Month: July 2021

Avalon 7.8 Ambush, part 3 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Sukki used her goddess-given powers and Nanette used her magic to float up to the roof where they found Decker.  He lay at the edge of the crumbling roof where the wall would help to hold him up.  He had his rifle tucked into his shoulder and his eye in the scope.

“How many,” Nanette asked, without spelling it out.

Decker knew what she was asking.  “Four riflemen and one regular soldier after the riflemen disappeared from the wall.”

Nanette curled her lip at all that killing, but she sat beside Decker and even laid a hand gently on his back.  It was something she would just have to get used to.  He was a soldier after all.

Sukki watched the archers climb up on to the roof next door, just outside Elder Stow’s screens.  “Arman’s men,” she called them for Decker.  “Katie said if we draw men to the street, they can get the enemy in a crossfire, whatever that is.”

Decker paused to look across the street where he saw other men crawling up on top of the ruins.  “Good plan,” he said, flatly, and returned his eye to the scope.

Down below, Elder Stow said Boston was ready.  Boston complained, but Elder Stow would not trust his screen device with anyone other than her, or Sukki, but Sukki was needed to go up and inform Decker what was being planned.

Katie, Lockhart, Arman, Prenner, and the boys moved the rubble around to make the front end of the collapsed building into more of a fort.  Alexis, wand in hand, kept back with Aleah and the young ones.  Aleah did not know what to expect, but she knew it would be dangerous.

When everyone got as ready as they could be, Lockhart spoke into his wristwatch communicator.  “Okay, Boston.”  Everyone heard, and Boston responded.

“Turning off the screens, now.”

One of the three Sassanid soldiers sent to examine the invisible wall, suddenly put his hand through that space.  He stepped through and one of the three immediately ran back to the Battalion commander to report.  A company of Sassanids started up the street to take out the enemies in their rear.  They moved cover to cover, wary of the rifle fire from this unknown enemy.  Clearly, they knew about rifle fire.

“Wait,” Decker said through his communicator.  “Hold your fire.  Wait until they get into position.”  People waited for what felt like a long time, and the enemy got close, some felt too close, before Decker said, “Fire.”

Guns blasted.  Arrows came from the roofs beside Decker, and then the roofs and buildings from the other side.  Sukki and Nanette were reluctant to kill anyone, but Sukki, with her heat-ray hands, and Nanette, with her telekinetic magic, were able to take away the enemy’s cover and drive them into the street where they could be targets for others.

The company did not last long.  The few survivors raced back down the street, and Decker got ready to tell Boston to turn the screens back on, but Katie made him pause.

“Wait until they bring up the cavalry.”

“The screen device is well anchored,” Elder Stow said.  “Even a dozen horses crashing into the screens should not move them.”

Lockhart nodded.  They saw the horses moving up.  They saw something happening across the street among the archers hidden in and on the buildings, but they could not focus on it as they heard Boston’s panic.

“The wraith.  She broke the screen device before I could stop her.  Help.”

Elder Stow, in a moment of quick thinking, handed Lincoln his sonic device and ran with Lockhart just ahead of him.  Alexis kept Aleah and the children in their place and made them put their heads down.  Katie, Lincoln, and Tony had to hold the front.  Sukki took the time to float down to join them while Decker and Nanette stayed over their heads.  Sukki handed Decker’s handgun to Prenner.  She briefly instructed him to point and pull the trigger, but she could not tell him exactly how it worked.  Arman helped.  He had Katie’s handgun, and had also learned how to use it.

Lockhart arrived in time to see the wraith up by the roof.  Boston had her wand in her left hand and her Beretta in her right.  Boston fired her handgun once and burned a couple of spots on the ceiling.

“You must all die,” the wraith said in her chilling voice.

“Why?  What did we do to you?” Boston asked, and the wraith paused to consider her answer, even as Lockhart pulled the trigger on his shotgun.  The wraith screamed and got slammed back into the ceiling.  She appeared to start bleeding.  Elder Stow pointed his weapon at her, and she screamed again and flew out a hole in the roof.  Elder Stow put his weapon away.

“Let me see,” he said, and Boston backed up, but kept her eyes on the roof, just in case.  “I think I can fix it,” Elder Stow said.  “But it will take time.”

“I thought you had the scanner tuned to give warning if the wraith showed up,” Boston protested.

“Only in physical form,” Elder Stow responded.  “Apparently, she can still elude us if she is invisible and insubstantial.”

“Boston.  I hear gunfire up front.”  Lockhart waved her to follow, and they ran to the front, leaving Elder Stow to work.

While the cavalry got ready to charge, Decker picked two more off the city wall in the distance.  He paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes.

“I think I hate the killing,” Nanette said, as she rubbed Decker’s soaking wet back.

“It is not my favorite thing in the world,” Decker said, and Nanette nodded, like she could accept that. 

“The archers across the way have abandoned their post,” Katie said over the communicators.  “Cavalry ready to charge.”  Three hundred horses and men with spears, like Samartian lances, made neat lines in the street, about six across in the front.  The rest of the battalion of foot soldiers looked ready to follow the horsemen.  “Get ready.”

Katie stood, her rifle and scope ready.  She fired two quick bursts of five bullets on automatic fire.  Three of the horses in the front of the line went down, and a fourth lost its rider.  All the same, some Sassanid gave the order. and though the horses had to start by going around or over the fallen horses, they quickly charged.

Overhead, Nanette stood and pointed her wand at the street.  Decker hardly had time to tell her to get down, before a bullet came from a building across the street.  Nanette concentrated.  She made an invisible screen of her own in the street, and the front horses slammed into the screen, got tangled up, and broke legs and backs as they fell to the ground.  Decker had to grab Nanette as the sudden push of the horses against her invisible wall almost sent her flying.

“Equal and opposite reaction,” Decker said.

Nanette held tight to her wand, seemed to have no idea what Decker might be referring to, and collapsed in his arms, a mini ball in her hip.

“Alexis,” Decker yelled, as he carried a fainting Nanette behind a chimney.  He remembered and spoke into his wristwatch.  “Alexis.  Nanette’s been shot.”

Down below, the horses began again once Nanette’s invisible wall vanished.  A few pushed around the pile-up and the rest followed.

“Determined,” Tony said, but by then, he, Lincoln, Prenner, and Katie were returning fire to the building across the way.  Arman kept an eye on the horsemen.   Apparently, the riflemen abandoned the wall to take on the unknown guns that were devastating them from behind.  They managed to overwhelm the archers across the way, and now used their cover to fire on the travelers across the street.

Alexis stepped up to raise a great wind in the street.  All the dust, dirt, small pebbles, and less pleasant things got swept up into the face of the oncoming horsemen.  That stalled them again, but after only a moment, Sukki grabbed Alexis around the middle and lifted her with herself, up to the roof where Decker held Nanette.

Alexis did not argue.  Sukki was worried about her sister.  But Alexis shooed Sukki and Decker away with a word that Sukki should not go far.  Alexis feared someone down below might end up also needing her healing skills.

Decker grabbed his rifle and sprayed the oncoming horses with several bursts of automatic fire.  Men shouted and fell out of the saddles.  Horses stumbled, making yet another block against a charge.  Some of the horsemen at the back began to peel away, but most of them continued to come on, despite all the obstacles.  The battalion of infantry stalled every time the cavalry faced a new obstacle, but most of them kept coming.  Only a few began to back away as they saw what they were facing.  Both the cavalry and infantry commanders of the Sassanids counted on their own riflemen to rout out the travelers.  But the travelers had built a good fort, and those single shot matchlocks were not very accurate at a distance, even if the barrels were rifled, which Katie imagined they were not.

“They are massing for a final push,” Arman shouted, even as Boston came.

“Prenner,” Boston shouted.  “Watch Aleah and the children and keep their heads down.”

Prenner groused.  “Yes Princess,” he said, and turned invisible to walk back to the family.  Boston had not thought of that, so she turned herself invisible before she stepped up and pulled out her now invisible bow and arrows.  She did not have much time to treat the arrows, the way Roland and Father Mingus taught her, but they would do.  She also had not practiced much with her bow, but the horsemen were less than a hundred yards off, not too far, and she only had to get close to them.

The arrow became visible the minute it left her bow, and she moved.  She figured some smart enemy rifleman might figure out where she was shooting them.  The arrow landed a little short of the front horses, right before they got ready for their last effort to charge.  It exploded, like a rocket propelled grenade.  This will work, Boston said.  She fired one more, moved, and fired the third at the buildings across the street.  She moved again and pulled out three more arrows to treat.

“Nice RPGs,” Katie said.  “But it doesn’t appear to have stopped them.  It looks like you just made them mad.”

“Like a hornet’s nest,” Lincoln said, as he ducked, and a mini ball careened off the stonework he hid behind.

Boston got mad and grabbed her wand.  She sent a fireball toward horses.  She did not move, and sure enough a stray bullet scraped her hip.  Boston screamed and shot a second fireball at the ruins across the street.  It appeared her biggest and strongest response.  A couple of explosions suggested she caught some of the enemy gunpowder, but then Boston’s leg collapsed and took her to the ground.  She shouted into her wristwatch, “Alexis,” even as the cavalry began to charge.

************************

Tomorrow

Remember,Avalon 7.8 is a four-part episode. Part 4 will post tomorrow, on Thursday. See how it turns out…

*

Avalon 7.8 Ambush, part 2 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Lockhart, with Tony’s help, moved the wagon through the time gate, and then through the hole in the wall and into what looked like stables.  Boston directed them with hand signals toward the back of the building where she said the roof supports remained solid.  She could not vouch for the front of the building.

“This is the exact same place” Alexis whispered, as she and Lincoln came next.  “We moved forward in time from a vibrant city to ruins but stayed in the exact same place as far as I can tell.”  They immediately dismounted and began to gather the horses while Tony set Ghost, the mule, free of the wagon.

“Some years later,” Lincoln responded with a nod.

Lockhart looked around at the condition of the building.  “I would guess the Romans lost the city to the Persians.”

“Sassanids,” Lincoln corrected him.

“Must have been some battle,” Boston said.

“Where’s Katie?” Lockhart asked, as Sukki and Nanette came in.  Elder Stow had to stay in the shadow of the hole in the wall to keep the particle screen in the time gate in order to keep them from being followed.  They had seen time-locked men try to step into the future and age fifty years in a matter of seconds.  It was not pretty.

“Keep to the back of the building,” Boston told her sisters, and added, “Come on.”  She led Lockhart to the front, one eye on the ceiling, until they came to a rubble-filed front end where the ceiling had collapsed.  Katie hid in the rubble and watched the activity in the street.

The buildings across the street were almost entirely rubble.  They looked like they had been burned down at some point, and after some years, now appeared as mere ruins.  Without those buildings blocking her way, Katie could see to the city wall, and the holes someone made in that wall.

Lockhart and Boston snuck up carefully, and Lockhart asked, “Where’s Decker?”  Katie pointed up, as if to say he somehow crawled up on the roof.  She handed Lockhart her binoculars and got out the scope for her rifle.  He took a look.

A whole battalion of soldiers sat in the street down toward the city wall.  He guessed they were supposed to be hidden, ready to repel invaders when called.  On the crumbling wall itself, he saw defenders with spears, probably bows, and he definitely saw some rifles, which were utterly out of place in that time period.  He imagined they were single shot, muzzle loaded matchlocks, like they ran into before.  Individually, they would not be much more effective than bows and arrows—less effective when he considered the time it took to reload.  But they had stopping power arrows did not have. Bullets could punch right through enemy shields and armor.  If they massed a volley, or managed several volleys against a marching army, they might turn them away.  They also had better range.  Much better than a shower of arrows.

“Where did they get the rifles?” Lockhart asked.

“Ramin Lajani,” Boston said.  “He was the young merchant boss that survived when Xalazar got killed.”

“I think I see where the cavalry is located,” Katie spoke, without taking her eye from her scope.  “They must have cleared a road down by the wall, near that gate there.”

“Someone is walking into a trap,” Lockhart concluded, even as they heard trumpets in the distance.  All eyes, including Boston’s elf eyes tried to see through the spaces in the wall.  Word came down from Decker over the wristwatch communicators.

“There is a Roman army marching in the distance.  They will probably send spies, or a small troop to check out the city before getting too close.  At least, I would.  But they probably won’t have any idea how big an ambush they are walking into.”

“Why come here?” Lockhart asked.

“The city looks abandoned,” Katie answered.  “And if they are crossing into Sassanid territory, this place still has bridges across the Euphrates.”

They heard the crack of a rifle overhead.  Lockhart and Katie got on their wristwatches to admonish Decker, but Boston looked with her good elf eyes.  She saw a soldier with a rife fall off the wall.  She softly mouthed her own Wilhelm scream

“Decker,” Lockhart said, as Tony came to join them.  Tony had a message but had to wait.

“People with guns are enemy combatants,” Decker responded.

“It’s all right,” Elder Stow interrupted.  “I have managed a full Decker screen around the stables.  Young Boston is correct.  The front-end load bearing pillars are weak, probably from years of weathering.  To compensate, I had to enlarge it enough to take in the alley and the houses on both sides.  It is stretched, but manageable.”

“People?” Katie asked, without spelling out the question.

“There are seven life signs in the house across the alley,” Elder Stow responded.  “And a half-dozen below the house, like in the basement, perhaps.  Alexis and Lincoln have gone to check it out.”

Decker fired again, and another man with a rifle fell off the distant wall.

“Decker,” Lockhart yelled into his wristwatch this time, even as Alexis and Lincoln exited the hole in the stable wall.  They saw a woman, maybe in her late thirties, in the door of the house across the way—a house which surprisingly still looked in good shape.  The woman gasped on sight of Lincoln and Alexis and fell to her knees.

A young girl, maybe six, and a boy about ten came to stand behind their mother.  “What is it?” the young girl asked.

“It must be the gods,” the woman said.

A man in his early forties and a dwarf came to the door, and the man smiled and spoke first.  “No, dear.  It is Lincoln and Alexis.  I remember.  Where is the rest of the crew?”

“Where is that red-headed elf?” the dwarf asked, recognizing the travelers for who they were.  Having their home caught inside Elder Stow’s particle screens sort of gave it away.

“It’s not Zenobia,” Lincoln whispered and put his arm out to prevent Alexis from running forward.  But Alexis had already paused.  She squinted at the man before she came out with her thought.

“Arman?”

The man nodded and helped his wife up from her knees.  “I have aged.  You haven’t.  I was wondering how this time travel thing you talked about worked.”

“But I remember you,” Arman’s wife spouted, and pointed at Alexis.

“My wife, Aleah.  My younger son, Loran, and my younger daughter Leah,” Arman introduced them.

“Prenner,” the dwarf introduced himself.

Arman nodded.  “My older boy is down in the dwarf house with the dwarf boys.”

“Messing up the place, no doubt,” Prenner said.

“My older daughter is with Bitsies making super.”

“Bitsies?” Alexis asked.

“My wife,” Prenner answered.

“Lockhart,” Lincoln got on his wristwatch communicator.  ‘We got Arman living next door, right where we left him.”

“Arman,” Katie answered.

“Keep him there,” Lockhart responded.  “It isn’t safe out here.”

Three soldiers from the battalion came up the street to see what was making that noise.  Decker ignored them.  They carried nothing more than spears, or javelins, and he figured they would stop at whatever point the edge of Elder Stow’s screens reached.  He fired once more, and another gun toting man peeled off the distant wall.  The men there began to seek cover, so he would not likely get another clean shot.

Katie arrived at the hole in the wall the same time as Sukki.  Sukki spoke softly.  “Nanette and father have the horses, but they wanted to be sure Arman and his family were safe.”

“So far,” Katie responded.  “But not if Decker keeps shooting enemy riflemen.”

“What?” Lincoln needed to know, and Katie told him.

“The Sassanids have an ambush planned in the city.  A Roman legion is marching right into it, and the Sassanids have riflemen on the city walls.  Probably matchlocks, but effective enough.”

“Sergeant,” Arman yelled.  “Sergeant Vespavian.”

A grizzled old man limped around the corner and stood at the end of the alley.  He put his hand up to feel for the edge of Elder Stow’s screen, like he was familiar with the concept.  “So, your friends came back,” the sergeant said.  “You know, the governor wants to see you, twenty years ago.”  He laughed.

“You heard?” Arman said.

“I heard,” the sergeant answered.  “The problem is, the enemy has every exit from the city covered.  There is no way my few men can ride out and warn the legion.  As for attacking them, even from the rear, even by surprise, even if we had bunches of Prenner’s people with us… why, that would be just plain mad.”

Katie did not hesitate.  “Can you get your men up on the roofs?”  She pointed at the top of the house and a building across the street that still stood.  “You will need a way of escape if your position is about to be overrun, but in the meanwhile, if we draw some of the soldiers to attack us, you can catch them in a crossfire.”

“But what if they send the whole army after us?” Lincoln objected.

“They won’t,” Katie said, confidently.  “Their first concern is the oncoming Roman army, but we may be able to help by drawing off some of their troops and sting them from the rear with our guns.  Plus, the sound of our guns may alert the oncoming Romans to the pending ambush.”

The men paused to think it through, until Arman said, “Vespavian?”

The old sergeant nodded.  “That might work for a couple of volleys in the right circumstances.  If they bring up a whole troop, though, we may have to run quickly.”

“Do it,” Lincoln said.  He was not sure how that would work, exactly, but he had learned to trust Katie’s military instincts.

“Do it,” Arman echoed.

The old soldier nodded slightly, and still thinking about it, he disappeared around the corner.  A moment later, they heard him yelling.

Katie turned, and Sukki mumbled that she would be up front as soon as she and Nanette secured the horses.  Lincoln followed, but Alexis paused to say, “Stay here, in your home, where you are safe.”

Arman turned to his wife, Aleah.  “Stay here.” 

Aleah turned to Prenner the dwarf.  “Keep the children here and safe,” she said, even as the little girl took hold of her dress, and the boy ran ahead.

Prenner turned in time to see his two boys and Aleah’s fifteen-year-old boy come tumbling out of the side door and follow the others.  He paused.  Whatever his wife, her mother, and Aleah’s daughter were cooking sure smelled good, but he turned to follow the others and only mumbled about how he might starve to death if this took too long.

Avalon 7.8 Ambush, part 1 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 236 A.D. Syria

Kairos 93: Zenobia, the Queen

Recording …

The travelers arrived at the time gate in the late afternoon.  They found it in the town of Dura-Europa, on the Euphrates River.  Fortunately, the time gate rested down an alleyway and not inside a building.

“Should we find rooms for caravans and travelers, or go through the gate now while we can?” Katie asked from where she rode in the wagon.  Lockhart drove the wagon and thought about it.  Though not their first thing in the morning routine, the time gate temporarily vanishing had them all spooked.

“Go now,” Boston said, as she came back from the front and steadied her horse.

“Go now,” Decker echoed, as he pushed up from the rear, followed by Nanette, who pulled Sukki’s horse with her.  “The guards in the gate had a seriously suspicious look about them.”

“This is a military town.  The Romans here hold it almost like a fort, to protect the trade routes,” Lincoln spoke up from behind the wagon where he read from the database while Alexis temporarily held the reigns of both Katie’s and Lockhart’s horses.  “But mostly to protect against Sassanid armies.”

“We came from Sassanid territory,” Alexis said.  “We might look like spies for some reason.”

“Soldiers coming,” Tony shouted from the rear.

“Father?” Sukki wondered what Elder Stow was doing with his screen device in his hands.

“Just working on it,” Elder Stow said, and glanced up at the others.  They all looked at him.  “I need to set a screen wall in the time gate behind us, so some innocent person does not stumble through before the time gate deactivates.”

“Of course,” Alexis agreed.

“Soldiers definitely coming here,” Tony shouted.

“Can you set the wall at the end of the alley first?” Katie asked.  “Maybe pull it into the alleyway behind us.”

“Everyone; move into the alleyway,” Lockhart said, not waiting for an answer from Elder Stow.  “Decker and Boston.  Scout out the other side of the time gate.”

“One minute,” Elder Stow said.

“Come on, Sukki.  Let’s get our horses,” Katie leapt from the wagon and mounted.  Sukki followed and thanked Nanette for bringing her horse to that point.

“They’re here,” Tony yelled as he pulled his horse’s tail into the alley alongside Lockhart’s horse which was tied to the back of the wagon.  Lincoln and Alexis scooted over to make room.

“Friends,” a young man shouted for the traveler’s attention.  He appeared in a great flash of light that made the soldiers in the street cover their eyes and take several steps back.  He called to them.  “Friends.”  A great clap of thunder followed the light.  The horses hardly flinched, but several soldiers fell to their knees, two ran and at least one wailed.

Nanette recognized the man who appeared right away.  “Arman.”  He was the young Magi that followed Xalazar to Hatra.

“Arman.”  Several others named the young man.

“Quick.  Into the alley” Katie yelled back, and Arman came up alongside Tony and Elder Stow.

“There,” Elder Stow said, as he turned on his screen device that set a virtual wall at the end of the alleyway.  The soldiers would be blocked out for the moment.

“Lockhart, Xalazar got stabbed” Arman said, as he walked up past Katie, and Alexis to reach the wagon.  He repeated himself, nice and loud.  “Xalazar got stabbed.”  He looked at the concerned faces of the travelers and reported the story as quick as he could.  “Sarkis, the Armenian betrayed us.  He led us into a trap, and Ramin Lajani, the gun merchant, stabbed Xalazar.  Marona, the Assyrian, is dead.  Junior Amun, the god, says Xalazar should be dead, but he traded places with Xalazar at the last minute.  Do you know what I mean, traded places?”

Lockhart nodded.  “The Kairos tends to borrow a lifetime from the past or future as needed, yes, we know.  He actually, temporarily becomes another person as near as anyone can tell, though inside, he is the same person, still the Kairos.”

“Junior.  Amun Junior,” Lincoln said.  “Son of the god Amun and the goddess Ishtar.”

“It must be important,” Alexis added.  “The gods don’t normally interfere in life and death circumstances unless there is some cosmic significance.”

Arman also nodded and picked up the story.  “Junior Amun saved my life, and he sent me with an urgent message.  He said he cannot come and tell you himself because the time gate will move as he moves.  He said he can hold the gate stable for now, but he cannot hold it for long.  Xalazar must die so his spirit can move on to his next life.  He said you must move on now and not wait until morning…”

Three things happened at once.

“You need a place to hide,” Alexis said.  “You can’t go through the time gate with us because you will age as many years as the time difference, maybe fifty or more years.”

Her words got overshadowed by yelling from the soldiers who came up to Elder Stow’s screen and could go no further.  “You people come out of there!  The governor would like a word with you.”

For the third thing, Boston came back through the time gate to report.  “It’s full of soldiers, like an ambush.  The city is destroyed, whatever city it is, and there are soldiers camped all around the place, and Decker says some of them got guns.”

“Is there room for the wagon?” Lockhart asked.  “Can we go without drawing attention to ourselves?”  Lockhart had to wave at Boston to get her attention.  She was staring around the alley, like she saw it for the first time.

“Huh?  Yeah.  It looks mostly—exactly like this alleyway, except that wall is missing.  You can pull the wagon right in there.  I think it is a stable of some kind.”  Boston’s engineering brain kicked in.  “I didn’t give the structure a stress test.  The load bearing logs look sturdy, but they might not hold the roof up if they get disturbed.  I’ll check it out.”

“Wait,” Lockhart interrupted.  “Katie.  Tony, go with her.  Katie, check the perimeter and see if it is safe to come through.  Send Tony back when the wagon can come, but don’t take too long.”  He waved them off and turned his attention to Arman.  “Lincoln and Alexis, find a safe place for Arman to go.  Elder Stow get ready.  Nanette and Sukki, watch out for Elder Stow.”  That seemed to cover everyone.

Lincoln turned to the door in the wall that would still be there in the future, if he heard correctly.  He could not imagine an exit time gate and an entrance time gate being in the same place, but it had happened once before.  He jiggled the door, but it was locked.

“Alexis, see if you can blow the door down.”

“Wait.”  Arman butted up front.  He closed his eyes and placed both hands on the door.  They heard a scraping sound of wood on wood, like a bar being lifted from its place.  They heard a clunk as the bar fell to the floor.  Arman pushed the door slowly.  They saw an older couple and a young woman, obviously their daughter, standing back, staring at them.  This had to be their home.  The young woman, about sixteen or seventeen, had the Roman Empire equivalent of a rolling pin in her hand, and looked prepared to defend her home, whatever the cost.

“May we come in?” Arman asked, politely, before Alexis and Lincoln butted in front of him.  Alexis raised her hands like a true witch, and the wind rose up inside the shelter of the house.  It shoved the young woman and the elderly couple back a couple of steps and blew everything off the table.  Lincoln spoke up.

“This man needs food and a place to rest.  He is a good man.  You need to protect him and do not let the soldiers get him.”

“Don’t make me come back here,” Alexis said.  “He is a good man,” she underlined that point.  “He deserves your help, and I will be very cross if I have to come back here.”

“The wagon is moving,” Lincoln interrupted.  “We need to go.”

Alexis hugged Arman before she and Lincoln went back out to get up on their horses.  Arman turned in the door to watch.  He said, “You might want to see this.”  The young woman stepped right up to look around his shoulder.  Eventually, the mother and father also came to see, and the old man mumbled.

“Horses of the gods.”  They were not surprised to see Alexis and Lincoln slowly vanish as they stepped through the shimmering hole in the air.  The last thing they saw was a swipe of the horse’s tail before Nanette, Sukki, and Elder Stow came last in line.

Someone banged on the front door.  The family quickly closed the side door to the alleyway as three soldiers forced their way inside the front.  The young woman still held the rolling pin, and Arman pulled a small knife he had hidden in his cloak.  They stood side by side to protect the house, but the old man pushed to the front and spoke right up.

“Sergeant Vespavian.  What is happening in the street?”

The sergeant stopped, so the soldiers with him stopped.  “Who is this?”

“My son in law,” the old man said without blinking.  “Come all the way from Palmyra.  He could not wait until we came to fetch him in the fall.”

“Aleah?” the sergeant looked at the young woman, like he had an interest in the girl.  Aleah looked at the ugly soldier, glanced at Arman, smiled, and took Arman’s arm while Arman put away his little knife.  The sergeant growled, and with his soldiers, he threw open the side door.  The rest of his soldiers were already in the alley, with his centurion unable to push his hand through the shimmering hole in the air.  That shimmering hole in the air quickly disappeared, leaving only alleyway and soldiers milling about.

The sergeant growled again, and he and his two men left the door open.  The old woman closed it carefully as the old man turned to the couple where his daughter still held on to Arman.  The old man smiled as he spoke.  “Well, priest,” he said, having recognized Arman as a Magi.  “I guess you will just have to marry my daughter and make it legal.”

Aleah glanced again at Arman before she looked away and turned slightly red.  She did not let go of him, so it seemed as if she would not mind.

Arman did not know what to say.

Avalon 7.7 Guns Between the Rivers, part 4 of 4

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

In the dark of night, the wraith got frustrated by Elder Stows screens.  She bounced off and could find no way around them—even by going underground.  They seemed to make a complete bubble around the people, to protect them.  If she had a brain, she might have realized they had to let air and such inside the screens, and being a lesser spirit, she could shape herself like the wind.  In fact, Boston, only being a little spirit, could phase through the screens.  Certainly, the wraith could do the same, if she could figure out how.  To be clear, sophisticated screen technology, in manipulating natural forces, made even the gods pause, and some never did master it.  But in this case, the wraith got frustrated, so she flew off to the next time gate, thinking, if she got a few days ahead of the travelers, she might set something up.

Not long after the wraith left, a lone gunman, the sole survivor, slammed his foot into the screens and fell forward on to the screens.  He planned to get one of the horses and go hide in Hatra, but there seemed to be an invisible wall between himself and the horses.  He paused to think about what he was doing.

The gun makers in Damascus were long put out of business.  He and his group had to be one of the last gun groups.  He could not be certain.  There might still be others.  He vaguely recalled his captain saying something about the gun merchants meeting up with Master Lajani in Hatra.  In any case, his captain insisted on tracking and killing the one responsible for destroying the gun factory.  That did not work out too well.  The man figured he had some shot left, and a rifle, for all the good it did him.  He frankly ran out of range and hid when the others got killed by the strangers with real guns.

“Guns to put my rifle to shame,” he mumbled, as his hands felt out the invisible wall he ran into.  He figured it went all the way around the enemy camp, and maybe underground, too, for all he knew.  He decided he would not be getting a horse, so he turned and began to walk.  With luck, he might be half-way to Hatra by morning.

###

When the morning came, Elder Stow got up early to check his screen device.  No one came down the road in the night.  That felt understandable.  In that day and age, only armies moved at night, and only if they were headed to a battle.  Elder Stow said good morning to Boston and Sukki, who had taken the early morning watch so they could rate the sunrise.  That morning got a seven, whatever that meant.

“Shouldn’t you be building up the fire and setting the water to boil for Lockhart’s fake coffee, as he calls it?” he asked.

“Yes, father,” Sukki responded.

Boston asked, “Why are you up so early?  What are you doing?”  She looked over Elder Stow’s shoulder.

“I was curious to see why we didn’t have any night visitors, but it seems we did.  Both appeared to stay away from the road, which is why the watchers did not see them.  Here.  See?  One came in about twenty feet above ground.  Checked around to the back and underground.  It must have been the wraith.”

“Can you track her?”  

“Yes, I believe I can.”  He fiddled with the settings on his scanner.  “See?  The signature plays out about a half-mile away, but I believe I can set the scanner to give us warning when she gets within range.”

Boston’s big elf eyes got extra big.  “Oh, she is not going to like that surprise.”

Elder Stow nodded.  “There is another, a human.  He did not stay long and headed off towards that city we came through.”

“Hatra,” Boston said, and when she explained it a couple of hours later, Xalazar responded.

“No, you can’t come with us. This is one situation I have to deal with myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Tony said.  “How is it we keep running into people with guns.  They should not be invented yet, should they?”

“Damascus,” Xalazar said, and nodded.  “They tried twice before Jesus was born—the obvious target if you intend to change all of history, and for the worse.  Bodanagus destroyed one factory and wouldn’t let Caesar have any guns.  You destroyed the factory and got the gun maker in Candace’s day.  They have tried twice since.  They gave Trajan guns, and that almost ruined everything.  Fortunately, in Ali’s day, the last of the guns got used to help fight off an invasion of Wolv, as you know.  Now, this time, they are trying a new tactic.  Instead of making weapons for the purposes of murder and assassination, or giving them to one power, like the Romans or Sassanids, who have taken over the old Parthian empire, they seem to be giving them randomly to merchants and traders on both sides.  It is like they are deliberately spreading them out to cause as much chaos as possible.  It is a headache.”

“We have been up and down the Tigris and the Euphrates,” young Arman said, with some excitement in his voice.  “We’ve been as far away as Antioch.”

“We barely stopped a shipment from going to Rome,” Sarkis, the Armenian said, and Marona, the old Assyrian soldier, nodded his agreement and lifted his eyebrows; like that was a story worth telling.

“The point…” Xalazar took the conversation back.  “We have narrowed it down to three merchants, three Magi still living, that I happen to know, personally.   They are meeting up in Hatra.  The thing is, the leader of the group is a young magus named Ramin Lajani, and I am ninety percent sure he is working for the Masters.  In which case, he has a life in the future, and if I can’t stop him, he may start to make more guns.”

The travelers all reacted, but Lockhart held up his hand and responded for them all.  “We saw Lajani in Hatra, last night, at the inn.  Katie and I were both bothered just to look at the man.  Now, what you say makes sense.”

Xalazar nodded.  “Good to have that confirmed by human eyes.  We will head that way.”

“We sent the caravan on ahead when we tried to ambush the group that was following us,” Sarkis said.

“That did not go too well,” Marona, the old soldier, admitted.

“Lucky you folks came along,” Sarkis agreed.

“The point is…” Xalazar tried again, and gave his companions hard looks to be sure they had finished interrupting.  “The point is, we sent the caravan ahead.  We will disguise ourselves and sneak into the town.  Hopefully, we will be able to find the guns, the merchants, and Lajani secretly, before they realize we are on to them.  You folks would probably put the magi on high alert.  They might all slip out of town and go who knows where, and we would be back to square one.”

The travelers understood well enough.  Even doing all they could to disguise themselves, like using Roman-style saddles and shaping their fairy weave clothes to imitate the local dress, they were a strange crew wherever they went.  Boston could cover her red hair with a glamour, but Katie’s blonde locks stood out in most places.  Decker and Nanette’s dark skin often stood out as well.  Decker and Lockhart were intimidatingly big.  Their horses were also bigger than normal and would be until the Middle Ages when people started breeding horses for size and strength—to carry those medieval knights.  Most of all, with six or seven on horseback, and one little wagon, they did not appear much like a merchant caravan, no matter how much they claimed to be.

 “Our job is to get home in one piece,” Lockhart responded to Xalazar, and no one objected.

###

Five days later, in the morning, less than a day from the time gate, Boston squawked.  “It moved!  The whole gate moved, right off my screen.”

“What?”  Lincoln shouted.  He whipped out the database for a quick look to see where it might have moved to.

“Let me see,” Katie said, and pulled out her proto-type amulet as they heard from Elder Stow.

“The time gate has disappeared from my scanner.  Have we lost it?”  He rode in from the wing.

“Setting it to maximum range,” Boston said.  “Wait.  Zeroing in.  It is back where it was.”

“Yes,” Elder Stow said when he arrived.  “It has reappeared.”

“I wonder what could have happened,” Katie said.

“It blinked,” Boston said.

“Keep moving,” Lockhart decided.  “Before it blinks again.”

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MONDAY SPECIAL

Avalon 7.8 will again be a four part episode and be posted in a single week. Yes. Again there will be posts on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday, so don’t miss it. The travelers go through the time gate and come out in the same place, except 20-25 years later. Perhaps at the end of episode 7.7 I should have said To Be Continued… Avalon7.8 Ambush begins on Monday. Until then, Happy Reading

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