Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

Humvee outside the town’s gates, they determined that nobody was coming. Worse, they hadn’t seen any activity inside the entire time.

“No one there,” Asle said in her most polite “you people are idiots” voice.

Nowak considered the scene for a moment before he popped the door to the Humvee and stepped back inside. “We’ll head in slow. First sign of trouble, I want you to gun the gas. We’ll head out the other side.”

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They made their way in past the gates ponderously slow. They had Cortez on the roof, rifle in hand and looking for trouble. They didn’t find any. It didn’t take a genius to tell that the town had been abandoned a long time ago. It looked like whatever happened had taken out the town as they were building it; some structures were half-finished, while others were caved in and overrun with weeds. There were signs that, at some point, there had been a fire that took out a good chunk of the west side.

Only the sturdier, larger buildings looked safe enough to set up camp. Nowak directed them to the town’s center—a building that reminded Summers of a Norse longhouse, only with more stone and sharp sticks jutting out from it. The grass-covered roofs were in line with his expectations for what elves should live in. The animal bone shrines were not. And there were a lot of those.

“Asle, what are these supposed to be?” Summers asked, indicating the pile of foreign-looking animal bones decorating the front of the longhouse.

“Good luck. Make evil go away,” she answered.

“Uh huh,” Summers said. He already knew better at this point than to ask her to clarify. Then again, he was probably asking too much of her, in general. She was still just a kid. The fact that they could even communicate at all was impressive in itself.

“There’s a well over there. Think we can trust the water?” Adams asked, looking at a stone circle not far from them.

“We’ll find out. Should be able to boil it if it looks clean,” Nowak responded.

“We planning on staying here, Sarge?” Summers didn’t like the idea of setting up camp in a place the natives themselves had left.

“Maybe, maybe not. I want to get a good look around first. Adams, watch the Humvee.” Nowak indicated the longhouse in front of them. “I do know I’d rather have a wall between me and anything this world can throw at us. And I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Yeah,” Summers consented.

“It’s cold,” Asle added.

“There are probably some supplies left over, if these people moved out in a hurry.” Cortez looked over the few remaining buildings.

“Logan, think you can watch Asle and the Humvee?” Nowak asked.

“Prop me somewhere high up, and we’ll see what happens,” Logan responded.

Nowak smiled. “All right, then. Let’s head out.”

Chapter 5: Town

“That is a lot of blood,” Nowak observed.

It really was. They were clearing the homes around the longhouse. Each one they’d come across was marred with black stains on the floors and walls. Every so often, they came across bones that looked vaguely humanoid. One such example had been pinned to the wall with a knife.

There were more than a few homes like that; mostly, they’d found the remains of people that looked like they’d torn each other apart.

“Maybe the town wasn’t abandoned so much as wiped off the face of the earth,” Cortez noted.

“By some other group, you think?” Adams asked. He was gathering wood from a nearby fireplace. This longhouse was thankfully empty, and they were looking forward to using the firepit inside.

“If it was, they did a shit job of looting the place,” Cortez said. She was right. They might not know much about these people, but they did know that when a house had been looted, you could tell the difference. Most of the homes they’d checked still had some expensive—albeit useless—odds and ends lying around. They had, of course, stuffed what they could into the Humvee under Asle’s instruction as to what was “nice.”

“Check this out,” Cortez called over. She was holding a longsword up to the light. By the stains on the blade, and the corpse at her feet, Summers could imagine where she’d found it. It wasn’t like the dead guy would mind. The sword itself was in great shape, even despite its origins, with subtle curves that bled into the hilt.

Cortez gave it a few test swings, the material flexing as the edge caught against a nearby table. It sank into the wood with little resistance.

“Shit.” Cortez started, pulling the blade free from the wood. “My bad.”

“You done playing with that thing?” Summers asked.

“Yeah. It’s pretty, but not my type,” Cortez said as she tossed the sword on the table.

Nowak considered the sword, then picked it up and stepped on the flat of the blade, testing his weight against it. “Gives me an idea, though.”

“I got something,” Adams called over. He had a huge piece of leather in his hands. “I think it’s a map.”

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The “map” was more symbolic than anything else. It reminded Summers of a scavenger hunt he’d participated in as a kid. Apparently, cartography wasn’t high on the priority list in this world. The good news was that it showed the road south of the town that led to a city of some sort. Or at least a bigger town.

The red marks written along the side of said road could only be interpreted one way.

“Means monster,” Asle said, pointing to the red territory to the right. “Big one.”

“Yeah, I sort of figured,” Summers noted. Looking at Asle, it was clear she was tired. Given everything that had happened, and the long hours they’d spent on the road, it wasn’t any surprise.

“You should get some rest.”

Asle nodded