Dream (34 page)

“Did you really win sixty campaigns?” Shad asked.

“I fought for years,” she shrugged. “What is a number? We built an empire, the Shang dynasty. We
made
China. We fought with stone and bronze and brought order to what was wilderness. We took tribes and taught them to belong to a greater whole.”

“That must have been amazing,” Derek said, eyes glowing.

“Somewhat,” Fu Hao said thoughtfully. “There was much disease and slavery, and there were few whom you could trust. Looking back, it was a bad time, but we took what there was and made it better. Civilization is always preferable to barbarism. It was bitter and hard, but we left something better than we were born to, and that is as much as anyone can ask for.”

“There was magic back then?” Jeff asked.

She shrugged. “There were…powers. It was not like here. It was not until late that we realized that what we were building would destroy the very powers that helped us.” She smiled reflectively. “That was what the barbarians fought for: a world where that sort of power was everything. We used it to build a nation of ordinary men and women.”

“It must have been a shock when you were banished,” Sam said nervously.

“It was,” she barked a laugh. “But it was a worse shock for those of my enemies who had been sent here before me. They discovered that Fu Hao was much stronger in this place than I had been in China. And in China I had bested them.”

“How did they trap you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Jeff asked.

Fu Hao threw her hat straight up, spinning on edge, and caught it. She winked at the Night-grifter. “They didn’t. They died, instead. They could not defeat me in China and they fared no better here. No, I was ambushed by cowards from this place.”

“Ah,” Jeff nodded. “We had heard…a garbled version.”

“Tales grow,” she nodded. “I fought at what you call the Great Field. The war was to decide what was to be done about our banishing-there was still much power back then. While I was terrible in China, there were those from elsewhere who were much more powerful. Some wanted to unleash horrors on the world that had banished us, and would have, but the rest of us took up arms and prevented it. We broke them, broke the great powers, although it cost us dear and scarred the world. I was near death when I was taken from the field by a handful of loyal followers, what remained of my Ebon Guard. They placed me where you found me, to recover from my wounds. Later some remnants of the foe, lesser minions who likewise escaped the battle, sealed me in. The rest you know.”

“You succeeded on the Great Field-you saved…our world from revenge.” Jeff was impressed.

She smiled. “I was one commander of many, but yes, we won. We paid a terrible price for that victory, but we won. When the battle was over few who had walked the homelands remained, and none who had the great powers still lived. Those who did survive went on to build homes, families, ordinary lives. Better things than Empires, perhaps. I didn’t really understand that in China, nor even before the Great Field, but since in my dreaming and watching I have learned that much. Still, such lives can only be built after warriors have built a structure that will protect them.”

“You never asked about China,” Sam ventured.

Fu Hao sighed. “My land, my China, is dust. Time passes strangely here-at the Great Field I fought alongside, and against, men and women who had lived centuries before my time, and centuries after. There are beasts and things like men whom I cannot believe ever walked under the same sun as I had in China, but here they are. It is not my place to question such things-I am Fu Hao, and I will do what it is I must do.”

The group turned south when they reached the South Way, except for Sam, who was heading north; the place where he was to invoke his belt and break his wards was not far from the point where the Black Talons had encountered the trappers.

“Its been real,” Derek shook the Bard’s hand. “We wouldn’t be heading home if it wasn’t for you.”

“Drink a Doctor Pepper for us,” Jeff sketched a salute.

“Good luck,” Fred offered his hand.

“I hope Goblins don’t kill you before you get clear,” Shad observed. “Don’t be taken alive, whatever happens; you look too much like a girl to risk capture.”

Flipping off the Jinxman before waving to the others, Sam trudged off with many a backward look.

“You had to mention Goblins, didn’t you?” Derek chided Shad. “The poor guy will be looking over his shoulder the entire trip.”

“He had better,” the Jinxman waved a hand towards the surrounding terrain. “You don’t think there are eyes on us? We didn’t have much trouble traveling because there’s no profit in jumping a group of bravos. But one small guy by himself? He’s easy meat for a half-dozen Goblins. He’s safer scared; thinking you’re home free makes you careless. He’s got over a hundred miles between him and the exit point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Council didn’t tip the local baddies to keep an eye on those places. A little fear on his part will increase his chances.”

“Still, taken as a whole his chances are better than ours,” Jeff pointed out.

“No joke there.” 

Chapter Seventeen

Late in the afternoon of the fifth day after their parting with Sam, Astkar warned the Black Talons that the site was nearby. “Less than four miles, in fact.”

“Great,” Shad eyed the range of dry hills they were passing through. “We were almost out of food anyway.”

“I’m glad we thought to get wide-brimmed hats before leaving the City-State,” Jeff mopped away sweat, leaving streaks of grime on his high forehead. “Whatever little break we got from the heat from the passage of days has been lost by continually heading south.”

“I figure we must be getting close to the second week of September,” Derek observed. “If I have the local calendar right.”

“How long does that make us here, real-time?” Fred asked.

“Between four to five hours,” Shad shrugged. “One hundred fifteen days all told, spread between five different lunar cycles. It all depends on how the hour-to-lunar-cycle rate is calculated. Not that an hour’s difference matters.”

“It might.”

“How?”

“It could.”

“Again,
how
?”

“Oh, shit, you left a brisket on, didn’t you?” Derek groaned.

“Maybe.”

“Fred, your kitchen has so much grease splattered and dripped around that cockroaches are offended. They have to wear air tanks and flippers to get around.”

“If he burns to death in his sleep back home, does he die here?” Jeff wondered.

“He dies
here
for good, so yeah, I bet the road works both ways in that regard,” Shad shook his head disgustedly.

“Screw all of you,” Fred shrugged good-naturedly. He cleaned his apartment once a year, just before his annual Christmas party, and nothing would budge him from his chosen standard of living. In Fred’s world, a garbage can and a floor were one and the same. Strangely, and despite his slovenly habits, the warehouseman was the most accomplished cook amongst the four.

“We should make camp here,” Astkar, who ignored the Talons’ bickering with lordly disinterest, gestured towards a clump of what Derek would have called Spanish Oaks. “There is an old but serviceable well. We can rest and approach the night’s business refreshed.”

“Why are we doing this at night?” Derek asked. “Isn’t daylight hard on wights?”

“I have a number of charms which are useful in night fighting, and not only are wights unaffected by daylight, they are actually harder to see in daytime,” Fu Hao advised.

“Huh. Looks like I heard wrong.”

“No, I’m sure you heard correctly; that is a rumor started by those who employ wights as guards. Necromancers are a cunning lot.”

“Great,” the Shadowmancer sighed. “Is there anything else we should know about wights?”

“You have faced revenants, have you not? The two are similar; wights have more physical substance, less resilience to damage, employ artificial weapons, and are weaker,” Astkar advised.

The trees did shelter an old well, and with little effort the small band settled in. Fu Hao promptly wandered off to explore, and as was his custom Astkar buried himself in a book.

“Are we really doing this?” Derek asked. “Betting our lives on a long-shot Mount Doom operation?”

“Can’t be worse than mortars and RPGs,” Jeff shrugged. “These wights aren’t as tough as revenants.”

“More of them, though.” Fred observed.

“So? They never met an Airborne Ranger before,” Jeff grinned.

“I never trusted the Council from the start,” Shad mused, running an oily cloth along his sword’s blade. “And the bastards yanked me from my life to this dump without so much as a hello. I’m pretty sure I’ve walked more since I’ve been here than I have in my entire life. I know I’ve gone longer without a shower than at any point in my life.”

“What’s your point?” Jeff asked.

“Its time for some payback. Its time to really jam up those bastards, and I’m pretty confident that even if Fu Hao is lying to us, she plans harm to the Twelve.”

“Do you think she’s lying?”

“No,” Derek answered before the Jinxman. “Its in the way she represents herself: she is extremely proud of who she is and what she has done. Stooping to dupe us is beneath her dignity. I think we’ve been fed the third grade version of what is going on, and a lot of the local politics has been skipped, but I believe we’ve gotten the gist.”

“Its Iraq all over again: locals shooting each other for reasons that go back generations,” Shad nodded. “All we have to do is focus on our mission, and smoke anyone who gets between us and going home.”

“You wouldn’t think we would reference Iraq so much in this sort of situation,” Jeff observed.

“Lotta similarities,” Shad sheathed his sword. “Everybody hates us, they’re primitive as hell, and coming here was not the best idea we ever had.”

“And parts of the trip are really cool,” Derek grinned.

“There it is.”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Fred announced.

“Might as well,” Jeff conceded.

Fu Hao woke them well after dark; Fred estimated that it was near midnight. Moving by the light of a single candle the Talons prepared.

“What do we do with the gear we’re leaving behind?” Jeff asked.

“Stack it by the well,” Shad shrugged. “Not our problem anymore.”

“Glad I was working on my anti-Undead venoms during the down-time,” the shop teacher observed as he leaned his pack against the stone coping.

“How can venom affect Undead? They have no circulatory system,” Shad wondered as he sorted through his throwing knives.

“The substance interferes with the Dark Art that binds them,” Derek noted, stacking his pack next to Jeff’s. “Man, I hate to abandon gear.”

“It does not feel like victory,” Shad agreed somberly. “But win or lose we’re on a one-way trip.”

“Anyone taking a canteen?” Fred asked.

“I am,” the Jinxman patted it.

“I wonder how those folks at Wrym are doing?” Derek mused.

“Where did that come from?” Jeff asked, surprised.

“Because they’ll remember us for the rest of their lives. Years from now the story of how we rescued those girls will be told amongst ‘em. And Margit-she’ll tell her kids how we rescued her from the trappers, found her a home, and gave her a dowry.”

“That archivist at the Fist won’t forget us very soon,” Shad nodded.

“You guys putting a resume together?” Jeff shook his head.

“We accomplished stuff here-we affected lives,” Derek explained. “Its…nice.”

“Comforting,” Shad agreed. “It wasn’t just hookers and beer.”

“There’s comfort in hookers and beer, too,” Jeff grinned. “But I get your point.”

“The wights do not travel far, nor do they patrol,” Astkar advised as the small group assembled in the dim glow of their dying fire in its deep pit. “We can move fairly close, prepare, and advance to battle unmolested.”

“Do we have any idea how many of the Twelve will be present?” Jeff asked.

“No more than two, although if we dally too long more may be able to reach the site. Our tactics will be simple in the extreme: a frontal assault designed to insert our small group into the interface between the roads and the device. The enemy will be expecting us to assault the device itself so we will have some slight tactical advantage.”

“A slight tactical advantage is always what we feel comfortable with,” Shad sighed.

“In this case I believe it may well be enough.”

“Lets hope you are right.”

The sky was clear and the half moon was sufficient to show them the trail that cut across the hills. Moving at night was no novelty to the Black Talons, who had already tied down any loose gear and darkened their faces with soot. Moving through the balmy night air, the only sound the soft noise of their boots on the dirt Shad was taken back to night training exercises at Fort Hood-the air wasn’t dry enough to remind him of Iraq. Those seemed such innocent times, slipping through the dark with blanks and MILES gear, playing at war. Later, playing paintball at night, even more of a game than the training exercises.