Ranger

by William Stacey

  But that was only the beginning. Moments later, a horde of screaming dwarves, wearing black plate-mail armor and carrying two-handed war axes and hammers, charged from the tunnel, with hundreds more behind them. The dwarves began killing anyone within reach.

  Dwarves, Valentin realized in horror. The Americans came here for allies. And now they had them.

  Valentin had wanted to avert a massacre. Now, he faced his own slaughter. He yanked on his kelpie's reins, turning the beast. "Back, retreat. Get back to the others!"

  He and Dimmi led the way, racing past the fleeing boggarts. Valentin's heart pounded with fear. This was a disaster, but if he could get back to his men, they had mounts, and the dwarves would never catch them. He couldn't die here—too many people were counting on him. He and his men rode down the gorge at breakneck speed, far ahead of the fleeing boggarts.

  They galloped past the tents of the army, ignoring dark elves who tried to stop them and ask questions. Panic was already spreading through the camp at the sight of the boggarts fleeing the mesa. Fae-seelie warriors and trolls ran about. The gwyllgi howled in terror, and Cavalry Commander Rend Kalwin and his warriors tried to control the hundreds of terrified kelpies in their stockade.

  Then an aircraft—a helicopter with an open cockpit but like no helicopter Valentin had ever seen—flashed overhead, objects dropping from small wings. Valentin stared in shock as one object plummeted toward them. "You've got to be kidding—"

  Dimmi knocked him from his saddle and lay atop him as the bomb detonated, sending a flash of fire and shrapnel in all directions and killing his mount. Further explosions followed, and animals and fae screamed.

  When Dimmi rolled away and helped pull him to his feet, Valentin saw the helicopter, its dwarven pilot flashing a thumbs-up at them, bank away. Fires and smoke drifted over the camp. The fence around the kelpie corral was destroyed, with maddened kelpies running about, crushing anyone too slow to get out of their way or foolish enough to try to stop them.

  "What are we doing, boss?" Dimmi asked.

  The men were on foot behind him now, their mounts gone. They formed a barrier, their weapons facing outward.

  "We're getting the others and leaving," Valentin said. "We'll figure something else out later."

  They ran through the smoke and carnage, heading for their tents, where the rest of Valentin's men—two platoons and the American prisoners—waited. They'd take what they could, Valentin decided—most importantly, the suitcase. The prisoners, he'd bring with them as a bargaining chip in case the Americans and their new dwarven friends caught up to them. When he saw the bizarre wheeled wagons burst out of hidden openings along the mesa's rocky walls and breathe torrents of flame onto nearby trolls and boggarts, he changed his mind about the prisoners. They were on their own.

  They reached their tents with the screams of wounded and dying dark elves chasing them. His remaining men were armed and waiting, with several holding RPG-7s. Dominika ran to meet them, her face white.

  "What is it?" he asked, looking past her. Near the prisoner pen, he saw several fae-seelie warriors and a single massive figure—Grut Blood-Tusk. Nearby, a trio of wyverns sat saddled and ready for flight.

  "I tried to stop them," Dominika said, her voice distraught, "but she wants to execute the prisoners herself before she flies away."

  "St. Peter's love." A shiver ran down his spine. "Damn these elves."

  He pushed past Dominika, rushing toward the enclosure where the prisoners huddled together with their hands bound behind them. Several fae-seelie warriors tried to stop him, but he shoved past them with such force he knocked one to the dirt. The fae were agile but small, and Valentin was a large man. Grut Blood-Tusk, however, wasn't small, and the troll commander moved in front of him, a massive ax in his gnarled hands.

  "No!" shrieked Kaladania. "Let him come. Let him see what his failure has wrought this day."

  A grin split the troll's ugly face as he stepped back, revealing Crown Princess Kaladania and her cronies, Nerilac and Ferial. Two dozen fae-seelie warriors stood guard over the twenty bound prisoners. One prisoner, a young woman with reddish-blond hair, knelt before Kaladania, her head lowered, her hair hanging over her face. Kaladania held her bloody saber at the base of the woman's neck. The prisoner's shoulders trembled with fear, and Valentin glimpsed her terrified eyes through the strands of her hair.

  Two headless corpses lay nearby, blood seeping into the dirt, their heads beside them.

  "Princess," Valentin said in a calm, pleading tone, his left hand held out toward her, his right hand reaching into the small of his back, his fingers brushing over the handle of his pistol. He let his rifle hang on its sling. The dark elves had seen them use their rifles many times now, and if he went for it, Kaladania or one of her elf-bitch comrades would burn him to ash with magic in a heartbeat. "Please don't do this. It's pointless. We must flee."

  Kaladania laughed hysterically. "No thanks to you, Wolf, the great warlord. My mother was wrong to trust you. She will see that now. This disaster is your fault, not mine."

  "Yes, Princess. It is my fault. I will accept responsibility, but leave the prisoners be."

  Dominika joined him, placing her body in front of his right arm as he gripped his pistol.

  Nerilac and Ferial stepped closer. Nerilac sneered. "If your little pet mage even considers embracing magic, we'll burn her to the ground."

  "Nobody will do anything rash," Valentin said. "Let's be—" He whipped the pistol out and fired it in one smooth motion, blowing out the back of Kaladania's head.

  Dominika stepped forward, her hands outstretched. The other two mages cast streams of fire, but Dominika, the master of fire, took their spells and sent the flames back at them. They tried to shield themselves by creating the glowing translucent disks that fae mages preferred, but Dominika sent the flames around the shields, washing over the two mages. They rolled about, screaming as they burned. If they were surprised to find out how powerful a mage Dominika was, it no longer mattered.

  Grut Blood-Tusk stared stupidly for a moment, his small brain trying to grasp what had happened. His bestial face transformed by rage, he raised his ax above his head and prepared to charge forward.

  "Down!" Dimmi yelled.

  Valentin and Dominika both dropped, and Grut stared at them in confusion.

  A moment later, the RPG-7 rocket struck him in the torso, detonating.

  Blood and pieces of troll rained upon Valentin and Dominika.

  A cascade of gunfire cut into the other fae-seelie warriors, killing some. The rest surrendered, and the three wyverns took to the air, already abandoning their mistresses.

  "Hold fire!" Dimmi yelled.

  Valentin rose and helped Dominika to her feet. He looked around him. Dwarven tanks, belching fire and shooting huge harpoons, rolled through the camp, followed by ranks of dwarven warriors. The fae seelie and boggarts who couldn't flee surrendered, dropping their weapons and holding their hands out. To Valentin's surprise, the dwarves were taking prisoners. A dwarven fire tank rumbled toward the Russian camp. Dimmi loaded another rocket into his launcher. Behind the tank, Valentin saw a human woman wearing the same combat clothing as the American soldiers, but this one wore a black leather glove with silver chains on her left hand. A dwarven woman with a Barrett anti-material rifle accompanied her. Dominika stepped in front of Valentin, but the woman raised her gloved hand, and Dominika flew back, landing hard. Dimmi raised his RPG.

  "No!" Valentin yelled. "Everyone, weapons down." He threw his own pistol to the ground and unslung his assault rifle and dropped it also. He held both hands out to the women and the dwarven warriors following them.

  The tank turned to point its flame weapon at Dimmi, but Dimmi was already laying down his RPG launcher and raising his hands. Valentin's men did the same, kneeling and placing their hands behind their heads. It was over.

  The woman with the glove, a dark-haired beauty with expressive brown eyes, stood before Valentin. "I don't speak Russ
ian," she said in English.

  "Luckily for me, I speak English," he answered. "We surrender."

  "I accept."

  The dwarves surged forward to disarm them.

  Part V

  The Raid

  48

  Alex wiped his sweaty palms on his pants legs as he faced Hrangar Storm-Shield, the town master of Deep Terlingas. Hrangar, a powerful-looking dwarf with a coal-black beard and a scarred nose, had seated himself upon a short-backed marble chair at the front of the council chamber. He fidgeted for a moment then glanced at the other seven councilors sitting on either side of him, getting nods from each of the three male and four female dwarves. The town master had removed his heavy plate-male armor but still wore the padded wool gambeson and leggings he had worn into battle a few hours earlier. He had knotted his thick black beard into a single pleat then twisted the pleat, like a rope, to tuck under his wide leather belt. The other dwarven councilors, including the women, also still wore their padded undergarments. A ninth dwarf, a red-bearded male who wore a leather apron and tunic and had thick goggle-like spectacles sitting atop his balding forehead, stood behind Hrangar's chair, waiting like a supplicant, fidgeting, his hands clenched before him.

  Alex, Leela, Martinez, Lee, Liv, and Ylra stood before the dwarven council, with Huck resting on a litter they had carried her in on. Veraxia, flanked by two fierce-looking dwarven guards in plate-mail armor, waited behind Alex and the others.

  The battle against the dark-elf army had been mercifully short. The boggarts, having borne the brunt of the fighting, broke first, scattering or surrendering. Once that happened, and the dwarven war wagons burst out to attack the unsuspecting dark-elf camp, the rest of the enemy army had surrendered or fled in minutes.

  The dark elves were beaten, Valentin and the other Russians prisoners, and their people freed. Valentin had used mustard gas, a blister agent, in their mortar shells, but the weapons had been old and far less potent than they should have been. Other than water blisters and throat burns, the others had survived. The Russian mag-sens, a woman named Dominika, had even helped Leela heal the injured, including Alex, in a makeshift magical triage on the desert floor near the base of the mesa, just out of the range of the anti-magic field. Too many soldiers had died, but most of the Strike Force was alive when, by all rights, they shouldn’t be. All thanks to Leela.

  Hrangar watched them, his eyes dark and grim. "Let us begin," he said in Empire Common.

  Ylra stepped forward, bowed, and spoke in Dwarven. "Greetings, Hrangar Storm-Shield and other esteemed councilors of Deep Terlingas. I—"

  "We see you, Ylra Shatter-Fist, companion and apprentice to the technomancer Kargin Ice-Hand," interrupted Hrangar in Empire Common. His gaze flicked to Veraxia. "But we can afford to treat our defeated enemy with respect and will converse in a language she understands."

  Veraxia, without hesitation, answered in flawless Dwarven. "I am not your defeated enemy, Town Master. I was not with those you battled but with those who set you and your people free. Nor do you need to temper your language for my friends. You'll find these manlings also speak Dwarven. You may also find them wondrously surprising, as I have."

  The shocked expressions of the other councilors spoke volumes about a fae seelie speaking Dwarvish, but Alex wasn't that surprised. Little surprised him about Veraxia anymore. Alex joined Ylra and bowed. "Our friend Veraxia speaks truth. We speak Dwarvish and Empire Common. I am Alex Benoit, a ranger of my people. This is my wife, Leela, a mage."

  Hrangar's expression remained neutral, but he bowed his large head to Leela. "We have met the Snowbird. And owe her much. Very well. Welcome, Alex Benoit, Leela Snowbird."

  Alex glanced at Leela out of the corner of his eye. Snowbird?

  "Later," she whispered.

  Alex introduced the others, and Hrangar named his councilors, each of whom greeted them. Before he could introduce Huck as the expedition's leader, the one who should do the bargaining, she shook her head at Alex.

  "I'm still groggy. You speak. I trust you."

  He nodded, squeezing her elbow. When the introductions were done, Hrangar turned his attention to Alex once more. "And now… how do you come to be here?"

  So Alex told of Earth, the war with the dark elves, and the Culling. As he described the Culling, sorrow and anger passed through the eyes of the dwarves. A dwarf had created the Culling Machine, but Queen Tuatha de Talinor had stolen it, perverted it, and used it against both the dwarves and humanity. Both races had survived genocide—barely. He told Hrangar and the other councilors of their plight, how Earth could no longer sustain them, how the children grew sick with the Ghost Sickness, and how they needed to move the survivors to Faerum.

  "I see," said Hrangar, an uncomfortable silence settling among the councilors as they grappled with this revelation. "And how did your wife free us?"

  "I'm not… really sure," said Leela. "But I had help. I know that much. You and your people were trapped in… well, another dimension."

  "The Red Ether," said the dwarf with the goggles standing behind Hrangar's chair. "I'm sure."

  "I think you are correct, Duril," said Hrangar. "If our clocks are correct—and our clocks are always accurate—we have been trapped for four cycles now."

  Four cycles—four years, Alex realized.

  "Do you have anything further to add?" Hrangar asked.

  Duril shook his head, his skin flushed with shame. "No, Town Master."

  "I have a theory," said Veraxia.

  Alex and the others turned to watch her, and she stepped forward, the two dwarven guards at her side. "Your intent was to broadcast an anti-magic field over this entire region, was it not?"

  The dwarves shared nervous glances, their eyes tightening with distrust, but Hrangar nodded, his gaze fixed on the dark elf. "It was."

  "Folly," Veraxia answered. "Sheer dwarven insanity and selfishness. You'd have risked killing every single magical creature in the Char, even the most powerful."

  "That was not our intent," said Duril, unable to meet her eyes. "We wished only to—"

  Hrangar cut him off with a raised hand. "It was folly, fae. You are correct. But your kind drove us to such folly. We sought only to protect ourselves."

  Veraxia snorted. "Not I, the queen, but it doesn't matter. Your machine was flawed, the outcome inevitable."

  "It's true," said Ylra. "Whoever designed it did so with structural distortions—in particular, an open power node that created feedback dissonance."

  Veraxia nodded. "When you turned the machine on, trying to amplify the red-star stone's anti-magic field, you instead targeted your own unique dwarven physiology, the physiology that allows you to work with and craft magical items but never to cast the magic yourselves. Your machine altered every single dwarf in range, slipping each of you into the Red Ether. By trying to cancel magic, you canceled yourselves."

  Duril stared at his hands, his face crestfallen. "It's true. The fault is mine."

  "Not so," said Hrangar. "We should have waited for Kargin to return. Even with his father's schematics, it was too much responsibility for an apprentice."

  Ylra gasped, and she stared at Duril. "Duril? You're Duril Stone-Hand, aren't you?"

  Duril nodded, his face filled with sorrow. "I see you, Ylra Shatter-Fist, and I recognize another apprentice, one with far more talent than I have."

  Ylra glanced at Alex and Leela. "This is Kargin's cousin, another apprentice technomancer. I had no idea he lived still."

  "Nor I you," said Duril sadly. "Where is Kargin?"

  "Captured by Queen Tuatha," said Ylra bitterly.

  Hrangar sighed, rubbing his scarred nose. "That is unfortunate news you bring us, Ylra. Is this how the fae found the city?"

  "No," said Alex. "We found you. The fae followed us. I'm sorry, but we led your enemy to your doorstep."

  "So," said Hrangar. "Kargin is a prisoner, the fae have learned of our existence, and there is no hope of using the machine to broadcast its anti-magi
c field."

  "Not without Kargin," said Duril. "At least no time soon. For now, the anti-magic field covers only the mesa and the city beneath it."

  "How did you build this machine?" Ylra asked. "It's so like the Culling Machine."

  "Kargin," answered Duril. "He and the other fae-seelie princess, Tlathia, brought the schematics for the Culling Machine to Deep Terlingas. Kargin believed they'd be safer here. I foolishly thought myself a better technomancer than I was and used the schematics to build my own version of an amplification field generator after we found the red-star stone. But Kargin never returned, and after the Sundering that destroyed the queen's capital city and started the fae-seelie civil war, we felt—"

  "I felt," interrupted Hrangar. "It was my decision to accept the risk and turn the machine on. I believed we needed to protect ourselves from whatever caused the Sundering. The nightmarish half-life in which we found ourselves for the last four cycles was my fault. Not yours."

  Veraxia shook her head and sighed, oblivious to the angry stares from the dwarves. "Do you not see the irony? Dwarves created the Culling Machine that led to the near annihilation of two races. And the Culling Machine led to the Sundering. Now, you've created a machine that imprisoned your people in the Red Ether, set free only by the intervention of a manling mage bearing an Elder One talisman. Yet had you created nothing, you'd have had nothing from which to hide. When does this madness end? Stop. Making. Machines."

  Hrangar glared, his hands clenched into fists. "Easy to say for a race that can wield magic with a thought. We have nothing but our machines!"

  "This doesn't help," interrupted Alex. "None of this helps. We need to work together."