Dockalfar (3 page)

There was a roar in his ears that sounded vaguely like the engine roar of his nightmares, but he was awake and this out-lash of sound breathed hot breath and specks of saliva on his back. An arm larger by far than his leg wrapped about his neck, pulling him back. He went through the air and hit the wall just by the bed, sliding down in a weak-kneed puddle, his head spinning from the impact.

“Run, Vicky!” he shouted hoarsely.

“Run.” He heard her call his name, then something, several somethings smaller than the initial shape flashed past his vision and scurried over the window sill.

She cried out. He forced his muscles into action and tried to gain his feet. Something blocked the view of the window. He looked up and caught the faint glint of yellow eyes, then an impossibly hard fist lashed out and slammed him back against the wall. Everything left him then. He was back to the insistent hum of machine gun fire and the never ending crash of waves.

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It was cold. The cold was an unusual aspect of the dream. He was usually sweating and sticky, fighting to keep the mosquitoes from feeding off his lifeblood.

It was also quiet, save for the low whistle of wind. It was not the quiet of the tropics, for no insistent crickets chirped or night birds sang, no engines marred the perfection of the silence. Not even the car engines that one could never get away from in the city. Very slowly, he opened his eyes. A slit at first, looking under his lashes at what appeared to be flat gray stone, then he moved his head somewhat and looked at more stone. Stone that slanted upwards at sharp angles, decorated here and there with patches of irregular snow.

Snow and stone. Quiet and cold. He lay for a while trying to associate these conditions with the last place he remembered. Victoria’s apartment on the lower east side of Kansas city. Kansas city, as far as he knew, had very little in the way of snow-bound cliffs. Which only left him the conclusion that he was dreaming. The first non-war related dream he’d had since coming home. He was not totally displeased with the change, just confused.

“It’s awake.” A gravely voice interrupted the perfection of the silence.

“The bakatu is awake.”

Alex twisted his neck, peering behind him and was doubly assured that he was indeed in the midst of a dream. A very strange little creature squatted beside him.

He might call it a man, if he wanted to stretch the description. It looked more like a collection of hairy slabs of flesh improperly pieced together. Its head was large and singularly atrocious. Brows that made the most primitive of cave men seem intellectual, overshadowed small, glinting black eyes. There were no whites to those eyes, no gleam of humanity. The nose was nothing more than an afterthought of flesh slapped in the center of the off-balance face, and the lips were fleshy slabs that hardly hid the sharp, yellowed teeth beneath them. Bristly black hair grew in tufts indiscriminately about the face and head, and what portions of the body uncovered by leather and rags also seemed abundantly blessed with clots of fur. The shoulders were broad in comparison to the spindly legs and bony knees that poked out of holes in the leggings. The hands were huge and large knuckled, the nails sharp and long, well coated in dirt. All in all it was a very gruesome little man, for even squatting, Alex guessed that he could not have topped five feet. This was most certainly not the thing encountered in Victoria’s apartment.

“Who are you?” Alex asked, playing along with the dream. The shaggy brows drew together and it reached out one hand to prod him in the shoulder.

“Shut up, bakatu.” The little man looked over his shoulder. “It talks.”

Alex followed the gaze. Two dark-skinned, wizened little creatures crouched by a fire. Hairless, wrinkled scalps topped faces, that if not more normally formed, were at least as hideously frightening as the thing sitting by him.

Sharp, pointed teeth bristled from beneath their drawn lips. Their clothing consisted mainly of wide leather belts and loincloths. They were stout creatures that stood only marginally taller than the misshapen little man.

“Cut out its tongue,” one suggested, cackling. “Bakatu tongue soup sounds good for supper.”

“Never ate bakatu before,” the thing next to him mused, scratching at something that scurried through the hair on its head.

“They eat themselves and never leave a scrap for strangers.”

The two dark creatures hissed in what could have been laughter among themselves. Alex felt his hackles rise.

This was not turning into a pleasant dream. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning on has hands. His head throbbed abysmally, his mouth was painfully dry.

“What are you?” he asked again.

“Where am I?”

“Don’t listen well, does it?” the little man observed to his companions. “Maybe we won’t eat it, maybe we’ll eat its female.”

Alex stared at him blankly. The creature bared its teeth and waved a hand to Alex’s right. There was a pile of cream silk crumpled in the shadow of two overhanging rocks. Alex gaped, then swung his gaze back to the little man unbelievingly before scrambling over on hands and knees to the form.

Victoria was cold. Her skin was chill and flaccid, her lips slightly blue. There was a bruise on her cheek and her hair was tangled in disarray about her face and shoulders. He grabbed her face in his hands, bringing his own close, praying for the telling hint of breath. She breathed lightly. Just a tickle of air on his cheek, and he grasped her up to his chest in relief, murmuring her name Victoria had not formerly been a part of his nightmares. That she was here now sent alarms rushing though his mind.

“What have you done to her?” he demanded, not bothering to let her go or turn to the creatures.

The little man shuffled over, reaching out to lift a strand of Victoria’s hair. Alex slapped his hand away.

“What do you think?” the thing said with a leer.

Alex gasped at him, a strangling fury rising. “You bastard….”

The yellow grin widened.

“Personally, I’d have nothing to do with a Bakatu female. If a female don’t have fur, what good is she, I say.”

“Bashru. What you doing?” A rumbling voice bounced off the rocks and the little man started, glancing around nervously. A great form moved up a trail that led down from the rocky grotto they occupied.

Alex’s eyes widened. It was almost as wide as he was tall, and twice his height. A small head balanced precariously atop the massive shoulders.

It looked vaguely porcine about the face and ears. It carried with it an ax a good five feet long. With every lumbering step it took, the leather armor it wore creaked and the great bones beneath the ample padding of flesh and muscle seemed to crack. It was a familiar noise. It brought back the shadowed shape in the darkness of Victoria’s apartment. Alex gaped, shocked silent, holding Victoria closer, as if his puny arms might be some protection against that.

It stood over him, its shadow a complete blanket. The little man scurried past it and crouched a little bit away from the other two creatures, glaring at the giant’s back.

For a long moment it stared down at them, then finally it spoke, its voice a rumbling, grating of vocal chords.

“You don’t do what Zakknr says first time and….” He slapped one fist into the palm of the other. The crack made Alex jump. His eyes practically bugged from their sockets. “….you disobey second time and I break female.” He made a twisting, wrenching motion with those unbelievably large hands. “You understand?”

When Alex only stared incomprehensibly, the thing, this Zakknr drew in a deep breath and roared at him.

“You understand, bakatu?!!”

Alex jerked back, huddling against the rock, hugging Victoria so tight that he probably cut off her breathing. He nodded shakily and Zakknr shook his head once in satisfaction, then lumbered over to the fire.

Alex continued to watch him warily, slowly relaxing his grip on Victoria. The little man, after a while wondered back over, sitting on a rock and staring at them.

Alex tried to ignore him, looking down at Victoria’s face, brushing her hair back and lightly caressing the bruise on her cheek.

Her breathing was regular now and deep.

Her warmth against his chest took away some of the cold. He did not have his shirt, just the pants he had hastily thrown on when Zakknr had invaded their living room. She was little better, with only a night gown and thin silk robe. He chanced a glance back up and the little man was still staring.

“What do you want?” Alex ground out, low enough so the words did not carry to the fire.

“Ogres aren’t very pleasant, hmmm?” the creature remarked.

Alex glanced past him to the fire. An ogre? He laughed a bit hysterically. “And what are you? A troll?”

The hideous face twisted with surprising dexterity. “Troll. Paauughh! I be a spriggan and proud of it. Better than any goblin or ogre, that be fer sure.”

Insulted, the spriggan moved off, turning its back on him. That was fine. Its front was discernibly unsettling. Alex rubbed his cheek against Victoria’s hair, craving her softness and warmth. She stirred slightly. He whispered her name and she turned in his arms, burrowing her cheek against his chest.

“I’m cold,” she murmured, still hazy with sleep.

He tightened his arms. “Me too, but it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

“A dream?” She blinked up at him, her lashes were black slashes against her pale skin. She smiled slightly. “What do you mean, love?”

“This just isn’t real. I’ll wake up soon and everything will be all right.” He hoped so. He truly hoped so.

Her brows drew and she made to turn. He held her close. “You don’t want to see,” he assured her.

There was uncertainty in her eyes now – she pushed against his chest and twisted. He let her, sighing. She gasped and flattened herself to him, one hand at her mouth. For a long time she said nothing. The spriggan turned its head once to stare at them, and Victoria shuddered.

“Alex,” she whispered, “if this is your dream, then I’m in it.”

“I know.”

She craned her neck to look at him, then at the sky above. It was darkening with evening. Tentatively she put out a hand and felt the cold ground, she picked up a pebble and hefted it in her small hand. Suddenly she tossed it into the center of the clearing. The ogre growled in surprise and the two goblins hissed.

She drew back.

“Alex.” Her voice was shaky and broken. “This is no dream. This is real.”

“No, it’s not,” he assured her. “I have them all the time, not like this granted, but they always seem real.”

“Alexander, this is real,” she insisted, her voice rising in panic. “I know dream from reality and this is not dream. Nightmare maybe, but it’s real.”

He was about to argue further when a voice came from nowhere.

“Trolls. On the ridge above.”

It was smooth and clear and for the life of him he had no notion where it originated. But the spriggan was staring at a spot just beyond the ogre’s campfire, and the goblins were doing likewise nervously whispering among themselves.

There was an inconsistent section of rock and shadow. He squinted at it and as his brain registered that there was indeed something there other than stone dappled in evening light, his eyes began to make out the shake of a roughly man-sized form ensconced in what at first seemed a ragged collection of layered cloaks. On closer inspection, and the more he looked the more details he saw, the cloak was cut with precise imperfection, each layer a differing length of a light, thin fabric. It was the exact color of the stone behind it.

It even seemed to darken where the shadow fell on the rock. A concealing cowl covered the form’s head, but it seemed no taller than Alex and its shoulders no wider, and with the movement of the cloak in the breeze he caught sight of a hand that looked very much human, save for the slender, narrow length of the fingers. The skin was very much an echo of the cloak and rock, though only faintly paler.

At the shape’s statement, the ogre lurched to its feet, grabbing its ax. “How many?” it rumbled.

The form held up four fingers.

“Adults, this time,” he clarified. It was a male voice, though beautifully silken and tinted with a hint of accent.

“Can’t take on four trolls,” the spriggan whined, dancing from foot to foot nervously. “Look what almost happened with just a single young one?”

“Shut up, Bashru,” Zakknr growled, then cast his narrow, piggish glare at Alex and Victoria, as if they held some fault in the cloaked man’s announcement.

“Get horses,” he suddenly snarled and stomped across the clearing toward Alex.

Victoria let out a startled squeal as the ogre reached down with one hand and yanked her out of Alex’s arms.

Complaining, Alex followed her up on his own and had his arm encased in the uncompromising grasp. With a human in each hand he dragged them across the clearing to where the goblins and spriggan had saddled a cluster of night dark horses.

Or something like horses, but not exactly.

One of the animals bared his teeth at the spriggan and Alex realized that the teeth were not the teeth of a herbivore. The spriggan was already mounted, his dark eyes scanning the rocks above them. From somewhere out in the shadows there was a crashing and a loud series of grunts.

Zakknr let go of Alex to effortlessly swing Victoria up behind the spriggan. Her legs were pale slashes against black horse and tack.

“No.” He tried to struggle when the ogre dragged him away, calling Victoria’s name. She looked over her shoulder at him, helplessly as the spriggan spurred the horse into motion. She disappeared down the trail behind an outcrop of rock. The goblins were already on their mounts and following the spriggan. The ogre hoisted him up into the saddle of the remaining horse, then climbed up after him. This horse was considerably larger than the other three, more like some parody of a draft horse, with thick fetlocks and a flat back that Alex could have stretched out fully upon. The animal grunted under the ogre’s weight. Alex found himself trapped between the ogre’s arms, any route of escape vanished. Not that he wanted escape, with things that even the ogre feared shambling down the slope.