41 – Battle-Bear

  “Um, battle-bear?” Bella asked, looking around the table.

  Before she could ask, Andy nodded. “I’m pretty sure we all just got the same quest.” He looked at Jilly. “Can you explain that to us? The, uh, battle-bear?”

  “You’ve never seen one? They’re rather famous throughout Vondra.” She glanced toward the kitchen door. “I’ll explain on the way, but if you’re going to help Gord, you should hurry.”

  Andy pushed his chair out, grabbed his spear, and walked over to his pack. “Let’s go.”

  As everyone else started collecting their things, Jilly said, “The story my mother told me is that a thousand years ago, the wizard, Levinstrahd, used his magic to create the first of the battle-bears. He bound the spirits of men to the powerful creatures that lived in the valley where he built his tower. At first, they were guardians of his lands, but to build goodwill with the people of Vondra, he allowed them to wander, fighting evil where they found it. Over the years, they created a noble order and—”

  The kitchen door burst open, and Gord appeared, looming through the doorway. “Dra grinik fran lonnra!”

  Jilly responded, and he grunted, returning to the kitchen. She looked at Andy and the others. “He asked if you were coming. He’s going to wait out in the alley.”

  Bella asked, “Are the battle-bears all good? Do they speak?”

  “They do speak, but they tend to be sparing with their words. As for whether they’re good, well, I’ve never heard of an evil or criminal battle-bear. I met one on the road, and though he seemed surly, he shared his fire, and I felt safe from brigands at his camp.” While she answered, Jilly led the way to the kitchen and held the door open.

  Andy hurried through, and when he saw Mari, the innkeeper, watching, he offered her a smile and waved. “Thank you.”

  She ducked her furry head, looking down, but he saw an answering smile. Outside, Gord was standing at the fence, the gate partially open. He held one of the iron blitz-rat swords and wore one of their shields. The huge laukin looked almost like he was part bear as he watched them all approach. He nodded, pointed up the alley to the right, and led the way. Andy could hear Jilly speaking in low tones to the others as he followed Gord. It was mostly Bella who was asking her questions, but it was clear that everyone was interested in her answers.

  “I don’t get it, though,” Bella whispered. “If your magic necklace doesn’t translate the name of your people, laukin, why do we understand the name for battle-bear?”

  Jilly smiled, shaking her head. “I suppose it must mean that, in your language, you have a word for ‘battle’ and a word for ‘bear.’ That’s quite literally the name we use for their kind.”

  “Oh!” Bella thumped herself on the side of the head with her palm. “That makes sense. So, on your world you have animals called bears?”

  Jilly nodded, giggling softly. “Oh yes. Big, furry brutes who like to eat grubs, fish, and pretty much anything you leave lying about your campsite!”

  They reached the end of the alley, and Gord paused there, holding his arm across the opening and glaring back toward Jilly. She hastily whispered, “He wants me to stop talking.”

  Just then, a great, bellowing roar and a crash echoed from the street ahead, off to the left. Gord peered around the corner, then waved his arm and started forward. Andy followed, spear pointed ahead. When he rounded the building on his left, he saw Gord hurrying toward an overturned trailer, beyond which a chaotic scene unfolded.

  Twenty or so blitz-rats were facing a storefront with shattered windows. The door had been pulled off the hinges and thrown into the street, and as Andy watched, another roar sounded and a blitz-rat came flying out of the doorway. He bounced onto the cobbles, and two other armored ratmen ran forward to pull him back.

  Gord looked past Andy, toward Jilly and then, in a hoarse, husky whisper, said something in their language. Jilly nodded and looked at Andy.

  “He says the bear is in the tailor’s shop. He thinks you should attack the blitz-rats, but you’ll need to survive long enough for the battle-bear to realize help is here.”

  Omar, lurking near the corner of the wagon that was closest to the left-hand sidewalk, whispered, “We can hold them here. Let Lucy and Bea use the wagon for cover.”

  Andy nodded. “You and Gord hold that side. Bella and I will take the right-hand side.” He looked at Lucy. “You just shoot as many as you can before they get to us.”

  Lucy nodded, though she chewed her lower lip as she peered overtop the wagon.

  Bea said, “I have a new spell to try—when they get here.”

  Andy grinned. “Me too.” He looked at Jilly. “Can you explain to Gord?”

  She nodded, but before she spoke in her language, she asked, “And me? Should I—”

  “You stay near me, sweetie,” Bea replied. The older woman was squatting there, leaning on her staff, which she held in a firm grip. Andy was once again struck by how vigorous she seemed. If anyone had asked him, he would have guessed she was only in her thirties.

  Jilly nodded and turned to Gord, rattling off some lilting, singsong sentences. He grunted and nodded, thumping Omar on the shoulder.

  Andy stood and moved to the right side of the cart, Bella right behind him; like Omar, she’d picked up one of the shields Andy had enchanted. Lucy stood behind the cart’s central part, where its driver’s seat was smashed against the cobbles, then she lifted her bow, glancing at Andy. When he nodded, her bow thrummed, and an arrow whistled through the air. Andy followed it with his eyes, saw it flash with silvery mana, and then there were two. Both arrows pounded into the center of a blitz-rat’s back, just below the metal-plated shoulder armor he wore.

  Even before the blitz-rat could finish yowling in agony and fall to the ground, Lucy had fired another shot. She fired three more times before the blitz-rats realized what was happening and began to scream and point up the street toward the overturned wagon. They charged, but Lucy dropped three more before the leading group was on them. Many of the rats charged the cart, meaning to leap over it, but Lucy focused her fire on those, and the wounded and dead blitz-rats tripped up the ones behind.

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  Andy lost track of her efforts when five rats came around the right-hand side, charging at him and Bella. Bella had the outside flank, and she hunkered behind her shield. Maybe her smaller size and the fact that she was holding up a shield made the rats think she was the priority target. That was a big mistake—Andy delivered half a dozen terrible stab wounds while they tried to pound through her guard. When all of their foes were stumbling back or falling to the ground, dead already, he heard Bea gasp in agony, and he turned to see four blitz-rats clambering over the wagon, with two more standing back, reloading crossbows.

  He didn’t have to look to see that they’d already fired a volley and Bea had been hit. Without a second thought, he cast Cinderstorm Blast. As with Brimstone Breath, his lungs expanded, filled with hot, roiling air to the point that he absolutely couldn’t hold it in. He coughed out a gout of black smoke, but it was different from before—hotter and filled with orbs of blazing, fiery mana. The jet of fiery smoke engulfed the wagon and the four rats climbing over it. Moreover, it extended beyond for another twenty yards.

  The roiling inferno washed over the two blitz-rat crossbowmen, and they screamed, running aimlessly as the flames consumed their clothes and fur. Andy spun to check on Bea, but found Lucy, Bella, and Jilly already attending her, blocking his view. He decided to leave them to it and turned his spear back to the street, guarding against any other enemies. As he turned in a slow semicircle, though, nothing approached—his smoke still clogged half the street, but he saw Omar and Gord cautiously moving around the wagon, moving on the far side of the smoldering cloud.

  He turned back the other way and stepped out from behind the wagon, approaching the building where the battle-bear was supposedly holed up. He didn’t have to wonder if he was in there long; a huge, black-furred shape nosed its way out of the broken doorway. Its massive head was clad in a gray metal helm. It wore a coat made of strips of metal-plated leather over its dense fur, and its long claws made metallic clicks on the cobbles. When it swung its golden-brown eyes toward Andy, he saw intelligence lurking in their depths.

  “Klor kamin dro varg la Rundle,” it rumbled in a bass-drum voice, taking a few more steps toward Andy.

  Andy decided that saying nothing was worse than saying something the bear couldn’t understand, so he planted his spear on the cobbles, pointing the blade toward the sky. “I’m Andy. It’s good to meet you.”

  The battle-bear stared at him for a moment, and then Gord saved them further awkwardness by coming around the other side of Andy’s smoke cloud. He growled something in the laukin language and the bear nodded, stepping closer to the big, furry man. He made Gord look small.

  Andy watched them talk for a minute and then hurried back to the others. “How’s Bea?”

  “I’ll be fine, Andy.” Bea was sitting, pressing her palm to her chest. He noticed two of her little vials of magical water lying empty on her lap.

  She must have seen where he was looking, because she picked the two empty bottles up and shrugged. “Bella went a little overkill. One of these would have worked.”

  “Overkill? You were gushing blood all over the street!”

  Bea clicked her tongue, gesturing to a small puddle of blood beside her. “That’s not so much. Andy’s bled a lot more.”

  “Well, good for Andy!” Bella stooped to pick up her shield and then walked over to him. She was scowling, but he knew her ire wasn’t directed his way.

  “I know,” he said softly, hoping not to be overheard by Bea and the others. “It’s scary.”

  “She just—” Her words were cut off as the System sent them all a message:

  ***Congratulations! You’ve saved Rundle the battle-bear from the blitz-rat patrol. Your success will improve the odds of receiving a rare System-generated award if you clear the dungeon.

  Your victory over the Blitz-rats has earned you experience toward the next level in your Brimstone Stalker class.***

  “This dungeon is kind of hardcore,” Bella said. Andy looked at her with a raised eyebrow, so she explained, “I mean, none of the side quests give immediate awards. We have to complete the dungeon to see a benefit. If we left right now—” She paused, glancing at Bea and frowning. “—like we maybe should, we won’t get anything for our trouble. I mean, other than experience.”

  Andy nodded, tapping her shield with his knuckles. “And stuff we loot, I guess.”

  She hefted the shield. “Speaking of this, I earned the Shields skill.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded, looking at Bea and the others again. “I think Bea should change out her staff for a shield.”

  Andy thought about it and shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.” By then, his smoke cloud had dissipated, and the charred blitz-rats and the wagon were fully visible. He pointed to the bodies lying around the wagon on the cobbles. “Let’s collect arrows for Lucy, and we can look for a lighter shield and weapon for Bea.”

  Bella followed his gaze, her nose wrinkling at the blackened bodies on the smoldering wagon. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  In the end, they only recovered a handful of Lucy’s arrows, but Bella found a metal-strapped round shield that was about half the size of the ones she and Omar were using. Andy found a ball mace with a cast-iron head. It wasn’t much bigger than a hammer, so even though it was crude and quite dense, he thought Bea would be able to swing it.

  By then, Jilly had joined Omar and Gord over by the battle-bear, and it seemed she was translating for Omar. Andy felt fine letting him handle things for the moment. In truth, it was sort of a relief; it was nice to be surrounded by competent people he felt he could trust.

  “What do you think?” Bella asked, interrupting Andy’s musing.

  Bea frowned. “I like my staff.”

  Bella held up the shield, turning it left and right, as though she were trying to sell it. “But if you learn the Shields skill, you’re going to understand all kinds of defensive postures, and if you improve it, I bet you’ll even gain defensive abilities. Look”—she set the shield down and picked up the mace Andy found—“Andy found you this little mace. You can whack any rats that get past—”

  “Hush now, Bella. I haven’t put even one point into my Staves skill, so maybe let me try that first. Besides, Andy’s enchantment saved me from one of those arrows. I bet he’ll get better—”

  “It did?” Andy asked, surprised.

  “Yes!” Bea hissed, nodding toward the wagon. “Both of those little rat bastards shot their bows at me! One of the arrows—”

  “Bolts,” Lucy interjected.

  Bea narrowed her eyes at her, and Lucy shrugged, smiling. “One of their bolts almost hit me in the face! My staff flashed, though, and the arrow bounced off to the side!”

  “To be honest,” Bella added, “those enchantments you put on my shield helped a lot, too.” She held it up. “I took a bunch of hits from heavy weapons—axes, even—and hardly a scratch.”

  “Anyway,” Bea said, grunting as she clambered to her feet, using her staff, even though Bella rushed forward to take her arm. “I’ll keep using my staff for now, but I promise, I’m going to put a point or two into it. Also, I have a defensive spell that I’ve been neglecting.”

  Andy didn’t want to get in the middle of an argument, but he also didn’t want the two of them to go back and forth all day. He nodded to the iron-strapped round shield. “Personally, I think Bea would be better off learning to defend herself with magic.”

  Bella scowled at him, but he didn’t stay to argue. He just smiled, shrugged, and walked over to Omar. He wanted to learn the battle-bear’s plans.

  “Hey, Andy.” Omar stepped closer, speaking low so as not to interrupt the enormous creature’s rumbling words as it spoke to Gord.

  Andy put his hand on his shoulder, nodding. “How’s it going?”

  “Good. I think he wants us to help him with something.”

  Jilly heard Omar, and when she saw Andy, she hurried over. “Rundle wanted me to thank you all. He’s talking to Gord about the resistance groups in the city. They’re slowly taking back some of the neighborhoods. The southern market is clear, as are several blocks around it. He wanted to know if you all were truly going to assault the keep?”

  Omar said, “I told them yes, but…” He shrugged.

  “Yeah, we are,” Andy confirmed. He looked toward the sun, already halfway up the eastern skyline. “In fact, I think we’ll continue on our way now.”

  Jilly nodded, her slender pink tongue darting out to lick her lips as she looked toward Rundle nervously. “He wants to join you, and he said I should come, too. Gord is going to help the resistance, but Rundle thinks that if you can, um, ‘cut the head off the rat,’ things will rapidly change for the better.”

  Andy grinned, and Omar matched the expression, holding out a fist. Andy bumped it as he said, “Tell him he’s welcome to join.”