Warlord: Dervish (21 page)

An explosion parted the legionaries’ ranks. Before they could recover, a lone insurgent sprinted forward into the fissure the grenade had rent, screaming at the top of his lungs: “
Allahu Akbar
!”

“Down!” Bronson roared but Jason was already flat on the roof. The wall shielded them as the suicide bomber detonated. The house beneath them shook on its foundation and a cloud of white dust rolled over the rooftop. Body parts flopped down about them, as did a wooden shield.

Gunfire continued from the street, along with roars and screams in Arabic and Latin. Ash drifted lazily from the amaranthine sky.

“This—” Bronson coughed. “This some
fucked up
shit, Jay!”

“I’m going to take a look downstairs. You okay up here?”

“I’m good.”

“We’re good cause they don’t know we’re up here.”

“I’m a keep it that way, main. Fuckin’ high ground.”

“Works like a charm.”

Jason retrieved the scarred shield as he made for the stairs, surprised to find it as light as it was. As he ran down the stairs, his head struggled to make sense of their predicament. Each time the sand rolled through, the house they were in was somehow changing position throughout the city. Yet it remained on the electric grid. He couldn’t figure it.

The others were huddled against one side of the main room, near the hallway, away from the barred door leading to the street. Automatic weapons fire and shouts sounded outside.

“Is this guy serious about gladiators and giant insects?” Letitia demanded vehemently, eyeing Ahmed.

“Yeah, he is.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Go and take a look for yourself.”

“I don’t need
your
permission.” Letitia shot him a baleful look and left the room.

“What’s going on down here?”

“What’s going on
out there
?” Deirdre inquired.

“It’s like he told you,” Jason said of Ahmed. “I can’t explain it.” He proffered the shield. “Look at this.” Deirdre crossed to him, running her hand across the face of the shield, over the Diogenes logo. Her disquiet was apparent. “Ahmed, ask the boy, what did we see out there?”

“I already have, Jason.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said we have seen what we have seen. He does not disagree.”

“Jesus, this is fucked.” Jason put his hand on his head. “I’m going to check the rest of the house again.” If it was truly relocating he needed to ensure the exits and entrances remained secure. “I’ll come with you.” Deirdre followed him.

They proceeded cautiously through the hallway, passing the stairwell leading to the second floor, to the roof and Bronson, passing the bricked over entrances to the other rooms, around a bend in the hall and into the small room with the table.

“Why did they block the doors and windows like this?” Deirdre went to touch one of the partially assembled explosives vests but thought better of it, pulling her hand back. Blocks of plastic explosive and cans of rusted bolts and nails rested on the table.

“To get you to go the way they want you to go.” Jason led her to the final room. “They corral you through the house…” The thick topped wooden table rested on its side, the stairs above disassembled after the seventh step. “…into this room, right where they want you.

“It’s a kill zone,” he concluded.

“There’s no exit.”

“They’re not looking to get out. They’re far enough away from the street, even if a Bradley put a shell into the house, you’re not going to touch them here.”

“So you go in on foot to clear the house…”

“And they lure you in.”

“And then?”

Jason showed her what was behind the overturned table.

“Is that a bomb?”

“That’s a detonator. The whole house is wired.”

“The house is wired?”

“The house is the bomb. It’s a BCIED.”

“IED I get.
BC
?”

“
Building contained
IED. They get you to chase them inside—”

“—and then they kill you. And then they die.”

“God is great.”

“And us?” She looked to him for answers.

“We’re not going to stay in here forever. But right now, this might be our best bet. Things quiet down outside, we’ve got to find a way out of this city. Right now we’re safe enough, long as nothing gets in. You look sad, Deirdre.”

“I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing. Silly.”

“We’ve got gladiators and giant scorpions roaming the streets. Nothing you say is going to sound silly to me.”

“It’s just that—this was someone’s home. Someone lived here with their family. And now it’s…” She couldn’t think of the correct word to describe the house’s transformation “…
this
. I can’t help thinking, something you said earlier. About being at home, waiting with the kids for a husband to arrive from work.”

“I didn’t say that.” Jason reminded her, thinking of the conversation he’d had on the roof with Bronson about Rudy. “You did.”

“Yes, well…a part of me, I think, would like nothing more than that. I don’t know, does that make me…”

“What?”

“Am I betraying hundreds of years of struggle for women’s liberation with that sentiment?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think the problem’s when that’s the only option a woman has.”

“Jason. Do you think we’re going to make it out of here?”

“Stranger things have happened.” Even in the recesses of the house, Jason was aware of the absence of gunfire from the street. “
Are
happening.” He brushed past her, out of the room, back down the hall towards the stairs.

“I don’t believe it.” Letitia passed him on the stairs. “I’ve
seen
it and I don’t believe it.”

Jason didn’t speak until he was next to Bronson again. “What’d I miss?”

“Romans, one, Haji, zero. They’re mopping up.”

“No way.”

The battle on the street was effectively over. Dozens of legionaries lay dead and moaning from their wounds, tended to by their comrades. Those who remained were spread out, gathered in circles around fallen insurgents, thrusting with their spears, finishing them off. As they watched, one turbaned insurgent backed away from a group of Romans, his rifle lost, hands held out in front of his body as though he could fend them off that way. A shrill scream escaped the man’s lips as the first spear pierced him.

What sounded like thunder rumbled from the cloud of sand. The Romans looked up, frightened. Those not wounded began backing away, some attempting to carry or drag their injured. A legionary hopped off on one leg, his other hanging useless and bloodied, his spear enlisted as a crutch.

Thunderous peals bellowed within the sand.

“Whatever it is,” Jason pointed out, “They’re scared of it.”

“We should be too. Let’s get inside.” The sandstorm started to roll down the street, swallowing the fallen bodies of legionaries and insurgents alike. Roman soldiers ran terrified from the cloud.

“They’re never going to make it,” Jason said as he and Bronson secured the door within the stairwell. Outside, frantic shouts gave way to agonized screams.

“This is fucked up, main.”

“I’m going downstairs again, okay?”

“Again?”

“You want to go?”

“Nah, I’ll keep an eye on things here, Jay.”

Areya passed Jason on the stairs between the second and first floors. There was no mistaking the look on the boy’s face. He was terrified.

The sound of the raging sands was near-deafening in the house. Jason walked into the main room, the lights flashing like strobes. He felt a gust of wind, his eyes widening with horror. Letitia had the door open. She was arguing with Ahmed, pushing him away. The sand hung suspended outside the entrance, churning violently.

“What the fuck—” Jason roared at the woman “—are you doing—” he crossed the room “—close that fucking door!”

A whirlwind of sand and dirt and evil spun into the house, knocking Letitia and Ahmed in opposite directions. Deirdre screamed, the bulbs overhead flashing. Jason came up short, staring into a maelstrom that undulated in place. Letitia fired her M4, its discharge lost amidst the roar of the sand in the street. The rounds she fired struck the whirling dervish, deflecting off it in every direction. Jason grunted as a bullet impacted his chest plate, knocking him back several feet.

As quickly as it had been pirouetting, the vortex froze, a form materializing from the sand and dust. It was broadly human in shape and features, with two arms and two legs. Swathed in a bisht, the blackened cloak covered its body, a dusky keffiyeh cinched around its head with an ebony aqal. The space where its face should have been was lost in shadow, the only discernable feature within the gloom two glowing red spots. The creature gripped a scimitar and as it came out of its spin it swung on Jason, who barely reacted in time, bringing his M4 up, the curved blade catching the barrel of the assault rifle, knocking the weapon from his hands.

“Fuck!” Jason dived to the side, the wicked blade cleaving the air in which he had stood. Letitia lay on the ground, looking dazed.

The dervish chased Jason across the room as he struggled to draw his pistol. He tripped and fell and when he looked up the thing loomed over him, its eyes burning in its face like coals, sword drawn back over its head.

A blur of movement in Jason’s peripheral vision and Ahmed tackled the beast, bearing it to the ground. The interpreter and the demon rolled on the floor, a tangle of arms and legs, Ahmed cursing it in Arabic, the creature hissing in some unknown tongue. Jason cleared his pistol and used both hands to steady it, looking for a shot.

“Jason!”

He heard Deirdre’s scream over the din of the sand and wind. Two more mini-tornadoes had twisted into the house from the street, spinning furiously.

Ahmed screamed as the scimitar opened him up across the stomach. He reached for his torso, his hands slippery with blood, fumbling the bulbous pink organs that bulged from the rupture, his mouth agape, eyes wide as a second scimitar blow delivered the
coup de grace
, taking his head from his body.

“No!” Jason fired the pistol repeatedly, the bullets striking the dervish as it stood above Ahmed. The creature jerked with each impact, puffs of dust and earth lifting off its form. It disintegrated in mid-air, a cloud of dirt and sand that cascaded to the floor.

Straight arming the pistol, Jason fired at the nearest of the two remaining dust devils. The rounds were caught up in the spinning monstrosity and shot back out of it in different directions. The slide on his M9 locked open on an empty magazine and Jason threw the weapon at the dervish, scampering to the Roman shield he had placed against the wall earlier, taking cover behind the rectangular scutum just as the swirling pillar collided with him.

Jason held onto the shield with everything he had as the dervish rebounded off it, careening towards the wall. Before he could turn the shield, the third churning column was upon him. Its gyrations immediately halted and Jason had a split second to register its features—blackened like the other, scarlet eyes ablaze—before he felt the curved blade of its backsword pierce his side. The pain was unlike any he had ever known. Electricity jolted his body and Jason seized, his eyes rolling back in his head, the blazing eyes of his foe seared into his soul…

953rd Iteration

When he regained consciousness, Jason found himself flat on his back. His bare abdomen was heavily bandaged.

“He’s awake.” Deirdre’s voice.

“Jay, main. You okay?”

“Yeah…” His vision came into focus. Areya was standing a few feet away, looking at him. “What…?”

“It stabbed you, main. It stabbed you and you still alive.” Relief flooded Bronson’s voice. “You one tough motherfucker, Jay.”

The door was barred and the light bulbs in the ceiling burned steadily.

“Ahmed…” remembered Jason. “Ahmed’s dead.”

“Yeah, Jay. He dead. Look, I gotta go check the roof, aight? Deirdre here will take care of you.”

“I feel fine,” Jason told the woman as she tried to touch him. “They’re—
those things
.”

“Bronson shot them and we shut the door before any more could get in.”

“The sandmen.” The kid nodded as if he’d understood Jason.

“What are they?” Deirdre wanted answers to questions he couldn’t give her.

“Where’s Letitia?”

“She ran off.”

“Where?”

“Out there. Outside.”

“Into the sand?”

“No. A few minutes ago, when it stopped. And good riddance, I say.”

Jason didn’t disagree. Letitia had been bad news from the moment he’d approached her in the mess hall. What’s more, she hadn’t carried her weight out here. “I need to take a look. Help me up. No, I got it.”

“Jason, you need to rest.”

“I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I feel better already.” And he did, which struck him as odd. Jason considered peeling the bandages back and examining his wound, but Deirdre or Bronson had gone to a lot trouble to wrap him up and he didn’t want to botch their handiwork. He began to replace his camos and body armor.

Areya was keeping an eye on him.

“I hate this smell, kid.” Jason took a whiff of his foliage-green t-shirt. “Dried sweat. Yuck.”

He couldn’t read the look the boy was giving him.

“It’ll be okay, kid,” he reassured the child. But the kid didn’t look like it was going to be okay.

He found Bronson on the roof. It was night, but far from dark. An aurora shifted above them, spectral haze filling the sky.

“That something else, huh?” commented Bronson.

“Looks like the Northern lights.”

The beryl mists illuminated the street. There were no bodies on the ground. The houses were intact, showing no signs of combat.

“Where are we now?” Jason craned his neck, looking up either end of the block.

“Don’t know. There’s that thing.” Bronson indicated the obelisk, a silhouette in the emerald light. Jason noticed it had shifted to their right.
No
, Jason corrected himself,
we moved
. This house had moved.

An explosion in the distance.

“Someone still fightin’, Jay.”

“Yeah.”

“How you feel?”

He pressed his hand against his side. “Better than I should.”

Bronson smiled nervously. “I thought you was done, main.”

“So’d I.”

“You know…” Bronson sounded like he’d been giving it a lot of thought “…you can’t kill them things when they spinning, Jay.”

Jason nodded agreeably, captivated by the phosphorescence playing out across the sky.

“They like the Tazmanian devil, main.”

“That another show your grandma watched with you?”

Bronson snickered. Jason was alright.

“And when you do kill ‘em, they disappear. Crumble like. Into dust.”

They stood together on the roof for some time, watching the night sky, watching the street. Bronson whispered, “Poor Ahmed.”.

A muffled explosion sounded far off.

“Bronson, how often does the sand come?”

“Don’t know. I’d time it but…” The soldier cast a dissatisfied look at his watch.

Staccato rips from assault rifles echoed across the city.

“You got any ideas?”

“Yeah, main. Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m all over that. Come on.”

The warm night air was still and calm save for the distant, sporadic bursts of gunfire and the fulminations that punctuated it. They left the insurgent house behind, sticking close to each other in the street, Jason and Bronson in the lead, Deirdre with Areya directly behind them. The lightshow playing itself out in the sky made their night vision goggles unnecessary.

They gave wide berth to the alley into which the giant scorpion had disappeared, staring cautiously into it as they passed. They weren’t even sure this was the same alleyway. The houses around them were dark and quiet. Nothing stirred within them. At the end of the block, they hugged the wall of a house and waited while Jason and Bronson scanned the cross street.

A dog crossed their path and looked their way as it trotted past. It was followed by its pack, each mangier than the other. The dogs’ coats were matted and clumped. There was no mistaking the blood stains on their muzzles. They’d been dining on the leftovers of men killing one another. A puppy trailed the others. One of the animals growled and they quickened their pace, the puppy scampering to keep up.

Deirdre kept an arm around Areya’s shoulders as they walked, occasionally whispering encouraging words to him. Though the words were foreign to his ears, their import was not lost to the child.

They passed the rear end of a Humvee that jutted from the middle of the street, buried in the sand.

Hahn’s
? Bronson mouthed the name and Jason turned one side of his mouth down as he shrugged. Neither man had any idea how the vehicle could have ended up as it was, yet the bizarre events of their day did not lead them to question it.

Moving through the city streets, they wound their way towards the obelisk. The towering monument appeared and disappeared behind the houses. They hugged the buildings, expecting an attack at any moment, from any direction. Roman legionaries, scorpions, insurgents…who knew what else lurked in the dark of this strange place.

When Jason took a knee and raised a hand, the others halted where they were. Deirdre and Areya huddled behind Bronson, who pressed himself against a concrete façade, sighting down the barrel of his M4.

A little black boy crossed the intersection ahead of them. Rags of a shirt hung off his bony shoulders and chest. His jean shorts were cut off below the knee and the combat boots he wore were several sizes too large, flopping on his feet as he walked. The child dragged the butt of an AK-47 in the dirt behind him, gripping the weapon’s muzzle carelessly. His free hand was up at his chin, lost on the other side of his face.

Deirdre felt Areya go rigid against her, ready to bolt. She held him close.

Bronson mouthed Jason’s name, attempting to get his attention. Jason knelt in the center of the street, tracking the boy, his pistol in both hands, watching him. “Jay—” hissed Bronson.

“
Jason
!” He whispered it too loud and the boy stopped, turning his head and seeing the group for the first time. The bedraggled child did not look surprised or concerned. His face was filthy except where dried tears had carved a path down each cheek. He had the thumb of his free hand in his mouth and blinked at the armed men and woman.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Deirdre assured Areya as he shook, his body tight against hers.

The dungy boy turned his head back in the direction he’d been heading and started off again, trailing the assault rifle behind him.

“Jay. We just let him go like that?”

Jason followed the boy’s path, M9 in both hands, waiting for the kid to turn and open fire on them.

“Jay?”

Areya tugged at Deirdre’s arm and babbled incoherently.

“Hey—
little boy
.” The kid either didn’t hear Bronson or ignored him. “Little boy!”

Areya waved his hands frantically, signaling to Deirdre, his face panicked.

“Little boy!” Bronson called after the receding child.

“Bronson, let him go.” Deirdre did her best to calm Areya, holding each of his shoulders, whispering soothing words. “Let him go.”

“Hey!” Bronson sprinted to the child, who heard the soldier approaching and stopped, turning in his tracks. Bronson reached the intersection and glanced in both directions, making sure nothing was following the kid. As his friends watched, Bronson knelt down beside the child, who continued to suck on his thumb and grip his rifle by its barrel. Bronson was speaking to the child, his words lost to his friends in the distance, as he laced the child’s boots.

The child stared blankly at Bronson before stepping away, resuming his journey. Bronson watched after the boy, until he rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.

“You feel better now?” Jason asked him when they’d caught up.

“What the fuck, Jay. Little kids wandering around out here by theyself?”

“That kid was shook up.”

“Gentlemen, why don’t we worry about this child?” Areya continued to cling to Deirdre. “He’s scared to death. Let’s get him out of here.”

They continued, wending their way through streets of tightly packed houses broken by the occasional narrow alleyway. They plunged into one of these tight passages, a maze of walls and darkened homes, choosing their path as the alley branched off into new, serpentine routes. More than one was blocked, dirty streets barricaded by refuse and rubble, craters where the street had collapsed filled with stagnant water.

Reaching one fork, they were faced with two paths, one darker than the next. Jason and Bronson slipped their night vision goggles onto their helmets, perusing either corridor. A feint chirring emanated from the darker passage.

“You hear that, main?”

“Yeah.” Staring into the alley, all they could see were heaps of trash piled high. They’d have to wade through it if they went that way. Something was in that trash, making that noise.

Areya tugged at Jason’s arm, pointing the other way.

“Yeah, yeah. All right.”

After several minutes of walking, their chosen path deposited them in a circle. Several other alleys and streets met at this roundabout. In the center of the circle, the obelisk stretched into the emerald night. It towered above them, a four sided monument tapering into a pyramid-like shape. The men and the woman circled the stone pillar, staring at the inscriptions carved into it. Areya hung back by the side of a house.

“What is this?” Bronson considered the engravings. They were chiseled from the base of the column and ran the length of the shaft. “Some kind of foreign language?”

“It’s math.” Deirdre stared up at the perplexing tower.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“They used to use these to mark graves and underground burial chambers.” Jason remembered from teaching ninth grade global studies.

“What’s with the math formulas, main?”

“Don’t know. That shit doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Me either,” Deirdre agreed.

As they were lost in thought, considering the obelisk and the formulary hewed therein, the weighted net fell from above, ensnaring Bronson and Deirdre.

“What the—”

Jason twisted, bringing his pistol up in time to have it batted from his hand as the bald gladiator collided with him. The man had cast his net and then himself from the roof of the nearest building. Jason and the gladiator were both knocked from their feet, rolling away from each another.

While Bronson unsheathed his M7 bayonet and struggled against the casting net with Deirdre, Areya sank back charily, frightened.

The gladiator regained his feet and rushed Jason, the pear-shaped blade of his Pugio jutting from one hand. The warrior’s other hand was encased in a Cestus, all metal studs and plates, leather thongs tied over his hand and forearm.

Jason dismissed any thought of retrieving his pistol as the gladiator lunged with the dagger. He sidestepped the blade and struck out with his clenched fist, catching the other man in his bald head. The gladiator countered with an upper cut, his battle glove rocking Jason’s midsection, lifting him off his feet, depositing him in the middle of the street.