Chapter 45 – The Scar and the Scarred

  The rest of the day passed without major incident, and some of the others were able to nod off in the corner for a bit. Not Cole, though. He kept watching the demons, who primarily occupied themselves with some sort of game using small shards of bone—to which the goat-eyed demon seemed to be mostly winning. The stink of sulfur was still strong in the air throughout the day, burning Cole’s enhanced senses and it mostly came from the demons themselves, he quickly realized. He was relieved when Guall finally got up and kicked over the table, scattering the bones and the assortment of brass coins and knick-knacks the demon warband used to gamble with.

  “Time enough we were on our way,” he grumbled. A sore loser, if Cole had ever seen one. Cole kicked Roxy’s foot, who had somehow managed to doze through the crash of the table, and she grabbed her shield and nudged Howie. Besson was already fitting Nutmeg’s gas mask. A scuffle from outside had the big demon hefting his hand cannon toward the door.

  “Best the rest of you mask up, as well,” said Guall. His yellow tongue flashed out, wiping across the front of his teeth. “I know how… delicate human lungs are. Heh.”

  Cole nodded to the others, who pulled their masks back on before the two squads left the guardhouse in the shadow of the abandoned watchtower. And headed north.

  * * *

  Moriarty looked out over the valley, seeing in his mind the steam carriage that would soon be trundling along—right into the trap he and his team had laid. In just a few hours, Cole and the others would be launching their distraction to keep the knights at the front locked down. Then, they’d hit the steam carriage, deal with the two mages before they could conjure up a defense and be out with Leon Jacobs and on their way back to the vehicles. They’d leave a few witnesses. Had to let the locals know this was DOR collecting what was theirs, after all, and not an assassination. But by the time word got back to the capital they’d already be back on Earth with another rescue closed out and a few more levels under his belt. He was close to level 20, and he could feel his next class evolution coming. His experience didn’t come primarily from combat. It came from gambling with people and plans.

  The planning was perfect. Precise. The intel was solid, and their mole was already on his way to confirm their target. He didn’t understand why more Kickers didn’t make use of local contacts. There were always people looking for a ticket out of their situation. The more dire, the more desperate. In a world without SIGINT, people were what mattered. And his ability let him read them like books and play them like instruments. The senior Kickers had given him the nickname Moriarty, because they didn’t know the difference between the criminal from Sherlock Holmes and the master manipulator Machiavelli. It had stuck.

  Alexa approached his position, her small clockwork familiar clicking away.

  “I’ve got the rat,” she said.

  “Source,” he corrected.

  She shrugged. “Same thing.”

  The man beside her was wearing a Vaelian military uniform with an old, corroded breastplate. He was shaking, somewhat, being surrounded by humans with gear and weapons that must have seemed so strange to him. Beyond, just peeking over the trees, he could see the battle fortress being erected—an impregnable stronghold ready to shore the line if the front should fall. And it would fall. The humans on this world had no idea that demons didn’t suffer attrition like mortals did. Moriarty put on his most disarming smile.

  “Relax, Burthan, it’s almost over.”

  “There was another gas attack, earlier,” said Burthan. His watery eyes scanned the assembled kickers. “Reports are coming over the message crystals. The Scarred Ones flooded the hills south of Nontial’s Ridge with poison. They’ve never struck that far south before.”

  Moriarty burned a charge of his ability, and all the man’s fears and desires spread from him like a web—along with the words to push or prod. “They grow bolder every day because they know the hero forces their hand. It’s only a matter of time before they strike at the ones who have nothing to do with the fighting. None of this is your fault.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The man, a simple quartermaster, tensed. He pulled a wooden block with information hastily scribbled across its surface. Moriarty eyed it greedily. “Fuel for two steam carriages, requisitioned this morning. The only thing that takes priority for fuel over the stronghold is a royal order. They are being secretive. But there’s no return trip scheduled and no troop movements to the front. They don’t have enough fuel for the northern road, and with the rain, the carriages would get stuck in mire to the west. They’ll come by this road. This is their route, I’m sure of it.”

  Oh, how these backwater worlds longed for proper operational security. This one man, this quartermaster who wasn’t even assigned to the hero’s party had undermined the entire operation just by measuring how much coal was shoveled where. Moriarty held out his hand, but Burthan pulled it back. One of Moriarty’s other teammates stepped up behind him, and the man paled. But Moriarty waved him off and reached into one of his pouches. “You’ve done enough, Burthan. This will let you see an invisible beacon that will lead you to our steam carriages, southwest of here in the foothills. Wait for us there.” He handed over the small night vision monocular. “Soon we’ll have you resettled on Earth and this whole messy war will be behind you.”

  Tears formed in the corners of the quartermaster’s eyes as he handed the wood plank over. “May Palla forgive me,” he whispered. Moriarty flinched, and the rest of his team froze. Invoking the name of a God on an otherworld could have dire consequences. But if the Goddess of this world was listening, she was preoccupied with the ongoing demonic invasion.

  Burthan made his way past them, picking his way southwest. Moriarty let the smile drop.

  “We really gonna give a free ride to the guy selling out his entire world?”

  “What happens here after we leave is not our concern,” said Moriarty. “His intel is good. Let’s set up.”

  Just as planned.

  * * *

  The ridge continued on for a few kilometers before it crested and gave Cole and the others their first look at the front. The line, which was really more of a containment, surrounded a long, jagged tear in reality that stretched off, running for miles. That tear, that Scar, was the source of the column of acrid smoke. Lines of trenches criss-crossed the landscape outside the tear like a loose web. Even as he watched, energy rays from the tops of tall towers scoured the no-mans land near the outermost layer of trenches. The pop and flash of hand cannons and primitive mortars and bombards rippled up and down as thousands of demons bounded across the open terrain, only for most to be cut down before reaching the Vaelian trenches. Demon mages in squat captured and repurposed bunkers flung spells back at the humans, which came in the form of gas attacks like the ones they’d seen earlier, meant to settle in the trenches and kill the occupants. But they impacted round magic shields of some sort and burned away.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Roxy muttered beside him.

  Guall took a breath in, neck-holes dilating. “Smells like home,” he sighed. Then he lifted a stubby finger and pointed it at a fortress in the distance. “There’s where we spotted the Royal Knights—Kings guard assigned to the whelp. See how it’s built to repel from the Scar and not the other side? That’s how they learned to build after we turned their own defenses against them. But it will be their undoing when we sprout behind their asses like weeds.”

  “So how do we get close enough?” asked Cole. “They’ve got those shields, and that’s a lot of open ground for them to see us coming.”

  “Aye, we’ll be going under them,” said Guall. He pointed at a line of trenches. “Neither Vaelian nor Scarborn dare go in those trenches—nor the tunnels between. Half-flooded and infested, they. Reclaimed by monsters who sense fear as a dinner bell. But Moriarty promised me soldiers who could fight in the blackest, starless night. Should be no trouble for the likes of you. They’ll lead us beneath the crystal shields.”

  “No trouble at all,” said Howie. “What kind of monsters are we talking about?”

  “Did Moriarty make mention of my hearing when you whispered my name?” asked Guall. Howie nodded. The wide, fleshy mouth twisted into a grin. “Then it’s best we not speak more of these creatures. Less so, when we skitter in the dark among them. You have light only you can see, yes? Shine it only at your feet or overhead. To illuminate these creatures is to think of them, and it will awaken their hunger. Do you understand?”

  Howie gulped and nodded. Nutmeg whined beside Besson. Cole just looked out across the ground, evaluating their target. In another six hours, they were going to make a lot of noise and then get the hell out of dodge. What could go wrong?

  Two more demons emerged from the woods ahead of them, a pair of armored, dark-blue creatures with needle teeth and overlarge deep sea creature eyes. One of them barked something to Guall and the others, and suddenly those weapons were pointed at Cole and his team. They raised their own weapons in response as Guall growled.

  “You said you had no others with you!” he accused. He came closer, leaning in so that the muzzle of his hand cannon practically pressed up against Cole’s vest. “What trickery do you weave?”