Days of Future Past - Part 2: Present Tense

by John Van Stry

  He opened his mouth to bellow, but no sound came out as I stuck my fist in it and tripped him with my right foot as I hip checked him, hard.

  That tripped him up and I pulled my hand free before he could bite it.

  "Don't move or I will shoot you!" Heather said, standing back well out of reach of the dwarf.

  Grunim froze then, and I got off of him.

  "You okay, Paul?" Sarah asked.

  "I think he might have broken a rib when he hit me. Is he made of stone or something?"

  "We dwarves are tough," Grunim said from the floor, looking warily between Heather and me.

  "I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances," I mumbled to him and quickly went over to check the bomb. Dropping it hadn't hurt it of course, it was meant to withstand a lot of abuse as a warhead. I opened the control panel up and made sure nothing had been activated, then gave a small sigh of relief and quickly put it away.

  Donning my pack I grabbed my weapons and slung the railgun, and then locked and loaded my assault rifle.

  "Cover him for me, while I get my gear," Heather said.

  I nodded. Sarah already had grabbed her pack and rifle and put them on.

  "Ye won't get far, ye know," Grunim warned.

  "That's my concern, not yours." I told him.

  "What are ye going ta do with me?"

  "Put you in the cell with the elf," I nodded towards it. "It'll be hours before anyone thinks to check it, and the spell will keep anyone from seeing you until they go inside."

  He grumbled and looked at the girls and then back at me.

  "I know what that thing in ye backpack is."

  "Oh? I doubt that, I doubt you've ever seen such a device before."

  "I was in the lands ta the west of here, many years ago. My brothers and I found a series of underground bunkers. They had gigantic rockets in them. And they had devices like those in their heads."

  I blinked, "You found a missile base, and the missiles hadn't been fired yet?"

  "I just told ye I did, didn't I?"

  "That doesn't make any sense," I told him. Because it didn't. If the world had become like this because of a nuclear war, all of our missiles would have been fired.

  "How many did you find?"

  "Six of 'em. Now what I want ta know, is what are ye going to do with that one?"

  "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," I warned him.

  His eyes got hard then and I could see he was getting ready to attack me.

  "You're going to kill me people, aren't ye?"

  "I didn't even know you existed until the elves told me about you! Why the hell do you people always think everything is about you? You're all so damn conceited."

  "Why else would ye be coming here with a weapon of that power?"

  "Not to kill your sorry ass!" Heather said pointing her rifle at him again, now that she had her gear on. I noticed that she'd put her rail gun back together and loaded it as well. Damn she was quick.

  "Well if ye aren't here to kill us, and you don't care about the elves...."

  I swore as his eyes got real wide.

  "Dammit! He figured it out," I said looking at Sarah. "Now what do we do?"

  "Ye are going to blow up the dragon's island!" Grunim said and laughed, "Oh for that, I don't mind if ye kill me at all! Those black hearted bastards have killed two of me clan, and dozens more of me countrymen."

  I looked at him on the ground, I could see he had relaxed some; I really didn't want to kill him. I wasn't even sure that we had to. But I was worried about him talking.

  "You won't say anything to anyone about this?" I asked. "They have no idea I'm coming and I want to keep it that way."

  "Tell anyone? Why should I do that? I'd be more than willing to help! Same for any member of me clan or me people. We had a mine there once, that's how the caves that the dragons now live and breed in came to be! The dragons killed many of us when they took the place, more as they tried to escape. We've been wanting our own revenge for decades now!"

  I looked at Sarah, "What do you think?"

  Sarah came over and looked down at him, "Do you, Grunim, swear by the name of your high king Grunrund, to ally yourself to our cause, help us in our time of need, and not betray us to the elves, or anyone else?"

  "I do," Grunim said and nodded, touching his hand to his head, and then reaching under him to touch it to his heart.

  "Let him up."

  Heather and I both put our guns up and he quickly climbed to his feet.

  "Now, let's be quick. I got a cart outside and ye three can lie down in back of it and I'll cover ye over with a couple of blankets and we can be out of town before they finish their council."

  "What about the guards?" Sarah asked.

  "There be no prisoners, so there be no guards either," Grunim smiled.

  "Our horses?" Heather asked.

  "I canna help ye with the horses. But I may have somethin better for ye. If ye let me tell me clan leader, I bet we could provide ye with something far more helpful."

  "Well, let's move first, we can discuss all of this later," Sarah said.

  We nodded and with Grunim's help we gathered up the rest of our stuff and followed him out of the building.

  As he had said, it was empty, and his cart was close to the door. We got in; he covered us up, and then put the remainder of our gear on top of the cover. After that I could feel it as he climbed up on the front seat and got the two ponies pulling the cart into motion.

  We'd only gone about ten minutes when I heard a voice call out.

  "Hey Grunim! You off already?"

  "Yea, Rhys, I have decided to buy the lot. Tell ye council I will pay them three-quarters of the price that they asked of me."

  "Three-quarters?" I heard Rhys laugh, "They'll be wondering if they set the price high enough! You must be getting generous in your old age!"

  "Eh, off with ye. I didn't want to take the time to haggle because I have to get back to me shop before sunset. I promised me uncle I'd have his job done before the day was out, and if I don't get home soon, I'll be out a lot more money than I would have saved by takin' the time to haggle with ye."

  "Well you better get a move on then, it's a long trip and I sense a storm coming on."

  "Aye, I sense it too, and it will be a big one I wager!" Grunim laughed and we started off again.

  After an hour he stopped the wagon and let us out from under the cover. We still had to sit in the back, as there wasn't any room to sit besides him on the small cart.

  "Without horses, it is going to take us a lot longer to get to where we are going," Sarah sighed.

  "As ye want to go to an island, I don't think ye horses were going to do much to help ye," Grunim said from his seat in the front.

  "True. But we still have a hundred more miles to go, before we can even begin to figure out how to cross the water to the island."

  "Ah, but ye have another option now. Remember I told ye how there used to be other dwarves mining up there?"

  "Yes, what of it?"

  "We have boats that can get ye there and back, fairly quickly too I might say!"

  "Just how quickly?"

  "A little more than two, and less than three, hours I'd say."

  "And where could we find such a boat?"

  "It belongs to me uncle," Grunim chuckled. "If you let me talk to him and to the head of me clan. I think it is safe to say that in a night or two, they would be more than willing to help ye on yer way."

  "What did you mine there?" I asked him. "Gold?"

  "Gold? No, there be more than enough gold in these mountains. We mined diamonds and some other rare minerals there."

  "Diamonds? In California?"

  "The island is an old extinct volcano. If ye dig down deep enough, you start to find them. Ye just have be willing enough to go down to where they be. It was just startin to pay off when the dragons moved in."

  "How did that happen?" Sarah asked.

  Grunim shook his head, "
I know not. I did not work there, and of those that did, it was only the ones working lower in the mines that got away. The ones who fought against the attack, they all died to the last one."

  "Sorry to hear that," I told him.

  "All the more reason to help ye kill them," Grunim grunted.

  "Yes," I agreed, "all the more reason to kill them."

  - 11 -

  We didn't get back to Grunim's home until well after sundown. With the extra weight of the three of us in his cart, he didn't want to push his ponies too hard on the hills.

  When we rode into town, it was raining. We all had our ponchos on, and visibility wasn't really the best, but I had a fair idea of just where we were. A lot of the ruins were the same as everywhere else, though the brick and concrete buildings seemed to be in better repair.

  I found out why when we rode inside one of them, and then down a ramp cut into the basement, then down inside the mountain.

  "Do you have entrances hidden inside all of the buildings around here?" Sarah asked him.

  "A lot of them, but not all of them. We also have lookouts in some of them."

  "Just how much of the mountains have you mined?"

  "A fair bit. We've been here for over three hundred years now. This is one of our older cities here."

  "Were you born here?" I asked.

  Grunim nodded, "Yes, I was. When I was a younger man I traveled to the east with a band of me brothers and friends and we found many strange and interesting things. That is what decided me to become a craftsman and an artificer, rather than a miner like me father and brothers."

  "I'm surprised no one is going after the silver to the east of here."

  "There is silver to the east?" Grunim sounded surprised.

  "Oh yeah, Nevada is full of it."

  "Nevada?"

  "The Nev Wastes. There was a huge mine south of Reno."

  "Really? How do you know about it?"

  "I have a passing interest in pre-war history," I told him. "It's how we found the armory that these weapons were in."

  "Ah, I see," he nodded. "Is there any chance I could examine one of those for a few hours?"

  "Sure, I don't see why not. Do you think you could reproduce them?"

  He shrugged, "I don't know. The mechanical and physical aspects, I can match those just fine even the wiring. But the finer electrical circuits, those little black things they called 'computers'? No, I canna do those. Some of those things we can get the elves to enchant devices to reproduce the function, but it is often crude by comparison."

  It was when he mentioned electricity that I noticed the hall we were riding down had electric lights. He turned us into an area that was obviously an underground stable then and stopped.

  "We walk from here," he said.

  I looked around some more, it was fairly well lit. "You have electricity?" I asked surprised.

  "Yes, of course. Why does that surprise ye?"

  "Well, we didn't see it at the elves."

  "Magic is easy for them, especially the simpler spells.

  "Where do you get it from?"

  "Oh, we repaired the old dam. It's very useful and a lot easier than trying to build a reactor. Safer too."

  That boggled my mind. They knew about reactors? Then again, he had a pretty good idea of just what the bomb did.

  "So you know about nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs?"

  "Yes, though none of us had ever seen one as small as the ancients built. The one ye are carrying is the smallest I have ever seen. If ye weren't going to use it on those black hearted bastards, I would offer ye much for the opportunity to take it apart and see how it works."

  "In return for letting you examine our rifles, would you be willing to help replace the supplies that we lost?" Sarah asked.

  "Of course!" Grunim nodded. "What are those green tubes ye are carrying?" He asked as he unhitched the two ponies and put them into stalls.

  "Anti-tank rockets," I said.

  "Anti-tank? What is a tank?"

  "A tank is a heavily armored mobile gun. Fully enclosed. It's a weapon of war."

  "And one of those can stop one?"

  "If you hit it in the right spot. It will also work on any other armored vehicle."

  "Well, there aren't many of those in this world," he pointed out.

  "Except for things like dragons," I replied.

  "Ah! A good point!" He looked at them, then back at me. "You wouldn't be willing to part with one of them, would you?"

  I shrugged and handed him one. "I'll teach you how it works later. Just understand, it's a one shot weapon, and it has a serious back blast."

  Grunim's face split with a huge grin and he lit up like a kid in a candy store. I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing.

  "Come, let me take ye to me home. Ye can eat and relax there while I go talk with me uncle and clan leader about a boat."

  "Food sounds like a great idea right now," Heather smiled.

  "I hope ye like meat. Our diet is rather heavy on it."

  "Oh definitely, in fact let's tell this story walking, I'm famished!" Heather smiled.

  A half-hour later and we were in Grunim's home, seated around a large table and eating some rather wonderful steaks. Grunim introduced us to his wife, Kilondi, who was half a foot shorter than him, almost as wide, with blond hair instead of black, and possessing a bust that was nothing short of miraculous.

  While Kilondi was not as heavily muscled as Grunim was, something that became clear when he took off the chain mail shirt and leather jerkin, wearing just a simple linen sleeveless shirt underneath, she was definitely muscled. More so than me. I wouldn't have been surprised to find out she weighed more than me too, even if she was almost two feet shorter.

  After we finished eating, Grunim excused himself and the rest of us curled up on a couch together and quickly fell asleep.

  "Paul?"

  I woke up, and nudged Sarah and Heather, who both woke up fairly quickly, and yawned.

  "Yes, Grunim?" I asked sitting up straight and looking at him. He had too other men with him, both older. One looked a lot like him; I figured that was his uncle. The other, was blonde and if I thought Grunim was wide and strong looking, he looked like he could break Grunim in half.

  "Paul, Sarah, Heather, this is me uncle Baror, and the clan leader, Hakk. Hakk, Baror, this is Paul, Sarah, and Heather."

  "How do you do," we all said and started to rise, but Hakk waved us back into our seats.

  "Relax," he said, "we're not much for ceremony here. Grunim vouches for you, and that's good enough for me."

  I was impressed with Hakk's English. I had quickly figured out from Grunim's talking with his wife Kilondi that English was a second language for them. Hakk spoke with no real accent at all.

  I nodded, "Thank you, Sir."

  "So, Grunim tells me he wants to borrow his uncle's fastest boat, and he's shown me the weapons you've agreed to let him study. While that is a fairly nice gesture, the sea is a dangerous place these days, even at night. To send the boat out is to risk it, as well as any who might crew it. But Grunim tells me this is something I must do, however he tells me he cannot speak of it. That only you can.

  "So I must ask, why should I trust my men and one of my boats to you?"

  "You know that there is a war on now, right?"

  Hakk nodded. "The army of the Nev wastes and their master Aybem has been driving the Washoe to the south. We have heard rumors that they intend to push down to the lands of the Navajo and perhaps farther."

  I nodded, "That is all true. What you may not know is that the Navajo and the other tribes are coming up to attack them. And they are armed with weapons such as ours, under a war leader that the gods themselves chose and brought to this place."

  "The gods themselves?" Hakk sounded a little skeptical.

  "I have seen him in action. He is one of the best, and I come from a time and a place where skill at leading armies is well known. But there is a problem that needs to
be taken care of, in order to help guarantee his army's success."

  "And that issue is?" Hakk asked, but I could see he knew the answer.

  "Sutter Butte or as you call it, dragon isle. I have been tasked to go there, and to destroy the dragons there."

  "Just the three of you?" he asked, looking skeptical. I noticed however he wasn't smiling. He was taking this quite seriously.

  "Actually, just me. My wives are here to help me get there, and of course they hope to figure out a way to keep me from killing myself in the process."

  "Of course," he nodded, "but how will one man kill several fully grown dragons, as well as the many dozens of offspring that they have there?"

  "A fair question," I said and I picked my backpack up off the floor, opened it up and pulled out the warhead, then showed it to him.

  "With this."

  Hakk looked at it, and then looked over at Grunim. "Is that one of the weapons of the ancients that you found? That our scholars have told us of?"

  "Yea, Hakk. It is! Though it is far smaller than the ones we found."

  "Those were for destroying cities, they were much bigger than this one. This is what we call a 'tactical nuclear weapon', it is small by comparison."

  "Just how small?"

  "Ten kilotons."

  "What's a kiloton?"

  "A kiloton is one thousand tons of high explosives."

  I watched the expression on his face, his eyes widened just a hair for a moment as he did the math, this was followed by a momentary look of disbelief and then he almost smiled. The expression he ended on however was very somber.

  "And you are going to take this there, and set this off?"

  I nodded.

  "Why?"

  "Because I have my orders. Because I must do what I can to protect those I care about and those I'm responsible for."

  "And because if he doesn't one of those gods will make his life a living hell," Heather added with a grumble.

  "So a god told you to do this?"

  I nodded. "But in all honesty, after all I've learned and seen. I'd do it anyway. Someone has to do it, and if I don't, who will?"