by Jan Stryvant
"I'm saying we can do this. The procedures and practices already exist. Whether or not we do this, well, that's up to you, Sir, not me. I will, however, start an immediate review of our practices and procedures, so if you should order it, we'll be ready."
"Thank you, General." The president turned back to Steve and Tisha. "I'll have to talk with my full cabinet as well as the congressional leaders. I'll admit to having some reservations, mainly because I'm no expert on nuclear weapons."
Steve nodded. "I don't think we can ask for anything more, Sir." Steve paused a moment, and then smiled. "Well, actually, there is one more thing I'd like to ask for your permission on."
"And that would be?"
"I'd like to take my recruitment team to Walter Reed."
"Why would you want to go there?" General Baker asked, sitting up straight very quickly.
"Well, simply put, I found out recently that under certain circumstances, we can help some of the more severely wounded."
"What?"
"It's like this," Tisha said. "When you're infected, if you have a fresh wound, it will heal back to normal."
"What do you mean by 'fresh'?"
"If you cut off the stump of a man who lost his leg, the whole leg will grow back. But only if you infect them then and there."
General Baker moved back an inch in his chair, blinking. "You can do that?"
"Not always, and there are risks involved," Steve said. "But with your permission, we'd like to start going through those who were wounded in the last war and heal those we can, assuming, of course, they wish to become lycans."
"If you can heal those men, you not only have my permission," the president said, "you have my blessings."
"Mine, too," General Baker said. "I'll have my office contact you as soon as I get back to the Pentagon to arrange the details."
"Well, unless there's something else?" the president asked, looking around as everyone shook their heads.
"Then I guess this meeting is adjourned."
Getting up, Steve and Tisha left the oval office, heading back to their car.
"Just a moment, if you please?" Carl asked, trotting over to them.
"Sure, Carl," Steve said as he walked along with them. "What's up?"
"I heard a rumor that some guy in Reno got whacked last night? Some sort of minor government flunky who pissed Sean off?"
Steve shrugged. "I haven't heard anything about it. If Sean had done it, trust me, he would have called and warned me about it. Tish?"
Tisha shook her head. "I know he's starting to crack the whip; the main gateway opens soon, and he's trying to get as many evacuated as he can. But he hasn't killed anybody yet."
"I like how you qualify things," Carl said with a sigh.
Tisha shrugged, grinning. "We're lions, not saints, Carl."
"Well, thanks for letting me know."
"Anytime, Carl," Steve said as he and Tisha waved and continued on to their car.
"Is this anything I should know about?" Steve asked Tisha in a soft voice.
"All I know is Sean didn't do it, doesn't know who did, and doesn't care."
"Well, that's good enough for me, I guess."
Ξ
King Sladd strode into his throne room, his princes arrayed before him, prostrating themselves to him, as always.
"Arise!" he commanded and watched as they all stood before him. Their entourages were the smallest he'd seen in a long time, the majority of their lieutenants being involved in overseeing the preparations in their masters' absence. Also the little execution the last time he'd summoned them all was probably still fresh in their minds. So anyone they valued was also left behind today.
The master gateway would open a day's ride from King Sladd's castle. While custom and the law forbade the killing of lords, princes, and most especially kings during a pass, if you killed the king and took his place, there would be no one left to punish you for your transgression.
Knowing this, King Sladd had moved his castle away from the hellige for the master gateway, where the armies were gathering for their upcoming attacks. He had himself killed the previous king of this area halfway through a pass, when the king's armies were in the field and his defenses were thin, overly relying on laws and customs. Quite foolishly, in Sladd's opinion.
Thankfully, none of the current princes were alive back then; King Sladd had been rather quick to scour them from his new court. But he wouldn't put it past some of the other kings, and especially not past Queen Dragkedja, to educate his current set in the hopes of sowing discord she could put to her own advantage once the permanent gate opened.
There were no dedicated hellige points for a permanent gate. It could form literally anywhere, though normally it was drawn to the nearest point, if one were close enough. He had his seers and his scholars researching the process; it had been a very long time since the last one, after all, and sadly his kind were not known for their meticulousness when it came to record keeping.
"Report on your readiness," King Sladd said and pointed towards Prince Talt, who spent the next hour defining succinctly everything he had been doing and was preparing to do.
For the next six hours, King Sladd listened to their reports. Princes Lykta and Vises Ikke were the only two with something different to report from the others. They had split their forces into four groups each and deployed them across King Sladd's domain so they could quickly respond to the lille helliges wherever they should open up.
"Princes Lykta and Vises Ikke, I am pleased with your insight and resourcefulness in dealing with the task I have set upon you. If you should continue with such diligence, I suspect I will be forced to reward you," King Sladd said with a smile.
The two princes smiled back, looking pleased with themselves.
The expressions on the other four, especially Prince Talt, were much more guarded. King Sladd laughed to himself; if nothing else, a little infighting and oneupmanship would help keep Prince Talt at bay for a while.
"The master gateway will open soon; you are all dismissed," King Sladd said with a wave of his hand and watched as they carefully withdrew. After they had gone, his chief advisor entered the room and bowed low before the throne.
"King Sladd, I would speak."
King Sladd nodded. "What is it, Eldstaden?"
"Our records on the locations for the permanent gateway and much of the lore that surrounds such a thing is lacking, as I am sure you are already aware?"
King Sladd nodded.
"It has been noted that there is one, however, who would know all about it."
"You are talking about the master of the ley-lines who lives upon the mountain of the dead, are you not?"
Eldstaden nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty. It occurs to me and others that perhaps we should go ask him about this."
"The mountain of the dead lies well outside of my domain, Eldstaden. I have no power there. Further, the lore tells us he is surrounded by many defenses that are deadly to our kind."
"True, Your Majesty. The lore does tell us that. But we've recently come to realize that much of our lore is based on things with no written records or recorded history. So is it true? Or is it just the excuses of failure by those who were not up to the task? Our lore also tells us we took this world by gaining mastery over all those who had gone before, does it not?"
King Sladd nodded, conceding the point.
"Then perhaps it is time we send some new people to the mountain to see if the master of the ley-lines is still protected, and if he is not, to see if he can answer our questions."
King Sladd thought about that; it was a good question, and it was true that for as long as he could remember, no one had ventured there.
"You raise interesting ideas, Eldstaden. Do you have a group in mind for this adventure?"
"Several actually, Your Highness. If nothing else, they will let us gauge the strength and effectiveness of the defenses."
"And if they should prove to still be all they are rumored to be?"
King Sladd laughed loudly for several minutes at the blunt boldness of his advisor's command.
"As always, Eldstaden, you never fail to bring me the most enjoyable solutions to my current problems. Send those you have chosen for the task and entertain me with the results. And perhaps we shall challenge our most dangerous prince with this task, should they fail to return."
Storm Watch
"So that's it," Sean said, looking at the gateway through a set of binoculars.
"I guess so," Chad said. "You know, for some reason, I thought it would look different."
Sean nodded. "Me, too. I have to give Deidre credit; it opened pretty close to where she predicted it would." Sean lowered the binoculars again and looked at all the activity going on around and behind him. An engineering division of sappers was hard at work setting up fortifications and emplacements while the rest of the army dug in. Surprisingly, a large number of the engineers were badger lycans, something he hadn't run into before he'd met them. Looking them over, he thought he'd like tangling with them even less than with a boar.
"When are you going to start shelling them?" Sean asked.
"Any moment. I just gave the order now that we no longer have any aircraft in the area."
Sean heard it then, the whistling of air, and apparently the djevels heard it too, because they started working a lot more frantically as the first shell landed, quickly followed by four more.
"How long are you going to keep it up for?" Sean asked.
"As long as I can. Then we've got an aerial bombardment planned. I want to give our people all the time I can to get set up for the fight."
Sean nodded and went back to watching the enemy. The evacuation of the local area hadn't gone as quickly as he would have liked; he'd had to order his men to resort to force. The words of the First about denying the enemy food were still in his ears, and the last thing he wanted to do was to start killing people.
He wanted it to literally be the last thing he did, because he didn't doubt the time would come when he'd have to start doing it.
The evacuation of Reno was also going slower than expected. People had gotten used to the sounds of combat off in the hills every two or three days, so when the order to evacuate had come down, a lot of them just ignored it. After all, they hadn't been bothered yet, so why should they be in the future?
"I heard a small town got wiped out last night up around Paradise Valley?" Chad asked as he alternated between reading reports on his laptop and watching what was going on around him.
"Yeah, seems some djevels got away from us last week. By the time our hunters and trackers caught up with them, it was too late. Apparently all the fighting made more than a few people think it was some sort of Fourth of July display, and they wandered right into the middle of it and were killed," Sean said, shaking his head.
"That sucks. What were they doing that far north? Don't they usually head south towards Reno, or west towards Tahoe?"
"Either they got lost, or they were just a little smarter than the rest." Sean watched as a shell landed in one of the ditches the djevels were digging, causing a black mist of vaporized djevel parts. "How long do you think until they get that thing built?"
Chad shook his head. "If they showed us everything they had last time, it'll be weeks, maybe months. My problem is, I can't keep shelling them forever. Our stock of shells are limited, the guns wear out, and replacement parts are also limited. I'm going to take random breaks after the second day and throw air strikes at them, tank attacks, infantry, you name it."
"Can't the dwarves keep you supplied?"
"We're already stretching their capacity with armor, firearms, and bullets. They're also giving us shells for the tanks, which are incredibly useful, but from what the supply people are telling me, the government used up a lot of our stockpiles in the Middle East over the last few decades, and they weren't terribly interested in replacing them because of budget issues."
"Great, just great."
"Hey, look on the bright side."
"There's a bright side?"
"Originally we were planning on fighting this with swords and shields. Now we've got automatic weapons, bombs, artillery, mines, all sorts of toys!" Chad said with a smile.
"Just a moment ago you were making it sound all doom and gloom."
"Well, it's not going to be easy; we know they've got millions, and anyone we kill comes back in a week. We're gonna suffer setbacks, and I don't think we're going to stop them getting their bridgehead built. Those are just the facts of life, and we all need to accept it.
"Remember, the goal is to keep the permanent gate from forming. Nothing else matters until we've achieved that."
"And that's a year away." Sean sighed. "Look, I'm gonna have a box shipped out here. It's going to be a mine, a really big mine, and I'm gonna be the only one who can set it off. Don't even try to open it."
"Doomsday weapon?"
"Yeah, it'll probably kill everything within a half mile instantly. So we're not gonna use it until everyone has been pushed back."
"You know it won't stop them, right?"
Sean nodded. "I'm not planning on using it until the time is right. So make sure those engineers do a good job of hiding it so the djevels don't find it. And remember, it's booby-trapped. So don't even try to open it."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"I don't even know where to start anymore. Between the city council, the mayor, the governor, the military, the magic uses, lycans, and the president, these last few days have been a stone cold bitch."
"Well, at least you put the fear of god in 'em, right?" Chad asked with a grin.
"I put the fear of something in them—well, some of them at least. I'm going back to the ranch; let me know if anything changes. I have a lot of people wanting answers to questions, and I don't know what to tell them."
"I hate defensive actions. There's no real winning them in the long run; the enemy always holds the best cards, and you don't get to see them until it's too late and he plays his hand. We're in react mode, and that always puts us behind the power curve."
"I know, I know," Sean admitted. "I'll see you at tonight's staff meeting."
Chad nodded, and Sean made the trek back to the landing zone for the helicopters, Travis and the rest of his bodyguards forming up in a lose circle around him. That was another thing he hated: since the main gateway was now open, he had bodyguards twenty-four seven. About the only time he was left alone was when he was in the bedroom with his wives.
At least they let him have some privacy for those times he was with one of the girls and they weren't in the bedroom.
But he couldn't complain; once the djevels got their bridgehead, Chad, Maitland, and he had agreed they'd eventually start sending out teams to find him and kill him because he was the one in charge.
And that reminded him once again of the First's idea for doing the very same thing to the djevels, an idea that had been mentioned how long ago? Sean shook his head and couldn't remember. But the idea had merit, and he knew Chad was just chomping at the bit to do something, anything, to the djevels in their homeland.
Perhaps it was something he should bring up at tonight's briefing.
There were other things he needed to attend to as well, now that the skirmishes were over, and the war had begun.
Once they landed, he struck off for the main house in search of his Uncle Philo. It took him a while to find him, and when he did, he was surprised to find him working in the small hospital that Gloria and one of the healers the dwarves had loaned them ran.
"Philo!"
"Yes, Sean?"
"I was wondering, I need a bit of a favor."
"Of course, anything to help out. What is it?"
"Umm," Sean smiled, a little embarrassed. "I need to talk to Markey, your friend. I haven't seen him around here much of late." Sean sighed then
. "Not that I can say I blame him. Hasn't been a lot of fun here lately."
Philo nodded and laughed. "No, it hasn't been the kind of place he prefers to frequent, however, Reno is still full of many of those, and with all the troops here looking for a good time, I do believe he's been enjoying himself."
Sean nodded. "And that's what I wanted to talk to him about."
Philo looked a little shocked. "You don't think he's been taking advantage of them, I hope?"
Sean shook his head. "Quite the opposite. I'm looking to take advantage of him."
"How so?"
"Markey's a spirit of mischief, and I've noticed that he's a good soul."
"Of course he is."
"Well, with the war and all that, I'm worried about our people. Any breaks they get are going to be short ones, and I suspect a lot of them are going to be needing whatever fun and relief they can find."
"And?"
"And I wanted to see if Markey would be interested in helping with that. I mean, he's here, so why not see if I can get his help? These next few years are going to be rough, and anything I can do to make it easier on folks, even if it's only for an hour or two, is worth doing."
Philo nodded and after a moment, he smiled. "I see your point, and I think Markey will see it, too. The fact that he's decided to stay here with me rather than return home is something I've found quite curious. I've suspected of late that he's got an interest in the very thing you're suggesting."
"Thanks, Philo. I appreciate it."
"Anytime, Sean. I'll let you know what he decides, if he doesn't tell you himself."
Sean's next stop was to check in with Roxy and Oak on the construction he'd ordered down at Minden Airport to the south of Carson City. It might be months before they had to pull out of here, but there was no reason to wait until the last minute to start.
Sean found Roxy in her office, bent over her desk going over a large set of plans spread over her desk.
"Hi, Hon," she mumbled as Sean came in.
Sean smiled and looked at that nice tight ass of hers; she was swaying back and forth a little bit and humming some tune.
