When Darkness Reigns

by Preston L. Marshall

  He opened his eyes. Ford was barreling them towards the wall of the valley.

  “We're gonna crash, you dipshit! Turn!” Lumar screamed.

  Ford ignored him. The wall was only a few yards away. Then Ford threw his whole body left against his door. Lumar watched dumbfounded as the side of the truck tore against the stone on the wall. The right hand side mirror shattered in a shower of sparks. Lumar yelled something even he didn't understand and kept squeezing the back of the chair with all of his strength.

  “Watch my gun you fuck-stick!” Jesse shrieked from the back.

  Ford didn't say a word and didn't slow down at all. He followed the wall so close Lumar could have touched it if he rolled down the window. They were careening back towards the entryway hugging the wall all the way. The giant scorpion blocking their path got closer and closer. It looked like Ford was going to ram it. Lumar struggled to get in front of the seat and buckled in. He didn't think he'd be able to hold on if they rammed something like that. If it wasn't for the glimmering green eyes Lumar would have thought it was a machine. Its whole body was covered in plates of unpolished steel. The Sarsaul ants and hornets were pouring out over the metal giant like a wave, screaming a battle cry.

  They kept getting closer and more ants and hornets were filling the space between them and the scorpion. Lumar felt one squish under the tires of the truck and then another. The scorpion’s eyes kept getting bigger and bigger. They were mesmerizing. Even with the hundreds of segments covering the eyes Lumar felt like it was looking right at him.

  Then they turned hard again. Lumar decided not to let go of the chair again. The eyes were gone replaced with more red stone walls and a little open space ahead.

  Lumar looked up. Sarsaul were jumping out of the rock walls ahead of them. Ford swerved the truck around as much as he could to keep them from landing on top of them. Any time something bumped against the roof, Ford fishtailed the truck hard to throw them off.

  Lumar saw ants and hornets dash themselves against the ground in front of them. They were jumping to their deaths. Some of them were jumping so early they were still fifty or more feet away from them, dying the moment they crashed into the ground. Their aim was terrible like they didn't even care if they made it or not.

  The waterfall filled his field of vision for a moment. It was like running gold as the sun set at its apex.

  Ford made another turn, making a pass around the pit. Lumar saw something new on the dashboard. There was a little screen showing a view out of the back end of the truck. The Sarsaul were swarming after them, climbing out of the pit, filling the valley. There was only one way in or out of the pit so there weren't any Sarsual gathered around it yet except for the swarm rising behind them.

  They were almost all the way back around again. There were thousands of Sarsaul everywhere, in front of them, behind them, even running alongside of them. Lumar glanced back at the rear view screen. He hoped some of them would fall back in the pit as they ran after them.

  The engines were growling louder now. Lumar watched the speedometer needle hit the far end of its scale and climb just outside of the arch. Ford was pushing the machine to its limit.

  There was less and less room to move. The whole valley was filling with Sarsaul, but the blasts kept going off off just behind the truck. The rear view screen was a blinding flash of continuous fire. They weren't even trying to keep from hitting their own.

  “Where are these rockets coming from?!” Ford cried out.

  Ford swung around again before reaching the scorpion. Lumar couldn't even see it this time around. There were so many ants and hornets climbing over it he couldn't even see where they ended and the scorpion began.

  They were making a much tighter circle now. The Sarsaul had started living through the falls. Enough bodies had piled up for them to have something softer to land on than the hard ground.

  “Only one place left to go now!” Ford yelled.

  He pulled the truck around in a sharp turn towards the waterfall. Lumar couldn't see any Sarsaul coming from there. Ford made a beeline for the falls and ran head long into an explosive round. The truck was thrown through the air end over end.

  Nate barely got his visor up in time for him to throw up into the air. The truck spun around the cloud of vomit. Lumar felt it splashing over his armor. He wanting to puke too, but his visor was already closed. He wasn't going to let himself fill it with bile and whatever food he still had in him.

  The truck landed upside down. Everyone was thrown against the ceiling except Ford and Radcliff. They were hanging upside down in their seats over Lumar's head. Lumar couldn't make himself stand up. Every inch of his body hurt. The only part that wanted to move was his head.

  All Lumar could see through the windshield was the waterfall. They had almost landed in it. They were less than thirty feet from the north bank of the waterway. They were right up against the wall of the valley. For a moment there was silence. There were no more machineguns blazing behind him. There were no more rockets exploding around them.

  “Get out from under me boy! I'm coming down!” Radcliff roared from above.

  Lumar finally found motivation to rise. Lumar bolted to the upside down doorway. A glint of steel tore through the seatbelt. Radcliff crashed to the ground on his side.

  For a moment Lumar thought Radcliff had injured himself, but he jumped back onto his feet completely ignoring the fall. His knife cut through Ford's belt in a perfect arc. Radcliff caught Ford mid-fall and gently lowered him to the ground.

  “Get ready people, there’s no way to get out of this now!” Radcliff yelled, “Flip that gun and get it working again Jesse! Wallace dismount the other one and get it working outside! Nate, Ford, Lumar let’s get out there!”

  “Damnit! I forgot my rifle! I have to get my gun from upstairs!” Lumar cried.

  “Hurry!” Radcliff replied, “Check on that survivor too while you’re up there. Make sure we haven't killed him from all this rocking around, but don’t take too long! Just make he’s still got a pulse!”

  The others didn’t respond verbally. Nate closed his visor and shoved a magazine into his rifle. Ford slammed down his helmet. Jesse ripped the turret out of its saddle and spun it right side up. As Lumar raced past her, he realized she had no way to see where she was shooting, but he realized it didn’t matter anymore. It would take effort to miss.

  Wallace was only a second behind Radcliff, Nate, and Ford as they charged out of the back of the truck with their guns blazing. Wallace was working on mounting the other chain gun up on a tripod. Lumar didn't see him finish.

  With the truck upside down, Lumar had to jump down to get back into the bunkroom. He grabbed onto the sides of the ladder and slid down to the bottom. The beds had been bolted to the floor and were hanging upside down in the same place he'd left them, but all of the supplies, the little surgery robot, the guns, and the spare parts were all over the ground. At least one of those things was heavy enough to bust out the lights. It was pitch black. Lumar fuddled with his helmet until he could get the flashlight to turn on. His cone of light illuminated almost all of the room.

  His gun was what busted out the lights. He scrambled to pick it up as fast as he could. He tripped over a ridge in the floor. He stumbled to his knees and bumped his head on the side of one of the beds. But his gun was in arm's reach. He scooped it up and stood back up.

  He scanned the room with his flashlight to see if the man from his dream had survived the wreck. Lumar turned around in a circle. The bed he'd bumped his head on was the one with the man was lying in it. The man was awake. His eyes were wide open staring calmly back at him. Lumar jumped and nearly tripped again backwards. The man squinted his eyes into beam of light Lumar was shining in his face.

  The man turned his face away. He was still strapped to the bed and hanging there facing the floor. He groaned and started to move. The straps popped off. He fell to the floor. Lumar couldn’t tell how the straps had broken. The man didn’t look stron
g enough to do something like that.

  “Hey are you okay?” Lumar asked.

  The man didn’t respond. He just stood up and started popping his neck and his back stretching and yawning just like he’d woken up in his own bed on an ordinary morning. Then the man popped his knuckles and started climbing up into the bed of the truck. He didn’t pick up any of the guns, armor, or anything. He just had his own ragged clothes on.

  “What—where are you going?!” Lumar cried, “It’s dangerous up there! Stop!”

  Lumar stood dumbstruck for a moment. Lumar wasn't sure what to do. He was the man from his dream. He had been so intent on speaking with him before, but now it was like he couldn't hear him. He was completely ignoring him. Lumar wondered if the man was deaf or sleepwalking.

  The man had just come out of a near-death comatose state. Lumar was surprised he could even move. Then it dawned on him that an unarmed civilian in rags was walking out into a battlefield.

  Lumar came to his senses and climbed up the stairs. He had to stop that man from walking out into the line of fire. He was going to get himself killed.

  “Lumar what’s this man doing up here!?” Radcliff cried. “This is no place for someone in his condition!”

  The man was walking very slowly. Lumar was starting to think that he really was sleepwalking. He didn’t seem to be reacting to any of the blaring sounds around him. He acted completely oblivious to the Sarsaul raging around them.

  A hornet appeared just in front of the door. Radcliff swung the butt of his rifle from over his right shoulder like a baseball bat and beat it to the ground. He stomped on its head splashing alien brains all over the ground in front of the truck.

  “Restrain him! Do whatever you have to do!” Radcliff roared, “Just keep him down there!”

  Lumar ran around in front of the man and put his body in between him and exit.

  “Look man you need to stop!” Lumar screamed, “Can you hear me!? You need to go back down there! You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

  Lumar put his hands on the man’s chest and pushed back on him. The man didn’t budge, but it made him stop moving. It was like pushing on a wall.

  “There now get back down there!” Lumar cried.

  Lumar was lifted off his feet and slammed into the side of the truck. The man raised his right hand and wiped Lumar away like he was weightless.

  “What the hell!?” Nate cried. “What did you do to him!?”

  Lumar coughed and stood back up. He leapt at the man trying to tackle him to the ground. He wasn’t able to do anything but get his arms around the man before he threw him back against the wall with nothing but a palm strike. It was like an explosion came out of the man’s hand carrying enough force to toss Lumar around like a ragdoll.

  The aliens all at once started screaming as though they were all one voice. It was so loud the ground began to shake. The metal of the truck vibrated like a tuning fork. The echoes bounded back and forth inside drowning out even the sounds of the gunfire. The Sarsaul pounced on the vehicle, their weight rocking the truck back against the wall. Dozens of them appeared in front of the opening. Radcliff, Nate and Wallace fired wild. Lumar raised his gun.

  The survivor put his hand on the end of Lumar’s rifle and pushed it to the ground. Lumar squeezed the trigger but it wouldn’t fire.

  “What the hell man?!” Lumar cried.

  The man moved so fast Lumar blinked and missed him running out the back of the truck. A hornet’s face had just crossed the threshold into the truck. The survivor raised his left hand. The hornet ran headlong into it. It was like the monster had smashed itself against a brick wall.

  “I’ll be damned,” Radcliff gasped.

  The man looked in Radcliff’s direction for a fraction of a second. Lumar could see fire in the man’s eyes. His pupils were orange. Fire was leaping out from there filling his eyes. Then the man looked away. An intense heat sprang up filling the whole truck with rippling air. The man’s left hand exploded into a cone of flame. The Sarsaul that crashed into his hand was instantly devoured by the heat. Dozens of other aliens that had stood behind it were consumed in a flash of light and heat.

  There was a little breathing room around the truck now. The survivor jumped down from the door hatch. For a few moments the Sarsaul scurried back away from him. He walked out with no expression on his face. Lumar was seriously starting to believe he was right about the guy sleepwalking.

  “What just happened?” Nate asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Wallace added.

  “He’s an Adept!” Radcliff cried elated.

  “What does that mean?” Nate asked.

  “You know,” Radcliff explained, “like Paladin, the Knights of Freedom, Season.”

  Nate looked confused.

  “We literally just watched something about this!” Wallace yelled incredulously.

  “It's just, I've never seen one in person.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Radcliff interrupted. “I’m sure this guy’s about to show you what an Adept can do. Let’s just stay out of his way until he’s done.”

  The Sarsaul horde let out a deep growl. The volume was as loud as the last, their combined voice shaking the ground beneath them. The bass of the deeper tone made Lumar’s lungs vibrate. Lumar couldn’t help but think the sound they were making sounded angrier than the last one. The Sarsual stopped backing away and turned their thousands of eyes on the Adept.

  A Sarsaul, a hornet of a slightly different color, a lighter orange stepped out from the mass and leapt at the Adept. As soon as it reached the height of its jump in mid-air the Adept turned to face the attacker raising both of his hands. A jet of flame incinerated the hornet and everything behind it for at least twenty feet. The Adept brought his hands apart into a ninety-degree angle in front of him and flame spread into a massive cone consuming everything the fire touched.

  “Hot damn!” Wallace cried.

  Any of the Sarsaul lucky enough not to have been standing in the wrong place surged around either of the Adept’s flanks. Nate raised his gun and fired on an ant that came from their right. The bullets tore the small creature apart, but Radcliff pushed Nate’s gun down as soon as his finger was off the trigger.

  “Don’t waste your bullets,” he said.

  The Adept reacted faster than Nate. In the same instant Nate’s single ant was blasted by bullets, the Adept began throwing hundreds of fist-sized fireballs from open palms at the hornets and ants attempting to surround him. These flaming projectiles didn’t completely consume them like the gouts of flame he had been unleashing, but instead they exploded like grenades, blasting holes in the alien bodies wherever they made contact. The force of the blasts threw the aliens around like they were being hit by a truck at full speed.

  As the aliens were launched into the rest of the swarm their line was being pushed back slowly but steadily. In moments there was a fifty-foot radius around the truck cleared of Sarsaul. They’d completely forgotten about anything besides the Adept and the fire he was throwing into their army. There wasn’t any wind in the valley to catch the ashes and blow them away. Instead the ashes hung on the air in thick sulfurous clouds that stung Lumar’s eyes and lungs even through the filters on his helmet. The ash was left in huge piles like they’d been left there after a hundred bonfires.

  The Sarsaul were starting to thin. They were so spread out around the rest of the valley that the fireballs the Adept was throwing were starting to just burn out in the air before hitting anything half the time. The Sarsaul started backing away. There was nothing about their growls that made Lumar feel like they were afraid of the Adept. They just sounded even more angry than ever before.

  Wallace let go of the chain gun he’d been manning.

  “Let’s chase these bitches down! We’ve got them on the run now! I’ve always wanted to do this!”

  Wallace charged forward, but only made it a few strides before Radcliff intercepted him grabbing him by the arm. />
  “Just because they’ve decided trying to kill him is a waste of their numbers doesn’t mean if you get close to them they won’t just turn and rip you to shreds,” Radcliff lectured, “Now if you want to start shooting them from a safe distance, be my guest, but they will still try to kill you. Don’t start acting all tough ‘cause that guy’s out there.”

  “You never let us have any fun,” Wallace groaned.

  Suddenly, the Adept stopped attacking the Sarsaul in the valley. His head turned almost like he heard something behind him. He spun around to face the waterfall. It was like something was calling to him from there. He stared at the cascade for a few seconds. Lumar caught a glimpse of his eyes. The fire looked like it was dimming.

  The Adept took off sprinting towards the base of the waterfall, completely ignoring the enemies he’d been fighting seconds before. When he hit the wall of water for a fraction of a second there was a gap in the water in the shape of a man and then he vanished from Lumar's sight.

  A massive gale nearly pushed Lumar and the others to their knees. The smoke in the valley was shot up vertically over the sides of the cliffs surrounding them. The roar of dozens of chain guns erupted over the sound of the roaring Sarsaul. Tracer rounds lit up the darkness. The form of a battleship and the blaring light from its engines filled every bit of the air above the valley that they could see around the smoke. Soldiers, tanks and mechs were dropping to the ground displacing ash as they crashed into the ground.

  Lumar let out a sigh of relief. For a little while he thought that nobody would come to help them. The Adept had saved them. He held the Sarsaul off long enough for their backup to show up and finish the job.

  “We’re going to go after that guy,” Radcliff ordered.

  “What why?! He seems to be doing fine on his own,” Ford replied.

  “He’s going to get himself killed,” Radcliff answered. “We can’t let that happen. It’d be a colossal waste to let him get himself killed in a fight this trivial.”

  Ford frowned and nodded in reluctant, silent agreement.