“Please, each and every one of you, make a decision now. And if you want to try this new path, come with us and help us fight the army of evil creatures that seek to stop us.”
“Wait!” There were gasps from the crowd as Ragnok Strongarm strode into the arena, in his character as the chainmail-clad Sidhe warrior. “Before you listen to this little girl, please pay attention to the authorities. How dare she suggest ending the game? Such an action will lead only to chaos and criminality.
“Central Allocations has decreed that there will be no battle. Please go back to your work.” Ragnok rested his hands on his sword hilts.
Slowly a handclapping began. But it was a cold, mocking one. Clap. Pause. Clap. Pause. More of the crowd joined in. Clap. Now each time the noise sounded, it was like a great clashing of cymbals, amplified across the stadium. Clap. Pause. Clap. The public hatred of Ragnok Strongarm was tangible, and the beat somehow communicated their feeling. By now, everyone had risen to their feet. Ragnok stood, attentive to this jeering, seemingly poised on the verge of speaking, but at last, as if unable to endure these manifestations of discontent any further, he turned and walked out.
“Very well,” he called back over his shoulder. “Lose your characters in this foolish enterprise. There is more than Central Allocations and the University against you. You will all die and have to start again with nothing!” He laughed a bitter laugh.
This triggered a great upsurge of angry shouts and jeers. It was some time after Ragnok had left the arena before Injeborg could gain the attention of the greatly excited crowd.
“Thank you. It seems as though we have a battle to fight. We have war banners here, taken from the churches. Can the most powerful or well-known players of each district please introduce themselves to me, and take one. We shall organize our army through the districts, and within each district in the small team units that we are used to.”
Now, cheerful, genuine applause filled the arena and an untrammeled surge of conversation. Soon players were crossing the sands to meet the Osterfjord Players and take away one of the banners that Erik had brought to the stadium.
B.E. rubbed his hands gleefully, as it became clear that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of those present were going to participate in the battle. Unconsciously he was tightening and loosening his swords in their scabbards. “This is going to be awesome. The greatest battle ever.”
Chapter 30
WAR
Two enormous armies
filled the valley between the foothills of Snowpeak Mountains and the city of Newhaven. The afternoon sky was heavy with dark clouds, but these were punctuated with long stretches of clear sky. As patches of light drifted over the fields, a bright sun picked out each army in glorious detail: a fluttering, scarlet banner, eight-legged, coiled dragon stitched upon it in golden thread; an ogre, scrunching up his face against the sunlight, rusty streaks covering the dull gleam of his huge basinlike helmet; a goblin archer, muscles bulging along his green arms as he bent his bow to string it.
The Osterfjord Players stood at a small copse, under a turquoise banner, displaying the symbol of Mov. Around them was gathered a large crowd of gray characters, and, in stark contrast, a gleaming detachment of male and female paladins, mounted on beautifully emblazoned horses, carrying glittering silver-tipped spears and wearing mirror-bright, full-plate armor.
“I repeat,” shouted Cindella from a stone that allowed her to see over the rows of gray heads. “Try not to bunch. You will become targets for ‘area-of-effect’ spells and breath weapons. Even if it means a circuitous route to the battle, keep to your stations as well as you can. Our losses will be calamitous. But if we can use our advantage in numbers to envelop them, we can wear down the enemy.”
Perhaps he should have finished on a more rousing note, for they began to disperse back to their districts without so much as a cheer. Still, it was best to be realistic; the human player army was far inferior, one-to-one, to the creatures of the evil horde. Their only hope was their numbers, and their teamwork. A team of healers, sorcerers, and warriors could stay in the field longer and do more damage than the sum of their capabilities as individuals.
“What about us?” asked Anonemuss.
“We wait until the Executioner commits himself. Then we try to take him out. Otherwise he will single-handedly destroy our entire army.”
“True.” Harald was coating his short swords with a thick purple ichor, whose drips hissed as they touched the ground, evaporating the grass and releasing little coils of rising steam.
“I don’t know if I can stand much waiting,” muttered B.E., his swords, Thunder and Lightning, already drawn.
“Listen, Erik. What’s that?” Injeborg suddenly spoke up.
From the direction of Newhaven a faint cheering was growing stronger. Erik had Cindella spring into the branches of a nearby oak tree; she leapt easily from branch to branch.
“It’s more NPC cavalry for us,” he called down excitedly, watching as the gray masses parted to allow a long troop of riders to pass through to the front. “No,” he paused. “Even better—they are centaur archers.”
A wave of applause and greeting rushed up through the ranks, as the players in Erik’s army expressed their enthusiasm for the arrival of such powerful allies. Cindella leapt down, and soon a proud young warrior centaur pranced into their camp, bow in hand, quiver strapped across his back, banded strips of mail upon leather for his cuirass, on both his human and horse torso. He bowed from his human waist, long, flowing black tresses falling forward to the ground.
“Milady Cindella, I am Prince Harboran, come to pledge the troops of my people to fight with you this day, and aid your triumph over the creatures of evil.”
The pulse of the Avatar beat strongly in the glow of the centaur.
“You are most welcome, Prince Harboran, and we humans are honored to share the battlefield with you.”
The centaur looked pleased with this, and smiled fiercely. “How can we aid you?”
Erik paused, and turned to study the enemy army once more.
“Would you be willing to serve with Sir Warren?” he asked the centaur.
“’Twould be an honor.”
“In that case, please bring your troops to our right. Sir Warren is to hold back until he thinks that a charge could carry him to that disparate unit at the stones.” Cindella pointed to the distant forces of the University characters, gathered near the standing stones.
“Please assist him in trying to destroy them; it will be no easy task for they number many sorcerers, healers, and strong warriors.”
“Nevertheless, they will fall!” Prince Harboran gave a shout like a neigh, and departed towards his troops.
“Take your position please, Sir Warren, so they can form up with you.” Cindella turned to the mounted paladin. He raised the pennant of his lance by way of response, before snapping shut his visor and urging his white stallion forward. The heavy tread of the mounted knights caused the ground to shudder as they made their way to a position about halfway to the distant right flank of the gray army.
“That it?” asked B.E. “Ready to get this started?”
A polite cough from the woods made them jump. Two large bears were standing in the shade of a tree, holding paws.
“Excuse us. We want to help. Where shall we fight?”
“Hey!” cried Sigrid delightedly. “It’s the talking bear.”
“And his mate. So it seems he found her after all,” B.E. chuckled and the bear looked down, seemingly embarrassed to be the center of their attention.
“Wonderful!” Cindella skipped across to them. “See this witch, Injeborg? She must live to summon the tower. I want you to guard her throughout the battle, as well as you can. How’s that?”
“Good,” said the bear, and falling forward onto all fours, he ambled over to Injeborg, who gave him a pat.
“Ready?” asked B.E. again.
The knot in Erik’s stomach tightened.
“Wait, potions,” Harald pointed out.
“Oh, yeah.” B.E. shook his head. “Sorry, I nearly forgot. Which ones do you think?”
“We have to have ‘resistance to petrification’ for the medusa,” said Injeborg.
“And ‘resist fear’ for the Executioner’s sword,” added Erik. “And I’m going to take ‘resist fire’ for my third.”
“How about ‘see invisible’?” suggested Bjorn.
“Good idea,” replied B.E. “You know what?” He looked up excitedly. “I’m going to risk taking four.”
“No!” Everyone cried at once.
“B.E., think.” Sigrid sounded exasperated with her brother. “Imagine if you blow up, or are paralyzed or something, and miss the entire fight. Just imagine, nearly everyone in the whole world fighting, and you miss it because you took a stupid risk with potions.”
“Don’t take the chance,” said Erik more kindly. “We are really going to need you for this.”
B.E. shrugged. “Very well.”
When they had all drained the colored liquids from the crystal vials they had brought to the battle, passing their spares to the bears and every player nearby, Erik nodded to B.E.
“Give the signal.”
B.E. eagerly heaved their banner out of the ground, and, with it balanced on one shoulder, ran forward until he was clear of the entire army, in the no-man’s-land between the two forces. He slowly began to wave it, back and forth. One of the great patches of sunlight had been sliding down the mountainside and for a moment it picked out B.E., like a spotlight, with the two armies still in shadow. Hundreds of thousands of eyes would be on him, and everyone knew the battle was beginning.
Far, far in the distance on his left flank, all the way to the sands of the seashore, gray soldiers inched forward. Similarly, on the distant right, up against the fringes of the forest, the banners of the various district contingents began to move forward. Meanwhile, the center held steady.
It was the best plan Erik could come up with—to try to bring their greater numbers into play by advancing in a “bull’s horns” formation. Hopefully the gray army would curve around the flanks of the enemy and be able to hit them from the sides and even, if all went well, from behind.
Those in the middle of the army had a long wait before it was their turn to move; more than an hour passed before the ripples of motion that had begun at the extreme tips of the army had rolled into the center. Erik was walking slowly forward alongside his friends and his dad, and they were going into battle together. Even Anonemuss deserved the sense of comradeship that they now shared. It was a shame that Svein Redbeard had evidently changed his mind; it would have been good to fight alongside him too. Erik had not seen him since the arena. Injeborg’s speech at the arena, in which she had revealed that the Epicus Ultima would probably end the game, had almost certainly come as a shock to Svein and led to his backing off from the battle.
Ahead and to the left, in the far distance, was a disturbance to the pattern—first contact. The gray forces were closing in on the right flank of the goblins and suddenly that patch of sky was full of missiles. Like a heavy downpour, the arrows of the goblins cast a shadow over that part of the field. Distant shouts carried to them as did the occasional deeper thrum as a tightly wound catapult was violently discharged. Erik winced. The gray troops were melting away, as though the point of contact was a burning stove and his troops made of butter. On the right, the army was quickly closing the gap between themselves and the troll forces, Sir Warren and Prince Harboran holding back, allowing their troops to be overtaken by the gray characters running past all around them.
Now a sense of urgency arose all around, and everywhere teams of players began to run to close the final few yards. The ogre army was directly ahead, and from this short distance, over the final clumps of bush, it was possible to make out the grim expressions on their faces.
“Slow, slow, let them go past,” Erik called out.
B.E. and Bjorn had also begun to accelerate with the general anticipation of battle. To either side of the Osterfjord Players, gray, half-armored characters ran past, some shouting eagerly.
With a great roar that shook the air, the ogres also leapt into battle, swinging their massive, spiked clubs and throwing most of the first line of gray figures backwards through the air.
“Hold, hold it!”
The horizon was now a line of powerfully muscled ogres, whose bodies, from the chest upwards, rose above the gray army that was swarming around them.
“I can’t see,” shouted Erik anxiously. “Any sign of the Executioner?”
“Get up on my shoulders.” Bjorn turned around and cupped his hands. Without hesitation, Cindella sprang forward, using one hand on Bjorn’s huge helmet to steady herself; she had no difficulty keeping her balance as she was lifted up, her left foot in the foothold he had shaped.
“I see him!” Erik cried with relief. “He’s over there.” It wasn’t hard to pick out the Executioner once he could see past the ogres; the assassin was riding a great black horse, indigo cape fluttering behind him as he leaned over, talking to someone, a druidess player character. Strangely, the Executioner drew his sword, chopped down at her, and she instantly collapsed. He then urged his horse forward and began to pick his way through files of orcs.
“I think he’s going into action. Let go, Bjorn.” His friend’s tight grip on Cindella’s legs was released. “That way. Lead us, B.E.—cut us a path.” Cindella pointed ahead and left, to a point where Erik estimated that the Executioner would reach the line of battle.
“At last!” With a great bellow that conveyed relief and pleasure as well as ferocity, B.E. charged into action. They hurried to keep up as B.E. pushed his way through the gray figures ahead. Glancing over his shoulder, Erik smiled to himself; either side of Injeborg the two bears were loping along, looking extremely vigilant.