Home at Last

by Alex Sapegin

  In the training regiment, he was quickly noticed as a competent guy and appointed the lead in a team of ten soldiers. Training went on every day, from morning to night, interrupted only for lunch and dinner. They were allowed seven hours of sleep a night and weekly educational lessons. The former village boys were taught to fight in ranks, hand-to-hand sword combat, and how to use a spear.

  The training program was designed for six months, but the untrained youths were called out to war much earlier. In order to somehow straighten the situation, the command divided the regiment into two parts and supplemented it with veterans removed from the southern border. Two days of March through co-portals, and before the breathless men’s eyes appeared the walls of Kion. But nobody was to enter the city. The Ariates arrived at the same time as the southern army…

  “Halt! Rad suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs. The team leaders repeated the order. “Break into groups of fifty, ready your spears. Get into combat raaaaanks!” He then added quietly, only to Duch, “Stay close.” Duch nodded.

  Throwing the shield from his hand, Duch quickly tightened the straps of his arm shields and tightened the sling holding his sword. Checking that he could grab his scabbard from behind his back smoothly, he picked his shield back up and took up a long spear. The twenty-foot spear was held by three rows of soldiers. Slapping his helmet and lowering his half-mask to cover his face, Duch looked at the rows of Ariates through the backs of the front-line soldiers. His knees started trembling involuntarily. The flickering of the magical domes was so unreliable, and there were so many enemies that they resembled the sea. Duch couldn’t help but look around, but because of the forest of the second regiment’s spears, he couldn’t see anything. He swallowed convulsively. His father had said that from the front line, almost no one survived, and they were in the front line…

  “I’ve been on the front line three times,” Rad said quietly, correctly interpreting the thoughts and gestures of the young man. “I’m alive, as you can see.”

  “Thank you,” answered Duch, who needed support. The veteran’s simple and warm words made him feel somewhat better.

  “Don’t be afraid, we’ll make it!” Rad smiled from under the half-mask. “Wow, griffons!”

  Hundreds of quick-moving shadows covered the regiment for a few moments. Huge half-birds with riders on their backs flew swiftly towards the enemy. Apparently, the Ariates did not expect an air attack at all, because the griffon wings were calmly lined up in attack formation and engaging in the bombardment. Even standing a hundred yards from the attack of the half-birds, Duch felt a monstrous heat on his face, emanating from the army under attack’s magical protective dome. Suddenly, the shield faded, and the bombs fell on the people. Fiery Gorn and Twins almighty, how they screamed! The Ariates were torn to pieces. Dozens of them burned alive; severed body parts flew to the sky every now and then. Duch barely restrained his nausea and checked the protective amulet under his armor. On the right flank, the sky was covered with a cloud of dust. The earth trembled. Now dozens of golems were tearing at each other, and the people who got in their way, to pieces. His hair stood on end under the helmet from the force of the magic released by the golems’ combat.

  The first wave of griffons had dropped all their bombs. The second wave immediately came to fill its place, but it was already expected. The Ariate mages conjured up hundreds of air traps. Duch and the others clenched their fists as the next group of half-birds turned into a bloody bundle of feathers and fur. The Ariates’ air regiments rose to the sky. There were fewer enemies, but they bravely attacked the Tantrians. The number of deaths increased. Some fell into the traps; the Ariates weren’t the only ones to suffer this fate; the traps sprung no matter whose griffin they got. Some soldiers got shot from a hand-chucker or an arrow, and some fell under the enemy’s spears. Some of the griffons or drags started fighting with the enemy’s animals and, locked in a death grip, both plummeted to the ground. The charges remaining in their pouches and tubes detonated and smoking, blood-filled funnels formed where they fell. In the sky, there were constant explosions and screaming.

  “Chaaaaarge!” Rad shouted upon hearing the roar of the drums and seeing the signaling of the regimental standards. The protective magical dome burst with a bang. Duch felt a weakness come over him for a moment as if someone began to suck the magic from him. A cold lump settled in his stomach, and sweat ran over his forehead, back, and chest. Several regiments darted forward in a united wave. “Maintain the ranks! Maintain the ranks! Coming faster with every moment, the Ariates approached. “Prepare yourselves! Shields up!”

  Thousands of long arrows fell on both armies. Both their arrows fell on the opposing group of troops like a canopy. Stepping on the right, Dren, Duch’s bunkmate, cried out and fell to the ground. Yuten, his partner in the ranks, didn’t even have time to take the place of the fallen and fell down right after him. Arrows sporadically found cracks between the raised shields. Dren was wounded in the right shoulder, while Yuten caught an arrow in the throat and was now wheezing, choking on blood. Some doubled over, trying to get rid of the contents of their stomachs. Hel snatched three more men’s lives.

  “Halt! Strike away the enemy shields! Tighten the ranks!”

  The arrows fell like rain, hammering into shields like hailstones. Thin, weighted armor-piercing arrows broke through Duch’s shield in several places. The handle became pinned to the wood of the shield; the sleeve of his left hand was immediately filled with blood. Clenching his jaw, he held the shield over his head.

  “Keep shields up, you slime! Keep them up!” shouted Rad under the deadly knocking hail.

  Whack! A gap formed in the ranks; someone was careless enough to jerk with his left hand; a black arrow found an open slot and entered into the right side of the imprudent warrior. The thin spear-head spread the rings of chainmail and pierced the man’s flesh. He swung to the left and another arrow dug into his right thigh. His leg was broken. A half-dozen arrows flew into the gap. A third arrow caused another man to collapse on his fallen fellow. Hel was just getting warmed up…

  A few minutes later, which seemed like an eternity to Duch, the shelling ended. Dropping his spear, he drew his sword.

  “Spears to the front!” shouted Rad. Duch seized the spear and was stupefied. The Ariates were about fifty paces from their ranks. “Run, go ahead!”

  Like a stone shot from a sling, the men darted from their spots. The two waves of humans clashed, to the crash of broken spears and the clatter of colliding shields.

  “Maintain the ranks!” Rad shouted over the moans of the wounded and dying. “Shoot down the shields! Left…”

  The ranks swung back two steps and then, like a pendulum, struck a second time. New rattles and moans, crackling and curses. The Ariates backed away. “Left!” A wave of throwing spears and lances flew from the ranks of the Ariates, from somewhere behind the first rows. “Left…” A step forward. “Left…” Another one.

  There was a wheezing sound from under their feet; they were walking over people. They simply trampled the fallen… The regiment in the short skirmish had lost a quarter of its men, killed by arrows, spears and trampled by their comrades. But there were no more gaps in the wall of shields.

  “They’re retreating! The Ariates are running away!” someone yelled.

  “Stand!” Rad waved a hand. “It’s a trick! Maintain the ranks. Spears in the front. I’ll personally draw and quarter whoever moves without my command!”

  As it happened a long, endless time ago, griffons again flew over the people. Black balls dropped from the pouches onto the Ariates.

  “What are they doing, dunces?! The absorbers are blocking the magic,” Rad whispered, but he was mistaken. This time, the pouches and tubes were carrying explosive charges, stuffed with black dwarf powder, known on Earth as gunpowder. “Oh Hel!”

  There was a bright flash, and dozens of plumes of earth, rock, and dust covered the enemy regiments. A new battle broke out in the sky. The northe
rners’ generals sent an entire air fleet to repel the murderous attack. Thousands of half-birds clung not to life, but to death. A terrible rain of human bodies, dead griffons, and drags fell to the ground, along with the pouches and tubes they carried, stuffed with death.

  Death mowed people on both sides of the front. A generous hand scattered the black seeds of infernal dwarf powder on the Ariates and the Tantrians both. Duch thought he would go mad looking at the gates of hell on earth (as the worshipers of the One God would say). Here, on the ground, a soldier was pierced with a spear; there, a rider fell from the sky and landed with a thud. The warrior dressed in a flight costume had an arrow sticking out of his eye. After him, into the thick of the Ariates, two griffons stuck together in a death grip plunged to the earth. There was a deafening explosion, and a severed human hand hit Duch’s shield. Literally a minute later, a wounded griffin with a black saddle strapped to it that displayed the sun-shaped symbol of the Ariates fell to the ground in front of Duch’s regiment and burst into the formation. A strike with the powerful beak split his shield. With the next blow, the griffon struck the spearman’s chest. The distraught animal, dragging its wings on the ground, rushed to kill people. The huge claws on its forepaws worked no worse than sickles. In just a few seconds, the creature sent five men to a meeting with Hel, and five more prepared to join the first batch. When the griffon was finally strung on a spear, its victims numbered a total of sixteen strong men.

  From the right flank came a howl and a hoot. Gray orcs on wargs had joined the battle. The wargs burst into the midst of the northerners’ infantry, but they failed to break through the formation. From behind the infantry, arrows and huge cobblestones fell on the orcs. Targ, when had the slime managed to drag out catapults?

  “Forward!” Rad pressed his spear to his right side. “Aaaand left!”

  The remnants of the regiment, supplemented by the second line, going into a run, rushed at the enemy. Overtaking the humans, several hundred dwarfs burst forth, their bright hair sparkling in the sun. The mountains dwellers were going to their deaths. The dwarfs threw down their shields, showing the Ariates their intention—to die.

  “The suicide fighters,” Rada croaked. “Those left without a city and a clan. They do not need to live.”

  The next moment, there were no words for what Duch witnessed. The dwarfs broke through to the enemy. The “fireflies” fell into a fighting trance. The short, outwardly slender, and thin-boned dwarfs possessed enormous physical strength. The light V-formation of the hird wedged deeply into the enemy’s battle ranks. Following the distraught dwarfs, the spearmen flew at the Ariates. A few minutes later, the formation broke up into numerous smaller groups with separate confrontations, into which more and more people joined. Duch didn’t remember where he lost his spear and when his shield cracked. The second shield he lost Targ knows when, and now he was taking the slashing blows of his opponent’s blade with a shield he’d picked up that had a northern sun sign. In the crowd, it was impossible to maneuver and jump out of the way. Duch kept the enemy at a distance, forming intricate pretzel shapes and half-loops with the tip of his blue blade. Something whistled past his ear, and his adversary took a throwing spear to his chest. The struck Ariate looked with astonishment at the foreign object and tried to pull it out, but then Duch took a wide step forward and took his head off.

  Tired as a dog tormented by hundreds of small Targs, covered with blood and smelling, Duch dreamed of rest. But a new opponent interrupted his beautiful dreams. The enemy with a skillful blow split the shield he’d recently picked up. His left arm immediately became numb and hung flaccidly at his side. The white-haired Ariate, who had lost his helmet in the heat of battle, smiled wickedly and threw a knife at Duch. He managed to turn in time, but the knife stuck into his long-suffering left arm, putting it out of action until the end of the battle, or until he died, which was more likely. The former apprentice began to tire and also was feeling the effects of his loss of blood. The Ariate was already celebrating victory when he felt something amiss in the look in the Tantrian’s face as he peered behind him over his shoulder. The next second, two arrows dug into the back and shoulder of the luckless northerner, and Duch, on the contrary, jumped towards him in a somersault and covered himself with the stranger’s body. Thousands of arrows rained down on the men. The Ariate generals had decided to eliminate the Tantrians’ break-through operation. To liquidate it completely, even if it meant giving up the front line of their own troops along with the destruction of the shooters. Duch fell to the ground and thrust his legs under the shield that lay next to him. His former adversary was taking new deadly gifts on his back. He saw Rad from the corner of his eye. The commander of fifty lay on the ground with his throat split open. His blue eyes had already begun to twitch with Hel’s sepulchral cold.

  I’ve been in the front line three times, Duch recalled Rad’s words. I’m alive, as you can see.

  The fourth time the veteran did not survive. Hel decided he’d avoided her long enough. And the arrows continued to rain down… The whistle of the long black arrows changed to a new high note. Then they stopped whistling; they squealed like pigs, but all on the same note. How could there be such a thing? The yelp grew louder and louder; the deadly rain stopped. Duch, not realizing his own actions, threw away the arrow-pierced body of the Ariate and pressed his hands to his ears. Madly opening his mouth, he rolled on the ground. Hundreds of thousands of people at that moment did the exact same thing.

  If Duch could turn into a bird and fly up into the sky, he would have been able to see the source of the maddening squeal. It was the Tantrians’ and the Ariates’ mana absorbers. The white towers sparkled like two small suns. When it reached its highest point, the squeal broke off, to be replaced by two deafening explosions. Fragments of absorbers buried dozens of magicians underneath them. Duch picked up the blade he’d dropped and jumped to his feet. For a moment, he thought he was deaf, but another bang convinced him of the opposite. A transparent wall appeared between the armies. The wall trembled, divided into two parallel walls which began moving apart in different directions, shoveling the bodies of the deceased along as they went.

  Duch, like many of his fellow soldiers, dwarfs, and orcs, found himself in the “Ariate” half, but it seemed that everyone had forgotten about the battle. People fled from the inexorable moving walls that stirred up hills of bodies of the dead and wounded. He ran away, seized with a primal horror, along with everyone else on the battlefield. The walls separated a distance of about two hundred yards, then stopped. The air between them shook and became covered with the silvery ripple of an opening portal. Duch stumbled and fell to the ground. He had no strength left. He wanted to die and therefore sleep; his hands no longer held the sword. Turning over onto his back, he looked at the huge portal frame. Breaking the silver surface, dragons flew through the portal. The stream of winged creatures seemed endless! How many of them there were, Twins almighty! Hundreds of dragons covered the sky; the ghostly walls evaporated. A few dozen Lords of Heaven descended to earth and turned into humans. Duch swiftly dropped his sword. A ripple ran through the ranks of the Ariates—people fell to their knees…

  Earth. Russia. N-ville. Operators’ room of the third group….

  It was unusually quiet in the operators’ room. The main lighting was extinguished, and only a few of the lighting fixtures dispersed the impenetrable darkness in the huge room. The intermittent indicators of servers and office equipment threw colored glares on the shaded walls. Violating the cozy peace, the electromagnetic lock clicked. The pneumatics of the front door went off and immediately, reacting to the movement, the ceiling lights of the transitional entryway switched on. The hall came to life. The smart automation started the ventilation systems and awoke the CCTV camera.

  Four young people could be seen on the security monitors. Two of the troublemakers sat down at the main operators’ consoles of the apparatus. The second pair, gesticulating animatedly, argued fiercely about somethin
g with each other. The imperturbable guard threw an attentive glance at the screen and wrote something down in a journal that lay on the table in front of the video surveillance monitors. Having finished writing, the man, making a note of remembering their features, looked at the people who had entered the hall. It was the first time he’d seen the four of them, but since they passed unhindered through the numerous guard posts, it meant they had access, and the way they oriented themselves and behaved in the hall told him they’d been in the operators’ hall before.

  The guard cast a fleeting glance at the clock. In the interests of secrecy, no one told him that the third group had a second squad whose members were “commandeering” the operators’ room at the moment. The haste with which the additional group was formed and the fact that its leader was directly subordinate to the real boss of the facility rather than to Paul Chuiko, prompted observant people to suspect that another apparatus would soon be launched. Otherwise, why would they pull people out of the groups that were supposed to run interworld portals in China, form a group of them for some unknown purpose, assign it to a third apparatus, and train them secretly from the main collective? Few people knew that the newcomers’ training was conducted by Paul Chuiko personally.

  Thus, the young scientist had to “earn his way back” from his own blunder, and there was no end in sight to that. The secret service had put him firmly on the hook. The cleverest ones among them had long since concluded that the state would eventually no longer have the use for the services of the brotherhood of scientists. And so what? The technology had long ago been worked out. No fundamental knowledge or skills were essentially required to work as an operator. Unnoticed, Kerimov’s discovery had turned into a profession. Not a very common one, but still a profession, and the very first discoverer was taken out of the shadows and turned into an official cover for the secret service’s secret deeds. No wonder the clock-in computer had never registered use by the “reservists” of the third group.