Warsinger by James Baldwin (most inspirational books TXT) 📗

raining rocks and sand and bodies down. Several formerly hidden bandits crashed to the dirt.

“I’m sorry! She has this problem where she compulsively takes her clothes off!” I yelled after the retreating cavalry. “How can I make it up to you? Do you guys like ice-cream?”

After ‘Suri’, ‘ice-cream’ was Cutthroat’s favorite word. The hookwing’s pupils constricted to pin-points of excitement before she threw back her head, bellowed, then charged off at full speed after the fleeing bandits. Without a rider, the huge hookwing was faster than her smaller, panicking cousins. She leaped onto the back of the slowest one, dragging the honking dinosaur to the ground with her jaws and hind claws. She plunged her sword-like claws into the rider from either side, killing him instantly. The rider in front aimed his crossbow at her head, but as the fallen hookwing crashed into his, the bow jerked back and he shot himself under his own jaw.

“She slices! She dices! She comes with her own set of steak knives!” I sang out, using my core ability, Jump, to leap forty feet straight up into the air. At the apex of the jump, I vanished into coils of black mist, reappearing on top of the cliff edge and scattering bandits in all directions. “Order now, and you’ll get this FREE Spear of Nine Spheres shoved right up your ass!”

The NPCs drew swords and charged in to fight, skidding to a halt as the Spear of Nine Spheres came alive, bursting into black, cold rippling foxfire that painlessly engulfed the blade, the haft, and my arm.

“Sorcery!” one of them screamed. “He’s a witch!”

I slammed the blade of the Spear into the ground, discharging an explosion of black, thorny vines of energy into the mob. They lashed out at all six bandits, knocking three of them down, ensnaring one, and killing one outright. Shouts of horror rang out as ice crawled up their limbs, freezing them in place. The dark mana swirling around the polearm turned a deep red as I whirled it around and cut them down, one after the other. They fell to the ground shriveled, their life energy sucked out of them. These Bandits were Level 10, with no magical defenses, no resistances, and only about 500 HP. They didn’t stand a chance.

[You have killed Dakhari Deserter!]

[You have killed Dakhari Deserter!]

“PHWHOOOOOOORRRR!” The canyon below lit up with brilliant white light as Karalti unleashed her breath weapon.

“How’s it going down there?” I asked her, pausing to survey the carnage I’d just wrought. “Don’t cook Cutthroat.”

“I won’t! She’s fine!” Karalti chirped back. “She’s behind me, eating one of the dead guys!”

“I really should be disturbed by this.” I looked over, judged the distance between the cliff and the ground. It was only about fifty feet. ‘Only’. You know… about four stories high. “I don’t know when it became normal to hear you eating someone’s dead body, but here we are.”

“I’m a responsible carnivore. Gotta recycle all that tasty human meat.”

“Do you have to sort them into separate containers first?” I danced back about ten feet, and sprinted for the edge of the cliff. Four weeks ago, this kind of jump would have felt – and been – insane. It still kind of was. When I reached the lip of stone, I sprung up and flipped over, pivoting to land neatly on Karalti's rump. No sooner had I touched down than I dematerialized, reappearing beside her leg to drop to the ground. Skills, passive abilities, and active combat abilities all working in sync had turned me into an acrobatic killing machine.

“Phew.” Karalti puffed a small cloud of acrid steam through her nose and sat back, surveying her handiwork. “Well, that wasn’t too bad.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t got a combat end notification yet, so someone’s still alive.” I bounced up to my feet and shook myself out. It was a mess. Karalti’s sticky Ghost Fire clung to the cliffsides and the sand, boiling them to black liquid slag. The narrowest part of the canyon looked like a slaughterhouse, strewn with dead Bandits and charred hookwings. “Hey! Any of you boys still kicking?”

Karalti turned her head, sniffing. Then she growled, and motioned with her snout to one of the hookwing corpses. “He’s under there. I just smelled him pee.”

“You know, I think that’s the first time that feature of this game has ever been useful for something.” I sauntered over, and sure enough, one of the men was lying there, pretending to be dead. It would have worked if his scarf hadn’t come off. His pulse was jumping in his neck, as noticeable to my quasi-undead self as a small bird would have been to a cat. “Time out, my dude. I know you’re awake.”

The Bandit swallowed, and hesitantly looked up at me. I recognized him, then. His eyes were a strange, blazing icy blue, strongly contrasted with his coppery Dakhari skin.

“Oh, it’s you. The one that was threatening my scaly lady friend over there.” I crouched down in front of him, and unequipped my helmet. The Raven’s Helm vanished from my head and back into my Inventory, baring my face for the first time since this whole debacle had begun. The Bandit recoiled. “I don’t suppose you know the way to Al-Asad? Someone who’s very important to me is stuck there, and we really need to get on our way so we can bail her out.”

“Wh-what… what are you?” His voice was a thin, dry croak.

I grinned a metal-fanged smile, and the bandit turned the color of milk. “Where do you want to start? The dragonrider mutations, the vampire halfblood stuff, or the whole ‘Herald of the God of Darkness’ thing?”

The man’s mouth worked in horror. Before I could react, he shot up with a shrill, piercing scream, stumbling away into a terrified sprint.

“Hey! Wait a second! I was just kidding around! Please just tell me where- oh.” I cut off short as the bandit tripped, stumbled, and then sprawled over the headless carcass of