Wastelands

by Jack Porter

  My next sense to return was my sense of smell. The coppery tang of blood mixed in the air with burnt flesh and entrails, and it did more to wake me than the noise.

  Then, for the first time in what could have been centuries, I felt the weight of my own body as I lay on the ground. The dirt was so close I could almost taste it, and I felt surprisingly warm.

  Warm, dirty, and sweaty. The back of my neck itched as if I hadn’t washed it for days. I could feel the grime beneath my fingernails and etched into the lines on my skin. There was a line of sweat trailing down the center of my back, and my face felt as if I’d spent too long under a harsh sun, exposed to the elements.

  My whole body ached as if I’d been slammed into the dirt from a great height, or perhaps stomped flat by something large and heavy—an elephant’s foot, maybe.

  I gave an inarticulate groan and struggled to move, heaving myself up onto my hands and knees.

  “Rogan!” someone called. It was an unfamiliar voice, filled with desperate need, and only when I heard it did I think to open my eyes.

  I was alive. How? I had no fucking clue. I’d thought I was dead, torn apart at the atomic level by a wraith. And now, I was sucking in dry, dusty air once again.

  Somehow, I had survived.

  Except… my memories seemed to be surprisingly distant. As if they had happened many years before, and to someone else.

  Perhaps the time I’d spent in the nothing had something to do with it, I thought. That brief eternity where I’d thought I was dead was more likely just a state of unconsciousness. Perhaps I’d hit my head hard enough to rattle my brains, and I was only just coming out of it.

  “Rogan Ward! You have no time to waste in meditation! People are dying as we wait for your pleasure! By the contract that binds us, get to your feet!”

  Rogan Ward. Even with my memories seeming so distant, I still recognized my own name. Only, something about the way it had been pronounced seemed odd. Almost as if it hadn’t been my name at all but something else altogether, and my brain simply interpreted it that way. Translated it.

  In fact, everything that had been said had the same flavor.

  I frowned. “Fuck, Rogan,” I muttered. “Did you hit your head on something? What in hell are you thinking?”

  I shook my head to clear it but found myself obeying the woman’s command. Oddly, it felt as if I didn’t have any choice. As if I was a puppet on her string, I was compelled to stand up.

  Yet standing was what I wanted to do anyway, so I stood straight, and looked around for the first time.

  And… yeah… what I saw made me doubt pretty much everything.

  I was no longer in the parking lot behind the hospital, surrounded by burning sections of the plane that had brought me there. I was no longer in the vast, timeless nothing of that place between lives.

  For all I knew, I wasn’t even on Earth anymore. Because it sure as hell didn’t look like it. And I stood there for a second, gaping.

  I was in a wasteland the like of which I’d never seen before. Almost a desert, nothing but dirt for miles, broken by occasional scraggly plants and jagged boulders the size of houses. The air was warmer than it should have been by several degrees, and there was a light breeze that did nothing to soften it.

  I was baking beneath a hot desert sky, but the familiar blue with puffy white clouds was nowhere to be seen. Instead, an angry sun hung in a sky rippling with colors. As if the sky had been fractured, the outer layers scattering light like a rainbow, but randomly, in no discernible pattern.

  To my left, there was a steep wall of rock that pressed close.

  And to my right was the massive ruin of what could only be a spaceship.

  From where I stood, though, I could only see the section that jutted out from the dirt. But it was unmistakable. Just like the ships that had hovered over Lauder Hill, much of what I could see was smooth, glass-like ceramic. Except this one was broken, with a huge chunk missing as if the ship was a mighty wheel of cheese with a section torn off.

  It was no more than a hundred yards from where I stood and loomed above everything else. If it had been a building, it would have been easily ninety stories tall, and that was just a small part of what was visible. Now it seemed more like the type of thing conjured by a Hollywood set designer. The darkness within exposed jagged edges of metal and wiring, the technology of an alien race that had traveled so far.

  The rest of the ship was either buried in the ground or else this part had simply broken off from the rest. I couldn’t tell, but its presence spawned a whole bunch of questions.

  The first of which was, where the fuck was I?

  “Rogan! Pick up your sword!”

  I had been standing in place for less than a second. In that time, any goblin worth the cost of his armor could have blown me away with his energy weapon. That was a given. But such was my distraction that my own grandmother could have disemboweled me with a sharpened spoon before I’d gotten over my shock. Sure, my grandmother was feisty, but that wasn’t the point.

  The point was that I had forgotten a key lesson from my training. “Stay alert, stay alive.” A moment of distraction could be fatal, and I was gaping at the scenery like a deer in the headlights.

  I didn’t know where I was or how I’d arrived there, but I did know I was in danger. The woman who’d shouted at me three times now was one clue, but a stronger one was that I was surrounded by corpses.

  Yeah, that should have been the first thing that caught my attention.

  There were dozens of them. Most had been cut into pieces, beheaded, disemboweled, or sliced completely in half. But one, the nearest one, was different. It had been burnt, and wisps of smoke still rose from the remains.

  Beyond the corpses, there were dozens, if not hundreds of enemies arrayed around us, ready and willing to attack. To my great surprise, these enemies didn’t carry energy weapons, rifles, or anything like that. Instead, they carried a mixture of glaives, swords, and spears, and a variety of clubs of different sizes and types.

  The archaic nature of their weapons might have been astounding in any other circumstances. As it was, they were just a minor detail. What drew my attention more was that these enemies, these people arranged against me and those few who seemed to be on my side, weren’t human at all.

  They weren’t exactly goblins or wraiths, either. Instead, they seemed to be hybrids. Where one looked to be human in nature, with scaly green skin, another had to be more of a dog, and there were dozens of other different human-beast hybrids as well.

  And then there were other creatures that defied categorization entirely. Monstrosities out of nightmares, some more of a vague resemblance to humans, but others seemed more like ravening beasts. Tentacles, fangs, claws, extra legs, fur, scales, horns… everything you could imagine.

  “Rogan!” the woman yelled.

  Again, her words carried the weight of compulsion. I found myself acting on them as if I didn’t have any choice in the matter, as if I was programmed to do her bidding.

  As I reached down for the oversized broadsword at my feet, the type of thing an anime hero would be proud to sling over his shoulder, I couldn’t help but stare at the creatures in shocked amazement.

  “What in the holy fuck is going on?” I asked.

  As if the weird beast-human hybrids arrayed against me had been waiting for me to speak, they raised their inhuman voices in a concerted battle cry, and charged.

  10

  Great, I thought. Just fucking great. Somehow, I had survived being obliterated by a magic-wielding wraith from outer space. That was a truly awesome turn of events that I hadn’t expected and would have been quite happy to be thankful for, for the rest of my life.

  Except that it looked like the rest of my life was going to be measured in minutes.

  I mean, seriously, you couldn’t make this shit up.

  Because I was damned sure these spears and swords and other medieval weapons could kill me just as easily as a space blas
ter could. These strange hybrid creatures were bearing down on me at an alarming pace, and if I didn’t do something soon, I would get some pretty good first-hand experience of what it felt like to be skewered.

  So I gritted my teeth, swung my sword about in a low, strangely familiar arc, and got ready to sell my life in the most expensive way that I could.

  Except that the sword felt surprisingly light in my hands. I mean, this thing was huge. Massive, even. Like instead of forging a real sword, someone had taken a six-foot length of industrial sheet metal a foot wide and a third of an inch thick and sharpened one edge. It must have weighed sixty pounds and should have been as unwieldy for me as a telephone pole.

  After nearly dying, I shouldn’t have been able to lift it, let alone swing it about with one hand.

  Yet that’s exactly what I was doing. Not only that, but I felt myself take a stance full of both power and flexibility. In a state of perfect balance, I raised my huge sword before me like a shield, placed my free hand on the flat of the blade and accepted the first thrust of a spear at an angle, easily deflecting the thrust to the side.

  But that was only the beginning. In an ongoing state of surprise at my prowess, I took half a step back, transferred my weight to that foot, and used the momentum to turn in a circle, swinging the sword in a three hundred sixty degree arc at waist height, the sharp edge leading the way.

  Somehow, the move allowed me to slip a second strike at the same time as bringing three of the humanoid hybrids within range.

  Despite the animalistic features, I could see their anger and shock as they registered the danger. The first of them, a towering figure that had the facial features and fur of a cat, never stood a chance. The blade bit through the man’s leather armor like a hot knife through butter, barely slowing down as it cut him in two with a spray of blood.

  The second man, who looked almost normal except that he had the horns of a goat and the hind legs to go with it, had equally little chance. He managed to get his sword up in time to block, but it was like trying to block a guillotine with a pencil.

  The goat-man’s blade shattered, as did the crude chain mail he wore like a vest. My massive weapon cut through him completely to bury itself deeply in the ribs of the third attacker, slicing away his left arm in the process.

  The third attacker was a monstrous creature more like a bear than a man. Yet that didn’t help him at all, nor did the club which he’d clasped in the arm now flopping to the ground. Blood and viscera sprayed in the air, and I caught the sharp tang of fresh blood.

  Yet the bear-creature did succeed in halting the momentum of my blade. Possibly, the brute’s vertebrae were too thick to slice through so easily. And he didn’t seem to be as keen on dying as his companions. He flailed about with his remaining arm and roared his dying rage at me for what I had done to him.

  But I wasn’t finished. While I apparently had the strength to wield the blade by brute force alone, I instinctively knew it was better controlled not through muscle, but via momentum. Instead of trying to pull the blade free with my arms, I stepped back again and slid the blade free easily as I started my next move.

  As all this happened, I watched what I was doing with a sense of open amazement. And it wasn’t just the way I was wielding the sword, either, although that feat was fantastic enough by itself.

  No, what amazed me was that there was nothing wrong with my right leg.

  For six years, not a waking moment had gone by that I hadn’t been in pain. Walking—no, hobbling—was an effort. Running and lunging were out of the question.

  And yet, I was lunging with my strikes. Pivoting, kicking, crouching. And not like a man who had been in and out of physical therapy for years. But with raw strength and power.

  It felt fucking amazing.

  And another thing. I felt in tune with myself. As if my mind and body were one. And, somehow, I knew just what to do with a weapon like my sword. It was like I was dancing, spinning about with both hands on my blade more often than not, leaping high to strike with the power of an executioner’s ax, throwing more weight in behind the blade as need be, but more usually simply guiding it in its quest for blood, sinew, and bone.

  I was a dancer, or perhaps a rhythmic gymnast, and my sword was like that gymnast’s ribbon. I cut down foes with every swing, blocking and dodging their clumsy attacks, mowing the attackers down with an elegant efficiency.

  At every step, I felt my astonishment grow. And then I began to smile as I danced. Somehow, this dance of death felt good to me. It felt right, as if it was something I was meant to be doing.

  And my wonderment didn’t stop at the skill I displayed. I knew before I blocked the first spear that something had changed. As the battle progressed, that change became clear.

  My body was different. Somewhere between getting obliterated by the wraith and waking up in the dirt, I’d grown taller. Broader. More sinewy and powerful, with the type of easy strength I’d admired in the greatest of athletes but never experienced in myself.

  Somehow, I was a whole different person. Fighting alien hybrids.

  11

  Which of course raised some questions.

  Where the fuck was I? What had happened to me? Had I been transferred into the consciousness of a stranger on an alien world? Was all this some sort of computer simulation, a game I had somehow woken up in? Was it an alternate reality that I’d somehow crossed into, courtesy of the wraith’s magic?

  Or what?

  Another attacker came at me, this one wielding its tentacles like a cat-of-nine-tails. And, actually, those tentacles might have had stingers on the end. Huh. I lunged forward, blocking one as it tried to wrap itself around me while I sliced off the tip of another. The creature reared upward in a rage, and I used the moment to cut clean through its body. Half of it slid to the ground in a shower of black ooze.

  In a sort of surreal state, I kept fighting, but I was still trying to figure out what the actual fuck was going on. This really didn’t seem like my home planet anymore. The Earth I knew didn’t have hybrid warriors. It didn’t have a broken sky filled with colors. And while it had alien spacecraft, to the best of my knowledge, no one had yet found a way to bring them down.

  Although, as I had the thought–while taking the head off a monstrous man that looked to be part rhino–I thought that perhaps the last wasn’t true.

  At some time during the last few weeks, a rumor had spread among the ranks about a final solution. An option to consider only at the last, if it seemed like the goblins and wraiths were too strong.

  The world’s leaders had apparently discussed the idea of nuking the shit out of everything and just hoping for the best. An all or nothing approach that relied on humanity’s instinct for survival to work–if wiping out ninety-nine percent of all life could be considered “working.”

  That last gasp plan hadn’t been enacted the last time I checked. Even if it had, even if the broken ruin of the spaceship nearby was the result of such efforts, it didn’t explain the hybrids.

  The tentacle man rose up again, still almost sheared in half but with some of his stingers still ready to drive through my eyeballs. Apparently, I hadn’t hit the nerve center. The next time he attacked me, I cleaved his head in two, hoping that was the last of him. He fell over, flopping on the ground, and I moved on to the next foe.

  As I fought, carving through bodies as if they were no more than cobwebs, I saw that not all the creatures were enemies. While maybe half of those who attacked came for me, the other half swarmed around a massive creature fighting close by my side.

  If I had to define what it was, I would call it a troll. Fully twice my height, towering above even the greatest of the hybrids, this monster had the face of an orc, complete with tasks and a topknot, and the flesh of a mountain or maybe a tree. As if his stature wasn’t enough, he wore the most formidable armor I’d yet to see, a full steel breastplate of black metal, matching greaves and thigh guards designed to protect him from the worst of the d
amage, and a buckler that would have been a full-length shield on me.

  Even though he was a formidable creature to look at, my first expectation was that he would be slow. But he wasn’t. He swung a club as big as me with contemptuous ease, letting out bellows of rage and disgust as he smashed hybrids and other weird creatures left and right.

  Between the two of us, we kept every creature that attacked away from a formal-looking woman who stood behind us, in front of a matched pair of wagons and yet more strange beasts. She must have been the one who had called my name, and while I didn’t have much time to look, my first impression of her was not someone to mess with.

  As for the animals harnessed to the wagons, if you had crossed a bull with a Komodo Dragon, you might end up with something like these beasts. Two on each, they stood in place, occasionally stamping their feet or braying in discontent.

  As I continued to whirl and strike, I thought that if I was to survive this immediate battle, I had to ask someone what the fuck was going on. But that didn’t look especially likely. Despite my unexpected coordination and prowess, despite the troll-thing swatting enemies like flies, there were too many foes to deal with.

  I didn’t know what was driving them. Couldn’t say why they seemed so eager to spill their blood at my hands. No matter how many I killed, be it three, ten, fifteen, even twenty of them, with many others losing limbs for their effort, still more were ready and willing to take their places.

  It was only a matter of time before sheer numbers did the work that skill could not. Surprisingly, given that I was the newbie here, it wasn’t me that let his guard down, but the giant fighting beside me.

  A nasty-looking panther-like creature managed to dart in behind the giant’s club and carve out a chunk of flesh on his leg. The giant bellowed in pain and sideswiped the panther, and then continued to fight as if nothing had happened.