by RW Krpoun
The Black Talons pondered the news. Finally Shad leaned over to Fred and laid a hand on his arm in a restraining gesture. Straightening, he glanced at the others before turning to Amid. “Go back to your master without delay.”
Amid looked surprised. “And bear him what news?”
The Shootist drummed his fingers on his saddle horn. “Tell him he has embarked upon a truly dangerous path, and his only hope of salvation is to deal fairly and honestly with us.”
“I understand. But what of your starting point?”
“We’ll find our own way in our own time. If your master is as impressed with us as he claims, he should know we’re good for it.”
Amid hesitated, then bowed again. “As you wish.”
“Leave all your money behind,” Derek announced abruptly.
“Fifty-five duro and change,” Derek reported as he tucked the coins away.
“Robbing our campaign hook,” Shad shook his head. “Jeff gets weird when he plays a thief, but you really go bonkers, you know that?”
“We always need money,”
“I’m not arguing with you.” Shad gestured towards the creek. “Let’s find a place to make camp before I fall over. Derek, you’re in charge of the portfolio and the magic marble.”
They found a spot where ten feet of sandy creek bed flanked the swift-running creek, and the banks were only chest-high, giving them a decent defensive position.
“I’ll take last watch,” Shad announced, pulling off his boots.
“I’ll brush down Buttercup,” Derek offered.
“Thanks-I’ll get you back.”
“Here,” Jeff flipped a playing card at Shad. The card dissolved into a puff of dust when it stuck the Shootist’s arm. “Now you’re proof against bugs for a week. I bet those buffalo have fleas the size of brine shrimp.”
“Good thinking. See you guys later.” Shad swiftly scooped out a hole for his hip and stretched out with a handkerchief across his face.
Jeff applied cards to himself and the other two. Glancing at the sun, he stretched. “You know, I could use some sleep myself.”
“I’ll take first watch-I’m not tired,” Derek offered.
“Cool. You want second or third watch?” Jeff asked Fred.
“Third.”
“OK.”
Fred helped Derek unsaddle and brush down the horses before stretching out. The Scav/Alienist leaned against the raised westernmost bank, arranged his Spencer and magazine-box just so and relaxed. He had stood guard many times in Iraq and the Prison, and that sort of old habit never really fades away.
Derek was torn by very mixed feelings-on the one hand being back in what could be considered a combat zone and being a pawn on the board of someone else’s game was vastly unnerving. But he had enjoyed the Prison more than the others, and the idea of being in yet another such place was exciting. It helped that Shad and Jeff were completely undisturbed about their situation-they were back in their warrior modes without so much as a blink. It must be pretty great to have that sort of steel for nerves.
He had met the others when he joined the National Guard not long out of High School. The recruiter told him all about getting money for school and an enlistment bonus in return for one weekend a month and two weeks a year, and never mentioned what being Infantry really meant. After Basic and AIT he joined his battalion in the 36th Infantry Division (Texas National Guard), and there they were. Shad was his squad leader, serving in the Guard after an enlistment in the Regular Army; Jeff had been his Assistant Squad Leader after serving an enlistment in the Regular Army. Jeff and Shad had not met before the Guard; Shad had been Military Police while Jeff had been in Air Defense (and a graduate of Ranger School). Jeff had talked Fred, his best friend, into joining the Guard so they could do weekend drills and the annual AT’s together, and the big man had been the squad’s senior SAW gunner.
Then Iraq had been put on the hit list and before they knew it they were called up and heading off to war. The four had stuck together throughout Iraq (although Derek had been wounded and gone home a month early). After their battalion was mustered back to Guard duty they let their enlistments run out and left the military, Shad a bit reluctantly.
Since then they had hung together, forming the core of a paintball team, a tabletop gaming group, hiking expeditions, and trips to various events and conventions. They were simple four ordinary guys going about their lives until the fateful night they were spirited away from their beds and sent to the Prison, the alternate world or place where the legendary things were banished by the Judeo-Christian faith and the slow growth of civilization.
But they had survived, and returned to their lives just as they had when they came home from Iraq. Fred had gotten married, Shad chose a new career, Derek had gotten a promotion, but still they hung together, bound by unspoken oaths and shared tribulations. Bickering, arguing and generally being disagreeable to each other more often than not, they were brothers born of life, or so Derek liked to think.
That was the trait that had seen them through their travails: the four together were much more than the sum of their parts.
Chapter Three
Shad had a small smokeless fire going when the others woke not long after dawn, a pot with a crude stew made from jerky, hardtack, and dehydrated vegetables bubbling away over its coals alongside their coffee pot.
“I feel a lot better,” he observed as the others joined him at the fire, their morning absolutions completed. “I think I slept about twelve hours.”
“Yesterday was a rough day,” Jeff agreed, pouring himself and Fred coffee. He offered Derek the pot, but the Scav/Alienist declined. “Today isn’t going to be a lot easier.”
“Yeah, last time we landed close to a major city,” Derek agreed, filling his mess kit with stew. “Here we’re in BFE.”
Shad checked his revolvers. “So our note said ‘we’ but was signed by an individual, and Amid referred only to his boss. The party line is that we’re supposed to hunt down his dear beloved because Cecil is impressed with our first incarnation as the Black Talons. Anybody buying that?”
“It seems unlikely, but the portfolio we got matches his story: the girl went with an expedition whose mission was to close the invader’s roads; I say girl but she’s actually twenty-four and a trained medical type.”
“How big was the expedition?” Jeff asked.
“Twenty people; they left six months ago to secure the means for the closing. They’ve been over-due for three weeks.”
“And unless Amid forgot to mention it, they didn’t close the roads,” Jeff pointed out. “You really need to wonder about Cecil’s motivations.”
“The guy’s an asshole, that goes without saying,” Fred mumbled.
“And yet you said it anyway,” Derek grinned.
“So our job is to find this expedition,” Shad rubbed his jaw. “I suppose we will have to retrace their steps?”
“Yeah, they had no communications,” Derek nodded.
“And it is a journey of six months?”
“No, they had to do some stuff at certain points along the way, things that would have taken a full lunar cycle or more to accomplish. Maybe a month, six weeks of actual travel,” Derek held up a strip map.
“We could make a beeline to a central point on the trip and if they had reached that point and did their job, we can pick up the trail from there,” Jeff suggested. “If not, then we ride the back trail to see why they didn’t make it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Shad nodded. “What do we do when we find her?”
“Wrap a lock of her hair in this sheet bearing his signature and burn it; he’ll contact us with more instructions at that point.”
“Interesting. We’ll call Cecil’s job the primary quest; the core quest is getting back home.”
“What do you figure for today?” Derek carefully folded the portfolio away.
“Side Quest One: The Search For Knowledge And Resources,” Shad drank the rest of the stew in
his mess kit’s bowl. “We look for the nearest town and learn what we can learn, same as before. See if the Death Lords are really invading, if the Tek are what Amid said they are, if this really is the Realm and not the Prison. In short, try to get a handle on how much we heard yesterday was fact, and how much was smoke and mirrors.”
“It beats being chosen as an assassin again,” Derek observed. “Rescuing somebody is a big step up.”
“True,” Shad conceded. “Although I have to say that based upon our brief encounter, killing Tek won’t bother me a bit.”
“Non-Humans don’t bother me,” Jeff agreed. “I don’t really want to see any more combat, but killing ‘em doesn’t cost me any sleep. Nor did the few Humans we chopped back in the Prison.”
“That’s another thing,” Shad snapped his fingers. “If this business about the Realm is valid, we need to find out what races got brought along. And who makes up the Horde.”
“I think the Realm-Prison story is real,” Fred mumbled. “Too easy to check. And we should have known there were other places like these already.”
“Why?” Derek frowned.
“The revenants: they were outlanders too, but they didn’t come from Earth. That should have told us there was at least a third option.”
The Talons thought about it. “So there might be more places,” Jeff observed as he sorted cards.
“Wherever the Death Lords are coming from, for a start,” Derek nodded. “I wonder if this is the first place they invaded.”
“I wonder if the Tek’s ancestors were the first to mount an escape attempt from the Prison,” Shad mused. “We can be sure none made it back to Earth.”
“Well, its not our problem,” Jeff observed.
“The fact that we’re back with classes and levels suggests we’re not in the Prison,” Derek pointed out. “That system was ended when we left.”
“True,” Shad pointed at Derek. “You said the magic was weird-what did you mean?”
“It’s indirect,” Derek produced a slender glass tube the size of a cigarette. “I write the elements of a spell onto a piece of paper called a hex sheet-its sort of like a Jinxman’s charms, although the mix of ink and style of writing has a lot to do with it. I can do the usual non-combat effects: light, move stuff, things like that. The combat stuff is where it gets strange: there’s no Magic Missile or direct action spells like that. Instead it’s all hex and counter-hex, trying to screw over your foes while protecting your friends. Some I put on you guys as a group like buffs, some I use to counter what the bad guys are throwing. Its like electronic warfare or hacking computers, all action and counter-action.”
“And you only have two levels in it.”
“Look, its going to take me a while to get used to it; here I’m designing my own spells, based on symbols used, ink mix, and style of inscription. The neat thing is that there’s almost zero effort in casting spells, so I can still use a gun in a fight.”
“Let me get this straight: you’re basically writing scrolls, right?”
“Hex sheets, yeah, although I don’t actually have to read them.”
“OK, well, that’s going to take a bit of getting used to. Jeff, how are you fixed for charms?”
“Heavy on healing, not much else. I’ll go for armor buffs next.”
“Sounds like a plan. Time to do the dishes and find civilization. Derek, anything in the portfolio to help with that undertaking?”
“Nope. Amid was supposed to guide us to the next point; without better knowledge of the area I can’t tell if we’re north, south, east or west of the map.”
“Then we’ll go east.”
“Away from the Tek seems like a good idea,” Jeff agreed.
As the Black Talons saddled their mounts Jeff paused to take a few deep breaths out of sight of the others. He could not believe that he was going to be running around another damned alternative world or whatever the hell this place was, not after all he had been through in his life. It didn’t help that Derek was like a little kid at Christmas and Shad was back in pure military mode, eager to start killing again. Fred he gave a pass to, being enraged by his child’s abduction and thus not likely seeing the big picture, but Jeff wished the other two would express at least a little unease. If one of them would say that they felt scared or nervous he could share the despair that was weighing on his shoulders without looking like such a pussy. But Derek was too thrilled and Shad was too self-centered to ever experience a true Human emotion.
Slowly stretching his arms out the Shop teacher twisted his torso to each side, a little further each time, trying to drive the stress deep inside and lock it away before anyone noticed.
“If we’re not interrupting your yoga we would like to get moving,” Shad observed drily.
“OK, OK. My back is stiff; I’m haven’t been sleeping on the ground much lately.”
“I know what you mean.” The Shootist surveyed the horizon as the Jinxman mounted up.
Fred, drawing upon his Animal Lore skill, showed the Talons how to traverse the grazing herds of bison safely, zigging between clumps of the beasts and approaching knots of cows from upwind, causing the creatures to move aside without spooking them.
“This sucks,” Jeff complained. “They stink and there’s a permanent dust haze. We’ve been riding for an hour and there’s no end to them; I’ve had to burn four charms to keep the flies away from the horses.”
“A lot of the smell is actually the carpet of buffalo shit,” Derek pointed out.
“It makes the grass grow thick,” Fred shrugged. “The circle of life.”
“Grass has it tough,” Shad observed. “The buffalo trample it, eat most and cover the survivors in crap. It just supports my theory that all vegans are secret supporters of genocide.”
“How do you figure?” Derek asked, mainly to pass the time.
“Think about it: you get hundreds of burgers from one cow, but a salad will kill two or three plants, and a sprout sandwich will slaughter hundreds. People don’t become vegans for any other reason than the idea of mass slaughter. To be kosher animals have to be killed without trauma or pain, and the USDA rules likewise set standards for slaughterhouses. But who cares how much planets suffer? They get ripped apart under the most callous of conditions. Therefore vegans change their diet simply to inflict the maximum suffering and death upon a chosen population, and that meets the textbook definition of genocide.”
“They’re savages,” Fred agreed.
Derek pondered the argument. “Well, the vegans I’ve met are pretty aggressive in selling the ideology, which does support your theory.”
“I’m never sure what he actually believes and what he says just to be obnoxious,” Jeff observed to Fred.
“No telling,” Fred muttered, frowning as he looked to the northeast.
“You see something?”
“Not really, but the buffalo are shifting over there, could be we have some company.”
“You two get that?” the Jinxman asked the others.
“Yeah,” Shad nodded. “Question is, friend or foe?”
“No clue,” Fred said, still watching.
“Is it a big group?”
“Not too huge. I’m betting not Tek, either, because the bison aren’t all that concerned about them.”
“Let’s head towards them-at this point we can’t pass up the opportunity to get directions.”
“And women say men never ask directions,” Jeff grinned.
“Or there might be loot,” Derek said hopefully. While helpful and generous in real life, Derek’s in-game greed was legendary. He swung back and forth between the two mental states when in otherworldly environments.
Shad urged Buttercup into the lead as the Talons angled towards the northeast while pulling his shotgun from its scabbard and resting it across the saddle horn. In Iraq he and Fred were the most aggressive of the group while Derek had surprised them by displaying a surprisingly advanced grasp of tactics and terrain and Jeff, whose courage was
unquestioned, had a knack for finding interesting situations.
Shad thumbed the shotgun hammers back and then pointed to the approaching group with his index finger, his thumb extended to the side and turning his wrist so his thumb rotated towards the ground (The hand signal for possible hostiles).
The fog of dust cut detailed visibility, but as the shadowy figures of riders became vague silhouettes the lead figure clearly gave a start and let fly with a black powder pistol, sending a ball close enough to Jeff to make that worthy duck involuntarily.
As the lead rider, swathed in a light dust cloak, spurred his mount to a gallop towards Shad, the Shootist slid back in his saddle, thrusting his feet forward against the stirrups to create a steady shooting platform. He fired first one barrel and then the other at the lead rider and then urged Buttercup to a trot as he shoved the shotgun into the saddle scabbard.
Behind and to his right Fred’s Sharps boomed and an indistinct rider was ripped bodily from its saddle like a rag doll. To his left Derek came up, Sundae’s reins between his teeth, firing his Spencer carbine. Somewhere behind them Jeff’s Winchester was firing.
A gun barked ahead, the muzzle flash flaring in the yellow dust-haze, and Shad cursed as fire lanced across his left side. Drawing his left Colt he fired twice at where he had seen the flash, then fired a shot into the chest of the lead rider who was trying to bring a throwing axe of some sort into play, the impact of the .45 Long Colt knocking the rider back onto the withers of its shaggy pony.
Then he and Derek were past and in amongst other riders mounted on shaggy pony-sized horses. He fired at two other riders as a second muzzle flash flared and a throwing weapon whirred past his head. Firing his last shot he slid the revolver home and drew the second, aware that his foes were smaller than a Human but not bothering with the details.