“All this happened while we were inside?” Bronson didn’t sound like he believed it.
“No,” realized Jason. “We moved again.”
The war ravaged city stretched off into the distance around them. The terraced fields now faced them from the east. The lone obelisk had also assumed a different position, further from their house.
“What is this?” The ash alighted on Ahmed’s outstretched palm. “Snow?”
“No.” Bronson wiped his hand on his fatigues and pulled his glove back on. “There’s a big-ass fire somewhere.” He studied the cityscape. “Over there.”
Several blocks away, tendrils of flame flickered towards the sky. Whatever burned was lost from their view behind the houses and shops separating them from the conflagration.
“What you make of that, Jay main?”
At the end of their own street, a wall of sand stood like a barrier. It enveloped whatever parts of the city were behind it but showed no sign of spreading.
“Pretty unnatural for sand to do that, ain’t it, Jay?”
“This whole thing is unnatural.”
“Neik.”
A gigantic scorpion stepped from the wall of sand and trundled down the block. Twenty feet from carapace to the lower part of its abdomen, its segmented tail and oversized pincers doubled its size. Its eight legs propelled the beast forward, its tail bent over its body, a stinger the size of a traffic cone. The ash snowed down on it.
Ahmed was sighting down the barrel of his M4 when Jason signaled him not to engage.
The creature seemed unaware of their presence. It passed the house on which they stood and continued along the street, its pedipalps bobbing in the air before it. As they watched in disbelief, the beast turned into an alleyway and was lost from their view.
“That shit ain’t right…”
“Holy shit,” Jason breathed. “Holy shit.”
The sky had assumed a lavender hue with bluish-red and blue-violet streaks.
“Bos!” gasped Ahmed.
A man stepped from the rippling wall of sand and dust. A visored helmet protected his face and head. He wore rudimentary armor, metal shoulder pieces affixed to his deltoids, leather elbow and wrist bands. A loin cloth covered his groin. He clutched a short sword in one hand and what looked like a human head in his other.
“Fucking gladiator,” declared Jason. He, Ahmed and Bronson stayed low behind the wall, watching the man.
The gladiator strode forward, eyeing either side of the street. Behind him, two similarly armored men emerged from the sand. One wore a plumed helmet and wielded a harpoon. The other, bald, clutched a spear and a round sword.
“This a fuckin’ joke?”
The three came down the street in a wedge.
“This no joke.” Bronson answered his own question.
“I think maybe we should shoot them,” opined Ahmed.
“Wait,” Jason cautioned.
“That’s a head he got, right Jay?”
As the trio neared it became evident that the head was a woman’s.
“Who’s head is that?”
The eyes were gouged out.
“Is that…it is.”
It was Hahn’s.
“We shoot them, Jason, yes?”
“Yes.”
Ahmed fired the first burst, catching the lead gladiator in the stomach. The man grimaced, stopping where he was, dropping his sword and Hahn’s head. As he sunk to his knees, an arm crossing his ravaged midsection, Bronson and Jason fired on the other two.
The gladiator with the plumed helmet was drawing his arm back to launch his harpoon when a round pierced his headpiece, knocking him from his feet. The third gladiator instinctively raised his shield, the wood splintering as 5.56mm rounds impacted it. He released his spear—which fell well short of the three on the roof—and raced to the building nearest him, barreling shoulder first through the doorway, into a house.
Ahmed put a second burst through the gladiator kneeling in the street. The man slumped over in the sand, unmoving.
“Damn. One got away.”
“He’s wounded, dough Jay. Who’d a thought gladiators’d be so frail?”
“Yeah, that was too easy. Didn’t feel right.”
“Should we go after him?” Ahmed asked.
“Fuck no,” asserted Jason. “You see what I was saying about the high ground now, right?”
“Yeah.” Bronson stared at the gladiators, dead in the street.
“What’s going on up there?” Deirdre called up.
“How do we…?” Jason looked at Bronson and Ahmed. “Ahmed, can you go downstairs, make sure they’re all cool?”
“Cool. Yes.”
“Thanks.”
“Yo, Ahmed.”
“Yes, Bronson?”
“You keep cool. We get you back to Fatima, aight?”
“Yes.”
When Ahmed left the roof, Jason said to Bronson, “So they got Hahn. Wonder what they did to Aguilera.”
“We seen the gladiators, Jay. So where’s the Roman legions?”
…shump…shump…shump…
“What that?”
Movement in the sand.
Shump—Shump—Shump
“I jinxed it,” claimed Bronson, “didn’t I?”
SHUMP-SHUMP-SHUMP
The first line of the Roman legionaries stepped from the sand, marching in formation, side by side and shield to shield. Their numbers stretched across the width of the street. Armored from head to ankle, their spears bristled from the front wall of the formation. They wore battle cloaks and sandals, plated armor and cassis. Their curved shields were forty inches tall and thirty inches wide. The logo printed on each shield was unmistakable.
“Diogenes…” Jason whispered.
There seemed no end to their number until there was, the last row stepping from the sand. The men were obscured behind their shields, but Jason counted the pairs of sandaled feet in the front row, multiplying that by the number of men he thought stretched back in one column. A hundred and twenty, give or take.
Tires squealed on the opposite end of the street, men barking out in Arabic, piling out of a pick up truck. They immediately started firing on the legionaries. Sparks flew as bullets struck armor and several shields tottered, dipping to the ground as the men behind them died. A rocket propelled grenade streaked by on the street, tearing the Roman’s front lines asunder, toppling soldiers like bowling pins.
Jason and Bronson watched the battle unfold, dumbstruck.
AKs chattered and legionaries fell, some bullets sparking off Lorica segmentata armor, most penetrating iron and man. Spears were fired and one insurgent went down shrieking, pierced through his midsection. The legionnaires had reformed their ranks and marched ahead, their Centurions’ voices booming in Latin, an impenetrable wall of shields and spears.
The truck screeched away as the man with the RPG knelt in the middle of the street, reloading, spears javelining around him. Before he could launch a second grenade, a well-aimed projectile impaled him. Another insurgent broke from cover, draining his AK as he dashed to his fallen comrade, taking up the RPG.
An explosion parted the legionaries’ ranks. Before they could recover, a lone insurgent sprinted forward into the fissure the grenade had rent, screaming at the top of his lungs: “Allahu Akbar!”
“Down!” Bronson roared but Jason was already flat on the roof. The wall shielded them as the suicide bomber detonated. The house beneath them shook on its foundation and a cloud of white dust rolled over the rooftop. Body parts flopped down about them, as did a wooden shield.
Gunfire continued from the street, along with roars and screams in Arabic and Latin. Ash drifted lazily from the amaranthine sky.
“This—” Bronson coughed. “This some fucked up shit, Jay!”
“I’m going to take a look downstairs. You okay up here?”
“I’m good.”
“We’re good cause they don’t know we’re up here.”
“I’m a keep it that way, main. Fuckin’ high ground.”
“Works like a charm.”
Jason retrieved the scarred shield as he made for the stairs, surprised to find it as light as it was. As he ran down the stairs, his head struggled to make sense of their predicament. Each time the sand rolled through, the house they were in was somehow changing position throughout the city. Yet it remained on the electric grid. He couldn’t figure it.
The others were huddled against one side of the main room, near the hallway, away from the barred door leading to the street. Automatic weapons fire and shouts sounded outside.
“Is this guy serious about gladiators and giant insects?” Letitia demanded vehemently, eyeing Ahmed.
“Yeah, he is.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Go and take a look for yourself.”
“I don’t need your permission.” Letitia shot him a baleful look and left the room.
“What’s going on down here?”
“What’s going on out there?” Deirdre inquired.
“It’s like he told you,” Jason said of Ahmed. “I can’t explain it.” He proffered the shield. “Look at this.” Deirdre crossed to him, running her hand across the face of the shield, over the Diogenes logo. Her disquiet was apparent. “Ahmed, ask the boy, what did we see out there?”
“I already have, Jason.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said we have seen what we have seen. He does not disagree.”
“Jesus, this is fucked.” Jason put his hand on his head. “I’m going to check the rest of the house again.” If it was truly relocating he needed to ensure the exits and entrances remained secure. “I’ll come with you.” Deirdre followed him.
They proceeded cautiously through the hallway, passing the stairwell leading to the second floor, to the roof and Bronson, passing the bricked over entrances to the other rooms, around a bend in the hall and into the small room with the table.
“Why did they block the doors and windows like this?” Deirdre went to touch one of the partially assembled explosives vests but thought better of it, pulling her hand back. Blocks of plastic explosive and cans of rusted bolts and nails rested on the table.
“To get you to go the way they want you to go.” Jason led her to the final room. “They corral you through the house…” The thick topped wooden table rested on its side, the stairs above disassembled after the seventh step. “…into this room, right where they want you.
“It’s a kill zone,” he concluded.
“There’s no exit.”
“They’re not looking to get out. They’re far enough away from the street, even if a Bradley put a shell into the house, you’re not going to touch them here.”
“So you go in on foot to clear the house…”
“And they lure you in.”
“And then?”
Jason showed her what was behind the overturned table.
“Is that a bomb?”
“That’s a detonator. The whole house is wired.”
“The house is wired?”
“The house is the bomb. It’s a BCIED.”
“IED I get. BC?”
“Building contained IED. They get you to chase them inside—”
“—and then they kill you. And then they die.”
“God is great.”
“And us?” She looked to him for answers.
“We’re not going to stay in here forever. But right now, this might be our best bet. Things quiet down outside, we’ve got to find a way out of this city. Right now we’re safe enough, long as nothing gets in. You look sad, Deirdre.”
“I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“Nothing. Silly.”
“We’ve got gladiators and giant scorpions roaming the streets. Nothing you say is going to sound silly to me.”
“It’s just that—this was someone’s home. Someone lived here with their family. And now it’s…” She couldn’t think of the correct word to describe the house’s transformation “…this. I can’t help thinking, something you said earlier. About being at home, waiting with the kids for a husband to arrive from work.”
“I didn’t say that.” Jason reminded her, thinking of the conversation he’d had on the roof with Bronson about Rudy. “You did.”
“Yes, well…a part of me, I think, would like nothing more than that. I don’t know, does that make me…”
“What?”
“Am I betraying hundreds of years of struggle for women’s liberation with that sentiment?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think the problem’s when that’s the only option a woman has.”
“Jason. Do you think we’re going to make it out of here?”
“Stranger things have happened.” Even in the recesses of the house, Jason was aware of the absence of gunfire from the street. “Are happening.” He brushed past her, out of the room, back down the hall towards the stairs.
“I don’t believe it.” Letitia passed him on the stairs. “I’ve seen it and I don’t believe it.”
Jason didn’t speak until he was next to Bronson again. “What’d I miss?”
“Romans, one, Haji, zero. They’re mopping up.”
“No way.”
The battle on the street was effectively over. Dozens of legionaries lay dead and moaning from their wounds, tended to by their comrades. Those who remained were spread out, gathered in circles around fallen insurgents, thrusting with their spears, finishing them off. As they watched, one turbaned insurgent backed away from a group of Romans, his rifle lost, hands held out in front of his body as though he could fend them off that way. A shrill scream escaped the man’s lips as the first spear pierced him.
What sounded like thunder rumbled from the cloud of sand. The Romans looked up, frightened. Those not wounded began backing away, some attempting to carry or drag their injured. A legionary hopped off on one leg, his other hanging useless and bloodied, his spear enlisted as a crutch.
Thunderous peals bellowed within the sand.
“Whatever it is,” Jason pointed out, “They’re scared of it.”
“We should be too. Let’s get inside.” The sandstorm started to roll down the street, swallowing the fallen bodies of legionaries and insurgents alike. Roman soldiers ran terrified from the cloud.
“They’re never going to make it,” Jason said as he and Bronson secured the door within the stairwell. Outside, frantic shouts gave way to agonized screams.
“This is fucked up, main.”
“I’m going downstairs again, okay?”
“Again?”
“You want to go?”
“Nah, I’ll keep an eye on things here, Jay.”
Areya passed Jason on the stairs between the second and first floors. There was no mistaking the look on the boy’s face. He was terrified.
The sound of the raging sands was near-deafening in the house. Jason walked into the main room, the lights flashing like strobes. He felt a gust of wind, his eyes widening with horror. Letitia had the door open. She was arguing with Ahmed, pushing him away. The sand hung suspended outside the entrance, churning violently.
“What the fuck—” Jason roared at the woman “—are you doing—” he crossed the room “—close that fucking door!”
A whirlwind of sand and dirt and evil spun into the house, knocking Letitia and Ahmed in opposite directions. Deirdre screamed, the bulbs overhead flashing. Jason came up short, staring into a maelstrom that undulated in place. Letitia fired her M4, its discharge lost amidst the roar of the sand in the street. The rounds she fired struck the whirling dervish, deflecting off it in every direction. Jason grunted as a bullet impacted his chest plate, knocking him back several feet.
As quickly as it had been pirouetting, the vortex froze, a form materializing from the sand and dust. It was broadly human in shape and features, with two arms and two legs. Swathed in a bisht, the blackened cloak covered its body, a dusky keffiyeh cinched around i
ts head with an ebony aqal. The space where its face should have been was lost in shadow, the only discernable feature within the gloom two glowing red spots. The creature gripped a scimitar and as it came out of its spin it swung on Jason, who barely reacted in time, bringing his M4 up, the curved blade catching the barrel of the assault rifle, knocking the weapon from his hands.
“Fuck!” Jason dived to the side, the wicked blade cleaving the air in which he had stood. Letitia lay on the ground, looking dazed.
The dervish chased Jason across the room as he struggled to draw his pistol. He tripped and fell and when he looked up the thing loomed over him, its eyes burning in its face like coals, sword drawn back over its head.
A blur of movement in Jason’s peripheral vision and Ahmed tackled the beast, bearing it to the ground. The interpreter and the demon rolled on the floor, a tangle of arms and legs, Ahmed cursing it in Arabic, the creature hissing in some unknown tongue. Jason cleared his pistol and used both hands to steady it, looking for a shot.
“Jason!”
He heard Deirdre’s scream over the din of the sand and wind. Two more mini-tornadoes had twisted into the house from the street, spinning furiously.
Ahmed screamed as the scimitar opened him up across the stomach. He reached for his torso, his hands slippery with blood, fumbling the bulbous pink organs that bulged from the rupture, his mouth agape, eyes wide as a second scimitar blow delivered the coup de grace, taking his head from his body.
“No!” Jason fired the pistol repeatedly, the bullets striking the dervish as it stood above Ahmed. The creature jerked with each impact, puffs of dust and earth lifting off its form. It disintegrated in mid-air, a cloud of dirt and sand that cascaded to the floor.
Straight arming the pistol, Jason fired at the nearest of the two remaining dust devils. The rounds were caught up in the spinning monstrosity and shot back out of it in different directions. The slide on his M9 locked open on an empty magazine and Jason threw the weapon at the dervish, scampering to the Roman shield he had placed against the wall earlier, taking cover behind the rectangular scutum just as the swirling pillar collided with him.
Jason held onto the shield with everything he had as the dervish rebounded off it, careening towards the wall. Before he could turn the shield, the third churning column was upon him. Its gyrations immediately halted and Jason had a split second to register its features—blackened like the other, scarlet eyes ablaze—before he felt the curved blade of its backsword pierce his side. The pain was unlike any he had ever known. Electricity jolted his body and Jason seized, his eyes rolling back in his head, the blazing eyes of his foe seared into his soul…
Warlord: Dervish Page 16