by Damon Alan
That didn’t keep Harry from holding his pistol to the man’s head.
Seconds later another Spitfire raced overhead, with a black beast on its tail. That one, Harry knew, liked to eat pilots. He said a quick prayer for the aviator, then turned his attention back to the German.
“You speak American English?”
“I lived in America for several years,” the man said. Harry was surprised there wasn’t fear in the Hun’s voice. His uniform was showered in blood splatters, and traces of blood lined the man’s face.
“What happened to you? Is that your blood?”
The prisoner glanced down at his uniform. “No. Not mine.”
“What happened?” Harry repeated.
“Can you not see?” The German pointed south. “Something has changed, we are all in the grips of death now.”
“What were those things? A German weapon?”
“Gott, no!” the man replied, laughing. “At first we thought they were British weapons. Then we saw the Spitfires, and your men started dying with ours.”
“That doesn’t explain this blood,” Timothy demanded. “Explain that.”
“Those are not the only beasts coming through,” the German replied.
“Through what?”
“Can you not see? That thing, in the north. It is over Rotterdam, it is where the creatures are coming from. Rotterdam is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“I mean what I just said. The city isn’t there anymore, it is some other place now, or just gone. A world connected to ours, maybe? Hell, maybe? Ich vice nicht.”
“That’s the thing in the sky,” Timothy said. “Judgment day.”
“Yah,” the German agreed.
“Bullshite,” Harry said. “Those were dragons, I know the legends. God’s angels don’t look like dragons.”
The man under him shrugged. “It is bad, whatever. There is more than dragons.”
“Like what?” Harry pressed.
“Faeries. Giants. Armored creatures with axes. More I do not know.”
One of Harry’s men tapped on his back. “Sergeant, you best look at this.”
“Stay down,” Harry told the German as he got up and moved to the stone wall to look.
The wall they were behind was near the top of a hundred foot hill. The ground sloped downward to the north, into a line of trees.
Something was emerging from the trees.
Stout men, in iron armor, like the knights of old. The armor was black, and each carried either a two headed axe or…
“Are those crossbows?” Timothy asked.
Harry looked to his right, surprised to find the German between him and Tim, looking at the new arrivals as well. No matter. The German just became important to taking one step toward equalizing their number against a potential enemy. “What’s your name?”
“Hans.”
“Hans, you’re going to need your gun. I’m not getting it.”
Hans looked at him uncertainly for a moment, then nodded. He jumped over the fence, grabbed his weapon, then jumped back as two bolts whizzed past him.
That made it clear the armored fellows were hostile. Harry’s risk of Han’s life had netted him two benefits. One more gun and clarity.
“They must have tracked you,” Harry said. “You led them to us.”
“Those men, or others like them, butchered my unit,” Hans said. “Thirty-nine well trained soldiers killed, unless some survived like me.”
“How did you get away?” Timothy asked him.
“I ran.”
Harry sighed, but it was hard to condemn Hans. It was one thing to fight men, but dragons and whatever these were? Harry might have ran on first contact too. But he was wasn’t surprised, and while this was first contact, it wasn’t completely uninformed. Not this time. He peeked over the fence down the hill. A hundred of the short fellows gathered at the bottom, forming into a line.
“Line warfare?” Timothy said. “They’re about a hundred years too late for that.”
“Let’s set up the Bren,” Harry ordered. “Hans, do you smoke?”
“Yah.”
“Timothy, give the man a cigarette. We’re friends now,” Harry ordered. “Hans, you’re to protect Tim and me with that Karabiner of yours.”
“You’re in charge,” Hans agreed.
Harry talked as he knocked down some of the fence stones to make a cradle for the Bren. A bolt shattered on a rock with a loud crack, knocking if off the wall to his side.
“What rank are you?”
“Lieutenant.”
Harry laughed. Of course an officer had ran. “Not anymore. You’re a private now, or you’re a prisoner if you have a problem with that. If we get out of this, I’ll see you get fair treatment. I’m in charge here, you work for me.”
“Yah,” Hans agreed again.
“The rest of you men, spread out along the wall. There’s a lot more of them than us, but they don’t have guns. Don’t be stupid, those crossbows are going to be every bit as deadly. So when I say, we open up with what we have. When you’re out of all ammo except your pistol, run to the Matador, and get ready to leave. When we must, we’ll go, and fast. There will be no shame.”
“We have bayonets, Sergeant.”
“Wilkes, if I see you using a bayonet on these guys, I’ll shoot you myself. There are fifteen of us, not one a hero. You heard my order.”
Wilkes didn’t answer, but looked relieved. Let the Spitfire pilots be brave. Harry realized how desperately he wanted to survive this and get home to his wife.
The sound of clanking iron echoed off the treeline and up the hill.
“Fire at will!” Harry bellowed as Timothy slapped a magazine into the now ready Bren gun.
The sounds of battle erupted. True to his word, Hans worked as a sniper with his accurate rifle, targeting any crossbowman that looked like he was aiming at the machine gun emplacement. The melee infantry of the enemy, mostly carrying axes, began marching up the hill.
The smaller caliber weapons, like the Lee Enfield rifles carried by most of Harry’s men, proved to be ineffective against the strange armor worn by this new enemy. Even the Bren, firing the .303 cartridge like the Enfields, failed to directly penetrate the black armor. Harry found that by concentrating bursts on one soldier, that soldier would be bowled over by the energy of the attack and often roll back down the incline, sometimes taking others along for the ride.
Still, there was no way that was going to win the battle. The only gun they had that was at all effective was Han’s Kar98k, and even it only occasionally penetrated.
When Harry’d heard the fourth of his men die under attack from the crossbows, he’d seen enough. “Get to the Matador,” he yelled. “We’re abandoning our position.”
“What about Harris? Mattison?”
“Leave them. We won’t die for the dead today,” Harry ordered.
He knew his behaviors might well get him a firing squad. There were still those who thought dying at the hands of a superior enemy was better than fleeing.
Harry didn’t see it that way. He had reason to make it home, and not as a lifeless body.
He and Tim grabbed their Bren, not that it was of much use. He jumped into the passenger seat of the vehicle as the rest of the men dove into the back. “Hans, you’re up front. Middle.”
To his relief, the Matador started, and they turned quickly to race away from the wall.
Four of his men had died, bolts through their skulls.
That left him eleven.
Plus Hans, so for now, twelve. Despite the war, he’d keep Hans for now. With things unfolding like this, who knew what was going to happen, he wasn’t about to leave the German alone in the wilderness. Maybe he’d get Hans a British uniform if the Dunkirk evacuation was called off and they stayed on the continent. If things got crazy enough.
A bolt from a crossbow punched through the back of the lorry’s cab, shattering the front left window as it exited.
He hoped the men in the bed were alright, but it wasn’t any sort of time to stop and see.
“Keep driving, Wilkes. As fast as you can without shaking the men back there out,” he said gesturing toward the rear.
They drove for several minutes, then Wilkes slowed down.
Harry leaned out of the window and opened the front edge of the canvas canopy on the lorry’s bed. “Everyone make it?”
“That one that went through the cab was the only shot that hit us, Harry,” Tim answered. “No damage back here, but glad to see you didn’t snuff it.”
“Not yet,” Harry replied as he pulled the fabric closed.
He sat back in his seat and thought of the battle for a moment.
“Where can I get more of those K98s?” he asked the German.
“I doubt you’ll talk anyone into giving theirs up,” Hans said. “You’ll have to take them, or find stouter guns of your own.”
Harry nodded, not that Hans could probably tell with the way the Matador was bouncing across the landscape.
He’d find adequate guns.
Because he wasn’t going to fight without them.
Several minutes later they passed the burning debris of a Spitfire in a freshly planted wheat field. The cockpit was ripped open, by what looked like claws.
“Gott have mercy,” Hans said.
“If he did, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Harry said, aware of the bitterness in his tone.
Hans said nothing in reply.
Which was for the best.
Chapter 7 - Earth
Irsu’s platoon stood in front of the gate. Behind him was the rest of his brother’s company, ready to follow the lead platoon into the breach between worlds.
“If this doesn’t make your iron brittle, nothing will,” Coragg said.
“I was thinking of a more personal symptom of the experience,” Irsu replied, tapping the plate over his groin. “I can tell you right now that if our ancestors hadn’t agreed to this madness, I’d be headin’ the other way.”
“Too late now,” Coragg sighed. “And ancestors are watching. My granpaps is probably shaking his head as fast as I’m shaking my knees.”
Irsu laughed. “Is that what that tapping sound is?”
Coragg grinned. They joked about being afraid, but if there were a way out at this point, they’d not take it. It was their way, as friends, to speak of their emotions when they would to few others.
Irsu turned to his dwarves. “Hearthfire platoon is the strongest and hottest of the flames in Iron Company. We are first of our kin. We are first to see this new place. We, Hearthfire, we brave the magic next.”
Nobody cheered. The dwarven warriors facing him lowered their visors and gripped their axes at the ready.
Hagirr stood on a small platform near the gate. Turning to look at the dwarves, it felt as if he were staring into Irsu’s soul. “Dwarves of the Iron Mountains, you’re next. That first small unit, march through the gate.”
“Who’s he callin’ small?” Coragg grumbled.
“Forward,” Irsu bellowed to his platoon.
As one the unit stepped off with their left foot, followed by the right in unison. It made a martial sound, the iron greaves of the Hearthfire platoon marching toward their fate. Behind them the other three platoons of Iron Company started singing.
Their people had waited ten thousand years for this. And only seconds of that stretch of time remained.
As they reached the glowing barrier between worlds, the dwarves didn’t hesitate. Irsu marched through first, and Coragg right behind him, then his forty soldiers in two lines. Passing the barrier was remarkably without sensation. Only the texture of the ground beneath his feet changed over the course of a nearly blind twenty steps.
Then he passed into a world alive with sounds. At first it reminded Irsu of the forges in his home community, the great hammers flattening out metals into usable sheets.
Then something terrifying flew over them, with a roar unlike any beast he’d ever heard. Moments later the ground around him, strewn with rubble and charred black with fire, erupted in tiny splatters of anger as another of the flying beasts spat death down toward his unit. He looked up at the sky, wondering which way was north.
“Ready your crossbows,” he barked as his soldiers appeared behind him. “There is danger from the sky here.”
The two that had flown so near him before were off to his right, either the east and the rising sun or the west and the setting sun. He’d know which soon enough.
“Two ranks, prepare to fire if they come around again,” he ordered.
The dwarves created a north-south line facing the creature, in two ranks. The front rank kneeled down and raised their crossbows, braced against the ground with their axes.
Those shots would be accurate. The rear rank held their crossbows up by hand, firing over the heads of their fellows. They’d be less accurate. But sometimes inaccuracy helps account for unexpected movements by the enemy.
The creatures groaned in the distance as they swung around to attack Irsu’s unit. At that very moment the first dwarves of the next platoon, Anvil platoon, walked through into the new world.
“We’re under attack from the sky,” Irsu bellowed at his fellow platoon leader. Seek cover, the creatures spit tiny darts. Lots of ‘em.”
As Anvil platoon sought shelter, the creatures lined up on Irsu’s soldiers once more. Fire spat from orifices on the front of the creature’s unflapping wings, and a second later the dirt in front of his unit once again exploded in tiny columns. The second creature repeated the actions of the first.
“FIRE!” Irsu screamed at the same time as some of his unit grunted with shock.
Six of his soldiers fell to the ground, bowled over by the force of the creature’s dart attack.
A horrendous sound, much like the rending of any metal, occurred behind his line. A ball of fire rose into the air, burning with orange and black styrations. One of the creatures was on the ground, the other raced off into the sky in the direction they’d originally come from.
Four of the six stricken dwarves got up, with massive dents in their armor. As they did so the next platoon came through the gate. Granite Platoon.
“We’ll have to get somewhere safe to hammer that out,” he said to the first man he helped up. “Until then, get a backup from the reserve stores when the wagons come through with Iron Platoon.”
The young dwarf nodded, picked up his crossbow and axe, wincing in pain as the dented armor pressed against what were probably broken ribs.
Whatever those flying creatures were, they packed a punch.
“Help the others, Coragg. See to them as you can,” Irsu said. “You two,” he said, pointing at the two nearest soldiers. “You’re with me. Let’s see this creature for ourselves.”
As they approached, it became clear it wasn’t a creature at all.
But a machine.
Fire burned furiously around it. Waves of heat distorted his vision of the thing, but he could see well enough to see what had brought it down. A burning human sat inside it, probably in control of the machine prior to his death. A flying machine. How interesting. When the gnomes came through, probably at the end, they’d want to examine devices such as this one. Irsu hoped there were plenty of them to fight. War is no fun if it’s not a challenge, and humans were historically considered even weaker than elves.
He stared through the shimmering heat, to see the human. Charred, but he could clearly see a bolt sticking through the man’s head and into the seat behind him.
One of his dwarves had shot the fellow in the face.
A few minutes through the gate and they’d already killed an enemy. The Underking would need to hear it, in time. His platoon would be honored, something they deserved.
His brother greeted him as he got back to his unit.
“Coragg says you were examining the beast that did this?”<
br />
“Twas no beast, but a machine.”
“A flying machine?”
“The dragon said as much, but you can’t believe it until you see it,” Irsu assured Bordnu.
“Two are dead,” Coragg said, walking up to the brothers. “At this rate we’ll be expended soon.”
“We know now,” Irsu said. “Our soldiers died to show us, so that our kin might live. No greater honor.”
“No greater honor,” Bordnu and Coragg replied in unison.
“Get what you need from the wagons,” Bordnu ordered, clasping Irsu’s shoulder. Put your unit’s damaged armors in storage. Once we reach a lull, we’ll repair.”
Irsu nodded. “On your feet,” he barked at his soldiers. “These humans aren’t going to kill themselves.” He picked out his two strongest. “You and you. Get the fallen into the wagons. Better the supply train pull them than we carry them.”
“Aye,” both of them agreed. They knew that if the dead needed carried, they’d be the ones doing it. And Iron Mountain dwarves did not leave the dead behind if it could be helped. The ancestors wouldn’t tolerate it.
“Which way is east?” Bordnu asked him.
“Hells if I know,” Irsu replied. “That way or that one.”
“Then find cover. We wait until the sun rises toward or falls from the horizon.”
“Great idea,” Irsu said. “Must be all those learning scrolls you read.”
Bordnu made a rude gesture and walked off toward his own unit.
“You were planning just that, I saw you looking at the sky,” Coragg said after Bordnu was gone.
“Let him think he’s the smart one. It’s plain to see I got the looks. He needs something.”
They laughed as they formed into ranks once again, and for the first time in ten thousand years the sound of Iron Mountain dwarves marching echoed in the air of Earth.
As they waited Irsu stood by the wagon that held his dead comrades.
These were the first losses he’d experienced as a commander.
He voiced a silent prayer to Mordain to accept them into the sky.
Chapter 8 - Saved by Necessity
May 23, 1940