Cowboy Necromancer 2: Infinite Dark: (A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG Fantasy), page 26
“You mean, the mancers?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Either way, them people are going to pay for what happened back there,” Sterling said. “I promised Joe Ray.”
“You promised a face made out of blood.”
“Nevertheless, that man still deserves to have his death wish honored. Let’s git!”
Sterling’s big biomancer animate shuffled toward the town’s checkpoint with a canvas sack thrown over his shoulder, an object inside. With his back against the cabin of an overturned eighteen-wheeler, Sterling waited for his animate to surprise the men standing guard. Perched in a tree about a quarter of a mile back was Roxie with her sniper weapon, Paco and the Sunflower Kid both joining Sterling near the front.
“I’ve never done something like this before,” Paco said, his throat tightening as nervousness set in.
“Just follow our lead,” Sterling told him coolly. “Ain’t nothing but a pair of pyromancers, a gaiamancer, and a hydromancer we need to be worried about. Obviously, don’t get shot by a local, but I’m pretty sure the Sunflower Kid here will be absorbing most bullets with some of her plant constructs.”
“This shouldn’t be too complicated,” she told Paco, an almost lackadaisical way to how she spoke.
“Nope, it shouldn’t be. I figured I would get to test out my new control over my animates a bit more, and we could give ol’ Beep a moment to shine. I mean, Strawberry.”
As predicted, the two men at the entrance began firing at Sterling’s animate shortly thereafter, an alarm sounding, which was loud enough to wake everyone in the vicinity. Filling with bullet holes, the biomancer animate eventually slowed and fell to his knees, and as it did it released the pack on its back.
Beep lifted into the air, weapon set to vaporize.
Surprise! Sterling thought as the Godwalker tore a huge gash into the landscape, taking with it one of the armed men, the support beams of the watchtower, and the fencing beyond.
Roxie’s first shot came next, killing the other guard as Sterling looked over to Paco and smiled.
“Get ready to see how the big dogs do it,” he said, a statement he would later decide had been a bit premature.
The fireball that exploded into their overturned eighteen-wheeler was enough to make Sterling feel as if his lungs had been ignited. The Sunflower Kid summoned a giant vine as thick as a California redwood, which lifted up and over the eighteen-wheeler and smashed down on the other side, kicking flaming debris and smoke up into the air.
“Come on!” Sterling told Paco as they headed out, leaving the Sunflower Kid to conjure more plant constructs. The cowboy necromancer slid behind another abandoned car, firing a few test shots over the rusted hood of the vehicle just to cause a bit of commotion.
Bam! Bam!
This brought the attention that he wanted, the pyromancer, a man with his body covered in rippling flames, landing on the cabin of the vehicle, a wave of energy rippling around him.
Bam!
It nearly burned his eyebrows off, not to mention temporarily blinded him, but Sterling managed to put a bullet right between the eyes of his fiery assailant, the man quickly falling to the side, his flames petering out.
“Hold on to me for a second.” He reached out to the spot where he’d last seen Paco, the Hopi youth coming to his aid and helping Sterling stand. As they made their way to cover, Sterling rubbed his eyes, trying to massage away the bright spots he was seeing.
“We shouldn’t have done it like this…” Paco mumbled.
“Right through the front door? Heh. Maybe you’re right,” he said, his vision slowly blurring back into focus once he opened his eyes again. “But it’s more fun that way. Now hold on to your ass, or get out of the way. Shit is about to get real.”
The ground shifted, and as it did a great white stone ripped out of the pavement, growing in size as it formed into an almost worm-like creature, jagged rocks covering its body, the pillar easily the length and size of two tour buses. Standing on top was a gaiamancer, the woman akin to the one that they had taken on the other day, her entire body glazed in stone, sharp stones lifting off her shoulders.
The behemoth twisted and giant slabs of rock spun toward them like arrows, Sterling diving out of the way and taking Paco with him.
“Careful!”
The second pyromancer landed near the gaiamancer, flames twisting around her as she flipped into the air again and exploded into the ground directly in front of Sterling, destroying what was left of the car that he had tried to hide behind, liquid metal hitting the airwaves.
Sterling shot at the woman, who had a big, fiery smile on her face as she zipped back into the air, leaving a trail of flames behind her that seared a pathway into the pavement, bringing it up to its boiling point.
The great wave of water that struck Sterling next was enough to sweep him up and over, the cowboy necromancer barely holding on to his revolver and his hat as he was deposited to the side, more water whipping around him.
It all came to a stop, Sterling just getting to his feet when he looked up to see that the hydromancer had been impaled by a series of sharp branches that had torn out of the soil.
Whishhh!
The branches all ripped out of the hydromancer’s body, guts and viscera spritzing the air.
“That’s one way to do it…” He looked back toward the fight to find Paco crouched to the ground, one hand behind his back, the other flush with the ground. His head was bowed forward, and Sterling wasn’t certain what he was doing for a moment until he noticed steam rising from the ground, the heat making a beeline toward the gaiamancer.
“I’m over here!” Sterling shouted as he began firing his revolver into the air, making the floating pyromancer look up at him. He knew that it wasn’t going to be as easy to kill her as he had the other, but at least he could provide a distraction.
He took off toward Roxie, and as he did, bullets of fire struck the soil all around him, burning what was left of the dry grass, Sterling feeling the heat, sweat dripping from his chin.
The pyromancer was toying with him.
She could have hit him with a fireball by this point, yet she hadn’t.
It would be her downfall.
The fire ceased, and Sterling stopped running. He turned to find the pyromancer’s body lying on the ground, twitching, flame still licking off of it, only the bottom portion of her head left.
Roxie had practically blown her head off.
Sterling swirled back toward the action, aware that Roxie was likely watching him through her scope at the moment. He gave her the thumbs up and charged in Paco’s direction. The young man was still heating the ground not far from the Sunflower Kid, who was combating the giant stone worm with an equally large vine, the two colliding with one another.
Beep sounded off, the miniature Godwalker cutting the stone worm in half with a solid blast of energy. The front came tumbling down, the female gaiamancer diving off it, only to be struck by a knotted up fist of wood, one large enough to double as a battering ram.
The gaiamancer hit the ground just about the moment that Sterling reached her, his revolver aimed at her stony face.
“You still alive?” Sterling asked.
She gasped.
“And don’t even think about doing nothing; otherwise, my friend here will turn you into lava.”
Steam was already rising off the gaiamancer’s body, the lady sucking in breath as if she were dehydrated.
“You the one that killed them people up there in the hills? The goat farmer and his family?”
“What does it matter to you?” she hissed.
Bam! Sterling shot the pavement right next to the gaiamancer’s shoulder.
“I’m the one asking the questions here, lady. Next time, I won’t miss.”
“Your bullet won’t get through my form…”
“Maybe. In that case, you’ll have a couple of options for how you want to die. I can let Paco here boil you to death; the Sunflower Kid over there can do a number of things, most of which are unpleasant. Then there’s Beep.”
The Godwalker moved next to Sterling, the front of its form open, laser pointed at the woman.
“You have… you have an Abaddon?”
“Something like that. Like I was telling you, I’m the one asking the questions. So I’m going to ask again, real nice like: you the one that killed them people up there?”
“It wasn’t just me,” she admitted.
“I’m aware,” Sterling said as he sensed movement ahead. Members of the Angels of Woe began to appear on the periphery, weapons aimed, Sterling shaking his head just about the time that Roxie walked up.
“I can handle them.” Roxie turned to the first group, now holding a submachine gun that Sterling hadn’t seen before, one with various attachments on it. She brought it to the ready and stepped forward, just as the wind started to pick up.
“Ain’t no reason to get ballsy,” he told her. “I do believe Zephyr has arrived.”
“You know Zee?” the gaiamancer asked as the wind continued to pick up around them.
“Sure do, and…” He looked at the Sunflower Kid. “You take care of this one; make sure she feels it.”
Sterling stepped past the gaiamancer, joining Roxie as more Angels of Woe gathered, practically a platoon of men and women decked out in flectomancer-enhanced armor, all with weapons trained on them.
The gaiamancer’s screams were muffled almost immediately by a thick vine that had wrapped around her mouth.
The wind picked up in strength. “Paco, you can go ahead and join us. You too, Beep.”
How Zephyr had convinced the group to take orders from her in such a relatively short amount of time was beyond Sterling, but no one shot at them as the female aeromancer circled in the air above. And if there were any mancers in their ranks, they had yet to reveal their powers, which was the only thing Sterling was worried about as the wind narrowed into a cyclone before them, Zephyr finally lowering.
Zephyr wore a frilly skirt over leggings with enhanced knee pads and combat boots, an acid wash hoodie with patches sewn into it for a top. She was petite, not much larger than the Sunflower Kid, her hair dark and pulled into a tight ponytail, her high cheekbones and almond eyes a sign of her Asian heritage.
A grin formed on Sterling’s face. “It’s about damn time you showed your ass up, Zee.”
“I could say the same for you,” Zephyr said in a bubbly way. “What took you guys so long?”
“How long has it been for you, Zee?” Roxie asked.
“A month?” Zephyr bobbed her head left and right. “Yes, a month.”
“Two weeks for me,” said Roxie.
“Not long for the rest of us,” Sterling added. “This here is Paco.”
“Hi…” Zephyr looked at the bandits gathered around her and puffed her cheeks out. “Well, I’ll handle this. You might want to get down,” she told Sterling and his crew.
Sterling hit the ground, his hands going over his cowboy hat, Roxie and the Sunflower Kid doing the same. Paco remained standing next to Beep, which Sterling handled by slapping his hand along the side of the Godwalker, sending it to his list while at the same time shouting at Paco: “Get down, son!”
“What’s she doing?” he asked Sterling as the wind began to lash over them, the sounds of garbled screams reaching Sterling’s ears.
He had seen Zephyr do something like this before. The woman had such precise control over the wind that she could utilize small debris as if it were bullets.
By the time she had finished, everyone that had been gathered around her was dead or dying, Zephyr standing on the balls of her feet, both hands behind her back as she rocked back and forth.
“What’s with the baby Godwalker?” she asked, not at all fazed by it.
“Shee-it, Zee…” Sterling got to his feet and dusted himself off. He adjusted his cowboy hat as he looked the aeromancer over. “You haven’t changed one bit, have you?”
“Like the wind,” she said.
“As for the Godwalker, that’s a bit of a story, but don’t you worry about ol’ Beep. It’s on our side.”
“Its name is Strawberry,” the Sunflower Kid told Zephyr. “It is what brought us here.”
“So I have to choose between the names Strawberry and Beep?” She let out a playful sigh. “That’s too confusing.”
“Did she really just kill all those people?” Paco asked, the Hopi youth a bit bewildered by Zephyr’s sudden actions.
“Welcome to the big leagues, son,” Sterling told him, feeling bold yet again now that all the mancers were dead. “Not the first time I’ve seen her do that, and definitely not the last. If she ever tells you to get down, you get down. Got it?”
“Understood.” Paco swallowed. “I guess… I guess we should alert the Chronicler and move on.”
“How long will it take for back-up to get here?” Sterling asked Zephyr.
“What are you talking about? That was back-up,” she said.
“I mean, the other groups, the other Angels of Woe.”
Zephyr shrugged. “We have plenty of time. But if you are wanting to leave now, I guess we can do that as well.” She smiled at the group. “Gosh, it’s so nice to see all of you! I really didn’t know when I would see you again.”
Roxie steered the dune buggy toward a mountain pass, Sterling in the passenger seat, the Chronicler, Paco, and the Sunflower Kid in the back. Beep sped alongside them, and Zephyr zipped through the air above, the aeromancer occasionally getting ahead and twirling as she circled back around.
Zephyr was as graceful as she was troublesome, Sterling not at all surprised to hear her explanation earlier of how she had been transported to this area seemingly out of the blue, and how she had quickly assimilated into the Angels of Woe. It was hard not to get along with the aeromancer, the woman personable and quirky in a way that made her interesting, instantly likable. She was a good listener too, the kind of person who joked when the time was right, kept things light.
But she was also ruthless, more so than Roxie.
While Roxie had a hardened outer layer, she was soft on the inside, evident recently in the way she’d taken care of the baby. She generally didn’t do something like play both sides, nor did she scheme up ways to take advantage of someone.
Zephyr was the exact opposite when it came to most of her interactions. Had she encountered a group of bandits with a child, she would have either moved on, figured out a way to use them as leverage, or killed them for challenging her. Human life meant little to the aeromancer, something that Sterling had warily learned long ago. But she was loyal to her companions, Zephyr the type to do something like kill thirty bandits in a matter of seconds just to be done with them once her true friends arrived.
Sterling glanced over to Roxie, who had one hand on the steering wheel, the other on a Glock in her lap. Look at you, he thought, not able to hide the juvenile grin taking shape on his face. Strands of her hair whipped in the wind, the hood of Roxie’s poncho currently pushed back, the female gunner laser-focused on the path that lay before them, watching for potholes.
Not surprisingly, she picked up on the fact he was staring at her and offered him a curt nod. She revved the engine, the dune buggy squealing ahead, Sterling nearly losing his hat as momentum sent them zooming forward.
Deseret, Deseret, he thought, the landscape with the power to instantly take his breath away, the sheer distance and size of it all, the cliffs and overhangs cast in umber tones like a movie stage backdrop for the planet Mars.
The mesas and buttes looked almost scalable from the distance, yet Sterling knew that this wasn’t the case, that there would be no way in hell he could simply climb his way to the top. It was a trick of the eyes, the bedrock utterly deceiving.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, amigo,” he whispered as they cut through another mountain pass. The Chronicler reached past him and pointed out something to Roxie. She nodded and twisted the wheel in the direction of his finger, Beep slowing to let her pass ahead, Sterling raising an eyebrow yet again at the face that Paco and the Sunflower Kid had painted on the surface of the Godwalker.
Looks real stupid, he thought, although he wouldn’t have had it any other way. It humanized the Godwalker to some strange degree, made it feel more like it was part of the team.
They came to a stop about five minutes later, Roxie parking in the shade of a boulder with a spiral design drawn on it.
“Here, it’s here!” the Chronicler said, growing excited. The researcher practically climbed over Paco’s lap as he got out of the dune buggy. As he peered up at the wall of rock, he sent his pipe to his inventory list and approached the petroglyph etched into the large boulder. “This is the spot, or should I say…” He pointed up, Sterling forced to crane his neck back to see an enormous hunk of rock with a line of quartz passing through it that reflected the sun.
“I don’t see shit, amigo.”
Zephyr landed, the air instantly swelling and then settling around her.
“What are we looking at?” she asked as she too tried craning her neck back, squinting.
“The cliff dwelling is up there. Can’t you see it?” the Chronicler asked. “It’s a bit hidden…”
“A bit? Wait… Is… Is that it? It looks to me like a big hunk of rock fell from that cliff right there and found itself a little nook.”
“See? Beep agrees.”
“It’s behind the rock,” the Chronicler told them. “Behind it.”
Roxie equipped a pair of binoculars and took a few steps back, adjusting them as she stared up at it.
“Can confirm,” she said, the binoculars fizzling out of existence.
“How did you spot that?” Sterling asked the Chronicler.
“What can I say? I’ve got a fairly good eye for these sorts of things. Well, that’s not really the case. Truth be told, I was also aided by the glyph,” he said, motioning back toward the spiral carved into the giant boulder. Sterling examined it, not quite certain how he had gotten all that information from a picture of a swirl, a man standing near it, and a bird heading toward him.
