Ranger

by William Stacey

  Huck, Ylra, and the others departed, leaving Alex alone with Leela.

  Once they were out of earshot, Leela turned to him. "So how are we doing this?"

  He sighed, not the least bit surprised. "You're going to be difficult, aren't you?"

  "You have to ask?"

  He stared at the fortress, planning his approach as he scrutinized the surrounding cover. "Stick close. We're only gonna get one shot at this."

  20

  Huck's Strike Force stood ready in ranks in the ruins of an ancient stone courtyard several dozen paces wide. The appendages of Long Bow's rig flared with eye-searing light, creating a gateway that opened in the desert east of the river and the high cliffs that bordered it. The sudden flash washed out the night-vision visors, blinding everyone—except Alex and Leela, who had already raised their visors and turned away with their eyes closed.

  While the others were blinded, Alex pulled Leela with him under a hollow created by a fallen ruin's stone wall. There wasn't much room, so Alex dragged their rucksacks in after them, worrying about how quickly the Strike Force helmet circuitry would readjust to the flare-out. They turned off their MBITR sets, hoping that the network would cease tracking them without the radio.

  When no one challenged them, it seemed they had gotten away with it—so far.

  From where they lay beneath the rubble, they watched Huck lead her soldiers through the gateway. One platoon then another ran through the gateway in ranks, followed by the war rigs and headquarters personnel, including Dr. Ireland and her medics. After the last platoon went through, the young platoon commander hesitated, scanning his surroundings for stragglers. His gaze swept over the rubble beneath which Alex and Leela hid. Then he turned and stepped through the glowing gateway. A second later, it winked out of existence. Leaving them alone.

  They lowered their visors again and reactivated their night-vision mode.

  "We need to go," Leela whispered. "That flash was visible for a dozen miles at night."

  Alex nodded. "Let's roll."

  It was too hard to move stealthily while wearing the heavy packs, so they hid them beneath the rubble to retrieve later, if they made it back. Then, as ready as they would be, they slipped away toward the fortress. Within minutes, Alex gained a profound impression of the electronics encased within the futuristic helmets. They heightened his hearing beyond all expectations. Twice now, he had heard the soft patter of hooves and hid before running into small deerlike creatures moving through the ruins. Each time, he and Leela had remained in place, watching while the animals sniffed the air then moved on. The animals were oblivious to their presence thanks to the chameleon qualities of the MR suits. He had become an excellent woodsman, but this was amazing.

  When he heard a stone clatter over rocks followed by the soft clink of metal upon metal, he and Leela took cover behind a broken marble column. Seconds later, a dark-elf patrol of ten male warriors in mail and carrying spears, swords, and crossbows appeared. The dark elves stalked toward the courtyard where Long Bow had made her gateway, slipping right past Alex and Leela.

  As the patrol disappeared, he and Leela rose and glanced at one another in disbelief. That had never happened before with the hyper-sensitive elves. This technology changed everything. They slipped away, shadows in the darkness.

  A half hour later, they hid behind ruins two hundred meters from the broken fortress walls, spying on the defenses. Up close, he saw that although the devastation had been considerable, much of the fortress remained intact. He had seen this before with some demolitions. The blast took the path of least resistance, which in this case was outward, destroying the walls and flattening the city.

  Hardly seems fair.

  So far, they had seen a half dozen patrols and sentry posts, and no dead ground where they could approach without the guards seeing them, even with their reactive camouflage suits. This place was secure. Huck had been right, he realized, his frustration growing. There was no way to rescue Lee and Kargin.

  But he had to try.

  "What do you think?" Leela whispered.

  "Not the front," he answered. His gaze took in the cliffs surrounding the fortress. "You're the rock climber. How about scaling those cliffs, coming in from behind?"

  "Nuh-uh," she said. "Not without climbing spikes and rope. We sure as hell couldn't do it quietly."

  "Shit."

  "What of those ruins?" she asked, gesturing to their left, to the shattered stones where a large complex had once stood. Now, only the broken shell of the walls remained, with fallen marble columns lying amidst the ruins. Judging from its size and prominence, he guessed it must have been an important complex, a small palace or holy site, maybe a temple. It was at least a hundred meters from the ruined complex to the fortress, not that much closer than where they stood now.

  "What of them?" he asked, turning to face her.

  "Wait." She gripped his chin and turned his head back to the ruins. Moments later, a small cloud of flying creatures, bats, he thought, burst out, winging away into the sky, juxtaposing themselves against the twin moons.

  "Aren't you a clever girl," he whispered. "Underground tunnels?"

  "Could be. Maybe connected to the fortress."

  It made sense, more than trying to sneak in the front door. "Up for a bit of spelunking?"

  She smiled. "I love it when you talk dirty."

  Alex went first, moving from stone to stone, crawling when necessary and pausing often to listen. He heard nothing, nor was he surprised. At this distance, with the active camouflage, they'd be nearly invisible in the dark, even for elves. Unless a mage was watching with magically enhanced vision.

  When they reached the ruins, he saw that the bats had come from the center of the fallen structure where the floor had collapsed inward, creating a sinkhole twenty feet wide. When they approached the edge of the sinkhole, the air stank of rot, mildew, and wet dirt. Thick vines the width of his arm twisted through the hole. They looked strong enough to support their weight as they climbed, and if not, he had a length of nylon cord in his load-bearing vest.

  He remained in place for several moments, watching and listening, peering into the opening and seeing broken black stones on the floor at least twenty feet below. He smelled no guano, which meant the bats must roost somewhere else… somewhere deeper. This might actually work.

  He climbed down first and found the vines more than strong enough to support his weight. When his boots hit the stones below, he spun, bringing his rifle up from where it hung by its sling, and scanned his surroundings. He stood in a wide tunnel at least ten meters across with smooth black stones so perfectly put together he couldn't see a seam. Here, near the sinkhole, moss and vines grew over everything, like a second skin, but farther into the tunnel, the walls and floor were smooth and bare. One end of the tunnel, behind him, ended in a cave-in, but the other direction led west at least another thirty meters before opening into a large chamber. He smiled.

  And then a thought wrestled its way through his psyche. If there is an underground path into the fortress, why would the dark elves leave it undefended?

  As Leela lowered herself, he grabbed her waist and lifted her the last few feet. Then, together, they moved along the tunnel, ghost-walking.

  He paused at the entrance to the chamber, peering in all directions before entering, including up. It must have once been part of a temple, because a huge black altar sat at the far end between marble columns. The altar, carved from a glassy dark rock, was shaped like a pyramid with a flat summit. Behind the altar stood a twenty-foot-high dark statue of a spider with eight red eyes, the smallest the size of Alex's palm. Precious gems? And if so, why leave them there? Just to the right of the altar, he saw a second smaller tunnel leading away. A part of the ceiling had collapsed inward, and a silver moonbeam stabbed through the hole, illuminating the thick spiderwebs glittering across the chamber. Massive tree roots had broken through one wall, spreading out across the floor. More spider webs hung from the roots to t
he ceiling. There were a lot of webs. He activated his IR vision and saw the red flares of hundreds of spiders moving among the webs, some as large as his thumb.

  He sighed, his revulsion growing. Spiders, always with the spiders.

  The dark elves creeped him out.

  He reset his visor to night vision so he could see the cold stone walls and was about to step inside when Leela put her hand on his arm. She leaned forward, whispering to him. "Could they be poisonous?"

  "Maybe, but if we go slowly, we can avoid the webs."

  "They could drop on us. What if I burn them away first?"

  He shook his head. "You might trip a ward. I'm sorry, honey, but we have to do this the gross way. You watch my back, I'll watch yours. They can't bite through our armor, so we should be okay—just as long as we brush them off quickly."

  "I fucking hate this," she said with a shudder.

  "I don't love it."

  He moved first, his boots scratching across the tiled floor. At first, it was easy to avoid the webs, and he led Leela around the strands. But the farther they went through the chamber, the thicker the strands became, and some were so thick they looked like string. Desiccated husks of animal carcasses hung in the webs—insects, rats, and even things the size of small dogs. His chest tightened with fear as he edged his way in farther. Nothing fell on them—thank God—but several times, they had to brush away spiders with their boots. Once, he crushed a spider the size of a mouse, turning it into a blue smear. When the strands became too thick to avoid, he pulled them away with the barrel of his rifle, but soon the sticky material covered it, so he let the weapon hang by the sling and drew Witch-Bane. When the short sword's keen edge touched the strands, they fell away, as if repelled by the strange red metal. They were most of the way through the chamber now, closer to the altar and its spider statue. The Spider Mother.

  Kargin and Ylra had described the dark elves' foul religion, how they had sacrificed live victims to the evil goddess. But it wasn't always so. Once, the fae seelie had worshipped the Benevolent Grandfather. Tlathia, the queen's eldest daughter, had secretly worshipped this gentle god, fostering Tlathia's need to warn humanity of the coming Culling. Alex had never met her, but she had turned against her mother. It was because of this bravery, this perceived heresy, that the queen had sent Ulfir Dunwalker, her mage-hunter, to track and kill Tlathia with Witch-Bane. But Ulfir was dead, and Witch-Bane now belonged to Alex.

  Alex parted the last of the thick strands, and he and Leela skirted the altar for the tunnel entrance behind it. This tunnel was narrow, with room for only one of them at a time. A foul-smelling oily liquid coated the walls, as if something slimy had squeezed through the passage recently. After a hundred feet, the tunnel ended, turning into a natural crack in the earth that led into a cave system, although parts of it appeared to have been worked with tools, enlarging the natural parts into a path through the rock.

  "Wait," said Leela, "did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?"

  "Something behind us, a… clicking noise."

  "I didn't hear anything."

  They remained in place for several minutes, listening to their surroundings but hearing nothing.

  "Must be my nerves," Leela said. "I hate it here."

  "Think of Lee and the others."

  She nodded. "Go on."

  They moved forward with Leela close behind Alex, breathing down his back. Several times, fallen stones blocked the passage, and they had to climb over the stones or slip past narrow openings, but they made their way farther into the cave system, moving from cavern to cavern. Some were only paces wide, but others were vast, comprising hundreds of feet with brackish pools of dark water surrounded by stalagmites and stalactites. Now, they walked into the largest cavern they had seen yet, two hundred feet in diameter with a black pool taking up most of the center. The stench of bat guano grew ripe, and bat feces covered the surface. A living carpet of insects crawled among the guano.

  "Oh hell, no!" Leela said with revulsion, drawing back from the entrance.

  "Can't hurt us."

  "It hurts me just looking at them."

  "Trust me."

  He took her hand, and she breathed in deeply and nodded. He led her, crunching across the surface, to the far side of the cavern, where another crevice waited.

  They were almost at the crevice when they heard the crunch of insects behind them. Alex spun, his heart thudding at the sight of a half-elf, half-spider monstrosity that scuttled into the cavern, accidentally crushing one of the insects with a spider leg the size of a spear. It paused, staring at Alex with hateful black eyes. Its upper body was the nude torso of a dark-elf woman with long, filthy white hair, but the lower torso was a bloated spider body with eight long legs covered in coarse black hair. The thing opened its mouth, revealing pointy broken teeth, and hissed. Bunched near the entrance were at least a dozen more of the hybrid elf-spider monsters. Two others were already inside, scaling the far wall to move along the ceiling, no doubt intending to drop on Alex and Leela.

  "Run," Alex said as he brought his rifle up. His visor's crosshairs flashed on the monster, and Alex opened fire, sending a burst of rounds into her—it—shredding its naked chest in a spray of dark-blue blood. The creature's scream was unearthly, inhuman, but it fell onto its bloated abdomen, its spider legs beating against the cavern floor.

  The others surged forward but bottlenecked at the narrow opening. Alex fired into the creatures climbing the cavern wall, knocking them both down in a firestorm of bullets. But now the others were coming through the opening, a mad rush of enraged monsters scuttling impossibly fast at him. He couldn't get away, but he could buy Leela time to run. His finger tightening on the trigger, he prepared to fire on full auto until they overwhelmed him.

  Forked lightning flared past him, so close it seared the air with the stench of ozone, overwhelming Alex's night-vision visor and blinding him. The monsters shrieked in agony and the air thrummed with the smell of burned flesh. Blinded, he heard the crackling of more lightning bolts ripping through the cavern, more enraged screams as the monsters burned. Leela had never cast lightning with that much power.

  It reminded him of Elizabeth.

  One monster slammed into him, ramming him onto his back and pinning him beneath its bloated torso. Alex felt it trying to bite into his head, but the helmet protected him. It shrieked in frustration and darted in at his neck. His rifle was wedged between them, useless, so he brought his arm up in front of his neck, protecting it. This time the monster's teeth scraped against the fabric of his sleeve then slid over his unprotected hand, ripping into the flesh and sending pain flaring up his arm. Pain and fear energized him, and he desperately bucked his hips, creating just enough room to grasp Witch-Bane's hilt and draw the short sword free, positioning its point up at the monster as it thrust back upon him, driving its own body upon the sword. It howled and scuttled back, freeing him. His visor sight recalibrated just as the monster surged forward again, rage in its dark-elf features. Alex slipped to the side, pivoting his hips, and rammed the blade into its mouth so hard its point came out the back of the monster's head.

  As the thing died, Leela moved past him, standing protectively before him as another half dozen monsters charged past the carcasses that already covered the cavern's surface. She cast another spell, and a torrent of flames poured from her outstretched hand. A hand that wore Cassie's Brace.

  The flames, overpowered by the Brace's magic, roasted the monsters with staggering heat. They screamed and died, rolling over onto their spider torsos, their legs curling up about them as they burned. Alex scrambled to his feet, his blood pounding. More of the monsters bunched at the entrance, hesitating now. They were learning fear.

  He didn't understand how she had it, but armed with the Brace, he and Leela now had a fighting chance to get away. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Leela, we need to…"

  He staggered back, the cavern spinning. He fell hard, slamming onto the stones, dropping Wi
tch-Bane.

  "Alex!" As Leela turned, the monsters overcame their fear and surged forward.

  Leela dropped beside him, gripping Witch-Bane's red-metal blade with the Brace to shove it aside. A thunderous crack resonated throughout the cavern, followed by a bright flash. Alex slipped into oblivion.

  21

  Leela stands atop a smooth black surface extending into infinity. Above her, all around her, the sky is stars and celestial bodies, all painted scarlet. It is both similar to when she and the others passed through the rift and oddly different. Then, at once, thousands of voices whisper, their pleas blending together to create a nearly indecipherable slur. What she understands is this: “Help us.”

  Just as suddenly, the whispers vanish. The silence is deafening.

  "Why are you here?" a voice asks.

  She turns to face a middle-aged woman of native descent with long straight hair the color of midnight. Tall, beautiful, proud—and so sad, with dark, expressive eyes filled with pain. She wears a buckskin dress with ornaments woven into her hair, small bones and silver talismans, feathers—a traditional Dane-zaa medicine woman's outfit.

  "Who are you?" Leela asks, already knowing the answer.

  The woman smiles and caresses Leela's cheek. "You don't belong here, not yet—maybe never. Go back."

  "No… not this time."

  The woman steps back, disappearing into darkness. Panic surges through Leela like an ice-cold wave. She wants to rush after her, but a weight settles on her heart, holding her in place.

  "Go now," the woman's voice whispers. "You are in danger."

  "Please," Leela begs, anguish ripping through her.

  "GO, SNOWBIRD!"

  Leela bolted upright, her heart pounding. A dark-elf woman with long white hair knelt before her, watching her with inquisitive golden eyes. The woman wore brightly burnished silver mail armor, dark leather leggings, high boots, and a dark-blue cloak with the hood lowered. Two curved daggers with white-bone handles sat on each of her hips in silver-blue sheaths, but her open hands rested atop her knees. A burning torch fluttered nearby, where it sat wedged against a rock, casting flickering shadows over the cavern, illuminating dozens of carcasses of the elf-spider monsters, far more than Leela had killed with her magic. Her dream of the older native woman was fading, but she remembered her words: You are in danger. Had it been a dream or a premonition? Leela's rifle hung from its strap near at hand, but she was still wearing Cassie's Brace, a much more dangerous weapon.