by CM Raymond
Bart’s eyes were filled with confusion, but they were too old to see what Mika and Karl had so he focused on Sal instead. “The beast is getting in position for an attack, but why doesn’t he bring them back to us?”
Mika told him, “He’s smarter than that. Sal knows he wouldn’t make it quickly enough if whoever is in those woods charged him and those kids. And things would get even worse if there were—”
“Archers!” Karl screamed as bowstrings snapped and arrows whistled through the air.
Mika’s jaw dropped. “Hell, no! The children!”
As the arrows flew, Sal did the only thing he could—the exact thing he had planned. Turning his back to the woods, he spread his wings over the children of Tark, shielding them from the attack with his tough hide, and ducked his head under his arm.
Karl winced as he heard the dragon shriek, but Sal didn’t move an inch from his position.
“Sal!” Karl yelled as he sprinted for the woods, hammer held high.
****
“Take your people over that rise,” Mika screamed at Bart, who was still staring in awe at the beast who had saved the children. She slapped him across the cheek hard enough to get his attention. “Bart, the others! They need you.”
His eyes grew wide and he smiled. “They need me.”
“That’s right, now get your ass moving.”
Mika trusted that he would comply. She turned, drawing her sword, and raced after Karl toward the enemy in the woods. Halfway there she heard the sickening snap of the bowstrings and the whistle of shafts.
She ducked the arrows that flew toward her and kept running. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted Sal, still in position, his scaly hide protecting the foreign children from the arrows’ bite. “You’re one of a kind, Sal,” she said as she crossed the tree line, blade gutting the first remnant archer she found.
Kicking the monster off her blade, she turned and raised her sword just in time to parry the arcing attack of another remnant thirsty for flesh. Deflecting the short sword to her right she caught the remnant in the chest with her knee, and then pulled her sword up, its perfect edge slicing the jugular in its path.
Mika wiped the splattered blood from her face and looked up to see Karl fighting off three of the bastards, cursing and smiling the whole time.
She pivoted in the opposite direction to what remained of the archers. One remnant nocked an arrow, ready to send it flying.
“I don’t think so, bitch,” Mika yelled as she drew a throwing knife from her belt. She flipped it and caught it by the blade before hurling it end over end to catch the archer in the throat, then set out in a dead run toward Karl. He was holding his own with the remnant, but clearly would have his hands full in another moment as another wave of them stepped toward him.
Mika cut to her right, meeting the first of them with a scream and a slash of her blade. One particularly ugly remnant threw his bare arm up to block the attack, and Mika’s momentum nearly sheared the appendage off at the elbow. He let out a pain-filled bellow and raised the club in his other hand to attack.
She and the remnant exchanged blows, club against sword. He was tougher than any of the others, but when Mika saw his red eyes go wide—his tell—she let him draw back and swing, then sidestepped the attack and jammed her sword into his torso. The remnant dropped, his entrails falling onto the pine-needle-covered ground.
“Thought ye told that old man we could take a hundred o’ these bastards,” Karl called to her, his hammer still in motion.
Mika turned toward two dagger-wielding remnant coming her way, and with two well-calculated swings she ended them. “Yeah, slow day!” She held her sword in front of her with both hands. Slowly rotating around the small clearing, she saw another three emerge. “Damn, they just keep on coming!”
The remnant looked at each other, then at Mika. Their eyes trailed over her body, and drool-drenched smiles formed on their faces. Lust burned in their twisted minds, and not even the bodies of their comrades would deter them from the object of their desires.
“Yeah, no. I don’t think so, assholes,” Mika grunted. “Come and get it.”
The remnant laughed, and as they did another half-dozen of them stepped into the clearing.
Mika cursed. No time like the present!
With a wild battle yell, she started to run.
And stopped.
Her eyes turned toward the road, where a sound like that of a dozen horsemen rushed toward them.
With a mighty roar Sal crashed through the bushes and undergrowth, his mouth wide and teeth bared in a murderous snarl. He was pissed and Mika couldn’t blame him, considering he looked like a giant green pincushion with a dozen remnant arrows in his hide.
He crashed into the group, plowing them over and ripping one nearly in half with his mighty jaws. Without waiting for an invitation Mika was on the ones on the ground, finishing their miserable lives with the edge of her sword.
She stood and pulled her blade from one of the still-warm corpses, but as she did a hand with a vice-like grip squeezed her shoulder. When she turned, she found a chipped blade at her throat.
“I’ll take you as my prize,” the remnant gurgled, his hot breath washing over her face.
There was a flash of motion behind him and the remnant dropped.
In his place stood Bart, the old Tarkan man, with a pleased look on his face.
“Thanks,” Mika panted.
He nodded and smiled. “Guess I still have a little piss and vinegar in me after all.”
Karl and Sal finished their enemies—Sal with a bit of extra flourish—and joined them.
“Aye, about eighty more an’ we’d’ve hit our hundred-mark.” The rearick snorted.
Bart nodded toward Sal. “Looks to me like you had an unfair advantage.”
Karl patted Sal on the side and inspected the arrows. He grabbed one and tried to pull it from the dragon’s scales, but Sal screamed and Karl jumped backward. “All right, buddy. We need some pliers an’ a gallon o’ moonshine ta get these outta ya.” He inspected them once more, and looked into Sal’s eyes. “Ye look strong enough ta get ta Urai, though.”
Sal nodded and glanced back at his hide.
Bart laughed. “I imagine my people will think of you differently now, dragon. You saved our young, and have earned the title of ‘friend.’”
Sal squealed and loped up next to the old man, giving his leg a nudge with his head.
“I think he likes you, Bart,” Mika smiled. “And thanks for saving my ass back there.”
He smiled and wiped a hand across the side of his face. “I watched from a distance for a moment. I think your ass would have been just fine.”
“Scheisse, careful wi’ yer comments about ‘er ass. She’s datin’ a Were, after all.”
“You’re dating the bear-man?”
“Yeah,” Mika replied, “but he’s more of a grown-up teddy bear. Now, let’s go. The people are waiting. We need to get them to Urai.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
"You did pretty nice work back there." Olaf’s eyes never stopped scanning the forest around them. He was ready for another attack—if anything around here was stupid enough to try.
"Not bad, I guess. I mean, for a girl who can’t change into a freaking giant beast."
Olaf responded, "You’d trade your magic for it? If so, you’re nuts."
She led them toward where the lycanthropes lay, their bodies ripped to shreds by Olaf’s sharp claws and jagged teeth. "That looked pretty badass to me."
Olaf only shrugged as if she had complimented him for catching a mouse. "You ever try it?"
For a second Hannah thought he was talking about tearing a lycanthrope apart piece by piece, but then she got exactly what he meant. "You mean morphing?" She laughed. "As far as I know it's impossible, at least for us magicians."
Olaf went silent for a second and started walking along the path they had been on before they were interrupted by their unwelcome guests. Finally he spo
ke again. "Is it much different than changing a lizard into a dragon? I mean, if everything we know about the nanocytes is right…"
Hannah thought about that for a moment. The idea of a magician shifting her body into the form of another creature had never come up with Ezekiel, and she had sure as hell never thought of it, but then she thought back to the ghosts in the tower. They had certainly been scary as hell, at least when she had thought they were some sort of spirits from another world, but once she’d realized that they were magicians not much different than herself who were able to dematerialize their physical form through the reshaping of matter, his suggestion made a bit more sense. "I'm reasonably sure it won't work,” she said, though she really didn’t have a basis for her certainty.
"You're probably right," he shot back, but his response was curt enough for her to question whether he really meant it. Then he laughed. "You have to admit, if you could turn into a big she-bear that shot fireballs and shit lightning it would be pretty damn cool."
"Pretty damn cool indeed," Hannah said as she fell in behind Olaf on the trail.
They walked in silence for some time as the hot late-spring sun climbed in the sky, and Hannah could feel the back of her shirt dampen with perspiration. She wanted to stop for a drink of water, but refused to slow their progress. Lilith needed them. Needed Gregory, and if she were honest with herself she’d admit that she was more than a little worried for her friends.
Olaf, though a few centuries her elder, was a damned near perfect specimen. She imagined that he could walk for days on end without eating, drinking, or even taking a piss. She felt relief when he stopped abruptly in the path.
"Thank the gods," she began, but he held up a hand to silence her. Hannah crept up beside him, her eyes following his gaze toward the top of the hill they were climbing.
"Someone is there," Olaf said.
She looked at him, her brow furrowed. "Didn't know you had super-smell when you were in human form."
He glanced down at her. "I don't. I'm just taller than you, and I can see over the crest of the hill."
Hannah shrugged. "Powerful, funny, cute… You can't expect me to be tall too, can you?"
"Mika is pretty damn tall." He gave her a wink.
"Yeah, I kind of hate that bitch.” She smiled so he would know she was kidding. “Is it them?" Hannah asked.
"Hard to say from here, since I don't have super-vision in either form, but there aren’t many people out here since there's damn near nothing for miles. It's not lycanthropes nor remnant, or at least I don’t think so.” Olaf nudged her with his elbow. “There’s only one way to find out, but keep your guard up.”
She nudged him back. “My guard’s always up.”
They climbed the rest of the hill slowly, trying to be quiet as they went. As they got closer to the top it became clear that the figures were men, not beasts, but with the sun in their eyes Hannah still wasn’t sure if it was her friends or not. When they were almost there, they could see that something was off. The two stood like statues placed by some mad sculptor on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere for no sane reason whatsoever.
Hannah’s eyes flashed red and she reached out toward them, trying to get inside of their minds to find if they were her friends or foes. When she made contact she was confronted with something strange. Their minds were blank—she couldn’t read any thoughts from either one of them.
Only static like if the sound of the ocean met her mind, and it increased in volume by a factor of a thousand in a second. Her eyes faded back to normal, and she gripped her head.
“Something’s not right,” she said to Olaf. The men still didn’t move.
“Gregory,” Olaf shouted, tired of the game, but his call remained unanswered.
They reached the men and stepped around them, one on either side, to find that their faces were just as still as their bodies. Their eyes were blank and stared over the green pasture below them as if they were frozen in time and space.
“Randall?” Olaf said, his voice quivered uncharacteristically.
Hannah poked the man in his plump stomach to confirm he wasn’t made of stone or iron. Her fingers bounced off human flesh. “The hell? You know him?”
Olaf nodded. “Good man. A citizen of New Romanov.” He gestured toward the other man. “Never seen this guy before. Must be a refugee from Tark.”
“Olaf, this is creepy as hell.” She focused and tried to slip inside Randall’s mind. The ocean noise came back, only this time it was even louder. She let out a yell. “I can’t—”
“Let me help,” Olaf said. He looked back at his friend and apologized before cracking him in the jaw with a quick snap of his right fist.
His head snapped to the left and then returned. His eyes blinked, and for a second Hannah slipped into his thoughts.
It was dark. The only light was provided by a strange glow, and she realized the glow wasn’t coming from one place but from everywhere, and it was moving.
Skrima of every shape and size moved in the man’s brain, and behind them she could make out the amorphous shifting shape of a figure more powerful than them all. The source.
It let out a wild shriek and broke into unirthly laughter.
And then all went black, leaving only the surf sound.
Hannah’s eyes snapped open. Her face was laced with terror.
“It’s Laughter,” she shouted at Olaf. “She tricked us.”
His mouth dropped open, but before he could respond she said, “I have to go. I know exactly where they are.”
And with a flash of light and a crack, Hannah was gone.
****
“You don’t want to do this. It isn’t too late, you know. Just put down the knife and we can talk this over.”
They had walked for hours, and, because of his hundreds of hours flying the Unlawful Gregory had become damned good at navigation. He knew they weren’t far from New Romanov, though they had twisted and turned along the route.
His boot hit a rock for the thousandth time, and he asked Hadley if he could at least lift the blindfold.
But nothing.
Or rather, more nothing.
There had been nothing except the point of a dagger in his back ever since they had dropped out of the sight of the guards at the southern gate.
After another hour of silent walking, Gregory finally stopped. His feet needed rest, his mouth needed water, and although he could feel the blade bite harder at his spine, he held his ground.
“I need to stop, just for a minute,” he said through dry, cracked lips.
Nothing again.
And then, for the first time since they had left the city, Hadley spoke. “You don’t need shit, you damned child. You’ve always been a weakling. It’s time to toughen the hell up.”
“Hadley?” Gregory asked, but he knew his friend wouldn’t respond. The mystic from the Heights was gone. Something else was controlling him.
“Shut your damned mouth and walk.”
Gregory complied, though he thought of trying to attack Hadley or whatever the hell was controlling him. His friend’s last connection with Laughter had messed with him badly, and now Gregory was beginning to fear that he had gone Mad like the thousands who had been lost in the generation before their own.
His mind raced, looking for a way out, but nothing came.
Another rock bit his toe, this one throwing him off balance and dropping him to the bone-dry dirt. He rolled onto his back, pulled off his blindfold, and stared into Hadley’s eyes.
“Get up,” Hadley spat, waving the dagger at him, “or I’ll slice your throat and let you bleed out like the little piglet you are.”
“I can’t,” Gregory whimpered. He reached for whatever lie might serve him, even if only for a moment. “I’m sick, Had. My stomach is tied in knots.”
Hadley stared back at him for a beat before breaking into mad laughter. “You’ve forgotten my craft so quickly, old friend? You’re as sick as you are good-looking.” His words
were laced with hatred. “Now stand up, or you won’t get the chance to see what I have in store for you.”
Hadley turned the tip of the blade away from Gregory and pointed it over his shoulder.
Gregory saw the Rift hovering over the guard station no more than a quarter mile away.
“No,” he gasped.
“Oh, hell yeah! Now up, or I’ll drag you all the way and then apply this blade to the innocent guts of those men watching the portal.”
Gregory didn’t need to possess the mystical arts to know that Hadley wasn’t bluffing. He stood slowly and turned toward the Rift, and one tired foot after another, he began the final march toward his fate.
Grabbing a fistful of Gregory’s shirt, which was now drenched with sweat, Hadley pulled him to a stop. “Don’t try to be a hero, dipshit. One wrong word and I’ll drop those poor bastards before they know what’s hit them. They’ll spend the rest of their lives rooting in the mud like animals. Just be cool, understand?”
Gregory nodded silently, but deep inside all he wanted to do was smash Hadley's pretty face in.
"Good," Hadley said. "Do everything I tell you to, and you might just live through the day."
Hadley put the dagger back into the sheath on his belt and stepped up next to Gregory as they walked slowly and intentionally toward the guardhouse. Gregory counted his steps in hopes that he could focus his mind and keep Hadley from reading anything of consequence. Once within sight, one of the two guards raised a hand, waving and shouting a greeting.
"All smiles, dipshit, and don’t act all weird like you usually do," Hadley growled. They both raised an arm and waved in response.
By the time Gregory and Hadley had crossed the distance between them and the guardhouse, both men were waiting outside with nervous smiles on their faces. Robert, a gentle man with a narrow face and a broad forehead, spoke first. "Everything okay?" It was no surprise that they would be apprehensive. Their shift wasn't supposed to be over for another few days, and no one ever got out of guard duty early. But that was nothing compared to the fact that Robert and his friend still didn't know Team BBB super well. They had heard plenty of stories of Hannah and her crew and the way they had helped to save New Romanov, but compared to a lifetime of citizenship and the closeness of their community, these two were still new and strange figures in Archangelsk.
