Of Gods & Grunts

by Kyrell Kendrick

  We both held our steps and our breaths. I scanned the area, looking for any sign of danger.

  Snake Fucker crouched low and pulled a knife from his belt.

  I quietly toggled my selector to semi, pressed the power button on my PEQ 15, and crouched down as well. A brilliant infrared light sprouted from the top of my weapon, and I used it as a kind of searchlight for the corners and rooftops I couldn't see clearly.

  The upper silhouette of a human vanished as I swept the laser across him.

  I shook my head and repeated the process. My imagination was getting the best of me.

  "Up we go," Snake Stomper whispered and slowly stood up.

  "What'd you see?"

  "Felt something. Didn't see anything."

  I nodded, even though he couldn't see me.

  Without another word, he took off down the alley. I quickly followed behind.

  Another ten minutes, and we found ourselves at the base of a bell tower.

  The tower stood about one hundred feet high but was only eight feet wide at its base. The sides were smooth except one, which had a ladder. It was a ladder in the same way the DPRK is both a democracy and a republic. If you stretch the definition enough, a person ten drinks in might be able to agree with you.

  "Only way up, isn't it," I said more than asked.

  "Yup."

  "Please tell me there is a platform up there."

  "Yeah, but it's small, and the center's gone from it. Also, the bells aren't bound, so be careful you don't knock your helmet into it."

  "Need a moment to catch your breath?" Snake Fucker asked.

  I growled a little, swung my M4 to my back, and flipped up my nods.

  The cuts into the side weren't as slick as I had feared. They were angled down you could get a decent grip, and they were big enough for the toe of my boot to fit in. The climb was pretty simple.

  I carefully pulled myself up into the tower and felt around for the floor. It was wood, didn't feel too sturdy, and there was a three-foot hole straight in the center with a big rope hanging down.

  I crawled around the hole and put my back to the wall at the exact opposite of the ladder entrance. I took my ACH off, set it head side down so it wouldn't roll, and listened intently for my partner to make it up.

  A couple of minutes later, and scurried over the edge.

  "That was refreshing."

  "Wasn't as hard as I thought it would be," I mentioned.

  "That's because it was built for humans. Steps are too far apart for us dwarves." He wasn't whining, just stating a fact.

  I nodded.

  Snake Fucker crawled over to my side, causing the boards to creak and groan. I could smell the whiskey all over him.

  He peaked over the wall and then grabbed my arm to join him.

  "See that?" He pointed to a pair of lanterns next to a set of double doors.

  I flipped down my NODs and adjusted the focus. "Yeah." The doors were about two hundred meters away, but they were clearly visible down the road.

  "Got enough to make your plan?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Gonna ambush them? Cut off his head? Throw a lightning bolt?"

  I thought about it for a second, but only a second. Tall ass tower. Great field of fire. All I needed was a target. Hell, a human at two hundred meters was pretty simple. "What's he look like?"

  "Tall, bald, with a patch of white hair on his chin. Carries a sword on his left."

  "Seems easy enough," I said.

  "Plan good then?"

  "Yup." I slid back behind the wall, be ever vigilant to not touch the bell.

  "Alright, I'll lead the way back down." Snake Fucker got up and slithered to the ladder side.

  "Where you going?"

  "Light's coming up soon; we need to be in position." He continued to the edge.

  "We're staying here. Best spot around. Be like a presidential motorcade in Dallas."

  "Not sure what that means." He made his way back around the platform.

  "He's not going to come out until dawn?" I changed the subject.

  "Right. Every morning he leaves after breakfast."

  I looked at my watch.

  I'm gonna touch on time for half a second. The days in Teletha are like twenty-two hours and forty-eight minutes, or something like that. They are just enough off to be annoying. Their seasons are weird too; winter to summer, every five months with a few weeks of fall and spring to mix shit up.

  "Pull shifts and catch some rack?" I offered.

  "Rack?"

  "Sleep?"

  "I'm fine. I can guard until it comes around time."

  I was exhausted still, and I wasn't sure the next time I would need some sleep. I was just about to close my eyes when a thought occurred to me, "How far is Pydak from here?"

  The dwarf pointed, "Other side of the city. Maybe half a quarter day walk."

  I didn't want to argue fractions with the guy who was guarding my tower, but I felt like saying an eighth would be easier. Regardless two to three hours was doable.

  "OK, here's the plan."

  My sleep was fitful, uncomfortable, and cold, but I did have more than one REM moment, so I considered it a win.

  "Kevin."

  The whisper wasn't urgent, so I didn't bolt upright, but I did open my eyes. The morning light was bathing the land in its warm glory. BOB, the savior of all solar power soldiers, was slowly creeping over the horizon.

  "I wish I had a fucking Rip-It."

  Snake Fucker wasn't an idiot and could determine from context what I meant.

  "Take a bite off this, chew it, but don't swallow."

  I was hoping for some sort of caffeine, or maybe tobacco. Nope, the dwarf gave me mint. Well, not mint leaves, but a root that might as well have been mint.

  "Thanks."

  He nodded and took the remainder of the root back.

  I put my NODs away and checked the chamber of my M4 for the fiftieth time.

  We sat in silence for half an hour as I chewed on my mint stick and peaked over the wall periodically.

  Finally, the door opened, and five men spewed forth from the building. There were three obvious brutish bodyguards in a weird armor I hadn't seen before. It looked like patches of metal plates sewn together haphazardly affixed atop soft leather. The brutes carried axes and clubs.

  Behind the three Jersey Shore candidates was a tall skinny man with a longbow and a hip quiver. I am of the side that thinks the Legolas style quiver is more fashionable than the stupid henchmen asshole style, but hey, I'm a traditionalist. Robin Hood also had a rapier on his thigh.

  Now I know what you are thinking. Kevin, why would people have a mix of longbows, brutish axes, rapiers, and all sorts of technology that on Earth would see centuries of separation between them? Well, I will tell you why; Pantodynamos is like a honey badger.

  The one guy, who only had a dagger, wore one of those weird renaissance hats and had puffy arm thingies that made him look like he was about to paint the ceiling of a chapel in Rome with a bunch of penises.

  I nudged Snake Fucker, "That the man?"

  "The bloody idiot who thinks himself a nobleman? Yeah, that's him."

  I slowly brought my M4 up over the edge and centered the tip of my ACOG reticle on his chest. He was at least two hundred meters out.

  "Sure, you can hit him from here?"

  "Actually, this shot is kind of a joke." I rested the tip of my nose on the charging handle and slowly rotated to semi. "I'm just hoping the others don't react quickly so I can take them out too."

  I slowed my breathing and got comfortable. Two hundred meters is not a hard shot, especially with an ACOG, but anything worth doing is worth doing correctly.

  "Start climbing down."

  I listened as the dwarf moved. His considerable density did its best to fight the wood's integrity as he scrambled over the side.

  I gently pressed my finger to the trigger and focused on my breathing.

  The man continued his s
troll. He was in an animated discussion with the archer.

  I let my breath out normally. At the bottom of every breath is a natural pause. The pause is just your diaphragm and other muscles switching from eccentric contraction to concentric contraction. It's very similar to how piston pauses ever so slightly at the bottom of a stroke.

  I pressed the trigger during that pause and felt the familiar feeling of recoil, the deafening explosive sound of a bullet, and the delightful smell of expended nitro.

  I watched as the man slumped to the ground, his strings cut.

  His compatriots all reflexively ducked but had no idea what was happening.

  I scanned to the Robin Hood wannabe, lined up, and fired. Once again, he dropped to the ground, his system in complete shock.

  It had been two seconds since the first round went flying. The brutes were at least brave if not stupid. They had not yet let their flight response overpower their fight reaction.

  I aimed at the left-most man and pulled the trigger. The round hit low on his stomach, and the brute lurched forward and went down to a knee.

  One of the idiots finally figured out he had no chance of winning, so he took the smart way out and conducted a tactical withdraw.

  I aimed at the final jackoff and put a round straight through his heart. He dropped hard.

  The first brute I shot had curled into a ball, moaning loudly.

  There is a line between murder and killing. Sometimes that line can be a mile wide, and other times it can be the width of a hair. I came right up to that line when I took aim at the man I had hit in the gut and put a mercy round through his head.

  Honestly, I think its what he wanted. I've been told gut wounds are painful.

  I switched to safe, loaded a fresh mag, and scurried down the ladder.

  Snake Stomper was at the bottom, his knife out, and ready to pounce.

  I dropped in behind him, and to his credit, he didn't stop searching for threats. "You injured?"

  "No," I replied. "We ready?"

  "Yeah." He put his knife into his belt. "I see a threat I'll let you know."

  "Gotta get there before they get the word."

  Without another breath, he took off in a trot.

  It took us three hours to cross to the other side of the city. My legs were shaky, I was drenched in sweat, and I had runners cough.

  We were one hundred meters from the Inn of the Rising Son.

  "Drink this." Snake Fucker handed me a skin.

  I had emptied the bladder on my back ten minutes prior and was happy to have a drink. I took a long pull on what tasted like a mix of honey and spices, with a kick of whisky.

  "This will put some hair on your nipples." He retrieved his skin and took three more gulps.

  "Always wanted hairy nipples."I adjusted my kit, checked the chamber of my M4, and stretched a little. The bottom of the plates in my plate carrier rubbed my lower back raw.

  I took a deep breath. We didn't have the time to send out word of the new plan, so if we got into anything heavy, we were right and proper fucked.

  "Always wanted a piece of this cunt. Slaver bastard."

  "Want me to save him for you?"

  "Oh, no. I'm not stupid; you get a chance to kill him, you kill him."

  I smiled. It was my plan, anyway. Saving someone like that was good for books and movies, but not real life. If a sniper has Hitler in the crosshairs, he doesn't pause to let the Jewish guy get justice; he pulls the fucking trigger.

  We walked forward like two gun-slingers from the old west.

  "I wish I had a banger."

  Snake Fucker nodded.

  He had no clue what I was talking about, but I'm sure he gathered from the context.

  The doors to the inn were open, and the sounds of laughter and partying could be heard hundreds of feet away.

  "He'll be surrounded."

  I nodded this time.

  "They coat their blades in poison."

  I looked at him sideways. "Really?"

  "Kills you slowly. Makes you rot from the inside."

  "Well, that's just fighting dirty."

  "They won't hold back neither."

  The rest of the walk was in silence, but I swear I could hear The Good the Bad and the Ugly theme playing somewhere in the distance.

  I took one final breath before walking into the inn. My weapon was already on semi, and I had it in the low ready.

  When I walked in, no one did anything, but the moment my dwarven friend stepped in, the assholes all looked at him with hate in their eyes.

  "Subs aren't allowed in here." The voice came from behind the bar.

  There were two tables full of humans, about twelve in total, not counting the staff.

  Snake Stomper growled.

  I wasn't there to make friends. "Sheyu!" I shouted his name.

  Two large men stood and drew short swords. The large men were polite enough to be sitting to either side of an elderly gentleman with a large gold ring in his upper ear.

  They couldn't have pointed out my target better if they had pulled out a neon sign that flashed his name with a little cartoon arrow.

  It made my job easy. I raised my M4, centered up on Sheyu, and fired. No words, no preamble, just squeezing a trigger at a slaver piece of shit.

  I heard my casings bounce against the ground as I watched Sheyu slump.

  Sometimes when I am alone in the dark place, I can hear the wretched cries of the evil men I have vanquished. I can smell their flesh burning and hear their skin crackle.

  I'm not sure if they deserved their fate, but I know their victims didn't deserve the lives the two crime lords bestowed upon them.

  The remaining people cowered and covered their ears. They had no idea what had just happened, or who I was.

  I bent down and recovered my brass.

  Snake Stomper looked around, "Any of you bastards get any funny ideas about carrying on in his name." He pointed to the slumped and bleeding Sheyu. "The Warrior will kill you dead."

  If they were upset that a sub was giving them orders, they didn't show it.

  I tucked my brass into my dump pouch and attempted to commit to memory the faces of everyone sitting down.

  Snake Stomper walked confidently behind the bar and snagged a cask off the shelf. He then glowered at the bartender, daring him to say something.

  I kept an eye on the other patrons while doing my best to cover Snake Fucker.

  He came back to me, looked up, and said, "Ready then?"

  I nodded, my M4 still at the low ready and on semi.

  We both backed out of the bar and on to the street.

  "That went better than I thought it would," Snake Fucker noted.

  "Let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here." I turned and moved quickly toward the way we came.

  We were at least a mile away before we paused for a moment.

  Snake Stomper put his hands on his thighs, and gasped in air,

  I wasn't much better.

  "Think that'll do it?"

  Snake Stomper looked up at me. "I do." He then took a seat on the road and corked the cask he stole. After a long draw, he let out a satisfying belch.

  "Two people? You guys think killing these two will really make a difference?" To say I was skeptical would have been an understatement.

  "You have kings where you are from?"

  "Sure." I didn't want to get into the whole president, parliament, or whatever communist dictatorships have.

  "Think about the most powerful man in your lands. The man who rules with an iron fist. A man who has had at least thirty assassination attempts against him all fail."

  "K," I replied.

  "Now think about that man and two of the most powerful underworld bosses in your lands all dying within the span of a few days. Not dying from some disease or whatnot, but killed by a warrior who talks weird and harnesses thunder."

  "I don't harness thunder."

  "Sure as fuck sounds like you do."

  I
had to give him that; if I was a backward inbred fucktard, I would probably think firearms harnessed thunder too.

  "OK, I think I see your point," I said.

  "You just killed some of the most powerful men in Teletha, and you did so without a fight. You just saw them and killed them."

  His words sort of bothered me. I had just killed a bunch of people for no other reason than someone I trusted told me they were bad. What if my feelings were wrong? What if I had murdered them, and not killed them?

  Snake Fucker must have seen the look on my face. "Oh, don't you worry, they were bad people."

  "Bad people, according to who though?"

  "You're young. I can tell you've never married, don't have kids, and haven't settled yourself. Let me give you a bit of advice; it's easy to tell who the bad people are by what they do to the kids. Not what they do to other adults, or even what they do to their wives. And I don't mean what they do to their own kids; I mean the other kids. Anyone who puts a kid into slavery, or rapes em, or kicks em out to fend for themselves is evil."

  I thought upon that for a moment. His wisdom made sense. People who hurt children were abominable. "Let's get going," I said, offering a hand to Snake Stomper.

  He stood with many audible pops coming from every joint.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  He immediately pulled out his knife and crouched into a defensive position. His eyes darted back and forth to a point behind me.

  I switched to semi, brought my carbine up to the low ready, and spun around.

  "What do you see?"

  "Don't know," he said.

  Soldiers take intuition very seriously, and I was not about to argue with or interrupt anyone who is trying to identify something that unsettled them.

  We looked for some time and stood in silence before I heard a gurgling sound come from Snake Stomper.

  I spun around and caught a glimpse of a shadow moving around a corner. I then looked to Snake Stomper, who had fallen to both knees, clutching his neck. Bright red blood spurted from a long clean cut across his throat with every heartbeat.

  I let my M4 hang and grabbed the dwarf. I looked at his face, trying to offer some reassurance, or maybe just trying to give him a friendly face before his passing.

  I'm not sure if you have ever seen the lights go out on another person before. It's the worst feeling of utter helplessness a person can feel. You are completely powerless to do anything other than watch a comrade or friend slip into oblivion, forever gone.