We exited the broken and beautiful ruins. It was close to midnight as far as I could tell. Maybe another hour or so to go. The scouts should be getting close to the first objective rally point at Phase Line Fox. The bottom of the steep canyon the Rangers needed to go up and over the ridge of to escape this valley.
Last of Autumn knew the way, and we came out of the forest along the river. The comm came to life with the orders from the captain to keep moving forward. A small enemy force had located one of the teams responsible for some of the more heavily wounded, and were trying to hit them with ranged arrow fire from out in the dark. Reports indicated it looked like orcs. A light force, but soon there would be more. Circling out in the dark below one of the hilltops and trying to come in for the kill. The Rangers were setting up a hasty defense to give the wounded time enough to keep moving forward.
Problem was the enemy appeared to have called in a troll and an assault force of heavier orcs to pin down the teams. However exactly they did that. Drums and Urooo Uroo horns? Magic?
Captain Knife Hand and the rear security team were coming in to hit the enemy from the flank and hopefully give the team hauling the wounded time to get to the clear and closer to RP One and some sniper support from higher up along the ridge.
I explained the situation to Last of Autumn as we mounted her horse and rode off along the edges of the night-quiet forest. With a mere whistle, high and melodically mournful like some lonely and always questioning night bird, Autumn had summoned the giant gray dapple from out of the shadowy thickets. Once she understood the tactical situation facing the Rangers as they humped for the pass, she indicated she might know how to help.
We passed along darkened shadowy halls of trees and through quiet copses of ancient hulking leafy brutes long left alone to grow and erupt into the canopy of the primeval forest along the sides of the valley floor. There were traces of other ruins, and I had to wonder how much we were missing as we made our way back toward the line of march. It would seem these
Dragon Elves had once been the primary population in the region. Now all that remained of them were the mysterious broken fragments of what they had once been. Unknown greatness lost to the years and overrun by the wild.
It was like going to Rome and seeing the Colosseum. Or even the pyramids. But then again, I mused to myself, if we’d been gone ten thousand years—which, according to the pilot’s celestial navigation software, was indeed roughly the correct length of time—then these ruins could be older than anything we’d thought was “old” way back in what we’d considered the present ten thousand years ago. That day at Area 51 measured the pyramids as much younger than the amount of time we’d been gone. If these Dragon Elves were considered the first after the Ruin, then these fragments of temples and palaces and who-knew-what might go back to as far as the years just after we departed the scene via the QST gate. And if so… how? What happened after we left? What happened during what the history of the Shadow Elves called the Great Ruin?
By orders of magnitude that was pretty mind-blowing to consider if you let yourself think about it for a moment. That the Colosseum and the pyramids were young compared to these elven ruins if adjusted for the starting points of historical observation.
We were out of the forest now. We’d had to lie low and avoid an enemy patrol of creatures that looked like tall humanoid dogs. They carried spears and staffs. In the clarity of Moon Vision I could see their snouts snarling and tasting the night mist for a scent. At one point they began to bark fiercely at one another and spread out as though looking for something.
For us, no doubt.
Last of Autumn, cool as anything, just sat there on her horse, and slowly, with controlled movements of her knees, took us quietly beyond their search cordon. She seemed used to this kind of stuff. And I had to wonder… was she some kind of scout? Or an assassin?
I wasn’t much of a scout. But I was officially an assassin now. So we had that much in common.
Soon we were back in the hills along the valley’s side, nearing the steep canyon up to the ridge. The firefight ahead, higher up the slopes, was plain as day even without Moon Vision. Or I assume it would have been. But of course, Moon Vision made it all so much easier. We lay in the shadow of a
hill, studying the battle above. I explained the disposition of our troops to her and what we were trying to accomplish and why that was important. When I told her we were trying to rescue the wounded she nodded and simply said, “Of course you must.”
And that was a better thing to have in common with one another than being assassins. Respect for the wounded. Unlike the goblins who’d left their dead, dying, and captured behind, Jabba and all the dead on Bag of Diarrhea Island, her people knew the value of leaving no one behind. That was endemic to the Ranger lifestyle. No one got left behind. You were going home alive, or on your shield. But you’d make it. Like it had been coded into their granite stone hard drive with a jackhammer.
What we were watching now was a running firefight taking place. Rangers in the security team holding the ridge, the wounded being led down toward a stream running through a gully between two hills. If they could follow the streambed and work their way out of the firefight, then they had a straight shot up to RP One.
Besides the rear security fire team being led by Captain Knife Hand, there was no one else coming to assist the Rangers trying to give the wounded cover to get clear. But that had been a command choice. The sergeant major was busy moving everyone else on to the ORP at Phase Line Fox, the entrance to the canyon. It was tight enough there that if the Rangers needed to fight a Spartan Hot Gates–style defense, they could do that there better than anyone else. If they hung back and ended up fighting a battle on a hill, ad hoc and pell-mell, the whole company would soon be engaged and surrounded on open ground.
As we watched, the rear security team came in, moving fast to establish a base of fire and nail the enemy archers trying to lob black-feathered arrows down into the gully and at the Rangers holding the hilltop. We could hear the sudden whistling of the massed arrow strikes incoming on pinned- down Rangers.
Because the Rangers had no night vision now—the captain had told me the batteries were dead or dying—and no Moon Vision, as that had been given to the scouts only, they had no idea where the troll and heavy orc force was coming in from. But we, Last of Autumn and I, we could see the enemy assaulters staging to storm the hill. The troll, a giant compared to the rest we’d seen so far, but lean like a walking snake, was literally slithering
forward on its belly to get close enough for a real surprise. The orcs hunkering around it, all in heavy armor with horned helmets and double- bladed battle axes, kept low as well as they moved forward in wedges as they closed for the final push.
These were trained. And trained well.
There were now three Rangers on the hill and they were firing on semi, taking shots where they could, but in a few moments they’d be facing a force four times their size. A short rush, even under fire, and the troll and the heavy orcs would be all over them swinging axes and butchering their way to break the line.
I alerted the captain that we’d spotted the new assault force and he came back with “Negative on visual.”
I could see the problem. The finger of the hill they were firing on was protecting the enemy assault force from being spotted. The quick reaction force under the command of the captain had set up on a hill farther downslope to provide fire support and hopefully draw the enemy away from the wounded being humped up the next hill. Truthfully, the troll and the orcs could have gone straight up the gully and run right into the rear of the wounded team.
Someone used a grenade on a cluster of archers. It detonated and shut down that attacking force for the moment.
But that enemy assault force was going to wipe out the three Rangers on the hill in the next few seconds, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The captain advised they were going to abandon the support position and assault directly into the enemy force. That would be bad. The Rangers would surprise the enemy from the flank, but because of the finger of the hill, they’d need to be right in it with the enemy before they could engage with direct fire. This would negate the combat multiplier firearms provided over hand-to-hand weapons; with as fast as the troll alone moved, hand-to- hand would start immediately. Plus, if they used a Carl G right there, on the fly and in the dark with no night vision, at a minimum it meant a wasted shot. At the max it would explode close enough to be a real problem for the Rangers assaulting through.
“Tell them… to stay,” said Last of Autumn, her voice breathy and urgent.
She slipped off the horse. Then nodded at me to shift forward and take the reins.
“You must ride him now.” And then she held out her hand for me to pull her back up to ride behind me. I had no idea what she was doing, and I also had no idea how to “drive” a horse. Is drive even the right word?
But I’ll tell you one thing. As I hauled her up, we both felt wild electricity slip between us. The electric feeling of first touch when two people might, just might have a thing for each other. It was alive, and there was something new about it. That new relationship feel when you’re both just excited and the thing that’s between you is just yours and yours alone. No one else knows about it yet and the two of you barely do because you’ve only just discovered it. Like a secret. A good secret you want to keep and shout to the world at the same time. A secret neither of us could even admit to because we were in the middle of a firefight and all. Y’know how that is? “Tell your… king,” she said in my ear as we rode forward. “Tell him…
stay where he is. I’ll deal with the… dark host.”
Ha. She thought Captain Knife Hand was our king. Well, on second thought, he kinda was. And dark host? That sounded more ominous than I would have liked as we rode straight at them.
I radioed the captain.
“Warlord, this is Niner Alpha Niner…” My call sign is stupid.
“Indig says she can take the troll,” I continued. “Requesting you hold position and stand by. We’re coming in from the south.”
Her call sign—“Indig”—was pretty lame too. But still.
Oh yeah, and I’d just told a Ranger captain how to fight a battle. Pretty cool. We’ll see. That’s what I was thinking when she kicked the flanks of the dappled gray and began to speak in my mind.
“I’m going to kill the troll, Talker. But you must control Mist. He’s a good horse. But he can be stubborn when he wants his way. And his way is to fight. Always.”
I realized Mist was the name of her horse. I also realized this was the first time she’d addressed me by what she assumed was my real name. Formalities were breaking down. Walls were collapsing. It wasn’t coffee… but it was something that made me feel real good too.
“He will listen to you. But once I kill the troll, I may fall asleep. Can
you protect me while—”
“Yes!” I shouted at her above the thunder of Mist’s hooves as we pounded down the slope of the hill. Heading straight into the rear of the hopefully unsuspecting enemy forces of orcs and giant troll getting ready to wipe out our Rangers. Never mind the firefight going on across all three hills. “You can trust me, Autumn.”
And then… I felt her squeeze me tight with her arm. With one hand.
The other was summoning a glowing ball of living white-hot plasma.
It felt like hope distilled. The squeeze. Not the ball of fire getting larger by the second. That was just cool on all kinds of levels.
Yeah. That happened. And I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you it made me feel more alive than that time I’d gone near two hundred miles an hour on the autobahn at two a.m. with a dangerously beautiful girl who had a death wish I’d find out about soon enough.
I at least had the presence of mind to remember from RASP that asking the supporting forces to “shift fire” as we rode right into the enemies’ midst might prevent us from getting shot. The fact that our front line was marked by a screaming horse with two riders, one of whom was holding a glowing ball of fire, helped them in discerning who not specifically to shoot at.
The Rangers on the hill shifted fire, and Captain Knife Hand stopped the fire team he was with as we came in hard on the troll assault force’s six. Mist tearing up wet turf as pounding hooves beat out a staccato charge beneath us.
The orcs had no idea we were on them until we rode in close and she hurled that ball of plasma right at the troll who was rising to his clawed feet for the final rush into the Ranger line. In an instant, the glowing ball of white-hot fire became a huge heaving Romulan space torpedo of searing plasma and slammed into the looming, lean, weird troll with the lurching long arms and dangling claws. As the fireball went in, it illuminated the whole enemy force along the ground in a sudden sparkling streaking light show. Every twisted and mean face was turned toward its surprise hot streak.
And as the powerful plasma-fireball-Romulan-torpedo exploded against the troll’s torso, I felt Autumn’s arm, the one grasping me, go limp. She was sliding off the speeding horse and I heard her in my mind screaming, “Talker!” She’d fall and probably break her slender neck.
Meanwhile I was busy gawking and watching an entire enemy force get immolated in less than half a second by the fireball she’d just lobbed at them.
I barely held on to her before she fell, as Mist tore away from the sudden firestorm enveloping orcs and a burning troll. Awkwardly. But I did manage to hang on to her.
We rode past flaming orcs running in every direction away from the giant troll who’d just exploded, also in every direction. And I screamed the most Ranger thing I could think of at what remained of them.
“Surprise, losers!”
