And listen, I was tired.
I’d barely caught any sleep during the last three days of trying not to get killed by an orc horde, doing the command sergeant major’s dark bidding, well, thinking about doing it, and moving behind enemy lines, digging trenches, and generally running for my life. Plus there was Kurtz, and that dude wore you down just being in his presence. Not by anything he said, because he didn’t say much, or anything he did, though he was always doing something. Very Ranger-Rangering NCO. He wore you down because he was Kurtz and he hated the world and you by extension because you were in it. The weight of his hatred was like an extra sixty pounds in your ruck. You could handle it… but over time it wore you out. And you began to question why it was even in there. And you hated it.
Very tiring. Very tired. I was very tired.
My mind was working at half capacity, at best, and I still hadn’t eaten my morning’s cruddy MRE when the call to get moving down the hill came. Not that I was hungry then. You had to be pretty stone cold to eat anything on the island of diarrhea meets bag of death this place had become. There were Rangers doing just that right now. But I suspected it was all just another unofficial Ranger pissing contest to see who could be more gruesomely hardcore than anyone else. They got some secret thrill out of that. Right now, I’d snort a line of instant coffee if I could. But that was as hardcore as I was willing to go.
The point I’m laboring to make here, is that I wasn’t exactly at my best.
After passing all that carnage on the way down the hill, the shattered and torn-apart orcs and the gutted troll oozing pustulant boils, I felt exactly the same way I’d once felt after a night in Vegas in which a friend said we wouldn’t need a hotel room. We’d just “pick up chicks” who had one.
We didn’t.
And I slept in a booth at an all-you-can-eat buffet until they kicked me out at eight a.m. when they set up the make-your-own-waffle station. Tossed me outside and blinking into the harsh Vegas daylight feeling like I was nothing more than a walking husk that city and every horrible person in it had sucked the life from. That was exactly how I felt walking toward the meeting with the elf girl in armor who’d come inside our metaphorical wire on a dappled gray horse.
I wasn’t in top form. To say the least.
But the moment she lowered the hood of her forest-green cloak, I had a new problem I needed to deal with.
She was flat-out gorgeous.
For an elf. Then again, she was the only elf I’d ever met, and so maybe all of them were like this. If so… the fantastical future wasn’t looking all bad. Nail down that coffee hookup and I might get by.
Perfect heart-shaped face. Stunning silver eyes. Yup. Silver, translucent eyes. Otherworldly. Pale, flawless skin. And yeah, long pointy ears that twitched at sounds in the forest—and even that was kind of cute and sexy. It appealed to a freaky side of me that I didn’t even know existed until now. She had straight black hair, so black it was almost blue. Full lips.
Female. Me like.
Now I was hungry, undercaffeinated, tired, scared to death, having the time of my life, and… probably in some form of love. Plus lust, obviously. I was probably as close to feeling Ranger now as I ever would be.
And it was time to work at talking.
Listen. Speaking languages can be pretty hectic. Not working a two-forty to the level of load, fire, engage, reduce malfunction, reload, literally see the remaining moments of your life manifested in the length of the ammunition belt left on a machine gun in the face of an overwhelming enemy attack on the score of something last seen during the Korean War and its special form of hell, the human wave attack hectic, but tough all the same in its own way. You gotta play heads-up ball. Otherwise miscommunications lead to misunderstandings which usually lead to death. For someone.
Still, no environment I’d ever done translation in had these particular parameters. Tired, cranky, in lust, and… need. As in need coffee. Badly.
Plus, ten thousand years in the future.
Okay. So cut me a break. I couldn’t speak instantaneous Tolkien on demand. Plus, nothing I’d ever learned in all those ivy-covered institutions ever indicated I’d actually need to. If you’d have forced me to bet on what fictional language might serve me best in the future, I’d have said Klingon. And I’ve have been wrong.
So as I babbled through some languages I knew, trying out common phrases, it was Anyong haseyo she responded to first. Reacted to, in other words. Not Do you speak Korean, which I’d already tried. She responded to the formal greeting non-Korean speakers would use with Korean speakers.
And when I asked her if she spoke Korean, she had no idea what “Korean” was. That didn’t register for her.
But starting from there we got some basic communication going, and that’s when the German started to appear in her speech patterns. She referred to it as Grau Sprache. Gloomy or Gray Speech.
But it was when we flipped back to the Korean that she didn’t even call Korean that she stopped the whole conversation dead, throwing up her hands in clear confusion. And frustration. I’ll admit that was kinda earnestly sexy. Again, even on dead body island, I was deeply in love with her already.
I’ll just interject this here now that I have time to think about it as I write it all down. Think about why I fell so instantly for her. Because right there, at that moment speaking next to a fetid-corpse-swollen river and after three days of otherworldly monsters trying to kill all of us, she was the opposite of everything around us.
I could tell that from the start.
She was kind. Innocent. Pure, even. There was something untouched by all this evil lying dead all about her that made her stand out in stark contrast. She was good. It… radiated out from her and filled the air all around. Like some new-age hippie-dippy vibe. And maybe, beyond that self-serving coffee addiction I was nursing, maybe I was afraid, had been afraid all along, that along with all the other things missing ten thousand years in the future, that missing right along with everything else was that there was no good left in the world anymore.
So it makes sense, as I think about it now, that amid all that future shock and fear that I was going to live the rest of my life in a coffee-less, good-less hell, and those are not the same -lesses, despite their substantial overlap, that I would respond as I did when I found standing in front of me a real live… hot maiden fantasy chick. Like one from an epic about knights and unicorns and maidens who are pure and strong and good of heart. Arthurian long-form epic poem stuff. With eye candy to boot. That didn’t hurt.
And the fantasy chick was real. And hot. Real hot. And I was being useful! I was speaking languages! Victory me.
As if to say, Look everyone… I’m officially not useless.
I’m talking to the hot babe.
I looked back up at the suckers on the hill pointing their rifles down at me and watching through their optics. Then I smiled so they knew that I knew they knew. That she was hot, and I was talking to her first.
I turned back to her and stared at her earnest, heart-shaped face. And somehow that made me want to cry a little. Because it meant that good wasn’t dead just yet. It was still alive even if she was the last flame carrying it around here in this crazy messed-up future.
I felt it best not to weep in front of her, as we had just met. And also Captain Knife Hand, who was following the whole conversation like a man waiting for two DMV workers to greenlight his paperwork so he could get on with his day, even though he didn’t understand a word of it, probably would’ve karate-chopped my carotid artery if he saw me start to cry. If just out of general embarrassment for the entire unit.
So I didn’t.
Later, the captain told me he’d picked up a little Korean when he was an infantry platoon leader on the DMZ. But he assured me what he knew was completely inappropriate for first-contact situations.
There she was, in her forest-g
reen cloak that did little to hide her shapely though well-armored charms. Her earnest and cutely confused face. She even stamped one boot in frustration, bringing the whole conversation to a halt.
“How,” she began haltingly. Our versions of Korean were little more than distant cousins of one another, but they were still more closely related than our versions of German. So I muddled through. I’m pro like that. “How…” she continued, “is… you speak… Shadow Cant?”
I clarified that I didn’t understand what was meant by Shadow Cant. She ran through a few of the phrases we had just spoken in Korean, though again the word for the Korean language meant nothing to her. Hanguk-eo.
“Do you mean Hanguk-eo is… Shadow Cant?”
She thought about this for a moment, biting her lip and raising one alabaster hand to her forehead to brush away a bothersome fly. Hey, another neat thing I noticed about her. Around her, the smell was gone. It was like it refused to come near her. Or rather, her presence drove it away. Only that one fly managed a kamikaze run to make it next to her. It got sluggish and slow and barely missed getting hit by her hand as she brushed it away. I suspect it was glad to get away from her and fly off toward all the ruined juicy bodies bloating in the river.
Back near the others, the sergeant major and the perimeter security fire team, the flies were swarming, and the Rangers were in constant motion batting them away.
Then she nodded, and I’m translating here. “Yes. Most sacred language of… Shadow Elves. Never… ever… spoken outside the… most sacred gatherings… and hunts.”
She stared at me hard, like she was willing me to be just a myth of morning mist and vapor rising off the nearby river. Like I was not to be believed if her world-view were to continue as it had.
“How… do you… know this… Shadow Cant?” she asked in frustration.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was at that moment Deep State Volman decided to show up and start shouting at our new friend and possible ally. The hot elf girl. To be honest… it wasn’t a real good look for us.
He immediately identified her as a “friendly,” probably because we weren’t shooting at her, and instead of attempting to ascertain not just how, but also why she’d threaded the gauntlet of enemy orcs hiding out there beyond the river’s edge and waiting for another night to attack, he decided to co-opt her for his little power struggle. The one he was waging all alone, internally, against everyone else in the detachment.
“Excuse me,” said Volman, with all the statecraft and ceremony of a New York City subway operator as he pushed past the Ranger perimeter security team who’d tried to stop him. The command sergeant major gave a tired nod to let him pass un-throat-punched. He came tramping through the tall grass toward our hopefully new friend. Intent on ruining that as quickly as possible.
He was shouting questions and orders in every direction at everyone in an attempt to seem “in charge.” His sudden attack was stunning and divisive, and truth be told, I could see it caught the captain and the command sergeant major off guard for a moment. Or at least they seemed unsure how to proceed when the bureaucratic chaos ensued.
I was pretty clear on how the command sergeant major wanted to proceed.
Retirement. Cleaned. Dead. Which I was supposed to have done by now. Bad look for me.
“Who is she?” shouted Volman as he came close to her. “Who is she exactly, gentlemen?”
It was clear he didn’t think any of us were actually gentlemen. Including the captain and the pilot who were officially supposed to be.
And then…
“Ma’am. Ma’am. Ma’am,” he barked at her. His voice was like an annoying dog late in the night. “I’m with the US government, and I’m the ranking diplomatic authority here.” Emphasis on the personal pronouns. “Disregard these men. They work for me. Can you tell me where your superiors are so I can open diplomatic relations?”
To the captain he shouted at almost the same moment, “I’m in charge here now, Captain.” All of this with an intense hostility we would have found useful on the line last night at Oh-Dark Murder when the hordes were trying to overrun us all and slit our throats.
To me, as he got close, he jabbed his finger and barked, “You. You do languages, Private First Class. Start translating exactly what I say. Verbatim. Right now, or I will have charges preferred against you and you’ll be shot immediately for treason. Try me, PFC! Just try me and see.”
The command sergeant major gave me a look, and honestly, I wasn’t all that sure what it meant. It was a combination of Don’t do it and You’re on your own now.
The captain looked like he was ready to throat-punch Deep State Guy. Repeatedly. Not a muscle moved on old Knife Hand, but you could tell his whole body was coiled with rage ready to be unleashed violently. And that he didn’t need to visualize how it would be done. How he would crush Deep State’s larynx with one rapid-fire punch fired like a jackhammer. And then continue to do it just for fun or because he had some issues he needed to work out. Because that was just automatic for him. Other people dying at his hands was something he had no trouble visualizing. He just needed to decide that beast mode was socially or conditionally acceptable with regard to the mission, and then it would happen.
It had been a long three days for all of us.
“Tell her this…” continued Deep State Volman, failing to notice the exchange of murder-looks currently surrounding and regarding him. He was truly the most clueless person I’d ever met. It was obvious he’d sensed that his moment to take control was right about now. That there was a new element involved and in play, and he needed to be in complete charge, and this was it. If he could bring external pressures to bear against the captain, then maybe things might start to go the way he wanted them to go. Which, as far as he was concerned, was the only way they could possibly go. There was no room for any other decisions than his. We were not to be trusted at all.
Only his elite brilliance could manage this current crisis, and now was the moment to start crisis-managing.
Typical government.
“Tell her I am the duly appointed representative of the president of the United States of America,” Volman said, his voice strident and barking in the fly-buzzing silence. “And that… tell her… that we need to open diplomatic relations with her people immediately. Does she have people? Tell her she and her people are to deal only with me, directly, from now on! Is that clear, PFC?”
He’d passed some kind of edge of sanity. His voice was ragged and hoarse as he practically shouted at me what he wanted translated. There was spittle. He was heaving with rage and sweating, and I could tell the events of the last three days, and most likely last night specifically, had severely messed with his head. Fried a wire. He was afraid. He was all alone. And he was desperate to be in control.
He was also surrounded by Rangers. People who, had their energies not been channeled positively, relatively speaking, would have been problems back on the block for law enforcement and government authorities. Not the kind of people you’d want for enemies.
That should have been Deep State Volman’s biggest concern, but the clueless idiot he was, he wasn’t concerned at all. Didn’t even think about the highly trained killers surrounding him.
Imagine being that dumb.
He was going to be in charge from now on even if it meant all of us getting killed. That was clear.
I could see the sergeant major and the captain watching me. Seeing what I would do. Reading my mind as best they could because I seemed to be a critical part of the interaction. Then I saw the sergeant major give me a slight nod. And I thought I knew what that meant. Or at least… I hoped I did. And now it was time to see if my guess was right.
“This is our village madman,” I said in Korean to the hot elf girl. Then I turned and bowed reverently toward Idiot Volman. Indicating to her, hopefully, that he was who I was referring to as th
e “village madman.” Volman stopped heaving and swelled with sudden pride at having been acknowledged as an obviously important person. A look of naked superiority crossed his face as he basked in my faux adulation. He had finally won. In his mind. Even though he had no idea what I was saying because he didn’t speak Korean.
I turned back to her and continued “translating.”
“Where we come from, we consider these sad unfortunates… worthy of our care and respect. They often rant incoherently like this when not defecating on themselves, or trying stare at the sun until they go blind. I deeply apologize for this interruption, Miss. If you will bear with us, he will shortly find some ridiculous invisible goat to chase around, claiming it will give him a magic horn full of beans. It is his way. He is simple and has always been so.”
She looked at me with slight amazement. Just a touch. And then she turned and bowed to Deep State Volman, joining the pantomime.
I’ll confess the slight amazement she cast my way was pretty sexy.
Volman didn’t stop her, and he only barely told me to stop her. “Tell her not to do that,” he said without conviction, feigning irritation. “We are a democracy. We don’t do bowing. Though you should probably thank her for coming to rescue us.”
I nodded to Volman that I would indeed translate all this. Faithfully.
Then I turned to the elf and said, “Everyone calls me Talker. I speak for my people when they don’t understand languages we encounter. What is your name? He asks if you’ve seen his magical goat. There is no magical goat. He’s an idiot who falls into deep holes and doesn’t have the sense to climb out. Pity him. We do.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then spoke. “I am called… Last of Autumn… among my people. Tell him… I haven’t seen any… goat. I would know a… magical goat… if I saw one.”
I turned to Volman.
“She agrees to negotiations with you. Her people are not with the enemies that have attacked us over the last three nights. I have no idea what her intentions are.”
Forgotten Ruin: An Epic Military Fantasy Thriller Page 23
