Piper’s home town looked pretty much the way I’d left it. Cold, damp, cheery and a tad drunk on ale.
“Jericho, my friend,” a blacksmith by the name of Olger said to me, smiling broadly and clapping me on the shoulder, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”
Olger was the one who’d made the awesome double-bladed battleaxe for me and was a great guy. “I forgot a friend of mine who happened to be kidnapped by your enemies, Olg, nothing more.”
Nodding knowingly, like kidnapped friends were the absolute norm on Svalbard, Olger said, with a friendly hand on my shoulder, “Aye. Had me a friend kidnapped by the southern tribes once.”
“Really? What became of her- uh, him?” I asked carefully.
Shrugging, the blacksmith said, “Never saw him again. Heard he was flayed from neck to belly and mounted on stakes.”
Piper must’ve seen the look on my face at the mentioning of flaying and staking because she cut our village visit down to a few minutes. Bulwark the Mighty wasn’t too keen on Piper escorting me behind enemy lines but, because he and I were old chums who used to sit beside one another on the Thursday night war council meetings, he let us go.
Actually, I might’ve thought I was losing him and decided to throw in that we’d also look around for any signs of his older brother while we were out and about around the enemy camps, which was probably the only reason he said yes. He also insisted, since I had somehow lost my weapons I’d had not a hour ago when I left, that I take his weapons.
“No thanks, Bulwark,” I told him. “I don’t plan on coming back afterwards and I’d hate for Piper to have to tote all of your stuff back. This is just a pit stop,” I said, winking at him.
So after I’d acquired a two-handed great-sword slung on my back with a bow and quiver, I was ready to go. Piper was more of a shield kind of gal and not a big fan of heavy weapons, choosing instead to rock a one-handed sword so she could have her precious shield. In exactly two minutes, the both of us were standing next to our mounts, fully equipped for our journey. Since I was trying to hurry, I didn’t take the time to garb myself from head to toe in Viking clothes, which I hated to not do because they were so comfortable. I did lose my Nazi long coat, though, exchanging it for a small form-fitting sleeved coat of mail and a few wolf skins around it.
Also, just FYI, finding a suit of mail small enough for me wasn’t easy. And if Piper ever tells this story and her version says that I had to borrow the mail from her--
It’s true. Just saying.
Also the mail went great with my black Chuck Taylors. What can I say, black goes great with pretty much everything.
I stepped up into the saddle of my black and white war horse and checked my glove. Four hours and fifty minutes left. “You ready, dear?” I asked Piper as she climbed into her saddle.
“I was going to ask you that,” she told me, causing me to frown because Chloe had said the exact same thing to me once.
My reply was a heel to my horse, “Peace, all,” I called over my shoulder, “I’ll be back one day. You guys rock.”
So with that, the two of us, aided by the cheers of our Viking comrades at our backs, left the village and went in search for the helpless Russian girl from 2340.
We hit the snow-covered ground hard, turning our mounts west and kicking them into high gear. They just don’t make horses like they used to, is all I’m going to say. Your average 2012 steed wouldn’t have probably made it to four hours left on my glove, let alone two and a half hours left like the Viking mounts accomplished. We stopped by an icy creek, dismounting and leading the lathered beasts to it and letting them get a good drink.
“How much further?” I asked, checking my gauntlet while leaning against a bare tree. “’Cause my legs are killing me.”
“Another hour to the first camp.” Piper said, patting the neck of her tired horse, “The next one is another half hour or so from that one but the good thing is we’ll know whether or not your friend is in either one of them from a distance if our timing is right.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Let’s get moving,” I said, pulling the reins of my horse in mid-drink.
“They need more time, Jericho.”
“Well, what do you freakin’ know? So do I.”
Piper stepped in front of me, putting her hands on my chest softly yet with some firmness, “If you kill or lame the horses, you surely will not have the time you so desperately need.”
“Get out of my way, Piper.”
“Make me.”
We stood there for what seemed like a long time with our eyes locked while my poor horse was pulling at his reins trying to get at the water again. I don’t know what came over me. I mean, my body has been guilty of doing stupid things without first consulting my brain. Who’s hasn’t, right?
I let go of the reins, “Come here,” was all I said, pulling her into a hug. She didn’t resist at all and wrapped her arms around my waist, placing the side of her head on my mailed chest. It wasn’t the most amorous of hugs. I mean, with her arms around my waist and my arms kind of around her head with a hand on her hair, it kind of felt like more of a comforting hug.
“Sorry, Pipe. I know you’re doing a lot for me, here,” I said and I felt her melt into me.
“I don’t even know who she is,” I heard her mumble.
“She’s a Russian girl from the year 2340 with some anger issues.” I said, stroking her hair with--geez, not the gauntlet--I switched hands so as not to electrocute or cut her head off and kept stroking blonde hair. “Her father made the gauntlet and he’s in danger right now and we’re the only people who can help him. Chloe not dying is at the top of my to-do list at the moment.”
Piper pulled away a little, looked me in the face again, and then placed a cold hand on my cheek. “How is this any of your responsibility? How can anyone from anytime other than your own be any reason to risk your life? Even me. What am I to you?”
The question wasn’t a hard one. Nor was it one that I hadn’t been expecting anyone I met in my travels to ask me. “You’re my friend,” I told her, “So are the rest of your brethren. And so is Chloe.”
Wow. Did I really just give a Viking warrior chic from 794 A.D. the friend zone bit? Really, Jericho? Annoying as it was, I did, in fact, give her the “just friends” speech in my own roundabout way.
“Just a friend?” Piper asked, one side of her mouth lifting into a smile, or was that a smirk? Her index finger did something to my sideburn that felt great and made me want to close my eyes and go to sleep.
I reached up and covered her hand with mine. “That’s all I got right now, Piper. But I got to say, I do so love this little island of yours.”
“Thanks. Made it myself.” She said, smiling and showing her white teeth that I loved.
“Shut up,” I told her, shoving her away and laughing, “Look at us laughing in the face of danger like a couple of champs.”
It really was crazy. More so after we waited till I had two hours left on my clock before mounting up again on our halfway refreshed horses. We rode in silence for what seemed like fifty-three minutes- because that’s exactly how long we’d been riding in silence before Piper, who was in the lead, held up a hand and we stopped in a small outcrop of trees.
“How much longer do you have?” She asked as she stepped down into the deep snow.
“Hour and seven minutes.”
“Not too bad,” Piper stated, pulling off her bow, “Better make it count, though.”
We tied the horses to a few smaller trees and exited the outcropping. The first sounds of revelry were heard from afar and within minutes we could see the first enemy village. Piper crouched down at the top of a hill that overlooked the rather small village. “She’s not here.”
“What?” I asked, squatting beside her, “How do you know?”
“It’s a gift. She’s not here.” She said simply, standing quickly, “We need to hurry. If Chloe’s captor didn’t stop here then we might catc
h her before she makes it to the other village.”
After we made it back and exited the small section of trees on our horses, I asked, “What do you mean it’s a gift?”
Reaching a hand to her neck, Piper pulled down her snow-fox pelt, exposing her right collarbone- and the horrific burn on it. “The southern war-bands have a way of welcoming women captives into their camps.”
My mouth was hanging open for a while before I regained enough composure to ask, “When did it happen?”
“When I was twelve. A lot of us were taken during the border wars back then.” She said casually, like she was talking about how deep the snow got at this time of year. “Since I was so young, they put me to work in their meat huts and tending to the sheep. Some of the older women weren’t so lucky. There’s a lot more noise involved so she’s not here.”
I was starting to catch on to what she was saying and I was also starting to feel sick. Geez, but could this day get any worse?
Then my horse tripped in a hole and broke its right front leg.
So yeah, I suppose the day could and did get worse.
Since I was so high off the ground on the mountainous beast, I was somehow flung forward and ended up with a mouthful of snow instead of being crushed by my ride.
“Are you hurt?” Piper asked urgently, stopping her horse beside me as I climbed to my knees and started trying to knock snow off.
“I’m not dead.” I confirmed. By this time my horse was making the most pathetic of noises, grating on my ears. Standing, I started for it, pulling the great-sword off my back, “Sorry, pal,” I said, and meant it. “I’ll never forget you, homie.” Then I finished the job.
You know how I said once that blood and sand mix a little too good? Well, blood and snow is a ba-jillion more times worse.
Mainly because it looks like a strawberry daiquiri snow-cone.
“Let’s go,” I said, accepting Piper’s hand and climbing up behind her. In spite of all the unfortunate events that had taken place in the last few hours, I still was able to somehow say, while I adjusted in my seat and wrapped my arms around Piper’s waist, “Man, you smell good.”
Laughing, Piper kicked our last hope and we were off.
And she did smell good. Kind of like an earthy, warm yet cool scent that a guy could get lost in. The wonderful smelling ride lasted another half hour or so and I really must’ve been lost in the scent, or something weird, because I didn’t look at my gauntlet until we stopped a little outside of the village.
Nineteen minutes left and counting. “Okay, so what’s the plan here?” I asked after we’d both dismounted and started for the seriously loud town. And when I say loud, I mean, like, really loud. It sounded like the Super Bowl of the Vikings.
Ha. Like the Vikings will ever get to the Super Bowl.
See what I did there?
“Get inside and find your friend.”
“Don’t forget to do it in less than eighteen minutes, also.” I threw in.
Close to the town I produced Chloe’s gauntlet she’d dropped and put it on my left hand. This had been an idea of mine since I’d first met Chloe in Rome and saw that she was sporting a left-handed glove. “This is my first time,” I told Piper, “So don’t judge me.”
Piper frowned in confusion while I turned and aimed both hands at nothing in particular, firing off two bolts of white-blue electricity that reached almost fifty yards. I smiled broadly and looked at my hands, the bright lights in the palms of both gauntlets fading slowly and made me feel like a lightning mage.
Fan-freakin’-tastic.
A crude, sorry excuse for a town gate was standing wide open when we entered the town quietly- except I’m not sure why we were sneaking due to the racket the town’s occupants were making. “What’re they doing?” I asked nervously, following Piper through the empty streets.
“Branding captives is a real treat here,” Piper said, “Kind of like their entertainment.”
Then we made it to the town square with fourteen minutes left.
Wait--is it making you nervous with me letting you know every time a minute or two ticked by without us being even close to saving Chloe?
Well, good. Imagine how I felt right about then, whoever-you-are.
The square was packed to overflowing with Vikings who were all cheering and looking toward the center, which is where I spotted Chloe. She seemed to be doing a lot better than you’d expect a captive to be doing. I mean, she was still wearing all her clothes, her lip wasn’t bleeding and she seemed to have all her body parts. She didn’t look like she was having the most grand of times, though, if the horrified expression on her face was anything to go by.
Two armed guards stood on either side of Chloe, escorting her to the center of the screaming mob and onto what looked like gallows, which made me gasp, except that it was missing the whole gallow part of gallows that make them all, you know, gallowy.
So it was basically a stage.
Checking my right gauntlet, I saw that I had twelve minutes left. Just wow.
I had no plan. Like, zero plan. I mean, there was always the ol’ snatch & grab maneuver but with a helheim of a load of screaming Vikings crammed into a town square to stop me, I was thinking that the odds of landing that trick were slim.
Except that none of the said screaming Vikings had handfuls of lightning like yours truly.
“Alright, Pipe, here’s the deal…” I started, explaining my outrageous plan to save Chloe, who had just been forced to her knees by the two guards.
Eleven minutes.
Screaming to try and get attention away from Chloe and on me was impossible due to abundance of screaming already going on so I decided to jolt them another way.
Har har har. I’m here all week, folks. Ba-bomp-bomp.
When I was six a couple of schoolmates of mine and I liked to play with a farmer’s electric fence by one of us grabbing it and then making a chain of bodies so we’d all get a little of the juice.
A version of that grade school fun happened when I shot my bolt of lightning into the crowd on my left- only about fifty ba-jillion times worse.
(Oh, Jericho! But what about the children)?
I’m glad you asked that--I’m also glad to inform you that I wasn’t caring about the offspring of the demented warriors when I sent another jolt into the crowd on my right. Plus, it didn’t kill anyone. It just kind of hurt them really, really, really, really bad!
I made a mad dash through the disoriented and hurting crowd toward the stage Chloe was on. “Chloe!” I yelled at her, waving my arms like a madman.
I wasn’t really trying to que her to do anything. Honestly I was just trying to let her know that Jericho Johnson was on the case and that everything was under control- then someone grabbed me from behind and threw me down, commencing to plant several hard stomps to my back and shoulders. I think it was the third time my face smashed on the ground that my eyes caught sight of my glove.
Ten minutes.
Before whoever was tap dancing on me could finish his painful performance, I rolled to my right and saw that my attacker happened to be the very woman who’d taken Chloe captive. She didn’t look too surprised to see me so I was thinking she’d been expecting me. Since I wasn’t feeling like Maximus the Merciful, I let loose two bolts from both hands at the poor chic standing not three feet away, sending her flying through the air and landing in a shaking heap almost fifteen feet away.
I kicked back onto my feet, which was one of the first things Evonne had taught me to do, and looked around for Chloe in the crazy town square. People were running away and screaming like Odin himself had shown up with a vengeful vehemence against them.
I couldn’t see her and started panicking. Where had she gone, anyway? She had been right on the stage and then, poof, she’d vanished. I ran to the stage and up the stairs, scanning the wild crowd for any sign of Chloe.
“Ah, c’mon…” I growled to myself.
Then I saw her being dragged away by her two gua
rds on the other side of the square. Well, they were both dragging her until one of them got an arrow in his back from Piper, who I had told to get on the nearest roof she could and provide cover fire and she seemed to be doing a bang up job of it, too.
All Chloe needed was for one of the guards to let go of her and she went to work. With her hands bound and ankles shackled together, Chloe jumped into the air and planted both of her feet into the remaining guard’s chest, sending him sailing into a rock wall. I leaped from the stage and ran toward her, jolting anyone who got in my way as I traversed the maddening street.
“Did you really think I’d let you out of our date that easily?” I asked Chloe, skidding to a stop beside her.
Chloe was breathing hard when she shrugged. “A girl has to keep trying, I suppose.”
“Yeah, well, stop,” I said, cutting the ropes that held her hands like hot butter with the sharp point of one of the gauntlet fingers. “No chance of cutting through the shackles like that, huh?”
Before she could answer we both saw several attackers rallying from both sides of us.
“Please tell me you’re not out of ideas,” Chloe said, examining the opposition.
“Not just yet,” I said, grabbing her around the waist and firing off my grappling hook.
Okay, I’m going to stop here and explain the whole grappling hook mechanics so you don’t get this whole super-hero-ish, Batmanny vibe from it.
Here’s the thing- or what I knew of it at the time because I forgot to ask Dr. Sparks just how it worked and also why it was there in the first place. I mean, where did the guy get the idea that a grappling hook needed to be installed on a time-traveling device?
Not that I was asking that when I used it to save Chloe and I from death.
The anchor part that, uh, anchors, I guess, into anything I shoot it at comes out of the palm of the glove from the same place, after I select the grappling hook setting, the bolts of electricity come from. It looked like a mini version of a claw game and clamps on or into anything it hits and then would let go without resistance once I got to it. It was also a tiny thing- I mean, for something that is supposed to hold my weight while it zips me around on a wire that’s so small it’s almost not visible.
Let me also point out to all you gamers, fan boys, comic book junkies or anyone else with nerd-like tendencies that the grappling hooks you’ve read about, seen or used in a game aren’t very realistic.
I mean, do you know how fast someone has to be pulled to maintain a diagonal line for almost thirty feet from the ground to a roof?
About a bone-shattering one-hundred and fifty miles per hour.
So when I say I used the grappling hook don’t get this mental picture of me zip lining around like a freakin’ comic book, because I didn’t.
My anchor sunk into a beam on the peak of the nearest roof and Chloe and I ran toward the wall as it began pulling us quickly. It wasn’t the easiest thing I’d ever done and quite frankly I’m not even sure how we managed to kind of run up the wall and to the top of the steep roof while we held onto each other the whole miraculous way.
However it was accomplished is irrelevant considering we escaped a lot of angry Vikings in the process. I checked my gauntlet.
Six minutes.
“What now?” Chloe asked me.
I saw Piper a few roofs away and waved to her. Returning the wave, she started her descent to the ground. “Meet up with Piper and get the heck out of here is my plan. Unless you just want to stick around and see what happens when I’m gone in five minutes.”
An arrow hit the beam we were straddling and we glanced at the street to see a handful of the more not-so-conservative Vikings had started sailing arrows at us. Chloe rolled sideways to the other side, grabbing the beam and laying down on the steep pitched roof.
I had other plans.
Standing, I held my hands almost a foot apart facing palms and shot my bolts into each other.
I’m not sure what I’d been expecting and I’d probably watched way too much anime for my own good, but the results weren’t too shabby, if I do say so myself.
When connected, the bolts formed together into a sort of ball. I was holding a freakin’ ball of lightning, man. Did I feel awesome? Yes, I did.
The only problem was, if you guys remember from the beginning of this tale, I could only hold a steady stream of the stuff for close to thirty seconds. I’m guessing that when combined into a potent ball of juice that time was reduced drastically because I began to feel warmth in the palm of both my hands and I could’ve sworn I saw smoke. So I wasn’t able to maintain my awesome feeling of bodacity for very long before I tossed the ball back into the Vikings court.
Har har har. Didn’t I say I’d be here all week?
Again, I didn’t know what to expect from what was supposed to me my deal-breaking finishing move. I mean, what if it had hit the ground and did what most electricity does when grounded and fizzled out, or something lame like that?
These were my thoughts as the lightning the size of a small beach ball landed amongst the attacking Vikings.
My next thoughts were that I hope there weren’t any kids down there because this time I did feel bad.
Chloe wasn’t touched at all by the ramifications of my bolt-bomb, unlike me, who, after the explosion was blown off my feet, landing on my back on the steep roof. I would’ve slid off had Chloe not grabbed my ankle.
“Four minutes, toots,” I shouted at her through all the noise of sheer pandemonium and loud crackles of electricity, “Let’s blow this joint.”
It took too long to get outside the crazy town.
Two minutes.
“Never freakin’ again!” I shouted, limping quickly after Chloe and Piper. My ears were ringing and one was bleeding and I couldn’t feel my back for some reason. I was guessing I wasn’t paralyzed because I was, you know, running, but it still wasn’t the best feeling. Then I ran into Piper because she’d stopped suddenly.
“What about Bjourn?” She asked, glancing back at the village we’d just exited, which now had large pillars of smoke billowing from it into the sky. I was about to tell her that he was out of luck when, you’re not going to believe this because I was there and I still couldn’t, Bjourn the Berserker, speaking of the devil, ran out of the town gates, his bound hands clutching a bloodied broadsword and his ankle shackles broken.
“Wow.” I said, feeling a tad dizzy after my brilliant bolt-bomb maneuver. “Dude’s a soldier, ain’t he?”
Ninety seconds.
“Jericho,” Bjourn said, smiling broadly for a guy who’d been a prisoner for almost two weeks. “Back so soon?”
“I forgot a friend of mine,” I said.
Like Olger had done, Bjourn nodded knowingly like what I’d just said was a very normal thing. “Well, thanks for the diversion. It was enough for me to make an escape.”
I sliced his bonds and saw that I had one minute left. “No worries, friend. Try to not let the bards destroy my faithful deeds in wild verse, Bjourn,” I said, smiling at him and extending a hand. “You’ve been great.”
Shaking my gauntlet-clad hand, he placed a hand on my shoulder and assured me that while he still drew breath, he would not stand for any wild songs written by any bard.
Thirty seconds.
“There’s a horse in the outcrop for you and Piper to make it back home with,” I said, taking a step back. “C’mon, Chloe. We still have to save the stupid world, I guess.”
Piper stepped close and hugged me hard. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Fifteen seconds.
“You’re welcome, Piper. I’ll be back one day.” I said, pulling away and grabbing Chloe’s hand. “Try and explain to Bjourn what’s about to happen, would you?”
“Explain what?” Bjourn asked, frowning.
Ten seconds.
“Later on, guys,” I said, taking a few more steps away from them while holding Chloe’s hand.
Then Bjourn received an arrow from behind, dr
opping him to his knees before he took two more in his back.
Five seconds.
Piper screamed and tried to catch him before his body hit the snow. Then I did the only thing I could do in the few fractured seconds I had left to help her. Just before the last second ticked away, I grabbed Piper with my free hand and pulled her hard away from Bjourn’s body.
Then we were gone
Chapter 25