A calm silence filled the woods, broken only but the crumble of gravel beneath the wheels of a very old Mercedes-Benz station wagon.
Ahead along the gravel road was the remains of a Ford Explorer perforated with bullet holes, its windows all but denuded of glass and its tires deflated. Parked beside this, in far better condition, was a Chevrolet Blazer painted in a dull olive color with a large Hello Kitty decal applied slightly haphazardly to the driver side door. Seated on the ground nearby was a man in a green commando sweater. One sleeve was rolled up, and squatting beside him was a skinny woman in her late twenties, who was gently applying a bandage to his forearm. The woman had short violet colored hair cut with an undershave and was dressed in a black tank top and pair of woodland pattern camouflage pants. Like the man beside her she wore a satchel slung over one shoulder along with an old German G43 battle rifle, and well worn CZ-75 pistol riding prominently on her hip.
The Mercedes slowed to a halt behind the other two vehicles. The driver side door popped open and a man stepped out. He was in his late 50s, and had a slightly grizzled and musty sort of air about him, with salt and pepper colored hair and a closely cropped beard. He wore heavy grey slacks with an old brown blazer, the latter of which barely concealed a .44 Magnum Smith and Wesson Model 29 revolver. As the newcomer approached, he addressed the man in the green sweater.
"You alright, Donovan?"
The man in the green sweater shrugged.
"I caught a couple bullet fragments, but otherwise I'm fine. I'd be much worse if spore goblins could actually hit anything."
The young woman beside him snorted.
"Just stop, alright? It's not funny, you could have been killed just now."
"Yeah, but I wasn't, which makes me happy. Ouch!"
"Just hold still, will you?"
"You did that on purpose, didn't you Willow?"
"Maybe I did. Just shutup until I finish, ok?"
"Fine. You talk to Larry, and I'll just pretend I'm not here."
The newcomer coughed reproachfully. His name was Laurence and for some reason he had always hated it when people called him Larry, but at his age he felt it was better to let these little things go, especially since Donovan was probably doing it on purpose.
"So, where are they?", he asked instead.
The woman named Willow jerked her head in the direction of the wood.
"They're all in a pile over there. Seamus and I pulled the bodies out of the woods. We're pretty sure we found all of them."
"Did you use gloves?"
"Uh, maybe we did."
Laurence sighed, and stepped over to the place Willow had indicated.
Piled on the road were the bodies of five small creatures lying together in a heap, each between three and five feet tall, with long pointed ears and pale-green colored skin covered in green and white mold and grown all over with small mushrooms and shelf fungi. Next to the collection of corpses was a stack of primitive looking submachine guns. Stooping down with a grunt Laurence retrieved one of the weapons and examined it.
The firearm was crude in every respect, clearly made mostly by hand with hardly a straight line to be found anywhere outside the bore. That being said, it appeared to be surprisingly robust and functional, with halfway decent rifling and a remarkably well made magazine (all things considered). There was no possibility that Spore Goblins could have created such a sophisticated device, not under normal circumstances at any rate.
As Laurence was still peering into the breech of the weapon there was a crunch of gravel from behind and Donovan stepped up beside him, pulling the bloodied and partially tattered sleeve of his sweater back down as he did so.
"Well, what do you think Donovan", Laurence said.
Donovan shrugged. "Probably just leftovers from the last bush war, most likely made in Dereth Kral before they levelled the place."
"Most likely."
The two men were silent for a moment as Willow joined them, still in the process of returning a small military first aid kit to her satchel.
"So, any word on where we are exactly?", she asked. "Are we on Earth or Dirigard? Our radios died not long after I got here."
"A little of both probably. It looks like we've got a full on bleed across both planets".
"Well that's no good. Do the folks in Switzerland have any idea what's going on?"
"They're working it, or at least they were last time I heard from them. Radio reception has been sporadic for me as well, so my best guess is that the fissure is fluctuating pretty heavily."
Suddenly, there was a crackle of static from within the vehicles behind them.
"Speaking of radios", Laurence remarked, and darted over to his car. "This is Falchion 12, go ahead."
"Falchion 12, this is Mother. Father has advised us on your situation. You are currently located in an active operational area on Delta Grid. You are being reinforced by Forest Command. Report to Grid 2153-Delta at once."
"Understood, Mother."
Laurence replaced the radio. With Donovan's vehicle more or less disabled, he and Willow began clearing Donovan's equipment out of his car and loading it into hers. While they were so occupied, Laurence gathered up the weapons of the dead goblins and piled them inside the vehicles. He then retrieved an old steel jerry can from his car and thoroughly doused the pile of goblin corpses with gasoline and set the whole thing alight. A few minutes later the three humans had started their remaining vehicles and drove off, leaving both the disabled Ford and the impromptu funeral pyre behind.
And meanwhile, from somewhere in the distance over the treetops, came the sound of a helicopter in flight.
The gravel road didn't lead very much farther along before it began to disintegrate as the last vestiges of Earth were left behind, and the three passed fully into another world. In a few minutes the two cars were bumping and lurching their way across an open field. At a suitable point, the two cars came to a stop. Donovan stepped out of Willow's truck and took a deep breath of the evening air.
Willow was right, of course. He had indeed been dangerously close to death back there. The exhilaration of such a near escape was still pumping through his veins, yet it could just as easily have gone a different way and he wouldn't been standing here now. Back on earth it had still been daylight. But here it was dusk, with the last vestiges of sunlight spread across an amber band along the horizon while the grass waved and bent beneath the caress of the evening breeze. Life everywhere was beautiful and he was grateful that he was alive to appreciate it. Behind him, Willow had opened the rear gate of her truck and was rummaging around in the back. Donovan watched as she pulled out a flare gun and began to load it. The flare gun was very old and the action sticky, and as she braced her slender arms to either side of her chest to force the breech open she tossed her head back to dislodge a few stray locks of hair which had fallen across her face. It was a simple thing, but even so the motion had in it as much grace and elegance as the most regal ballet. Yes, Donovan was very grateful indeed to be alive.
Donovan snapped out of his reverie as the rhythmic staccato of a helicopter filtered across the breeze. Willow had gotten the flare gun open at last and having stuffed a flare into it she raised her arm and fired. For a moment Donovan was dazzled as a bright star shot into the air, signalling their position to the approaching aircraft. As his eyes readjusted, he could just make out the shape of a twin rotor CH-46 Sea Knight closing in on them fast.
The sound became overwhelming as the aircraft touched down. The wheels had hardly skimmed the earth when it began to disgorge passengers. After twenty men had disembarked, the rotors surged and the helicopter lifted off again into the sky.
The newcomers were a curious looking lot, exceptionally fair skinned and dressed in khaki drill uniforms with shorts that were very short indeed and looked a trifle absurd, with their long pale legs fairly glowing beneath them in the twilight. The majority of them sported long locks of blonde hair and all were laden with fighting equipment. Most carried long, rapier like FN FAL battle rifles, but there also were a couple light machine guns among them, and one of them was lugging a volatile and disturbingly old M2 flamethrower.
And they were all elves.
More precisely, they were Elfkin, mortals of elven kind who were descended from the ancient faerie folk. Though often referred to as elves in common parlance, the term "Elfkin" was generally accepted by authorities on the subject as the proper name for the latter races of elfkind who came after the time of the ancients and were among the first mortal inhabitants of the fairy worlds. However formal taxonomy is boring, and most people just called them elves and let done with it.
Donovan and his companion stepped forward as the newcomers approached. One of them, apparently the leader, bore a Colt Commando carbine rather than a full sized rifle, which he now slung over his shoulder out of the way as he dug into his breast pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He stopped a few paces away from Donovan, and the eyes of the two men met. The elf's eyes were bright green, and his ears were strongly pointed. For a moment he said nothing, and then glancing down at the sheet of paper in his hand the elf spoke.
"See-mus Donovan?"
"Uh, yes, although it's pronounced 'Shay-mus', and I usually just go by Donovan anyway."
"I see", the elf said, and glancing back down at his notes he turned to others. "And I presume you are Laurence Medina and you are Willow White."
"We are", Willow replied.
"I see. I am Lothiar, First Spear of the 7th Glade Battalion. My orders are to secure the area and ensure that the pathways between worlds are guarded until the rift is healed."
"Sounds good", Donovan said. "According to headquarters this is an active theater of operations, is it not?"
"That is correct, Seamus Donovan. As you may be aware the Forces of Dirigard are heavily engaged in suppressing the Spore Goblin menace, and there is presently a large scale operation underway to clear out a dangerous infestation which is entrenched in this area. It is very unfortunate that a bleed between worlds should have occured in this particular place at this particular time, however with our forces already deployed in the area it is much better that it could be. My troop is here to ensure that the fighting does not spill over into Midgard (or Earth, as you might call it). You will assist us in this operation. I have your orders here."
"Oh. Great." Donovan looked to his two companions, and tried to put on what he hoped was a cavalier smile. "Well folks, it looks like we've got us some more goblins to kill."
Willow shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder why I took this job."
The world had nearly faded into darkness as the elves and their human allies trooped back to the place where the gravel road began. It had shifted a bit since they had last seen it, as the rift between worlds in that place rippled invisibly through space. More troops were expected by morning, but for the night the gateway to Earth was guarded only by some twenty-three souls with rifles, while all through the woods there lurked countless terrible creatures, some of whom were gunslinging goblins.
And there too, somewhere in the woods as it passed from one plane to another, was also a White Stag.