The Minotaurs of Maze World

by Eddie Patin

  "Or we can set up an ambush here," Riley said, looking out over Maze World again. "Actually, that’s not a bad idea, but ... Gliath, you can get over there really fast, can’t you?"

  "Yes, Ranaja," the leopardwere rumbled. "I can no doubt move faster than the Nothrix Reapers on my own."

  Riley looked back at Jason, the anger melting away. "He is our scout after all."

  "But I have never used Jason Leaper 934’s device before," Gliath added in his low voice. "Also, I cannot carry the device in my primal form."

  "Primal form?" Jason asked.

  "Panther form," Riley said, then sighed. "So we're back to circle zero."

  Circle zero? Jason thought. Square one?

  "Okay," the soldier said firmly. "Gliath, I want you to go into your primal form and scout the ridges—quickly now, and get back to us right away. See if you can find their position. Don’t get shot and stay away from any minotaurs."

  "Yes, Ranaja."

  "Jason, you and I will set up ambush positions and wait here in case they come back before Gliath returns. I don’t know how many Nothrix that Ghrag bastard has with him, but I haven’t really seen them in groups bigger than eight. We’ve been seeing pretty small groups but maybe he has a war party with him right now. Of course he wasn’t expecting us to show up back here..."

  "Okay," Jason said. "And if the shit hits the fan, can we finally get the hell out of here?"

  "The shit hits ... what?!" Riley replied with confusion. "Jason, I’m okay leaving once Ghrag is dead. I don’t care about the others. If they come flying back here, we just need to wait until they’re all within good range then start shooting the frukers out of the sky."

  Jason sighed and looked out over the yellow horizon.

  "Alright."

  With that, Jason made sure that his rifle was topped off and watched Gliath shift into his primal form. It was interesting—the leopardwere took nothing but his Sacred Warblade; the silver-edged kukri. Before shifting, Gliath pulled the kukri from its sheath then changed shape with it in hand. As the leopardwere shrunk down into a pile of gear and armor, the big weapon—sheath and blade and all—seemed to meld into him. By the time Gliath was a full black panther, the blade was gone, and the big animal slunk out of his belongings and departed without a word.

  For a while, Jason watched as Gliath the panther silently dashed along the rounded, eroded edge of the ridge, staying out of sight from the tops of the walls. He disappeared once when he had to descend to cross a corridor, then Jason saw the black feline shadow appear again on the other side. When Gliath disappeared again—following the ridge under the skyline toward Rush’s camp—Jason didn’t see him again for a while.

  "Welcome back, Gliath," Riley said suddenly.

  Jason jumped and looked over to see the panther form of Gliath slinking around his gear and armor once again. The leopardwere had been gone for perhaps twenty minutes—maybe a little more—and Jason had spent the time finding the perfect place to bed down in a crevice of sandstone. He wanted a spot where he wouldn’t make an outline against the sky; a position where he'd have good support for his rifle. The foul, leathery tent had burned on and on, sending plumes of soot and oily smoke into the yellow sky the entire time the leopardwere was gone.

  Gliath shifted back into his hybrid form—what Riley called his 'warrior' form—and put all of his armor and gear back on.

  "What did you see?" Jason asked, painfully climbing up from his crook in the rounded part of the ridge. He walked over, boots crunching.

  Adjusting his shoulder armor plates, Gliath said, "The Nothrix Reapers are past the camp of Rush Watson and Tommy Whisper. They remained in the area where they attacked us last and have set up an ambush around the canyon on the surrounding walls."

  Riley crossed his arms and nodded. "Ghrag thinks we’ll show up there again."

  "We rifted out of there," Jason said. "They might have seen it—they definitely heard it. Maybe they think that we have to return to the same place."

  "Alright," Riley said. "Well, that’s something. Good job, Gliath." He reached up and scratched behind the leopardwere’s ear for a few seconds. "So now we need to get all the way fruking back there..."

  "No problem," Jason said, earning a cocked eyebrow from Riley. "I set a bookmark in the spot where we met Rush and Tommy below their camp where they were skinning their fourth kill, remember?"

  Riley smirked. "Yeah ... let’s do that! Let’s rift there—real quick-like to minimize the noise—then sneak up on those bastards and take em out."

  Jason topped off his Rigby, took a drink of water, pissed off of the ridge, then opened a rift to the canyon under Rush’s camp. This time he knew what to do—he remembered what he’d learned moving bodies to the slab in the Wilderlands.

  When the portal was open, showing an empty sandy canyon with fringes of oak scrubs at the edges and eroded, purple sandstone walls, the three Reality Rifters dove through and Jason released the rift as quickly as he could behind them.

  Jason was starting to understand that—while his rifts were very loud—they were undetectable from the destination side until the shimmering, watery surface was broken. From the moment they leapt through the rift until the instant Jason collapsed it—perhaps two or three seconds—the portal where they ended up roared like a loud Tesla coil that spewed manmade lightning. It blared and spit sputtering sparks out onto the sand for a tense moment ... then blinked out with a pop.

  As the three of them dropped into the relative quiet of the breezy canyon floor, Jason wondered whether or not they were far enough away from the bugs to remain unnoticed...

  Did the Nothrix Reapers hear the rift...?

  "Okay, I’ll take point," Riley said. "Stay quiet, and let’s follow the same path as before until I can pull up their locations with my scanners. If I remember right, it’s up this path, right, then left, then left again, on for a while, then right, and that’s where we got stuck and rifted out of here."

  Jason ran it though his memory but he couldn't follow. He shrugged.

  "Scanners?"

  "Just stay quiet and close to the wall," the soldier said. "Be ready with your rifle, Jason, but watch me. I'll stop you if I pick up their positions."

  "Alright," Jason replied.

  "Gliath? Do you remember where they are from here?" Riley asked.

  "Yes, Ranaja," he replied. "Would you like me to show you the way?"

  "Sure. Let’s move out."

  Great, Jason thought. In the back. Now he had to watch their asses too.

  Jason tried not to think about walking into another firefight. He followed Riley and Gliath, keeping his father’s rifle tucked up against his shoulder, ready to snap the muzzle up in an instant if he had to. As he followed the two experienced Reality Rifters, he realized after a few turns that he wasn’t really paying attention to where they were going or where they came from. He watched only Riley, determined to stop making noise bumbling through the sand and scraggly grass as soon as the soldier told him to.

  At one point, Jason reached up and felt at the necklace under his shirt and armor—the broken half of a blank focus key that he’d set for his garage.

  If the shit hit the fan, that was probably going to be their quickest way out—at least if Jason didn’t want to be staring at a screen for a while as railgun rounds cracked past his head.

  He could do it. He knew that his power would be there for him if he needed to use the focus key to get home...

  In time, half-stealthing, half-stumbling along through the crunchy sand canyons, Jason gasped and froze when Riley’s hand finally popped up in a fist.

  Is that stop? Jason wondered. It meant stop on Earth; in video games, at least.

  They must have drawn in close to the Nothrix ambush. Riley was standing near the sandstone wall, looking at the ridges above them, especially the high ridges that would be on the other side of the maze wall next to him. Could Riley see through walls?

  Gliath ghosted across the canyon floor wit
hout a sound to join the soldier. Riley gestured for Jason to close the distance, putting a finger up to his lips.

  Quiet.

  Riley frequently surprised Jason by saying phrases and figures of speech that were just a little different than what Jason was accustomed to back home. At least that gesture was the same between their two worlds.

  Slowly making his way toward the two of them, Jason winced with each crunch of his boots on hard sand and gravel.

  "You see them?" Jason whispered when he was close enough.

  "Yeah," Riley replied, quietly and smoothly swapping his Marlin for his Gauss rifle. "There are six up on the ridge around the corner. They’re hanging over the edge."

  More ammo, Jason thought. Was the lever action really better for taking on the Nothrix anyway? Or did Riley just use it to have more fun?

  "What’s the plan?" Jason asked.

  "You and me—we’re gonna approach from the ground from across the intersection. We’ll have a clear shot at all of them. I know I can take two or three of them out before they can react, but we need to do what we can to our advantage, ya know?"

  "Yeah, okay."

  Riley smirked. "That was rhetorical, Jason. Anyway—Gliath’s gonna climb up the wall and attack them with his railgun from the other direction, which might drive them over the edge to us."

  "What if they see us crossing?"

  "We’ll fire after Gliath is in position, so if any of them happen to be looking our way when we cross, he’ll engage and we’ll ... improvise."

  "Great..."

  Riley looked up at Gliath, who stared blankly back down.

  "You understand, good buddy?"

  "Yes, Ranaja," he rumbled, then turned, paused, and looked back. "Good fortune, Jason Leaper 934. Bring your warrior’s heart with you to battle."

  A chill went up Jason’s spine.

  "Uh ... thanks, Gliath. Good luck to you too. Let’s kill these assholes and go home."

  Riley led Jason quietly toward the intersection as Gliath dashed off silently in the opposite direction. Soon, the leopardwere was pulling himself up the purple sandstone wall with ease.

  "Remember to keep your head down, Jason," Riley whispered as they smoothly rushed across the canyon floor to the opposite wall. It would be better to pass the intersection—a place where they could be spotted—on the far end. They'd have more distance. "When the shooting starts, if we don’t kill 'em all right away, you keep moving or you might get zapped."

  "Zapped?"

  "Yeah—you know ... shot."

  "Yeah, I know what you mean, Riley."

  "Then why'd you ask, new guy?" Riley replied with a smirk, clapping Jason quietly on one shoulder. "Now let's go..."

  There was a point before they passed the intersection where Riley stopped them both. The soldier watched behind them. Jason looked back as well and saw Gliath slipping over the eroded hump of the ridge, settling in just below the yellow light of the sky. The leopardwere waved one clawed, black hand and Riley turned to continue.

  Times like these, Jason thought. What in the hell was he doing?! Jason could have pulled out at any time up until now. He could have just stayed home—even if Riley took back the OCS and left in a huff to find another Jason to work with. He could comfortably live out his whole life with that portal to the Wilderlands in his backyard, going into dinosaur world every once in a while armed to the teeth to grab some gold from the creek, or maybe make a business out of infinity crystals. Shit—Jason could build free power generators and sell them! Why the hell was he still in Maze World, helping Riley with this bullheaded vendetta, about to get killed by nasty bug creatures that they could totally avoid?!

  "Quickly now!" the soldier said.

  They dashed across the area where any number of the bugs up on the next ridge over might randomly be looking their way and see them...

  Chapter 23

  Jason held his breath as he moved along the canyon wall briskly behind Riley. The soldier moved like a ghost. Jason felt like he was tromping along like an elephant as they passed the maze intersection. He kicked at gravel and sent a small sandstone rock skittering away into the center of the wide, natural corridor, feeling angry at himself.

  Ahead of him, Riley cast a quick glance to see if any of the bugs had seen them...

  The soldier didn’t seem upset by what he saw.

  Jason forced himself not to look. He would probably trip and fall in fright if he did. He just watched Riley and the man’s hellhound-hide duster jacket flowing in the wind of their quiet running through the sand and rock.

  A few seconds later, the two men were on the other side and out of sight again.

  Jason realized that his heart was pounding. He was panting. He opened his mouth wide to quiet his gasps...

  "Okay, we’re good," Riley said quietly. He smirked. "You okay, new guy?"

  Jason felt the heat of embarrassment bloom in his face. "Yeah!" he hissed back. "Fine. Did you see Ghrag?"

  Riley led Jason across the corridor again so that they could approach from the closer, opposite wall. The Earth man looked back down the maze corridor to where he'd seen Gliath disappear, clambering up the wall like black death. The leopardwere was nowhere in sight, now. Once they were in position, Jason knew, they’d wait for Gliath to make the first move...

  "I did, yeah," Riley replied. "All six of those bug frukers are hiding around the wall positioned to surround the spot where you rifted us out."

  "Good thing they don’t understand my rifting, I guess," Jason replied, trying to will his heart to calm down. From the steady hammering of his heartbeat, he knew that the organ wasn’t listening. "Can we get em all from here?"

  "Mostly," Riley said.

  "Mostly..." Jason echoed with a grin, thinking of Aliens. He almost laughed—giddy with nervousness—and looked at Riley as if to share the joke, but the soldier stared back at him like he was crazy. Riley clearly didn’t get the reference. Jason’s smile vanished. "So now ... we wait?"

  "Let’s get into position."

  Riley and Jason crept along with their rifles ready. As they approached the corner where one canyon intersected with another in a gigantic maze-pattern like the rest of this weird world, the soldier pointed to a sandstone boulder that had apparently fallen from the above ridge at some point in the past.

  Jason looked at the boulder, looked back at Riley with a question mark in his face, then whispered, "Me?"

  Riley nodded, then whispered as quiet as the breeze, "You take cover there and shoot whichever ones you can. I’ll take cover behind the corner and take out as many as I can—as fast as I can—after Gliath shoots. If things go to shet, wait until they’re reloading, then run that way." Riley jerked a gloved thumb behind them in the way they hadn't explored yet, then added, "and take cover while Gliath and I eliminate the rest."

  Just then, the soldier was distracted by something in the distance—back where they'd left Gliath—and craned his neck to peer over there. Riley waved. Jason looked, expecting to see the black form of the leopardwere somewhere in the pale sandstone under the yellow sky, but saw nothing.

  Jason ducked slightly, took an unnecessary look down at his father’s rifle, then hustled over to the big boulder, staying low. He didn’t bother looking up—he just headed straight for his cover. When he arrived, Jason immediately dropped down to get into a prone position behind the boulder, put his rifle up in front of him, then searched for the bugs...

  He saw them—four of them at least. Up ahead was the area where Gliath had been shot down previously. He could see the big copse of oak scrub trees were he'd hidden back as Riley withdrew to check on his wounded friend. Just past those trees was where he’d opened the rift.

  The Nothrix Reapers were up there on the ridge about forty to fifty yards away—perched up on the walls around the area. Two of the bugs Jason saw were prone, and two were sitting lazily with their feet hanging over the edge. The four Nothrix he'd spotted were positioned to surround the area where Jason had rif
ted them the hell out of there before. He had to assume that the other two Riley had detected were up there too—just somewhere where Jason couldn’t see from his vantage. The bugs looked bored. Most of their rifles were held casually like long sticks on their shoulders. One was still trained on the canyon floor, but how long had they been waiting? It had been over an hour or two since Jason and Riley came back to Maze World after dropping Gliath off at home.

  Was one of those bugs Ghrag? All Jason could see were silhouettes against the bold yellow sky. They all looked the same for the most part. Maybe some of them had slightly different armor. One of them had its weird, fleshy wings unfurled, waving casually like thick fern fronds.

  Jason looked back to Riley and saw that the soldier had advanced to the corner of the intersection. He was calmly braced up against the sandstone wall, Gauss rifle raised, aiming at the Nothrix group up ahead.

  Jason's heartbeat started to quicken again.

  Three against six. The Nothrix had the high ground—mostly—but the Reality Rifters had the element of surprise. Hell—Riley would probably kill three of them right away like he said. Then why am I so nervous? Jason wondered. He took deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves as they waited for—

  There was a sudden boom of Gliath’s railgun slug splitting the air.

  Jason didn’t see which bug was shot, but he saw a mist and flecks of gunk fly from one of the remaining Nothrix out of sight. Adrenaline shot through him and his heartbeat immediately swelled to a pounding in his ears. Jason fought against a numb stupor that threatened to take over his body...

  By the time Jason took aim with his Rigby rifle, Riley had already shot two three-round bursts, the smaller hypersonic bolts of the his Gauss rifle cracking through the air just like small .223 rounds did back home.

  Jason's front sights landed on the black shape of a distant bug that was stirring into action. As he aimed carefully at the Nothrix's center mass—the thing’s wings were rising—Jason slowly squeezed the trigger...