“You’ll need her to repair the ship.”
“You defend her like her sister did. Amye was the colony’s plaything. Wasn’t a night she wasn’t drunk and dragging some miner to her quarters,” Scott says.
“And how did you miss the opportunity for her company?”
“My mission involved information her sister had,” Scott admits.
“You were on Tartarus when Kymberlynn’s shuttle exploded?”
SPLATTERS OF DEW kick up with each hoof lift. Grass sprigs sprout along the well-worn path. Sunlight streaks through the dead, skeletal branches, causing hesitation as they reach out to snag the rider. The darkening shadows eating the light make it impossible to visually detect what’s moving in the underbrush, but the horse’s sensitive ears flip right then left out of fear. Reynard pats the horse’s neck and explains in a whispering voice that all will be fine. He has to believe it, or the mount will bolt.
The beast quivers between his legs. One of them has to not be afraid. He elects intellect over instinct. Under what circumstances should I not lose all bladder control? Minutes ago I stood on the battlefield, failing to protect Summersun and my Mecat pilot. I managed to assist UCP ground forces more by accident than any soldiering skills.
Being whisked away by an interdimensional being should be his end. Sandmen are known to crack open a skull and devour the cerebral matter within. To be deposited on a strange world by one was never a part of any nightmarish bedtime story about the mythical creatures.
Rustling leaves startle the horse. Reynard maintains a facade. He needs this mount even if it did not exist minutes before. He arrived. It was there, saddled and ready to ride. A trick of these Sandmen—why stroll into a trap when he can ride into one?
Reynard glances up from the ground. Biting cramps his stomach. A twisting burning shreds at his abdomen. He claws at his shirt, searching for the assailant. Nothing. No creature sinks its jaws into his flesh.
Despite his fall, thrashing about and possible screams of terrified pain, his steed calmly tears at a clump of grass, munching on the green stalks rather than bolting.
It’s not the first time he’s fallen from a mount, but the pain subsiding in his gut overshadows his landing. Somehow he bets he’ll notice the impact tomorrow after a full night’s sleep. Maybe he struck his head. The need for a quick nap washes over him as his stomach churns. Since the Mecat launch on Summersun, he’s run on pure adrenaline. His body needs to return to proper balance. Never has hunger knocked him off a horse.
Underbrush rustles. Green stalks dance in the wind. Even on the ground he’s unable to spot what follows him.
Pain spikes his belly again.
During his year of training with Joenerbrawl’s clan, Reynard learned to stay controlled and focused. Reynard empties his thoughts. The last time he fell from a horse, he was a freshman in high school. He won’t count the time during his senior year when he was pursued by Iphigenian Halcary.
They ruined everything during Winter Formal.
Aundrea, the girl next door, a onetime love and longtime friend, was actually his date—the perfect date. Cut short when the President surrendered the country to alien invaders. Running did nothing. Gathering every person on-planet, they tested and captured valuable warriors. Not him. He was placed in cryogenic sleep along with a select few.
Reynard pushes the pain down inside as he controls his breathing. The creature in the underbrush concerns him. It’s following but not stalking.
Remounting, Reynard relaxes at the saddle creak. Worn leather keeps his thoughts on home before the invasion. With the pain subsiding, he clicks his tongue, forwarding the horse. The hard crunch on the bit jars the creature hiding in the underbrush.
Reynard’s hand brushes over the securing strap of his gun holster. His modified desert eagle magnum firing .50 caliber durasteel rounds. As the pain sears inside his abdomen again, he flexes his fingers, unwilling to draw his first line of protection.
“Easy, girl.” He pets the horse behind the ear.
The dead trees soak in the sunlight.
“I figure you’re part of the games these Sandmen play,” Reynard says, having experienced the full force of their mental twisting. They forced a repeated reliving of the first death under his command. Now his crew deals with his disappearance and answering how to find someone stolen by a creature able to cross dimensional plains.
Shadows consume the underbrush.
A second rustling trails the first.
Reynard has no weapon capable of damaging formless creatures. Sandmen are formless. Whatever lurks in the bushes must be another evil creature unable to not touch the fauna. Reynard darts his eyes. Two—no, three—beings now trail him.
He flicks free the securing snap on the quick-draw holster. “If we’re going to spend this kind of time together,” petting the horse with his left hand, he shifts his voice louder, “I could tell you my life story. Start as Dickens would…I was born—”
The magnum leaps into his hand. Barking thunder startles even the craggy branches. As they withdraw, sunlight spills across the trail. Scampering away in all directions are more noises.
The horse rears up on its hindquarters about a foot before Reynard reins control back, sending his mount to standing on all four. His horseman skills remain even if he’s been lax in a saddle for years.
“Bloody hell.”
The trail extends into a clearing. Without a breeze the air remains stagnate—putrid meat. Wishing he had his spurs, Reynard gigs the horse with his military boot heel. It refuses to march.
His stomach retches from the reek instead of the cramps as the source of the stench fills his vision. Dozens of humanoid bodies missing the back of their skulls rot in the sun. Children with chunks of flesh missing from scavengers picking at their bones. Guessing the creatures in the underbrush are foragers waiting for the same fate to befall Reynard as it did these poor souls.
Chilled air blows.
Maggots crawl about
