by Chris Hechtl
He spotted a raider slitting a boy's throat in an entryway and grimaced. Another on a local beast used a bow to cut down people as they tried to run into the fields. He caught sight of another pair molesting a terrified woman. They ripped her clothes off and forced her down into some bushes. She was sobbing and thrashing as they laughed and spat in her face. One forced a kiss before they were out of sight. He looked away as Perry took the binoculars.
Perry's jaw hardened at the sight before them. “Loot, rape, pillage, and burn. Yeah, war is hell,” he said, watching the men take turns with the woman. When the last was finished he straightened at the base of the whimpering pile of rags and then casually drew his sword and stabbed downward, then wiped it off, sheathed it, and then took a piss. He was casual about it, taking his time. When he was finished he spat and then tied the drawstrings of his breaches as if nothing about what he'd just done concerned him in the slightest. The entire sordid event was casual, like he had done it every day of his life.
“Damn, Bastard. I'd love to have a Barrett right about now,” Perry growled.
“We got one unpacked with us boss, but I'd say drawing attention our way is a bad thing,” the sarge murmured beside them.
Perry looked down to him and nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Where did that coach go? It looked like it had women and kids in it.”
“If they did, they won’t last long. I wonder why they left the safety of the castle?” Ryans asked. Gold meant someone important but whoever it was they'd left it too late to run.
“Well, someone doesn't think it’s safe, or they wouldn't have sent them away.” Doc replied, shaking her head. “But sending your family out in that?”
“Maybe they didn't know what they were sending them into. It was about twenty or thirty kilometers from the valley defenses to the town. I'd say they didn't think the wall would fall so fast... or were late evacuating,” Perry said slowly.
“From the look of the coach it was someone important,” Doc said. The men looked at her. “What, you think just everyone has a gold coach drawn by white creatures with purple and gold tack?” she snorted at their stupidity.
A lizard hissed nearby. The Sergeant snapped downward with a heel of his boot. He pulled his k-bar then bent over, slicing at an animal writhing in the dirt. “Well, here's lunch. Who's hungry?” he asked. Doc looked a little green.
Perry chuckled. “Gotta eat what you can, when you can Doc. Protein is protein,” he said as they crawled backwards away from the crest.
<==={}------------>
Thorvald was angry that he had lost the gaijin but another prize had presented itself. He'd played his part in taking the wall and then as it fell he'd spurred his mount and men into the night. There was loot to have and he wanted the best.
When the wall fell his orders were to circle around duchy Emroy and cut off any who attempted to warn the capital. He knew his task was futile but also knew that he had to obey his King.
He'd been fortunate to stumble onto this prey. He'd pay dearly for his pleasures but his men couldn't be denied, since they couldn't slake their thirst in wenching and loot they had to find other distractions. He grinned at the defiant eyes of the blond witch. The older one was enraged, she'd do, but first he'd make her watch as his men took turns with her sister. The sight would either throw the witch into frenzy or she'd collapse into a pile of misery like her younger sister.
Already Fertaz his second was having his way with her sister, beating her onto her back and forcing her to spread her legs. Thorvald turned away, not in disgust but to survey the area.
The boy, prince Balthazar had been immediately dispatched, he was too much of a future threat to let live. He listened to the servant women wail and whimper under the hands of the men. The servants had been given to his lesser followers but he himself would be the one to drink the pleasures of each of these beauties. He leered at the bound blond and then bent down to kiss and have his way with her. She turned her head away in disgust. “Princess Deidra, a pleasure,” he growled. She glared over the knotted gag in her mouth. “I think the pleasures will be mine, don't you agree?” he gloated, savoring her glare.
Deidra and her sister were true prizes. With them as hostages the King would be forced to pay dearly for their safety. If Art’ur was smart he'd hold them, wed them to a worthy loyal supporter and use them to take control of this land. Art’ur had a wife already in Thorvald's sister but perhaps...? No, Thorvald thought, the man was no fool; he wouldn't anger father or Thorvald with something happening to Brunhilde.
Deidra turned away from the yellow teeth and hard face in disgust and horror. He smelled, he reeked of garlic and onion and unwashed... the smell alone was enough to make her want to retch. Then her eyes lit upon the scene of her beloved little brother's lifeless body and she screamed as the big callused hands pawed at her silk dress. “Come now pretty pretty... The night is young and we have plenty of time to play...” the bastard cooed and chuckled in her ear...
<==={}------------>
That night the Terrans decided to make some more distance from the war front. Perry had them drive in shifts. They made their way down the trail and along a narrow path avoiding the main road. They forded a river, then a creek and rounded a bend right into a raider camp that didn't have a fire lit. Perry swore vilely as the camp sprang to life.
Ben, the linguist was in the lead hummer. He heard the camp people yelling and brightened enthusiastically, “French! German! Celtic, no, no that's Latin... We can talk with these people!” he said fully excited. He started to yell in various languages leaning out the window, right up until a cross bow bolt pierced his throat. Another bounced off the hood of the truck he had been in. A third bolt got caught in a tire.
Perry snarled and the military people returned fire. The night was lit with weapons fire. The camp broke into chaos. Beyond, on the other side of the camp they spotted the golden coach, flipped over on its side. Perry spun the hummer around as his men piled out the side not facing the enemy. They took cover and opened fire, but the raiders were running. Suppression fire switched to targeted single shots, cutting down the terrified men like wheat. Perry didn't call a check fire; he wanted the bastards dead and no witnesses.
When the single shots died down Perry and the Sergeant detailed some of the soldiers to check the perimeter and watch for leakers or a counter attack. Doc checked the linguist hanging limply out the window. Blood was splattered over the side of the door, and trickled down to pool under his body. She shook her head and closed his dead eyes. “The bolt went through at an angle. It looks like it severed both carotid arteries. He bled out in seconds,” she said to the marine medic with her. The sarge came back and grabbed her by the elbow. He led her to a narrow patch.
There they found the body of a lifeless blond boy dressed in red, gold, and purple splashed finery. A pile of blood soaked rags nearby could just be made out to be a pair of women with their throats slit. A wounded, long haired blond man was lying nearby, holding a knife to the throat of a bound blond young woman. She was battered and bruised, with blood dripping from her defiant face. Her red and purple dress was shredded. Rope wrapped around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides and her hands behind her to the small of her back. A cleave gag was knotted and stuffed in her mouth. Another girl was sobbing near by in a pile of misery. The man snarled in his language. Doc lunged forward but a marine held her back. The broad man's hostage squirmed slightly until the blade pricked her throat.
Perry drew the man’s attention, leading him to look away from the sarge who had his 9 mm drawn. Just as the guy snarled something the girl stomped on his instep and thrust her body to one side and away from the knife. “Got the shot!” the sarge said, but he was surprised when another weapon fired. He turned to see Ryans holding his pistol in a two handed stance. The barbarian man slumped, blood gushing from his chest. Doc rushed in, checking the woman. She ignored the dying man. Perry came over warily, covering the man with his weapon. He kicked the knife away f
rom his nerveless fingers and checked. The blond man's eyes were vacant and there was no pulse. Dead. Good, he thought.
“She's alive,” she said helping the girl up. Angry eyes stare out over the gag. She kept jerking her bound hands. She obviously wanted to be free.
“This one too Doc,” Perry said, gently patting a mound of flesh and torn cloth. The bound girl whimpered and pleaded in her native language. “Easy now miss, you're safe now,” he murmured stroking her dirty blond hair. Doc untied the first girl.
The girl brushed off the helping hands and rushed forward to the other woman and wrapped her arms around her pushing the marine officer away. Perry stepped back, looking around. The two dead women were by the looks of their brown dresses, some sort of courtiers or servants. Men in red, purple, and white livery littered the coach and surrounding area. Their uniforms were trimmed in gold and silver. Most were fairly young. None were armed. It looked like their clothes had been stripped of any metal or jewels. The raiders were dressed in a motley assortment of brown and black. Some had furs of various colors, others had ragged skins. One had a child's skull on a string around his dead neck. Most were not wearing any sort of formal uniform.
“Well, they say the bad guys wear black,” Ryans muttered. The elder blond girl had untied the other girl, from the looks of both of them they were hotties, probably why they were still alive. From the look of them they were sisters, probably sisters to the little boy. Most likely raped though, from their shattered looks and torn clothing he was fairly certain of that. The first girl stroked her sister's hair gently, hugging her as she cried. She glanced his way and he tried not to flinch at the intense glare.
Those haunted eyes; they burned right through him into his soul. He couldn't look into them. God, but it burned, they were both kids, teenagers. War was definitely hell. He really wanted to break something or kill someone right now. Anything to get away from the looks of pure hell on those kids faces.
Doc grimaced as the women gabbled at her in their native language. Ryans came over. The girls stared at him with intense hostility. He offered the larger gold tiara to them and the oldest snatched it from him. The oldest, the blond gave him a scolding in some language and then looked away as she fluffed her battered tangled hair and then put her crown on. He handed the other one, made to look like a laurel wreath with golden leaves to the younger girl who took it quietly and put it on.
“Sorry about the gems ladies, I think they took them. If you check them you might find what's missing.” He indicated the raiders. The women looked and then looked at him. He shook his head. He snorted in amusement looking at Doc, clearly getting the idea that they wanted him to do it. “It looks like the ladies are royalty Doc, or at least nobility.”
Doc sighed in exasperation. “Yes, but I can't talk to them!” She threw her hands up in helpless disgust at the situation. “It is a hodgepodge of languages. I can make out a few... It's worse than English, I mean it's got Latin, Germanic, Swedish, French, Chinese, Spanish, apparently Celtish, and stuff I don't even know,” she said as she sighed in frustration. “I think Ben said the base language sounded like Latin or Celt though. I didn't really specialize in it you know, I mean Latin in medical school is more oriented for what we need to know, not to talk in it.” She wrinkled her nose. “Wanda and Charlie are in the same boat,” she admitted. She shook her head.
Ryans smiled. “Latin, French, and German are the base languages for English Doc; we'll have to figure something out. With Ben dead, we'll have to go to plan B,” he grimaced, looking over to the dead body. Marines were already bagging the linguist. One was digging a grave under a tree. Sydney was piling stones nearby.
Doc looked over to him. “We have a plan B?” she asked surprised and amused.
He nodded and pulled out a blue tooth and clipped it to his ear, “Sure thing. This will pick up their language through the mike. I've booted Ben's laptop, it will have his translation matrix files and the library database to go on,” he grimaced. “The AI will sample the language then build a mutual vocabulary. I tied in Sony's and my AI systems to make it a learning adaptive system. But we need more context to start. It will be slow though, a noticeable lag. We may have to do some repeats so patience on both sides will have to be in order. Hopefully we'll pick up the language over time on our own,” he explained.
He'd had experience with the system of course; he'd helped to design it. It combined hardware and software in new ways to provide translation services for those in need. His ear piece was part of the hardware. It had two microphones and two speakers, one of each was used to pick up his voice and the other two were Omni directional. As long as only one or two persons spoke at a time it would function normally.
The external microphone picked up the other person's words and sent the signal to the nearest computer. The software in the computer, usually a phone, tablet, or laptop would turn the speech into text and then process it through levels of filters using a database to compare what was said with what it had. Then the system fed the translation back to the user through their ear piece using a generated voice.
Of course that was the easy part. The real hard part was the return route. After all, having one way conversation helped but it didn't solve the problem. To solve it the user spoke and the system picked up what they said, canceled their voice out by using the speaker to act as an Anti-Noise Control device. It worked by releasing the same sounds the user said at the same amplitude but with an inverted phase to the original speech. While it was doing this the computer would process what the person said, translate it into the other person's language and then feed it to the external speaker with a generated voice.
The user had to remember to continue speaking even though their normal voice disappeared. It worked really well when VR glasses were employed but he didn't have any here. With the glasses he could see what the translation was in both directions and actually sound out the response himself, thus picking up the language by osmosis. The system worked best with a lot of computing power, but they could get by with a phone or tablet if they had to. It wasn't perfect, it had a ninety percent success rate, but it was relatively frustration free and it was fast once it was set up properly. He'd insisted on bringing it along despite having a linguist on staff. Now he was glad he had insisted on bringing it, though he wasn't sure how effective it would be with the hodge podge of languages the natives seemed to speak.
He nodded to the women. “Parlez-vous français?” he asked. “Habla español ?” The women looked at each other. One said something in a liquid dialect. “Ah, database said that was Latin and Arabic but a little too fast to follow. Okay... let’s start simple with yes and no and identifying objects.” He nodded and then shook his head.
<==={}------------>
“He is talking to us. Is he a gaijin?” Zara asked, coming out of her misery for a moment to look at their strange savior. Deidra nodded; studying the man hunkered down next to them. His lips moved strangely and a weird voice came forth. It seemed to be coming from the thing on his ear. How strange she thought.
“Indeed it appears he is sister,” she murmured stroking the girl's hair. Not girl, at least no more. Woman now, but woman made out of pain and the worst kind of... she put the thought aside as anger welled up with it.
“A gaijin saved us,” Zara murmured. Deidra looked at her in surprise. “Vita sodalis. He smells funny though.”
“He does,” Deidra said. It was the first thing to come to her, something different about the gaijin other than his clothes and weapons. He smelled of mints and strange soaps and musk, pleasant, more pleasant than the bastards around them.
“Can you understand him?” Deidra asked.
“A little,” Zara snuffled. “Oh Balthazar!” she cried, getting a look at their little brother's body. Her eyes welled with tears again as men placed a cloth over his body.
“Get away...” she called but Deidra held her back. “They are here to help sister; they are doing what they can for him. Someone must.�
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“It's... our...” Zara broke down into further sobs.
Deidra sighed as she studied the gaijin. From the sound of it he was attempting to communicate. His pronunciation was atrocious she realized. She had studied under the masters of the realm, learning many languages. He seemed to be using many and not in any particular order.
“They are definitely gaijin, new through the portal. But strangely dressed,” she said to Zara. She looked at the strange carts they had. Wagons were like that but these were made of metal and had no animals to pull them. She turned to study the men warily. There were women among them and the one who had helped her was some sort of healer. “Do you need the healer?” she asked, holding her sister's shoulders.
When that didn't get a rise out of little Zara she observed the gaijin's vehicles and gear. That finally did get Zara slightly interested. She turned with wide eyes and wiped at her tear streaked face.
<==={}------------>
“You see this?” Perry said hefting a sword. A few of the soldiers were going over the dead on both sides. The boy's face was covered. He wasn't sure what to do about the kid.
“What?” Ryans asked coming up to him. He wasn't making much headway with the princesses so he'd handed it off to Doc. Perry hefted the sword then went over to the light of a dimmed headlight. He put the curved sword into the light.
“Curved... Damascus steel?” Ryans asked looking it over. “Damn is that what I think it is?” he asked, studying the water markings on the blade. Beautiful craftsmanship. He could see two different kinds of steel.
“It is. I did a tour in Okinawa. Saw some like this on the walls of a lot of marines. How the hell did it end up here though?” The Gunny grunted running a thumb over another nearby. “Damn, just as sharp too.” He flicked blood off of his cut thumb, and then rinsed it with water from his canteen. Someone held up some sort of battle ax as well.