Blood and Iron - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Moving slowly around the cabin, I carefully looked out every window. The perspective changed slightly, the view stayed the same.  I was looking at greenery.  Only what I should be looking out into was the aftermath of a blizzard.

Jerking open the cabin door I stepped out onto the porch into a warm spring day.   My senses all agreed – spring!  Walking around the three sides of the cabin on the porch just confirmed the situation.   Didn’t explain, just confirmed.

Fuck it!

Breakfast first.   Back to the stove for three eggs, a mound of hash browns, a pile of sausage links, and hobo toast. I centered myself while I cooked, solely focused on the mechanics.

I sat at the dining room table, eating an unhurried meal, my over easy eggs slathered in Tabasco.  Finally sipping my coffee, I ruminated on my next steps. 

Walking over to the gun cabinet, I decided that, in this case, “old friends were the best friends,” screwing a ‘can’ to the muzzle of my Colt .45 auto, then strapping it into a tactical holster on my thigh. with my wakizashi on the other hip.  Picking up my Streamlight flashlight along with the Robert’s ‘ring of keys’ I walked off the porch into my unexpectedly transformed yard.  Only the snowmobile and freight sleds gave any cue that the blizzard trek was only the night before.

I was looking at a loose row of outbuildings just beyond the Oak tree from the cabin.  I decided to tackle them in order.  Though in good repair the buildings had an air of long abandonment.  They shared the building details with the cabin, being constructed with timbers, fieldstone, and slate roofs.

With my gun in my hand, I walked up to the first, and unlocked the full-width, hinged double doors, swinging them wide open to find a blacksmith shop with a forge, furnace, anvils, and extensive inventory of metal working tools.  Carefully looking around, I found no evidence of any person.  Leaving the double doors open, I moved down the line to the next.

This door opened into a machine shop filled with lathes, drill presses, milling machines, and other powered machines.  Playing my flashlight around as I again looked for signs of ‘human habitation’.   I was shaking my head, wondering how Robert made this work without electricity.   Then it dawned on me that belts connected the machines to a long shaft near the ceiling. I walked out side and behind the building to find a brick-set Horizontal Return Tubular Boiler connected to a Stationary Steam Engine whose pistons spun a hefty wheel attached by wide leather belt to a tiny pulley. driving that main shaft inside the building.

I had to smile at Robert’s (or somebody’s) ingenuity as I moved to the next.  Swinging open the door to the next building I found a general workshop with broad workbenches, and ample storage shelves filled with hand tools, hardware, and parts.

I moved on to the last building.  This one was very different, built entirely of stone, with a heavy, iron-bound plank door, and tiny windows barred by thick iron lattices.  Unlocking and swinging open the door, I confronted an iron gate.  Unlocking that, I entered a jail, with a pair of ten-by-ten cells along the back wall each framed with heavy, close-set iron bars even across the roof, and thick stone walls. The front wall by the door was hung with dozens and dozens of Darby handcuffs, leg irons, and combination restraints including chains with a cuff every couple feet, all of them lightly oiled and hanging ready on wood pegs. 

Now I wasn’t just wondering where or when I was but what I was?

Standing outside the jail holding my last key, I looked around, spotting an overgrown cluster of lilac bushes.  Robert always talked about his love of lilacs…

Pressing into the center of the of the thicket, I found a modern steel door, set horizontally in a frame just inches above ground level.  I’d found my last door. 

---

Unlocking the door and swinging it up and open with a chain holding it upright I walked down the brick steps well below ground into the long narrow tunnel.   Lights every ten feet brightly illuminated the brick lined shaft.  Chambers widened every twenty feet, providing ample storage space. 

A white piece of paper pinned to a cross beam fluttered in the breeze.  I pulled it down to read in Roberts’s careful script:

JEB,
Welcome to my and your world, a place of magic. You are well suited for your role here.  I could tell you everything but that somehow seems unfair.  Look around; I have left notes scattered about with essential information.  The rest you must learn. 

Good luck -- RJ

That would be the Robert I remembered.  He always called me JEB, my acronym I guess you could call it, with my name John Edward Brock. Robert also hated to ruin the surprise! 

I wandered down the tunnel to the first widening, where I found a framed mural over four feet high by eight feet long.  It was a diagram, with the grove surrounding this cabin at its center.  It showed in some detail the roads, streams and the great woods close by.  The attached note merely said to hang it in the cabin’s great room.  A three-foot-diameter globe sat next to it. Lying in front of it was a smaller, flexible, map with a brass compass next to it with a lid like a pocket watch.  I picked up the map, to find a very detailed topographic map with many symbols.  The note pinned to this one said:

This is a magic map.  I read a story and liked it so much I had a wizard make one.  The diamond at the center is your location.  It will move as you do with the map magically updating your location and the features around you.

I folded the map, slipping it into my pocket along with the finely made compass as I moved forward.  The rest of the tunnel was likewise filled with treasures and tiny cryptic notes, as I moved from one chamber to another, finding leather clothing, armor and chain mail, crossbow, a magical pack basket, and even an enchanted light crystal. 

Finally, my mind overloaded, I carried the mural up the stairs into the cabin, hanging it from the hooks already set in the wall.

I was looking at it, trying to get the lay of the land, when it unexpectedly seemed to come alive.  Tiny cartoon horses with riders suddenly appeared at the top of the map traveling down the map, following one of the lines representing a road.  Startled, I stared at the mural for a moment.  I grabbed my Steiner 10x50 binoculars as I ran out of the cabin to that end of the grove. 

Hastily flopping on my belly behind a bush right at the edge of the woods, I saw the horsemen loping along the road, splashing across a small stream.  The number of mounted horses and pack animals were exactly as depicted on the mural. 

Looking closer, the men were well armed, with half of them holding lances.  While none was wearing what could be described as a uniform, all were wearing armor or mail of some sort.  No pennant or flag was displayed.  I wondered if they were mercenaries or outlaws. They disappeared into the thick woods as I rose to walk back to my cabin with even more to think about. 

---

I sat, staring at the globe, trying to make sense of my new world.   The wall map was much like the old television show The Prisoner, with the nearby inn in the vast forest called The Inn, and to the West the closest town further in that forest on the river called River Town and the larger one beyond that with the castle, yep, Castle Town.  North beyond the plains and scattered woods were the mountains, while East was seacoast, and South beyond the forests was desert. 

By now I’d found the cache of money.  I had a mound of copper, silver and gold coins on the dining room table.  According to Robert coppers were 1000 to 2500 for each silver coin with silver coins some 500 to 1000 to a gold one.  All dependent on the exchange from dealers in places like Castle Town. 

Next to the coins was a smaller mound of gems; diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, of varied size and high quality to my untrained eye.  Again, dealers in Castle Town would set their value.

Robert wasn’t telling me much about what I’d find in this world.  As I made my supper I pondered my next steps.  It never even seriously occurred to me that I might turn the key and return home.  I was well and truly hooked, as Robert knew I would be.

It was time to reconnoiter. I would dress in the clothing I found in the tunnel and walk to The Inn and from there to River Town.  If this went well I’d keep on to Castle Town. 

---

I spent the next weeks gathering my supplies for my foray into my new world.  First I moved all my firearms and ammunition down into the tunnel.   I held out only two guns, my old reliable Colt 45 Auto with a detachable STW silencer and a Ruger Mark One 22 with its own integral silencer.  These “last resorts” with their ammunition would go in a hidden pocket in the bottom of my pack basket.  The fancy single keys from Robert were also placed in this secret compartment. 

The magicked pack basket was a wonder. Bigger on the inside then the outside, and enchanted to weigh only a couple pounds, no matter the load.  First, clothing, food, light crystal, first aid supplies and magic telescope.  Since I had ample room in my pack I added a selection of tools for repairing watches, music boxes and locks as well as for maintaining my knives and sword.  My coat and waterproof were in the pack until needed.

A tiny grate along with “Y” stands, a rod and “S” hooks along with cooking and eating utensils coupled with a few MREs and a selection of freeze dried food completed my preparations if I was caught in the woods far from an inn or tavern.  A couple water containers went inside, with a canteen lashed to the outside of the pack

Darby cuffs and leg irons went on the pack bottom, with an added chain and padlocks.  One set of Darby cuffs was lashed to the outside of the pack.  Might as well find out what it meant to own them. 

My lock picks, and a selection of skeleton keys, were carefully placed in the money belt, with gold and silver coins and gems.  Coppers went in my belt pouch with my watch, compass, map, and fire starter.  A Swiss Army pocketknife, folding Balisong knife and SOG utility tool also went in the pouch.

I’d be wearing a soft buckskin shirt and pants, with heavy leather moccasins like light boots.  Chain mail leggings and a chain mail shirt went over that, with a metal breast and back plate over all.  A sheepskin lined leather vest and leather leggings covered the mail and plate.  The mail shirt had sleeves ending in finely made mail gloves.  I wore the mail glove on my left hand under a leather glove with my right hand bare. 

 Now I began to lay out my weapons for this world.  My Katana and Tanto would go on my belt.  Throwing knives in a sheathe low on my right thigh. A pair of throwing axes, a war pick and a bowie knife with brass knuckles and skull crusher pommel was lashed to my pack. Shuriken -- both spikes and stars -- were tucked in the pack, along with extra one-piece throwing knives.  Two Sai daggers would be in the pack.  A cross bow that looked very much like a Barnett Commando with its six spare bolts underneath would be lashed to the back of the pack along with a full quiver of quarrels. A single edged drop point utility knife with blade point in line with the handle on my belt would complete my edged weapons.  My snake whip, and Tonfa, would also come along.

---

Those weeks were also spent acquainting myself with my weaponry.  I practiced firing and quickly reloading the crossbow.  The stock broke open like a shotgun to cock the bowstring.  It allowed fast follow up shots.  The crossbow was very accurate, with a ghost ring and a bright bead front sight.

There were two different quarrels for my crossbow.  One was a ringed broadhead, with an extended, hardened needlepoint.  The other was a metal shaft, with a diamond point the diameter of the shaft. The second had shown excellent penetration of mail and armor in my test shots.  I would be quite well supplied with the second war quarrel, its metal fletching allowing me to tightly pack a large quiver lashed to the pack with many war bolts.

Throwing my knives, axes, and both kinds of shuriken was practice time well spent.  I stepped up the intensity of my Kenjutsu exercises with my katana sword. My kata included my sai daggers, tonfa, while I spent time reacquainting myself with my favorite snake whip.  Finally I felt ready for my excursion.   

I decided not to procrastinate.  Before dawn the next morning, I ate a large breakfast, cleaning up after myself, then carefully locking up all the out buildings, the tunnel and the cabin, with the keys secreted in a small birdhouse attached to the huge oak tree. 

I left my small woodland in the false dawn, walking south through the high grass paralleling the road, following a faint game trail.  I crossed several small shallow streams in the intervening grassland as I walked to the big woods. 

The sun was just coming over the horizon as I reached the edge of the woods gazing back over my shoulder to take a last look at my grove.

Continued in Chapter 3

---