BOOK 1 - CHAPTER 13

Chapter 13

Johnny prepared. He’d tossed the remnants of his butchered catch into the Voyager’s freezer and chucked his pockets full of bullets. The last experience with the natives of the Magmasphere was still fresh in his mind and even on his body, he still felt sore in places he’d been hit.

Yet, as Johnny gripped his rifle, safety turned off and ate one of the venison kebabs still turning above the pit of fire, his preparations seemed far too little for the company that approached.

He gulped, counting seven figures approaching with a menagerie of animals trotting after them. The animals weren’t nearly as strange as the humanoid figures they followed, some of whom were hunchbacked, deformed and others clearly recovering from being beaten to a pulp. Yet all were equipped with a machete, bow or curved dagger.

Johnny didn’t have to wait long before they arrived before him, all followed a single…man? Johnny couldn’t be certain, his skin was dark tinted and not in a myelinated kind of way, it was nearly blue and as he uncovered his hood Johnny’s heartbeat ticked at the sight of horns protruding out of his head.

On closer inspection he wasn’t the only one with horns. Of the three figures that weren’t deformed or beaten, each had horns as well as a greater quality of clothing, even light leather armor painted green with crescent moon styles and symbols that repeated across the group. Symbols that the deformed and beaten among them wore on their skin instead of the tattered rags they passed for clothes.

Swallowing thickly, Johnny took a step forward away from the Voyager, trusting Albert to watch and remain alert in case he wasn’t fast enough. “Hello, I come in peace! I am looking for a place to…”

He trailed off, their blue-skinned leaders glared silencing the words in his throat as he scanned Johnny’s camp set up. Judging by how his eyes lingered on the Voyager and the rifle, he was clearly interested in what each was. His lips parted as he raised a long, slender finger to point at the fire pit instead, he said, or rather commanded judging by his intonation.

A small dog-like creature surged behind the leader, startling Johnny into a preemptive firing stance but all it went after was the sizzling meat. It dragged the entire pit, wood stakes and all back to the leader who happily picked it from its jaws and took a bite of the venison.

A hawk or an equivalent of one screeched from the skies, landing atop the leader's shoulders. He fed it a piece and then threw the rest at the hungry looking, deformed and beaten with followers behind him.

“Right, help yourselves, please.” Johnny muttered, managing a smile yet not releasing his firing stance. It was already too late to do so now, he could tell by the way the other horned followers grinned at him, wiping their blades across their cheek all while maintaining disturbing eye contact.

Mouth slick with the juices of the tossed venison, one of the beaten followers creeped up to his leader’s side, whispering something all while staring right at Johnny. He pointed at the Voyager and made an exaggerated but clearly scared sound— it was only after the blue skinned leader’s eyes narrowed between the Voyager and Johnny did, he recognize the beaten man.

He’s one of the natives that attacked Brandon and me! I’m in danger…

As if reading his mind, their blue-skinned leader reached for Johnny’s rifle, grabbing hold of the muzzle to rip it out of Johnny’s grip. Johnny fought back, the man, humanoid, was as strong as a Convar but he had plenty of experience with that kind of strength. His breath hitched and without stopping to think twice about it, he squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

The response was immediate. The leader recoiled with a hiss, his hand burning, his and his follower’s ears ringing. The dog-like creature barked, and the hawk flew away. Johnny took several steps back as he screamed, “Stay back! Don’t come any closer.”

He waved the rifle at them, the beaten and deformed looked well hesitant but their blue skinned leader and his horned fellows were incensed. He sneered at Johnny and brought his burnt fingers up to his lips. A high-pitched whistle followed, there was a sing-song way to it the only doubled once more voices responded with their own whistles across the canyon.

Back pressed against the Voyager, Johnny stared in awe and fright as shadows cast from above, figures loomed at various peaks of the canyon and more creeped out of crevasses he didn’t even know were there. Each of them clothed and armored similarly to the leader, the green crescent moon symbol passed on everyone.

This is…this is a cult. Johnny realized with a gulp. He blinked and found their leader approaching again, a curved dagger in his hands and a dangerous purple glow to his eyes. He licked the blade, coating it in his saliva and in the blink of an eye lurched at Johnny.

Johnny swung the rifle his way and fired— only to recall he hadn’t reloaded it, the bullets sitting pretty in his pockets. The blue-skinned, horned leader was upon him before he could pivot, his blade already slashed in a downward arc Johnny barely had space to avoid decapitation. It sliced deep into his cheek, eliciting a howl of pain from his throat.

Johnny shoved, smashing against his assailant with the butt of his rifle only to find himself well cornered among over two dozen summoned cultists. A primal fear of death trickled through Johnny’s veins, adrenaline spiking as he struggled against the leader— but not for long.

BRRRRRRRRRRTTTT-T-T-T!

Albert spared bullets freely, sending several of the cultists to their makers in an instant and startling the others into retreating— if temporarily. Fear at last found their blue-skinned leader’s features, the sound of instant death enough to paralyze him on the spot. Johnny took the opportunity to sock him in the face, his fist smashed into his nose with a sickening crunch that assured him he wouldn’t be taking easy breaths for a long time.

More of those dog-like creatures came running down the canyon path, along with them were even more cultists. Johnny swore and hurried into the Voyager, “Albert, keep them away!” he ordered, the engine already roaring as he slammed his foot on the gas and geared into reverse.

Arrows aplenty rained down on the Wrangler, their bronze tips plinking off the glass and lonsdaleite chassis. Axes, spears and stones pelted the drifting vehicle and Albert returned fire mercilessly.

Johnny heard their cries, screams and roars but was far too preoccupied reversing the mass of the Wrangler through the narrow, river carved canyon to think anything of the medium slaughter. His neck twisted back as he drove, finally finding space between an alcove to swerve the Wrangler face forward. A heavy thud startled him further— atop the bonnet was a raving cultist, a half naked, screaming man with an axe. He smashed the windshields repeatedly, yelling in some cryptic language.

More thuds shook the Wrangler, “Johnny, they’re attacking the weapons systems, I can’t get a good angle to—”

Johnny slammed the gas once more and surged out through the river, the momentum of the Wrangler flinging the cultists aside, the mad raving one atop the bonnet fell face first against the windshield, holding on for dear life all while screaming infernal.

Rushing through the narrow river path, the walls of the canyon squeezing, forcing him to be far more careful than he could afford with a horde of cultists and their tamed creatures chasing after him. Eying his rear-view mirror Johnny glimpsed a few dozen riding atop the backs of full-grown dog-like creatures, axes and machetes held up high and a war cry yelled at the top of their lungs.

They’re hunting me!

Albert’s free spray of bullets hardly met its targets. Between the narrowing path, his wayward driving and the plentiful fodder of cultists there was just no easy solution. I should have equipped a grenade launcher instead!

Biting his inner cheek, Johnny cursed the raving cultist still clinging onto his windshield, he could hardly see ahead because of him. He took the risk and slammed the brakes. The result was immediate and satisfying— the halted momentum flung the cultist off the Wrangler, sending him splashing into the river that now carved into one of three forked paths. Johnny barely had time to feel relieved before a fresh wave of bodies smashed into the back of the vehicle.

Their weapons went to work instantly. Metal scraped and dented under their frenzied assault, a few of them hacking at the rear tires with crude blades.

Pop! Pop!

Both tires burst at once. The Wrangler lurched, tilting backward as the shredded rubber gave way beneath it. “Dammit,” Johnny swore, flooring the gas. Behind him, the cultists howled in their guttural, indecipherable language. A fresh surge of adrenaline hit him. Stopping was not an option.

Johnny surged forward again, just as another cultist brushed his head against his window, shattering it to pieces and spilling his blood all over. He ignored the mad assault and took the path of least resistance ahead of him— to the left of the forked path, where the river didn’t flow, and the canyon walls were wider.

The cultist he’d launched off the windshield stood in his way, daring to play a game of chicken with the speeding only to find Johnny unwilling to give. The Wrangler smashed into him, tossing him over the windshields once again and this time with impact enough to send a hideous crack through the window as his body ragdolled out of the way.

BRRRRRRRRRRTTTT-T-T-T!

Johnny watched in the rearview as more cultists were mowed down by Albert’s free fire, only for more to take their place— these ones riding atop mutated looking beasts, bows nocked with arrows that flew after his fleeing Wrangler. The creatures, hideous, salivating beasts were persistent and strong, they were quickly gaining on the Wrangler even as Johnny drove through the wider canyon path, hoping for an escape ahead.

Nothing of the sort awaited him though. Another bang drew his distracted eyes away from the rearview mirror, his stomach twisting with concern as he felt the Wrangler climb over something or rather, by the squelching, horrid scream— someone.

“Johnny, there are more volatile circumstances ahead of you.” Albert chirped, stating the obvious as Johnny swallowed his own rising disgust. Ahead of the Wrangler were more creatures, ugly, bipedal, green and grey-skinned…monsters. They held clubs, staff, knives, swords and many other weapons in their numerous numbers, far too many for Johnny to count at a speeding glance.

He ran over even more of them, wincing as they yelped, screamed and died underneath the Wrangler’s hard rumbling four wheels. But these creatures, they were nothing of the sort of cultists that chased after him and in fact, as Johnny came to run over enough of them that a path was made, he found they were locked in battle against an entirely different group.

“What in hell is going on this planet!” Johnny cried. Goblins, the most fitting description for their pathetic, green and ugly forms, waged a battle against a group of humanoids, beastkins and… “Is that man a dragon or is that dragon a man?”

A dragon man—his azure-blue scales glistening between the golden plates of his draconic armor—tore through the thick of goblins with elongated ice-claws. He swung a blue and white spear, each strike blasting enemies with magic while its piercing edge impaled any who dared get too close.

He exhaled a torrent of frost from his snout, freezing the taller, faster red goblins mid-stride. Then, with a crackling whip of his tail—charged seemingly with the power of storms—he shattered their frozen bodies into a thousand jagged pieces.

The goblins' opponents, this dragon man’s allies and subordinates— were uniform. Cloaked and armored in gold and white with many wielding weapons of radiant power as they hacked and slashed through the winding chaos of a battlefield, their backs pressed against— “A landslide…this is a dead end!”

Johnny couldn’t believe his poor luck. To be stuck between a literal rock and a very hard place. He swore and flattened his foot against the brake pedals, switched his gears to reverse his way out of the compounding mess, but it was too late. Enemies aplenty, cultists, goblins and blood red hobgoblins surrounded him at every turn just as they surrounded the dragon man and his allies.

The battle only grew in size and bloodshed as the cultists chasing Johnny charged in atop their mutated mounts. The jagged maws of those creatures devoured goblins left and right and suddenly Johnny smacked a dab between a violent free-for-all. Gold cloaks were torn limb from limb, goblins sawed in half by radiant shining weapons and cultists were evaporated by strikes of lightning.

Gritting his teeth, Johnny felt all three factions notice him among their battle, the riding cultists charged towards the Voyager, an ugly red Hobgoblin wielding a staff and chanting, a ball of roaring fire forming between his raised arms.

“Johnny, who do I fire upon? All of them?” Albert chirped, the gatling rifles atop the roof spun around, confused between the numerous numbers of potential threats.

“Just…kill anyone that gets too close!” There was only one choice left for Johnny, and he quickly took it. He slammed the gas, not even bothering to check what or who lay behind him as the Wrangler jerked back at speed, reversing through lines of goblins and cultists fighting, running all over equally.

The dragon man and his allies saw Johnny cutting a straight path out of the violent mess and at his command they followed after, charging in a wedge formation they guarded each other's sides and mowed down goblins or cultists that the Wrangler failed to run over. The dragon man sent daggers of ice shoot out from his fingertips into the waiting skulls of their many opponents, called down lightning to vaporize stubborn red skinned hobgoblins and raised walls of ice to shield from fireballs the chanting Hobgoblin threw their way.

Johnny wasn’t so fortunate. His eyes went wide as saucers as the same chanting Hobgoblin, a red, ugly thing, tall and severely lanky turned to his retreating vehicle and pointed its crooked staff at it. A fireball manifested at its tip within seconds, the roaring orange ball of flame bolted towards him just as Albert released another grand volley of bullets that made Swiss cheese of the fiend.

His magic thought remained, racing after Johnny, setting the run over corpses on fire as it blasted forward. “Shit!” Johnny cursed as the massive ball of flame struck the Wrangler, coating the vehicle in a sheet of scalding heat its several broken windows failed woefully to protect him from.

The impact lifted the Wrangler’s front end into a wheelie, the force sending a brutal jolt through Johnny’s body.

Pop!

Both front tires exploded, shredded instantly by the hot blast. Flaming chunks of rubber scattered like shrapnel, leaving only exposed rims, which sparked and screeched as Johnny desperately tried to flee.

The fireball had done more damage than expected. “Johnny, the transmission has suffered substantial damage, the Voyager can only move in reverse until we get an opportunity to fix it.” Albert chirped in his ear, somehow managing to sound panicked from his usual monotone droll.

Johnny didn’t let up for a moment, running over everything in his path through gritted teeth, “I can see that, Albert, thank you!” He sighed and shook his head as the Wrangler climbed over more of its victims, “Well time to put my skid car racing skills to the use, except in reverse,” he muttered, gripping the wheel. He handled the Wrangler with expertise, but the sheer number of bodies smashing against the Jeep began to slow him down.

His grip tightened. His muscles strained. The Wrangler was dragging, and his escape was failing.

“Albert, remind me next time to make the tires puncture-proof,” Johnny grumbled, barely able to keep control on the sway and drag, without his tire’s things were getting dicey and fast.

A sudden chill crawled up Johnny’s spine. The air around him began to swirl with his ear popping as the pressure dropped drastically. Dark storm clouds swirled above, thickening unnaturally fast. Instinct screamed at him to look. And when he did, he saw the dragon man.

The draconic warrior stood tall, his spear raised high, chanting in a deep, resonant voice, his language indecipherable yet evidently filled with power and authority. Lightning surged. Thunder clapped in the roaring winds.

BOOM!

A microburst of devastating force crashed down around Johnny. The violent windstorm ripped cultists from the ground, slamming them away like ragdolls. The winds threatened to lift the Wrangler as well and may have succeeded but all Johnny concerned himself with was the path suddenly being cleared for his escape.

Johnny didn’t stop to think.

He floored it—backward. Skillfully reversing his way out of a thundering storm. He shot toward where the canyon’s forked, the howling storm shielding his escape. Surviving cultists tried to give chase, but the storm intensified, swallowing them whole.

Squeezing through the carved, bumpy path the river flowed through, Johnny peeked at his pursuers, few of them still strangled after him but the majority were far too occupied battling murderous goblins and the dragon man’s allies.

As the sounds of violence and battle faded behind him, Johnny finally began to feel his heart return to normal pace. He breathed out deeply and looked at himself. The Wrangler had only one window intact, the rest were shattered, stained with blood that spilled across the seat and against the chassis. He couldn’t count just how many lives he’d ended with its tires, but he was grateful to still be breathing.

For the most part, Johnny came out unscathed, his only injury was the jagged slash the blue-skinned cult leader had given him while he was still on foot. He shifted his mirror to have a look at the cut and found the blood that poured out of it dried, but more worrying was the color of the flesh around it.

Why is it green? Is that puss? Johnny gulped; hands squeezed around his steering as he drove unbidden across the carved river path. He’d just recovered from the food poisoning and now…

He put the thought aside and focused on finding a way out of the canyon, not believing for one second, he could count anywhere in it safe from those cultists as he drove past multiple walls marked with their crescent green moon, some clearly painted in blood.

But more concerning was what he’d witnessed the red Hobgoblin, and that dragon man do. He was no guest to the idea that sentient species evolved differently, especially across space and the various planets the Convar Regime introduced to earth when they invaded. But that lightning, the daggers of ice and the fireball that melted his windshield…that was a completely different idea and one that couldn’t be explained simply with science and technology.

This is a low-tech world, none of that should be possible without high tiers of technology and yet…

Johnny wondered aloud, “Was that really magic?”

The question gnawed at him as he drove, lingering in the back of his mind like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He searched for a logical explanation as much as he searched for a way out of the canyon, but neither came easily.

An hour passed. His hands tightened on the wheel, his thoughts circling like vultures. He absentmindedly downed bottle after bottle of blessedly chilled water from his freezer, savoring the brief relief from the oppressive heat. The last bottle, still frozen solid, he pressed against the greening slash on his cheek. He exhaled at the cool relief, but the ache beneath the surface remained.

Then, finally an exit appeared.

Up ahead, the canyon walls gave way to the open savannah. The landscape stretched vast and endless, golden grass swaying in the dry wind. The river—his quiet companion through the canyon—continued winding through the terrain, occasionally splitting into shallow pools before rejoining itself downstream.

Johnny exhaled. Finally, some breathing room.

“Doesn’t look like we’re being followed,” he muttered. “Albert, start repairing the Voyager—transmission first, then the tires. Everything else can wait. I’d rather not keep testing my luck driving in reverse. And I don’t know how much longer what’s left of those rear tires will hold before they’re completely shredded. Driving on two bare rims is bad enough.”

“Of course, Johnny,” Albert replied smoothly, already initiating the repairs with a whirr of machinery and lines of coded commands sent to the Creation Core.

As his trusty AI copilot worked, Johnny ran a hand over his face, his thirst hitting him all over again. He frowned. Six bottles. He had downed six full bottles of water in the last hour—so where the hell was it all going? He hadn’t even stopped to take a piss.

With a sigh, he pulled up beside the river, gathering the empty bottles to refill them. The second he stepped out of the Wrangler, the sun hit him like a hammer.

Heat swelled. The world tilted.

His stomach lurched as a wave of vertigo slammed into him.

The bottles tumbled from his grip. His mouth felt drier than the cracked earth beneath his boots.

A violent shiver rattled up his spine, sharp and unnatural. Goosebumps broke his skin despite the heat.

“Albert…” Johnny rasped, barely recognizing his own voice. His vision blurred, the sun doubling in his eyes. His knees buckled, feet splashing into the river as he staggered forward. His breath came in short, gasping bursts.

“Albert… call… call Cole. Tell him… tell him everything.”

He could barely force the words out. His ears rang with the pounding of his own heartbeat, drowning out whatever response Albert’s voice assistant gave through his VoyWatch.

Then, through the haze, Johnny caught his reflection in the river.

His stomach twisted. His pulse spiked.

The wound on his cheek had darkened a deep, unnatural purple. His sclera had taken on the same eerie hue.

What the hell is—His thoughts cut off as his body gave in. The river rushed up to meet him.

Johnny collapsed face first into the water.