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 their molding flesh and flies lay eggs in the rotting meat. The smell of broken bowels fume in the afternoon heat. The sight of their flesh peeling off their bones nauseates him.

Reynard vomits.

He tightens up on the reins.

Thunder!

His magnum smokes.

The horse leaps forward, frightened from the noise behind it. Reynard chokes up farther on the leather reins, bringing the animal to a trot to escape the odor.

As the clearing closes around the trail, a glint of metal catches his eye. Reynard’s smooth dismount brings forth his cocky smile. He misses home—Earth. No way to return. Even if he could find his planet there’s no way he could rewind a thousand years of being frozen.

He kicks at the tall grass. The chest plate of molded Kevlar battle armor flips up. A rusting Roman gladius driven through its center. Reynard yanks the weapon free. Boney fingers unwrap from the handle, splintering on impact with the ground. He contemplates how both objects are present together. This style sword went out of common usage three thousand years ago on his home world.

A dry twig snaps. The creatures continue to stalk him. He Frisbees the useless metal in the direction of the noise. Whatever hid scampers away when the object crashes near it.

Left with little choice, Reynard remounts the horse and spurs it on.

The trail darkens as more finger-like branches contort and dip in on the trail. He has to duck under them. The air drops a few degrees, sending a full-body shiver through the horse. Reynard’s leather jacket keeps him warm, but the shaking upsets the comfort of his body in the saddle.

He leans forward on his stirrups and strokes the neck of his mount. Soothing both their nerves. Speaking in what would become his father-to-baby voice, he asks, “Did you know we discovered this smashed orb fragment? I’d consider it the starting point for this—well, Ki-Ton was the starting point. Nothing I’ve trained for since my thaw prepared me for it.”

The occasional soft crunch remains as a reminder of whatever’s following him in the undergrowth. He leans forward, pressing himself against the horse’s neck to avoid the branches.

Reynard snaps the twig snagging his jacket, half expecting the tree to speak and toss apples at him. No such life from the reaching plant. Besides, the disrespect of his weapon hacking and slashing with his katana-style sword will become a full-time chore as more tree branches crowd the path.

The blackened, dying wood breaks into lush greenery and the babbling of water splashing over rocks. The smell of fresh water cleanses his nostrils, distilling the effects of his earlier nausea. Something still claws at his stomach, and it wasn’t witnessing the disturbing dead bodies or his instant placement on this planet.

He contemplates on drinking the water to wash out the taste of bile. I should already be dead. That Sandman dragged me here for some twisted purpose. I doubt to drink poisoned water.

Dismounting, Reynard hobbles the horse. He unties his blade from under the left saddle strip. His magnum functions, but the resulting boom will startle the horse, so in a pinch he’ll use silent steel.

He schleps through the green lush grass, careful not to step on a twig or dry leaf until reaching the rippling water. A waterfall gently crashes against some rocks just up the path. Another unnatural sound distracts him. Easing through the underbrush in a snakish form, he halts and slips in an ear piece from his jacket pocket. After securing the device he flips the lens section before his left eye. A blink activates the imager. Forcing an eyestrain shoots the ocular lens into telescopic mode. Zooming in on an image upstream, he spots the sound he knew he heard. A stunning white mare with a golden bridle sips water.

Her owner discards a belt, releasing long-flowing lavender robes wrapped around her slender frame. She drops the thin, silken layer garments on the bank.

Conflicted, Reynard knows he should cease his peeping. He has no valid reason to spy on an undressing woman.

She slips the silk cloth covering her breasts up over her head. Reynard’s heart pounds faster. His throat dries. He never washed the vomit from his mouth. No girl was ever impressed by puke breath. He refocuses, flipping up the eyepiece.

She unlaces a leather armband. Indigo tattoos cover her forearm. They remind Reynard of Egyptian hieroglyphs—in style only—since he doesn’t recognize any of the symbols. Until an azure-masked Sandman catches his attention.

As she wades out into the water, gooseflesh covers her body. She splashes cold water on her upper body before submerging to her neck.

Answers. This woman knows of the creature that brought me here. As he marches into the river sword in hand, Reynard notices her face for the first time. “Amye…” Her name falls from his lips.

The woman twirls around, still underwater.

Reynard is blown back by a blue laser beam stemming from her right hand, leaving him to writhe in agony on the bank.

Acid burns his chest.

That’s what you get for being a Peeping Tom, his First Officer’s motherly voice calmly tells him in the back of his mind.

The woman marches toward Reynard, keeping her arm extended as if it were a loaded gun.

Even through his tear-filled eyes, Reynard spots her approaching. Having failed to maintain a grip on his sword, he reaches for his magnum.

“Don’t,” she orders.

Once he ceases thrashing, the pain terminates.

The identical Amye lowers her arm. “You’re no Sandman, or the blast would have dissolved you.”

Reynard discontinues his advance toward his gun. This woman knows?

“You’re no conjurer. No one travels the Roads of Death except conjurers.”

Unable to force himself up beyond his elbows, Reynard asks, “What about those the Sandmen bring here?”

“The Sandmen don’t spare anyone.”

With clearer vision Reynard recognizes the same facial tick Amye gives when she’s not revealing all she knows.

“They spared me.”

“I am Eymaxin, Conjurer of the Blue Flame.” Sapphire flames spark around her tattoos.

“Do those tats give you the power to harm Sandmen?”

She waves her hand at the pointless question, signaling to him she believes he’s beneath her station. She dresses.

Reynard rolls to his stomach in order to push himself to his knees. “I’ve got to discover a way to defeat the Sandmen.” He rubs his fingers through the hole of his shirt. Dried burnt skin flakes off his chest. “Look, Eymaxin, I’m lost. Where I am?” A direct, honest approach. I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t want a man to stop and ask for directions.

“No one travels a Death Road by mistake.”

“A Sandman brought me here. Why he didn’t just suck out my brains, I don’t know, but I’ve got to find a way to get back to my people.”

“I haven’t the power to help you.”

“Is this where you tell me there’s a wizard who can give me a way to protect my brain?” Reynard washes away the dead skin. The burn left no scar.

“The Thaumaturge is the master of many conjurers.” Eymaxin wraps her belt around her waist.

“Sister, you’ve got the wrong Dorothy. I’m not from Kansas.” He cups his hand to drink from the stream, spitting out the vomit taste.

“You speak in such a strange, incomprehensible manner.” She mounts her white steed.

“I speak funny…Look, I don’t see any yellow brick roads around here, so how do I find this wizard?”

“The Thaumaturge doesn’t assist strangers. Not those brought as gifts to the greater Sandmen.”

“What has been following me?”

“There’re other creatures on this world. The Sandmen are just one of the horrors awaiting you. It’s safer to travel with a conjurer. I’ll accompany you to the next town.”

Knife-stabbing pain tears at his stomach. The change in her demeanor sparked a warning—No one here should be trusted. He draws his sword over his pant leg to dry the water from the blade before sheathing it.

“You must never let your guard down. It only takes a Sandman a moment to tear the back of your skull open.”

He places his left boot into the stirrup and throws his right leg over the saddle, landing in the seat as if he were John Wayne. “Where we going?”

She spurs her white steed with her heels and they wade into the water. “We’ll follow the river downstream until the Village of Tilel. The Sandmen rarely patrol the rivers. They like hunting their prey on the Death Roads.”

From the darker trail’s trees burst scrubby troll-like creatures. They run on the knuckles of their elongated fingers.

Eymaxin blasts one of them. Blue flame fires the beast.

A Sandman hovers over the river behind Reynard.

Lightning reflexes puts the magnum sights level with Reynard’s eye. Two of the troll creatures’ heads disintegrate. More monsters rush Eymaxin’s mount.

The Sandman floats closer, touching its skeletal fingers to Reynard’s skull. Before Reynard reacts the Sandman phases from reality and slips inside his brain.