Mask of Humanity

As the three of them made their way outside and looked over the bridges, Nicolai noticed something had changed.

There were no longer any archers floating over the largest bridge, and there were also fewer undead on that bridge in general. Looking further afield, he noted other bridges, all of which had previously been manned by undead, but now some of them had no undead atop them.

Had people killed the undead? He saw no corpses or other signs of a fight. Most likely someone or a group had indeed killed them, at least the floating archers. He couldn’t be the only one to have worked out they flew via use of Imbued, Imbued that could be stolen from their corpses. Likely the Chosen had killed them, a task that shouldn’t have been overly difficult now they had guns. But what of all the other undead? There were hundreds less than there had been. He doubted people had killed all the spearmen and standard archers, there wouldn’t be much point unless they had Soul Traps, and so far as he knew no one else did. Had they gone somewhere? There was no way to know.

With his increasingly well-explored map, he led the girls to a secret entrance that took them down a stairwell to a lower bridge and they started across.

As they went he turned to shoot a smile at Jo, figuring he’d break the ice and see about alleviating the current coolness between him and them. He gestured to the area around them.

‘How is it, to be back in your old h—‘ he began, but cut himself off before he could finish the words: hunting grounds. His Mask was shaking its head disapprovingly, informing him that wasn’t a good memory for her, not based on his understanding of things. ‘I mean…’ The girls were staring at him, Jo frowning. He coughed, giving himself some time. ‘Nice out here, isn’t it?’ he managed at last. ‘In the sun.’ He knew that his words were more awkward than casual-friendly, not quite the vibe he’d been going for. Still, better than nothing.

‘Yeah, ree-aal nice. Shame about the company.’ Beth smirked nastily at him.

Nicolai turned away and kept walking. Point to Beth. Perhaps saying nothing would in fact have been better.

###

He had Jo take up position in a covered bridge, protected by its rooftop and wall, peering down her rifle towards a specific spot. Beth remained with her, guarding her sister.

Meanwhile, he approached the spot he’d told Jo to watch over. Heading around the curving wall of the bastion, he saw light glinting off of his polearm where it was buried in the wall.

No signs of the archers. Not only were they gone from the bridge, he was also unable to see any watching over his polearm. His eyes lingered on the messy mass of rooftops crowning the buildings above. The place where the archer who’d almost shot him from ambush had emerged, last time he was here. His money was on them hiding up there, if any were still waiting around, but there were also some crevices in the stone below the polearm where others could hide. He considered having the drones take off from where he’d left them, in a bag Beth held, but opted not to bother. He was confident he didn’t need to know the exact locations of the archers, as there were truly only two spots they could wait in, and he worried that if they saw the drones they would shoot them down, a loss he saw no reason to risk.

As he approached the spot, he checked his Node and found it a little drained, the result of continuously energising his unfinished Nodes. He drew from an Oma crystal until his heart’s Node was full then charged up his Sheltering Glove, Darting-Talon Rapier, and Pegasi Ring. He didn’t anticipate needing the Blue Hornet for this, and it used more Oma than anything else he had; a loss he didn’t want when the only thing keeping him floating would be the Oma he provided his Pegasi ring. The crystal crumbled to dust so he took another one and refilled his Node to full, his aim being to keep it as full as possible at all times.

After a sweeping glance around and up, Nicolai stepped off the edge and into open air. He floated gently downwards, then reached out and grasped his polearm, tugging on it and finding it stuck. He planted his legs to the stone beside it and heaved and it came free with a start, sending him floating backwards. As he moved, he heard a faint sound from above. Nicolai knew what this signified.

His arm snapped up and his shield hummed into life in time to deflect an arrow, then a second one.

Two archers floated above, emerged from hiding but now still in the air, nocking fresh arrows, still and patient.

That stillness cost them when a gunshot rang out, echoing off the walls.

One of the archers’ heads practically exploded as the heavy 7.62 round from Jo’s rifle smashed through, annihilating helmet and skull both. Good aim, Nicolai noted. The dead archer pinwheeled down to crash onto the ledge above Nicolai, who kept his shield raised between him and the last archer. He cast a wary gaze down to where he’d suspected another might hide. As he did so he saw it emerge, floating out of hiding, an arrow already knocked, twisting to take aim at him.

The arrow was loosed with a snap, humming through the air, and at the same time he heard the twang of a bowstring above. He was already twisting in the air, floating sideways, but the Pegasi ring’s flight was slow. His rapier lunged in front of him and his vision narrowed to its slender length, his Soul Sense surrounding it, the arrow zipping up at him. The world stilled, an indrawn breath.

With a clatter he caught the arrow from the air and it spun past him. At the same moment he felt a loss of energy from his glove as another arrow was deflected from above. This was not a good position to be in, pinned between archers. But things had changed. Nicolai was no longer a lone operator.

He heard another gunshot. ‘Got it,’ Jo’s voice crackled in his ears. A glance up showed him the upper archer falling, its head gone. Jo was just as effective as he’d hoped she would be.

He held his shield now between him and the archer below, while he continued upwards. He tossed his polearm to clatter on the ledge beside the two fallen archers.

The archer down there turned and started drifting away, not even bothering to shoot again. It knew the ambush had failed and had opted to simply leave.

Unacceptable. Nicolai floated down, chasing after it, and briefly communicated over Local to Jo.

‘Leave this one to me,’ he told her. If she shot it, it would fall and he would lose its Pegasi ring. ‘Keep watch for third parties.’

‘Understood,’ she replied, her voice filtering into his ears through the tiny microphones the Cherubic Surgeon had installed as part of his BIS.

The archer had a head start and it also moved slightly faster than him, which he surmised was due to its lighter weight. This was a problem. As it noticed him chasing after, it turned in the air whilst continuing to float backwards, nocked an arrow, and shot at him. He deflected the arrow easily enough with his shield, but this was a twofold problem. The deflection knocked him back very slightly. On top of that, he was rapidly consuming Oma, and he knew he didn’t have all that much to spare. Every crystal used brought him closer to the danger of running dry at which point he’d risk his lung’s exploding. He needed to finish this quick, and to stop it shooting at him or he’d never even get close enough.

Nicolai drew his pistol from its holster and took aim while continuing to float towards the archer, moving his shield out of the way, safe for the moment as it had yet to finish nocking a new arrow.

He took a moment, lining up the Glock’s iron-sights and sighting down them whilst the archer finished nocking its arrow. It drew back on the string while Nicolai let out a slow breath, no rush. It was sighting down the arrow as he squeezed the trigger.

Its arm jerked as the bullet smashed into it, bowstring jerking, arrow released to spin off in a random direction. He shot it again, catching it in the side, and the force made it spin gently in the air. It seemed greatly confused. His next shot caught its bow and the wood splintered and cracked. It had slowed down and was now almost still and Nicolai quickly closed with it.

It turned to resume its retreat but now his Soul Sense, and therefore the rapier, could reach it. The rapier looped behind it, reversed and caught it in the stomach with the hilt, pressing it back towards him. It tried to grab at the rapier but he had it slide out of reach. The archer pulled a knife as he drew within arm’s reach, turning to face him.

He caught its wrist and shot it three times in the head. Blue light vented. Its body slumped, limp, the knife falling while he holstered the pistol, and then he had to hold tight to it as it became a dead-weight that started dragging him down.

Nicolai pushed more power into the Pegasi ring but it wasn’t enough, the Imbued ring wasn’t capable of lifting the weight of both of them, it merely slowed their fall.

He needed to get the ring off of it, quick. Nicolai wrapped his legs around the dead archer, hooking one of his feet under a knee, clasping it in a triangle. He started tearing at its gauntlet which seemed sealed onto its hand. Their slow fall towards the jungle below continued as he struggled.

His rapier slotted itself back into its sheath while with the help of a knife and both hands he managed to get the gauntlet free from the archer’s hand and tossed it aside. He chopped next at the leather wrapping its hand until he saw fingers and thumb. No ring.

Nicolai tugged and squirmed, shifting the weight of the dead archer around until he got its other hand and started work. Despite his gradual downwards descent, he wasn’t particularly worried, in no rush because he knew if he rushed he’d just be slower overall. He’d just have to float back from however far he descended, which shouldn’t present any problems. The Pegasi ring’s flight might be slow and incapable of lifting too great a weight, but at the very least it was relatively cheap to use. Still, it was best to get the ring off fast, so as not to waste too much Oma.

That was when the Swollen Eye amulet around his neck let out a pulse which he felt within his Soul. Someone or something was looking at him with unkind eyes.

Nicolai heard a piercing, predatory avian cry, and then a heavy, thudding, boom, boom, boom, shaking the air.

He jerked his head around and up, spotting a gigantic bird resembling a great eagle only the size of a bus. It had appeared from behind a bridge and came straight for him, each mighty beat of its wings clapping at the air. Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare gibbered with excitement at the sight of it, such a fantastical being, and Nicolai might’ve felt the same except that it, as he pointed out to the Modules, probably saw him as something to eat.

‘Shoot it!’ he spoke to Jo over Local while drawing his sawn-off. He pressed the barrels to the undead’s wrist and pulled both triggers. Twinned eruptions blew the wrist into desiccated splinters of flesh and bone and the hand detached. He shoved the sawn-off back into its holster and slid the detached hand between his hip and belt, gripping the archer tight as he watched the bird.

He heard the crack of a gunshot from above and saw a faint puff of red on the bird’s face.

It didn’t appear to notice being shot. Its beak spread wide as it swooped at great speed toward him.

A grin stretched Nicolai’s lips, and he let himself fall faster but it wasn’t fast enough, the bird closing the distance in seconds. At the last moment Nicolai shoved and kicked the dead archer away from him, using its weight to launch himself backwards and activating his Pegasi ring at full strength to send himself sideways, out of its line.

The bird’s great beak closed like scissors around the archer’s corpse, releasing a chorus of snaps and cracks he felt more than heard.

Its wings jerked with another great boom as it zoomed past him, and one of those great, heavy wings caught him like a rolled-up newspaper slapping a fly in the air. At the same moment he felt its Soul Sense which slapped at his own with similar power, rocking his Soul.

It was a massive, bone-jarring collision that filled Nicolai’s view with feathers and then he was spinning madly through the air, launched even further down, careening, momentarily stunned and confused, his mind reeling even as his body did, the Pegasi ring’s Art interrupted.

He regathered himself enough to re-activate the Pegasi ring, arresting his fall and re-orienting himself then beginning to float back upwards, and he turned to see the bird rising through the air, circling back towards him, dropping the archer’s corpse and letting out an angry, piercing shriek as its eyes settled onto him. At the very least it was distant enough he couldn’t feel its Soul Sense. His Soul was hurting after their brief contact.

Seems it prefers living flesh to dead. Understandable, but not a good thing from his perspective. He was far down now, maybe halfway between where he’d started and the jungle below which had come into closer detail as he fell. He could hear shrieks and howls, the animalistic life down there doing what it did. The walls of the bastions down here were far more stark, lacking the crevices and cracks the archer had hid in above.

Nicolai floated upwards as fast as he could manage, clutching at another Oma crystal and reducing it to dust that fell through his fingers.

The bird was beating its wings heavily, rising upwards in mirror of Nicolai, gaining altitude for its next dive-bomb. There came a gunshot, and this time Nicolai didn’t even see any red on the bird, nor did it react.

Another cracking gunshot. Jo couldn’t have loaded another bullet that fast. Something was up.

‘We’re under attack!’ came her voice into his ears, ‘there’s a grou—‘

Her voice cut off into static as someone worked to jam their connection, and Cyberwarfare jumped into action, launching itself through the jam and working to re-establish the connection while attacking whoever it was.

Nicolai didn’t have time to worry about Jo and Beth and Cyberwarfare because the bird had gained its altitude and now it was accelerating down towards him.

Nicolai had few options. The Pegasi ring was too slow for him to evade it. He didn’t think the Blue Hornet would charge in time, and it would also draw a lot of Oma which he needed to maintain his flight. On his tactical vest there were four grenades, and his hand touched upon one of the fragmentation grenades, then he paused, and instead took hold of one of the concussion-chaffbangs, drew it from its pouch and pressed its Link-pairing button.

Through his Link he located the signal it was broadcasting and quickly connected to it, Cyberwarfare’s focus shifting to protecting and maintaining that connection. The bird was closer and closer. He drew back his arm and hurled it upwards in one smooth, powerful movement.

The chaffbang arced through the air. The bird opened its beak wide, its eyes boring into him, its wings still as it swooped silently down.

Nicolai watched the grenade and as it was passing in front of the birds eyes, he detonated it over the Link connection, turning his eyes away and putting his hands to his ears. Would it work against a gigantic bird? He could only hope so, because if it didn’t, he was dead.