* * *
“The men are in place, my Lord,” said the soldier to the Archduke.
The elder Ellala slanted his head as he closed his eyes and linked again with the hawk that was flying high over the road. His vision blurred for a moment as his brain adjusted to the input from the animal. The view was sharper than even his Ellala eyes were capable of, though the color was somewhat washed out of the scene.
“They seem to be alert on the road,” said Jakara, banking the bird as if it were his own body. A few of the people moving along the road looked up, but most only gave the bird passing interest and moved on to their watch of the surrounding forest.
“Their security on the fringes seems to be very poor, though,” continued the Archduke. He was aware of several other people in the chamber agreeing, and knew that they maneuvered their birds over different areas of the column of strangers. “They don’t have outriders out beyond the edges of the woods. How do they expect to locate an ambuscade?”
“Maybe they are inexperienced in this type of warfare,” said one of the other hawk controllers. “Might they only fight face to face, eschewing deception? And so they don’t expect it here?”
“They didn’t seem like such idiots when I met them on the field,” said the Archduke, shaking his head. “I don’t believe that is so here, either. Something else is going on.”
“What is this?” said one of the other mages.
The Archduke delinked from his bird for a moment and stood up, walking to stand over the other Mage and placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I will tandem with you for a moment, Lessarus,” said the Archduke.
The other Mage nodded and concentrated for a moment as the Archduke inserted his own mind into the link. The view changed for a moment as the Archduke again went back to the adjustment to the raptor’s vision.
“Do you see it there, my Lord?” asked Lessarus, while the bird flew over the object.
“Yes, I see it,” said the Archduke, looking down on the object. It looked like a small shield, flying through the air. It stopped for a moment over some trees, then moved around a bit, the front end dropped down slightly as it stayed pointed at the area.
“It’s spotted some of our men,” said the Archduke, unlinking from the bird.
“But what is it?” asked Lessarus, continuing to look at the object through the hawk.
“They use machines and objects where we use magic,” said the Archduke, walking across the room to stand in front of a scrying ball. “That’s a machine that probably does the same thing we do with our hawks.”
Jakara mumbled some words while passing his hands over the ball, concentrating on the area the object had been looking at. The ball cleared for a moment, and then the Ellala was looking into the face of an officer of his people, whose eyes widened as he realized he was in communication with his leader.
“My Lord,” said the man, as the other twenty soldiers around him stiffened, eager to attack and hoping this was the signal.
“You are being watched by the humans,” said the Archduke, trying to remember the officer’s name.
“How, my Lord?” said the man through the ball. “We have seen nothing.”
“They have a machine in the air above you,” said the Archduke.
“But we are under the trees, my Lord,” said the Ellala. The eight other Ellala with him were looking at him intently, while the Grogatha looked oblivious to anything going on. Their ears were pricked up and moving, though, indicating that they were hearing the humans moving nearby.
“I think they are still observing you,” said the Archduke. “I don’t know how, but they are looking down on you.”
“What’s that?” said the officer, looking away for a moment.
“What do you hear?”
“It’s a strange sound, my Lord,” said the man. “Like a thutting noise. I…”
“Get out of there,” yelled the Archduke an instant before the ground erupted around the men under the trees. The ball clouded over at that moment and all contact was lost.
“They were hit by one of the stranger’s long range weapons,” said the Archduke under his breath. “They know we are there.”
The duke stood back from the ball and looked around the room. All eyes were on him at that moment.
“Attack them,” he cried to all of those gathered in the room. “Attack all of them. Now. Before they hit us with more of their long range weapons.”
The men in the room all looked away, back at their own balls or connecting with their animals, setting the attack in motion.
* * *
“What the hell?” said Jackie as she heard the crumping sounds of mortars exploding in the near distance. She tracked on the sounds and saw the columns of smoke and dirt climbing into the sky about a kilometer ahead and to the right. Soldiers dropped to the dirt while civilians stood still for a moment, then started moving off the road, not sure where they needed to be but not wanting to be in the open.
“Look out,” yelled a voice in German, ending in a loud gurgle. One of the soldiers fell down on the edge of the road, an arrow protruding from his throat, coughing up blood. A swarm of arrows followed the first shot, and more troops fell to the ground with shafts protruding from lower bodies, throats or faces. Dozens more grabbed at arrows that seemed to spring from arms and legs. A few civilians fell as well, but they had obviously not been the primary targets of the barrage.
A Marder III swiveled its turret toward the far side of the road, the barrel tracking until it was pointing thirty degrees from the rear of the track. The thirty-five millimeter gun hammered away, sending out long bursts of rounds as it tracked up the tree line. The rounds burst in small balls of fire as they hit among the trees, sending shrapnel and wood splinters into the forest.
Infantry knelt or fell prone and fired into the woods, mostly controlled bursts of reconnaissance by fire. Other men ran into the woods on the other side of the road and swept them, making sure another threat was not going to appear there while their fellows fought the enemy that had manifested itself already.
The Krauts sure know their stuff, thought the American officer as she jumped down from the track and pulled the charging handle on her assault rifle, jacking a round into the chamber. Of course they have always known their stuff, in both World Wars and on overseas deployments. They just always made the mistake of fighting out of their weight. Sort of like now.
Arrows continued from the woods, tracers tracking in on them whenever they revealed a group of archers. Another track opened up, and firing sounded up and down the lines as battle was joined and every vehicle in range started shooting at something.
Jackie jumped in her skin when the howls of the bow-legged ugly warriors sounded from the woods, followed by those warriors in chain mail, helmets and shields. They sprinted into the clearing of the road, oriented themselves, and charged at the nearest concentrations of humans. Waving axes and long swords above their heads they attacked.
They look like fucking Neanderthals thought the American officer, while she walked toward a charging quartet and brought her rifle to her shoulder. They were scary looking, and they sure scared the hell out of her, but she let training take charge. Only they’re uglier, she thought as she targeted the closest of the four that had blood in his eye and that eye on her. She triggered off a trio of single shots, striking the creature through the face. Red blood spurted and the creature’s eyes unfocused and it slid to the ground on its back. Some of her fear blew out with its life, her first kill. Jackie shifted the rifle to the next creature, firing a pair of rounds through its forehead, then on to the next, dropping it into the dirt.
In less than four seconds she had killed three opponents. The fourth got in close, swinging its shield into the barrel of her rifle as it brought its ax up high. The creature towered over the human, and clearly expected to knock the rifle out of her hands and leave her open to the swing of its ax. To the surprise of both of them the rifle barely moved, and the human
female brought the stock up and into the shield, knocking the creature back. She stepped forward, bringing the rifle back and lining up the stock on the shield. A quick jab and the rifle butt hit the shield, knocking it back into the Orc’s face. The stunned warrior dropped the shield for a second, and the butt came in straight for its face, crunching its upper lip and breaking a pair of teeth.
The Orc fell to his knees and the human brought the rifle back up to her shoulder and fired off a quick burst into its face. The creature fell limply forward and the human stepped out of the way. It hit bonelessly into the dirt and lay still, and she stepped over it and fired at another Orc that had almost caught up with a civilian female and her child. The rounds punched through the side of the helmet and blood spurted from the creature’s eyes, nose and mouth.
All hell broke loose to the front, and men switched to full automatic. A fireball rose over an APC, and panicked civilians ran back down the road. Jackie was sure that she didn’t want anything to do with whatever was happening ahead. And she knew that it was her job to engage whatever that was, like it or not. Remember the training , she thought again, calming the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Dropping the almost empty mag from her rifle she slid it into her BDU top, pulled another mag from her web gear, and shoved it into the weapon. Jacking a round in she strode forward, while something else exploded up ahead.
* * *
“What in the hell is that?” yelled the Private, swinging his rifle down from firing position as another of the Orc’s fell to the ground with a burst skull.
Sergeant Tomas Mier turned at the exclamation, his own last victim falling dead to the ground. He was not sure what he saw striding from under the trees. Only that it was very large and very ugly. And that it held an enormous mace in one hand and a great round shield in the other. The next thing he noticed were the three other creatures moving with it, each as big and ugly as the first. All were wearing metal armor, open faced helmets, breast and back plates, shoulder guards and forearm guards, chain skirting below their waists, and metal shod boots. The armor boasted a ridge of plates down the back, and spikes from the helmet and shoulders. The handle of another mace thrust above the left shoulder of each of the monsters.
The lead monster tilted his head back and roared to the heavens, a sound like a dozen lions coming from his lungs. Mier felt his legs turn to jelly at the sound, and all he wanted to do was drop his rifle and run away. But he was a German soldier, the men looked up to him, and he would be damned if he would let them down. So he looked on when the creature pointed his mace toward the nearest armored vehicle and yelled something incomprehensible. The monster moved toward the vehicle in a shuffling gait that covered a surprising distance, his fellows at his side.
“Fire,” yelled Sergeant Mier, bringing his auto-rifle to his shoulder and sending a burst of 6mm rounds into the nearest creature. The rest of the stunned Germans obeyed the order, their training and instincts taking over for their frightened minds. Scores of tracers, indicating hundreds of rounds, flew into the creatures. And bounced off into the air as they hit the thick armor on the monsters.
Mier adjusted fire, aiming into the uncovered knee of the creature where wrinkled yellow skin showed. He gasped as he watched his tracers bounce from the skin as from the armor, and the creature turned its attention toward him, something he had neither wanted nor expected.
One of the monsters got within range of a German soldier who was trying to bring the creature down with his rifle. The mace came in quickly and the soldier’s head disappeared into a mist of blood and gore, and the body was flung to the side by the momentum of the strike. The monster brought the mace back the other way and hit another soldier in the lower chest. Body armor crumpled and the soldier was flung away like a boneless doll, to land near the trees a hundred meters away.
“They’re fucking Trolls,” yelled one of the troops, backing away from the creatures, then turning to run. The Sergeant backed up himself, reaching for another magazine and wondering why, since the bullets didn’t seem to be doing much good. A dozen soldiers were down, and to be down to these creatures meant you were dead. He pushed the magazine in and looked up to see one of the creatures towering over him, raising the huge mace into the air. It has to be three meters tall, thought the Sergeant in what he was sure was his last thought. Taller. He raised the barrel of his rifle and fired from the hip toward the head, blazing through the entire magazine in less than two seconds. As the weapon clicked on empty the NCO tensed, waiting for the impact of the mace that he knew would destroy his body.
A ripple of small explosions spackled across the head and shoulders of the creature. The Troll rocked back as small spurts of blackish blood flew into the air. Mier jumped back as he recognized the sounds of a thirty-five millimeter cannon ripping into the monster. He was splashed with foul smelling black blood as he moved away, reloading his rifle and looking for cover. The Troll fell back, then went to one knee as the armor piercing rounds tore through its body. With a plaintive grunt the creature fell forward into the dirt and lay still.
Sergeant Mier dropped behind the body of the Troll into a kneeling position and brought Orcs, creatures he knew he could kill, under fire. The auto cannon on the APC continued to hammer away, then went silent. Mier turned his head and felt the next shock of the day. One of the Trolls had jumped onto the APC and was hitting the turret with his mace, rocking the movable capsule back and forth. With a two handed swipe the Troll smacked the mace into the turret and tore it from its mount, breaking the haft of the mace at the same time. The turret tilted over to the left and it was obvious to the Sergeant that the weapon in it was out of action. And the other two Trolls were still moving among the Germans, swinging their heavy maces and killing men with every swipe.
* * *
Kurt swore under his breath as the hot sun beat down his armor. He and Levine were walking along the road, which to him seemed little more than a rutted dirt path, compared to what he was used to in the Reich. Cars were moving along it well enough, but he doubted they would after a good rain. The trees were only out at most twenty meters from the roadway, with narrows at points where the branches overhung the road. Perfect ambush terrain.
“I wish the soldiers would do a better job patrolling the woods on the sides,” said Levine, echoing Kurt’s thoughts. “I feel like those trees are closing in on me. Sort of like the forests of Germany back in the time of Germanicus.”
“Were you there as well?”
“No,” said Levine with a smile. “Though I remember the uproar in Rome at the time, and the Emperor demanding his Legions back. As if any mortal could demand that twenty thousand men be brought back to life.”
“What were you doing in Rome, my friend?” asked the big German.
“Why I was a centurion in the Praetorian guard,” said Levine with a smile. “I wasn’t stupid. If I was going to be a soldier I wanted it to be a comfortable post. And Rome was comfortable.”
“Tell me of Rome,” said Kurt, watching a UAV flutter over the tree line.
“I have few memories of Rome, or those times,” said Levine with a frown. “Remember when I told you about our having weaknesses. That is one of them. We have superior minds as well as bodies. But we still have our limits. After many centuries we run out of room. The mind still needs to store day to day information, so something has to go, and what we don’t use we lose.”
Levine stopped for a moment and sniffed the air, as if he had scented something. “I still wish they had more patrols in the woods. That is just good military practice. Even in my day we knew as much, when we weren’t letting big ugly Germans sneak up on us.”
Kurt laughed as his eyes followed yet another UAV. “They have a lot of those little aerial things in the sky,” he said, pointing a big finger at one of the saucers on patrol.
“I would still feel better if there were actual people out there,” said the Jew. “People who were ready to shoot first and ask who you are later, before we get shot at firs
t.”
“I understand,” said Kurt, smiling. “But we are not in charge of this, what do the Americans call it, cluster fuck.”
“One day,” said Levine. “One day we will be, and then we will have people out on the flanks.”
Kurt laughed at his friend even as he thought about what he was saying. Did he actually want to be in charge? Not really. He would just as soon be in the background, ready to lend a hand and give advice as needed. But would that really work, or would the eventual leader of the German people on this world only listen to his own council. Who better to provide stable government than a man who would for all intents and purposes live forever? And an advisor who had already lived for more than two thousand years. Of course it might be better for that two thousand year old man to rule.
“I really think you should be the king,” said Kurt, looking over at his friend.
“I don’t think so,” said Ishmael, a slight smile on his face. “I do not think your people would accept me as a ruler. Oh, I know what you’re going to say. They are not the haters of Jews that they were in the past. I believe that, my friend. I really do. In fact I think your people, most of them, would bend over backwards to help the Jewish people. But I don’t think they would accept me as their ruler when they have one of their own to do the job.”
“And why a king anyway?” asked the German, kicking a stone from the road with an armored boot. “Why not a democracy?”
“Maybe eventually,” said Levine, smiling. “After we carve out a place in this world for humans. But until then we need a firm hand and, most of all, a stable long term ruler. You, my friend, are that man.”
“I,” Kurt began, then closed his mouth as something roared by overhead. “Mortars,” he exclaimed, looking for cover, then realizing that the rounds passing overhead would not strike nearby. In fact they hit over a kilometer up ahead, their sounds and vibrations coming up the road while smoke rose over the trees.
Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1 Page 28
