by Damon Alan
“We’ll have to put a few of our own out to see if we can track him down. We’ll need someone to draw fire so we can see his position,” Hurst answered.
“I’ll get a volunteer. Someone with a better helm than our leader,” Coragg said to the human. “Then I’ll be readying Irsu’s things and mine for leaving.”
“You’re going with him?” Hurst asked.
“I’m his second. He’s the Amblu-gane. I’d be derelict not to go with him.”
The Swiss Captain did a sweep of the dwarves nearby. “Then who will you leave in charge?”
Irsu stood up, low so as to not get hit by the sniper again. His head was starting to pound, and a few shots of alcohol were in his near future.
“You,” Irsu told Hurst. “This is an alliance. You’re third in command. Now you’re in charge. The King had to know that would be the result when he summoned me back.”
“Then we will be changing our location, as the Germans know it and I fear artillery. I’m honored by your trust, Iron Commander,” Hurst replied. “Even as it’s unexpected.”
“Unexpected?” Coragg scoffed. “You haven’t seen a thing from Irsu Cragstone yet.”
“Shut it,” Irsu replied. “Don’t you have packing to do?”
Chapter 3 – Visitor
Harry’s new allies, the Dek, were packing. Horses and strange small camels were being loaded. Nothing was mentioned the night before, no ceremony marked moving day, nobody had said a word to Harry’s Squad.
He knocked on the door to Tim and Teeran’s yoglik, as they had their own now. A nicer one than the British infantry squad shared.
“Come in,” Tim’s voice called from within.
Harry opened the rickety wooden door and bent over to step inside. Tim reclined on a stack of leather bags, the Dek version of a chair.
“Tea, Harry?” Tim asked, waving toward a copper pot on the central hearth. “You’re just in time.”
“Yes, please,” Harry answered, sitting down on a log bench facing Tim. “You and Teeran seem to be doing well.”
“I’ve never been happier. I feel like I settled into my purpose.”
Harry nodded. He understood the sentiment; he missed his own wife more than he’d ever thought possible. “Say, Tim, do you have any idea why all the packing?” Harry waved at the door.
As he did the door popped open, Teeran slipped inside before closing it behind her.
“You might ask her,” Tim said to Harry.
So, he did.
“We’re nomads, Harry. The Dek I mean. These are the summer grounds. It’s getting late. If we want to make the winter grounds, we leave today.”
“Why aren’t you and Tim packing then?” Harry asked.
Teeran looked at him and smiled, seemingly amused. “What do you mean? What you see here is what we have. It will take no time at all.”
“Where are you going?”
“The winter grounds. In the Aldikki Mountains,” Teeran replied as she dropped a few leather bags on the bed. She tossed one to Tim.
“Pack,” she told him.
Tim lifted himself from his comfortable spot, looking around. “I’ll leave out the cups and the pot for now, I’ll let it cool after Harry’s visit is over,” he told his bride.
“Pack,” she said again. “Those can be last.”
Typical married life banter, Harry thought. He might have had the same with his own wife were he at home. As Tim stuffed their few possessions into bags alongside his wife, Harry asked questions.
“Are we going with you?”
Teeran pointed at Tim. “He is, whether you do or not is up to Grandmother.”
It was something Harry would need to think about. Going to a winter shelter wouldn’t get them back to Earth. But why in the mountains?
“Why are you wintering where it’s colder?” Harry asked Teeran.
“Protection. We leave today to make sure we can get into our shelter. Once the snows fall heavily it will be cut off from the outside.”
“That makes sense. What about food?”
“Why do you think there are so many animals with packs? Even the dogs carry their own food to the shelter. Those that can’t… well, they become food for others.”
The Dek had deer, pigs, horses, the little camels, dogs, and even a few cats. Chickens and ducks as well. Is that all they eat? It didn’t seem like enough food for a community. But obviously the Dek knew what they were doing. They did this yearly.
“What about you and Tim? You just got married. Where is your food?”
“My father is expected to provide for this year. By tradition we are supposed to start a family, but that won’t happen since he’s human and I’m dek. But next year we’ll have all summer to hunt together and this winter we’ll make things to trade for animals of our own.”
Seems like she had it all worked out.
“I’m going to go speak to Grandmother,” Harry said. “Thank you both for the tea.”
“She’s at your yoglik waiting for you,” Teeran said as Harry opened the door. “Don’t keep her waiting too long.”
She could have mentioned that sooner.
“I won’t.”
Harry walked down the winding pathway between the homes of the Dek. People ran all over, animals clogged the walking spaces, and children shrieked as they tried to deal with the excitement of the day.
Finally, he reached the point he’d started, the front door of his squad’s yoglik.
Inside, Grandmother sat on a log bench, speaking to the rapt soldiers sitting around in a semicircle. The old dek had charisma, for certain. She squeezed the charm necklace that allowed her to understand them and them to understand her. Unlike the medallion Harry’s squad had, Grandmother’s worked for the speaker and the listener. Something she’d neglected to tell him until he figured it out.
“—and so Hagirr, having secured his own future—” Grandmother stopped her story when she noticed Harry. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“And I for you,” Harry replied. “Why didn’t anyone tell us about today?”
“The exodus?” Grandmother laughed. “It’s such a part of our lives we didn’t even think about it. When the shadows of the sun tell us it’s time to go, we just go.”
“What about us?”
“You have no food stored, Harry,” Grandmother told him, looking sad. “Who will feed you when the snow is deep?”
“I will,” a voice said through the still open doorway.
Everyone turned to look at the source, except Grandmother, who closed her eyes and sighed.
The scariest looking dek Harry had seen yet stood outside, bent over, looking into the yoglik. A female, she was lean and stringy. Her skin was darker than any he’d seen yet, maybe that was a play on shadows… which come to think of it, the area around the newcomer seemed darker even though she still stood in the sunlight.
Private Miller, a few feet from Harry, whimpered. Harry pretended not to notice.
The newcomer looked at Miller and smiled, teeth filed to a point filled the exposed mouth. “Aaaah, you’re just who I am looking for.”
“Me?” Miller squeaked.
The female entered without asking permission. She wore puffy fur pants, but other than that was nude. Tattoos traced lines across her body, forming intricate woven patterns with scarification. That was the cause of her skin tone. At first Harry thought there must be some trick for his eyes in the patterns, but he soon realized there was no trick. Dim lights pulsed along the lines, almost too dim to be certain they were real. One of the lines moving horizontally along her torso changed its location on her skin, connecting to a different line higher on her ribs so the light could follow a different path toward her neck.
“Ye'r th' scariest wifie a've ever seen,” Lars blurted out.
She looked at Lars for a second, seeming to decide he was of no significance, then without a word moved back to focusing on Miller.
“Stand up!” she barked at her new focus.
&
nbsp; Miller, to Harry’s surprise, did precisely that. Either out of fear or simple subservience, Harry had no idea. But it wouldn’t do.
“Now listen here,” Harry started.
“I’ll get to you,” the female promised. “I understand you’re their leader. I am not challenging you.” She had Miller’s lips stretched back and was examining his teeth, something the private was strangely cooperating with. “Plenty of filing opportunity…” she mumbled.
Something brave inside of Harry rose to the surface, and in a fit of either suicidal thought or courage, he pushed his will. “No, you’ll get to me now. As you said, I am the leader.”
The dek jerked her head toward him, and Harry swore that for a moment her eyes flashed a baleful red. The look of irritation on her features was gone an instant later, replaced by her pointed-tooth grin once more.
“You’re bold,” she cooed. “I like that. It will be needed in the coming days.”
Were she human, Harry would guess her to be about twenty-five. Like a human, she understood sexuality. Even covered in tattoos there was something less animalistic about her than when Harry’d met Teeran, but still definitely sexual and dangerous.
She moved until she was toe to toe with him, then looked up into his eyes. A mere few inches different, her head tilted hardly at all. Harry could smell her breath; it was a bit like fermented fruit. Her hair was black as coal and twisted into elegant patterned braids that seemed part of her network of lines.
“Are you mated, leader of humans?” she asked.
“I am,” he answered. “I am married to a woman who is not on this world.”
“Too bad. I like you. Do you humans mate outside of marriage?”
Harry gulped. She was getting to him a bit. “Some do, but I would prefer not to be unfaithful to my wife.”
“Wife… do you hope to see her again?”
“I do.”
She passed a finger under Harry’s chin, lightly dragging a pointed nail just hard enough to catch the stubble on his face. “Then you will listen to me, ogre slayer.”
“Ogre slayer?” Miller said from behind her.
The female raised her finger and tapped Harry in the middle of the forehead. “You remember this fellow?”
The room vanished for a few seconds, and the image of a bullet ridden corpse filled Harry’s mind. The creature that they’d been forced to kill when they’d first entered this world.
“I do,” Harry answered, hoping it wasn’t a friend of hers. “That’s the giant we killed after he tried to abduct us. When we first arrived.”
“While traveling I came across the body,” she said, her finger now tracing along Harry’s neck. “I asked him who killed him and took the image of you from his mind. All of you.”
Harry smirked. “You asked a dead thing who killed it?”
“Surely not the first magic you’ve seen since arriving here?” she asked him in a throaty whisper, her finger still playing in his stubble.
“No,” he conceded. He had no idea why her assertions had even surprised him.
“I trailed the lines you left in the sand. Your transportation leaves quite a path to follow.”
Harry nodded. It wasn’t like they were going to abandon their lorry and walk when they didn’t have to do so. Which reminded him they were at the point they had to. When his squad left the summer village, most of them would be walking. A few had horses now, having traded or earned them in some fashion.
“I found your machine not far from here. It smells terrible.”
“The fuel, I expect,” Miller said.
She smiled, her eyes never breaking focus on Harry’s. “See how he already seeks to please me?”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked. “What have you done to him?”
“Nothing. He senses who I am.”
Grandmother huffed. “All this posturing is annoying me.”
“Then leave, mother, and I will finish my business with these humans.”
“You’re Grandmother’s daughter?” Harry asked.
The look on the dek’s face told him that was a stupid question. She had just called the older female mother. He got no verbal answer.
“Very well,” the old dek said, rising. “When you’re done with the performance, daughter, stop by my yoglik. We’ll be leaving in a few hours; it would be good to say a few things before you’re gone again.”
The new dek shook her head subtly and smirked so that only Harry could see. “I will, mother.”
Grandmother ducked out and started singing as she wandered away. The song faded with distance.
“I am Cylethe. I smelled the one I’m interested in at a location not far past where you crossed the Dwarven bridge.”
She must be talking about Miller. “Smelled him?”
“It’s a bit more than that,” she answered, “but that is a term you’ll understand well enough.”
“Do you need a bath, Miller?” Harry quipped past her.
The men laughed; the tension finally broke a little.
“I am a natural mage, as he is,” Cylethe said, ignoring Harry’s humor. “I will be training him. And keeping him from attracting the attention of Hagirr.”
“Hagirr?”
“Yes,” she replied. “The world wizard Hagirr is your way home, Harry, but you’ll have to find a way to make him want to send you there. If he were to find you now, he’d either kill you outright or capture you to be taken to the pens.”
“The pens?”
“Where Hagirr is holding most humans who come through the gate,” she replied, looking angered by the concept.
Harry thought about what Parker had translated from the giant they’d killed. “Was that where the ogre planned to take us?”
“Almost certainly.”
He had to get that information back to England. “The ogre failed, and now we’re here. You can’t send us home?”
She laughed. Then when Harry just looked at her, she shook her head. “Oh, you’re serious? No, Harry, I can’t open a gate between worlds. Only one mage I know of possesses magic at that level.”
Harry sighed. “Hagirr.”
She nodded her head. “You learn fast. Good. We will have to travel to the winter lands separate from the rest of my people. I don’t want him,” she pointed at Miller, “to attract Hagirr’s attention and get my family hurt while I’m training him. Once we’re underground, we’ll be safe until it’s time to travel again.”
“Underground?” Harry asked.
“You will see in time,” Cylethe answered. She finally lowered her hand, then glanced at Miller.
Harry looked at his radioman as well. “What will you train him to do?”
“Harness his natural ability, of course. He’s already taken his first baby steps, we’re lucky Hagirr hasn’t noticed. Maybe he was distracted by something else. Regardless,” she answered, pointing at Miller, “it’s time for him to stand tall. It’s your only hope to get home.”
“Why would you help me?” Miller asked.
She finally turned her face away from Harry’s, looking directly at Miller.
“Because when they go home,” Cylethe waved her hand at the other soldiers, “you, Miller, will be staying here with me.”
Chapter 4 - von Krosigk
July 14, 1940
Ernst Hoffmann sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair across the hall from Elianna, a witch whose power he neither understood nor knew the limitations of. She sat in an identical chair, facing him, her back against the opposite wall.
They were waiting to meet the Führer. Herr Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk. A person who, in Ernst’s estimation, was an even bigger idiot than Adolph Hitler had been. With the conquest of Austria, Czech lands, parts of Poland and Alsace-Lorraine in northeast France, Germany had secured control of lands lost in WWI plus more. With the opening of the gate over Rotterdam the Allies had sought a truce. Peace had been restored, with Germany on top, holding the lands it had so quickly seized.
The Fatherlan
d had almost doubled in size and resources.
Then this fool goes and messes that up to start a war with Switzerland. The Swiss, of all people. Fighting them would be like trying to kill a badger in its den. It might be done, but not without wounds to show for it.
“You have worry on your face,” Elianna observed.
“This is the leader of my country,” Ernst replied. “Absolute leader. There is no excuse for failing him.”
“You have failed him?”
Ernst smiled weakly and shook his head. “Not yet, I suppose. I delivered what I promised to Germany. But depending on how you behave in this meeting that delivery may or may not be considered a failure.”
“Blunt,” she replied. “I like that. But what is it you fear? That I will turn them all into ash? I have no such intentions.”
The guards in front of the Führer’s office shifted uncomfortably. Each of them probably had a very personal stake in the safety of von Krosigk, such as the well-being of his family.
“Your reputation is known,” Ernst whispered harshly. “Speak the wrong words and this meeting won’t happen. Speak enough of them or words with enough severity and we’ll be led from this building and shot.”
Elianna’s mouth hung slightly open for a moment. She was stunningly beautiful, in an underfed waif sort of way.
“Do you really think that’s something that could happen?” she finally replied, amused.
Ernst sighed. “No, probably not. You could probably easily escape and save me as well if that was your wish. But then you’d have no alliance with Germany, I’d be on the run if I was even alive at all, and there would never be a second chance for you to make your offer.”
She pursed her lips. “I see your point.” She snapped her head sideways to look at the guards. “I am learning your culture, do not be alarmed. I have Director Hoffmann here to keep me under control. Control I readily submit too.”
Again, the guards shifted uncomfortably. The four of them were likely uncertain if they could take her or not. What had Himmler told everyone about the elf?
“Silence would be a better choice,” Ernst advised her.