“Never!” Donut cried. She was shaking with rage. “I’ll never team up with you! Traitor!”
“Donut,” Hekla said, calm as can be. “We need to be practical. There’s no time for this. You need to breathe.”
But Donut would not stop shaking. “I used to think you were awesome, Hekla. But you’re just like all the rest! You pretend to be good, but you’re not! It was a lie, all a lie. Why? Why can’t we trust anyone? You told Katia you wanted her. You made her feel special and loved, but you just wanted to use her and trade her in.”
Katia finally awakened. She sat up, eyes wide. She took in the room. “Carl? Eva? What’s happening?”
“Hekla tried to murder you, that’s what’s happening!” Donut yelled. “We don’t even know why. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Control your fucking animal, or I will shut her up,” Eva growled.
I put my hand on the side of Donut’s head in an attempt to calm her. It was starting to dawn on me why Donut was having such a visceral reaction to this. The monumental revelation hit me like a goddamned truck, but we didn’t have time to deal with it now. “We need to stay calm, okay?”
“She didn’t do anything wrong, Carl. She did her best. It’s not fair.”
“I know, Donut.”
“Guys, please,” Katia said. She stood on wobbly legs. “What is going on? I can’t remember…” She trailed off. “Everything hurts.”
Hekla sighed and leaned up against the wall of the train. Her knives disappeared into her inventory. She pulled a pack of cigarettes, popped one into her mouth, and lit it. “Well this backfired. God, I need a shower. Anybody want a cigarette?”
At that exact second, that exact moment, I wanted nothing more in the universe than to take her up on that. But Donut remained on my shoulder, and I didn’t dare move closer.
“Look, we’re all adults here,” Hekla said. “We need to get to the other engine. The track is clear. So you three can hang back, if you want. Or just take this engine and go the other way. I don’t care. It’s over. What is the American phrase? No harm, no foul? But you’re right, Carl, we don’t need this. It was a stupid risk.”
“I don’t know what ‘this’ is,” I said. “I thought for sure you were going to try to kill me. But Katia? Why?”
Katia, eyes still huge, was looking back and forth between us. “Eva?” she asked.
“It’s nothing. Go outside, Katia. The others are waiting for you.”
“Don’t do it,” Donut said. “They tried to hurt you, Katia. You can stay with us. We’ll get out of here. Okay? We won’t ever abandon you. And we won’t be filthy liars, either.”
“Can we just take this down a notch,” Katia said. “For god’s sake. I don’t know what’s happening. Why don’t I remember?”
“Because Hekla shot you with a scary arrow that was going to kill you.”
Hekla laughed, and it sounded unhinged. “Bolt, Donut. It was a bolt.”
“No,” Katia said. “You were both shooting. You hit me with a magic missile, Donut. You were aiming at the ghouls. I remember. It was an accident. That’s okay.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Hekla said. She flicked her cigarette away and pushed herself from the wall. “Come on, Eva. We need to hurry.”
“No, wait,” Katia said. “Please. We can’t…”
“Damnit, Katia,” Eva said. “Quit being stupid. Come with us. You’re always fucking like this. Just do what I say.”
“I’m just trying to figure this out. Hekla, you hurt me on purpose? Why? Did I do something?”
Eva growled. “You were always saying you felt useless, Katia. You were being useful. We weren’t really going to kill you. We just wanted Carl’s famous temper to flare. Now shut the hell up and come.”
“I… what?” Katia asked. “You used me? For what?”
“Oh, Katia,” Eva said, voice dripping with mock concern. She impersonated Katia’s voice. “For what? For what?”
“Eva,” Hekla said. “Drop it. Remember your anger. Let’s go. It’s done.”
Eva did not drop it. She continued to mock Katia. “What? Fannar left me for one of his students? What? They’re not going to let me adopt. Why me? Boo hoo. For fuck’s sake, Katia. Open your goddamn eyes. Quit being so naïve. Look where we are. Look at what we need to do to survive. This is why I left you behind on the third floor. This is why you’re such a damn fuck up. This is why nobody likes you. Because you’re so damn confused all the fucking time. Now for once in your pitiful life do the right thing and get away from those two.”
Katia had a special ability she didn’t like to use very often.
Rush, it was called. It turned her body into a battering ram. When activated, she blasted forward, shattering everything in her path. She could only use it once a day, and when she did use it, it knocked all the wind out of her, even if she didn’t actually hit anything. As a result, I knew she abhorred the skill, despite Mordecai’s insistence that she use it as often as possible.
Also, the skill wasn’t predictable. Sometimes when she used Rush, her body flew forward five feet. Sometimes it flew forward twenty, and there didn’t seem to be any sort of rhyme or reason to the discrepancy.
In addition, the angle in which she rushed forward wasn’t always perfectly straight. Mostly her body dashed straight forward in the direction she was facing, but sometimes, every once in a while, she flew slightly off-center.
And that’s what happened this time. Katia screamed something incomprehensible, and she activated Rush. She was aiming at her former friend Eva. She missed her by inches.
Instead, she inadvertently became the first crawler on this season of Dungeon Crawler World to kill one of the top 10 and claim a bounty.
In this case it was Hekla the Amazonian Shieldmaiden, the current number two in the game, whom she splattered against the interior wall of the train, thus earning herself a bounty of 500,000 gold.
And in that moment, just before all hell broke loose all over again, I finally noticed Katia’s level. She’d been level 24 when she’d formed herself into a cowcatcher at the front of the train. When she fell back from the wall, skull forming over her head—a special, golden skull—I saw that she was now level 37.
24
Hekla’s body peeled off the wall and collapsed into a heap.
System Message. A champion has fallen. A bounty has been claimed.
The door to the train flew open, and the two mages and healer burst in. More of the daughters crowded in behind them, screaming and crying.
“Katia, what did you do? What did you do?” Eva cried.
Carclass="underline" Mic Drop. Platform. Get ready. Wait for my signal. Katia, grab her crossbow!
Donut: WON’T WORK. TRAIN WALL IN THE WAY. WE NEED TO GET OUTSIDE FIRST!
A magic missile blasted me in the chest, and I fell back against the open window. I almost tumbled outside. It felt as if I’d been hit with a sledgehammer. My Wisp Armor spell was still active. Still, the spell had taken almost a quarter of my health away.
At the same moment, Eva lunged at Katia, swords flashing. Hekla reached up and caught one saber in her hand. The sword sunk into the soft flesh, splitting her palm in two. The other sword bounced off the Amazonian’s breastplate as she pulled herself to her feet, ghoul gore showering off her. Eva was so shocked that she recoiled back in surprise, dropping that first sword, which splashed onto the train’s floor. A second Hekla appeared and picked up the cowering snake woman by the neck and tossed her through the window just as a third Hekla rose to her feet. Eva cried out as she disappeared. I heard her crash onto the track below.
The other daughters scattered back, confused and crying out.
“Holy shit, Donut,” I said, scrambling forward. She’d cast Second Chance on Hekla’s corpse, and then she’d cast Clockwork Triplicate on the minion, creating three Heklas. It was brilliant. It was fucked up, but it was brilliant.