Chapter 112 - Men Like You

  Gideon made his way back down to the waterfront. The ruins of the Echo Center still smoked from his attack. The undead rats had done their job perfectly, spreading out around the building before deliberately smashing the bottle-bombs tied to their backs. Once one went off, that was the signal for all the others to do likewise, and the resulting explosions had torn the building to shreds.

  Part of him hated doing that. His daughter Kim had loved that place. It was a wonderland for children who were into the sciences, and his precocious child wanted to be a doctor like her dad, so she’d adored the Echo Center. But the villains who’d been occupying it had turned a place of joy into one of terror, and that couldn’t be allowed to continue.

  “They’ve withdrawn, sir,” Brian said. He’d risked bringing his second in command with him. Brian had grown into a warrior this past week, and Gideon needed warriors today. “They’re on the boats, offshore. Just like you expected.”

  “They’re not especially bright,” Carver replied. “Makes them predictable.”

  In a way, it was disappointing. He’d have relished a surprise of some sort, a stratagem worthy of fighting. In good novels, the villains were always masterminds, powerful people bent on enforcing their will upon the world in creative and difficult to stop manners. Unfortunately, the real world was something different. These weren’t Bond villains; they were thugs, idiots who realized that their newfound might lent them power they’d lacked before the Event.

  They hadn’t used that power to make the world around them better. Quite the opposite. But they hadn’t even been creative or interesting in their destruction. They’d fallen into the same base evils that mankind had dealt to one another for millennia.

  “I think it’s time,” Gideon said. “That little rowboat there, moving from one ship to another? What’s left of their leadership is gathering on the largest boat. Probably meeting to discuss what to do next.”

  “You think they’ll come after us at the fort, sir?” Brian asked. He had good cause to be concerned—his family was back there, well-defended by the walls and the human troops, plus the undead granted to Gideon by the control stone.

  Gideon shook his head. “I’m sure they’ll want to. But I have no intention of letting them. It’s time to put my plan into motion. I will need to guide my undead, though, and at that range it will require all my concentration. You and the others will have to guard me while I do this, understood?”

  “We won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t,” Gideon said, resting a calm hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You’ve done exceptionally well. I’m glad you showed yourself to me when you did.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Gideon sat himself down, hidden by piles of broken stone. There were no more enemies nearby—he’d had his undead sweep the area earlier. No monsters, and no so-called ‘pirates’ either. The only living things nearby were himself, Brian, and his small honor guard.

  Of course, there were plenty of unliving things nearby, as well.

  Carver had tweaked his fighting force for this operation. Rather than sending in a horde of weak rats, he’d made the point of taking a different tack this time. The ‘pirates’ loved their boats. They were adept on the water, there was no doubt about it. They felt safe out there, secure in the knowledge they’d see zombie rats swimming their way in plenty of time.

  But they should have watched more cinema in the years before the Event, because if they had, they might have realized that a ship at anchor is still vulnerable to certain types of undead attack.

  Gideon sent mental commands to the force of undead he’d built. There were twenty tier three skeleton juggernauts already in the water, waiting just deep enough so they were invisible. Along with them were four tier one skeletons, each carrying a heavy load of explosive potions. At his order, all twenty-four undead marched silently along the lake bed toward the three ships at anchor not far away.

  They were gorgeous boats, and part of him felt sad at what was about to happen to them. If he was lucky, the big ship might survive. It was a two mast schooner that had plied the lake waters with tours and rides before everything went to hell. If it could be captured, that would be ideal. Having a navy appealed to Gideon. Lake Champlain was too nearby to ignore it entirely.

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  In just a short time, the undead reached their target. It was pushing Gideon’s magic to the limit to maintain control over them at this range, but he was accomplishing it, and that’s what mattered. He didn’t need to maintain control for long, just for long enough.

  Each boat had two anchors. For the smaller vessels, one of the tier one skeletons carefully climbed each anchor. Once they reached the bottom of the boat, they used daggers to attach themselves there, and waited for his signal.

  This was the tricky part. Gideon was fairly sure that the pirates had centered their Domain around the Echo Center, which his rats had destroyed. But if they'd centered it on the main boat instead, they'd sense his undead as they approached. He all but held his breath as they grew ever nearer to their target, hoping he'd been right.

  The twenty juggernauts, however, went up the anchors of the largest ship without anyone noticing. They managed to scale their way aboard and dispatch two exhausted sentries without being noticed. By the time the first shouts of alarm carried across the water from the pirates’ ship, Gideon already had six juggernauts aboard.

  He had the four tier one skeletons trigger their explosives as a distraction. Four loud booms echoed across the water, and fountains of water and foam shot skyward from each side of the two smaller vessels. The skeletons he’d been controlling were gone, but they’d done what he needed. Both boats were already listing, taking on water rapidly through the massive holes he’d blasted in the bottom of their hulls. Using skeletons with alchemical explosives like limpet mines had been Brian’s brainchild, and Gideon had been quick to implement the idea after it was offering.

  Two boats down. One to go.

  Pirates rushed up onto the deck of the ship. Gideon could sense them through the feedback he got from his minions. It wasn’t like he could see through their eyes, not precisely. But he could sense what they sensed, at least in a broad manner. The enemy was rushing out, but most of them stared aghast at the sinking wrecks nearby. They weren’t paying enough attention to the real danger.

  By the time the pirates knew what was going on, the juggernauts already had two firm beach heads on the ship. Ten of his undead were aboard, and then twelve, fourteen… Gideon’s best guess was there were perhaps twenty people aboard the ship, so he’d matched them with his undead. In a straight up fight, the pirates almost certainly would have won, even so.

  But distracted by the explosions ruining their other ships, with two sentries dead before they could so much as swing a weapon? The pirates were starting off weak, and it only grew worse from there.

  All of his undead were aboard now. Gideon opened his eyes and rose, turning to Brian. “The boat is ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  They moved swiftly to the shore, where two of his guards had already rigged a sailboat capable of carrying the seven of them out onto the water. Gideon stepped aboard, then moved quickly to the bow. It would be his job to keep them all safe as they approached the vessel. It wasn’t likely the pirates would even notice their boat, given they were fighting for their lives against his undead. But Gideon intended to complete this mission with all his people intact.

  The combat raged on the ship ahead of them, and they sailed on almost without incident. One pirate spotted them once their boat was very close, and shouted an alarm. Gideon cast Harm on the man, killing him instantly. He tumbled into the lake. No other pirates raised the alarm, so they moved the boat right up against the side of the larger ship and tossed home-made grappling hooks over the rail.

  “Ready? Let’s go!” Brian called out. Then he was scrambling up the rope as fast as he could move, which was very fast with his tier three Strength and Agility.

  Gideon had wanted to lead the way, but Brian wouldn’t hear of it, and he had to admit that it made more sense for him to join the fight after the others. He waited his turn, leaving two guards on his boat to watch it until the rest returned. His Strength was tier five, so it was a matter of moments to ascend into the ship.

  Once he was on the main deck, Gideon quickly took stock of the situation. The juggernauts were still active. About half of them were destroyed, but the rest battled on against a much smaller number of pirates. Of those, only one showed up as a serious threat: a tier five with a sword who moved like lightning. Clearly, the man had exceptional Agility, but so did Gideon.

  In a flash he was there, crossing the man’s sword with his own just seconds before the pirate would have cut down Brian.

  “I’ve put a lot of work into him. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t chop him up,” Gideon told the pirate, who gaped at him, then closed his mouth in a snarl.

  “You!”

  “So articulate. Yes, me,” Gideon said, parrying a quick series of blows. He hadn’t fought with swords since fencing lessons in college, decades ago, but he’d discovered it was a little bit like riding a bike—one might get rusty, but you never completely lost the knack.

  “Why? We were going to ally with you!”

  “Because you are evil, sick men, living out fantasies of power and control by abusing those weaker than you,” Gideon said. “And I will never align myself with men like you.”

  Gideon’s blade darted in, taking the pirate through the heart. He gasped, dropped his weapon, and grabbed at the sword. The light faded from his eyes in moments.

  Looking around, it was clear that was the end of it. The battle was over, and he’d won the day. Gideon reached down and tapped the dead man in front of him on the forehead. A veritable pile of crystals dropped out into his hand; the pirate leader had done quite well for himself.

  It was the one large grey stone shot through with blue and clear that most interested Gideon. As he picked it up, the blue streaks went black to match his personal crystal colors. Then the control stone sank into his palm, and Gideon sensed that the pirate Domain was merging into his own.

  He was master of two Domains, now. It was time to at last turn his attention toward the other Domains he’d sensed east of him.