by J A Stone
“Makes sense, how many years exactly?”
“On the force?”
“Yeah, start with that,” Fey grinned as they walked.
“Thirty-five years on a tunnel beat, and now twelve years as an Agent. I am a hundred and two from my mommy to you.”
He looked twenty, if that. British met eyes with Warfell in the poorly lit tunnels and squinted.
“What boss?”
“And you feel old, shame.”
***
Once the remnants of civilization began to fade away, Noa and Neo struck flares, blasting bright green light to their surroundings. The tunnels were well honed, smoothed and cleaned. Dwarven artisans had flattened the walking surfaces, widened the pathways, stationed light and water sources at regular intervals, and accommodated for travelers.
Warfell nervously kept her map in front of her face. British was calm, knowing the siblings were right at home in the dark catacombs.
“How far do the tunnels go?” British asked when they passed a side passage that seemed to extend into oblivion.
“We really don’t know Miss Fey,” Noa answered.
“Call me British.”
“British,” Noa lowered his head and smiled. “White Falls Deep extends in a radius of more than ten miles. Refineries forges and breweries are forward to the surface now—they spread out for five miles square. The abandoned facilities interior are still empty—nightmare snake land. Beyond that, our people have surveyed and explored more than twenty miles in at a two-degree grade. Some claim to have reached Aleutha’s magnetic pole, but that’s never been substantiated. Many of those teams did not come back...”
“I think you are cute,” Fey just said it.
“Sooo, they put a hold on deep explo…” Noa tripped on a rock and hit the granite face first, immediately springing back up. “GOOD—I’m good.”
“Oh my Gods! I’d say get a room if we weren’t in a dun…” Warfell stopped herself. “Sorry.”
Neo shook her head with a smile. “Don’t sweat it—it is a dungeon. Listen, Noa’s point is that beyond the abandoned factories, it’s a no-man’s land. My people live for this,” she extended her hands as they walked, “but even we don’t go out there.”
“Snakes man, yikes!” Noa shuddered.
“Just the Nightmares?” Warfell asked, though she did not want to know, really.
“No,” Neo answered thoughtfully. “The deep caverns teem with wildlife. In some areas, it opens up wide—lots of room. Some of the flora and fauna have developed fascinating traits. Five clicks due north of the old brewery is a still pond with crabs that can exceed a ten foot berth and pincers that can bend fine steel swords. And a nonpoisonous cousin of the nightmare has been seen, eight feet wide and more than seventy feet long, highly aggressive and carnivorous, swallowed six Agents near a settlement once before we could put it down and it was a young one…”
“Stop!” I get it, got it, good,” Danica watched her calm flitter away—little shit.
***
The Last Stand, much nicer than Noa described, lots of mirrors and glass, tables, booths, a long bar and even a small dance floor with a stage. Once through the threshold, Warfell and Fey could not distinguish the pub from one topside. The four found a deep padded booth and slid in, Noa inside next to British and Neo outside next to Danica and across from Fey.
There were a dozen or so men, drinking quietly, three tables of workers, several men at the bar slouched over black shot glasses and two scantily clad, horribly ugly women, somehow working the jewels away from the old men.
A barmaid approached and stared quietly at the four. She then looked straight at Neo and spoke with a man-like voice.
“You are a cop. Why’d ya bring these, things here?” She spit on the floor. Both Warfell and British lifted eyebrows and heads, already in business-mode.
“They are not cops, they are friends of our Dad. The tall one is looking for a custom barrel,” when Noa said the word barrel, British and her partner noticed one of the men at the bar turn his head—exposing a wrinkled ear.
“Target acquired,” British whispered.
“Excuse me?” the barmaid put hands to hips.
“Beer!” Warfell smiled and dumped a small bag of emeralds on to the stone surface of the table. “Listen I need a very expensive weapon and will be right here drinking and counting these. I got some rubies too, shit!” Another bag spilled sending bright red sparkles across the table. Noa and Neo’s eyes sprung wide with wonder.
Danica and British noted several more sets of ears, eyes and mouths coming to life through the quiet bar.
“HA BITE ME!” British slammed her fourth black lager back and gulped from the tankard like a baby cow on a teat.
“SO, British comes at him and stops because the dude is pissing himself! An Arch Baron!” Warfell’s calm had finally floated back, for the beer, no doubt.
“What did you do?” Neo asked between gulps. But British paused, the smile slowly drifting down.
“I blew his head off—he was a very bad man,” she glanced over to Noa with a look that seemed to ask forgiveness. A brief second of connection and then British shot her brown orbs forward, to the old man suddenly dragging a chair towards them.
“May I?” the old codger asked while spinning the wooden chair backwards and sitting down next to the four before they could reply. “My name is Coralo. I could not help but to hear you are searching for a special barrel?”
“I am,” Warfell set her mug down and twiddled her hair-band in her fingers.
“You a sniper? Where’d you train?” he was clearly fishing.
“Captain, Throne of Steele, now she competes professionally in the tourney as a Marksman,” British answered for her partner. “Lot of money on the line in Tibor this summer.”
“Martha, Martha Calabash, and my Honorable Squire, Pooch Tender,” Warfell extended a hand and the old Dwarf shook it firm.
***
“Nice hole,” British replied as she entered Coralo’s home, just as Noa said, very near the smelting facility. Warfell and the two Agents followed.
“Please have a seat, I rarely have visitors,” Coralo actually had plenty of room. Danica did not feel closed in at all. She got straight to business.
“Sir, I need a long barrel that will win the Tiborean finals. Pooch Tender has discovered two of my competitors with new rifles, different, longer and well, they were made of gold!”
Coralo stopped and raised his head, feeling behind him with a chubby hand, finding the hard wooden seat.
“The gold is just a brass alloy plating.” He mumbled as he sat, but his initial reaction said it all. He did not make those weapons, which would be impossible for them to exist—but he has made one before.
British rose and approached a small weapons wall. Coralo had several of his firearms displayed as well as a small clash of bladed instruments. Casually placing herself between the Master Forger and his wall, she asked calmly.
“Master Coralo my name is not Pooch Tender, though I really like that one,” she turned to face him and the old man relaxed in his seat.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do.”
“And will you tell me the name of the man or woman who commissioned your last charge?”
“I will Ghost Daughter. I—am I to live?”
British studied him severely for the longest moment. Warfell finally broke the silence.
“You will want to spit that name out now Sir,” Danica’s voice rose from nearby with a hint of urgency—a warning for him to act.
“A woman and a man, humans, from Silvercrest, they are married, all over each other, both have black hair, but they are not from Tibor. The man is ex-military, he knows his firearms, seems well trained. The woman is pretty, but…”
“Yes?” Warfell again.
“She’s insane. She talked to the weapon, chanted before it. She never spoke to me directly and was practically raping her husband in front of me, pawing on him
throughout the negotiations. And they are well funded ladies, very well-funded. they never gave me a name and I didn’t ask.”
“How do you know they are from Silvercrest?” British asked, still calm.
“No attempts to hide their accents for one, also, I know a watchmaker, a Brother Dwarf.”
“Mister Solomon,” Warfell knew him.
“He’s a good old man, and his timepieces are perfection like the one around your neck,” he motioned with a chubby finger to Danica. “They live there—just like you do.”
“Master Coralo, have you ever killed a Brother Dwarf or a man?” British leaned in and the tension struck the air like a hammer.
“I have,” he replied, beginning to shake with fear of the inevitable.
“Did he have it coming?”
“Yes.”
“We know, don’t we, when we have it coming,” Fey was not asking.
“Yes we do pretty girl,” he bravely held her gaze for a moment and then suddenly he knew she was not there for him. He relaxed and nodded to the weapons wall behind British.
“Take the machete on the top. The Falchion is the formal name, but I call it what it is— a machete. It’s made from a chromium alloy and flash frozen in the mountain snow, unbreakable and sharper than an obsidian shard. Too small for most men, it would befit you well Lady Fey.”
British turned and reached for the unusual weapon. All chopping business, the blade was two feet long with a serrated edge from the halfway point to the handle. Two quillons extended—a short dorsal and longer ventral, half-way shrouding the knuckles like a Saber.
British hefted the blade. It felt right.
“If my Father appears to you Coralo, tell him everything and you will be fine. If you see this man or the woman after we leave, alert the authorities, get topside and send a bird to Silvercrest, this address,” British tore a page from her notebook and handed it to Coralo.
They left him there, grateful to be alive.
***
British Fey sat next to Captain Silverflo as Noa detailed what had transpired. Warfell left for topside with Neo.
“Miss Fey, I wish your visit to White Falls Deep had been for brighter circumstances,” the old veteran glanced between the handsome Dwarf and the beautiful Human his own size, her coy look speaking more.
“Me too Lord Captain. I shall return. I like your Agent,” British smiled.
“Captain?” Noa was exuding pheromones, asking, begging for permission to go.
Silverflo smiled. “Take him with you. Noa is a qualified Marksman and a handy man to have in a pinch. Did he tell you that he took down an eighty-foot Nightmare near the East-span Housing?”
“He did not—that was you?” British looked at Noa with a newfound respect.
“I blew his head off—he was a very bad reptile.”
At the threshold to the final, wide tunnel, Danica stretched her back and smiled wide to the sunshine warmth on her cheeks. A breeze struck her face and she breathed deep.
Next to her, Neo was recoiling from the bright light and endless skies.
“Takes me a minute,” the Dwarf commented.
“Do Agents have rides?” Warfell asked.
“Yeah, Burros, why?”
“I invite you to the hunt,” Warfell stared at Neo without expression, commanding an answer.
Neo’s look of fear was genuine. “I will, if Noa wants to.” Danica could tell the Dwarf was forcing her natural fears away, she understood fully.
“Take a room with us out here tonight. We’ll get one with a balcony and drink. Then Fey and I will need to sleep before we set out for Silvercrest. Ever been that far south?”
“I’ve been on outside patrol—south side of town.”
“Wow. Stick with me, it’ll be alright, you’ll love it,” Warfell placed a hand on Neo’s shoulder and turned to see British sauntering into the daylight next to Noa, giggling and talking in whispers.
“Of course he wants to go,” Neo said sadly.
“Who wouldn’t?” Danica added as her partner approached.
***
The long Aleuthian day was beginning as the last equi-fade slowly brightened. Two hours until full daylight. Noa and Neo returned to the catacombs to get gear and weapons, burros and supplies—the girls needed to sleep.
“Four hours, then we can alternate in the saddle?” Warfell asked British as the two sat across from one another in the corner of the small room they rented.
“Works for me,” British leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The two slept across from one another with their boots touching, just in case.
When they rose and opened the door to the outside world, Noa and Neo were there with two fully loaded burros. Noa was bouncing and smiling, Neo was biting the nails on her chubby little fingers and pacing nervously.
“Donkeys?” Fey asked, genuinely piqued.
The Burro: capable of out-walking any creature alive, they can eat and drink without stopping and carry tremendous weight for days on end. If pushed, the Burro will maintain a bouncy gallop for a great distance, but he will eventually tire out.
The Dwarves did just this to keep a decent time alongside the two large stallions. Noa reveled in the wide-open sky but it took many hours for Neo to adjust. Warfell’s heart went out to the brave Dwarf. As they rode she studied the siblings.
Both were the same size, four feet, with brown hair and brown eyes. They shared physiques as well; stocky and muscled. Danica had no idea if Neo was considered attractive to her people or not. Certainly, any femininity the girl possessed was entirely lost from the neck down. Her hair was in a short ponytail; her features were smoother than most other female Dwarves Warfell had encountered. One could say she was pretty.
Noa was different; he looked human, very handsome with sharp eyes and an even sharper smile. Danica could easily see why her partner was smitten with him, add two or three feet and Warfell might would jump in there too—but no.
Noa wore leathers and a light cape. On his back hung a short, thick-bladed Saber, his waist cradling a dagger to the left and a small pistol on the right.
Neo wore identical riding leathers, sans the cape. Her primary weapon was a small double-bladed melee ax, much like British’s. A dagger length hunting knife rested sideways, across her waist for fast access—no firearm.
Both Burros were heavily packed for an extended journey—the longest of their Masters’ lives.
A day away from the feet of the Whites, the conifer forests thickened and darkened. British called for a stop near the end of the fade to regroup; the deep night was coming and they wanted to be in a more open topography, otherwise, the canopy would shut out the stars completely and make navigation only possible by compass.
“Alright, take an hour and we are gonna run them through to an open alcove British knows of, there we’ll camp and sleep. I never asked, how much do you guys sleep?” Warfell was embarrassed. Neo answered with a smile.
“Depends, drink a lot, work a lot, sleep a lot, but just sitting on an animal’s back? None.”
“Take rest when we do, trust me my friends. If my Father comes, things often happen quickly. Also, the targets may not even be in Silvercrest. The Duke of Moor’s wife was shot down in the streets of the Capitol just two weeks past, so they could be anywhere, we follow the leads until Dad says otherwise—this may be a very long trip. Some cases have taken months,” British smiled. “Did we not tell you that part?”
***
In the pitch black of the deep night, they could see the clearing in the forest from quite a distance away, the huge crystalline column of light illuminating the meadow. Once inside, the reflected light of Aleutha’s brother and sister moons, coupled with a sky half filled by the luminescent bands and swirls of the gas giant Ana, made seeing in the dark easy.
They set camp and a watch, no fire. As had become their field custom, Danica and British sat across from one another, feet touching, taking turns resting their eyes.
Noa tended t
he burros while Neo sat near the other girls and tried to relax under the celestial sky. Warfell silently observed as the Dwarven woman removed her gloves. Next, Neo slung aside her cape and rolled up her sleeves, leaving her small arms bare in the moonlight. Warfell could clearly see how strong she was as Neo removed a wide leather wrist-wrap and then began massaging the pale white skin beneath, muscles rippling on the dark forearms.
“I’ve got to pee,” British announced and sprang up. She casually walked out of the lighted area and made her way around a thick-trunked tree, snapping branches and rustling leaves the whole way.
“Hurt your hand?” Warfell asked as Neo continued to rub the white wrist.
“No, it’s the arthritis,” she replied. Even Danica knew that the rapid stiffening of the joints and deterioration of the cartilage was the bane of the Dwarves. All of them succumbed to it eventually. Neo was still young for her kind, early onset was never good. “Sorry,” Danica related.
Warfell said nothing moments later when her partner silently took her seat and placed a boot next to her own, she tapped Fey’s foot twice ever so subtly.
Noa was returning from the horses, he sat down next to his Sister and addressed the girls.
“So, what’s the plan?” he asked, oblivious.
“Engage the target,” British said emotionlessly.
Noa nodded his head.
“Figured as much,” he smiled and drew his pistol.
Three shots rang out in the night as British leaped to the side and rolled, unsheathing the Blunderbuss and returning fire but missing.
Warfell reached for the Chesterborne repeater and caught a hunting knife in her arm. With a grunt, she rolled, but Neo was already on top of her, bashing away with her fists, yanking the blade out and stabbing again, leaving the knife deep in Warfell’s right thigh.
Three more shots followed by another BOOM! From British, no hesitation, Warfell reached out and snatched Neo by the throat shoving the long barreled pistol inside the Dwarf’s mouth, breaking several teeth in doing so.
