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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 89: Kondor 285
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 280
The first of the four had enough peripheral vision to turn his head to his right just in time to avoid Kondor’s Krav Maga hammerfist strike on his temple--which meant it landed on his nose. Spewing blood, he went down. Kondor’s left knee came up, and his foot came down on the right thigh of the next of the group of hunters he was set on stopping. This man moaned as he staggered back trying to keep his feet, his black coat jacket flapping in the wind. The third man was drawing his pistol, but Zeke arrived with a flurry of kicks and punches to drive him ten feet away where he piled into a flaming clay pot, shattering it, and spreading flaming charcoal chunks in a several yard radius. This left the last man who backfisted Kondor in the face with a knuckleduster to add weight. Kondor dropped to one knee, grateful as he moved his tongue in his now bloody mouth to find a loose tooth that the man had not enough time to line up a straight shot because that iron bar across his knuckles would do worse than a backfist. Before the man could fully move, Kondor rose from his knee, and charged him, pushing him back, hoping that Zeke would be alert.
He was. The man went over Zeke’s tripping foot, and Zeke kneeled and rapid-fired a half dozen punches into his victim’s abdomen. There was only one left, the man whom Kondor had kicked in the thigh, and he was limping away in the direction he had come as fast as he could. Kondor looked about for Amanda, but she was gone. He then looked for the Guy in Shorts who was enthused about industrial feudalism. He was going off the side of the building, and Kondor ran at him. The guy dropped, and Kondor came to the edge seeing the man using both hands on the rails of a vertical metal ladder to slide down without using the struts. The drop was three stories to the roof of an addition to the Blackett Laboratory.
If he could do it, then so could Kondor, the new secret agent decided. Jumping into position, he dropped, the palms of his skin starting to burn before he almost yanked himself to a near stop. Spinning about he ran for the guy who was trekking fast between air conditioning units and across the flat gravel roof to the far side of the building. Kondor got closer and saw with dismay that the guy was heading toward a pair of three inch wide metal pipes that came up over the side.
The guy turned at the last.
“Long way to fall,” he said, and stepped off. Kondor raced to the edge, and saw the guy was sliding down the two pipes to the ground. Worse, he had to let go and grab again to get around some brackets on the wall. Almost Kondor said ‘no, no, not doing this’ but the cheerful cocky face of the guy pushed him onward. More carefully he went over the edge, and began to drop.
First he was too slow, and he hung, and then he was too fast, and he almost banged his hand into a bracket. By the second floor, he felt he had it, and came to a jolting stop on the ground. The guy had turned left some and was now running down a regular roadway with college buildings on both sides. Kondor set out after him, more comfortable with a three hundred foot dash than with pipe dropping. He was closing the distance, but his boots were not very stealthy so the guy looked over his shoulder and saw him.
He ran into traffic causing honks and screeches as he crossed the road, putting on more speed--but Kondor put on even more. The guy ran at a wall with a bench short of it and a walkway above it. In two steps he went to the seat between two seated girls and to the back of the bench and leapt to catch the bottom of the walkway’s railing.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Kondor said smoothly as he charged up to them. They giggled, and got out of his way, and he went up after the guy, who had gotten to the walkway. Clambering over the sturdy wide railing, he dropped to his knees, got back up, and began running again. The chase continued down the semi-enclosed walkway, and then the guy vanished through a small crowd.
Coming up to them, Kondor slowed. In front to his right was Dalby Court, an open area covered by stone blocks.
“Excuse me, did you see which way he went?”
The eight of them looked at him, and then one spoke.
“Hey, he’s polite; the other guy wasn’t when telling us to say nothing.” At that all of the eight pointed down to an almost hidden staircase to the right and back. Thanking his guides, he bolted down this, taking three and four steps at a time, thankful for the support of his combat boots to his ankles. Running out into the green wet lawn of the Queen’s Court, he saw the Queen’s Tower on the far side. The two-hundred-fifty-foot tall tower reached far higher than most of the college. The guy was heading toward it, but he was swaying and panting as he went.
Kondor felt the strain too, but he pushed back the stress and ran for it. It was another dash. The guy got to the Queen’s Tower and around the side first. Playing a hunch, Kondor went around the other side, and met the guy coming toward him twenty feet away. The guy looked and tried to turn, but Kondor put on one last burst and got to him, and put a heavy arm on the guy’s now sweat-soaked shirt.
“So you going to kill me now?”
“That’s not the plan, sir. Amanda said you were naive and idealistic, but a good guy.”
“So she betrayed--me.”
“No.” Kondor felt surprised at how that comment angered him. “No,” he said softer. “She saw a pack of four hunters come to kill you, and I stopped them, but she had to give you up to get me to do so.”
“Who are you then?”
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” Kondor vaguely remembered some politician saying that those were the scariest five words you could hear, or something like that.
“Oh, great. Maybe you could have the decency to send me back to my killers. At least they wouldn’t make me fill out a thousand forms.”
“Now who are you?”
“I’m Merlin of the Knights of Camelot. We quest to make Britain lovely.”
“Who is Amanda? Nimue? Morgana La Fey? Guinevere?” Kondor’s lips twitched. Even if the guy was older, he seemed in some ways like a twelve year old, full of energy and nerve and wild ideas, and Kondor could not see him trying to kill anyone. He might get himself killed though.
“The Saracen Sorceress. She does not subscribe to our ideals, but we both in our own ways fight against the Darkness.”
Other students were walking past them, glancing their way, and before someone could call a bobby, Kondor needed to get out of here with Merlin number two. He was beyond certain this fellow was not the verser Merlin that Slade and Lauren had mentioned.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #531: Versers Roam. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
