place--"
"Nonsense. There isn't any along the entire length of the ridgeway, and I wouldn't advise trying to camp up there, not with the way the wind can blow in off the mountains."
She grinned and shook her head. He certainly was persistent. "Very well, in that case I accept." She walked under the overhang.
"Splendid! My name is Michael by the way." He extended his hand.
She removed her glove and shook. "I'm Flynnette." She had adopted that alias for when she traveled alone. Being Kuranes's heir, she figured it wasn't a good idea to advertise her movements.
"Please, make yourself at home. I'll just get the fire started." He squatted down beside the ring of stones.
She walked over to the lean-to, taking off the other glove and stuffing both into a pocket of her red great coat. Sometimes she felt self-conscious about its colour, being British and all. She leaned the makila against the cave wall and slipped off her pack, placing it beside the stick. She then unhooked the harness that supported Caliburn on her back.
"That's quite a sword!"
She looked back at him and held it upright on the tip of its scabbard. The pommel came to just under her chin.
"Family heirloom." Which was no lie. Caliburn was another name for Excalibur. She descended from King Arthur Pendragon through her mother. Every member of that matrilineal line had been able to summon Caliburn in times of great need, and she had inherited that talent.
He hit flint against steel. "Is it a claymore?"
She placed the sword beside the makila. "Similar, but much older. You know about swords?"
"I have some small knowledge." His lilting tone suggested he was being facetious.
"Where should I sleep?"
"You're welcome to share my lean-to; there's plenty of room."
She examined it and decided he was right, if she lay lengthwise. Still: "Are you sure?"
"Of course. If you're worried about propriety, while I would love to ravish you, as my guest I am bound by the demands of hospitality to protect you and treat you well." He glanced up at her with a grinning leer, and winked.
She realized he was being facetious again. "Hmph. Well, if you do, and I ever find out about it, I'll hurt you good, little man."
He laughed. "My word, such wit! As Speedy Gonzales might say, 'I like you, you're silly.'"
She removed her coat and hung it over the closest upright support of the lean-to. "That isn't as obscure a reference as you might believe."
"You've heard it before?"
She unbuckled the harness over her sleeveless doublet. "From a friend in the Waking World." It was one of Sunny's favorite lines.
"Ah, so, you're a Dreamer--good heavens, woman!"
She glanced at him and saw him staring at the six pistols hanging in the harness. She had two more in belt holsters, along with a rondel dagger and a few pouches.
"Expecting bear?"
She flashed a lopsided grin. "I get it. In a manner of speaking. I'm a pistol marksman in the Waking World. I feel more comfortable with a gun in my hand than a blade, and even if these are not what I'm used to, they're still better than nothing. Having eight of them just makes it possible to get off multiple shots before having to reload."
Then the shilling dropped. "You don't seem too surprised to see these."
He shrugged. "I've seen matchlock guns before, but nothing like those. Are they flintlocks?"
She slipped off the harness and laid it over the coat. She understood his confusion. Nothing more recent than 1500 could exist in the Dreamlands. "No, they use a mechanism called a wheellock. It was developed just before the 16th century. A spring-driven wheel turns against a piece of pyrite to create sparks." She unbuckled the belt and hung it off the harness.
"Are they common?"
She removed her red, wide-brimmed hat and laid it on top of the coat. "No; I believe my collection is the only one so far, but these were made by a weaponsmith in Ulthar, and he offers others for general sale. So you may see more of them as time goes on." She untied her pink ascot from around the doublet's high collar and draped it over the hat.
"Ulthar, you say. They could make my life a bit easier; safer, too."
She untied the lacings on her doublet and draped it over her pack. Underneath she wore a chemise tucked inside a pair of tight-fitting trousers. "It takes a goodly amount of practice to be a passable shot, and they require a great deal of care and maintenance to keep in working order, but for all that, they're still easier to master than a knife or a bow."
"Might be difficult finding a teacher."
She knelt and unbuckled the straps on her boots. "The smith in Ulthar can show you all you need to know. After that, it's just a matter of practice making perfect." Standing, she leaned with one hand against the cave wall and pulled them off, dropping them beside the pack.
He didn't say anything more, and the tapping of flint on steel resumed.
She walked over and knelt down to watch. Eile and Sunny had shown her how to start a fire that way, but she had had little opportunity to practice. After about a minute, she saw a wisp of smoke rise from the tinder. He bent over and blew into the pyramid of wood, and in seconds the tinder blazed up. He quickly added fresh material, then larger pieces of kindling, and in no time the center blazed strongly. He then stood and went over to the other side of the lean-to.
"Is there anything I can do?" She watched as he rummaged around inside his own pack.
He shook his head. "You're my guest. Aside from seeing to your own needs, nothing."
"I'm a fairly good cook."
He pulled out food packs. "I'm not too bad myself."
"I meant no offense."
He straightened up and came back to the fire, carrying half a dozen parcels. He had that wry grin on his face again. "None taken. Feel free to kibitz."
"I just think I should pull my own weight."
He passed the packages to her and she laid them beside the cooking gear. Then he knelt beside the growing fire. "Would you consider traveling with me? I could use the company."
He looked and sounded rather earnest, almost like a child frightened of the dark. It made her wonder if, for all his confidence and high spirits, he wasn't in some measure intimidated by the huge world around him.
She smiled and extended her hand. "As would I. I would be honoured."
He beamed at her with what seemed like ecstatic relief, and took her hand in both of his. "Then that would be good enough."
He flashed that wry grin and winked as he recovered his composure. "Besides, it never hurts to have a big person by your side, does it? Especially one as alluring as you."
She chuckled. "You are outrageous, you know that?"
"It has been said of me," he replied in a mischievous tone as he unwrapped one of the packs.
Coming in March.
From "Pyrrhic Victory"
Lt. Richard West scanned the barricade as he stood behind the forward squad. The dead swarmed over in ever greater numbers; in a little under an hour they had gone from a mere handful to a mob, and more arrived every minute. Not for the first time, he wondered how and where they knew to come.
A tracer round flashed above him and slammed into the skull of a corpse standing on the roof of a car, the explosive bullet disintegrating the head. It came from the top of a fifteen-foot platform behind him where lay a half-dozen sharpshooters. But even as the decapitated cadaver fell back off the barricade, its seven companions leapt off the crest and charged the line of jarheads at the base. Until a short while ago, the riflemen had been enough to stop the revenants from coming over the top, but at the moment too many came too quickly; another handful followed the first lot, and the snipers had to concentrate on them. Meanwhile, he could see the heads of more appearing over the crest of the ridge of rubble and debris that closed off the cul-de-sac.
The men and women in front of him did not hesitate. They fired at will with their forty-five automatics, modified to accept special clips that held 120 rounds each, and if
the cadavers came within hand-to-hand range, they used machetes. The revenants could only be stopped by severe head trauma. That made automatic rifles and submachine guns useless, especially at close range. Though any form of head trauma would do the trick, a .45 caliber slug or sharp, heavy blade had proven themselves to be the most effective and efficient means.
Even as the squad cut down the last corpse, Sgt. Kaylee Summers jogged up beside him. Though she had cut her luscious honey-blonde hair down to a severe crew-cut, her close-fitting fatigues accentuated her voluptuous figure. He knew she had been a nude model before the Apocalypse, and had once posed as a Playboy Playmate. The issue had come out the same day the dead had risen; some of the men joked that she had been cause. He still kept a copy, but he hoped some day she would give him a personal showing.
He stared at her with some impatience. "What's the fucking hold up?"
"Whateley's still chanting."
He turned around. Behind him, a chain-link fence had been set up. Beyond it were half a dozen mortar pits, and behind those stood a mausoleum. In front of its closed iron doors a tall, gaunt, hoary figure dressed in soiled rags gesticulated madly as he screamed gobbledygook in a harsh, guttural language. What remained of West's platoon surrounded the old coot, and two grunts held a giant book open in front of him.
He glanced at her without turning around. "We're running out of time."
She shrugged. "He did say it could take awhile--look out!"
He spun around in time to see a couple of dozen cadavers surge over the barricade. The sharpshooters brought six down immediately and