Scarecrow

Journal of Rowana, daughter of Rowetha
16 / 04 / 2120 of the Fourth Age

When I was a kid, the scarecrow was an old set of Gondorian armor, rusted and full of holes, stuffed with rags and straw on a wooden frame. Even back then, the birds that would eat the seeds ignored it. Father had a box that periodically fired off a shotgun blank; did a lot better to scare the birds. But the scarecrow was tradition, and I remember one rainy afternoon when I'd pissed the old man off and the wind had blown it down, out there with baling wire trying to set the damn thing upright again.

Our scarecrow was Dwarf-made. An aluminum T with a round, one-eyed plastic cyclops of a head. I buried the wire and ran it out to the house, where it could interact with the automated systems. Motion sensors fed data to it, and I watched from a safe distance as the eyeball rotated. The glass eye turned, this way and that.

Then a blackbird that pecked at the ground on the cleared-off field exploded with a zzzpt.

The rest of the flock took to the air as the scarecrow hummed. It would, according to the manual, take five minutes to recharge between bursts. The microwave laser was a civilian version of something that they used on military aircraft to destroy missiles and birds that flew too close. An expensive item, and a potential drain on our electricity supply.

Azzie, for her part, walked confidently across the field and poked at the carcass. She picked up the flash-fried critter and plucked feathers as she went. Ruefully, I smiled. Guess I was eating crow tonight.

Night in Mordor wasn't quiet. I had learned that the last few weeks. The wargs would howl. Night birds would call. Hares and other critters would sniff around the trash pit I'd dug, far from the house and the stream.

Except now, all I could hear was Azzie breathing.

My hand fell to the .45 Great Eagle, in its holster by the bed. Twenty years' habit. Gently, I pulled myself out from under Azzie. My right hand grabbed my web-belt, the long knife still holstered there. Kept low, out of sight of the windows as I moved through the silent house. There were only three external doors to this style of Hobbit hole, all locked. Maybe the door cameras would catch the interlopers before they kicked down the door, but there didn't seem to be any point in checking the feeds from the central console. I needed my night vision.

Barefoot, I eased toward the kitchen door. The extra mass of the oven might conceal my heat signature, if they had thermal sensors. Of course, if they did, I was probably outgunned anyway.

Zzzzpt.

There was a scream, a curse. I slipped out the kitchen door and crawled on my belly toward the edge of the cleared land, took position behind a bush that gave me a clear line of sight to the field.

Man-shaped in moonlight. Dark clothes. Civilian. The scarecrow had gotten their hand, which smoked in the light of the quarter moon. While they cursed, I looked around them. Wanted to know if they were alone, or...

No. Two more shapes emerged from the grass at the edge of the cleared field. Like the first, they were Men. Hunting camouflage. Rubber-soled boots.

They were leary now, though they didn't need to be. It would take minutes for the scarecrow to recharge. I knelt by the door, covered by a bush. Watched them move forward, along the edge of the field now. Careful not to be seen. They had some craft, but Azzie and I had largely cleared the land around the house. There was no way for them to avoid exposing themselves if they approached the house.

Swift hand movements. The one with the burned hand came my way, the other two moved for the front door. The one that covered the kitchen door positioned himself right in front of my bush.

Sometimes, the Valar are generous.

The shotgun was a dark tube in the intruder's hands. At close range, it would shred anyone in front of it. My long knife, twenty centimeters of Elf-forged steel broken from an ancient spear and given a new handle with nylon webbing about the grip, sank into his neck as my free hand covered his mouth. I had no way of knowing, then, if they wore body armor. Blood spurted over my hand as I worked the blade until it tore free.

I left them there as I moved as fast as I dared, not hugging the edge of the house but climbing over it. The concrete wasn't entirely smooth; it needed to be rough so that the soil would cling to it. Rough on my hands and knees, but as I climbed over the house I noticed that the two intruders were almost back to back. One was picking my locks while the other held his shotgun at the ready, to cover anyone that might come at them from behind or the sides.

But not from above.

There were lots of silly military movies where rangers did impossible, deadly acrobatics. Silent as ghosts as they did flips and cartwheels, bloodlessly dispatching dozens of enemies in a carefully choreographed dance of ****. That wasn't my personal experience.

The .45 slug tore through the top of the intruder's skull and blew what was left of his brains out of his ass. As he collapsed, the lone survivor turned, their electric lockpick abandoned as they grabbed at their gun. By then, my bare feet had hit the ground. The impact sent agony up my legs, and tore up the pads of my feet, but I had my Great Eagle out before they had their shotgun raised.

A third and fourth explosion echoed through the empty night. Blood splattered on the green of my front door. I really hoped that wouldn't stain, because if it did I'd have to paint the damn door red...

The click behind me told me I'd made a mistake. The barrel of a gun pressed against the neural jack at the base of my skull.

"Nice moves," the voice was that of a Man, calm, clear, his Westron slightly posh. "Drop your weapons, hands up. You might be fast, but this close? Not fast enough."

The Great Eagle hit the ground. The Elvish blade was in its scabbard at my side. They reached down and pulled it out, tossed it aside.

"Where's the Uruk girl?" Posh said. "No games, now. My client wants their property back."

I was about to tell him to go to the halls of his fathers, and that he would find me there, fucking his mothers and sisters. I was about to do something stupid.

Then the door swung open, as if by itself. I stared dumbly into blank space. Though I knew what it had to be.

"No sudden moves," Posh-voice said. "On your knees."

I complied. Unable to hide my grin.

A .22 probably won't kill a Man, even at short range. Point-blank, however? The flash of the barrel arrived in Posh-voice's eyes only a fraction of a second before the sound did, and swiftly after that a lead bullet slammed into it. Cybereye, as it turned out. The actual bullet didn't kill him, but the **** of it was enough to dislodge the metal-and-crystal eye and send it into the intruder's brain.

Still invisible, Azzie stood over him and pumped a couple more bullets into his face for good measure. I didn't even chide her for wasting ammunition. I just stepped around her, found my knife, and made sure the other three intruders were actually dead.

Four men. Who knew about Azzie. That was bad, very bad. When she finally pulled off the ring, her eyes were wet. The naked woman dropped her rifle and crushed me in her arms.

"It's okay, Precious," I told her, as a cloud covered the waning moon.

Six Men had died so one Uruk Hai could go free. Right then, as she began to shake and sob, her big breasts pressed into me as the adrenaline wore off, I would have killed a lot more just to reassure her that it really was going to be okay. That no one was going to take her away.

Her hands fumbled with my boxers, and I sighed.

"Precious, there's a time for that. Later. We've got four bodies to dispose of."

My boxers fell to the ground. Her mouth lowered, planted hot kisses against my belly button, and moved lower.

I sighed. I wasn't really in the mood. But everybody deals with almost-dying in their own way. If sucking my clit and fingering my pussy until I came hard enough to squeal helped Azzie get through it...

Well, that was just a sacrifice I was prepared to make.