Ranger

by William Stacey

  What the hell just happened?

  Veraxia picked the guard up with one hand, his helmet with the other, and tossed both over the bridge before wiping her palms on her leggings. "If you wish to save your friends, it needs to be now. The twins intend to barter them to their mother. Her Storm Guards are expected with the sunrise."

  "Wait, what?" Alex stared at her. "How do you know?"

  "I thought you said magic trips the wards," Leela said.

  "I didn't use magic. I am a priestess of an ancient cult and have god-blessed skills that the spider worshippers do not. The weaker the mind, the easier the probing—and that one's will was feeble indeed. Those stairs lead into the cellars of the fortress. But consider this: once we enter Arach Warren, the likelihood of remaining undetected becomes questionable. Do you still wish to sneak inside?"

  "I do," said Alex. "But I thought these twins were at war with the queen."

  "Losing would be more apt. The queen has Wolf and his Iron Warriors to fight for her, to turn the tide against her enemies. The twins recognize this and have chosen, foolishly perhaps, to deal with the woman they betrayed. But Tuatha de Talinor is a cruel foe and does not forgive easily, especially her own blood. I fear they may yet regret their choice.

  "Manlings, however, she hates more than traitors. You and your kind are behind the loss of her armies, the destruction of the Culling Machine, and the Sundering. The queen wants your friends. Even now, her elite warriors, her Storm Guards, are on their way to take custody of them and bring them to Wildspike Island, her strongest fortress. Once she has them, she will break their minds to her purposes with her grimworms."

  Fear knotted his gut. If they could get to Boko and her exo-suit, she could open a gateway for them. He knew he was grasping but had no other choice. "We need to save them."

  "There will be battle."

  "You don't need to come with us," Leela said.

  Veraxia's teeth flashed in the red glow of the lava. "Nonsense. The idea of vexing Tuatha de Talinor fills me with savage, if childish, glee. Of course I'm coming." She turned and headed for the stairs and slipped up them, a silent shadow in the darkness. Alex and Leela followed, their weapons at the ready.

  The stone steps led up, twisting back and forth, climbing past storerooms and other passages. By the time they reached the top, a wide chamber filled with barrels and boxes, Alex's lungs were burning. Veraxia led them out of the storeroom up and another short flight of steps. Other passages led off, but Veraxia headed straight for yet one more set of stairs. She really does know her way. At the top of the stairs, Alex saw the soft glow of daylight. How long were we underground?

  The entranceway led into the interior of the fortress, a collection of closely packed-together stone buildings and wooden huts, reminding Alex of South American shantytowns. He smelled wood smoke, baking bread, and the stench of a blacksmith's forge. The sun was rising, and although he saw no one moving, he knew the fortress must be waking.

  They heard the sharp cry of a wyvern above them, the first time since the dark-elf invasion six years ago. A chill coursed along his spine. Kargin had told him that the beasts were only dragonlings, distant and much smaller cousins to the mighty wyrms, but with twenty-foot wingspans, long, powerful claws, and serpentine heads filled with razor-sharp teeth, they were lethally dangerous. He tucked his rifle's stock tight into his shoulder. Dangerous but not bulletproof.

  A dozen wyverns in formation soared down to land atop the stone tower in the center of the other buildings and shacks, its entrance less than a hundred meters away.

  Veraxia drew her twin daggers and slipped out among the buildings, heading for the tower. Alex and Leela followed closely behind. Alex's nerves were on fire, his intuition screaming they were in danger. Any moment, someone would raise the alarm.

  But luck favored the bold—or foolish—and they snuck past the buildings, tents, and huts unseen, although they heard the occupants stirring within. Veraxia dropped behind a broken marble column and gestured for Alex and Leela to do the same. Then a young dark-elf woman, a servant carrying an armload of firewood, sauntered past, singing softly to herself. For a heart-stopping moment, Alex feared Veraxia might kill her, and he tensed, reaching out to stop her, but the girl passed. Then the dark-elf priestess frowned at Alex and his hand before rising and sneaking forward once more. Alex and Leela followed, with Alex casting a glance at the departing servant girl, who was less than twenty feet away and unaware.

  They reached the tower entrance and slipped inside. High above, the wyverns cried out once more. Veraxia led them up a twisting series of stairs. The tower was huge, with multiple levels. On one level, there were voices engaged in happy conversation followed by soft laughter, but Veraxia remained in place until the voices moved on, then led Alex and Leela farther up. They had to be nearing the top now, Alex knew. The tower wall was broken in places with gaping holes, and from this height, Alex saw the fortress below with its campfires and tents. There had to be hundreds of dark elves below. When hellhounds howled in the distance, a shudder coursed through him. If they had come out of the cellars near the hellhound pens…

  His legs burned with effort, and he was breathing heavily. Leela, too, was panting, but Veraxia was unfazed, excited even. At the top, an opening led out into daylight, the sun now breaching the fortress walls. Veraxia dropped and crawled forward, and Alex and Leela did the same. Alex’s heart hammered against his rib cage.

  The tower's summit was wide, at least a hundred feet across, with low stone barriers, creating a mazelike warren of pens and storage rooms. Veraxia led them behind the cover of a waist-high wall that approached part of the summit that stood ten feet higher than the rest, reminding Alex of a helicopter landing pad. They peered over the wall. At the far end of the wide platform, bunched together and held in place by dark-elf grooms, were the wyverns they had just seen landing. One of the winged beasts, held separate, was twice as large as any other. Up this high, the wind blew harder, muffling their approach.

  Twenty meters away, facing off against one another, were two groups of at least a dozen dark elves. The group on the left, all female, wore burnished black-and-red plate armor that shone with the rising sun. Each of these warriors glared at the opposite group, males, who wore much less grand and weathered mail and leather armor. Two dark-elf women stood before the male warriors, clearly in charge, but Alex's attention was on the four Strike Force soldiers kneeling with their arms tied behind their backs. Three were men—including Lee, thank God—but the fourth was smaller, with a woman's form. The dark elves had tied a hood over her head, but it had to be Boko. All four still wore their MR bodysuits, but their equipment and weapons were gone. Kargin wasn't there, nor was Boko's exo-suit. So much for using a gateway to escape.

  "Storm Guards," whispered Veraxia. "And those two are the Empress Twins. How fun."

  Now, he considered the two women. In place of dark-purple skin and bone-white hair, both women had bright-orange skin with green hair. Albinos, he realized a moment later. They must be albinos! One woman was rail-thin and wore a soft-blue gown, her long hair swept up behind her in an elaborate bun that glittered with sparkling gems and silver chains. The other was heavier, with a swordfighter's shoulders. She wore a polished silver breastplate melded to the shape of her breasts, but around her waist, she wore Kargin's weapon belt, with his huge Smith and Wesson revolver on one hip and his fighting ax in a loop on the other.

  "The little one is Grellissa, a learned mage-scholar," whispered Veraxia. "Her larger half is Gretlandia, a mage-warden warrior and not even a trace of a scholar, but what she lacks in intellect, she makes up for with savagery."

  Alex inserted a 40mm grenade into the launcher on his rifle.

  "We will have our mother's bonded word on the truce," Gretlandia, the warrior-elf, called out, "witnessed by a council of elders, or you will not have any more prisoners."

  "I know nothing of a bond," the leader of the Storm Guards snapped back. Twin scars ran along her rig
ht cheek, and she had the thousand-yard stare of someone who had seen a lifetime of combat. "My queen has instructed me to bring these manlings. Whether I gut you first or not, traitor, is no great concern to me."

  Grellissa, the small mage-scholar in the dress, stepped forward, placing her hand on her twin's arm. "Calm, dear sister. Let us not be rude to our mother's brave captain. We are royal blood. This fighting must end, so let it start with us. Mother shall keep her word. After all, when has she not?"

  "Enough chatter," the Storm Guard captain said. "Give us the manlings."

  "Be ready," Alex whispered to Leela. "The moment I fire—"

  "I'll put up a shield around them," she answered, sliding farther away from Witch-Bane.

  Alex met Veraxia's eye. "Stay down when I shoot."

  The priestess smiled wickedly, spinning her fighting knives in her hands, her golden eyes flashing with excitement. Alex sighed then, in one smooth motion, launched his grenade into the clustered Storm Guards. The grenade thumped among them, trailing smoke as it skittered and spun over the stones. Both groups of dark elves stared in confusion, but Alex was already dropping behind the wall. The grenade detonated, and the wyverns shrieked in fear. It was on.

  Alex rose as Veraxia vaulted over the wall, sprinting at the enemy, her knives flashing. Most of the elves were down, stunned, wounded, or dead, but those Storm Guards still standing reacted first, drawing swords. The prisoners, protected by Leela's shield, sat staring in confusion at the surrounding chaos. Alex fired, sending short bursts into the dark elves. The red-and-black plate-mail armor was visually impressive but no protection from bullets, and the elves he shot dropped and stayed down. A lifetime of training guided his actions—center of visible mass, only three rounds to each burst, closest enemy first then the next closest. Leela sent chain lightning flashing into the elves, incinerating several at once.

  The wyverns burst free of their handlers and took to the air, fleeing the carnage. Several of the grooms held on to the reins too long and flew into the air with the dragonlings to fall screaming into the camp. The only wyvern that remained was the large one, and it lashed out at its handler, ripping his arm from the socket with a single bite. They let the surviving handlers flee, having no need to kill the unarmed servants.

  As Veraxia spun into the reeling dark elves, Alex held fire. Her twin daggers were a blur as she parried and slashed, the enemy screaming and falling away from her like cut grass. He stared at her in wonder—even Kargin wasn't that good.

  Jarring himself into action, he leapt over the wall to help her. Two male dark elves rushed at him. He cut the first down with a short burst and dodged the other's sword thrust before spinning and butt-stroking him in the face, hearing the elf's jaw crack like an egg. Even before he hit the ground, Alex put a burst into his chest. He heard Leela's footsteps behind him a moment before her fireball flashed past to explode among a trio of dark elves, blowing them over the side of the tower.

  As the surviving Storm Guards and other warriors fought Veraxia, the twins darted back. Grellissa blinked out of sight as she turned invisible, but Gretlandia drew Kargin's fighting ax. The head flared red-hot. Alex fired a burst at her, but a four-foot translucent red disk appeared in front of her, and Alex's bullets vanished into it.

  Gretlandia charged him, murder in her eyes, her shield floating before her as she moved, as if attached to her. She raised the ax high overhead, and he understood her intent in a moment—she'd use the magical shield to block while hacking him down in a powerful overhead strike with Kargin's ax.

  Alex let his rifle hang and drew Witch-Bane. Just as he had expected, when she closed with him and his sword, her shield vanished. Her eyes widened with shock, but Alex was already lunging at her exposed face. She hammered desperately at the sword blade with her ax handle, deflecting it down, but the tip caught along the groove between her breasts. He shoved forward, scoring the tip up the groove and into her throat. Its tip drew blood, but she reacted impossibly fast, dropping the ax and catching the blade between both hands, cutting her fingers but holding it in place. She tried to draw back, her eyes now filled with terror, but Alex hammered his palm into Witch-Bane's pommel, driving the blade into her throat and severing her spinal cord as well as cutting off several fingers. She coughed up a mouthful of dark-red blood onto his visor and fell.

  He yanked his sword free and wiped his visor with his sleeve.

  Both Leela and Veraxia were unharmed, and the dark elves were all down, both groups. Not bad for three people, Alex mused happily. Then a horn blew in the camp, and his good mood vanished. They had only minutes. Alex retrieved Kargin's ax and gun belt from the dead mage-warden. He pressed the button that deactivated the ax's heat and shoved it through the belt's loop. Leela was already cutting the prisoners free while Veraxia stood guard, her twin blades dripping blood. Alex joined his wife and used Witch-Bane to free Lee.

  "Alex!" Lee said, relief on his features. "Thank god."

  Alex shoved Kargin's weapon belt into Lee's hands. "Thank your wife. Can you fight?"

  "Hell yes." Lee drew the Smith and Weston hand cannon, ensured it was loaded, then strapped the belt over his waist.

  Alex went through a tactical reload, removing the mostly spent block of caseless ammunition and inserting a fresh one. He was lucky to be alive, he knew. Had the mage-warden gone for the pistol instead of the ax, the fight would have gone down very differently, but she must have been much more comfortable with hand-to-hand weapons. Her mistake. The other prisoners milled about, rubbing their wrists, including Boko, her hood now removed. Boko hugged Leela. Leela handed her rifle and pistol to the other men. With the Brace, she didn't need another weapon.

  "Where's Kargin and the others?" Alex asked Lee. There were shouts and pounding boots on the stairs leading up to the tower.

  "Dead or gone," Lee said bitterly. "I lost two men in the ambush. The dark elves took Adams away and tortured him to death. Bastards showed us his body when they were done. Then they sent Kargin to this queen of theirs a day ago. Boko's gateway rig too. I think it was a peace offering or gift."

  The news was like a gut punch, but he couldn't help Kargin now. They needed to find a way out, or they'd die here. Maybe if—

  He stared in confusion as Veraxia approached the final wyvern, its mouth still dripping blood from the handler it had just killed. He opened his mouth to yell out a warning, but the wyvern dropped its head like a submissive dog, and Veraxia trailed her fingers over its scaled neck.

  "Son of a bitch," he whispered.

  "Who's your friend?" Lee asked.

  "Not sure I know." At the increasing sound of boot steps clamoring up the stairs, Alex sprang into action. "Doesn't matter. We're gonna have to fight after all." He faced the others. "Choose each shot carefully."

  "Alex the Ranger!" Veraxia called out. She stood beside the huge wyvern, waving at him. "Hurry. Our ride awaits."

  "You're shitting me." He glanced at the stairs and the others. They'd be overwhelmed if they stayed. He made a snap decision. "New plan," he yelled. "Go to the big dragon-thing." Alex ran to the edge of the stairs. Scores of dark-elf warriors surged up the steps, fewer than two landings away. He drew two of his grenades, pulled the pins, letting the arming hammers spring off, then dropped them to roll down the steps before turning away and running to the others.

  Twin booms and howls of pain followed him, and he childishly grinned.

  The others stood around the now-docile wyvern. It was already saddled, with a large cargo net hanging from the saddle down its flanks and underbelly. Alex stared in confusion.

  Veraxia yanked on the netting, testing its strength. "They train the alpha wyverns to carry cargo, sometimes even fae-seelie scouts and warriors to drop behind enemy lines. This proud creature suffered such abuse. The Storm Guards brought her to transport the prisoners, and so she shall."

  "There's six of us now, seven counting you. This thing can't carry everyone."

  "She's strong, Alex the Ranger, extr
aordinarily strong. But she need not carry us farther than the base of the fortress. If it helps, think of it as a controlled crash."

  "It doesn't," Leela answered for him. "But we've no other choice. They're coming."

  Alex's heart thudded in his chest, his breathing wild. "Better than dying up here."

  "Come," said Veraxia, climbing into the saddle.

  She held a hand out for Leela, and Leela climbed up behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist.

  "I might be able to help," said Boko in Empire Common, reminding Alex that Kargin had used his magic crowns to teach the contact team the local language. "I can create wind."

  "Then you come sit in front of me," said Veraxia with a grin, holding her hand out.

  Boko climbed up before her in the huge saddle, and Veraxia held the reins around her while Leela clung to her back.

  Alex and the others gripped the netting, wrapping their forearms through the rope. The first of the dark-elf warriors were pouring out onto the landing, their naked weapons flashing.

  "Heeay!" exclaimed Veraxia, drawing on the reins.

  The alpha wyvern lurched forward, dragging Alex and the soldiers along with it. Crossbow bolts snapped through the air. Alex's heart leaped into his throat as the wyvern went over the edge of the platform. And fell like a stone.

  23

  As the wyvern plunged, Alex clung to the cargo netting, his terror spiking. Someone was screaming, but Veraxia's howl was a savage cry of delight. Then the wyvern's wings snapped out, extending to full length with a crack, and their descent slowed. Winds buffeted them as they rocketed toward the ground, slamming the men against one another.

  "Ki, ki, ki!" cried Veraxia.

  The wyvern's powerful wings beat as the beast fought for air. The tents and campfires rushed at them, and Alex's stomach dropped. We're still too heavy.