Forgotten Ruin: An Epic Military Fantasy Thriller

by Jason Anspach

  And it was Sims, Old Man, who brought Kennedy forward to the scouts after the commander called for him. Old Man was carrying both of their rifles, and Kennedy had hold of the dragon-headed sorcerer’s staff with both pale hands. That had been a command decision. That Kennedy work the mysterious staff as a weapon now. But he was not to use it unless ordered to do so. Clearly it was dangerous. And Kennedy was the only one who could make it work. Then again, no one had else had tried to. So who knew.

  “Hey Old Man,” said Thor when Sims led PFC Kennedy up to the scouts planted in the dry dirt of the dead vineyard. Clearly Kennedy was still operating at half speed after passing out from the last time he’d used the staff.

  “Shut up,” hissed Old Man, who was only a specialist himself. But because he looked old, he got away with it now like he was some twenty-year man. Sergeant Thor snorted and let it go. It was clear Old Man’s new rank would now be something between NCO and warrant officer. Because his hair had gone gray, he now got to be crabby and cantankerous to everyone if only because he seemed like everyone’s grandpa.

  “Sir,” said Kennedy, sitting down cross-legged with the powerful staff across his knees. The captain ignored this.

  “PFC,” said the captain, starting this conversation off like it was an actual normal military conversation. Target objectives. Sit-report. Normal military stuff. “We’re facing a witch, PFC. What can you tell us about this… this type of enemy?”

  Clearly the captain had embraced.

  Then again, what other choice did he have? He was the ultimate realist.

  “Ummmm…” began Kennedy, and I was sure every NCO there would suddenly kill him for daring to address an officer with the equivalent of a non-syllabic grunt. But then one of the giant’s footsteps struck the ground and shook more dead leaves off dead vines and the sense of mission and priorities were clearly explained without the use of words. Or corrective punishment. Cloodmoor was getting closer and I was betting for sure it knew exactly where it was headed. Straight for us. Then stompy-stomp time.

  “That’s probably a storm giant,” said PFC Kennedy, casting his watery eyes off toward the dark horizon. The moon was going down and storm clouds were moving in from the east. Interesting. “But to your point, sir…” His words were slow like he had all the time in the world. Like he knew he was now incredibly valuable to the people who had hated him to death just a few short days ago. That he had them right where he wanted them all.

  Go figure. Life comes at ya fast.

  “Let’s see…” continued the PFC. “Early Dungeons & Dragons, what they called Advanced back then… and which in my opinion…” But then he must have seen some murder look cross the captain’s permanent look of sour indigestion, as he cut short his lecture on the history of games you play with pens and paper and oddly shaped dice. “Right… powers,” he said. “They, witches that is, sir, they could… curse you, summon devils. That would be pretty bad right now. Wouldn’t want to deal with one of those. Cause wounds. Turn you into stuff. Hypnotize you… you know… like make you fall in love… with someone.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. The word love seemed to make him uncomfortable. Like there were probably pics of sexy anime witches on his phone.

  He recovered once the scout leader prompted him with another question.

  “Are they like…” asked Sergeant Hardt, who seemed like he wanted to pound PFC Kennedy right between the RPGs worse than the captain. “Good or bad, PFC?”

  “Well,” began Kennedy, adjusting his issue glasses, unaware of how close he’d just come to death by Hardt. “Good and bad are relative in D&D, Sar’nt. And it’s evil. Not bad, Sar’nt. At least it was in the older editions. But I think the term you’re looking for, Sar’nt Hardt… is lawful or chaotic. If I remember, they’re supposed to be lawful. But again, I have no idea if what we’re facing here is based on a game I play. There’s just a lot of stuff that seems very… similar. If that’s what you’re asking me. So let’s say—”

  Captain Knife Hand held up a knife hand to stop the conversation right there.

  PFC Kennedy stopped instantly. Which was probably a good thing for him if he wanted to go on living. Kennedy might have been some kind of wizard, but Captain Knife Hand was still the commanding officer of a Ranger company. And he’d probably forgotten how many more people he’d killed with his hands than everyone else had killed with rifles, explosives, and even called-in airstrikes.

  “If we have to fight her… is she gonna use magic, PFC?”

  “She turned me into a…” Sims barked out suddenly like some angry customer at an Applebee’s who’d gotten a bad order of Onion Ring Dippers or whatever they served there. His indignant interruption clearly righteous. For an old guy.

  But he didn’t finish. Didn’t say “old man.” At the last minute he probably saw the trap he’d set for himself. The nickname that had already stuck, and would stick even harder if he uttered the words. Even once.

  Everyone ignored him anyway. That was part of his amazing new Old Man Powers. The CO didn’t even see him and didn’t have Sergeant Hardt pull out Sims’s liver and show it to him.

  Wow, I thought to myself as an aside, if Sims would just embrace his… Old Man-ness… he could get away with murder around the Rangers. It would be like winning the Medal of Honor and staying in. Everyone had to salute you forever.

  “Do I have that right, PFC?” continued the captain. “She’ll try to attack us using some kind of magic, if negotiations go badly?”

  In the ensuing silence, the strike of the closing storm giant’s massive footfalls, hitting the earth somewhere out there in the dark, punctuated the moment. Crushing a lot of who knew what. Like it was practicing for us.

  Kennedy nodded an affirmative.

  “Yeah. I mean… yes, sir. That’s her thing. The witch monster class… that is. She’ll do that. But my guess is she’ll want something from us to let us pass if I understand the situation right.”

  The captain thought about this for a brief second. You could tell, even he was feeling the time crunch. We needed to get moving to avoid getting crushed from the rear and flanked from the sides on the other side of this.

  “Can you fight her?” asked the captain to PFC Kennedy. Then gave the worst look of indigestion I’d ever seen cross his face. Like he couldn’t believe he was actually acknowledging what he’d just said. He nodded toward the powerful staff on Kennedy’s crossed legs. Have I noted the rest of us were on one knee in standard Ranger? “Can you fight her with that?” he said, indicating the arcane staff.

  Then Kennedy said the most Ranger of things that was probably ever going to come out of his mouth. He took a deep unsteady breath and looked Captain Knife Hand right in the eyes.

  “I feel like someone walloped me with about two hundred pounds of flu, sir. But yeah, she gives us a problem, I’ll light her and smoke her like a pack o’ Kools. If that’s what you want, sir.”

  Captain Knife Hand gave his version of a quick smile. It was unnatural and almost sick-looking. But it was clear he was impressed with his PFC’s motivation. It was Ranger all the way.

  “Solid copy, PFC,” he said finally. “All right, let’s go forward and parley with the old woman. See what she wants. If not… then we burn the witch.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Our approach to the shack at the back of the vineyards was steady and clear. We weren’t trying to sneak up on her after Last of Autumn’s warning that she was aware of our presence via supernatural means. Supernatural means was starting to get factored into a lot of decision-making trees. The Rangers were quick to adapt so they might overcome.

  Captain Knife Hand’s security team lead the way with a patrol wedge. Last of Autumn and PFC Kennedy were following, with me along for the ride in case the witch spoke any currently dead languages that weren’t so dead after all.

  So far, my pre-enlistment intention to not be at the tip of
every spear was proving to be a false hope. But every soldier will tell you their recruiter lied about something. Usually it’s Hawaii as your first-pick duty station. Everyone falls for that one.

  Meanwhile ground strikes of the closing giant thundered and rumbled in the distance like an unrelenting countdown timer that was imminently more real than any end-of-the-world movie prop had ever aspired to be.

  We needed to get a move on real fast.

  As we approached, it became clear that the shack, a sprawling affair with what from the outside could well have been one lone two-story room covering the spread of the place, was… oddly constructed. Angles didn’t make sense. Visually speaking. Except when you concentrated on them, then they kinda did even though the image of them left a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. The roof above the perilously leaning second story was definitely witch-flavored. Sloped like a witch’s hat and badly constructed and even more poorly maintained. A lone off-kilter cross-hatched window leered down at us from up there. Within that strange room the greasy light of an unseen candle burned alone.

  We got a better look at her now. Just a small shadowy figure, gently drifting back and forth in a rocking chair deep within the shadows of the dark porch. The roof there sagged and bent, looking like it would collapse down on her given the slightest breath from the breeze coming up through the dead vineyards. Later I’d wonder if the shack was trying to protect her.

  And that was when I was sent out to parley. The security team stopped, weapons ready and facing outward into the dead vineyard. The lone ember of the witch’s cigar burning off and on inside the shadows of the porch as she drew and released smoke ghosts in the night.

  This whole thing felt sweaty and wrong.

  The Rangers had better optics and were most likely running the last juice out of their night-vision peepers. Me, if I was going to attempt to communicate with an unfriendly indig then I figured it was best not to sport the alien-looking NVG optics. I could have used the Moon Vision right about then, but as I said that particular trick Last of Autumn had downloaded on us wasn’t working so well here. Just like, though I only realized it now, just like it had faded down in the gloomy cavern below the ruined temple. Near…

  … that thing in the fissure that had pulled the centaurs and the goat men into its endless oblivion embrace. Luring them with some distant song I’d barely been able to hear in my mind. And never wanted to hear again.

  The demon, Last of Autumn had called it.

  Don’t think about it, Talker.

  “See what she speaks, PFC,” ordered Captain Knife Hand in the wind and the dark of the front yard between the shack and the rasping vineyards being pushed along in hushed broom strokes by the strengthening breeze coming up.

  The wind was picking up now.

  Weeeeee.

  I crossed the hard-packed dirt of the yard and got as close as I dared to the overhang of the shadowy porch. I peered within the gloom, trying to get a better look at her.

  Did I mention the giant was getting closer? The strikes were going off down in the valley below with constant regularity.

  “Hurry,” muttered one of the Rangers angrily as I passed beyond their defensive formation to go out alone and talk to a witch.

  I’d been thinking about what to try first on her of the eight languages I knew well. Which language might get us talking? Quickly. Time was obviously of the essence and if I didn’t stick the landing pretty fast we were gonna waste valuable get-out-of-Dodge time to avoid getting stomped flat by the impossibly huge giant coming down the valley and giving the impression more and more by the second that he was indeed coming straight for us.

  So, I’d been thinking…

  When Old Man showed up. Or just Sims as he’d been known before some strange old lady effectively cursed him to become suddenly old in the middle of a fight. I thought back to his encounter during the second night of the battle on the island. When the witch had appeared at the forward fighting position and turned him into Old Man. She’d used Spanish. A very specific dialect. So I’d start there. Maybe all witches were part of some group, like a union or guild or professional networking association, and they spoke the same language?

  And wouldn’t you know it? I got a hit right off the bat.

  Spanish worked.

  “Excuse me,” I began. “But we need to pass through your land and we were told we needed to get permission. From you. Doña.” That was basically the gist of my opening volley. To the point and polite. I thought about calling her señorita. Sometimes older women in Spanish like it when you flirt a little. But she was a witch and all, so, I could see anything I did going horribly wrong and ending up with me getting turned into a toad, or this world’s toad equivalent.

  I could also see the command sergeant major being disappointed with me and making me the new PFC Kennedy. Digging latrine trenches with tiny toad arms would be hard. And embarrassing. But I’m vain that way. So best to be cautiously respectful and see where that got all of us.

  I started with my opening line and was rewarded for a few seconds with nothing more than the lonely creak of her rocking chair shifting back and forth against the warped boards of the rotting porch. She just rocked there, the lone cigar dancing in the dark, as she listened to the hovering silence between us.

  If Central Casting needed a witch, they should get this woman’s number. She had the act down pat. So far.

  But she didn’t keep me waiting for long. Maybe she was concerned about the impending giant too, on some base level.

  “That big boy gonna be here soon, soldier from the other side o’ time,” she began in a very colloquial Spanish dialect. Her voice both croaky and whiny.

  So that was… news. She was at least aware, if not concerned, about the impending giant. But, full stop. In her hillbilly Spanish, as I’ve tried to transcribe and flavor for this written record no one will probably ever read, what was with the soldier from the other side o’ time stuff?

  There was something to dig into there. Later of course. There wasn’t time now. Not with Cloodmoor of the No Doubt Massive Feet due on stage for his grand entrance. I told the captain we had a conversation going, thinking he was still behind the security team in the center of the wedge. He wasn’t. He was right behind me. No visible weapon. Or at least no weapon if you didn’t count the knife hand. Both hands were probably knife hands. So, two knife hands counting for two weapons. But he was right there. Almost as silent as Last of Autumn, he’d come forward with me to support the parley.

  Which, now that she’d spoken to me in the creepy grandma witch hillbilly Spanish, felt good. Having him there. I swear, the air had actually gotten chillier as she began to speak. Her voice was a rusty old croak. Like a hinge that needed an entire can of WD-40 to get the squeak out of. A child talking in an imaginary friend voice that wasn’t cute. Or a clown you just wanted to punch in the face for reasons you couldn’t quite articulate. The witch’s voice was all those things, and old and papery too.

  Captain Knife Hand nodded to me message received, continuing to watch her like some tiger in the dark. I like the occasional poem and it was at that moment I remembered a line from an old one I’d read once.

  Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

  In the forests of the night;

  What immortal hand or eye,

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  That was by Blake. And I would think of it every time I saw the captain after that night with the old witch. It was then, right there, in front of her falling-down shack, that I realized he was more than just a soldier. Leader of one the deadliest fighting forces in the world. The Rangers. He was an animal. A wild animal. And you took your life in your hands if you met him in the dark night.

  I don’t pity the witch.

  But she had no idea what she was dealing with. Or she didn’t understand what her foreknowledge of us being soldiers from the othe
r side of time actually meant. But even if she did… she had no idea how far the captain was willing to go to see his men through. I don’t think anyone did. But her…

  She. Had. No. Idea. Who. She. Was. Dealing. With.

  Period.

  “Elf girl say she can lead ya through my patch no questions asked and all,” crooned the old woman. “No prizes. No pretties for Sarita. No homage to a wielder o’ my incredible powers.”

  That’s how the witch began. Whining about petty grievances and intimating threats of doom released. Indicating we’d gotten off on the wrong foot from the first step with someone of her apparently respected stature. To me it just seemed like negotiation. Like some local yokel who’s got you right where he wants you because he’s the only guy in Possum Trot Falls who sells tires in the nowhere town you just happened to get a flat in.

  That’s all.

  But she continued on with her list of slights and veiled threats.

  “She and her kind… purty little elf girl… they know my price well enough. Ah got three. Three you can choose if ya ken, soldiers from t’other side o’ time.”

  She paused to take a long draw on the stub of her smelly cigar. It glowed hellishly in the gloom under the hanging porch. Illuminating some of her crooked and haggard features by its brimstone coal.

  “And you… will ye choose? Or…” She pointed the glowing end of the cigar at each of us. “Or ye want ta pass on none ’t’all and tell yer women ye lived and didn’t cross ol’ Sarita.”

  I translated back to the captain.

  A long moment of silence passed as he stood there, motionless in the dark, parsing what she’d offered. Then he simply muttered, “Ask her what she wants, PFC.”

  At that moment I was pretty sure that whatever she named, sacrifice a goat, clean the Augean stables, whatever, Captain Knife Hand was gonna do it just to get us past this. And if, as of this reading, you’re wondering why we sat there and dealt with the old witch instead of just lighting up her homestead and moving on… well, two reasons.