The Power of Ten, Book Three : The Human Race

Clavus whipped down onto the kelpie’s head. The horse-like skull of moss and greenery was just submerged, breaking line of effect of my Shards, but I didn’t much care. I hit its head, not hard, but the six Shards going off did the work for me, blowing the carnivorous fey creature apart, golden fires blasting in every direction as its plant-like body shriveled and scattered.

Idiot plunged in, and the nixie there writhed as the blackened edge of the Sword impaled it. The Wrath that came through tore the aquatic fey apart, and the rest scattered and plunged deeper, out of range of the vengeful land dwellers above.

They were plenty surprised when he pointed with Idiot, and Wrath boiled down through the water, impaled yet another nixie, and removed them from the list of Cleveland’s worries.

I reached down from Sleipner’s saddle, put my hand on the water, and conducted Magevoice into the water, speaking in Elvish, which they were likely to know.

“All right, you aquatic misanthropes. We have your number. There’s nowhere in the lake you can possibly hide from Master Fred and the Warlocks of Lake Ontario. You are in deep trouble right now.

“I want one of you to swim up here, right now, to answer our questions. If you do not, you are going to be hunted to the depths of the Lake, and Ontario is going to feast on your lives.

“Now someone come up here and talk, or we kill you all. I’ll give you to the count of twenty.”

He gestured that one was coming up at ten, and I reached eighteen before a head popped the surface warily, staring at me leaning there off the motorcycle floating on the waters, and both Master Fred and Sue Harrison, the local Lakelock he’d gotten in contact with for this, standing there on top of the waters, neither of them looking happy.

“How may we assuage the wrath of the great lady?” the elf-like, but shining pale-skinned fey asked, unable to hide his fear, especially with the way the water was boiling and hissing about Master Fred’s heels.

“You don’t have the courage to start taking and drowning people off the shores. I want to know who put you up to this, and where their lair is. Alternatively, you can run, and we’ll chase you there, and kill you with your master.”

I didn’t try to be friendly. These fuckers had been luring people into the water and either kidnapping or immediately drowning them... and the fate of those kidnapped was likely not going to be good if they were working with a kelpie.

Cleveland was angry, especially since it had been taking a lot of steps to get on good terms with the Lake. The Lake was not happy a bunch of Fey were doing shit in its waters without its permission to rile up the city, especially since the Heavenbound of Detroit had taken some pains to clean up the outlets from Lake Hudson into Her waters.

“Talk, nixie,” Sue said, the short, powerfully built swimmer glaring at the fey. “You’re only alive by the grace of the Lake, and you have worn your welcome very thin right now.”

The fey could naturally identify her as a Wavelock of the Lake at a glance, and swallowed. “It-it was not our desire to so offend the waters, great ladies! We are compelled to by the Hag...”

“There’s a fucking HAG IN LAKE ONTARIO?” I swore, and turned to glare at Sue. Master Fred did it better, slowly turning his eyes to stare at her, and she practically wilted.

“I-I had no idea, I swear!” she almost squealed. She put her hand to her head, mumbling rapidly in liquid syllables I couldn’t understand without using a spell... which I was at the moment, and she was VERY urgently asking Ontario what the fuck was going on.

“Uh, the Lake doesn’t have anything against the Hag. She hasn’t done anything to pollute it or despoil it, so She ignored her just like She would ignore a human spellcaster.” She winced at both our stares, especially Master Fred’s. “It’s just like She didn’t care about these nixies until they started stirring things up. They’re just too small to notice and care about unless they kick up a fuss.”

“So She won’t care at all if we terminate this Hag with extreme prejudice?” I hissed, and Sue shook her head urgently.

“She’s probably going to run as soon as the panicking nixies get back to her and tell her what is happening. You, what direction and how far?” I pointed at the trembling nixie, who did not want to see the sparking Shards around my hand.

He pointed unerringly. “Four miles that way, a small island with a cave and underwater access the Hag has cleared out for her own use.”

“What else is with her?” I demanded, as Master Fred tensed, about to leave.

His dark eyes flashed, obviously having hoped I wouldn’t ask that. “A troll and two merrow,” he answered quickly.

I narrowed my eyes. “A troll, or a scrag?” I asked precisely.

He wilted. “It is indeed a lake troll, great lady,” he responded.

I leaned forwards slightly. “Get lost. I know your face now, I don’t need your name. If I ever see you around a human settlement again, and I’ll be checking up on you, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you before you ever know I’m around. You understand me?”

He swallowed despite himself. “Y-yes, Great Lady.”

I snapped my wrist, and the water splashed as he got out of there as quickly as he could.

Fred was plainly thinking about sniping the treacherous little bastard, but forewent the opportunity. SHALL WE?, he asked, striding back to Sleipner, and bumping me back.

“Lake trolls heal faster than normal ones, and take fire damage to put down, which is a mite difficult underwater.”

Warlock Sue was standing on a standing wave of water, ready to start surfing forwards. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of the island that nixie is talking about, and once I’m close, I should be able to track her if she flees.”

“Track her is all you’re going to do,” I said calmly, and she looked at me sharply. “Hags join covens. She’s only been here a week, but she’s got two freshwater ogres and a scrag with her? And took over the nixies, and negotiated obedience from a kelpie that fast? She’s probing our response, seeing how we react.

“I don’t want you getting within a mile of her, but I want you to track her where she goes, no matter how far she goes. My guess is she’s going up a feeder river somewhere... we want to know what coven she belongs to, and where it is.”

She grit her teeth. There was no doubt that would be dangerous. “I’ll need permission to go up a river, but that shouldn’t be hard. I’ll do my best... I should be able to sense the edge of a coven’s territory, at the least.”

It was plain she didn’t want to intrude on the lands of a Hag coven. Witchcraft was indeed something to be wary of, and inhuman creatures like a Hag weren’t limited to Six.

“Good enough. Let’s go kill her servants... I’m sure she’ll leave them behind as a diversion to annoy and slow us down. Susan, just go around the island and follow her from a distance. We’ll take care of the combat.”

That seemed to relieve her slightly, but only until I said, “But expect the nixies to be treacherous and likely Charmed by her. I doubt anyone they took is still alive, but we’ll be looking.”

She flushed, checked her Gun and short Saber, and when Sleipner picked up speed, the wave beneath her started rolling forwards as she grabbed one of the sidebars and held on, skiing across the surface of the lake adeptly... and not at all incidentally keeping watch on the things that were underwater there.

------

The two merrow, aquatic ogres, were big, green, stank of rotten fish, had teeth like pike, big pale bellies, and definite attitude problems.

The one I was facing was definitely not prepared for a full load of Weaponized Shards to the face, or for Sleipner to come charging in across the waist-high (to it) waters, ram into it with an alicorn, let off a blast of golden Wrath inside it, and then proceed to buzzsaw open its scaled chest in a gory spray of flying flesh, just to be on the safe side.

The second one was coming in to take a swing at me when two rounds from Fred’s Grit blew some big holes in its back, nearly knocking it over. I dropped an electrified Dart into its head for a couple seconds of high-voltage reaction, and Master Fred came in with a sixty-foot leap, driving Idiot completely through its thick skull with all his weight behind it.

Sleipner skittered agilely aside as the corpse of the huge thing hit the water with a splash, already completely burned out.

The scrag came exploding out of the water, leaping at me with claws spread wide. I was riding a motorcycle, so naturally it thought I was in control of it, and when Sleipner nickered and fishtailed away from its swipes, it was naturally rather irritated at me.

It was a full head taller than the ogres, teeth more like a shark than a fish, leaner and proportionately longer-limbed. Its claws were truly massive, webbed things that could spread wide enough to grab my entire chest without a problem, and that mouth could swallow my head and bite it right off.

I took my eyes off the troll, brought up another volley of Shards, and as the heads of the nixies broke the surface to deliver their blowpipes of probably-poisoned fun, I let all six go at different targets.

Burning Shards hit half a dozen fey heads, which promptly exploded, while their darts clattered and bounced off the Force Armor and Shield I had thoughtfully put up ahead of time.

Very ahead of time, with the Shield spell, which was Duskstopped, and would only fade at Dusk Renewal. Useful for cutting wind drag on Sleipner, too.

The scrag was a little surprised when Master Fred appeared at its elbow, grabbed its arm, and heaved it right out of the water.

It soared a good twenty feet through the air, crashing to the rocky sloped beach of the small island jutting up out of Lake Ontario where the Hag had made her lair.

Which meant it was out of the water.

My fourth set of Shards of the day whirled up around Clavus, spinning with fire, fully Weaponizing blatantly as the scrag bounced and rolled over, in shock that a human could throw it around, and scrambled to get back to its feet and the water...

The Shards went in like hunting swallows, aimed and detonating, one Shard missing and searing a hole into the stone, the rest slamming into it for a resounding 6d8+24, +5d6+8.

The impact of the flaming Shards sent it stumbling backwards, and it fell flat on its ass again.

Fred’s Grit boomed, and the first round was burning with hellfire as it drilled into the scaled, extended head of the lake troll. Bits of burning brains erupted.

I added a burning couple of Darts to the mess as he sent two more rounds into its head, and it stopped moving entirely, smoldering there with little smokey fires burning on it.

Troll blood was a power comp for healing Potions and Scrolls. I pulled an inflatable plastic bag out of Sleipner’s saddlebags, along with a hose for exsanguinating the thing, and sent it snaking out as Sleipner trundled up next to it.

Master Fred gestured that he was going to go looking to see if there were any survivors. I grimaced at what he was likely to find, and waved him off. Sleipner could get me out of danger pretty easily if required... and it wasn’t like I wasn’t looking around still.

Sue had texted that she was chasing the Hag, who had left this place rapidly. I wasn’t anticipating any surprises left behind, and had to wonder at the brains of someone striking so close to Detroit, and Heavenbound Hall. This effort was totally doomed... why had she even tried?...