Robert Charrette - Never trust an elf

"You crazy halfer, you could've hit me!" Sheila screamed.

"I didn't." The dwarf popped the one-shot launcher from his weapon and replaced it with another. "If you'd been doing your job, you wouldn't have needed my help."

"I was handling it."

"Your version. Looked otherwise to me." The dwarf shrugged and inclined his head toward the center of the clearing. "I suspect it looked that way to our employers as well."

The three all looked to the elves as if expecting confirmation.

The elves, no longer engaged with their magic, said nothing, but they seemed to chafe under the stares the runners were giving them. The Light One muttered something under his breath and the variegated colors again sheathed the elves' faces.

There came one last burst of fire from the western perimeter, then silence descended over the clearing.

The elves' crystal was some kind of magical conduit, linked to the magical apparatus the pair had set up outside. Through it, Neko could see the Dark One as though through a fog. Behind the elf, Neko also saw flashes of gunfire and the darting shape of a wy-vern. When the Light One" joined the fight, pale semblances of his lightnings flashed upon the cavern walls. Neko gauged that the fight would be over long before he could return to the surface, so he merely sat back and watched. Nothing he did now could affect the outcome.

He didn't have long to wait. As expected, the runners' firepower and the elf's magic finished the wyvern and the other beast in short order. He saw the faces of the elves before they hid again behind their magic and returned to their ritual. The cavern walls echoed with the musical tones from the elven crystal, now joined by lesser voices from the smaller stones in their cages of silver wire. The song was an inviting, beseeching melody. At the edge of his awareness he thought he detected a sour tone, but he couldn't be sure. Light sprang forth from the elven crystal, flooding the chamber and overcoming the ambient reddish glow with its harsh green fire. A stronger, more coherent shaft arrowed out to the cavern wall, opening a path through the earth to the surface that was at once there and not there. The Dark One, arms held wide, walked through that tunnel of light to join Neko in the underground cavern.

The Light One was hard on his companion's heels. Remaining outside, but reflected in the elven crystal, the orks and the dwarf stood scattered around the ritual circle in the clearing, watching their patrons disappear into the hillside.

A sudden roar shattered the tableau. "What is it?" Kham bellowed, as though he'd forgotten he had a radio link with the others still in the woods.

"It's another fraggin' dinosaur!" John Parker yelled back from somewhere in the woods. His voice was faint in Neko's ears; the ork might have been a half-kilometer away.

"Dracoform, you stupid tusker," Greerson grumbled. "Ain't no live dinos."

"Don't matter what it is. Get it before it clears da trees," Kham ordered.

The runners scrambled, converging in the direction of the new threat. Neko heard the beast's bellows, the runners' gunfire, and the single whoosh of the dwarf's rocket launcher. The dwarf boasted over the radio link that his shot had killed, but Kham heard other screams before the beast died, the kind that only mortally wounded persons make. Neko had heard such screams before and knew that one of the runners was dead, or soon would be.

The elves stood, looking back along their magic tunnel to watch the conflict. They did nothing to help. Unsure whether he could use the magic tunnel, Neko hesitated.

Silence returned as suddenly as it had gone. A few moments later, a bloodied Kham reappeared in the clearing. He peered into the tunnel and announced, "John Parker's dead."

The elves looked at him wordlessly for a moment, then the Dark One said, "The large crystal must be removed from the chamber.''

Kham didn't take their cold attitude well at all; rage flamed in his eyes and he went rigid. In the magical light, Neko could see the whiteness of the ork's knuckles as he gripped his automatic weapon. Neko edged to one side, away from the line between Kham and the elves. To his surprise, the ork seemed to slowly master his emotions. The Light One, apparently oblivious to his danger, snapped an order.

"Well, ork. This is what you are being paid to do. Come within and remove the crystal from the frame." Kham stood frozen for only an instant longer, then he slung his weapon in short, violent motions. Beckoning two of his gang forward, he strode into the tunnel, eyes focused on the great carved crystal to which the Light One pointed. Rabo and Sheila were the ones who followed Kham. Unlike him, they glared at the elves as they passed, their eyes full of disdain.

Kham rattled the frame when he reached it, assessing its strength. The highest crossmember was at the height of his shoulder, too high to lift the massive crystal over it. Rabo and Sheila joined him and they set to work. Neko gave the Light One a shrug of helplessness when the elf turned to him. The crystal was too heavy for Neko, and he'd just get in the way of the burly orks. He caught the bag the elf tossed to him, but its contents were neither hard nor heavy the way the satchel had been. In response to the elf's gestures, Neko dumped the contents out, making a pile of the straps and cloth inscribed with arcane symbols.

The orks worked in uncharacteristic silence, no talk, no jokes, only grunts of effort as they attacked the frame containing the great crystal. When their knives failed to cut the frame's bindings, they worked the structural members, pulling and tugging on the old wood. Under the assault of their brute strength, the wood cracked and the crystal rocked precariously.

"Careful!" shouted the Light One.

Kham glared at him, but said nothing.

As the orks increased the violence of their assault, one of the vertical supports broke with a crack, sending slivers of dark wood flying in a hundred directions. Neko saw one of the splinters pierce Kham's arm, but the big ork only grunted and tugged harder on the rest of the frame until the remains of the crossmembers that cradled the front of the stone broke away.

Neko stepped up and offered the straps, which the orks took and fastened into a carrying sling. The wrapping cloths Neko handed to Kham, with the comment, '' You 're bleeding."

Kham looked down at his arm. A fragment of dark wood protruded from the wound. The ork snapped it off and tossed it away. "Ain't nothing compared ta what happened ta John Parker.''

"A piece is still embedded in your arm. It could get infected."

"Den let it! If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die."

"I was just concerned for-"

"Look, catboy. I'm a big tough ork. I don't need any mothering from a half-pint Jap."

Neko took the insult in stride. The ork was distressed at the loss of his friend; the lack of control was understandable. Still, Neko stepped back. There was no need to press; the ork might decide that a "half-pint Jap" was a suitable target for the rage still boiling within him.

"Well, the hard part's over," Greerson said to nobody in particular as the orks finished loading the crystal into the elves' vehicle. In the silence that greeted the dwarf's remark, the elves checked the bindings, satisfying themselves that their prize was secure.

Mr. Johnson called the runners together. "Your services are no longer required."

"What about an escort," the blond razorguy began, and his companion finished, "back to the plex?"

"Yeah," Greerson seconded. "Don't you want help getting that thing home?" "No."

Greerson slapped his rocket launcher. "What if some more of the local wildlife want to play?"

With a disdainful stare, the ejf replied, "My principals do not consider that a significant likelihood."