Gameplay (10 page)

Bryl managed to summon up a smaller fireball with the remainder of the weak spell, and drove off another Anted.

Tallin flipped a third arrow out of his quiver, trying to fit it into the crossbow. An Anted lunged up behind him and opened its jaws.

“Look out!” Bryl cried.

The ylvan whirled as the mandibles clamped around his waist, lifting him high in the air. “Put me
down!
Bug-Eyes!” Tallin pounded on the armored head, slapping the curved surfaces of the eyes. The jaws tightened like scissors around him.

* * *

Alone in the echoing throne room, Ryx stared through the eyes of her Anteds in a choreographed confusion of overlapping images inside her head. She shifted her bulk against the smooth and cold texture of the dais.

The bitter taste of Consort’s death was like bile in her mind. Everything was lost. They had killed Consort. They had killed her chance.

She sent out a command to all the Anteds.

Kill.

* * *

Tallin squirmed, pulling one of his arrows free. He pointed the tip downward to plunge it into the insect’s head.

But then the jagged mandibles closed together, shearing through flesh and bone.

Tallin’s eyes bulged as the sharp jaws crushed his abdomen. Blood spurted from his mouth.

“Delrael
!” he screamed. His crossbow clattered to the floor. Dark red splashed on the Anted’s black armor.

“Tallin! No!” Delrael’s muscles locked from the sick ice at the pit of his stomach. He could do nothing. He wanted to scream and pound his fists against the walls. He strained to see among the swarming masses of black hulks on the other side. “
No!
”

The Anted shook Tallin’s body back and forth like an alligator would, then it released him. The ylvan hit the curved tunnel wall, sliding down at the head of his own trail of blood.

Another insect sprang up to take Bryl in its jaws.

***

8. Queen’s Flight

“RULE #11. When a character fails in combat, he or she may die. Death is final in the Game—that character can never play again.”

—
The Book of Rules

Bryl could not reach the Fire Stone. He had rolled his spell, but the ruby lay untouched and gleaming on the ground. The Anted squeezed its jaws and lifted him into the air.

In a blur, Bryl’s hand snatched out the dagger Tallin had given him. Without pausing to think he struck down, pushing the blade deep into the Anted’s compound eye.

The insect let out a shrill scream, gaping its mandibles Bryl dropped to the floor on limp legs, holding both elbows against his ribs where blood from torn skin seeped into his blue cloak. A wet stink came from the Anted’s gushing wound. Bryl stumbled backward and grabbed the Fire Stone from the floor.

With more power than he realized he possessed, he blasted the wounded Anted into shards of chitinous armor and dripping tissue. The noise and flash of heat rippled through the tunnels, making him wince and back away.

“Delrael!” he called, but he was so frightened that it made his voice only a hoarse whisper. The other Anteds closed in. He wrung as much out of the spell as he could, roasting another two insects. Burning chitin popped and sputtered.

But Bryl’s spell faded away, leaving him defenseless again. He pressed his back against the curved catacomb wall.

Beside him, Tallin lay in a pool of blood.

* * *

“Tallin!” Delrael’s scream was hoarse, but he expected no answer. And received none. He heard only the scuffle of clawed feet, the sounds of Bryl’s fire. The stench of burning Anteds came through the wall opening.

Delrael’s shock gave way to rage. Sweat ran into his eyes from his dust-clumped brown hair.

“Journeyman can reshape himself and squeeze through!” Vailret said. “He can help Bryl.”

“Go!” Delrael shouted.

In a quick gesture the golem clapped a supportive hand on Delrael’s shoulder. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Then he elongated himself, stretching the clay into the opening. His feet slithered through and he reshaped himself on the other side, bulging and eager for battle. He balled his clay fists and scrambled into the fray.

Delrael chipped at the wall and listened to the sounds of the fight. Tallin lay dying on the other side.

He smashed the hilt down against the cement-sand, and a thin fracture line appeared. Smaller pieces of the wall flaked off. He could smell his sweat and the dust; his fingers began to sting and bleed. He and Vailret both grasped the rim of the hole and pulled, bumping into each other to get a better grip. A crumbling chunk broke off, falling with the loose sand to the tunnel floor.

“Come on!” Delrael crawled up through the hole. He scraped his elbows against the rough cement-sand, but he pushed his sword in front of him. He hooked his arms over the other side, then heaved himself through, banging his hip and scuffing his leather armor. He dropped beside Bryl with the grace of an acrobat.

He saw Tallin’s twisted body on the floor. The ylvan’s blood looked thick and dark in the harsh light angling through the opening overhead. He should have thought ahead, planned better.

“Tallin,” Delrael said once more, then set his jaw. Holding the sword like a club in front of him, he strode forward at the Anteds. Delrael’s ears pounded with a rushing of blood. He chopped with his sword. Vaguely, he became aware of the golem next to him hammering with his fists.

An Anted lunged at Journeyman, and the golem met it with a tightly clenched fist, splintering the chitin of its head in a rayed pattern like a spiderweb.

“It takes a licking and keeps on ticking!” The Anted flowed to the floor as all six legs went limp. “Hmmm, I guess not.”

Delrael noticed the periphery of the battle with only enough awareness to avoid any unexpected threats. Bryl squeezed his eyes shut and rolled the eight-sided ruby again. Vailret had elbowed his own way through the hole and jumped toward one Anted, stretching his short sword out to lop off the insect’s antennae. Reeling and disoriented, the Anted did not know how to defend itself, leaving it open to Vailret’s stab to the brain.

An Anted lunged at Journeyman, jaws gaping wide like a steel trap. The golem braced himself, catching the pincers with his hands, and he spread the viselike jaws. The insect struggled to back away, but still Journeyman applied his strength. After a loud snapping sound, the golem released his hold to watch the ant fall among the others on the floor.

Delrael searched for another insect as the first ant head tumbled to the floor. The decapitated body struggled awkwardly before crumpling. His mind saw only the red of Tallin’s blood.

Three more fell. Another exploded in flames as Bryl succeeded with his fourth spell for the day.

One insect circled around behind Delrael, opening its jaws. But Journeyman was there, leaping up and straddling the Anted’s back. “Oh, a wise guy, eh? Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!” He grasped the ebony mandibles and pulled backward. His clay muscles rippled, stretching the Anted’s neck grotesquely out of its socket until the pale connecting fibers popped apart.

The last of the chirping noises fell silent. Motionless hulks of the dead insects littered the floor, making it slippery with spattered ooze. No other Anteds appeared.

Delrael pushed his way past the fallen insect bodies.

Tallin.

Bryl was already bent over the ylvan. Delrael kneeled, staring, then he reached forward to brush blood away from Tallin’s mouth. Delrael was shaking. He dropped his sword with a clang on the hard floor.

The ylvan’s eyes trembled, then flickered open. The pupils were dilated, unfocused. Blood welled up inside them from ruptured capillaries, but still they held a glimmer of life. Tallin’s cheeks twitched.

Vailret’s voice came over Delrael’s shoulder, quiet and compassionate, but also practical.

“We need to get out of here, Del, before Ryx sends more Anteds.”

Delrael rose to his feet and turned on his cousin with such a terrible expression on his face that Vailret stepped backward, stumbling on the slippery floor. He caught himself against the wall.

Delrael slumped forward, shaking his chest as he contained his words, everything he wanted to say. He’d had many adventures, but he had never faced the death of a companion. Questing had been too much fun to worry about things like that. Rule number one—always have fun! It seemed like such a ridiculous thing now.

His father Drodanis had watched an ogre murder his brother Cayon. Vailret was beside Paenar when the blind Scavenger sacrificed himself at the volcano. But Delrael had never looked at death face to face before, never watched as the Outsiders removed a character from the Game permanently.

Delrael swung his fist in the air at some intangible foe. The Outsiders had to be watching. “What sort of Game are you playing with us! Why? Are you having fun?” His shoulders trembled. “Tallin.…”

The ylvan’s bloody lips parted, forming words like the last wind from a dying storm. Delrael bent his ear close to Tallin’s mouth.

“Take my crossbow and … use it.”

Delrael squeezed Tallin’s shoulder, trying to impart some energy back to the ylvan. He had been near death once himself, when the Cyclops attacked him near Ledaygen; but Thilane Healer of the khelebar had replaced his mangled leg with one made of
kennok
wood.

But they had no healers here now, nothing to help Tallin.

“Delrael … I’m glad I knew … you.”

Something like a sigh escaped Tallin’s lips, and Delrael stared intensely into the ylvan’s black eyes. He held onto the camouflaged leather of his jerkin. The cap with the single scarlet feather had fallen off, lying on its side against the wall.

Tallin’s gaze lifted, filled with tears of pain, and his eyes met Delrael’s once before the ylvan departed.

Delrael froze as ice worked its way up from his gut into his veins and muscles. He stared into the ylvan’s lifeless eyes before he lifted his hand to brush Tallin’s cheek. A smear of blood dried on the back of his hand.

Silence rang in his ears. No one said anything to him. Delrael drew a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but it didn’t work. He stood up, brandishing the old Sorcerer sword at anything that could hear him.

“Damn you, Ryx!” He hung his head. “You and all the Outsiders, too.”

His words bounced off the sides of the silent tunnel, vanishing into the distance. Bryl had recovered the Fire Stone and cowered beside Journeyman. The golem stood motionless among the destroyed Anteds, waiting to see what would happen next.

Keeping his eyes lowered to hide his fury from the others, Delrael snatched up Tallin’s fallen crossbow and fumbled in the torn quiver. He found one unbroken arrow.

Delrael withdrew it and held it in his trembling hands, watching as two drops of Tallin’s blood fell to the floor. Sheathing his sword, he tightened his hand around the arrow and took the crossbow with him. “This is all I’ll need to kill Ryx.”

Delrael went back to the hole in the wall from which they had come. Without another word, he pulled himself up.

“What are you doing?” Bryl said. He scrambled to his feet. Vailret looked as if he wanted to grab Delrael and pull him back.

“I’ll have to retrace our steps so I can get back to the throne room.” He vanished into the hole and dropped to the other side. “You can come along or not. I don’t care.”

* * *

Delrael fixed his gaze straight ahead, not even glancing at any of the side tunnels. His mouth felt dry and raw, but he used that to increase his anger. The others followed without doubting his skill—Delrael had been on enough gaming campaigns that he knew instinctively which tunnels they had taken.

Behind him, he heard the harsh whispers of his companions. Bryl complained about going to certain death, Vailret vowed not to let Delrael face it alone, Journeyman wanted to continue his own quest to Scartaris, but he also knew the way Gamearth adventures were done. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Delrael retraced their convoluted flight through the catacombs. He did not care about escaping. He only wanted Ryx. His revenge had a clear target. Ryx had been the cause of Tallin’s death.

Ryx.

Delrael did not pause when they passed Consort’s stiffening body at the intersection of cross tunnels. Things were different now—he remembered Tallin touching him on the elbow, telling him not to feel guilty about striking down the part-human creature. He listened to his sharp footsteps, steady and determined.

The tunnels sloped upward again, and Delrael strode toward the throne room. His anger had not begun to fade. Tallin’s death sent jabs of pain through his chest. The wound would have to be cauterized—by the death of the queen.

They crossed back over the underground hex-line, but still they encountered no Anteds. It was too easy. Bryl moaned that it was a trap. Delrael knew he was probably right.

When they finally reached the throne room, he did not slow. The others waited where the tunnels opened into the vaulted grotto, but Delrael strode ahead without stopping to think. He didn’t want to think right now. His eyes burned.

He made no attempt to hide himself or to approach quietly. His boots made loud noises on the hardened floor. He curled his lips as he saw the queen Anted alone on her granite dais.

“I’ve come to kill you, Ryx.” Delrael’s voice dripped ice. “For murdering Tallin.”

The queen turned quickly, pivoting her massive eyeless head toward him. She made a thin, warbling noise that Delrael could not interpret.

“After you killed my Consort and sixteen of my Anteds, how can
you
want revenge?” Her head bobbed in a convulsive motion and her short feelers waved in the air like whips underwater. “You could have escaped hours ago.”

Delrael didn’t flinch. “Without you to control them, Ryx, these Anteds would not have attacked.”

Ryx drew herself up on the throne, leaning forward and extending two claw-tipped legs. “Without me to control them, they would not be able to move! They are all parts of
me
, controlled by me.”

Ryx turned sharply, quivering her antennae. Sunlight from the opening above dappled her bullet-smooth head. “What? Another intruder? I thought no one went on quests anymore.”

She pulled the bristly hair from her forelimbs through the inner parts of her mouth, cleaning and combing them. She turned her attention back toward Delrael. Ryx hesitated, as if lost in memories and blanketed in her blindness.

“By killing Consort, you destroyed my chances to form another colony. A character race that could have surged across the map and risen to dominance even against Scartaris’s armies. Stronger than human characters, stronger even than the Slac.”

She rocked up from the stone dais. Her golden wings straightened to keep her balance. Ryx’s mandibles opened and emitted a thin hiss. “He was to be my Consort! I was developing him—he could never have changed entirely, but I would have borne him on a mating flight.

“Our colony of children would have had the strength and armor class of the Anteds, but also the intelligence, independence, and agility of humans! Gamearth could have been ours—but you destroyed him!”

The queen tapped her two forelegs together. A group of Anteds emerged in silence from other branching tunnels. As they approached, Ryx relaxed and seemed more aware—she could see now through their eyes. Delrael held Tallin’s crossbow, but did not take his gaze from the winged queen.

“Faster than a speeding bullet!” Journeyman shouted as he charged, swinging his battering-ram fists. He picked up one Anted and threw it at the others, knocking them back. “How do you like them apples?”

But more Anteds came. Journeyman smashed a head, whirling in time to kill another insect. The golem stood within the flood of monsters, flailing both arms, smashing and killing, as the Anteds drove in from all sides.

Vailret ran at those on the edges, slashing away their antennae and leaving them disoriented and blinded.

The insects squealed as a wall of flame erupted within their ranks, exploding their polished black bodies from within. Bryl grasped the Fire Stone, red in the face and sweating with his last spell for the day. But for a moment the Anteds were knocked back out of the queen’s chambers.