Ranger

by William Stacey

  It was a silver dragon, its scales glistening like chain mail, the same beast that had come through the rift in British Columbia a lifetime ago. The dragon smashed through the pipe and the cavern wall with ease. The ocean burst in behind it to reclaim the subterranean cavern.

  57

  Tuatha stared in horror as that damned cursed great dragon smashed through the cavern wall, the sea pouring in behind it. She looked about herself in disbelief—the boggarts had run, her Storm Guard warriors and mages were dead, and even her spymaster Cal Endralia had abandoned her. She was alone… defeated.

  No, I'm not alone. I still have Rizleoghin.

  The spider-demon, feeding on her anger, bristled with the need to bite and kill. Her empire was gone, as were her daughters, but she endured. She'd have to flee herself now, to begin anew far from her enemies, but someday she would return and have her revenge.

  Then she saw two manlings standing near the keep's entrance. Her rage flared like wildfire. She'd run. But first, she'd kill.

  Alex watched the remaining boggarts, hundreds, leap into the waters to protect their eggs. He turned to Leela. "That gateway?"

  "On it," she said as seawater filled the cavern, reaching the bridge.

  She raised her forearm and punched buttons on the control console.

  The roar of a minigun ripped across the cavern. Bullets flashed past, whizzing overhead and ricocheting from the walls of the keep. A single dark-elf woman wearing a war rig sprinted across the water-covered bridge. As she ran, she fired her minigun again in a prolonged burst, sending a storm of bullets at them. Beside her was a gigantic spider that looked like it outweighed Alex. Leela moved in front of him, turning to put her back toward the dark elf and protect them both with her armored rig. The dark elf must not have known how to shoot because most of her shots were wild, but several struck Leela's armored back, ripping into the back assembly with its gateway electronics and articulated arms. Sparks and pieces of metal flew about them, but the gunfire miraculously stopped.

  Leela turned to face the dark elf and charged at her. Alex braced himself, Witch-Blade in hand, as the spider leaped at him.

  The damned manling fire weapon just stopped, and Tuatha did not understand why, but now it spun in place, the barrels glowing red. Damn, damn, damn the manlings and their useless inventions! What more could go wrong this day? She kept charging, intent on crushing her foe, but the manling mage wore the other suit of armor. They'd be evenly matched, if Tuatha were not the most powerful mage who had ever lived. Just before she reached the woman, she cast Storm-Tongue, sending a bolt of overcharged lightning at her. But the mage raised an invisible barrier, deflecting her spell. No mage had ever blocked one of Tuatha's spells.

  The manling cast her own lightning bolt, and Tuatha screeched to a halt in water now up to her shins, just managing to raise her own counter shield, a glowing translucent disk, before her. The lightning bolt struck her shield so hard, it shattered it, knocking Tuatha back. Spider Mother's love, she's using Ancient One magic! For the first time in centuries, panic gripped Tuatha.

  As the spider attacked, Alex slipped to the side, almost falling. The monstrous arachnid's fangs snapped out, catching Alex and biting into his thigh. Alex screamed and fell back, pain jetting up his leg. He couldn't tell if the MR suit had stopped the teeth from puncturing the material, but he hammered Witch-Bane onto the spider's head, cutting a gash through two of its eight red eyes, each as large as a dollar coin. The spider shrieked and released Alex's thigh, scuttling away and hissing in fury. Alex staggered back, finding he could still stand on his leg, and lashed out at the spider with his sword. The monster tried to deflect the sword with one of its bristly legs, but Witch-Bane cut right through it, sending hot blue blood splattering. Once again, the spider hissed and scuttled back, impossibly fast. Alex and the spider circled each other.

  Leela channeled again, sending another bolt of lightning at the dark-elf woman's new glowing disk shield. This time her bolt was less powerful, and she failed to break the shield. She was tiring, she knew. Even with the Brace, she still had her limits—and she had already channeled too much mana without rest. The dark-elf mage cast her own spell, sending a jet of fire lancing out from her open hand. Leela raised another dome shield, deflecting it into the air, but the heat was intense. She couldn't do this much longer.

  So instead, she stepped in and threw a roundhouse punch around the disk shield.

  The dark elf, her golden eyes widening in surprise, caught the swing on her armored arm. The metal shrieked as the two rigs collided. Leela was no flower and had thrown a punch or two in her time, but the other woman's war rig was designed for combat and was bigger and stronger than Leela's gateway rig. The dark elf came at Leela, hammering her with a series of powerful blows, forcing her back and ripping loose one of the articulated gateway arms on Leela's back assembly. One of the dark elf's blows smashed past Leela's guard, only grazing her, but she felt as if she had knocked her head off. Leela stumbled back, falling against the portcullis mechanism. Seizing the moment, the dark elf launched a flurry of magical attacks, sending lightning and fire at Leela. She raised another shield, but it barely held the magical onslaught.

  The dark elf—Queen Tuatha de Talinor, Leela was certain—redoubled her attacks, gloating savagely and triumphantly. Leela, her strength failing, was moments from death.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Leela fall back as the dark-elf mage sent spell after spell at his wife in a shocking display of power. The spider, perhaps sensing Alex's distraction, darted in but retreated again as Alex stabbed at it and missed. The thing was biding its time, Alex knew, waiting for him to make a mistake—and he would with Leela fighting for her life.

  In a split second, Alex made his choice: he spun away, lifted Witch-Bane over his head with both hands, and threw it at the dark elf. The sword flashed through the air and struck her, clanging off her armor and falling to the water. The spider hit Alex, knocking him down.

  When Witch-Bane fell between them, its metal glowing red underwater, Leela was unsurprised when the mana abruptly vanished. The queen, however, was not, and shock filled her face, her arms still raised above her head as her spells evaporated. Leela, her heart pounding, picked up her broken gateway appendage and surged forward, using her suit's augmented strength to ram the appendage, like a spear, into the queen's unprotected armpit, driving the jagged metal at least a foot through her. Tuatha de Talinor, her eyes betraying her confusion, stared at Leela, with only inches between the two women.

  "Screw you, bitch." Leela twisted the jagged metal appendage.

  The dark-elf queen, her eyes glazing in death, fell back with a splash into the water.

  Somehow, Alex rolled over in the water and wedged his knee between him and the spider, stopping it from biting into his unprotected neck. He had to fight to keep his head out of the water. Hot saliva dripped onto Alex's face. He could hold for only seconds. It was too strong. Then the spider lifted its bulk away from Alex, revealing the first trace of a spider web spilling from multiple openings on its abdomen. It's trying to tie me in a web!

  But in the space it opened between them, Alex's fingers brushed over the Thermite grenade under his load-bearing vest. He ripped it free and pulled the pin loose with his left hand just as the spider's web came out. He shoved the grenade into the spider's open mouth, driving it and his forearm deep into its throat. The spider bit into Alex's arm, pinning it in place. Pain coursed through his arm as his bones broke, but the grenade's handle popped off inside the spider, arming it.

  The grenade ignited a moment later in Alex's hand.

  The spider's red eyes glowed like searchlights as the Thermite burned, the stench indescribable. Alex screamed in agony—suddenly free—and rolled away in the water. He clutched his arm to his chest as seawater washed over him.

  Leela pulled Alex away from the still-burning spider's carcass and held him against her chest as the water rose. His right hand was gone, now only a horrific
smoldering stump, but it didn't matter. Her gateway rig's control mechanism was destroyed. They would drown now.

  "I'm… sorry for… everything," Alex slurred, losing consciousness.

  She bent lower and kissed him. "Don't be," she said, her emotions surging, not knowing if he could still hear her. "I'm so proud of you, baby. Noah would be proud of you, too, so proud of his daddy."

  He must have still been awake, because he mumbled, "See… him."

  The water cascaded over them. Even though she knew it was pointless, she inhaled a deep breath as the ice-cold seawater went over their heads.

  She must have been delirious, because the last thing she saw was a bright light in the water highlighting shapes swimming toward them.

  Epilogue

  McKnight’s Hope, seven years after the Culling

  Heidi "Huck" Armstrong knelt in her garden in the crater atop the mesa. She paused in her labors, lifted her wide-brimmed hat, and wiped the sweat away with her forearm. As always, the sun beat down upon her in the small community, a ragtag collection of huts and tents that housed the survivors from the Strike Force and the Russians—just over three hundred residents, but it was home.

  Huck enjoyed the hard work of growing things. She wasn't good at it, but it calmed her, and she needed that today. In an hour, she'd need to meet Kargin, Ylra, and Hrangar underground, but she relished her alone time in her garden. Her neighbor Olga, a thickset woman with bright-red hair, knelt in her own garden, planting the squash seeds the redcaps had brought them… or at least what passed for squash seeds on Faerum. Olga paused and smiled at Huck, mumbling something in Russian. The redcaps were not only their second-closest neighbors but also their most reliable trading partners. Their actual closest neighbors were the thousands of dwarves living beneath them.

  A year had passed since Alex and the others had rescued the Russian hostages. When she thought of Alex and Leela, sorrow darkened her mood. So many had died, but it was fitting she remembered Alex and Leela this day, honoring their memory. Today was the day they had promised McKnight they'd activate the keying device. If McKnight had survived the plot against his authority and had rebuilt the jump tube, they could finally reestablish contact with Earth. Or their signal could go unanswered.

  "Major!" Santiago Martinez yelled, waving as he trotted over to join her.

  She'd correct him about the rank—she wasn't really a major any more than he was still a first sergeant—but she had tried many times already, and he insisted on addressing her by rank. "What is it, Santiago?"

  At the look on his face, her fear spiked, and she jumped to her feet.

  "Someone's coming up the trail—wagons."

  Sure enough, whoever was on sentry duty now began beating a metal sheet, alerting the community.

  She grabbed her Tac rifle and load-bearing vest from her tent and threw the vest on as she ran with Santiago to the top of the gorge. Others were there, including Valentin and a dozen dwarven warriors wearing plate mail and bearing large axes. She nodded at Valentin and the leader of the dwarves, a female dwarf named Bulwa Broad-Arm.

  "It can't be the redcaps already," she said to Bulwa in Dwarvish.

  Bulwa answered in English. "Not redcaps. Look, four wagons with ranks of warriors marching in escort."

  The dwarf was right. The wagons, pulled by oxlike creatures called boskwin, were starting up the gorge.

  "Dark elves?" she asked no one in particular, but they hadn't seen a dark elf for months. Their old empire was broken, their great houses still fought one another, and word from the redcaps was that the Benevolent Grandfather worshippers were on the rise. If the dark elves were coming back, she and the others would hand them their asses. But she didn't fear an attack, not with so few warriors escorting the wagons.

  Valentin peered through the scope on a Dragunov sniper rifle. He lowered the weapon. "Not dark elves," he said, his voice tinged with confusion. "Boggarts. Looks like an honor guard."

  An honor guard of boggarts? Why today of all days?

  Huck heard the distinctive cadence of a drum as the boggarts marched closer. A boggart seated in the lead wagon raised a staff with a white flag fluttering from it. More settlers arrived, former Strike Force soldiers and Russians, all bearing weapons.

  "What do you want to do?" Bulwa asked, hefting her battle-ax.

  "I don't know what this is," she said, a prickling sensation in her scalp, "but it's not an attack. Let them come."

  The wagons, led by the boggart honor guard, which bore spears and shields covered with what looked like glittering fish scales, wound their way up the trail through the gorge. The covered wagons rolled to a stop, and the lead boskwin brayed loudly, tossing its large three-horned head back. The boggart honor guard split apart, forming two ranks. The ranks turned inward, so the boggarts faced one another. As one, they lowered their spear points, touching them to the dirt, leaving just enough room for someone to walk.

  Two figures, both covered from head to foot in white robes, with scarves wrapped around their faces, climbed down from the wagons and walked through the ranks of boggarts. One figure carried a cloth-bound object tenderly against its chest. The boggarts cheered fiercely, pounding their spear points into the ground. A baby cried, all too human, and the figure holding the bundle held it closely, soothing it.

  Huck stared at Valentin, who shook his head in confusion. And then Huck realized both figures were human, not boggart.

  Valentin motioned for her to go forward as the two figures unwound the scarves from their faces. The taller figure took longer because he had only one hand. His right hand was a leather-bound stump. Strapped to his waist was a short sword. Witch Bane!

  Joy gripped her when she saw the beaming faces of Alex and Leela.

  She cried out and rushed forward and embraced both but took care to avoid the baby Leela was holding. "Oh my God," she gasped. "I don't believe it."

  The baby cried—a beautiful bald baby, a girl, Huck thought, only months old.

  "Shh," Leela whispered to the baby. She turned her about in her arms so that Huck could see her, smiling as only a proud mother could. "Say hello to our new daughter. Her name is Heidi, too."

  "Oh my God," said Huck, her voice breaking. "Welcome home. Welcome to McKnight's Hope."

  "It's good to see you too," said Alex. "I’m sorry it took us so long to make it back. Even with the Brace, Leela could only do so much for my injury. By the time I was fit for travel, Leela’s condition became apparent and we needed to wait for Heidi. We took forever to get here, and I was terrified we'd be late, but there was no way we would miss this."

  With Leela standing next to him, Alex bid farewell to Wave Prince Za-zugor Wrend, placing his forehead against the boggart's and gripping the side of his head with his left hand, holding the stump of the right next to it. Za-zugor Wrend did the same with his two webbed outer hands, and they remained like that for minutes, as was the boggart custom when saying farewell to brothers.

  It was Za-zugor Wrend who pulled back first, despite his royal blood, an unheard-of sign of respect for Alex. "I shall miss our conversations, my friend. Your Earth sounds like a magical place," he said in boggart. "And our games of shah nori tam, of course, short though they always were."

  "I'll miss you too, old friend," Alex answered in boggart, a sly smile on his lips. "But not our games. You cheat."

  "It's only cheating if you get caught." Za-zugor Wrend grinned, exposing his pointy sharklike teeth. He placed his webbed hand against Alex's heart. The outer arm bore the scar from a Russian bullet. Za-zugor's large black eyes peered into Alex's, and his inner lids blinked quickly, an open display of his emotion. "Thank you for the gift of our young. You will always be like a brother to us."

  "Thank you for teaching me how wrong I was about your people and for the opportunity to reclaim my soul."

  The boggart moved back, extending his outer arms to either side, his inner arms clasped across his chest. "We shall meet again someday, Alex the Ranger."

>   Leela stepped forward and, breaking protocol, kissed the boggart prince on the cheek.

  Za-zugor Wrend, all too familiar now with the human gesture, smiled at her. "We shall sing songs for your baby. And you shall always have a place among our wise ones, Snowbird."

  An hour later, Alex and Leela joined Huck and the others in the underground complex in which Kargin had built his new dwarven version of a gateway machine. Liv had destroyed the laptops containing the schematics, but Kargin, the master technomancer, had only ever needed to see a thing once to duplicate it, and he had helped build the Gateway Machine and Jump Tube in Boulder City. This new gateway machine, though, was a brass-and-copper blend of human technology and dwarven-infused magic. Despite appearances, Kargin and Ylra, married now, insisted it would work.

  The complex in which the dwarves had built the machine was technically within Deep Terlingas, but was buried deep beneath the city, far from the red-star stone's anti-magic field, and was attainable only via a dwarven elevator.

  Huck knelt before the keying device, its control console blinking. She looked at Alex. "What if no one answers?" she asked, voicing her fears. "What if McKnight is sitting in a cell somewhere? What if they've forgotten us?"

  "It's okay, ma'am," said Santiago. "Either way, you and Alex brought us this far. No one could have done more."

  "They'll be there," said Lee. "No way my wife would let it go."

  "He's right," said Sharon Ireland. "I trust Cassie."