Days of Future Past - Part 2: Present Tense

by John Van Stry

  The next day the elven cavalry joined up with us. The first group not long after we started out that day, the second group when we stopped for lunch. They were a very impressive group, I must admit. All of them had body armor, as well as helmets, although none of it appeared to be made from metal. The rifles they carried were all carbines and were rather beautifully constructed.

  But the most impressive thing was their horses. I admit that I don't know much about horses, but I do know that theirs were way better than ours. They looked stronger, sleeker, faster, and were definitely a hell of a lot smarter. All of them were wearing barding made of the same material as the body armor their riders were wearing, and not a single one of them had a bridle or halter. Even the saddles that the elves used looked fairly minimal, and they moved a lot quieter than our own mounts did.

  The day after that we made it to the southern edge of Lake Tahoe. I was impressed with the pace that the dwarves and the elves set for the trip. We had to get off and walk our horses for about half of each day's journey, or they might not have made it.

  When we made camp for the night, Hakk asked me if I wanted to accompany him and his commanders to the meeting with Riggs in his command tent.

  I shook my head, "Unless he specifically asks for me, I'm not going. I also wouldn't volunteer anything. As it is, we're going to camp here with your army, and just keep a low profile."

  "Paranoid much?" Hakk asked. "Surely he doesn't hate you that much!"

  "Well, it's not him so much I'm worried about," I confided.

  "Something I should know about, Paul?"

  "Well, the last time we met he needed the chief's son taken down a few pegs, and well...."

  "You did what he asked you, of course."

  I nodded, "Yeah, and it wasn't pretty. If Tse or any of his friends are around, it could cause problems."

  Hakk laughed, "I knew we did the right thing when we made you a dwarf! You really should come back and live with us when all this is over. Blunt talk and rude men are always appreciated in our society."

  I just smiled and shook my head. "Have a good evening, Hakk."

  "Good evening, Paul." He said and left me as I went and joined the girls and the other dwarves for dinner. I had to admit that he had a point. Dwarves just didn't take insult easily, they'd start laughing in your face before you got half done, then hand you a beer and tell you to have another drink. They'd argue as often as anybody else, but they never fought among themselves, at least I'd yet to see them do it. Either they'd arm wrestle or have an axe-throwing contest or something along those lines.

  I guess when you have a society of highly skilled and tough warriors, you can't have them fighting among themselves, or the end results could get fairly bloody rather fast.

  Hakk and his advisors came and found me several hours later, as we were getting ready to bed down for the night.

  "So, how'd it go?" I asked him as he grabbed a beer from one of the others. That was one of the things I really liked about the dwarves, somebody always had a beer ready.

  "It went well, very well. He went over the order of battle, what our part will be in it, and what he needs us to do. I must agree, Paul, the man is a born leader and an excellent general."

  "Good," I said and nodded.

  "You did come up, by the way," Hakk said with a grin.

  I sighed, "How much trouble am I in?"

  "Oh, not that much. He said I was welcome to your services for now. Which oddly enough seemed to make several of his own men look a lot more comfortable. He even professed to me that he was happy to hear that you had survived your assignment, and thanked us profusely for the aid we gave you.

  "Apparently the number of dragon attacks had been increasing as they were getting closer. Getting rid of them greatly helped him in his battle here."

  "And will no doubt help in the upcoming ones," one of his aides added.

  "So, join us in my command tent about two hours before sunrise, and you can hear what our part is in all of this tomorrow."

  "We'll be there," I agreed and wishing him a good night I turned and noticed Sarah was looking at me with a curious expression.

  "What?"

  "I find the part where he said that several of the Navajo seemed relieved by your staying with the dwarves and the elves and not joining them to be interesting."

  I shrugged, "They're probably annoyed that I beat up the chief's son is all."

  "Still, it is interesting. You did them all a great service..."

  "Another great service," Heather interrupted.

  "Yes, exactly."

  "Maybe they just don't like the way Riggs and I react to each other," I shrugged again. "In either case, we have to get up in less than six hours, so let's get some sleep."

  The next morning we were in Hakk's command tent, it was more like a pavilion I guess, as it didn't have any real sides to it.

  "Okay," He told everyone and pointed to the large map of the area. "The plan is rather simple. Way up here," He pointed to a section of what had been highway fifty where it went through a pass before descending down towards Carson City. "There is a small force, blocking any counterattack from the enemy forces in Carson City.

  "The enemy also thinks this is where the attack on Carson City will come from, so they have a lot of their army arranged on the road along here," and Hakk pointed out several places down the road.

  "However, the Chosen's army is in fact here," and Hakk pointed to another pass about eight miles to the south. "And as we are speaking, they are moving west and will come down into the valley here at sunrise.

  "This will cause the enemy to pull its forces off of the road up here and move to stop the Chosen's forces as they move north up through this area across the open valley floor.

  "Now, we will go up along the eastern shore of the lake, then turn east along the old road until we come to the pass that is being held against a counterattack. The Chosen is fairly certain that by the time we get there, it will be held by a minimal force, if any, at best. We will then proceed down it until we get to this spot, where we will leave the road, and circle around these hills and will come out to the north of Carson City. Where we will dig in and hold this pass."

  Hakk pointed to the old roadway that headed north out of Carson, to Reno where it cut through a narrow pass.

  "The combined Indian armies of the Chosen will engage the enemy, and start driving them back. Once they find that they're losing, they'll want to retreat to Reno, to join the rest of their army there.

  "But we're not going to let them, are we?" Hakk asked, grinning at the other commanders.

  "No, Sir! Hoo ha!" they all cheered.

  I looked it over; it was a pretty good plan, except for one thing.

  "Won't they just retreat this way, instead?" I asked Hakk, pointing to where highway fifty had headed out of Carson City to the east. They'd have a much longer trip ahead of them because of the mountains, but they would be able to still make it to Reno.

  Hakk nodded, "Yes, once they find that they can not get past us, and that they can not stand before the Chosen's army, he believes they will flee in that direction. Apparently he has arranged something of a surprise for them there."

  "Did he say what kind of surprise?" One of the others asked.

  "No, he believed it best if no one knew what it was, until he sprang his trap."

  "Well, at least he didn't ask me to do it," I whispered to Sarah, who gave me a smile.

  "So," Hakk continued. "Get everyone going; I want to be on the road in fifteen minutes. It's going to take us about six hours to get to our ambush point, and we'll probably only have half an hour to dig in. The Chosen knows that once we move on that spot, we'll be seen, so he doesn't want us there until he's fully engaged with the enemy and drawn as many of them as possible down to meet him and his forces.

  "Any questions?"

  There were none.

  "Hop to it then!" Hakk said and we headed back to where our tent had been, having packed all of o
ur gear before the meeting.

  Fifteen minutes later we all moved out on time, but the dwarves all had a spring in their step now. They were off to war.

  - 17 -

  Until we got to the camp of those Navajo who had been sent ahead to hold the road against any possible counterattack, It was a fairly enjoyable trip. The road was in good shape, there weren't many steep grades, and the weather was nice.

  As we approached the camp, we could see that there were small campfires scattered all over, and little tents set up around them. Many of the dwarves and even the elves laughed when they saw them, they even made jokes about threatening the enemy with an army of imps and kobolds. But I could see the genius in it. From a distance, especially at night, you wouldn't be able to tell that the tents were only a few feet tall, or that they were made from what appeared to be paper when you looked a little closer during the day. By making it small, Riggs had made it easier to carry here and set up, yet he'd still gotten the same effectiveness.

  "That is rather smart," both Heather and Sarah agreed when I explained it to them. Several of the dwarves nearby also looked at me in surprise, listening in on what I was saying. I suspected by this time tomorrow, everyone would realize just how the enemy had been fooled, and Riggs' legend would grow even more.

  The force blocking the road, when we got to it, was impressive and well deployed. From the size of the battlements that had been erected, I guess Riggs had brought a large portion of his army up here originally. Then he'd probably snuck them out under cover of darkness, once the position was secured.

  Hakk formed us all up for battle, getting everyone ready, and then had them open the large gate for us. As soon as it was open the elven cavalry took off at a gallop to deal with whatever enemy troops and positions that had been left behind.

  The first enemy position we came too immediately, it was about a hundred yards past the gate and Hakk just had us all double-time it up to it and attack, firing as we came, while the mages cast a number of offensive spells. They were still getting ready as we attacked, which I felt was sloppy of them. They had to have heard us on the other side of the wall before the gate opened.

  Then again, maybe they just thought it was another ploy? Seeing as the main body of troops had already been pulled out to deal with the other attack.

  We rolled over them in very short order. I think it was all over and done with in maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe even less.

  The next position took us longer as they had time to get ready for us, but we had such a numerical superiority on them that there was no way we were going to do anything but crush them, and we did. It took longer, maybe half an hour.

  We caught up with the cavalry at the next position, and again set to with a will. They'd already been pretty beaten up, so again, it was another quick victory. However this had given the forces in the next two positions time to pull back and consolidate their forces somewhere further down the hill.

  Where they did that however I'll never know because we turned off the road to move north and flank the city before we caught up with them. We were slowed by the terrain for a good hour after we first left the road, as the going was rather tough. But once we got clear of that, it was almost smooth sailing all the way until we reached our objective. Any resistance we hit was engaged by one of the leading units while the rest of us just ran on past. Everyone knew we not only had to get there before the enemy did, but we had to get there with enough of a lead to dig in. So there really was no point in trying to take anything we could just bypass.

  I shouldn't have been surprised, but the moment we got there, the dwarves spread across the pass and started to dig trenches with a speed that showed their mining roots.

  The girls and I were directed with half of the elven marksmen to the top of the hillside on the eastern edge of the pass, while the other half started up the western side. Each side also got one-half of the elven cavalry, who would be stationed a short way down the side of the hill and out of sight of the approaching troops. Our jobs were to not only stop anyone from going up into the hills to flank the dwarves' position, but to pick off as many of the enemy as possible from above.

  When we got to the top, we started to dig our own foxholes for cover, and looking down into the pass I saw that the dwarves had now dug three evenly spaced trenches and were manning the southern most of them. I could also see that they'd piled the dirt they'd dug up in front of them, so once they retreated to the next set of trenches back, the one before them wouldn't offer as much cover to the enemy.

  "Enemy approaching!" One of the elven lookouts called and we all packed our shovels away and set up our rifles. Except for Sarah, who had been working on defensive spells since we reached our position. Now she started to work on offensive ones as well.

  We had another elven spell caster with us who was working with Sarah, and there were two on the opposite side of the pass, and three more down among the dwarves.

  Once I got my rifle set up and I powered up the scope, I could see the approaching enemy army. At first it looked just like a wall of water, black, dirty water, raising a cloud of dust as it came. But as I continued to look at it, I could start to see the individuals in it.

  It was a mixed lot. I could pick out the orcs and the giants easily enough. Then there were the wolf-riding fey, several huge monsters that I guess were Ogres, thousands of those more human looking fey I'd see in the caves of the butte, and even what I think were actual humans.

  They were almost all on foot, other than the wolf-riders and some of the Orcs and humans who appeared to be riding some kind of demonic looking steed. Those had fancy helmets on, with red crests.

  "See the ones with the fancy helmets," Heather said from besides me.

  "Yeah."

  "Shoot them first, they're the officers."

  "Okay."

  "You can't hit them from here!" One of the elves lying on the ground next to her exclaimed while looking through his own scope.

  "Watch me," Heather softly laughed and she pulled the trigger.

  The soft pat of the railgun was something we'd had time to get used to, they really didn't sound like your typical firearm. But I wasn't surprised to see one of the crested officers pitch out of his saddle. The railguns not only had a hell of a lot of power behind their shots, but they had a hellaciously long range as well.

  I was surprised by the sound of the elf swearing, but I focused on one of the other leaders and took my own shot, and watched satisfied as he fell from the saddle. I wasn't as good a shot as Heather was, and as we slowly worked our way across the advancing front, she got four more to my two, before the enemy leaders realized they were being cut down, and they withdrew back behind the front lines of the vanguard.

  We were the only two firing for about two more minutes, and then some of the elves started to take shots as well. A minute later and they were all firing, the enemy line having advanced within the range of both their weapons and their skill.

  As they continued to draw closer, I stopped looking for important targets, and just started shooting whatever was in my crosshairs as my rifle cycled. There really were thousand and thousands of them down there, and they were in something of a hurry. But with all the dust they were raising, I couldn't see why, I could only guess.

  When they drew within range of the dwarven position below, the dwarves opened up all at the same time, and the entire front line of the advancing enemy dropped. Then the enemy line behind them dropped too, followed by the line behind them. But I wasn't sure if they were dead, were just diving for cover, or had simply tripped over the dead bodies before them.

  But that was when the real battle started.

  The enemy started firing their own weapons, both at the dwarves holding the pass before them, as well as our positions up on the hills to either side of it.

  All of their shots at us went wide; I guess the protections Sarah and the other spell caster had put up were responsible for that, as well as the range and our position of course.r />
  Sarah herself was sitting on the ground, behind a mound of dirt and casting spells down at them. She glanced over at me and saw my look of surprise.

  "What, Paul?" she asked, pausing a moment.

  "You're sitting!" I said surprised.

  "Well yes, standing for all of this would get rather tiring, as well as present an obvious target."

  "I thought magic users had to stand?"

  She just shook her head and went back to casting spells on the enemy. From the look of it, she was casting some sort of black cloud that moved back and forth among them, leaving quite a few of them dead, and the rest on the ground coughing.

  A group made a break to the east, I think they were trying to circle up into the hills and come after us, as another group made a break to the west. Heather and I were able to quickly pick them off, though it was mostly Heather. The elves, who often would compliment each other on how good their shots were while all of this was taking place, had been rather quick to include Heather in their comments and compliments. I on the other hand, probably didn't get a single one. Probably because I was aiming for the center of mass on all my targets and not making bets with the others on headshots and other difficult shots.

  Over the hour, two more attempts to flank us were made, before the attackers finally broke and ran. I continued to take shots at them as they fled, until Heather told me to stop.

  "Save it for the main body of the troops."

  "The main body?" I asked surprised.

  She nodded.

  "What was that then?"

  "Probably the group that was told to take back this pass. Notice how our army wasn't behind them?"

  "But there must have been twenty thousand of them!" I said.

  "Yes, that was just a small fraction of them," one of the elves commented. "Have a drink, go relieve yourself, and maybe grab a bite to eat. That cloud off in the distance is the rest of the army. I'd say we have a good ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they arrive."