I'm not going to miss, Mort assured himself, and pulled the trigger.
* * *
The Hound started up the stairs, knowing something was wrong, not knowing quite what it was. Perhaps it was being in the open. It made him feel vulnerable. He moved faster up the stairs, eager to get someplace with cover.
From the palace, up and to the left of his vision, he saw a flash of light, followed by the hum of what had to be a levin blast.
Hate it when I'm right! He turned and dashed down the stairs, three at a time. A split second later the blast pulverized the wall where he had stood, and the concussion threw him forward. As he landed on his side, debris from the blast showered down on him. Knowing he was still a target, he scrambled to his feet and ducked back in through the arch.
Thirty second downtime, thirty second downtime, The Hound chanted the mantra. He checked his weapon, which seemed to be undamaged from the fall.
If he had thought faster, he would have returned fire immediately, but his reflex had been to get his ass out of danger first. Now he contemplated a disturbing fact: Mort knew where he was.
I'd better fix that, The Hound thought, moving back into the sectors he'd just covered. There must be another way into the upper levels . . .
* * *
Mort tore himself away from the parapet and started running. He knew a way down through the palace that would take him to the barracks, which was where the little shit was probably holed up. He tested his abilities for other magical ways of moving faster, such as teleporting, or floating, but nothing was available.
He ran past his chambers, down a stairwell, into a service tunnel—that was a wrong turn—backed out of that and took another tunnel. This is the one. His pace slowed to a walk, and he held the gun up, probing the way for him.
Mort held still, and listened. Nothing.
The door to the barracks was down the tunnel on the right. He eased toward it and slowly looked around the corner. The barracks were empty save for several hundred hay mattresses, and the human soldiers' former clothing that was strewn everywhere.
Looking deeper into the barracks to the door on the other side, he caught sight of a figure, just inside the sector. It was dim in there, but the shape . . . it had to be him.
Mort aimed and fired at the figure; the node blast took out the doorway and everything beyond it. Dust and debris showered the barracks; beyond the door, a cloud of dust concealed everything.
That had to be him, Mort thought, but decided to wait anyway. Once the dust had cleared, he moved towards the pummeled doorway, and looked. Beyond was another, larger area, leading to the series of sectors.
Off in the corner, he saw a still shape. No sign of the levin rifle. But it was a body.
Mort decided to check it out.
* * *
On returning to the barracks, The Hound discovered the other passageway, which from its direction and increasing size, appeared to lead to the portion of the palace where the blast had originated. He considered ways of ambushing the tunnel, but the tight quarters and his weapon's potency made the strategy untenable.
Trap. Must lay a trap, The Hound thought frantically, looking around the barracks, the hay mattresses, the clothes.
Of course. He picked up a pair of Levis and a black sweatshirt, and started stuffing some of the mattress hay into it. From a few pairs of shoes, he pulled out the laces and tied the pieces together, then suspended it just outside the door from a torch holder. He examined it from different angles. It looked good. But would it be good enough?
The Hound moved back into the sector and, against a wall looking towards the barracks, lay down in a sniper position. And waited.
It seemed to take forever; he had nothing to measure time with. The dummy hung limply from the holder, like an executed cattle rustler.
Without warning or preamble, a node blast roared through the door, taking out part of the wall. For a brief moment The Hound wondered if the whole place was going to come down.
He waited, and waited. The dust cleared, and a black, spindly form appeared in the doorway, holding a levin rifle. He seemed uncertain of his quarry's destruction, looking over the area before apparently seeing something of interest.
The Hound kept his target lined up on the sight as Mort walked over the debris.
Now.
The Hound pulled the trigger. An instant before the fireball hit his opponent, Mort looked up and saw the destruction flying his way. There was no time for him to do anything else.
The node blast caught Mort and slammed him into the opposite wall, carving a massive hole; he lay crumpled on the floor before it.
The Hound stared at his work a good long time before moving. Another wave of falling rock and debris passed. Finally, when his gun was back up, he decided to get up and verify the kill. He walked carefully around the rocks and pebbles that littered the floor, keeping his gun up and on the still form on the floor.
As he stood regarding his fallen opponent, Mort's body lit up from inside with brilliant, white light; The Hound jumped back. Light pierced through Mort's every orifice—eyes, nose and mouth, which was locked in a silent grimace. The light turned from white to blue and spun a dense net around Mort which picked him up and lifted him towards the high ceiling.
Mystified, The Hound watched as the body disappeared into the ceiling.
He looked down at the screen on his gun.
Game Over, it said.
* * *
The Hound made the long walk to the gatehouse with a spring in his step, thinking nothing in particular, and feeling a bit drained from the ordeal. At the gatehouse he waded through still more destruction, until he stepped past the ruined portcullis, and looked out over the assembled Seleighe army.
"There! It's The Hound!" someone shouted, and a hundred elven warriors turned to him, and erupted in a spontaneous, deafening cheer.
Chapter Fifteen
Avalon was celebrating.
At the conclusion of the Foevorian War, as it had come to be called, King Aedham arranged a massive feast for the entire army. The banquet overflowed the dining room and great hall and spilled out onto the courtyard, a long, joyous ribbon of food, feasting and music. Throughout the meal the Outremer warriors burst into spontaneous song, and the Avalon warriors, not to be outdone, began their own chorus. The contest flowed up and down the tables, raucous battle songs sung out of key which soon degenerated into X-rated limericks.
Aedham cupped his hands over Dobie's ears. "You're not old enough to hear these."
"Like hell," Dobie countered, around a mouthful of mutton, and playfully batted the King's hands away. "If I'm old enough to fight for my country, I can sing my own dirty limericks!"
"Your country?" Aedham asked. "Avalon?"
"No," Dobie said, clearly pleased he had gotten the undivided attention of everyone around him. "The United States. I'm going to join the Marines."
Applause erupted around the table. "Gods help your enemies," Aedham said.
Perhaps the strangest turn of the afternoon was the arrival of the Foevors. Aedham had extended an invitation to Mort's former minions to join them in a festival of peace and, perhaps not so surprising, they had all accepted. The Clappers brought entire cows to contribute to the banquet, and the Greens buzzed about nervously, as if unsure of their welcome; soon it became clear that the conflict between them had been set aside. The King made it known to everyone that the battle was over, once and for all, and that Underhill's future lay in cooperation, not war.
"Is Niamh drunk?" Ethlinn asked, sitting beside the King. "I believe he is." With a noticeable flush of intoxication, the Engineer was entertaining the guests at his end of the table by hanging a dozen silver spoons off his face. Llan was assisting, and the two occasionally whispered secretly between them, while casting furtive glances towards the King and Queen.
"Those two are up to something," Ethlinn said, with a suspicious smile. "That's trouble waiting to happen."
After the meal
Aedham, Ethlinn, and Dobie, and as many of his officers as could fit comfortably in the small area, retired to the modern drawing room. CNN was on the big screen, and the King watched attentively as the results of their handiwork broadcast across the globe.
"In other news," newscaster Bernard Shaw began, "the FBI continues to investigate the so-called UFO cult that abducted two hundred eighty-seven young men from laser tag arenas around the world. Special Agent Samantha McDaris, who was in charge of the investigation, is still looking into how all the hostages were hidden in the Lazerwarz arena located in Tulsa, Oklahoma."
"Look. It's Sammi," Ethlinn said. Footage of Samantha supervising the roundup of hostages as they filed out of the arena, all still wearing the black pajama uniforms.
"And what might be related news," the newscaster said, with a sly grin, "the return of the Stonehenge megaliths to their original location in England has all officials scratching their heads."
The camera switched to Alfred Mackie, standing in front of Stonehenge on the Salisbury plain. "We have no bloody idea how it happened," he said to the camera, looking and sounding utterly exhausted. "If anyone has any information we would love to hear it."
Aedham and Ethlinn burst out laughing. "Dear Morrigan," Aedham said, at last. "She certainly was eager to make good on her promise to make peace." After the war the goddess had approached Avalon, humbled and embarrassed, wishing to make amends. She had apparently put all her eggs into Mort's basket and in so doing had alienated herself from the realm of the gods. With Mort's betrayal, she had nowhere to go. Lugh had seen to that. "Return Stonehenge to its rightful place," Aedham had instructed. "Then we'll think about it."
"Well?" Ethlinn asked the King.
"I'm still thinking about it," Aedham replied.
Then the screen suddenly went blank for a moment, then returned with a familiar face.
The room fell silent.
Aedham stared at the screen. Mort?
"We interrupt your regular programming to bring you this news flash," Mort said; he sat at a news desk, with a suit and a loosened tie. "Four giant UFOs piloted by what appears to be elves have been spotted hovering over Washington D.C."
Mort's alive?
Aedham leaped to his feat. "What the hell?" he shouted.
* * *
"You are evil evil evil," Llan said, setting his stein down on the table next to the monitor. "He'll kill you, you know."
In the engineer's workshop Niamh, Llanmorgan and Petrus sat around their war spoils from the Lazerwarz arena: a high end file server and monitor.
"No, he won't, he won't," Niamh said as he drank directly from a carafe, dribbling burgundy all over himself. "The King has a sense of humor."
"What did you call this again?" Petrus asked.
"Computer graphics," Niamh said proudly. "There was plenty of security footage of Mort stored in the file server. I just pasted his face over an off-the-shelf animation, patched into the palace's cable feed, and voila!, Mort's back delivering the evening news on CNN, he is!"
After a somber, contemplative pause, all three exploded in laughter.
"Should we tell him now?" Llan suggested.
"Naw," Petrus said. "Let's wait a while."
THE END
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