Warlord: Dervish (22 page)

“Motherfucka!” Bronson, freed from the net, fired his M4, but the gladiator—alerted by his cry—ducked behind the obelisk. The 5.56mm rounds ricocheted off the pillar and whined away. Bronson stepped forward, approaching the tower, firing his assault rifle—“Come on then!”—on semi-auto until it suddenly jammed. “Fuck!”

The gladiator poked his bald dome around the obelisk, saw Bronson struggling to clear the jam, and barreled towards the man, a green-tint from the night sky glinting off the Pugio’s blade.

“Nuh-uh!” Bronson protested, turning the M4 over in his hands, gripping its barrel and swinging it like a bat. “Come on, motherfucka!”

Jason found his pistol and yelled for Bronson to get out of his line of fire. The gladiator, seeing the weapon in Jason’s hands, hauled back his arm and let the dagger fly. Jason stared at it, spinning end over end as if in slow motion. He felt it impact his body and knew it had either pierced his armor or missed it completely. Grunting, he collapsed.

Bronson batted the gladiator across his bald head—Areya let out a little cheer—nearly knocking the warrior from his feet. “Yeah motherfucka!”

“Bronson!”

“Dee, stay back!”

The gladiator shook his head, clearing it, the gash in his skull bleeding freely. The man bobbed and weaved, pulling back each time Bronson swiped at him with the rifle.

“Come on, motherfucka, come—” Bronson swung and missed and the gladiator slammed into him, lifting him off his feet and bearing him across the street, looking to crush him against the side of the nearest house. Instead they hit a door which opened under them, dumping both men on the floor inside.

The gladiator wasted no time getting to his feet, but Bronson was on him, raining lefts and rights into the man’s shaved head. The gladiator raised his hands to fend off the blows and Bronson cursed, his fist impacting the metal plates of the Cestus. He stepped back, waving his bloodied hand, momentarily relinquishing the attack.

They faced each other in the bare room, weak green light filtering in from the gaping doorway. The gladiator was bleeding from the mouth and head but looked none the worse for wear. He made little circles in the air with his free hand while the Cestus remained rock steady. Bronson raised both hands, clenching his fists, then thought better of it and dashed from the room, vanishing into the recesses of the house.

The gladiator muttered to himself and stalked off after the man. He searched each room as best he could, able to discern little in the dark, feeling around, patiently hunting the dark skinned man. One well-placed blow with the Cestus would demolish his foe. When he did not find Bronson on the first floor, the warrior crept up the stairs to the second, peering into the inky blackness of each room, listening for the sounds of the other breathing.

The gladiator stepped into one room, studying the dark. He pushed back the heavy wooden shutters on a waist-high window and peered into the street. The woman and the child were gathered about the other man. When he rooted out this coward in the dark, the gladiator would go down on the street and kill them too.

His instincts honed in the Coliseum, he turned from the window as Bronson blitzed him. NVG goggles affixed to his helmet, the soldier rushed from the shadows. His arm came down, stabbing the gladiator with his bayonet.

As the blade punctured his skin, the gladiator snarled, wrapping his arms around the other man. Bronson’s momentum sent them both against the sill and out the window. They landed in a heap on the street, startling Deirdre and Areya, Bronson’s helmet rolling away. Somehow he had managed to land on top and he staggered to his feet, shaken but otherwise unscathed.

“Bronson!” Deirdre screamed, warning him. The gladiator had risen and was facing him. The warrior reached down and yanked the knife out of his side, tossing it aside contemptuously.

“Awww shit…”

The bald man came in low and fast, feigning with one hand, testing the air with the other, patient, waiting for Bronson to let his guard down, testing him. Jason launched himself out of nowhere, landing on the gladiator’s back. He wrapped an arm around the man’s neck, his other hand lodging the warrior’s own Pugio deep between the man’s shoulder blades. Jason repeatedly pounded his temple and face.

The gladiator shrugged Jason off, tossing him from his back as though Jason were little more than a nuisance. Having retrieved his bayonet, Bronson stuck the man in the stomach. The gladiator backhanded Bronson with his bare hand, pushing the soldier back. He looked down at the M7 bayonet buried in his midsection, then up at Bronson, the look on his face grim. Bronson attacked—the gladiator swiping with his Cestus-laden fist—ducking low, tackling his opponent at the knees, bearing him to the ground. They rolled around in the dirt—

Areya tugged desperately at Deirdre’s arm

—struggling to gain an advantage over one another, until the gladiator settled atop Bronson, drawing back his battle-gloved hand. The blow would have caved in Bronson’s face if he hadn’t jerked his head to the side reflexively. Dust rose up off the street from the punch’s impact.

Before the gladiator could correct his aim, Jason was on him from behind, wielding his own bayonet. He stabbed the bald man frenziedly in the back. The gladiator gasped and rolled from Bronson, away from Jason, another blade buried in his torso. Bronson scrambled to his feet. He and Jason stood and faced their wounded opponent, the handles of their bayonets and the Pugio sticking out of the man.

“What—what is it?” Deirdre tore her eyes off the spectacle playing itself out before her to address Areya, who had clutched her arm and refused to let go.

“Son of a bitch…” Bronson gasped “…tough son of a bitch.”

A bloody mess, the gladiator eyed them both coldly, calculatingly.

“Thought these guys were frail.”

“What d’ya say…” Bronson worked a loose tooth with his tongue. “Let’s fuck him up, Jay main”

“Let’s.”

They attacked together, one going high, the other low. The gladiator attempted to fend Jason off, which gave Bronson an opening: a clear shot at the man’s loin cloth. As the warrior reeled from the agony jolting out of his groin, Jason tore a bayonet free and sunk it deep into the man’s ribs.

“What?
What
?” Deirdre looked from the Areya’s alarmed face to where he pointed.

Severely wounded, the gladiator only fought harder. A powerful blow from the Cestus knocked the helmet off Jason’s head and broke his nose, putting him down. The bald man snatched Bronson up by the fabric of his camo jacket and chest pouch, swinging him around, off his feet, walloping him into the side of the house they’d fallen from.

“Oh my god…” whispered Deirdre, ignoring the street brawl.

Jason rammed into the gladiator from behind and the three of them—bleeding, soiled messes all—plunged back through the doorway and into the house. Jason regained his feet and shook his head, clearing it in time to sidestep a mighty jab, the Cestus cracking into the concrete wall. The gladiator grabbed Jason with his bare hand, yanking his other arm free of the wall. This time his battle gloved hand caught Jason squarely in the torso, pinning him to the wall, knocking the wind from him. The gladiator hit him again and Jason vomited, showering his assailant with the contents of his stomach.

“The sand!” Deirdre had dragged Areya into the house and was screaming at Bronson, who was too busy otherwise engaged to heed her warning. “The sand is back!”

Bronson ripped the bayonet free from the bald man’s side. With a grunt, the gladiator spun to confront him, Jason’s puke cast from his face. The blade plunged into his shoulder at the neck, Bronson leaning on it, pressing it down with both hands, his bodyweight behind it. The gladiator sank to his knees, clutching his throat. Bronson tried to pull the knife free but the gladiator managed to strike him, the palm of a hand to his face. As Bronson stumbled back, stunned, Jason stepped to the side of the kneeling man, his M9 clear of its holster. He fired one round into the gladiator’s temple. Blood splattered the wall, a tuft of bare skull lifting free, discarded across the room.

Deirdre had closed and barred the door and was yelling to Areya, telling him they needed to check the remainder of the house. The boy must have understood what was necessary because he had raced from the room.

Bronson collapsed on the floor near where Jason already sprawled, gasping and wheezing through his broken nose as he fought to regain his breath. The two men coughed and huffed, bleeding and sweating. They listened as Deirdre and Areya rummaged through the other rooms upstairs, shuttering the windows, securing the house. They heard the hiss and then the howl as the sand swept forth outdoors.

6,343rd Iteration

“Motherfucka…motherfucka broke my nose.”

“Mine too,” Jason panted, the sand and the things in it raging outside the door. “Jesus.”

“…feels like motherfucka broke my arm too…”

“You all right?”

“Nah main…I ain’t all right.” Bronson sat up, the dust falling off him. “But I’ll live.” He worked his arm, wincing. “Jay main, dude stabbed you. Dude hit you like square on. How you still standin’?”

“I’m not,” Jay remarked, flat on his back.

“I’m sayin’, didn’t it hurt?”

“Fuck yeah!” Jason touched his side tentatively, wondering if the sword wound had ruptured further. It didn’t pain him. “I threw up on him.”

“Yeah,” Bronson was shaking his head, trying to smile. “I think you blinded him wit’ that.” He got serious. “He stabbed you, main.”

“No. He threw his knife at me and it bounced off my armor.”

Bronson scooted over on his butt and the palms of his hands, resting his back against the wall. He didn’t know what kind of shit Jason was talking about. He’d seen the dagger sticking out of his friend. He coughed and spit a gob of blood and phlegm across the room. Teeth were moving around in his head. “Fucka.” He prodded the gladiator’s body with his foot. The man did not move. They listened to the wind and sand past the door.

“You were movin’ fast, Jay.
Real
fast.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to get hit.”

“No. You were movin’ real fast.”

“What are you sayin’?”

“Nothing, main. Just didn’t know you had it in you like that.”

“White men can’t jump or some bullshit?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Don’t think he broke it.”

“Fuckin’ gladiator…”

“What you think?”

“What do I think?” Jason turned his head and looked at Bronson. “I don’t know what I think. What do you think?”

“Not this,” Bronson nodded at the insanity around them. “I’m sayin’…think ‘bout where you at.” He was slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. “I don’t mean here, now. I don’t even mean before this—in the war. I’m talkin’ bout, where you are, with your life.”

“You going to ask me if I’m right with God or some bullshit? Cause I don’t want to hear it.”

“Nah main, that’s not where I’m goin’. I’m just sayin’, you had the chance, would you trade it all in?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, I got a little girl at home, right?”

“Chandra.”

“Yeah, Chandra. She three. I wasn’t even sixteen when I got her moms pregnant.
I
fucked up. Only I didn’t. Because Chandra the most beautiful little thing…”

“Is she?” Jason smiled, his teeth white against all the blood on his bruised face.

“Yeah, main.” Bronson nodded wistfully. “You should see her.” When he spoke again his tone was serious, contemplative. “I volunteered, right? No one made me join the Army. My grandma, she didn’t want me to go. She cried. I hadn’t joined, I wouldn’t be here now. I hadn’t joined, I’d be home with my girl, with my grandma. I survive this? Maybe I can go back, see them again. Right?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jason didn’t know what to think anymore. “Why you tellin’ me this?”

“I could go back—I don’t know—back to when I was a little nigga and grandma always fillin’ my head with what I
could
do, what I
could
be…See, I don’t think I’d go back if I had the chance. I’d stay here.”

Jason looked back over at Bronson, caked in plaster dust, dirt and drying blood. He knew he looked much the same if not worse. “You are crazy.”

“I’d stay here, main, ‘cause there’s that little chance—like Hess said—that little chance I might come out the other side of this, see my girl again, see grandma.”

“No,” Jason clarified. “I mean you’re talking crazy.” He finally sat up, which didn’t take nearly as much effort as he thought it would. “Fuck is wrong with you? You’re talking some of that, if-you-could-go-back-to-1938-and-stop-Hitler-bullshit, aren’t you?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. And no, by the way, I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I
would
.” Jason stood, rolling his shoulders, sloughing off dust and grime. “But people can’t do that kind of shit, Bronson.”

“James Todd.”

“James Todd?”

“Yeah.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Yeah, you have. He me.”

“James Todd.” Jason cocked his head towards the other man. “That’s your name?”

“Uh-huh.”

“James Todd.” Jason acted like he was thinking it over. He walked to the door and touched it. It vibrated under his fingers. “You know, James Todd, James Todd ain’t much of a rap name. Think I’ll stick with Bronson.”

“You’ll see, Jay…” Bronson’s breathing was finally settling down. “We all gotta make a choice.”

“Yeah, well that ain’t a choice for me.” Jason leaned against the wall next to the door. “It’s not like my life was going anywhere before this.” He dropped the magazine from his pistol and jacked the slide, palming the free round. “Even before the war. I lost my job, my house, my wife.” He thumbed the bullet back into the magazine. “Why would I want to go back to that? But if I could go back—I know where I’d go.” He inserted the magazine into its well. “And it wouldn’t be then.” The things out in the sand were tapping on the door. Jason stepped away from it.

“What now?”

Bronson pushed himself off the wall and to his feet. Together they faced the door and whatever threat lurked behind it.

“We performers, Jay.”

“What do you mean?” Jason had his pistol on the door, waiting.

“Someone’s watching this shit, right main?”

Jason thought back to the aerostat, all of the cameras. “Yeah.”

“Well den, let’s give ‘em a fuckin’ show.”

The tapping had stopped. Things sounded calm outside.

When they opened the door they found sunlight and a clear street. No obelisk, no circle. Together they stumbled from the house, finding their footing, Jason more certain on his feet. He’d been stabbed twice already—run through with a sword for fuck’s sake—and he was feeling
good
. Jason knew something wasn’t good about that.

A string of stars blazed redder and redder above them, fading on the margins.

“You’re both okay?” Deirdre and Areya rejoined them.

“Yeah.”

“Lost my rifle.” Bronson looked around, noting how nothing remained from their encounter with the gladiator.

“Think you broke it over dude’s head anyway.”

“Here.” Deirdre passed her M4 to Jason. “You’re better with it than I am.”

He thanked her. Bronson had his eye on the pistol she carried in her hand.

“Sorry,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “I need something.”

“
Mashalla
!” Areya was gesturing excitedly up the street. Suspended at waist level above the dirt and sand of the road, a blazing white light undulated, a whirlpool turned up to face them. Unlike a whirlpool, the strands of light did not move in a uniform direction. Instead they whorled and rotated in opposite directions, a series of increasingly smaller concentric circles. At their center, a ball of pure white.

“Now what, main?”

“The kid don’t look scared by it.” Indeed, Areya was overjoyed, nearly hopping up and down as he stumbled over his words in an attempt to get them out fast enough.

“What is it, Areya?” The kid trotted away from Deirdre, towards the anomaly, bereft of fear.

“Hold up, chief,” Bronson called as he and Jason and Deirdre followed after the boy.

Areya was gesturing as he approached the light, explaining something to them that they didn’t understand. He had almost reached the object when an ear piercing scream emitted from its depths brought him up short.

They watched in fascinated horror as a man’s hand appeared from the center of the light, reaching, grasping, followed by a second.

Jason and Bronson stepped towards the anomaly, their forearms up to shield their eyes from the light. The man inside the thing was screaming, cries of panic and desperation. Jason reached out tentatively, fearing the light would scald him. When it did no such thing, he reached in and grasped the man’s hand. Bronson followed his lead, taking the man’s other hand.

Together they pulled, dragging the man from the light. His screaming became more distinct as his features emerged. Dark sleeves were pulled back over his arms, a black, pajama-like top. The top of his head: a flashy purple scarf covering his mouth and nose. As they dragged the man from the light, something tugged back. The man’s screams of panic segued to an agonized wail.

“Pull!” Bronson roared as he and Jason renewed their efforts, a gout of blood erupting from the man’s mouth, stifling his cries.

They grunted and strained, yanking on the man’s arms until their task abruptly eased. The man’s upper torso popped out of the light, trailing shreds of flesh and a loop of entrails. Jason and Bronson lost their balance, staggering away from the light, each letting go of the man’s arms.

Severed in half, the insurgent lay flat on his back in the dirt, gesturing with one hand, whispering behind the garish purple scarf hiding his face, his head lowering to rest in the sand, and then he was still.

An other-worldly trilling floated from the light.

Bronson and Jason exchanged looks. Without a word, each man retrieved a hand grenade from their web harnesses. Removing the tape that held the spoons in place, they pulled the pins. The rounded tip of an enormous appendage broke from the light, a hairy, quivering limb testing the air.

“Fire in the hole,” Bronson whispered in shock as he and Jason pitched their grenades into the light. They turned their backs on the anomaly and the extremity jutting from it, racing away, diving to the ground several yards off. There was a muted blast and when they looked the light hanging in the middle of the street had vanished. The dead insurgent lay halved on the road’s surface.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Bronson stated in disbelief.

“Uh, guys…” The note of caution in Deirdre’s voice got them to their feet. Sand had filled the street behind them, obscuring the sky behind it. The sand curled and coiled in around itself, maintaining its position. Strands of it unfurled and reached out, searching, serpentine tentacles.

Jason watched the wisps loop and spiral and fold back in on the mass. Looking into the sand was strangely…
inviting
he decided was the correct word. Looking into the sand made you
want
to look into the sand some more. There was something soothing, something lulling that came from staring into its depths. He wondered what it would be like to touch the sand.

“You heard me, main?”

“Huh?” Jason looked away from the bubbling cloud.

“How’s that side, Jay? Can you run?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well get ready…”

It stepped from the sand, the plated armor that covered it from head to toe gleaming in the sunlight. The pauldrons on its shoulders and upper arms ended in spikes on either side of its head. The massive gauntlets protecting its hands and forearms were studded, lines of three curved, talon-like blades, one larger than the next. A full helmet obscured its head and all that was visible of its face was the blackness spied through a t-shaped slit. A full length crimson cape was draped across its back, secured beneath the helmet to the gorget encasing its upper chest. In one armored hand it clutched a flail, steel spikes protruding from the heavy ball dangling from a chain. Its other arm raised a massive medieval shield, rounded at the top and tapered at the bottom. The face of the Kite shield was adorned with the symbol of a blazing lantern.

“…get ready…”

Even at this distance it was clear the thing stood a full head over either Jason or Bronson.

“…cause here we go.”

Jason didn’t wait. He flipped the fire-selector on the M4 to three-round burst and opened fire on the knight. Sparks danced off its breastplate before it got its shield between itself and the incoming rounds, which ricocheted and whined away. The knight knelt down behind the shield as Jason watched his rounds skip ineffectually off it.