by Damon Alan
“Unlike my people, who opposed the Lord. We now are bound to servitude until such a time as a hero arises to prove our worth, erasing the shame we bear for our shortsightedness.”
“A hero?”
“Someone to redeem the honor of the mountain elves, my Lord.” She tilted her head, and he couldn’t help but feel she thought what she was explaining to be an elementary concept that a child should know. “Now that the Joining of Worlds is underway, such a hero may arise. When he or she does, we will be liberated into full citizens.”
Ernst nodded. The mountain elves would never have such a hero. But hope is what kept them in servitude, hope that they’d somehow be redeemed. Hagirr was smart. He chose to make his subjects cooperative instead of destroying their spirit.
As he and Mallah finished their conversation, Hagirr and Elianna took seats in a different carriage. The procession began moving. Citizens of Jangik lined the streets, and many threw flowers or paper artwork into the path of their tyrant. Several times he recognized the word ‘human’ uttered from the lips of those they passed. He couldn’t tell if it was in adulation or mockery without understanding the surrounding words to associate with the smiles.
He leaned toward Herta. “Elianna wasn’t lying. This world is almost precisely like Germany.”
“It’s glorious,” she responded, smiling and waving at the beings they passed.
“Yes. Glorious.”
Several minutes later they arrived at the pyramid that seemed so important here. Ernst could see why, it was an amazing structure that likely dwarfed the pyramids in Egypt, although he’d never seen them to be sure.
Guards helped Herta down from the carriage, Ernst followed, then finally Mallah. One of the guards handed Ernst a belt with a small scabbard and knife on it. The pommel of the knife glistened, almost as if it had its own light within.
“Why do I need this?” Ernst asked, feeling for his Luger under his clothing.
“It is enchanted,” a guard answered, holding a gold medallion in his hands. The same one he now noticed Mallah wore. A cult perhaps?
“But why do I need it?” Ernst pressed.
“All warriors come into the pyramid armed, Lord. You are a warrior, yes?”
Ernst thought about his answer. What would benefit him?
“Yes, I am a warrior.”
“Then wear it with honor.” The guard helped Ernst strap the blade to his waist.
Hagirr and Elianna joined them. “I trust you had an excellent morning?” Hagirr asked.
“We did,” Herta answered him. “Thank you for your hospitality. We’ve never been in a place like this.”
Ernst nodded his agreement.
“I see you wear a warrior’s blade,” Hagirr said to Ernst. “Then we are ready to enter the pyramid, the four of us.”
A larger wagon pulled up some distance away. Enclosed, the back door was chained. Barred windows, three to a side, allowed air inside so something or someone could breathe. A hand suddenly grasped one of the bars, and it looked remarkably human. The sleeve of the shirt or tunic the owner of the hand wore reminded Ernst of something he’d seen before.
He was distracted as four winged beasts landed by them. A griffin and three of the winged horses.
“Our rides to the platform above,” Hagirr said. “Please, lady, allow me to help you,” the man said as he assisted Herta up into the saddle of one of the beasts.” He secured her in place with a belt. “Ernst, that one is yours. The griffin is mine, he’s been imprinted on me since he was hatched ten years ago, otherwise I’d let you ride him.”
“I’m most enamored of this beast,” Ernst replied, approaching the pegasus Hagirr had gestured toward. “I’m honored to ride him.”
“The pegasi are much more intelligent,” Elianna explained. “You can speak to them; they will understand you. The griffin my Lord rides is more of an animal, he responds to Hagirr solely from training and love.”
Hagirr leapt into the saddle of his beast, which immediately took to the air in sweeping wing beats. The three pegasi followed, apparently knowing what to do. The wizard had mentioned that the ride would be to the platform Ernst could see far up the face of the pyramid, but he took a long route to get there. They swept out over the city, revealing the splendor of Jangik to the two Germans.
It was marvelous. City buildings, probably government centers, temples, and forums interspersed with estates and houses that Berliners would sell their first born to live in. Canals traced through the city; at the high walls the water was lifted in gigantic buckets to spill out into the rivers that bordered the city. Other bucket lifts drew fresh water into the canals at different points. Roads, paved with perfectly cut stones, allowed citizens to move freely.
Inside the expansive walls the city was beautiful. Ernst saw buildings outside the walls in the distance, but they didn’t fly there to get a good view. Large gates rested on the walls at the ends of larger roads within the city, and he noticed that outside the city walls the roads shot straight as an arrow toward the horizon.
Finally, they returned to the pyramid, landing on the platform Hagirr had spoken of earlier. Two dozen of Elianna’s people stood in a semi-circle as they landed.
After they dismounted the four great beasts flew off together, apparently returning to where they came from to wait until Hagirr summoned them for a return to the ground.
Ernst looked out over the edge of the platform, which had no railings. It dropped off ten meters to the slope of the pyramid, which looked as if it was made of white ice. Getting down from here without an aerial ride, or getting here without one, would be problematic.
“This way,” Elianna told them. The elf turned to face the others of her kind, then ran to embrace one. “Mother!” she exclaimed, kissing a female that looked even younger than Elianna.
After exchanging gestures of affection with the other elf while Hagirr looked on with disdain, Elianna turned to him.
“Mother, this is Ernst and Herta Haufmann, of Earth. They are the future of our bond with the human world.”
Elianna’s mother looked at them with much the same disdain as Hagirr looked at his mother-in-law.
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” the elf replied.
“This is my mother, Sylinth,” Elianna said to Ernst and Herta.
“Lady Sylinth,” her mother corrected.
“Lady Sylinth, the pleasure is ours,” Ernst said, aware this female had some pull with Elianna. If he wanted to see Earth again with his wife, it was important not to offend.
“The hallways are ready for your tour,” Sylinth said to Hagirr. “Why you waste your time, I don’t know.”
“It is my time to waste,” Hagirr replied. “And yours to obey.”
That clearly irritated Sylinth, which amused Ernst. He kept that to himself.
“This way,” Hagirr said, gesturing toward an opening into the pyramid. “We have much to see.”
Chapter 24 - Brest
July 19, 1940
Brest was on fire.
“Mother of God,” Gunter whispered.
Nelson grabbed his field glasses and scanned the town. Deaders walked the streets, and vast numbers of soldiers stood in pens on the edges of the town. A circle of deaders stood like a wall around the city as patrols of the creatures searched for more of the living. A line of deaders pushed a few dozen men dressed in US Army uniforms ahead of them down the street. If the men resisted, the dead shredded them on the spot. The living soon learned to accept being herded.
A column of smoke rose from an airfield on the north of the city, a few hundred planes in molten ruins. The dragons had been here, and not long ago.
Several dozen ships burned in the bay, sunk to the bottom with various portions of the decks sticking out above the water. Much of the infrastructure was melted slag.
The carnage below was complete. The USA had been not only routed, but utterly defeated, at least in France. Nelson wondered if the stuffed suits in Washington DC knew about this yet.
>
He sat and pondered his next steps.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” he finally said. “Crawl back through the brush, then we can stand and march away unseen on the other side.”
“We can’t just leave,” Private Connors said.
“We are leaving,” Nelson told him.
“We have to do something,” Connors insisted. “Those are our people.”
“We ain’t doing squat,” Nelson replied, turning to face the kid while pulling his cigar from his mouth to spit. “You go down there and you’ll be in a pen or torn apart.”
“We can’t just sit here!”
Nelson had heard of men on the edge, and Connors was there. Gunter’s face showed he saw it too.
“Boy, you can go down there if you like,” Gunter said. “You’ll be defying orders, but we won’t shoot you. Leave most of your stuff here and do what you like.”
“We all have to go,” Connors said, pleading. Tears started to roll down his cheeks. “That’s how we were supposed to get home.”
“It ain’t happening like that,” Nelson told him, as he stood up on the east side of the bushes. He looked at Gunter. “We make for Calais, acquire a boat, cross the channel and hope we make it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” the other sergeant agreed. “Long walk.”
“We daren’t take a truck,” Nelson said. “We won’t make ten miles.”
“Agreed.”
The other men stood up as well, even Connors.
“We’re going to get home, Connors,” Nelson said, resting his hand on the private’s back. “You need to keep it together so Sergeant Gunter and I can make that happen.”
“I’m fine now,” the kid assured him.
Nelson nodded. He believed the private, his insubordination seemed to be a moment of desperation. Nelson looked at his companions. “Then we go back the same path we came. It seemed safe enough the first time around. We return to the supply depot and restock for our trip to Calais. We walk until dark, then we hole up in some farmhouse overnight. Billy, you understand?”
The big guy nodded and pointed east, not breaking his streak of silence. Not that it mattered. He didn’t ever say more than one word anyway.
“Close enough,” Nelson said.
The trudge away from Brest had to be the most demoralizing moment of his life. There were originally tens of thousands of soldiers at the American camps in the French city. Now there was a fraction of that number in pens erected by the dead. That his men could do nothing but walk away sapped them of their self-respect, of their morale, and of their faith.
“God’s kept us free and alive for a reason,” Nelson told them. “Believe in Him and you’ll get to safety. He has a plan for us.”
Nobody said a word. He had no way of knowing if they believed it or not.
Billy clamped his massive paw on Nelson’s shoulder and squeezed slightly. Nelson looked up into the man’s face, and whatever had broken Billy down to a near mute hadn’t robbed his spirit. The man was ready to fight if that’s what it took to get to Calais. Nelson didn’t see a man with a fractured mind.
He saw a soldier.
Taking his hand from Nelson’s shoulder, Billy clenched it into a fist and shook it once in a sharp downward motion, toward the east, while nodding his head once.
As if to say, “Let’s get this done.”
Billy had faith.
And where there was one, there was salvation.
Chapter 25 – Slaughter
The next day Harry and the squad set out with every intention of covering more ground than the day before. The stop to speak to the Flitterboots had cost them time, and now their new discovery would cost them even more.
A beastly scene of slaughter.
“Gnolls,” Cylethe said.
“Dog men,” Miller replied.
“They’re called gnolls. That bigger one over there is a flind,” she corrected. “Whatever their reason, they fought to the death here against our people.”
Harry couldn’t help but notice Cylethe had said ‘our’. She considered the humans to be her kin now, and kin to the Dek.
“Miller, you count the dead gnolls,” Harry ordered. “Hans, you count the dead dek. Lars, Parker, after Hans counts them you gather the dek and line them up here,” he pointed to a stout pine tree, “in a row. We will give an accounting to Grandmother. Cylethe will decide what needs be done here.”
“If the survivors didn’t burn them, it’s because more danger was nearby,” Cylethe told him. “We should burn them to free their spirits, but you should get your guards in position. Looking in all directions, even up.”
“Why don’t you scout from the sky?” Harry suggested.
“I will, closer to dark, after we’ve moved on from this place. Right now, I’d be seen. The pyre we need to build will attract attention for some distance, so we won’t light that until we’re ready to leave. The smell of the dead will attract predators. We don’t want to stay here too long.”
Harry nodded and assigned all but three of his men to guard duty. He kept Jenkins and Burke with him. “Okay, you two, we’re the worker bees. We gather wood for the pyre.”
He passed out axes from the pack horses, and they got to work. It took a good part of their day, but they finished three hours before sundown. Fortunate timing, as they’d have an hour to travel and two more to set up their camp that night in a defensible fashion. He had no way of knowing if the forty dead gnolls they counted would have brothers seeking vengeance on the dek.
Miller lit the pyre when it was ready, after eighteen dead Undek warriors were laid across it. It was the best they could do.
Ten minutes later the pyre was burning, and black smoke rose into the sky.
“We have to go,” Harry said. “That’s a beacon for any around who might mean us harm.”
A grueling mile and a half later, climbing trail that seemed increasingly steep, they selected a good section of trail to camp. Sheer rock face was on the east side of their path, and a sharp downward slope on the west. Anything that came at them would either have to come down the cliff from above or use the small section of traversable ground. Anything coming up from below would be easy to destroy. The high ground meant everything in a world like this one.
“The weather favors us,” Cylethe told him. “Tonight will be brutally cold.” She gestured at a snowflake drifting past her face. “And worsening snow will be here soon after dark. Maybe before.”
He didn’t ask her how she knew the weather would worsen. She didn’t seem to be wrong very often.
The twelve trekkers set up three tents around a center firepit, packing down the thin snow floors before covering them with pine boughs. Two men shared a bed, it was how they retained warmth.
Cylethe indicated quite forcefully that none of the men would share her bed, not even Miller. With one exception.
“You may share my bed, Harry. It is always warm, I assure you.”
He blushed as the men laughed. It was remarkable how quickly they’d come to accept her. “My wife’s bed would never be warm again,” he replied. “You understand that I have vows to another.”
“Otherwise he'd be keeping warmer than an'body 'ere,” Lars offered up to the laughter of the other men.
The sorceress shrugged. “Shame. Then I sleep alone.”
The men might have accepted her, if she offered, despite her magic, despite her tattoos, despite her filed teeth. But Harry noticed none of them made the suggestion to take his spot.
“Lars, Garrett, you’re first watch. Two hours. One of you watches up the trail, one down. Both keep an eye on the cliff face. Use the skins from the hunts to keep warm, it’s already getting colder. Wake the normal rotation to follow.”
“Aye,” they answered. “Least we’re not in the deep night.”
“That’s me and Miller,” Harry told them. “Two watches from now. Eyes open, you know how dangerous it is here.”
Harry, uncomfortable with the arrangements, slipp
ed into the furs with Miller. Cylethe, who shared their tent, stripped nude and lay on top of the furs on her bed.
“It’s getting colder,” he told her. “You should cover yourself.”
“Something isn’t right,” she said. “I will be ready; furs will slow me down. Meluthian watches overhead, in the darkness. I will wake you if there is trouble.”
Harry shook his head. “Nothing is going to be out in this weather. And you’re going to catch a cold. Besides, Miller is uncomfortable seeing you nude.”
Miller gasped. “I am no—”
Harry clamped his hand over the radioman’s mouth. “He’s a gentleman, he’d never admit to it, of course.”
Cylethe leaned up on her elbow and looked at Harry. “Nudity is not of any significance among my people, Harry. I’m sensing that among yours it is? Or are you reconsidering my offer?”
Truth was the offer was tempting. Cylethe wasn’t pretty by any means, no, just the opposite. But she was confident, powerful, and for some reason her demeanor suited Harry just fine. He had no doubt she knew it. His struggle was to resist temptation.
“I am not,” Harry protested. “Although I don’t wish you to take offense over it.”
“None taken,” she said, laughing. “Your loss, trust me.”
Damn her. He was happy to be sleeping in his clothes, at least. His temptation wouldn’t be so obvious. He laid his head down in the furs and closed his eyes.
Then opened them what seemed like a moment later.
A bright light illuminated the camp outside the tent flap. Men were shouting. In more than one language. He slipped his boots on without lacing them and grabbed his crossbow before racing out of the tent. Several of his men stood in a circle around a vertical line of arcing light about twenty feet from the campfire, on the uptrail side. The line rose twenty feet into the sky.
Cylethe joined him, still nude. “A gateway seam. We need to be ready.”
Miller walked up next to her.
“Ready the Fire Lance spell I taught you,” she ordered him. “When I say, cast it into the gate. Only if I tell you to.”
The line suddenly and violently opened into a rectangle twenty feet high and thirty wide. Part of it hung out over the slope below.
