AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Satisfied, she went to bed and slept dreamlessly for a change.
The next day Dianora alternated between diligently working at her assigned tasks and making excursions to get her hands on the items she intended to take with her. She managed to appropriate one of the medkits, which contained a number of useful medinjects and sensors, designed to handle emergencies, and hid it in a backpack she intended to sling over her shoulder. The big acquisition, which she was amazed she'd had the daring and the luck to get her hands on was firepower. Two blasters and six recharges to be exact. She’d wandered into the supply hub in the midafternoon, when the dig was busiest and no one much was around camp and gotten one weapon with no trouble from the clerk, telling him a small lie about being assigned to go to the river dig tomorrow to pick up a load of new artifacts. Then when he was called away to attend to a more urgent matter, she’d forced herself to steal a second blaster and the recharges from an open crate stacked behind the ones the man was drawing stock from. She figured it would be a long time if ever before the weapons were discovered missing and no one would suspect her.
Certainly the clerk had no suspicions and she left the supply hub with her treasures safely in her deep cargo pockets, along with the ring tucked into its usual spot.
Isabel had complimented her on how well she’d cleared her backlog of pots and shards to clean and hinted at a better assignment in the near future. “Dr. Soren needs help uncovering the murals in the secondary chamber and you know we’re getting two interns in a few weeks. The students can take over this job and leave you free to learn new skills.”
Dianora thanked her extravagantly, afraid she’d overdone the grateful routine but Isabel left the area smiling. Dianora resumed her self-imposed task of making sure the memory in her handheld was full of the kinds of plans and drawings for technology a medieval society might be able to use to advance its level of civilization. Eventually the device would run out of power and of course she couldn’t connect to the interstellar net from thousands of years in the past but she hoped she could relay a good deal of the information to Garrin’s master craftspeople. The medkit held a device with a wealth of medical information which might be also useful. As long as Garrin’s people believed she was an emissary from the gods, they should accept her knowledge as a good thing, not sorcery. She hoped.
She was going to need a crash course in their belief system in order not to make any embarrassing mistakes. Another item for her endless to do list.
Every now and then small frissons of guilt ran through her. She was planning to upend the history of this planet even more than she already had when she saved Garrin’s life. She was fully intending to inject modern tech into a medieval world, which was another infraction of Sectors’ law. What gave her the right to meddle on such a massive scale? Each time the doubts ran through her mind she’d touch the ring in her pocket and square her shoulders. She’d been picked for this task. Maybe whatever spirit or intelligence lay in the AO jewel didn’t want the Argorn civilization to end with Garrin’s death. Who could ever even hazard a guess to what motivated the ancient alien visitors? All she knew was she couldn’t walk away from Garrin and his people now.
Dinner was torture for her since she planned to leave this time as soon as she got to her tent, but she figured she’d better act normal. Anticipation was building in her though, making her nerves taut and it was all she could manage to converse with people and play a few hands of cards after dessert.
Finally she was alone in her tent. Locking the flimsy door, she packed her backpack with the items she’d assembled. At the last minute she tucked one blaster into her cargo pants, where she could grab it easily if needed. After all I have no idea what kind of situation I’ll be arriving in the middle of.
Drawing a deep breath, Dianora withdrew the ring from its pocket and held it in her palm, while she looked around the tent. She wasn’t sure if she was actually planning to stay in the past—a lot would depend on what happened with Garrin, after the promising beginning of their one night spent talking and kissing—but she felt prepared for the eventuality. Laughing at herself, she slid the ring onto her finger and rubbed her thumb over the big gem, which was already glowing.
“Take me to Garrin.”
She emerged from the freezing cold into a maelstrom of men and Craadil battling each other fiercely, hacking at each other with swords and spears. The sound of the clashing weapons and men cursing and yelling was deafening and the sights in front of her eyes were so appalling she stumbled backward and fell. Blood and the wounded and dying were everywhere on the battlefield in front of her and she’d never experienced anything so horrifying in her entire life. Clinging to a nearby boulder, Dianora forced herself to her feet and tried to make sense of the spectacle. Garrin had to be close by or the ring wouldn’t have brought her here.
An arrow went zinging by her ear, barely missing her and she dodged, crouching beside the rock. Her stomach was heaving and she was crying. I can’t stay here. This is madness. It wasn’t even the danger she herself was in, being on the periphery of this deadly combat, which motivated her. She was overwhelmed by the nightmare of medieval style hand-to-hand battle she found herself in.
“Take me back to my quarters,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the stone in the ring.
Nothing happened.
With increasing panic she tried again with no result and had to accept she was stuck here for now. Getting behind the rock as much as possible, she peered around the edge and tried to find Garrin in the melee. He wasn’t too far away, fighting two Craadil warriors. His men were clustered in a loose circle with him at the center, trying to protect him as much as possible and defeat their enemy opponents. Garrin seemed distracted, as if he was fighting while trying to search the battlefield for something and she realized he must have gotten a glimpse of her.
As she watched, one Craadil nearly took off Garrin’s head with a scythelike weapon but the king ducked at the last second and slammed his sword into the enemy’s gut. Dianora swallowed bile and decided she had to reveal herself. Forcing Garrin to be distracted right now was going to be fatal. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet and stepped away from the rock. “Garrin! Over here!”
He focused on her briefly, eyes widening, and began a renewed assault on the remaining enemy soldier attacking him. Dianora thought he was subtly shifting the battle in her direction. Telling herself he wouldn’t let her be captured or killed didn’t do much to soothe her terror. Let him reach her and she’d be safe though, she was sure. She tried to evaluate the state of the overall battle but had no frame of reference for such things. Were the Argorn winning or losing? Was it a stalemate?
A yell from close at hand startled her and she screamed as a Craadil soldier came at her, eyes gleaming red with battle fury. He parted his lips, displaying fearsome teeth and gave another guttural shout. Her translator handled the new language with no difficulty. “Garrin’s woman. I observed how he watches you, how desperate he is to reach this spot. You shall be mine, little pretty one, no matter how hard he fights to save you.”
Belatedly she fumbled with her pocket, frantically trying to draw the blaster and cursing herself for not having done so the instant she arrived. She had no time to complete the move, much less draw her weapon as the enemy grabbed her by the arm and lifted her from her feet as if she was a doll. He shook her, bringing her close to his face, where his fetid breath washed over her. Dianora tried to punch him but the man merely laughed at her effort.
There was an angry shout and the Craadil spun to face Garrin, who took advantage of the enemy’s distraction over his capture of Dianora and ran him through with the sword. Dianora fell to the ground with a thud as the wounded enemy launched a furious attack on Garrin. She crawled out of the way as the rest of what had to be Garrin’s personal guard came running up to help. The activity was attracting attention and other Craadil broke off their individual battles to come join in the skirmish over her.
With horror and a sense of déjà vu she knew this was the scene she’d dreamt twice, with Garrin and his men making a desperate last stand to protect her and hold off an overwhelming number of the enemy. She reached into her pocket, an icy calm coming over her, and withdrew the blaster. Prior to joining the expedition on Belmane she’d had the basic four hour course on using the weapon but had only fired at targets, never living beings. The blaster was heavy in her hand. Although it was more substantial than the ordinary civilian model she’d been told it wasn’t as rugged and deadly as the ones used by the Sectors military. Rising, she tried to take aim but the fighters were moving too fast and too close for her to take a chance on inflicting damage there.
She raised her aim toward the Craadil racing at them from every corner of the battlefield and targeted a particularly gruesome individual who appeared to be wearing a necklace of human ears. The blaster failed to fire and, cursing her ineptitude, she released the safety and tried again. The buzzing of the weapon was an odd counterpoint to the sounds of hand-to-hand combat. The Craadil she was aiming at fell, although she hadn’t done more than strike a glancing blow of the blaster’s power but she’d disabled him. Emboldened, she swept the ranks of the enemy line with a constant stream of the energy and saw the warriors fall, wounded or dead. The blaster beam set fire to the dry grasses of the battlefield and wind drove the flames toward the enemy lines.
Alerted by a sixth sense, she whirled, already firing and cut down a Craadil who had his axe raised to kill her. Beyond him was another pair of the enemy and she dispatched them as well. The brushfire was raging, the flames growing taller and no more Craadil emerged to challenge her.
Garrin swept her into his arms. “You’ve done well with your godly fire, my lady, but we must withdraw while the flames give us cover.”
Staring at the carnage around her, Dianora dropped the blaster from suddenly nerveless fingers, leaned over and threw up until she was faint and trembling. Going to her knees, she recovered the weapon but had no strength to stand. Sheathing his sword, barking orders at his men, Garrin lifted her from the ground and she clung to him, closing her eyes against the horrific sights of the battlefield where so many had fought. The Argorn took off at a dead run, heading for a line of trees in the distance.
“No horses? No chariots?” she said, more to herself than to Garrin. “This time has a lot of catching up to do.” Dianora bit her lip and shut up, concerned she was babbling.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Argorn appeared to be incredibly strong runners and even though he was carrying her and had fought a grueling battle, Garrin’s speed never slowed. The men with them kept the pace as well.
“Where are we going?” she asked, raising her voice.
