Bread and the Circus

Chapter 17, Part 2

The way the slope was tilted, and with all the rocks thrust out of the earth further obscuring direct line-of-sight, we were all rather surprised to suddenly come out on the hill’s summit.  Actually, it looked as though someone had taken an unimaginably vast cutting edge, and sheared off a smooth, flat, slightly polished region, easily large enough for a good-sized settlement.  As it turned out, that is exactly what was up there: the main encampment of the squamous slayers!

High up as they were, the scaly brutes didn’t seem to feel there was any need to build defensive structures: they were made for raiding contestants who stayed safe and snug down in the lower regions, then falling back up their various hidden paths to the top of this foothill, there to await their next call from the computers of the Circus to go and fight once more.  And this was a foothill, as we could now see clearly, now that we were atop its summit.  Even with the eyes of so many scaled horrors peering out at us from their crude tents, or turning to stare as they crouched around their central fire, I couldn’t help but let my eyes play beyond us, to the north, where a sharp-edged ridge of mountains rose like the spine of Tiamat or Typhon, slain and rendered down into the components of the living world.  More than that, I saw other hills like this one, each of them also sporting plumes of smoke, marking still more encampments of squamous slayers.  If they weren’t each so far off, I would have called our mission to purge threats from our region impossible!  But so long as they stayed within a goodly radius around their settlements, we still had a chance to make a place of safety.

In the long, awkward stillness that filled the air as we stared at the slayers, and the slayers stared at us, we could see a massive throne made of bone and rock and even some metal twisted into its workings, the whole piece of furniture a savage monument to the triumph of barbarism.  To one side of the throne was an immense treasure chest, bound in gleaming gold: the reward for whoever managed to overcome its guardians.  What most captivated our attention, though, was the one seated on that throne: the Slayer Lord.

(That’s the name that first popped into my head, and I like it, so there.)

The little squamous slayers, the ones that only went up to about as tall as my stomach, didn’t do this thing justice.  Even compared to the boss slayers, the ones that ranged in height between ours and that of a tall Human man, were puny compared to the Slayer Lord as he rose from his throne of bones, bedecked in a suit of bone armor, his body almost as wide as he was tall, his tail as long as one of those immense arms, huge metal talons affixed to the backs of his hands.  They were savage things, brutal-looking and barb-edged, and they caught the light of the late afternoon sun as he raised them before us with a mighty bellow.

That bellow, something like the sound of a crocodile that I’d heard on nature documentaries during my homeschooling, but far louder, must have been the call to battle for his bone-bedecked minions to rally.  Rally they did, rushing from their tents and their squatting-places, the little ones squealing while the bigger ones roared, the sounds mingling with that of their leader into a cacophony that made me cry out just to try and counter the din!

Mac did a lot more than just scream her war-cry back at the squamous slayer horde: she charged them!

Events started out crystal clear for me as the first rush of adrenaline hit my system.  This wasn’t just the light surges I’d felt before on that day, the spike of shock that comes from facing an opponent when I have the advantage, and the fight takes less than a minute.  No, this was an overwhelming rush of pure clarity, slowing down every movement, every action.

Mac leapt right through the big central fire.  She didn’t even slow down!  She was entirely focused on the Slayer Lord, twin axes up and ready for a full offensive – no parry-and-swing for her, not against an enemy like this!  The moment Mac landed, the squamous slayers were already rushing first to the aid of their chieftain, realizing with computerized precision that they had to protect their king when he was in check.  Not unexpected, considering how good computers are at playing chess…but a real conflict is a lot different from the restrained and civil strategies of a board in alternating chiaroscuro ranks.

Trading a glance with Aleph, we drew close to each other, but not too close, she with her bow, and I with my new lances of weaponized force.  My hand snapped up, and for a moment I wished that I had the targeting reticules Aleph had mentioned, rather than just my puny Human senses, as the first shot went right over the head of the brutal ankle biter that was closest to flanking Mac.  That was enough, though, to make the scaly tide hesitate, caught between not one foe, but several, and all their massed forces had foolishly concentrated on only half of the battlefield.

While my blaster recharged, Aleph stepped into the slack-time, bowstring twanging once more, and with an accuracy that I could only dream of rivaling.  While she didn’t have the strength of even an indifferent athlete like myself (though, as she’d predicted, I was getting stronger with astonishing swiftness), the damage-dealing capacity of an arrow is based upon its arrowhead and the lever action of its string; if she could pull back her bowstring, the bow would multiply that force many times over, more than enough to kill a squamous slayer with Aleph’s pinpoint accuracy in targeting their most vulnerable spots.  The jagged edges of the ceramic arrowheads we’d fashioned out of the bones of the robots in our first dungeon were razor-sharp, and made terrible slices into flesh when they entered a body, doing terrific internal damage.  Aleph had shown me a computer simulation of that penetrating action, using the skull of the hulking gold skeleton as a projector once more (such a handy device, and for something I’m sure its makers never intended), and I rather wished I could still just leave the potential damage those arrowheads did to their targets up to my imagination: the reality was far more brutal!

I got only one more charged shot off, this time smacking it right into the middle of an onrushing slayer boss’ chest, sending him backflipping away, before I hoisted my spear with both hands, and followed Mac’s example, meeting the rushing press of savages head-on.

At this point, events stopped being crystalline.  Instead, they became a confused, red-stained mess.  I remember my arms pumping, a forward-and-back motion, repeated again and again with every scaly muzzle that thrust itself before me.  I also remember spinning, turning the haft of the sun spear to catch a downward stroke from a slayer boss’ axe before one of Aleph’s arrows brought him down.  But mostly what I remember is the ache of my arms and the throb of my legs, especially my calves, and the blur of the many-colored scaly horrors as they kept rushing at me, swinging or thrusting their disparate weapons toward my person even as I kept moving and thrusting, moving and thrusting, feeling blood splatter against my stat suit, and knowing that at least some of it was my own, rent from a dozen scratches and assorted lesser wounds.  But only some.

Across the fire, on the other half of the circle of the camp, Mac was a whirlwind of sharp-edged death.  The thick slabs of zombie meat she was wearing as a breastplate seemed to slow her down not at all, and I saw it catch many of the blows of the smaller squamous slayers, the ones who were small enough and fast enough to dart in for a swift strike that would have served to b****y and weaken her, had she not been wearing the disgusting thing (though I’ll never admit it).  None of them got a second strike, though, as Mac’s momentum let her quite literally cleave heads from shoulders with the force of her swinging axes, or send slayer bosses tumbling with brutal kicks or swings to head or vitals.

The most deadly foe of all, though, was the Slayer Lord.  Clad all in what looked like the ribcage and assorted bonestuff of some prehistoric monstrosity, he was astonishingly fast, and seemed to care little for the lives of his fellows: with every swing of those spike-studded fists, whenever Mac dodged, two or three of his lesser minions went flying with startled yells!  And Mac did keep dodging, not even trying her usual tactic of parry-and-chop that had worked so well against similar-sized foes.  Instead, she rolled low, beneath the frenzied slashes of the clawed, katar-like blades of the Slayer Lord’s weapons, or leapt high, above the swing of his tail.

With every dodge, though, Mac traded in a blow of her own.  When she did, I could clearly see, while the Slayer Lord’s armor was “wicked metal,” it left large gaps for sake of fashion, gaps that let Mac’s axes snap in, then jerk back, trailing a spray of bright red every time.

On one of those double strikes, though, Mac’s luck finally ran out.  Slowed slightly with fatigue, her aim just a fraction off, one axe clashed against a thick rib-bone, rather than the thick-scaled flesh beneath, and shattered instantly, having endured more punishment than all but the most bloodthirsty of cavemen would have subjected to a similar weapon.  In the brief moment in which she flinched away from the splinters of flint, one of them leaving a paper-thing trail of red across her cheek, the Slayer Lord swung around, his tail slamming with brutal force right into Mac’s torso.

Without even a cry of pain, Mac went tumbling onto her back, sliding far along the smooth-cut rock of the hilltop.  The Slayer Lord was right after her, throwing up puffs of dust as he stomped across the flat ground, before dipping his body, giving Mac a powerful scooping uppercut, sending her body upward in a full flip that left her lying, blinking dazedly, a seeping hole right in the middle of her “meat shield” breastplate as she sat right on the edge of the hilltop, in one of the spots where the many trails leading up gave way to sheer cliffside.

Breathing hard, my whole body trembling as I felt myself on the edge of my endurance, I hoisted the sun spear high, swinging it around, clubbing squamous slayers when I couldn’t stab them.  The brutes fell back, and I rushed forward, shouldering one of the bigger ones aside, while to either side of me, more of them fell dead, their bodies pierced by flint-tipped arrows (and I realized in a vague way that Aleph must have used up her store of the more deadly ceramic-tipped ones).  Heedless of anything but my destination, not even bothering with a battlecry, I rushed at the back of the Slayer Lord as he towered over Mac, pausing for a long moment.  In any normal foe, I would have thought that he was savoring the thrill of victory over a worthy opponent.  That was an illusion, though: the pause came, I realized in that still-calm part of my mind, which stayed forever distant from the chaos and c*****e around me and spoke with rationality when the rest of me was lost in primal emotion, that the Slayer Lord was simply processing the fact that it was about to kill a contestant, and it was getting the permission of the computers aboard the Circus satellite.  Naturally those computers would wait a little while before sending the final order of execution: this was a prime opportunity for dramatic tension!

Disgusted at the showmanship of deathmongering, I thrust my spear straight and true into the Slayer Lord’s back, the bones of its ribcage breastplate shattering as the sun spear burst into searing fire and force.

Too late.

Spinning with an ear-splitting bellow, the Slayer Lord tried to strike me down with its slashing katar claws, but I just held onto the sun spear, fitting it under my armpit as I was hoisted up into the air like a rag doll.  Behind the monster, though, I saw its tail smack Mac across her face, and felt the sharp spike of cold in my chest as she tumbled back over the edge.

Turning that cold into something useful, I grabbed it inside of myself, just as I grabbed tight hold of the sun spear, not letting the Slayer Lord throw me off with its violent thrashing.  There weren’t many of the lesser squamous slayers left by that point, and what few there were fell to their own leader’s mad spin as it tried to get at me, while I was fixed to its back like an especially lethal tick.  I could hear Aleph somewhere in the background, screaming Mac’s name, screaming mine, not daring to fire even with her enhanced targeting for fear of hitting me.

Then, handspan by handspan, I began to work my way up the haft of the sun spear, feeling it shift beneath my palms, adjusting to suit me best.  Somehow, I understood that I couldn’t have done this act with a normal spear, that I would have lost my grip and been flung to my doom, either over the cliffside like poor Mac, or onto the ground or into one of the tents, where I’d have been slain in a thrice by the blood-maddened Slayer Lord.  But the sun spear was mine, a part of me, of my stat suit, its nano-particles interacting with the material of the suit to hold me in place, at first, and then, at my bidding, to pull me upward, toward the broad back of the beast.

When I reached that back, I yanked the flint knife I’d taken from a squamous slayer back in Ginchis Deep from its place at my waist, and thrust it with all my might into the gap I’d cracked open with my strike.

Honestly, I think I was expecting to die around that point.  I think either the Slayer Lord was going to leap from the cliff, or fall on top of me, or one of the other squamous slayers would suddenly get up for a final attack when I was too weak to resist.  Whatever happened, with Mac’s death, I felt in my bones that mine just had to follow soon after.  It was…just natural, I guess.  Fate.  Karma.  Kismet.

Mac, however, thought differently.

Blood spurting onto my bone breastplate, staining the bleach-white red, I waited for the inevitable, heedless of Aleph’s cries, which sounded so very distant, even though she was just across the camp from me.  And waited.  And waited some more.  But the Slayer Lord just stood there, as though transfixed.  Finally, curiosity won out, and I lifted my head from where I’d pressed it to the jagged bone of the ribcage-armor, and looked up.  Right into the grinning face of Mac.

Later, Aleph would tell me how Mac had climbed up when I’d gone on my wild tantarella around the camp with the Slayer Lord, having swung out with her unbroken axe to sink it into a cleft of the rocky cliffside.  Moments later, without the Slayer Lord to ensure she fell to her death anyway, she hauled herself up, took in the situation, and caught a spear Aleph tossed to her, before rushing straight at the Slayer Lord’s wide-open torso.

Falling flat on my butt, I looked up at the Slayer Lord, who was still standing, a look of bewildered surprise on his face (or so I imagined), as he looked down at the spear protruding from his front, while another thrust out from his back, the two together holding him propped up.  He was still alive, but it was pretty obvious to us all that with the amount of blood he was losing, he wouldn’t be for long.

Then my eyes shifted to Mac, and my vision started to get all misty.

“Mac, you…”

“You, kid,” she cut me off with a grin, reaching down to grab my hand, and haul me to my feet, “are a mess!”

“You’re okay!”

It was Aleph, and I knew that if her robot eyes were able, she’d have been crying a river as she raced over, wrapping her extended arms around us both.

“You’re…you’re both really okay!  I thought…I was sure…I mean, it looked as though…”

“It’s okay, Al,” Mac said gently, giving the flustered robot a gentle side-hug (more for her benefit, I think, than Aleph’s).  “It’s okay…but, uh, could you not hug me for a bit?  I’m pretty sure I’ve got some cracked ribs at best, and it’s kind of painful.”

“Oh!  I’m sorry!  I didn’t…”

She trailed off, though, as Mac held up a hand, and then strode to the treasure chest by the throne.  Well, limped is more like it, but she really did her best to turn it into her usual confident stride.  After all, she was on camera!

Ignoring the dying Slayer Lord, who just continued to stand there, glaring at us with eyes filled with programmed malice, we all gathered around the chest, and watched as Mac gripped the lid, and swung it open.

I’m not really sure what I expected next.  What I didn’t quite expect was the sudden rush of light, as the chest shot out bright beams that covered Mac’s outstretched hands, engulfing them in luminous energy.  Before our wide and wondering eyes, the gauntlets of the stat suit began to shift (and it was so easy to forget that we were wearing them, they felt so natural, just like the rest of the suit), and then with a sharp, metallic “shing,” a pair of brutal-looking blades thrust from the backs of her hands.

“Woah!” she exclaimed with a grin, holding up the roughly triangular blades to better admire them, which bore some passing resemblance to the weapons the Slayer Lord had used (and which, I saw with a glance back, were now strangely absent from his hands).  “Like a serial killer’s potato peelers!  Hmm, and can I…?”  They instantly retracted, merging seamlessly with the stat suit.  “Yep, sure can!”  Then she blinked at me, realizing something.  “Um, you okay with this?  I mean, you got the sun spear and all…”

“They’re yours,” I reassured her with a laugh.  “Believe me, you earned them, and now maybe you’ll stop almost dying all the time!”

“Yeah, maybe,” Mac laughed as well, before wincing again, then sucking in a sharp breath.  “Yeah, I think we need to get back to camp, and I need to lie down for a bit.  I mean, I can feel the stat suit holding stuff in place, but it is not a pleasant feeling.  I’m gonna need some days to heal up before I’m ready for…”

That was the moment when the Slayer Lord howled.

The sound was eerie, deep-throated and long-drawn.  If I had to describe it…I guess I would say that it was the sound an alligator would make if it were answering the call of a wolf: long, and loud, and lonely.

And answered.

The Slayer Lord’s final swansong finished, its head slumped forward, and I saw a strange amber liquid leaking from around its eyes; not blood, but something much thicker, more viscous, its different color making it stand out clearly from its actual blood. I didn’t have much time to dwell on what I’d seen, though, as all our eyes turned to see what it was that the Slayer Lord had summoned from the distant mountain peaks, and which was even then winging its way toward us with frightening swiftness.

Oh.

Oh dear.

That’s…that’s rather big, isn’t it?

“Neph?” Mac said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah, Mac?”

“Go and get your spear, will ya?”

“Sure thing, Mac.”