He shook his head and said, “I didn’t ask for this.”
Another stern voice came from outside the tent. “Captain.”
He rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped outside. Standing in front of him was a broad-faced bearish Henchman with a head of rain-soaked coal-black hair, a full beard, a hawk nose, and a dark complexion. He carried a twin-bladed Viking-style battle-axe.
“Bearclaw, why aren’t you chasing down the frights?” Ruger asked.
“I can only chase one set of tracks at a time. There are five sets, going different directions. I need to split the company into small groups,” Bearclaw said. “It will be a challenge to fetch them all, to say the least. We’ll need all eyes on the trails. Including yours, Captain.”
With a hard rain coming down, Ruger fought the urge to rip his hair out of his head and shouted, “I hate this place!”
Riding on horseback, Ruger led a pair of Red Tunics, who traveled on foot through the woodland. He was taking the path Bearclaw had pointed out to him. The rest of the Henchmen split up into small groups while a few Red Tunics remained back at camp. He rode with his keen eyes set for disturbances in the woodland. Even though the rain was coming down, the leaves slowed the hard rainfall on the ground. It took some time to get used to, but Ruger’s body had great attributes and instincts. He picked up on things normal people wouldn’t. He caught footprints in the soft ground and followed.
He looked behind him. The Red Tunics trudged along in the rear. They were a pair of grubby men, one heavier than the other, with mud-covered boots. They carried spears and had hand axes in their belts. Their tunics were dyed brick red, but they didn’t wear chain mail underneath. They kept their eyes to the ground, heads scanning the area side to side.
“Sheesh,” he said.
Normally, he’d have taken some of his better men with him, but in this case, he needed every skilled warrior out in the field. The frights had a jump of hours on them. With five of them gone, getting them all back might have been impossible. But he needed at least one—one alive. He was willing to risk all others, save for one. But even with the rain, their chances were good. The Henchmen were trackers, highly skilled woodsmen, and warriors. Some of them were knights, honed by the crown’s finest training. They were ready for anything—what was left of them, that is.
He ducked underneath branches and weaved through the trees. They were heading north, above the Old Kingdoms, deeper into the head of Titanuus. The black horse he rode climbed the hilly terrain at a steady gait. Over the course of three hours, he only paused twice, to lock down the fright’s trail again. The frights were women, witches to be exact, haggard crones with a stare that could turn a man’s blood to ice. They were crafty survivors who had taken months to finally track down less than two days before. But now, the Henchmen had finally caught on to all their tricks.
The rain stopped, and the rustling branches fell silent. Water dripped from the leaves. Ruger tugged gently on the reins. His horse stopped and snorted. The air became still and quiet. Ahead, a steep slope of rocks and boulders made for a perfect den and hiding place. The muddy footprints came to an end. The last one he saw was deep and fresh. He grabbed the crossbow hanging from his saddle. He snatched a bolt from a quiver hanging on the other side and put it in his mouth. Using his strong fingers, he pulled back the crossbow string and locked it into place then loaded the bolt into the slide.
The Red Tunics crept up on his flank with big eyes sliding side to side. They held their spears at the ready.
Ruger didn’t even know their names. He tipped his chin toward the rocks and said, “Go take a poke in those rocks.”
The retainers exchanged a glance and started up the rocky hill at a slow pace.
“Today!”
The Red Tunics moved at a brisker pace. Up into the rocks they went, splitting up the higher they went. They cast their stares into the gaps in the rocks. They jammed their spears inside the gaps in the holes and hopped from boulder to boulder.
With his crossbow on his shoulder, he eased his horse forward. He only needed one good shot to cripple the fright. The retainers made for perfect bait. Eugene’s approach had always been to lead from behind the lines and not in front, like a general commanding the field. Nothing was wrong with that. No doubt his men despised that about him, but he didn’t care. It was simple strategy and a matter of survival.
The heavyset retainer traversing the rocks on the right froze in place. He stared down into a gap in the rocks, not moving. His body swayed side to side, and his spear dangled in his grip.
“Hey!” Ruger shouted.
The Red Tunic climbing on the left twisted in his companion’s direction.
Without warning, a nest of red-backed and black-legged scorpions, each the size of a hand, scurried out of the gap by the dozens. They crawled up the rigid retainer’s legs, over his torso, and over his neck. Scorpion stingers struck into the arms, legs, and neck of the man. His body quaked. Pumped with venom, his body puffed up.
“Get away from there!” Ruger said.
The retainer’s face bulged and turned green. The scorpions had covered him up, their tails striking unendingly.
“What do we do?” the other retainer said, keeping his distance from the rocks by his comrade, which were a field of scorpions now. He looked about his feet and made a grim face as his comrade fell over. “He’s dead. He’s dead!”
“Yes, scorpions will do that to you. Just don’t panic,” Ruger said, his eyes wary. He didn’t see any sign of the fright.
A shrill cackling of a woman carried down from the rocks and echoed all around.
“Show yourself, witch!”
A dozen feet higher in the crags, a gaunt woman in ragged clothing climbed out of a cleft. Kinky hair flowed back behind her head. Her eyes were pinkish red and demonic. The fingernails tipping her bony arms were black talons. She opened her mouth, full of sharp teeth, and said, “What is the matter? Don’t you want to partake of my feast?” She held a scorpion in her hand, stuffed it in her mouth, and chewed. “Mmm… that’s good.”
Without a second thought, Ruger pulled the trigger on his crossbow. The bolt sailed true, impaling the fright through the chest.
Her legs wobbled. She straightened, tossed her head back, and cackled. The fright grabbed the bolt and pulled it out.
“Get up there and finish her!” Ruger ordered the Red Tunic.
The man crept up the rocks at an agonizing pace. The spear he carried shook in his hands.
Ruger fished out another bolt.
The fright leapt down from the rocks, covering over twenty feet in a single bound. She landed right in front of the stunned Red Tunic. With a swipe of her hand, she tore his throat out. He crumpled at her feet, clutching at his bleeding neck.
Ruger locked the bolt into place and aimed. He locked his eyes on the burning red eyes of the fright and fired. She vanished. The bolt clacked off the rocks and skipped out of sight.
“Sonuvabitch!”
The fright’s wicked cajoling carried down the rocky slope.
He spurred his horse forward. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen a fright’s disappearing act. He led his horse up the rocks, away from the scorpions and past the dying Red Tunic, where he spotted new blood on the ground. The frights might not fall to wounds easily, but they still bled, though they used their magic to hold themselves together. A bad feeling crawled down his spine. This fright was probably the leader, the strongest of them all. He moved forward at a trot. He had her on the run and wounded. She’d be desperate and more dangerous. But so was he.
For a leathery witch who could have passed for a mummy, she covered ground as quickly as a rattlesnake. Her staggered trail climbed higher up the forest slope. Ruger fully expected a wild beast she’d summoned to burst out of the brush at any moment. That didn’t happen. He climbed higher and higher, tracking her almost an hour. Clearing a tree line, he caught a glimpse of her less than fifty yards away. She looked back over her shoulder and hissed.
“Now I have you!” Ruger snapped the reins. “Eeyah!”
The fright fled on bony legs with the speed of a wildcat. Her eyes were fixed on a large cave mouth that opened up in the mountain.
“No!” Ruger roared.
He needed to cut her off. Inside the cave, he might lose her once and for all. He’d seen his share of caves filled with twisting caverns and jagged corridors. And he had no light to find the way.
“Go, horse, go!”
The horse thundered onward at a full gallop, making a straight line after the fright. She moved quickly on her sprinting legs, and with one last final cackle, she vanished into the dark mouth of the cave.
Ruger pulled his horse to a halt a dozen feet from the mouth of the cave and squinted. A strange sound caught his ears. A quavering light caught his eye. His heart raced. Bravery was not usually Eugene Drisk’s cup of tea, but today it was.
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Humph. What choice do I have? I’m going in.”
1
Virginia, 2018
Abraham Jenkins took a yellow-and-black bandana out of the back pocket of his jeans. With the hot summer wind in his face, he mopped the sweat from his brow. It was the hottest time of the day, with the sun dropping above the Appalachian Mountains. The heat index was over one hundred five degrees. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. He’d just finished delivering several cases of beer at the Superfood Center in Wytheville, Virginia. He stuffed the damp bandana back into his pocket then loaded his dolly into the beer truck. He closed the side-panel slat doors. Clasping his hands on his hips, he arched his back and groaned.
He’d packed over thirty pounds onto his rangy frame over the past ten years. Sitting in the truck made his back as tight as a banjo string during a long ride. He was too young for that. Twisting at the hips side to side a few times, he moved around the truck, checking that all the rolling slat doors were closed. His coal-black truck shone in the sunlight. The old gold lettering, hand-painted, was like new.
The truck was a Chevy Kodiak crew-cab turbo diesel, the bed converted into a beverage hauler. It was a stout truck, unlike the others Abraham had worked with. This truck was his. It had three storage panels on each side. The middle panel had the beer-brand logo of a wooden keg with a steel helmet resting on the top and two battle-axes crossed over the front.
Abraham took his bandana back out and wiped off a smudge covering the helmet. “That’s better.”
From the passenger side, he made his way around the front of the truck, past the chrome headlamps, and climbed into the front seat. He slammed the door shut then turned the key in the ignition. As the air conditioning blasted out ice-cold air, he eased back in the seat. “That’s way better.”
The truck cabin, with a gray interior, had all the bells and whistles available for the 2009 model. That had been ten years before. It was relatively clean, with a small black wastebasket stuck in front of the passenger seat. It was full of crushed energy drink cans and fast food wrappers, some of which had spilled out on the seat. The only other thing in the passenger seat was a kid’s Pittsburgh Pirates backpack. Abraham reached over and patted it. He shuttered a sigh.
He reached up and touched the truck’s sun visor, feeling the edge of a photograph pinned to the visor. It was a family picture of him, his wife, and his son, the last photograph they’d taken together before they had died. He swallowed a lump in his throat, dropped his fingers from the visor, put the truck in gear, and headed for the interstate.
As soon as he hit the highway, he put on his sunglasses and ball cap. He turned on the radio, and the sad whine of a saxophone filled the truck cabin. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Abraham mumbled. “Nothing against you, Bob, but your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. But lonesome highways aren’t so bad. Just the people that ride them.” He changed the radio channel.
He had one more stop left on his route before he could head back home. But he wasn’t in any hurry, with no family to go back to. On the long open roads he tried to pull his life back together. Abraham had been driving the beer truck for two years. The eight years before that, he’d done next to nothing as he wallowed in sorrow over the loss of his wife and son. He’d been an ace pitcher for the Pirates and made a crap load of money, but after he lost his family, it wasn’t long before he lost it all.
With nothing but endless green mountains to his left and right, he cruised north toward the Big Walker Tunnel. About two miles away, traffic backed up and slowed to a twenty-mile-an-hour crawl. Traffic was being merged into one lane.
“Ah, crap.”
Abraham didn’t mind being on the road, but he hated moving slowly. His beer truck wasn’t a speedster, but at least he could get it to seventy-five miles per hour and keep with the flow. He reached back to the seats behind him and flipped open the white lid of a cherry-red Igloo cooler. He grabbed a Mountain Dew out of the ice just as Metal Maiden came on the radio playing “Head to the Hills.”
He cracked open the can’s tab and said, “Maiden, I’ve already arrived. Now it’s Zombie Dew time.”
With gray clouds filling the sky, a spitting rain came down. Traffic in the southbound lanes was moving fine. Thirty minutes passed before he entered the mouth of the one-way tunnel. The eerie yellow glow of the tunnel shone on the pasty tiles making up the walls of the tunnel. Travelers were honking their horns. The tunnel was long. He and his son, Jake, used to try to hold their breaths from one side of the tunnel to the other. It was a fun game they played when they traveled south from Pittsburgh on vacation.
“I won’t be able to hold my breath long enough this time, Jake.”
A quarter of the way into the tunnel, he saw military vehicles lined up in the left-hand lane. Soldiers in camouflage gear, with flak vests, helmets, and M-16 assault rifles, were waving traffic through. Humvees with M-60 guns mounted in their turrets were there, as well as the big trucks called Deuces and several other armored vehicles that Abraham wasn’t as familiar with. As he passed the first soldier, the young man with bright blue eyes and a friendly smile gave him a thumbs-up. The soldier’s partner pushed his hand down.
Fighting the urge to slow down and ask them a nosy question, Abraham gave them a little salute when he passed. He got a thumbs-up from time to time in the beer truck. It was different and a hit at beer festivals. People liked to get their pictures with it.
About midway in the tunnel, a huge tarp was covering up the left side of the road, big enough to hide an eighteen-wheeler.
“Whew!” he said, pinching his nose.
He smelled something foul, like a car that had been set on fire and put out, but it wasn’t that. It was something else, foreign and rank. Creeping by the odd military quarantine scene, he rolled down his window and stuck his head out like some of the other drivers. With his head out the window, he scanned the canopy’s edges. Dark char marks were on the yellow-tiled walls. New cracks had started in the ceiling, and tiles had fallen onto the road.
A big soldier came right at him and stuck a meaty finger in Abraham’s face. “Roll up that window, rubberneck! Certainly you’ve seen stranger things before!”
Abraham jerked his head inside, bumping his head as he did so. The gruff soldier looked as if he could chew lead and spit bullets. Abraham waved gently as he rolled up the window. Then all the overhead lights in the tunnel flickered and went black.
2
Tire rubber squawked over the road. The cars in front of Abraham rocked forward and back, and the line of traffic came to a dead stop.
Abraham laid on the horn. “Come on, you idgits. Your headlights still work.”
Even though the roof of the tunnel had become a strange canopy of blackness, the head- and taillights from most of the cars were giving off plenty of illumination. Suddenly, a beam of light struck Abraham’s cabin, washing him in bright light. He shielded his eyes with his forearms.
“Gah!” He hit his horn again. “Turn that thing away!”
The wh
ite spotlight turned away from his cabin, toward the interior of military activity.
Abraham lifted his glasses off the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks for the new migraine, fellas. I was starting to miss the last one.” He pulled the glasses down over his eyes and tried to blink away a few spots though they didn’t go. “Jingle bells and shotgun shells. Misery loves company.”
In 2009, Abraham had been in an accident that killed his wife Jenny and son Jake. Abraham didn’t come out unscathed, either. He had a cracked skull and three brain surgeries that came with it, not to mention the other parts of his body that were busted up. As a result, he inherited the pain and discomfort that came with it. He inherited a drug addiction too: pain killers and antidepressants. It wasn’t a lifestyle. It was survival that became a lifestyle.
With the help of energetic hardcase soldiers waving their black Maglites, traffic started moving again. A few minutes later, Abraham drove his truck out of the Big Walker Tunnel. For some reason, he let out an audible exhalation. The sky was cloud covered, and the rain was still spitting. The radio came back on, and some easy-riding classic rock came back on. Abraham was relieved by the cloud cover. Road glare from the sun might trigger his migraine, and he didn’t want that. He just wanted to make his final stop, gas up, and go home.
Miles up the road, he took the interstate exit ramp into Rocky Gap. It was a very small town, and he wasn’t even sure why it was on his route. The old man—his boss, Luther—had some connections there. He pulled underneath the gas canopy at Woody’s Grill and Gas Up. He shut off the engine and got out. Then he opened the slat doors, fetched the dolly out, and loaded it up with cases of bottled beer. He pushed it toward the double glass doors leading into Woody’s Grill. The grill had cedar wood siding, giving it a county-general-store look. Two soda machines were on the right side of the door and a sitting bench on the left side. He stopped.
The King's Henchmen: The Henchmen Chronicles - Book 1 Page 2