A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology

by Gregory D. Little

  “You’ll stay, won’t you?”

  Angelica smiled as she brushed the girl’s hair from her face. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she was grateful for the darkness. “I’ll think about it.”

  And she would. She would think about that offer, and remember it, until her dying breath. But there was no way she could accept it.

  Wisteria’s eyes fluttered. She appeared on the verge of sleep, but said, “I know about Hector. Angie told me. Red unicorns are special, you know. They can see each other, even when no one else can.” Her words were beginning to slur with drowsiness. “But it’s okay. I have Angie now.” She must have seen Hector before Angelica had even arrived, and then incorporated his disappearance into the fantasy world she had created in her mind.

  Once Wisteria’s eyes had closed and her breathing evened out, Angelica brushed her lips against the girl’s forehead and went outside. She packed all of her food and canteen into a rucksack, which she left at the foot of Wisteria’s cot. It wasn’t much, but it was more than nothing. Where Angelica was going, she wouldn’t need it.

  She pulled up her hood against the rain and began to pull her levcart through the towers of refuse. It was still early evening, the sky gray. It was dangerous heading out on foot this late, even without the renders, but Angelica found she didn’t mind. With the supplies she had left behind, she had given Wisteria a few more days of life.

  And Angelica had chosen how she would live her own last few days. She felt as if she had finally lived a human life for a time, rather than the life of a cornered animal, and that was all she could ask for.

  As she got to the edge of the scrapyard, the blue LED on her wrist wearable began flashing steadily.

  She stared at it for minute, not comprehending, as terror slowly seeped into her. Oh no.

  A render was coming.

  Her instincts told her to run. She still had time. The wearables could detect renders from a couple of kilometers away, registering their presence by the unique radiation signature their bodies gave off. Angelica had at least ten minutes to get clear, fifteen if she was lucky and the render wasn’t headed directly for her. The rate of flashing would tell her how likely that was, and she could change course to account for it. She had survived so far using such tactics.

  And she could survive again. She could get away, head out into Wastes. Even with no food and only the rain to quench her thirst, she would survive, but only for a time.

  She glanced back at the mound of trash. Imagined the render pulling it apart, finding what lay sleeping inside.

  Her fingers began to shake, but she smiled grimly. Run away, and waste all this ammo?

  Angelica turned around and headed back into the scrapyard, pulling her levcart and the arsenal it contained behind her.

  O O O

  Three frag grenades. An NA-8 burst rifle, with 183 armor-piercing rounds. Two pistols with six clips. A sawed-off semi-automatic shotgun of unknown design, but functional. Twenty-eight shells. A bolt-action hunting rifle with nine bullets. An M20 bazooka, one M28A2 rocket. And though she hoped it wouldn’t come to it, her bowie knife.

  But those were merely icing on the cake.

  She had two Ballbusters—stationary weapons platforms with automated targeting. But that wasn’t all. According to the water-damaged manual Angelica had found, the Ballbusters had “dynamic ammunition LOS extension.” Fancy speak for bullets whose trajectories curved around corners. Good for larger targets that moved out of visible range and behind cover. The extrapolation algorithm wasn’t foolproof, but it was good enough to provide a significant advantage in a tight situation. Any run-in with a render qualified as one of those.

  By the change in the frequency at which her wearable flashed while she scouted, Angelica judged the render was approaching from the north—just as she had. It was unlikely, but possible, that it had followed her. Knowing that she may have led it here only strengthened her resolve to stay and fight.

  She set up the Ballbusters in flanking positions, protecting them from the rain with sheets of plastic she had found. Afterward, she hunkered down in a small, covered area a hundred yards from where Wisteria slept. She hoped the girl could sleep through thunderstorms.

  Her arsenal was scattered about the scrapyard. She needed to be light on her feet when the render came. The wind lashed her back as she readied the bazooka. It was devastating but inaccurate, and it worked best when there was some element of surprise. She’d use it first. She had no official combat training, but she had worked out this very scenario in her mind fifty times a day for the past five years. She was as ready as she could be.

  Even so, her odds were bad. If all the human armies in the world couldn’t stop the renders, she didn’t have much of a chance.

  But she didn’t have to win. All she had to do was fight.

  Angelica leaned against an old mattress, nearly prone, the weight of the bazooka against her shoulder, and waited.

  Two minutes later, an ethereal glow lit the sky from behind the northern tree line. Trees fell, seemingly at random. Had her clothes not already been soaked with rain, Angelica was sure her sweat would have done the job.

  A steady thump-thump-thump could be heard over the rain as the first of the Ballbusters engaged its target. A few moments later, the second one began firing.

  The glow over the forest grew. She could see traces of white light, like the gates of heaven had been thrown open, constantly shifting beyond the trunks of the trees. She quickly calibrated her goggles’ contrast ratio to prevent retinal burn.

  The render stepped out of the trees, snapping branches and trunks with equal ease. Its narrow body was as long and wide as a bus, yet its long, crablike legs made it seem nimble. It scanned its surroundings, shifting its stance to avoid the armor-piercing rounds that occasionally nicked the joins in its multifaceted carapace—the render’s only true weak spots. Even its four maroon, glassy eyes were heavily shielded and effectively bulletproof.

  Angelica released her breath and pulled the trigger.

  The thump of the rocket launching from her small shelter was deafening. She was disoriented for a split-second, but then she had the presence of mind to dump the bazooka and grab her hunting rifle.

  She heard the detonation but didn’t see if the rocket actually struck its target. There was no time for that. She ran for cover.

  The render sped out of view. The timbre of the Ballbusters’ reports cracking through the air changed slightly as the turrets swiveled to track it. One of the Ballbusters spun down; the render must have moved out of its extended LOS.

  Angelica leaned against a stack of old TVs, rifle at the ready, but she wasn’t looking down the sights. She had nothing to aim at yet. Her breathing was coming faster and faster. She couldn’t hear the blood pumping in her ears over the rumble of the Ballbusters, but she could feel every beat of her heart like the shuddering of the cosmos.

  Where are you? she wondered. Come for me. I’m ready.

  She heard a piercing, alien scream and smiled. Probably wounded now. The render staggered into view sixty yards out, the white light from one of the joins in its leg burning hotter, almost too bright to look at, even through her goggles. Not a fatal hit, but it would slow the render down a bit. Hopefully.

  She pressed the wood stock of the rifle against her cheek, squinted down the sight, exhaled, and squeezed.

  The recoil jolted her. She ejected the cartridge, reloaded, fired, and was on the move again. She couldn’t stay still for long without the render pinpointing her location. Even if she did keep moving, it would likely find her sooner than later. Renders had poor eyesight at long distances, but they were unnaturally clever. And once they got close, they could detect prey by other means, some sense that no one yet understood, and could even penetrate two feet of iron. If it got within five or six yards of her, she was as good as dead.

  Having a chance against a render meant staying three steps ahead of it. And having more than one’s fair share of luck.


  After she fired off her fourth round, one of the Ballbusters powered down after spinning empty for a couple seconds. The second fired only occasionally. The render was likely picking its path to avoid the turret’s LOS.

  With only one turret still working, time was running out. Angelica headed up a rise to her last redoubt—the dead end where she had left the burst rifle and the sawed-off shotgun. She had booby-trapped the entrance with all three grenades. In the back was a narrow tunnel she could escape through once the render came for her.

  She took up the burst rifle and shotgun, one in each hand, and stood waiting. Though it was a dead end, it was slightly elevated so she could still see the forest’s edge, as well as the mound of Wisteria’s room. Angelica knew that if the render closed on that mound, there was no saving the girl. She had to do what she could to draw it away.

  As Angelica glanced over at the mound again, a flash of red caught her eye, but was gone before she could identify it.

  White light spread across the entrance to her redoubt. One leg stepped into sight, followed by others, followed by the render’s massive body.

  Angelica stared into its eyes.

  One leg found the trip wire. The walls of trash exploded inward, debris flying everywhere. The render screamed.

  Then so did Angelica, and she opened fire with both weapons.

  Liquid light sprayed as one of the render’s limbs was torn free by the explosion. But now it had found her. It swept forward with the fearless, casual grace of a predator, heedless of the bullets and shot fired in its direction.

  Angelica stumbled and fell to her back. The render suddenly loomed above her. Its mandibles slid apart, dripping with a viscous, paralyzing toxin. Two of its remaining legs rose up, the sharp ends poised like scorpion tails.

  She tossed away the shotgun, sighted down her rifle, and fired straight into the creature’s open mouth.

  The legs descended.

  The world blazed white for a long, long time, then slowly, everything went dark.

  O O O

  Angelica woke to the pitter-patter of the rain. All else was silent.

  Not dead yet, she thought. She pulled off her goggles, revealing the gray clouds and the smoking, burned-out husk of the dead render in front of her.

  She had killed it. She had done it.

  The thrill of victory was dampened by the rising sensation that something was desperately wrong with her body.

  She didn’t need to look down. With her hands she felt the hard, blood-soaked surface of the render’s legs, where they had pierced her just above her waist.

  It didn’t matter. At least she had won before she finally lost.

  As she wiped her eyes, she saw a small light blinking on her wrist wearable. First blue, then purple.

  Purple meant multiple signatures.

  No no no! She reached for her rifle, but her fingers barely brushed the stock. Multiple signatures. Even if she weren’t pinned here, dying, there was nothing she could do against more than one render. She had used up her fair share of luck already.

  She watched, helpless, as a half-dozen renders strode out of the tree line, heading straight for the mound where Wisteria was, blazing white like an army of unholy angels.

  Her vision began to fade. But something caught her attention: the flash of red had returned, just above the mound. For some reason, she couldn’t quite force her eyes to focus on it.

  Her attention was drawn back to the renders. They were moments from coming within range of finding Wisteria. She watched, unable to look away.

  But then the renders walked by the mound, utterly unconcerned with the human asleep within it. They continued on without pause until they disappeared from sight.

  Impossible, she thought. They should have detected her.

  For some reason, they hadn’t.

  Suddenly, the red flash returned and resolved into something solid. A towering, majestic horse, its skin a roiling red like living fire. The air around it bent and shivered as if it were made of fire.

  No, she realized. Not a horse. A twisting horn protruded from its forehead.

  She coughed. It sounded wet. Not good. It was getting harder and harder to hold her head up. The red unicorn turned its head. Its eye, like molten steel, met hers. The horn on its head tilted slightly as it nodded once.

  Relief flooded her as the implication of that nod hit her. Wisteria would be safe. Angelica smiled and whispered, “I see you, Angie.” As the edges of her vision began to darken and her eyelids fluttered, she knew that Angie would be the last thing she ever saw.

  Then shocking pain in her stomach forced her back into full awareness. The render’s legs were drawn out of Angelica by some unseen force, and the entire creature was tossed aside like a massive ragdoll.

  Angelica clutched at her middle, fearing everything would come spilling out of her wounds, but the skin was already beginning to knit together. It felt like tendrils of ice twisting inside her. Soon, both the pain and the icy sensation were gone. She pulled up her bloody shirt.

  Her skin was an angry red—red, like blood and fire—but unbroken and unscarred.

  Angelica looked back at Angie, tears of gratitude filling her eyes, but the red unicorn was gone.

  O O O

  The next settlement they came to was the same as the others: people peering out of hiding spots disguised with rubble, eyes wide with fear of the worst. But that only lasted a moment, until their eyes widened further with surprise.

  Angelica adjusted the rifle’s strap on her shoulder as she glanced down at Wisteria, holding her hand. The child clutched her little unicorn and grinned as if she hadn’t a worry in the world.

  And maybe she didn’t. Angelica smiled back. Her followers, the men, women, and children who gathered behind her, weren’t smiling. Their faces were hard, not with resignation, but with determination. Angelica nodded to them. They nodded back.

  Angelica returned her attention to the residents of the new settlement. When she spoke, her voice carried clearly.

  “I know you’re afraid. We all were, once. But we have come to tell you of a new way to live.” A few people came out of hiding, wary but curious.

  Angelica continued. “You don’t need to fear the renders anymore. Because we have something that protects you from them.”

  Behind her, the followers murmured in unison, “Angie.” It was what they called Angelica, thanks to Wisteria. They didn’t know about the unicorn; they thought Angelica had saved them.

  Atop the settlement’s tallest building, a familiar flash of red caught Angelica’s gaze, hooves like flame rampant against the sky. Angelica rubbed at the red skin hidden beneath her shirt.

  Perhaps the people were right. Only red unicorns could see each other, after all.

  About the Author

  Brandon M. Lindsay was raised in the Seattle area on a steady diet of sci-fi novels. Now he lives in Japan, where he focuses on writing epic fantasy.

  Vodka Dreams

  Nancy DiMauro

  Marco swirled the vodka in his glass. The clear liquid caught the faintly yellow tinge of the deck’s bug light. Sounds of the party almost drowned out the crash of the waves. He’d come outside to escape the heat and noise of their fifteenth college reunion and beach week. Tomorrow they’d all head back to the lives they’d carved out. But tonight—tonight they could still pretend they were the kids they’d been when life was new and the future was as bright as the full moon that hung over their rented beach houses.

  The week had been an exercise in torture. As had the last few years. So, why did he come?

  He raised the vodka bottle in salute to impossibilities, then poured more into his glass. The bottle paused on its way back down to the deck.

  “No,” he said to its label.

  Moonlight glinted off the Red Unicorn logo. It wasn’t a prissy unicorn with flowers flowing down her mane who reared to look pretty. No. This unicorn fought battles—and won. Strength vibrated from his broad chest, thick neck, and mu
scled legs. It reared, not to impress, but to impale challengers. His gold-tipped horn had tasted blood. The Red Unicorn took what he wanted, what he loved.

  “That’s a terrible idea.”

  The unicorn saw no reason for Marco not to do something stupid, like marching into the house, tossing Kathy over his shoulder, caveman-like, and carrying her to his room. The idea grew more appealing the more vodka slid down Marco’s throat.

  He stood and turned to the house. His fingers clenched around the cool glass, then he sank down into a yellow Adirondack chair.

  He needed to stop drinking.

  A giggling mass of women cascaded onto the deck. His unwitting torturer flittered in the middle of the pack. Her russet hair looked almost mahogany in the bug light. She wore a silver mesh cover-up, black shorts, and deep purple bikini top. Earlier in the day the group had done dramatic readings of bad romance novels on the beach.

  “Delicious lassitude.” He snorted. Who wrote that crap? But for a moment, when the words had fallen from Kathy’s dusty rose lips, they hadn’t been quite so ludicrous.

  The pepper-flavored vodka burned a path down his throat.

  She’d want to spend the last night on the beach. She always did. After all, it was why he was waiting out here. Even if he hadn’t realized his motivation until now.

  She’s not yours.

  He’d sent congratulations and a small silver unicorn necklace, which she’d worn all week, when she’d posted that Dustin had finally proposed. Marco hadn’t expected Dustin to take the plunge even though the pair had been living together for over ten years. Proof that Dustin could get something right flashed brilliantly from Kathy’s left hand.

  Marco refilled his glass. Time to move on. Except …

  Dustin, his once-lean features softened by too much good food and not enough exercise, stalked onto the deck. The screen door slammed behind him. The women stilled.

  Laughter fell from Kathy’s eyes as Dustin approached. After a short conversation, he stalked back into the house. Kathy laughed. It sounded strained. She looked through the window, then shook her head. A minute later she returned to her girlfriends, blazing as brightly as she had before Dustin interrupted.