Ranger

by William Stacey

  The cell spun wildly, and Sharon would have fallen had Angel not been holding her. The other two women helped her sit down. She placed her back against the wall, her knees against her chest, and her arms wrapped around her legs. Then she rocked in place, hoping she'd wake from this nightmare.

  Angel sat beside her and rested a hand on her arm. "Listen to words with notice, Sharon. Soon, the queen will send for you. She will ask questions, much questions. You must say truth, or she will put worm on you," Angel motioned toward Kargin. "Maybe badder thing. Sometimes badder thing just for… for making laughing."

  "I… What queen?"

  "The fae-seelie queen, the queen of elves, Tuatha de Talinor. She is very bad person, very bad. You must not make her sad with you."

  "Sad?"

  Angel hesitated, searching for the right words. "Angry. Do not make angry. Tell her all. Then maybe she let you be with us. We need doctor. The elf witches only heal badly hurt, not elderly, not sick. They do not care."

  "Wait, how many are you, and how are you even here?"

  A door clanged open in the passageway outside the cell, and Sharon saw a half dozen dark-elf women wearing black-and-red plate armor and carrying long swords come through the door and head straight for her cell. Angel squeezed her arm. "You tell truth, no lies. Yes?"

  Sharon nodded, her gaze going to Kargin. He hasn't broken yet. Whatever they're doing to him with that disgusting insect, he's resisting them. And that means they don't know about Deep Terlingas and the dwarves. She stared in wonder at Kargin, amazed at his bravery, at how he resisted them. Could she do any less?

  The female elves, warriors, obviously, opened the cell door, dragged Sharon to her feet, and forced her along between two of them. They might not have been tall, but they were stronger than they looked. Angel accompanied them, leaving the elderly women behind. They led Sharon away, along a series of corridors, past other cells and other chambers lit with burning torches. They passed a servant, one of the odd aquatic four-armed creatures called boggarts. The boggart knelt, his large saucer eyes lowered, until the entourage of warriors went by.

  Her fear spiked when they dragged her inside another torture chamber and threw her to the floor. Angel knelt beside her, bent over, and motioned for her to do the same. Two other dark elves occupied the chamber—an ancient crone with a walking cane and a majestic diminutive woman in a breathtakingly beautiful embroidered purple gown. A silver crown twisted into the likeness of vines sat atop her head with four brightly colored gems, each larger than a plum, affixed to the front of the crown. The queen, Sharon knew in a moment, Tuatha de Talinor.

  She kept her gaze lowered, understanding the risk she was in, but not before she saw what the queen had been examining as she entered the chamber—two complete suits of Strike Force exo-armor—a war rig equipped with a minigun and one of the gateway rigs. The war rig had been captured with Sharon, but the gateway rig must have been Boko's suit, the one that had malfunctioned when the contact team was ambushed days ago.

  And then she saw the shadowy form in the dark corner of the chamber, and she almost wet herself—it was a giant spider, several hundred pounds or more. Its multiple eyes gleamed in the shadows, staring at her. She forced her gaze away, looking at her hands instead and concentrating on her breathing, knowing if she looked at that thing, she'd lose it. Be brave, she told herself. Your life depends on clear thinking.

  The queen and the elderly dark elf approached and stood before her, considering her. She felt the weight of their contempt. When the queen spoke, her voice was like a song, haunting and lyrical.

  Angel replied in the same language but with a stilted, unsure tone. Sharon heard her own name. Angel turned to her.

  "The queen asks who you are, why you are here."

  "I… Tell her I'm a physician, a healer."

  "This I speak to her already. She ask why you and others are in her kingdom."

  They'd torture her if she refused to answer, or worse, they'd put one of those disgusting insects on her back, but she couldn't just tell her everything, not if the others had made it through the underground river and reached the desert. They'd be near the dwarven city by now. She had read in a book once that the best lies were those mixed with the truth, so she settled on what seemed plausible. "We… We can't live on our own world anymore. Because of the Culling, our world can no longer support life. We need to find a new home… here. My people and I were on an intelligence-gathering mission, looking for somewhere to move our people."

  Angel gasped, and when she spoke, there was a tremor in her voice. "Is… Is true?"

  "It's true."

  Angel translated her answer. A series of questions followed, with Sharon answering quickly and truthfully but always holding back on the dwarves and the existence of Deep Terlingas. She explained that they came to this world through the strange rift that opened on its own in British Columbia rather than their own gateway machine, which was destroyed by traitors. When Angel described the Children of Gaia's attack on the Gateway Machine, the tale of infighting and betrayal seemed to amuse the dark-elf women. The elderly dark elf said something, and the queen laughed. The queen asked another question, and Angel translated.

  "She ask why your people went into the Char."

  "The what?"

  "The desert."

  Sharon remembered the devastation of the ambush at the bridge, the dead men and women. She drew upon the memory of the carnage and horror, using it to twist a lie around the truth. Her voice broke when she spoke, the emotion real. "We… needed to escape. Her people killed so many of us, too many. We couldn’t go home, couldn't fight, couldn't get through the jungle. We were desperate with nowhere else to go, so the little people, the redcaps, promised to help us sneak away. The redcaps said they'd take us to a hot place where your kind wouldn't follow. We were running away."

  Angel translated, speaking slowly and having difficulty expressing herself, but when Sharon risked a glance, she saw both dark-elf women sharing gloating grins, their yellow eyes lit up with triumph. They believe it, she realized, because they want to believe in their own superiority.

  When the queen spoke again, Angel listened attentively then turned to Sharon. "She ask why you… why others left you back."

  She thinks they abandoned me. "I… They didn't want me," she said, willing every ounce of pity she could manage into her voice. "They only wanted fighters. They said… said I was too slow, too weak."

  Angel watched her with tight eyes but then translated her words. Once again, the two dark elves shared a knowing smile, all too ready to believe the worst. What kind of society do they have?

  The queen turned away with a swirl of her gown and stood before the war rig, running her slender purple fingers over the minigun. She asked Angel another question, turning now to stare at Sharon.

  "The queen asks about this armor. One has magic. Why? What is purpose?"

  That's what this is really about, Sharon realized. She cares about the rigs, not me. Her life hung upon her usefulness.

  "The suits are special," she said. "We used them to kill the dragon on our world, the one called Bale-Fire." Sharon, like the other survivors, knew the story of how Leela had used the Brace to protect Elizabeth "Gunz" Chambers while Major Armstrong used a laser pointer to bring an artillery round onto the dragon's head, but the queen didn't know that—she hoped. Once again, she weaved truth around a lie, making it plausible. "The other suit, the one that radiates magic, creates a shield that protects the battle armor, the one with the weapon."

  Angel translated. At the mention of the dragon, a look of unmitigated excitement passed between the two dark-elf women. A small gasp slipped past the queen's lips, and she snatched her fingers back from the minigun, clearly impressed with anything that could kill a dragon, which was what Sharon had hoped. She watched Sharon now with hard yellow eyes. The spider in the corner scuttled closer, perhaps sensing the mood in the chamber had just changed. The queen asked one last question.

 
"She… She ask if you can teach her how armor works," Angel said, unable to look her in the eye now, trembling in fear. "Please say yes."

  No fool, Sharon understood that her life depended on the next answer she gave. So she did what any intelligent, educated professional would do when a giant spider was moments away from killing them. She lied. "Yes. Yes, I can."

  Later, after the Storm Guards had returned the ugly manling prisoner to her cell, Tuatha turned to her spymaster. "What do you think?"

  "I assess," the old fae woman said carefully, "that the manling woman is hiding something. But much of what she says rings true. Still…"

  Tuatha, her pulse racing, scrutinized the manling armor. "We know something killed Bale-Fire. Why not this armor? They make the most marvelous weapons. Look what Wolf has accomplished."

  "Let me put her to testimony. In several days, we'll know the truth of her words."

  Tuatha shook her head. "Manlings are so fragile, this one more so than most. Why else would the others have cast her aside? My idiot daughters have already killed one prisoner. No. A corpse is useless."

  "Your Majesty, I am not as clumsy as the so-called Empress Twins, but neither can I promise you she might not die under my knives and other… tools. What of a grimworm?"

  "Not yet. I do not believe it necessary to waste a worm. Did you not see the willingness in her ugly eyes to do anything to stay away from Rizleoghin? She knew my pet wished to drink her juices." The spider-demon scuttled closer and rubbed against Tuatha's thigh with its head. She ran her fingers through the bristly black hairs, feeling her familiar's hunger through the mind meld. "Patience, my love. You never go hungry for long."

  "As you wish, Your Majesty. The mage-scout who brought the prisoner, Terlissandia, reports that the crown princess and Wolf pursue the manlings into the Char. When we defeat them, we can interrogate the survivors at our leisure. We will strip them of their secrets then."

  Tuatha frowned. "Terlissandia? Silent-Death, our best mage-scout—that's who my daughter dispatched with the prisoner?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty, and an alpha wyvern to carry the armor."

  Tuatha sighed, forcing down her anger. "How can one's daughters all be such a disappointment?"

  "I do not have an answer, my queen. But Wolf serves your daughter, and he has proven himself to be formidable."

  "For a manling."

  "For a manling, Your Majesty," said the spymaster coyly.

  Tuatha turned once more to the manling armor, captivated by the idea of a world where she could sleep without nightmares of dragons.

  41

  Leela's heart raced as she followed Alex beneath the broken entrance to Deep Terlingas. She joined him on the other side of the fallen door as he shined his rifle-mounted flashlight over the stone buildings. Ylra came as well, leaving the soldiers in the large eight-sided entrance chamber.

  The dwarves had built their settlement within a colossal cavern with a ceiling a hundred feet above them. Just before the team stood a pair of defensive towers three stories high, placed so that anyone coming into the settlement would need to pass between them. High stone walls with arrow slits stood on either side of the towers. Past the towers were the tightly packed stone buildings and narrow streets of the settlement. The city, carved from stone, was drab, dark, and formidable.

  Alex shined his flashlight across the battlements on the two towers, playing his beam over the crenellations. "Your people preparing for a siege?"

  Ylra shook her head. "This is typical for a dwarven city. We're always ready for a fight."

  "Major." One soldier stuck her head through the opening. "What are we doing?"

  Alex stared at the deserted dark streets. "We're going to take a quick look. You guys stay here."

  The soldier looked unhappy. "First Sergeant Martinez said we were to stay with you."

  "We're just going to do a quick pass."

  She shook her head. "He was insistent."

  Alex sighed. "Okay, but just four of you. The others can wait here." A thought occurred to him. "Radios won't work down here, so leg it up top and bring our dark-elf guest."

  The soldier sped away.

  "The fae?" Ylra asked. "You sure that's a good idea?"

  "She knows things—on all sorts of esoteric topics. Something's wrong here, and her insight could prove useful."

  Ylra shrugged, adjusting the sling on her Light Fifty. "Don't go blaming me if some surly dwarf buries an ax in her purple fae skull."

  When Veraxia joined them, they entered the city, moving past the towers and walking under a raised portcullis that looked strong enough to stop a truck. On the other side of the towers and wall, in orderly rows, sat dozens of bizarre wagons, each the size of a minivan, with iron-plated wooden wheels with metal spikes. Different types of wagons sat next to one another, with tarps covering several and what looked like helicopter blades sticking out from under the material. Brass tubes and clockwork gears ran the length of the armor-plated wagons, each vehicle bristling with weaponry: metal tubes with scorch marks, what appeared to be harpoon launchers that could kill a whale, and even, on some vehicles, magazine-fed heavy crossbows on swivel mounts. Thick iron plates protected the vehicles, welded to them like armor on a dragon so they overlapped, leaving only slots for the driver and gunners to see.

  "These look like tanks," Leela said.

  "Yes, they do," said Alex in admiration. He approached a duo-wheeled machine with a pair of jagged razor-sharp six-foot-long blades on its nose and ran his finger over one blade. "Sharp. But there's dried rust on the metal."

  "Not rust," called out Ylra. "Best leave that one be. Tunnel-bores are evil luck to touch or talk about." She moved to one wagon with a massive iron cannon sitting in its open bed, a control seat with gears, levers, and what looked like an aiming tube. "They're dwarven battlewagons," she said. "This one is a boom-tube-coaster and fires a volley of darts the size of your hand that'll shred even armored trolls. That one…" She pointed to a wagon with a scorched tube mounted on a swivel and a rubber tube leading to a metal canister behind it. "Is a Gnorish flame-belcher. Nasty, that. Burns a sticky rum-based liquid that's very hard to put out but tastes lovely." She moved to one of the machines with the canvas tarp and lifted a corner to reveal an open-cockpit flying machine with four wood-and-brass rotors like a helicopter. She whistled in admiration. "Dwarven gyro-dragon, a flying device that drops boomers." She leaned over the cockpit and flicked a switch. The vehicle vibrated and made a thrumming noise. Smoke and vapor drifted from the ends of brass exhausts at the rear of the vehicle.

  "You named them after dragons?" Veraxia asked, raising a thin eyebrow.

  Ylra shrugged. "Even dwarves respect wyrms."

  "It still runs?" Alex asked. "How is that possible?"

  Ylra turned the aircraft off and crouched under its frame, where Leela saw a series of fat bombs affixed to short wings. "Not only still runs," Ylra said, "but also fully armed for trolls. They all are. I could strap in and take this baby into the air right now."

  "Really?" Leela asked. "But how long have they been… you know, sitting here, rusting?"

  "Don't know," Ylra said. "But dwarven machines don't rust." She frowned. "Well, not easily. Anything will rust in time, but our machines combine magic with technology, and they last a long time—ages."

  Alex ran his hand over one of the barbed harpoons set into a tube for launching. "I thought that particular skill-set, technomancers, was unique."

  "True technomancers were exceptional," she said. "I was only ever an apprentice. Masters, like Kargin and his father, could create marvelous wonders like the Shatkur Orbs and the Culling Machine, but most dwarves can work simple magical creations. These vehicles, fearsome in battle, were actually easy to build. Well… maybe not the gyro-dragons, but the others, even our children build such things for school projects."

  Leela bent over the cockpit and saw a joystick and a series of gears and levers. She glanced up at the cavern's ceiling high above. "I can't ima
gine there was much need for a flying device underground."

  Ylra shook her head. "There'll be secret tunnels leading up and coming out the side of the mesa but closed so all you'd see is rock. With little warning, any besieger would soon find themselves under attack from all sides. When the dwarves of a deep rolled in defense of their home, it was a sight to see, or so my old father told me before…" Her voice trailed off.

  "We should get going," Alex said.

  Before moving farther into the city, they searched one of the guard towers. Inside, they found stockpiles of weapons—short, powerful dwarven crossbows, wicked barbed quarrels, axes, spears, and swords—all ready for use, like the battlewagons.

  They moved as a single group, with two of the soldiers leading the way and the other two watching their rear, using their weapon-mounted flashlights to scan the deserted stone buildings, their boot steps echoing across the street. Leela walked beside Alex, tugging on the Brace. Even with the talisman, she couldn't sense any mana, but its familiar weight on her hand made her feel better, and as creepy as this place was, she needed reassurance.

  The settlement was crammed into the cavern, with every available space taken up by a stone building or narrow cobbled street. Now and then, Ylra stopped and called out in Dwarven, her voice ringing in the darkness. No one answered. The air was cold, smelling of wet stone and decay.

  "Could they have left?" Leela asked.

  "To go where?" Ylra said. "This was the only place they could be safe in all Faerum."