The Warrior-Monks

Our monastery was on the eastern slopes of Pavonis Mons, so that it was illuminated in the morning by a soft blue sunrise, only to fall into shadow in the early evening. It was in the blue light of dawn that we practiced the traditional forms of our ancient martial art.

We, the students, were all young women, pleased by our strength and eager to test it. After our exercises, we would often gather to relax and chat, discussing rumors we had heard from the lowlands. We had just heard about the fall of the Olympian Dictatorship, and the tumult that was following.

"Couldn't we help?" Arbella was saying, "We may not be masters, but we know how to fight."

"We could take bandits, I'm sure. Not much, but it would be better than nothing," Yen agreed.

"Or beasts. I've heard several geneticists had their workshops destroyed and their wares escaped and have started breeding. We could help a lot of people by hunting them down," continued Arbella.

Our teachers seemed ageless, and infinitely patient. They never raised their voices in anger, but only as a means of focusing our attention. So, when the voice of Teacher Scythe suddenly cut across our chatter, we immediately stopped talking and listened.

"Do not fool yourselves. What we do is not practical. You would not survive real combat."

"Surely it cannot be useless," objected Arbella, but was quickly overruled.

"You have learned how to fight unarmed against other unarmed humans. That is all. Do you think you could even survive in a fight with a man in a hoplite suit? A manticore? A sentient weapon? We practice to keep tradition alive, nothing more. We are monks, not warriors."

He paused, seeing that some of us still weren't convinced.

“Tomorrow you will fight a boar. It will be given no means of escape, and that will make it desperate. It will attack you however it can. It will not care about pain. It will not fall for feints. Few of your techniques are of use against a four-legged animal. I do not expect you to win. I expect you to learn."

Magic Circle

An explorer had found the site, noting it as a good natural harbor. Surveyors had mapped it and marked perfect circle surrounding it. Laborers had been stringing up the ribbon for days, running it around poles and trees to create a magic circle a kilometer in diameter, encompassing the harbor.

The ribbon was dense linen, interwoven with threads of gold wire which formed Enochian phrases. The phrases described how the city would be made: how stone would liquefy itself and flow into the shape of buildings, the pattern of roads and plazas, the design and placement of a city hall and garrison, and his own contribution, a new design of large warehouse, perfect for a colonial port.They could have fit a dozen more modules if they had used Hebrew, but British patriotism demanded Enochian.

He was only here to join the to ends of the ribbon, completing the magic circle. Once lighting struck the activation pole, each phrase would be activated in turn, until the circle, and the new city, were completed.

Man-eater

Caves are not shaped for human convenience. Floors are rough, and not always horizontal. Passageways can be large or small, wide or thin, smooth or convoluted. Some passages are so thin that it is only barely possible to make it through, sometimes you have to exhale to fit. Bruises are common, cracked ribs and dislocated shoulders not unheard of. You struggle for every inch. You can practice with a wire hanger to get an idea of how tight a space you can get through.

Caves are dark. Not dark like at night when there are stars, or dark like in bed with street lights peeking around your curtains, but utterly dark, dark like trying to look behind your eyeballs. It is easy to take flashlights and headlamps for granted, but switch them off and you’ll see. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, for afterimages to fade, and then you know longer know where the things around you are. Your world is reduced to your thoughts, the touch of rock under your feet and hands, and the sound of your breath.

Being eaten alive is the most horrible of deaths. Excruciating, but not the most painful. Drawn-out, but no the slowest. The most horrible. It means being totally at the power of something which is not even bothering to kill you, waiting in between bites for the chewing to stop and the pain to come again, wondering how long it will take you to die, whether blood-loss will get you first or if the beast will at last tear into something important, utterly powerlessness.

At first I was not sure if I was mis-hearing my own breath. I thought that perhaps sensory deprivation was causing my mind to tricking itself. I thought I heard the heavy breath of something large behind me. Then I was hit by the smell, strong and primal and awful, and then a hand, strong and rough, into my back, knocking me into the ground.

I had been found by the manticore.

Crafting Magic

It was past noon when Alexander arrived at the farm, a small cottage with a larger barn. The farmer was an old man, wrinkled but wiry. Alexander's appearance did not make the old man reconsider for more than a moment.

"I assume yer here fer the rats? I'll show ya," he said, and began walking towards the barn.

"Large as cats, some of 'em, and not as afraid a me as they ought to be. I cooked up some poison but they ignored it. I need em gone before they get ambitions and go after my sheep." We reached the bard and showed me the holes he had discovered. They were uncommonly large.

"Shouldn't be a problem." Alexander said. "I'll weave some weasels out of sunlight. They'll be fierce and fearless and will evict the rats no problem. I'll cut some dogs out of the shadow of the barn, to chase down escapees. Come evening I'll weave an owl out of the wind, to stay with you and kill any survivors."

"How long will this take? And how long will the owl last?"

"It shouldn't take more than an hour. The owl will last one night, but you'll be surprised by how many rats and mice an owl of the wind can kill in just one night."

Told man nodded, and left Alexander to it. It had been some time he had woven creatures. He thought back to his lessons, trying to make butterflies out of candle flames. Ashpool had been the instructor, fond of lectures.

"To create, we combine two things: form and substance. You must have an intimate understanding of both. To know the substance, how tough it is, how brittle it is, how malleable it is, and every other property you can think of. To know form, you must know what the thing you are creating does, what stimuli it respond to, what you need it to do. The deeper your understanding of these things, the longer your creation will be able to last before disintegrating. With time, you will be able to create a sword out of wit, a ship of dreams, or a dog from a fond memory, but for now, concentrate on the flame."

Alexander was startled out of his reverie by a flash of light. The first of the sunlight weasels was finished, a silhouette so bright it looked like an afterimage on his eyes. He got started on the next.

Purity of Form

We had heard rumors about the place for years, and obviously dismissed them. When a surveyor actually found it and brought back pictures, we assumed he was playing a prank on us. But someone upstairs took him seriously and sent a science team, and they brought back samples. Now there was a new laboratory somewhere in the mountains.

Our little outpost was the connection between that lab and the outside world, and we were all trying to get a peek at the hermetically sealed containers that were being shipped out. Security staff weren't privy to anything that was going on. But six months later, I was rotated into duty at the laboratory, to escort scientists as they run their tests.

As you crest the ridge and enter the valley, the first thing you notice is that it is filled with beige trees with white leaves. The trees have bark made of keratin, making them uncannily smooth. The leaves of the trees are pale white and tend to droop. They are made of skin, albino skin, the better to absorb light. In spring some grow "flowers" made of fine eyelashes.

Squirrels climb with small hands and chatter with almost-voices. Sheep walk on their knuckles and grow thick coats of coarse human hair. There are no birds, but bats are everywhere, hanging from trees with wings like emaciated hands. Even snakes have scales like tiny fingernails. Every animal has human eyes.

During summer the smell of human sweat is inescapable. Even in the laboratory it seems to cling to everything. Only in our hermetically sealed hazmat suits are we spared.

I'm showing Jones how to put on his suit, making adjustments every time he does it wrong, which is every time. My job is to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid in the valley, which is usually easy. New guys usually just follow along in grossed out daze.

When we're over the ridge and begin descending, picking our way past thorny, bone-like shrubs and into the treeline, he begins breaking the unwritten rule for security staff and starts pestering the scientists. Luckily, Dr. Vasquez is willing to indulge his curiosity.

"There aren't any normal plants and animals at all?" asks Jones.

"None. Even the microorganisms seems to be descended from inhabitants of the human gut. Normal plants can't sprout here, and normal animals die of allergic reactions." says Dr. Vasquez.

"Why?

"Its called allelopathy. These organisms all produce a protein that kills all non-human forms of life."

"That's why we have to wear these suits?"

"To protect us from allergens, yes. But also to protect the valley. We are genetically similar enough that diseases could spread from us to them."

We hear the sound of gagging and turned. Jones has taken off his facemask.

"It smells like sweat!"

"PUT YOUR MASK BACK ON!" I bellow, running.

Jones can't stop gagging, his throat is closing up. I wrestle his facemask on and open up the oxygen valve, but he is already slumping to the ground. Dr. Vasquez checks his vitals. Jones is unconscious, but not dead. He'll probably survive if we can get him back to the laboratory, but that means hauling him out of the woods, up the slopes, and back over the ridge, and we'll have to do it as fast as possible.

I hoist Jones on to my back, and, as I turn to Dr. Vasquez, I catch something out of the corner of my eye.

The first thing I saw was the eyes, and I think, for a moment, that they were a man's eyes. I almost call out to him, when I see the face. The body is shaped like a big cat, but it has the hairless skin of a human. Human eyes, wolf face, human skin, tiger body. It paces towards us carefully and confidently. We run, and somewhere along the way I drop Jones.

The Defense of Irkutsk

The last monster of summer had shoved its way through thin arctic ice, and begun its journey south. The hole in the ice had frozen-over before being spotted, and the tracks covered by wind-blown snow. The thing had wandered in its fugue of hunger and adrenaline for weeks before being spotted and called in by a militia outpost, already much too far south for comfort. The hunter-killer Hind squadrons were unavailable, protecting Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Valdivostok, or else receiving necessary maintenance, and so militia groups were hastily mobilized and assigned military officers.

Five tanks along a ridge. All had their hatches open with men standing in them. Most manning DShK heavy machine guns, but two have binoculars. Mist blankets the land.

The lieutenant had been gazing through his binoculars since dawn, as had the militia sergeant. The lieutenant was restless, occasionally taking his focus off of his binoculars to take in the landscape, or glancing at the sergeant. The sergeant was diligently scanning the fog, making a point of paying the lieutenant no mind.

"Silhouette, twelve o'clock" said the lieutenant .

"SILHOUETTE, TWELVE O'CLOCK" screamed the sergeant. The lieutenant winced in spite of himself, and the five tanks pointed their guns north. The lieutenant and the sergeant both focused on the shape in the mist.

The mist cleared briefly and revealed a tree.

The sergeants face remained carefully neutral. The lieutenant and the sergeant returned to scanning the landscape.

"Movement, eleven o'clock."

"MOVEMENT, ELEVEN O'CLOCK!"

The guns of the five tanks shifted left.

The fog shifted in the morning breeze. Nothing moved. The sergeant began to smirk. Then there came an echoing call, halfway between a scream and a trumpet, and the monster came charging at them.

"FIRE!" screamed both the lieutenant and the sergeant, and the call of the creature was met by the crack of the guns. The shells hit around the creature, some traveling too far, some coming up short. Shrapnel tore into its legs and belly and it began to bleed, but it continued its charge.

"FIRE!" the officers screamed again. This time the guns were loaded with APFSDS rounds, tungsten darts designed to pierce armor. They zipped through the creature as though nothing were there. It stumbled, and struggled to get up.

The lieutenant waved the line of tanks forward, and signaled the machineguns to open fire. The combined sound of five heavy machine guns is felt as much as heard. Fifty heavy bullets per second began tearing apart flesh, sending up eruptions of black blood.

Up close, it looked almost like a mammoth. Almost. It had too many trunks, and they were too long. It had too many tusks, and they were too sharp.And, as something tore its way out of the monsters belly and charged at the nearest tank, the lieutenant realized it had been pregnant.

Pheonix Fire

The flame of a pheonix burns things back together. It burns things into health. It burns wood into trees, sickness into health, and metal into magic. If you light a funeral pyre with a pheonix's flame, it will even burn death into life.

This story is from the ancient days. Before all things had been created, before all things had taken their places, before the people built cities and organized their affairs. Across the land there was only death and those that feed on death. The people huddled under unrotting logs, fought with jackals for scraps of unrotting carcasses, and those that spent the night away from the warmth and light of a bonfire were never seen again.

One youth declared that the world could be better, and so he would make it better. The people had heard talk like this before, and knew that it always ended grand promises and a brave soul wandering away from the fire, never to be seen again. So they discouraged him, telling him about all the others who had failed, and when they saw he was determined to go, they wished him well, although in their hearts they knew they would never see him again.

 The youth wandered the lands for an uncounted period of time, stealing meat from jackals and sleeping in what shelter he could find. He found only mud, carcasses, and maggots. Nothing that could make a change or give him hope.

Eventually he resolved to climb to the peak of a mountain and see what he could see. Clambering upwards, he began to hear the sound of laughter. When he reached the top, he saw a great bird made of blue flame, laughing at the state of the world from above. The youth picked up a branch and held it aloft, lighting it from the bird's belly as it passed. He then began to descend from the mountain, to bring back to the people this new thing he had found.

As he descended, he noticed that the branch was becoming heavier. When he looked at it, he was astonished. Out of the bottom of the branch were growing pale white roots, seeking the earth. Out of the top of the branch were growing bright green branches, seeking the sun. The branch burned, but as it burned it grew.

The branch grew so heavy that he could not carry it. He planted it in the mud, where it grew faster and faster. The fire spread from the growing tree to the branches, logs, and stumps that littered the earth. As it burned them, they sprouted green branches of their own. The fire spread from wood to flesh, burning the carcasses that had lain in the mud for longer than memory, and as they burned they began to stand and run. The fire grew into a wildfire that covered all land, and it burned all day and night.

Next morning, the sun rose over a grand forest, through which wandered now-living wildlife. It was the most beautiful thing the youth had ever seen, but as he stared he realized he could no longer spot see any of the landmarks he knew. He was never able to find his way back to his people.

The Monastery

The path is almost as wide as a man's outstretched arm. Even where it snakes far up the canyon walls it roughly carved and uneven. Prospective new monks extend the path, then carve their cell into the side of the cliff. The openings are sealed with clay, into which is carved a name and a date

Every so often a cell lies open, broken out of from the inside. Sometimes a monk will choose sculpture as their method of meditation, turning their cell into an immaculate bas-relief; gardens or shrines or scenes from the Testament. These cells are kept open, for viewing.

The monk is bound in tight wrappings coarse brown fabric. The visitor is bound in pure white linen, on top of which is layered a tunic, a vest, and a turban, all of bright colors and with elaborate embroidery. They do not travel far up the cliff, but stop in front of one of the older, still sealed cells.

The monk gestured to the door, "Solomon of Babylon, withdrew 10th year", and steps back. The visitor stabs an iron bar into the ancient clay, pulling out chunks and throwing to the canyon floor.

There was no cell beyond. There was a tunnel, barely large enough to crawl through, leading deep into the earth.

The Elk

Alexey was looking for silhouettes on the horizon when he heard a branch snap behind him and he was turning and bringing up his shotgun when the elk slammed into him.

It was so large up close. It snorted, sending burst of fog into the cold air. He could hear the power of its lungs. It opened its mouth, revealing row after row of the teeth and fangs of many animals.

The elk bit into his leg and tugged, pulling him along the ground. It kept tugging until a piece of flesh was torn free, and lifted its head to chew.

Then Alexey was trying to remember what was happening. Why did his leg feel so strange? Everything came rushing back and he realized he had passed out. Much more of his leg was missing now, and he could see bone in several places, but there was no pain. He realized he was still gripping the shotgun.

Alexey struggled to lift the shotgun with one hand. He fired as soon as the barrel was pointed in the right direction. The recoil slammed the gun out of his hand and deafened him. The elk seemed unaffected, until blood began to flow from its thick matted fur. Then it resumed eating him, and he passed out again.

Footsteps

Based on a prompt

“Did you hear that?”

“Something in cargo fell over maybe. Get back to work man, we’re almost done.”

“No, it sounded like it came from the hull.”

“So maybe we got winged by a micrometeorite. We’re almost done man, I want to get back to my pod.”

“…Okay, that time it definitely came from outside!”

“Yeah, I heard it, lets…”

“…”

“…”

“Are those…”

“…footsteps?”

Wendigo

Based on a prompt

We all wanted to serve so desperately. We were unfit, but given an option. This unit only takes volunteers, and your lame leg or poor vision won’t matter.

A wendigo has no body of its own. It needs a vessel. It needs a host.

The first host had been Smith. He’d been nervous, but eager. I think he was curious about how the officers would live up to their promise to make him strong. The next time I saw him was D-Day. He had his own landing craft, slightly ahead of the others. When the ramp dropped a long-limbed thing burst out, rushing up the beach, impossibly fast. It wrenched itself into a bunker and then there were screams and an explosion.

The second in line had been Martin. One of the officers showed him into the bunker. There was a lot of shouting, and we were all pulled away by the rest of the officers. I didn’t seem him again until Caen.

We were pinned down by machine guns, and the officers had brought forward an armored truck. Martin scrambled out as soon as they opened it, and this time I got a close look. Every part of him was emaciated except his belly. The skin on his limbs and head was drawn tight, outlining his bones, but his belly bulged. He appeared to have been gnawing on his wrists.

Then he rushed forward, leaping from the ground through a third story window. It sounded like he was bursting through the walls of the old houses, and we saw him pounce on one of the machine gun teams from behind. He killed at least thirty before a lucky hit from a Pak 38 cored him like an apple.

After that was Taylor, who tore the head from a tank commander, dove through the hatch headfirst and tore apart the crew inside. A Sherman had hit the tank seconds later, making mincemeat of him. Treblawny sprinted through a trench, killing as he ran, killing several dozen men before falling to sheer blood loss. Smith had dodged sniper fire until he got close enough to leap and knock the sniper from his tree, falling on top of him and burrowing into his chest with his fingernails. Smith had killed only two of the snipers who had ambushed us when he stepped on a landmine and lost his legs.

Now it was my turn. The officers took me to the chunks of bone and gristle that had been Smith. They reminded me, you wanted this, you volunteered for this.

I tore out a piece of his leg and began to chew.

The Great War

Once there had been Kings. Men with shining armor, riding griffons and winged horses into battle. Birth right and divine right had been the sources of power.

Now magic is the source of power, for it is power. Rule by those who can because they can and no one can stop them. Apprentices at the front lines, journeymen casting from the back, and masters ruling far from battle.

The wind shifts, there is movement along the enemy line, and they wait for the diviners to make the call.

“MEN!” and they grab their firearms and spring up to the parapet of their trench, firing on the shapes they see slogging through the mud. Thirty seconds of shooting, black silhouettes in gray fog coming closer, before fireballs begin to fall and the enemy withdraws.

“BEASTS!” and they grab their pikes and spring up to the parapet of their trench, thrusting the points forward to become a wall of spikes. Once beasts had meant manticores, hydras, and wyverns. Now they were the products of magically quickened breeding, hybrids of every predator that could be found, confused amalgamations which rage and charge and shake themselves to pieces when they die.

“FIRE!” and they rush to their designated bunkers, keep their heads down and try not to look at the second suns falling from the sky.

Worst of all is when no call comes, when the diviners begin to babble and all unburied corpses join them. Someone has become desperate, a breakthrough is needed, a curse is on the wind. Hold your sacred trinkets tight and pray.

Scavenger

Based on a prompt

“Thank you Remy, good job.” Mrs. Templeton adjusted her glasses and looked out at the class. “Would anyone like to volunteer to go next? No? In that case… Jerry, your turn.”

Jerry looked up in surprise at hearing his name, and after taking a breath began dragging his presentation to the front of the class. He lifted it up onto the table and they could see it was a rectangular piece of wood, with a large rusty square attached to a tight spring.

“My dad dug this out of the yard, it doesn’t look like much, cause its all rusty, but the book says they used to use these things to kill ‘vermin’, but it didn’t say what those were.”

Mrs. White narrowed her eyes and looked like she was about to speak, but at that moment the strange old device sprung to life, the metal square slamming from one side of the board to the other, narrowly missing Jerry’s paw.

Once the class had calmed down and stopped chittering, Mrs. White turned to Jerry, who was now nervously holding his tail with both paws.

“Jerry... I’m going to need to have another meeting with your parents.”

Oops

Based on a prompt

“We’re doing this for a reason.” the young man said, strapping a helmet of wires and magnets to my head.

“It’s for your own good. I can promise you that.” the old man agreed, still looking at the monitor.

The metal of the helmet was cold and sharp against my scalp. I’d started shaving my head last month, but had that been my idea, or was that something they’d arranged for their own convenience?

I sought eye-contact with the young man. “I’ve already figured out how to prevent myself from retroactively preventing my own existence, my anti-paradox algorithm is air-tight. Besides, there are worse ways to go then not having ever existed, right?” I forced a laugh.

They made eye-contact. The old man suddenly seemed very, very old, and the young man seemed scared. The young man held a pleading look for a moment, but dropped his eyes, and the old man looked back to his monitor with grim determination.

The young man looked apologetic. “It’s not about what you will erase. It’s about what you will create.”

“Us.” said the old man.

“Us.” said the young man “There are, indeed, much worse things than to never exist. That is why we choose our own erasure, despite the cost. I’m sorry.”

The old man put one finger on the ENTER key. “Don’t worry” he said, “You won’t feel a thing.”

He started the program.

Supers

Based on a prompt

"I was so scared!" I sobbed into her shoulder. "I didn't want to go with them, but they were going to take me!"

"There, there" she said, stroking my head. "I would never let them take you anywhere."

What was left of them was scattered across the alley. Stray limbs, crushed torsos, blood pooling.

Some of the patches they had been wearing were still unstained. The flags of the old nations. They were one of the groups who wanted to bring back the old world. A world ruled by mere humans. Who knows what they would have done with me.

The smell of her hair calmed me down, as it always did. She stared into me with shining eyes.

"I don't know where I'd find another like you. An aquiline nose, perfect skin, and no wisdom teeth? Your children will be the start of something beautiful."

She kissed my forehead.

"Now lets get you back home."

I held on tight as she leapt into the sky. She smelled so good. I was so happy.

Scout

Based on a prompt

The rumble of the engine rattled the delicate prayer beads my father had hung from the ceiling. It fluttered the tapestries my mother had tied to non-essential scaffolding, images of old-earth for luck.

It shook my bones. I took a swig of kefir and returned my focus to the monitors.

A planetoid, a good one. Traces of radioactives, nickel-iron, platinum-group metals, and best of all, water ice. Another bonus, the Empire had also recognized the planetoid’s value, and allowed some of its servants to build an outpost. Wide-eyed, squat things. The Empire wouldn’t have granted one of the auxiliary species a full garrison. A chance to make a wound, however small.

The Horde would be glad to glut itself on water, and the Khan would be glad to harm the Empire. As she had decreed, so would it be, a thousand planets ravaged in payment for the murder of Earth, a hundred alien lives in restitution for each of our own. As the Emperor had sown, so would he reap.

I set a course for my rendezvous with a happy heart.

The Order of the Horn

The guards were unhappy, grumbling to each other when out of the caravan master's earshot, and glaring at him when he wasn't looking. They would soon be passing through the land of an infamous robber baron, and allowing a sad old man on a sad old mule to join them would slow them down.

They glared at the old man whether he was looking or not, finding reasons to dislike him. His face was dour, and he brought down the mood of the whole caravan. His tunic bore a sigil like that of a knightly order, but not any order they had ever heard of, so he was surely some sort of charlatan. He had around his belt a strange old horn with strange old carvings; a pagan artifact, perhaps, sure to bring them bad luck.

The caravan master had said that the old man reminded him of his own grandfather, and that it would be a good deed to let him travel with them, even if inconvenient, and that was that. The guards would have to satisfy themselves with grumbling.

Although unfair, the fears of the guard were not unfounded. They were unable to make it through the robber baron's land during daylight, and as the sun set, they were attacked. A volley of arrows flew out from the brush on both sides of the road, landing in a circle around the caravan. They all got the message.

The sad old man hardly seemed to notice the arrows, but as the baron's men emerged and surrounded the wagons, he frowned. He let out a deep sigh, and lifted the strange old horn to his lips. The sound boomed like the echo of thunder, and reverberated as if in a great hall. Both guards and bandits started at movement on the edges of their vision; movement that soon resolved itself into ghostly figures.

Each figure was armored, although the only uniform feature was that the armor was battered and nicked. They held weapons of a style that no men now bore, but that farmers sometimes dug up from their fields. Their shields and banners bore the sigil like that of a knightly order, not one that any of the guards had heard of, but that matched the one on the tunic of the sad old man.

They fought like great knights, swinging their translucent weapons through bandits and felling them in single blows, although no wounds appeared. The sad old man watched watched the knights, no longer dour, with light in his eyes. When the last bandit fell, the knights turned to the old man and saluted him, then faded and disappeared.

The guards now regarded the old man cautiously, and were startled when he spoke. He asked about the lord of these lands, and how he could allow such bandits on an important road. They explained that the bandits worked for the lord, and sadness slowly settled on the old man once more.

The caravan master took charge of his caravan once again, ordering that they should get as far from this battlefield as they can before the sun fully set. As they got underway, one guard noticed the old man had left the group, and was moving slowly, but with determination, towards the castle of the robber baron.

Anchorite Suit

Out on the moon on Titan, they have knights, like the old days. Titan don't have any large proper settlements, right? Just small towns all over. And every bandit king in the belt sees them as good targets, pick em off one by one, and there's no big united army that'll come after you. But on Titan they got these knights.

Big suits of armor. Old mining exos, fitted with military kit. Big fuck off armor plates riveted on. They paint em, old style. Religious. Images of the pilot and his deeds. Iconography.

Its a holy thing. Like a sacrifice, not that they're savages, they're mostly Orthodox out there, but its like a sacrifice. When a man's got nothing left, when a man starts feeling useless, when he's slowly dyin', when he just wants to feel strong again, town elders make an offer. Take his limbs, wire up the stumps to the armor, and hook up the blood too cause he can't eat or breathe no more cause he can never get out.

Aint nobody fight like a man in powered armor, aint nobody fight like a man's not afraid of death, and aint nobody at all fight like a man's got both.

Hunted

The sky was greens and yellows, the treeline was black, and the snow reflected the sky. The air was sharp and vision crisp despite the dim. The footprints dodged left and right towards a gully. When they caught up there would be meat and fat and only bones would be left for the wolves.

He clenched his spear in his hand. The prey was gaining ground. His youngest pointed her own spear at a lone pine on a rise. Perhaps from there she could catch a glimpse of him.

She called out. She could see the trail. It ended suddenly in an open field.

There was a sound like a rushing wind, and the aurora flared. A flurry of needles fell.

She never came down from that tree.

Cockroach the Barbarian

The old world had killed itself with mighty weapons, or great and terrible plagues had been unleashed, or a meteor had struck the Earth, or something something aliens. The important points are, almost everyone is dead, everyone who lives is a mutant, and I had been granted eternal life and was enjoying every second of it.

Except this one.

The woman was as beautiful as they said. Limbs in all the right places (not something you can take for granted), eyes that shone (figuratively, not radioactively or hunts-in-the-dark-ly), and skin that was merely splotchy (instead of pock-marked, a bit green, or coming off).

And it turned out she was a laser-witch.

“Why?” I attempted to growl past the gag.

“Because it’s the right thing to do..”

“So?” I managed.

“So you could change the world for the better. Why wouldn’t you want that?” I should have known. I threw her across the room, dove out the window, and began running.

I could judge how close she was by the brightness of the blue light following me.

At some point her skin had turned translucent and what was beneath had a sickly glow. Perhaps her eyes had been shining radioactively after all.

“EARTH HANGS IN THE BALANCE!” she yelled, right in my face.

Her second mistake. I headbutted her.

Then the street collapsed, and I was face-to-eyestalk with a man-shrimp.