Some Sort of Storm

“No,” I said. “No, no, no, don’t go on collecting Human things.” I admonished one of our Minors, Dreth ‘Akhorree, as he held various token items of Human manufacture in his hands. Most of it seemed to be photographs, although a couple of the items appeared to be jewelry of some sort.
“Aw, but sir, these are nice trophies to show my childlings!” said Dreth. He looked through the photographs beside a piano that had somehow fell onto the street of the town we were advancing in, its apartment building partially destroyed by our munitions. It sat next to a heap of rubble. The snowfall that day was light, blanketing the landscape with a thin layer of subzero powder.
“All of that is blasphemous contraband. Put it down before someone else sees you and reports it.”
As Dreth put the items in his hands down on the piano, his shields broke, and a splatter of purple blood squirted out of a hole that suddenly appeared in his body. The crack of the bullet was immediately audible, followed a moment later by the larger boom of a sniper rifle. Dreth grunted and fell onto the piano, his arm pressing down on some of the instrument’s keys, making a discordant sound as he finally collapsed onto the snow-covered gray pavement.
“Humans have a fucking sniper!” cried out Mik. We all immediately rushed into cover behind piles of rubble or destroyed Human vehicles.
“Find that shooter!” I ordered.
Mik slowly peeked his head out of cover to take a scan of the area. We were situated in a small plaza that had collections of rubble, destroyed vehicles, and abandoned merchant stalls here or there, with various high-density residential dwellings and shops surrounding it. What appeared to be the town’s government and a temple of worship were also present. It was definitely a Christian temple, since the tower of the temple had adorned on its very top a construction a religious symbol of two perpendicular lines crossing one another, with the smaller, horizontal line more towards the top of the larger, vertical line. Mik then suddenly retreated back into cover besides me behind a rubble pile. The bullet whizzed by the both of us, striking the ground near our feet, and the crack of the rifle echoed.
“Fuck! I couldn’t see a flash.”
“Sir,” started Tes, our Kig-Yar markswoman. “The temple tower?”
I quickly glanced up out of our cover, looking at the tower, and soon returned to my previous position. “That’s where I’d put you. Take them out.”
“Rell,” uttered Dreth with a rasp. “My… my letter!” He was speaking to the other minor in our lance, one Rell ‘Unamee. “Give my childlings my letter! You promised me, Rell! You… you promised!”
“You’re gonna be fine, Dreth, you’re gonna be fine!” said Rell, helpless behind a wrecked vehicle with the Unggoy. “Just stay awake, stay with me Dreth! You’re gonna deliver that letter yourself, just hang on!”
“I don’t know…” continued Dreth. “I don’t know about that… I feel… tired, Rell… So tired… just give them the letter…”
A pool of blood formed beneath Dreth, and it streamed out of him as he held his arm outstretched towards Reth, a wrinkled envelope of paper in his bloody hand. He grasped his wound with his free hand, which was located on his chest. It was undoubtedly fatal.
Meanwhile, Tes attempted to take aim and fire back at the sniper. However, she was checked by the Human in the tower, who fired at her first. She narrowly avoided the bullet. “Damnation! He has me zeroed,” she said.
“Well then we’re stuck here until we get a Wraith here to hit the tower,” I added. “I’m calling in reinforcements.”
“Wait,” said Mik. He held a piece of a mirror from the vehicle, and held it to where he could clearly see the tower in the reflection. “One of ours is climbing the tower.”
“What? Let me see…” I shuffled closer to Mik, and saw from the glass he held. “Gods… that’s an Evocatus.”
“Nobody ever said one was around.”
“Nobody has to. They show up whenever they are needed, and leave when their mission is completed. They answer to no one in the field, not even our Field Masters.”
The Evocatus continued scaling the tower. He eventually reached the position occupied by the Human sniper, and after a very brief pause, I saw a Human hurled from the tower itself with a scream, and it hit the ground with a resounding thud.
“Oh Gods!” exclaimed Mik.
“He just defenestrated an enemy sniper,” I commented.
“If that means he threw the guy out like a sack of trash, then I agree with you.”
The light snowfall continued, with a very thin layer now coating the body of Dreth, who had died just before the Human. A few moments passed before I quickly stood up, my carbine at the ready. There was no more incoming fire as the Evocatus gave a gesture of ‘all clear.’
“Area clear!” I yelled out. My lance followed me out of cover. Rell approached Dreth’s corpse, and pried from his cold dead hands the letter. He pensively studied it as he was in a kneeling position beside Dreth. Mik went to Rell’s side, and took a knee beside the minor.
“Are you all right?” asked Mik, while I watched from a very short distance, leaning against the vehicle we took cover behind.
“Sir,” started Rell, “if anything should happen to me, can you please take this letter to Dreth’s childlings?”
Mik said nothing for a few moments, apparently taken aback by the offer. He looked at the letter, then at Dreth, then at Rell. “Of course,” said Mik. “But I get the feeling you’ll deliver the letter yourself.”
Rell let out a slight chuckle and looked down at Dreth. “That’s what I said to Dreth when he asked me to do the same,” said the minor.
I noticed the Evocatus descend the tower, the same way he went up: by scaling its side. He reached the ground, passed by the remains of the sniper – which he promptly spat upon – and approached us. “Major, I think I just solved your sniper problem,” he said with a thick Sunaion accent that reminded me of the easygoing nature of the people there, and their hobby of waveriding on the Csudron.
“We appreciate that, Evocatus,” I said with a balled fist pressed against my heart. He replied with a gesture of his own, a unique Sunaion way of cordiality: the back of his hand on his forehead, his palm open and facing me. He then looked at Dreth.
“Ride easy, brother,” he said. Then, he continued walking down one of the streets, then turned a corner and disappeared.
“They’re all like some sort of storm,” said Mik. “One minute you see them, they make a ruckus, and the next minute they’re gone.”
Category:The Weekly