Читать книгу UNHEROIC - Marcus Calvert - Страница 6

Donna Vishe watched her world slowly stop spinning as she fought the urge to vomit. At age twenty-three, the full-time law student wore a pair of blue jeans, a pink U of Michigan sweater, and a muddy pair of white sneakers. The last traces of red steam flowed upward from her lithe body. Mystified, she watched it dissipate for a few moments longer. Then she stood up and brushed her long, reddish-brown hair out of her eyes.

A soft, evening breeze blew past her as she looked around. Donna’s azure eyes widened upon the realization that she wasn’t in her tiny Ann Arbor apartment anymore. In fact, she was looking up at a cloudless sky, just shy of dusk, wherein there were two moons: one white and one reddish-brown.

At that point, things stopped making sense.

Being something of a logical person, she tried to connect the dots. The last thing Donna remembered was plopping down on her comfy old couch, hell-bent on getting some shut-eye. She had a fair amount of caffeine and pizza in her system, along with achy eyes and a mostly-finished trial paper to polish up. The second-year law student had set her alarm clock to 4 a.m. and then closed her eyes.

Now, she was standing in the middle of a grassy battlefield, surrounded by thousands of bodies and their collective stench. Donna decided to table the question of how she got here and take in the details. Most of the bodies wore full-body armor and wielded medieval weaponry. One side wore crimson-hued armor, styled with the emblem of a three-fingered claw on the chest plating. The others wore armors of different colors and emblems. Donna’s guess was that many weaker sides had banded together to take on a single adversary.

For a brief moment, she wondered who won.

Then, what really caught her eye was the large number of non-human carcasses littering the battlefield. A few were large. Others were small. One even looked like a gray dragon with tentacles (instead of wings) along its sides. Most of them were felled by arrows. Clearly, they had been used as living weapons on the battlefield. Donna saw many of the corpses with claw and bite marks. A few of the beasts had actually been killed while dining on the warriors and had pieces of the combatants (and sometimes, fellow monsters) clenched in their dead jaws.

For a brief moment, Donna prayed that someone had pulled her out of her Ann Arbor apartment and dumped her in a Renaissance festival as a prank. But the crows were already feeding on the dead. The blood, spilled entrails, and stench couldn’t be faked. And some mean-looking men were busy looting the corpses. There were eight of them, all dirty and dressed like the cutthroat characters Donna would see in medieval-period movies.

When they spotted her, they greedily chased her down. While Donna was a decent runner, she had a difficult time racing across the slippery, corpse-strewn battlefields. Her would-be captors, on the other hand, moved with greater ease and familiarity. They seized her and argued amongst themselves in some strange tongue. She figured that they were debating what to do with her.

They tied Donna up and walked her toward a thick forest. A road was cut through the woods, which abruptly ended at a huge clearing. In this clearing rested an enormous camp, which was probably the size of U of M’s campus – times two. She guesstimated that there were tens of thousands of crimson tents, set in row after row of military precision. Soldiers walked about in that same style of crimson armor she had noticed on the battlefield. Based on their proximity to the battlefield, Donna figured that they had won. Still, she expected to see more than the few dozen who were here.

As her captors dragged Donna along, a group of five soldiers met them. They broke into smiles at the sight of her. Even though she couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, it was clear that they were haggling over a price for her. Three of the soldiers pulled small pouches out of their armor, which had the sounds of coins in them. A chill ran through Donna as they tossed their pouches at her captors, who looked quite satisfied. They handed her over to the soldiers and walked off with their earnings.

Suddenly, horns blared in the distance and the soldiers looked worried. They argued amongst themselves, while gesturing her way every few seconds or so. Donna wondered what the horns meant, then hoped that it was a summons of some kind. If they had to run off somewhere, they would have to leave her behind – which would allow her a chance to get away and avoid getting raped. The horns continued to sound off in the distance.

A huge man in fancier armor approached on the back of a huge gray warhorse. Behind him rode two other warriors, each on smaller mounts. As Donna sized up his huge frame and the huge broadsword sheathed at his back, she wondered why he needed the bodyguards. He removed his dented battle helm and shook loose a long mane of grayish-blonde hair. She took in his menacing, battle-scarred face and figured him to be somewhere in his mid-forties. He tucked his helm under his right arm and scowled at Donna’s “owners,” probably because they weren’t at their duty stations.

The other soldiers snapped to attention and bowed to him with evident fear on their faces. The officer began to yell at his men and gestured in the direction of the horns. But then he noticed her and fell silent. He dismounted without a word and casually strode toward her. The leader gently picked up a few locks of her hair and inhaled her scent. Donna fought the urge to pull away, certain that the blood-covered officer was short on both temper and mercy.

Then the officer barked an order. One of his escorts produced a few gold pieces and flung them to the ground. The other escort dismounted, walked over to Donna, and picked her up like she was a newly-purchased rug. The bodyguard wordlessly put her over the saddle of his horse and grabbed the reins.

The officer gave his escorts a quick command and then put his helm back on. Donna found herself being taken away by the first escort, who guided the horse on foot. The other soldier/bodyguard rode behind them. As they left, Donna looked back as the five derelict soldiers greedily picked up the gold pieces. They cheered as they drew their weapons and ran off toward the direction of the horns. The officer gave her body one final, lusty glance as he mounted his warhorse and rode off as well.

Donna simply hoped that the officer somehow ended up in a monster’s guts.

The bodyguards took her into a large crimson tent with a pair of banners in front, both with the three-clawed emblem. Donna figured that the tent belonged to the officer. It was about the size of a small ranch house and was packed with trunks and furnishings. At the center of the tent was a huge oak table covered with maps, scrolls and letters. She figured that the officer was a senior officer in their army – perhaps even their leader. In his eyes, Donna was his newly-bought trophy/pet.

The guards untied Donna’s arms and then bound her wrists and ankles together with thick rope. Then they gagged her with white cloth, even though she hadn’t made a sound. Unwilling to annoy them, the law student allowed them to set her down on a pile of cushions and meekly watched them leave. They stood guard outside of the tent, with their backs to her. The methodical way in which they bound her and left told her that she wasn’t the first female “guest” they had come across. Unsure of what to do next, Donna awaited her fate.

The sound of the powerful horns suddenly stopped, replaced by the sudden sounds of distant warfare. Some of the sounds were familiar, like shouts and sounds of clanging weapons. But the loud, bestial roars were alien to her dainty ears. As the distant battle raged, she barely heard a faint ripping sound at the rear of the tent. Donna turned her head and spotted a man creep inside.

He wore dark green boots, trousers, a short-sleeved tunic of some kind and gloves on his hands. His copper-hued arms were thickly-muscled and graced with the occasional scar. A huge, serrated knife was in his right hand, which he had used to cut his way into the tent. A green cloth was wrapped around his head in such a way that Donna thought his entire face was bandaged from some injury. But then she saw the eye slits and realized that it was some kind of mask.

Short and barrel-chested, Donna figured that he could’ve been a wrestler on her world. A small black bow was strapped to his back, and a quiver of arrows rested near his right hip. The arrows caught her eye because they were of different colors: light-green, black, gray and orange. Donna could see a bandolier of ten throwing knives across his chest.

The intruder was halfway to the table when he noticed both Donna and the guards posted outside. The masked man seemed frozen for a moment, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The din of the distant battle kept the two guards’ attention and masked the sound of his entrance. But Donna knew that if she made enough noise, they’d hear her and rush in. Maybe, just maybe, such an act might earn her a bit of mercy from her captors.

Slowly, the masked man sheathed his blade and crept toward her. Donna shied away, afraid of what he would do next. The intruder read her body language, halted and reached under his shirt. He pulled out a gold crucifix on a chain. Donna’s eyes widened hopefully as he gestured for her to wait a moment and then put an index finger over his mouth, quietly begging her to stay silent. He rushed over to the table and eyed the officer’s maps, letters, and some of the scrolls.

Donna impatiently kept an eye on the guards, who still hadn’t peered inside. Tense minutes uneventfully passed. The masked intruder stepped away from the table and found a small chest. He flipped it open and pulled out a bottle of the offier’s wine. He carefully uncorked it as he pulled a small black tube from inside his belt and poured something into the bottle. Then he re-corked the wine bottle, put it back into the trunk, and closed it.

He then looked over at Donna with a thoughtful pause and again gestured for her to stay quiet. She reluctantly nodded as he silently approached her, gently picked her up, and walked her over to a stash of weapons at the rear of the tent. He set her down and picked up a plain-looking shortsword from the officer’s arsenal. Carefully, he used it to cut her ankles free.

“My name’s Ruiz Velaquez,” the masked man whispered in English. “You’ve probably got a ton of questions. They’ll have to wait, ‘cause we’re low on time. Wait a few minutes, creep out the back of the tent and head straight – and I mean straight – for the tree line.”

Ruiz finished freeing her ankles and worked on her wrists.

“Less than a mile out is a creek. Stop there and lie low. I’ll find you and get you out of here. If they catch you, you didn’t see me. Make ‘em think that you scooted yourself over here and cut yourself loose. Understand?”

Donna nodded as he cut her hands free and handed her the short-sword. Ruiz gave her a thumbs-up and started to leave. The law student quickly pulled her gag down.

“Who are these guys?!” Donna anxiously whispered.

“Kiltarim,” Ruiz replied. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, they’re the bad guys: Nazis with swords, if you will.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait! Where are you from?”

“Chicago,” he whispered without looking back.

With that, Ruiz slipped out of the tent.

Donna watched him creep away, wishing that she hadn’t left her watch on her dresser – back on Earth. She tightly gripped the short-sword and counted to 120. Satisfied that a few minutes had passed, Donna slipped out of the tent. Beyond dozens of soldiers’ tents was a patch of tree line. She simply ran toward it, her instincts screaming that sneaking around in a pink sweater wasn’t going to work. Besides, the fleeing law student figured that the Kiltarims were all having fun at the battle. But, as she raced past a tent, Donna pretty much collided with a lanky young soldier who was lugging a small pot of hot stew.

They both fell. The soldier howled in pain and cursed as the stew landed on his face. Donna didn’t hesitate. She raised the short-sword in a two-handed, downward grip and stabbed him through his upper-right leg. The wounded soldier’s piercing wail of pain made Donna wish she had a gag to stifle him with. While the notion of killing him went through her head, Donna didn’t have the heart to finish him off. Donna rose, left the blade in the soldier’s leg, and then ran for the tree line. Unfortunately, the cook’s screams of pain alerted three of his comrades, all of whom gave chase. She dashed into the woods with the firm intention of covering that mile between herself and the creek.

The soldiers, swords drawn, raced after her.

The brilliant part of Donna’s brain kicked in and reminded her of the common mistake fleeing co-eds made in horror movies: tripping over stuff when running through wooded areas. Sure enough, the fleeing co-ed looked down and avoided roots, low branches, and what looked to be a purple turtle. She didn’t bother looking over her shoulder. Donna could hear their shouts and curses as the soldiers kept up the pace under the fading sun.

By the time she heard the bubbling sounds of the creek, her lungs and legs were both at their limits. Right as she reached the creek, one of the soldiers tackled her from behind. They tumbled down a low bluff and landed in the water. Donna was too winded to scream as she fought to rise. But the black-bearded soldier simply kicked her legs out from under her. He laughed as he held her under the water for several long seconds. As he pulled her out, Donna coughed up water and gasped for air as he dragged her along by her hair. The Kiltarim said something in his native tongue as he turned to his comrades and froze with shock.

Ruiz stood over the slashed-open corpses of the other two soldiers. In his right hand was his fighting knife, now covered with blood. The Kiltarim soldier released Donna, drew his sword, and carefully closed in on his masked foe. Ruiz patiently let the soldier come within ten feet of him. Then he flicked out his left and hurled a pair of throwing knives he had been holding back. The soldier’s eyes widened as both blades sank neatly into his throat, where his armor was weakest.

Ruiz casually walked past the Kiltarim who clutched his throat, fell to his knees, and gurgled a curse before he died. The killer calmly knelt, slipped his blood-covered blade into the creek, and let the flowing water clean the blood away. Donna gawked up at him.

“Sorry: I didn’t catch your name?”

“Donna Vishe,” she replied, mystified by his display of skill.

“You okay?”

“Y-Yes,” Donna replied, her adrenaline ebbing. “Where are we?”

“They call this world Mintath,” Ruiz said as he stepped over to her and gallantly offered his left hand. She took it and let him pull her to her feet. He flicked the water from his blade and then sheathed it.

“How long have you been here?” Donna asked as Ruiz took her by the arm and led her toward the other side of the creek.

“It was sometime in … ’92, I think. I was testing for my black belt. Yeah, five years now.”

“Five?” Donna asked with a frown.

“Yeah,” Ruiz glanced at her. “Five winters have passed since I came here. Why?”

“It was 2010 when I left.”

The shrouded man reacted with evident shock … then sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Donna said.

“Time flies when you’re killing people,” Ruiz eventually replied. “Let’s get back to friendly territory. These woods are not safe at night.”

“How did you get here?” Donna asked.

“I fell asleep in my bed and woke up next to a dead summoner,” Ruiz replied.

“What’s a summoner?”

“A type of magic-user: one who can bring beings from other dimensions through sheer force of will. Usually, they summon creatures of myth, bind them to their will, and send them off to do stuff. What sucks is that, every so often, a summoner gets killed in the middle of a summoning. Their power goes wild. And sometimes, someone gets plucked (at random) from another dimension.”

“I woke up on a battlefield a few hours ago,” Donna said softly as they reached the halfway point of the shallow creek. “There were all types of dead guys and creatures around me.”

“The Kiltarim have the best summoners around. Odds were one of them got killed and his/her power dragged you here.”

As they reached the other side of the creek, Ruiz tensed and then ducked as he spun around. If he hadn’t ducked as he turned, a crimson arrow would’ve slammed through his forehead. Donna shrieked with surprise as she spotted four Kiltarim archers on the other side of the creek, three with bows drawn and one quickly notching another arrow against his bow. One of them imperiously yelled at Ruiz. Donna figured that the bastards had them dead-to-rights and were ordering them to surrender.

“What do we do now –?” Donna started to ask.

Somehow, Ruiz had already drawn his own bow, notched it with two gray arrows and released them. He moved so fast that even the archers were surprised. The two gray arrows hit the muddy earth at their feet and exploded with a bright flash of white light. A gray mist erupted from the arrows, engulfed all four archers, and began to melt them alive. Even their clothing and weapons melted away like candle wax.

But one of the archers got a shot off before the mist killed him.

The stray arrow would’ve punched through Donna’s heart … had Ruiz not caught it with his left hand. He admired the arrow’s craftsmanship for a moment, notched it in his bow, and casually put it through the melting skull of the archer who had loosed it. Donna figured the gesture to be redundant, seeing as all seven of the dead Kiltarim were soon reduced to ash – along with their weapons and gear. A sudden breeze was already blowing all evidence of their existence into the creek.

“Better living through modern alchemy,” Ruiz said.

“Tell me there’s a way off this crazy world!” Donna pleaded.

“Of course there is,” Ruiz replied with sarcastic optimism. “A giant mystical mirror’s hidden away in a heavily-guarded temple, in the middle of Kiltarim-occupied territory. It lets you go anywhere you want to go – for the right price. The pricks offered to let me use it if I fought for them in the War.”

“Why didn’t you?!” Donna asked with disbelief.

Ruiz eyed her for a moment.

“The Free Realms need me here,” Ruiz replied. “If the Kiltarim win, they’ll kill every non-Kiltarim they can find –”

“All the more reason to get out of here!” Donna yelled. “If that battlefield’s any indicator, the good guys are losing!”

“Not if I can help it,” Ruiz said with steel in his voice.

“Is there any other way to get home?”

“Not that I know of,” he replied.

“Then where is this mirror/gate?” Donna stubbornly asked. “Give me directions and I’ll go there on my own!”

Ruiz eyed the co-ed like she had lost her mind.

“It’s about … three thousand miles that way,” Ruiz pointed eastward. “Good luck. Try not to get eaten.”

Ruiz headed north. Tears of frustration welled in Donna’s eyes. She wiped them away and fought the rising urge to cuss Ruiz out.

“What happens if I tag along with you?”

“You’ll probably live a bit longer,” Ruiz replied as he stopped and turned her way. “And if you’re interested, I’ll teach you everything I know.”

Donna glanced back at the Kiltarim he had killed. There was nothing left of them.

“What’s the catch?” Donna asked.

“You work for me,” Ruiz replied. “You do what I say, when I say it. Whenever you feel ready to look up that temple, you’re free to go. Hell! I’ll even pack you a hot lunch.”

Donna allowed herself a grin as she sized up her savior.

“So I get to be your sidekick, huh?”

“Nah. That sounds pretty lame. How about… my intern? You’re a student anyway, so the title works. And if you make it back, you’ll have some useful job skills.”

Donna rolled her eyes at Ruiz’s warped sense of humor.

“And if we win this war, what then? You’ll go home too?”

“I might be persuaded to go back,” Ruiz replied. “I left a pregnant girlfriend behind – back in ’92. She was about … two months’ pregnant at the time? I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Then your kid’s what? Eighteen by now?”

“Yep,” Ruiz replied sadly as he turned to leave. “C’mon. I’ve got to report in on what I saw in that tent. And with any luck, General Guldaan won’t survive that poison I slipped in his favorite wine.”

Donna followed Ruiz, sadly wondering what year it will be on Earth when she got back (if she got back).

Vick, Pete, Les, Wade, and Carlos sat around the tiny Ann Arbor apartment on a wintery Friday night, immersed in a rousing game of Mystic Knights: Quest of the Undamned. Pete and Carlos were chubby gaming geeks. Les and Wade were of the skinny variety of gaming geek. Vick was the only one who looked fit enough to do a few push-ups. While handsome and sufficiently athletic to earn a track scholarship to U of M, he was a closet gaming geek as well.

He sat propped against an old couch, a thick sourcebook in his lap and a pair of black-and-red ten-sided dice in hand. As the Game Master, his role was to set up a fantasy campaign for the others. Based on the twelve-book stack of Mystic Knights sourcebooks at his left, Vick had come up with a vicious campaign.

The others were playing mystical characters hired to take out a pirate fleet which had been terrorizing a group of remote islands. Vick was running them through a string of violent encounters, during which they’d slowly figure out that the pirates were seeking a sacred weapon which had been hidden among these islands. With said weapon, they could either conquer or destroy the world.

“So, how many pirates are left on the upper deck?” Wade asked, snuggled comfortably against a red beanbag with his character sheet resting on a large binder in his lap.

“Two,” Vick grinned, hoping that his fellow gamers wouldn’t smell the devious trap he had spent two hours setting them up for.

“I’ll use the crossbow on the least injured of the two,” Wade declared.

“Roll it,” Vick replied.

Wade picked up his dice, started to roll but then abruptly stopped when Donna Vishe fell out of thin air and landed on him. Now thirty, the scarred adventuress found herself straddling poor Wade with a pair of ten-inch fighting knives gently pressed against his throat. Wade yelped helplessly, pinned to the beanbag by her left knee. The other gamers jumped to their feet in shock.

Red steam rose from her form as she quickly sized up the room and its occupants. Crossing out of the world of Mintath had left Donna with the serious urge to vomit (yet again). The gamers took in her bloody, ragged attire. Her knee-high boots, baggy breeches, and chainmail blouse were all dark green. A bandolier of five small throwing knives ran across her ample bosom. An empty pair of knife sheaths dangled from her shapely hips. A small red shield was slung across her back.

Donna’s face had hardened since that fateful day when she took a harmless little nap in this very room. A long-healed scar ran from behind her left ear and ended just under the center of her chin. Her hair was cut short, with a rune-covered bronze crown set atop her head. Known as the Crown of Jrekour, the mystical artifact was supposed to protect her from damage (like invisible armor) – which was why she stole it.

“Sorry,” Donna said warily as she climbed off Wade and sheathed her blood-covered blades. “You all right, kid?”

Wade wordlessly nodded as he reached for his white asthma inhaler and took a hit. Donna grinned at him, then looked around the cluttered little apartment. Familiar posters, stacks of Ramen noodles, and books were a welcomed sight to the one-time law student.

“Who are you?”

“Donna,” she replied. “I used to live here.”

As she moved about, the sting of a lower-back wound caught her attention. The Kiltarim summoners had flung a lot of beasts in her way after she snuck into their temple and fought her way to the Mirror of Ashimkla. But the bastards hadn’t stopped her from jumping through it. While the Crown of Jrekour had soaked up most of the damage, she felt blood trickling underneath her chainmail. To the assembled males’ delight, she lifted the chainmail and revealed a tight abdomen as she felt for the wound with calloused fingers.

“You’re bleeding,” Les said with concern, the first to notice her wound.

“How bad?” Donna asked. “I can’t see it.”

“Pretty bad. It looks like something bit you.”

Donna gave him a wry grin as she headed for a mirror and positioned herself so that she could see it. The wound bordered on serious. But she had suffered through worse. The adventuress ignored the pain, closed her eyes, and chanted a healing spell. Nothing happened. Donna muttered a curse in elvish as she realized that she wasn’t on Mintath anymore. The two years of sorcery she had painstakingly learned wouldn’t work here. She was just about to ask one of the guys to call her an ambulance when the wound slowly began to close.

“That was awesome!” Peter yelled.

Donna suddenly felt a lot better as the healing spell finally kicked in. She lowered her chainmail, stretched her back, and glanced over at a wall calendar. Her face suddenly twisted with utter shock.

The year was 19-fucking-89?!

She could almost hear Ruiz’s voice laughing in her head.