Slumrat Rising

Chapter 42: A Dust Up

The mission was simple- escort the package from the pickup at the dock in the fishing village of Itum, County Hostfa, in the Ressilaud Free State, to the hand-off at an airstrip three hundred kilometers inland. The “airstrip” in this case is a reasonably flat stretch of scrub-filled desert twenty minutes drive from the village of Rezum, County Iilofa, still in the Ressilaud Free State.

Ressilaud was indeed a very free state. In that, there was no effective law enforcement. It was generally understood that the difference between a peaceful villager and a murderous bandit was one of attitude. And the locals changed their attitudes all the time.

Truth found himself leading the close protection detail for the package and its suit-wearing escorts. Frankly, he would rather be almost anywhere else… except for one crucial, beautiful thing. One of the suits, the most junior, coffee fetching, bag-holding, yes-man suits was none other than Ludovic, who Truth had last seen shitting himself in the customs booth during his national service.

It’s the little things sometimes. On the one hand, the mission parameters were beyond scuffed. On the other hand, Truth could watch Ludovic squirm when Truth gently reminded him about how “important and special” he was.

Truth was happily trying to figure out the most hurtful combination of lies he could tell about his income and sex life when a spell trap went off under the front carriage.

Blue-white light slammed up, crackling like ants on a frying pan against the ward. Burning through in a fraction of a second, using the last of its energy to melt a molten orange crack in the armor. Earth demons, thick-bodied, slow, and cold, chased the burning light up and into the breach. The wards were good, the armor better- and it held up about as well as tissue paper. The spell trap could only keep the demons summoned for a few seconds but it was more than long enough.

Truth couldn’t see what happened in the shattering instant, but he knew everyone in that carriage was dead. The demons twisted back out through the gap, slipping like cold smoke back into the earth, leaving the front carriage as a barricade across the road.

It all happened in less than a second. Five men dead, a two hundred and fifty thousand wen armored luxury carriage torn apart. The brutalized remains hurtling towards Truth and his protectees.

“Sharp, Steel!” Truth bellowed in his mind, grabbing the fetish built into the side of the carriage. Out loud, he yelled, “Plan C, GO HARD!” The driver slammed as much cosmic energy as he could into the carriage, the chained spirit howling in outrage as it was whipped forward. The fetish amplified the spell Truth cast through a large multipurpose array built into the floor. In front of the carriage, a wide triangular steel plow materialized. Its central ridge was sharper than any razor. The carriage cleared the intervening a hundred meters at speed, the spell slicing through the body of the destroyed carriage ahead. The broken halves bounced off the plow, falling in a spray of broken, partial corpses to either side of the road.

“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!”

“Ludovic, on Prager’s nuts I will knock you out if you don’t shut the fuck up and settle down!” Truth bellowed.

“Ghost Dust. Faerie Fire.” He ordered the System to load up detection spells and launched them out of the carriage.

“Green Star to Black Rock, Contact with Hostiles. Two-thirds of combat effectives remain. Package and protectees intact. Moving to Plan C.” Truth heard the comms specialist relaying the situation.

A cloud of super fine particles exploded out from the carriage, but instead of trailing behind like a streamer they floated in a flattened disk around the central carriage. Spectral shapes emerged from the cloud. Twisted, angry, or simply blank and amorphous. Other things too- more mechanical-looking constructs, witch crafted beasts, and floating curses driven by thousands of tadpole-shaped eyes.

And while they were out of position, they were closing in fast.

“Damn!” Truth activated the coms talisman. “All Hands, assume encirclement. Drivers, activate plows and breakers. Summoners- deploy iron bee familiars. Continue Plan C.” Truth didn’t have time to give more detailed orders. He didn’t need to. The other guards in the carriage and the carriage behind him were all Starbrite PMC pros. And unlike him, they hadn’t rocketed up the ranks. This shit? A normal fucking Tuesday.

The protection mission was made up of three armored carriages, each carriage holding five PMC guards. The middle carriage, the one Truth was riding in, was larger to accommodate the three suits and the package. Which was a heavily armored black case, 122 cm tall, and about half that wide and deep.

All Truth knew about the case was that he, and the suits, were all wired with a dozen deadman triggers, most of which they did not control, that would detonate the package and atomize anything within a dozen meters of it. Leaving out the suits, the package, and the dead squad, he had ten soldiers under his command, of which two were coms, two were summoners, and six were all-rounders. All Level Two, for price efficiency, apparently.

Truth had heard one of the suits muttering about “Security through obscurity” and almost had a stroke. Even he wasn’t that dumb. And yet, these very important suit stuffers with advanced college degrees were.

The summoners had their iron bees out just in time, as the first wave of ghosts slammed in. The ghosts were twisted, misshapen things, once human, harvested God knows how and branded with sigils of torment and compulsion. Screaming and howling, they fell on the wagons, flickering in the already harsh morning light. The bees tore through them, shredding their ectoplasmic forms and breaking the curses binding them. Some of the ghosts could try and pull themselves back together. For most, they simply returned to the essence, all chance of an afterlife stolen from them twice over.

The demons were made of hardier stock, their semi-solid flesh standing up to more punishment before disintegrating. The demons did reform, however, howling in misery as base matter once more wove through them. You couldn’t kill demons, but you could break them if you shredded them long enough. Or took out the summoner.

“Summoners located, painting targets!” One of the comms shouted. They had traced the stellar rays controlling the ghosts and demons back to their origin. Now it was time for the rest of the squad to counterattack.

Portable altars built into the carriages were splashed with blood. Rapid fire enochian chants pulled tiny angelic forms, all twisting wheels and burning eyes, from whatever higher existence they inhabited. Each was bound by its proper sign and name, then ordered to follow the trace and kill the necromancers at the other end. They would clear out most of the flying curses as they went.

The whole operation took less than a minute. While the angels were being summoned, huge area suppression spells were being launched from the array on the roof. Fireballs, sticky like tar. Slithering serpents made of cold iron needles. A sphere that was beyond mere darkness, it was the death of light. Raining down where the necromancers were hiding.

There was a sudden break in the spectral horde. Apparently, the necromancers found something more important to deal with. Which meant it was time for the witch crafted puppets to shine.

Charging through the cloud of detection spells, the puppets were rimmed with glowing faerie fire. Fetishes, the big clunky sticks that the talisman maintenance tech in Truth despised, poked out of the carriages. Mystic swords, summoned by the System and the Magus’ will, slashed down with grotesque strength on the puppets. The veiling magics were dispelled and the puppets revealed their forms.

Things of wood and clay, woven with bits of animals and poisonous herbs. They exploded when cut apart- some into clouds of seaweed colored smoke, others into swarms of wasps bigger than a man’s palm and dripping venom. Some did manage to reach the carriages, weaving through the spells. Their claws seemed to ignore the wards and left long scores in the armor. Truth was still pushing out the Ghost Dust and Faerie Fire, so he yelled to the driver- “Hit’em with the bumper!”

A thrumming noise and then the puppets were in the air and flying back as the kinetic energy spell punted them away. The rest of the guards had fun shooting skeet for a minute, and then they were gone.

It looked like they were through the ambush, at least for the moment. “Report by squad. Squad 2?”

“No casualties here, sir. A couple of burnt out talismans and the altars are melted, but otherwise we are in good shape. The carriage took a little damage from the puppets, but overall, no damage to function.”

“Squad 3?”

“About the same, Sergeant. Comms says that there are no more active necromantic summons in range, but she’s picking up some kind of aetheric signaling. It’s very faint and very randomized. It could be something very far away, or something well veiled and right up next to us.”

“Narrow it down.”

“Best she can do is “Inside of ten klicks,” Sarge.”

He let out a long sigh. “Alright. Good job everyone. Stay sharp, this isn’t over.”

The suits had been freaked out during the ambush, which Truth reckoned was fair enough. He sniffed. Raising an eyebrow in surprise he looked over at Ludovic and his dry trousers, who glared back at him. There was a certain glassiness to the glare, though. Truth looked over at the head suit. A person whose name he was not told, and who’s face he was told to forget. And yet, they brought Ludovic, whom Truth had served with. Either Ludovic didn’t pass on that tidbit, or they didn’t care. Either way… not impressed.

“You tranqued him?”

“We all took some Shabet. Seemed wise to take the edge off.” The suit shrugged. “You say this isn’t over?”

“Did… sorry, occupational hazard, I assume everyone knows what I know.” Truth smiled awkwardly. “No part of that assault was cheap. Just the ghosts alone, in labor, it must have been hundreds of hours. Not amazing ghosts, sure, mostly Level One, but still. The demons would have needed both sacrifices and sigils, which is not a small cost on that scale. The curses were mass produced, which means that they had access to large scale curse production.” Truth took a deep breath.

“The witch crafted puppets are a whole other story- those were not quite military grade, but only because they were too fragile. In terms of their offensive capability, speed, handling and payload? As good or better than what most ordinary soldiers would have access to.” Truth shook his head.

“All of which ignores the two mammoths in the room- the demon spell trap and the actual necromancers themselves. That spell trap was overkill. It would have shredded anything below Level Four, and probably given Level Four’s a real bad time too. I don’t know what it would cost, because I can tell you that the System won’t sell it, even to the PMC, without authorization from higher up. Which brings us to the necromancers.”

Truth moved his hands, trying to explain what felt intuitively obvious to him. “That was not some little swarm of demons and ghosts. It was, in fact, a couple hundred of them. Now, we were ready for them, and our defenses were intact. Our summoners were able to focus and get the bees deployed almost instantly.”

He chopped his hand through the air.

“BUT. If we had crashed into the first carriage that got taken out, it would have at a minimum slammed everyone around. People would have been disoriented and slow to react, assuming they didn’t die. The ghosts and demons would have swarmed through the weakened wards and armor, slaughtering everyone. The ambush was professionally organized, superbly staffed, and lavishly equipped.”

Truth closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. “You are goddamn right we are going to get hit again. These aren't bandits. It’s an actual army.