Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (13 page)

“I’m guessing you look a little more like yourself now.” Sigvid’s quiet voice drifted in from the doorway. There was a strange note of pride in the smith’s voice.

Caleb was unable to articulate the jumbled thoughts and emotions that were passing through his mind. He appreciated the gift, especially considering his proclivity for putting himself in dangerous situations, but even more than that, he realized, he was grateful that he was no longer alone. Part of him—the survivor, the hunter, the broken mask that he had worn since the day his world had ended in his arms—screamed at him to leave. It brought to his attention every flaw, every minor weakness in the dverger defenses, demanding that he take note and exploit it.

Another part of him, a small and quiet voice that spoke with surprising strength from the suppressed depths of Caleb’s past, hungered for companionship and the sound of a friendly voice. This part of him was loathe to be alone once more.

Seeing himself in the mirror sparked emotions and memories of a happier, stronger, more intelligent version of himself that had been suppressed and almost forgotten. His hand strayed to the ring about his neck, hidden beneath the clean shirt he now wore. The cool metal comforted him and gave him the strength to turn away from the mirror and look at Sigvid.

The dverger smiled and moved away from the door.

Caleb let go of the ring and scrubbed the back of his hand across his face before following Sigvid out into the work room. Sigvid was donning his armor and weaponry over by the forge. Caleb strode over to the bench where he’d stacked all the guns and ammunition, and picked up a handful of loaded magazines he’d filled earlier. There were several magazine pouches on one of the benches and he clipped two of them to his belt and slid a pair of magazines into each. He contemplated grabbing one of the assault rifles, but decided against it. The dvergers fought at close quarters and the assault rifles, even one of the smaller ones, would be unwieldy at short distances. He pulled out the langsaxe and gave it a few experimental swings. It was not a weapon with which he was familiar, but he could use it if he needed to.

Sigvid grunted from the direction of the forge and Caleb turned to see what he needed. The dverger was outfitted in a suit of light mail similar to the one he’d made for Caleb, over which a simple breastplate rested. An image of a hammer striking an anvil was engraved into the right shoulder. Sigvid held a simple conical helmet in his hands. A pair of double-bladed hand axes hung from a thick leather belt at the dverger’s waist and a baldric held a brace of smaller, single-headed axes that Caleb could only assume were for throwing.

“We’ll need to get you a helm eventually,” Sigvid said with a simple, one armed shrug. “Or perhaps a shield.”

Caleb grinned despite himself at the mental picture. Sigvid was much more concerned over his safety then Caleb was himself.

“Perhaps.”

Sigvid put his helmet on and gestured for Caleb to follow him. They left Sigvid’s quarters and followed the main passageway down past the Eating Hall towards the guardroom where Caleb had spent his first night in the dverger enclave. They met no one in the halls, which was strange.

“Are we late?” Caleb asked.

“No, everyone’s already assembled, but since I’m leading this raid we can’t really be late. They can’t start without me.”

They passed the guardroom and continued on through the secret door into the cave that hid the small dverger compound. Six dvergers were waiting for them there, illuminated by one of the strange glowing lanterns. Caleb was surprised to see Bothvar’s stony face amongst the assembled warriors. The dverger had made no secret of his dislike and even hatred for Caleb and had gone out of his way to insult or torment Caleb whenever they happened to cross paths.

He didn’t dwell on it. His thoughts constantly turned towards the dream he’d been having every night and Rachel’s echoing, haunting call. But neither it nor Bothvar mattered now. What did matter was that he do his part in the raid tonight, and his part was killing golgent.

“We’re going to be hitting one of their foraging parties,” Sigvid explained to the assembled dvergers and Caleb. “According to reports, there are thirty to forty of them in the regular patrols. The one we’re going to hit will pass to the north of the city at midnight, where we’ll ambush them. We need to be fast so we don’t find ourselves having to fight off one of the dragons too!”

Caleb suppressed a mild shudder, though whether from fear or excitement he didn’t know. Sigvid had mentioned in passing that a number of the red dragons had remained in the city when it had fallen and frequently made patrols during the day. Apparently red dragons couldn’t see very well in the dark, which is why all the raids were done at night.

“Let’s get going then,” Sigvid ordered, “but quick and quiet. We need to be in position before they get to the lake.”

“What be the human doing with us?” Bothvar said in a whisper that nevertheless carried.

“He’s here because I wish him to be here, Bothvar, as are you. I trust you will keep your bloodlust in check.”

Bothvar scowled, but held his tongue firmly behind his bushy beard.

Caleb ran a hand through his freshly cut hair, feeling oddly grateful. It had been a long time since he’d had anyone care enough about him to defend him.

Sigvid laid out a brief, yet efficient plan and Caleb found himself keeping close to the smith as they set off.

With Sigvid leading, they reached the point of ambush shortly, their passage assisted by the nearly full moon. The area Sigvid had chosen for the ambush was hilly, like most places in the old state of North Carolina, but the hills were shallow and butted right up against the lake. A few abandoned buildings and the remains of a dock dotted the far bank, though they could only be seen in shadow. Fire-blackened trees decorated the immediate area around the lake, looming out of the darkness like angry spears. The lake itself was acrid and filled with the ash and detritus of the last few years of hell. The smell was overpowering.

“Bothvar,” Sigvid whispered, gesturing towards the blackened stumps and hills along the nearest side of the lake. “Take Thuril and Harek and hide up there in the deadwoods. I’ll stay here with the rest. When you hear us moving in, you hit them on the flank and we’ll pin them up against the lake.”

Bothvar and the other two dvergers hurried away into the night and were soon lost in the darkness. Harek had been the guard who escorted him to Sigvid his first night in the bunker. Caleb was not surprised that he had allied himself with Bothvar.

The rest of the patrol moved off into the night and took positions around the other nearby hills. They left a clear line of sight down the path that lead alongside the lake.

Caleb dropped to his knees near the base of two hills, knowing that the shadows from both would conceal him until the golgent and those men who were with them were already too close for it to matter. Sigvid dropped to the ground near him, rubbing dirt and ash over his armor so that it wouldn’t reflect the light and give them away.

They waited.

The minutes stretched on in silent agony, only the sounds of a few stubborn night insects breaking the quiet monotony. Those were always present since they, at least, rarely ran out of food.

A faint, almost imperceptible noise broke through the normal night symphony. Sigvid shifted his weight in response to the sound. Caleb tensed and eased his finger on the trigger of his gun. The noise came again. It grew louder and louder until Caleb recognized it as raised raucous voices. Caleb made as if to stand, but Sigvid’s hand on his shoulder kept him down.

“Wait for it,” Sigvid breathed in his ear. “They’re coming closer.”

The sounds continued to grow. A half a dozen balls of light appeared on the top of a hill a hundred yards away and then vanished. Caleb immediately recognized the lights as torches when they resurfaced at the top of another hill a few moments later. He also heard the guttural voices of golgent intermingled with the higher, more refined cadence of men. The torches disappeared again. If they were following the path that Sigvid had said they would, they’d reappear at the base of the next hill near the lake shore in just a few moments.

Caleb’s pulse and breathing quickened. His hands shook slightly in anticipation. He took a few calming breaths and waited for the telltale glow to appear on the path in front of him.

The first few golgent came around the base of the hill moments later, their gray-green skin illuminated by the torches held by those behind. A score of the short creatures headed the column, armed with short spears and cackling madly among themselves, making no pretense of secrecy about their movements. The hunter within Caleb reared up at the sight of them, but Sigvid’s hand held him in check.

A clustered group of men marched directly behind them, assault rifles and side arms negligently holstered or held loosely at their sides. Some even carried torches instead of weapons. They laughed raucously among themselves and occasionally some of them would turn and make obscene gestures at something behind them, though the object of their sport had not yet appeared around the hill.

A pair of trulgo rounded the edge of the hill a few moments later, carrying a long pole between them. Someone was lashed to it, trussed up like a deer with hands and feet tied near either end. Caleb strained his eyes against the darkness, but couldn’t make out any of the captive’s features. The trulgo turned up the path and the torchlight from the group ahead of them flickered over the hogtied form.

Caleb’s breath caught in his throat.

The torchlight glistened off of white-blond hair that hung in long, matted ringlets, swaying with the motion of the bouncing pole. The woman’s head lolled from side to side, though her eyes were open. There were bruises on her arms and legs and a nasty contusion on the left side of her face that oozed blood and puss into her vibrant hair. Her clothes were torn and ragged, exposing her to the cool night air.

Caleb heard a woman’s dying screams echo from the dark recesses of his mind. Reason was reduced to ruin, and the hunter within Caleb rose up from the ashes.

He leaped from concealment with a handgun in his right hand and langsaxe in his left just as the golgent at the head of the column reached the shoreline. The hunter reached their midst in a few quick strides, rearing up out of the night on wings of silent shadow and death. The gun leapt in his hands. Bullets flew into the confused mass. One of the golgent slipped past and behind him on the left. It swung the blade of its spear up and around, aiming for Caleb’s kidneys.

The hunter sensed the motion and rolled forward and to the right, tucking his shoulder into the ground to turn a complete summersault. The spear passed harmlessly over his head.

He completed the roll, but stayed on his knees as the golgent’s momentum carried him forward and directly into the langsaxe the hunter had planted firmly against his hip. The short gray-green creature clutched weakly at the blade sticking from its middle, but the hunter wrenched it free before it had finished dying.

Oblivious to the bullets that whizzed past his head, the hunter calmly thumbed the mag release and dropped the empty magazine to the ground and then slammed a new one into place. He vaguely heard Sigvid and his company of dvergers shouting and saw them charge directly into the barrage of bullets and hastily thrown spears. Sigvid’s group crashed into a knot of humans just as a score of golgent poured from around the hill and joined the battle.

The hunter raced toward the enemy soldiers with an incoherent, primal roar. His eyes were a blazing mask of fury.

The hunter emptied the magazine into the group of men. Some found their mark despite his haphazard spree. A bullet grazed Caleb’s cheek, but he didn’t even feel the pain as he bore down on his newest foe. One of the men turned his gun on him and, devoid of bullets, the hunter didn’t take the time to reload. Instead, the langsaxe flew from his left hand with a whip-like motion. The blade missed anything vital, but was enough to keep the man from getting off a shot.

The hunter danced passed the man before he could recover and pulled the langsaxe free before giving the man a kick and sending him into the dust. One of Sigvid’s dvergers finished the man off before he could rise, but the hunter only noticed this in the peripheral. He had reached the trulgo.

A small part of his mind wondered distantly if Bothvar’s group had joined the battle, but the thought was fleeting and quickly burned away in the wall of fury that clouded his gaze.

The trulgo looked at him stupidly for a few moments and then dropped the pole almost simultaneously. The woman hit the ground with a muffled cry. The trulgo reached for the massive falchions at their waists with meaty, gauntleted hands. The slight hesitation was more than enough for the hunter. He leapt forward before either trulgo could get their weapons free, and spun the langsaxe at the massive legs of the trulgo on the left, gun still held tightly in his right hand. It bit deep into the thick muscle and stuck fast. The trulgo bellowed and toppled forward, just barely missing the woman. It clutched at the short sword embedded in its leg.

The other trulgo had its sword free and took a swipe at the hunter as he spun by. The blade glanced off the suit of mail, though it struck with enough force to knock the hunter off his feet.

He pitched backwards with the momentum of the blow, tumbling several feet along the ground away from the trulgo. His lungs screamed for air, which had been forced out of him by the trulgo’s strike, and he dimly felt the pain of at least two ribs.

The trulgo moved towards him, sword raised and a toothy grin plastered on his blunt face.

The hunter scrabbled at the magazine pouch on his belt, fingers numb, and pulled a magazine free. Though still wracked with pain and confusion, the hunter—the part of him that had succumbed to the day to day routine of survival, the part which remembered Thomas’s training so perfectly well and guided his actions when anger came upon him—forced Caleb’s fingers to work and slam the new magazine home despite the trulgo bearing down on him. The hunter brought the gun up in an instant and squeezed the trigger at point blank range. The trulgo roared in anger and tried to step backward and away from the sudden pain, though his momentum kept moving him forward. The hunter kept pulling the trigger until the slide locked back. The trulgo’s eyes glazed over and it toppled forward onto its knees and slammed facedown into the dust.

The first trulgo, which had finally managed to yank the langsaxe from its calf, staggered upright. It took a step towards the hunter, coal black eyes and gray skinned face screwed up in anger and pain and then suddenly arched backwards. Its face contorted in a broken expression of agony as a long blade blossomed from its chest. It slumped forward, the haft of a spear sticking up into the air like a solitary standard of death.

Sigvid stood behind the creature. His helm was missing and his hair and beard were stained in orange blood. His countenance burned with anger and hatred—though it was a cold anger, cold and calculating. He stood with his legs spread wide and chest thrust out, a picture of majesty and honor against the backdrop of destruction.

The hunter crouched, ready to leap back into the fight, but his eyes fell upon the woman’s huddled, sobbing form nestled between the two giant trulgo bodies.

Caleb lumbered forward and knelt down beside the woman. He pulled a knife from his boot and started on the ropes. She cringed away from him when he touched her, but quieted as the ropes frayed and Caleb tore the pole away.

“You’re ok.” He tossed the pole aside and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You’re safe now.”

The woman took one, deep, shuddering breath, then fell into his arms. Her hands clutched handfuls of his shirt in trembling fingers and she buried her face into the hollow between his shoulder and neck. Her tears dripped onto his skin. He felt the warmth of her bare skin against his hands. He was grateful that it was night and dark enough to hide the flush that bloomed, hot, on his cheeks.

Sigvid appeared at his side, tugging on his shoulder and growling in his ear. “Come on, boy. There are more of them on the way. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Caleb got to his feet, pulling the woman up with him. She didn’t resist.

“Leave her! She’ll slow us down!”

The woman sobbed harder.

“I’m not leaving her, Sigvid. Go. We won’t slow you down.” Caleb turned his back on the dverger and pulled one of the woman’s arms over his shoulders, helping her to walk on her unsteady legs. They’d only taken a few steps when Sigvid appeared on the woman’s other side, supporting her and urging them forward.

“Fine,” he snapped. “So be it.”

“Wait!” the woman cried. Her voice was sweet and pure despite her obvious pain. “My bag. One of the trulgo had it. We’ve got to go back for it.” She struggled to turn, but couldn’t muster the strength to break either hold on her arms.

“Please,” she sobbed. “It’s all I have left.”

Caleb remembered similar words spoken to him years before, words his wife had used so many times they became worn and familiar, like a well-trod path. Without a word Caleb slipped out from under her arm, leaving her supported by Sigvid alone. Ignoring the dverger’s angry shout, Caleb hurried back to the fallen trulgo and scrambled around on the ground until his hands came in contact with a heavy leather satchel.

A group of golgent raced by him just as his hand closed on the bag.

He clung to the shadows, barely breathing until they had passed. Part of him urged him to leap up and cut them down as they ran, but he remained frozen in the dark and let them pass from his sight. He let out his breath in one long, low sigh and rushed back to where Sigvid and the women hid. He threw the satchel over one shoulder and slipped under the woman’s arm to give her support.

“Thank you,” the woman murmured. A moment later her eyelids fluttered strangely and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Without missing a step, Caleb bent over and let the woman fall over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was not heavy and he barely slowed. Sigvid grumbled something that Caleb didn’t catch, but took up the lead. The woman’s head bounced against his shoulders softly as he ran. Twice they had to hide from patrols of golgent and men, though they were able to avoid detection. Oddly, he did not tire as quickly as he thought he would.

*              *              *              *

It was close to dawn by the time they made it back to the hidden dverger valley. The woman had regained consciousness earlier, but had not regained any of her strength. Caleb carried her in his arms now while she clung to his neck, which only increased the pain of his aching ribs—but he was pretty sure they were only bruised, not broken. The woman’s breath was warm and moist against his throat.