Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk

by Harmon Cooper

  The Commodore shook his head and grunted. “No, but we have kept them thoroughly distracted. The mission wasn’t to beat them, not yet. The mission was to draw more of their forces away from their base, because every few days, they have more Texas Rangers showing up. Our idea was to thin their numbers by sending some of those Rangers to Las Cruces as well.”

  “So there will be Texas Rangers there?”

  “They do have a small cavalry, yes. But I don’t think that’s something you should be concerned with. Del is in charge of our cavalry, and he will be handling most of the Rangers. Do you have to blow your smoke in my face?”

  “Ain’t my fault you’re downwind,” Sterling said as he flicked his cigarette to the ground. “Continue.”

  “The barriers, and the weapons they have, are going to make it difficult to breach the perimeter of the base. As you already know, that’s for your animates to handle.”

  “How did you know I called them that?”

  “Your shaman friend told me.”

  “Oh yeah? What else did he tell you?”

  “Mr. Gasper is trying to help. He knows what would happen if the Rangers moved into New Mexico, and the White Sands Militia continues to overtake the south.”

  “I find it hard to believe that Mr. Gasper up there doesn’t see a problem with you bandits taking over either.”

  “We’re not bandits.”

  “Let me guess, y’all are calling yourselves something like freedom fighters, some bullshit name like that?”

  “Commodore,” one of the Killbillies riding alongside the man said. He pointed toward a dune rising out of the sand, which had a rock jutting out of it, a cross on top.

  “Ah, yes, we’re almost there,” said Commodore Bones. “Are you ready for your surprise?”

  Their group came around the sand dune, Sterling biting his lip at what he saw.

  “You think you can animate something like that?” Commodore Bones asked.

  Sterling nodded slowly. “I reckon I don’t got a choice.”

  .Chapter Seven.

  The New Mexico state motto came to Sterling as he watched his animates move out, twenty-five in total with more available. Crescit Eundo—it grows as it goes. It felt like the Latin phrase was fitting for not only Sterling’s life in general, but how things had escalated since his pepper farm was attacked by Killbillies and the Godwalker. Custom designed, even.

  Sterling stood outside of what was left of the Holloman Air Force Base, far enough away that he wouldn’t be spotted. He could see the lights of the base, the early morning sun just about ready to lift into the sky. The desert was cold, his breath visible as he exhaled, Sterling feeling the tug of the twenty-five animates he’d sent forward, which had nearly obliterated his 159 Mana Points. The skeletal steed was now in his inventory list, Sterling planning to rely fully on the Sunflower Kid to lead the way.

  The Sunflower Kid’s ability allowed her to do numerous things with plant constructs, the cellulose material stitching together in any way that she wanted. Her current creation resembled a kiddie pool, which was directly behind them and filled with bodies that Commodore Bones’ Killbilly gofers had placed inside. In the time it took them to perform the gruesome task, Sterling had rolled up even more cigarettes. It was going to be a long fight, and even though he didn’t trust the Killbillies, there was little he could do about that at this point.

  “Here we go,” the Sunflower Kid said as the ground started to tear away, a rugged, fibrous platform taking shape, parts of which began to morph into wood. Sterling knew exactly what this was. He’d seen the Sunflower Kid do something similar before, her creation so powerful and large that it was like a wave cutting through the ground, even easier considering they were now moving through a desert. He stepped onto the platform as it began to grow. The Sunflower Kid joined him after sending Watermelon to her inventory list.

  “You can do that?” Sterling asked.

  “With the Mana I have, yes. A normal person? No.”

  “Like I keep saying, you never cease to amaze me.” Sterling looked back to see Don Gasper and Magdalena on their horse, but he wasn’t able to decipher the look on the shaman’s face, aside from an eerie reflection coming off his eyes. He had to hand it to Gasper. He didn’t need to be part of what was about to happen, but he had insisted, almost as if he wanted to prove to Sterling that he trusted his own vision enough to be part of it.

  The platform shifted forward, carrying with it the shallow bowl of bodies behind it. Sterling could see his animates increase their speed, the base growing closer by the minute.

  Commodore Bones’ surprise had certainly taken Sterling off guard. Joining his animates were three of the armadillo amalgamations at the front of the pack, whose thick shells would absorb round after round of ammunition. There were also three scorpion amalgamations, each at various levels of decay, but still able to do the job. Surrounding them were the animated bodies of nineteen dead bandits, with plenty more for Sterling to animate once they were no longer of use. Commodore Bones had said that the dead bodies were doing their cause a patriotic service, and he’d even delivered a little speech, which Sterling had ignored.

  While the Commodore had stroked his own ego, Sterling had stepped aside to eat some of the food that Sierra the pyromancer had given him, drink some water, and smoke a cigarette. He returned to hear the Commodore speaking zealously about how they would unveil the Killbilly flag once they took the Air Force Base. That this was their glory moment, that people in the area, and later the entire state, would celebrate this event for years to come.

  For once, Sterling had let him have his little moment. He knew it was bullshit, and he was fairly certain that once the Rangers heard what happened, they would be heading in the direction of White Sands with vengeance on their minds.

  Commodore Bones claimed to have telepathic communication with the other two leaders of the bandit group, a telemancer being a key part of Nina’s force. He also claimed that, while he didn’t have any mancers in his battalion, his counterpart, Del, had several pyromancers and gaiamancers. Sterling didn’t care. As soon as he finished the opening act, he would grab Roxy and the technomancer and be done with this. It was a lizard eat lizard world, and he had other things he needed to handle.

  The wind moved through his hair as they traveled, the Sunflower Kid showing no signs whatsoever of overexertion. As they grew nearer to the compound, Sterling turned away from the wind hitting him in the face and cupped his hand around his mouth so he could light a cigarette. He blew the smoke behind him just as the first flash of gunfire appeared on the horizon.

  His animates had reached their target.

  “I’ve been thinking about our exit strategy,” he told the Sunflower Kid. “It would be easier to get to solid land, and there should be less activity on the eastern side of the state, toward I-40, than the west. I say we head that way. Hell, maybe we go back through Carrizozo and have ourselves another little fiesta. That’s if Roxy doesn’t try to punch my head off.”

  The statement sparked a smirk on the Sunflower Kid’s face. Her armor was even thicker now, and as the smile on her face faded, roots and vines pressed out of the armor and formed a mask, a slit for her eyes and nose.

  “Rowayton the Indestructible. Remember how we used to call Roxy that?” he asked as he enjoyed his cigarette.

  The Sunflower Kid nodded.

  “I can’t help but think they’ve done something nasty to her in there. There’s no way they were able to contain her without something deviant. I haven’t noticed a telemancer around, but then again…” Sterling tapped his cowboy hat.

  The Sunflower Kid nodded again.

  “You can talk out of that mask, right?”

  “I can.”

  “If you sense anything telemancer-wise, you let me know. We’ll get you out of here, and I’ll take over from there. Here we go,” Sterling said, looking back to the former military base, where he heard more gunfire, a siren, lights coming on, two pyromancers li
fting out of the compound to address his animates.

  “You ready to try and get a level?” Sterling asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  They were practically sailing through the desert now, Sterling forced to keep his hand on his cowboy hat as they grew closer to the outer rim of the fight. They stopped, close enough now that Sterling could see through the moonlight and the soon to be early morning sun that the amalgamations had reached some of the blast barriers, two pyromancers torching them. Gunfire lit up the watchtowers, Sterling’s animates taking the bullets in stride.

  He waited until the human animates were no longer able to walk and then revoked their power. He sent a new wave forward, but not before an enormous tree trunk grew from the earth and slammed into the wall of the compound, breaking through it as it twisted around and brought down more of the structure. Sterling shook his head, watching as the Sunflower Kid orchestrated another attack, his animates growing close enough that they would be in range to absorb more bullets. One of his scorpion amalgamations moved past the point of usage, and Sterling revoked its power, the cigarette in his mouth practically all ash as he kept his focus on the battle.

  A quick glance over his shoulder told him that Commodore Bones was in position, the man lifting his fist into the air, which was a signal that the other Killbillies were ready to move in as well. A surge of gunfire was coupled with a group of militiamen pouring out of the military base like fire ants, where they met his animates head on, amalgamation and human alike. Yet one more wave to go; Sterling waited for the Sunflower Kid to send another submarine-sized tree trunk forward before he summoned the final wave of undead. As they reached the fight, horses charged around from the other side, signaling that the Texas Rangers had joined the clash. The Killbillies came in force from the west, all of their vehicles’ lights flickering on at the same time, the headlamps accentuating their size.

  A crag cut through one of the tree trunks, Sterling assuming it was a gaiamancer. He began scanning the fight for anyone who looked like they were conjuring stone, but couldn’t find the person. More Killbilly forces circled around the base, another wave coming in from the west and the south, Commodore Bones’ final flank preparing to move in from the north.

  Sterling revoked the power from all of his animates aside from the armadillo amalgamations, which still had some fight and armor left in them. He felt a flash of energy in his chest as his Mana returned to him. “In and out,” he told the Sunflower Kid as steps formed, the wooden railing of the platform melting away.

  “In and out,” she repeated.

  Once he was on the ground, Sterling charged toward the hole in the outer perimeter of the military base, the Sunflower Kid close behind him.

  This was the moment he had been waiting for.

  It felt good to surge forward, to address the adrenaline pumping through his system, to finally join the fight. Sterling met one of the militiamen with his blade, his slice precise, blood spurting from the man’s neck as he drew his revolver and fired at another assailant. The man’s bulletproof vest helped protect him from a fatal wound yet it tossed him into another militiaman, the two spilling over as Sterling and the Sunflower Kid charged past them.

  Sterling had a target in mind, a mission, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun along the way.

  He saw a vine twist forward, lift a man into the air, and slam him back to the ground. Even with all the fighting, he could hear his bones cracking in his body as the Sunflower Kid finished the militiaman off. Everything around them was calamity, a budding battle the likes of which he had never been part of before. The incidents back in Las Cruces paled in comparison to what was happening now, the base being overrun by Killbillies, militiamen slicing and shooting in defense, pyromancers in the air, the ground shifting as a gaiamancer sculpted sand and rock.

  For a moment, Sterling thought he had lost the Sunflower Kid, only to swivel around and see that she had connected herself to him through a very thin vine. He nodded at the masked woman protected by plant armor and continued onward.

  Holstering his revolver, he relied on his sickle-sword as they advanced, Sterling doing as much killing as he was simply fending off the militiamen that spilled out of the base. A man on a horse came riding by; Sterling recognized him as a Texas Ranger. He passed right by them only for Sterling to hook his blade into the Ranger’s side and whip him to the ground, quickly drawing his firearm.

  Bam!

  Sterling couldn’t help himself.

  A stone tore out of the sand. It would have landed on him had it not been for one of the Sunflower Kid’s plant constructs, which appeared in an instant. The wooden column burst out of the ground just as Sterling and the Kid ducked, her creation stopping the rock from falling on top of them.

  “That was too damn close,” he said as he slipped around the stone, the Sunflower Kid doing the same, albeit from the other side. The report of guns had dimmed, the Commodore’s plan working. The White Sands Militia had burned through a lot of their ammo in Sterling’s three waves of animates, and they were using even more on the armadillo amalgamations, which were a couple hundred feet or so to Sterling’s right, nearly at the outer wall of the former military base. Another rock lifted from the ground, tearing through a blast barrier made from the side of a huge cargo plane, sending gravel and bits of metal into the air. The debris rained down on some of the fighters, Sterling and the Sunflower Kid managing to clear past it.

  Whoosh!

  A male pyromancer landed in front of them, his body clad in military fatigues, head on fire. Fireballs erupted from his palms, and Sterling jumped to the right, taking the Sunflower Kid with him. They hit the ground and rolled, the fire causing piping hot rivulets of glass to appear in the sand. The Sunflower Kid lifted a vine from the ground and the pyromancer brought it down with a fiery tendril. Just to stun him, Sterling fired a few shots into his chest, the man’s bulletproof vest absorbing them yet still throwing him backward, which was what Sterling had hoped for.

  A tentacle of cactus tore out of the sand and wrapped around the man’s arms, prongs digging into his flesh. Sunflowers began to grow from the man’s body as he died, his fiery head quickly extinguished.

  “That was certainly creative.” Sterling got to his feet and offered his hand to the Sunflower Kid, who took it.

  “I thought you would like that.”

  Sterling drew his weapon and fired it before she could blink, his bullet passing through the face of a militiaman that was charging at them with a bat wrapped in barbed wire that he had stripped from a dead Killbilly.

  Sterling could tell that the Sunflower Kid was wincing at the sound of the shot and he apologized. “Had to be done,” he said as they turned back to the base. Before the two could continue, he took a look around just to get a sense of the fight happening all around him, and Sterling saw that now the northern flank of the Killbillies had reached the compound.

  Sterling shook his head and moved on.

  Thus far, the Killbillies hadn’t betrayed them, yet he didn’t feel bad about being obstinate earlier, nor would he ever. Just because they were cordial now didn’t mean that the Killbillies wouldn’t be coming for him tomorrow. Even if they called off the bounty hunter named Ram, Sterling knew that the man wouldn’t stop gunning for him. Enemy of my enemy, my ass, he thought as he used some of the same stone that had been lifted from the ground by the gaiamancer to climb over a barrier of barbed wire, and eventually through the hole that the Sunflower Kid had created in the wall surrounding the base.

  Sterling’s instincts took over. He grabbed the Kid’s arm and pulled her back into the shadows provided by the wall, militiamen filing out of the area that served as a front gate. It became clear that the wall wasn’t of original design, that it had been made later, not only its size, but also its quality separating it from the style that the before people used. It took him a moment to situate himself, but Sterling soon realized that they were in the area of the base that once been used f
or lodging.

  Just where we needed to be.

  If the Commodore’s map held true, the middle school that had been converted into a prison was nearby. If his intelligence had been wrong, Sterling was unsure how long it would take them to get around the base. Once he heard the roar of ATVs and dirt bikes coming down the flight line, he knew that the battle was only going to get bloodier.

  “We need some perspective,” Sterling said. “We need to find this middle school.” Even though he had a sense of the direction he should head, he still wanted to check the rough sketch he had made of the Commodore’s map. Equipping his book of desert haiku, Sterling turned to where he had made the sketch and took a look at it, the Sunflower Kid guarding him while he did so.

  “We just got to get there,” he finally told her, pointing at the map. “I know this thing ain’t to scale, but it shouldn’t be far from here.”

  “We’ll get there.”

  The two moved on, trying to make a wide berth around the main entry point for the Killbillies to join the fight. Not all the houses had been destroyed, and several were clearly being lived in, Sterling extra cautious as he came around those particular homes. The militia likely had families living on base, and Sterling didn’t know what would happen to them after the Killbillies moved in. He wondered if the bandit group would just absorb the White Sands Militia. That would be the smart thing to do, but it also was a great way to fuel a future coup.

  They were just about to turn the corner around a small home when the door popped open and a child stepped out, the boy clutching a raggedy teddy bear. He spotted them, Sterling’s initial reaction being to raise his weapon. He swiftly lowered it.

  The child took a step closer to them, the early morning light reflecting off his big doughy eyes. He had short black hair and he was shirtless, in a pair of sleep pants, barefoot, no taller than three feet or so.

  “Run along, son,” Sterling told him. He watched a couple of vines start to lift from the ground behind the child. “No,” he told the Sunflower Kid. “Not like that.”