Chương 339: Day Three Hundred And Thirty-Seven

Dear Diary, Was I some kind of evil dictator in a past life, where no matter how hard I work to do things the right way and make sure everybody's gonna be as safe as they possibly can be doing dangerous but necessary shit, random Murphy karmic crap comes along and craps all over my fucking efforts? Deep breaths. Objectively I get it. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Basic Enlisted military knowledge. Hell, basic survival knowledge where I grew up, even if 'enemy' got real fuzzy sometimes.

But when our ROTC DI straight up said that in class, every head bobbled like he'd just uttered some kind of universal truth. Probably means something that all us kids knew that at, like thirteen years old, when there were Academy graduates, and I'm talking West Point and Annapolis here, who seemed to think that any deviation from The Plan meant everything was ruined forever, the battle lost, the war unwinnable.

Seriously, I do not get the kind of privilege it takes to think that your enemies will just line up and let you execute them. I mean, I kinda hoped the fucking Undead would do something just like that. Too many zombie movies, I guess. Hell, I'd seen a lot of the old school horror flicks, and even a lot of the other monster flicks out there wound up being zombie flicks.

Like, for some reason filmmakers lump everything into either 'one big monster too tough for humans to ever slay' or 'hordes where each individual can be destroyed by a determined toddler'. Although to be fair, my definition of 'determined toddler' is probably way, Way, WAY more dangerous than typical. Seriously.

'Predate'? To kill and consume. Having that as a baseline defining Skill is just kinda 'GAH!' Then again, I suppose that's the whole family. Menace. Domnu. Conrad. Me. Just one big happy family. Okay, I'm pretty sure Domnu's incapable of being what Mortals would call 'happy'. I'm equally certain Conrad fakes it all. I suppose I'm happy, sometimes? Mostly when I'm home alone with Saffron and Marie and Isnomi. Especially Isnomi, oddly enough. Maybe I'm faking it for her?

Oh, shit, what if she's faking it for the rest of us? That would definitely fit in with the whole theme of our whole fuckin' family. Wait. No. Check that. Vulcan. Vulcan is, was, and will be too smug to be anything but happy with himself. So if he's done nothing else good in his life, he's managed to prove that a Mor can, in fact, be actually happy. Of course, he's happy because he's a Weapon of Mass Destruction who loves ruining people and scenery alike, but I suppose you've got to find joy where you can.

In blowing shit up. In being a Menace. In turning assholes into Fine Arts and Crafts. In erasing the cosmos one bit at a time. In wrecking the shit out of 'Order'. That last one makes me really worry about Saffron and I. She's definitely a force for Order in the universe, and I sure as shit am not. But then, maybe we're like, I dunno, Yin and Yang? Opposites that attract and need each other? Like Life and Death? I think I could deal with that. Opposites that attract and react explosively when they come in contact.

I know I like seeing her happy, and she seems to like seeing me that way. Before anybody brings up Murder Mittens, my considered replies are 'false dichotomy' and 'fuck you, you expected logic?' just so we're clear. So last night right after the sun set and my wireframe vision kicked in to let me see the surface of the bay I spotted one of my Trolls in really sad shape, more or less dragging himself across the surface of the water towards us.

I didn't even really stop to think about it; I stepped to his side, splashed down, and the moment our skin made contact I stepped us both back to the Quay. His arm and leg weren't just missing, they'd blackened, looking even worse than the Troll limbs I'd lopped off with Mana Blades. Without really thinking about it I Shaped a pair of Heal Injuries and tagged my Boi's stumps. As my Kitten shouted, STOP!

in my head, the blackened flesh sucked down the Healing spells, writhing as it grew, both stretching into emaciated, wrong-looking limbs and blackening the Troll's shoulder and hip. I froze, Mana Blades instinctively sliding out of my wrists. I stumbled away, the Troll writhing around to scuttle after me on hands and knees. SMITE IT! For whatever reason my brain would not bring up the Shape for Smite until, halfway along the quay, Saffron projected the image of the Shape into my head.

Drawing way more Mana than I had for the Heals, I Shaped Smite and kept pouring Mana into it until the Troll caught up to me. The moment it came in reach, I slammed the Shape into its grasping, blackened hand. The Troll screamed, its back arching until it convulsed so hard its skull hammered into the stone of the quay. Its arm, its shoulder, its leg, and its hip all smoked, burned away by flameless heat.

More thin, black smoke rose from its mouth, its nostrils, its ass, even the crack where its skull had split when it hammered its head into the stone. I think it even had smoke coming out of its pores. I watched the Shape force itself over the Troll, constricting around it, forcing its way inward like some three dimensional trash compacter. It passed right through the poor Troll's flesh, leaving nothing but greenish scales and black powder behind.

When it sank into the Troll's chest, its scream changed in timbre, becoming the scream of a person in unimaginable pain rather than the shriek of a monster facing oblivion. Then, with a crack, the Smite finished its work, and the Troll lay still. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I lay my hand on its chest, smudging the black powder there. Not, like, gunpowder. More like graphite. The Troll lay perfectly still, a cooling lump of meat.

Fury overtook me, and before I could think I shaped a Stabilize as big as the Smite and hammered it into its chest. It sat up, gasping, eyes flying open. After a few moments of coughing, it braced itself up with one hand and looked at me, eyes lowered to my chin. It... no, they... didn't speak. There were some hisses in there, but I realized that the vocalizations in Troll were like body language, and vice versa.

"Legate." The title puzzled me for a little bit, but all those big assed ancient books came to my aid.

"Legionnaire?

"Centurion Furtim Cauda." I nodded.

"Centurion. Report?" They nodded, paused for a moment as if arranging their thoughts.

"Legion advanced to Docks. Fought Undead Underwater. Ambushed by Hole Spawn. Prefect ordered retreat West. Sent Centuria Cauda with report." They went still, panting a little. Their arm and leg regrew fast enough for me to see it happening, but their chest and other limbs shrank. I powered up an overpowered Heal Injury and hammered them with it; they panted, but rose to their feet the moment both of their legs stretched the same length.

They stared at the quay, their shame obvious even without any fancy translation. It took me a second to figure out why. Whatever had ambushed my Trolls hadn't just beaten them and sent them running, it had managed to kill ninety nine out of a hundred sent to get a message through to me. This Troll had somehow managed to make it through, even with Undeath eating at them, to report to me. Shit, it had lost an arm and a leg, not to mention its pole arm. Right then it hit me.

I pulled my Swordstaff, and they knelt, bowing their head, stretching it out toward me as they did. I Co-Located, stepped forward, and held my swordstaff in front of them. They simply knelt there, unmoving, not even closing their eyes. I reached down and gently pulled one of their hands, then the other, placing them on the haft of my weapon. Then I let go and stepped back. The Troll blinked, then its eyes shot wide open.

They stood, struck sparks off the quay when they slammed one of the sword blades down, slamming their fist against their chest.

"Legate! Orders?" I smiled at them without exposing my teeth.

"Your Centuria were taken by the Undead that ambushed you?" They sighed and nodded.

"I don't know if we, if I can fix them. If they're like you were, still fighting it, I sure as shit will try. Fuck that, I don't care what condition they're in, if you can get them in reach of me, I'll do my best to fix them, to save them. But right now? Other than a handful of Selkies and Merfolk sailors, none of whom are really great when it comes to fighting, you're our only underwater asset.

The only one who can see the Trolls coming underwater and let us know, the only one who stands a chance against them one on one underwater." They nodded, and I turned to Olga and Swanson.

"What the hell is a Hole Spawn?" Both of them blanched.

"Oh, shit."

"Olga?

'Oh, shit' is evocative, but unless we're about to fight an actual poop monster, it doesn't tell me a lot." She looked at Swanson.

"Have you fought them?" He shook his head, obviously shaken by something about the 'Hole Spawn'.

"Okay then. I've only fought two. The Jarls who had me fight them said they were 'on the small side'." She looked at me.

"Have you fought a Dragon before?" I nodded.

"Two." She blinked.

"Well. Shit. Most people fight the one and decide it's a bad idea, then get someone else to fight any others that show up. I think you're the first non-Jotnar I've ever spoken to who's fought more than one." She paused.

"How'd you do, by the way?" I shrugged.

"Crushed the smaller one and buried it under the riverbed, because it felt kinda toxic. Bigger one I jumped in its mouth and was trying to think of something when my wife showed up and shot it."

"You jumped in its mouth?"

"I figured it couldn't bite me if I was in its mouth."

"Did... did that work?" I shifted The Dress out of the way and traced one of the thinner, more superficial scars across my calves.

"Not so much."

"A Dragon gnawed on your calves, and you still have feet?"

"My wife tells me I've got a fetish for being chewed on. Hole Spawn?" Olga lost her shit laughing at that, holding up one hand, begging for patience. When she got control of herself she said, "okay, okay. Hole Spawn are... I think technically they might be Dragons? Or at least some kind of Dragon Kin like Wyverns or Drakes? Except... You know how Wyverns look like a Dragon got it on with a very unfortunate Horse, maybe?" I tilted my head as I thought about it.

"Yeah, okay, I can see that."

"Hole Spawn are like that, except bottom feeders instead of Horses." I tried to envision it.

"You mean, like, eels? Or catfish? Or crabs?"

"Yes." My brain kinda split at that, and the intrusive thoughts took over my brain.

"I wanna eat one."

"I... I would never have thought of trying to eat one. I... I guess you could? If you could somehow neutralize both the poison and the acid?" I shot her a crooked grin. I wish I hadn't said it, but I couldn't get back down now.

"Sounds spicy. Our Trolls and Jotnar got ambushed by Hole Spawn."

"How many?"

"Enough that the Troll Prefect ordered a retreat and sent a Centuria to inform us, of which one got through."

"Oh. Oh, shit." When I put my hands on my hips, she waved her hands for patience again.

"I think that's what Swanson and I both thought when you mentioned them. I don't know a lot about Undead, and nobody knows a lot about Hole Spawn, other than no two being quite the same, but..." She paused, took a breath, "I've heard two tales. One is that bottom feeders are, like, natural Undead. The other is that bottom feeders that feed on Undead become vastly more powerful."

"So, which one is it?" She closed her eyes.

"Honestly? Having fought Hole Spawn, and seen what happened to your Troll there? I'm trying not to shit myself at the thought that it's both."

"Well. Fuck me. Looks like we do the slow and steady advance from here to Calverton, with Centurion Furtim Cauda spotting them and me ending them as they find those fuckers."

"Are... are you sure, my Liege?" I smiled grimly up at her.

"That's why they pay the bitch in the big chair the big bucks, isn't it?"