Across the Rift 12
An Ex-soldier in a strange new land...
Chapter 12
Morning After
Sean woke with a start when he heard the pounding on the door. Rolling over, he slipped off the side of the bed and landed face first on the ground. With a groan he pushed himself to his feet and looked around blearily for clothes. Sean's favorite thing about leaving the service was that he was finally able to sleep in. Unfortunately, after several years in uniform, his perception of sleeping in was rather skewed and he considered 8:00 to be late. Dressing himself awkwardly in his still damaged reactive combat armor, due to his bad leg being rather stiff, he dragged himself to the door and walked out into the corridor.
In Arutha's room the knock was more muted. He was already awake when the summons came; however, he was in a bit of a predicament. Syphis had spent the night in his room; the new bed had arrived, larger and subtly reinforced. Now, he was trying to extricate himself, without waking her. Slowly sliding his arm out from under her he carefully sat up and then gained his feet. Dressing quietly, he bent down and kissed (or as close a creature with a muzzle could come to a kiss) the still sleeping Syphis before heading out the door.
Jonesy came awake suddenly, though to anyone watching only a slight change in breathing pattern would have given that away. He silently tried to remember what had happened last night. After the fight with the drakai, he and the mysterious meechan had headed toward a cave the meechan knew that they could hole up in. Supporting each other as much as themselves, they had barely made it inside before collapsing.
Taking stock, he could tell that his modular tactical vest and helmet had been removed though he could not recall doing so. A reassuring weight on his hip was his pistol and he could feel his remaining throwing knife in his left boot, though he was not sure he could effectively draw and throw it with two broken fingers on that hand. The hard packed dirt ground certainly was not the Hilton, but he had slept on worse, most notably sleeping in a swamp for several months when he first arrived.
Opening his eyes he glanced around taking in his surroundings. A small cave, far enough back that the light was bare sufficient to see. Looking around, Jonesy spotted the meechan sitting against the wall eyes closed. Jonesy spotted his pack up against the wall next to him, his helmet and vest next to it.
Jonesy sat up, a sharp pain in his ribs causing a sharp intake of breath. Immediately the meechan was awake and staring at him. Jonesy ignored her for a second, trying to get the pain under control. Then, he looked over at her. It was not a pretty sight, most of her dark fur was matted down with blood and she had long slashes on the forearms and torso region. Most of the blood however, was from the now dead drakai.
"Who are you?" Jonesy finally asked, breaking the silence.
"I am called Shadow." The meechan answered slowly, as if giving up a closely guarded state secret.
"That's not a meechan name."
"That is what I am called." 'Shadow' said with an air of finality. Jonesy decided not to push the subject.
"What exactly where you doing there? Kathragon ain't exactly known for employing meechan." Jonesy was slowly getting to his feet as he questioned the meechan. He walked over to his gear and sat down next to it, now facing the meechan directly with his back against the wall of the cave.
"I do not serve Kathragon, my mistress has received reports of him fielding a new weapon, I was sent here to ascertain the truth of that."
"Great, a god damn spy." Jonesy had worked in a reconnaissance and intelligence gathering role before, he did not like it.
"We prefer the term intelligence agent, Spy has so many negative connotations." Jonesy snorted when he heard this.
"You are one of Corinagon's humans are you not?" Shadow asked suddenly.
"If by Corinagon you mean the lord of Nachhome, then yes. We are not 'one of his' we simply work for him." Jonesy did not like the implication that they were little more than pawns.
"I'm the one asking the questions here, who do you, work for?"
Shadow hesitated for a second before replying, "My mistress is an ally of your lord."
"Nithragon?" Jonesy guessed. He knew the names of only a handful dragon lords. Shadow nodded in affirmation.
"So, what now?" Jonesy asked.
"Neither of us would make it alone, we should travel together to my mistress's territory. It's closer, only about four days, and we'll be able to recuperate before you go on to your lord's territory."
"Fine, we'll spend today resting then head out tomorrow." Jonesy started digging through his pack, it did not take him long to find what he was looking for.
"Now, come over here." He said, holding his small aid bag. "I wanna do something about those cuts."
By the time Sean made it into the Demon's tower everyone else was already there. The Demon, Arutha, Forana, Fiona, and Kit were all crowded around a table. Moving closer Sean saw it was a map, probably of the surrounding area. As he entered everyone looked up at him then returned their attention to the map except for Fiona.
"What's wrong with your leg?" She asked as he drew closer.
"Dunno it's been kinda stiff and hurts a little." At this Fiona frowned.
"Stiffness is to be expected, but if it hurts to walk, I don't think it's healing correctly, I'd kill for a decent imaging system." Fiona said wistfully.
"I could take a look at that." The Demon said, somehow making a helpful offer sound slightly sinister.
"I don't want to interrupt anything."
"Nonsense, no point in planning if you're incapable of executing the mission." The Demon replied, that smile on its face. Forana moved to get a stool. As Sean sat, the Demon placed his hands around the affected area. After a second he looked up.
"You'll need to take off Draconex; He makes it difficult for Nachi to be cast on you."
"So I'm immune to Nachi?" Sean asked hopefully. He took Draconex out of the sheathe and passed it to Fiona.
"No, it's just a bit more difficult to cast it on you, Draconex interferes." This time when the Demon placed his hands on Sean's leg, they were surrounded by a silvery glow. Sean nearly jerked his leg aside in shock, but he managed to control himself, besides the Demon had a rather strong hold. After a few seconds, the glow faded and the Demon released his leg.
"Well?" Fiona asked impatiently.
"Not good, the bones are not aligning properly, which explains the stiffness, and the pain is caused by small bone fragments which are embedded in the muscle." The Demon explained.
"Could you fix it?"
"If he was a dragon lord, then yes. A meechan or a drakai, probably. But a human no, Nachi doesn't work as well cross species. There could be horrible complications."
"I'm fine." Sean interjected. "I'm not a hundred percent, but I'm still good to go."
"If you say so." Fiona replied with obvious doubts.
"So what's the plan?" Sean asked, trying to change the subject.
"The problem is this; we don't have enough fuel to make it to the boat." Kit said gesturing to the map. Sean looked at the map. Though he was unable to read the symbols he got the gist of it. The boat was marked with an X; it was just past a solid line that Sean guessed was the border of Nithragon's territory. A circle surrounded what Sean guessed was the citadel.
"This is how far we can get on our current fuel." Kit explained. The circle extended only three fourths of the way to the boat.
"Our plan is to bring the boat south down the coast." Kit said. "To this river here," Kit pointed to a river that was south of the citadel and led east. "We bring it up the river, then we can bring the truck and meet it here." She said as she pointed to point along the river just before it curved farther south, well inside the circle marking the range of the truck.
"So, how long will this take?" Sean asked, dreading another long trip.
"About three days to Nithragon's territory, then two more days after that to get to Arutha's village and the boat." The Demon said.
"Once you get to the boat, use the radio to contact us." Kit said. "I'll bring the truck down to the bend; we'll load it up with anything useful."
"So you won't be going with us?"
"No. Just you, Arutha, and Forana. One of us always stays here to hold down the fort and with Jonesy's already out that means I get to stay here and she gets to drive around." Fiona explained.
"So when are we leaving?" Sean asked.
"As soon as you are ready, provisions have already been procured for the trip." The Demon said.
"No time like the present, I'm gonna go and draw weapons then." Sean turned from the map and made his way to the door.
"I'm gonna need someone to show me the way to the armory."
Fiona led the way down into the area where the humans kept their weapons when not in use. A long winding tunnel set apart from the rest. At the entrance to the tunnel, Sean noticed two meechan blocking the entrance, who only moved aside once they saw who was approaching. The strange thing was that they were not only armed with spears, but also had some type of hide armor, the first time Sean had seen such a thing. Sean waited until they had moved into the room and the door shut before he said anything.
"Who were they?"
"Who, the guards?" Fiona asked slightly absentmindedly.
"Yeah."
"I guess you could call them the elite guard, the Demon gave about thirty of the regular militiamen to Jonesy to train."
"So the Demon ends up with either a platoon of shock troops, or he uses those thirty to train more?"
Fiona stopped walking and turned to face Sean. "I guess, but I'm not sure what good they'd do, the Demon only has about one hundred troops, and they act more like a guard force than an army."
"So, that's a no on him starting a war of conquest?" Sean asked.
"That's a no." Fiona said shaking her head as she did so. The two of them resumed walking down the tunnel and it wasn't long before they came to a stop before another wooden door. Fiona pushed the door open and led the way inside. Fumbling for a second, she flicked a switch which lit up a small klieg light stand.
"Wait, I thought you guys didn't have electricity?" Sean asked, confusion written on his face.
"We have a small thirty kVA diesel electric generator, took Kit about two weeks to set it up, that's what has been the primary consumer of all of our gas." Fiona explained as she moved deeper into the room. Inside the small room, most of the wall space was taken up with weapon racks and in the middle of the room sat a large flat table which Sean assumed was for cleaning and working on the weapons.
It didn't take him long to find his beloved CAR-15 HBAR. It, along with all of his other weapons were all stacked neatly next to each other. Removing it from the rack, Sean brought it over to the table and sat down on one of the two chairs. Fiona also removed a weapon from the rack, a M4 Spectre, and brought it to the table before retrieving the necessary materials to fully clean the weapons.
Sean was already breaking down the rifle, The AR-15 had always been a maintenance intensive weapon, and the .458 SOCOM rounds fouled the weapon slightly more than the .223 rounds normally used. Across the table Fiona was similarly disassembling her weapon, they sat for a few minutes and silence before Sean put the cleaning rag down and spoke.
"Okay, If I'm going to be leaving and traveling off to who knows were, then I'm gonna need some Intel on the political scene, I needa know everything, and I figure this is as good as any time to get an info dump."
"Alright, how you want the brief?"
"Top down."
"Okay, here it goes..."
Half an hour later, Sean held up his to stop Fiona.
"Too much?" She asked.
"Yeah, too much too fast." What had started as a political overview and sitrep had morphed into a full scale lecture.
"Let me get this straight, each territory is controlled by a dragon lord. They are very competitive and tend to be strong magically as well. In the grand scheme of things, the Demon is more or less a backwater lord who's only claim to fame is being stronger than usual in magic, and lately, having us humans around. Now, Kathragon is also a minor lord, but he's messing with peoples stuff and Jonesy went to kill him. Nithragon is a big time lord, or lady or whatever, who supports the Demon, but can't or won't do so overtly because most of the other lords don't like him, for the fact that he has us humans hanging around. Is that more or less it?" Sean concluded.
"Pretty much, is there anything specific you wanted to know?" Fiona asked.
"One thing that's been bugging me?"
"What's that?"
"Okay, we're like in this different world or alternate dimension or whatever right?"
"Yeah, something like that." Fiona said.
"So, how is it that everyone speaks English?" Sean asked. At this Fiona outright laughed.
"Actually, I was wondering the exact same thing not six months ago."
"And what'd you find out?"
"It's like this, a really long time ago, there was all these race wars between the meechan and the drakai and the dragon lords, okay? Anyways, that sucked. So what happened was that a bunch of Nachi from all three races got together and put together a spell that would allow all the species to talk to each other. Probably with the reasoning that if they talked they wouldn't fight." Fiona paused to take a breath.
"What happened was that the spell worked, but not like it was supposed to. It only translated the main dialect for each species, and most of the Nachi ended up kicking the bucket. Oh yeah, and it still took a really long time for the wars to finally end." Fiona finished.
"So main dialect?"
"Different versions of each of the species tongues. Apparently the drakai only have a few, but the meechan have dozens."
"So for us it translates English, but not another language?" Sean asked, the beginnings of a plan forming in his head.
"That's right, speak Spanish they won't understand, they speak high drakai or something and we're left in the dark. Need to know anything else while you're here?" Sean paused for a moment, then leaned forward conspiratorially.
"So what's up with you guys? I mean like you, Jonesy and Kit." For a minute, Sean half expected Fiona not to answer. When she did, it was with some obvious trepidation.
"The first thing you have to remember is that being here is quite stressful. It's quite logical that there would be some psychological repercussions arising from prolonged isolation and the alien nature of the environment." Fiona began, slipping again into her lecturing voice. Sean, for his part, did his upmost not to interrupt.
"And as such, this will affect decisions and behavior to varying degrees."
"Wait, you're all crazy." Sean asked, unable to let that one by.
"No," Fiona said coldly. "But existing personality disorders or even quirks are greatly exaggerated. Let me give you an example. According to his file, Jonesy has a very mild case of insular paranoia. In the real world it would not even be noticeable. Here, the only people he trusts at all are humans. Of course, his symptoms are the most noticeable as he's been here the longest."
"So he only trusts humans? How's it that he and the Demon are palling around?"
"Necessity."
"Oh, okay. What about Kit?" Sean asked curiously.
"Since she's been here the shortest amount of time, there's been little to no change for her. Don't be worried you'll wake up crazy or anything lieutenant, these things take years."
"And yourself?"
"Me? I'm pretty lucky, don't have many screws loose, but I suppose I have a tendency towards intellectualization and rationalization."
"So say someone has a mild case of OCD..." Sean trailed off.
"Oh yes Sean, in a few years, if you live that long, you're gonna have a pretty interesting time." Fiona said, a tad bit maliciously.
"Oh shit."
The sun was nearing its zenith by the time Sean, Arutha and Forana were ready to go. The need for more provisions for the extended trip had forced a slight delay but now they were ready to head off. Sean had decided to forgo bringing quite as many weapons with him this time now that he knew what to expect, and had been instructed by Fiona only to eat the MREs he now also carrying. Arutha had been kitted out as he had been on the previous trip, and was now fiddling with the straps of the human built rucksack that was carrying his stuff. Forana simply carried a walking stick nearly as tall as himself. Once everyone had their gear in order, they set off out the gates and into the land beyond.
Three days later...
Jonesy glanced over at Shadow as the meechan nearly fell down negotiating the steep grade.
"You okay?"
"I am fine." Shadow replied tersely. The meechan's black and gray fur looked ridiculous swathed with the white and tan bandages Jonesy had insisted on applying to the deep claw wounds. The restrictive nature of the bandages and the inherent problems of attaching an adhesive to fur had not put Shadow in a good mood.
Jonesy and Shadow had been traveling for several days, making cold camps and setting four hour watches in case any of Kathragon's drakai warriors were still following them, the last sign of pursuit had been nearly a day ago, and Jonesy wanted to believe that they were now in the clear. After three days of traveling together Shadow had begun to loosen up, telling Jonesy several details about her mission and other such things. Jonesy in turn, was now comfortable enough to turn his back on her.
"So how much longer till we get to your mistress's?" Jonesy asked.
"We entered her territory about two hours ago."
"So how long?" Jonesy asked again.
"About an hour, look, you can see it from here." Shadow pointed through the foliage. A small mountain poked up above the surrounding landscape. Wrapped around it, just above the end of the tree line was a wall reminiscent of the one surrounding the citadel, though slightly larger.
"That is the keep, where my mistress lives, around the far side are the port city, the largest in this section of the world." Shadow explained a hint of pride in her voice.
"How big a city?" Jonesy asked.
"Nearly thirty thousand inhabitants." At this, Jonesy gave a low whistle. For him, it was a good size town, but for the meechan it was an enormous metropolis.
"So, an hour till meeting your queen? I'm looking forward to it."