She had no idea what had happened here, but she yanked the fabric from the dead woman's hand and stuffed it down her shirt collar before continuing to look for Yancy. A coughing fit gripped her, and she bent over, her vision blurry, and hoped the air was less smoky; it was, but only barely.
"We can't stay here," Corinna said, wheezing.
One of the burning vehicles exploded, sending Corinna falling into Leela. She was right; they couldn't stay here any longer, or they'd both pass out. Corinna, on hands and knees, led the way, with Leela crawling after her. The flames were spreading, building in heat and intensity. The windows on a yellow school bus began to shatter from the heat.
Then they heard Clyde, a short pitiful bark.
"This way," Leela gasped, grasping at the other woman's leg in front of her and pointing in the direction of the bark.
She crawled between a camper and a transport truck. The chassis of the large vehicles blocked the worst of the heat, and Leela pushed on, climbing over the concrete barrier that split the bridge. She found Clyde and Yancy only moments later. The dog lay on his belly behind a red Toyota RAV-4, scorch marks on the melted passenger door, as if it had been struck by a rocket—or magic. Clyde lay against a comatose Yancy, licking his face. Leela dropped down beside her brother. "Yancy, can you hear me?"
Corinna pushed her aside and placed her ear next to Yancy's mouth, her hand resting upon his chest. "He's breathing."
Another gas tank exploded, and a burning Geo Metro flew straight at them. Reacting by instinct, Leela created a shield, and the Geo bounced off it, smashing into other cars. "We need to … need to … go!" Leela gasped, dropping her shield. They slung their weapons, then each of them took one of Yancy's arms and hauled him away from the fire. Clyde ran alongside them. "Good boy," Leela said, her eyes blurry with tears. "Good boy."
As they dragged him away, the air became clear again, at least clear enough to breathe. They picked up the pace, not stopping until they reached the far end of the bridge. The other two RCMP officers were gone now, likely already caught up to the civilians. Leela and Corinna rolled Yancy onto his side, and Leela rubbed his back, speaking softly into his ear. He gasped, his eyes flying open. He groaned, wheezing and rubbing his chest. Leela hugged him. "You're an idiot, Yancy Nelson."
He trailed his fingers over her cheek, brushing away the tears. "Call me … Paco."
"Not a chance, you idiot," she said, punching him in the arm, her voice cracking with emotion. "You almost died and left me alone."
"Hey, Snowbird. I'm not … not going anywhere. Thank you."
"What happened?"
Leela helped him into a seated position. Clyde almost knocked him over again in his rush to lick his face. He shook his head. "I remember a flash and flying through the air, but that's it." He looked about himself. "Where's my rifle?"
"Gone. Here." She handed him Elizabeth's rifle.
"Fire's spreading," said Corinna. "Let's move on."
She was right; many of the cars wedged on the bridge were now burning. The heat and smoke were growing as well. They helped him to his feet, and Leela draped his arm over her neck to support him. They made their way off the bridge and onto the empty highway. Yancy paused and looked back. "Elizabeth did it. No way those aliens are coming after us now." Yancy's body stiffened in alarm. "Where's Elizabeth?"
"One of the dark elves took her," Leela said. "With what looked like a … like a dwarf, the kind from those movies. Don't look at me that way!" She pointed to the southern shoreline and the woods running along it. "There. We saw them come out of a magic ring of some type."
"Show me where."
They made their way down the embankment, with the bridge behind them, and stumbled onto the shoreline of the Peace River. Yancy seemed fine now, able to walk on his own. She led him to the woods where the dark elf and the dwarf had disappeared with Elizabeth. "She looked unconscious, but I'd guess she was still alive."
"I agree," said Corinna. "But why kidnap her at all?"
"Don't know," answered her brother, dropping down onto his knees and lowering his face as he peered at the grass. "But I'd guess it has something to do with her magic." Her brother lowered his face even more, so that it was inches from the terrain. Corinna was a fair tracker herself and knew exactly what he was doing, searching for disturbed grass, footprints, or other signs. He glanced up at Leela. "You sure the other one was a dwarf?"
"Short but wide," Leela said. "Maybe four and a half feet tall. Why?"
He grunted, biting his lower lip the way he always did when something puzzled him. "How much you think Elizabeth weighs, a hundred fifty?"
She shook her head. "Not a chance. Maybe a hundred twenty, tops. What's wrong?"
"Look here," he said, trailing his fingertip over a deep footprint.
She carefully lowered herself onto her belly beside him, altering her perspective. She gasped, seeing it right away. The prints were at least a half inch too deep. "That can't be right."
"It is. Our dwarf, even without carrying Elizabeth, is well over two hundred pounds, maybe even two-fifty. You say he was less than five feet tall?"
"I also said he was wide and strong."
"No shit he's wide and strong. He must be solid muscle—that, or he's way more dense than is humanly possible."
"Maybe because he's not human," Leela said.
"Yeah, maybe. Here are the tracks of the other one, the dark elf woman. She barely weighs anything at all compared to this dwarf. Less than you, even."
"Thanks."
Her brother stood up again and stared into the trees thoughtfully.
"You're going after them, aren't you?"
"Have to." He turned to her and draped an arm around her neck. "You don’t know Elizabeth or have cause to trust her, but she's a friend. I'm not leaving her to those people. I can't. No more than I could leave all those people on the highway."
Leela sighed, accepting the inevitable. She looked up, guessing they still had some daylight left. "Okay, then. Let's get going while we still have the light."
"Wait," said Corinna. "You can track them? For real?"
"On my worst day," he said. "But Clyde can track her much faster by scent than I can by sign."
"What if they create another of those magical gateways?" Corinna asked. "What then?"
Yancy shook his head. "Chance we take."
Leela glanced at the bridge behind them. It wasn't very far at all, maybe only three hundred meters away. Thick black smoke covered the entire bridge now. "If they could do that, just travel anywhere whenever they want, why did they only make a magical gateway here? Why walk at all? Why not travel a hundred kilometers in a moment?"
"I think," said her brother, "that there's a lot going on here we don't understand." He squatted down in front of Clyde. "Time to go to work, buddy—Elizabeth, kaanetaah. Elizabeth, kaanetaah."
Clyde sat on his rump, cocked his head, and whined.
"Oh balls," he said with a sigh. "He can't pick up her scent with all the smoke in the air."
"We're not that close," said Corinna.
"We are for his animal sense of smell," answered Yancy. "I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way and track them by sign. That's gonna take too long."
"Maybe not," said Leela, pulling out Elizabeth's scarf and handing it to her brother.
He smiled then held the scarf before Clyde's nose. "Clyde, dehdzat!"
The dog spun about then ran to the trees, where he paused, looking back over his shoulder, his big brown eyes filled with excitement. Yancy went first, cradling Elizabeth's army rifle.
Corinna came up to Leela. "What was that all about, those words?"
"Clyde only works in Dane-zaa, the Beaver people language. He's very discriminating that way." Leela followed her brother, unslinging her hunting rifle. She paused before the woods and glanced back over her shoulder with a smile. "You coming, paleface?"
Corinna smiled back. "Right behind you."
24
When Elizabeth woke, she lay on her back, staring up at a roof made entirely of rusty tin sheets. Weak sunlight stabbed through holes in the tin sheets. As her gaze focused, she realized she was in a dark chamber, surrounded by dirt walls. The air smelled like rot and worms. Wooden beams reinforced the dirt walls but left a foot-wide gap beneath the tin roof, reminding her of pictures of First World War trenches. Through the gaps, she saw surrounding woodland. I'm in the forest.
Then she felt the presence of someone watching her, and a chill swept through her. She bolted upright into a seated position and saw her captors only feet away. The dark elf woman sat cross-legged near Elizabeth's feet, her chin resting in her palm, her elbow atop one of her knees. Her large yellow eyes, reminding Elizabeth of a jungle cat, were fixated upon Elizabeth, as if she were studying her. The expression on her beautiful alien features with her dark-purple skin was unreadable, and she could have been peering at an interesting rock. Just behind her, leaning against the wooden beams with his arms crossed before his wide chest, was the same short man she had seen earlier. Only he's not a man, she realized. He's a dwarf. The moment the thought flashed through her mind, she knew it was true.
Elves, dragons, basilisks, trolls ... why not a dwarf?
His thick red beard hung in six separate long braids bound by silver bands. His large bald head shone like an egg. A small twig, upon which he was chewing, hung from his thick mouth as he watched Elizabeth, squinting at her suspiciously.
Then she sensed the dark elf woman channeling. Her chest tightened with fear, and she opened herself up to draw in mana and defend herself.
Nothing happened.
The dark elf woman shook her head, the message clear—don’t bother.
She's blocking me from channeling somehow. Then Elizabeth realized her collarbone was no longer broken. In fact, she had rarely ever felt so good, so refreshed and focused. She healed me. Then she realized for the first time she now wore a too-tight, sheer green sleeveless tunic that barely reached her midriff. Obviously, these two—hopefully the woman—had put this tunic on her after the other dark elf woman had cut away her clothing. They saved me from that woman with the … thing, healed me, and clothed me?
What's going on here?
The dark elf spoke, her words alien. She augmented her strange words by clicking her tongue against her front teeth, making odd sounds. The language was … strangely lyrical, even if Elizabeth didn't understand a word of it.
The dwarf answered in a gruff deep tone with none of the rhythm that the dark elf had spoken with, but she clearly understood him because they then had a back-and-forth discussion. The dwarf shook his head, his voice growing more stringent, and the dark elf began to speak faster, her words becoming more heated.
They're fighting, she realized.
About what?
Me?
She slowly stood up and backed away and came to a rest against the wood-reinforced dirt wall behind her. Her captors watched her but made no move to stop her, merely continued their heated discussion. She looked through the gap in the bunker, examining the terrain surrounding it. They were definitely in the woods, but much of the immediate bush had been cleared away, making room for other defensive structures—log barriers, shoulder-high wooden walls, and what looked like a children's tree fort built atop a wooden tower. Splatters of dry paint covered everything—blue, yellow, red, and orange, like a crazy painter's wet dream. Even the dirt floor of the bunker they were in was covered in dry paint and plastic shards of similar colors.
Broken paintball pellets, she realized. This is the Sniper Mountain Paintball Range. She had never been here before—she had never really gone anywhere other than school or a library—but she was certain she was right. This had to be the paintball course, which meant she was still close to the Taylor Bridge.
Why bring me here? And why did she attack and kill that other dark elf?
She considered her captors more closely. The woman was beautiful but in a frightening alien manner, with ethereal near-perfect features, like a doll with oversized feline eyes. She could have been twenty or two hundred. Her dark skin was flawless, like darkest satin, marred only by a flower-patterned intertwining tattoo that ran across her high forehead from delicate pointed ear to pointed ear. Her long white hair flowed behind her, reaching her thin waist. She wore black clothing, a meticulously worked black leather vest with sections of gold chain-mail links covering her shoulders and chest, reaching her midriff. When she moved, the chain-mail links shifted in the light, looking more like samite mesh than armor. An ivory sword hilt extended from beneath the woman's dark cloak. She paused in her heated debate and glanced at Elizabeth. Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat.
While this woman was a vision of breathtaking alien beauty, something about her also screamed of terrible danger.
The dwarf was not beautiful, but her intuition warned her he was just as dangerous as his dark elf comrade was. His chest and shoulders were wide—too wide. They gave him a bizarre unworldly appearance. He wore a thick black chain-mail coat that looked nothing like glittering samite. This warrior was all about practicality, she realized. Although he was balding up top, his red hair grew long at the back of his head and was tied into a single, twisted braid. His mustache was so long, it covered his upper lip entirely, reaching up and back all the way to his huge, oversized ears. The braids of his beard swung about as he shifted. His eyes, beneath eyebrows so thick he could have combed them, were clever and bright. Like the dark elf, a tattoo also covered his forehead, but his was created from a triangular, interlocked pattern covering most of his bald head. He wore two long-hafted axes hanging from loops on his thick black belt. The ax handles, forged from a gleaming blue metal, were as wide as Elizabeth's wrist and about two feet long. His ax-heads, shaped like half-moons, gleamed sharply, promising an edge that could split hairs. Triangular runes had been painstakingly carved into the sides of the blue ax-heads, and they glistened, as if filled with silver.
The discussion was apparently over, and the dwarf sighed, throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender. He turned away and began rummaging through a small backpack sitting on the dirt floor behind him. Moments later, he withdrew three loops of polished blue metal that looked like headbands—no, crowns. The strange metal had been elaborately worked with stunning detail, inscribed with the same strange triangular pattern that adorned the dwarf's forehead and axes. Each of the crowns held a blue gem the size of her thumb in their center, with two smaller purple stones set to either side. Just for a moment, one of the blue stones pulsed with light and the sensation of mana.
They're magical, she realized, her skin suddenly flushed with wonder.
He gave one of the crowns to the dark elf, who placed it atop her forehead. Then the dwarf handed one to Elizabeth. She stared at it, not willing to touch it, and shook her head.
The dwarf stared at her in confusion with one eye narrowed, then he said something in that strange language.
"I'm not touching that," Elizabeth said with conviction. "Not without knowing what it does."
The dwarf sighed then placed one of the crowns over his head and grinned at Elizabeth in what he probably thought was a reassuring manner but looked macabre with his squat features and large misshapen nose. Once again, he held out the last crown to Elizabeth.
"I said no."
The dark elf woman frowned then channeled mana once again. This time Elizabeth went faint, her limbs suddenly going numb. As she fell forward, the dwarf easily caught her in his arms, and holding her upright, he placed the crown over her head. He then carefully set her back against a wooden beam in a seated position, mumbling something in his strange language. Elizabeth's heart pounded, fear twisting her gut as she remembered feeling just as helpless when the other dark-elf mage had been about to let that disgusting centipede bite into her back.
But nothing happened. There was no pain.
The dwarf moved away and seated himself upon a block of paint-splattered wood.
&nb
sp; The dark elf woman spoke in a soft, soothing tone, her gaze locked upon Elizabeth's, her lips curling into a reassuring smile.
"Please don't… whatever you're going to do, please don't."
When the dark elf woman channeled once more, she felt the crown pulse with heat and power. Magical energy coursed through the crown and into her skull. It wasn't painful, but the magical aura reverberated throughout her head like thunder. Elizabeth gasped, her muscles stiffening. It felt, she realized, as though cobwebs were being brushed aside in her mind.
The dark-elf mage closed her eyes, as if she was meditating, but the dwarf fidgeted in place. Elizabeth felt a weave of mana coursing between all three crowns.
She had no idea how long this lasted. It could have been minutes or hours, but eventually, the dwarf grunted and nodded then pulled the crown from his forehead. The dark-elf mage opened her eyes and did the same. The dwarf rose from his seat and held his large hand out to Elizabeth. "You don't need it anymore, manling mage," he said in perfect although oddly accented English.
CLYDE LOPED QUICKLY through the underbrush, with Paco, Leela, and Corinna keeping up as well as they could. Ahead, the large German shepherd paused, looking back at Paco as he staggered along. "Hang on, boy," Paco said, struggling for breath, still wheezy after inhaling so much smoke earlier. He put his palm against the trunk of a Douglas fir and leaned against it, his heart racing like an old Ford pickup.
"You okay?" Leela asked, her eyes filled with concern.
Corinna was right behind her, cradling her shotgun and staring suspiciously at the woods around them. Good, he mused. Best to be wary of your surroundings. These are dangerous enemies we hunt.
Gunz (The Dark Elf War Book 2) Page 17