Ranger

by William Stacey

  "So now we come to the red-hot core of the forge," said Hrangar. "What do you seek from us?"

  "An alliance. Neither human nor dwarf can stand alone against the dark elves."

  "You speak of a colony?"

  "No," answered Alex. "I speak of an exodus."

  "How many manlings?"

  "Just over five hundred thousand, maybe more."

  Hrangar and the other dwarves stared in silence.

  The town master ran his hand over his eyes, shaking his head. "Five hundred thousand?" he asked in disbelief.

  Alex nodded.

  "It is a lot," answered Ylra. "We know this. Manlings breed much faster than other races."

  "Alex," said Hrangar, his voice weary. "There are less than four thousand dwarves in Deep Terlingas, the last of our kind. We can't support so many of you. Even before the Culling, there were barely two hundred thousand dwarves in all Faerum. No, now that the queen knows of our existence, we must move, find somewhere else to hide."

  "Her army is defeated."

  "One army. She will send another—as many as it takes to defeat us."

  "Perhaps not," said Veraxia. "The Fae Seelie Empire is in disarray and has been since the Sundering. The cataclysm that followed the destruction of the Culling Machine trapped the queen's armies on the Old World. And six cycles of civil war have weakened her, and all her daughters are dead now. Her last army came after the manlings, not you. She had no idea you existed. None of us did. The treasure that lay beneath this mesa wasn't a red-star stone but the existence of dwarves."

  "Civil war?" Hrangar asked, looking about himself at the other dwarven councilors.

  "The Russians—the other manlings taken prisoner with the dark elves—said the same," Alex said. "The dark elves fight a war amongst themselves."

  "For how long?" Hrangar asked. "There were always more fae than dwarves. We are long-lived, but even before they culled us, we were few."

  "Their civil war is coming to an end," said Veraxia. "With the help of her manling warlord, Wolf, the queen was winning. Now, you have broken her army and defeated her warlord. You have won breathing space, but all too soon, another fae will claim the crown. When that day comes, whoever wears that crown will look to your city."

  "If we join forces," said Huck, speaking for the first time, "we can help each other. We have weapons and technology. Together, we can stand against anything that comes against us."

  "She's right about the weapons," said Ylra. "Very impressive weapons."

  "You may not be able to stand against anything on Faerum, Huck-dragon-slayer," said Veraxia, "but it is a good plan. Together, even the fae may not wish to challenge you."

  "She's right," said Ylra. "I have lived among Alex's people for many cycles now. They are brash and foolish but bold and innovative. They will make powerful allies. With their technology and our skills at infusing magic into machines, we can stand against any army the fae send against us."

  "We can't feed so many," insisted one dwarf.

  "He's right," said Liv in a small voice. "How could they feed us?"

  "We've lived in worse environments on our world," said Huck, casting an annoyed glance at Liv. "It'll take work and innovation, but we'll find a way. And we won't all come at once. We'll work with you. We must build a new gateway machine first, anyway, to—"

  "A new machine?" asked Duril, a trace of excitement in his voice.

  "We have schematics," said Ylra. "It would be much easier if Kargin were with us, but Duril and I should both be able to manage. Together, we can help build a gateway machine. I'm certain. Then all we need to do is activate our keying device."

  Hrangar, Duril, and the others asked a series of questions, with Ylra explaining the technical details. Excitement rose among those present, dwarves and humans. For the first time in days, it seemed possible that their mission might actually succeed. Liv was so overcome by emotion, she became so pale that she looked like a ghost.

  Hrangar stood, and the chamber went silent. He strode forward, his gaze fixed on Alex. "Give me your hand, Alex Benoit," Kargin said.

  Alex extended his hand, but Kargin gripped his forearm, so he wrapped his fingers around the dwarf's forearm, the muscles like steel cables.

  "Alex Benoit, I, Hrangar Storm-Shield, town master of Deep Terlingas, accept your offer of an alliance. We shall have the first concord between humans and dwarves."

  Relief coursed through Alex, so strong it made his knees tremble. Only Hrangar's iron grip kept him from falling. "Thank you," he said in a voice that was barely a whisper.

  Hrangar embraced him in a powerful hug. "No, thank you and your wife for saving us."

  The chamber erupted into cheers from both the humans and the dwarves. The guards swept forward, grinning and embracing the soldiers. In the press of bodies, Alex glimpsed Leela's joyful face just before one of the female councilors embraced her. Other councilors surrounded her, eager to touch the mage who set them free.

  Alex and Huck shared a brief smile. They had done it.

  Sharon Ireland stared in confusion at the wrist-mounted control console readout for Boko's gateway rig. She tapped the touch screen with the tip of a small screwdriver she had taken from the rig's internal tool set.

  Well, she mused as she bit her lower lip, this is a mystery.

  When the dark elves had ambushed the contact team, Boko's rig had malfunctioned, stopping her from creating an escape gateway—or at least that was what Sharon had heard. But after she'd run a simple system diagnostic, the readouts were mostly in the green. Only the initiation boot sequence showed an anomaly, reading as a "non-optimal feedback loop." Sharon didn't have a clue what that was. She was no technician. But she was very experienced with the Strike Force's remote patient operating system, and the gateway rig's tandem linking software was similar to the medical remote system, at least in theory. She wasn't a mag-sens, but if she triggered the tandem setting and linked with Liv's rig, she could send her a signal and show her where she was. She had to try. Because as soon as the queen understood she was lying about teaching her how to use the other war rig, the cold bitch would feed her to her pet spider. Sharon's heart raced when she thought of that monstrosity.

  Angel, the young Russian woman, sat nearby, watching Sharon examine the gateway rig. The queen's guards had moved both rigs and the contact team's keying device to Sharon's cell. Across the hall, in his own cell, Kargin cried out once more in agony. Sharon glanced at him in anguish. Hang in there, Kargin. If I can just get the tandem software working…

  "Is working?" the young woman asked her in broken English.

  "Is not working," answered Sharon, biting her lip and staring at the diagnostics again. "Is not working at all." What was she missing? She sighed, sitting back, and stared instead at the camouflage-painted war rig with its chain gun and thick armor plating. Was it even possible to teach the queen how to use the rig? Maybe. The soldiers who piloted the rigs claimed that once they were powered, the pneumatics and sensors did most of the work—leaving the operator to worry about not breaking everything they touched. The limbs' augmented strength was freaky.

  Before the Culling, exo-skeleton technology had been making its way into the medical field, especially in Japan. Sharon had read the scientific journals with great interest, but reading about exo-suits and operating them were vastly different. The queen's small frame would be a challenge. The rigs were designed for humans, not dark elves, not that it couldn't be done. She imagined that it was mostly a matter of adjusting the straps and harness. Activating the gateway rig's power source had been surprisingly easy, so she couldn’t imagine the war rig would be that much more difficult. She had no idea how to use the minigun attached to the right arm, though. A steel-shod backpack housed the gun's ammo with a segmented feeding mechanism leading to the minigun. She had no idea, but it seemed likely that with power, all one would have to do was point the gun and pull the trigger. If she had to, she could teach the queen to move and fire the gun. Not that she would
.

  There was no way she was going to teach that psychotic bitch anything. She'd die first. But she'd rather figure out how to use the gateway rig's tandem system to call Liv for help.

  "What is a 'non-optimal feedback loop,' anyhow?" Sharon asked herself, staring at the readout.

  "The major would know," Angel said.

  "Major?" Sharon asked, only half listening. If she hard-booted the internal CPU, would the system fix the fault, allowing her to link with Liv and ask for help? Or would it make everything worse?

  "Major Valentin Volkov, our leader. He is much brave, much smart… much handsome."

  "That's nice," said Sharon, her finger hovering over the touch pad option for hard-boot. She hesitated, trembling with indecision. Come on, Sharon. As Major Armstrong would say, "Grow a set." When the iron door in the far hallway clanged open, signifying the return of their captors, Sharon pushed the hard-boot button. The touch pad blinked green several times then turned dark. The suit's internal power shut down. Oh shit, thought Sharon. I've broken it.

  A half dozen of the plate-mail-clad female warriors marched into the dungeon, followed by Queen Tuatha and her elderly servant. The giant spider scurried after them.

  When Angel dropped to her knees, lowering her head, Sharon did the same, hiding the small screwdriver in her palm.

  The queen spoke, and Angel, her head lowered, whispered to Sharon, "She wishes to know when she can wear the armor."

  When she saw the huge spider scuttling behind the queen, Sharon's heart pounded so hard pain spiked through her chest. It was over, she realized. Her meddling had broken the gateway rig, and with it, her chances of communicating with Liv. Nor did she hope to delay any longer. Teaching the bitch how to use the war rig was out of the question. Sharon would die first—unless they tortured her. She tightened her grip on the screwdriver, knowing she couldn't kill another person, even a dark elf, but if she forced them to kill her… "We can begin right now," Sharon said, so frightened she thought she'd pass out.

  Angel translated, and the queen smiled, pleased, and motioned for Sharon to rise and come closer. Sharon climbed to her feet, her limbs trembling, and approached the queen, who now stood next to the war rig, trailing her delicate fingers over the armored plating. Be brave, Sharon told herself, letting the tip of the screwdriver slip past her index finger. She stared at the queen's back then surged forward, raising the screwdriver to strike. She couldn't kill her, but the guards didn't know that. They'd have to cut her down. Please be fast.

  She made it two steps before the elderly dark elf tripped her with her cane, sending her skidding onto her belly, the screwdriver sliding over the dungeon floor. The warriors rushed forward but not before the massive spider leapt atop her back, pinning her with its weight, its mandibles clicking over her, suffocating her. Sharon's panic spiked as hot saliva dripped onto the back of her neck. Make it quick, please, God, she begged.

  Tuatha stood over the prisoner, shaking her head in disbelief that a pathetic creature like this thought she could kill her, the leader of an empire. Rizleoghin held her in place, and she felt the spider-demon's hunger through the mind link. The leader of her Storm Guards held a two-handed sword, ready to strike.

  "My queen, shall we kill her?" asked Cal Endralia.

  Tuatha sighed. "No. This comes from too much kindness. Always remember that. Use a grimworm on her."

  The elderly spymaster's eyes shone with glee. Rizleoghin scuttled aside as the Storm Guard warriors held the prisoner in place and ripped her clothing away. The wretch moaned and begged. Tuatha, bored now, returned to her examination of the armor. When she turned the multi-cylinder steel weapon attached to the suit's right arm, it clicked ominously, as if eager to unleash fire and death. She couldn't wait to use it. The wyrms would finally learn fear.

  When Cal Endralia set the grimworm on the prisoner's naked back, her screams were music to Tuatha's ears.

  49

  Lee Costner jotted down the number of Russian mortar rounds in his field message pad—only twenty-seven rockets and of surprisingly inferior quality. In fact, rust covered several of the rockets so badly, Lee feared they might explode if handled roughly. We should conduct a controlled detonation and get rid of them before someone gets hurt. He turned and let his gaze run over the other Russian munitions stacked inside the dwarven storage room in Deep Terlingas, feeling uncomfortable about being anywhere near the junk. As far as it concerned him, the dwarves should have left it all in the Russians' camp, but they didn't know any better when they moved it down here. Nor had the dwarves asked their new manling allies first, showing little if any fear of the old munitions. In fact, they didn't seem to fear anything. When Alex learned their allies had moved the captured Russian supplies into a warehouse within their underground city, he ordered Lee and a section of soldiers to come and inventory it, worried there might be more chemical munitions waiting to go off.

  Surprisingly, there weren't. The Russians had used the last of their chemical weapons during the battle. The war-crime-committing pricks! What was a surprise, however, was when the dark-elf priestess Veraxia asked to come with them. Alex shrugged and said it would be okay as long as she touched nothing, and Veraxia agreed. True to her word, she stood back and watched as Lee's troops combed through the supplies, only occasionally asking the odd question, usually something about the purpose of a piece of equipment, showing as much interest in an old Russian field radio as she did with the firearms. Mostly, she stayed out of their way. To her, these weapons must have seemed like magic.

  And there was a surprising assortment of weapons. They recovered dozens of Russian assault rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars, a handful of sniper rifles, pistols, other small arms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and an assortment of Russian Army equipment—body armor, night-vision glasses, medical supplies, and such. They also recovered their own weapons and supplies lost during the ambush at the bridge, including an automatic grenade launcher that the Russians recovered from the destroyed war rigs. Their foe had been methodical, taking anything they could use. And now that Lee had a quick count of their ammunition, he wasn't the least bit surprised they had gone to so much effort. The Russians had extraordinarily little ammunition left. After years of fighting for the dark-elf queen, they were running out of bullets. Soon, they'd have had to resort to swords and spears. Not that they would fight for anyone again—there was no way Major Armstrong would release them. Their mercenary days were finished.

  "Hey, Lieutenant," one soldier yelled, concern in her voice. She stood near the rear of the storeroom beside wooden boxes of molding Russian clothing and dented helmets.

  "What is it, Corporal?"

  She pointed to an old olive-green carrying case the size of a footlocker. Lee could see from where he stood that the box was different, the paint flaking off, leaving rusted metal beneath.

  "The markings are worn away," she said, "but this one here looks like a… radiation symbol."

  Lee joined her, his anxiety mounting. He knelt in front of the footlocker and shined his penlight on it, highlighting the faded yellow-and-black radiology symbol, two triangles stacked atop another. His stomach knotted with fear. "Stand back." He placed the penlight between his teeth while he unlatched the clasps.

  "What is it?" Veraxia asked, having moved over to stand behind him.

  "Don't know yet." He lifted the lid only an inch and cast his light inside. A moment later, his heart lurched into his throat, and he slammed the cover before scurrying back, wiping his fingers against his pants. "Everybody out! Right goddamned now."

  The dwarves had given the Strike Force a huge multilevel fortress-like compound in semi-isolation from the other buildings in the underground city. It was more than large enough to house all their equipment, their soldiers, and the Russian prisoners, including a well-stocked workshop for Ylra and Duril.

  Alex, Leela, Martinez, and a much-improved but still-disorientated Huck were drinking the last of their instant coffee, discussing the logist
ics of building a second gateway machine that could integrate dwarven-magic-infused technology with their schematics when Lee burst in, his face white. Veraxia stood just behind him, excitement in her golden eyes.

  "Tell me," Alex said simply.

  When Lee did, it was Alex's turn to go pale. "Son of a bitch."

  "Jesus wept," whispered Huck. She tried to rise but began to sway, and Martinez caught her, forcing her to sit again.

  "I'll take care of this," Alex told Huck as he brushed past Lee and Veraxia.

  Less than a minute later, he entered the compound holding the thirty-seven Russian prisoners. Valentin, seeing Alex, rose, his expression grave. Two of the Russians joined Valentin, the mag-sens Dominika and Dimmi. Just behind Alex were Leela, Martinez, Lee, Veraxia, and several confused guards.

  Alex stormed at Valentin, so angry his pulse throbbed in his skull. "A nuclear bomb? Are you fucking kidding me?"

  "I suggest you let Dominika treat whoever opened the suitcase," Valentin said. "And anyone within a hundred feet. The container is iron and shields most of the radiation, only a half-kiloton yield, small for such a device but never intended to be in service this long. The tritium and neutron generator have been decaying and leaking radiation for years now. We've done what maintenance we could—replaced the battery, the arming switch, and twice now the high explosives—but the device was built to last for a single year, and it's been six. And while I still have faith it will produce enough of a chain reaction to achieve a critical mass, the yield will no doubt be… lessened. Still, I imagine even a small yield within an enclosed space would be satisfactory."

  "Satisfactory? A nuclear explosion? I'd like nothing more than to beat the lying words from your lips," Alex said, his muscles tensing to do just that.

  Dominika and Dimmi moved closer to Valentin, glaring at Alex.

  "Calm, Alex." Valentin raised his palms. "Attacking me will solve nothing. Besides, I never lied to you. I just never told you about it."