The Battle (18 page)

But you are hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. For the Fallen One!

I swung and chopped up the ancient bones. For the first time, my staff felt a barrier. It creaked nastily and froze halfway. The ogres were already reeling and falling from the jolts.
Fuck, I gotta act fast!

With a groan, I brought the staff under my control. Like a lumberjack I gave it all I had, crying over my torn ligaments and muscles as I sweated blood.
Behold the future deposit of rubies.

At last, the skull broke. I screamed an evacuation order into the chat.

Overflowed with a sense of fulfillment, I smiled at the omnipresent Snowie. He enjoyed crushing the ogres’ heads. My mind shut down. I fell.

Turbo OFF switch. All systems overheated. Sleep mode.

Chapter Thirteen

T
he Free Kingdom of Ivano-Frankivsk micro cluster. Gaming population: 68,511. Capital:
Stanislau.

Mission: Revenge. Active forces: 1820 warriors of the Guards of the First Temple Alliance. Time Limit: 45 minutes

Dozens of bells rang out above a long market street. The few passersby shrugged, surprised by the coincidence. The doors of all the odd-numbered shops flew open, inviting mysterious beginner-level shoppers. Had anyone looked at their watch, they’d have been even more surprised. It was 5 a.m. on the dot.

"Greetings, sir!" a young she-elf welcomed a vendor.

Quickly slipping past the master alchemist, she hurried to the farthest display, forcing the vendor to turn his back to the door. With a somewhat guilty glance at the burns on his arms, she added,

"Sorry, nothing personal. We kindly ask that you speak with the Immortal and get the Prince’s expeditionary corps out of the Russian Cluster territory."

Two assassins unstealthed behind him. Their expensive mithril blades flashed dimly as they struck: first under the shoulder blade, then in the kidneys, twisting the blade inside his liver in a bleeding combo.

The vendor gasped. Turning to face the unexpected attackers, he swung his strong toil-hardened fist.

The assassins dodged, his blow inviting them to counterattack.

The first one slid along the vendor’s extended arm and thrust the blade into his Adam’s apple, ripping it out sideways. The combo caused voice loss and the inability to cast spells for ten seconds.

The second assassin cried out in surprise as the agile old level-180 vendor rammed his sharp knee into him. But the rogue instantly returned the favor by fiercely slashing the vendor’s thigh with both blades. Crit! Five percent Mobility drop!

Ten more heartbeats of fighting, filled with heavy breathing, the sound of flesh being cleaved, and the muffled clanging of weapons. The quick skirmish ended with the predictable victory of youth and numerical superiority.

One of the assassins wiped the blood from his brow and, squinting his injured eye, downed a Medium Healing potion. "Tough old geezer!" he said.

The second rogue knelt by the vendor’s body, then rose in disappointment. "A handful of silver, a piece of string - a quest item, a miserable bit of XP and an impressive relationship drop with the Free City of Stanislau."

The first shrugged. "What did ya expect? No one's gonna reward slaughtering vendors and quest NPCs."

The she-elf interrupted them. "Time, boys! Set the bomb and off to the even-numbered shops. The building will survive, but consider the merchandise fucked. The vendor will have only the default stuff when he respawns – nothing bought from players or generated by the daily randomizer. I feel sorry for the old fart."

One of the assassins snatched the Flame Goblet from his belt and flung it at the ingredient display. Hiding his true feelings, he said gloomily,

"Those who come to us by the sword shall perish by the sword! Let’s go! Carlov HWY-42, the Fair Archer shop. Move! We have dozens more to get to, then after breakfast we have a courtesy visit to the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia, which is larger than some Moscow suburbs."

"Those who hurt us won’t live three days!" the second assassin agreed, turning his back to the fire which was beginning to flare up.

The guards’ footsteps thundered across the bridge. But the stealthed characters had already disappeared. Dozens of cloaked figures were crossing the street, and the welcoming bells sounded again.

That morning, the micro-cluster lost most of its vendors, quest NPCs, port point guards and peddlers.

Should the city’s proud inhabitants fail to take the hint, in three days they would be taught a second lesson after the NPCs respawned.

You were allowed to abuse power only within the limits of your rank, and you had to choose your victims carefully. Our alliance alone could have completely paralyzed the further growth of the tiny independent cluster.

* * *

I regained consciousness almost instantly. Struggling to move my legs, I hung on to the slender yet steel-hard shoulders of my ear-chopper guards. The girls pushed forward like bulldozers, heading toward the safety of the portal arch.

"Wait," I groaned, my bitten tongue bubbling with blood.

I had definitely overdone it this time. Why did I always need to be the center of attention? I had a whole regiment at my command, and an entire division to fall back on! And, according to the rules, our leaders were always stationed about fifteen miles from the line of battle!
So how the fuck do I always get carried away like this?!

My legs were out of control, and I guess my heroic status allowed me to take it easy on myself at least once. So I held on to the velvety elven shoulders clad in leather. I drew the girls closer, supporting myself on them as I turned around to study the battlefield.

One of our security watchdogs squinted his eye. He'd taken a screenshot, the bastard. The secret service cared about the leader’s image, so of course they couldn’t pass up a stunning picture.

The Marble Ryazan held their ground, having activated the nested Dome Shields and running the long-range missile machinery at full capacity. Thousands of lopsided gravestones hinted at an insane massacre. They also served as anti-tank pillars. A few heavy golems sluggishly walked about beneath the walls, accompanied by their smaller siege brethren. They’d managed to break through!

The Silver Legion Demons hacked away at the fearless Chinese, retreating slowly as the violent masses pressed on. The enemy paid dearly – fifty warriors per every defeated Inferno character. But I didn’t need that!

The enemy would respawn, complain of their lost XP and return to the battlefield. While my legionnaires would take an entire day, maybe two to get resurrected.
Hm, I wonder if this was Asmodeus’ primary intention when he so generously gave me these precious warriors? Did he wish to use the power of our Divine Spark to get his demons to go perma in order to finally acquire an eternal army?!

I shook my head at the thought.
Who knows what goes on in that several-thousand-year-old head?
Creatures like him plan for centuries into the future. Their decisions have more than just one useful purpose.

"Retreat!" I repeated aloud the order passed via chat. "To the portal!"

Finally letting go of the firm elven shoulders, I limped over to the massive portal arch. I leaned against it with relief, intending to be the last to leave this sinking ship.

The archers didn’t bother me much, thanks to the Sun God’s blood – the long-range weapon immunity drastically reduced the damage. Had I been sentenced to be shot, a few soldiers wouldn’t have sufficed; they’d have had to call up an entire machine gun squad.

But my subordinates would have none of that. The surviving ear-choppers pressed themselves against me, shielding me from the crossbow bolts with their behinds. Snowie resorted to the most drastic measures: he charged at our thin formation, knocking us all into the portal.

Transition!

"Attention!" came Widowmaker’s voice, followed by the jingling of armor.

"Thanks, buddy!" I thanked Snowie sarcastically.

I put on a stone face and saluted as I stood up on the dusty tiles of the castle yard.

"At ease!"

I looked around. It wasn’t bad – like the chaos of 1941 or Wrangel’s retreating army during the Russian civil war of 1920. We got our asses kicked bad but hey, no falls, no balls.

A few portals gleamed in the square. Folks moved to and fro all businesslike. Rebuffs and respawns were happening everywhere. Crates of ammo and buckets of clattering vials were being generously carried out of storage. Rustling could be heard as scrolls were issued.

Tempting aromas came from the kitchen. A free all-you-can-eat buffet. You could gorge all you liked, thank the Fallen One: getting stuffed would never result in sleepiness, and stomach wounds did not end in peritonitis.

My heart broke when I saw that the heavy machinery boxes were empty. When the Analyst rushed up to me, I asked, "What are our losses?"

"As follows: firstly, humans – no losses. You’ve destroyed that shady ark just in time. And, um... thanks, Sir! I thought we were fucked..."

"Don’t mention it. May you grow up big and strong! Just one thing: from now on, you’re in the rear. Keep the headquarters organized. No reason to allot warriors to guard you and tempt the enemy. I’ll get you an office. Come up with monitoring and control artifacts, train field assistants. Well, you get the idea."

"Yessir! Now, the machines..." he grew cheerless, but continued, "The recon golems all survived as they didn’t fight. The assault golems – half of them survived, so six are left, mostly thanks to their high skedaddle rate. The heavy golems, much worse... only four out of eighteen made it back. We’ve lost seven million gold's worth of them."

I made a face as I quickly guessed their current disposition. "Yeah, we got schooled... Even if we raise enough money, we’ll need at least a month to fix our machines. More importantly, the Chinese set a bad example. The lightsters will start doing the same thing with hidden armies. Our valiant cavalry attacks are a thing of the past now. Within minutes, painfully huge enemy divisions will be dumped upon us."

"I warned you..." commented the Grumbler who had silently approached us.

I turned to face him as he rubbed salt in our wounds.

"Hey, buddy...whatever they call you?"

"Lazar," he humbly introduced himself.

"Which one - Kaganovich
[ii]
?" I could not refrain from the caustic remark.

He raised an eyebrow, surprised that modern youth would know about someone like that. To give the effect a perfect polish, I took a tattered book with several bookmarks out of my inventory. It was the
CPSU(b) Lessons
by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
Ha, take that!

"Now, dear Lazar.
When you criticize, advise,
as Uncle Joe used to say. What would you have done?"

He replied instantly, clearly digging the situation. "Probably the same things you have. The size of the hidden army, the buff schematics, and the assault formation were not the deciding factors. We were beaten from the start because we were led right into a trap. With the forces we had, we could not have won."

I gave a sigh of relief. His take on things made me feel somewhat better. I mean, they couldn’t have sent just some random brownnose. "Good. Means I haven’t messed up that bad. Anyway, for us in particular, the time of big battalions is up as of today."

Lazar shook his head. "Can’t let the enemy take the initiative."

"You’re right. The Alliance is not about to cease its efforts. We’ll split our forces into small groups and hit hundreds of vulnerable spots at once."

The Analyst frowned. "But we won’t be able to help our allies defend their castles now. The enemy can outnumber us ten to one in any given point at any given time."

I pursed my lips. He was right, but I couldn't think of a solution. "Tell everyone in the Alliance that they should evacuate all non-fighters to the First Temple and the Super Nova. Same thing with money and all transportable assets. For now, we can save their people and possessions. With the Fallen One’s help, we might recapture their castles later."

I switched to the castle control channel for a moment. "Lurch, prepare all empty wings for guests. Draft some free rent agreements. Quit whining! Yes, free rent! No one will mess up your stones! This is an order! And second, have Durin bring out crate number nineteen from the Lower Armory. Over!"

Having finished with him, I turned to the Analyst again. "What’s the Tianlong situation?"

"More or less alright. It surely enjoys absorbing magic judging by how its tail is quivering. Although if the magic flow gets denser, it will choke. But that’s not a concern for now. It quickly heals machine damage. The Chinese managed to roll a battering ram up to the skull and knock out one of the latch fangs. The fang was regenerated within ten minutes. But we have no idea what happened to the group that had burst in."

I shook my head sympathetically. Being inside that skull was no picnic. It was lit up like some kind of a uranium mine and your brains tended to leak out through your ears. I tried not to think about what had happened to the brave siege force.

The Analyst suggested, "The guys from the Reenactors city were a big help. We gave them portal scrolls to the Remote Post about a week ago, and reached a preliminary agreement regarding the First Temple’s defense. Seeing that the Valley siege had begun, they grabbed their swords and went into battle. They hit the Chinese from behind. Not that the Chinese weren’t expecting it. And, frankly, seven hundred against five thousand in the field is quite hopeless. But I gotta say, they made half the Chinese see their Yuan Di a coupla times before finally getting defeated."

I slammed my fist into my palm.
Good show, boys! They were completely nuts, refraining from magic, but as warriors – they were priceless!