Summer Camp Mayhem.
In 16 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ►Podcast at Connected.
The miracle is not a person jumping into a torrent to save another. It is the dozen who form a chain to pull them both out.
(Midnight in the Grotto of Good and Evil)
We were in one of the underground pools at the bottom of the mesa. Our tour guide had informed us there were nine known caves and the complex had never been fully explored due to the remaining waterways being totally submerged. It was well past midnight, all my little friends had crashed out and I had wisely ditched my security after Miyako silently woke me up with her hand over my mouth.
She pulled my hand to her lips and sucked deeply on two of my digits. I took this to be an indicator to me she was in dire need of loving. The grotto was my idea. I was inspired by my desire to see her naked and I couldn't risk a light source any place but underground. The tool shed and garage lacked a certain appeal. The fuel depot and septic tank were also ruled out.
"Is the chaos in your mind still raging, Cáel?" Miyako asked in Nipponese, with enough worry to doubly enhance her cuteness.
"Which of the twenty-seven unexplained languages rolling around in my head do you want me to answer you in?" my toothy grin barely visible in the darkness.
Around half way through my sexual enlightenment in college, I had a revelation. The two guys I had gone road-tripping with took me to a bar in Portsmouth. I caught a woman looking us over. I already had my one-night stand lined up and she was looking most agreeable to my nefarious skullduggery (i.e. she had come with some other guy who preferred beer and darts with his buddies over keeping his attention on what mattered).
And then my awakening.
"Nah, she's too fat," he remarked. For one thing, my friend who said that could have stood to lose ten to fifteen kilograms himself. Next, we were dressed like middle class college kids, jeans, shirts that were most likely clean when we picked them out of the laundry basket, light jackets and the shoe thing.
This girl was dressed up for a good night out. Nice makeup, her clothing choices were, eh, not stunning, but this wasn't a stunning nightclub/bar. She looked fun, she smiled and yes, she was overweight. It dawned on me that not only did I not care, I never cared. I was a sexual omnivore and that meant any lady interested in sex with me was fine in my book.
So, I turned the tables on him.
"If you can score her number, I'll give you my watch," I dared him. The wristwatch was really nice, one of those $500 handmade German ones. One of my Ex’s great-granddad had swiped it off some Nazi pilot in World War II, and the same girl gave it to me twice. See, by accident, as I was exiting the (thankfully) first floor window of the Natural Sciences building, she threw a pitcher at me.
It had been sitting in an ornamental display case close by. I caught it, nodded to the flabbergasted female professor-type gawking at the semi-naked me, handed her the projectile, then fled like the responsibility-dodging coward that I was. It turned out that that bit of crockery was from the mid-1600's; the woman I'd surprised was the item's owner.
That older lady wasn't a teacher. She was a major benefactor in charge of one of the school's larger endowments. Had it shattered, the Ex most likely would have been expelled. Instead, after watching me round the Chancellor's residence, the mature chick turned to the totally naked chick leaning out the window, still screaming at me.
"Is he on the track team?" she inquired as she handed the artifact back. They talked, agreed I was a miserable human being, a cad and had firmly developed buttocks. Well, I guess that makes me a pig with nice hams. The next day, I showed up to return the watch, it was just an excuse for one more round of sex.
She explained the whole incident to me, took back the watch and sent me on my way. I hurried back to my dorm room, changed the sheets and picked up a bit. An hour later she was quietly knocking at my door. Rather epic make-up sex followed, she gave me the watch as a keepsake and I swore off intercourse in classrooms for two whole months. I'm a tower of resolute willpower, I know.
Back at the bar, my buddy snorted, made some comment about her being obviously desperate and promised me he'd nail in her in one of the back rooms. They talked a little, he got 'friendly', then said something that really hurt the girl's feelings. She looked our way, steadied herself with a shot of bourbon and came over to me and my other bud.
"Did you tell that guy you would give him fifty bucks if I put a lipstick ring on his cock?" she confronted us.
"No, I told him you were too good for him and if he could get your phone number, I would give him this watch," I showed her the watch. The girl's face flashed back to 'cautiously curious'.
"Is it a nice watch?" she asked.
"It is a family heirloom. My great-grandpa brought it back from World War II after taking it off some high ranking kraut officer," I embellished. "I knew he didn't have a chance with you."
"Thanks," she grinned. "I agree. Let me get my sister and we can get a bite to eat." Sex.
Two guesses of who her sister was. If you guessed the girl I had been cultivating since I got there, you would be right. I am too damn lucky. Lads, the next time you blow a sure thing, blame me for sucking all the good karma away from you, and nine of your friends. I got a three-way. The guy I made the challenge to, got his revenge. He bailed and I had to hitchhike back to school. You know, female truckers, oh, back to Miyako.
After stashing our clothing and weapons (all of mine anyway), I took a small fluorescent lantern and slipped into the water. Cold, but doable. Miyako joined me and then, by moonlight, we swam to the point where the guide had said we'd find a passage to a secluded grotto. Down we went. My motivation wasn't sex.
That was coming no matter what. Seeing my Nipponese sweetie completely nude directed my course of action. Security protocols meant no lights after 11 p.m. My solution was to cut on a light that couldn't be seen from outside, the grotto. We felt our way along the rather wide submerged passage emerging well before air became an issue. I raised the lantern and cut it on.
Our tour guru had forgotten to mention that the algae patches along the sides and bottom as well as the quartz veins on the roof and walls reflected the light over what must have been an eight by ten meter cavern. Gorgeous. We glided to a shelf that met our needs, climbed up and shared a high school 'nervous virgin' moment. She broke the spell by pulling herself out of the water and, standing on her tippy-toes, touched one of the roof veins.
I drank in every inch of my little ninja babe's lithe, finely tuned body. Once she got over the newness of my voyeurism, she became playful, giving me a variety of silhouettes and poses. I stripped and returned the favor, which earned me a giggling fit. As I took a minute to sit down and stare into the tranquility of the still surface, she snuck up on me.
She said it all with her eyes. I tried to speak, but she put a forefinger to my lips. 'Hold me forever,' her eyes relayed her intentions. 'Love me for all eternity and think of no one else but me.' My elbows were locked, supporting my upper torso as she hovered over my lap. She was a lone feather falling upon the unyielding stone.
We took it in increments. A sigh more at home in whispered Nirvana than on mortal tongues escaped her lips as she nestled all the way down. We didn't fuck. We rocked back and forth in a timid motion.
As Miyako became accustomed to me once more, she would lean farther back with each pulse until an in and out rhythm was achieved. Experience had taught me that was her more sensitive one. For several seconds, she fought it before knowledge caught up with instinct, then she loosed her passion.
After her vibrations subsided, she rested her body tightly against mine. I still impaled her and she was returning a fraction of that warmth.
"Do you ever think you will find true love?" she whispered into my ear, in Nipponese. I was drawing my finger through her damp hair as it trailed down her back.
"As in love one over all others, no," I confided. "Even if I did, I could never admit it."
"Why not?" she asked in Mandarin.
In French I explained; "My life is a mad race through the forest and I don't know if I am a hound or the stag. I don't dare slow down until I know, and that is no way to repay such devotion."
"When do you think the race will end for you?" she moaned softly, in English.
"I would really like to hold a child of mine. I don't regret my life's path up until now, yet I leave so very little of me behind if it ends soon," I muttered in Nipponese, and then chuckled. "It used to be at the first sign of a pregnancy test, I would panic. The World turns very rapidly."
A minute passed as she went from warm to heatedly sensuous.
"Less talk, more babies," she sacrificed her emotions for my well-being with her oh so naught Baby Metal band voice and questing fingers. How could I say 'no' to that?
"I don't think it works that way," I teased.
"Let's find out." She implored me in Nipponese
Sometime later, I was lying on my back, Miyako's body extended over mine so that not one precious inch of her touched the cool slick rock surface. Considering our position and location, it took me a bit longer to notice the intruder. I thought she was all kinds of strange. Twin memories and perception joined forces for once.
The woman moved through the water, yet she was only hip deep in a place I knew the bottom was three meters below. As she entered our isolated love nest, I noticed she had sent forth not a single ripple in the water. Memory filled in the rest. Her eyes, when her gaze met my own, had that void that comes from a tortured life punctuated by horrors you witness as well as ones you are forced to perform.
That was from "me". The electron swarm inside my mind provided another crucial piece of the puzzle. Utukku, phantoms, dead denied entrance to the Nether Realms, trapped between, until some sin had been lifted. The spirit gave me a look of shock, then turned and fled.
"We are in danger," I hissed to Miyako in Nipponese, before cutting off the lantern.
I dove in, angling for the tunnel we'd entered by. I was close enough not to jab my fingers into the stone surface as I clawed my way through. I didn't burst noisily to the surface on the other side. My approach was that of an alligator, slowly letting my head crest the surface so I could look around. No one was in evidence. Miyako was soundless at my side as we scramble to the hiding place of our gear.
Miyako held my hand back until she was sure our belongings hadn't been booby-trapped. I had to make quick judgment call: how time critical was this? I went the 'clothes and weapons' route.
"What is going on?" Miyako spoke quietly.
"Back there, I saw a feminine Asian ghost and the last time I witnessed such a pained, hopeless look, I was confronting the Seven Pillars," I told her. "Their slave had that same doomed stare."
"There are only two things here of value," Miyako made her assessment. "You and the children. You are far more accessible in New York City, so it must be the children." We pressed ourselves tightly to the cave sides when we heard the sound of footsteps coming our way. It was Charlotte, my minder for evening, with her bow notched and ready.
Firearms were kept to a minimum after hours, so bows were the order of the day, except for the snipers on the mesa top. My movements must have alerted her. I sat down and continued dressing.
"Charlotte, the Seven Pillars know we are here, they know the camp is here," I told her.
"How imminent is the threat?" Charlotte knelt beside me. I didn't know.
"They must be close, to be making a reconnaissance of the caves," Miyako said with tactical certainty.
"It was drawn to you, Charlotte, you were out of place, so this thing looked further. Otherwise these caves are irrelevant," she added. Miyako had the mindset of a seasoned professional spy.
"The cavern and spring have a night guardian," Charlotte countered. "I saw her when I was following you two here."
I had on my light bulletproof vest (no shirt), shorts (no underwear) and shoes (no sox).
"Let's go check on her to see if she's seen anything," I suggested/ordered.
What I had assumed was some sort of bedroll brought by Miyako turned out to be a Ninja Survival pack. This allowed me to weapon up while she dressed up. The amount of time we were taking still ate at my nerves. Charlotte stopped me from heading out first, only to be stopped by Miyako. The ninja slipped out like a cool desert breeze.
(Friend, Enemies and those In Between)
Thirty seconds later, a plastic BB bounced off my right shoulder. This time, I was leading Charlotte out. No one spoke. We couldn't see Miyako anyway, now dressed in her black pajamas and her face being reduced to just one slit for her eyes. We found the Amazon dead at her post. She was in a cunningly crafted blind not easily spotted from any direction.
A quick sweep for 'gifts' left behind revealed nothing, but the corpse yielded plenty. She was shot multiple times with two separate flash and sound suppressed submachine guns. The woman had been alive when we came down and if there had been a firefight, Charlotte would have heard the shots, if not seen them; thus the suppression. The bullet holes suggested a small caliber weapon.
Miyako stepped up, held up three fingers. Every piece of the Amazon's gear was still on her. The attackers had shot up her phone box. Wireless communications were deemed too risky so all the outposts had buried land lines. At this point, a few seconds of extra effort stood between the Seven Pillars and success; that and the Goddess Paranoia.
Had the assailants yanked up the box and cut the phone line, it would have been rendered useless. Instead, they shot up the device and moved on so that when Charlotte pulled out the cache of concealed goodies, including the spare phone box, we were back in business. As Charlotte got to work switching out the busted for the back-up, I studied our situation.
Advanced teams taking out the perimeter guards, and most likely the snipers, didn't make much sense. The camp had 300 highly motivated Amazons. Cutting them off temporarily from their armory and vehicles didn't make any sense, since all Amazons were armed anyway. That left timing. But timing meant nothing if I didn't have the goal of their attack.
It came as a double-whammy. The Chinese place a high premium on family and the Seven Pillars had mastered a sadistic art form of turning young foreign women into their concubine/assassins. The Condotteiri would have slaughtered the entire camp. The Seven Pillars would want to kidnap the children, both as current bargaining chips and as future tools.
500 girls, 400 could be kidnappable. The oldest would go down fighting with their sisters. How did you get 400 kids out of here? Helicopters? That would be a fuck load of helicopters taking out their team and the children. Besides, helicopters alone couldn't dig them out of their cave and cliff-face strongpoints.
Desert, no waterways. That left the road. You couldn't use ATVs, not enough carrying capacity. The smart move would be to have tractor-trailers parked alongside the hard top state road. They would use smaller, more rugged trucks to ferry their captives out to the semis. That suggested some sort of 'cover/support' vehicles.
2 half ton trucks with weaponized Hummers providing fire support a la 'Blackhawk Down' and that meant the bridge and the BBQ pit. That objective would solve both of the Seven Pillars problems, moving the main assault group into close contact with the Amazons so the Amazons couldn't organize a defense, and removing their hostages in a prompt manner so they all could be gone before anyone else could react.
The Seven Pillars had to have secured the bridge and were mostly likely replacing the missing piers. It was the choke point of their battle plan. Worse for them, it wasn't part of a barricade where they could attrition the Amazon numbers with vehicle mounted heavy weapons. The ditch ran north-south, bow shaped with the arch to the west and was over a kilometer from the camp.
The flanks were purposefully strewn with huge boulders that limited traffic to horse and motorcycles, no four-wheelers. They had to have control of the bridge, so that's where I went.
"Charlotte, I'm going to the bridge," I whispered before slipping out of the blind. I didn't order Miyako to follow me and I was sure Charlotte wanted strangle me for departing from her protective custody.
There are four kinds of fights, be they between armies, or individuals. Set-piece (sparring), assaults, ambushes and meeting engagements. I was about to be in the latter one. Meeting engagements happen when opposing forces are set on goals that unknowingly intersect one another. One of the most famous battles in US history, Gettysburg, was a meeting engagement.
I was using the bone-dry culvert because we feared the Seven Pillars had replaced our snipers. Miyako was, somewhere else. The enemy commandos used the same conduit to avoid having the remaining Amazon pickets spot them and raising the alarm. I had little doubt that the three men speedily moving south were heading for the grotto and its three inhabitants (Charlotte, Miyako and me).
Not knowing that I could both see ghosts and guessed who its demonic masters were, they assumed we were still in the caverns. Me not knowing how this whole ghost-scout thing worked, I assumed that I had a chance of surprising them at the bridge if I moved fast enough. In a final prick of irony, they misinterpreted the role their snipers played in our engagement.
They believed that their snipers would alert them if anyone moved on the bridge, ignoring the fact that the snipers didn't have a complete view of the gulch. I was only using the big ditch because I was afraid they had taken out the Amazon snipers and now had the high ground, which turned out to be true. Thank you, Goddess Paranoia.
My first tomahawk was in my left hand and my Glock-22 was in my right. My fear of snipers and the bend in the gully saved my life. We literally ran into each other, me and the first 7P soldier. His long barreled Type-05 was pointing past my left, his torso slammed into my pistol, ramming his front armored plate against it as it discharged.
The proximity muffled the sound of the gunshot. The bullet failed to punch through his impressive body armor, but the resulting force knocked him down and out. Unfortunately, our shared momentum knocked my gun out of my grasp. My right hand went for tomahawk two. The flattened man's team mates swung their submachine guns my way.
Halfway through his shift, a black dart flew out of the western darkness, past the first one, then snapped back. The action caused the hardy thread to wrap around the barrel of his weapon. I couldn't see her, but I knew it was Miyako with her flying wedge with the thread attached. The middle guy was startled and not moving as his training dictated.
That allowed me to use him as a shield against the third guy. Right as 7P #2 decided to release his weapon, I kicked him hard into the confused man behind him. Neither man went down, but I still got what I wanted.
Guy number three's main weapon was trapped to his right as I rushed his left. Vainly he tried to get an arm up to defend himself. My right tomahawk shattered his forearm at the elbow joint. Only the body armor on the inside of the blow stopped the appendage from falling off. My rational mind was catching up with my instincts.
These men had on head-to-toe ballistic body suits with knee guards and solid ballistic inserts for the front and back of the torso. They had on some sort of dull, dark-grey respirator mask which was why the armless guy wasn't screaming his head off. They also had matte black circular ear protections and a type of high tech visor on the ears and eyes respectively.
The sole survivor was falling back, drawing his silenced pistol while trying to put some distance between us and find Miyako at the same time. Dummy, tomahawks are designed for throwing. A bit of Amazons indignation was behind that toss. His visor was cut in two as my anger drove the blade 6 cm/2+ inches into his skull.
I heard a sharp crack of a rock being shattered. Miyako's graceful flip landed her at my side. I ran to the last victim, put my foot on his chest and put my right hand on the tomahawk's shaft. The guy reached up and grabbed the thigh of the foot on his chest with both hands. Shit, the fucker wasn't dead!
My left axe came down, struck his right temple and his skull came apart like a nitrogen frozen cantaloupe. I was sure I'd be downing a case, or ten, of something potently alcoholic to bury that visual for the rest of my life.
"They have definitely taken out our snipers," Miyako murmured.
"You didn't have to do that. He was already dead. It was a nerve spasm." Nerve spasm? He GRABBED ME, okay, in the instant replay it was more of his arms flying up than an actual grab. The cracking rock was a near-miss of my tender, sensitive ninja athlete. The fuckers must pay.
I wasn't expecting mercy to be the rule of the day, but still, Miyako was a ninja, not an Amazon. She was a bystander in our feud. In hindsight, that was a totally irrational line of thought. My closest ally pulled another of her wedges from somewhere and stabbed my first opponent in the throat three times. I hadn't killed him, so she did. I reassessed our situation. Our opponents knew we were up and about.
The final southern stretch to the bridge was eight to ten meters of open ground and the width grew to almost eight meters. I returned my axes and unslung my shotgun, I had loaded it with slugs instead of shot. I am a 'one shot/letting you know I'm pissed with you' kind of guy. By sticking to the eastern side of this gully, gulch, micro-canyon, we remained immune to the sniper fire from the top of the mesa.
As the bad guys were coming to the conclusion that their three-man troop was being born away on black wings for a long-overdue, one-way trip to Diyu (Chinese Hell), they realized we still needed to be dealt with. Either the dying gasps alerted them, or they found a lack of radio contact disturbing, I'll never know. Miyako and me, we sprang upon them unprepared, but not surprised.
As I had feared, they were shoring up the bridge with semi-portable hydraulic jacks. That segment of their plan had barely reached its conclusion so the seven battle-clad types didn't have their weapons up and ready to fire. There was an eighth guy who was looking right at us and two tortured ghosts flanked him. One was the female spirit I'd seen in the caves.
That guy had on less physical protection than the others for reasons I couldn't fathom. It was a combination of oriental lacquered wood, metal, ballistic cloth and silk sleeves and pants. It appeared to allowed greater freedom of movement, but left his hands and head uncovered.
His bald Han head was covered with tattoos that screeched 'Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!' at me for no rational reason.
"Rènwù wánchéng. Qù," the man snapped. The ghost I hadn't seen before took off to the southwest. In that freeze frame instant, I could make out semi-translucent erosions in the ghosts' bodies. They were frayed around the edges. The best parallel I could draw was the way a sheet of fine paper starts to curl around the edges in that first second it catches fire.
Every second in that perverse continuation was a further mutilation of their essence. At the same time, the other seven guys went combat-unfriendly. Shooting the fanatic sorcerer glaring at me served my sense for the dramatic. I put a solid slug into the guy behind him, because he had his back to me and couldn't see it coming, just like the SD ladies at the range taught me.
Naomi wouldn't clap me on the back for the hit. But she would have been disappointed had I shot someone else, or missed. Doing my duty was the minimal expectation. The 12 gauge projectile caught the man between the C2 and C3 vertebra. It didn't matter if the slug penetrated his fancy suit of body armor, the impact snapped his spine and severed his spinal column.
One down, seven to go. They were about to get their turn, but not before I put lead in one more. This one saw it coming. He was also kneeling and aiming my way. It hit him just below the knee-guard, snapping his tibia. I threw my back into a groove in the gully wall. It was more Aya-sized then muscle-bound me-sized. It had the benefit of being the best of a bad lot of choices.
Dry rock walls splintered, projecting fragments all around. A few stung, but I had bigger problems. Bad things often come in threes and tonight was no exception. First on the list didn't even involve me. A fist-shaped divot exploded from the wall of the gulch across from me, that sniper was shooting at Miyako who had moved to the east side of the gulley.
My secondary concern was the team of killers walking their fire into my hiding place. Two or three were shooting at me so the others could edge around for a clear shot. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop them. The tertiary issue was the chthonic ramblings of the Han warlock.
Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe my shelter really was decaying at an accelerated rate. The rubble at my feet was inviting me to slip and fall into the open. Of course, that line of thinking was superstitious nonsense. Next time I was nearly killed I'd ask my goddess, Dot Ishara, about it.
A dozen firecrackers went off, the ditch flooded with a blinding light and I ran for it. I even picked up a bullet along the way. Sweet Mother Ishara! It was a searing burn along the back of my right thigh. I could hear all the pain receptors on my left side rejoicing that for once, it wasn't them squealing in pain.
The far/west side of the ditch had a better niche to hide in with the disadvantage being it would leave me open to sniper fire from the mesa. I'd asked Rachel what her best shot had been. She was my detail's sniper as well as its leader. 1.8 kilometers, then she'd promised me that any shot over 500 meters was pretty much a crap shoot.
Oh, I knew she was lying to me, but it was sweet of her to try. Now I was hoping an elite Seven Pillar sniper would be daunted by a one kilometer-distant target. I was feeling lucky. Actually I was feeling like I had no choice, but being so screwed I had to trust in luck would elicit more sympathy in the retelling. What I did know was that I had to get under the bridge and waiting for those guys to run out of bullets wasn't the solution.
I knelt down as low as I could go, leaned out and started firing. The Chinese gentlemen were nice enough to keep firing at my old hidey-hole, their muzzle flashes clearly visible in the wispy ninja smoke. It was more than I expected from a handful of tiny flash pellets. It was the flash that had saved me. The smoke was a bonus.
I fired at the target closest to the west wall. He'd have the best shot at Miyako when she showed herself. Quick-firing meant I had to aim for the center mass, their best protected region. I compensated by using the 'automatic' in my automatic shotgun. I switched to 'select fire'. Three slugs hammered him back.
An advantage of moving to my new cover was I cut down the range between us to three meters. Was he alive? Most likely, but he was feeling like an exceptionally malicious Red Cap had performed a River Dance on his chest. The one next to that guy shifted toward my firing spot. He had a half second on me. I'd give him this much, he knew his shit.
His 'shit' meant he had expended his mag and was putting in a fresh one without missing a beat. Wiesława couldn't have been smoother, chambering that first round flawlessly. Several successive hits from his rounds walloped me back into the crevice even as I pulled the trigger. My ballistic vest had saved me, though I had a whole new set of bruises to explain to Rachel.
I'd been aiming for the fuckers face mask, so odds were good that if my first shot missed, so had the other two. My magazine had two shots left. I went back to single shot and propelled myself out far enough to invite more punishment. I was having an awesome firefight, compared to the Seven Pillars hit-man I'd tried to kill.
If you put three 12 gauge slugs into a person's jaw and throat at close range, their head really does pop off, shades of the shootout at the Medical Examiner's office. Of more immediate concern was Evil Han Wizard guy looking right at me. Before I could squeeze of a shot some sixth sense told me I was too late.
The closest armored companion to his left had sprouted an arrow in the gap between his underarm and chest plate. All three of us were shocked. Not only were they both surprised to be dead, but the one arrow that had done them both in had come from the west, away from camp. As the two Chinese death-dealers harvested their own cursed reward, I saw the ruin of the sorcerer's left ear.
That was correct, someone shot Mr. Evil Tattoo-head through this skull and punched into the second man's chest from the side, piercing his heart. Yikes! Wilhelmina Tell? Then I got a clear look at the long, obsidian shaft that seemed to suck in the light and at the fletching made with oily black feathers donated from a bird that had never truly lived.
It wasn't like there weren't dozens of people around willing to kill me. What was one more? I had a bridge to sabotage and that Chinese warlock had already sent the message, via the enslaved ghost, that the bridge was secured for their cause. There were two more men to kill, so off I went. There was another reminder I wasn't alone.
One of the two remaining bad guys was being reacquainted with the gulch being three meters high. He was kicking out his life, hanging from the bridge while his companion was shooting into said pathway from below. I had unfinished business to take care of. The man I'd crippled was gamely bringing his QCW Type-05 to bear on me, so I put a round into his face.
Mr. River Dance earned my final round into his respirator as he tried to sit up. Whoops; left my Glock behind and I doubted my 38 could cut the mustard against their body armor. Axes it was, proving I was an amateur. To prove they were professionals, the hanging man flipped out a blade, cut his noose and landed facing me. His remaining companion turned to face me as well.
My favorite ninja wasn't done yet. As the second man turned, Miyako stepped from behind one of the false pylons and kicked the gun out of his hands. The ex-hanging man had the choice of reaching for his dropped Type-05, thus letting me chop him in the back as he bent over or, draw a sword?
I was a tad curious why he didn't draw his silenced pistol until I saw it lying next to his submachine toy. Go Miyako! He'd dropped his big gun when she snared him and she'd somehow knocked the pistol out of his hand when he went for that next, most likely to shoot her as she was securing his necktie to the bridge. The sword it was then.
'Jian'; I yanked that memory from somewhere along with a blitzkrieg quick montage of its proper use.
'Phifft, phifft, phifft, Yeow!' came from under the bridge, followed by a high-pitched whistling noise. That would be Miyako disabling a hydraulic jack with a silenced pistol, then having the other bad guy knock it from her grasp. New villain plan:, team up. It was a good plan. They had Miyako on one side and me on the other.
By using internal lines of maneuver, they could double-team one us, then turn to fend off the other. All they had to do was keep us from destroying the other hydraulic jacks. Miyako didn't have a gun and I had two tomahawks. Help for them was on the way. Counterplan, Miyako disappeared. New villain plan:, rush me.
It was two 4ft double edged blades versus two tomahawks. Unlike earlier skirmishes against less skilled foes, these two had perfected their teamwork. They were fighting me, keeping an eye out for Miyako (vis-a-vis the snipers) and they utilized their individually superior fighting skills to preclude anything but a desperation defense on my part.
Their added bonus was that I would soon be a target for said sniper(s). Alien memories came crashing in. I didn't fold up. This wasn't at all similar to my fight with Caprica. There was no neurological turf war. My survival warranted a temporary cease-fire between the foreign and homegrown thought patterns. I didn't chop them up into sushi. Hell, I didn't even hit them.
I was getting in some swings though and that mattered. What mattered more was a sudden urgency in their attacks. Then, over the humming of steel on steel, I heard footsteps coming on fast and the tell-tale sound of high caliber rounds chewing up the real estate. By the Holy Seven Martial Goddesses of the Host, no matter how many times I would later rewind that memory, I didn't know how she did it.
My savior knew precisely where the leftmost combatant was. He expertly spun to face her, ready to parry and counterstrike. Her blade was, a, the bastard offspring of a Claymore and Dao, the other Chinese white meat, I meant the other traditional steel sword design of China. At first glance I thought that heavy SOB would be impossible to wield effectively in a sword fight.
The blade alone was 5ft, with too much weight in the top third. I was willing to bet the Seven Pillars special operations soldier was thinking the same way, until her two-handed downward hack powered through his overhead parry as if his steel Jian blade was nothing more than a marshmallow stick. The blow sliced off his ear, severed his collarbone and drove the front and back hard plates down below his crotch as she plowed through his ribcage.
She finished off that display by fluidly following through with the strike so that her blade pulled effortlessly free of his corpse. The last guy didn't lose his professional resolve. He tried to put himself between both of us and the bridge. He successfully deflected the stranger's next blow by switching to a two-handed grip as well. That opened him up to me and I promptly chopped down into his left shoulder joint which ripped open his arm with a gush of blood.
He didn't have the strength left to fend off her next strike. She took his right arm clean off. I put my left handed axe to use and slashed open his throat.
"Bridge," I indicated as I ran to its relative safety. "We need to knock out these devices." The jacks. I was a little worried she wouldn't understand the technology.
"There is a large convoy coming this way," she grumbled after she joined me. "There are also four small helicopters hovering out there, waiting for the signal to attack." So much for needing the History of Modern Warfare update. "These," she looked around to the job at hand, "I don't know."
"I've got it," Miyako appeared.
"Smash these two tablets together and you'll get a rather destructive acidic reaction," she handed out blue and yellow marbles to me and, well, our newfound non-enemy wasn't interested. The ninja and I got to work. She was faster. In my defense, she'd trained for this and I had a sinking feeling whatever acid this combo made was equally hazardous to my flesh.
"You are bleeding," the warrior woman snuck up on me.
"Got shot. Hazards of the profession," I joked dryly. The hydraulics sounded off a final, fatal objection. The bridge beams began to creak as the upward pressure ceased.
"What exactly are you?" she persisted. She almost shook my shoulder to get my attention.
"Currently I am a highly indignant 'attempted murder' victim," I murmured. That was stupid of me. I already knew she had a temper problem. "I cannot adequately explain my status to you 'mukīl rēš damiqti', which translates as ‘guardian angel’ in Hittite, in the time allotted before battle is rejoined."
"There is no way you are 'Hatti Lu' (a man of the Hatti), so how do you speak this tongue?"
She punctuated her bullish attitude by putting her shoulder into one of the disabled jacks and knocking it over. Miyako bounced a pebble off of my shoulder to get my attention. I followed her gaze to the mesa. A tripwire flare had gone up. A quick guesstimation put it halfway up the mesa's rock pile; three-quarters of the way to the first buildings.
From a command decision standpoint, this had all the hallmarks of the quandary facing Admiral Nagumo at the Battle of Midway. Things were not working out as planned for the I.J.N. (Imperial Japanese Navy), yet the prospect of completing the mission, the destruction of the US carrier fleet was possible.
For the Seven Pillars leader, the situation was similar; his assault teams had penetrated the Amazon defenses and were on the verge of separating the Amazons from their heavy weapons. Or so he thought. Thanks to Charlotte, the Amazons had been able to assemble a partial response.
It wasn't perfect, but it put forth a far stronger defense than their attackers had originally envisioned. Caprica and her patron goddess Paranoia had planned for this near-disaster. The flare wasn't set off by the Seven Pillars infiltrators. Caprica had it set off to both signal the rest of the defenders to their rally points and put the leader of the main, road-bound attack force on the horns of a dilemma.
If he pressed the attack, a vicious firefight was in the offing. If he pulled back, he could pull his snipers off the top of the mesa, but his assault team's infiltrators were fucked. They were outnumbered and there was no place to run and hide before the Sun came up. In the end, all the glory and infamy fell on Miyako's and my shoulders. Charlotte had convinced Caprica that I WOULD take the bridge.
The Seven Pillars' leader was convinced that his soulless mystic and ten elite troopers could dispose of me, Miyako and Charlotte. Had it not been for the unexpected party crasher, he would most likely have been right. His final deciding factor may very well have been 'hell, I'm already this close to victory'.
For Caprica, her 'Tar Baby' approach was based on her blast zones being alive and kicking. Being buried under a centimeter, or two of loose gravel and equipped with 'pop up' sprinkler heads, the ghosts hadn't picked up on them during their recon. That left me, my new buddy and Miyako kicking out struts under the bridge in the middle of the BBQ pit with the added incentive that no other Amazons could see, or communicate with us.
If we were still there when the enemy arrived, we'd be cooked along with everyone else. That left us in a frantic hurry to knock out the last jacks as we heard the sound of that sizable convoy coming our way. Simply hiding farther down the gulch wasn't going to work. The whole place was about to be roasting our chestnuts at around 300C/575F, spiced up with its napalm-like reputation.
The last jack went down under our combined effort. I was making up my mind about which abysmal exit strategy to embrace when the ghost distracted me. She'd never gone away. Since I was the only one who could see her, it hadn't been a problem. Now she knelt beside the unloving example of why you only have your ear pierced by a professional, ear piercer, and was clawing at his remains futilely.
At first, I thought it was some sort of revenge, a 'beating on her tormentor' kind of thing. It wasn't. She was trying to grab some material object in her otherworldly hands. Love more than hate. I ran out, grabbed up his body and dodged back under the bridge. I guessed the snipers were busy elsewhere at that moment.
The ghost came along, indicating there was something close to his chest she wanted. I yanked up three chains from under his torso ballistic vest. There were three tiny glass reliquaries attacked to the ends. The ghost looked at me with pleading eyes.
"Those are talismans of Gong tau," Miyako whispered; Chinese black magic.
"Those are finger bones," the friendless one added. Smashing them seemed like the sane thing to do. Pamela wouldn't have liked that excuse. I held up each trinket before the ghost. The first one, nothing. The second one, pleading. The third one, nothing. I had to be sure. I smashed the second one. The ghost's shape rippled then began to fade.
She willed herself to continue for a few more seconds of torment. She said something in a language I didn't understand (it turned out to be Vietnamese) then repeated it in Mandarin. 'Thank you'. There was a twinkle in her eyes. She had one last, mad act of defiance to hurl at the people who had defiled her body and lacerated her soul.
We would never know for sure what she did. I had a sneaking suspicion she flew back to the Gong Tau practitioner with the convoy and humbly told him everything was 'A-Okay' at the bridge. He relayed that message to the Unit Commander. The Commander took it as gospel because their enslave spirits didn't have a choice, but to tell them the truth, right?
All we knew for sure was fifteen seconds after she left, the whole line of light armored vehicles and trucks accelerated. I wrasseled up a Type-05, a spare clip and three grenades.
"We need to get out of here," the stranger stated. "Follow me." The white horse hair plum on her helmet whipped around and she began running to an easier path to the exit the ditch, to the west. The 'tons of enemies coming at us in a big way' west. She climbed up to the lip and peeked over.
"What are we doing?" I grumbled at her as I admired her kilted posterior from below.
"If I have this correct, the ditch is about to become an impassible barrier after a few vehicles go crashing in. We will need to circle around and kill the people in the last one so the rest can't escape." The two of us? Miyako had vanished again.
"I love this plan," I groused. "Me, you and a Miyako Monkey holding off how many hundreds of guys."
"If you are scared, feel free to run away," the stranger sneered. "I wasn't planning on you being useful anyway." I made a quick assessment of my resources.
Glock-22, check; I'd dropped it. USAS-12, check; I'd dropped that too. My 38 versus their body armor, check; useless. A nifty Chinese Personal Defense Weapon/SMG I had no experience with, three grenades, it took me a second to access my Mandarin library, 308-1 (that was of no help), one big knife, one small knife and four tomahawks.
"Try to keep up, Gimli," I scoffed. "I bet I'll kill more than you. Loser buys the winner a night's worth of koumiss." Chicks dig Legolas, nuff said.
"What is that? It sounds vile," she snorted. The vehicles were getting close. Jumping up and trying to run past them at this point was a great way to feed the vultures.
We had to wait until the pile-up began and confusion reigned.
"Chilled fermented mare's milk. You'll love it," I joked.
"It doesn't sound vile. It sounds wretched," she corrected herself. Two of the small helicopters flew over us, racing to aid their comrades already inside our perimeter.
In their wake, came some hybridized Hummer/Jeeps, including the guy at the swivel mount of what could have been an automatic grenade launcher. He was traveling so fast he almost made it, ALMOST. The bridge had a built-in dip and as the force and weight of his vehicle hit that dip, the entire eastern end of the bridge gave way.
Even then, the bottom of his front bumper hit the lip of the far abutments. So close. That momentum kept on trying. The vehicle's rear end rose up and for a second, I thought they were going to flip all the way over. It didn't. The problem was that like Special Forces world-wide, they had clearly trained for this mission.
Seven Pillars commandoes had worked out every detail of their plan, which included racing through the night, bumper to bumper, so they could reach their destination and deploy before the enemy could pin them to their transports. Only the Unit Commander could execute the plan, or call it off. It was an 'either/or' decision. Once he unleashed his hounds, all bets were off.
Thus everything hinged on the lead scout spotting danger in time to communicate the threat for the whole unit to react. Such a formation ensured rapid deployment, yet it really impeded your ability to slam on the brakes if needed. Like right at that moment when they needed to avoid the disaster overtaking the ride directly in front of them. It was the downside of this assault's calculated risk.
The second hybrid-weapons platform nearly knocked the first one over. The driver, with lightning reflexes, had instinctively hit the brakes instead of the gas. Faster would have slammed him into the undercarriage of the first ride. Braking, not much better. The third driver apparently had a different driving philosophy.
He yanked his wheel to the right and gunned it. Had he not clipped the bumper of the second roadster, but he did, resulting in him flying over our heads and into the rock wall across the gulch. The fourth landed on top of the second, only to have the first finally come down and land on him. Momentarily, that was a good spot for vehicle one as it now was level with the lip of the ditch.
But wait, there was more. First off, Friendless and I took off, running past the doomed convoy as fast as we could. A few of the armed guards in the follow-up 2 1/2 ton truck glanced our way, but they had more pressing concerns, like bracing for impact. Had they possessed a spare moment, they might have been concerned about what we were running from.
The driver of the first truck could see the unfolding fate of the fighting vehicles ahead. He swerved to the left, aiming to skirt the edge of the gully, but he had too much forward momentum. The truck flipped the lip, landing upside down. The pain of this uncoiling serpent wasn't over. The first truck had a clear view of the fate of the members before it.
The trucks behind the first didn't. Even as communication warnings flared, physics was playing hell with the Seven Pillars' column. The trucks were bigger, so they needed a longer distance to stop, and the craftily designed Amazon roadway didn't aid that. The final approach to the camp was an 'L' that went from southwest-north to due east at the half-kilometer mark.
That slowed down would be attackers enough so the watching Amazons could figure out what to do with you, yet left you enough space to accelerate to an unsafe speed. This left the trucks piling up around the collapsed bridge. The instant the first truck stopped short of disaster, the sadistic sister observing the fiasco hit the first switch and out came the sticky accelerant.
Their respirators must have given the troopers a few more seconds of not knowing what else was going wrong. With their enlightenment came the running. No one screamed because they couldn't (their facemasks). Half the Amazon naphtha remained a clingy liquid while the other half turned to vapor. Instant Incendiary Inferno! The initial earthshaking explosive force was followed by multiple secondary and tertiary detonations.
My erstwhile ally and I picked ourselves off the ground and resumed our footrace to the last in the line-up. She stopped, drew back her bow and took aim. I didn't. I had a PLAN that required me to get just a bit closer. The second to last vehicle, like the last, had a man standing up at a swing mount. He pointed his vehicle-mounted grenade-launcher my way just in time to take a black-fletched through the sinuses.
The gunner in the last car barely had time to register he was under attack when she killed him as well. When the trucks began slamming on their brakes, the fighting vehicles did too. Braking distance, a slight gap opened up between the last truck and the last two guardians. The rides were four-doors with a rigid top and a fold-down trunk.
The Seven Pillars commandoes flowed into action even as the last of the dust was being kicked up. Ranged death was coming from their right, so the left rear passengers in each vehicle dismounted. The right side rear guy, pulled down their dead gunner and prepared to take his place. Me? My plan required me to get a tiny bit closer! I bolted for the nearer of the two targets.
I swung the gun aside, pulled out one of my brand new grenades and pulled the pin. Was that four seconds, or six? Come on Hollywood, get your fiction straight! My right foot was on the bumper, the left went on the hood, right on the roof and down went the grenade. If this bitch was a smoke grenade, I was so boned.
At the moment, the dead gunner had just been dragged down into the cabin. Before he could be replaced, the grenade bounced down among them. One toy down, two to go. I kept running on top of the vehicle. By the way, the trucks 'behind me' had Special Forces fighters in them. Woot! The shear insanity of my action bought me precious steps.
Off the back of the first hybrid killer and onto the hood of the second. The rear-left passenger would have been shooting me dead except he'd sprouted a throwing dart in his visor and was pitching forward off the slightly elevated road and rolling down the slope. I pulled the grenade's pin too soon, whoops!
The poor bastard wasn't even dead. He had a steel wedge shoved into his ocular groove though. The pain had to be intense. My Miyako was out there, somewhere, still watching over me. I went from the hood to the roof of the last hummer. As I ran across the top, down went grenade number two and, the 308-1 grenade is not made in China. The Seven Pillars stole the design from the US Navy SEALs.
In fact, the 308-1 is referred to as the 308-1 NAPALM grenade (my emphasis is on the 'N+' part) in the US inventory. 'Arinniti's burning heart, what a horrible way to die' was replace by 'they were going to use these on my Amazons, the fuck-wads'. As I dove headlong off the end of the second vehicle, another 'little' problem arose. If you recall, the first victim's weapon mount was an auto-grenade launcher. The after-battle evaluation indicated the Seven Pillar's team brought way too much spare ammo to be remotely safe.
The resulting explosion gave me a heck of a tail wind mid-flight. The fireball chasing after me made any calculations of distance irrelevant to my immediate survival. Suffice it to say, I did land, rolled with the impact and wasn't crippled. The second ride/the rearmost one? The blast shoved it down the road after me and twisted it sidewise, then it blew up.
They had a 'Hua Qing' Mini-gun onboard (why does Delilah knows so much about Chinese weaponry? I'm not sure) plus a great deal of machinegun ammo. Until that point, Gimli had a chance of humiliating me in the body count race. The explosions rained shrapnel everywhere and propelled a flaming engine block into the truck in front of it.
Twelve more guys plus the driver and the guy riding shotgun. Four plus three and a half for two fighting vehicles, I was sharing the blinded guy with Miyako. I was looking even better if she let me include the ones I killed pre-wager. I was also cultivating a full-body bruise. I was morbidly curious if the soles of my boots had melted, because I was feeling a bit singed.
Cover? I had some. It was most likely pointless. There was a shit-ton of dead bodies and ruined equipment between me and any combat effective enemy. I saw a beam of light come up from the camp. Turned out it wasn't a beam of light; it was the fiery tail of a woman-portable surface-to-air missile. The exploding helicopter clarified the confusion for me.
Moments later, a second streaking flame sought out another helicopter, this one clearly veering away, too late. More fiery death. From the former middle of the column, three of the hybrid fighting rides pulled off the road and headed south. Escape wasn't that easy. From somewhere close to the bead workshop, a thin tip of flame (it was coming at me) reached out and punched the lead vehicle.
I was moving up in the world. I could now honestly claim to have seen what carnage a 90mm rocket could do, courtesy of an expertly aimed M79-Osa. The explosion nearly ripped it in two and tossed both halves my way. The remaining two split up and made a run for it. As I watched them speed away, Miyako came up and lay on her stomach beside me.
"Many of their warriors yet live. They will be making their way on foot to some sort of gathering point, if their masters allow it," she told me.
"Seen our 'friend'?" I asked. She shook her head. "I think I've put Rachel through enough for one night," I added with a sigh. Miyako pulled down her mask long enough for me to see her smile.
I had done right by my people and my friends. Calamity had called me to battle, yet in the end, I was Rachel's burden to bear. Her first job was to safeguard me and I wasn't letting her do that job by running around out in the dark, hunting down trained killers. Maybe Miyako was warming up to the idea that our child and I would meet face to face one day.
Since most of the enemy soldiers were slipping away to the south, we circled around to the north. Of my temporary ally, there was no sign. As the eastern sky began to lighten, I shattered the last two reliquaries. I hadn't done it earlier out of fear that freeing the ghosts would alert our enemies to the extent of our knowledge. Now a desire for them to be free meant more.
(Aftermath and Alliances)
Sunrise bore a dual bane for the Seven Pillars troopers. Their armor, while impressive, was both very stifling and black. Many dumped it and went around in their underwear and t-shirts. Having left the stables alone, they were now being hunted down by Amazons on horseback and guided by four small UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).
It wasn't vengeance. That would come later. The more men they killed now, the less intelligence their enemies could wring from the survivors. The priority was evacuation and the conundrum was: 'if the Seven Pillars knew about the camp, what did they know about possible Amazon exit strategy?' Enter Special Agent of the FBI Virginia Maddox. It was a long shot. And that Caprica allowed it, showed the depths of her concern.
Javiera Castello ran a multi-agency task force centered on the criminal presence of heavily armed mercenaries gunning it out with civilians and police in Chicago. That opened some doors for her, though her precise authority was limited. It was a 'friend of a friend of a friend' deal, what she needed was elements of the US Air Force and the US Air National Guard.
I don't know whose cocks she sucked, pussies she licked, asses she kissed, or who she promised her 'first born' to, but she arranged for air transport of 300 Amazons, destination: anywhere between Panama and Alaska, Canada included. We could all see the decision eating at Caprica's heart. Both St. Marie and Katrina left the final call with her. She was the leader on the spot.
200 of the youngest and 80 Amazon warriors would take the offer of aid. In four hours, local, state and federal authorities would be crawling all over this place, so the majority of us had to be gone. Sophia and a handful of others, including the worst wounded, along with Virginia would stay behind to face the music.
The rest of them would break for the northeast and the Kaibab Indian Reservation. There was no agreement between the Amazon and Kaibab people. They had been quiet neighbors for a hundred years. Before then, the Southern Paiutes suffered considerably from the slave raids of the Navaho and Ute.
One winter, shortly after the establishment of an Amazon freehold in the region, slavers grabbed an Amazon girl by mistake. The freehold tracked the Navaho through Kaibab lands. Seeing that the Amazons were going to get back their 'tribe' member and missing several of their own people recently, the Kaibab offered to help.
Neither side talks about the vengeance the Amazons subjected the Navaho to. It took the Navaho eight years to return to the Kaibab lands. This time, the tribal leaders asked the Amazons for help and help they got. The Navaho didn't get their raiding party back. When they went looking, they found the corpses hung from trees by their own intestines and their testicles and phalluses stuffed into their mouths. Some really sick bitches.
The Navaho never came to the Kaibab lands after that. From that day forward, the two groups had developed an understanding. If some outsider group threatened the Kaibab, the Amazons, acting in their own self-interest, would help out. Beyond that, it was live and let live, until this day. The Amazons were in desperate need and only the hundred or so Kaibab could help.
Why? Another aspect, rarely discussed, went much more to the creeping fear among all the camp guardians. If the Seven Pillars' ghosts found the children once, they could do so again. In the Kaibab lands were a series of old, old religious sites, sacred to the spirits of the land and the Kaibab ancestors. Caprica was going to the aboriginal inhabitants for mystic protection.
Two ATVs head sped ahead to open negotiations. For the rest, it was rounding up what we could carry and destroying what we couldn't. The fifteen, sixteen and seventeen year olds took over security. The thirteen and fourteen year olds prepared to be pack mules for the camp's goods. The ten, eleven and twelve year olds corralled the youngest for their transport to the assigned airfields.
Me? I was being sent back to the remote airfield and heading home. A quick meeting of minds allowed me to take Aya and her Squirts with me. Asking any of my Security Detail to remain behind? They all wanted to, but their duty was to stick by my side. Europa and Loraine hugged Aya and me before returning to their duties.
Virginia stayed because the camp had become a crime scene. She would catch up with me when Javiera could replace her as lead investigator. Delilah and Miyako were leaving with me. I had one last thing to take care of before leaving. I went back to the site of the convoy slaughter. A few dozen meters to the south I found what I was looking for and more.
I found two dead men with a black shafted arrow in each. This time I had my entourage (minus Virginia) with me.
"Target," Tiger Lily spoke softly. She'd brought her FN-P90 up and aimed at the stranger. In the morning light, she cast a far more frightening figure.
"Rachel, I would like to talk to her," I 'suggested' to my chief bodyguard.
"Sure," Pamela joked. "She's all pom-poms, pastels and Puppy-love."
"Information, please," Rachel inquired of me while watching the tall woman draw close. She had taken off her archaic, white hair crested helm. Her braid undone; her loose black mane was already plastered with sweat.
"She is the Friendless, Queen Shammuramat of Assyria, traitor to the Host, murderer of her twin sister and under a sentences of death."
"Oh, and here I thought we had survived this battle," Charlotte mused dryly.
"Come on, Charlotte," Pamela snorted. "She's an old chick. How tough can she be?"
Had anyone a hostile look to spare, they would have tossed it Pamela's way.
"We have unfinished business, you and I," Shammy glared.
Her arms and armor were equally archaic seeming yet, I felt the design had incorporated techniques and materials not available when the original was crafted.
The attentiveness of the ladies around me cruelly amused her.
"Let's return to my camp. We can drink water and eat some breakfast," I evaded.
"No," she snapped. "I want to know who you are and I want to know now."
"Neither my hostess nor I are bound to your timetable," I grinned.
"For that matter, I know you don't have a timetable." I balanced that thought with, "Meet with the Amazon whose prestige you helped save. This was a gathering place for the young of the Host and you are not here by accident, I'd wager."
"I am not of the Host," she growled.
"You are telling this to a guy, you know?" I countered. "Take an extra hour out of your life. Eat and drink with me and I will answer what I can."
"Fine," she grumbled. "It is already hot and the Sun hasn't even begun to cook me." As we headed across the bloody, stinking burned out ruin of a landscape, I caught Shammy looking around in a haunted fashion.
Tiger Lily went ahead to give the bare basics to Caprica. This was more than a matter between the Friendless and me. After the water and a dry breakfast, the introductions went around, me last of all. The stage was set, the players were in their spots, and it was up to me to screw this up.
"I am Cáel, Head of House Ishara, and I come with a pledge of peace," I said as I approached with empty hands.
"I do not want your peace, " she punctuated with disdainful laughter, "Ishara? Groveling is your specialty, not mine. Bow before me and I will press my sandal upon your neck," Shammuramat scoffed. That meant make me her slave. Nope. I'd been dodging that fate for way too long (was it two months already?)
"Stick your foot in my direction, it better be because you want a foot massage, Princess. Falling down has never been my problem. Staying down when I should give up on the other hand, it simply isn't me."
"If it makes you feel better, I will kill you standing up," her inner wolfishness came forth.
"I would rather you kill me on my death bed, say in 70 more years," I grinned.
My bravado made Shammy smirk.
"You aren't the gloomy Isharans I have dealt with before. Your tongue is rather glib," she casually noted.
"Why, thank you," I kept things positive.
"It wasn't a compliment. I find your pedantic nature annoying," her non-violent mood was dissipating.
"Before passing your final verdict on my tongue, give me ten minutes in private to convince you of its multitude of other uses," my fearlessness riposted.
"Boys with pink lips do not interest me," her eyes narrowed.
"Me neither. See? We are already finding common ground in less than five minutes. Give me another century and I'll have 'letting him die slowly' off your list of possible ways for me to go," I proved I wasn't going away.
Shammy allowed, then crushed, a tiny smile.
"Last chance, Isharan, Ishara. I only came here to present my challenge to the current High Priestess. I have a pathetic, contemptible bit of filth to deal with," Shammy declared. She was referring to her death sentence.
Normally, the High Priestess was the final source of reprieve, but I got the feeling Shammuramat was committed to spilling a sea of Amazon blood to force her way to a pardon.
"There is no High Priestess. She took herself to the cliffs eight days ago."
"That was exceptionally insipid. What made her do that? I smell the copper taste of blood and burning stench of flesh on the wind. There is a war coming," she glowered.
"Too bad you are going to miss it," I sighed.
"Unlike you, I do not desire to talk my enemies to death," was her chosen insult.
"Due to your limited vocabulary, consistently bad attitude and onerously boring desire to have a one-track conversation, we should all count that as mercy."
"The only mercy any of you will see from me is knowing you have died a warrior's death," she threatened. As a man with a long history with angry women and a more recent bout with casual killers, I counted her continuing to talk, not kill, as a victory. Women lie all the time, very often to themselves.
"I can balance your gift of mercy with a gift of mercy of my own," I began chiseling away at her desire to return to the red, red haze of battle.
"I do not need your mercy, Ishara," Shammy answered.
"I am not talking to you, Shammuramat. I am talking to Anat." If looks could kill,
"I care nothing for Anat. They turned their back on me long ago," she spat. Having died in shame, she had no clue that all her descendants had long passed into extinction. She, like yours truly, was the last 'survivor' of our line.
"Your reckless self-loathing is appalling, Shammy," I grinned. She was PISSED-OFF!
"I am Shammuramat, Warrior-Queen of Assyria, Mother of Kings, She who slays all who oppose her. I do not need, "
"You are, " backhand. Oh, I saw it coming and was able to bend with the blow. It still hurt like a mother-fucker.
"They need you, Shammy, " earned me an open-palm slap that attempted to snap my cervical spine.
"That's two, Bitch," Pamela sounded bored. "Wind up for another, the gratitude ends and the slaying resumes."
"For someone who has clearly never found the courage to take that long overdue trip to the cliffs, you have developed a sudden distaste for living," she said to Pamela.
"Think so, Shammuramat? I have gone to the cliffs and come back from the dead ahead of you, and certainly with more insight and wisdom.
Before you give us another teaspoon of your arrogant disdain, take a good look at the man who stands before you, a really good look."
Pamela was constantly educating me in Amazon lore, 'know your enemy' being a recurring mantra. In that case, I couldn't blame her for withholding a certain someone's history. No, not Shammy's. No, she meant to tell me, yet withheld that crucial tidbit because of my still fragile mental state and the impact she feared it would have. It turned out she was right to do so.
All three of us were bushwhacked by circumstance. Despite her general tendency to take no one's council, Shammy gave me a second, far more intense scan. She'd already felt something she couldn't identify when she was around me. Her Amazon 'stillness' and single-minded devotion to her mission had repressed her desire to dwell on those instincts.
I've been told that gay men go through the same emotional yo-yo crap that we straight dudes do. I was starting to think those people had been lying to me.
'White Hair' Shammy whispered to me a nonsensical yet passionate sobriquet in an Akkadian tongue she had no reason to think I knew.
Her face lost its rock-hard contempt for all life and became one of shocked recognition, love and sorrow. I was her 'White hair' and by that, I knew she was referring to the white horse hair crests every man in my hand-picked fraternity wore on our helmets.
'Black Cloud'?
If there was any doubt, it was the hair of white stallions, sacred to the Aryan people whose warlike mien I, the humble son of a potter from Umma, had adopted. For what seemed like an eternity, I lost the ability to discern the present from the past.
To be continued.
By FinalStand, for Literotica