37 – Behind Enemy Lines

  Andy crept up the winding, refuse-strewn alley toward the fenced-in rear yard of the inn. The plan had been Omar’s idea, and Andy had enthusiastically agreed, but now that the moment was near, his heart was racing and his anxious mind kept jumping at every little noise that echoed through the city. He glanced over his shoulder, and as though she’d read his mind, Lucy nodded encouragingly. She was only a short distance back, hood pulled up, lurking near a stack of empty barrels, but even so, Andy was surprised she could even see him.

  He padded forward, eyes focused on a gap in the fence’s slats. His magical smoke kept him hidden and quiet, kept his scent innocuous. His Ember Vision allowed him to peer into the depths of the inn’s shadowy storage yard, ensuring he wasn’t being deceived; there was nothing there. He let his gaze drift into the recesses of the patio, past the stacked barrels and crates, to the rear door. Just as he’d hoped, it was broken. He could see the cracked wood around the latch. After watching for a few more seconds, he hurried back to Lucy.

  This time his sudden appearance startled her. “Darn it. I lost track of you when you went around that crate,” she whispered.

  Andy smiled, shrugging. “Looks good. I can get in.”

  She nodded, looking up at him, her eyes wide in the depths of the dark hood. He seized the opportunity to steal a kiss, and she exhaled a soft giggle, pressing her lips into his. “Be careful, okay?”

  “You too. I wish I’d be there...”

  “Trust the plan,” she whispered. “It’s a good one.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze, then turned and silently jogged toward the alley mouth. Andy went back to the fence. He scanned the area again, ensuring nothing had snuck into the storage yard while he’d been distracted. When nothing moved for several long seconds, he leaned his spear on the fence, grabbed the top, and vaulted over.

  After retrieving his spear, he snuck into the covered area near the door. The air was still there in that little courtyard space, but as the sun descended, the city was coming alive with noises—roars, chittering cries, distant crashes. It was enough to keep anyone on edge, and it added to Andy’s stress. He’d seen how tough the blitz-rats were, and this time his friends wouldn’t have a choke point to save them; they were counting on Andy.

  Peering through the gap where the door hung ajar, he saw a cluttered, filthy kitchen. Two small ratmen were gibbering at one another as they chopped hunks of meat. Andy could hear the sizzle of a frying pan and smell the unmistakable scent of cooking meat—apparently these creatures knew how to cook…to some degree. He waited, monitoring his mana every few seconds; it was depleting, but not as quickly as he might fear; his regeneration was fighting against the constant drain of his Cloak of Shifting Smoke.

  After just another minute or so, a roar of agonized fury signaled the kick-off of their plan; Lucy had shot one of the blitz-rats through the open bay window. As the uproar mounted, Andy pulled the door open and slipped into the kitchen. The two ratman cooks had frozen stock-still, staring at the doorway to the inn’s bar. Andy didn’t hesitate to take advantage of their distraction.

  The regular ratmen were no match for Andy’s deadly precision with his spear, especially when he caught them by surprise. By the time he stabbed the second one, sliding his long spear blade into its heart, the first was falling to the floor with a muted wheeze—dead before its breath finished rattling out. He stepped over the corpses, around a pile of rotting cabbages, and pushed the bar door open with the tip of his spear.

  The crux of their plan, the whole point of it, was for the party to distract the blitz-rats and their commanders enough for Andy to take them by surprise. When he peered through the kitchen door, it looked like at least part of their plan had worked—more than a dozen blitz-rats were jostling with one another, fighting to get through the inn’s front door.

  The thing that worried Andy the most—the thing that had gotten him to agree to the plan—was the strange, lanky, robe-wearing ratman. They all agreed he was probably some kind of rat sorcerer. They all agreed that if they assaulted the front of the inn, the sorcerer-rat might hang back, out of their reach, and wreak all sorts of havoc. Andy’s number one job was to take him out.

  To that end, Andy crept through the door, stalking his prey. He crouched low, his magical cloak of smoke still intact. The robed ratman was there, watching the blitz-rats surging out the door. It leaned on the bar, gray snout twitching as it stared out the broken bay windows. Even as Andy approached, the rat sorcerer lifted its long-clawed hands, and Andy felt a surge of mana. He hurried forward, spear extended, but it was too late. With an ear-popping whoomph, a ball of crackling red flames appeared in the air and then streaked for the bank of bay windows.

  A voice in the back of his mind screamed for him to take cover—to dive behind the bar. He ignored it; this was his chance. His Critical Mastery guided his spear, and his stealth skills kept him hidden long enough to plant the blade in an upward thrust. He drove the eight-inch length of enchanted steel up, under the ratman’s ribcage, piercing lung and heart.

  The hit was perfect, but it almost failed; the ratman’s robes grabbed at his spear, trying to slow it, but Andy’s strength and his spear’s caustic, magical smoke proved too much for the minor defensive enchantment. Andy felt his spear’s progress, a disturbing side effect of racking up hundreds of kills with the weapon. He’d begun to recognize the different textures of a living body’s innards. Organs, intestines, muscles, flesh, and bone—they all had a distinctive feel against the tip and edges of his spear blade.

  All that said, he knew he’d punctured the ratman sorcerer’s lung and heart, so when he yanked his spear free, he didn’t waste any more time on the creature. It was still moving, still crawling across the floor, but it was dead; it just didn’t know it yet. Andy looked up, ready to dive for cover, but the fireball had sailed straight through the window, missing the wall entirely. He thought he could hear yelling and see flickering flames out there, but it was so loud in the inn with the blitz-rats’ screams, roars, and shouts that he couldn’t be sure.

  Meanwhile, the armored ratmen and their massive commander were nearly clear of the inn, rushing outside to attack his friends. Andy bent his knees, ready to vault the bar, but froze, glancing back at the ratman sorcerer; it was standing up. Pink-tinged foam escaped its gray, long-toothed snout, and its wild, bloodshot eyes focused on Andy. He felt another surge of mana, and then a row of green-glowing darts appeared in the air around the sorcerer’s clawed hand.

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  “Tritz ak,” it hissed, then those darts streaked toward Andy.

  There were at least six of the little glowing missiles, and though Andy was fast, he didn’t think he could parry them all. Instead, he pushed off the bar, dove toward the kitchen door, and rolled onto his feet in a perfect somersault. He could feel the magical darts chasing him. He heard some of them hit the floor, the wall, the door, and then, as he regained his feet, one of them slammed into his back—deflected by James’s mundane, hard-plastic scales.

  Andy knew he couldn’t hide in the kitchen; his friends were facing a horde of blitz-rats and all they had for cover were some overturned, stacked merchant stalls. He charged back through the kitchen door, bolder now that he knew his armor might stop some of the ratman’s magic. Luck was with him, though, and it seemed the ratman didn’t expect an immediate counter-attack; perhaps it was used to its foes trying to flee.

  Andy caught it flat-footed, and with every ounce of his speed, he stabbed his spear at its face. The ratman recoiled, but the blade caught it in the throat. This time, Andy didn’t hesitate to follow up. He drew his spear back and stabbed the ratman through the chest twice more. Whatever magic or unnatural constitution had allowed it to survive Andy’s initial attack must have been depleted; it fell in a crumpled heap, twitching as the spear’s balefire burned its insides.

  Andy dove over the bar; all the blitz-rats were out, and he could hear their roars and screams in the market. He charged for the door, and when he passed through, he saw several dead blitz-rats—arrows standing proudly from their furry corpses. With a glance, he took in the scene.

  Just as they’d planned, Omar and the others had pushed several merchant stalls and carts together near the center of the square. Atop their less-than-sturdy roofs, Lucy stood, raining arrows down on the blitz-rats as they charged, shields up. Andy knew Bea would be behind Lucy, completely closed-in by their makeshift barricade. Bella and Omar were on the sides, obscured by other stalls, waiting for the rats to charge Lucy.

  “Not too late,” Andy breathed, jogging lightly down the steps, his gaze focused on the largest of the blitz-rats. The commander stood in the back, waving a huge scimitar, roaring commands in the guttural ratman language. As Andy stalked toward him, the leading blitz-rats, many sporting more than one arrow wound, hit the cart Lucy was standing atop. Before they could climb or think to topple the cart, Bella and Omar struck, hacking and pounding at them from the sides.

  Andy trusted his Critical Mastery to guide his spear. Creeping up behind the four-hundred-pound giant ratman, he aimed for the center of his spine, just above his long, swishing tail. Maybe the commander had honed his battlefield senses, or maybe he had some kind of magical awareness, but whatever the case, he began to spin, swinging his scimitar in a flat arc. He was too late, though—Andy was fast, and when he’d committed, he’d really committed. His spear blasted through the hard bones of the ratman’s spine, and the massive creature collapsed, interrupting the brutal slash.

  It was a crippling blow, and despite the ratman’s bulk, his strength, and his red-eyed viciousness, he was helpless before Andy’s skilled, viper-fast spear strikes. He punched one, then two, then three brutal stab wounds in the commander’s shoulders, chest, and neck, each one delivering the awful balefire into the wound. As he backed off, Andy watched the commander, already on the ground, slowly succumb, unable to lift his arms as the light faded from his rage-filled eyes.

  Almost to prove to himself that he could learn from his mistakes, Andy gave the dying ratman a coup de grace, stabbing him under the chin, guiding his spear blade up into its brainpan.

  With his gore-dripping spear, Andy rushed to help his friends. As he ran, he assessed the battlefield. Lucy’s deadly barrage had taken a toll; half a dozen blitz-rats lay dead or writhing nearby with debilitating arrow wounds. There were probably a dozen still clamoring for her blood, but Lucy kept leaping from one roof to another—from stall to cart to stall. The blitz-rats were so single-minded in their drive to kill their tormentor that they almost ignored Bella and Omar, who were slowly thinning their numbers.

  Omar had a blitz-rat shield, and he used it to good effect, keeping the huge ratmen busy while Bella did deadly work with her sword. Still, they were over-matched and outnumbered. Andy aimed to remedy that. He ran up behind the largest part of the pack and almost cast Brimstone Breath, but then he thought of Lucy, dancing from roof to roof, and he imagined her trying to do that if the stalls caught fire.

  Instead, he leaned into his spear skill, focusing on landing as many critical hits as he could. He struck, moved, struck—again and again. It wasn’t until he’d dropped half a dozen ratmen that one of them shrieked some guttural warning, and finally got through to the enraged blitz-rats that he was on their flank.

  By then, it was over, though; Bea’s enchanted water rained down, invigorating Andy and the others, and they used their superior positioning to slowly whittle the giant ratmen down. Andy and Lucy did most of the killing, but only because Bella and Omar stole their foes’ attention long enough for some perfect spear-stabs and arrows.

  One thing Andy had learned since the apocalypse came was that fights felt like they took forever. Each second seemed to stretch, each breath burned, every muscle screamed with the agony of extreme exertion, but in the end, the entire battle probably took three minutes. When the last blitz-rat fell, Bella lifted her bloody sword and screamed a victory cry. Lucy whooped, and Omar roared, pounding his shield with his heavy mace.

  Andy couldn’t stop grinning as he watched them, trying to wipe spatters of blood off his face, but only smearing them, making things worse. Lucy jumped down and, with Omar’s help, dragged one of the carts aside so Bea could join them. While Andy scanned the market square for any danger, Bella ran forward and punched him on the shoulder. “Hell, yes, Andy! You took the bosses out!”

  “Uh, yeah. Did you doubt me?” He winked at her, and she laughed, punching him again.

  “Look at this battlefield! What a plan!”

  “Who’s hurt?” Bea asked, but before anyone could respond, the System took notice of their victory:

  ***Congratulations! You’ve made progress toward completing an optional quest: Liberate the Clover Bear Inn. Rescue the defenders from the cellars before reinforcements arrive!***

  ***Scarag Heights – Optional Quest: Reduce the Baron’s Forces, Stage One: 276/400.***

  ***Congratulations on your victory, Andy! You’ve earned a sizable experience reward, but the System will hold it in reserve until you’ve gone through the refinement process for your current class. The process will be available to you the next time you rest.***

  Bella was the first to react. “Come on! Let’s let them out of the cellar!”

  “Everyone’s okay?” Bea asked, one of her little bottles in her hand.

  “I gained some levels—” Omar started to say.

  “After we rescue them! Come on!” Bella started for the inn, but Andy grabbed her wrist.

  “Together.”

  At first, she scowled, but then she nodded. “Sorry. I’m just excited.”

  “I need arrows,” Lucy said.

  “Let’s keep cool,” Andy said, gesturing to the piles of blitz-rat corpses. “We’ll finish this quest, but everyone grab a few arrows for Lucy.” With that, he led by example, walking from corpse to corpse, yanking arrows out, discarding the ones that broke. “Things are going well.” He smiled at Bella. “I’m excited too, but we don’t want to get reckless.”

  As if to punctuate his words and drive the point home, something roared in the distance—a deep rumbling sound that made even the blitz-rat commander’s voice sound puny.