Other militia officers could order carts in and see to that. At that moment, David could only think of Jerriel.
He asked the troops around him. “Where is she? How’s she doing? Where did they take her?”
“Who?”
“Who in the hell are you talking about, man?”
“Jerriel. The wizard girl.”
“Oh, man. I heard she got flattened by a ginormous rock from one of those giant things. I think she’s a goner.”
It couldn’t be.
He couldn’t lose her that quickly. It felt as if someone had sucked David’s heart out of his chest through his mouth. He staggered back, dropped his weapons, and sat down.
Another trooper shoved the first guy out of the way. “Shut up, you loser. You don’t know anything, dude. Don’t say shit like that unless you’re sure. She’s not dead, sir. The wizard girl. She just got knocked out.”
David rose to his feet, wiped off his bloody swords and sheathed them. He still had hope.
“Where is she?”
“Man, I don’t know, what with the battle and all. I think they dragged the wounded back over there by that stand of evergreen trees. Where those tents are going up.”
“It’s true,” someone else said. “There’s a field hospital set up over that way. Get all the injured and wounded over there for processing, if they need help.”
“Thanks,” David said. He quickly headed in that direction.
“Hey, isn’t that Captain Pritchard?” the last trooper said.
“Dunno, man. What’s the captain look like?”
“Like that guy, you goof!”
The field hospital. Organized chaos in the dark and in the pouring rain. Dozens of injured and wounded people lying under blankets, tarps, and ponchos. Medics propped them up against rocks and trees. Another cave had been found. Lanterns were set up within and there were makeshift tables and raised cots to operate on. Any available medical personnel–doctors, nurses, Army medics, EMTs and such–scurried around doing yeoman’s service for the militia and the captives.
A battlefield triage situation evolved, where they stabilized the most severely injured, if possible. Or, in the worst cases, they simply made the injured comfortable until they slipped away. The main attention was focused on sorting out those who could still be saved.
If this small battle produced this much chaos, David could only imagine what the main battle the night before had caused all over town. He suddenly had a newly enriched respect for their medical teams.
He caught the attention of a medic who just finished sewing up a leg wound and bandaged it.
“I’m Captain David Pritchard. Jerriel. The wizard girl. Where is she and how is she doing?”
The medic swallowed hard. “She got hit in the head pretty bad, sir. Concussion. They stabilized her as best they could. I think she’s under a blanket in one of the tarp shelters back that way.” He angled his head. David took off in that direction. The sounds of the final fighting died down.
Like the medic said, he found her under one of the tarp shelters, pale and unconscious in the cold. Her pale face looked slightly scratched and bruised.
A young woman sat with her. Jerriel’s staff lay at her side, barely pulsing with a faint glow. David knelt down and put his hands to her face. She felt so cold. The young trooper woman, about their age, sat back in the damp weeds and hugged her knees to her chest. She wore a blue-striped lacrosse helmet with a dented face mask. Brown hair peeked out above a black wool coat and ski gloves. A medical bag hung on her shoulder. An aluminum baseball bat lay next to her. A hatchet and a hunting knife were on her canteen belt.
“They put her here about ten minutes ago and assigned me to watch over her. I’m Stacy, Stacy Keller. I was in my third year of nursing training before all of this happened.”
“I’m David Pritchard. How is she?” He felt Jerriel’s pulse at the neck. That was weak, too.
“You’re the captain. The one she works with?”
“Uh-huh. What are her injuries?”
“Concussion, mostly. They’re not sure how bad. She drifted in and out for a while, in a lot of pain. They said she kept trying to get up and was calling for you. We tried to keep her awake, but she passed out. I’m sorry to tell you this, but that’s not a very good sign.”
David bowed his head.
“If only I could speak with her,” he said. She could die now and he would never get to say another word to her. Every thought like that ripped into his guts.
“Tell me the truth, Stacy. Do you think she’ll make it?”
“I don’t think anyone knows. If there’s an edema and her brain swells too much, that could kill her. They’ll get her over to one of the hospitals, once the carts get here. But all of those places are still stuffed with wounded people from last night.” Stacy wiped her nose.
Stacy tried to change the subject. “At least we rescued the captives. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to go through what all those poor people did.” Stacy shuddered. “Ugh, never knowing who would be tormented and eaten next? It gives me the creeps just thinking about it.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s something good.” Inside he felt like a total jerk. The darkest part of his soul would have given up all of those hundreds of lives at that moment, just to have Jerriel back with him, whole and healthy again.
He thought about that once more. No, he couldn’t have done that.
He could not have sacrificed the lives of so many innocent people–not even to save the girl he loved.
He stroked her white, pretty face with his cold, shaking hands again. “I love you, Jerriel. Please, hang in there. You can make it.”
“What is that horrible smell?” Stacy suddenly said. “At first I thought it was the monsters, but I swear, it’s getting worse.”
“Who can tell, around here with all these stinking things?” David said. But Stacy was right. The entire area smelled even worse now after the battle. Their enemies quickly festered and rotted–could that be causing the stench?
David took a deep breath and almost choked. “You’re right. It is far worse all of the sudden. Like rotten eggs, sulfur, and dead skunks.” People all around them choked and rubbed their eyes, the air stung so bad.
The bushes and smaller trees parted. Something dark and massive pushed through like a big truck pulling right up to them. Stacy screamed and jumped to her feet, forgetting about her bat.
David drew his swords and placed himself directly between Jerriel and whatever it was.
“Stay back!” David shouted. “Come no closer!”
Deep rumbling laughter erupted from the thing and shook the entire area.
Intense heat wafted out from it as if a blast furnace had opened up right before him.
Two large eyes, glowing with green energy like huge searchlights, winked open from narrow slits.
An equally intense voice boomed into his mind, almost causing his head to split and his ears to bleed.
So brave, little warrior. How very amusing. And what action do you presume to take if I do come closer?
The head of an enormous green dragon stared directly at David, its long, thick neck rippling with muscle and sinew beneath the thick scales. A wreath of massive horns and spikes, steaming hot, protected that head. A huge, glowing maw sliced open between the cavernous jaws, armed with razor-sharp teeth as long as David’s arm. That maw was the source of the furnace-like heat. The green dragon’s head alone looked as big as a semitruck.
He glared at the great beast, gripping his swords in defiance.
Jerriel lay helpless behind him.
David stood his ground and would not budge.
30
Mason was dreaming again, but this time it was a pretty great dream.
Tori came into the room where he was sleeping and started taking off her clothes as she slowly approached his bed.
Gosh, she was pretty.
Mason loved her. Wanted to marry her. Have babies with her. Grow old together after a
bout a hundred years of loving her, and die in her arms. That was the life he really wanted.
Then the dream shifted. Damn it.
It wasn’t Tori at all. It was some other young woman, and she was definitely taking off her clothes as she approached his bed.
But she wasn’t Tori, and thus, she was nothing to him. He almost cried out in heartbroken pain. His heart and his initial desire went cold and felt as if it sank through him like a block of ice.
Mason rubbed his tired eyes and looked over at Blondie, snoozing peacefully under the starlight coming in through the windows.
Was he dreaming all of this?
Yet, as the naked young woman drew closer, a strange light grew in her eyes–almost a weird glow.
Mason lifted both hands. “Miss, I don’t know who sent you, but I’m not–”
Before his eyes, the beautiful young woman transformed into one of those big, hideous monsters.
Oh, hell–screw that.
Mason reached for his guns.
The monster backhanded him with a long, hairy, hulking arm and claw. It swatted him clear out of the bed and knocked him across the room. He smashed into the buckling wall.
Mason found himself dazed, in pain, and far from his weapons. He struggled to his feet.
The monster rushed forward, flipping the empty bed out of the way and knocking a very startled Blondie and his bed over and smashing him against the other wall.
It ripped a huge rent in the wall where Mason had stood.
He tried to slip between the big monster’s legs, but it caught him by the lower legs and slammed him up into the ceiling, cracking the drywall and winding Mason.
The monster clutched and grappled at him with its other clawed hand. Mason struggled to fight back or escape, gasping for breath. It finally held him upright in one hand and looked as if it was about to rip off his head with the other.
With the last of his strength, Mason reared up and booted the monster in the face.
That just pissed it off. Now it really wanted to tear him apart.
Then the creature squealed in pain.
Red lines of energy crisscrossed through its entire body, transfixing it in agony.
Monster blood sprayed everywhere.
The thing just fell apart, tumbling into a heap of foul-smelling chunks of stinking meat.
Blondie stood across the room, his hands glowing bright red this time, but quickly fading.
Both he and Mason caught their breath.
“Someone is seriously trying to make you dead,” Blondie told him.
Mason grunted and stood up. “Looks like a line is forming to me. Thanks again, my friend.”
Blondie rubbed his hands. “Maybe I’ll keep remembering things faster if everyone keeps trying to kill you, Mace.”
“To hell with that. But some of your powers do seem to be returning quite nicely. I don’t see you casting spells, so you must be a sorcerer–and a pretty good one, I’d say.”
Blondie nodded, flexing his fingers. “Must be.”
“Anything else come back to you, besides your name and some of your abilities?” Mason asked.
“Nope.”
“What if you wake up one day, and remember that you both were and still are on their side?” Mason asked.
Blondie sighed with a frown. “I’m kinda worried about that, too.”
“Now that you know your real name…do you want us to call you by it?”
His friend thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “Not for now. Mace, to tell you the truth, I like being Blondie. I still don’t know who this Shaeddor fellow was. But I’m starting to get the feeling that he might not have been a very nice guy. No one says I have to go back to that.”
Mason clapped him on the back. “They sure don’t. Come on then, Blondie. Let’s fetch the guards. I’m not sleeping in this stinking room now. Sheesh, look at the mess you made.”
His friend looked around at everything with a wicked grin. “Yep.”
#
The next morning they went with a full company of troops back to South Bend.
Then, along the way, Mason and his friends dodged arrows and crossbow bolts that came at them out from of the trees. Three militia troops were wounded in the crossfire.
Mason sent two pistol blasts sweeping into the trees.
As it turned out, it wasn’t the enemy mercs or mages this time.
More dumbass bounty hunters, attempting a quick kill. Good thing they were such lousy shots. Damn amateurs.
Their militia captain–Captain Avery–ordered the surviving bounty hunters that they had captured immediately hanged, under the authority of martial law and summary justice.
“This madness has to stop,” Avery told them. “The generals have posted articles in the old-style papers, and they are going to post notices throughout Michiana, explaining that you are–and always have been–operating under the direct authority of the militia. Just as you have always done. They want these insane attempts on your life to cease. The Pistolero is vital to the Michiana defense effort. These bounties are illegal and will be dealt with in the harshest manner. Mace, we need you desperately, back at the front. Many lives depend on it.”
Mason rubbed his neck absently. “Captain, I’m not so sure I want to go back now. Maybe I’ll decide to stay over in Mishawaka for a while and help out here. A lot of my own people seem to have the wrong idea about me–like I’m some kind of mad killer or rabid animal. These people are serious, and they want me dead–war or no war. Why in the hell would I want to go back to all of that?”
He remembered the way it had been when he left.
A lot of people still hated him and cursed his name.
They stopped right there, on the border between Mishawaka and South Bend. Mason had a great deal to think about and consider. And he was pretty angry.
He could also become very stubborn and unreasonable when he was angry.
Militia officers came before him and begged him to return to the front lines. “The monsters are regrouping in great hordes. By all reports, these bloody mercenaries are also maneuvering in large numbers and even bringing siege weapons against us. We don’t know how many of those mages they have to throw against us or what their powers are. The main battles are going to be in South Bend, where the defenses are weakest–not in Mishawaka. A lot of people are going to die if the Pistolero doesn’t help us make our stand there.”
Mason shot back at them, “I’m fed up, I tell you! Everywhere I go, people try to kill me. Not just the enemy, damn it–my own people want me dead!”
“We’re trying to put a stop to that.”
Mason was tired of all of this crap. “Well then, let me know when you do.”
Finally the powers that be sent officer Tim Reinert, his wife, Helen, and their surviving son, Denny, and a group of other civilians to talk to him and attempt to change his mind, later that same day.
“Hey, Mason. Blondie,” Tim said.
Everyone present blinked and were amazed to meet Thulkara for the first time. She made a big impression on everyone wherever she went.
Too bad they didn’t have a thousand more like her.
“Hey, Tim,” Mason finally said. He nodded to Helen and Denny. “You guys doing okay?”
Helen forced a smile. “We’re getting by. We have a place now. Tim’s wounds are nearly healed. He’ll be going back to the front, soon.” Helen looked down when she said the last part.
“Mason,” Tim said, “I know you’ve had it rough, and things haven’t been fair to you. But all of us have come to beg you to put all that behind you. We need you in the fight to come. We can’t hold South Bend. There aren’t enough of us left. Too many have fled. Too many have died or been hurt. We could barely hold the monsters off as it was. And now these mercenaries and wizards are on the move to come against us.”
Mason didn’t say a word.
Tim took a breath. He was nervous and shaking. “Our skirmishers came up against some of those mercs
and fared badly. They’re all professional soldiers, experts at fighting and killing. We’re not. We’re just people trying to defend our homes. We can’t get up to speed fast enough.”
“The authorities have formed everyone else into a second line of defense,” Helen said. “That includes me, and Denny, too. Anyone forty-six to sixty, the remaining younger women, and kids ten to seventeen. When the militia goes down–we become the front line with whatever weapons we can scrounge. Denny and I will be facing those monsters and those trained killers with all of the old men, the rest of the women, and the kids. By then, Tim and most of the younger men and women will already have been killed off.”
Denny came forward and looked back at Mason fiercely, with the burning hatred of a child. “I wanna kill some of them. I don’t care what they do to me. I wanna kill just a couple of them–for what they did to Tommy and Mr. Howard.”
Helen gasped and pulled her young son back, and burst into tears. “Be quiet, Denny. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Three hundred people got down on their knees, pleading and begging for the Pistolero to come help them. To fight for them. To fight beside them.
Mason looked down and didn’t know what to say.
He just wasn’t that great of a human being.
He raised one hand and looked up at them all.
They waited, silent and pleading, to hear what he might say.
“I’ll be there,” Mason quietly said. “I’ll come and do all that I can.”
Tim and Helen rose up and hugged him.
Within the hour, they were marching again, together.
Blondie rode up next to him, skimming one of the new papers from the antique printing presses the towns were using. “Mace, check this out. We’re not the only game in town anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“The militia came across two young women with strange powers all their own. They don’t have guns like yours, but their story is similar in many ways. When the Merge hit, both of them got dumped into a magic lake of glowing water, similar to the one you–”
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