Born to run (s-4)

by Stephen Kenson

  Bracing one foot against the rear bumper, she grabbed a tie-down strap with her free hand and hauled herself up, then she swung into the back of the truck, landing in a crouch and immediately covering the interior with her gun.

  A human guard wearing an Ares uniform spun in her direction, looking startled. He'd probably been watching Orion fight the earth elemental through the slats of the truck, looking for a good opportunity to get a shot at the elven warrior. Kellan had the drop on him. She fired one shot at close range and took him out, his weapon clattering to the floor.

  The noise attracted the attention of a hulking figure in the shadows at the front of the truck. Kellan knew this must be the mage commanding the elementals outside. He turned toward the sound of the shot and the guard falling. He wore a long, heavy overcoat covered with mystic symbols. He raised one hand, the other holding an ornately carved and decorated staff. He stopped just as suddenly as Kellan when the flickering light from the fire elemental hovering overhead illuminated the truck's interior.

  "Lothan?" Kellan said.

  "Why, Kellan, my dear, fancy meeting you here," the troll mage replied.

  18

  Kellan hesitated for a moment, at the sight of her teacher standing in the back of the truck, but Lo-than didn't. Moving with surprising speed, the troll mage stepped forward and casually batted the gun out of Kellan's hand. It hit the side of one of the crates, clattering to the floor. Lothan seized Kellan by the neck, slamming her up against the side of a crate with enough force to knock the wind out of her. "Sorry, kid," he said, with a note of true regret in his voice, "but hesitation in the shadows can be fatal." He raised the Staff of Candor-Brie, the crystal on top of it shimmering with an azure glow. Kellan squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the glowing, egg-shaped aura of protection around her. She felt a crackle of magical power tingle across her skin and opened her eyes to a look of shock and surprise on Lothan's face, quickly turning to annoyance.

  "That cursed amulet:." the troll muttered.

  Then Kellan lashed out with her foot and kicked Lothan in the groin. Hard.

  The troll mage gargled a noise a couple of octaves higher than Kellan would have thought possible and doubled over, loosening his grip on her neck. Kellan squirmed from Lothan's grasp and scrambled to scoop up her gun before turning back to where the troll lay gasping on the floor. She leveled the pistol at the back of Lothan's head and cocked it, confident he could hear it, before she spoke.

  "If you even think of trying anything:" she began.

  "I wouldn't: dream of it," Lothan gasped out, recovering his composure. The fact that he'd already tried something made it a dubious statement at best, but Kellan was more willing to trust Lothan with a gun trained on him than not.

  "What the frag are you doing here?"

  "Business, my dear," he replied, "just business."

  "You knew," Kellan accused him. "You knew about this all along."

  "Of course I knew! I'd arranged things well beforehand. I don't feel compelled to share every aspect of my business," the troll said condescendingly. "And neither, apparently, do you."

  "Don't turn around," Kellan said, her voice cold, as Lothan began to do so. The troll froze. "I may not be a 'master of the arts arcane,' but I do know enough to keep out of your line of sight."

  "Well, you have an excellent teacher," Lothan said wryly.

  "The elementals," Kellan replied curtly. "Get rid of them."

  "Or:?"

  "Or I shoot you in the back of the fraggin' head! I'm not playing games here!"

  Lothan paused for a moment and Kellan wondered if he was going to call her bluff. She wondered if she really was bluffing. If Lothan didn't do it, if he tried something, would she shoot him? The troll mage had certainly shown he couldn't be trusted. She knew he would take any opportunity and use it to his advantage. If Kellan wanted to survive, wanted to make it in the shadows, she was going to have to do the same. Her grip on the pistol tightened.

  "No, I suppose you're not," Lothan said with a sigh. "Very well."

  He slowly raised a hand, and Kellan kept a watchful eye on him the whole time, ready to react if he had some trick up his sleeve. Lothan called out words in a language Kellan didn't recognize, then turned his palm toward the ground and slowly lowered his hand, as if pressing something invisible toward the earth.

  "They're gone," he said. "May I turn around now?"

  Before Kellan could answer, Liada's voice sounded over the commlink.

  "The spirits are gone!" she said. "We're clear to move in."

  Kellan keyed her link. "Liada, can you use that stun spell to take out the rest of the guards?" she asked. "I'm sure we won't have any problems with it this time." She pitched her response so Lothan could hear it.

  "Will do," the elf mage replied.

  "Liada, eh?" Lothan said quietly. "I thought that spell seemed familiar. A pity she wasn't able to overcome my defenses." Kellan could hear the smug satisfaction in his voice.

  "We've got to move things along, chummers," Silver Max said in Kellan's ear. "We're going to have company. The Ancients are on their way."

  "Fraggit!" Kellan said. "How did they find us so fast?"

  "They must have gotten tired of waiting for their pigeon to show up," the dwarf said, "and backtracked along the route to see what happened."

  "How long?" Kellan asked.

  "A few minutes."

  "Sounds like you could use a little extra help,"

  Lothan said, still facing away from Kellan. She ignored him for the moment.

  "Okay, Max, take the wheel. G-Dogg, are we secure?"

  "All clear," the ork said. "Liada's spell finished things off. The Ares guys are sleeping like babies."

  "Get them to the side of the road and let's get the hell out of here," Kellan said.

  "Roger that."

  "Jackie?" she inquired.

  "Things are under control on this end," the decker said. "If you get going now, there shouldn't be any trouble from Lone Star. I don't think Ares security or Knight Errant will be responding just yet, either, but it's possible that the Ancients may have alerted them when the truck didn't turn up as planned."

  "Keep an eye out," Kellan said.

  Orion rounded the back of the truck, sword in one hand and pistol in the other. He jumped onto the back of the cargo hauler with a single graceful leap, taking in the sight of Kellan standing there and Lothan getting to his feet. Kellan lowered her pistol when Orion arrived.

  "What's he doing here?" Orion asked, nodding his head in the troll's direction, his brow furrowed with suspicion. Before Kellan could answer, Liada and the Street Deacon skidded to a halt at the back of the truck, just a few paces behind Orion, and the same question was written in Liada's expression. The Street Deacon's face remained as impassive and unreadable as ever.

  "I thought that you might need some assistance," Lothan said before Kellan could speak up. He began dusting off his robe with one hand. "And a good thing, too, since I helped get rid of those deuced elementals."

  Orion gave Liada a hand up into the back of the truck. "All of them at once, by yourself?" she asked, her tone incredulous. "However did you manage it?"

  "Skill, my dear, pure skill," Lothan replied, completely unfazed. "Perhaps I'll explain it to you sometime."

  "Max is up front," the Deacon said, ignoring the exchange as he pulled himself up onto the truck. "G-Dogg is riding shotgun."

  "Okay," Kellan said. Only Orion had actually seen her pointing a gun at Lothan, and the elf seemed willing to follow her lead. If Lothan wanted to maintain the fiction that he was along to help out, Kellan was willing to let him. The troll mage might still know something helpful to them, and they weren't in the clear yet.

  "Let's roll!" she said into the commlink and Silver Max fired up the engine of the cargo truck.

  "Hang on back there," Max said, then he hit the gas and the truck lurched forward and began to pick up speed.

  "Um, Max?" Kellan asked. "Aren't we headed i
n the direction the Ancients are coming from?"

  "That's why I said to hold on, kiddo," the dwarf rigger said with a laugh. "It's gonna be a bumpy ride." It was the most animated Kellan had ever heard Max, even more so than when he'd had a few at Dante's Inferno. It was clear that when he was driving, when his cyberware merged him with the machine, was when the dwarf really came alive.

  They blasted past the escort truck. Kellan and the others held on to the straps and heavy metal D-rings holding down the cargo as the truck barreled along the lonely stretch of highway.

  "How long to our exit, Max?" Kellan asked.

  "Gonna be a few minutes."

  "Will we get there before-?"

  "No chance," the dwarf replied.

  "Here they come," G-Dogg said, and Kellan could hear the roar of motorcycles approaching ahead of them.

  "All right," whooped Silver Max, "who wants to play chicken?" He floored the gas and the truck picked up speed, rushing and rattling along the highway.

  Kellan saw the motorcycles whiz past in the other lane. They were already slowing down. Clearly they'd seen their quarry, behind schedule but headed in the right direction. The elven bikers skidded to a halt and pulled U-turns in the middle of the highway. Kellan did a quick count; there were more than a dozen bikes, some of them with a couple elves mounted on them, but most with a single rider. Their engines roared again as they set off in pursuit of the truck.

  "Liada, my dear," Lothan said, "since it is the Ancients we're dealing with, I think we should take precautions, don't you?" The elven mage nodded. Holding on to the cargo strap with on hand, she closed her eyes for a moment and waved a hand through the air. Lothan did much the same, standing closer to the end of the truck, and the stone at the end of his staff glowed faintly as he did so. Kellan felt a familiar tingle of magic in the air.

  It was well timed, too, for no sooner was the spell cast than a crackling bolt of lightning erupted from the back of one of the bikes, lancing out at the truck. Kellan flinched and braced for the blast, but it never came. Instead, the lightning bolt seemed to strike an invisible wall scarcely a meter from the truck, splashing against it in a shower of blue-white sparks and dissipating with a crack of thunder, but doing no harm to the truck or its passengers.

  "Harrumph," Lothan rumbled. "Strictly smalltime," he told the others with a tone of disapproval.

  "You should be able to handle the barrier spell on your own," he said to Liada.

  "Versoniel," she replied in elvish. Kellan hadn't heard that word before, but from the look on Liada's face, she was sure it wasn't a compliment.

  Lothan paid it no heed and instead turned his attention back to the Ancients. Gripping a handhold in one fist, he raised his staff with the other. He in-canted in a deep and sonorous voice, weaving faintly glowing symbols in the air with the tip of the staff. Then he spoke a sharp word of command and pointed the staff toward the pavement. There was a crackle and a sheet of ice spread out across the highway behind them, as polished as a mirror.

  Kellan expected to see the go-gangers go sliding in all directions when they hit the ice sheet but the ice turned into water before they reached it. The motorcycles sent up sheets of mist as they continued their pursuit.

  "Strictly amateur, huh?" Liada called. Lothan, if he heard, made no comment. He simply lowered his bushy brows and frowned in concentration.

  "Enough of this deviltry," the Street Deacon said, drawing his Ingram submachine gun from its holster. He fired a burst that sparked off the pavement and one of the Ancients' bikes. Then the gangers began to return fire, forcing the shadowrunners to duck for cover.

  Orion fired several shots from his own pistol, but the back of the truck was swaying too much, and the elven bikers wove back and forth on the road behind them. The shots went wide.

  Kellan heard several bullets spang off the metal framework of the truck.

  "If they take out the tires, we're fragged!" Orion called.

  Boom! Another blast of lightning arced toward the truck, only to be stopped short, but it was closer this time, and Kellan could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up from the electrical discharge. Liada's face was a study in fierce concentration. She was sweating, but also looked determined not to show any effort, particularly not after Lothan had dismissed the abilities of the Ancients' spellcaster.

  Kellan stumbled a few steps forward to where the troll was standing, so she could get a shot at the gangers. Lothan had flatted against the side of the truck to make a smaller target, albeit only a slightly smaller one.

  "Cover me," the troll mage said to Kellan, and she swung around him, firing off a few shots in the direction of the Ancients. The second lightning bolt had revealed the position of the sorceress, and Kellan tried to hit her. The Street Deacon let loose with another burst from his Ingram, and tagged one of the outriders, who jerked and fell from his bike. The Yamaha Rapier tumbled, then slid, and the rider did much the same.

  Then Lothan lunged forward with a shout, pointing his staff at the Ancients. There was a surge of power that nearly knocked Kellan over-a barely visible ripple in the air, like a wave of heat-then a blast of green fire erupted along the edge of the highway, engulfing several of the riders at the edge of the pack. She heard a few screams. The remaining bikers emerged from the cloud of eldritch flame, but one cycle was without a rider, and tumbled a short distance before skidding to a stop. Three other bikes had disappeared altogether in the flames. Kellan saw them lying scattered across the road as the fire dissipated, and Lothan slumped against the side of the truck.

  "Street-trained little dabbler," he panted, glaring in the direction of the unscathed elven sorceress. "Let's see how you match up with that."

  Despite Lothan's display of power, the Ancients were not deterred. They opened fire again, and Orion and the Street Deacon laid down covering fire to keep the bikers dodging, prevent them from aiming, so their shots went wide. Kellan stayed down and fired off a few shots of her own.

  "Remind me again what your plan was?" Lothan muttered sidelong to her.

  "I wanted to keep the Ares guys from walking into an ambush and getting slaughtered!" she said, popping up to fire off a couple shots, then ducking back down when her pistol clicked empty. She ejected the clip and grabbed another from the pocket of her vest, slamming it home and working the slide to chamber a new round.

  "Oh, well, it seems to be going very nicely, then," the troll said dryly. Then he swung himself up, bracing himself with the handhold and pointing his staff at the bikers as he spoke a word of power. A bolt of lightning arced out and struck one elf square in the chest, blasting him off his bike. The lightning continued to play over the sleek racing bike, which erupted in an explosive boom as the spell touched off its fuel tank. Another biker was blown over by the force of the blast, the rest racing around the boiling black cloud of smoke.

  "Mind telling me just what your plan was?" Kellan shot back at Lothan.

  "Just here to help, my dear," he replied mildly, evading the subject.

  "Max, how much longer?" Kellan said into her throat mic.

  "Coming up!" the dwarf replied. "Everybody hang on!"

  Kellan repeated Silver Max's warning to Lothan, but didn't heed it strongly enough herself. The dwarf rigger barely slowed down as he angled the cargo truck for the off-ramp, causing it to bounce and sway. Kellan lost her grip on the handhold and tumbled across the floor, trying to keep hold of her pistol. She managed to regain her feet at the very edge of the platform as the front of the truck hit the bottom of the exit and Kellan tilted backward, windmilling her arms.

  Orion leapt forward and grabbed Kellan by the vest with one hand, holding on to a cargo strap with the other as they dangled over the pavement. He hauled her back into the truck as they hit the bottom of the ramp and tumbled toward the front of the truck. Kellan was dimly aware of a reddish light behind them as she scrabbled for a handhold along the wall.

  "Take cover!" Liada yelled, and Kellan glanced back to see a ma
ssive ball of fire barreling down on the back of the truck. She instinctively closed her eyes and threw up a hand to shield herself as she heard Liada and Lothan call out. There was a roar and a wave of heat, but no more than opening an oven door. Kellan opened her eyes to see the reddish flames harmlessly dissipate all around the truck.

  The remaining Ancients came roaring down the exit ramp in pursuit as the shadowrunners changed clips and readied for another assault. When the bikers reached the bottom of the ramp, there was a burst of gunfire. It ricocheted off the pavement and mowed down one of the elven gangers. Kellan glanced toward the Street Deacon, but saw that the samurai hadn't fired. None of the shadowrunners had.

  When she looked back, she saw a collection of powerful Harley Scorpion motorcycles roar out of a side street, carrying nearly a dozen powerfully muscled troll. riders. Each of them was armed with a heavy-caliber pistol or submachine gun, and they were firing on the Ancients.

  Lothan levered himself up against the side of the truck again as the Ancients turned their attention toward the troll bike gang. He made a pass with one hand in front of him, then reached out as if plucking something out of the air with his thick fingers. A blue shimmer surrounded the Ancients' sorceress and she flew off the back of the bike, as if picked up by a giant invisible hand. She rose about four meters into the air and hung there, suspended, as the Rapiers of her fellow Ancients rode on. By the time the driver of her bike realized there was something amiss, he was a good twelve meters ahead.

  Then as the sorceress shouted something Kellan couldn't make out and raised her hands, Lothan brought his hand down, palm flat toward the ground, and the elf woman dropped onto the street. She didn't even move before the heavy troll bikes roared right over her. Kellan closed her eyes tightly and tried to shut out the sound of her scream.