Wasteland Warlords: Chapter 13 - Penthouse Showdown

Joe’s kick didn’t smash the door in. Turned out it was a pull door.

He repeated his threat with the same level of gusto, then jerked the door open and ran in.

Clay and Alex followed quick on his heels, neither one wanting to let him and Bertha out of range of a Health Potion.

Instead of the hotel penthouse Clay was expecting, the top floor of the Marriott looked like a cross between a Viking mead hall and a throne room. Carved wooden columns and arched rafters supported a wooden ceiling. Roughhewn benches lined either side of the room, and a sunken fire pit filled with glowing red coals ran straight down the center. At the end of the long room sat a huge wooden throne. Swords, arrows, and rifles fanned out like a peacock’s tail from both sides of the back, and hides had been piled on the seat in place of a cushion. The room stank to high heaven, a smell like rotten meat and unwashed bodies.

Clay swept his rifle from the rear wall to the throne. Joe stood at the edge of the fire pit, looking around, bewildered. A glance over his shoulder showed Alex’s side of the room was empty, too.

“Guys,” Joe said. “Where’s the giant?”

Griff stepped through the door. “Hiding somewhere. These things might not be geniuses, but they got a canniness to them…”

A shadow shifted on the floor and Clay spun toward it.

A split second too late. A mass of dirt-encrusted muscle and fat slammed to the floor, crushing Griff beneath its weight.

Alex let out a shriek and leapt back, narrowly avoiding being pancaked along with the old-timer.

Clay opened up on the Ettin as it lumbered to its feet. Across the room, Alex’s shotgun spoke up, too. As their rounds slammed into the grimy giant, its heads laughed as if a hailstorm of bullets were some kind of joke.

“Look at them, shooting off their pop-sticks as though it will be hurting us,” the middle head said, its voice the sound of grinding boulders. It paused and spared a backward glance at Griff who was out cold. No threat there. Each of its heads fixed the remaining three party members with beady black eyes. “It’s been a good long while since any humans had the stones to take a run at our stronghold.” Katotes raised his axe and leaned it against his meaty shoulder. “Me and the boys pretty much figured you lot had given up trying to push us out.”

“Why are we talking at them?” the right head nagged, keeping his eyes on Joe. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, we ought to just kill these pests when they pop up and be done with it.”

“I have to agree,” said the left head, fixated on Alex. “We should stop playing with our food and just eat it already.”

Clay shared a look with Alex. What the hell do we do here? They’d come looking for a fight, not a gab with a giant. Should they go on the offense while these three were dicking around with their banter?

But Alex shook her head and quietly mouthed Griff.

Not a bad point. Maybe the old weed wasn’t an Incant, but he had some formidable powers—including passive regeneration. If they could keep the big bastard talking for long enough, it was possible Griff would be able to shake off his injuries and get back in the fight.

Clay nodded his understanding, silently praying Joe wouldn’t do anything too rash.

“Enough!” the middle head roared. “I’m the one in charge ’round here! As the eldest head, I call the shots. If I want to talk to the meat bags, I’ll do as I please and the pair of you can shut your traps.”

The other heads grumbled softly but complied. The great hulk turned and unceremoniously booted Griff’s unconscious form into the stairwell, then swung the door shut and sealed it with a heavy steel bar.

Clay grimaced. There went their wait-and-stall plan.

“Now, where was I?” Katotes’s middle head rubbed at his misshapen chin.

“It’s been a long while since any human tried to murder you,” Joe offered helpfully.

“Right, right. Truth be told, it’s a bit lonely up here. I miss the thrill of a good battle,” the middle head said rather wistfully. “Years and years ago, the heroes would come in waves—that was back in the early days of the Merge, when I only had one head.” The other heads rolled their eyes, but the middle one got a far-off look on his ugly mug. “Glory days, those were. Bloodshed aplenty, and levels without end.

“Not anymore,” he continued with a discontented sigh. “The flow of bodies has dried up, hasn’t it? Most of you humans have gotten smarter. Know better than to try your hand against our power. But not you.” He took a deep whiff, lips peeling back. “You don’t have the stink of Incants about you. What would possess a handful of squishy, feeble meat bags such as yourselves to try and take on the might of the great Katotes?”

“Do you think our reputations slipping?” asked the right head softly, a ribbon of worry in his voice. “This could be bad. If there’s perceived weakness spreading among the humans… It could summon other Lords of the Realm.”

While the giant monologued—trialogued?—with himself, Clay shot Alex a meaningful glance. They needed to spread out, divide the dungeon lord’s attention and come at him while he was yakking.

“We all remember what happened to Dregma Axebreaker, ruler of the Ice Sports Center,” the left head chipped in.

Clay kept his hands low, trying to signal Alex to spread out, but she just looked at him like what’s that gesture supposed to be?Frustrated, Clay inflated the motions as much as he dared, but Alex just raised her hands palm-up, equally annoyed.

Seriously? Clay mouthed. Spread! Out!

Alex’s lips moved too fast for him to make out what she was saying, but the slant of her brows told him it was something along the lines of How the hell was I supposed to know that? We never went over that hand signal.

“Nonsense! Axebreaker went soft in his old age!” the middle head declared. “We are as strong as we ever were. But—” he stopped suddenly, eyes glaring at Clay and Alex. “Why are you ignoring Katotes! When he speaks, human bowels turn to water and they plead for their puny lives! Do men no longer fear Katotes?”

“As a matter of fact,” Joe said, before Clay could think of an answer, “word on the street is you’ve lost your touch. We wanted to know who the weakest Dungeon Lord on the block was and every finger in Bakersville pointed right to you. Thing is, me and my friends aren’t even experienced hunters. We’ve only been doing this about two months, and we managed to make it all the way to your penthouse. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think they might have a point.”

The Ettin turned all eyes on Joe, Clay and Alex suddenly forgotten.

“You aren’t impressed with Katotes?”

“Eh, I’ve seen bigger three-headed giants,” Joe replied with a shrug. “Truth is, I think you’re stalling for time because you’re scared of us.” He took an exaggerated whiff of the air. “You smell like chicken shit to me, tough guy.”

The middle head threw back his head and roared, the beams shaking from the noise. “I will pulverize your body! Pull the meat from your bones! Use your skull as a chalice to drink from!”

“Prove it!” Joe challenged, revving his chainsaw. “Come at me, kemosabe!”

Katotes hefted an enormous battleax and charged the chainsaw wielding lunatic, each step shaking the floor.

The door to the stairwell was still blocked and barred with no sign of Griff—Clay hoped the old man was still alive, but clearly he wasn’t going to come barreling in to save the day. But with Katotes’s pissed heads all focused on Joe, the Ettin’s flanks were completely open to attack.

“Spread out!” Clay yelled to Alex.

“That’s what you were doing?” she yelled back as they sprinted off toward opposite sides of the room. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because I thought it was obvious!”

Clay’s M4 hadn’t even left a scratch on the Ettin, but maybe the great big ol’ sumbitch would be a little more susceptible to rocket propelled grenades…

He let his rifle drop and drew the Wand of Inferno from its holster, quickly lining up his shot, then letting magic roar from his hand. A blinding javelin of fire and light streaked across the room, broadsiding Katotes like a Mack Truck.

The impact boomed through the penthouse-turned-mead hall, and Katotes stumbled drunkenly.

Joe cackled crazily as he turned and bolted in the opposite direction.

“I was right,” Joe called over his shoulder, “you arelosing your edge. I bet dollars to donuts that even the gobbos over near the highway could whoop your ass!”

Katotes wheeled about with a surprising degree of dexterity that belied his size and took off after Joe, his huge axe swinging in furious swoops. The Inferno Lance had charbroiled some skin, leaving a nasty wound behind, but already Clay could see the Ettin’s regenerative abilities healing the wound.

Clay lined up the wand again and launched two more Inferno Lances at the Dungeon Lord’s wobbling gut in quick succession. Spears of red and gold slammed into the mass of fat and dirt less than a second apart. The accompanying detonation rattled Clay’s bones and sent up a billow of light far too brilliant for such a dark room.

Clay blinked, trying to clear away the purple afterimage temporarily tattooed across his retinas. When he could see and hear again, Katotes was roaring and swinging his ax blindly around the room. His eyes were clamped shut and streaming. The watery tears cut rivulets through the filth on the giant’s faces.

“He doesn’t like that,” Alex called out, darting in to flank the behemoth from one side. “Keep the pressure on!”

Out in the middle of the floor, Joe leapt off a bench to clear a huge swing from the battle ax. Warboots clumping, he raced in to hack at Katotes’s Achilles tendons with Bertha. The gauntlets of strength and the skull ring’s Critical Hit boost must’ve been working together, because the Ettin’s tendon gave way with a snap that made the chainsaw kick back. The giant lurched forward, pinwheeling its arms for balance.

Chain links rattled, and Alex’s kusarigama arced in from the corner. The chain wrapped around the neck of Katotes’s farthest left head. With a jerk, she tried to haul him off balance and bring him to the floor.

But Clay saw what was going to happen before she did. Alex had the training, the speed, and maybe even the strength. But she didn’t have the weight. Soaking wet and rounding up, she still only weighed a hundred pounds, while the Ettin clocked in at around three tons. Even with all those extra strength potions, physics still mattered, and Katotes had math on his side.

Katotes planted his feet and jerked, yanking Alex off the floor. She hurtled across the room, flipping ass over tea kettle toward a wall with the bone-breaking force of a tornado.

Clay broke into an all-out sprint. Thanks to all those Dexterity potions, he was inhumanly fast, and zipped across the mead hall. He threw out his arms and braced himself. Alex slammed into his chest and they both went down, crashing into the wall. Glass shattered and warm wetness soaked into Clay’s back and front.

Oh shit. Their Healing Potions.

Griff warning about canny Ettins flashed through Clay’s mind at light speed. Could Katotes have done this on purpose? Could he have some kind of sick instinct that helped him grind down the resources of the hunters who came after him?

A roar snapped Clay out of the speculation. With Griff out of the equation, they were now down to however many potions Joe had left in his pack.

They were in a bad spot, but there was nothing he could do about it but acknowledge the fact and move on.

“We gotta get up, babe.” He shook Alex.

She blinked and started, then seemed to remember where she was. She disentangled herself from him, limping a little as she staggered to her feet. Her kusarigama was dangling uselessly from the Ettin’s left neck, so she switched back to the Mossberg, racking a round into the chamber.

Joe was going for another hack with Bertha, this time chopping at the Ettin’s hamstring. There was no sign of Chonk, but the little critter could be anywhere. If the mechacoon was smart, he had probably run off to find a hidey hole to hunker down in.

Clay gained his feet and timed another Inferno lance with his brother’s strike, aiming it at the giant’s middle head.

The beam carved through the gloom of the mead hall, dispelling the dark shadows clinging to the corners. The Ettin howled in pain and fury at the searing beam of fire. Alex was right, this thing did not like the light. Katotes twirled and swung his battleax in Clay’s direction. But the blade wasn’t going to hit Clay, it was going to chop Alex in half. Without thinking, he barreled into her. She was so small, his shove knocked her halfway across the room and out of danger.

Not so much for him.

Agony exploded in Clay’s shin, so overwhelming that for a second his vision turned red. The battleax crunched through bone and nearly took his lower leg clean off. The blade ripped away, leaving him on the floor, screaming through gritted teeth while he held his butchered leg hanging on by a thread.

Through the haze of pain, Clay saw a shadow darken the already dim light on the backs of his eyelids. He forced his eyes open.

Katotes loomed over him, pulling back his battleax for a finishing blow.

Somewhere along the way, the Wand of Inferno had been knocked out of his hand. All he had left was the M4. It took everything Clay had to raise the rifle off the floor and point it at the Ettin. Blood was pouring from his leg, and already his fingers felt cold and stiff. He’d seen that bullets hardly bothered Katotes, but Clay wasn’t going out without firing a last shot.

Katotes stopped suddenly, his heads twisting this way and that.

Alex popped over his shoulder, hands wrapped around the kusarigama chain like it was a climbing rope.

“Surprise, motherfucker.” She carved the kama blade across the middle throat, then went for the throat on the left-side.

Katotes flung the ax and its hands up at the same time. One enormous fist caught Alex in the side, knocking her off her perch. She just barely grabbed the chain to arrest her fall, dangling down the dungeon lord’s back.

“Surprise to you as well, motherfucker,” Joe said in a cheerful voice as he crouched down and shoved a potion into Clay’s hand. “Drink up.”

Clay downed the potion in two gulps and squirmed as new fibers wormed their way to life, the muscles in his ruined leg knitting themselves back together again. He shuddered. He would never get used to that feeling. A mixture of agony and ecstasy. With a grimace, Clay tossed the empty bottle away and shoved himself upright.

Alex was still up there, hanging from the chain, avoiding the Ettin’s swings and trying to hack her way through one of the necks before it could regenerate.

“Joe, she’s got to cut off its heads to kill it,” Clay said, mind racing. “Before they regenerate. The kama’s not near fast enough.”

Joe revved Bertha. “We read you loud and clear, bro.”

Clay’s eyes lit on the Wand of inferno, lying half-buried in debris a few yards away.

“This time, I’ll get its attention,” he said.

“Roger, roger. I’ll do the rest,” Joe promised.

They sprinted in opposite directions. Joe made a wide circle around the Ettin’s right side, which was occupied with slapping at Alex before she could chop its neck open again.

Clay ran for the thin slip of wood. He snatched up the Wand of Inferno and launched the fourth Inferno Lance for the day at the Dungeon Lord’s ax-hand.

The explosion knocked the weapon out of Katotes’s grasp and sent it spinning across the room. With an infuriated roar, the giant turned on the annoying mosquito with the boomstick, just like Clay had hoped.

A bright pulsing aura spread across the Ettin’s skin.

In a deceptively fast, floor-shaking step, Katotes lunged forward and scooped Clay up in one fist as though he were a dropped hotdog. That speed hadn’t been part of Clay’s plan. Was that pulsing aura giving him a boost somehow? Some kind of Berserker Haste? Clay wasn’t sure, but it hardly seemed to matter at this point.

The Ettin’s reeking, dirt-encrusted fist squeezed shut, clamping Clay’s arms to his sides, the Wand of Inferno jammed painfully into his hip. He squirmed and tried to get his wand arm free, but Katotes’s grip just tightened.

Clay’s ribs creaked. He couldn’t breathe. He looked up toward Katotes’s shoulders. No Alex. Had Joe made it to her? They were running out of time. Blackness faded in from the corners of Clay’s vision. Running out…

He closed his eyes.