Chapter 3

I worked my dayshift, still getting the odd laugh from my coworkers about the mystery ballkicker as I went about my rounds. When someone asked if I was OK, my standard reply quickly became “You wanna find out?”. Both Andrea and Colleen decided to take me up on the offer. Andy was still my favourite. She somehow managed to be sensual and loving while egging me on during a five-minute quicky. Colleen was more of a Hate-fuck. Her husband ‘Charles’ (who got all pissy with me when I tried calling him Chuck at the summer BBQ) was just generally a total douche, talking sports cars and multiple golf vacations while un-subtly eying the ladies. Pricks like him gave us ‘Good-time-guys’ a bad rep. Boning his old lady was fun because it felt like I was screwing both of them.

I’d thought a lot about what George said and figured that I’d stick with the nickname I’d instinctively given to him. If public interest in the folks with weapons got as bad as he thought it might, then a little anonymity might be really nice.

Having a cute puck-bunny call out your name from the crowd after a game was all well and nice, but having some drunken 40 year-old-dad with a runaway mouth shit-talk you by your real name on your way to the change room was something else.

In my first year of AA hockey, the goalie had nicknamed me ‘Alþjófr’ telling me it was a Norse name for the ‘All Thief’ since I was often stripping the puck off other players in the corners. I didn’t mind it and it kinda stuck (although got pronounced ‘Albio’ by most). I found out years later that the ‘All Thief’ was actually a mythical Norse Dwarf. Fucker was just taking the piss outta me for being short.

That evening I introduced myself as ‘Albio’ to the twenty-odd folks that had gathered in the green space on George’s map. They were about 2-1, men to women and conversation was stilted, probably because most of the people here kept forgetting their own ‘names’. The regular topics that people usually as ice breakers were apparently off limits so at least I didn’t have to try and remember if ‘Bob’ was a doctor or a roofer.

Many of those there has fanciful names written in one of those ubiquitous “Hello my name is ____” stickers. Best of the night was ‘Inigo Montoya” (and if you don’t get the reference, then shame on you). Worst of the night was ‘BloodBlade’. There was a pattern; the more cool sounding the name, the dorkier the person seemed to be. ‘Vixen’ was a short plump oriental girl who looked anything but a vixen. At the other end, ‘Curly’ was a tall bald guy who looked like he could handle himself in a fight, and I might have recognized him from the boxing club.

George called us to order, and pointed us towards two wheelbarrows full of wooden practice weapons. He asked that we picked what seemed closest to what we saw in our vision. I wasn’t alone in bringing my own stuff, having worn my lacrosse uppers with my hockey pants and shin pads. There were a few shields, not many, and a wide assortment of one handed weapons. The largest single group by far had long(ish) staffs. One woman had a two-handed sword and the last guy was fondling a two-headed axe.

We were spaced out into rows, and George started us off with footwork and coordination.

“Step, slash, backstep, block” he called out every ten seconds or so as he walked around the lines correcting foot positions and weapon movements. Axe guy was hopeless, completely unaware that this was a drill to increase body awareness, timing, and ultimately develop twitch reflexes. He was swinging with all his strength, overreaching and stumbling around. If that axe wasn’t foam with a soft pine handle, he’d have killed the chick in front of him already. Twice.

Maybe this asshat didn’t really have one of the weapons. He certainly hadn’t been granted any skill with it.

We switched feet then went on to single lunges, then finally a quick double-lunge. I was starting to tire, but most of the rest of them had bowed out already, too exhausted to continue.

“Cardio!” Called out George. “Rule #1, Cardio!”

I had to give him a point for the movie reference, but it fell flat in a group of gasping office-workers, struggling students, and out of shape moms. Still, it was a great line.

“If you can’t finish a fight, your enemy will finish it for you” George spoke out clearly over the wheezing. “If you can’t run away, there will be no ‘fight another day’ “ (OK, that one was cheesy but at least it was memorable). “Grab a partner or two and introduce yourselves and your weapon. FAKE NAMES ONLY, people! After that, take your new best friends and go for a walk, set your watch and walk for 30 minutes, then turn around and walk back. Drop a pin here on your phone first; I don’t need any missing persons reports on our first day!”

I turned to my side only to see the asshat with the axe.

“Borden,” he held out his hand “The axe I saw is a fair bit shorter than this one”. That was maybe a reason while his swings were all over the place.

“Albio” I returned as we shook. “I made these with what I saw, but it was a really quick look, and I may have gotten the sizes wrong.” I said holding out the small Buckler and blade.

“You probably got it about right, they seem to suit you...” he replied with a smile; no doubt thinking himself clever with such a thinly veiled comment on my height. Dick.

Nobody seemed interested in joining us, so I pointed off in a random direction and we dropped off the foam axe and went walking.

Borden had taken his name from the famous ‘Lizzie Borden’ or so he said. He didn’t ask me about my name. That set the pattern for the next 40 min or so as he told me all about himself and what he planned to do once he ‘got all rich and powerful and shit’ after entering the portals. We were about 10 minutes out from the training site when he stumbled across the pink portal. It was right up against the roots of an old fallen cedar, and we wouldn’t have seen it from the other direction.

It was Asshat’s first time seeing one, and he stupidly pointed out all the details he noticed about it to me. I simply grunted in response, hoping to deaden his enthusiasm. The stupid idea I was worried about came up about two minutes later.

“Let’s go in ... just you an’ me. We’ll split the loot 50/50 and I bet we’ll get more experience too. If we run it now, it’ll block that dork back at the clearing from filling our team up with some of his dorky buddies.” Borden’s eyes were flashing and his greed was palpable. I gotta admit that I was conflicted here. I wanted an adventure and honestly I wanted a fight. Three years at Xavier’s tagging nurses and playing non-contact hockey had me kinda bored. I needed a contest but George had been straight with me so far and I wasn’t so easily going to betray his trust.

“It’d be safer with a bigger group for the first time in” I replied, squinting at the pink shimmering field as if to see what we would be up against alone. “The George guy is probably a good fighter, an’ since we found it, I’d bet he lets go with the first group.”

“Let’s us? Buddy, we found this and I’m going in. You wanna run back to Mr. Dickless back there and ask him if you can go, then fine with me but I’m going in while you’re gone, and it’ll be locked to you for ten days. I’ll take all the fuckin’ treasure too” the asshat sneered.

“You won’t have someone to cover your back if you go in alone. Cops work in pairs, electricians work pairs, there’s a reason for having a partner. Don’t go alone” I reasoned. This twit was going to get himself killed and I’d feel kinda bad if I didn’t at least try to get him to see reason.

“Then come with me! Keep my back safe. Don’t worry, I have a big axe and I’ll protect you in there if that’s what you’re worried about.” He said obnoxiously.

My hackles were raised at this point. This douche was pissing off the only person here who cared about his life at all ... himself included. I knew I was being manipulated here but I also wanted to go into a portal, had my gear on, and had at least one guy as backup.

“Fuck it then, let’s go.” I said, resigned to it. I knew that this was a bad idea but I went anyway. Despite asshat here egging me on, I could’ve walked out but I didn’t. It’s on me what happened from here on.

We linked at the wrists and walked to the portal. I’ll admit that I closed my eyes but other than my footing changing from dirt and sand to a flat stone surface, I didn’t feel anything.

We arrived in a big stone room. There were torches spaced all around the walls and a large staircase descended from the other side of the room down into the gloom. Borden had already picked up his axe and was swinging it wildly about. It was shorter than the foam one, maybe just a bit longer than two feet from the tips of its thin curved double blades, to the bottom of the bulbous handle. It actually looked quite light, not like a double-bit wood axe at all.

My own weapons were off to the other side of the room, the big knife-thing sitting on the small buckler and spinning slowly in mid air. I looked it over as I approached, feeling the draw toward them.

“Hey, you get a cup, fork and spoon with that?!” The asshat called from across the room.

I didn’t even dignify that with a response and reached out to cradle the shield from the bottom. As soon as I touched them they fell into my hands. I looked them over and slipped my hand onto their grips. If the ones I’d made outside felt good and familiar, then these felt perfect. The buckler was heavier than I’d imagined and so was the blade. I could see now that it wasn’t a Kukuri, since it wasn’t bent at all. My money was on a Seax knife. But it didn’t really matter, it was mine, about a foot long blade, and felt great in my hand.

Now that we had our weapons, it was obvious that our next step was to descend the stairs. We could see another grey mist or maybe a portal at the bottom. It was creepy, but there was no other way to go.

“Let’s practice a bit, you know, like moving together.” I voiced. Teams with ‘set plays’ beat teams without them all the time.

Asshat rolled his eyes. “Whatever” he sighed.

I learned to be on his left side. On the right, his wild follow through a could easily have taken my head off. On our first try at it, I had to get my shield down and into his blade before he took out my leg after a wild overhead strike lead to an out-of-control followthough.

“What the fuck!” He shouted, looking at the edge of his blade and stupidly cutting his thumb on it, sticking it in his mouth and looking like a scolded baby. “Ou ood off urt it” he said past the bleeding digit in his mouth.

“You could have cut my thigh...” I responded, irritated, glancing at my pristine buckler. I decided that I’d also be a half-step behind him too. We walked down the long staircase and linked up to cross the grey barrier. As soon as Borden touched it, we were both across it. There was no feeling of transition again, we were simply there.

It was surprisingly bright outside, a birch forest as far as we could see (which was probably less than twenty meters due to all the trees). I immediately turned around to see more trees, the previous portal nowhere to be found.

“Jumpy?” Asshat sneered.

“I said I’d watch your back, so that’s what I’m doing. Where do you want to go? I’d suggest we move as quietly as we can. We want to be the ambushers if we can and if not, at least we can hope to see them before they see us” I was keeping my voice low, or at least trying to. The whole forest seemed so silent that our hushed conversation rang unnaturally loud in my ears.

Borden lead off in a seemingly random direction, his eyes on the forest floor to avoid loose rocks and branches. I don’t think he looked around himself once in the next two or three minutes until he heard me call out.

“Wolves!”

There were two we could see and I hoped to hell that’s all there were. Borden stopped in his tracks and stared, at least he brought his weapon up though.

They both went for him. I can’t say why, but maybe it was because he was at the front, or maybe he looked more threatening, I can’t say for sure. The first one backed away after snapping at his feet, and drawing a heavy swing from my now frightened partner.

Totally open on his off-side, the second wolf grabbed his left arm. Borden just grunted instead of yelling, so I don’t think the teeth had got through his heavy work jacket to his flesh ... yet.

I performed one of the ‘double’ or two-step lunges that we’d just been practicing with George and quickly sunk my blade into the grey animals exposed side. It howled and let go of the arm in its jaws and snapped at me but I had the buckler up and in place by then. Pressing down on the animal I could see from here how it looked more like a coyote and it fur had a greenish tinge. Half a dozen stabs later and it stopped moving. Borden had his down too, had damn near taken its head off and was breathing hard, staring at it.

“See, that’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about!” He said, smacking the corpse one time and working a thin chain off of the stump of its head. I glanced around, turning my back to him and looking for more attackers. We’d gotten unbelievably lucky here.

“Squeamish?” The prick asked over my shoulder.

“Watching your stupid back!” I spit. “Keep your eyes up, a second later and it’d be your head on the ground and not one of theirs” I retorted, all pretext of being quiet completely gone by this point.

“We gotta dig the silver out,” he replied as though I hadn’t said anything. “Guys on the net say that there’s silver pieces in the beasts stomach”

“Fine, but you stand guard and I mean head on a swivel, totally ignore me and look for threats” I replied, already bending to my coyote.

“Yeah, yeah “ he said noncommittally and I decided to pop my head up and look about from time to time. The silver was in a small pouch near the stomach, and it held two pieces, lumps really. I swung over to the decapitated one and started working. Unspoken was the fact that my knife was a better tool for this work. Glancing up I sighed as I saw him eying the necklace, and not looking about. It was silver coloured and has a small pendant, that was all I could make out from here. With no threats in my line of sight, I bent to my task again, pulling out another two silver. I wiped them down and stepped over to him, two pieces in my palm.