//------------------------------// // The Last Charger 8 // Story: The Last Charger // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// The ship Torch and his Council friends picked up for us didn’t do much to inspire confidence. Freedom’s Ring was a nice name, but probably too nice for a ship like this. Then again, a big ugly fat-bellied merchantman might be just the thing to let us blend in with every other ship out on the high seas. Still, considering this was supposed to be a diplomatic envoy mission, something a bit nicer and speedier would’ve been nice. Torch seemed to guess what I was thinking. “We have to make do with the ships we have, not the ones we’d like. Besides, this way there will be more room for your company. Packing everyone onto a sloop got a bit crowded.” “At least now that you’re the client you won’t have to bunk with all the common troops,” I pointed out. “Though you still have all the gruntwork of fixing our gear to look forward to. Should’ve thought about that before you hired us on and made that part of the contract.” Torch shrugged. “It was only fair. Undoing all that spell sabotage wouldn’t be cheap. If you will forgive the egotism and me poking at an open wound, I did quite a good job of it. Considering your company’s finances, hiring someone to undo the traps might well have been beyond you.” “Probably would’ve just sold it off,” I confessed. “Cost us way less than it would to pay someone to fix what you did, and with how proud you are of all that sabotage, I’m guessing none of the ironmongers we’d sell it to would notice. Not like it’d put anyone else who bought the stuff in a bad way either, long as they didn’t wind up on your bad side.” “Which is not that unlikely, given my position,” Torch pointed out. “Though really, we both know you wouldn’t mind terribly if I managed to escape the clutches of the necrocrats thanks to a lovely little coincidence like that.” Torch sighed and shook his head. “Still, it’s better this way. If nothing else, you get to keep anything unique or with sentimental value.” “Good thing.” Talon flitted down next to us, nodding at Torch and snapping off a quick salute my way. “With all the work I’ve put into my crossbow, if I ever had to give it up, somebody was going to catch a bolt.” Her eyes settled on Torch. “We didn’t go down until you triggered the spell. Means all I’d have to do is put a bolt into your head before you even knew I was there. I can do that.” Torch chuckled and held up his hooves in mock surrender. “I never doubted that you could. Though for what my word is worth, I never sabotaged your crossbow. You guarded that weapon far too carefully for me to ever get my hooves on it. I only got a chance to work with whatever gear the company was comfortable letting the newest recruit handle.” Talon grunted. “I don’t even let the captain touch my crossbow. No way I’d hand it over to some wet-behind-the ears recruit.” I snorted. “Still haven’t forgiven me for the one time I borrowed it to fire off a single shot five feathering years ago, have you? “Took me a week to get it sighted back in properly after you had it,” Talong grumbled. “I didn’t even touch the damned sights!” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “There is no way I could possibly have messed up your crossbow so bad it took you a week to fix it just by holding it for two minutes and firing off a single shot.” Talon shot a flat, unamused glower my way. “And yet, you did.” I sighed and shook my head. There was no use arguing with her once she’d made up her mind. I was guilty, and that was the end of it. Best just to move on before I got myself into more trouble than I needed to deal with today. Or ever, really. “So how’s the ship look? Any nasty surprises? Or hay, we’re due for a good surprise. First time for everything.” “Not today.” Talon’s eyes cut over to Torch. “Looks like this was an old slave-hauler before the Council got it. They got rid of all the chains and such, even managed to wash out most of the smell. Fresh coat of paint too, probably so nobody’ll recognize it.” She grimaced. “It’s going to be slightly more maneuverable than you after a bottle of rum, but at least it’s not slow. Since the cargo hold’s empty we’ll have plenty of room for the troops, too. This ship’s designed to hold six times as many ponies as we have.” “Though not in very pleasant conditions,” Torch growled. I grunted. “I’ll take what I can get. Though I don’t suppose we could get something that’ll be more maneuverable than a bloated whale?” Torch sighed. “If you have a spare clipper you could loan us, I’d be delighted. Otherwise, this is the ship we have. At least it will make good time once we hit open water and can start piling on the canvas.” “Maybe, but we’ve got to get to open ocean first.” Going fast without being maneuverable was just asking for trouble as long as we were in the archipelago. There were shipwrecks, reefs, sandbars, and a dozen other things that could rip the bottom out of any boat that didn’t go around them. Not to mention that with us being both slow and clumsy... “It’s gonna be ugly if we run across pirates or anyone else who thinks we’ve got a fat hold full of cargo.” “At least we’ll be well-equipped to fight off any boarding action,” Talon commented. “And if we run into pirates, they wouldn’t want to do the smart play of standing off at range and sinking the ship. Lot harder to plunder a ship that’s underwater.” Torch grimaced. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. At least we won’t need to worry as much about pirates attacking an outbound ship. They’ll probably assume we’re a slave ship, and those almost always have empty cargo holds on the way out.” He looked the ship over, then shook his head. “We're an outlaw resistance movement. We can’t go into the nearest shipyard and commission something. The only oceangoing ships we have are what we capture, which is mostly slavers.” “What about Glory’s old sloop?” I pointed out. “You took that off us along with everything else on the last job. You had plenty of lighter ships for a fight, too.” “I think you forget how much damage that ship took in the battle.” Torch countered. “It needs quite a bit of dock time before we’re sending it out again, especially since we also need to get it fit for our purposes. As for trying to take one of our raiding galleys out into open ocean, there are far quicker and less messy forms of suicide.” I grimaced and shook my head. “Yeah, those aren’t for going out into open ocean.” Which meant our options were pretty narrow. The refit of Glory’s old ship would probably take long enough that it’d be quicker to just take the slave hauler. Not to mention the Council probably had a lot of other things they’d like to do with an ocean-going warship than have it play a glorified courier. “So we make the best of it with the ship we have,” Talon concluded. She frowned, looking it over. “Since we have a hauler, it seems a shame to make the trip to Equestria with an empty cargo hold. I’d imagine the embargo against Freeport wouldn’t apply to a Council ship.” “It doesn’t,” Torch confirmed. “We’ve done a little bit of smuggling to the Equestrians in the past, but it was always a risky proposition. It was pretty profitable, but with the ships we lost due to weather, the necrocrats, pirates, and everything else we had to pretty much give up on it. Ships are one of our most precious resources. Each one we lose hurts.” “Well, we’ve got plenty of escorts to keep it safe from pirates, at least.” I sighed and shook my head. “Not that it matters. Not like we could sail this into the docks and buy a load of cargo from one of the merchants.” Torch shook his head. “Even if we could, the Council can’t spare the ducats. We’re over budget on this mission as it is. I can’t imagine your company’s in any position to make an investment like that either. I suppose we could always reach out to the Doos, but...” “Wouldn’t count on them doing us any favors,” I agreed. “Assuming they don’t just turn us in for the price on your head, which they probably would, they’d want a huge share of the profits in exchange for spotting us the cargo. Just like any other merchant, they’ll screw us as hard as they can to up their own profits.” That’d been the whole problem with the clans: we might’ve had a lot of ancient history in common, but the Doos were traders now. Just like the Strikers were mercs, and the Chargers had been necrocrats. Old history doesn’t count for much when you put it up against modern realities. “You’re right,” Talon conceded. She didn’t give me much time to savor that rare victory. “We can’t buy any cargo. But I never said we were going to buy it.” There was a hint of mischief in her voice, and a touch of energy I hadn’t seen from her in a long time. I should’ve been happy about that, but past experience told me that anytime she was in one of those moods then things were about to get interesting."What're you thinking Talon?” Talon rolled out a simple map showing the most of the major islands in the archipelago. “So, here’s the fastest route between Freeport and Equestria.” She traced a line going roughly westwards. “And right here's a sugar plantation that's almost exactly on our route. As an added bonus, it belongs to our old friend Deathspair. Worth mentioning that sugar's one of the best trade goods to run to Equestria right now. They’ve been making do with honey and other sweeteners while the embargo’s on, but there’s no substitute for proper sugarcane.” I looked over the map. “Risky. Not saying I don’t like the idea of getting back at him, but you know Deathspair isn’t going to take it lying down if we raid his crops.” Talon shrugged. “I wasn't planning on us leaving a note saying we did it.” I scowled and shook my head. “He’ll suspect us. We wouldn’t be the first merc company who decided to take their pay when the client wouldn’t hand it over willingly.” “Of course he’ll think we did it,” Talon agreed. “But if he can't prove it, what can he do? From what you said there are plenty of powerful players who don’t want him chasing after a vendetta with us. Even if he could prove we did it, all his rival necrocrats would probably think he got what he deserved. Might even make some of them want to hire us.” “Getting mixed up in Necrocrat rivalries isn’t a game I’m eager to play,” I pointed out. “They always treat us mercs as expendable pawns, and I can’t say I like the idea of being expended.” “Just about every job we’ve taken lately is some kind of rivalry game,” Talon countered. “The Necros are constantly doing their internal games and power struggles. The only difference is that this time we’d be taking some initiative and we’ll know what the stakes are. Not to mention the payday we’ll get for a full load of sugar.” That was a damn good point. “It would be nice to pay him back for stiffing us on the last job. Not to mention we could use some extra ducats to get us back into the green again.” Torch’s job would keep our heads above water for the time being, but our savings were still pretty much shot. I wouldn’t say no to having some cash left to fall back on the next time things went wrong. Not to mention I had a retirement fund to fill back up. Guess that decided it. “Alright then. We need a plan, and a good one. It’s going to need to be a nighttime raid to keep the plausible deniability. Comes with a lot of bother for us, but it’ll be even worse for them. After all, we know it’s coming, and we’ll be prepared.” “Undead aren’t usually too bothered by darkness,” Talon cautioned. “While sunlight’s usually unpleasant for them. Safe bet most of the guards on that island will be some flavor of undead, plus some bush-league necromancers to monitor them.” She patted her crossbow. “Give me some nice cover and a sunny day, and I’ll put a bolt in every last caster they have. Can’t do that when it’s dark. Not to mention sunlight’s usually not healthy for anything undead.” “True,” Torch agreed. “Though its effects are often somewhat overstated. It’s an advantage, but the undead wouldn’t be such popular weapons if they were ineffective for half of every day.” “Undead might be better in the dark,” I conceded. “But the necros controlling them aren’t. And there’s the element of surprise to consider.” I shook my head. “Probably decide one way or the other once we get a closer look at what we’re dealing with.” Talon nodded. “No sense planning too much before we have a look at their defenses. Could be a cakewalk, or they might be so tough we drop the idea entirely. Still, a cargo hold full of sugar would go a long way towards securing our future.” “Not to mention it would go a long way towards winning over the Council,” Torch added. “Our share would turn this mission from an expensive investment to a net profit.” I held up a hoof to cut him off. “Don’t start counting your profits just yet. If you think we’re going to be splitting the profits fifty-fifty when it’s my company that’s going to be taking all the risks and doing all the hard work...” “I was planning to join you for the fighting,” Torch answered. “Not to mention I’m providing the ship and crew, plus the legitimacy you’ll need to actually make the deal go through. With the embargo on, nobody in Equestria is going to buy your cargo hold full of Freeport sugar unless it’s being sold by the Council.” “Pretty sure we could find someone who wants it.” I shrugged. “No boycott has a one hundred percent participation rate.” “Perhaps,” Torch agreed. “But how long would it take you to find a buyer? Not to mention you would almost certainly take a hit on the price if you have to go through back channels. While the Council can sell to reputable buyers, and get a premium from those who want to support our cause.” I snorted. “What, you use the whole abolition movement to justify a price hike?” Torch didn’t rise to the bait. “If it gets us more money that helps us free more slaves? Yes. To make this mission work, I’m probably going to have to denounce my own uncle and clan in front of all the nobles in Canterlot. I’ll be breaking bread with Magnus Kicker and other officers who made their name from destroying half my clan. I’ll have to look my uncle’s killer in the eye, and ask him for help.” He scoffed and shook his head. “Compared to that, a few nice words to make Equestrians feel better about paying above market price is nothing.” Kid had a point there. “Not saying you’re not entitled to a share. Just not gonna be an even split unless you’ve got a lot more to offer.” Torch shrugged. “This plan wouldn’t work without my ship, crew, and contacts. Still, I suppose you do have a point. A sixty-forty split in your favor then?” I would’ve taken that deal, but since he’d opened with that offer I saw no reason not to push for a bit more. “Sixty-five and thirty five.” Torch sighed. “Must we argue over every last ducat? Especially when every percent you take could make a difference for slaves suffering in bondage, or refugees we’re trying to help find their way home.” “I’m not a charity. Every extra percent could mean a lot more security for my company.” Maybe I could even give the troops a bit of a bonus and some extra spending money for while we were in Equestria. They could certainly use a bit of proper leave time. Our stayover in Freeport had been tense. The common troops didn’t know all the ugly details of our finances, but most of them knew or at least suspected things weren’t great. Torch sighed and nodded. “Deal.” “Good.” We shook hooves. “Yes, it is.” Torch smiled. “Especially since as long as we’re raiding a plantation we can free all the slaves as well.” I groaned and tried to massage away a rapidly forming headache. Should’ve seen that one coming. It was probably why he’d given me the percentage I wanted. “You said we wouldn’t be running around doing any nonsense like that. Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that we should just go ahead and try and kill Deathspair while we’re stealing his sugar and freeing his slaves.” Torch shrugged. “If he happens to be at the plantation when we strike it I would certainly do my best to take him down, but I doubt we’ll get the chance. He doesn’t have any interest in the day to day operations of his plantations beyond spending the money they make him. And after the way he treated you, would you really mind that much if he died?” Talon shook her head. “I wouldn’t mind putting a bolt into him on principle, but it’d give us a lot of fresh trouble we don’t need.” “Damn right.” Getting mixed up in the death of a Necrocrat would pretty much paint a huge target on me and all the Brawlers. And not just us. “Can’t imagine the Council’d be wild about it either. If there’s one thing that’d make the necrocrats stop backstabbing each other and start working together, it’d be killing one of their own.” “It’s also a clear signal to the rest of the world,” Torch countered. “How many would like to support us, but fear the Council doesn’t have the strength to accomplish anything? Perhaps a dramatic example is exactly what we need to shock everyone out of their complacency. Apathy is a far greater enemy to our cause than active malice. For every one person who opposes us, there are a dozen who think we’ll just fail, or that nothing we can do will ever make a difference. What better way to prove them wrong than destroying a Necrocrat?” As one of those apathetic masses, I saw the problem with his reasoning. “Most of them will just figure you went and got too big too fast, and now the necrocrats will crush you for it.” I frowned as something clicked for me. “You know, you don’t think like an outlaw. Most underground movements like to keep their heads down; move in the shadows as much as possible. Don’t take any big chances, because all it takes is one screw-up to lose everything. But you like the gamble, don’t you? Bold action, big risks, betting on ponies like me to come around. That’s not how an outlaw revolutionary works.” I scowled. “But it makes a lot more sense for the last survivor of a clan who’s hunting for a legacy.” Torch’s eyes narrowed. “You’re right, most of the Council likes to play it safe. The problem with that is it means accomplishing less. We’re going to see exactly how those slaves are treated when we raid Deathspair’s sugar plantation. Take a good long look at that, then see if you can tell me we should play it safe and take our time freeing them.” So it was all about righteous wrath and indignation? Guess that fit for a young idealist, but there’s a reason most of those grow up and out of it. “If the Council gets wiped out because you wanna rush head-first into things, how many slaves get saved?” Torch sighed and shook his head. “I know. Though for someone who insists he has no interest in helping our movement beyond the purely mercenary, you do seem to be quite eager to offer free advice on our grand strategy. Almost as if you care more than you’re willing to admit.” Maybe the kid had a bit of a point, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna give him that. Otherwise he’d use it to try and talk me into doing some damn fool hero thing that’d get me killed. So instead I switched gears to get back to the mission. “So, Deathspair’s island. If it’s a slave plantation, it’s a safe bet that whoever he's got overseeing the slaves is going to be a mean sonofanag. They always are, whether it’s cause only the mean ones want that job, or the job makes ‘em mean. Guess it doesn’t really matter which.” “I doubt the slaves being whipped care,” Torch agreed. “The plantation will also have some necromancers watching over the island, and not worthless ones like that merc Glory hired. Not that they’ll be Deathspair’s best either, since plantation work is normally used for training journeyman necromancers. It gives them lots of experience at raising the dead and putting them to work. There will be living guards too, to fill the gaps for all the jobs undead servitors aren’t good at.” “Judgement calls and showing initiative, mostly,” I filled in. “Nice thing about living guards, they also have the sense to throw in the towel and give up once things go bad. The undead will keep on fighting until you destroy the head, the heart, or cut off their magic.” “The last course generally being the best against anything that’s not self-animating.” Torch hefted Chainbreaker with a confident grin. “Of course, I'm good at taking down necromancers.” “Not just you.” Talon gave her crossbow an affectionate pat. “All the zombies go back to being bodies if you put a bolt in the brain of their controller.” “Part of why I wanted a surprise attack,” I pointed out. “If we put down a couple necros before the fight gets serious, it’ll save us a lot of trouble.” “I could also try sneaking into the slave quarters to stage a breakout,” Torch offered. “If you can spare some knives from your company stockpile, it would go a long way towards helping them defend themselves.” Again with his damned liberation plans. “What exactly do you plan to do with an entire plantation’s worth of slaves anyway? No way we could get them all out without stacking them in as tight as they were when they got brought in on a ship like this. Not to mention that wouldn’t leave us any room for the cargo that’s supposed to be the whole point of this raid.” Torch’s teeth clenched, and for a second I thought he was about to lay into me. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was going to say: that my company’s profit margin could go feather itself when he had to play hero to a bunch of slaves. His mouth was halfway open when he stopped, and I had a pretty good idea why. Without the payday, there was no way I’d go ahead with the job. Call me a heartless bastard, but I was a merc captain before anything else. That meant I had to take care of all the troops under my command before anything else, and right now my troops needed money. It’s not that I didn’t feel bad for the slaves, but helping them came after seeing to me and mine. Eventually the kid sighed and shook his head. “I’m sure we can make some other arrangements for the refugees. The island will doubtless have some vessels docked for fishing, supplies, and anything else the garrison might need.” “Works for me,” I grunted. “One other thing. Soon as finish our mission, my troops are all pulling out. I’m not sticking around for a week if you need your Council buddies to send more ships to rescue everyone.” Torch grimaced and nodded. “Agreed. Occupying the island is too risky. As soon as Deathspair learns we attacked it, he’s going to respond with overwhelming force. Both us and the refugees need to be long gone before that happens.” “No arguments there.” Was nice to see even Torch’s desire to play hero had limits. “We better come up with a good plan for this raid. We’ve got to fill our hold, bust the chains off all the slaves, and get everyone out of there before Deathspair comes in.” The cargo took priority for me over the heroic liberation of the slaves, but I wasn’t going to leave them behind to get their heads mounted on Deathspair’s trophy wall. I can be a bit of a stone cold bastard, but I’m not heartless. Talon nodded. “When it comes to a plan, I had a few suggestions in mind...” My first impression of Deathspair’s sugar plantation was pretty bad. Fortunately, this was one of those times when first impressions didn’t count for much. From a distance, the island looked pretty well fortified. There was a basic wooden wall around the whole island, dotted with plenty of watchtowers. It was a pretty common setup for plantations, since it did the double duty of keeping attackers out and the slaves in. Not that the average slave stood much chance of actually making a swim all the way to another island, but plenty of them would be willing to give it a shot after a taste of life in chains. A lot of the ones who wound up drowning or eaten by all the big fish probably still thought they’d come out ahead compared to getting broken in the plantation. There were plenty of outside threats to keep an eye out for too. The Council was naturally going to be a concern for any plantation, but they were the newest player in the game. Pirates and bandits were a lot more common. Not like we were the first ones to get the bright idea of raiding a plantation to load up our ship full of free trade goods. The necrocrats were also quite fond of going after each other’s side businesses. It was hard to stay the top dogs of Freeport without money, and tormenting the souls and twisting the flesh of the dead didn’t bring in ducats. Plantations, lumber mills, kelp farms, fisheries, and a bunch of other little business ventures did that. With all the internal backstabbing the necrocrats loved to get up to, it was no surprise some of them started going after each other’s money. So yeah, on the outside the island looked like it would be a tough nut to crack. But one of the fun little life lessons I’d learned on my first trip to a cathouse, don’t ever judge things by how they look on the outside. “Only four of those towers actually have guards,” Talon confirmed. “Just two guards apiece, eight total. The rest are empty.” I did a quick scan with my telescope to confirm it. I’d gone ahead with Talon and Torch for a quick scouting run. Unless the guards were really on the ball, they wouldn’t notice the three of us scoping out their base from cloud-cover. Once she got a good look, Talon presented her conclusions. “They’ve gotten lazy. Complacent. Nothing’s happened, so they’re all just bored and killing time. The ones who are bothering at all aren’t even looking for outside threats, just keeping an eye on the slaves in case one makes a run for it.” I scowled and shook my head. “We’ll still need to take them out unless we want to get filled with crossbow bolts. They don’t look incompetent, just bored. Once we lose the element of surprise, they’ll get serious. Might be best if we don’t give them the chance to recover. Just go in hard and fast with no punches pulled. Everything gets a lot less complicated if we can kill off the defenders before they even organize a defense. Still, surprised they’ve slacked off this bad. It’s why you usually don’t want troops on garrison duty for too long. They lose focus.” “There might be more to it than laziness,” Torch pointed out. “With the embargo and boycott going on, profits are sure to be down. Does Deathspair strike you as the type to care that broader economic forces are to blame for his business making less money?” The kid wasn’t wrong. Deathspair would want someone’s head on his wall. Talon followed that thought to the logical conclusion. “So the manager is cutting costs to stay in the green?” “Exactly. If you can’t make more money, just spend less.” I scoffed and shook my head. “And that’s assuming he wasn’t already slashing costs wherever he could just to maximize his profits. None of those guards help with the bottom line, after all. Not until they actually stop someone from robbing the place, and I’d bet none of that’s happened for a bit.” “Easy to see why the overseer would cut security when all the guards do is sit around looking bored and waiting for something to happen,” Talon agreed. “I won’t complain when it makes our job easier. Do we want to try and take out the guards quietly, or just rush them?” I didn’t see any reason to beat around the bush. “Let’s just rush them. With how slack they’ve gotten, we can be in and on them before they know they’re under attack. We overwhelm them, and break their morale outright. If we’re lucky they’ll quit as soon as they see things have turned against them.” Talon nodded. “Might be best to keep the plan simple. Getting too clever about it just gives us more ways to mess up. I can snipe one of them no problem, but there’s two guards in each tower. Even if one of them is napping or slacking off, hard to miss their friend falling over dead. Not saying I couldn’t reload and hit the other one before he sets off an alarm, but it’s a big risk.” She turned to Torch. “You have any spells that could take both at once?” Torch sighed and shook his head. “Pretty much all my evocation is limited to touch range. Once I’m in there I can take them both down quickly enough, but it’s the same problem as with Talon’s sniping when it comes to getting both of them before they set off an alarm. Can’t tell for sure from this far out, but they almost certainly have some kind of quick-triggering ward.” “No point having a watchtower if they can’t raise the alarm at a moment’s notice,” I agreed. “So no point being subtle, let’s just hit them hard and fast. Even if they raise the alarm, it won’t do much good when we’ll be on the barracks while everyone’s still half-awake and with no more armor than a bedsheet. Besides, if you two are trying to be stealthy, it means you’re not focused on taking any necros out. They’re the big threat. Take out their leaders and the undead stop being a problem, and the mercs won’t have any fight left in ‘em.” Torch nodded. “There’s a lot to be said for keeping the plan simple. Tempting as it is to try and smuggle some weapons into the slave barracks so they can set off an uprising, I can think of far too many ways that could end very badly for both us and the slaves.” “And a dozen untrained half-starved slaves armed with farm tools and knives won’t be enough to make a difference unless things have already gone wrong,” I added. “Best to leave the fighting to trained warriors, kid. The civilians are too much of an unpredictable factor. Chances are they'll just cower and try to find a hiding spot until the screaming stops, or swing to the complete other side of the pendulum and start massacring everything that isn’t a slave. I’d rather not have any of my soldiers get stabbed by a slave that can’t tell the difference between between their guards and the ones who’re here to liberate them.” “Not to mention them running around with weapons will get them killed,” Talon pointed out. “They’re much more likely to survive by keeping their heads down,” Torch agreed. “On the topic of survival, are we taking prisoners?” I scowled and shook my head. “The cynic in me says kill them all. No witnesses to peg this on us and tell Deathspair who wrecked his plantation.” Talon grimaced and nodded. “Not like we could do much with prisoners anyway. Doubt we’d want to recruit any of them the way we did with Glory’s bunch, and taking them all the way to Equestria hardly seems practical. Equestrians would probably just hang them anyway.” Torch shrugged. “At that point, we might as well hold a trial by the freed. It’s something of a Council tradition. We go through everyone who surrendered or we captured, and let the former slaves decide on their fate.” “I saw how that ended with the slave ship we did escort duty on.” Though considering the kind of things most slaves suffered through, I couldn’t exactly fault them a bit of revenge. Even left a bit of room for mercy on the off chance there was a nice guy who didn’t deserve a hanging, not that many of those existed among slavers. “I don't like massacres. It’s not right, and once word of it gets out, it encourages the next guy to fight to the death. Problem is, I’m not seeing a practical way around it this time. At least nobody will talk ... as long the necros can’t pull up the dead to get answers.” “I can make that harder for them,” Torch volunteered. “That's something at least. Figures you’d have some way to cover that.” From what Torch had given up about his magical talents, his main focus had been a bunch of anti-necromancer tricks. Made him a useful guy to have around, regardless of all the extra trouble. “Alright, anything else to cover?” Torch and Talon both shook their heads. “Alright, let’s get ready then. Talon, help me brief the troops. Get some grime on anything metallic or shiny. We’re not trying for heavy stealth, but I’d rather not give it away until we’re right on top of ‘em.” Despite myself, I could feel a little bit of excitement building up. “Let’s go steal some sugar.” Hammering out the plan went pretty quickly since there wasn’t a very complicated plan. Pretty much just rush in, and kill everything armed and hostile until they started surrendering. Then Torch could have his little show-trial to decide what to do with them. The only tricky part was deciding who would be in our vanguard teams securing the towers, and who’d be in reserve. You’d think that would’ve been easy, but of course there were one or two things to make it a bit complicated. “I’ll lead the charge.” Something that looked a bit too sad to actually be a smile tugged at Torch’s lips. “It seems fitting, considering the old family motto. Besides, you’ll want me in the frontlines if we run into any of the necromancers.” I scowled and nodded. “Right, the necros are the number one threat we need to look out for. Zombies aren’t going to be tired or confused, and won’t be sleeping with all their armor off. This fight’ll get a lot harder if they manage to organize any undead they’ve got shuffling around.” My eyes settled on Torch. “Don’t get yourself killed being a hero. If you weren’t our only spellcaster I wouldn’t even let you in on this fight. You’re not a merc, you’re the client. If you go and get yourself killed, we don’t get paid.” Even if I could somehow get in touch with the Council, they probably wouldn’t be inclined to pay for an escort mission where the guy I was supposed to be escorting wound up dead. Talon gave her crossbow a pat. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch his back. Yours too, Captain.” “How could I not feel safer with such a lovely mare guarding me?” Torch quipped with a smile. “But don’t worry, now that you know most of my secrets, I won’t need to hold anything back.” He closed his eyes, and a second later I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck tingling as lines of purple energy crackled over his sword. No matter how much the kid said that his magic wasn’t the bad stuff, it still felt weird to see a pegasus slinging spells. Not to mention his family full of necromancers and warlocks wanted him learning this death magic. Made it hard to buy that the stuff was as nice and harmless as he claimed. Still, long as it helped us in a fight, I wouldn’t complain too much. Magic that helps me and mine can’t be all bad. “Just remember why we're here. Take down the threats before you start playing the heroic liberator.” “I’ll keep my priorities straight,” Torch agreed. “I won’t save anyone if I get shot in the back because we didn’t clear all the towers. Speaking of which, I’ll take the southern tower.” I scowled and shook my head. “Nobody’s taking on one of those towers solo, don’t care how good you are. Too many things can go wrong with one guy operating solo. Maybe you miss the opening shot, or find out there’s an extra guard who’s there to play cards or dice to help pass the shift, you get the idea.” “Yes, I suppose that’s only prudent,” Torch agreed. “Temping as it is to say I can handle the tower on my own, I know you would never let me live it down if I turned out to be wrong. Very well then, who wants to come with me?” I snorted. “Between your heroic urges and you being the client, you think I’d trust anyone other than myself or Talon to keep an eye on you? Talon’s hanging back to shoot, so that narrows it down, doesn’t it?” Torch smiled. “Why captain, I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather fight side-by-side with.” “Except someone female and prettier,” I grunted out. “Or someone younger and faster. Or someone who can do magic like you.” I held up a hoof. “And don’t you try to sweet talk me saying I’ve got experience or something. That’ll just make me think you’re up to something.” Torch shrugged. “If it would make you feel better, I can be as surly as possible about it. They do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” I scowled. “It’s getting harder and harder to remember why I’m even letting you come along instead of parking your rear on the ship and placing you under guard. Got half a mind to do it despite how useful your magic’ll be, except I know you’d kick up a fuss and make it too much trouble to keep you locked up.” “I believe you forgot to mention that the problem with my generation is that we don’t respect our elders,” Torch shot back with a wry grin. “Oh, and don’t forget the music we listen to and the clothes we wear.” “I was building up to it,” I grunted. “A good speech needs a bit to get momentum.” Torch’s grin widened. “Much as I would love to hear the rest of your inspirational words, perhaps we should focus on the mission? I do recall being told several times that I need to keep my priorities straight?” “Fine.” Guess I was in a better mood than usual. After all, I was joking around with Torch. I turned to the rest of the troops. “You all know what to do; not gonna waste your time saying it again. We do the job, we get the payday, and maybe we even get to act like heroes for once. Just don’t expect me to give any of my share to charity.” That got a couple grim chuckles out of them. “Alright, let’s get it done.” I took off with the rest of the advance force. The other six split off with us before long, since they had to hit towers on the other end of the island. Since they were only bothering to keep four towers staffed, they put ‘em as far away as possible to at least theoretically cover the whole island. Some ducat-pincher probably figured there was no need to keep the other towers manned when their fields of view overlapped. Nevermind that overlapping fields of view was the way they were supposed to work. Now they were so scattered the guards in the tower probably wouldn’t notice anything going on in any of the others unless they were on fire. The towers, not the guards. Guards who’re on fire don’t notice much beyond the fact that they’re on fire. Torch pulled up alongside me as we closed in. “So the plan is to just blitz the tower?” I nodded. “Hit them hard and fast. If we do it right and have a little luck, they’ll both be down before they even realize what’s going on.” “Fast, aggressive, and no-nonsense. Sounds like your kind of plan.” Torch grinned. “Do you go in first, or me?” “It’s my idea, might as well kick it off myself.” I swooped down towards the tower, almost pitying the poor bastards as I began my attack run. They were just sitting around, maintaining a perfunctory watch while mostly just waiting for their shift to end. One was keeping an eye on the slave barracks further in, while the other had his nose buried in a book. He at least looked out of the tower every once in a while, but the lamp he was using for reading ruined his night eyes. Probably those of his partner too. Guess neither of them cared about that, though. Probably just two guys bored stiff because nothing ever happened. I went for the guy who was actually at least trying to keep a watch up, even though he was looking the wrong way to see me coming. The first clue he had that anything was wrong was my axe slamming into his helmet. Either my aim had been a bit off or his helmet was better than I expected, but either way the guy went down with just a dent in the helmet instead of my axe buried in his brains. He still went down hard, and didn’t seem like he’d be getting back up anytime soon. The second guard looked up from his book, then dropped it in shock. “What the—” Before he could finish that thought Chainbreaker sliced into his shoulder, and there was a bright flash of the purple light that always seemed to part of Torch’s magic. The guard dropped like a stone, despite the fact that the wound didn’t look all that bad. His limbs twitched feebly, like he was trying to get back up but couldn’t figure out how to do it. From the looks of things, whatever spell Torch used on him worked pretty similar to the one he’d used to drop me and my company a couple weeks back. Seeing that spell from the other side of things was ... not sure if I liked that. Torch swatted their weapons aside, while I quickly bound and gagged both of them. I had no idea if the guy I’d brained was gonna wake back up or not. It was hard to tell when you smacked someone’s head that hard. Could’ve just finished him off then and there, but Torch didn’t seem to be in any hurry to open up the throat of the guy he’d downed. Might as well let him put these two through the little slave trial Torch had planned. Maybe these two’d actually been halfway decent and they’d get a pardon, and even if the slaves wanted them dead, at least they’d get a chance to do the deed themselves. Either way, these guys were mercs. One of those unwritten rules of professional courtesy with mercs: we try not to kill each other when we can avoid. It’s one I liked to follow as much as possible, if only because it upped my odds of survival if I was ever on a contract that went bad. Made the trial Torch was planning not quite sit right, even if it meant that the blood technically wasn’t on my hooves. Even if the mercs we were basically executing were bastards who had it coming ... well, there were probably guys who thought that way about me. Still, there was a job to do. The guard barracks wasn’t too hard to spot. I just went for the barracks building that didn’t have have bars over the doors and windows. Everything else was either an obvious farm building, or the big fancy mansion they’d probably built for whenever their boss decided to come visit. I was a bit surprised they didn’t have anyone working through the night in the sugar refinery, but I guess none of the overseers wanted to pull a night shift. Certainly wouldn’t be on account of night work being dangerous. Torch nodded, his eyes flicking to the other guard towers to make sure we didn’t have any other trouble incoming. “Most of the guards will be asleep, or else drinking and playing games. Though if past experience is anything to go by, there might be one or two in the slave quarters.” He pointed over at the walled compound and the grubby collection of crude huts surrounding it. “Now we just need to—” He went quiet when one of lamps in the guardhouse kindled. We could see shadows moving around through one of the windows, and judging by how fast they were moving around and how many there were it wasn’t just some half awake guy stumbling to the chamberpot. “They’re onto us, get ‘em!” I rushed in. Torch followed fast on my heels, only a step behind on account of putting some more magic into his sword. I took a position outside the front door, just a bit to the side. Tempting as it would be to go charging all the way in, that was a good way to get myself killed. I’d be going from darkness to a well-lit building, and that half-second of vulnerability while my eyes adjusted was more than enough time to get me killed. Of course, the same applied in reverse for any guards stumbling out into the night. The first guard to exit the barracks didn’t know I was there until I put my axe into the back of his neck. Not that he knew much of anything after I did it. The one downside of a good ambush like that, I could only pull it off once. None of the other guards inside could’ve missed their buddy getting his head cut most of the way off. On the other hoof, since they all knew I was out there and waiting, nobody seemed to be in a hurry to be the next one out the door. After a good half minute of nothing, Torch grimaced. “Careful, it’s about to get messier. They’ve got a—” Whatever he was about to say next wound up being a moot point as the door opened up and more came out. I took a swing and buried my axe into the first one’s head, but more kept coming. I got a good look at them a second later, and confirmed my suspicions. Zombies. Made sense to send out the disposable chaff to flush us out. Their plan worked. Torch and I had to move away from the building or we’d got mobbed. I was doing alright at dropping them with chops to the head or chest, and each one Torch hit after charging up his sword went down like a puppet with its strings cut. Problem was, there were enough of them to make it hard for us to keep up. Eventually the necromancer came out too, probably to keep an eye on his minions. That made them get a bit smarter, using their numbers to start properly flanking us. Torch and I went back-to-back so they couldn’t get around behind us. I took a swing at another zombie’s head, but the extra smarts the necro was giving them went to more than just pack tactics. The one I was aiming for ducked its head, and before I could adjust for a followup, one of his buddies menaced my right flank and I had to go back to defense. The rest of the zombies kept moving in, slowly tightening the noose before the final rush. Meanwhile, the necro was hanging back and gathering some nasty kind of red-black energy around one of his hooves. Wasn’t hard to guess his plan. Either we’d get mobbed by the zombies when they did their final rush, or if we tried to fly away he’d have a clear shot at us with whatever spell he was holding onto. No idea what it was, and I didn’t want to find out by letting him hit me with it. Staying on defense would get us mobbed, and running would get us hit with magic. Left us with only one plan: attack. Torch and I charged the ring of encircling zombies, aiming to break out towards the necro. It worked, and he didn’t react fast enough to stop me from planting my axe into a zombie head. After that, I stopped aiming my shots as carefully. Hitting them in the head was a lot harder than taking out a leg, and crippling them was still pretty good. Zombies aren’t smart enough to figure out how to compensate for a leg that doesn’t work anymore. At least, not without fresh instructions from their necro. Not that they would get a chance. Torch was following hot on my heels, using sword and magic to finish off the ones I’d dropped. Once we were really in the thick of it, he gave up on using magic to charge up his sword, instead just clobbering them with a hoof wreathed in rippling purple magic. Punching them with magic seemed to work just as well for dropping the zombies, and even without magic, his sword could still take off their heads just fine. After what felt like hours but probably wasn’t even a minute, I chopped into a zombie and wrenched it out of my way for Torch to finish off, only for there to be none left to take his place. There were plenty of them behind us, but that didn’t matter when we had a straight shot for the necromancer. If he went down, it wouldn’t matter how many zombies there were. I smirked right before I charged in. “Hope that’s not all you got!” The necro took the bait, raising his hoof and firing off those blasts of dark magic. I saw it coming from a mile away, and I had plenty of time to dive for cover. It made my joints groan in protest, but that was a lot better than letting the spell hit me. Torch deflected one of the energy bolts with his sword, while the other two hit the necromancer’s own zombies. The two slowly crumbled into dust, making me a lot happier I hadn’t been on the receiving end of that spell. The necromancer immediately started working on getting more of those blasts to send out at me. No way I was going to let him get away with that. I wasn’t sure I could charge in and put my axe into him in time, but that’s why I like having options. Like pulling out one of my backup daggers and chucking it at him. The warlock staggered back, staring down at the dagger hilt and blinking disbelievingly. “How did ... that’s not supposed to—” Before he could finish that thought Torch swooped in and sliced his throat open so deep I could swear I saw the back of his spine. The zombies all went still, and a lot of them dropped flat on their faces. Just to be safe, I planted my axe into his brain. With necromancers, it never hurt to make sure they were down for good. Even the undead couldn’t keep up and running without a brain. Well, unless you counted liches, and if one of those was here, we were running. I still took one more swing, just to fully sever the necro’s head. Better safe than sorry. Last thing I needed was him coming back. From the looks of things, Torch was quickly making sure none of the disabled zombies would get back up either. Smart, considering there were other necros left on the island. No sooner had I thought that than a second necromancer came charging out of the barracks, her own horde of zombies fanning out behind her. As soon as she spoke, I knew we were dealing with a drama queen. “Who dares attack the domains of the Great Lord Deathspair?! Your suffering shall be legendary once I, the Great and Terrible Deathplague Skullmaster, strike you down with my imp—” We never did learn what she was going to strike us down with, because right about then a crossbow bolt smacked into the back of her head, coming out of her mouth like some sort of ridiculous tongue. I glanced up just in time to catch Talon smirking and waving to us before she shifted to a new position. I snapped off a quick salute with my weapon as she left. “Nice of her to save us the trouble, even if she’ll probably bring it up next time she wants something out of me.” Torch shrugged. “She’d be sad if we didn't let her get her share of glory.” “There will be no glory for you here, bandits! Only death!” A new necromancer strode out of the shadows. He made sure to keep the building between himself and the direction Talon’s last shot had come from. More worrying, the pair of zombies he’d brought with him were wearing armor, and carrying a spear and shield. Zombies generally didn’t have the brains to use tools without a really good necromancer controlling them, let alone a weapon combo like a spear and shield. Not that they were the most complicated weapons in the world, but using them took a lot more brainpower than you could get out of a normal zombie. Which meant this guy was probably the head honcho. I grunted and hefted my axe. “There’s our sonofabitch. Was worried he’d run off while we killed off the minions. Well, let’s show him he made some horrible life choices.” The Boss necromancer smirked at us. “How very bold of you. Who has come here to die?” Talon must have shifted enough to get a clean shot at him, because a crossbow bolt skipped off a magical shield. He spared a bored, contemptuous glance for her. “You’ll have to do a lot better than that. But where are my manners? You may call me Lord Shadowsoul.” “I may, but I don’t think I will,” I scoffed. Torch seemed a bit more willing to play his game, judging by how he stepped up and saluted with his sword. “Torch Charger, bane of tyrants and breaker of chains.” Guess the kid had a bit of a flair for the dramatic himself. Shadowsoul grinned. “Ah, the famous last of the Chargers. My master will reward me with riches beyond measure if I bring him your head.” “Don’t start counting your ducats just yet.” I started closing in on him, only for one of the zombies to place itself squarely in my path. I took a swing at it, but it caught my axe on its shield with more skill than I’d seen out of most living soldiers. Even had the sense to angle the shield so my attack just skipped off it rather than biting it. Thing about axes, they’re pretty good at busting through wood, and that included shields. A few straight shots with my axe would turn anything short of ironwood into kindling. I tried pressing the attack, but the zombie was having none of it. Each swing got perfectly deflected by the shield, until one of them got knocked wide. The zombie then shield rushed me, and the impact set me staggering back. It didn’t do the zombie’s balance any favors either, but it recovered a bit faster than I did and thrust out with its short-spear. It was as much luck as skill that I managed to get my axe in place to deflect the blow before I got skewered. I tried for a counter-attack, swinging low to try and take it’s ankles. The zombie angled it’s shield down to catch my blow, but that left it’s face vulnerable. I quick-drew another of my daggers to stab into the skull, but I didn’t quite get it into the eye-socket like I’d been aiming for. Anything living would’ve had all the fight taken out of ‘em by losing an eye and having half their face cut open, but the undead didn’t care about little things like pain. I risked a quick look away to check on Torch. Always dangerous to take your eyes off your opponent in the middle of duel, but not keeping an eye on the rest of the battlefield could get you killed just as quick. Torch was giving ground and dodging while his zombie did its best to shish kabob him. I think the kid was trying to look a bit more vulnerable than he actually was, and encourage the zombie to overcommit to a strike. As soon as it did, he sliced out his sword, and it went through the wooden shaft of the spear like a hot knife through butter. Shame my axe couldn’t pull that off. Enchanted heirloom weapons got to cheat a bit when it came to things like blade alignment and force transfer. If I swung for the spear shaft, I’d only do a little damage before the impact knocked my blade and the shaft off kilter and wasted the rest of the force. If I survived this with bits to spare, I’d have to see about finding some spellcaster to magic my axe up. ‘Course, soon as I got any of my gear fancied up I’d probably lose it. I’m just lucky that way. Instead I had to do things the old-fashioned way. Since the zombie’s shield smack had done such a good job on me, I decided to return the favor by ducking my shoulder and plowing straight into it. I might not be quite as quick on my hooves as I was a couple decades ago, but if anything I’d only gotten heavier. Meanwhile, your average zombie lost plenty of weight on account of rotting away. Dark magic could give them plenty of muscle, but not many necros bothered with adding on extra mass. Despite planting its legs pretty firmly, the zombie couldn’t stop me from bowling it over. I stayed right on top of it, too close for it to do anything with its spear or really build up for a proper shield bash. I couldn’t really get much use out of my axe either, but we were more than close enough for a bit of knife fighting. Not that my old standbys of slicing the throat or stabbing in the gut would do much good, but I could still do plenty of raw damage or try to get it into the brain for a proper kill. Or at least, that was the theory. Instead I felt something jump onto my back and punch me hard in the shoulder. I instinctively snapped my head around to look at the new attack, and nearly got stabbed in the face by one of Talon’s crossbow bolts. The one still sticking out of the mouth of the necro she’d shot a couple minutes back. “Damnit! He’s raising more of them!” I got off of the big guy and hurled myself back-first towards the wall of the barracks house. We hit hard enough to make my bones ache, and I wasn’t the one being crushed against a hard surface. A second later another crossbow whizzed dangerously close to my head, slamming into the zombie and pinning it to the wall. I wasn’t sure if it was down for good or not, but as long as it wasn’t a problem for me anymore, I was happy. Torch was having a rougher time of it. One of the newly-made zombies had jumped him as well, and he was a lot lighter than I was. Nobody’s slender and quick with a psychotic zombie hanging off their back, and it made it pretty hard for him to concentrate on any spells too. It was a good thing he’d taken the head off that first zombie’s spear, because it smacked him hard in the gut with the butt of its new staff. My other opponent hadn’t quite gotten back up and ready yet, so I had a moment to spare. “Duck!” To his credit, Torch immediately went flat, letting me sweep my axe over his head. The zombie on his back went flying off after my axe caved in its chest. From the way it didn’t get back up, I must’ve done enough damage to it’s heart to put it down for good. Generally, fresh-made zombies went down pretty easy. Too bad the real threats were the ones with lots of time and dark magic put into them. No sooner had I cleared the zombie off Torch’s back then I felt a speartip slam into my flank. I silently thanked the smith who’d made my chainmail a decade ago, because while I had a lot of busted rings, it held. Still, even with my gambeson for padding, I was going to have one heck of a bruise. The necromancer smirked as the two of us fell back to catch our breath. “Having trouble?” “Not as much as you’re going to have!” I snarled. “We’ll see about that.” I saw him working on a spell and got ready to dodge. However, instead of trying to disintegrate us like the last necro had, this guy sent the magic straight into his minions. Considering how much trouble the souped up zombies had been giving us already, the last thing we needed was for them to get a boost. The one Torch had been fighting grew a set of long bony claws to make up for his lost spear, and when they closed in on us, they were both moving a lot faster than zombies had any right to. I had to give ground, letting the zombie force me back with the superior reach of his weapon. I tried to get inside his range again, but with the new magical boost, I couldn’t get past his speartip. The one time I got close, all I got for my trouble was a shield bash that I barely managed to catch with my helmet instead of my face. It still rang my bells pretty good, but at least I wasn’t spitting out teeth. Torch was having the opposite problem for me. His clawed opponent was all over him, and he couldn’t buy enough space to do much more than fend the zombie off and smack it with the pommel. That fancy sword could probably take the zombie apart if he got a proper hit in, but Torch couldn’t do that without enough space to swing. Talon tried to help him out with another crossbow bolt, but the zombie was moving too fast, and her shot went wide. “Now would be a great time for a spell!” I shouted as I narrowly deflected another thrust. “I have one that could work!” Torch shot back. “But I’ll need a few seconds to concentrate.” “I’ll give it a shot!” I leapt at the clawed zombie like a madpony, completely ignoring the threat in front of me. I took another spear hit for that, but it wasn’t a straight enough hit to get through my armor. The claw zombie got knocked over, and I left behind another one of my daggers as I rolled clear. I’d only managed a leg hit, but hopefully the muscle damage would at least slow it down a little bit. Once I was back on my hooves, I started swinging my axe in broad sweeps, denying as much area as I could. Torch put the time to good use, closing his eyes and concentrating on whatever he was up to. That’s when the necro made a fatal mistake. If he’d sent both of the zombies at me, one of them would’ve gotten a real hit in. If he’d sent both after Torch, one of them would’ve gotten past me. Instead, he got greedy and tried to kill both of us at once. Claw zombie leapt at me, and thanks to the damaged leg, was just a hair slower at it than he needed to be. My axe was swinging a bit too wildly to land a proper hit on it, but I did send the undead monster staggering. Right into the path of his spear-wielding buddy who was trying to flank around and get a shot at Torch. It only tied them up for a second or two, but that was enough. I felt Torch slap me on the back, and before I could ask what the hay he’d done to me, I felt the spell hit. I felt ... best way to put it would be that I felt young again. Not just that I wasn’t old and sore, the mind too. Like I was the cocky little shit I’d been twenty years ago, back when I’d just started out as a merc and convinced I was immortal and the greatest warrior the world had ever seen. I almost wanted to stop and ask Torch what in Tartarus he had just done to me, but the middle of a fight really wasn’t the time for that. Kill the bad guys first, worry about the rest of it later. The claw zombie jumped at me again, but this time I was a lot quicker on my hooves. I slipped to the side and let it overextend itself trying to pounce on me, then turned that dodge into a slick little turn that added a bit more momentum to my next swing. As I saw the axe coming down, I realized the blade was glowing kinda purple, just like Torch’s sword did when when he had it charged up with a spell. This time my axe didn’t cut into the zombie, it cut through it. The two halves of the undead creature flopped down on the ground, both completely inert. Normally with a zombie this tough the top half would’ve kept moving, but I guess Torch’s magic saw to that. The other zombie did the smart thing and fell back to guard its master. Whenever your opponent does something new and unexpected, play it safe. Not that I had any intention of letting them have their way. I had no idea how long this spell would last, so I intended to make the most of it before I wore out. I rushed the zombie before it could properly set itself, swinging my axe it a heavy overhand chop. The undead managed move its shield so the head of my axe overshot the target, probably hoping I’d snap the shaft on the steel rim of its shield. Too bad for him I was young and nimble again, so I managed to pull the attack it hit. Then I hooked the rim of his shield with the underside of my axe, pulling forward. The zombie managed to keep hold of its shield, but it staggered forward half a step, off-balance. I snapped my axe forward, introducing the spike on my axe to its skull. The hole I punched into his head did enough brain damage to drop that zombie as well. With both his minions gone, the boss necromancer wasn’t looking anywhere near as confident as he’d been a minute ago. He quickly conjured up a thick dome shield of rippling blood-red energy, just in time to intercept another one of Talon’s crossbow bolts. No way I was going to let him just sit pretty inside a shield spell and catch his breath. Judging by the fact that he hadn’t thrown any attack spells out, this guy was obviously more of a minion master than a straight fighter. Give him some breathing room and he’d probably find some way to make more zombies to come after us. I hammered my axe into the shield spell, trying to chop into it like a tree stump. The first shot bounced off the rounded surface of his dome, but when I squared up for a second one I got a proper hit in, the axe head sinking into the shield and letting my carve a wedge out of it. The necromancer immediately got to work trying to fix it, but I kept chopping away, trying to open up a hole. As soon as I had one, Talon put a crossbow bolt through it. Much to my disappointment, one of her crossbow’s flights clipped the edge of the rapidly closing hole, and the bolt only managed to graze the necromancer’s leg. Not anywhere near enough damage to take him down. It did, however, make for a very good distraction. Torch came in from behind, and Chainbreaker carved through that dome shield way better than my axe had. The necro barely spotted him in time, switching over to some earth magic to put a solid non-magical stone barrier between himself and Torch. Too bad for the necromancer that keeping up one spell while casting another completely different one was hard to pull off. The shield holding me back stopped repairing itself, and my next couple chops tore huge holes into it. This time Talon’s shot flew true, burying itself into the necro’s chest. Judging by the bloody froth he coughed up, that was probably a killshot to the lung, but I didn’t see any reason to take a chance he might pull through. Not respecting the natural order of death was what necromancers did. The next swing of my axe closed out that possibility when it took off half his head. Maybe he was a smart little necromancer normally, but nobody’s smart with their brains outside their head. Torch still hit him with one last spell just to be sure. “He was a tough one, but that did the job.” “Good.” I took a look around the battlefield, and it looked like there wasn’t anyone else left with any fight in them. The guards we hadn’t killed were either tied up like the two tower guards we’d taken out early on, or were tossing down weapons and holding up their hooves. I took a few breaths, letting the adrenaline run down. “Right, looks like we've won this one. All that’s left now is collecting the spoils.” I grimaced. “And taking care of any ugly leftover business.” Talon flapped over to join us now that there wasn’t anyone left to shoot. “Plenty of cleanup to be done.” She nodded over at the barracks. A few of the bolder slaves were already starting to poke their heads out, trying to find out what happened now that the noise had stopped. Torch made a beeline for them, and while he was a bit too far away to make out what he was saying, it wasn’t hard to guess from how he’d put up his sword and was generally trying to seem as nice and non-threatening as possible. “Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.” Back when Torch brought up freeing the slaves, I figured we’d probably get swept up in some kind of big crazy celebration as they all went nuts once we told them the good news. Instead, they just kind of stood there numbly, barely even reacting as Torch went down the line with his sword and fulfilled the blade’s name in the most literal manner imaginable. Maybe none of them were saying or doing anything on account of being confused and half awake. This was the middle of the night, and most slaves were probably desperate for every scrap of sleep they could get. I didn’t think that was it, though. Some of them ... they reminded me of the really old soldiers at the clanhold. The ones who’d been on the sort of nasty jobs where if you asked about ‘em they’d tell you to shut up, then get nasty drunk and spend a week staring off into the distance like they weren’t even there anymore. Small surprise, considering what they’d been through. Lot of them looked barely more alive than the zombies we’d put down. Maybe I wasn’t surprised by how horrible it all looked, but that didn’t mean I was okay with it. They say you can get used to anything, but I damn sure never wanted to be someone who could look at something like this and not be disgusted. “I’ve seen animals treated better than them.” When one of the children shrank closer to her mother, I could see her back already had whip scars. Talon looked them over and grimaced. “See how so many of them are missing a leg or wing? I heard that in the sugar mills they’ve got a guard on standby with a machete to cut off any limb that gets caught in the equipment before it pulls them all the way in. After all, that might damage the machines.” She stared a bit longer, watching as Torch freed the last of the crippled slaves and moved on to the few children who’d been born in chains. “Makes you realize what the Council’s fighting for, doesn’t it?” “Yeah.” I turned away from the slaves to keep an eye on prisoners we’d taken. “Careful about getting your head in the clouds, Talon. Just ‘cause the Council’s got a nice-looking cause doesn’t mean they’re going to win. Don’t forget we came here to steal sugar for a big payday, not to play at being heroes.” “There a reason we can’t do both?” Talon shot back archly. “Not today,” I conceded with a grunt. “But tomorrow? Who knows.” I had a feeling things were about to get a bit heroic. Torch was bringing a group of newly freed slaves over to have a look at the guards we’d captured. Several of the slaves had their eyes on the weapons, and were starting to look quite a bit more lively as they realized how badly the tables had turned. The guards seemed to have some idea of what might be coming because one of them dropped to his knees and started begging. “Wait! Please! I was always—ask any of the slaves, they’ll say I was always nice to them!” Torch seemingly ignored him, turning to the slaves. “Let's make a trial of it.” He waved at the collection of discarded blades. “We’ll decide their fates one at a time. Starting with our volunteer. What do you think? Was he kind, and does he deserve mercy?” Talon and I sat back and watched as a couple of the slave mares grabbed knives and went to town on the supposedly nice guy. Guess he wasn’t so nice after all. Probably the kind of guy who figured tossing a moldy crust of bread to the slaves instead of in the garbage counted as charity. Still, this was basically mob justice. “Think we already stopped being heroes.” Talon watched dispassionately as they finished off the first guard and moved on down the line. “It’s not exactly nice, but I can’t say these guys don't deserve it. At least they’re keeping the executions clean.” She had a point. I’d heard some nasty rumors about how plantations punished any slaves who fought back or tried to escape. They got creatively sadistic. Guess they had to be. After all, plain old beatings and murder hadn’t been enough to stop the slaves from fighting back. Compared to hotboxes, flayings, and all the other twisted shit slavers got up to, getting cut to bits with their own weapons was downright tame. I grunted. “You don't see me raising a hoof to save them, do you? Still, not in the mood to watch this, and we’ve got work to do. I’ll have the men start gathering up the sugar, and anything else worth stealing. You and a couple guards work with Torch to keep this show-trial going, and once that’s done, make sure the ex-slaves don’t start setting everything on fire. At least not until we’re done looting the place and ready to leave. Got no objections to burning the place down to help cover our tracks and give them some payback, but I’d like to be long gone before anyone notices the bonfire and comes for a look.” Talon nodded. “Of course. Might be a good idea to have the troops see what we can find for the slaves, too. Sure there’ll be a food stockpile and other supplies, and I saw a few light boats for runs to the city and the other islands. Might as well point them towards anything that can help while we loot the place.” “No reason not to,” I grunted. “Once things settle, I’ll see if Torch can talk them into helping us with loading everything up. This’ll go a lot faster if we can get the ex-slaves to help us along. They’ll know where stuff is, and how to use any equipment we might need. Hopefully seeing us butcher their tormentors put us on their good side. Plus they get to keep whatever we don’t take. Long as we get our share, they’re welcome to loot enough of their old master’s stuff to set themselves up wherever they want.” “I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.” She took a deep breath, then nodded to herself. “Feels a lot better to be freeing them than it did to escort a ship full of them, doesn’t it?” I snorted. “Just to be nice for once, I’ll agree with you. Probably the best thing I’ve done in a long time. Let’s just hope this doesn't get us all killed. Doing a good deed is nice, and getting enough money to be back in the black is even nicer, but we’ve crossed a line. Hard to say for sure what that’ll end up meaning for us.”