by Eddie Patin
Above the three of them, the lingering Nothrix clicked and laughed.
In a while, the pain started to die down and Jason stopped dabbing, taking a moment to look down at the towel. Goddamn, his hand hurt! It felt like a burn—like it had been scalded with boiling water.
"Always know where your towel is," Jason muttered, suddenly bursting into laughter.
Riley stood by and scratched his beard, holding Jason’s rifle and looking at Jason with concern. Gliath stood by, tall and dark, and cocked his feline head.
"Uh ... what?" Riley asked.
Jason laughed some more, then took a drink and handed Riley his towel back.
"Always know where your towel is," he repeated with another chuckle. "You know—Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? You don’t...?"
Riley’s confused face told Jason that there was no Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy back on the soldier’s version of Earth. What was that place called again? Ebonexus? Riley didn’t get the reference.
"I told you to wear your gloves," Riley said.
Jason flexed his burned fingers then took his rifle back. "Yeah..."
"Come on, let’s get away from these assholes," Riley said, leading Jason and Gliath away down the opposite corridor from where the three bugs had pursued the fleeing minotaur.
They all walked for a while until out of sight from the Nothrix on the ridge. Jason found that he could still carry his rifle okay with his injured hand, but his palm and fingers were extremely sensitive and raw. Eventually, Riley stopped them.
"Okay, Jason. Let’s get away from these frukers. Rift us through the third to that ridge over there..." The soldier pointed at a darkening cliff far in the distance.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Jason asked. "I don’t know the coordinates of that ridge."
"I guess ... look at the coordinates of here, and adjust along the x and y axes five hundred yards over there. Maybe add about ... forty feet elevation. Try that."
Jason scoffed. "Sounds like you’re guesstimating how that works."
"Jason 113 could do it," Riley said, squinting at the distant cliff.
"How?"
"I don’t know, but give it a try, alright?"
Jason sighed and pulled up the OCS. He pulled up the coordinates of where they were standing after some exploration of the multiple screens, then tried editing the fields and modifying the position. He wasn’t quite sure which coordinate was which, but figured that if he had Z wrong, and opened a rift high up in the sky, they'd be able to see through it to know before jumping through to their doom...
When he’d finagled some coordinates with what Riley wanted in mind, Jason checked the sliders, made sure that the third and ninth were selected for travel, and focused on opening a rift. He grasped in his mind for the flex—for the feeling of that other place in space-time to open up—but he couldn’t feel a damned thing. Jason imagined a fluttering and a snap, but it was only in his imagination.
Nothing happened.
"I can’t, I’m sorry."
Riley scoffed. "Travel through the third is just from one place to another..."
"I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. How about you try to help me look at it? Maybe I’m selecting the wrong—"
"Minotaurs upwind," Gliath rumbled.
Jason dropped the OCS to his side and looked up at the leopardwere. He followed Gliath’s stoic gaze down the corridor in the opposite direction of where the Nothrix were and he saw two monstrous shapes wander across the canyon in the distance: a large minotaur with black fur, followed by a smaller one that might have been another female...
"The alpha!" Jason whispered.
"Let’s go," Riley replied, shouldering his rifle and leading the way. He drifted to the side of the canyon to use the trees for cover.
Jason and Gliath followed...
Chapter 15
"I can’t see them," Jason whispered.
They’d been quietly following the canyon for a few hundred yards, staying close to the left wall to make the most of the sparse tree cover they had there. Twice now, they’d heard bellowing grunts from up ahead, but the minotaurs had quickly run away and were somewhere forward out of sight.
"Gliath," Riley said, glancing back over his shoulder at his friend as they stalked on. "Are we still on their trail?"
"They must be this way," Jason exclaimed. "There haven’t been any turn-offs..."
"Quiet!" Riley snapped. "Gliath?"
"Yes, Ranaja," the leopardwere replied in his deep voice. "I believe it is the male alpha from before, and a female."
"Unless they’re really doing a runner, we’ll catch 'em," the soldier said. "Let’s pick up the pace."
Doing a runner? Jason thought. He groaned and followed Riley into a slow jog. "Can we really take on two at the same time?"
"We can," Riley said. "I’ve been having Gliath conserve ammo, but we have the firepower. Jason, watch out for this slime. Hard to see..."
Fear gripped Jason’s throat suddenly as he frantically scanned the ground in front of him. He veered around the green translucent blob suddenly in their path. It was hard to see in the changing light—Jason barely noticed its shape, visible only by the glistening of its round, beanbag-like shape making the sand under it shimmer. Riley merely jumped over the thing and kept going.
"Holy shit!" Jason exclaimed, giving the slime a wide berth. His hand still hurt like he’d burned it pretty badly, and he sure didn’t want to feel that again. "It’s really hard to see those damned things."
"This should be the last kill before heading back for the night," the soldier replied. "The slimes and the minotaurs are both just gonna get harder for you to see, I reckon."
There was a low animal grunt from up ahead and the three of them froze.
Jason’s heart beat quickly in his chest and he tried to breathe quietly so that he could listen...
Flicking his eyes down to the safety lever of his Rigby rifle, Jason wanted nothing more than to turn it off and bring up his muzzle, ready to rock. But he waited...
Riley slowly and silently approached the tree in front of them. Then he peered through its scraggly branches. Without looking back at Jason and Gliath, he put one hand up in the air, gesturing the number one. Then he signed something with his fingers that Jason didn’t understand and made a motion to move to the right. Jason shouldered his rifle and hesitated. Was he talking to me? Or Gliath? he thought. When Jason looked back at the leopardwere, hoping for a hint as to Riley’s intentions, he saw that the panther-man was gone, already fleeting across the canyon to the other side like a black ghost, as quiet as a sparrow.
Jason stood, his Rigby braced against his shoulder, crouching in a way that would have hurt his right knee a few weeks ago. He waited to see what Riley wanted to do. Looking across the path, he saw Gliath take position in a sandstone crevice partway up the right wall.
Riley suddenly backed up, carefully and quietly, until he could crane his neck to speak to Jason.
"Just the female is up there," the soldier said in a low voice. "Gliath is going to watch out for the alpha with his railgun. We’ll take her together. Head around the tree and take a shot while I go through it. Be ready for a follow-up..."
Jason felt butterflies in his stomach.
"Okay."
Raising the muzzle of his Rigby, Jason crept past Riley and around the edge of the scraggly scrub oak. The yellow light streaming through the sky made the weird, pink leaves almost look like they were on fire. They glowed. He heard the rustling and sifting sounds of Riley going around the other side of the tree up against the sandstone wall, and as Jason’s heartbeat quickened, he cut the corner of the branches and leaves, watching for the minotaur...
He saw her suddenly; another female a lot like before. This one might have had longer, darker fur—it was hard to see in the changing light—but she was definitely more slender than the males, had ... um ... female shapes ... and sleeker horns. The instant Jason made out the beast's shadowy form up ahe
ad, he realized that she was a lot closer than he’d hoped. He immediately raised his rifle’s front sight up to her head, flicking off the safety.
At the faint click of the safety lever, the minotaur spun in the sand and let out a surprised snort.
"Shit," Jason hissed.
By the time Jason adjusted his aim onto the minotaur’s neck, she was already charging. The man's heart leapt up into his throat and he tried to give the trigger a nice, controlled squeeze as the monster’s hooves thundered against the sandy canyon floor. Jason felt the thumps of the she-beast's tremendous weight through the soles of his feet...
The Rigby rifle boomed, rocking hard against Jason’s shoulder. He didn’t wait to see what happened with the impact. Instead, Jason's ringing senses focused on the quieter reports of Riley’s Gauss rifle firing next to him...
He saw a huge black shadow charging out from hiding. The alpha was following the female into the fight!
Gliath’s railgun made a sudden mechanical sound behind them like a heavy rifle firing with a suppressor, and the air was split by a brilliant crack.
In the next moment, Jason realized with horror that Gliath hadn’t been shooting at the female. He'd fired upon the alpha, and the female minotaur was still charging at Jason like an oncoming freight train!
"Oh, shit! Oh, shit!" Jason stammered as he cycled the bolt of his rifle then brought the muzzle up for another shot. The monster was almost on him—if he missed, Riley and Gliath would be scraping him off of the canyon floor. "Kill her, Riley! Kill her!"
Jason could see the female minotaur’s glittering black eyes as she closed in on him, hooves slamming into the ground, muscles working, fur and mane bouncing; her breath like a steam engine. The broad, sharp horns were down and as she swayed them from side to side with each thundering step, Jason focused on a spot of her neck that he hoped would be vulnerable—a spot that he only saw because he was so close. He pulled the trigger...
Click.
"Shit!"
Throwing his weight to the right as hard as he could, Jason burst into a dodge to the side as if a piano was about to fall on him from above. The massive shape of the incoming minotaur came in at him, swerving to intercept his fleeing body, then the world went upside down!
Jason’s hands were suddenly empty. He felt Maze World whirling around him, immediately sick in his throat and coursing with fear and adrenaline. He felt a crushing pain in his left side, which immediately set to burning. He was reminded of the sensation of raptor claws slicing his skin for just a moment before the ground came up at him from above and smashed him in the face!
He heard Riley’s voice. "Gliath!"
Jason was upside down, confused, not sure which way was up. He was wracked with bruising and stinging pain. He felt the ground through his head and shoulders vibrating, then heard several heavy, thumping steps stamp around him. Stars and ghostly fireworks burst in his vision...
The she-minotaur let out a gruff snort, then roared almost in his ear.
Shit! he thought. I’ve been gored!
Pain washed through Jason’s body like waves and his head swam, but he suddenly realized where the ground was, then figured out that he was slumped on his head and shoulders. The monster was still there—turning around to finish him! Jason felt wet warmth on his side where most of the pain was coming from...
There was a deep growl and a roar and Jason realized that it didn't come from the minotaur. Then there was a crash. Two loud animals were howling and making all sorts of God-awful sounds right next to him.
Jason tried to get up, but only rolled somehow, then could see a sideways view—blurry and surrounded by a yellow haze—of the big, dark female minotaur wrestling with another big and darker shape: Gliath. The leopardwere was faster and almost as big, moving with blinding speed and great power, scrambling for a good hold, constantly writhing to slip behind the beast. After a few seconds of struggle, while both monsters roared and snarled loudly at each other, Jason saw Gliath trap the minotaur’s left arm and her horns with his powerful hands. An instant later, Jason heard the sound of a three-round burst from Riley’s Gauss rifle and triple-crack of his shots splitting the air. The minotaur’s throat exploded in a bloody mess.
Groaning and trying to look up ahead to where the alpha was, Jason’s world slowly spun and swam like he was rolling around in zero gravity. He felt super-drunk. He tried to move, but stopped with a gasp when his ribs almost made him shriek in pain. Maybe he did shriek out loud—he had no idea. Jason couldn’t see the alpha anywhere, and was only dimly aware that Gliath and the female minotaur were still struggling. Everything was all getting ... sluggish. He looked back and saw the leopardwere easing the shaggy beast to the ground...
Did Gliath kill the alpha? Jason wondered. No. That was the female, wasn't it...?
The intense yellow light of the sky was getting dim around the edges...
Jason suddenly heard Riley’s voice, hazy in his ears.
"Shet," the soldier said. "Jason? Are you okay? I don’t see any blood—where are you hurt?"
"All over," he felt his mouth reply. It felt like someone else's mouth. "My ... my side..."
Jason felt Riley’s hands on him, rolling him. He tried his best not to vomit from how sick moving made him feel. His head was spinning...
"Oh shet—yeah, she gored you a little bit. Flipped you too. Are you dizzy?"
Jason waited for a moment for his head to clear, but it didn’t.
"Fuck yeah ... dizzy..."
"Damn it," Riley said, then spoke away from Jason. "Gliath, watch for the alpha. Get your rifle ready."
"Yes, Ranaja..."
"I’m super dizzy, Riley. My side hurts. Alpha ... not dead?" Jason's words came out much more clearly in his ears than he expected them too. His brain was so muddled, it felt like he could only grunt and moo...
While unable to speak a language, the character can still communicate by grunts and gestures, Jason thought, recalling a caption from second-edition DnD. The thought made him giggle, then he wondered whether or not he'd said that out loud...
"Shet," Riley said, floating over him. "You're fruked up. No—he ran away. Hang on..."
Jason squinted, dimly aware that Riley was digging through a belt pouch. The soldier produced something he recognized: one of the crystal vials full of purple fluid, now black under the yellow sky.
"Is that ... your healing potion?" Jason asked, trying to sit up. His torn side made him scream in agony, then he grunted in pain and fell back, his head swirling and throat feeling green.
"Yeah," Riley replied. "Drink this."
"No!" Jason replied, stammering. "That’s your ... most valuable! It’s okay, Riley..." He realized that he sounded like he was drunk and chuckled, feeling stupid and full of pain. "Don’t waste it, man. We just need to go to the Wilderlands. I can heal there..."
"Drink it, Jason. Hey—I don’t wanna use it now either; believe me I don’t. But how are you going to get to the Wilderlands from here, huh? You’re our rifter! You probably have a concussion and some broken ribs at the least. Drink it."
The man had a point. Jason sure couldn’t rift with his head swimming like this.
Allowing Riley’s help, Jason took the crystal vial and lifted it to his lips, letting the fluid—cold like ice water and tasting like peppermint and something he couldn’t figure—fill his mouth. Jason swallowed and felt the strange liquid run down his throat, into his center. It seemed to spread a chill through him—not in a bad way. It was like air conditioning on a blazing hot day. Jason felt the sensation linger the most in his left side, shoulders, and neck, finally spreading up through the back of his head into what felt like his sinuses and the areas where he occasionally had headaches behind his eyes and forehead.
A few seconds went by as the buzz traveled and faded through Jason’s body and face, then the world seemed to come back into focus...
Jason was sitting on the canyon floor, caked with sand with Riley crouched in front of him, one ha
nd on his shoulder. He could see Gliath standing nearby with his railgun at low ready. The Krulax's feline eyes darted over in quick spurts to watch him, but mostly focused on the distance. His father's Rigby Magnum Mauser was on the ground about ten feet away, and the dark-furred female minotaur lay dead near him and Riley, a pool of dark blood spreading out on the sand around her chest and neck.
Standing easily, Jason brushed the sand off of him.
"Holy freakin Jesus on a stick, Riley!" Jason said. He felt great! "You gave me one of your healing potions, and ... well ... I’ve never experienced that before!"
Riley stood and smirked. "Yeah, that's great, Jason." He didn't look happy. "Glad I was able to give you a new experience, dude. Hopefully I can replace that potion sometime soon..."
Jason stared down at the dead minotaur. He saw a small spot of blood—dark orange under the yellow sky—on the tip of her left horn. Was that ... his blood?!
"Thanks for saving me," Jason said, staring at the horn, "but holy shit—I thought ... how did I get gored? I thought you had it!"
"Well," Riley replied, scratching his beard, "I did. But she was spooked by your safety clicking off, and I put several shots into her while she charged, but ... what happened with your rifle? Did you have a misfire or something? Gliath was on the alpha, who charged in behind her. He hit it, but it ran away."
Jason stalked over to his Rigby, picked it up out of the sand. He brushed it off then checked the chamber.
Empty.
There were still rounds in the magazine underneath. What happened?! he thought, loading a round into the chamber easily.
"I ... uh ... I don’t know," Jason replied. "It was empty, but not out of ammo..."
"You must have short-stroked it," Riley said.
Maybe he did. Short-stroking has probably caused more than a handful of hunter deaths with dangerous game back on Earth. Jason had just added to that statistic...
"Shit. I’ll have to be more careful."