CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
Stranger really, really wished he had his crossbow with him right now. The stream of Snoozers came marching across the throne room toward the Mudokon and Steef, lasers firing –
But Jake and Abe were already dashing out the door, Abe staggering as the shaman helped him to speed away. Stranger performed a quick dodge roll that took him away from the Snoozer’s seeking blasts, and then was out of the room.
“Get to the fields outside!” Jake shouted at him. “There’s a Mudokon army out there!”
Stranger blinked in surprise, as he fell down to all fours and bounded past the two running Mudokons. An army? A Mudokon army, at that? He’d always thought the green-skinned people weren’t intelligent enough to make an army of their own, and storm the very gates of the Glukkon capital –
But then he remembered Abe. A race was never to be underestimated, even if the majority of them were ignorant.
His barreling charge through the dark, klaxon-blaring hallways of the Glukkon palace, winding between great halls full of industrialist art and testing rooms full of new experimentations brought back old memories. Memories of that great dash he had done through Sekto’s fortress-like dam when the Grubb catapults were preparing to bring the building down around him…
But that had been a long time ago. Back then, his life had one driving purpose: to destroy Sekto. The Oktogi had done him wrong, and he had not let the demon get away with it.
And, as a bonus, all the Grubbs were on his side now.
He shrugged a Slig out of his way, face-planting the enforcer against the wall. Life had been so simple then, back when his purpose had been so defined.
What was his purpose now?
He thought back to the previous few days, when he had hunted down, captured, and then befriended the Mudokon Abe. He had been working with Urchyn McAvi, a scummy Wolvark type with the same kind of moral ambiguity Stranger had shown back during his bounty hunter days.
What was his purpose now? To get money again?
He had put that past behind him. King Fragg had imprisoned him in the dungeons here, for no good reason at all – so why shouldn’t he do as he had done before, and take up his grudge against the industrialists once more? The Grubbs’ nature forces had triumphed over the Wolvark industries in the end.
Stranger smiled as he approached the palace exits. That sounded like a good way to get back in business.
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