Whirlwind

by Robert Liparulo

  David plowed into him with his right shoulder. The Carthaginian went down with an “Oooph!” and David leaped over him.

  “Yeah!” he started to say, but— Xander stumbled over the man and yanked down on David’s collar.

  “Yeeeeeee!” David screamed. His feet flew up, his head fell back. He landed flat on his back, unintentionally mimicking the Carthaginian he had decked: “Oooph!”

  Xander’s fist dug into the top of David’s spine. The coat dragged him two feet before Xander’s grip stopped him.

  David twisted to look back. The soldier had hold of Xander’s foot. The man bared his teeth and growled. Xander kicked at him.

  “Xander!” David yelled.

  Xander kicked. “I’m working on it.”

  An arrow thunked into the ground next to Xander’s shoulder.

  David saw the shooter, a Carthaginian in a howdah twenty yards away. The elephant he rode was sweeping its tusks at three fur men. They poked at it with swords, apparently trying to drive it over the edge. The archer nocked another arrow.

  “Xander!” he said. “Roll away!”

  The fur man the soldier on the ground had been fighting returned, fists pounding. The soldier let go of Xander. An arrow struck the fur man’s chest.

  Xander shook his head, wiped at his face. Blood was splattered across his cheek. He rose, lifting David. “Go!” he said.

  David ran—straight into the side of a horse. The horseman glared down at him and raised his sword. Instinctively, David threw up his hands to protect himself.

  Stupid! The sword would slice through his hands and arms and thunk into his skull. Drop! he told himself. Go under the horse!

  But, lightning fast, the horseman grabbed David’s wrist.

  Xander tugged at David’s collar, trying to pull him free. The horseman held firm, a mean little smile on his lips.

  Xander came around, tried to reach for the hand, but it was too high. He yelled and punched the horse. The horseman kicked him in the jaw, and Xander flew away, letting go of the collar.

  The horseman lifted David straight up. When they were face-to-face, he hauled back on the sword again. He had a clear angle on David’s head or neck or just about any part of him.

  The coat lunged, sending David crashing into the horseman.

  David caught a glimpse of the man’s shocked expression before they both tumbled off the horse. David hit the ground and rolled away, assisted by the coat’s pull. By the time he hopped up, he was twenty feet away from the man, who twisted and sliced his sword into the ground. He scowled at the nothing he had killed.

  David backed against the mountain’s stone wall. The coat pulled him backward along it. He grabbed a small outcropping and stopped. “Xander!” he called.

  The horseman spotted David, and his mouth dropped open. An arrow pierced the ground by the man’s outstretched arm. From its angle, David guessed it had come from high on the mountain. Another arrow nicked the man’s shoulder. He scrambled under his horse.

  Xander darted around it, rubbing his jaw. He ran to David and grabbed his collar. “Try not to run into anything else,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  forty - five

  David stayed close to the wall. Most of the fighting was in the middle or outer edge of the path, where the Carthaginians could aim at the fur men on the mountain, and it was here the fur men landed when they jumped down to fight. It was easy going, until he noticed a group of Carthaginians aligned beside the mountain. They were jabbing pikes at fur men on a ledge above them.

  The first Carthaginian saw them coming. He leveled his pike at David. When David angled out to skirt the men, the Carthaginian moved with him.

  What’s with that? David thought. Just mean-spiritedness? Orders to kill everyone? Or was it the sense people had that time travelers didn’t belong there, an intuition bothering them?

  Didn’t matter. They had to handle it. David returned to the mountain wall, drawing the Carthaginian there too.

  “Let go,” he told Xander.

  “What?”

  “Do it!” he said. “I’ll meet you on the other side.”

  Xander released his grip. “Other side of what?”

  David moved faster. The coat was barreling to the portal now. He hoped it would maintain its momentum. He ran straight for the pike. Its spearhead glinted in the sun.

  Don’t go too soon, he thought. Or too late!

  He hoped the coat would let him guide it—as it had when he rolled away from the horseman, which inspired his current plan.

  The Carthaginian, brow furrowed, realized David wasn’t stopping. He braced himself for the jolt of David’s chest hitting his weapon.

  When David was so close he could see a chip in the spearhead, he dived under it. The coat carried him forward. He tucked his arms in, turned his body, and rolled. He crashed into the legs of the Carthaginian. The man went down behind him.

  David had planned on continuing to roll, just bowling down everyone in his path. But the first impact spun him ninety degrees, and he hit the next Carthaginian with his feet. The guy landed on David’s back and tumbled off. David pushed at the ground and rotated. His hip caught the following Carthaginian.

  David went down the line like that, sliding, rolling, spinning. He took down ten pike-poking men, by his count.

  Then he angled closer to the wall and began grabbing at stones to stop himself. His hands kept slipping off as the coat dragged him backward along the ground. His attempts to brake did slow the coat down; Xander was catching up. He was directly behind David now, displaying a huge open-mouthed grin.

  He called, “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”

  Behind Xander, a Carthaginian got to his feet. He picked up a pike and threw it at Xander.

  “Look out!” David said.

  Xander ducked and looked back. But the pike was not designed for throwing. Its heavy spearhead immediately dived into the ground.

  David seized a vertical ledge and jerked to a stop. The coat continued to tug at him.

  Xander reached him, kneeling to grab his arms.

  The Carthaginian behind them picked up the pike again— way back, but David thought the guy’s pride or nastiness might drive him to pursue them. “Get me up,” David said.

  “We gotta go.”

  Another hundred yards of running and dodging. They started past a small, snow-covered meadow that opened up on the mountain side of the path. It was surrounded by cliffs, giving it the appearance of an amphitheater. A congregation of tall gray boulders, like boxcars standing on end, occupied the area farthest from the path.

  The coat pulled David into this meadow, directing him to the boulders.

  “Xander! It’s here!”

  “Yes!”

  Hoofbeats echoed against the stone cliffs. David glanced back. The Carthaginian David had knocked off the horse was charging toward them! Sword in hand, he urged his steed into a gallop.

  “Go, Dae! Go!”

  David was already running all out through the snow. Any quicker and he’d lose control and fall.

  The horseman was gaining.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Xander said.

  The beating of the horse’s hooves grew louder, louder.

  “David!”

  David looked. The horseman was pulling beside them. He leaned out, taking swings at Xander. The boulders were twenty seconds away. The Carthaginian leaped for Xander.

  But he hadn’t leaped. He landed in the snow, an arrow jutting from his back.

  “David, look.”

  Standing at the edge of the border between path and meadow was Fur Man, the one David thought looked like a nobleman. He already had another arrow nocked on his bow, ready to make it fly. The man nodded at the boys. Xander raised his hand.

  The coat pulled David around a boulder. His shoulder smacked it hard.

  Of course.

  Behind the boulder, the portal shimmered, and for a moment David forgot about his aches and pa
ins.

  He jumped, Xander right on his back.

  CHAPTER

  forty - six

  FRIDAY, 10:42 A.M.

  David went through as though he’d plunged off a waterfall, arms spinning, feet kicking. He landed on his toes, crashed to his knees, then did a perfect face-plant. He rolled away just as Xander’s feet hit the floor. His brother kept moving, slammed headlong into a door, and fell back on his rump.

  The door behind them slammed.

  The door! The portal door!

  David sat up. His head jerked around like a chicken’s as he took in the room: bench, hooks, two doors.

  “Xander!” he said. “We’re back! We’re home!” He laughed.

  Xander whooped. He high-fived David, who bent and kissed the floor over and over.

  The Harper’s Ferry rifle was where it always was when they found this particular antechamber, on the bench, leaning against the wall. The other items they had brought into the Civil War world were hanging on hooks: the two kepis and the gray Confederate coat.

  David pushed himself off the floor, moaning and groaning, feeling well beyond his years. He struggled out of the Union army coat and hung it next to the other. “There ya go,” he said, as if comforting a puppy. “Back where you belong. Thanks for getting us home.”

  A wind blew in from under the portal door.

  David sighed, sat on the bench. When the boys returned to their own world, the wind always came for the things that belonged in the one they’d just left, from weapons to the smallest particles. “Guess it’s going to be doing triple duty this time,” he said.

  It billowed around the room, whisking over the boys, through their clothes and hair. Then it swished under the door, a million bits of dirt and whatever else it had found tapping against the wood floor and door like the patter of rain on a window. David felt a tingling over his ribs. He looked down to see the dried blood Xander had smeared there breaking up and flying away. He rubbed the spot. “It took the blood.”

  Xander rubbed his cheek. “Off of me too? That fur man’s blood?”

  David nodded.

  “Well,” Xander said, “the guy did die twenty-two hundred years ago.”

  David looked at his chest, abraded from the slide down the icy slope. The redness had faded slightly, but it still appeared as though Chuck Norris had used him as a punching bag.

  “You might need to see a doctor about that,” Xander said.

  “Oh, this’ll just make the day of that doctor who accused Dad of breaking my arm.” He gently poked his chest. “I think this’ll be all right, but I don’t know about my arm.” He barely lifted it off his thigh and grimaced in pain. “I think I re-broke it.”

  “I’ll check with Dad,” Xander said, standing. “Get you some painkillers.”

  David closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “All I want right now is a long, hot bath.” He laughed quietly.

  “What?”

  “’Member that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark,” David said, “where Indiana Jones is pointing to all the places on his body that hurt?”

  “And Marion kissed them,” Xander said.

  David groaned. “Well, I got Indy beat in the banged-up department.”

  “And I’m not going to kiss you,” Xander said. “I like the scene in Jaws better, where Quint and Hooper are comparing scars.”

  “We can definitely do that!”

  “You know,” Xander said, his voice growing serious. “After all that, we didn’t do what we came home from school to do.”

  David instantly knew: “Young Jesse. Xander, we promised.”

  Xander frowned. “We’ll get back there, Dae. We tried.”

  “No matter how much we do, there’s always more.”

  “At least that one, going back to see Jesse and the house being built, isn’t so dangerous,” Xander said.

  “I want to go there,” David agreed.

  Xander gave David a hand off the bench. David said, “How long have we been gone?”

  “Maybe hours,” Xander said. “I don’t care what Keal or Dad or anyone says, I’m not going back to school today.”

  After all they’d gone through, going to school seemed . . . ridiculous times ten. Dad was firm about keeping up appearances—such as going to school—so they could stay in the house and keep looking for Mom. But for crying out loud! If Dad knew half of the stuff they’d gone through, he’d tell them to stay home for the rest of the year.

  “You know,” Xander said, “Dad might not have a problem with our staying home if you write that paper like you said.”

  “What paper?”

  “About how we changed the Civil War. All those things you said back in the woods.”

  David rubbed his lips, thinking.

  “How Grant died in 1862?” Xander prompted. “And that caused the war to last a lot longer? How two million people died before we changed history, instead of six hundred thousand?”

  “Oh, man,” David said, frustrated and more than a little confused. “I remember saying those things, but I can’t remember why.”

  “Jesse was right,” Xander said. “After history changes, he—I guess you too, now—remembers the old history for a while, but it fades fast. That’s why he always tried to write it down.”

  David was mad at himself. “I didn’t get a chance!” he said.

  “We went right into those other worlds.”

  Xander put his hand on David’s shoulder. “I’m not blaming you,” he said. “Do it next time.”

  “Hey,” David said, brightening. “We can have a little kit ready. You know, paper, pens, a tape recorder.”

  “Just make sure you come back home after a change,”

  Xander said, smiling. “Stop your reckless world-hopping ways.”

  He opened the door and held it for David.

  David stepped through and stopped. The hallway could not have been more damaged if a bull had rampaged through it. The top of an accent table was propped against the wall, the legs broken off and scattered on the floor; wall lights were twisted off-kilter, one had been knocked to the floor; a strip of molding from around a door had been ripped away—it jutted out of the wall like a spear. Across the hall from him, someone had hit the wall hard: the indentation was the size and shape of a human head.

  Xander pushed past him. “Holy—Keal!” He ran toward the landing. On the floor, Keal lay sprawled facedown.

  CHAPTER

  forty - seven

  FRIDAY, 10:47 A.M.

  David’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t noticed Keal on the floor because a chunk of wallboard was lying on top of him.

  Xander knelt beside him. “Keal?” He shoved the piece of wall off the man and rolled him over onto his back.

  David ran up. “Is he—”

  Xander leaned in close. His fingers pushed against Keal’s neck, checking the carotid artery for a pulse. “He’s alive.” He touched a gash on Keal’s head, showed David the blood. “Hasn’t dried, not even a little.”

  Toward the far end of the hall, a door slammed. David jumped and looked into the hall’s shadows. “That was a portal door,” he whispered.

  Xander scowled. “Phemus,” he said. “Taking off.”

  “Taking off ? More likely coming back.”

  Xander scrambled to his feet and backed toward the landing. “Come on, Dae,” he whispered.

  But David leaned over Keal and touched his cheek. “Keal?” he whispered. “Keal!”

  The guy was out. David hopped over Keal’s head, stooped to grab one wrist, and tugged. “Xander, help.”

  His brother grabbed Keal’s other wrist. “David, we don’t have time for this,” he said. They heaved back, dragging Keal six inches. “This guy weighs—”

  A door at the end of the hall opened. Yellowish light from the antechamber spilled out. A shadow moved through it.

  “Hide!” Xander whispered.

  They lowered Keal’s arms and rushed on tiptoe to the landing. They descended a few
stairs, and David grabbed Xander’s shoulder.

  “We can’t leave him,” he said. He couldn’t stand the thought of Keal lost . . . over there, in time, possibly for years.

  “If Phemus wanted him,” Xander said, “he’d already be gone. Anyway, what are we supposed to do? We’ve already tried stopping Phemus when he came for Mom.”