Company Unknown 5, page 47
It took nearly a week of short though intense skirmishes to finally put an end to this group. While Mom hoped dearly it would provide some quality bonding between father and son, it only reinforced the fact that, despite our outward similarities, Dad and I would never agree on our approach to battle or life in general. Impressive though he was in direct combat, he had absolutely no concept of subtlety, cunning, or tactics. With what he could do, he usually didn’t need to, but “things are rarely as you’d expect in life and especially in war.” He’d likely never learned that lesson, which was why he needed Mom more than any of us did back home, and I’d never be who he wanted me to be (and vice versa).
Much as both of us needed that time to be consumed with battle, most of it was the boring stuff that had made up my life: marching, searching, and fulfilling life’s necessities. At first, that gave us a lot of time to talk, but as the awkwardness grew and grew over our differences (and though I’ll never admit it out loud, our similarity in hardheadedness), we eventually decided that silence was a far better option.
Because it would only have showed how alike I was to him, I did not fill that void with unnecessary violence. I focused on quieter things like observing the Gaelkini and their world. Once you got away from the battlefield that was the area around their capital, it really wasn’t that different from the world I’d left: wilderness interspersed with the ruins of formerly inhabited places. Beyond the slight differences in flora and fauna, the lone major change was how few monsters there were. It actually would have been quite peaceful if we didn’t occasionally have to stop and bash some skulls in.
That peace didn’t last for long, for me at least. A nagging sensation that there was some greater way to use this world to help my town kept worming its way into my skull. What didn’t come was what exactly that was. Moving my people to this world was one possibility—after we took care of the sprinkling of rogue Fahrkini anyway—but that would involve having my dad and his “fight first, ask questions never” people as neighbors. Fighting was the only fun thing my dad’s people liked, and when the Fahrkini were gone and we were here, who would they take their aggression out on? We’d have a similar problem back home, but those enemies were a tad weaker and didn’t have the tag team of smart (Mom) and vicious (Dad) leading them. Plus, we wouldn’t have to build our town a third time in just over six months.
That question and its lack of answer were still churning at full speed in my skull when we found the leader of this band of Fahrkini. He was a second cousin of one of their recent kings. Which one, I didn’t really care. Could have been the one I’d met, could have been from a few decades ago. Didn’t matter since this doofus was about to join him.
He was no pushover. Herionitx had the Fahrkini self-proclaimed ultimate ability up to tier five, which allowed him to turn into a big fire elemental. Until now, I’d thought it made them all change into someone of about the same size and relative power with small variances due to their original body size, maybe with a boost for stats. I’d been very wrong; as in “if we knock him down, he’s going to create a forest fire that might burn out sometime after my grandchildren are old” wrong.
Before I could finish asking the question of how we were going to prevent that, Dad had already charged in. His escort did not show any reservations in following him. Well, at least they’d loaded all of us with so much fire-resistance gear that we’d survive . . . standing in it. Did it also protect our lungs?
I breathed a sigh of relief when my Dimensional Portal detected a spot just to its left that could take me to an (almost assuredly) safer place in another world. That few-seconds lead was all the others needed to finish the party before I got there, or so I thought at first. “The bigger you are, the easier you are to hit,” after all, but when you’re a fire elemental you get to add “and the hotter you can get.”
Despite being assured our fire resistance would make us immune to anything their skill could throw at us, we hadn’t measured it against someone like Herionitx. Hammering and stabbing him with rapid abandon soon became something of the past. Limbs grew tired, blows slowed, and bodies began to tumble down of their own accord, and those were the lucky ones. The rest felt his wrath in a much more direct and painful way. Giant-sized limbs may be easier to hit, but it’s also easier for them to hit you. And even if we did manage to barely dodge, the hot, hot wave of the limbs passing left us with a parting gift.
Only Dad was tough enough to still be standing after a direct hit. Unfortunately, that feat made his already big head grow. He had the audacity to challenge the towering elemental to hit him again, and Herionitx was more than happy to oblige. At least Dad left a perfectly formed impression to make the back half of the statue that would go over his tomb eventually.
Much as I would probably never get along with him, I wasn’t quite ready to not have a dad again. Though the elemental was a huge inferno, it had come suddenly. There was one slow bird still in the air nearby, and I targeted that with Swap to give me a little extra distance in the air. Flight took over from there, and I made a beeline for the orbs it had for eyes. At ten feet in height, they weren’t hard to find—and as I’d hoped, they had no trouble seeing me coming. The arms that were about to make my mom a widow instead focused on me.
For things so big, they were surprisingly fast. Not as fast as me, of course, but still impressive. Just before the burning fist forced son to copy father in eating dirt, I plopped a nice portal in the way and appeared above its owner’s head. My momentum wasn’t as fast as I would have liked, but my hammer still crashed hard, Knockback adding its considerable weight.
“The bigger they are, the harder they . . . sway?” I asked myself.
I did not wait for an answer; I was already moving away for another pass.
Unfortunately, my opponent was moving as well. Its initial confusion only lasted halfway into my trip above. By the time I was coming back down, it was looking straight at me. I grinned at it, and it bit. Instead of trying to punch me again, it waited until I was close and then swung behind its head, anticipating my same reappearing act. Too bad for it, but my ability was on cooldown for another four minutes and I couldn’t try the same trick even if I’d wanted to.
I hadn’t expected it to be that clever, or wrong, however. Because of that, my momentum took a sizeable hit as I prepared to swerve away at the last moment. I still swerved back to land a nice hit between its eyes.
Still, it didn’t fall. But it did buy my “friends” below some much-needed time. More than a third of them were back in action whittling down ankles, or shins in the case of my dad. The two mages we’d brought with us for their water spells were using them on our parched and burning troops instead of on our opponent. Dad wouldn’t be happy about that, but I’d smooth it over yet again after.
From then on out, I didn’t have nearly as much luck at landing blows. Distraction was where my real benefit lay. Once it decided the guys making its shins a bloody—less fiery?—mess were worth taking a swipe at, I quickly reminded it how much more its head could hurt if it ignored the hammer-wielding fly buzzing up above.
The fight was just a long slog of watching its health tick down like I was in a shield wall back with the Unknown—or so I thought. One of the soldiers with Perception below had barely gotten out that it was at five percent when the world got brighter and a heck of a lot hotter. After that . . .
63
THE OTHER SIDE
I’d say I woke in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar headache, but that would be a lie. I woke up like this more often than not. Really, I was used to disoriented. You’d think that would mean I recovered faster too, but . . . maybe I could get back to you with an answer later. Right now, hurt and try to think.
The faces, big and blue, there to greet me put me a little at ease. Their grim expressions and drawn weapons less so. The largest and meanest one in their center actually did make me feel better, relatively speaking. Dad and I didn’t agree on much, but we were past the trying-to-kill-each-other phase of our relationship, at least for now.
“What happened?” I finally gathered enough wind to say.
“Bastard had a self-detonation device,” King Dad said. “Thought they’d used the last of those centuries ago.”
A few of his soldiers nodded tiredly.
I rubbed my soot-covered head. “And we got out of there how?”
“You’re not the only one with Swap and Dimensional Shift, kid,” Dad said. “Everyone here has them, in fact. It’s a requirement for my elites.”
“Thanks to whoever plucked me away,” I said to the group.
A scarred, older demon bobbed his head in acknowledgment, though he didn’t look up from cleaning his sword.
All our equipment was black. If it hadn’t been of such high quality, we could have tossed it away and replaced it, but Dad had given us the best for this mission. My hammer was the only piece I’d brought with me. Too bad I’d have to give everything else back when I returned home. My stats were nearly doubled. At least my old stuff was still clean inside my bag.
“Does detonating kill them?” I asked.
“Yes,” Dad said. “Cowardly but honorable in a twisted way too. They use all their remaining matter as a weapon to spite those about to slay them. A Gaelkini warrior thanks ones with such skill, but the Fahrkini are a cowardly lot—which is why they are practically no more.”
A ragged cheer came from his soldiers. Even in our bloodiest battles before, it would have drawn almost fervent screams of approval.
I finally looked at our surroundings. The trees were a little charred but not too bad. Looking a little further showed a much different story, however. The only good thing was that I could not see any of the expected forest fires. Thinking back, I hadn’t seen a single tree burn down from any of the Fahrkini’s attacks. Their fire could destroy the trees, just like anything else, yet they never burned afterward. Magic never makes sense, but sometimes that’s a good thing. With an entire faction tossing around fires like cheap candy, there likely wouldn’t be any trees at all left otherwise, I guess.
Still, our opponent had managed to obliterate several acres of forest with his detonation. It wasn’t hard to see where that explosion had occurred—the big smoking crater to the north. I wasn’t a good judge of distance, but it must be several dozen miles away. Good thing there weren’t any people left out this way before it happened.
There certainly wouldn’t be for a long time after, unlike the areas between my town and the rest of civilization. Those spaces would slowly fill in. I imagined that within the year there’d be three or four new villages popping up about halfway from us and the rest. There were always groups who wanted to get away from others. People can be dicks, people can be crazy, and people can just want to be left alone. I could relate to all of those at times, but it would be nice to have some people closer by because they also often have things you need. We had a lot of needs right now.
But what if we could keep those others away, so they could continue not to bother us, while being able to bring things to and from them fast?
“Near that fight,” I said to Dad. “My Dimensional Shift sensed a place for a portal to another world.”
“Thinking of running away from us, were you?” Dad asked sarcastically.
“You, yes. Them, no.” That drew a chuckle. “Anyone have any idea where it leads?”
Dad shrugged but one of the mage’s eyes perked up.
“It should lead back to your world, my prince,” the mage said. “I’d have to check my maps back at the castle to be sure, though.”
My knuckles gripped my hammer so tightly they were white. “You have maps? For just this world or also the other ones the portals lead to?”
“Both, though the ones of the other worlds aren’t the most complete. Yours is one of the better ones.”
I stopped and breathed a bit. The excitement was so great I was afraid my voice would come out squeaky or cracked. “Would it be possible to see them or get copies?”
The mage looked at the king. Dad shrugged. “Sure, but at least mention it to your mother first. She likes to think she runs things. Obviously not, but it’s more peaceful that way.”
A few slight smirks emerged, all of them just out of Dad’s line of sight, but all were smart enough not to contradict him. I decided not to mention the topic on the journey back for fear someone might break. His warriors were all good people, if not terribly fun, and there was no need to get them in trouble.
We mostly stuck to our familiar awkward small talk on that journey. Though it wouldn’t be worth much money, unlike most of the other stuff I was going to introduce to the Gaelkini, the concept of comedy was at the top of my list to give them.
As I’d expected, Mom did not approve of just giving me their maps. However, she “generously” agreed to include copies in the first cargo we’d be delivering. That took a few weeks for us to gather. Though the maps wouldn’t be useful for quite a while, I was actually chomping at the bit to get them, more than Metric or any of my other nerdy advisors.
That wait was well worth it. There were portals that led to just about every major city on the continent back in my world. Now I knew why there were so many stories about demon invasions. The Gaelkini and Fahrkini had been using our world to hone their newest recruits since it had been formed, or as a place of refuge for exiles—like the one the Unknown had uncovered on our first mission. Mom put a stop to that first practice, which Dad didn’t mind. Fahrkini outlaws existed for that, and pockets of monsters that would need a lot more attention now that the numbers of both warring peoples had dwindled so much.
It took several months to gather enough goods to send our first trade caravan through the portals there and then back again to some faraway land of my world. I put up a mission that I gave to one of our Gaelkini squads to guide the caravan rather than protect it. Having others with tier-four Dimensional Shift was a huge boon. (Not that I would mention it to Mom. She’d probably charge extra for such uses of the skill.)
We had to send feelers to all those towns beforehand to find out what was in most demand and how much each good would sell for. Then we had to figure out which of those goods the wide array of artisans who’d sought refuge in our town could actually produce. Many of the highest-tier goods they could make required a large outlay of money for the equipment and raw materials—not to mention the time to manufacture them or, in the case of potions and alcohol, to ferment.
During our first few rounds, we focused on goods that were cheap and fast. Metric and Gristlefrocket had the time of their lives building spreadsheets and other nerd crap to figure out how long we’d continue with those products, what would come next, and what was our ultimate goal. Horrifyingly, my Bureaucracy skill lent its hand too. I drank myself stupid in denial later that night when I realized I’d enjoyed it.
While at the bar, I noticed someone else who looked just as sad as I felt. I nearly stumbled off the stool when I realized who it was (and not from being very drunk . . . mostly).
“Young lady, what are you doing in a seedy place like this?” I asked the small dhampir.
“You’re here.” Lyre barely looked up from her cup.
“Exactly. And any place that would have me is the seediest of them all.”
“My father, ladies and gentlemen,” Lyre said to no one in particular. “He has time to be stupid. He has time for the town. He even has time for his own parents who are indifferent to him, but does he have time for his own daughter?” She raised her cup and spilled two thirds of the contents on the floor.
I grabbed it from her and slammed it down. “I’m not your father, but if I were, I would send you to your room. Drinking? At your age. What is this stuff?”
“Cranberry juice and blood.”
“And what else?” Sniffing the stuff did not confirm anything, but it at least made it look like I was doing something.
“Nothing, you doofus. And even if it was alcoholic, my dhampir metabolism would ensure it didn’t affect me like it does you.”
I turned to the bartender, our resident necromancer. “As your guy in charge, I order you to never serve her anything alcoholic.”
“Of course, my liege. I would never.”
“Why is she even allowed in here?” I asked him and the room at large. “This is no place for children.”
“We normally wouldn’t, but it is rather hard to stop her,” the bartender replied. “She almost bit the leg off two of my zombies.” He pointed to a lifeless verge and ogre on either side of the main door. Both were tilting a little to the left.
I gave the dhampir a disapproving look. It wasn’t my best, probably because I was a little proud of her. Taking on two hulking zombies at her age . . . but no, she needed someone responsible to guide her into being better than me. Someone who was her real father would be better, but since we’d probably never know who that guy was, and her mom was somehow worse than me . . .
“What’s really bothering you?” I finally said as I sat down next to her.
“Now he cares,” she said to the room. Everyone else had the sense to focus elsewhere.
“Because I haven’t had time for you lately?”
She tilted her head sarcastically. That had been my move before I’d officially joined the Crew.
“How about we go out on a mission tomorrow?” I asked. “I could use a breather anyway.”
“Just us or the whole squad?”
“The whole squad.” The annoyance in her face was obvious. “Because I’m not nearly enough to keep an eye on you. You’re too strong—and awesome for just one person.”
The irritation decreased and she even cracked a smile.
We spent another hour chatting. It seemed she wasn’t the only person in the squad who’d missed me. She said most of them understood that my new duties were more important than hunting monsters, but popping in every few days to let them know I hadn’t forgotten them was something else for my agenda. It would help my sanity too. Friendly faces who didn’t need some urgent approval would do me good. So would taking out my frustration on some poor unsuspecting monsters. Somehow being in charge was both boring and stressful. I needed this, and so did they.
