Fate of Camlan Page 9

  We’re losing our tanks. We’ve already lost our scout, we’re lost in the middle of Camlan, potentially miles away from anything and are about to lose both of our tanks.

  A crashing sound ripping through the forest distracts me. I fumble and almost drop my arrow when I turn. I can’t help but let out a frustrated sigh. Of all the things to ambush us at this moment … I knew we had not seen the last of these.

  A pair of enormous wolves, gray and white vargs, tears through Dyrnwood toward us. Thank god it’s only two this time.

  Name: Varg

  Level: 36

  Description: The size of a small car, this enormous wolf travels in packs, so look out for more. A varg is dangerous from all sides, teeth, claws, and muscles all over.

  I re-nock my arrow and aim at the closest monster; once more I wish I had my Bow of Elements. I’m used to the showy damage of my Fire or Water arrow. I let out an even breath and send out the arrow, landing a solid hit in the animal’s throat as it runs toward us. My single arrow not enough to stop it, though, and I have to retreat several steps, tripping over a fallen branch and landing on my butt on the forest floor.

  The varg’s heavy claws dig in to me as it runs right over me, toward TexBadass, snarling and lunging with its giant maw. The creature circles around, as though unsure where to begin its attack with this wealth of victims before it. The second varg is close behind it, this one focusing on Erinocalypse and me, crouching down and preparing to pounce as I scramble to my feet. The sorceress sends Petrify across the forest, freezing the varg where it stands for a few seconds and giving us a small breath of relief.

  Balderdash13 isn’t quite completely incapacitated by the tree root, and the varg must not see her. It paces near enough to where she is pinned under the tree that she is able to reach out with her sword and slice through the monster’s side.

  It yelps in surprise before turning on the tank, growling and stalking toward her. A smaller root begins its creep across her sword arm and she has a few moments of struggle against it when the varg sees its chance to attack.

  I aim an arrow at the gigantic wolf closest to me, and in the small moment it flinches, I send a second arrow into the shoulder of the other. Each hit shaves off a sliver of health, but not enough to draw the monster’s attention away from the imprisoned tanks. TexBadass backs up even further into the surrounding forest so he can continue to pour health into SteelFeather without being in more danger himself.

  “Watch for those scary bushes,” I remind him.

  He nods, acknowledging the tip without taking his eyes off his target.

  I fire again, rapidly, barely pausing to aim as I shoot arrow after arrow at each of the vargs. Between the cool down periods, every third arrow I’m able to imbue with Slay Poison before firing. My Bow of Eternal Rest packs a punch with that addition. I’m sure the damage effected with these new powerful hits is greater than when we met these creatures before.

  But it doesn’t matter how strong the hit is, if it’s not enough to take down the creature. Erinocalypse and I are now the only attackers, trying to defend all five of us against vargs the size of bison, both armed with deadly claws and teeth. I alternate shooting at each animal, hoping if I’m fast enough, I can at least keep them at bay.

  With SteelFeather almost completely buried in vengeful the tree roots, Balderdash13 is the most obvious target for the varg.

  “No…” she whispers as the creature zeroes on her, opening its jaw wide enough to take a huge bite of the only part of her still accessible: one arm.

  Chapter 22

  The enormous varg focuses on its victim, jaw wide open as it stalks through Dyrnwood toward Balderdash13 and readies to crush her arm in its teeth. The tank’s eyes widen in fear; she knows what pain this could be. She has already lost and had to regrow an entire arm while playing this game, and none of us want her to have to do it again.

  Remembering the last time we had to fight these creatures, I think back to the genius technique Callidus came up with. I duck into Stealth mode, disappearing from the animal’s sight so I can creep up behind it. I have to take time to stow my bow and arrow and pull out the long Goblin knife, but in the meantime close the distance as quietly as I can.

  I creep forward, stepping carefully over the larger ground cover and circle around until I am behind the snarling monster. Once I am in position, an arm’s length away, I use the blade to slash the tendons of its back leg. The creature bellows in pain.

  In its haste to escape the pain of my knife, the varg dodges closer to the tree root. I hold my breath, watching as one of the roots begins to creep, wrapping around and up one of the varg’s legs.

  That’s it. I feel a small flicker of hope in me. Thank goodness. The tree isn’t coded to go after players specifically. The Snare Tree isn’t targeting us; it’s targeting whatever live creature stumbles into its range. That small distinction can make all the difference.

  My Stealth mode ends and, as I appear back into sight, Erinocalypse’s attention is drawn to me. I point to the trapped varg’s leg and she grins and nods. She sends another Petrify to the varg closest to her, freezing it for a few seconds.

  The varg by the tree seems to have forgotten about Balderdash13 the moment it noticed its leg is trapped. I fire another two arrows into its side, driving it back closer to the tree. Erinocalypse aims a Fire Bolt at the same spot. The varg snarls and growls at us, but is distracted in trying to bite off the now second root that has snared another foot. I circle around a little to the right to more specifically direct the animal in its retreat.

  When a third root creeps up a third varg leg, I know it’s stuck. The monster tugs and tugs, its growls turning to frantic yelps.

  When a fourth root leaves its hold on Balderdash13 to wind up the varg’s leg, I give a little internal cheer of victory. The creature is pulled down and down. I hear the snap of bone over the cry of the mongrel as an aggressive root bends the varg’s leg at an unnatural angle.

  Erinocalypse sends another blast of Petrify to the other varg, keeping it frozen. We’ll need to drive it toward the tree next. While the other varg is frozen, I fire another several arrows at it, cutting in to its health when it can’t fight back.

  Balderdash13 wriggles and struggles. She’s petite enough that the root’s hold on her is tenuous. I hold my breath, watching. With the plant otherwise occupied, Balderdash13 is able to break free of its grasp. She’s breathing hard when she finally pulls herself out and rolls away, but recovers quickly, sword in hand.

  As a group, we turn on the final varg but its still so far away from the Snare Tree that we need to circle around it to drive it in the right direction. It resists our efforts to direct it. The varg snarls and snaps at each of us, leaping from one side to another in its attempt to attack all of us at once.

  But we keep the pressure high. I fire arrow after arrow, peppering the animal’s flank with my weapon. Blood begins to mat its fur.

  We drive the last varg back and back. All of our attacking power focused on the one animal makes it retreat. It continues to fight back, at times lunging forward at one or the other of the tanks, continuing to struggle for its life.

  I ready another arrow, aiming for one of the varg’s eyes, but it’s moving too much for me to feel comfortable that I will hit my target. I wait another moment to find my perfect shot, but just as I am about to fire the arrow, the varg yelps and turns its back on us entirely.

  In its focus on us, the varg had evidently neglected to watch for other enemies.

  What I had thought was the relatively small bud of blossom on top of the Raptorial Bushes, is actually something like its mouth. The seam of the bulb opens like lips, expanding beyond what I could even imagine, stretching wide with teeth-like needles embedded inside in innumerable rows to catch and dig into its prey.

  The bud stretches open farther and farther, while its arm-like vines stretch from either side of the bush’s stalk to wrap around the varg and pull it even closer into the mouth
of the plant.

  The plant seems to be able to stretch like a python, wider and wider as it pulls first the varg’s rear legs and then further up the abdomen of the monster. The varg begins to panic, so much that I almost feel bad for it. It struggles and pulls, but the Raptorial Bush draws it farther and farther in. The dog-like yelps the creature lets out are piercing. Even as the animal struggles, the needles on the inside of the plant’s petals hold it in place. The hundreds of tiny pinpricks drip blood down the throat of the plant, which seems to spur it on even farther.

  I back up several steps out of the reach of the Raptorial Bush, but stay fascinated watching.

  It’s only another few quick moments before all that is left of the varg that is outside of the plant is its head, crying and whimpering, still struggling to get free, although it is very clearly futile.

  The varg gasps one final time before it disappears completely within the Raptorial Bush. The trunk bulges out where the now-dead body of the varg rests inside. I wonder how long the plant will take to digest such an enormous meal.

  “Whoa,” I say, almost to myself.

  “Dude,” SteelFeather says. “That thing is … ”

  “I know,” I agree. There’s no good word to describe how terrifying that Raptorial Bush is. Watching the way it captured and then devoured a wolf the size of a small car is both awe-inspiring and paralyzing.

  “Let’s hope none of us get too close to one of those things,” TexBadass says.

  Chapter 23

  We just witnessed a fierce animal the size of a king-size bed get devoured by a plant, through what had otherwise appeared to be a harmless red flower bud. Camlan Realm keeps getting scarier. I see now what Briaris meant when she told us the kingdom is getting darker and more dangerous.

  Now that we have seen the power and destruction of a Raptorial Bush, not to mention the Snare Tree, we all seem to be more cautious about getting close to any of them. TexBadass grumbles a bit about not getting to loot the bodies, since they were technically not killed by us, but everyone else in the party is perfectly happy to let the forest take care of the enemy for us. SteelFeather leads us around the plants in wide arcs as we continue our way east to the King’s Road.

  The floor of the forest inclines a bit. Walking uphill in all this armor would wind me if I hadn’t put that point into Stamina as soon as we got in the game this morning. What I wouldn’t give for a horse to ride right about now. I pull out my map as we walk, to try to gauge the distance through the forest. I hope I’m wrong, but it looks to me like we’re still less than halfway to the King’s Road.

  Hours pass and we battle off a few more vargs, sating TexBadass’s addiction to loot. The Pendragon Mountains draw ever closer, towering above us. At one point we find a tiny break in the Dyrnwood canopy and catch a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains. I don’t know how we’re going to get over those. The map doesn’t seem to have any easy pass marked, but maybe that’s just the challenge of Camlan.

  In between the small battles and conversation, I hear a low rumble in the distance but can’t quite place it. I look around and notice ahead, about thirty feet, the forest seems to open up. I spot a bright spot of sunlight filling the clearing.

  Only it’s no typical clearing in a forest. And I realize finally what the rumbling sound is.

  In the lead of our group, SteelFeather slows his steps, walking slowly, cautiously to the edge of what is revealed to be a deep ravine with a river flowing at the bottom. The five us all all inch our way to the edge and look over.

  “Maybe we can climb down,” I say. “It could be faster to travel by water.”

  “It’s going the wrong way,” TexBadass points out. “Flowing away from the mountains is the opposite of what we want.”

  “We could paddle upstream?” I venture.

  “Well, we can’t very well fly across it, so let’s just keep walking along the edge,” Erinocalypse suggests. “It’s going roughly east, at least.”

  I peer over the edge of the ravine again. I’m not able to judge how high we are; the river and rocks could be any size without something else to compare it to. But after walking along the curve of the water for about ten minutes we spot a Large Bear down in the water below. We stay quiet, not eager to draw its attention, but if I had to guess I’d say we were still about forty feet above it.

  While we might survive that fall, meeting a bear at the bottom of the cliff cuts our chances significantly.

  I pull out my map of Camlan, zooming in to our position in Dyrnwood. This river curves around a bit to the northeast, taking us exactly where we might be able to cross the Pendragon Mountains on our way to the King’s Road.

  After another mile or so of hiking along the edge of the canyon, battling a few Small Boars and Dyrnwood Foxes, SteelFeather points up ahead.

  “There’s our answer.”

  Just around the curve, he points out a narrow rope bridge that spans the width of the ravine. I try to gauge the distance—maybe a hundred yards or so? The whole length, rotting wooden boards form the foot path across the bridge. It looks barely able to hold us, but this is the best option we’ve had in a while.

  “Should we try it?” I ask. “I’ll take the lead.”

  “I’ll take the lead,” SteelFeather says pointedly.

  “Fine.” I shrug. “But we’re crossing, right?”

  Erinocalypse and TexBadass exchange a glance. I don’t like that. It makes me feel like they’re talking behind my back. In fact, they very well could be with private messages or whatever.

  “Sure,” Erinocalypse says. “Let’s give it a shot. But I go first.”

  “What? Why?” the tank complains.

  “Me, then Tex, then Asher, then you two. Because we’re the weakest. If the bridge isn’t going to hold, we need the best chance of getting to the other side because I’m not sure our health will stand a fall from this height.”

  “Okay,” he grumbles. “But be careful. Go slow. Test each board before you put your full weight on it.”

  She nods and steps forward to the bridge. One hand gripping tight to each of the rope handrails, she lightly places one foot on the first wooden board. Leaving her weight on the land as long as possible, she takes a slow step forward on to the bridge. It holds. She exhales and takes another slow step forward. This board holds as well, and soon she is advancing more quickly.

  “Go ahead, Tex,” I tell him. The older man is ready at the start of the bridge.

  As he steps on to the first board, his weight changes the balance of the bridge and Erinocalypse’s end almost bounces into the air. She wraps an entire arm around the rope frantically.

  “Slow!” she yells over her shoulder.

  The two find a rhythm and are soon taking their steps in sync, just about ten feet apart.

  My turn next, and I try to move forward at the same rate they are, to keep the bridge even, balanced and hopefully not put too much strain on any one part of it. Only a few minutes later all five of us are crossing the bridge.

  We are silent. The only sound is the creak of boards as we put our weight on them, the slight swish of rope as we run our hands over it, and occasionally the call of birds in Dyrnwood around us.

  Behind me I hear a loud creak that sounds like it is coming from the start of the bridge. When I start to turn to look, I must move too fast because the board under my left foot breaks and falls into the water. I tense all of my muscles, trying to hold on to the bridge and manage to fall forward onto the next board. Miraculously, it holds under the sudden weight.

  “You okay?” Balderdash13 asks me.

  I nod. Just got to be careful. “Watch for this missing board.”

  As I take my next step forward, there’s another deep creaking noise from behind me.

  “You guys,” SteelFeather calls from the rear of the row. “I’m not sure it will hold.”

  “We can’t go any faster,” I say.

  “We have to.”

  I hear the desperation in his voice
, though he’s trying to play it cool.

  As we all take another step forward, the rope attached to the far end of the bridge closest to Erinocalypse, on the left side, jolts abruptly. When I look up, I realize the rope is beginning to fray. One of the strands has snapped altogether and there is now less fiber holding up the bridge on that side.

  “You guys,” I call to the group.

  “I know,” Erinocalypse says sharply, hurrying her next step.

  The rope jolts again as another strand breaks, but I’m too focused on holding on to notice which one. We’re still only halfway across the bridge, more than one hundred feet left to traverse on a rickety rope bridge that is disintegrating under us.

  “Go,” SteelFeather shouts.

  The rope jerks again, this time unbalancing the whole bridge so we swing hard to the right, swaying under the weight. I lose my balance and fall backward. I grip the rope with both hands, but can’t find boards under my feet.

  Maybe we can still make it. We can still go fast enough before the whole thing collapses.

  No sooner is that thought through my head than I feel yet another jolt as the final strand of rope breaks, breaking our tenuous hold to the land, upending our careful balance and tipping us over completely.

  I scramble to gain purchase but it’s too late. The narrow bridge and all five of us tumble into the ravine.

  Chapter 24

  I land in the water with a heavy splash.

  Attention: You have discovered: Bors River

  Description: Running from deep in the Pendragon Mountains to the western coast of Camlan, the Bors River is home to River Trolls, Large Bears, Fighting Eels and other creatures.

  Wonderful. Gee. Thanks. So helpful to know the name of the river when I’m fighting to keep my breath and feel the undercurrent tugging at my boot.