Pard and Miles grab their things and run to Deet.
Deet fishes out two pistols from his pack and hands one to each of them. “Be careful with these, they’re loaded. Have either of you ever shot one of these before?”
“Yes,” Miles says.
“I haven’t,” Pard says.
Deet tilts his head around Pard and stares at the carriage rocking back and forth as Tor, appearing to be stuck, is still trying to get out of the buggy. “Come on, big guy, we don’t have all day.”
“Sorry, I’m coming,” Tor says, and he slams his body into the door and it flies off the carriage as the hinges explode.
Deet eyes Pard and talks to him in a calm voice. “Hold the pistol steady with both hands, breathe slow, when you’re ready to fire, cock the hammer back, aim, and squeeze through the trigger. It will kick, but it won’t hurt as long as your arm is firm and you go with the flow. Do you understand?”
Pard nods. “I think so, but I won’t know until I try.”
Deet pats Pard on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine, kid.”
Tor lets out a frustrating sigh as he joins them. “I would prefer next time we commandeer a bigger mode of transportation.”
“Noted,” Deet says, and he extends a pistol toward Tor.
“No,” Tor says, and he raises his enormous battle-axe with one hand. The face of the shiny metal glistens as the rays of light reflect off the polished steel.
Pard squints as the bright light partially blinds him.
Deet sketches a crude map of the town in the snow with his boot. He draws four squares representing buildings, two on either side of the road and across from each other, then he draws eight grain silos, two on either side of the road across from each other as well as at both ends of the town. He points at Pard. “All right, here’s the plan. Pard, you enter the middle of the road so they can see you and stop before they enter town. Lord Marlow and I will head behind the right side of town together and take the carriage with us. Once they enter the town and completely stop, Lord Marlow, you charge them in the open right away and fire a few rounds, if you hit something, even the better, but really it’s to get their attention off Pard and to scatter for cover. Once they’re locked on to you, you turn around and hightail it back toward me and hide in a spot we designate before you do your initial attack. Hopefully this will draw a few of them away from the main group and into my kill zone. I’ll take up position inside the building at the end where I can pick off a bad guy from distance with my pistol. Once we take them out, I’ll send a little surprise Cray’s way that should cause even more confusion, then I’ll double back and wait for Tor.” Deet nods at Tor. “You head around the opposite side of town and slip into the alley between the first and second buildings and wait for Alexa and Eeva to pass you.” Deet points at Pard. “It’s your job to separate the group and draw Alexa and Eeva forward to our side of the town. They only care about you while the others want Tor. So this means you’ll have Alexa’s and Eeva’s full attention.” He nods at Tor. “Then wait for my signal to attack.”
“And what is the signal?” Tor says.
Deet nods. “You’ll know, once it goes off, count to five after the mayhem and attack, kill them, wound them, or scare the living breath out of them, it doesn’t matter, make them even more confused than they already will be. Once you do, Lord Marlow will provide covering fire on Cray and the others to keep them pinned down while I fire at Alexa, which will make her even more on guard. Tor, then you move forward the best you can toward Cray and the others so Alexa will get them in her light window. Lord Marlow, you transition your fire to Alexa, then I’ll run across the street between Tor and her and fire a few times. This should get Alexa’s full attention and she’ll likely react by connecting to Pard. But Tor, once she casts the light, if you say it can’t hurt you, continue your attack if you can. I’ll get into a building and do what I can to cover you.” Deet looks at all of them. “Questions?”
No one says a word. “All right, move out and good luck.” He nods at Pard. “Get in the middle of the road so they can see you. And once they move toward you on foot, draw them into our guise.”
Pard forces a smile and nods.
“You’ll be all right, and good luck, kid.”
“Good luck to you too, Deet.”
Deet grins. “Right.”
Pard strolls into the middle of the road with Tor by his side.
“Be strong, esen’er, we will rule this day, and take the glory from this battlefield.”
“You two, Tor, you be strong too.”
Tor growls, raises his battle-axe, and jogs across the road and out of sight.
Pard strolls through the middle of the street and stops in the center between the two opposing alleys on either side of the road. Ahead, black smoke and white mist rise from the approaching carriages and huffing horses. Pard takes in the old abandoned town, alone. I guess this is it. My final stand. Not sure I ever imagined I’d be here with Lord Miles Marlow, Deet Penter, and Tor the tena, and I never would’ve thought this is how it all ends. But at least I helped expose my parents’ murderers and got to kiss Selby Barrow before I die. And she’s alive. He peers down the alley, and Tor in position, thrusts his battle-axe in the air, then Deet waves at Pard out of a broken window on the second floor of the end building, then Miles, next to a silo and pile of brick and rubble, steps out in the open and holds up his fist and yells, “You got this, professor, they’re gonna wallow in our wake of death and destruction.” Then Miles ducks back behind a silo. Pard smiles. “Miles.” He sighs. They’re all here with me, doing this for me, willing to give there lives to protect me. I’m not alone, not anymore. An engine backfires and snaps him out of his reflection. Pard’s eyes narrow. Here we go.
The carriages come to a stop in the middle of the road, right before the first set of silos, just as Deet had planned.
Alexa and Eeva slide out of their buggy, followed by their gaggle of Dregs, and then Cray and Hawke and the Larin constables dismount their horses.
Alexa and Eeva quickly move forward as they cautiously scan the broken windows of the buildings as they pass them.
Cray squints his right eye and scans the silos and then the piles of rubble and debris of old farm machinery next to the first dilapidated wood and brick building. He looks at Pard and raises his chin in the air. “We came for the tikba, no need to be frightened, boy. Where are your friends?”
Pard yells back and points at Alexa, “And what about them? Should I be frightened of them?”
“We have no affiliation with the others.”
Alexa continues to stride forward, tall and proud and unfazed. Her brown duster flaps in the gentle breeze, and small swirls of snow cyclones twirl behind her as the wind lifts the light snow and sweeps it through the town. Her eyes lock on Pard as if more annoyed than happy that the prize she’s been chasing for the better part of two weeks is now easily within her grasp. “You’ve wasted a lot of my time, Wenerly.”
Pard shrugs. “Not my problem.”
“You should have—”
Bang—
Miles fires his pistol over and over in the open at the men still by their mechanical buggies and horses.
Alexa crouches and peeks back.
Eeva flings open her battle-hardened duster coat and flings out her silver whip.
Bang—
Bang—
Bang—
Cray and the others draw their weapons and either drop to the ground or dive for cover behind a buggy.
Bullets ricochet off of the snow and carriages. One nicks a Dreg in his arm, and he tumbles to the ground and grabs his bloody shoulder.
Alexa scowls and catches Eeva’s eye. She flicks her head toward Pard and they both move forward with purpose, crouched over and heads on a swivel searching for Tor and Deet.
Miles lets out a barbaric howl and whirls around back toward the building. He yells, “Screw you!” Then dives behind a pile of rubble, disappearing.
A Dr
eg with a red beard points to a tall, gaunt man then gestures at the rubble Miles just disappeared behind. They move forward tactically, leapfrogging, one taking the lead, covering, and the other one moving forward.
Hawke and Cray both scan the building’s windows through the scopes fixed on their rifles.
The two Dregs slip around the machinery and rubble and are met with a hail of bullets, both of their bodies, riddled with iron, they both collapse limp against a pile of bricks.
Cray scowls and eyes Hawke, seemingly having a conversation without words.
Hawke nods and wheels around the back of a mechanical buggy and to Tor’s side of the road. Cray hunches over and follows him.
Pard’s eyes dance from right to left as the action unfolds.
Alexa and Eeva, attention now back on Pard, they pass by the alley where Tor is hiding and ready to attack.
“Look out!” a big bellied constable says, pointing toward a silo on Deet’s and Miles’s side of the road.
Pard’s motorized carriage chugs and rolls forward at full speed.
Deet dives out of the driver’s side door, and he does a somersault as the vehicle heads straight for Alexa’s and the others’ buggies.
In the front, sticking out of the fuel tank, a flame burning wadded cloth.
Kaboom—
The carriage explodes into a ball of shrapnel and fire, crashing into the other buggies and setting them ablaze.
All the constables and Dregs hug the snow and wiggle on their stomachs, covering the backs of their heads for protection and woozy from the blast.
Alexa and Eeva both hit the ground hard and glance back at the carriages succumbing to a raging inferno.
Alexa clinches her teeth and springs off the ground, she flings open her duster coat and draws a pistol.
The men by the carriages regain their senses and get to their feet.
Deet and Miles fire their weapons, raining a hail of bullets toward the men and Alexa.
Eeva unslings her pack and tosses Alexa a silver canister as the bullets pelt the surrounding snow.
“You dare attack the great tena and his esen’er!” Tor says, in full on menacing tikba form, only a few feet away from Eeva, his glistening battle-axe raised above his head, and her not ready for his attack.
Eeva’s eyes widen in panic, and she tries to get her whip around.
Tor swings with might, and Eeva dives to the right to avoid the deadly blow.
The axe crashes through the snow and strikes cobblestone with a deafening ping and crack.
With one revolution, Eeva rolls away from Tor; then with grace, she pops back up to her feet only to meet Tor’s backhand connecting and breaking her jaw with a loud crack. Blood sprays out of Eeva’s mouth, and her whip flies out of her hand as she crumples to the ground, unconscious.
“No, Eeva!” Alexa says, reaching her hand out toward her partner.
Tor looks back at Pard and gives him a smirk, then he eyes Alexa and scowls and growls.
Alexa eyes Tor with hate and fury, forgetting Pard and wanting revenge.
Tor gives her the same look back, winks at her, and then turns and runs toward the billowing, thick, black smoke and fire and debris of the carriages and Alexa’s other men still taking cover from Miles raining bullets down on them.
Alexa eyes Eeva and moves toward her to protect her.
Deet sprints across the road, kneels in the center, and unleashes a flurry of bullets toward Alexa and Eeva.
Surprised, Alexa slips on the ice, and bullets pelt the snow all around her and Eeva. Panic washes over Alexa’s face. She scurries on her knees and whirls her body around and faces Pard.
Here it comes, and Pard stands tall and squares his body to Alexa’s, ready for her to connect to him and cast the light.
Alexa’s orange light shoots out of her hands and lassos around his neck.
“You attack me and my partner?” Alexa says inside of Pard’s head. “When all we wanted from you is to give you a better life and make you safe and transform you into something better. Now watch your friends parish by your own hands.”
Pard ignores her, playing up the guise the best he can. “Please, please, don’t hurt them.”
“I will not only hurt them, I will steal their breath and shatter their bodies. Blizzard-Drazzilb!”
A surge of energy flows through Pard’s body and his arms and hands rise above his head. His arms thrust toward Tor and Deet and the other men.
Deet’s eyes widen, and he sprints out of the road. He bulls through a wooden door of a building, breaking the hinges, and he tumbles inside. The door slams shut, and he disappears.
“Blizzard-Drazzilb!” Pard says, and a whitish-crystalline orb with a faint hint of blue bursts out of his hands, lingers for a second, then explodes into a puff of dark-blue snow over top of him which descends to the ground. Pard collapses to his knees and his eyes watch on as the blue snow touches the white. The white transitions to dark-blue and appears as if wet black ink soaking into paper, then the blue webs away from the blots like thin vines. They trace through the snow and street towards Tor and the others.
Alexa races over to Eeva and pulls her out of the road as the vines barely snake by her. Halfway between Pard and the flaming carriages, whirlwinds of snow the size of a man’s body rise from the dark vines and swirl in the air, hovering like mini blizzards, then they congeal and shoot toward Tor and the Dregs and constables like giant snowballs.
Pard waves his arms. “Tor!”
Tor spins around and faces the oncoming onslaught of snow. He gives the doom barreling towards him a mocking grin, opens his arms wide, holds his head high, and lets out a thunderous roar.
The other men’s eyes widen with fear, either between Tor roaring with battle-axe in hand or the snowballs spitting dark-blue electricity, all unsure of what to make of what is coming at them.
Alexa stares on, eager to see the result of her handiwork.
Tor laughs in deep bellowing bursts which shake Pard in his bones.
The first snowball strikes Tor in the chest, then another and another. The snow melts, and strings of blue electricity arc around his body and enter his skin. He puffs out his chest, and his eyes transition into a solid blue.
Alexa leans forward, her mouth turns up into a devious grin. “For Eeva.”
Tor’s head lowers. He eyes Alexa. The left corner of his mouth rises. He smirks.
Alexa’s grin transitions into a frown. “Impossible.”
Tor spins away from her, raises his ax, and charges the Dregs and constables.
More of Alexa’s snowballs shoot past Tor and head toward Alexa’s own men. One hits a carriage on fire and splatters on the bumper. The impact, half-snow and half-light, melts and webs over the wood and black iron frame, freezing the carriage into an ice block and extinguishing the flames.
Tor continues forward, unleashing another barbaric howl.
The men flinch and cower at the sight. They back away from their cover, slipping and sliding.
A snowball hits the potbellied constable in his chest, another snowball hits another constable in the leg, and another ball hits a Dreg in his cheek.
Their faces shift blue and then pure white. They make a final wheezing gasp as their lungs empty and collapse and freeze.
White lines web around the men’s bodies as if frost spreading over the glass of a window. They freeze in place, translucent, solid ice.
Tor reaches the potbellied man and swings his axe at the man’s frozen body. The glistening steel kisses icy flesh, and the potbellied man’s body explodes into a million crystalline pieces of twinkling dust. Tor tethers his axe and lifts the frozen carriage, hoisting it over his head for all to see.
A Dreg, squat and bloody and frantic, aims his pistol and fires over and over, hitting Tor multiple times in his chest, but the bullets bounce of the tikba’s seeros-hardened skin. He faces Alexa and hurls the carriage toward her. The buggy slams on the ground and explodes into a million crystalline pieces
and the whirl of dusty ice covers Alexa’s body.
Another snowball plows into the side of another Dreg’s head, knocks him over, and his body freezes.
“No, no, no!” Alexa says, blinking from the ice lodged in her lashes and gripping her pistol in one hand and Eeva’s silver canister in the other. She raises her pistol toward’s Pard’s head, grimace on her face. “I should have done this days—no—weeks ago.”
Pard’s eyes widen, and he shuffles backward.
Bang—
Pard flinches then drops to the ground flat on his stomach.
“No!” Alexa’s pistol flies out of her bloody hand.
Pard peeks up at Alexa on her knees covering a bullet hole through her palm.
Bang—
Bang—
More of Deet’s bullets pelt the snow around Alexa. She grimaces and peeks back at all of her men, dead or frozen or worthless or fleeing as Tor destroys them with his battle-axe and fist. She scrambles on the ice back to Eeva and clutches her tight.
Pard gets to his feet, draws his pistol, and races past a broken Alexa and Eeva and toward Tor to help him.
The dark vines of snow created by Pard’s light seep back into the ground and the snow transitions back to white.
Tor growls and raises his arms above his head as the last of Alexa’s snowballs hits him to no affect. All their foes vanquished or fleeing, his body vibrates and shrinks back into human form.
Pard smiles as he reaches him. “We did it!”
“Glory, young seeros, glory is ours! But we still have business to attend. Where are your two women foes? We must slay them on this battlefield so they will hunt you no more.”
Pard glances back to where he last saw Alexa and Eeva and they are nowhere to be seen. “They must have fled.”
“Cowards!” Tor growls. “What of Cray and Hawke?”
Pard scans the buildings. “I forgot about them in the action—maybe Alexa’s ice blizzard?”
“Cray is right next to you,” Cray says, rising from his cover, buried in the snow, the back of his duster coat white which masked him from view. “And Hawke has you in his sights from a vantage point, tena.”
The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) Page 32