Alright, previously Zhanna and Amellia were discussing Aleister Crowley and what they knew about him. They have since began to head out, continuing after him.
Continuing out from where they had held camp the previous night, Seamus noticed the rumble of the rebel vehicles out on the highway that they were using. Such organization was so odd to see, especially from a rebel force. What are they up to? he wondered to himself as he took point with Zhanna. He had asked the others, and the most he had gotten was various grunts and purposeless answers. Zhanna didn’t care, and Grigori, well, since when had Grigori ever mused philosophical? Broussard had commented that it was intriguing, but non-vital to their mission. Even Amellia, his stalwart companion of several years had nothing to offer except that she had no ideas as to what was going on here.
Crowley, the Beast 666, had arrived one day some months back. Less than a week later, the entire colony had come out in open revolt against the German Empire. Such a thing was almost completely unheard of. Between the fact that Seamus had been under the impression that the German colony planets were all satisfied under the Kaisers rule, or the folly of trying to rebel against the Kaiser, the whole situation didn’t make sense. There is something wrong with this whole mess, Seamus thought, and Crowley knows why.
Moving through the vegetated terrain, he tried to wrap his mind back to the task at hand. Somewhere on this planet, Crowley was hiding and they needed to find him. Finding a needle in a haystack would have been less difficult than this, and all five of them knew it. As is, they were running blind, simply hoping that they would sniff out some sort of lead. Hard to do when you are bushwhacking, away from any sort of civilized area, he thought to himself. Amellia and Zhanna, and thusly Grigori by extension, had all agreed with his assessment, but Broussard was the team leader, and he was a very no-nonsense stick-to-the-rules sort of fellow. They’d have to make due with their search at the city itself. They all had some inkling of where he might be hiding. Libraries, government buildings, each option was open, and it was frustrating that they had no concrete leads on where they really needed to look.
The city was still several miles off from where they were, and if they continued along at a decent pace, they would make it there by nightfall. There were numerous ways of getting there fast, but Broussard had shot each one down as it was suggested. Airdrop from an airship was out, as was trucks, motorcycles and just about every other invention they could think of. No, they had to hoof the mountainside to get there without being seen.
As they escape the treeline, a large open hillside several miles across was presented to them. The sun’s rays beat down on them, now that they had no tree cover, and Seamus covered up any sort of unprotected flesh. He noticed Zhanna doing the same. They would no doubt sweat to death inside all the coverings, but that was better than being covered with burns on any exposed skin. The group stopped at the treeline, looking out over the hillside.
“Very open terrain. Not good for hiding,” Grigori observed, saying aloud what everyone else was simply thinking.
“Do you think anyone is watching?” Amellia asked, shifting her gaze down towards where the supply lines were. Trucks and walkers blazed past, oblivious to anything else happening around them.
“It needs to be passed,” Broussard said, casting his eyes up the mountain. “The treeline is follows alongside the right flank of the opening. It will take longer, but I don’t think anyone will notice us there. Moving through the middle, though…” He trailed off the last sentence, leaving the rest unfinished.
“It’s probably our better option. We’ll likely be arriving after nightfall, so why risk it?” Zhanna said, looking up the hill as well.
Without another word, they shifted their movement and began following the treeline to their right, moving up alongside the mountain. Seamus kept looking back towards the rebel supply lines. The lines were easily two to three miles away, but all it took was one sharp eyes observer to notice them and they would find themselves in trouble. Looking back up the hill, he calculated the extra distance they’d have to travel while they moved around the treeline. At least two or three extra miles. It wouldn’t be as bad as he was initially thinking. The treeline was noticeable less congested with broken branches and fallen timber, and the passing through the area went quickly.
It was maybe twenty minutes later when they were up against the mountainside, that Seamus noticed something odd down the hill a ways. A slight discoloration in the long tannish grass. It was slight, and he had to stop because as soon as he took another step, he could no longer see the abnormality. Stopping the group, he paced backwards trying to catch sight of whatever it was again. Questioning glances filled the faces of the other four, but Seamus was far too distracted in order to fill them in.
What was it? It looked like something had moved through the area. The grass was laid flat against the ground in some places, and in others there was no sign. Squinting closer he noticed a large depressed area of grass. It was as if something was laying there. He caught a slight trickle of movement from the region. Instantly he went down on his chest, flattening himself out. The other four paused a moment longer, but seeing Seamus go to ground instantly spelled out for them that something was off, and they repeated the movement, dropping to the ground in a huff.
“What is it?!” Amellia hissed under her breath
“Something was lying down in the grass. I didn’t see what it was, but it was moving,” Seamus said.
“Rebel of some kind?” Zhanna said.
“I don’t know, possibly,” Seamus responded, “It’s too bright out to use an invisibility cloak to get a closer look. And we don’t want to start throwing fireballs or lightning bolts at it.”
“What is the matter? Don’t want a little wildfire flushing things out, and sending up a big sign declaring our presence of the world?” Zhanna said with a smirk.
“That would be precisely the reason, Sergeant,” Broussard answered. “Petrokova, you and O’Hara flank around the left side that we just came from, and try to come up from behind them. We’ll hold here. Keep low and don’t let them catch on to what you’re doing.”
Zhanna and Seamus nodded, and crawling down against the ground, then moved back the way that they had come from. Low crawling against the ground was not the most ideal way for moving cross country, and their trip proved this thought. Being covered head to toe now in clothes helped ward off any sharp rocks as well as any sticks or branches that might scratch them up while the moved back to a decent point from which they could assess the situation. Both of them carefully maneuvered around any dry branches and twigs, taking careful opportunity to avoid snapping them and revealing their presence. Roughly an hour ticked by until Seamus was convinced that they were in a safe spot that they could stand up at.
From where they both stood now, he could only guess right about where he had seen the object. He decided to get a better view, and tried climbing up one of the massive trees to improve his view. It only took a few steps to get up to a decent height and he looked out over the grassy area, taking careful steps to make sure that he remained hidden. Down below, Zhanna sat in a crouch, shifting her gaze from him, toward the field and then back to him in the tree. From this perspective, he could easily see the object out in the field. However the grasses were still high enough to cover up what he was looking at. The area was completely still, making the hairs on the back of his neck raise up in alarm. He knew where he needed to go however, and with an effortless jump, he gracefully landed on the ground right next to Zhanna.
Using a variant on the different types of hand signals that scouts and assassins used, he conveyed what he had seen to Zhanna
Four hundred yards at your eleven o’clock. Low to the ground.
She simply nodded in comprehension and they ducked in through the grasses, heading in the direction of their target. The only sound in the air was the rumbling of the engines of vehicles down on the supply lines, as well as the occasional snap-cracks of small weapons fire in the distance and occasional punctuations of louder cannon fire from bigger guns. Even the wind seemed to have stopped in the area, even though they were up against a mountain side. They continued crawling through the grasses for what seemed like an eternity, before he realized they were almost there. He could not make out the outline of a person laying in the grass, but the details of who they were or what they were doing eluded him. They lay very still against the ground, making little motions. Seamus, noting that their presence hadn’t been detected yet, relayed the information back to Zhanna behind him.
On three, we’ll jump up and surprise them, he said through gestures.
Zhanna nodded, and Seamus began the countdown. One, two, three!
They both jumped up, Seamus holding a ball of congealed shadow in the palm of his hand, ready to hurl it at whatever target got in the way, while Zhanna held two shadow daggers in her hands, coiled and ready to spring if she needed to.
She even took the surprise a step further, and shouted in German, “You don’t start talking right, then the next words out of your mouth had better be some brilliant Tolstoy prose, because you can be damn sure they’ll be on your tombstone!”
There was answer, and Seamus immediately noticed why. What he had been mulling over in his mind as being an enemy spy or sniper watching them was nothing even close to what lay in front of him. In fact he wasn’t even sure what was in front of him.
“What the hell is this?” Zhanna asked as she turned back towards where the rest of the group was now standing up, awkwardly looking back at her and Seamus.
What it was, was a woman, laying face down in the grasses. She was wearing an odd sort of clothing, with a shirt covering his chest and ending at her mid-drift as well as a vest that hung loosely about her shoulders that probably dangled past her waist, were they not flopped out on the ground in a disorderly manner. She wore a tight fitting skirt that was more like a kilt in design, and a set of pants that at one time had to of been very fine quality. Her feet were bare and bloody, no doubt from trudging through the rough terrain, and the majority of her clothes, having the same quality of the pants, were as ripped and shredded as well.
However it was not the clothing that was incredibly strange to Seamus. Covering her body, or at least the parts he could see, she was covered in tattoos. Each one was small, maybe an square inch total in area, but they were layered right next to each other in rows, and stacked on top of onne another. She must have thousands of them covering her body. Each one was a different character and Seamus saw none that was similar to the rest. They reminded him of Arabic letters, but there was still something different about them. It would probably help if he was even able to read Arabic to start with.
A sudden motion from the body caught his eye. Any other person would have been startled, but he realized that she was still alive. A corpse he had taken for dead laid in front of him, and he hadn’t even bothered to check the vitals to see if she was alive. The movement was nothing but a loud exhale from breathing, and as he watched closely, her breathing was shallow and irregular and it didn’t take a doctor to realize she was close to death. Even through all the tatooes, he could see she was beat red from exposure, and her brow glistened with sweat.
Seamus lay down next to her and rested his fingers on her wrist, checking her pulse, while the other three jogged up next to them. They looked down at the body in confusion. Grigori remained his impassive stoic self, while Amellia knelt down next to the body, checking for any sort of identification markers. Finding none on this side, she and Seamus helped flip her over onto her back. Her hair fell out over the grass, and Seamus noticed that it was as white as snow. He got a good look at her face, and paused where he was at. God, she’s beautiful. He sat there stunned for a moment until Broussard snapped him out of his daze.
“What we got here?” Broussard said, with an eyebrow raised looking down at the body.
“Woman. Barely alive. She’s very dehydrated, and probably at least one or two of these scrapes are infected. She’s not going to last very long unless she gets good medical attention,” Amellia said after having completed her diagnostic.
“What’s to debate? She’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. I think she has something to do with this whole situation. Probably somehow involved in the cause of it! I say we leave her behind and let the vultures have her!” Zhanna blurted out.
“There aren’t any vultures here,” Amellia pointed out. “And we can’t just leave her! We have no idea what is going on here! And didn’t the Germans point out that they were having difficulties with prisoner interrogations? At the very least they would appreciate the intel.”
“Which,” Broussard said, “is not part of our mission here. We’re not here to play gopher for the Kaiser’s boys. We’re after Crowley. That is first and only our main mission here. Not to go gallivanting off and playing the hero after every injured person we’d run across. Wars are not run by charity.”
“You can’t be serious! Seamus! Tell them they can’t just leave her like this!” Amellia protested.
Seamus meanwhile was gazing back toward the woman’s face. She had markings under her eyes like some tribal war paint, but they were faded no doubt from the environment. Her lips were cracked from the dry heat in this area. Still they didn’t seem to detract from her beauty. Seamus briefly found himself wondering who she was and how she had gotten here before he realized that the entire group was staring at him. Amellia’s eyes were both frustrated and pleading, Zhanna’s were angry and accusatory, while Broussard remained passive and stern.
“Leave her? What are you saying? That’s utter nonsense! We have no way of telling who they are, or whether or not they are some enemy soldier. Besides, have you ever seen an enemy soldier that looks like this? Amellia-Lieutenant Thatcher is right. The Germans would be incredibly grateful for any sort of intelligence they can get. Besides, do you want her death on your conscience, because you didn’t help?” Seamus said.
Zhanna folded her arms and glared down at Seamus. “That’s not it at all is it, Leiutenant.” She said the title with a mix of contempt and sarcasm. “I think it’s obvious you’re thinking about this, but certainly not with your head. I think you’re thinking with some other organ,” she snarled.
“You are out of line, Sergeant!” Seamus yelled out at her. He rarely actually used her title when conversing with her. Just like an angry parent shouting someone’s full name when they were cross.
Zhanna held out one of the shadow daggers over the body and she glared up at Seamus. “I hope I didn’t hit a nerve there, Seamus. I’d hate to think you were losing your head over a girl.”
“Enough,” a stern voice called out from the side. Everyone looked over to see Grigori frowing at them. Grigori generally stayed out of disputes. Either he was apathetic to the situation, or he let Zhanna speak his part. For him to actually take charge was considered odd. He noted that he had everyone’s attention and then he continued speaking. “It seems obvious to me that she is connected to what is going around here. Crowley is also connected to what is going on here, have no doubt. Therefore, there must be a link, and she could lead us to Crowley, rather than us aimlessly wandering about like a drunken soldier and hoping we find the proverbial needle.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, and then Broussard spoke first. “I’d have to agree with you there, Sergeant Raskolnikov. I’ll bet you five will get you ten that she could lead us to Crowley.”
Zhanna frowned, partly because Broussard was disagreeing with her. But Seamus knew that the realy reason she was upset was because for once, Grigori had not agreed with her, and let Zhanna act on her sometimes sociopathic tendencies. Zhanna knew reason when she heard it, and was disciplined enough to fall in line. Seamus feared the day that Zhanna stopped following orders. However no further protest came from Zhanna, much to Seamus’s relief. The shadow daggers in her hand vanished in a puff of smoke that drifted away into the air.
“We’ll need to hurry. Even if she has seen Crowley, we’re still going to be behind him, trying to catch up,” Broussard said.
Grigori walked over to the body, and with gentle care unfitting for a giant such as himself, cradled the body of the woman in his arms. Zhanna, still storming, but not saying a word, took point, and Seamus followed behind her, occasionally glancing back at the unconscious woman. I hope you’re worth this trouble, he thought, glancing back to the front of the group.
