portal’s appearance or where it had ended.
When hiding from pursuit in most situations, the worst thing you can do is to locate a great spot and leave it immediately. The search parties are more numerous and on their highest guard at the beginning. Much as I needed to get word back to the town, I had to survive first. Also would have helped if I had anything to tell them. But what had I seen?
The combat started immediately. A lot of that resulted from my wise decision to begin before they could react, but that didn’t give me much time to look around. I closed my eyes to access the memory exercises Garin had taught me. With no new stimulus to confuse or distract me, I was able to remember most of the fight.
The first elf I’d killed was incredibly handsome, like most of his kind. He was not me, of course. High elves’ beauty was always of the more feminine kind than the rugged, chiseled looks that favored me (despite what Dink says).
The elf’s face wasn’t that important, especially after what I’d done to it. His clothes, though, or rather his tabard was. Until now, I hadn’t realized that he and his companions were wearing Al Mazon colors. Although that was what I expected, it didn’t necessarily confirm anything. Not too long ago, I’d fought some soldiers pretending to be from Al Mazon by wearing old uniforms of their enemy. This army being from Dergenstein as the Prince had claimed was still a possibility—if that even had been the Prince I’d talked to through the crystal.
Unlike before, these uniforms were current. They were all red, apart from the black eagle emblem in the center. If these soldiers were from some personal army of a prince or princess, they should have had some patch or other unique mark to identify them, but I didn’t know enough about the local heraldry and whether that was true here. I hadn’t paid enough attention to the uniform of the few soldiers in the employ of the pompous dandies I knew.
As seemed to be a theme in my life, I just didn’t have enough information to arrive at a conclusion. If you wanted to go by my mom, Garin, Metric, or any of the other dozens of people who’d tried to teach me things, you could say it was my fault for not taking their lessons to heart—and sure, you’d be somewhat right. Even they wouldn’t have been able to draw an ironclad conclusion from the brief snippets I saw while fighting for my life.
What I needed was another look. And, sure, not knowing the Al Mazon custom for uniforms or heraldry would make anything I learned less useful, but that fact was only one of several I could gleam from a more thorough scouting. Where they were heading, who they were looking for, and their disposition to that force mattered as much as their identity. Plus, they could display other signs besides uniforms.
The way to answer all those questions was obvious. I wouldn’t discover anything just sitting here . . . but then again, I wouldn’t be able to convey any leads if I were captured. Naturally, right when I reached such a brilliant conclusion, I became unable to act on it. The enemy had arrived.
31
BUT I DO HAVE A POINT
One of the benefits of being in a large search party is you don’t have to worry that much about stealth. You can be as noisy as you want because you have the advantage, at least in that regard. Checking everywhere and doing it as fast as possible is your only concern.
