Leaving the eager little goblin, I made my way back to the river’s edge. When I came out of the thick brush along the bank, the Ranger fire team was still watching outward in a rough perimeter circle using cover to maintain security. The captain was talking with other company elements using his comm equipment. I had a feeling a warning order was in the air. In other words, the captain was getting everyone ready for our next mission. Whether that was gonna be stay and fight with the little we had left, or run for it, I had no idea.
The sergeant major was examining Autumn’s horse. The elf stood pensively nearby, watching and waiting, to see what we would do next. Clearly, she was uneasy about the current situation. I approached the command sergeant major and spoke quietly to him.
“It’s done, Sergeant Major.”
He looked up at me from rubbing his hands along the horse’s sides, and for a moment I was unsure if he knew what I meant. That Deep State Volman was retired. Cleaned. Dead. He continued whispering to the dappled gray horse and telling it not to be afraid. Clearly, he knew horses.
“What’s done?” he said absently after a moment, studying the flanks of the beast. Still whispering to it. Telling it that it was a beautiful horse. And there was nothing to fear. The horse’s ears flicked in the heat, and I felt that the horse didn’t quite believe the sergeant major, but it endured the good vibes patiently, if not stoically. Because it wanted to. Certainly, it could smell all the death in the air.
I leaned in close.
“Deep State, Sergeant Major. Retired.”
My heart caught in my throat as I suddenly wondered if I’d made some completely horrific mistake and offed a dude because I read the room wrong. What if I’d overreacted and misread things? Badly. Gone too far, way too far, and taken matters into my own hands? What if I was actually some kind of sociopath incapable of reading other people and I’d…
… well, solved a problem the way sociopaths tended to solve problems.
What if I was the monster?
“All right, Talker,” said the sergeant major over the horse. My breathing began to return to normal. “That’s what needed to happen,” the senior-most NCO continued, murmuring so low no one else could hear. “Ya good?” he asked after a second, looking me straight in the eye and searching to see what he might find there. Remorse, guilt, sociopathy?
I nodded and stepped back. The brief nod of his head told me he understood it might be a little bit of everything. Which was probably normal and meant I probably wasn’t a sociopath.
A moment later Captain Knife Hand came over, having finished his communication with the element on the hill. His fabled knife hand was out and punctuating sentences. Reinforcing orders.
“PFC,” he said at me. “I need you to get with her.” He shot his knife hand over toward Autumn. Last of Autumn. Needed to remember that. Didn’t want to commit some grave societal faux pas, an embarrassing or tactless act or remark in a social situation, that turned every elf in this crazy world against us just because I’d disrespected the first ambassador, as it were, to meet us. In French, faux pas literally meant false step. Who knew what political mess we’d walked into and how things might go all hillbilly Hatfields and McCoys in a second if we didn’t get everything just right? Except with snarling brute orcs gone murderous and clearly well-armed and armored elves who at least possessed some sort of cavalry skills.
These are the things a linguist thinks about when he finds himself smack dab in the middle of competing cultures. And when I say thinks, I really mean fears.
Making things worse than they already are.
“Can do, sir,” I said to the captain, and I went to Autumn to get things moving again now that Volman was no longer an issue. Correction… Last of Autumn. I managed to at least get that right as I started the conversation with her once more.
Long story short: she could help us. She could get us inside her people’s perimeter, and it was what she wanted to do. But if we were going to do it, we needed to do it quick-like. Daylight was burning, and the “dark forces”—her words—owned the night. She used the Korean word for dark and the German word for forces.
Eoduun Kräfte.
The bright spot was she knew ways the orcs wouldn’t follow us
through the “night seasons.”
I went back to the captain and reported her offer. And then stood there and got to listen in on what the sergeant major and the captain were discussing. The sergeant major resumed breaking down our situation.
“As I was saying, sir,” he began, “this position is now untenable. The situation is not blue sky—ACE reports have us down to fifty percent of combat load for each Ranger still able to fight effectively. We have three Carls salvaged from the aircraft. We’re outta demo, and the mortar teams are bone dry. They’re now riflemen for all intents and purposes, sir. That’s the situation. We couldn’t hold this place anywhere close to last night. First assault and we’ll be dry on ammo. Then it’s axes and swords, sir. I say we make bramble rafts, get into the river, and execute aquatic escape and evasion. It’s what Rangers do best, and it’ll put some distance between us and the enemy. Which would be a good thing come nightfall, sir.”
The captain said nothing. Head down, he listened and studied the dirt beneath his boots. Like he had an invisible sand table down there that showed him exactly everything the command sergeant major was describing. The unvarnished, and desperate, truth of our dire situation. And that everything on that map he was seeing confirmed everything he was being told.
Things didn’t look good.
“Captain,” continued the sergeant major. “These boys are pros. Shooters. Warriors. Solid Ranger skills. Half of ’em are tabbed but all of ’em live the scroll and that’s what counts. But they are not ready to fight effectively, and I mean hand-to-hand like a fighting force something out of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Like the forces we’re facing. We do that and try to apply shooter skills, and we’re gonna have one very brief, very one-sided, fight with the enemy. Frankly, sir… it’s my opinion we di di mao the field and find someplace to hunker until we get our minds around current events and run a game plan of some sort. Personally, I’m for finding that snot-nosed SEAL and slitting his throat before we take our Forge back with extreme violence. But… I might have personal feelings on that subject, sir.”
The captain thought about this for a second, then nodded. “I agree with your assessment, Sergeant Major. Problem is we have no idea where this… girl…” he indicated Last of Autumn, “is taking us. She says…”
He looked over at me.
“PFC, did she say we were twenty-four hours’ march from her friendlies?”
I confirmed she had indicated such.
“That’s twenty-four hours of movement through hostile territory, Sergeant Major, with no idea of the effective fighting capability of these friendlies we’ll be linking up with. There’s no good call I can see here. Correct me if I’m wrong, Sergeant Major. On the other hand, if we take the river, we’ll be exposed and moving into the unknown—and, it appears, away from friendlies.”
Neither man said anything.
And then I did something stupid. I spoke up.
“Sir. Command Sergeant Major. I know I shouldn’t speak, but—” “PFC,” said Captain Knife Hand, stopping me before I could go
further. “I’m aware of your skills, and considering right now you’re the only one who can communicate with a possible ally, I think I’d take any pertinent assessment you’ve got to assist me in making a decision that will affect all our outcomes. Because although this position might be difficult to hold, at least we’re holding it right now. We head out there, and we’re fighting and evading at the same time. In the dark, I might add. Carrying everything we can that’s left in stores from the plane. And our wounded. That is not a good combat posture. Especially with no clear destination in mind. No recon. No intel. Nothing.”
He looked at me. And the look said I better have something valuable to say, because he was inclined to stay here on the island and keep killing the enemy until we changed their minds about bothering us further.
“Go ahead, PFC.”
I swallowed and felt my throat turn dry desert dust just as I started to speak, because nothing coveys hardened professional soldier like your voice cracking in front of a Ranger captain. Then I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d drunk any water. Honestly… I needed coffee. I would have killed for coffee.
Then I thought of Volman lying dead under the orcs I’d left him under. And it wasn’t as funny as it used to be. The killing for coffee part.
Still, I really would kill right then for a fresh-brewed pour-over in some hipster coffee shop. At the very least kill an orc. I could absolutely go for
that.
“Sir,” I said, “she seems honest. And like… I don’t know… good, too,
if that counts for anything. Like she just came here to try and help us out. I can tell she, and her people, probably need help too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in the same situation as us. True, I have no idea what her people’s capabilities are, but… look at her. The horse is healthy and in good shape. She’s got forged armor, which indicates some level of technology and culture above that of our attackers. And she says her people have places the orcs don’t go. Right now… that sounds like that’s where we need to be, sir.” And then I shut my mouth and backed up a step, indicating I had no more stupid to further contribute to the conversation and that I was deeply sorry for interrupting, especially if the sergeant major was about to White Line Drill me to death for the grievous and unforgivable infraction of
speaking during a command team meeting.
“Talker’s right, sir,” muttered the sergeant major, folding his long arms contemplatively after a moment. Then he looked at the dappled gray the elf had brought with her. “I know a good horse when I see one, sir. That’s a good horse. Well treated and well cared for. Horse is real uneasy about all this. Meaning it don’t like all those dead things we just slaughtered. Or what it smells in the wind across the river. And another thing… look at her.”
We all did.
“Flies don’t go near her, Captain,” continued the command sergeant major. “There’s something about her. I don’t know what it is… but she’s our only ally right now, sir. And like I said, now that we’ve lost the Forge, we’re down to what we got. Which might get us through most of one firefight. Add that the men are four days sleep deprived and operating on one MRE a day and we are indeed reaching a critical-lack-of-performance moment. We get someplace safe, maybe we can make a plan to go take the Forge back from that SEAL, sir. But right now… we ain’t capable of much beyond dying in place real brave-like. That’s the facts as I see ’em, sir.”
The captain lowered his head and stepped away from the conversation, staring at that invisible sand table beneath his feet once more. Walking through the real sand and bloodstained grass down toward the burbling river a few steps away as if there might be some easy answer over there. There wasn’t, and we all knew it. And I think everyone was glad not to be him.
Not to have to make the decision that would most likely get us all killed. I was.
For a long moment the captain just stared at the passage of water. In a few hours it would be noon. And later it would be dark.
Then they would come for us. Again.
We had enough ammunition for most of a firefight, according to the sergeant major.
I, for one, found that rather sobering.
We’d either face it here… or maybe we’d dodge it out there. You could tell that was what Captain Knife Hand was thinking right at that moment. You could tell that for a leader there was no easy choice here for him to make, no choice at all that didn’t involve putting his men in danger again. More people were getting killed one way or the other. Maybe even all of us like some lost Roman legion that went a little too far out into the barbarian unknown and never came back. Beyond the familiar, missing forever. Forever. That could be us. And he was seeing every ambush we’d face out there and knowing once we’d surrendered the island there’d be no rear to fall back to. Out there we’d be surrounded until we got somewhere safe. If such a place even existed.
But then again… weren’t we surrounded here too? He turned and put his combat helmet on.
“Sergeant Major. Get us ready to withdraw from the island. We’ll organize patrols and conduct a forced march by stealth with flank security patrols to watch the clock on all sides. Scouts will recon by stealth.”
Then he looked at me.
“PFC…” He stared hard at me for a long moment, like he was putting together ten plans all at once in his head. Then…
“Talker. Get her to describe our route and try to make a map. We’ll need it out there tonight.”
