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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 73: Slade 275
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 96
“The State values your sacrifice. If you do not move, your families will be spared,” blared loudly as Slade stood in an open quarry pit with thousands of other people in shoddy rags. He took a quick few steps to Shella, and roughly shook her awake.
“We’re in trouble,” he said as he scanned the walls of the quarry rising above them on all sides. A dozen Red Army tanks with hammer-and-sickle emblazoned on the front glacis armor pointed their main guns and machine guns downward into the pit. Between them were several hundred soldiers with battle rifles slung about their necks who were smoking, or chatting, or even peeing off the edge of the quarry into the crowd below. Things did not look good for Team Slade, he thought.
Turning around as Shella rose, he saw that the thousands and thousands of people on the pit floor were arranged in the form of a hammer and sickle. A red line, a circle, enclosed them all on the quarry floor. At the very center of it was a three story wooden tower with a very large bomb atop it. A bullet snapped near his feet, and a soldier atop the cliff yelled at him with a Boston accent.
“Get in line, or I’ll burn you with my flamethrower, you hater.” Slade and Shella were in the pit, but in no proper part of the hammer or sickle. They were in the space between the handles of both, he thought.
Looking up, he saw buildings beyond the pit, and felt a jolt of shock. It was New York City’s skyline he saw past the troops. He had visited here before, on Earth–ah, he was where the Central Park Reservoir had been. Someone had turned it into an eyesore of a quarry which was one more thing which annoyed him.
The loudspeaker atop the quarry blared again.
“Now let us all bend our hearts and minds to thoughts of Comrade Stalin’s return from the grip of death. After last year’s treacherous attack by the haters, the Lich King in all his steely glory will be back.”
A fluttering noise came from a giant paper tapestry of Stalin which dropped down from the cliff edges on the far side of the quarry, but this Stalin was made of steel rather than the human monster from Slade’s history.
Shella murmured something under her breath. She spoke.
“Great powers are being summoned.”
“And we’re the sacrifice to appease them,” Slade said, drawing his sword then charging toward the many-thousand-pound bomb in the middle of the massive spell circle. With his off-hand he began blasting away at it with his kinetic blaster, which he was pleased to note worked in this world, unlike the last one. Bullets rang down around him, and he spoke the words and waved the hands to make sudden darkness appear about him. This made it harder for them to hit him. He also thought to speak to Ullr about speed, but his prey was not running away. No, it was ever closer.
He ran from the cloud of darkness, and a bullet pierced his right arm. He heard Shella far behind him shouting spells, and heard a mighty crash behind him, but he could not look. There was no time. Another bullet struck him, and his blaster took out one of the supporting beams so that the bomb fell with the tower crashing to the ground. Everyone winced, but no explosion occurred. The bomb bounced and rolled around crushing several people, as those immediately near it scattered.
He saw what he guessed was a detonator fall off the bomb, and thought it was now somewhat safe. Spinning around, he waved his sword in the sunlight, and then pointed it uphill toward the guards with his heart intent on judging them for what looked to be a massive act of darkest sorcery.
“Kill them all!” he shouted, and the thousands of them charged even as Shella’s earth moving spell undermined the wall under another tank causing it to fall off the cliff edge into the quarry. He ran forward, toward her, and noted that he was not running that well. Looking down, he saw a bullet wound in his left thigh. Another, he noted in his chest.
He looked up to see hundreds of berserk men, true haters of all that was vile, climbing the stone cliffs or the tapestry with bare and bloody hands as they screamed out their hatred. Slade wished he could join them in the righteous slaughter, but he fell over.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
