Chapter 59

  Dalex dimly acknowledged the alert on one of the {celestial chariot’s} {scrying tablets}. He read it and then dismissed it.

  He knew what the message wanted from him. It was a cry for reinforcements. Something he had not accounted for had appeared outside Batulan-bar. Unfortunately, Dalex didn’t have anything more to give to the city’s defense but himself, and looking at the enemy {far realmer} forces arrayed against him, he knew he wasn’t going to be returning to the city for a while.

  The good news was, he had found the main mutt pack. This couldn’t be anything other than the bulk of the mutt congregation Seventh had detected. The bad news was, he was worried he would run out of {astral mortar} before he ran out of monsters to kill. The main pack stretched over the horizon and out of sight to both his left and right. In addition to the endless swarms of hound mutts on the ground and the churning thunderheads of avian mutts in the sky, he counted no fewer than ten mutt hydras trundling over the surface of Gaia Eta, on course to trample Batulan-bar and then everything else on the planet.

  Dalex floated high off the ground in the {chariot}, staring at the oncoming tsunami. His nerves and muscles were strained to their breaking point. He had been fighting mutts nonstop for the past thirty-six hours. Balgoth, still in the compartment behind him, had grown tired of watching him slaughter the smaller mutt packs and had fallen asleep some time ago. Nut she woke now, maybe feeling Dalex’s sudden stillness after so much dancing combat.

  “Why have you stopped?” she demanded. “Is the battle fin—”

  She paused, probably noticing the swarm for herself. Dalex heard her moving in her chair, could feel her weight shifting in the way the {chariot} automatically adjusted to maintain a level hover.

  Finally, she said simply, without her usual flippant and aggressive attitude, “This is disturbing.”

  “Coming from you, that’s really disconcerting.”

  “How could there be so many?” she asked. “There are not ten hydras in the whole of Gaia Eta at any one time, and now there are that many here in one place, larger and fiercer than any I have seen before?”

  “There’s probably more than ten,” Dalex said, and his fatigued mind began to wander. “Wait, how could there only be ten natural hydras at a time? Wouldn’t that lead to a lot of inbreeding and genetic defects?”

  Seventh piped up with an answer. “It is possible their extreme regenerative capabilities account for these defects. However, it is clear you are suffering from exhaustion. Injecting stimulant.”

  A small cylindrical protrusion popped out of a panel on the {chariot’s} interior and pushed up against Dalex’s shoulder. Some sort of chemical surged into his body, and he felt his mind and body perk up. Some of the fatigue washed away and his vision sharpened. A haze of weariness still lingered at the back of his mind, but it didn’t interfere with his cognitive reasoning.

  The mutt tsunami came closer, threatening to break upon him. It was time to either retreat and give ground, looking for some clever way out of this, or stand fast and keep on slaying.

  Taking solace in the knowledge that he was only fighting the output of a single [probe] and not the entire enemy {far realmer} armada still trapped in the {gravity vortex}, Dalex charged forward through the air.

  Right away, he put a {creation’s split} into the stomach of the closest mutt hydra. The bloated monster popped in a ball of fission fire that consumed it and several hundred of the smaller mutts gathered around it.

  Dalex next started a barrage of {Newton’s hammers}, dropping them in a line that ran from left to right, as far as he could see in either direction, and then a little farther. The blasts erupted consecutively, instantly killing thousands of mutts and throwing yet more into disarray. The resulting impacts left a trench fifty yards deep and a dozen miles long.

  Into this trench, Dalex poured {sticky fire}. Most of it came from the {voidstalker} in orbit as it dropped canisters laden with the combustible liquid into the trench, but Dalex provided some of the fire straight from the {celestial chariot}. Soon, the trench was a river of fire. While not an impenetrable barrier, especially for the mutt hydras, it would hopefully slow down their advance a little.

  By the time he was finished, another of the mutt hydras came a little too close and he popped it too. Dalex had lost track of the number of times he had used {creation’s split} now. He had passed Earth’s wartime record of four bombs quite quickly. How soon would he catch up to the number of tests conducted? He really didn’t like that he had brought nuclear war to Gaia Eta, but he didn’t see any other way to deal with the mutt hydras. They regenerated too quickly, and all of the other spells that might do the trick were worse.

  “Your body chemistry indicates the fatigue is continuing,” Seventh said. “Injecting another stimulant.”

  A different batch of fairy dust flooded Dalex’s system, and he stopped worrying so much about nuclear war.

  “This can’t be good for me,” Dalex said.

  “Any side effects as a result of prolonged stimulant use can be treated on the [stealth frigate].”

  Dalex sighed. “Goodie.”

  He cast {prismatic strike} several times, setting up a grid of continuous beams that ran through the mutt horde like a fork through mashed potatoes. He was scarring the land something fierce, but it was nothing compared to the scar the mutts left behind.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet done anything about the mutts in the air, and that mistake suddenly came back to haunt him. A swarm of a thousand bats and carrion birds surrounded him in a dense cloud of gray feathers and fur. They clawed, bit, and pecked at the armor of the {celestial chariot}, trying to get at the meaty contents inside.

  The one advantage that had been consistently working for Dalex during this fight was the mutts’ inability to damage his armor. Now, that began to change. After a few seconds of sustained blows from the flyers, an alert appeared.

  Dalex let loose both a {prismatic sunburst} and a {hive of hornets}, turning into an exploding disco ball of death that shredded a good portion of the flying swarm into burning hunks of rotten flesh. But it was like swiping at a cloud of gnats around an incandescent lamp. More flyers zoomed in to replace the ones he had killed. The entire pack was one giant hydra, constantly regenerating the limbs Dalex cut off.

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  Dalex summoned {Heart Throb} to deal with the flyers that got too close, but he knew he couldn’t fight these things hand to hand and accomplish anything.

  “{Choking fog},” he shouted.

  A green gas gushed out of the {celestial chariot}, creating a lingering cloud around the armor. It didn’t immediately affect the mutt flyers. They continued to swoop in and attack, either getting cut down by {Heart Throb} or bypassing Dalex’s defenses to leave another scratch on the armor.

  But, then, the flying mutts began to bleed from every orifice. Black blood rained down on the ground below, and then so did the mutts themselves. One by one they fell out of the sky and plummeted to splatter against the surface or be consumed by the molten flames of the trench.

  Dalex had not been sure the spell would have any effect on the mutts. Seventh didn’t really understand their physiology, and so wasn’t confident the combination of aerosolized toxins would harm enemy {far realmer} creations. But it seemed there was enough common Gaia Eta genetics embedded in the mutts to make them susceptible.

  Still, the effect didn’t travel far. Any mutt beyond a hundred yards seemed unperturbed by the gas. Dalex set the spell to run continuously out of his armor and flew over the battlefield, spreading the gas out and leaving behind a downpour of mutt bats and birds, until he was snatched out of the air by a hydra, appearing out of nowhere.

  The head thrashed around with him in its mouth for a few seconds before throwing him into the ground at a thousand miles an hour. Before he could recover, the mutt hydra pounced, slamming a claw down on the {celestial chariot} and putting its entire weight into the blow. Dalex was pushed deep into the crust of Gaia Eta. Dirt and darkness enveloped him.

  He tried to push up in the {celestial chariot}, but the weight of the mutt hydra was too much. The {chariot} couldn’t pierce its skin alone, so Dalex set loose another {prismatic sunburst} volley. The beams carved away the mutt hydra’s foot, but the appendage healed too quickly. Dalex sank into the bloody mess of the foot and it regenerated around him, fusing him inside the foot as it continued to press down.

  “This is revolting,” Balgoth said from her compartment, though her voice carried a certain edge of excitement. Dalex felt confident “revolting” was exactly her thing.

  “Seventh,” Dalex said, “{Teleport} us out of here.”

  “Impossible,” the [android] replied. “You are too mixed with the mutt, and the mutt is too large to move with the [stealth frigate’s] matter transmission system.”

  “Stupid sci-fi junk,” Dalex cursed to himself. “Can the {celestial chariot} tank a [nuke] to the face?”

  “It will likely suffer significant damage. However, were the blast to originate above the mass of the mutt, it would be blunted.”

  “It’ll have to do,” Dalex said. He worked the arm of the {chariot} around through the muck of the hydra’s innards so that it was pointed in his best approximation of “up” and then cast, “{Creation’s split}.”

  The {astral mortar} slithered out of the {chariot’s} palm, forming the spell projectile. A moment later, the missile rocketed away, tearing up through the mutt hydra toward its center of mass. Dalex could hear the creature screaming with all of its six heads, not at all happy at what was digging through its guts. Seventh sounded off that the spell projectile had exited through the top of the creature’s body. A second later, it went off.

  Pressure came down on Dalex in waves. The mutt hydra disintegrated from the top down. A wall of fire surged toward the ground and Dalex. It consumed him and the creature’s foot. Dalex shot sideways away from the blast’s epicenter, pushing out of the fireball and riding the shockwave away.

  The exterior of the {celestial chariot} was charred and superheated. Dalex could feel the heat radiating through the armor. He and Balgoth had probably received a decent dose of fissile poison, as well.

  “Administering [anti-radiation] medication,” Seventh announced. Another injector appeared to give Dalex the healing magic. He heard Balgoth exclaim behind him about strange cylinders coming out of the wall and poking her with tiny needles. She rampaged around in the compartment for a minute, scratching up the interior.

  “Don’t worry,” Seventh said. “She got the proper dose, and she can’t do any harm to the armor, even inside of it.”

  “Good to know,” Dalex muttered. He surveyed the battlefield as he continued to float away from the lingering effects of {creation’s split}. There were still ten hydras in sight. Three more had replaced the few he had managed to kill. The mutts on the ground were pouring into the trench of fire, heedless of the flames. Every mutt that entered the inferno was burned to a crisp, but their mounds of burnt flesh were quickly piling up, smothering the flames and providing a platform for the other mutts. It wouldn’t be long before they could cross without fear of death.

  Luckily, the flying mutts didn’t seem to want to leave the main pack behind. They circled the battlefield, looking for Dalex. When they found him, they swooped down in his direction, clearly excited for another opportunity to peck at him. If Dalex had ever needed any proof that these things weren’t sentient, it was this. They never gave any thought to their lives. They just came at him en masse, regardless of how many of their kind he had brutally killed.

  “Is this ever going to end?”

  “Perhaps not,” Seventh said.

  “That’s not what I want to hear right now.” He gave the terrain around him another glance and then dropped an additional steel rain of {Newton’s hammers}. “I need a minute to catch my breath. How far are the mutts from the nearest populated settlement?”

  “Approximately ten miles,” Seventh said. “The village of Hamba is directly in their path. Batulan-bar is still one hundred and fifty miles distant. I calculate the main mass of mutts will reach Hamba in ten minutes. Batulan-bar will be under direct threat in an hour.”

  “Not a lot of time,” Dalex said. “But enough to think.”

  He soared away over the countryside, generating some distance between him and the main mutt pack. The {hammers} fell behind him, destroying a fair number of the ground mutts, but not nearly enough to make a significant difference.

  As Dalex flew away from the battlefield, he found individual mutts on the ground that had made it through his defense. Even if he wiped out two thousand at a time, a couple more always made it through. Dalex eliminated these mutts as he found them.

  Finally, he noticed a small collection of buildings in the distance. A burst of fire exploded on the ground. Dalex descended until he was directly over the village. A number of villagers had come out to defend their homes. Two mutts lay dead, one of them in the rubble of a destroyed house. A third was sparring with the locals, though one of the villagers was apparently a publicized spell caster. He threw an impressive ball of fire at the remaining mutt and it danced back.

  The mutt was just about to charge forward again despite its burning fur when Dalex came down on top of it and cut off its head with {Heart Throb}.

  A few of the village defenders let out cries of alarm at the sight of Dalex and the {celestial chariot}. They backed away, pointing spears, swords, and assorted farming equipment in his direction. The publicized villager formed a ball of fire over his head, ready to fling it at the {celestial chariot}. While Dalex had done them the service of eliminating the final mutt, he still was an unknown threat to them.

  Dalex opened the front of the {chariot} so they could see there was a person inside. “Don’t worry, I’m here to help. You should evacuate to the west. There’s a lot more mutts coming this direction.”

  “Who are you?” the publicized spell caster called out.

  “Dalex of the Expedition 7,” Dalex said, and that name sent a stir through the crowd. Even in the boonies, people knew who he was now. “Seriously, you’ve got about a half-hour before they get here. You should be long gone before that happens.”

  The spell caster let the fireball fade away. Dalex finally realized that, while the spell caster was surrounded by elves and beastkin, the man himself was a human. He wasn’t dressed like any of the lords or ladies Dalex had encountered during his time on Gaia Eta. Could Dalex have finally found a regular person?

  “We’ve already evacuated who we can,” the man said. “Those who are left are too frail to be moved. We’re not leaving them behind.”

  “I can handle that,” Dalex said. “Seventh, {teleport} everyone here to Batulan-bar.”

  All of the villagers vanished in a single beam of light that consumed the entire village. Dalex turned the {chariot} away to face in the direction of the oncoming swarm. He would connect with the people of this village later. When this was all done, he could see that they were taken care of.

  “Um, Dalex. There’s still one left,” Seventh said.

  “What did you do with them?” an enraged voice shouted from the ground behind him.

  Dalex turned around to see the spell caster holding his ground, having not been {teleported} to Batulan-bar.

  “What happened?” Dalex asked. “Why didn’t he {teleport} like the rest of them?”

  “I am unsure,” Seventh said. “The matter transmission beam was not able to touch him.”

  Dalex assured the man, “I sent them to Batulan-bar. It’s safer there for now. Who are you?”

  “I’m—” the man began. “I’m Deldloo. Are my friends truly safe?”

  “Yup,” Dalex said. “You should skedaddle too. When I say a lot of mutts are coming, I mean a lot of mutts are coming.”

  The man took a deep breath and shook his head. “I cannot do that. This is my home. I will protect it to the last.”

  Dalex let out a long sigh. “Of course, you will.”

  Now he not only had to stop the mutts, but he had to keep this guy alive too.

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