Wastelands

by Jack Porter

“We don’t want to be caught in the open,” she said. “If we can make the hills, it might give us an advantage.”

  “The hills?” I asked. “What’s there that’s better than here?”

  Gamma glared at me, but she didn’t answer my question.

  “We must reach the hills at all costs. Then we will be safe. Do not stop for anything, do you understand?”

  I felt the usual compulsion to do as she said, and as much as I wanted to question what was in the hills that would protect us, Lady Gamma had left no room for questions. I nodded. “Yes, Lady Gamma. I understand.”

  And now I was pissed. We needed a better plan than to simply ‘get to the hills,’ but Gamma was still glaring at me like she wished she could plant one of Camille’s daggers in my eye.

  I thought that would be all and turned to go.

  “And another thing,” she said unexpectedly, prompting me to face her once more. “What Camille… and Zera… want to get up to is their business, but if you would refrain from using my wagon for all your… activities, I’ll try to ignore the fact that one of my servants is… is…”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” I couldn’t help but make her more uncomfortable and internally grinned.

  “Is… with my friend.”

  I fought back a laugh, and because I could feel the compulsion daring me to make a smart remark, I thought better of it and simply nodded. “As you wish, Lady Gamma.”

  She sniffed, and Edda jumped up then to chitter angrily at me. “It is not as I wish,” she said. “But so be it.”

  Edda hopped up and down, grabbing the fabric of the wagon cover and wringing it in her tiny little hands. I swore that monkey had it out for me. It didn’t act that way around anyone else.

  Still, the monkey had irked me, and I was unable to leave Gamma’s presence without one more little dig. “You’re not jealous, are you?” I asked slyly. It was the only thing that made sense. Why else would she care what I got up to and with whom?

  Gamma’s mouth dropped open, and I knew I had gone too far. Even Edda didn’t seem to have anything to chatter about.

  For that monkey’s silence alone, my comment had been worth it.

  “Rogan Ward,” Gamma said, and her face and neck were beet red even through all her paint, although I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or embarrassment. “You forget yourself entirely. Once we are in the hills and safely away from the horde, you will be punished for your lack of decorum. Now get out of my sight.”

  With that order, I could only fake smile, nod, and leave the back of the wagon. But I was more than pissed now. More than ever, Gamma was proving herself to be a spoiled, pampered princess, and the sooner we got out of those hills and then on to the temple, the better.

  Anyway, I wasn’t too worried about being punished. What could she do to me, really?

  44

  And so began a slow-motion chase across the desert. The cow-beasts were strong, solid, reliable work animals that had pulled the wagons without pause from sunrise to sunset every day. But they weren’t built for speed. Ash tried her best, cajoling them to move more quickly, but it was like trying to hurry the changing of the seasons. The cow-beasts were very much one-paced, and even at double that, which was the best Ash could get them to do, I could keep up without quite needing to break into a jog.

  It was frustrating, and not just for me. Zera took to the air for a few minutes, but her bubbly banter was a thing of the past. Instead, she buzzed ahead just a little, then turned about to see where we were, and frowned with anxious impatience at the wagons’ glacial pace.

  I wondered if she was going to simply take off and leave us behind. But the way she flew didn’t seem to be suited to long bouts of hard flying. She seemed more comfortable flitting about, putting on small burst of speed, before coming back down.

  Perhaps she couldn’t fly fast for long. In any event, she chose instead to join Camille in the supply wagon. I noticed then that the local butterflies had begun to gather. They alighted on the supply wagon as if they were hitching a ride to the temple, as well. But they were the only other bugs I’d seen in the Wastes, and I wondered where they came from.

  At first, it was difficult to see if our efforts at speed were making any difference at all. I checked the progress of our pursuers regularly, and couldn’t tell how fast they were gaining, or if they even were.

  But as time passed, it became clear that they were.

  From that point, the only question that remained was whether we would reach the hills before the sand walkers and the spellcaster caught us.

  To begin with, it seemed that we might. Then, as the minutes turned to hours, and the afternoon started to wane, it became clear that we wouldn’t.

  By then, the sand walkers had sighted us as well. They were moving faster than before, doing their best to hunt us down. By then, they were no more than a couple of miles behind us, and we were still perhaps ten from the hills.

  At the rate they were catching up, we would still be a mile or two from Lady Gamma’s goal before they caught us.

  There was only one option.

  “I’ll go and see if I can slow them down,” I said to Ash.

  The giant woman was still trying to coax greater speed from the cow-beasts. She nodded grimly at my words.

  “Good luck,” was all she said.

  With that, I turned to our pursuers, and walked at a steady, unhurried pace to them, to face them all by myself.

  45

  Every single one of the Divine Steps came to me as naturally as breathing. The way they integrated with how I used my sword was so seamless, so fluid, that each step could have been defined for that purpose only, as if Heaven had handed down the steps in conjunction with swordplay.

  I didn’t bother to sound my charge or offer challenge to the army of sand walkers before me. I simply walked toward them until they were no more than a hundred paces away, then increased my speed, trailing my sword behind me until the last moment. Then I launched myself into a three-step turn that allowed me to unleash the full weight of my sword in an explosion of strength and speed.

  My first blow shattered a sand walker’s hastily raised club and tore through not only his chest, but the throat of the man-thing beside him to lodge in the skull of a four-legged sand walker as well.

  For the briefest of moments, my sword remained jammed, and I lost all my momentum as the sand beast collapsed to the ground.

  But even though it felt like it, the steps were not designed for use with my sword alone. I instinctively knew that if my chosen weapon was a staff, a club, or even a pair of nun-chucks, with years of practice, it could seem equally well-suited.

  They could even be used as a basis for weaponless combat.

  Instead of panicking that my sword was still lodged in the thick bone of the sand walker’s skull, I kept one hand on the handle, and launched into step one hundred and three, lightening my feet as I did. I found myself effectively running in a circle with my body horizontal to the ground, the sword hilt my one point of contact. With every step, I kicked out at an enemy, strengthening my efforts with chi.

  I felt bones snap beneath my feet. I crushed a sand walker’s ribs, smashed his neighbor’s shoulder, and dislocated the jaw of a third. Then my feet touched the ground once again, and I was standing at the perfect angle to give my sword a twist, using the leverage of the giant blade not to withdraw it from the fallen sand walker’s skull, but to wrench the skull completely apart.

  There were already half a dozen sand walkers on the ground at my feet, some still alive and moaning with pain, and others no more than corpses. A feral, monstrous part of me wanted to hurl myself into the crowd and keep hacking and slashing, whirling my blade like a helicopter rotor until I was done.

  That feral part of me made its way to my expression. I found myself grinning like a loon, like a deranged psychopath, as if I was eager to begin.

  But just like my efforts from the previous night, it wasn’t my purpose to try to cut throu
gh to the heart of the army. If anything, I wanted to avoid that heart as long as I could. It was my purpose instead to do as much damage as possible, but more importantly to slow the whole army down.

  If I cut my way into its heart, there would be nothing stopping it from flowing around me. I could easily find myself fighting a small part of the army while the rest continued tracking down my companions.

  So instead, just like last night, I briefly broke away from the fight, only to hit them again, and again, and again.

  I was a flea, and the sand walkers were a dog. I could draw blood, but was too small to really hurt them, at least in the time frame I had to work with.

  So I created corpses along the front line of the army, making them step over their brothers to make their way forward.

  And it was working. I could feel it. With every step, every slash of my sword, I was slowing them down.

  For their part, they were doing their level best to kill me, but also to simply find a way past. They were disorganized, a leaderless rabble, made of individual fighters, with only one voice to control them all.

  Despite my ongoing provocation, Vesh D’Agon seemed content to hide in the back. Perhaps he didn’t want to try his magic against me, not when I had a core full of chi.

  Or perhaps he didn’t see my attack as significant enough to worry about, being more focused on my companions ahead.

  I fought.

  I fought not to win, a single warrior against an army, but to buy my companions some time.

  I fought to kill, lashing out at whichever of the sand walkers was nearest, going them one after another.

  I fought well, in tune with my body as I’d never been in my past life, without taking a single injury myself.

  Until one of them had the bright idea to bend down and pick up a rock.

  In all my time in the Wastes, I’d never faced any distance weapons. No crossbows, no guns, nothing at all. It was like the hybrids and sand walkers had never even considered the option of killing their enemies from afar. So the idea of one to suddenly think of hurling a rock in my direction was astounding.

  It was as if the sand walker was channeling Edda. From deep in the crowd, the fist-sized rock came sailing at my head. I managed to get my sword up in time to deflect it, but that was just the beginning.

  Other sand walkers liked the idea. They did the same thing, reaching down for whatever they could find and hurling it at me. At first, it was no more than an annoyance, but it was an annoyance that worked. It slowed down my efforts, and one or two of the stones actually got through. One smacked into my shoulder with enough force that it knocked me about, while another grazed my temple.

  Unfortunately for the sand walkers, it just made me angry.

  With a howl that mixed challenge with pain, I stepped up my efforts, swinging my blade even faster, and doing my best to combine defense with attack.

  My whirling blade swept sand walkers and rocks before it.

  Under the heat of the sun, I listened to the wails of the dead and the dying, listened to their snarls and anger.

  They died in their dozens, and the air filled with the odor of blood and intestines.

  Then, the nature of the game changed.

  It wasn’t sudden, but had been building since the start. I had been slowing the army by cutting down the first ranks, but like a wave approaching a beach, those sand walkers behind them didn’t get the message. They kept coming at the same speed, and with no options to go straight ahead, they spread out wide on either side instead.

  Before I fully understood what was happening, I found myself not at the leading edge of the army but in the middle of it as those who’d spread wide joined back together behind me. Just as I’d feared might happen if I’d plunged into the heart of their forces.

  I hadn’t taken that plunge, but the result was the same. I was surrounded anyway.

  With a curse, I kept going, kept fighting with everything I had, but I had already been flanked. From that moment, I had to fight enemies on all sides, and I was no longer fulfilling my purpose. With a grimace of anger both at myself for letting it happen and at Vesh, I redoubled my efforts, doing my best to fight my way back to the edge.

  Then, when I managed to work myself free, I lightened my feet and sped back to the front of the sand walker army to start the whole game once again.

  It was hot, bloody, sweaty work, and despite my euphoria and lust for the sand walkers’ deaths, there was only so much I could do. I’d managed to slow the army down, but not quite by enough. Despite my efforts, I had been backpedaling all the time, and was very much aware that the wagons were getting ever closer.

  More than once, as we drew closer, Vesh tried to send his warriors around me. Each time, I was swift enough to hurl myself in front of them and stop them in their tracks. But I knew it was getting close to the point where I wouldn’t be able to do so anymore.

  So, with the wagons still half a mile from safety, I abandoned my delaying tactics, and sped back to my companions as fast as I could.

  I didn’t stop to say hi. The old Rogan Ward of this time might not have approved, but I had no time to waste on polite greetings. Instead, I just bellowed at them, telling them what needed to happen.

  “Camille! Take over from Ash! Try to keep these beasts going as fast as you can! Ash, get your ass back here, and bring your club!”

  It happened as I said. Within seconds, Ash was beside me, standing guard at the back of the wagons, walking backwards as the sand walkers approached.

  “Spread out! We can’t let any of these get by us!”

  And then the battle began in earnest.

  There were too many. More than had attacked us the first time. Perhaps more than Vesh had gathered in the natural amphitheater when Camille and I had rescued Zera. We shouldn’t have been able to hold them, nor did I truly understand what we would gain if we did.

  Yet, somehow, we managed. It was like Ash and I were both high level players who had wandered into a low-level area where everyone and their dog was working together to take us down.

  Once again, I resorted to supplementing my sword with chi lightning, aware that at some point I would run out of power. But I didn’t have another option. It was either do or die, and I wasn’t yet ready for the latter.

  We fought against sand walkers big and small, fast and strong, dealing death to any and all who came at us. All the while, we gave ground, stepping back in time with the wagons, doing our best to cover each side and creating corpses with every step. Why the sand walkers cared so much that they would hurl themselves to their deaths, I didn’t know, although I suspected it was more to do with Vesh’s control than anything else.

  More than once, I heard Ash cry out in pain as a sand walker got through her guard, and once, she even crashed down to one knee. When that happened, I unleashed a blast of jagged lightning that almost drained me, in a desperate attempt to save her.

  She used the time I bought her to regain her feet and began swinging her club again as if nothing had happened.

  At some point, either Zera or Gamma must have taken over from Camille, because the assassin joined in the battle, moving invisibly around us to take out those sand walkers Ash and I missed.

  And then, suddenly, the wagons stopped moving.

  We had made it to the start of the rocks. I spared half a glance over my shoulder to see where we were and spied a small opening in a wall of dark rock.

  That small, dark opening changed everything. Even though there was still no Temple in sight, it was a target. A cave could be defended, and easily at that. One person could hold a narrow entrance against an army, and if it caved in… well, perhaps that cave had another exit somewhere.

  All these thoughts flew through my mind in an instant, and for the first time since Lady Gamma had pronounced our doom, I felt a moment of hope. There was a chance, a slim one, that we might actually survive.

  Then that hope turned into despair as I realized Ash would never fit through, let alon
e the wagons and the cow-beasts as well.

  My first instinct was to grit my teeth and make a silent promise to myself that I wouldn’t leave her out here alone. I would fight at Ash’s side against one and all, until, one way or another, the fight was done.

  It was then that I heard the strangest sound. It was like a muted pop, like air rushing in to fill some sort of vacuum. I didn’t understand what it was, and quickly dispatched my current opponents so I could check.

  The wagons were gone. Just gone. Not there anymore. Not even the cow-beasts remained.

  I didn’t understand what I was seeing and couldn’t spare the effort to figure it out. But I did see Lady Gamma still in full make-up, reaching down to pluck something from the ground.

  Then I was back to the fighting, spinning, and dancing through the steps like an acrobat, whirling my blade around me and soaking it in the blood of the sand walkers.

  “Ash!” I heard someone yell, and I thought it was Gamma. “It’s time! Rogan Ward! Hold them!”

  What the fuck did she think I was doing!?

  Ash, however, shot me a glance, and I nodded. I didn’t know how she was going to get into the caves, but I would do everything I could to give her that chance.

  I hacked away. The sand walkers were paying a terrible price, and their corpses would feed the desert for weeks.

  But still they kept coming.

  Once more, I heard the weird popping sound, and then Lady Gamma’s voice once again.

  “Rogan Ward! It’s time!”

  I used one of my spins to see what was happening, and saw Gamma, Camille, and Zera gathered around the entrance to the cave. Of Ash, there was no sign at all.

  I was holding back an army of hundreds all by myself.

  “Go!” I called. “I’ll be right behind you!”

  And I thought I was telling the truth. If I could get into the cave, then I could hold it against anyone. No longer would it be one against many. It would be one against one.

  Of course, my oversized sword wasn’t the best weapon for that form of close combat, but I figured I would manage. Perhaps I would borrow one of Camille’s knives as a supplemental weapon, or take a shorter sword from one of the sand walkers.