Inferno (Play to Live: Book # 4) (11 page)

Then I well and truly wriggled in agony as Vertebra's unforgettable voice tolled in my head,

"Take my children into battle!"

I groaned, clutching my temples. "You want your chicks to go? And what if, the Fallen One forbid, they get killed?"

She laughed, rattling my panicking brains within my skull. Wretched bag of bones! "Can you please put the sound down? My head will explode in a minute!"

"Sorry. You shouldn't worry about the chicks. They're too integrated into the world matrix now to be destroyed completely. Yes, it might take the Universe some effort to respawn such powerful entities — days or months even. The important thing is, in order to grow they now need to triumph over some enemy. Mother Nature has already given them everything it could, glory be to this Valley's mithril fields."

She was dead right there. They weren't Phantom Dragons anymore — more like mithril ones. Weight for weight. The message was clear: it was time for the little 'uns to leave mom's titties alone and start to level up in their own right.

"Very well," I said. "Tell them to come and wait at the square."

Widowmaker called over to me, "The dwarves can only make it in a hour and a half. They just can't do it any quicker."

"Too long. Send them a cabbie, tell him to port them one by one in order of readiness directly to the Cursed Castle."

Widowmaker nodded. "Good. But we can't drum up so many people in a half-hour, either. Everybody's out on missions. We have commitments to other clans — like, we can't leave the Fly Trap field workers unprotected, and it's three teams of five engaged there. A hundred men is the most you can expect."

Not much. Oh well, we did have a Plan B for just such an occasion. Time to undo our purse strings.

I activated the castle control menu and opened the hire tab, looking for the warrior configurations I'd preset earlier. A type of custom-made cutthroat with random character traits. Pausing for a second, I entered the number, 100, then submitted the form. In a quarter of an hour, I was going to be the proud owner of an elite squad of level-200 warriors while my bank account was going to be fifty thousand poorer.

Luckily, the developers seemed to understand that castle guards had to be affordable. But I'd raised the bar way too high as far as their levels and characteristics were concerned. Secondly, I had to pay double for the right to take them outside the castle walls. Never mind. Easy come, easy go. I still had another nine million left in the kitty after the successful Chinese raid. Heh, I was a proper millionaire with my own castle and my loyal circle of knights. The mind boggles.

I set all services to work and used the priest portal to jump downstairs to the Altar, then walked out of the Temple's wide gate into the main square.

Anarchy and kerfuffle! I could clearly see now that the best way to check your troops' readiness and discipline was by issuing Code Red and sending them on a twenty-four-hour march there and back again. Then everything that your shrewd personnel had so far managed to conceal from the top brass' eyes would become glaringly obvious.

The place was in complete disarray. Some rushed to the supply depot to get a set of anti-PK gear; others tried to fall in, their ranks still incomplete; buffers yelled at the crowd seeing the already-blessed players mixing with those still waiting their turn. Supply officers fussed about, distributing the vials according to Protocol #6, indignant at the specified 150% consumption rate. The departing warriors scooped the vials up by the handful, the way troopers scoop up cartridges before being sent to the front. I could already see repercussions coming once the party was over.

Snowie growled under his breath, trying to push a heavy assault golem out of its hangar. Some idiot had restricted access to its interface with a password! A small lieutenant major scurried about, searching the ranks for those capable of driving golems as half of the drivers were out on missions.

The first couple of golems finally scrambled out of the hangar, struggling to move their massive feet, then came to a halt in the square. As it turned out, no one had thought to replace their accumulating crystals. Now our main storming weapons had become useless heaps of sprawled metal limbs. More messengers hurried to the supply depots to hassle the already-indignant Durin.

Technicians rattled their hammers nearby, replacing the golems' digging buckets with weapon mountings. Dammit. At the time, I had personally commended the guy who'd suggested this clever idea of using golems as debris clearers. Didn't they understand that once they were finished, they had to put it all back the way it was?

Oh no!
Some smartass had decided to use a sledgehammer to drive a crystal into an apparently too small slot. The gold plates of the mana drive were smashed irreparably, Gimmick yelling at the hapless operator. I knew of course that damages like this weren't even in the script, but who said it was still a game?

I stood on the top step of the First Temple with my arms crossed, squinting at the chaos as I committed everything to absolute memory, thus further unnerving my officers. Even ants have better discipline when their anthill is flooded! The timer in the corner of my interface helpfully kept me posted: we'd been at it for more than thirty minutes already.

My hundred custom-made Ear Cutters — so called to spite Ruata's Cutthroats — were waiting nearby, watching the scene with a certain dose of bewilderment. Meeting the chief buffer's stare, I nodded at them, making it clear that these fine fellows needed to be buffed up to the eyeballs. The lieutenant heaved a sigh and raised his head to the heavens, mouthing something definitely unflattering, then sent yet another messenger to the ingredients depot. The raid blessings devoured industrial amounts of lazuli, agate and malachite.

Green with the importance of the task he'd been entrusted with, the lame goblin — the one I'd nicknamed Tamerlane — dragged the Big Raid Altar out of storage. Time to test it too. A 25% bonus to all Dark spells and the same resistance to the magic of Light — we could use them, that's for sure.

The baby dragons nose-dived to the ground, dispersing the flimsy ranks. Meeting the chief buffer's stare again, I gave him a reconciliatory smile, pointing at the mithril chicks and the hell hounds who ran amok around the ranks in circles like infernal sheep dogs, trying to drive everyone close together.

Fifty minutes. Fuckyall didn't call back, apparently too proud to repeat his request for help or try to find out why we hadn't yet arrived.

Gradually our ranks lined up, our motley troops taking a rather dangerous and impressive shape. I wanted to nod my approval but instead cast a meaningful glance at my wrist as if checking the time on a non-existent watch, then shook my head. I reached into my inventory for a Spark of Dark Flame and activated the Blessing buff, upping our resistance to all types of magic and physical damage.

"Jump off in one minute!"

The analyst ground his teeth. This definitely wasn't his kind of mission. No planning or amassing vast amounts of data — just a valorous cavalry derring-do.

The golems shifted their feet, striking sparks off the flagstones. The hell hounds shivered in anticipation, sending shimmering waves across their armor. The sentients clung to their weapons, their artifacts and magic staffs. All kinds of pet controllers had filled the courtyard with their scary array of creatures. The earth, the skies and the astral planes had mended, concealing all trace of the recent summonings. Shapeshifters were switching to their combat shapes. Here and there, a warrior's body would arch in a terrifying transformation, arising as a powerful grizzly bear or, on the contrary, dropping to all fours assuming the muscular shape a giant wolf.

"Commence countdown. Jump off in ten... nine... eight..."

I sprang into Hummungus' saddle. A freshly-summoned zombie chomped at the bit next to me. Not much of a hero but every little bit helps. My personal bodyguards kept a sharp watch. Tamerlane acted as a color-bearer, holding the massive Altar in those short outstretched little paws of his.

I made a mental note to have silk banners made: each of the Clan, the Alliance and the Fallen One. I took the insignia — all those badges, titles and medals — very seriously. Even something as simple as a "thank you" may years later turn out in your favor. Likewise, skimp on gratitude and you just might regret it one day.

The wide arch of the cargo portal opened its throat wide, inviting everyone into its filmy distance-defying depths.

The assault group was the first to bail out, followed by half of my bodyguards and staff members complete with yours truly. The rest of the bodyguards followed. Then the portal was packed solid with a monolith of action-hungry warriors, their entire column squeezing themselves through in a matter of seconds.

The portal's rumbling echo clapped all over the Cursed Castle. At the enemy's rear, they were shaking their heads not knowing what had hit them.

Without further ado, our fighters cut into the ranks of cloth-clad casters, meditating healers and respawned players busy putting their gear back on. Excellent. Apparently, not everyone had yet realized the main rule of waging these new portal wars: there
is
no rear.

The Castle still held, even though the defense methods were not exactly in keeping with gameplay.

All the zombies had been drawn up under the safety of the castle walls. That's where they respawned too, by the looks of it. The main doorway was blocked with pieces of furniture and bits of the outer walls, packed solid throughout the depth of the entrance hall. The attackers would have to take it apart under the defenders' furious pressure.

The scorched windows must have been similarly blocked once, but now they gaped open. Here and there, OMON fighters were attempting to scale them, angrily fending off the bristling lances and spears. The attackers played it by ear: in some places, enormous ogres were trying to hack through the walls to increase the number of potential entryways and disperse the defenders' meager forces.

Finally one of the dainty towers succumbed to their efforts. A large chunk of stone at its base collapsed, revealing the citadel's vulnerable belly. With a triumphant roar, the Sullen Angels charged in. After a brief pause, the defenders answered equally un-gamely, sacrificing part of the castle for the sake of the integrity of the perimeter. Stonework groaned as the tower collapsed, folding in on itself, throwing clouds of pink dust into the sky and burying the fifty-strong squad under its ruins.

We slapped them the way an open hand slaps a ball of dough, digging deep into the enemy's tight ranks as they tried to force entry into the Cursed Castle as if it were their own property. Our heroes led the way, fronting our attacking arrowhead formations.

Snowie's club cut a wide swathe through the enemy ranks with its hundred-and-fifty-caliber arc. Zena's team covered his back while his friends the "watchdog" goblins scurried underfoot, wielding quite aptly their poisoned swords. Those tiny bastards would get themselves killed! I could almost see their slaughtered gray-and-green little bodies in the dust. Twenty-four hour respawn time, who did they think was going to keep an eye on all the construction works in the meantime? Having said that, the kids needed combat experience. They wanted to grow and have a few available points to open their skill branches. So there they were, ready for the meat grinder.

The baby dragons tread their paths, sowing fear and dismay in their wake as they applied mental pressure that made the enemy's brains leak with the most horrid subconscious nightmares they'd ever had. Still, the initial bewilderment soon passed, replaced by the full appreciation of the mithril chicks' level and size. Magic shields flashed open, protecting the fighters' minds with their invisible screens. Resistance kept growing, slowing our advance. All the rechargeable skills had already been used up and were now sadly ticking their timers.

Then Craky got stuck, facing a steel wall of three paladins. Immediately a couple of exorcists studied his phantom flesh in True Light. The enemy's blessed weapons got bogged down in his protective darkness, but the chick was getting tired too, now and again exposing his mithril scales to blows coming through the gaps in the shield of the dark. Craky wasn't charging forward any more — he just stumbled on the spot, parrying dozens of swords, occasionally shrieking with some nasty hits, gradually losing his mithril armor like a fish in the hands of an experienced cook. Finally he drew in one leg and wailed, backing off from the torrents of light pouring down from the sky.

An arrowhead formation of hell hounds had played enough with the two chicks to be able to tell their battle cries from the screams of panic. The entire pack swerved, changing direction, and hurried to help the cut-off Craky who was gradually clubbed down by the crowd. I'd be damned if I hadn't seen a couple of tiny riders with matching spears on the dogs' backs. They were children, by Lloth!

I hurriedly ordered Widowmaker to send Craky some reinforcements and intercept the kids before they got into trouble or were taken prisoner. They were too young for this kind of experience.

His sister Draky was less prone to acting on impulse. She was heading her support team, ramming it through the crowd. But they, too, had bitten off more than they could chew, wedging too deep into the enemy ranks. Forty of them just couldn't hold the resulting corridor. They got stuck in the mass of people like a bullet in ballistic gel, losing energy, momentum and killing power.