Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Vengeance is a Dish Best Served Hot

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Vengeance is a Dish Best Served Hot

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“This is it... earn your shields, boys!” ‘Anal’ roared.

Yep, the annoying little bright elf was taking command of our defense, and I half-expected them to fail because of it.

“And girls!” one of the red cloaks screamed back at him. It was Dess.

“Y-yes...” Anal relented. “...and girls! Fine!”

This second stage of my strategy had been inspired by one of my and Divah’s favorite movies; The 300. Like King Leonidas and his merry band, we’d funneled the surviving maenad into the tight corridor where they would be met by a wall of sturdy shields. They broke against the shield wall like a tsunami of rage, fire, and incessant shrieking, but, even with Anal leading them, our line surprisingly held firm. The maenads shoved against our red cloaks, snapping and clawing desperately over their shields, but still, the line held.

“Push~~h!” Anal ordered.

As one, the red cloaks who made up the front line stepped forward while simultaneously shoving their shields against the tide, pushing the desperate maenads back inch after inch after inch.

“Spears~~s!” Anal commanded.

Portions of the shield wall opened up to allow sharp-tipped spears to pass through and stab into the monsters too stubborn to back away.

“Iron shrapnel!” someone yelled. This came with a request for, “Salt grenades!”

One, two, three, four—a variety of metal canisters were lobbed over the heads of our shield wall to rain vapors of salt and iron filings down on the maenads, and their death cries were deafening.

I thought things were going very well, but then a vine-wrapped arrow got past the shield wall and zipped past my head, forcing me to duck for cover.

“Ymir’s breath, that was close,” I breathed.

Two more arrows came flying my way. I wasn’t their target, but I couldn’t resist the instinct to bob and weave out of their flight path.

“Thank Thor these monsters suck at aiming!” I yelled spiritedly.

The taunt sent one or two more arrows aimed in my general direction. None of them hit me though.

“We will, we will rock you…” I sang one of my favorite fight songs while I pulled out a smooth round stone from one of the many pouches on my belt and raised it to my lips. “We will, we will rock you! Rock you!”

I lobbed the stone over the heads of our red cloaks and waited for it to drop on the ground between clusters of maenads before I called upon the power of the rune carved into the stone.

“Īsaz,” I whispered before continuing my chant of, “Rock you!”

Now, this was nothing like that time against Doomsday. With a properly prepared rune stone, the ‘Ice Rune’ exploded outward, causing three-foot ice spikes to spread out of the impact zone and pierce everything within its range.

“You’re quite gifted, Mr. Wisdom… No wonder Doomsday can’t stop talking about you.” Mistress Lorelai patted me gingerly on the shoulder. “By the way, I too approve of Queen.”

As the dark elf moved closer to the shield wall, a half-elf maiden took her place just so she could elbow me hard in the gut.

“What was that for?” I complained.

“You stole my move,” Liara said conspiratorially.

Okay, okay, that was true. I did direct the ice rune to act similarly to that spell she’d shown me back in the Vault of Glass.

“Me copying you should be a compliment… sheesh,” I sighed exaggeratedly.

Liara’s retort was drowned out by the ungodly bellow that had come from within the secret garden. It was a roar so great that the walls around us shook violently.

“What the—”

We all felt it then. A wave of powerful magical energy leaked into the passage, and there was enough of it to make the pair standing ahead of me—Dess and Scaredy Cat—shiver in fright. 

“I’m guessing that’s the ‘royal’ you warned us about, Will?” Dess asked as she glanced over her shoulder.

“Yup, but don’t worry,” I said as I took my place beside her. “It’s way too big to get in here.”

“And on that not-at-all helpful note,” Lohgan unsheathed a dagger for each of his hands, “shall we go kill some mobs already?”

“I’m in,” Delphine chimed in. “Let’s beat these daft fools back into the Hel they came from!”

Huh, I only just noticed this now, but did all dwarves have Scottish accents? Okay, that was random, but I thought it was a good question while I ducked out of the way so Delphine could pepper the monsters charging our frontlines with red-feathered bolts fired from her awesome-looking custom crossbow.

It took us another ten minutes to thoroughly dispatch the remainder of the maenads that had been caught in our trap with our feet stepping over the corpses of the dead as we passed them. Meanwhile, the fires we’d lit inside the garden had died down so that smoke and miasma billowed out to meet us as our shield wall charged into the circular room with the rest of us quickly following.

“Bloody Hel... I can’t see three feet in front of me,” Lohgan complained.

“I can see just fine,” Brunhilde replied.

“That’s because you’re a great big—”

“Fan out!” Mistress Lorelai ordered, drowning out Lohgan’s taunt and saving me and Dess from having to pull those two idiots away from each other in the most inopportune of times.  

At Mistress Lorelai’s command, our shield wall stretched outward to accommodate the wider space. Although we all kept our shoulders brushing against each other as no one wanted to be caught out in the open when visibility was this bad.

It took a while for the smoke to settle, but when it did, we all saw the thing rising above the fog and miasma at the other end of what had once been a lush green garden. She was barely visible, but we were all sufficiently terrified by the little bit of her that was exposed to us. Hers was such a fear-inducing sight that even I, the teenager without fear who’d fought her once already, couldn’t fully shake off the shivers.

“Why is that maenad upsized?!” Scaredy Cat complained.

“It’s a queen,” several people replied, to which Lohgan added, “Duh. Humans.”

“Steel yourselves, novices!” Mistress Lorelai roared. “And you better win this battle whatever it takes or you’ll all fail the quiz!”

I doubted that it was the right time to remind us that this dungeon excursion and subsequent quest were a pop quiz, but at the mention of a failing grade, everyone’s motivations suddenly soared—and then we were all roaring a challenge at our new enemy while momentarily forgetting how frightening she was.

Meanwhile, my gaze drifted past our frontline to the maenad queen’s legs—which were the size of tree trunks—up to its deer-skin-covered bosom, and higher, to that oversized head and its face disfigured by the giant horns protruding out of a mass of wiry unkempt hair that spread out around her like a veil.

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“She’s got to be forty feet tall at least,” Delphine guessed.

“Oh, boy,” Dess whistled nervously. “This is some quiz, huh, Will?”

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have made Dess feel better as I was currently reviewing my earlier fight with the maenad queen.

I’ll kill you properly this time, I thought.  

The third and final stage of my plan was simple. One group would engage the maenad queen and distract it from our real target, its symbol of power, which, according to the Mistress Lorelai of my last reversion, would weaken the maenad queen enough for us to kill it easy peasy lemon squeezy.

“And, um, what is its symbol of power exactly?” Dess asked.

Noticing that no one could answer Dess’s question, Mistress Lorelai turned around and gave us all a pointed look that made most gazes turn away out of fear.

“What gives royalty the right to rule, Ms. Dewleaf?” Mistress Lorelai pressed.

It was funny how we were all about to face imminent danger but our dökkálfar instructor still insisted on turning this moment into a teaching exercise.

“Um, ma’am, I don’t think there’s time—”

“There’s always time for a lesson, Mr. Rosé,” Mistress Lorelai insisted. “That queen’s not going to attack us until we come within its range... Now think—and no cheating!”

Seconds ticked by, but no one could give her the answer. Not even Liara or her fellow journeymen, which I thought was disappointing. Well, I admit that I also had a hard time figuring this out in my previous life when our dökkálfar instructor asked me this question. I did solve it though, but it took time and a bit of luck.

I had accidentally caught sight of the wriggling mass on the maenad queen’s brow and received an epiphany. In this run, I pointed the object out to everyone as if I’d known the answer all along.

“Royalty often has two symbols of power, but in this case, it’s just the one,” I answered like a know-it-all. “Her crown. Duh.”

Cue the indignant glares mixed with a very few nods of appreciation. Man, I was good at riling people up.

“It seems Mr. Wisdom is determined to show you all up repeatedly during this excursion,” Mistress Lorelai commented. “His discovery. His strategy, and perhaps, his kill to claim.”

I had a sneaking suspicion that the wily dark elf knew she was fanning the flames of jealousy and resentment against me, but, like Divah, Mistress Lorelai probably thought that adversity breeds greatness. Not that I minded. It was enough that Liara wasn’t looking at me with daggers in her eyes, but with the fierceness of an honorable rival whose fire had just been stoked.

“You want us to destroy her crown?” Zen asked uncertainly.

The creature circling atop the Maenad queen’s mess of wiry hair wasn’t just any golden crown. It was a giant green snake with a head at each end. It looked quite strong and too high up to kill with just ranged attacks.

“Sorry, pal”—I stepped forward—“but like the lady said… she’s my kill to claim.”

All eyes turned back to me as if they hadn’t just been ogling me a minute ago.

“You’ll need to get in danger-close to properly cut off its heads,” Mistress Lorelai instructed. “I assume the star-spangled boy with a plan has a way to bridge that distance short of attempting a suicidal climb up the maenad queen’s body?”

“Yes,” I answered confidently. “But, um, I’ll need a bit of time to cast my spell...”

“You’ll have it.” Liara moved to stand confidently at my side. “He can do it, mistress.”

I spared her a sideward glance while whispering a thank you to the gods of the realmsverse for setting Liara Lockwood on my path on the day I arrived at the Academy.

“I can do it,” I reiterated.

Mistress Lorelai scrutinized the pair of us for a long moment before giving me an affirmative nod.

“Lieutenant Doyle”—Mistress Lorelai pointed her spear’s tip at the maenad queen’s legs—“we’ll need that distraction.”

“You’ll have it, mum.” Our LEPRCON guide hefted his heavy-looking war hammer over his tiny shoulders. “Come on, lads and lasses, let’s cause some wee trouble for our giant guest.”

With his encouragement, the entire front line—these drengr red cloaks with their raised shields—pushed forward with determination carved into their faces. And, it was only after they approached her when the maenad queen finally unfroze and all hell broke loose.

“Close-range damage dealers will aim for its legs and attempt to bring it down to its knees,” Mistress Lorelai ordered. “Ranged attackers will prepare spells and skills to support Mr. Wisdom’s attempt to destroy the crown.”

“We’re putting our hopes into one arrogant apprentice who hasn’t even been bloodied in the rankings yet?” one of the journeymen novices asked.

“If he fails then we’ll just kill that thing slower.” Mistress Lorelai turned a quivering look at the naysayer before turning that same gaze on me. “Ms. Lockwood will watch over you while you prep…”

Mistress Lorelai’s gaze softened, and for the first time since I met her, the dark elf didn’t look like she wanted to wring my neck.

“Show these foolish novices why you’re meant to be here,” she insisted. “Go and be daring.”

Then she was gone along with everyone else so that only Liara and I remained at the very rear of the line.

“You do know what you’re doing, right?” she asked, sounding less confident than she’d been earlier.

“I’ve got this,” I promised. “Besides, I’ve been waiting all day to—”

“Incoming!” someone warned.  

The maenad queen’s left arm came swinging down on the frontline. Now, while most of the encirclement managed to get out of her way, Anal wasn’t so lucky.

As the shield wall’s leader, it was his job to weather any attack coming their way. Too bad for him, his pavis shield—a large rectangular wooden board that covered him from neck to ankle—wasn’t strong enough to hold back the maenad queen’s claws as they raked across its surface. He was swatted away by the queen’s hand and was screaming all the way to the back wall where he crashed with a loud thud.

Oof, I cringed.

Mistress Lorelai sighed heavily. “Someone make sure that lout isn’t dead. I’ll never hear the end of it from that drunk dwarf if any of you novices die on my watch.”

I couldn’t spare Einarr any sympathy beyond not using my usual nickname for him in my thoughts, because now that he was gone—although probably not dead—the shield wall was in disarray, which meant everyone was in danger.

“Wisdom,” Liara urged, to which I replied, “I know, I know… hurrying.”

After all the spells I’d cast today, I didn’t have much left in my tank. Just enough for one more awesome spell that I readied specifically for this rematch.

Quickness is the essence of war, I repeated in my head. Then I cast, “Haste...”

It was little more than a whisper, but my mind’s eye, which had been turned inward, could sense the magic spreading out to my entire body, crackling through every inch of me like a shock of lightning racing along the highway of my veins.

A notification ping from my status bar reached my ears, and I quickly checked to see how the bar reacted to my spell.

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