"Fisher, Officer John Fisher. Show yourself, we have some of your men, we want to talk."
Well, the trouble with Baresark is that you're a little crazy even if you are "in control of it"...what that means, is you take crazy, reckless chances that you would never normally take. Not generally with others, but with yourself. I didn't speak to anyone, not that I could anyway (another problem with Baresark), I just ran right the fuck out into the middle of the slide, and started waving. In less than three minutes there was a chopper headed around the ridge to me. I'm sure that would have told me something important if I had been thinking well, but right then I wasn't. It was tailed by another chopper, this one, a gun ship; specifically an AH-6J Little Bird. The first one came to a hover about seventy feet overhead and a little to the north and I heard a voice I recognized: "My old pal Barry Daniels".
"John, I have one of your men here, says his name is George Rivers. Want to speak to him?"
I just nodded. Hey, it was the best I could do.
They hauled George out where I could see him, and told him "Talk to him; tell him what I told you!" while holding a mike in front of him.
"John, they trapped me while I was sleeping. But I got two of them the night before." At that, they shook him, hard, and muttered in his ear. "They want me to tell you to give up, and bring your men in, and they'll let anyone who isn't involved in killing the marine live. John, the man who talked to me acted like he believed we had done this thing." Then he spoke very rapidly "He was lying to me. I have sung my song, John, farewell." With that he dived out of the chopper, and was an owl...a large owl, who flew right into the “Little Bird’s jet intake. There was a large bang, a flash of light, smoke started pouring out of the top of the gun ship and she dropped like a rock, smashing into the mountainside. The chopper that Barry was in broke left and headed for open air. At the same time, I smelled candy corn and sawdust...and I grinned. Ever seen a cat grin at a mouse? Yeah, it was like that.
I felt him try to make me do something, I couldn't tell what, and suddenly, he was in my head. But he wasn't in control, he was just along for the ride.
"Hello Barry, 'fraid it's not going to work."
"Why not? You're not anywhere near the mage I am, much less my boss. Give in now, and this will be much less painful."
"Barry, at intel, you suck. You used the wrong type of deer when you set up that cute little scene with Sgt. Brown, there are no white tails on this side of the state; it's what tipped me off that there was something wrong with your little setup. And now you didn't bother to find out that I'm a Baresark, you probably don't even know what that means. It means when I'm pissed, I'm immune to ANY magic. Right now, I'm about as pissed as I have EVER BEEN. I will find you, and I will find the people who killed Sgt. Brown, and I will kill you. NOW GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" I suspect that I gave him a migraine with that last mental shout, it was my intent anyway. With that, I sprinted for cover, and kept right on going with the rest of the 'Thropes behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shortly thereafter, we crossed a deer herd that must have been the stupidest four-footed animals on the face of the planet. If I was a prey animal, I wouldn't be in this county by now, much less on the same side of a mountain where gunfire and helicopters crashing and shit had been happening. They weren't for long...I was fucking starving, this Baresark shit takes it right out of you, plus we had been running all day, plus...anyway, this little group of does and a couple yearlings trotted right out in front of us at about thirty yards out, and we were on them before they knew to run. Eating was done as quickly as we could, but we had to eat, which incidentally kicks me out of Baresark, and damn near knocked me out. The only thing that saved me was Yoshi, he came up behind me as I was chewing a hind leg that I had ripped off. I was starting to nod off as I trotted along, I would have probably been asleep in seconds. He did something to my neck, and it was like I just drank three cups of espresso with a half pound of sugar, then took 120 V to the head, followed by a good breakfast. I mean I was AWAKE!!! I looked over at him with this shocked ass look on my face, and was about to ask what the fuck he just did, when he looked at me, smiled and winked then went on to do it to someone else, and on down the line. He touched every guy in the group, just a little brush on the nape of the neck, and suddenly we were full bore again. If I could figure out a way to bottle that shit I would never have to work again. (Oh, wait, I don't ever have to work again...but still...Damn.)
As we were starting to recover from the shock of being fully awake and functional after being just about on our ass, we got another shock. A big damn cow elk comes galloping towards us at high speed from out of the trees. Now in no universe does a prey animal come charging toward a pack of the most badass predators you have ever wanted to see, soaked in the fresh blood of several deer, and with caked dried human blood on us as well. We hadn't exactly had a lot of time to clean up, if you know what I mean, and hand to hand with lycanthropes is MESSY. But here comes this elk charging right at us. We all just stopped and our jaws dropped in shock.
It was probably the only thing that kept Mary alive long enough to drop to a trot and shift all in one fluid movement. One second she's an elk slowing from a run, the next it's a woman, coming down to a slow trot and stopping. Oh, and I might add, slowly pulling the skin, which is now a ceremonial Cheyenne dress, with full beading, over her briefly nude body. Now, Mary always looks good, but DAMN, right now she looked like life itself.
After stopping long enough to pull her dress on, she walked up to me, and said "Good, I see you guys got the food 'Old Woman of the Spring' sent." She walked up and kissed me, stood back and continued. "Leave it to a stubborn damn Norseman to risk starvation or defeat rather than ask for help. Some days, boy, you truly stress me out."
By now, everyone was stopped, and it's a good thing the bad guys didn't choose to walk up right then, because there wasn't a single set of eyes (except maybe Yoshi's, and I'm not sure about him) that wasn't locked on Mary's anatomy. I opened my mouth, and what came out was something like 'Ah ba ol womah?'
Mary sighed. "Old Woman of the Spring...one of my people's gods. Honestly John, I can name all of your people's gods. Hel, I've met a couple of them, can't you do me the same courtesy? She's the one that gave Buffalo to my people."
This time I got my mouth to work. "Mary, you've been at this a lot longer than I have, and you had Lars to introduce you. This has all been coming rather quickly at me. Cut me a little slack huh? But how did you know what was going on? Did Viggo get a hold of you?"
"No, he should be waking soon, and I'm sure he'll be briefed by his day guy. George told me."
Well that threw me right back into incoherence..."Geo who ta yaw wah?"
"George Rivers-Run-with-Fish. Nice old man, brilliant final charge, he should be meeting the greats now. He stopped by on his way to the path of the Milky Way. Mentioned you were in fairly bad straits. Thought you would have called by now, but NOOOO stupid, stubborn Norseman has to do it on his own. Didn't you learn anything from your last time dealing with major bad guys? Or is it just that I'm a woman?"
Well, I may be slow under some circumstances, but even I know that there are certain questions you DO NOT answer. That last one is one of the biggies. Truth is, one; I was too damn busy staying alive to call for help, two; I sure as Hel didn't want to get Mary into the middle of this. Me dying, well, I long ago accepted that as a possibility. Mary dying? That was unthinkable. I knew however that SAYING that would be a really bad idea, so I went with the safe answer.
"Mary, I've been too damn busy, and more than just a little Baresark, if you didn't know, which makes communication rather difficult.
"Well, since you're here, we've got issues. Multiple gun ships, how many I don't know, and at least a couple troop transports, which may or may not be armed, and a Senator's Chief of Staff, who's a major mage, and made it clear to me that he's not the big guy in all this."
"Yes John, I know. I didn't know that Barry wasn't the b
ig cheese, because George didn't know that, but I knew about Barry, and that there are still at least three gun ships and four troop transports. George saw that much. How about you introduce me to your friends here?"
Well, after introductions, which were abbreviated for obvious reasons (we were still in a combat zone, with bad guys closing in), we started moving again. The bad guys had what we used to call a 'flaming datum'. Namely that burning wreck that used to be one of their choppers. So getting as far away from that thing as we could was priority one. Along the way I asked Mary if she had called for backup or help before coming out here, or if she had come out solo. She said that she had called Pete, and he was arranging for more help, but that she had come ahead. Shortly, we started hearing choppers again.
By now the sun was behind the western set of mountains, and the temperature was dropping like a rock. A lycanthrope generally runs about 102 degrees F. We would show up nicely against the 40 degree or so temperature in the daylight, although the sun glint would confuse the operators somewhat, making detection harder so they would have to move slower. Now that it was dropping toward zero, with no sun glint, we were going to show up like a neon fucking sign. Oh, and let's not forget that they could track us in the snow too, where there was snow.
Our best bet was to find an overhang and hide out for another night. The problem with that was that time was not on our side. These guys could move in shifts, and while Yoshi could know where they were in time to warn us, if he could stay alert, being warned doesn't matter if there's no way out. We talked about it, and the general consensus was to keep moving toward civilization, while trying to stay under as heavy a tree cover as we could.
Half an hour later, they spotted us. It was just at full dark when we heard the chopper coming up the valley we were working down. Everyone dived behind rocks and large trees, and we heard the BZZZ of a chain gun and the Spang-tweet of ricochets. Someone cried out, I think it was Logan Reed, one of the wolves.
Yoshi ran over to see how bad it was, and shouted out "The aircraft is not using silver, he'll be all right." Well thank the gods for small favors anyway. I used a few seconds to send a "Here we are, and here we will be staying until relieved, dead, or victorious." text to Viggo, with the hope that he would pass it on to Pete and the boys. We weren't going to be moving very far until this was decided, and I had no doubt we were as outnumbered as Leonidas. I had no plans to end the same way.
Mary was shouting something I didn't quite understand, but part of it was something about "Enesta Nonoma" something or other. Next thing we know there's a funny light in the sky and the sound of a thunderclap, then the chain gun shuts down, and the chopper is maneuvering. Looking up through gaps in the trees, there's a great big damn bird looking for all the world as though it's trying to line up a shot against the helicopter. Now when I say "great big damn bird." I don't mean by bird standards. I mean this thing is the size of an aircraft, and it brings its wings together in front of it and a lightning bolt flies out, just missing the helo. We've got a dogfight going on over our heads between some sort of magic bird, and a gun ship! If I hadn't seen it, well, never mind, I did see it and I STILL didn't believe it. I looked at Mary with a shocked look, and asked "Is this YOUR doing?"
She grinned at me "It is Nanoma; the thunderbird."
"OK, well let's get the fuck out of here while that chopper's busy!" Sadly, that was not meant to be. No sooner was the words out of my mouth than I heard more choppers inbound, and some of them were the heavier beat of troop transports.
"Teador, we've got incoming, LOTS of incoming." The dog fight overhead was still going on from the sound of it, we were trying to find places to fight from. Right now, we were in a rocky valley, with lots of trees. It was the start of a stream that feeds the south branch of the Little River. There were lots of rocks, boulders actually; big, damn, downed trees, and big damn standing trees (all conifers) on the west face of the north-south ridge at Mount Angeles. That was about as good a defensive position as we were likely to find, it drove the bad guys to get up fairly close. You were not going to sit back at 200 yards and take potshots in this shit, and if we could get them close, we stood a chance.
As we found places that sheltered us from bullets until they were right on top of us, they were coming in. A second gun ship joined the first one, and we started hearing chain gun again. Nothing was hitting around us, except for spent casings from the guns, so I have to guess (not being able to see much through the trees) that they were trying to shoot the Nanoma. (Shoot Nanoma, shoot him, shoot her? Is that a proper noun, the name of the species, or what? It's weird what goes though your head at a time like that). Soon a third chopper joined the fray, but then the odds dropped back down again as we heard an explosion and saw a flash that could only be a lightning-struck chopper. Still, the gun ships were keeping the bird too busy to help us, and the troop ships were inbound.
The air combat moved away from overhead, I don't know who was running and who was chasing, but they drifted over the top of the mountain, still fighting it out, and we lost track of the sound. We still had a couple troopships in the area though, and it sounded like they were hovering. That meant guys were fast-roping down, and we were going to have company soon. I shouted out "May as well take their guns if you can, they know we're here." I thought about telling Mary to keep her head down and climb in between a few large rocks until it was over, but I knew there was about as much chance of that happening as me being elected president, so I just let it lie.
It didn't take long before we could hear and smell them coming through the trees, and moving around the rocks. These guys were about as quiet as a herd of cattle, but there was a lot of them, and "quantity has a quality all of its own" as the late unlamented Joe Stalin once said. Pretty soon they got close enough to see us, or think that they saw us, and started shooting.
I saw one moving through the trees, trying to look though his goggles, with his rifle at the hunt position, drew a bead, and center punched him with my pistol. I had about 6 rounds left in my pistol give or take, in all the excitement I lost count. I also had two spare magazines with twelve rounds each of 45 cal goodness. That was not nearly enough to kill them all, but it was enough to let me capture a couple of their rifles. I started to move in the direction of the guy I just dropped when one of them saw me. I felt a burning sensation in my left ass cheek, and took off at a sprint. I'll never know who spotted me, but he didn't get the second round to get a kill. I was on top of the guy I shot, and had his rifle and a spare mag while keeping his body between me and whoever the fuck shot me. I glanced down as soon as I was sure I wasn't going to catch any more rounds, and saw he had creased my ass, and took a chunk out of the base of my tail. Hurt like Hel, but nothing permanent damaged. Then I started scanning for enemies. This thing just had a night vision scope, instead of one of the thermals, so either they were arming their elite better than their foot soldiers, or it was "bring what you got". Either way, a night vision scope was plenty good enough for me, and if there was anyone out there with a thermal, they would see the body in front of me, and not see much of me, so I was going to lay right here for the moment and see what I could spot.
Saw a couple of their guys moving up and put one in the ground before they knew I was here, the other one dropped too quick to get a shot off, and pretty soon I was taking rounds from several sources. None of them had a great idea where I was, but they were enthusiastic if nothing else. Occasionally I would hear a snarl, or a scream, some of them animal, some of them human. I also heard some sort of a twang occasionally, and remembered I had seen Mary pull a bow out of thin air before. It was dark enough that none of us could really see each other's fight, the best you could hope for was to make a positive ID before you pulled the trigger. They weren't bothering with that so much, which made it a little easier, if it's spraying silver indiscriminately it's an enemy, shoot it. Soon, we heard the troop transports coming back. We still hadn't heard the gun ships come back, thank the gods (literally, co
me to think of it). But the troopships were back in hover mode and this batch was coming down behind us. So they had us in a pincer or would soon. Well, I never expected to die in bed. The best hope we had was that they would end up shooting at each other as much as at us. Then, to make it complete we heard the gun ships coming back again.
Keeping The Faith (John Fisher Chronicles Book 2) Page 28