05: Unit under attack.
PyrrhicSteel
Look natural.
- Location
- Idaho
From a few hundred meters away, it was pretty obvious my four riders were using horses. The riders looked human as well, which considering everything else so far seemed terrestrial meant there wasn't much of a chance they weren't. When night fell I was going to have to check for constellations I recognized.
"HEY!"
I had no idea if the party ahead could hear me. The sound of the wind whistling through the tall grass and buffeting against their ears could have drowned out my shouting. Waving my unarmed hand, I started to jog towards the armed men, hampered from a real run by my determination not to muzzle sweep the soldiers ahead of me.
And they were soldiers, if not professional ones. With the clouds gone and the sun starting to dip behind me, I got a very good look at my guests. Dirty, uneven plate twinkled as shoulder pads bounced with their mounts. I counted two with spears, while other sported shields and one riding the wagon rested a crossbow in their lap. There didn't appear to be much unty in the style of their weapons and armor, but I didn't think uniforms were that common in that period.
Had I gone back in time? No, probably not. Tiberium, or all-consuming crystals, would have left a pretty hefty impact on modern culture and mythology if I had contained it. I must be in another world, or universe. I'd already dismissed the possibility of being somewhere in the modern world, so that must have made me some kind of Isekai. A Regular Space Yankee in King Arthur's court!
"STOP!"
The riders ahead of me finally reacted to my presence. The largest of them, a man with dented armor and a beard that concealed his face, picked up his pace and separated from his comrades. I slowed, allowing him to make up his distance. He didn't slow, though. I stopped as the rider continued his approach, that started to feel more like a charge. Both hands gripped the 1911 as he approached, but at that speed…
Just as I took a nervous step away, he pulled on his reigns and brought his panting mount to a halt. It didn't show his teeth, but I could just make out a smile through his scruffy, uneven beard. Asshole.
"Who dares stop the Snake Lord's tribute?"
If he thought dropping that name would get a reaction out of me, he must have been disappointed. The word 'tribute' peaked my interest, though. Ignoring the man in front of me for a moment, I peered around him, at the strange wagon they'd been escorting. It was a massive cage, but it's contents were hidden by the pair of riders and the supplies behind them. What was in there, sheep? Pigs? What kind of Lord who could give their troops steel armor would concern themselves with those?
"The road's out in a few miles." Part of me was surprised I could understand the man at all, which further disqualified the time travel theory. I was certainly not in the same universe I'd been born in. "You'll have to find another way to get-"
I was cut off by what seemed like a terrible cough, as my mounted comrade doubled forwards. It took me a couple seconds to realize that the man's torchered retching was laughter.
"What's wrong, Issar?" The cry from the wagon drifted over the wind once the leader's laughter died down.
"This minstral has just told me the road's-" The man's pathetic laugh returned, preventing him from finishing. "The road's gone!" I was feeling my temper rise when I realised that, by shouting over his shoulder like that, he didn't think I was enough of a threat to bother watching. Why would I? To him, all I was wearing was light clothing and a metal trinket. The chorus of guffaws didn't help.
"It is!" I shouted, unable to keep the indignity out of my voice. "The meteor from earlier destroyed-"
"Shut up, whelp." The man growled, his hand resting on his hilt. "I don't know where the theatre troupe you came from went, but no one interrupts the men of Koka if they value their lives."
I took a step back, raising the pistol to his face, but he didn't seem disturbed.
"Now, you don't seem to be from around here, and since I'm feeling a little generous, I'm willing to offer a deal. For a little silver, me and my friends are willing to forget about your wild tales and let you on your way to spout tales of 'Meetors'..." The way he said the word left spittle in his beard. "...to anyone you like."
"Uh…"
I was flabbergasted. I was trying to save their lives and they wanted to rob me? The ungrateful little bastards!
"I- I don't want any trouble here..." I finally managed to state, taking another step back from the man and keeping the pistol leveled directly at his face. "...but if you keep walking down this road, you'll die." I took another breadth, as the pistol began to shake. It was a gamble, but these people only seemed to respect power. I needed to show it. "And, if- if you want any money from me, you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."
"Listen, kid." The man growled, right hand tightening around his sword. "The only thing between here and Koka are a few hours of grassland. I don't know what you thought you could gain from tricking us, but if you wanted to pull it off you should have tried it a lot farther from town."
Koka Castle? Despite the risk, I brought up the drone's radar-created topographic map of the area to exame it for anything. Beyond the crater itself, the entire landscape for miles was nothing but easy hills and planes. Unless they thought that rock formation to the south was a Castle-
Oh.
Oh, shit!
"Koka's only a few hours from here?" I asked. The abrupt and seemingly irrelevant question must have caught the warrior off guard, because he paused.
"Yeah…"
"Then it's gone." I deadpanned. When I'd first looked at that thing on the drone's radar map, I'd assumed it had been a volcanic neck of some kind. Perhaps not the most reasonable assumption, but an american like me sees a lot more of those then castles, so give me a break. If I'd had the drone investigate there instead of the road, I might have known, but it was much farther than the road, and what could I do anyways? "Everyone there is probably dead."
I was too angry to grieve over a bunch of people I didn't know. There wasn't anything I could have done to help them, anyways.
"Impossible!" He growled, his sword coming out entirely. "The Snake Lord is unkillable!"
Part of me wanted to laugh in the man's face, dismissing his superstition like he dismissed me. Let the bastard get crystal-ed. The other part of me, the one who noted how quiet his sword had been when it had left the scabbard, needed to do otherwise. A man who had pulled a sword on me was far too close.
"Okay, you're going to have to drop that weapon." I started, taking another step back from the madman and waving my pistol. I didn't actually want to shoot anyone, but between my life and this asshole's…
"You think you can order me around?" The man bellowed, bringing his horse to the left, facing me. Right now that sword was in his right hand opposite me. It was clear he was intending to charge after he turned, and at that point I'd lose a good shot.
There wasn't any more time to talk. Steady breathing. Focus on the target, not the pistol. Aim for the head- no, between the shoulders. Don't pull, squeeze.
Idly, I noted the crack the .45 was significantly quieter than I'd thought it would be. Odd, I'd fired plenty of guns in my life and the opposite was true. Even with ear protection whenever the 9mm fired I'd felt like the entire world stopped to listen. What was different?
The man I'd just killed buckled backwards, a surprisingly thick spray of blood the only indication I'd gotten my kill, as the horse reared the corpse away from view and then darted. The panicked beying of the creature as it fled was dead quiet, and was the clatter of armor as my victim landed in the mud. Now that I thought about it, the whistle of wind through the grass had died down as well. Maybe some implant had deadened my hearing, which made less sense the more I thought about it. Had I deafened myself?
Huh. There were 5 more guys out there and I was worried about my hearing.
I turned the gun back towards the cart, to find the enemy in complete chaos. Someone had been thrown off their horse, one of their boots caught in a sturrup and dragging the man along as the horse desperately tried to free itself and flee. The other two riders were busy getting their mounts under control, shouting and screaming as the horses bucked and jumped. The driver of the cart was desperately trying to calm his horses (odd choice, having horses drive a cart), while the man with a crossbow stared at the fallen warrior, dumbfounded. I hadn't thought of gun shy horses being a factor, but why wouldn't they be?
"YOU WANT SOME?" I bellowed, surprised at how loud my voice was. The pistol was leveled on mister crossbow, now, but I with how the first enemy had been positioned I doubted he realised the 1911's power.
The man brought the crossbow up and my pistol bucked, but this time the man seemed unaffected. His weapon blurred as a bolt came loose, flying almost too fast for my eyes to track. My second shot must have surprised him, though, because the bolt flew harmlessly over my head.
The horses hadn't enjoyed the second shot either, as the two mounted bandits desperately clung to their fleeing equines. They'd obviously managed to gain some control, though, as they left down the road. The other two horses were darting in random directions, one towards the tiberium field. The fallen rider hadn't moved since it's ride had finally shaken him free.
That left the two on the cart. Both had dismounted, one rushing me with a short sword while the other hurriedly rewound his crossbow. The charger certainly was coming directly at me, however, putting a bullet in his chest was easy. He face planted in the mud, writhing as I started my run towards the crossbow boy. I didn't trust my shooting and it looked like I had plenty of time to line up a good hit.
Stop. Feet shoulder width apart. Finger on the trigger. Focus on the-
The man stopped cranking his crossbow, eyes the size of golf balls staring directly into mine. His forehead glinted with sweat, while his shoulders heaved with short breadths. This person was human. Hell, he looked younger than I did! He had a family, goals, and desire to live, and I was about to snuff all that out. I'd already done it twice, but this time despite being armed he was helpless.
But what else could I do? I didn't know how I was going to feed myself, let alone a prisoner. There was no way I could watch him. I had too much to do if I wanted to fight tiberium. I already had too many loose ends with those two runners. This man was helpless now, but he'd already tried to kill me once. A second attempt wasn't a matter of if, but when. Unless…
As the .45 bucked in my hand once more, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd just killed a part of myself, as well.
"HEY!"
I had no idea if the party ahead could hear me. The sound of the wind whistling through the tall grass and buffeting against their ears could have drowned out my shouting. Waving my unarmed hand, I started to jog towards the armed men, hampered from a real run by my determination not to muzzle sweep the soldiers ahead of me.
And they were soldiers, if not professional ones. With the clouds gone and the sun starting to dip behind me, I got a very good look at my guests. Dirty, uneven plate twinkled as shoulder pads bounced with their mounts. I counted two with spears, while other sported shields and one riding the wagon rested a crossbow in their lap. There didn't appear to be much unty in the style of their weapons and armor, but I didn't think uniforms were that common in that period.
Had I gone back in time? No, probably not. Tiberium, or all-consuming crystals, would have left a pretty hefty impact on modern culture and mythology if I had contained it. I must be in another world, or universe. I'd already dismissed the possibility of being somewhere in the modern world, so that must have made me some kind of Isekai. A Regular Space Yankee in King Arthur's court!
"STOP!"
The riders ahead of me finally reacted to my presence. The largest of them, a man with dented armor and a beard that concealed his face, picked up his pace and separated from his comrades. I slowed, allowing him to make up his distance. He didn't slow, though. I stopped as the rider continued his approach, that started to feel more like a charge. Both hands gripped the 1911 as he approached, but at that speed…
Just as I took a nervous step away, he pulled on his reigns and brought his panting mount to a halt. It didn't show his teeth, but I could just make out a smile through his scruffy, uneven beard. Asshole.
"Who dares stop the Snake Lord's tribute?"
If he thought dropping that name would get a reaction out of me, he must have been disappointed. The word 'tribute' peaked my interest, though. Ignoring the man in front of me for a moment, I peered around him, at the strange wagon they'd been escorting. It was a massive cage, but it's contents were hidden by the pair of riders and the supplies behind them. What was in there, sheep? Pigs? What kind of Lord who could give their troops steel armor would concern themselves with those?
"The road's out in a few miles." Part of me was surprised I could understand the man at all, which further disqualified the time travel theory. I was certainly not in the same universe I'd been born in. "You'll have to find another way to get-"
I was cut off by what seemed like a terrible cough, as my mounted comrade doubled forwards. It took me a couple seconds to realize that the man's torchered retching was laughter.
"What's wrong, Issar?" The cry from the wagon drifted over the wind once the leader's laughter died down.
"This minstral has just told me the road's-" The man's pathetic laugh returned, preventing him from finishing. "The road's gone!" I was feeling my temper rise when I realised that, by shouting over his shoulder like that, he didn't think I was enough of a threat to bother watching. Why would I? To him, all I was wearing was light clothing and a metal trinket. The chorus of guffaws didn't help.
"It is!" I shouted, unable to keep the indignity out of my voice. "The meteor from earlier destroyed-"
"Shut up, whelp." The man growled, his hand resting on his hilt. "I don't know where the theatre troupe you came from went, but no one interrupts the men of Koka if they value their lives."
I took a step back, raising the pistol to his face, but he didn't seem disturbed.
"Now, you don't seem to be from around here, and since I'm feeling a little generous, I'm willing to offer a deal. For a little silver, me and my friends are willing to forget about your wild tales and let you on your way to spout tales of 'Meetors'..." The way he said the word left spittle in his beard. "...to anyone you like."
"Uh…"
I was flabbergasted. I was trying to save their lives and they wanted to rob me? The ungrateful little bastards!
"I- I don't want any trouble here..." I finally managed to state, taking another step back from the man and keeping the pistol leveled directly at his face. "...but if you keep walking down this road, you'll die." I took another breadth, as the pistol began to shake. It was a gamble, but these people only seemed to respect power. I needed to show it. "And, if- if you want any money from me, you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands."
"Listen, kid." The man growled, right hand tightening around his sword. "The only thing between here and Koka are a few hours of grassland. I don't know what you thought you could gain from tricking us, but if you wanted to pull it off you should have tried it a lot farther from town."
Koka Castle? Despite the risk, I brought up the drone's radar-created topographic map of the area to exame it for anything. Beyond the crater itself, the entire landscape for miles was nothing but easy hills and planes. Unless they thought that rock formation to the south was a Castle-
Oh.
Oh, shit!
"Koka's only a few hours from here?" I asked. The abrupt and seemingly irrelevant question must have caught the warrior off guard, because he paused.
"Yeah…"
"Then it's gone." I deadpanned. When I'd first looked at that thing on the drone's radar map, I'd assumed it had been a volcanic neck of some kind. Perhaps not the most reasonable assumption, but an american like me sees a lot more of those then castles, so give me a break. If I'd had the drone investigate there instead of the road, I might have known, but it was much farther than the road, and what could I do anyways? "Everyone there is probably dead."
I was too angry to grieve over a bunch of people I didn't know. There wasn't anything I could have done to help them, anyways.
"Impossible!" He growled, his sword coming out entirely. "The Snake Lord is unkillable!"
Part of me wanted to laugh in the man's face, dismissing his superstition like he dismissed me. Let the bastard get crystal-ed. The other part of me, the one who noted how quiet his sword had been when it had left the scabbard, needed to do otherwise. A man who had pulled a sword on me was far too close.
"Okay, you're going to have to drop that weapon." I started, taking another step back from the madman and waving my pistol. I didn't actually want to shoot anyone, but between my life and this asshole's…
"You think you can order me around?" The man bellowed, bringing his horse to the left, facing me. Right now that sword was in his right hand opposite me. It was clear he was intending to charge after he turned, and at that point I'd lose a good shot.
There wasn't any more time to talk. Steady breathing. Focus on the target, not the pistol. Aim for the head- no, between the shoulders. Don't pull, squeeze.
Idly, I noted the crack the .45 was significantly quieter than I'd thought it would be. Odd, I'd fired plenty of guns in my life and the opposite was true. Even with ear protection whenever the 9mm fired I'd felt like the entire world stopped to listen. What was different?
The man I'd just killed buckled backwards, a surprisingly thick spray of blood the only indication I'd gotten my kill, as the horse reared the corpse away from view and then darted. The panicked beying of the creature as it fled was dead quiet, and was the clatter of armor as my victim landed in the mud. Now that I thought about it, the whistle of wind through the grass had died down as well. Maybe some implant had deadened my hearing, which made less sense the more I thought about it. Had I deafened myself?
Huh. There were 5 more guys out there and I was worried about my hearing.
I turned the gun back towards the cart, to find the enemy in complete chaos. Someone had been thrown off their horse, one of their boots caught in a sturrup and dragging the man along as the horse desperately tried to free itself and flee. The other two riders were busy getting their mounts under control, shouting and screaming as the horses bucked and jumped. The driver of the cart was desperately trying to calm his horses (odd choice, having horses drive a cart), while the man with a crossbow stared at the fallen warrior, dumbfounded. I hadn't thought of gun shy horses being a factor, but why wouldn't they be?
"YOU WANT SOME?" I bellowed, surprised at how loud my voice was. The pistol was leveled on mister crossbow, now, but I with how the first enemy had been positioned I doubted he realised the 1911's power.
The man brought the crossbow up and my pistol bucked, but this time the man seemed unaffected. His weapon blurred as a bolt came loose, flying almost too fast for my eyes to track. My second shot must have surprised him, though, because the bolt flew harmlessly over my head.
The horses hadn't enjoyed the second shot either, as the two mounted bandits desperately clung to their fleeing equines. They'd obviously managed to gain some control, though, as they left down the road. The other two horses were darting in random directions, one towards the tiberium field. The fallen rider hadn't moved since it's ride had finally shaken him free.
That left the two on the cart. Both had dismounted, one rushing me with a short sword while the other hurriedly rewound his crossbow. The charger certainly was coming directly at me, however, putting a bullet in his chest was easy. He face planted in the mud, writhing as I started my run towards the crossbow boy. I didn't trust my shooting and it looked like I had plenty of time to line up a good hit.
Stop. Feet shoulder width apart. Finger on the trigger. Focus on the-
The man stopped cranking his crossbow, eyes the size of golf balls staring directly into mine. His forehead glinted with sweat, while his shoulders heaved with short breadths. This person was human. Hell, he looked younger than I did! He had a family, goals, and desire to live, and I was about to snuff all that out. I'd already done it twice, but this time despite being armed he was helpless.
But what else could I do? I didn't know how I was going to feed myself, let alone a prisoner. There was no way I could watch him. I had too much to do if I wanted to fight tiberium. I already had too many loose ends with those two runners. This man was helpless now, but he'd already tried to kill me once. A second attempt wasn't a matter of if, but when. Unless…
As the .45 bucked in my hand once more, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd just killed a part of myself, as well.
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