But the other defenders behind them were still reeling, and some grew confused and kept fleeing.
Not enough militia forces charged back into the staggered foes while they had the chance.
And the enemy had many more reserves to send in and absorb their losses.
Halfway through their counterassault, enemy mages exploded huge craters and pits in the ground in front of the Pistolero and his units.
Mason’s forward movement was now cut off.
The sortie, a thousand strong, suddenly found itself trapped, stranded right in the middle of the battle in a sea of fresh enemy forces.
They were in danger of being entirely surrounded and swallowed up.
Mason and his friends took point, Thulkara protecting his left, Blondie on the right, the reload teams in an inverted triangle behind them. Guns kept going back and forth as rapidly as they could, and the Pistolero blazed away with whatever weapon came to hand.
He emptied his guns in all directions, dodging magic and arrows, and negating magic with his blasts whenever he or his spotters could see it coming his way.
Several fireballs struck near them as they tried to maneuver.
They dove under numerous protective archery mantlets.
It had been found that salt and certain other crystals, mixed with silver, negated or lessoned some magical effects.
One of the ponies pulling the third reloading cart popped its head out, rearing and screaming in terror.
It died almost instantly.
“Get up and keep fighting before they drag us all down!” Major Avery shouted.
The enemy rushed in and the fighting grew hot and up close.
The reloading teams struggled to get back in business. Team Three cut the dead pony loose and pulled the cart along themselves.
Only the Pistolero and his blazing weapons kept them all from being completely swept away.
He poured fire into the packed enemy numbers, blasting them to burning bits in the heat of battle.
Finally they got a space to begin to pull back.
Fresh militia forces reached them and tried to draw them within.
But the enemy surged forward, trying to take them all down at once.
Once more, Mason and his units were hemmed in and nearly surrounded.
There seemed to be no limit to the numbers the enemy had to hurl against them.
A militia catapult hurled a spray of sparkling sulfur and silver powder over that entire area.
Mason took up two of the new shotguns, a twelve and a ten gauge, just as targets lit up like magical torches all around him.
He wheeled at bay with almost two dozen enemy mages closing in right on him.
Time for the Pistolero to make his stand.
The shotguns barked white-hot destruction at what was almost the compass points, each barrel sending an obliterating fan of magic power thirty yards at the widest, and sixty yards in length.
Glowing mages vanished as well, or fell flat and tried to protect themselves and survive.
Those four massive blasts kept the defenders alive and gave them all room to fight.
Mason dropped the empty shotguns at his feet, and the runners snapped them back up.
Pistols, pistols, pistols.
First he dueled with the remaining mages, ducking and dodging, negating enemy attacks, gunning down any target he could pinpoint. Fire at will, or at any other enemy bastard charging up to kill him and his friends.
Things got so hot that Blondie’s hands began to glow with blue-white magefire.
He froze dozens of foes solid within an arc of a magical ice wall on the right side almost behind them. The enemy soon poured over and around it.
Thulkara laughed and sang and shouted war cries like a warrior goddess in love with the crash of battle, deflecting magic off her shield and splitting faces and skulls with her whirring battle axes.
Even the mindless monsters began to fear her prowess, and with good reason. Thulkara built a wall of death, constructed out of bodies all about her. She kicked it down to get at more foes to slaughter.
When it came to up close combat, it was difficult to beat a Thul in her battle fury. No one on Urth or Tharanor could fight like them.
The first crossbow bolt passed directly through Mason’s left calf muscle from front to back.
A second clipped his right shoulder, tearing through flesh and muscle.
He staggered for an instant, then kept firing.
One of the runners shouted at him, “Mace, you’re hurt. You’re bleeding!”
“Well, plug or patch me up so that I can keep shooting. This isn’t a cotillion we’re in here!”
He gritted his teeth against the pain. He couldn’t bleed out.
Just keep firing. Keep shooting.
A killing ray shot out at him from less than thirty feet away.
He negated it point blank.
The resulting detonation knocked him on his back and punched the wind out of him like a giant fist.
Guns. He dropped his guns.
He drew his Spillers and spun on his back, picking off any foe that came near.
Hands grabbed him.
“It’s us, Mace, his runners shouted. “Don’t plug us!”
He couldn’t stand. He hardly had his breath back. “Up…stand me up. Keep me shooting!”
They jerked him back up to his feet to face the enemy. People worked on his wounds, trying to patch him up.
He fought on in a daze, pistols being shoved into and ripped out of his fingers. His people tried to help him direct his fire.
They also shielded him with their bodies.
Five of them took arrows or bolts or got dragged off him in the confusion of the fight. Others stepped in to take their places.
More arrows. At least the magic attacks stopped.
Then an arrow struck the meat of his left shoulder.
Another passed through his left side. Another hit him in the back.
Major Avery and the militia tried to charge forward and protect them with shields and mantlets.
Mason kept firing until he couldn’t lift his arms. People lifted his arms for him and told him to fire. He kept firing.
He couldn’t focus his eyes.
He fired when and where he was told.
His vision blurred even more.
Then something changed. He could sense it in the air.
Cries and cheering came from the militia forces up from the south. They sounded very close.
What did they have to cheer about? They were all about to be swept away and killed.
Finally, Mason didn’t have the strength to pull his triggers any more, and his head drooped forward onto his chest. Blondie cut loose again with some kind of magic, and there was a bright flare.
Mason’s wounds burned and hurt like fire inside him.
But even their pain and everybody jostling and yelling at him couldn’t keep him from blacking out this time.
47
Before noon, David and Jerriel met with Danielle, Theo, and the linguists again and did their best to continue developing their working dictionaries of Tharanorian words and grammar. They still focused primarily on Sylurrian and Marandorian.
The effort remained notoriously tedious at times, but vital to many of their survival goals.
And it helped Jerriel learn English faster, and David learn Tharanorian.
They went home in the afternoon for Jerriel to work in her lab. David always had plenty of militia paperwork to catch up on.
His turn came to make dinner that evening. Just tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, but it was one of their favorite simple meals. He went to the family room magic lab to call her to the table around four-thirty.
What he beheld there forced him to step back a moment.
The room radiated with light. Blue, gold, and green orbs of light bobbed around near the ceiling, causing the room to blaze with color. Jerriel floated near the center with her toes pointing down, her posture er
ect and her attention focused on the center of the room. She chanted, perhaps in her magical language. It did not even sound like Tharanorian.
She looked incredibly beautiful, as always. Her alabaster face burned into his mind, his soul. The alluring shape of every luxurious part of her.
His legs felt weak.
He stepped over, leaned on something, and saw what she was working on.
His faithful longsword floated in the very center of a magic, glowing circle of runes. Sparks flew from a glowing crystal, working its way up and down the white-hot edges of his blade at Jerriel’s direction.
With her other hand, she etched flaring runes onto one side of the blade, and then the other, as she wheeled, shifting around to one position and the next. Hot sparks flew.
She noted his presence briefly with a raised eyebrow, a quick wink, and a happy smile, apparently almost finished with her labors.
David stepped into the room to watch. The enchanting came to its crescendo and began to cycle down. His sword still glowed with power.
His palm actually itched to hold the sword, whether the forged steel was still hot or not.
In response to his thoughts, a transparent, silvery line of energy shot out from his hand to the hilt of his sword.
In a brief flash, the sword appeared back in his hands, warm, but not hot.
Was it some trick of his eyes? Lines of force coruscated up and down the length of the blade. The sword pulsed with magic.
He grinned at her. “You really surprise me, Jerriel. I keep finding new reasons to…fully appreciate you.” He sheathed the blade. It nearly hummed in the scabbard.
“I hope you always feel that way about me, Daeved.”
She floated over to him, descending. Giving him her hand. He shivered just looking at her.
“Dinner’s ready,” he told her.
Her feet touched the floor. “Thank you. I think there’s an impoortant meeting toonight. We should attend.”
He rolled his eyes. “There’s an important meeting every night.”
“Let’s eat, and then we can goo.”
He followed her into the dining room. She was probably right, as usual.
When they were ready after dinner, they stepped out of their house and walked to the street. Their guards rose to attention. The sky burned with the brilliant lights of a Michiana sunset.
“What’s the news of the day, guys?”
One of them handed him four or five pieces of paper stapled together.
“Here’s today’s paper, sir. First issue with five pages. Talks about the fallout of the coup attempt. Gives a lot of tips and lists of places to go for this or that. Pretty cool, actually.”
David looked at it and smiled. “Gets better every day. We’re going over to the library.”
The trooper nodded. “Part of our detail will go with you and the lady, sir. Others will remain here to protect your home.”
“Good work, troops. Carry on.”
“Thanka you,” Jerriel told them. “All of you. We really appreciate you protecting us.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Sir, we could still use some more pointers on swordsmanship, if you have some time. Anything to make us better fighters.”
David smiled. “I’ll do that. I’d be proud to, but it might be tomorrow, guys. We’ll continue our regular training sessions with the rest of the Blackhawks after that.”
“That’s fine, sir.”
At the library, they linked up with Danielle and some of the linguists for a while. Everyone continued adding to their lists of words and their understanding of both worlds through language.
Dinner came, so they ate a second meal. Ham, instant potatoes, and canned peas. Simple, but filling. Extra food wasn’t always made available, so people ate whenever they could.
The lead linguist was a short woman in her fifties named Connie, as in Consuela. Connie Ortega was a little rotund and had bobbed black hair, sparkling brown eyes, and a very pleasant disposition. She spoke five languages.
Six or seven now, including her fledgling two Tharanorian tongues.
She counseled them after dinner. “Our language work is of paramount importance, of course, but a group of think tankers and concerned citizens are going to be holding an open discussion forum this evening at the Morris Theater. We would very much like to have the both of you there. I think you’ll find it interesting. So many people have questions, and thus far, Jerriel is the only sentient Tharanorian we’ve met.”
“We would love to goo,” Jerriel said.
David blinked. That was fast. “Sure,” he said.
There was a lot he still wanted to know. David continued to sense the enormous intellect and mind that Jerriel possessed. She would need to be very intelligent to become a high level wizard and an enchantress. He guessed that much. She learned and recalled things more quickly than he did, and was also more driven intellectually.
Most likely she was even smarter than him, but then he considered himself more of a generalist, a Renaissance person. He wasn’t a specialist like Jerriel was.
Not that David was a moron. Far from it. His grades were always good in school. A’s and B’s, an occasional C. In college, he had done well in philosophy, history, and even math and physics. He didn’t do so well in chemistry and biology, mostly out of personal choice and because of instructors who weren’t always a good match for him.
But of course, things were very different now after the Merge.
Perhaps the meeting would be very interesting indeed.
As they stepped out, a big contingent from the militia walked over to the Morris Theater. They spotted Dirk and Belle; Fred, Rose, and Steven; and Robert, Kevin, and Pete. Many of their other friends were also attending.
Steven beamed at Jerriel the way that only a crushing teenage boy could. Several other militia commanders attended as well, all under heavy guard.
David turned to Jerriel. “Something big is up if they’re joining this meeting this late,” he said. “Let’s catch up with them and find out what’s happening.”
They called to Dirk. The guards parted and let them get in close once they were sure it was all right. Many of them recognized David and Jerriel. Connie was now over with them, he noticed.
“Dirk, you look worried,” David said.
Belinda did, too. Both of them shook their heads.
“We’re falling apart fast,” Dirk said.
“Four more militia commanders have broken away to consolidate their own enclaves,” Belinda announced. “Nobody can believe it. We should be pulling together, not pulling apart! What’s happening to us? What’s driving all of this?”
“You’d think they would have learned from the attacks,” Dirk said. “And its only going to get worse–especially once stuff starts to run out.” He sighed heavily. “So this is where we’re at, Dave: we’ve got the traitors from the defacto ‘Whites-First’ faction setting up shop and barricading an area south of town. West of town is now splitting rapidly between what the factions now call Black Town and Spanish Town. There have even been a few clashes there on the new borders. People who don’t fit into either tribe are being expelled from their homes and sent packing. Told to get out and go somewhere else–or else. It’s not right.”
“What a bunch of crap,” David said. “It’s ethnic cleansing. Can’t they see what garbage this is?”
Dirk shook his head sadly. “People are scared, and scared people do stupid stuff. They know society has broken down on every level, Dave. There’s no authority except for that which we uphold and create. They’ve chosen to splinter off and create their own. Some people are power hungry and driven by that. It’s only going to get worse from here, as people turn against each other.”
A messenger biked in quickly and handed Dirk a piece of paper. He read it.
“This just in,” Dirk said. “There’s even a new enclave in the northwest of town now–Gay Town. They’re not kicking anyone out, but they say they’re forming their own town council and l
aws sympathetic to gay and lesbian issues. Anyone who doesn’t like that can leave voluntarily, if they don’t like the new laws.”
Another messenger met them at the doors. Another written message to read. “Great,” Dirk said. “We finally have word from Elkhart. They fought off a monster attack slightly smaller than ours, but now they’re divided, too. They’ve got their own headaches. One third of their town is overrun by various gangs, who seem to have started a Dragon Cult, worshiping a mated pair of dragons in their area–as gods. There have even been human sacrifices made to the creatures.
“In response, another third has formed a theocracy. The remaining third is still trying to organize, caught between the clashes of the other two.”
Jerriel even shook her head. “If I did not know better,” she said. “I would think that demoons were at woork, here–driving all of yoor peeple apart. Such madness can be inflamed by demoons. They feed on chaos and discoord. It is like food to them.”
David Blinked. “The dragon I met mentioned that a demon was somewhere nearby in South Bend.”
Jerriel gasped. “Yoo did not tell me that, Daeved.”
“So much has happened, I didn’t take it seriously. Demons don’t really exist on Urth. I guess I just forgot about it.”
“Peeple can be stupid on their own, but demons will be drawn to that hatred and do everything in their power to make it woorse. We will have to get priests and holy peeple to help us banish the fiend. But first, we must locate it.”
“Maybe we should go talk to the dragon I met,” David said.
“Maybe we should go inside and talk to our own people first,” Dirk told them. “They’re going to need to hear all of this, including what you know about this new demon threat.”
“Not much, Dirk.” David said. “The dragon only mentioned it in passing. He just said there was one somewhere in town.”
“Well, Dave, at least we still have a bunch of our best minds together. We’re going to need a lot of that knowledge and wisdom in the days ahead. And I have plenty of security on hand tonight, in case anyone tries to attack us.”
They finally entered the building and shuffled into the theater, which was lit by old-fashioned lamps and lanterns. Chairs and megaphones and podiums were set up on the open stage. David and Jerriel joined Dirk and Belinda up there. Fred, Rosalyn, and Steven took seats up front. The Haywards were extremely intelligent, but awkward when it came to public speaking.
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