Elect II—7 Orcs on Parade, Part 3 of 3

November 16, 2016October 28, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Jessica grabbed Melissa and took the recruits into Captain Driver’s office as soon as Emily ran out. She pointed at Captain Driver’s gun safe. “Open it,” she said, as the others piled into the room.

“Oh, I don’t know if I can,” Melissa said.

“Sure you can,” Jessica insisted.

“I’ve seen you do harder things,” Maria said.

“Just to borrow?” Sara asked. When Jessica nodded she turned to Melissa. “I believe in you and it can’t hurt to try.” Melissa looked at Sara and nodded slowly.

“Here goes.” Melissa closed her eyes. After a moment, everyone heard three faint clicks, and the safe door swung open. No one was more surprised than Melissa, and that included Greta, Hilde and Natasha who until then had only heard rumors.

“I did it,” Melissa told Sara and Sara hugged her while the military retrieved their weapons. They loaded up plenty of ammunition.

“Sorry, Maria, but if Captain Driver complains I want to say only ROTC people used the rifles.”

“Wouldn’t touch one,” Maria said

“Me neither,” Sara added, but everyone figured that.

“I could try,” Melissa offered

“No,” Jessica responded. “You need to have your hands free.” She did not explain.

It was then that Diane came running in, yelling. “Weapons. I need a weapon.”

Jessica handed over her rifle and made a command decision. “Greta and Hilde go with her. Natasha, stay with me.”

“What? No.” Natasha wanted to complain, but Jessica interrupted.

“I need back-up. That’s an order soldier.”

Natasha straightened up. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Jessica smiled at Sara and Maria. “I always wanted to say that.”

Diane, Hilde and Greta ran out as Jessica got another rifle. Then the ones who remained went to the center of the gym. Jessica pulled over the pommel horse, Maria and Melissa, the vault. Sara and Natasha got the balance beam. They draped the floor mats over them all and in this way made a kind of fort in the center of the room.

“As long as orcs can’t come up through the ground, this is better than being against the wall,” Jessica said as she watched the doors. “Walls fall down.” Natasha and Melissa both got up on chairs.

“Better view,” Natasha said and pretended to look over the vault.

“Uh-huh.” Melissa agreed, but her eyes stared at the floor in search of orcs.

The door opposite the parade ground door began to shake. It was locked, but it only took a moment to rip it off the hinges. A monster of an orc came in first. He was four feet wide at the shoulders and his knuckles fell just short of dragging the ground. By contrast to the first one, the orcs that followed all looked like normal enough goblins, and some of them were no more than two or three feet tall.

Natasha got down from her chair and she and Jessica opened fire. Three of the orcs fell before a volley of arrows came in answer. The women all ducked, but Jessica caught one in her side. It was a lucky shot that slipped between a crack where two floor mats did not quite meet.

“Damn!” Jessica fell to the floor and Maria immediately hovered over her. A second volley of arrows came, but they all bounced and ricocheted away because of some unseen force. Melissa was still up on her chair and had her hands up.

“The wall can deflect some arrows,” Melissa said through a strained voice. “But I have no hope it will deflect a charge.”

“Help me up. Help me up,” Jessica complained, and Maria helped her sit and hold her rifle. The orcs looked ready to try that charge.

Sara, who had been silent in disbelief until then, was shaken back to reality by the sight of Jessica’s blood. She stood, shepherd’s crook in hand and hollered as loud as she could. “You hold it right there. Don’t you dare come any closer.”

The orcs paused. Sara glowed a little with a pure, white light. “Zoe protect us,” Sara added for good measure, and the orcs looked afraid to move forward.

The light that surrounded Sara appeared to spread as she spoke, but only to one side. Then it flashed brilliant for a second and when it went out, two dozen well-armed elves stood beside the small, makeshift fort. One ogre who seemed very eager for a fight, came with them. The elves ignored the women and the orcs quickly focused on the elves. The fight looked inevitable, as the monster that tore off the door, a distorted troll of some sort and the ogre charged each other. They would have torn the gym to shreds in moments, but something happened no one expected, least of all Sara. Zoe appeared between the two charging beasts, and she was dressed in the most ancient looking armor and decked out with a sword, a long knife across the small of her back and several other instruments of combat hanging here and there. Zoe threw her hands up and some force emanated from her hands that picked up the two combatants and flung them to crash into their respective walls, and she said one word.

“Enough!” The elves all went to their knees and dropped their eyes, no longer concerned with the orcs in the least while Zoe first turned on the orcs. “You don’t belong here,” she said. “Begone.” And they all vanished. There were no flashy lights or trumpets, they just were not there anymore.

At that point, Emily and her troop piled into the gym, and Heinrich at least had the good sense to follow the lead of the elves and fall to his knees. Amina was a bit slower, but she soon joined him, and Mindy followed her example, though her eyes never looked down.

“Good,” Zoe said and turned on the women in the fort. She spoke matter of fact, like she was speaking about the weather. “My rebellious ones have no business coming here. They can drill a hole in the atmosphere of Avalon, but the only way they can make it a passage to Earth is if someone here, on this side opens the door.” Zoe turned to the new arrivals. “My queen,” she said, and in a way that was possessive, not submissive. There might be other queens in the world, but Emily somehow belonged to Zoe. “You must find out who opened the door here and where it is and close it.” She smiled and turned finally to the elves. “Captain Riverbend.” The name was sharply spoken.

An elf, a female scooted a bit forward but dared not look up. “My lady?”

Zoe paused in a kind of dramatic moment before she softened her tone. “Thank you for helping my friends, but you don’t belong here either. Please take your troop back to Avalon before Lady Alice finds out.”

The elf looked up, and she was a pretty creature, and looked young. “But you and lady Alice are—”

“Hush. No need to get into that. Things here are complicated enough. Go on, now. And be sure to take the big, frightening, ugly, smelly, boil-faced brute of an ogre with you.” The humans all looked, though perhaps only Emily and Heinrich could look at the beast for more than a second, but instead of anger at the insult, it appeared the brute beamed with pride.

One man’s insult… Emily thought.

“Yes, my Lady,” Captain Riverbend responded and an archway appeared in the air in the gym. That was the only way to describe it as the gym remained, but through the arch there was some other place altogether with green grass and trees still in bloom; and it was everyone’s idea of lovely. The elves stepped through and the ogre followed and then the archway slowly shrank and disappeared.

“You, too, Mister Schultz.” Zoe had moved on to talk to Heinrich. “No stories of the Kairos if you please. These women have enough on their plates for present.” Then she turned to Maria and Jessica. “Now Maria. You have to get that arrow shaft out of her side before it festers.”

“But the blood,” Maria protested. “I’m not a surgeon.”

Zoe shook her head. “Lay on hands,” she said. “The spirit of Eir has not left you without gifts. Sara can help you understand how to lay on hands, but you are the one who must do it.”

Last of all she turned to Sara. “Priestess, you were chosen by the source for your tasks before the foundation of the world. Perhaps we all are, only we don’t see it.” Zoe stepped up and put out her hand, and Sara took that hand to shake before she realized what she was doing. “Now, you can just talk to me. I will hear you. And call me sometime. Maybe we can do lunch when things quiet down a bit.”

Zoe stepped away from them all and headed toward the back wall. “Emily, find and close that door, and solve my mystery. Apples are missing from Avalon. Something to do with immortality.” Zoe paused for a moment. “Immortality? Fools.” She sighed. “So much to do.” Zoe shook her head and walked right through the wall, and was gone.

Maria’s hands glowed with a golden glow. She and Jessica watched as the hole in Jessica’s side closed up. “You have still lost some blood,” Maria said. “I don’t know how deep the healing will go.” Jessica looked up, but she was not complaining. The pain was gone. Meanwhile, Maria had something to say to Sara. “By the way, Priestess, the phrase is not “hold it right there, don’t come any closer.” It’s, “You shall not pass.” And you need to bang your staff.”

###

The following day, Julie Tam from the Medical Examiner’s office called Lisa. “Tell Latasha it was arsenic, or something like it. Her instincts were right. Janet did not die of the drug overdose, though they stuffed enough drugs into her system to kill an elephant. I will be running more tests and give you a more complete report in a few days.”

“But where would drug dealers get their hands on arsenic?” Lisa asked.

Julie had some thoughts. Lisa took notes, but after that she decided to call Latasha herself.

Ashish was right there. “Are you going to tell her about Carlos?”

“Not yet, but she needs to know what to look out for.”

Avalon 4.4: part 2 of 6, Caravan

June 7, 2016June 3, 2016M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Decker pulled up at what he figured was out of bow range. Katie stopped beside him, her rifle ready. Lockhart came screeching to a halt beside her.

“Shoot the ones out front, but only until they retreat,” he ordered.

Katie nodded, but Decker just began to fire. A moment later, Alexis rode right past them, Lincoln, Boston and Mingus on her trail.

“Damn,” Lockhart said, and he followed.

Elder Stow pulled up to the two shooters and stopped to watch, even as Katie started to follow Lockhart. She tried to shoot from the back of her moving horse. Decker stayed where he was as long as he had targets. The majority of the enemy began to back off when they realized what was happening. Their men were mysteriously falling to the ground and not getting back up again.

Alexis feared someone in the caravan might need her medical attention, but she was not a complete fool. The caravan had backed up into a rock outcropping and were defending themselves with arrows from cover. A small cluster of trees and bushes stood beside the rocks. Several dozen heavily burdened donkeys were there. Alexis went to hide her horse with the donkeys behind the trees, before she got down.

“Are you crazy?” Lincoln yelled at her when he pulled up beside her. He had his pistol in one hand and his Patton saber in the other. He had to shoot a man even as Alexis started up into the rocks. Alexis found a wounded man right away. He had managed to move down toward the trees to get out of the direct line of fighting.

“Quiet. Lie still. I am here to help,” Alexis said, and the man relaxed for a second, though he had little strength to do otherwise. His eyes did get wide and he shrieked when the two elves passed by. Alexis hushed him, and worked.

Lockhart came up a minute later and stood with Lincoln. They caught sight of men trying to get to the trees to come up on the rocks through the bushes. Lockhart and Lincoln got down behind cover. Lincoln fired his pistol, but Lockhart let loose with several blasts of scatter shot from his shotgun. Lockhart figured he did not kill any of the men, but he wounded a few, and the sound of thunder made the men withdraw and rethink their idea.

Mingus and Boston got into the middle of the fighting just when a group of men, maybe thirty, made a sudden charge on the position. They all had short spears and wooden shields to hide behind. The men in the caravan had spears and crude swords to fight them off. Mingus tossed a couple of fire balls into the pack of men. They exploded on contact. Boston had her Berreta and fired at will.

Meanwhile, Decker looked stuck where he was. “You could help,” he told Elder Stow, but the Elder just sat there on his horse and watched. Suddenly, the men who had appeared to pull back, charged his position. He flipped his rifle from semi-automatic to automatic and sprayed the enemy with five shot bursts. Many went down, some might say too many before they wised up and pulled back.

“Thanks,” Decker said to the wind because he was not sure Elder Stow was even listening.

It was then that Pluckman and his dwarves caught up. “We can take it from here,” Pluckman said, huffing and puffing from having to run.

Decker looked once more at the immobile Elder Stow before he spoke. “I don’t think the Kairos would be happy having you involved.”

“Too late,” Pluckman said. “Already involved.” Decker was going to say something more, but Pluckman and his dwarves all had their bows out and their long knives ready. They moved into the weeds and scrub grass of the meadow and virtually disappeared as they blended perfectly into the scenery. Decker could only shrug.

Boston and Mingus kept a bunch of the attackers back with her bullets and his fireballs, but some got up on the rocks and caused havoc. Boston spied a man in black leather chain mail, holding a sword no local smithy made. He had two men in his face, trying to gat at him with their spears. Boston screamed.

“No!” and her Beretta got replaced by her wand. The attackers got fire in their faces, and when those two went down, she turned on the crowd, using her wand like a flame thrower. That was too much. The men ran from the rocks and from the trees at about the same time. They ran from Decker, and had dwarves to make sure they kept running.

Boston turned to the man in the fancy armor and sword. “Ulrik,” she cried and leapt into his arms for a hug. “I was so scared for you.”

“What makes you think I’m Ulrik?” he asked. Her eyes got big, but he smiled. “I am, but you didn’t give me a chance to say, “Boston!”

“I recognized the armor,” Boston said. “And the sword.”

“Is she behaving?” Ulrik asked Mingus.

“For the most part, yes.” Mingus said, but he looked toward Alexis and frowned.

Alexis had moved on to other injured men. Lincoln stayed right with her, and would not let her go down on the plain to see to the Gutians. Ulrik agreed.

“The Gutians need to tend their own. We need to get moving.”

“We do,” Lockhart said, as he backed away from kissing Katie. She was grinning, and so was he, but the others were polite enough not to say anything.

“One man is injured too badly to be moved right away,” Alexis said.

Ulrik nodded. “Elder Stow,” he called out. “We need to borrow your graviton device.”

“Why?” Elder Stow sounded surly.

Ulrik did not respond to the tone of voice. He said straight out, “We have a wounded man to move.” Elder Stow reluctantly got out his equipment.

Katie stepped up to Ulrik and whispered. “Elder Stow has been acting unhappy for a while now. He won’t talk about it.” Ulrik nodded that he heard, but he had a caravan to get moving.

Lincoln and Lockhart helped by making a stretcher they could pull behind a horse. The end could be held up by Elder Stow’s device so it would not drag on the ground. Lincoln volunteered his horse, Cortez, to do the pulling and soon enough the overburdened donkeys were rounded up. Decker looked to be sleeping, but the others knew he was meditating, using his gift of the eagle’s eye to try to locate the enemy.

“Ouch,” Decker shouted and put a hand to his eyes. His eyes watered for a bit. “Your enemies are a few miles north of here. Look like a couple of thousand, but I did not have time to count them because something rose up from the camp and poked me in the eye.”

“General Zod has a witch in the camp. I should have warned you,” Ulrik said as he got everyone up and moving. They walked to the northwest and soon found a wide river off to their left hand.

“General Zod, you mean like Superman’s General Zod?” Lockhart asked.

Ulrik smiled that someone finally caught the reference. Of course, living four thousand years before Superman was created made it kind of hard to expect anyone to know what he was talking about. “His name is Zodh, but I have been calling him General Zod for some time, just because.”

“I take it he is the evil military leader,” Lincoln said.

“Yes, and his Gutians want the city we are building, and I won’t let him have it.”

“Gutians?” Lockhart asked.

“A mixed race people from around Lake Van, up by the Caspian Sea,” Katie said.

“Actually closer to the Black Sea, and from the mountains below Georgia, but well above Assyria. They are more related to the Hatti than the Scythians, Cimmerians, or Medes around the Caspian. They have been pushed down to Lake Van by the early Hurrians and the Hittites that came through from the steppes further north. They are not one people, as Katie says. They are many different tribal groups that history has lumped together under the name Gutians, but they are fierce in their own way.

“Mitani people?” Katie asked.

Ulrik nodded. “Mixed in there eventually, I guess.”

“So, what is in the bags?” Lincoln asked. He was thinking of the bags carried by the caravan in Lin’s day, but they were like satchels that hung over the back of the donkeys. These burdens looked like someone took a sheet, filled it with something almost to the breaking point and tied it to the back of the donkeys, which was almost more than the beasts could bear.

“Grain, our daily bread,” Ulrik answered. “Our fields were burned out by General Zod, and we haven’t done a winter planting. No point as long as there is a Gutian army hovering over our shoulders.”

“Winter planting?” Boston questioned. “You mean it isn’t August? I’m sweating.”

“Late September, early October,” Ulrik answered. “We are in a hot, dry time and have been for a couple of centuries. Drought conditions have helped move people into the great river valleys, and the hot and dry is helping to make this part of the world more like you are used to imagining it, with sandy, scrubby soil and plants in many places, well spaced across the fields. Call it early global warming,” Ulrik laughed to himself.

“What is that?” Alexis finally verbalized what everyone saw. They had been coming up on some great edifice. Now that they were closer, they could distinguish the beginning of walls from the buildings behind. It looked like an enormous settlement.

“My city,” Ulrik said. “And I am glad to see it still standing after my absence.”

“What city?” Katie asked.

Mingus stole the thunder and said the name. “Babylon.”

Avalon 2.6: Traveling Mercies

April 17, 2013April 17, 2013M G Kizzia Leave a comment

When the travelers discovered they would be more of a hindrance than a help in the war, they reluctantly decide to more on. Getting out of the war zone was good, but it hardly meant they were out of danger.

###

The line of lights in the dark steadied for a moment and Katie wondered if it was some kind of ground machine, like a truck with side lights. “Is it Gott-Druk?” she asked.

“No,” Elder Stow said flatly.

“How about a dragon hunting near the ground?” Lockhart wondered with a look at Lincoln.

“Thanks!” Lincoln sat up straight. “That is an image I won’t soon forget.”

Gimble, the chief dwarf stood, squinted, and then let out a whistle guaranteed loud enough and shrill enough to crack a window. The string of lights wavered, turned, and fluttered straight for them. The humans might have been afraid if the little ones were not so relaxed about it. When the lights arrived, it turned out to be fairies, as many as a hundred, and they went mostly for the trees for the night, but a number of them paused to examine the horses first. Two, one golden lit male and one bluish lit female made a special effort to pause before each human face around that camp. They hesitated in front of Elder Stow as well, but only very briefly. They also hardly paused at the elves and dwarfs as if they knew what they were and had no real interest in them.

“It is as we heard,” the female spoke. “Humans and spirits working together.”

“Strange,” the male said. “And the gods divided and alien creatures fighting beside the rest.”

“We are not aliens,” Elder Stow spoke up loudly. “Our genesis was on this world the same as the humans. We have as much right to be here as they do.”

“But you are no longer authorized to be on this world. By decree of the gods, it is a human world now.” Lockhart spoke the truth of it.

Elder Stow got a little hot. “But the gods have gone away, at least in our day.”

“Hey!” Roland, Boston, Katie and Lincoln all spoke up. “You are not to speak of future things like that.”

Elder Stow paused and looked around the group and ended with a look at Katie. “Mother. My apologies. I did not mean to speak out of turn.”

“Accepted,” Katie said without hesitation. Her eyes were on the blue glowing fairy. “I knew a fairy once that was blue like you. Her name was Bluebell.”

The blue fairy rushed up to Katie’s face. “My mother’s name was Bluebell,” she said.

“But it couldn’t be,” Katie shook her head, sadly. “That was on the other side of the world and had to be almost nine hundred years ago.”

“My mother lived to be over nine hundred. I was born five hundred years ago two years ago.”

“That makes you five hundred and two,” Lockhart suggested.

“It does? Well, that is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“A good thing,” Lockhart agreed.

“And we just arrived from the other side of the world,” the male added.

“But I don’t know. Mother avoided humans. You see, she met some once shortly before she lost her Lord. After that, she stayed away from the human world.”

“But she met some?”

“Yes. One with hair like fire who was called Mary Riley, but her real name was Boston and one with hair of gold called Lieutenant Harper, but her real name was Katie.”

“That’s my Bluebell!” Boston shouted. “I’m Boston.”

“And Honeysuckle?” Katie thought of her special friend.

“She was my mother,” the young male said. He did something then that caused Katie to audibly gasp. He got big, which is to say human sized. His wings vanished and his fairy weave clothes grew with him to fit his new size. Katie had forgotten fairies could do that. “My name is Ivy, and my wife is Holly,” he said. Holly got big, and she was as beautiful as everyone expected a fairy to be.

Katie stood. “I am Katie,” and she did what she did when she said good-bye to Bluebell and Honeysuckle. She hugged each of the fairies in turn, this time to say hello.

Captain Arturo rubbed his hands together. “Good thing you are here. We can use your help.”

When the travelers set out in the morning, they had a hundred fairies with them to watch their rear, move way out on their flanks, scout ahead and spy from far overhead. Elder Stow said he was honestly not sure of the range of the Gott-Druk scanners in the atmosphere, but he thought they might send a ship if they saw him traveling with humans, and especially if they picked up sign of the spirits with them.

“Then again, in this mixed-up war, they might find that normal and ignore it,” he concluded.

“Some little or lesser spirits might notice,” Captain Arturo admitted. He was jogging beside Lockhart and was speaking with him, Katie and Ivy in his small form who sat on the neck of Lockhart’s horse and held on to the horse’s mane. “Lesser spirits might have been a real problem with just my troop, but I have confidence now that we have the force to meet any such threat.”

“Let us hope the force won’t be needed,” Lockhart responded.

“I asked for this assignment,” Arturo admitted. “But my Lord could only send me and my troop. There were no others that could be spared. I believe the retreating has ended now and the real fighting will begin.”

“What?” Lincoln looked back as if looking all the way to the burning woods. “You mean there hasn’t been any real fighting yet?”

“To be sure there has,” Arturo said. “But most of our effort until now has been in an orderly retreat. They landed at the place my Lord calls Normandy. He brought the humans and us from that place step by step. We carried what food we could and destroyed the rest. We harried the enemy, but did not pitch battle. Now the enemy men are starving and the rebellion of the spirits is wavering. One good blow now and the enemy may fall apart. If the elder race can be turned, all the better.”

“Elder race?” Katie had to be sure she understood.

“The Gott-Druk,” Lockhart confirmed.

Up front, Boston talked nonstop with Missus Holly who was small and rode in her horse’s mane and Linnia who jogged beside them. Roland did his very best to ignore them. They were all three talking when a troop of six fairies rushed back from the front. They paused only long enough for a sentence before they rushed back to report to Lord Ivy.

“The enemy is up ahead just standing there, doing nothing.”

Boston got out her amulet and took a reading. The time gate was less than a mile away and she turned and shouted back to the others. “I bet they are guarding the time gate.”

###

Avalon 2.6: The Battle for Freedom … Next Time

Avalon 2.6: Multiple Worlds

March 25, 2013M G Kizzia Leave a comment

After 3617 BC around Paris, France. Kairos life 26: Tetamon, called the Theban.

Recording…

“This forest is far spookier than the one we left,” Boston said. “And it is going to be dark soon besides.”

“Looks and feels like a war zone if you ask me,” Lockhart spoke up from the rear. He and Katie had discussed it and agreed.

“I can smell fires burning in the distance,” Roland added. “Wildfires, not campfires, though I suppose there are some of those as well if there are armies.”

“My guess would be we came out somewhere in the Ardennes,” Lincoln said. “We seem to be headed toward Paris, or where Paris will be at some point in the future.”

“How do you figure?” Boston was getting used to asking that.

“Tetamon’s childhood was traveling around the Mediterranean with his Greek merchant father. But when he began to show signs that he was his mother’s son, he was banished for a time by the gods of Olympus.”

“What?” Katie was not getting it. She was too busy scanning the neighborhood for hostiles. Her every instinct was on alert.

“His mother was the Egyptian goddess Nephthys. As a teenager he laid the foundation for the city of Thebes in Egypt before Set got him kicked out of that country, too.”

“His mother was a goddess?” Boston thought she heard that wrong.

“That actually happened several times, that the Kairos was born a half-god or half-goddess. The gods of old were not known for being chaste, you know,” Roland explained quietly.

“Anyway,” Lincoln continued. “He wandered up the coasts of the Middle East and Asia Minor and got tangled with Tiamut.”

“One of our all time favorites,” Lockhart said.

“And eventually got back to Greece, but he was still not welcomed there so he wandered into Germanic lands. Forced to move on by Aesgard, he eventually came West where he finally settled around what would one day be Paris, France.”

“Adventurous life,” Elder Stow offered a rare opinion.

“Yes, but anyway, I figure we must be headed through the forest toward Paris.”

“How do you figure?” Boston tried again.

“Snow,” Roland said.

“No snow in Egypt, the Middle East or normally Greece,” Lincoln finished the explanation.

Boston nodded as Katie fired her gun. The party stopped moving forward. “Something is coming through the trees,” she said.

“Shouldn’t we ask questions first and shoot later?” Boston wondered out loud even as an arrow came toward them in answer. It was followed by several more.

“To those rocks,” Lockhart pointed further West. It was a good defensive place that put the sun at their backs and allowed them to shoot toward the East or North as needed. Boston and Roland tied off the horses behind the protection of the rocks.

The rocks were slick with ice. Everyone had to be careful, but Katie and Lincoln quickly took the two best positions for their rifles. Lockhart had his shotgun and unsnapped the cover of his holster so his pistol could be quickly brought to bear.

“I say again, let me have my weapons,” Elder Stow tried.

Once again Lockhart shook his head. “Bullets are bad enough as historical disruptions go. We don’t need heat rays blasting the forest.”

“It isn’t a heat ray, as you call it,” Elder Stow complained.

“Go get Decker’s pistol. Can you shoot a pistol?”

The Gott-Druk stood and scrambled down to the horses. “It can’t be that complicated.”

Roland was best with the horses so Boston climbed up from behind when the attack came. The enemy was unseen and preferred to shoot from behind the bushes and trees, but they did have to stick out their heads and arms to fire, and that was when Lincoln, Katie and Lockhart could draw a bead. Several were hit, though none were necessarily killed.

“I think they are waiting for reinforcements,” Boston spoke up. She had not fired her weapon and was keeping her head down, but watched as well as she could. Elder Stow came up beside her so she missed what Katie and Lincoln planned.

“Roland,” Lockhart shouted in English as soon as he figured out how to be sure it was in English rather than the local tongue. “Get the horses ready for a quick ride.”

“What are you thinking?” Boston shouted back.

Katie was closer, so she answered. “This was a good temporary redoubt, but they appear only to be in that direction so we will ride in the opposite direction and our horses should be able to outrun them, even in the woods.” As she finished speaking she had to get busy. Some twenty men, or maybe they were something like animals came out from the trees to charge their position. Boston and Elder Stow added their fire to the three in the rocks and those five guns left nineteen on the ground in various forms of groaning and trying to crawl back to the trees.

“Now,” Lockhart said and he started to get up, but the answering fire came from the other side at that point, and it was one of what he called “heat rays.” The rocks in front exploded into slivers. Lockhart went down, his back shredded. Katie saved her face but got several bad cuts in her arms and one in her side. Lincoln escaped as did the ones further away who both reacted.

Elder Stow ran back down to the horses. Boston closed her eyes, thought of the Amazons and the wall she built against the magician in that valley. She was not sure if it would work, but the heat rays from the other side soon hit her wall and reflected off, straight up into the air. Someone must have seen, because in a moment three small ships came over their position and hovered briefly before they started firing into the woods at their enemy. That enemy must have moved, and quickly because the craft shot over top of the forest and disappeared, though they could continue to hear shots fired from the craft. It was like they were trying to get at the enemy down among the trees, and if they hit any, no one knew, but certainly a number of trees were set aflame.

Elder Stow returned from the horses with all his equipment back in his pockets, on his wrist and around his neck. He discarded Cophu’s bag which had just about disintegrated from age and came up first to Lockhart. “Forgive me father for overstepping my boundaries,” he said and moved a flat piece of equipment over Lockhart’s back. The slivers of stone vacated the flesh, though he remarked how many of the slivers were already being pushed out.

“Over here,” Boston yelled and the Elder did the same thing for Katie. The pieces of stone that cut into her were far less, in far less vital areas, but they were still deep, one cutting all the way to the bone. Then he passed the device over each cut and the flesh pulled together like it was stitched.

“The inside will still need to heal, but there should be no infection once the outside is sealed.”

“I’ll be fine,” Katie insisted and she crawled over to Lockhart. He was preparing to sit up.

“Gaian healing chits still active, I guess. I should be whole in a couple of hours.”

Roland came up from the horses now that Lincoln was down there. He went straight for Boston, but looked at Lockhart as he spoke. “Can you ride?” Lockhart nodded and he and Katie clambered down the far side of the rocks and crawled up on their mounts. The others were ready and they left that place a bit slower than they planned.

###