The Minotaurs of Maze World

by Eddie Patin

  Chapter 12

  Jason looked up into the brightest part of the weird, yellow sky and smiled, imagining that he could just barely feel the warmth of the alien sun on his face...

  His boots crunched through the sandy gravel floor of the canyon and he followed Riley’s confident and graceful advance further into the strange, natural maze of eroded purple sandstone walls and ridges. The man noticed at one point—with an odd feeling of disjointedness—that there didn’t seem to be any birds or insects or other forms of life around them. In fact, the canyon they were walking in now was oddly barren, save for the toughest of grasses and the gnarly, thin oak scrubs standing here and there from wherever they managed to take hold. The sparse shrubs reached into the yellow air with scraggly, long trunks and branches tipped with odd, pink leaves. The leaves appeared pink in this light, at least. With the entire world shrouded in a thick canary-yellow atmosphere, everything appeared differently, including the Reality Rifters themselves. Jason knew that the colors seemed different than they actually were because of the bizarre lighting.

  "How do these trees live?" Jason asked as they walked past a clutch of them. He made a mental note to shine one of his flashlights onto the pink leaves at some later point to see what color they really were.

  Riley paused, looking back, then shrugged and resumed walking.

  "Like any other trees," he said.

  "But trees need water."

  "There’s water here," Riley said. "But that’s not the case. Not every universe we visit will be the way you expect things back in universe 934." Riley paused to drink from the canteen on his side then scratched his beard, looking up at the furrowed sky. He let his Gauss rifle rest on its sling against his belly. "We might see water here. But don’t drink it."

  Why not? Jason wondered, but he didn’t ask. Instead, the man took his own drink from the CamelBak bite valve hanging on his shoulder. His dad’s Rigby rifle was starting to get heavy. It was, of course, a good bit heavier than a typical hunting rifle. Jason heard Gliath give out a feline huff behind him and turned back to see the leopardwere drawing in closer to them, his sleek black fur deep in shadow, seemingly darker because of the yellow light.

  Jason took a few steps toward the nearest tree and looked more closely at its branches and leaves which danced gently in the breeze flowing through the canyon. He realized that the wind was heading the proper direction for them as hunters—sweeping through against their path; in their faces. That was good. Jason had been hunting with his dad a few times back when his parents were still alive, and he knew that wind direction was important. With the wind in their faces, the Reality Rifters wouldn’t alert the minotaurs to their presence—by scent at least. If the wind was going the other way however, Riley would have probably led them the other way from where they rifted in.

  Peering at the flitting leaves, Jason marveled at the strange structure of the foliage. The structure of plants' leaves back on Earth—for the most part—all ran along a central spine with veins, branches, and leaf-bodies running outwards. These pink leaves were different—very different. Once the alien leaves started from their connection points, their veins—so fine and delicate that Jason almost couldn’t make them out with his naked eye—ran in the same straight and 90 degree corner patterns as the weird clouds in the sky. The freaking leafs veins were in the same maze pattern as everything else. Amazing.

  "Come on," Riley snapped.

  Jason jumped and hustled back to his small group. The three of them continued trekking through the bottom of the dry, sandstone labyrinth.

  "Do you know where you’re going?" Jason asked, hefting the rifle in his arms. He had a sudden thought while they walked and ejected his rifle’s mag to top it off before inserting it again. He had fired a single shot at the last monster. He'd better stay topped off...

  "This way," Riley replied.

  "Should we turn maybe?"

  Riley shrugged, keeping his eyes and muzzle forward. "Eh. It’s a good corridor and we’ve got the wind. We’ll turn if we have to, but I’d like to get far away from that Nothrix camp."

  "Good idea."

  The three of them walked on for a while in relative silence. Jason listened to the wind rustling through the trees and watched the clouds continuously pass and change and carve strange new maze-like shapes through the atmosphere. This sure was a weird place.

  At one point, Jason thought he heard a sound down a corridor they passed on their right—another endlessly long canyon surrounded by natural sandstone walls and sparsely populated with oak scrubs, grass, and broken chunks of the ridge that had fallen down from above.

  The noise was like a squelch—something wet and heavy moving around down that path...

  Jason stopped and Gliath halted behind him.

  "What is it?" Riley asked, pausing and turning to look back at him. The soldier's duster jacket—normally dark reddish-brown—was a charcoal grey in the yellow light. Seeing Jason looking down the path to the right, Riley scanned the area over there.

  "I heard a sound," Jason said.

  Riley smirked. "Don’t worry about it," he said. "Just a slime—a big one down there..."

  "A slime?"

  "Yeah," Riley said, cocking his head to crack his neck. "That’s pretty much all there is on this world: minotaurs, slimes, and the sky people."

  Jason looked up at the yellow sky. He scanned along the infinite maze-like lines running through the clouds. "Sky people?!"

  Riley laughed and shook his head. "Doesn’t really matter to us, man. I’ll tell you about it later. Let’s keep moving and try to keep quiet. We don’t want a minotaur to get the drop on us again like that first one..."

  "Okay."

  The three of them continued for a while, the feet crunching through the gravel except for Gliath's—he hardly made a sound. Jason tried his best to stay frosty and keep his senses peeled. The canyon was pretty quiet other than their footfalls and the wind. Every once in a while, rocks and gravel would fall down from above, tumbling down into the maze bottom. Jason figured that whenever they saw another minotaur, they’d have plenty of warning. Those monsters didn’t seem like the stealthy types. A few times, Jason heard a low buzzing and Riley pointed out the Nothrix occasionally spying on them from above. It seemed that the nasty bug creatures had working wings; those strange limp, ribbed structures that Jason had seen before in silhouette were some kind of bizarre appendages on the Nothrix’s backs that gave them slow, hovering flight.

  "Ranaja, Jason Leaper 934," the leopardwere said suddenly with a rumble. "Beasts ahead..."

  A second after Gliath had stopped them, Jason suddenly smelled it on the wind: there was the faintest odor of the animal musk that he’d picked up from the dead minotaur before. It was a barnyard stench that reminded Jason of horses and other unidentifiable things, powerful and acrid, but barely noticeable coming from ahead. If Jason had smelled it on the wind, then Gliath must have detected it quite clearly.

  Riley stopped, raised his rifle, and motioned for Jason to move right as he quietly stepped toward the left wall...

  Jason complied, tempted to make sure that he had a round chambered, but he didn’t stop to look. He knew that there was a round in there...

  As the two humans moved to either side of the canyon, Gliath softly padded along behind Jason, positioning himself a little higher on the wall in a break between rocks. Jason peered ahead, trying to see through a distant scrub oak that partially obscured his view...

  He clicked off his safety.

  With a thunderous sound that surprised him—how did they not hear them coming earlier?—Jason watched as two large minotaurs appeared ahead, running together sideways across the canyon from a connecting path in the distance. They were both huge with thick, muscular bodies and covered with shaggy fur. Their heads were massive and broad and each held two thick, sweeping horns. One of the minotaurs was muddy-brown like the first one they’d killed. The other—much bigger than the first in width and height—was as jet blac
k in the yellow light as Gliath was! As the two minotaurs crossed the corridor from right to left, their hooves thumped against the sand and rocky floor and they bellowed and grunted at each other.

  They were fighting. Or, at least, fighting over something...

  The smaller brown minotaur had a package of some sort clutched to its shaggy barrel chest, protecting the parcel with both thick arms while the bigger black beast chased it down. The larger monster reached and flicked its head and horns from side to side, as if trying to steal it.

  Both minotaurs crashed into the far wall with deep grunts and a heavy racket—knocking sand and rocks down from the ridge above—and they briefly fought each other like two powerful wrecking balls of distant fur and muscles and horns. Within a moment, the big black minotaur had wrenched away whatever they were struggling over from the brown one, and Jason saw that it was a soft, hairy hunk of meat maybe as large as Jason’s torso.

  "What the hell...?!" Jason breathed to himself, raising his muzzle, alternating his iron sights between both beasts.

  They were fighting over meat? Jason thought with a chill. Where’d that meat come from?

  Just then, the massive black minotaur shot a quick glance their way. Then it turned and thundered away, charging across the corridor back to the right again and disappearing out of sight, carrying the hunk of meat.

  The brown minotaur was left ponderously climbing back to its feet (hooves), shaking its broad head, glaring off after the darker monster.

  "Psst."

  Jason looked over to the sound and saw Riley looking at him. The soldier pointed at Jason with a smirk, then pointed at the minotaur as if to say, you take him.

  A jolt of nervousness and adrenaline shot through Jason’s stomach and limbs.

  Jason nodded.

  Turning back to the distant minotaur, Jason laid up against the sandstone as best he could and steadied his rifle, using his brace against the wall to hold the heavy weapon still. He lined up his sights, made sure that his safety was off, then took a deep breath to calm his jangling nerves. Moving the front sight in increments, he searched the beast for the best target; the most exposed weak spot. The minotaur stood still in the distance facing them, lost in its own thoughts, perhaps seventy yards away. Jason aimed for the monster’s throat above its chest. Calming his hammering heart and letting out his breath nice and slow, Jason gently squeezed the trigger...

  The Rigby Magnum Mauser boomed and rocked hard against Jason’s shoulder and the man found himself hurrying to cycle the bolt before he could even register where he'd hit. Jason heard the heavy thwack of his round striking the minotaur—or the maze wall behind it—and he flung the brass out against the sandstone wall next to him, peering down the sights again as soon as he was able to steady the rifle for a follow-up shot...

  "Good one!" Riley called out from Jason’s left.

  The minotaur let out a howling roar from up ahead, bellowing a deep, animalistic cry that turned Jason’s guts to water. Then it began choking with heavy, wet sounds. As Jason looked with wide eyes to see what had happened, he beheld the beast clutching and tearing at its throat, suddenly bursting into a frantic explosion of movement! It staggered to its right until crashing into the sandstone wall then bellowed again and again like a furious and desperate bull, scratching and clawing at its throat.

  The monster fell to its knees with a crash.

  "I got it!" Jason exclaimed, feeling a sudden insane rush of elation. "I got it in the neck!"

  "Yeah—good shot!" Riley replied, stepping toward the center of the path away from his position near the left wall. The soldier kept his rifle trained on the thrashing beast but took a moment to smile at him. "You may have trouble with rifting, Jason, but you’re good with a rifle at least!"

  Jason laughed, walking over to meet him. Gliath followed impassively with his railgun steadily aimed at the distant monster. The three of them began a cautious approach as the wounded minotaur grunted and bellowed, thrashing around on its knees, roaring helplessly in between choking on blood. When they were fifty yards away, Riley stopped them.

  "Wait until it’s down," he said." You never know..."

  "Well ... shouldn’t I finish it?" Jason asked, once again raising his muzzle to the monster who was noisily dying up ahead.

  "It’ll be bled out in a few more seconds," Riley said coolly. "Besides—its head is down. Its throat is hidden behind its skull and—"

  The soldier was interrupted by a crisp ca-chunk sound from off to the right. Jason jumped, startled, as a bright and deafening crack split the air. As Jason registered that someone else had shot a gun from nearby, he looked back at his downed minotaur. The beast was suddenly struck in the side of the skull by an unknown round, spraying blood and throwing chunks of bone and hairy meat through the air. The dying minotaur collapsed onto its face without another sound.

  Someone else had shot it too?!

  "What?!" Jason cried.

  "Come on!" Riley called. He led the three of them running toward the dead beast.

  As Jason and the others approached the dead minotaur, he watched its huge, brown form and splayed out fur with its head pushed into the sand. Blood pooled from the hole in its skull near what would equivalently be its temple. He also saw a second pool of blood from where it was bleeding from Jason's neck shot before it was hit in the head.

  Definitely dead.

  Riley was scanning all around, his rifle ready but muzzle low. Jason watched the soldier eye the ridge line of the surrounding walls and the ledges of the connecting canyon. Riley scowled when he saw something apparently distasteful to him.

  Jason looked to where Riley was glaring and saw three forms descending through the air from the ridge. He heard the low buzz of the Nothrix’s odd wings...

  "Shit," Jason said. "The bug-men..."

  Riley stood tall and moved to intercept the three floating forms, standing at the head of the Reality Rifters. The soldier lowered his rifle and scratched his beard, transforming his face into a steely expression within moments.

  Three Nothrix approached, their fleshy wings fluttering and buzzing as they touched down in front of Riley. Jason gasped when he suddenly noticed four more bug-men silhouettes appear up on the ridge.

  "Eight Nothrix," Gliath rumbled from behind them.

  Eight? Jason thought with a jolt, scanning the ridge again. Where was the eighth?! He only saw seven...

  "What’s the big fruking idea sniping our kill?!" Riley called out as soon as the three approaching bugs were within conversation range. "What are you guys doing? This one is ours!"

  "Wrong, human!" one of the bugs spat back. "Nothrix Reapers own this kill! Walk away ack ack ack in shame, human shit-scum—we kill this mino-taur!" The speaking bug-man struggled over the word minotaur with its clicking and flappy verbalization.

  "Ghrag?!" Riley asked, and Jason picked up a little surprise in the soldier’s tone. "What the fruk are you doing here?!"

  The speaking bug-man made a sound that sounded like the wet blowing of a nose then replied, "I, Ghrag Chaukchew, am leader of Nothrix Reapers! Why would leader not ack ack ack be on hunt with Nothrix Reapers? You are just shit-human—ugly, soft, puny! Why you here? This mino-taur our kill!"

  Jason watched the three Nothrix as Ghrag spoke. They all carried thin, four-foot-long rifles of some kind that he didn’t recognize. Their mottled, grey skin was dark and hard to distinguish in the yellow light. Jason could make out a variety of strange, shifting clothes on their sloppy, fleshy bodies, though their spiny arms and legs were uncovered and protected by an exoskeleton. Those weird, fern-like wings were now hanging lifelessly behind the Nothrix like capes. He couldn’t tell any difference between Ghrag and the others but Jason did notice that the ones up on the ridge all had their rifles pointed at the three Reality Rifters...

  "I don’t think so, Ghrag," Riley replied firmly, as if the bug leader's words were a ball bouncing back off of a wall. "This is our kill, fair and square. Jason here shot it in the t
hroat, and it was disabled and dying when one of your bugs shot it in the head. That minotaur was as good as dead when—"

  "Lies, puny human!" Ghrag countered, clicking and flapping his throat. The creature’s insectoid eyes gleamed dangerously under the yellow sky. "It one of my hunters, Kraubbus Tuskawz, that dealt killing blow!" The bug pointed at one of the others standing before them with a blade-like claw. "You go away now, Riley Wyatt, ack ack ack ugly human! This minotaur kill belongs to Nothrix Reapers!"

  Jason saw Riley falter, his eyes drifting to Jason and Gliath for only an instant. The three Nothrix clicked and hissed angrily. Jason felt a sense of nervous dread creeping up through his guts.

  "It’s alright, Riley," Jason quietly offered. "We’ve killed two in like ... an hour? We can get plenty more. "

  Jason realized that they were outnumbered and out in the open. The four—or five according to Gliath—up on the ridge were likely just waiting for an order to shoot them. Doesn’t Riley realize that? Jason thought. Riley seemed nervous too. If these Nothrix—and Ghrag—were half the bastards that Riley made them out to be, it sure seemed like this could get dangerous in a hurry...

  Riley seemed to steel himself and glared at Ghrag again.

  "Fruk off," the soldier said. "This is our kill. Your ‘hunter’ shot an already dying beast. We killed it. Find your own damned minotaurs to hunt. Now get out of my face, Ghrag!"

  A jolt of adrenaline lit Jason’s nervous system on fire and he felt his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Jason scanned the Nothrix silhouettes up on the ridge then looked back at the three in front of them. They weren’t bringing their guns to bear—not yet, anyway—but all three bug-men suddenly went into a fit of shuddering and clicking and hissing...

  Ghrag finally spoke, his choppy words seething with hatred.

  "Fine, ugly human!" the creature hissed. "Stupid, soft, nasty shit-human! I let you have Nothrix Reapers kill this time, but ack ack ack next time we kill you! We kill all three of you!" He pointed viciously with his blade-like claw at Riley, then Jason, then Gliath. "There many more minotaurs—you steal this one, puny human Riley! You not kill minotaurs without ack ack ack help of Kraubbus anyway! We are the good hunters..."