Days of Future Past - Part 3: Future Tense Read online

  So when her parents got over being upset at not being at the wedding, something I was also assured we would be read the riot act over, we'd have a nice place to 'settle down and raise a family'.

  I liked the idea of settling down. Settling down was something I could definitely stand to experience for a nice long while, after everything that had happened to me. I wasn't so sure about the raising a family bit, but, to be honest, I was more than willing to give it a try, not like I was going to have any choice in the matter, they'd both been rather clear on that as well. I just hoped that I didn't have any kids who were as big a pain in the ass as I was to my parents.

  The ride was fairly pleasant, northern Nevada was now much less of a desert than I remembered it being, it was more like the central valley of California had been. It did get hot in the afternoon, it was nearing the end of June now, but there was a breeze and the land we were crossing was just low rolling hills.

  It took us a day to reach the town of Battle Mountain. We didn't go into the town; we stayed well outside of it. Most of the towns that still existed here were run by gangs that were allied to Aybem, if there was anyone living there at all. And the make up of those gangs usually wasn't anything or anyone you really wanted to deal with, being either orcs, monsters, or some species of evil fey.

  "See anything?" I asked Heather as we scouted out the town using the scopes on our sniper rifles. We had moved up on to the nearby ridgeline to try and get a good look. The sun was going down, so if anyone was living in town, we'd see lights or cooking fires fairly soon.

  "Yeah, there are definitely people, well maybe not people, I can't really tell from here, but there's someone living there."

  I looked through my own scope, turning the magnification up. These were definitely a lot more powerful than the binoculars we had.

  "Look over by the low building, the long one, to the east," she told me.

  I moved over to look there, and sure enough, I could see several figures, but she was right, it was too far away to make out what they were, or even what they were doing. They didn't look big enough to be monsters, but it was hard to judge size and scale at these distances, so at the very least I'd have guessed orcs, or one of the larger groups of evil fey.

  "I guess we should stick to the old railway bed we came across this morning," I said looking for more people, and quickly finding some.

  "Yeah, I'd say we better." she agreed. "Is it just me, or does it look like a lot less people than you'd expect in a town of that size?"

  I shrugged, "I have no idea," I told her. "I haven't scoped out a lot of towns full of monsters lately."

  "I'm just wondering that if they did send most of their people to Aybem's place for the battle, how many they left behind?"

  "Why?"

  "Because it would indicate that they're planning on coming back."

  "And that means?"

  "It means that even if Riggs wins this war, we're still going to have all these fey, monsters and orcs and other crap to deal with," Heather grumbled.

  "I've never heard of a war where everyone on one side was killed," I told her. "No matter how well Riggs does, there are going to be survivors, a lot of them. They just won't be as united, and hopefully will be a lot more willing to stay at home than to go off causing problems and starting wars."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right," she sighed. "Part of me was kinda hoping that after this was over, they'd all be dead and gone. But I guess that was just wishful thinking."

  "What's the story on this Aybem guy anyway? I've heard everyone talk about him, but other than him being the ruler of the bad guys, that's about all I ever heard."

  Heather shrugged, "You can ask Sarah for the details, if she knows any of them, but I don't know if she knows anymore than the rest of us."

  "And that is?" I prompted as we kept watch on the town.

  "He's powerful, he has control over some of the old tech in the area, rumor is that he can do magic. He rarely leaves his stronghold or whatever you want to call it, anymore. The stories that get passed around say that the reason the wars between the tribes ended was because Aybem came out of the wastes to make war on them, with an army of orcs. Apparently he had become the leader of the orc tribes, even if he wasn't one.

  "He did a lot of damage at first, which forced the tribes to make peace and unite against him. Once they did that, they easily beat him back into the wastes. But the wastes back then were mostly un-united and unorganized bands of fey and other things. Sorta one big never ending free-for-all, and they spent as much time fighting each other as they did venturing out to attack human lands.

  "But over time, after losing to the tribes, he united all of them. He made them all a part of his army, or if they wouldn't join, he destroyed them. No one knows how he did it, if it was from bribery, threats, war, or some power of his. Just that nowadays all of the denizens of the wastes are all afraid of him and pretty much worship him like a god."

  "Where'd he come from?"

  Heather shrugged, and rolling over sat up, putting her rifle across her lap. "No one knows."

  "No one?" I asked and she shook her head, "When did he show up?"

  "Some folks say that he's been there since the big wipe. Some think that he may even have come from before. Others think he didn't show up until the gods cleared the clouds and brought the sun back." Heather shrugged, "Again, no one knows."

  "No one's ever attacked him before?" I was surprised by that.

  "Once, say about two hundred or maybe one hundred and fifty years ago, a small army came up from Paradise to the south of here. They'd heard there was some sort of leftover tech up by Ruth and they were going to run the orcs and the monsters out and seize it all for themselves to bring back."

  "What happened?"

  "They lost. I think maybe a quarter of them made it back? And a lot of them were in pretty bad shape from what the story I was told said. They ran into some very strong defenders and a hell of a lot more orcs and monsters than they or anyone else expected to be up there. All sorts of the evil fey like the wolf riders. Giants, goblins, trolls, I think there may have even been a dragon involved. I think that's when the rumors about Aybem got started."

  "Didn't anyone try again?"

  "A few times, but they ran into too much resistance as soon as they passed the Vegas ruins. So after that, people started to avoid the wastes."

  I nodded and got to my feet, then helped her up. "Well, let's go help Sarah with dinner I guess."

  "Yeah, she can't cook half as good as you can," Heather grinned.

  I sighed and shook my head, "You only want me for my culinary skills."

  "Well, that and your body, yeah!" Heather laughed and slapped me on the ass.

  I rolled my eyes a little but didn't say anything; Heather had definitely become a lot more physical and grabby with me in the last few weeks. I was kind of surprised by that, she treated me like she treated Sarah. I'd thought we'd been close before, but looking back on it now, I guess she'd finally gotten 'comfortable' with me.

  I found that I kind of liked it.

  We had finished dinner and cleaned up, discussing our plans for the next day when I heard something.

  I waved my hand for both girls to be quiet and we listened. After a moment I heard it again, the sounds of people moving over the ground.

  "How good is that illusion spell?" I whispered softly to Sarah.

  "Unless they step inside the wards, they can not see us or hear us," Sarah replied in an equally soft voice.

  "I knew we should have camped farther from town," Heather grumbled, grabbing her gauss assault rifle, as I picked up mine and Sarah started in on casting something.

  "I don't think these are coming from the town," I whispered to Heather.

  I heard Sarah swear softly, then she went back to doing something magical.

  "Well that wasn't good," Heather observed.

  "Yeah," I agreed, and checked the horses to make sure they were hobbled so they wouldn't run off and
give us away if we started shooting.

  Heather and I both assumed firing positions, lying prone on the ground. A moment later Sarah joined us, with her own rifle in her hands.

  "There is a shaman in the group; he is using magic to track us."

  "Track us? From where?" Heather asked.

  "I would assume the relay station."

  I swore, "Wait until they're just about to cross into the camp, target the shaman first."

  Heather and Sarah both nodded and we waited.

  They came around the small rise we were camped besides, there were four orcs, then two more joined the group, then another three, as they came around into view. The shaman was near the back of the group, directing the others as they walked along the ground towards us. I guess he had used some sort of magic to illuminate our trail, because the ones in the front all had their eyes down towards the ground.

  I aimed at the last one in the group, and the moment I had a clear shot I fired.

  As I moved my aim to the next one, I saw the shaman's eyes start to widen, but Heather dropped him at the same time I dropped the other one who had been coming up the rear.

  Our guns may have been silenced, but they were by no means silent. That plus the sounds of the bullets whizzing by the heads of the other six, made them all look up, at which point Sarah opened fire on full automatic as Heather and I started to pick off the ones at the back and work our ways forward.

  As ambushes went, it was a pretty successful one. They were all dead within seconds of my first shot, but they had gotten several shots of their own off as well. And their rifles were not as quiet as ours.

  "Heather," Sarah commanded, "Go up on the rise and pick off anyone who rides out of town to investigate. Paul, breakdown the tent and pack it up, quickly, we need to leave."

  "What'll you be doing?" I asked as I ran over and started to pull the bedrolls out of the tent and stuff them in their bags. Once that was finished I'd strike the tent. I knew from experience I could have it all packed up in five minutes.

  "Making sure we are not so easily followed," Sarah replied and immediately started in on another casting.

  I had everything packed and on the horses, all of which were ready to go when Heather came trotting back over.

  "I shot three, they know we're here now," she told us.

  "Mount up," Sarah said, "I will cast the night vision spells as we ride."

  I looked around one last time, making sure we weren't leaving anything behind, and then mounting up, I followed the girls as we rode off quickly.

  We rode all night, moving back up into the mountains a little and away from the rail bed or the remains of highway eighty. Just before the sun started to come up, we made a simple camp with no fire and both Sarah and Heather bedded down to get some rest while I pulled guard duty.

  We had a pretty good position, I could see out pretty far from the top of the ridgeline we were bedded down behind. Both girls said that they didn't think we'd be followed, but even if we were, they wouldn't come after us until the sun had come up.

  I wasn't so sure, but that town had looked fairly empty. Or at least Heather thought it had.

  Nothing showed up during my four hours of watch, so I went and woke up Heather and then lay down to sleep myself. Sarah needed the most rest of all of us, magic apparently took a lot of mental energy which caused her to need more sleep after using it, and last night she'd used quite a lot to obscure our trail.

  "Paul," I heard softly as someone kicked my foot. Opening my eyes I saw it was Heather, and she was beckoning me to go with her, back to the where we had been keeping watch from. Grabbing my railgun I got up and followed her. A quick glance at my watch said I'd gotten almost three hours of sleep.

  Hunkering down I looked out towards the ground below us.

  "I don't see anything," I told her.

  "Use your scope, set it for thermal imaging."

  I turned the scope on and set it as she said, then slowly started to scan the valley floor. It took me a minute, but I found it. Or rather them. There was a party of at least ten, maybe more. I could only tell because I could see the moving blobs of heat.

  "Are they invisible?" I asked, turning the thermal imaging off, then back on again.

  "No, but they are well camouflaged. At this distance, they're pretty hard to make out.

  I switched the thermal imaging off again, and zoomed in, and I could see them. Just barely.

  "So, what do we do?" I asked her.

  "We start picking them off," Heather replied getting set up next to me and ready to do just that. "They're about an hour behind us, we need to pin them down, and then pick them off, one by one."

  I nodded and aimed at one on the left. "I'm on the left, just say when."

  "When."

  I fired and switching quickly to the next one over, I fired again. The first one dropped before the second one was hit, but he didn't notice it until it was too late. But the others had noticed before I could hit a third and all ducked for cover.

  "I got two," I told her.

  "Three," Heather replied.

  "So, five left?"

  "Assuming that we saw all of them and I got a good count, yeah," Heather replied and paused to take another shot. "Scratch another one."

  I nodded and went back to looking for targets.

  "I see an arm," I said and pulled the trigger. A moment later a head popped up as the wounded enemy jumped from the shock of being shot. He ducked back down immediately, but not before Heather took the top of his head off.

  After that they really hunkered down. We sat there and waited.

  And waited.

  "Guys?" we heard Sarah whisper. I checked my watch; we'd been here for over an hour.

  "We've got some enemy pinned down," Heather said.

  "They are not the only group out there," Sarah informed us, "I just did an augury spell. We need to get going, and we need to do it now."

  Heather and I both withdrew back out of sight, then getting up we ran over to Sarah who was holding the reins on the horses. Mounting up again, we rode off once more.

  "Where are the others?" I asked as Sarah led us to the southeast.

  "They are coming from the north, over there," Sarah waved with her left hand. "They should be here in about ten minutes."

  "They sent out two teams?" Heather looked a little shocked.

  "Three actually, but the third one is farther behind."

  "We can't have them following us all the way to the mines," I said, stating the obvious.

  "Well, we are still almost a week's ride away from them. I think we can lose them, between now and then."

  "As long as they don't get anymore people on our trail," Heather pointed out.

  "Any more magic users or Shamans," I agreed.

  "I am blocking us from being scryed now," Sarah said, "as well as doing what I can to obstruct our trail. Heading back towards the old rail bed and the highway should throw them off the track. They would assume that we will run further into the hills, where it would be easier to lose them."

  I nodded and looked around, "We're also on horseback and they're on foot. So that should keep us ahead of them as well, right?"

  "Exactly so," Sarah agreed.

  We rode until midnight, and then found another good place to hole up for the night. I took the first watch, Heather the second, and again I was woken up after about three hours.

  "How the hell are they keeping up with us?" I grumbled as I moved up to where Heather had been keeping a lookout.

  "It doesn't matter how, it just matters that they are," Heather sighed. "Go wake Sarah. We need to get going."

  "But they're a good half-hour out," I said, "Maybe more."

  "Yeah, but they could be a diversion for another group."

  I nodded and went and woke Sarah. Ten minutes later we were riding again, but we'd left a rather nasty surprise behind us. The magical equivalent of a landmine.

  Hopefully it would buy us more time.

 
I think we lost them," Sarah said as we finally stopped to make a regular camp some three days later.

  I nodded and yawned. Sarah hadn't been able to sense them for two days now. We'd turned back north for a while, to get deeper into the hills and mountains, then had started to work our way back yesterday.

  "Well, we're only about three, maybe four, days from our goal," I sighed, "so we didn't lose too much time."

  "Why don't we just camp here for a day, and see what happens?" Heather asked. "We could all use the rest, I'm sure."

  I got a faint touch of a bad feeling about that idea. I wasn't sure if it was Coyote, or my own desire to just get where we were going so I could get this all over with. We were already a day behind our original schedule, two or more if we had to divert again.

  "Let's not," I said shaking my head, "we have no idea where the army is, or what it's even doing. I can't afford to be late to this show. If Riggs screws up and I'm not there to help him, then every thing has been for nothing, and we'll still have this Aybem monster to deal with."

  "You sure?" Sarah asked me.

  "Yeah, I'm sure."

  "Well, let us at least try and get a good rest, though I think we will be eating cold rations again tonight. I'd rather not risk a fire."

  "Yeah, let's not push our luck," Heather agreed.

  - 4 -

  I was ... in pain. My body was bouncing, I seemed like I was getting hit again and again in the stomach and chest and there was light and I couldn't focus and my body was bouncing up and down on my stomach which I was getting hit in and I couldn't focus my head was spinning and nothing would stop moving and I hurt hurt and hurt. My body started to retch I don't know if something came out or not but there was a loud noise and my head got slammed....

  I was thirsty, oh was I thirsty; that was my first thought as I started to regain awareness. I opened my eyes and I couldn't see anything, was I blind? Or maybe it was dark? I was bent over something and my arms and legs were tightly bound. It took me a moment to realize I was bound over something, with my arms and legs tied together under it.