Eymaxin waves her right hand as if ready to repel an attack.
“This guy’s mummified. How long ago was this great battle?”
“The morning star Tealnec was in the zenith of—”
Reynard waves his hand. “Stop. Don’t know your calendar, so it doesn’t help.” He takes ahold of the bridle. “How far?”
“It’s up here!” Haldon Sy hollers from the tree line.
Reynard propels himself forward. Beyond the trees he stumbles onto the battlefield.
“Holy fuck me!” Reynard’s mouth remains agape.
As far as his eyes stretch are man-made trenches, barbed wire fences, and bomb blast craters decorating the entire landscape. The scene’s reminiscent of photographs from his history textbooks on The Great War. Bodies more mummified than rotten litter the field.
“This’s impossible.”
The air lacks the scent of gunpowder and rotten meat. The cooked-flesh smells he encountered on the Summersun battlefield are distinctly absent. Ozone and cries of the dying faded a lifetime ago.
“The witch understands this place. I know these warriors once had weapons harmful to Sandmen.” He taps the ground with his poleax as some form of respect ritual before securing his mount’s reins to a tree.
Reynard grips the handle of his magnum without drawing the weapon. He kicks over a body. The dried husk seems consumed in the gray uniform of an American Civil War soldier. Near him rests a Roman Centurion missing his right hand.
“Guard the horses…If this place frightens you so much.” Reynard hops into the trench.
Eymaxin calls after him, “You attract Sandmen. More than I have the power to defend against.”
The body armor reminds Reynard of hard-shell bugs during springtime. He taps the rough skin. Overlapping layers of each armor section allow for easy movement. Digging his fingers under a seam, the crackle of splitting a crab leg fills his ear. The mucus strings from the carapace. Unharmed pectoral muscles of a human lie underneath. The organic compound armor absorbs blasts from energy weapons. Reynard speculates that the armor, much like the skin of the Silver Dragon, learns from each blast it survives and grows resistance much in the way boxers train to endure pain.
At the back of the head, the armor shell crumbles into dust where a Sandman bit out a chunk. The weapon grown into the hand by the same armor seems drained of all energy. The build of the humanoid is Osirian, but no such technology existed on his Earth beyond the stories of Frank Herbert.
He should ask Eymaxin, but she remains vigilant in her claims of not knowing much beyond that this location’s forbidden. Craft reminding Reynard of bladeless helicopters have crashed, decorating the landscape. No outward damage from weapons’ fire, just the shattered metal from the crash.
Scattered in the transport, much like when he dumped his GI Joes in the toy box, are battle-armored troops, all with the backs of their skulls missing. The only rot in their suits appears to be the acidic bite through the metal plating.
I barely grasp what I deal with daily on the Dragon, but these men appear to be from Earth. Perhaps an Earth where humanity never learned of their Osirian ancestry. The Iphigenians never invaded. His speculation grows. In the first trench on the edge of the battlefield are warriors with exoskeleton armor. Men in digital camouflage uniforms, like those from Desert Storm, are just a step beyond. The rifles they carry are something out of science fiction. He disassembles part of the electromagnetic projectile launcher.
Why are the most advanced warriors on the edge of the battlefield? Reynard’s thoughts have more questions as a pyramid structure looms on the horizon. A World War I Doughboy clad in a gas mask lies slumped against his rifle. “At least you belong here.” Reynard yanks the black robe of a Sandman off another soldier in body armor from a war period he doesn’t recognize.
His own gut betrays him. The biting cramps consume the last of the food before ripping his stomach in two. He slumps against the chopped trees used as barriers to hold up the dirt embankments. His knees buckle, and howls of pain spill from his lips.
Haldon Sy leaps into the trench, blade in hand. “Nothing attacks you,” he says when he spots no enemy.
“It’s inside me. Tearing open my stomach.”
“You need more food.”
“I can’t eat.”
“Then you will die here.” Eymaxin hovers over the edge of the trench.
“Why don’t you just help me understand what’s happening to me?”
“You must return to your origin. Some of those called here to battle the Sandmen experienced the agony as you do. Eating calmed the pain,” she says.
“That’s the answer you keep giving me. I doubt you know.” The cramps subside enough for Reynard to pull himself back to his feet. He takes more of the dried meat from Haldon Sy. It might be palatable with some barbecue sauce, but it would have to marinate for hours first.
Food. Food from this world. The juices from the meat crunching between his teeth quell the pain. “I won’t die here.” His knees wobble. Reynard climbs up and drops into the next trench line.
Beyond viewing all the 1980s action movies he has, Reynard admits he lacks knowledge of many of the weapons scattered among the bodies of the desert-camoed men and women of this trench. He recognizes one in particular—the M16. A movie and military staple weapon. His overall weapons training has not left him ignorant, even if weapons of his home world are no long within his realm of expertise. They have been fired dry. A gross expenditure of ammo—something trained soldiers never do. During combat, they are educated to change out mags before they empty.
Those poor souls were out of ammo, so desperate to keep firing they couldn’t reload or terror overtook them and they forgot their training.
Haldon Sy scoops a sable robe from the top of the trench riddled with bullet holes.
It’s Swiss cheesed. How are projectile weapons effective? Reynard scampers among the dead. “This soldier wears the
