Last Man in the Death Game

Chapter 7: The Spear

"Don't fight her," Kael whispered. "Hold the gap. That's all."

"That's all?" Oscar breathed. "She's Level 8."

"I know. Just hold it."

Kael crouched by the front beam, where the roof leaned out over the gap like a porch. He laid his palm flat on the wood and didn't start anything. Not yet.

"Listen," he said, low and fast, so only the party could hear. "When I say go, Dani burns the back wall. Everyone runs. Oscar, you take Harlan. Mika, you lead."

"I have maybe one weak fire left," Dani whispered. "Maybe."

"One is enough. That wall's been dry for years."

"Leave me," Harlan said. His voice was thin. "She'll stop if you leave me."

"No," Kael said. He didn't even look at him.

Outside, Sable snapped her fingers once. Two guards stepped forward and began tearing at the boards. Wood cracked and squealed.

Torchlight poured through the widening gap. Kael counted shadows. Five guards, one Sable. Six spear tips, and a woman who could kill everyone in the barn without raising her voice.

"I'll remember the one with the shield," Sable said, as calmly as if she were ordering lunch.

Oscar's knuckles went white on the shield straps.

Sable stepped up to the gap. She didn't hurry. She lifted her spear and jabbed once, fast as a snake.

The point hit Oscar's shield with a shriek of metal. [Durability 54 → 14.] Oscar grunted and slid back a foot.

"Mend!" Oscar barked.

Kael snapped his free hand onto the rim. [Mend: Wood Scrap x4. Durability 14 → 34.]

He noticed the spear then. The steel tip was chipped and dull. Hairline cracks ran down the shaft like dry paint. It had killed eleven people, and nobody had ever fixed it.

Keep up or stay behind, Harlan had said. Crownfall didn't repair gear. Crownfall took it from whoever fell behind.

Kael's heart started to pound. He knew that look. In the warehouse, every worn-out pallet jack had the same cracks right before it snapped.

Sable's second jab came straight at Oscar's chest. Kael let go of the shield, shot his hand out, and caught the shaft just behind the point.

Her eyes flicked to him. She yanked.

"Salvage," Kael said.

[Salvage: Steel Spear. Durability 22%. Time: 1 second.]

One second. It felt like an hour. Sable pulled, and Kael went with it, slamming into the boards with his ribs. His hand slid. He grabbed the shaft with both hands and hung on. [HP: 58 → 51.]

[Steel Spear salvaged. Iron Scrap x6. Wood Scrap x1.]

The spear turned to gray flakes in Sable's hands. All that strength she'd put into pulling had nowhere to go. She stumbled forward, right into the gap, and Oscar hit her in the face with his shield.

The sound was beautiful.

Sable reeled back with blood on her lip. [Sable Kord: HP 410 → 396.] Fourteen damage. It was almost nothing. It was also the first time anyone in Crownfall had seen her bleed.

Nobody in the torchlight spoke. Five guards stared at the empty space where her spear used to be.

Sable wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at the blood. Then she looked at Kael.

"That was my spear," she said. Her voice hadn't risen at all. That was the worst part.

"It was about to break anyway," Kael said. His voice cracked. "You should really look after your gear."

Behind him, someone made a small sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. Mika. Probably Mika.

Sable drew a short knife from her belt. She didn't look angry. She looked like someone remembering a chore.

"Kill them," she told the guards. "All of them."

The guards surged forward. Three of them crowded into the gap, right under the leaning roof. Kael slapped his palm against the front beam above them.

"Salvage."

[Salvaging: Front Beam. 4 seconds.]

[3.]

Spear points jabbed through the gap. Oscar's shield rang. Something scraped Kael's shoulder. [HP: 51 → 44.]

[2.]

"Dani!" Kael yelled. "Now!"

Dani's staff flashed. A small orange bolt hit the old, dry boards behind them, and the whole back wall went up like paper.

[1.]

[Front Beam salvaged. Wood Scrap x11.]

The porch roof came down. Three guards vanished under it with a crash and a cloud of dust. [Status: Pinned.] Beams tumbled across the gap and sealed it shut. On the other side of the pile, Sable's voice finally rose. "Scrapper!"

"Go!" Kael yelled. "Go, go, go!"

They ran. Oscar threw Harlan's arm over his shoulder and half carried, half dragged him. Jun grabbed the other side. Mika led the way through the burning gap with her bow in one hand. Dani ran with her hair singed and her eyes huge. Kael went last.

Heat licked his back. Behind them, the fire roared through the old hay in the walls. Something moved in the rubble. A hand shot out from under the fallen beams and clamped around Kael's ankle.

A guard. Half pinned, face black with dust, teeth bared. He hauled Kael's leg toward him with an animal grunt.

Kael hit the fingers with his hammer. [Damage: 2.] The guard laughed.

Then an arrow slammed into the dirt through the guard's sleeve, pinning it to the ground. Mika stood five feet away with her empty bow, breathing hard. "Sorry," she said, to nobody, and then, "Not sorry."

Kael yanked his leg free. They ran.

They ran until the fire was just an orange smudge behind them and the reeds closed over their heads. The footpath Harlan had told them about was there, narrow and muddy, running along the river. The reeds smelled like mud and old rain. Every step sucked at his boots. Somewhere in the dark, frogs were singing, which seemed rude. Nobody spoke for a long time.

Kael glanced back once. Far behind them, through the smoke, a thin figure stood on top of the burning beams. She wasn't chasing. She was just watching them go. It felt worse than being chased.

He had now wrecked the same barn twice. It was becoming a habit.

Finally Oscar lowered Harlan to the ground and bent over with his hands on his knees. "I can't believe that worked."

"My hair smells like a barbecue," Dani said flatly.

"It nearly didn't," Kael said. His hands were shaking. He looked at them. [Iron Scrap: 6. Wood Scrap: 25.]

He spent two of the Iron on Oscar's shield before he could think about it. [Durability 34 → 74.] Some habits stuck.

Harlan stared at the dark. "You took her spear," he whispered. "Nobody's ever even touched her."

"She's going to hunt you," Jun said. He wasn't scolding. He just said it.

"I know."

"In the warehouse," Kael said, "the guy who fixes the forklift never sees the fight. But he always knows what's about to break."

Oscar started laughing. Then Dani did. Then Kael. It went on too long and it wasn't all laughing.

[Achievement: Disarmed a Top-10 Player. Standing 9,566 → 9,488.]

[Night phase: 51 minutes remaining.]

Kael sat down in the mud. Every part of him hurt. He thought about Sable's eyes when the spear turned to dust. Not angry. Interested. Like she'd just found something worth killing properly.

Jun pressed two fingers to Kael's shoulder. His mana had crept back to three. [HP: 44 → 51.] "Seven for the price of one spear," he said.

Then, soft in Kael's ear: "Most players would have handed him over, Player Brandt."

Kael didn't answer. The voice waited a moment longer, as if it wanted one, and then it was gone.

"She'll be waiting for us at Ironmark," Dani said quietly.

"Probably."

"So we go around," Oscar said. "Or we skip Ironmark."

Kael shook his head. "Arena Trials open Day 3. A win jumps a hundred places. That's the fastest way up, and Vex knows it. He's going to fill every slot with Crownfall."

"So?" Mika said.

"So I'm going to take one." He said it quietly, before he could talk himself out of it.

Nobody argued. That surprised him more than anything else. Oscar looked at his shield, then at Kael. "Then I'm keeping this alive," he said. "I'll find more arrows," Mika said. "I'll try not to faint," Jun added.

"Kael," Harlan said. His voice shook. "I'm out of Crownfall now. I'm out of everything." He swallowed. "I've got nowhere to go."

"We're not full," Mika said. She was smiling, tired and crooked. "We've got one slot left."

Oscar sighed. "Fine. But when that leg heals, you carry the bags."

[Harlan Voss has joined the party.]

Harlan laughed, a wet, broken sound, and then covered his face with both hands. Nobody looked at him. Nobody needed to.

Far behind them, the fire had burned down to a red glow. In front of it, one torch turned, slowly, away from the river and onto the road to Ironmark.