“That is a lot of people.” Summers watched through a pair of binoculars as a group of black-eyed soldiers stared blankly into the distance.
They’d rode on through the various towns that had been abandoned, offering word of the base to the few stragglers or wanderers they came across. Summers had set a fast pace, without much room for rest or recruitment. Right now, more people would just slow them down. But despite all that, the others had managed to keep up without complaint. Even Roan was managing to stick in there, despite his injury. It was when they’d gotten close to the base that they ran into trouble.
“Are they even breathing?” Roan asked, staring at the sentries in front of them.
Summers couldn’t answer that. The men and women in question were standing on a ridge, looking outward, unmoving. And, as near as Summers could tell, they weren’t blinking either. They didn’t even have weapons. Seemed like they were essentially being used as living surveillance cameras.
“Do you think we can get past them?” Synel looked to Summers.
“Not. . . here,” Summers answered, then gave Asle a meaningful glance. She rolled her eyes. Sure, he’d been leaning on her ability an awful lot lately, but still. “Hey, you’re the one that wanted to be useful.”
“You said it was a dumb idea. I’m still waiting for you to apologize.”
“Just because it worked out doesn’t mean it wasn’t stupid. Half of what I do is dumb as hell but still works out somehow.”
“. . .Fine.” Asle responded, before she opened a portal large enough for the group to walk into.
It took some convincing to get the not-quite-horses into the strange, obsidian world. But once they had some sure footing, it was easier going.
“Wow, it really is dead in here,” Summers took in the landscape, it was exactly like he’d seen it before. Some mountains bore the same spherical holes he’d seen earlier, and now that he was looking properly, he could even see some strange formations that looked as though one piece of rock had fused into another.
While there definitely wasn’t any life, the air was breathable enough. Maybe moss just took over the lion’s share of the work after whatever happened to this place. Problems for smarter people than him.
“Heading west, then?” Synel looked down the direction they’d be going.
“How are we going to tell when we’re there?” Roan asked.
“I can manage that.” Synel added. “I know roads and kept track of the landmarks well enough. May just need to poke our heads out every so often to be sure.”
“Just make sure you don’t let your guard down here,” Summers cautioned. Sure, this world seemed dead now, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have its own secrets. “I don’t like doing this, but I like having to fight my way through an army even less.”
“Agreed.”
Summers took one last look at the black, dusty ground in front of them, and started forward.
----------------------------------------
They travelled the last bit of distance to the base with, surprisingly, no incident. If that wasn’t strange enough, Summers hadn’t even seen anything malicious in the new world. No life, nothing but the odd formations and makeup of the place. He’d lost a boot to a sharp piece of the obsidian terrain, but that was it.
“Just what do you think this place actually is?” Synel asked. “Don’t misunderstand me, I’m grateful we don’t have to fight our way through here, but this place feels. . . wrong.”
“I don’t know,” Asle said. “It just happens. It doesn’t feel different than before.”
With everything that had happened to Asle there was no telling exactly why her power was acting strangely. But this place had the same scars Summers had come to associate with teleportation gone wrong. That could be the key.
Summers gave the world another look.
“I think this place is just. . . easier for her to punch into? If that makes sense?” Seeing neither Synel nor Asle responding, he continued. “Like, imagine if Asle’s power is a river, this is just the natural destination.”
“Like the current is drawing her here?” Synel put a hand to her chin.
“Yeah, maybe this place just attracts it. From everything I’ve seen around here it looks like it might have had something like what happened at our base go on. That might have just attracted us here. I’m just glad we can still get back.”
Asle made a noise of agreement from beside him.
Summers glanced over at her.
“Asle, I’ve been meaning to ask, what were you trying to do back in the city? I mean, I know you tried to kill that thing with a portal, but what were you trying to do with it?”
“I tried to break it.” Asle answered. “Like, I tried to imagine the portal shattering, like I saw you do.”
“Huh. Well, I think you broke it all right.”
Summers didn’t understand how exactly the hamr worked, but you didn’t just break a computer and have it work differently. Something wasn’t right with what was going on, which put him on edge. Then again, computers didn’t typically heal. So, maybe that was what was at play here, something like a scar.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Summers gave a meaningful look to the horizon. Nothing in this world seemed to change, despite how far they’d travelled. But there was an odd sense of wrongness here. The same thing he’d felt from every portal he’d been near. Even Asle’s own. Summers had started tuning it out, but that hum was a constant presence in the background of this world.
After some time, Synel motioned for them to stop, checking a map, and measuring the distance.
“We should be able to see the base from where we are,” Synel called over.
“Great,” Summers said. “Asle, any way you can open a portal just big enough to look through? I don’t want to risk heading in blind.”
Asle extended her hand, and a portal the size of his head opened. What Summers found, was not what he was expecting.
The base looked. . . pretty good. Some of the holes in the walls had been patched up, or at least sandbags had been piled up to act as a replacement. More importantly, there were people manning the walls.
They were still a few hundred yards out from the base itself, but now at least they could get inside unnoticed.
“Well, at least we’re not heading into a fight right away.” Summers said. “Come on, best we don’t keep them waiting.”
“Are you sure it’s wise to just stroll in?” Synel asked.
“I don’t trust anyone would recognize us from a distance without the Humvee. Don’t want to risk a trigger-happy private if I can help it.”
“Well. . .” Synel started but trailed off as they reached their destination.
“It’s fine,” Summers said. “But just to be safe, I’ll go first.” He looked behind him. “Asle, when you’re ready.”
Summers stepped out into the world, only to hear a scream, and probably some cursing a moment later. He was in the middle of the base, several onlookers watching him with open terror. He raised his hands to calm the crowd, only for a spear to slam into his back, bouncing off his armor.
“Gah!”
Summers turned to find a gray-haired woman attacking him. He grabbed the spear, holding it still even as the old woman tried to wrench it from his hands.
“I’m. Friendly.” Summers growled, the head of the spear snapped off in his grip, making her take a few shocked steps back. He didn’t mean to do that, but nearly dying in such a stupid way bothered him.
Synel watched the scene with what he could only assume was amusement as she led the horses to their side of the world.
“You don’t get to say I told you so.” Summers called over.
To his relief, he saw Pat hurrying over, probably attracted by the commotion.
He stopped on seeing Summers.
“What. . .”
Seeing that his attacker was momentarily distracted, Summers turned to the man.
“Guess we have some explaining to do.”
----------------------------------------
“The attacks have only grown bolder over the last few days. I believe the first assault was. . .” Pat searched for the word.
“Probing.” Summers supplied. “Trying to get a feel for our defenses.”
“Precisely. We fended them off, but not without losses.”
They’d all settled into a tent at the center of the base for a ‘debriefing’ of sorts. Telling the others what happened in the city, their fight, and the situation with Asmund’s brother. That last tidbit had given the group pause. Summers had only managed to get everyone back on track after arguing that it was a problem that they didn’t have the means or information to handle right now. That information might come from the samr, since it seemed like Mia knew what was wrong with Asmund’s brother. So, they needed to deal with them first regardless.
And as it turned out, the situation at the base wasn’t as bad as Summers would have expected. The base had been attacked a few times, but they were mostly groups of three or four men trying to pick off their people in the dead of night. Their scarecrows had saved them in that regard, as almost all their attacks had found one of them instead of a real person. Neither Pat, nor Summers could tell what was causing the interference with the radio, but it might have been to isolate the base from any of its own patrols. That thought was reinforced by the net of soldiers they’d had to slip past to get here. If the army was still operating, anyone that had been outside would have found themselves without any backup as the samr picked them off.
One thing was certain, they’d be facing a real attack, and soon. And that wasn’t their only problem.
“Pat, while we were out Asle and I, we’ve been having. . . problems.”
“Your minds?” Pat asked.
“Among other things. On our way here, I was seriously considering murdering a small towns worth of people just to get something from them. The worst part was I felt completely numb to the idea. They helped us, but I don’t like that that’s where my head went first.”
“It was still very sweet,” Roan sounded from beside him. He leaned in to rest his head on Summers’ shoulder.
Summers pushed the boy away, making his chair slide on the ground.
“Point is that we’re not in a good place, I need all of you watching me and Asle. You have my permission to veto anything you think sounds wrong, the hamr ramped my aggression up to 11 last time, I don’t want to lead a force if that’s where my head’s at.”
“Is that wise?” Synel asked.
Summers looked around, Pat was watching him carefully, the twins and Orvar were silent, waiting on the rest.
“Look, I trust everyone here to make their own judgement calls,” Summers hesitated. “This is just a temporary thing. I think I have an idea to solve our problem,” he glanced over at Roan. “And maybe more, but that’s going to rely on what we do next.”
He looked at Pat.
“Where are we on the training?”
“We’ve been working with the force you sent, Commander, but I’m worried. This place is far too large for the men I’ve trained to defend.” Pat spoke low, back turned to the group of recruits that were training nearby.
He’d done good work, from what Summers had been able to tell, the spearmen Tel had brought with him were now handling themselves somewhat competently. At least they weren’t about to shoot themselves in the foot.
“You’ve done great, but you’re right, a handful of soldiers aren’t going to stand up to any kind of real attack.”
“I agree,” Synel added. “But there are the forces from the city to consider. We arrived quickly, but it won’t be long until the more desperate head here as well.”
“Uh, you mean heading here now, with the soldiers outside?” Roan said, sound uncomfortable. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Christ, right. And they might not just kill them, they might add them to their body count.”
They didn’t have any way to know this would happen, but they might have just sent a lot of people to their deaths.
“. . .Then what?” Pat’s normally blank face took on an air of something else, and Summers felt a pang of guilt. The little he’d seen of the base showed just how far they’d come in the short amount of time Summers and the others had been gone, and he suspected Pat was to thank for a good chunk of that.
“Roan, do you remember what you said back at the city? About how the samr are led by one person?”
“Sure, one leader and a bunch of hude – er, skeen. But they ain’t playing nice anymore, can’t make them make a mistake like in the city.”
“Sure we can.” Summers gestured to the hill behind him. “Those people that got sent here did so because one person was controlling them. We don’t have to fend off an army, we just have to scare off one person. Well, more than one more likely, but you get the point.”
“. . .How?” Pat asked. “I don’t think scarecrows will work forever.”
Summers looked down at Asle.
“Asle, you think you can do what you did today consistently? Moving us to that other world, I mean.”
The others perked up at that, but he’d get into the specifics later.
Asle nodded, and Summers smiled, not bothering to hide it. Pretty much everyone here was basically the closest thing to family he had left in this world.
“In that case, let me tell you about something called guerilla warfare.”