I stood there for several moments, trying to decide whether Daddy had known and was trying to warn me, or if it was instead a coincidence. After a bit, I decided I wasn’t sure which it was, nor which I wanted it to be, so I stopped worrying about it and went back inside to get Burin and Terry.
The pair were playing poker with the daemon, and it was a rather interesting sight. Terry obviously had a good hand. He was giggling uncontrollably. Burin, on the other hand, obviously had a terrible hand. He actually said so, point blank.
It was apparent that neither of them truly understood poker. Not that I was necessarily a great player, but this was just sad. “Call,” the daemon said.
“High card ten,” Burin said, showing his hand.
“Full house,” Terry said, still giggling.
“Too bad, all I have is two pair,” the daemon said. “One pair of eights… and another pair of eights.”
“That’s not two pair, I think that’s four of a kind,” Burin said helpfully.
Terry slapped his head. “Dammit. Best three out of five?”
“Actually,” I said, “there’s not really much time to keep playing games.” I held up my phone. “We’ve figured out who the man who killed Gregor’s master is. Turns out he’s from my world, and he’s Baba Yaga’s son.” I gave them a quick rundown on Rasputin.
“Wow, how’s Gregor taking it?” Burin asked.
“I think he’s ready for us to go.”
“We should go after him, then.”
“Right, but give me a moment,” Terry said. He turned to the daemon. “What can you tell us about this Rasputin?”
“I’ve heard it told that he was killed for his strange powers in a world that rejects them. In fact, he has escaped death numerous times, as if his soul is stitched into his body. Be wary of him, for his talent is only outstripped by his ambition.”
“I see,” Terry said, turning to me. “I think we may have to employ more than even our usual level of violence to make sure this enemy stays dead. Alright. Let’s go get Gregor and move out.”
We went outside once more, where we found Gregor brooding. Terry made his way over to him, and Burin turned to ask me a question. “So, this is your world, right?”
“Yes,” I answered, “but we’re somehow in my past.”
“So, do you think anyone here will speak the language of dragons?”
“Doubtful.”
“How about the language of water elementals?”
“Probably not.”
“The language of dwarves?”
“Nope.”
“The language of the dead?”
“Negative.”
“The human common tongue?”
What? Oh, he meant Taldan. “Sorry, but that’s also a no.”
He sighed. “Well, at least I’ll be able to understand them thanks to that magic stone. I guess I should have you teach me the common words for yes and no here so at least I can answer simple questions. How about cultural things? Anyone here afraid of torches, for instance?”
It took all my willpower to keep from laughing in his face. “No more than on Golarion.”
“Oh. That’s good. I wouldn’t want to cause some kind of incident.” He pulled out a torch and prepared to light it.
Meanwhile, as we were talking, Terry walked over to Gregor and tugged on the fighter’s sleeve. “You okay, buddy?”
“I am fine.”
Terry reached up with both hands and grabbed Gregor’s face, pulling the man down to eye level. “Now, I’m just going to say this once. Vengeance solves everything. But you can’t be stupid about it. Take your time and make sure you do it right. Don’t be blinded by your goal and lose sight of your surroundings. Some things leave no room for errors. So let’s get this done well the first time. Then we can find my dragon and I can put a few hundred bullets in him. Now put down that rat and let’s get going.”
“Rat? What rat?” Gregor asked. Then he looked at his hands. “I do not remember picking this up,” he said, gawking at the half skinned rodent in his hands. “But, I believe this was squirrel, not rat.”
“Same thing,” Terry said. He walked over to the hut. “And you,” he said. “I want you to protect yourself. If anyone but us comes over here, you have my permission to eat them.” He turned back to Gregor. “I see light over the hill there. Let’s go take a look.”
The two crept up the hill as Burin struggled with his torch. I waited for the dwarf, who eventually got the fire lit and followed after our vanguard. They laid on the top of the hill, looking at something. “We are unsure what we’re seeing,” Gregor called over to me quietly. “We could use your expertise.”
Burin charged up the hill, torch raised above his head. “Oh! A wagon! That’s obviously a merchant. And he looks like he’s stuck in the mud. We should help him!” Burin charged over the crest of the hill and began sliding down the other side. “Hellooo!” he shouted. “Hail, merchant!”
I’d slipped a little getting up the hill – I was wearing stiletto heeled boots, after all – so I reached the top well after Burin had begun his descent. And I was shocked by what I saw. “That’s a tank,” I breathed. Of course, it was a strange, old-timey tank. Almost like one of those bicycles with the big wheels, but in tank form. “Burin! Come back! That’s not a merchant! That’s a weapon of war!”
Burin turned to look at me. “A weapon of war?! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” But it was too late. In turning back to me, Burin stopped looking where he was going, and slipped. He tried to catch himself, but ended up tumbling end over end down the hill.
And, as if things hadn’t been bad enough already, he landed right on a landmine. There was a click, audible from even the top of the hill, and then an explosion, which sent Burin flying about six feet into the air.
He landed in the mud with a hard thud. “I’m okay,” he called back weakly. His torch bounced off of his head and landed in the mud several feet away.
“What was that?” Terry asked me, standing up.
“Land mine, I think. They’re explosive traps people used to bury just under the surface of the ground. You don’t want to try walking through that area.”
“Oh. We’ll go over then.” He pulled out his dragon figurine. “Do you trust me?” he asked Gregor.
“As far as I can throw you.” He then considered Terry’s size. “Which is pretty far, I guess.”
The dragon grew to full size. “Get on,” Terry said.
Burin grew dragon wings and lifted himself into the air, then shouted something towards the town. In the language of water elementals. Because apparently the torch hitting his head made him forget everything I’d told him about no one here speaking that language.
Something was gnawing at the back of my brain, telling me that everyone was being incredibly stupid. But it took me several moments to realize what. “Shit!” I said, dropping prone. “Burin! Get down! Every soldier in this world will have a gun like Terry’s!”
Burin turned and looked back at me. “What?” he shouted back at me. But it was too late. Gunfire ripped through the night, striking Burin, Terry and Terry’s toy dragon, Zeus. Somehow, Gregor managed to avoid taking a hit.
And then the soldiers in the village began shooting at us with mortars. Dropping down had protected me from the bullets, but the mortar explosion that struck the trio a few feet from me hit me as well. I’m not sure how any of us survived. I mean, maybe I got lucky, but the other three took a direct hit.
Terry and Gregor got into the air and Terry began taking shots at the soldiers on the ground. Burin flew in towards the village and cut down a soldier with his axe, then engaged a number of soldiers fighting with bayonets. I drew on my inner thunderstorm and made myself invisible before taking to the air.
From up there, I could see troops all over the village. I could see troops continue to fire at my allies, and another mortar round hit the hill where I had been a few moments before. Burin continued fighting, but took several light wounds from bayonets, and then Gregor and Terry reached the air above the tank.
And then Gregor leapt from the back of Zeus and punched the tank as he landed on it, denting it as if it had been hit by a stone twice his size. Meanwhile, Terry was pulling some massive object from his guitar case.
“What the hell?!” I breathed upon seeing it. When the hell had Terry gotten a rocket launcher?!
While Terry was hooking his heavy weapon to his weapon harness, Burin breathed icy air on the soldiers before him. Which snapped me back to reality and I unleashed a fireball on a half dozen soldiers closing in on him. Between the ice and flame, the will of those surviving soldiers near to Burin broke and they began to rout. But there were still more soldiers further back, and what looked like the crew for the tank running around near the tank’s base, drawing pistols.
Gregor stomped over to the tank’s hatch, rubbed his hands together, then gripped the hatch’s edge. Lines of nanites glowed on his skin, and his hands crackled with electricity as he strained with the hatch, which began to warp with the raw force he was exerting. It only took a few seconds before the hatch gave and tore open with a resounding groan of bending metal.
“Hello!” Gregor roared in Russian. “So who is gonna show me how to get to Rasputin?!”
Terry took aim at the open hatch. “SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!” he shouted in Taldan, squeezing the trigger and launching a rocket into the open port.
Gregor saw him firing, quickly put two and two together, and slammed the hatch shut just after the rocket flew into the hole. There was a massive explosion within. I’m sure several people died.
Terry jumped from the dragon and was caught by Gregor as I unleashed another fireball on the mortar emplacement. “Good job, Zeus,” he shouted. “Go hide until the fighting is over.”
Burin roared as his body shifted into that of a white dragon. He then charged forward, biting a soldier clear in half and then slashing another to death with his claws. It was at that point that more soldiers began to rout. Even after Burin apologized for biting so hard. “Sorry!” he said. “I didn’t realize you were so squishy.”
It was at that moment that I had a flash of insight. I realized just what this had to look like to these soldiers, from the very beginning. Walk with me on this as I lay it out.
First, a strange, short man carrying a torch comes over a hill, then slides down, lands on a land mine. Then, he GETS UP AND GROWS WINGS, taking to the air. And on the hill behind him, suddenly there are two people, a man and a little girl, getting on the back of a metal dragon. So you shoot at all of them, but they DON’T DIE. So you shoot a mortar at the ones still on the ground. Direct hit. BUT THEY DON’T DIE.
And then it’s their turn. These strange people attack. The demon looking creature cuts down one of your comrades with an axe. And the man jumps from the back of the dragon and tears open several inches of steel with his BARE HANDS. Meanwhile, fireballs start exploding around you, launched from an unseen source flying in the sky above, because sure, why not at this point, right?
And then the little girl pulls some kind of weapon too large to possibly fit, out of her guitar case. And shoots a ball of fire into the open tank, likely killing the people within. And the short demon breathes ice on your friends, and then turns into a DRAGON. So, at that point, you’re pretty much done. Of course you run.
The tank crew men on the ground tried firing at Gregor and Terry, but it was clear they had given up and accepted death. Only one of them seemed serious, a man who had somehow survived the rocket explosion and popped out of the tank to shoot at Terry. Gregor knocked him out with one blow.
“Drop your weapons!” I commanded in Russian. “And put your hands on your head. I swear to you that any who surrender will be spared.” The soldiers, seeing their options, immediately did so. “Burin, tie up the prisoners. Try not to hurt them,” I said, continuing in Russian so the soldiers would understand as well. I didn’t want them to mistake our intentions.
Burin flew in, returned to his dwarven form and began to do so. No one else came out of the tank, so Terry dropped a non-lethal grenade into the tank. A few seconds later, there was a loud noise, and Gregor jumped in afterward, pulling out two more unconscious crewmen.
“This is a lot of adamantine,” Gregor said, looking at the tank.
“Maybe it’s just an alloy?” Terry suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Gregor said. “It’s too shiny to contain any iron.”
Burin, having finished tying up our captives, went over and inspected the tank. “I don’t think it’s adamantine. It looks like a really refined form of steel.”
As they chatted, I flew around a bit, making sure no more soldiers were hiding. I didn’t find anyone who seemed to be hiding so they could counter attack, but I did spot a couple of soldiers cowering in fear, terrified that we would find them. So I left them alone.
I’m pretty sure that most of these soldiers were probably conscripted peasants – there were millions conscripted to the tsar’s armies during the period, one of those facts Daddy said I should know for now obvious reasons – and they didn’t deserve to suffer any more than necessary.
Certain that there were no heavy weapon surprises around, I flew in and landed next to Burin. “It’s strange,” he said to me. “There seems to be no magic in the area, aside from what we’re using. Are we in an area where magic has been deadened, maybe?”
“Not that I know of, but it’s really not surprising. Magic was extremely rare during this time period and pretty much no one used it.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Everyone forgot how, maybe?” Okay, so that was only a half truth. I’d read several papers on the subject, but I only half understood most of them. Basically, it goes ‘something something the church, something something superstitions, something something Exodus Twenty Two Eighteen’, and I wasn’t about to try to explain any of that to Burin. So, not sure it was.
I looked up onto the tank and spotted Terry and Gregor eating alchemical pancakes. Without syrup. Heathens.
Burin continued his thoughts. “So, this was your past, huh?”
“Yes. Not the same country, but the same world.”
“I guess it’s a good thing they didn’t have magic. If they did, we’d have been toast.” It was at that point that I noticed he was healing himself up with a wand. He pointed it at me and my own wounds began healing.
“Yeah. But lack of magic is why we became so inventive with our weapons, and are now capable of making things like planes, tanks and rocket launchers.” Speaking of which… “Hey, Terry, care to explain just how you got a rocket launcher?”
“Are you complaining?” Terry said, his mouth full. At least I think that’s what he said.
“Not really. Just curious.”
“I asked the box for suggestions, and that was one of them. It sounded cool, so I had the box make me one. It was either that or a grenade launcher, and this sounded more useful.” He swallowed his mouthful of pancake. “I would have had it make you one, but you know, money.” Zeus finally came out of hiding and landed next to him. “Good boy!” Terry said, rubbing the metal dragon’s neck. He spoke the command word and it shrunk back to a statuette. “Hey, do you think we can fix him?”
“Cortana might be able to if you spend the money. Or you can special order a wand that’ll do it from Zilvazaraat. Though you might not need the wand if Burin knows how to cast Make Whole.”
“Why would I need to cast that when I can make my holes the old fashioned way?” Burin asked, pointing at his shovel. Silly dwarf. Don’t ever change.
Gregor finished his pancake and grabbed one of the men on the top of the tank. “Tell me where Rasputin is,” he said, holding the terrified man over the edge.
“I do not know!” the man screamed.
“Gregor!” I shouted. “I promised them that we wouldn’t hurt them if they surrendered!”
“I do not plan to hurt anyone,” he responded in Taldan. “But I will make them afraid. Make them think I am crazy so I am not forced to actually hurt them.”
“Fine,” I said. “Please, tell him what he wants to know,” I begged the soldiers. “I don’t want him to hurt anyone, but I can’t control him.”
“I don’t know!” the man Gregor was holding screamed. “Please! Don’t hurt me!”
“Tell me your name,” Gregor said. “So I know what to put on your grave stone.”
“NO! PLEASE!”
“Don’t hurt Vadim!” one of the others shouted from the ground. “I will tell you everything I know.”
Gregor’s lips parted, showing his teeth in a sinister smile. “Good. Tell me your name, then speak.” He lowered Vadim onto the tank and jumped down to the man.
“I am Anatoli. Please, promise you will not hurt us.”
“I just wish to hurt Rasputin. Tell me where he is and I will leave you all here.” At some point, Burin had started translating what was said for Terry. Only, he was doing so in the language of water elementals, so it wasn’t helping Terry, who had a look of extreme confusion.
“I saw someone who looked like Rasputin in Akuvskaya. I didn’t get a good look, but I think that was him.” As he was talking, I pulled out my phone and had Cortana run a search for Akuvskaya, but she couldn’t find anything in the database. It might have been known by another name, or perhaps it had simply been lost to history. It was, after all, a hundred and twenty years or so in the past.
“How do I get to Akuvskaya?” Gregor asked.
“Take the road over there. It is perhaps twelve hours by horse.”
“Are you satisfied?” I asked.
“Yes, that is what I needed to know,” Gregor said, cracking his knuckles.
“Then let’s get the hut and get on our way.”
“Leaving so soon?” a voice asked, in Russian. I turned to see the image of Rasputin standing there, perhaps twenty feet from us.
Terry immediately tossed what was left of his pancake at it. The bread sailed through the image, hitting the ground with a soft plop. “Don’t worry, guys,” Terry said. “It’s just an illusion.”
Rasputin looked annoyed, but answered in Taldan. “The shadow told me that one of Sergei’s students had come seeking me. You were foolish to come. You will die like these peasants.”
“Ooh. What are you going to do?” Terry asked. “Blind us with your scary illusion powers?”
Rasputin actually laughed. “I will enjoy knowing that you are dead, child. Or perhaps, not a child. The shadow has told me of you as well. And of the dwarf. Impressive work facing off with your demon. And of the young woman. You will find your powers not nearly up to the task of contending with mine, witch.”
“My only worry is whether there’ll be enough of you left for my spell to affect by the time I’m finished casting it,” I said. “Since Gregor and Terry will kill you faster than you can blink.”
“Bold.”
Burin said something in the language of water elementals, then caught himself and repeated it again in Taldan. “And true,” Burin said. “I’m surprised Terry hasn’t shot you and offered you any cake yet.” Gregor snorted a laugh in spite of his anger. Terry just stuck his tongue out at the dwarf.
Gregor regained his serious face. “You will find that I am not the same man you defeated before. I promise you, when I am done, you will find a way to die, or you will beg for it with every fiber of your being.”
“I grow tired of this verbal posturing,” Rasputin said. “Now, I will go, and you will die.” He waved his hand and the smoldering corpses strewn about the village began pulling together, forming a giant corpse orgy – an unfortunate name, but that’s what Daddy’s guide calls it – and attacking us. Unfortunately for Rasputin’s plan to kill us, it was an easy fight with an obvious weakness to ice. But something strange happened. My spell was just a bit stronger than I’d intended.
As we fought, Terry continued taunting Rasputin. “You know, as a walking corpse, I’ve seen a lot in my time. I’ve seen truly terrifying enemies. But you? You’re a little bitch with mommy issues. What, did Baba Yaga not hug you enough? All of this because mommy didn’t give you enough attention? Well, we have each other. What do you have? Nothing. We’re gonna put you in the ground and keep you there, momma’s boy.”
Rasputin sneered. “Tch,” he said, then disappeared just as we landed the killing blow on his creation.
“Yeah, you better run,” Terry said.
“What’s going on with the hut?” Burin asked.
I turned to look, and realized it was dancing on the hill, looking like it wanted to go, but didn’t want to go without us. Terry pulled out a knife and cut the bonds on one of the prisoners. “Sorry boys, our ride’s here. We have to go.” He jumped down and Gregor caught him.
Looking at Terry, it finally hit me. I finally understood why it seemed significant that my spell had been stronger during the last fight. “Terry,” I said. “I think I have enough power to bring back Emily.”