Stand Up Fight - Part One of Two

Or, What happens when Scott is inspired by Thundarr.

Stand Up Fight

Harlan loved the smell of freshly turned earth more than just about anything. With a plow he'd made himself he could turn a fair bit of it too. His goal for the day was to have the five acres behind his modest house furrowed and ready for planting. The sun would be creeping above the horizon any time now, but it wasn't up yet. He could still see the visible band of the moon-that-was. Judging by its angle he knew the time for planting was coming. Satisfied, he clucked at the six-legged mule and she pulled mightily.

By midmorning he'd managed to get quite a bit done. Birds lighted and took advantage of the worm feast. In addition to making a number of neat rows, he'd also collected no small amount of rocks and other debris. He'd use it to extend one of the walls that marked the property as his. He'd had this homestead for five years now and the fence was nearly completed. It wouldn't stop man or animal, but everyone in this land would know where Harlan's land began and ended. Folks 'round here knew to avoid it.

The wind carried the sound of pounding feet to his sharp ears long before he saw the person. The sound of something crashing through the underbrush told him it was a person, few animals being foolish enough to make that much noise. Years on a brute squad, chasing people who ran just so, told him the person was on the small side. He walked towards the low stone wall the small person would be coming nearest to, laying his hand on the large knife at his hip. He had forged the blade too, and on anyone else it would be a small sword

The woman broke through the tree line about ten yards away. Small branches were tangled in her dirty brown hair and he could see long, superficial scratches on her face. Under the dirt and blood he could tell that her skin had the milky quality of someone who spent a lot of time underground. The fear in her eyes and the raised welt in the shape of a "W" on her cheek told him precisely what amount of trouble she was and was in. Her clothes, the few she had on, wouldn't protect her from the elements for long. He was surprised she made it as far as she had. Mayor Wight's compound was a good twenty miles from here. It was a hard twenty miles too.

When she saw him standing there, all seven plus feet of him, one hand on a weapon, the fact that she didn't run back where she had come from spoke volumes. She barely came up to his sternum, and her arm wasn’t much bigger around than two of his fingers. She continued running and didn't stop until she looked across the wall, waist high on her. She tried to speak, unable to get the words out between panted breaths.

"Take your time, woman. I am eager to hear your story." His voice, a bit rusty from disuse, rumbled.

"I need shelter and perhaps water and food." She met and held his gaze. Even if there was fear in her dark brown eyes, under it he saw strength. "I can pay." Her hands patted at a bag near her waist. "I have money, and that's all I have to offer in exchange." Her words were sharp.

He nodded, thick dreadlocks bouncing against his shoulders. "I see. If I give you anything, I'll ask no more than a story." He looked again at the brand on her face. "How you escaped the Good Mayor's care," his own words dripped with sarcasm, "will be a good start." He held out a hand to help her over the wall.

She did it on her own, planting her hands on the uneven surface and vaulting over. Happy with her little trick, she nodded at him. "You are Harlan Death-"

He stopped her with a massive hand, palm up. "Just Dirtfarmer now. And yes."

For the first time she smiled. "Then I was told right. You will help runners."

He shrugged and returned the smile. Part of him was glad he had a new reputation, even if it meant the occasional inconvenience. "Depending on the runner and why they're running. Come into my house, and we will break bread and share stories." He gestured behind them.

She looked and her brow furrowed in confusion. "Where's your house?"

He turned and pointed. "Do you see the hillock there? That's it."

She looked from the huge, low earthen mound to the large man and back.

"Trust me." They walked around his plowed field and towards the side of the hill facing north. He trod hard on a particular stone and it sunk into the dirt. A door, six feet tall and four wide, slid open, revealing the apparent grass on its surface to be a clever illusion. Stone steps lead down into a well-lit space beneath.

Again she looked from him to the doorway. Tension took hold of her, and he noticed a new energy quite literally coming from her. In the mid-morning sunshine, he couldn't help but notice a faint light surrounding her.

"A runaway and a sorceress? This will be an interesting story indeed."

"You don't fear me?"

Harlan chuckled. “If I feared sorcerers and witches I would have made a terrible bounty hunter.” A growling howl sounded in the distance. Rather than the high pitched sound of a coyote, it reminded him of the sound of the earth shifting in an avalanche filtered through a canine’s throat. He looked over his shoulder. “Get in the house.” He stepped to the doorway and reached around. His hand came back wrapped around what looked like a shotgun, its barrel twined in copper branches. He didn’t look to see if she obeyed.

The cry was a wyrmhund’s cry, and where there was one there were usually at least three. He slid the gun’s action back and forth. The hum of it cycling up pleased him. A cry echoed again through the scrub forest. It came from the same direction she had. If Wight had sent wyrmhunds to find her, she was more than a flesh toy. The dogs were smart enough to hunt by sight as well as smell and they could bring her back alive, if not undamaged.

The scuff of a foot on grass behind him told him she hadn’t gone inside. “Are you stupid? Do what I said, if you want to live.” The small hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he could smell the unique scent of magic building. He swung on her and saw her hands lifted above her head. She had a spell ready. “Save your energy. You may need it later.”

She dropped her hands to her side slowly, the glow around them fading as she did. There was no pout on her face, of that he was glad. She was no spoiled brat, just hard headed. “I only wanted to help.”

“Wyrmhunds are resistant against magic. Your spell would make them even madder.”

She nodded at his weapon. “Then what’s that?”

He looked at the gun. “Something a tinkerer friend of mine put together. There’s enough spell fire in it to hold it together, but it’s as much science as it is sorcery. It’ll put anything down.” He had Zacchaeus to thank for a number of the tools he used to remain independent in this land of rogues and warlords. It was only by working together that the two men had made it out from under the thumb of men like Wight. He made a mental note to journey to the man’s shop before the fire hail storms came.

Harlan nodded at the doorway. “Now get inside and slam the big red button beside the door. If I kill the dogs, I can open the door. If I don’t, you wait down there for three days, pack what you need, and leave.”

She looked from him to the woods and back. “I will. And thank you.” She turned and ran to the doorway.

He was glad to see the door shut. Once he was sure she wasn’t coming out, he freed the mule from its reins and slapped its rump. It brayed at him and trotted away to the back of the hill where it had a nest.

He walked to the wall and knelt, the low construct giving him something to brace against. The gun he held had quite a kick, but he’d need it against the wyrmhunds. The copper vines were safe to touch, though he knew, from experience, prolonged exposure would raise the hairs on his forearms. He braced the stock against his shoulder and held the gun by its pump.

The first beast broke the tree line, smoke pouring from its nostrils. It looked something like the pictures of dogs he had seen scrawled on the ancient carriages that littered the wasteland: long lean creatures of speed and grace. Cross the dog with a gator and give it the ability to breathe flame and you had a wyrmhund, a nightmare of a beast.

Covered in mottled patches of greenish gray fur barely covering a scaly hide, it stood over a yard at the shoulder. Standing on its hind legs, it would loom even above him. Its narrowed eyes the glowing red of a coal furnace and arrowed towards him.

He squeezed the trigger, and the explosion of kinetic energy punched the gun into his shoulder. It didn’t use gunpowder, but there was a booming just the same as the large slug accelerated from the barrel. It split the air and a heartbeat later caved in the beast’s skull. The body stopped running a few steps later and plowed into the grass, kicking up clods of earth.

Two more beasts burst out behind and a dozen yards on either side of it. He had a new round in place before they were even with their brother. He turned and sighted on the one to his left. That slug caught the hound in the shoulder, tearing its leg free. Black blood fountained from the remains of its shoulder. It slowed and toppled to one side, kicking futilely. It looked at him and growled low. A gout of flame shot from its opened mouth, but its range was too short to touch him.

He turned again, this time to the right, sliding the handhold back and forth to recharge it. The third animal was within leaping range, vestigial ears flattened to its head. Harlan pulled the trigger, but was off target by a degree. He ducked behind the wall of stone and dropped the gun, pulling free his long blade.

The wyrmhund landed a few feet away, facing the other direction. This was the only thing that saved him from being scorched.

He came up off of the dirt with the blade cleaving the air in from of him. By the time he was in sparring distance, the dog presented him with its side and was in mid inhale. He brought the blade back down from right to left and threw himself the remaining distance. The blade was sharpened like an axe rather than a sword and was designed to split more than slice cleanly, but the power behind it was tremendous. The end of the dog’s whip-like tail sailed through the air and the blade continued its path to sever the spinal column and ended its travels halfway through the wyrmhund’s barrel chest.

The dog’s continued movement, more due to momentum than muscular control, tore the blade from his grasp. The inner working that enabled the dog to breath flame ruptured and a noxious gas filled the air. As the dog’s teeth clacked together in its death throes, the gas ignited and a cloud of flame engulfed his arm and the dog’s body.

There wasn’t enough force to blow him back, but reflexes honed from decades of combat did the trick. He ended in a roll that served to extinguish what little fire licked at his clothes. A barking growl from the other side of the wall drew his attention. He grabbed the gun and stood, sweeping it from left to right. The wounded wyrmhund, still spurting ichor into the soil, had managed to make it the rest of the way to the wall. He chambered another round and put it through the beast’s head.

All three were dead, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more. His hearing was completely useless after having fired the gun so often. A final visual sweep showed him nothing but the mess left from the three carcasses and a small grass fire. He shouldered the gun using the attached strap, and put out the final flames with his massive feet. By the time he was done, he saw the young lady had joined him.

“What’s your name?”

“Euphegenia Starr, but you can call me Genie.” She looked at his handiwork. “I’ve seen the wyrmhunds take down five grown men.” She looked back at him. “Though I suppose they weren’t warriors like yourself.” He could see she carried herself a little more comfortably now, her body relaxed. He also noticed that she had cleared the twigs from her hair and had finger combed its rings into a less frantic configuration.

“Let’s have a bite to eat and talk. I suspect we’ll have an hour at most before there are more visitors on my doorstep.” He began walking back to the mound, using a rag from his back pocket to clean the blade before re-sheathing it.

“More visitors?” She looked from him to the ground. “Mayor Wight’s men?”

“Yes and a whole lot of them, if I know anything about him. He will know his dogs are dead already. That won’t please him, but I couldn’t care less about his mood. But it will mean he knows where you were last.”

“He can track them to you?”

“I have to assume so. I know such things are possible.”

“I’ve brought too much trouble to your door. I’ll leave now.” She veered off from walking into the underground redoubt.

“Nonsense. You’ll stay. He knows you’ve been here. He’ll cause me trouble, and I want you here when that happens. Running time is over. It’s time to stand and fight.”

Genie looked sick. “I’m not much of a fighter.”

“Dragon’s balls. You’ve got plenty of fight in you. You survived the Mayor. You survived the run. You’ve done more than most.” He ducked down into the kitchen without looking back.

After a few heartbeats Genie joined him. “Thanks again.”

He gestured to the small round table. “It’s not much, I don’t have visitors often and when I do, they don’t stay.” He emphasized the last two words slightly.

She sat with a smile and a nod. “I get the point.”

TO BE CONTINUED