The Last Protector (46 page)

The ground shook and lightning flashed across the sky. Scrornuck wrapped his arms around Jape and Nalia, struggling to stay upright as the ground convulsed. The quake lasted two very long minutes, ending with a lurch that flung the three to the ground.

"What the...” Nalia said.

"Mrrgphquaakkk!” Scrornuck, at the bottom of the pile, tried to speak through a face-full of snow.

Jape got to his feet and consulted the Traveler. “The connection between this world and Nalia's is fading,” he said urgently. “The equations are becoming unsolvable. We've got maybe five minutes.” He pointed slightly to the north of east. “This way."

Scrornuck surged forward, kicking the snow out of the way and clearing something of a path for Jape and Nalia to follow. He moved easily, but saw in seconds that Jape and Nalia couldn't approach his pace. “Hang on!” he yelled, and picked them both up. He tucked one under each arm and ran for all he was worth, taking long, leaping strides. Jape and Nalia clung to him, holding onto his jacket, to his backpack, to each other, as he bounded across the frozen landscape.

"We're here!” Jape called. They had covered the half-mile in under four minutes, moving so quickly that Scrornuck wondered if he'd found a way to make the boots help him run as well as jump.

"Are we in time?"

"Just barely. Another half minute, and we'd be stuck.” Jape furiously pressed the buttons on the Traveler. “Stand close—it's going to be rough!"

The air around them shimmered and danced wildly, and when it seemed to turn itself inside out, it tried to take their stomachs along for the ride. As they arrived in the middle of the Western Road, surrounded by a small circle of rapidly-melting snow, all three fought to keep their lunch down.

Scrornuck succeeded, barely. Jape was less successful, spitting something foul-smelling and reaching for the water bottle hanging from Scrornuck's pack. Nalia gagged, bent over and hurled her lunch, along with some of last night's dinner. “Sorry about the ride,” Jape said, handing Nalia the water, “but I think it's better than staying on that world."

She gargled, spat, and looked around at the green grass, blue sky, and familiar yellow bricks of the Western Road. “There's no place like home,” she said.

A moment later she winced as if in pain, and raised her hands to half-cover her ears. “Where's all that racket coming from?"

"What racket?” Scrornuck heard nothing above the sounds of wind and insects.

"Voices,” she said, “hundreds of them, like Temple Square on a Saturday night. They're nervous, excited, a little drunk—I can't make sense of it."

Jape checked his rings. The blue one had gotten brighter. “Can you keep going?"

"I think so. For now.” She put her head down and walked slowly, as if facing a stiff wind. “I hope it doesn't get worse."

A few minutes later they reached the top of a small rise and saw ahead of them the source of Nalia's discomfort: a huge crowd milled about the little pub at the road junction. They carried swords, pikes, axes, bows and a few heavier weapons. Nalia squinted, trying to make sense of the throng. “I see some Mayoral Guards."

Jape nodded. “Looks like they're trying to organize this mob into an army."

Scrornuck spat on the roadside. “Those guys couldn't organize their own..."

"Assets?” Jape finished. “Perhaps not, but they've certainly raised some manpower. Looks like the Mayor got his thousand, and then some."

Nalia went off on her own, visiting the store by herself in search of provisions. Jape and Scrornuck explored the mob, searching for information. They found little, as most people turned away when Scrornuck approached. Eventually, Jape got the attention of a Guard who refused to acknowledge Scrornuck's existence, but confirmed to the Ranger that this was indeed the Grand Army of Taupeaquaah, twelve hundred of the City's finest and bravest, under orders from the Mayor to bring the raiders and their leader, one Lord Draggott, back to the City to face justice. As a guest, Jape was welcome to tag along—as long as he stayed out of the way. Since the Taupeaquaahns didn't acknowledge his existence, Scrornuck figured he was free to do whatever he pleased.

Of course, he'd have done that, anyway.

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The Army set off two hours before sunset, following the line of concrete towers as it curved away from the Western Road and headed into the Compact Desert. Because of Scrornuck's shunning and Nalia's sensitivity to the Army's babble of thought, the three followed the main formation at a distance.

The desert crossing was a miserable six miles—up and down one collapsing dune after another, their feet sinking into the sand, often taking two steps back for each step forward. The wind, while much reduced from the gales of the Perpetual Storm, still blew grit into their eyes and sandpapered their skin.

After three hours, with the sun down and the moon rising, they encountered a chain-link fence half-buried in the sand. A skeleton, polished clean by wind and sand, clung to the fence, next to a small yellow and black sign. Just enough paint remained on the sign for Scrornuck to make out the words:

He rubbed his eyes, trying to dislodge the sand. “Eye protection required. Now they tell us."

The moon rose higher, throwing a pale gray light on the desert as they came to a small concrete blister topped by a metal grate. Jape kindled his light and peered through the grating. At the bottom of the dark shaft stood the unmoving blades of an immense fan. “This must be what powered the dust storm."

Scrornuck heard a soft
click,
followed by a humming that quickly grew in pitch and volume. A soft breeze blew from the grating. “Hey, it's starting again."

Puffs of dust rose from the desert on either side of them, several hundred feet away, as other blowers started up. The Army, already well inside the ring of blisters, came to a sudden halt. Some soldiers panicked and struggled to retreat. “Somebody wants to trap them inside the storm,” Jape shouted over the increasing
whoosh
of the wind. “Can you make a hole in this grate?"

Scrornuck climbed onto the grating, dropping to his knees and hanging on with his right hand as the wind intensified. As the first grains of dust came flying up in his face, he drew Ol’ Red and slashed a foot-wide hole through the grating. He had barely put the sword away when the wind increased again, carrying a load of stinging, blinding sand and dust. “Give me your hand!” He clung to the grating, his legs flying up behind him like a flag in the gritty blast. Jape, lying on his belly next to the vent, extended his right arm into the gale, holding a ball of white light that was barely visible through the dust. Scrornuck guided Jape's hand to the hole, pushing hard against the wind, and squeezed. “Now!"

"Fire!” There was a flash in the hole, followed by a muffled
boom
far below. Scrornuck let go of the grating and was thrown a good ten feet by the wind. The ground shook, and with a terrible
graunch
the blower stopped. The wind died down and the dust settled. Knocking dust from his kilt, Scrornuck returned to the blister and peered into the hole. Blue-white electric arcs flickered for a few seconds, silhouetting the mangled remains of the blower. Then there was only darkness.

"Look at that—they're all connected.” Jape pointed to the north, where the other clouds of dust were settling. “We must have blown the main fuse."

They picked up their pace, catching up with the Army just as it made the crest of the final dune. There, along with the Taupeaquaahns, they stood and stared. Darklord Castle sat at the bottom of a vast bowl, over a mile wide, ringed by sand dunes well over two hundred feet high. The castle itself was black, eight-sided, a quarter-mile across. Three-story-high walls, topped with battlements, rose from the crystal-clear moat. At the eight corners stood towers a hundred feet tall, topped by conical roofs adorned with flagpoles. Two more rings of towers, each taller than the last and linked by an array of elevated walks and flying buttresses, stood within the walls. A tapering tower, easily three hundred feet high, rose at the castle's center, and on the very top of that tower flickered a familiar violet-white light.

"Would you look at that—” Jape whispered. The Orb had to be a good twenty feet across. “Is that the same one?"

"It is,” Nalia said, softly and slowly. “I know it is."

"I told you it was a baby,” Scrornuck said. “And now it's growing up."

They made camp on a dune overlooking both the Castle and the Army's encampment, close enough to keep an eye on both, but far enough from the latter that Nalia could be comfortable. There, they had a modest dinner of meat, cheese and bread that she'd been able to purchase before the store at the junction ran out of everything, washed down with a few beers left over from the previous day.

After dinner, Scrornuck hung his jacket on a stick he'd shoved into the ground a short walk downwind of camp. “You'll want to stand upwind,” he told Nalia, as he took a small aerosol can from his sporran. “This stuff stinks to high heaven.” He took a deep breath and sprayed a heavy coat of clear, strong-smelling liquid onto the jacket's armor.

"What the heck is that?” she asked. “It's making me dizzy!"

"Stiffener. I washed the jacket yesterday, so I need to spray it with this stuff. The armor's tough, but the spray makes it tougher.” He flashed a small grin. “Makes a good hair spray, too."

"Do I smell a story coming?” she asked.

"I can't smell anything,” Jape grumbled.

"If you think it's bad out here,” Scrornuck said to Nalia, putting the can away, “imagine how it stank in a small leather shop..."

Scrornuck opened the door to the leather shop, and the chemical stench nearly knocked him back into the street. This wasn't the pleasant smell of recently finished jackets and boots—this was an industrial-solvent stink that curled his nose hairs. “Come on in!” Cleo the leather-worker called. “You'll get used to the smell—and your jacket's done!” Scrornuck took a deep breath of outside air and ducked into the shop.

He'd visited any number of leather shops as he knocked about the continent on his rattletrap motorcycle, and none had anything that came close to fitting a man as tall and slender as he. But Cleo took a liking to the kilted redhead, and after downing a few too many beers, she agreed to make a jacket just for him.

One look was all he needed to fall love with Cleo's masterpiece. It was more a vest than a jacket, made of gray fabric and black leather, generously trimmed with fringe and sporting chest pads and shoulder guards of a bright-red fabric. He slipped it on. The fit was almost perfect. A little tightening of the laces up the sides made it completely perfect. The pads and shoulder guards were soft and flexible, the leather sections were supple, and it moved easily with him—and with the padding in the shoulders, it even made him look a little less scrawny.

"Check this out.” Cleo reached for the billy-club she kept under the counter, and brought it down hard on his shoulder. He winced, expecting it to hurt, but felt nothing; the soft, flexible shoulder guard had instantly stiffened and stopped the blow. She rubbed her elbow as she put the club away. “Ain't that stuff great? Some kind of special military padding—they'd probably kill us if they knew we have it."

He chuckled as he peeled several large bills from his bankroll. The jacket was expensive, but the Doctor, whom he'd helped with the destruction of Kurzitskogorsk-Seven, had left him with a substantial wad of the local currency.

"Here, take this with you, too.” She shoved a small aerosol can across the counter. “Spray the pads once or twice a year. It'll keep them good and strong.” She looked at the can, and at the coppery-red hair that hung down past his shoulders. “Spray your hair with this stuff, and you probably wouldn't need a helmet."

Scrornuck spent the next month with a group of bikers, riding and bar-hopping across the continent, crossing the seas to an island where they spent a week partying and watching races. Then, on the advice of his new friends, he rode another ferryboat to a lush green land where the sun somehow seemed to be, at last, in the right part of the sky, a place where the rain fell gently and left rainbows behind, where the morning fog lifted by the time breakfast was done. It felt like home, if that word had meaning for him anymore. On this, the last day of summer, he relaxed in a pub, enjoying what he thought just might be the best beer he'd ever tasted.

"Nice jacket,” the ordinary-looking man on the next stool remarked.

"Thanks."

"Care to go for a ride, Mister Saughblade?” The stranger looked at Scrornuck with eyes that were a luminous brown, almost reddish, as if a fire smoldered behind them.

Scrornuck's head jerked upright. “You know my name?"

"I know many things about you.” The stranger held up a shiny pebble. A string passed through a hole in the stone, apparently a natural one, and from one angle the rock looked rather like a duck's bill. “Among other things, I know where you found this stone—and where you lost it."

Scrornuck stared at the rock. “How do you..."

"As I said, I know many things about you. Right now, I know you have an appointment. Shall we be going?” He tossed some money on the bar and started toward the door. Scrornuck drained his beer and followed.

Once the old motorcycle consented to start, the stranger climbed on the back and they headed into the countryside. “Left here,” he directed, sending them down a country lane. “Now bear right,” and they headed up through a gap in the hills. “Left at the fork, right here."

From time to time, the air around them shimmered like a summer heat-haze, though it was almost fall. Each time, the motor backfired noisily, and it seemed the road surface changed—concrete one moment, asphalt the next, then brick, gravel, planks, and finally a dirt path, barely wide enough for the bike's tires.