Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed (21 page)

Nor you
, Vidarr replied.
But I’ve been putting up with yours since you got here.

Touche.

What?

Never mind.
Larson set to work on the second thighbone, mind racing.
Vidarr, I have an idea. You can’t help me fight Bolverkr directly, right?
He did not wait for an answer.
Could you do something for me that wouldn’t affect Bolverkr at all?

Possibly.
Guarded interest slipped from Vidarr.

Larson struggled with a second stone.
I’m hoping it won’t happen. But if things get desperate, I promised Shadow I’d take Silme and Astryd to my world. If it comes to that, would you take care of my elf body here?

A long silence followed. Not a trace of emotion tainted the pause.

Larson finished setting the second stone. He considered asking Vidarr the myriad questions that plagued him about reality and the existence of the world he once knew as the future. However, from past experience, he felt certain Vidarr would not have the answers.
Or if he does, I won’t need to ask; he’ll tell me.
Carefully, Larson rose, checking his pockets for a block of flint and his dagger. His heart pounded, revealing the trepidations he kept out of his thoughts.

Just as it seemed as if Vidarr had left without answering, the god’s soft voice recurred.
Yes. I’ll do this for you. I’ll take care of your elf body if it becomes necessary.

Larson read something discomforting beneath the god’s promise. Before he could press the issue, Vidarr changed the subject.

What are those things you’re working on? Lamps?

Just evening the odds a bit.
Larson retrieved the bones from the ground.
Bolverkr’s got magic I don’t understand, and now I’ve got magic he won’t understand.
He could not help adding to himself,
If we’re going to play without rules, we’ll just see who fucking loses.

Vidarr’s presence faded, leaving a final warning so gently distant, Larson was uncertain it was intended for him at all.
Let’s just try to see to it we don’t all lose.

Nature, with equal mind,
Sees all her sons at play;
Sees man control the wind,
The wind sweep man away.

—Matthew Arnold
Empedocles on Etna

The rain ceased with the same unnatural abruptness with which it had begun, settling the world into a deep silence that set Larson’s every nerve jangling. Sitting in the gutted town, amid his gathered crocks and powders, he saw nothing move. No sound touched his senses, only a quiet, horrible certainty that something was about to happen. He crouched, clutching his makeshift bombs, feeling the drumming solo of his heartbeat against an otherwise overpowering stillness.

Suddenly, light snapped open the evening haze, silhouetting the ruins black against startling brilliance. A distant scream followed, mixing fear and rage.

Larson recognized the voice.
Astryd!
His breath seemed to freeze in his chest. He staggered to his feet, galloping from the village before he even realized he had moved. The clouds unraveled with abnormal speed. Twilight glared through, its grayness bright after days of veiled sun. The magical flash faded. As if it were a signal, a grotesque shadow blotted out his glimpse of sunlight.

Larson glanced upward as he ran, anguish clawing at him like a living thing. A dragon knifed through the air, its wings flapping whirlwinds through muddy fields. Its scales glinted gold in the sparse light of evening. Ignoring Larson, it speared over his head, veering south at a downward angle.

My friends are in trouble, forced to fight Bolverkr without me. How could I let that happen?
Larson quickened his pace. Using the dragon as a guide, he sprinted, his momentum thrown so far forward he all but sprawled in the dirt. His hands clenched whitely about the gunpowder-filled bones.

The slap of the dragon’s wings beat against Larson’s ears. Beneath it, he heard Astryd’s cry of outrage. Bolverkr’s answer blurred to incomprehensibility, growing louder and clearer as Larson approached. “... helpless ... to ... dragon ... down on me....”

Larson darted over a rise, suddenly gaining a distant but perfect view of the battle. Near the forest’s edge, Bolverkr stood on a ridge hedged by piled stones, his stance regally upright and unconcerned. Taziar hammered at the sorcerer with his staff; each blow fell short of its target. Behind Taziar, Astryd kept her gaze glued to the dragon. She made a stabbing gesture toward Bolverkr. Silme waited in a silent stillness, her lip blanched between her teeth, her features crinkled in confusion.

Silme! What has he done to Silme?
Larson’s instincts drove him to rush recklessly to Silme’s defense. But common sense stopped him cold.
We’ll win this by careful strategy or not at all.
Larson ducked behind a row of stones, forcing himself to think.
Bolverkr’s shielded. I need to approach unseen or from behind to get through his magic barrier.

Calm as a giant playing with children, Bolverkr ignored Taziar’s attacks. The dragon screamed toward the sorcerer, obviously in Astryd’s control.

Quietly, Larson crawled around a circling ledge of stone and brush, catching shifting glimpses of the combatants.

The dragon plummeted toward Bolverkr.

The sorcerer laughed. He made an abrupt chopping motion. Sparks sprayed from his fingertips, forming a gentle arc. The magics coalesced, exploding into a ball of white that streamed toward Astryd with all the inhuman speed of her dragon.

“No!” Too late, Taziar dove into the path of the spell. The magics shrieked over his head, slamming into Astryd’s face. His staff crashed down on Bolverkr’s invisible shield. The wood cracked, hurling splinters.

Astryd staggered and fell to one knee.

No longer controlled, the dragon spun crazily. Its form blurred to a pale outline, wavered as if to disappear. Then, gradually, it resolidified. Suddenly, it whirled toward Taziar.

Silme remained still, watching impassively.

Though driven to action, Larson forced himself to stay hidden.
No way to know if Bolverkr’s shield can repel explosives. I can’t attack until I’m behind him.
He quickened his crawl.

“See, Silme, I can kill your friends any time. Watch!” Bolverkr’s words flowed past Larson unheard. Larson stared in horror as the great, golden beast dipped toward Taziar. The Climber ran in sharp patterns, but the dragon maneuvered with hawklike finesse. It sped downward. One black-nailed claw clouted Taziar’s scalp, bowling him across stone and grass. The dragon backpedaled, leaping into the sky.

Bolverkr laughed again. “Still, I’ve got no reason to kill them. They’re nothing to me. They can’t hurt us. But Allerum is an anachronism. His influence will destroy our worlds! Will you pay for your love with the lives of gods and innocents?”

“But you destroy innocents, too.” Silme’s voice sounded strange, faltering.

Concerned for Taziar and intent on his own emplacement, Larson scarcely heard the exchange.

The dragon circled, swooping down on Astryd. Taziar screamed, darting toward the Dragonrank sorceress, the splayed remains of his staff still clamped in his fist.

“I destroyed two villages,” Bolverkr confessed. “I killed those townsfolk so you might understand, so we might save the nine worlds. I killed two villages. Allerum’s technology will kill thousands!”

The dragon hovered over Astryd. Her eyes went wide, wild, blue orbs of fear and desperation.

Silme rallied against Bolverkr. “You’re wrong,” she shouted. “Allerum doesn’t want to harm anyone. He wouldn’t use his knowledge to ...”

Silme’s defense was suffocated beneath Astryd’s screeched spell words. Yellow light grew, outlining her tiny form. The dragon’s mouth hinged open as it prepared to breathe its fire.

Too late!
Though not yet behind Bolverkr, Larson lit the first wick, knowing the attack would reveal him, yet unwilling to let the dragon kill Astryd as the price for his positioning.

Taziar lunged. His wiry form arched through the air and thumped to a landing beside Astryd. He scrambled over her, shielding her with his body.

Caught by surprise, Astryd gasped. Her spell shattered, collapsing to harmless, fizzling pinpoints. The first tongue of flame issued from the dragon’s mouth.

Larson hurled his makeshift bomb. The bone thudded against the scaled side. The dragon twisted as it gouted flame, its fires splashing slightly off target. “Get out of the way!” Larson warned his companions. “Now!”

Taziar staggered a few steps, dragging Astryd, his clothes alight.

The Climber’s movements seemed ponderous. Larson willed his friend to move faster.

The dragon hesitated.

The wick flame flickered, then seemed to disappear. Larson cursed his failure just as the bone exploded. Brown-white fragments pierced the reptilian hide. The beast roared, then winked out as if it had never existed. The blast’s concussion slammed Taziar to the ground. He and Astryd lay still, flaccid as death, oblivious to the flames licking at their clothing.

Bolverkr whirled toward Larson, composure lost, shock and urgency etched clearly on his face. A blinding ball of light snapped to life in his fingers.

Larson fumbled with flint and steel, awkwardly igniting the other wick.
God, please let this penetrate his shield.
He drew back to throw even as Bolverkr’s magics left his fingers, blazing a screaming, silver trail.

“No!” Silme did not move, yet a tendril of her consciousness stabbed into Larson’s thoughts with enough force to incapacitate him. He collapsed, writhing in pain, blind to the spell that whizzed over his head. The bone tumbled from his grip, clicking against the flint and dagger as it fell. The clearing disappeared, replaced by another, more familiar battleground ...

“Incoming!” The cry rang around Larson in a dozen different voices. “Incoming!” He woke in a cold sweat, rolling from bed to floor, painfully rigid and alert. Grabbing his M-16, he clutched it like a favorite doll, half-running, half-crawling for the exit of his wood-framed, bamboo hooch. One of his companions made a dive for the door at the same time. Struck in the ear by a flailing elbow, Larson tumbled into the oppressive, damp heat and darkness of the jungle night. Footsteps pounded around him. Guns coughed and chattered, muzzle flashes cutting the blackness in random spots, densest near the perimeter.

Tracers streaked the night red, and a mortar round thudded to earth, loud despite distance. Gunfire churned dirt that rattled from the tin-roofed shelters. Fear threatened to overwhelm Al Larson. The instinct to run nearly overpowered him, balanced only by the terrible realization that there was nowhere safe to go. He froze, watching illumination rounds glaring whitely, seeing dark forms running, rolling, and low-crawling on both sides of the coiled concertina wire perimeter.

“Mommy!” someone screamed in frantic, mindless agony. “Oh, Mommy, Mommy.”

An explosion stifled the sound, close enough to rain dirt over Larson....

... A curse reverberated through Larson’s head in a foreign tongue he could not quite place, Silme’s voice wildly out of place.