Arizona

There was a roadblock ahead. Pickles stopped the truck, got out and opened the hood. A voice boomed from the darkness, too distorted by amplification for me to distinguish what he was saying. Pickles ignored it; she  produced a frying pan and started cooking tomatoes, onions, peppers and mushrooms on the engine. There was a burst of gunfire from halfway up the hill to our right. Frans dragged a pair of assault rifles from behind the seat, and handed one to one of the little girls, Lulu. She pointed it out the driver's window, while Frans, grinning, aimed his at the hillside where the shots had come from. The other little girl, Lila, stayed in the floorboard, fiddling with her doll and singing to herself. Frans and Lulu suddenly started firing, and muzzle flashes lit up half a dozen spots across the hillsides as the ambushers returned fire. I concentrated on being small as bullets sparked off the hood, cab, and truck bed. I saw a guy in a black jumpsuit, hood, and goggles rush up to try to seize Pickles. She didn't bother to look around, just flipped the frying pan, backhanded the attacker with it, and caught  the food in the pan again. The firing died down. Pickles hoisted herself back into the truck, put it into Drive, and picked a way around the barricade. Once on the other side, she hit the gas and we accelerated down the open road and into the clean night.

Arizona

The plane landed at 1:56am. The monster-hunting accountant got off before I did, and was gone by the time I got down the ramp. When I got out to the curbside, I found that the taxis were also gone, and the hotel shuttles had stopped running. ; the night was dark and quiet. I shouldered my backpack and started walking. The night was quiet, the desert air clear. A little while later pickup pulled onto the shoulder in front of me. It was a Chevy, almost as old as I am, in a two-tone color scheme, white and primer. The driver is a cute Mexican lady named Pickles, maybe early forties. There's also her nephew, a pale blonde Finn named Frans, in his early twenties, and two little girls, Lulu and Lila, maybe eight and six. Names, ages and relationships are conjectural--Pickles rattled off Spanish at machinegun speed, and I don't speak Spanish anyway. Frans spoke a language I didn't recognize, and the girls burbled nonsense talk quite happily.

Our fleet made for the harbor mouth, where the dhowery of the queen awaited. The goblin ships were quick and their sailors skilled enough, but their ships were for coasts and calm seas.  Their foes were pirates, fierce enough but undisciplined. Our men had learned their skills in a harder school, in the long blockade of the City of Tombs. We knew iced rigging and freezing green water over the bow, and the guns of the black-sailed ships, and iron discipline.
Their ships were in no formation, a loose mob. We formed line ahead, and Azcelon Tower led us into the midst of them. Our broadsides hammered them, and they broke. Half their ships sank or burned, and the survivors scattered to the three winds. In the Outer Harbor we anchored, and lowered boats to land the regiments and to bring back fresh water and fruit, and gold.