Dream II: The Realm

by RW Krpoun

  “What about the horses and gear?” Fred mumbled.

  “Hill Goblins got ‘em between the vampire attack and the relief checking on them,” Derek tucked away his notes. “They found tracks.”

  “OK, we have limited time,” Shad swung down from Buttercup. “Jeff, get to your end of things; the rest of us will dice for jobs: one stables the horses and checks the walls, one checks the roof, and one cleans the place up.”

  Fred lost the roll and gloomily got the bucket and mop off the mule.

  Chapter Five

  “The roof is solid,” Derek reported, brushing cobwebs off his shirt.

  “So are the walls and doors,” Shad nodded. “Fred, that is a pretty good job; here I thought you had no idea what cleanliness meant.” Fred’s tendency to live in abject squalor was a group legend, and unlike Derek’s issues with goats was based on fact.

  “The windows are done,” Jeff tossed a spring into the air and caught it with his other hand. “And its nearly dark. You think we’ll dance tonight?”

  “Might,” Shad shrugged. “If it was me, I would hit quick before the new crew could recover from the ride and start poking around too much. But who knows?”

  “Let’s eat,” Fred sighed. “I’m tired and hungry.”

  The living area was furnished with a table, chairs, and double-decker bunks with new mattresses, the latter replacing their blood-soaked predecessors. While Derek worked up a simple supper the other three quietly set their saddles, pack saddle, and the chairs in a semi-circle against the east wall, fashioning a crude barricade. There were two shuttered windows in each of the long walls, and two shuttered firing slits in the short wall, which also housed the fireplace.

  “OK, the doors are all wedged,” Shad kept his voice as low as possible. “Getting them open from the outside will take time and a lot of noise. The table is braced across the opening of the fireplace in case the security grate has been compromised.”

  “It looked solid,” Derek observed. “And something had been crawling in there.”

  “Yeah, but when?” Jeff whispered. “This is a locked-room mystery, and when people find a solution to a locked-room mystery they usually quit looking.”

  “Yeah. Your noisemakers on the window a go, Jeff” Shad asked.

  “Five by five.” Jeff had tacked lengths of rope across the outside of the windows in a net pattern and hung glass jars with a handful of rocks inside each.

  “OK. We’re as ready as we’re going to get today. Let’s dice for watches.”

  A light slap on the sole of his boot snapped Shad awake-that was a habit he had picked up in Iraq: going from deep sleep to wide awake in the blink of an eye. It had come back quickly in the Prison, and now here in the Realm. The room was dim, lit by only one lamp turned down low; two feet away Fred was lying on another mattress, snoring easily and rhythmically, but his eyes were open and he was easing his Remington revolver from its holster.

  Derek was crouching nearby, so it was only the second watch; the Scav/Alienist had his Spencer at the ready, his entire body radiating alertness.

  Very carefully climbing to his knees, Shad picked up his gun belt, moving very deliberately so as to avoid any noise when he put down the Colt which had been resting on his chest. As he strapped it on and settled the weight he glanced at the wall above him: four strings hung down, each terminating in a heavy metal spoon with a number painted in its bowl. Number Four was still below the chalk line Jeff had drawn before they had bedded down, but the other three had risen well above it.

  The Shop teacher’s noisemakers were a blind: each window-net had a spring-loaded line attached through the crack between the closed shutters. If a deft and stealthy someone carefully removed the glass jars from the ropes the reduction in weight would cause the spring to contract, lifting a numbered spoon. Even as he looked number three jostled three inches up the wall, indicating that another jar had been removed.

  Jeff pointed: both east and one west side windows were in play.

  Shad nodded, tapped his chest and pointed to the west window. Easing carefully behind two chairs stacked on their sides he knelt and brought his Colt to bear.

  As the others moved into position Derek carefully laid his Spencer down and pulled out a fistful of tubes, sorting them by the scratches he had etched into their sides. He could faintly sense hex-work in play outside, a tiny scalp-tingle that he wouldn’t have noticed had he not been concentrating, and he needed to be ready to counter it once the fight started.

  Abruptly the three windows, frames and all, slid smoothly out of the walls. “Grenade!” Jeff yelled and reflexively all four Black Talons ducked down. A split-second later the room was illuminated by a single soundless strobe of light that picked out the veins in their closed eyelids.

  Straightening back up and bringing his Winchester to bear, Jeff cursed as a buckskin-clad figure flowed through the empty window-hole with the grace of a ballet master who taught gymnastics on the side. He knew who these were even without the requisite skill because the Talons had faced them before: Elves. Not the cool Elves of Tolkien, but rather the Elves of legend, the Dökkálfar: cave-dwellers, slave-takers, makers of blood offerings to dark entities.

  He fired as it took in the room in a single glance and came for him, levered a fresh round and fired again, cursing the billowing haze of black powder smoke that intensified with each shot.

  His attacker was at least six foot two but wiry, clad in well-worn buckskins decorated with beads, coins, and bones. Its face was vaguely Human, but the bone structure was high and harsh, with eyes that were twice the size of a man’s and completely blue-black. The ears that thrust out of the dark fine hair were wide and mobile like a cat’s, and its skin was dusky, no Human shade to it at all.

  His first shot had hit but not solidly, and his second missed as guns roared behind him and Derek yelled. Working the action he fired again as it closed, the gleaming flint head of its short stabbing spear sweeping for his throat. The third shot caught it in the left shoulder and it stumbled as it tried to leap the stacked saddles that barred it from the Jinxman. Jeff desperately worked the lever-action and fired again, the .44-40 (with a tiny silver bead Shad had carefully inset into the nose of the two hundred grain bullet) catching the Elf in the center chest, knocking it to its knees. Levering a fresh round the Jinxman shot it squarely in the forehead for good measure.

  Fred cursed as a dart ripped into his shoulder, the delicate flint head cutting like a razor, the sound lost amidst the shouts, screams, and gunfire. Squeezing the trigger, he swore again as the primer popped but the charge did not ignite-hexed, he guessed.

  Dropping the empty revolver as the dart-thrower swarmed over their fragile barricade he drew his Bowie and lunged to meet the foe. The two crashed into each other, each trying to get their blade in while catching the other’s weapon-arm. The two were of a height, but Fred was an easy hundred pounds heavier, a lot of it muscle.

  The trouble was that the Elf was fast and amazingly strong for its thin build, and the Scout/Hunter found it hard to bring his greater mass to bear in an effective manner. The two thrashed, twisted, and rolled, grabbing and losing the other’s knife-arm, getting shallow random cuts from blind slashes, head-butting, kneeing, and in the Elf’s case, biting.

  It seemed to go on forever as guns crashed and his lungs caught fire, an eternal deadlock of instinctual attacks, parries, and moves; then finally Derek’s boot swept out of nowhere and connected with the Elf’s head. It wasn’t a knock-out blow by any standard, but it gave Fred a tiny window of opportunity and he took it, getting atop his lean opponent and struggling to get the Bowie between them for a thrust.

  Ducking a dart, Shad fired the two remaining rounds in his Colt, one round just igniting the primer but not the powder charge, then hunching down and rapidly reloading. The room was filling with a choking haze of black powder smoke, something they hadn’t factored into their plan. Shad had shot black powder weapons back home, but never indoors, and the volum
e of smoke trapped within the building was amazing.

  Snapping the loading gate shut he popped back up just in time to see a naked, hairless creature whose leathery body defied gender definition hurtling at him, taloned hands outstretched and its red eyes aflame with blood lust. His startled shout was lost in the background noise as the vampire crashed into him, knocking him prone.

  Jamming his left forearm against its loose-jowled throat, he struggled to hold its stinking maw away as its claws ripped at his shoulders and side. Wedging the barrel of the Colt into its side he fired and fired again, shoving the muzzle further around to the front as he fired, a distant corner of his mind registering thanks that he had diligently applied himself to adding silver to their ammunition on the trip up here. The fifth cartridge misfired, but the sixth worked, and was perhaps unnecessary.

  Shoving the dying creature off him he hastily reloaded and put another round squarely between the fading red eyes. Climbing back to a kneeling position, he replaced the spent round and began reloading his other Colt as he peered about. The powder smoke choked the room to such an extent that the pale lantern light couldn’t pierce it to any depth.

  Derek was crouched in the center of their little position, his shirt streaked with dust; nearby Fred sat next to a dead Elf, the brass hilt of his Bowie standing up from its chest. Jeff knelt by a stack of saddles, face blackened by gunpowder, reloading a Bulldog revolver.

  “Well, that sucked,” Derek observed shakily, uncapping a canteen and taking a long drink.

  “Elves,” Shad muttered, shaking his head. “I had hoped they hadn’t made the trip.”

  “Who’s hurt?” Jeff holstered the Bulldog.

  “Elf-shot and cuts,” Fred announced as he reloaded his Remington, referring to the flint-tipped foot-long darts the Elves threw.

  “Elf shot,” Derek said tiredly, passing the canteen to Fred.

  “Vampire claws,” Shad sighed. “Derek, am I in any danger of becoming anything?”

  “No, the creation process is complicated and deliberate.”

  “Why were rounds misfiring? I had at least three duds.”

  “Hexes. I got counters up, but this system is a lot more complicated than I realized.”

  “So people can disable our guns?” Shad was visibly displeased.

  “If they’re good enough. Elves are magical creatures, and I expect the Tek are as well. Next time I’ll be better prepared.”

  “Is it permanent? The effect to the cartridges, I mean?” Fred asked as Jeff got the elf-shot out of his shoulder.

  “No, it just prevents the powder charge from igniting while it is in effect. I had counters up, but I need to work on my technique.”

  “I’m buying a Bowie at the next opportunity,” Shad decided, accepting the canteen from Fred. “No reflection on your abilities, Derek, but feces occurs.”

  “That’s a good idea,” the Scav/Alienist nodded.

  “OK, body count?”

  “One Elf inside our position, one vampire; they dragged everyone else away, but I put a .44-40 through one’s skull, so they lost at least two,” Jeff said, finishing with Fred and moving to Derek.

  “We were right, they had a back door,” Shad nodded, fanning gun smoke away with his hat. The evening breeze through the open window holes was helping, but not quickly. “In retrospect we should have expected Elves-they are masters with stone and wood.”

  “I wonder where they got the pet vampire?” Derek mused.

  “I didn’t see a thing unusual about the windows,” Jeff confessed, moving to Shad. “They’re really good.”

  “We guessed right,” the Shootist shrugged. “That and surviving is what matters. Now we just have to last until dawn.”

  “You think they might come back?” Fred mumbled.

  “Might,” Shad spun the cylinder of his Colt. “They don’t like losing, and they won’t want the news of their gimmick getting out.”

  “I figure they got the first crew by exploiting carelessness, then modified the windows,” Derek said thoughtfully. “They didn’t leave behind any hex amplifiers to avoid raising suspicion, which is good because I forgot to check.”

  “This was a learning experience,” Shad stripped off his torn and bloody shirt and went to his saddlebags to dig out a replacement. “I didn’t realize how fast the gun smoke would build up in here.”

  “Modern weapons certainly don’t have that effect,” Jeff observed, reloading his Winchester. “What the hell made that flash?”

  “Hex on a pine cone,” Derek pointed to the charred cone.

  “I thought it was a grenade or flash-bang,” Jeff grinned. “Old habits.”

  “Fifty per cent watch until sun up,” Shad decided. “Fred, give me a hand moving the bodies out of here. We’ll stash an Elf head and the vampire’s head in the buckets of vinegar-that ought to secure our bona fides for our reward.”

  After dawn Fred returned from scouting as the others finished cleaning up the debris of the fight.

  “Anything?” Shad asked, leaning the broom in a corner.

  “They’re good,” the big man advised. “But they couldn’t help leaving blood trails.”

  “Are you good enough to find where they are holed up?”

  “Should be.”

  “What do you guys think? Do we take it to them?”

  “If we don’t, they’ll be back tonight to finish the job,” Derek observed grimly. “Jeff did great work on the windows, but they won’t fall for the same trick again.”

  The Jinxman nodded. “They have our measure; next time they’ll draw us out, probably by going after our horses. I would rather fight them in a cave than in the open.”

  “Its go after them or leave,” Fred agreed. “And we can’t go back to Bloodseep with our tails between our legs.”

  “OK, lets start prepping. Jeff and Derek, you do your class stuff. Fred how long would it take you to find their place?”

  “A couple hours tops, probably less.”

  “OK, we brought a can of tar and some burlap so I’ll start making torches and fireballs while you grab a couple hours’ sleep. You and I will find the place so the whiz kids have the maximum time for prep. I figure if we have a choice we’ll hit at mid-afternoon.”

  “OK, sounds like a plan.”

  As the sun’s rays started sliding towards the west the Black Talons set off to beard the foe in its lair. “Man, what I would give for a few frags,” Jeff mused.

  “Yeah, grenades would make this short and sweet,” Shad sighed. “But the locals don’t even have dynamite. I miss all our old toys.”

  “I’m just glad for guns,” Jeff observed. “Cold steel isn’t fun. Shooting is a lot more impersonal.”

  “Yeah,” Fred grunted, the image of the Elf’s face, just inches from his own, as the Bowie slid home flashed before his eyes. “Even when they want to kill you.”

  “Yeah, cold steel sucks, but not as bad as dying,” Shad nodded. “I’m gonna have nightmares about last night. Those damned Elves are so quick.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” Jeff suggested. “Shad, tell us about something that pisses you off.”

  “Star Wars,” the Shootist said without hesitation. “The first movie was magic, the second was even better, and the next four sucked out loud. As a setting it has incredible potential but they stick with the same stale formula: Jedi training, light saber battle, colorful creatures, fighter battle, gun battle, the galaxy is saved. Why can’t they use a plot like Firefly or Dark Matter in the setting, preferably a TV series?”

  “True,” Jeff nodded. “Look at Boba Fett: brief appearance in movie two, huge hype between the movies, then a red shirt death in movie three. Its all hype and action figures.”

  “That’s because Lucas had the rights to the figures,” Fred pointed out. “The movies just became showcases for his toy line.”

  “Disney doesn’t look like it’s any different,” Derek mused. “Lots of fast movement, bright colors, and very serious teenagers learning
how to use light sabers.”

  “And a paper-thin plot,” Shad added. “Involving the fate of all living creatures.”

  “Its too bad-the setting and concepts have such potential,” Jeff sighed.

  “Unlike Derek’s beloved Twilight,” Shad grinned

  “Twinkly vampires!” Fred waved a hand.

  “Screw you guys.”

  “I wasn’t displeased with the TV adaptation of The Last Kingdom,” Shad said. “They had to compress it a bit because it wouldn’t be practical given that the series tracks the entire life of the hero.”

  “They butchered Game of Thrones, though,” Derek observed gloomily. “Jon Snow was fairly close, and they captured Tyrion perfectly, but they gutted the plot.”

  “Too much sex,” Jeff agreed. “I like some good boob scenes, but they went overboard.”

  “I liked the part where Jon and the Wildlings encountered the Undead,” Shad said thoughtfully. “Even though it wasn’t in the books. But overall the series is pretty poor.”

  “You can’t fault their production values, though,” Fred pointed out.

  “That’s true.”

  “Anyone check their XP line?” Derek asked.

  “I didn’t have the heart,” Shad admitted. “After that firefight any gain short of a level would be disappointing.”

  “That was a rough one,” Jeff agreed. “If we had had just a little less preparation they would have won.”

  “It was pretty damn close as it was,” Fred agreed.

  The four trudged along the ridge in silence for a while.

  “Its going to be rough,” Derek observed. “They know we’re coming.”

  “They knew we were coming in Fallujah, too,” Shad shrugged. “Didn’t do ‘em a lot of good, did it?’

  “Anyway, I’m glad I’m going in with you guys,” Derek said quietly.

  “Its Gen-Con all over again,” Fred shook his head. Derek flipped him off.