Warlord: Dervish

by Tony Monchinski

  953rd Iteration

  When he regained consciousness, Jason found himself flat on his back. His bare abdomen was heavily bandaged.

  “He’s awake.” Deirdre’s voice.

  “Jay, main. You okay?”

  “Yeah…” His vision came into focus. Areya was standing a few feet away, looking at him. “What…?”

  “It stabbed you, main. It stabbed you and you still alive.” Relief flooded Bronson’s voice. “You one tough motherfucker, Jay.”

  The door was barred and the light bulbs in the ceiling burned steadily.

  “Ahmed…” remembered Jason. “Ahmed’s dead.”

  “Yeah, Jay. He dead. Look, I gotta go check the roof, aight? Deirdre here will take care of you.”

  “I feel fine,” Jason told the woman as she tried to touch him. “They’re—those things.”

  “Bronson shot them and we shut the door before any more could get in.”

  “The sandmen.” The kid nodded as if he’d understood Jason.

  “What are they?” Deirdre wanted answers to questions he couldn’t give her.

  “Where’s Letitia?”

  “She ran off.”

  “Where?”

  “Out there. Outside.”

  “Into the sand?”

  “No. A few minutes ago, when it stopped. And good riddance, I say.”

  Jason didn’t disagree. Letitia had been bad news from the moment he’d approached her in the mess hall. What’s more, she hadn’t carried her weight out here. “I need to take a look. Help me up. No, I got it.”

  “Jason, you need to rest.”

  “I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I feel better already.” And he did, which struck him as odd. Jason considered peeling the bandages back and examining his wound, but Deirdre or Bronson had gone to a lot trouble to wrap him up and he didn’t want to botch their handiwork. He began to replace his camos and body armor.

  Areya was keeping an eye on him.

  “I hate this smell, kid.” Jason took a whiff of his foliage-green t-shirt. “Dried sweat. Yuck.”

  He couldn’t read the look the boy was giving him.

  “It’ll be okay, kid,” he reassured the child. But the kid didn’t look like it was going to be okay.

  He found Bronson on the roof. It was night, but far from dark. An aurora shifted above them, spectral haze filling the sky.

  “That something else, huh?” commented Bronson.

  “Looks like the Northern lights.”

  The beryl mists illuminated the street. There were no bodies on the ground. The houses were intact, showing no signs of combat.

  “Where are we now?” Jason craned his neck, looking up either end of the block.

  “Don’t know. There’s that thing.” Bronson indicated the obelisk, a silhouette in the emerald light. Jason noticed it had shifted to their right. No, Jason corrected himself, we moved. This house had moved.

  An explosion in the distance.

  “Someone still fightin’, Jay.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How you feel?”

  He pressed his hand against his side. “Better than I should.”

  Bronson smiled nervously. “I thought you was done, main.”

  “So’d I.”

  “You know…” Bronson sounded like he’d been giving it a lot of thought “…you can’t kill them things when they spinning, Jay.”

  Jason nodded agreeably, captivated by the phosphorescence playing out across the sky.

  “They like the Tazmanian devil, main.”

  “That another show your grandma watched with you?”

  Bronson snickered. Jason was alright.

  “And when you do kill ‘em, they disappear. Crumble like. Into dust.”

  They stood together on the roof for some time, watching the night sky, watching the street. Bronson whispered, “Poor Ahmed.”.

  A muffled explosion sounded far off.

  “Bronson, how often does the sand come?”

  “Don’t know. I’d time it but…” The soldier cast a dissatisfied look at his watch.

  Staccato rips from assault rifles echoed across the city.

  “You got any ideas?”

  “Yeah, main. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m all over that. Come on.”

  The warm night air was still and calm save for the distant, sporadic bursts of gunfire and the fulminations that punctuated it. They left the insurgent house behind, sticking close to each other in the street, Jason and Bronson in the lead, Deirdre with Areya directly behind them. The lightshow playing itself out in the sky made their night vision goggles unnecessary.

  They gave wide berth to the alley into which the giant scorpion had disappeared, staring cautiously into it as they passed. They weren’t even sure this was the same alleyway. The houses around them were dark and quiet. Nothing stirred within them. At the end of the block, they hugged the wall of a house and waited while Jason and Bronson scanned the cross street.

  A dog crossed their path and looked their way as it trotted past. It was followed by its pack, each mangier than the other. The dogs’ coats were matted and clumped. There was no mistaking the blood stains on their muzzles. They’d been dining on the leftovers of men killing one another. A puppy trailed the others. One of the animals growled and they quickened their pace, the puppy scampering to keep up.

  Deirdre kept an arm around Areya’s shoulders as they walked, occasionally whispering encouraging words to him. Though the words were foreign to his ears, their import was not lost to the child.

  They passed the rear end of a Humvee that jutted from the middle of the street, buried in the sand.

  Hahn’s? Bronson mouthed the name and Jason turned one side of his mouth down as he shrugged. Neither man had any idea how the vehicle could have ended up as it was, yet the bizarre events of their day did not lead them to question it.

  Moving through the city streets, they wound their way towards the obelisk. The towering monument appeared and disappeared behind the houses. They hugged the buildings, expecting an attack at any moment, from any direction. Roman legionaries, scorpions, insurgents…who knew what else lurked in the dark of this strange place.

  When Jason took a knee and raised a hand, the others halted where they were. Deirdre and Areya huddled behind Bronson, who pressed himself against a concrete façade, sighting down the barrel of his M4.

  A little black boy crossed the intersection ahead of them. Rags of a shirt hung off his bony shoulders and chest. His jean shorts were cut off below the knee and the combat boots he wore were several sizes too large, flopping on his feet as he walked. The child dragged the butt of an AK-47 in the dirt behind him, gripping the weapon’s muzzle carelessly. His free hand was up at his chin, lost on the other side of his face.

  Deirdre felt Areya go rigid against her, ready to bolt. She held him close.

  Bronson mouthed Jason’s name, attempting to get his attention. Jason knelt in the center of the street, tracking the boy, his pistol in both hands, watching him. “Jay—” hissed Bronson.

  “Jason!” He whispered it too loud and the boy stopped, turning his head and seeing the group for the first time. The bedraggled child did not look surprised or concerned. His face was filthy except where dried tears had carved a path down each cheek. He had the thumb of his free hand in his mouth and blinked at the armed men and woman.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Deirdre assured Areya as he shook, his body tight against hers.

  The dungy boy turned his head back in the direction he’d been heading and started off again, trailing the assault rifle behind him.

  “Jay. We just let him go like that?”

  Jason followed the boy’s path, M9 in both hands, waiting for the kid to turn and open fire on them.

  “Jay?”

  Areya tugged at Deirdre’s arm and babbled incoherently.

  “Hey—little boy.” The kid either didn’t hear Bronson or ignored him. “Little boy!”

  Areya waved
his hands frantically, signaling to Deirdre, his face panicked.

  “Little boy!” Bronson called after the receding child.

  “Bronson, let him go.” Deirdre did her best to calm Areya, holding each of his shoulders, whispering soothing words. “Let him go.”

  “Hey!” Bronson sprinted to the child, who heard the soldier approaching and stopped, turning in his tracks. Bronson reached the intersection and glanced in both directions, making sure nothing was following the kid. As his friends watched, Bronson knelt down beside the child, who continued to suck on his thumb and grip his rifle by its barrel. Bronson was speaking to the child, his words lost to his friends in the distance, as he laced the child’s boots.

  The child stared blankly at Bronson before stepping away, resuming his journey. Bronson watched after the boy, until he rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.

  “You feel better now?” Jason asked him when they’d caught up.

  “What the fuck, Jay. Little kids wandering around out here by theyself?”

  “That kid was shook up.”

  “Gentlemen, why don’t we worry about this child?” Areya continued to cling to Deirdre. “He’s scared to death. Let’s get him out of here.”

  They continued, wending their way through streets of tightly packed houses broken by the occasional narrow alleyway. They plunged into one of these tight passages, a maze of walls and darkened homes, choosing their path as the alley branched off into new, serpentine routes. More than one was blocked, dirty streets barricaded by refuse and rubble, craters where the street had collapsed filled with stagnant water.

  Reaching one fork, they were faced with two paths, one darker than the next. Jason and Bronson slipped their night vision goggles onto their helmets, perusing either corridor. A feint chirring emanated from the darker passage.

  “You hear that, main?”

  “Yeah.” Staring into the alley, all they could see were heaps of trash piled high. They’d have to wade through it if they went that way. Something was in that trash, making that noise.

  Areya tugged at Jason’s arm, pointing the other way.

  “Yeah, yeah. All right.”

  After several minutes of walking, their chosen path deposited them in a circle. Several other alleys and streets met at this roundabout. In the center of the circle, the obelisk stretched into the emerald night. It towered above them, a four sided monument tapering into a pyramid-like shape. The men and the woman circled the stone pillar, staring at the inscriptions carved into it. Areya hung back by the side of a house.

  “What is this?” Bronson considered the engravings. They were chiseled from the base of the column and ran the length of the shaft. “Some kind of foreign language?”

  “It’s math.” Deirdre stared up at the perplexing tower.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “They used to use these to mark graves and underground burial chambers.” Jason remembered from teaching ninth grade global studies.

  “What’s with the math formulas, main?”

  “Don’t know. That shit doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Me either,” Deirdre agreed.

  As they were lost in thought, considering the obelisk and the formulary hewed therein, the weighted net fell from above, ensnaring Bronson and Deirdre.

  “What the—”

  Jason twisted, bringing his pistol up in time to have it batted from his hand as the bald gladiator collided with him. The man had cast his net and then himself from the roof of the nearest building. Jason and the gladiator were both knocked from their feet, rolling away from each another.

  While Bronson unsheathed his M7 bayonet and struggled against the casting net with Deirdre, Areya sank back charily, frightened.

  The gladiator regained his feet and rushed Jason, the pear-shaped blade of his Pugio jutting from one hand. The warrior’s other hand was encased in a Cestus, all metal studs and plates, leather thongs tied over his hand and forearm.

  Jason dismissed any thought of retrieving his pistol as the gladiator lunged with the dagger. He sidestepped the blade and struck out with his clenched fist, catching the other man in his bald head. The gladiator countered with an upper cut, his battle glove rocking Jason’s midsection, lifting him off his feet, depositing him in the middle of the street.

  “Motherfucka!” Bronson, freed from the net, fired his M4, but the gladiator—alerted by his cry—ducked behind the obelisk. The 5.56mm rounds ricocheted off the pillar and whined away. Bronson stepped forward, approaching the tower, firing his assault rifle—“Come on then!”—on semi-auto until it suddenly jammed. “Fuck!”

  The gladiator poked his bald dome around the obelisk, saw Bronson struggling to clear the jam, and barreled towards the man, a green-tint from the night sky glinting off the Pugio’s blade.

  “Nuh-uh!” Bronson protested, turning the M4 over in his hands, gripping its barrel and swinging it like a bat. “Come on, motherfucka!”

  Jason found his pistol and yelled for Bronson to get out of his line of fire. The gladiator, seeing the weapon in Jason’s hands, hauled back his arm and let the dagger fly. Jason stared at it, spinning end over end as if in slow motion. He felt it impact his body and knew it had either pierced his armor or missed it completely. Grunting, he collapsed.

  Bronson batted the gladiator across his bald head—Areya let out a little cheer—nearly knocking the warrior from his feet. “Yeah motherfucka!”

  “Bronson!”

  “Dee, stay back!”

  The gladiator shook his head, clearing it, the gash in his skull bleeding freely. The man bobbed and weaved, pulling back each time Bronson swiped at him with the rifle.

  “Come on, motherfucka, come—” Bronson swung and missed and the gladiator slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and bearing him across the street, looking to crush him against the side of the nearest house. Instead they hit a door which opened under them, dumping both men on the floor inside.

  The gladiator wasted no time getting to his feet, but Bronson was on him, raining lefts and rights into the man’s shaved head. The gladiator raised his hands to fend off the blows and Bronson cursed, his fist impacting the metal plates of the Cestus. He stepped back, waving his bloodied hand, momentarily relinquishing the attack.

  They faced each other in the bare room, weak green light filtering in from the gaping doorway. The gladiator was bleeding from the mouth and head but looked none the worse for wear. He made little circles in the air with his free hand while the Cestus remained rock steady. Bronson raised both hands, clenching his fists, then thought better of it and dashed from the room, vanishing into the recesses of the house.

  The gladiator muttered to himself and stalked off after the man. He searched each room as best he could, able to discern little in the dark, feeling around, patiently hunting the dark skinned man. One well-placed blow with the Cestus would demolish his foe. When he did not find Bronson on the first floor, the warrior crept up the stairs to the second, peering into the inky blackness of each room, listening for the sounds of the other breathing.

  The gladiator stepped into one room, studying the dark. He pushed back the heavy wooden shutters on a waist-high window and peered into the street. The woman and the child were gathered about the other man. When he rooted out this coward in the dark, the gladiator would go down on the street and kill them too.

  His instincts honed in the Coliseum, he turned from the window as Bronson blitzed him. NVG goggles affixed to his helmet, the soldier rushed from the shadows. His arm came down, stabbing the gladiator with his bayonet.

  As the blade punctured his skin, the gladiator snarled, wrapping his arms around the other man. Bronson’s momentum sent them both against the sill and out the window. They landed in a heap on the street, startling Deirdre and Areya, Bronson’s helmet rolling away. Somehow he had managed to land on top and he staggered to his feet, shaken but otherwise unscathed.

  “Bronson!” Deirdre screamed, warning him. The gladiator had risen and was
facing him. The warrior reached down and yanked the knife out of his side, tossing it aside contemptuously.

  “Awww shit…”

  The bald man came in low and fast, feigning with one hand, testing the air with the other, patient, waiting for Bronson to let his guard down, testing him. Jason launched himself out of nowhere, landing on the gladiator’s back. He wrapped an arm around the man’s neck, his other hand lodging the warrior’s own Pugio deep between the man’s shoulder blades. Jason repeatedly pounded his temple and face.

  The gladiator shrugged Jason off, tossing him from his back as though Jason were little more than a nuisance. Having retrieved his bayonet, Bronson stuck the man in the stomach. The gladiator backhanded Bronson with his bare hand, pushing the soldier back. He looked down at the M7 bayonet buried in his midsection, then up at Bronson, the look on his face grim. Bronson attacked—the gladiator swiping with his Cestus-laden fist—ducking low, tackling his opponent at the knees, bearing him to the ground. They rolled around in the dirt—

  Areya tugged desperately at Deirdre’s arm

  —struggling to gain an advantage over one another, until the gladiator settled atop Bronson, drawing back his battle-gloved hand. The blow would have caved in Bronson’s face if he hadn’t jerked his head to the side reflexively. Dust rose up off the street from the punch’s impact.

  Before the gladiator could correct his aim, Jason was on him from behind, wielding his own bayonet. He stabbed the bald man frenziedly in the back. The gladiator gasped and rolled from Bronson, away from Jason, another blade buried in his torso. Bronson scrambled to his feet. He and Jason stood and faced their wounded opponent, the handles of their bayonets and the Pugio sticking out of the man.

  “What—what is it?” Deirdre tore her eyes off the spectacle playing itself out before her to address Areya, who had clutched her arm and refused to let go.