The air in the Shadow Weald did not move. It sat heavy and stagnated upon the skin, a suffocating blanket of moisture that smelled of ancient rot, with the musk of things that had died in the dark.
Raina wiped a hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of black mud across her pale skin. Her tank top was already soaked through, clinging to her ribs and the curve of her back like a second skin. Every breath was a labor. It felt as though she were inhaling soup rather than oxygen.
"Boar-Kin," Nix whispered. The small mechanic was crouched low in the ferns, his large, lens-less eyes scanning the dense, grey fog that served as the horizon in this place. "That is the local nomenclature. Do not confuse them with the feral hogs of your world, Rainy. Those are animals. These are malice given form."
Raina looked at him. In the dim, filtered light that trickled down through the canopy of calcified trees, Nix looked smaller than ever. But there was a density to him, a coiled potential energy that she had never noticed back in the diner.
"You said they have guns," Raina said. Her voice was steady, but her hands were shaking slightly as she tested the weight of a heavy, jagged branch she had scavenged.
"Crude ones," Nix corrected. "Black powder. Slugs. Inaccurate beyond twenty yards, but at close range, they will turn a soft target into a memory. We cannot let them get to close range."
Raina looked around at their prison of a situation. The Shadow Weald was a nightmare of biology gone wrong. The moss here wasn't soft; it was slick and secreted a mild paralytic slime. The trees didn't have bark; they had what looked like scabbed bone.
"You called this the Shadow Weald," Raina said, needing to keep talking to keep the panic at bay. She began stripping the smaller twigs off her branch, turning it into a makeshift club. "Is that like the High Vale?
Nix let out a sharp, derisive snort. He moved to a cluster of saplings, inspecting their tensile strength.
"The High Vale is a garden," Nix explained, his fingers probing the fibers of a violet-hued plant. "It is sunlight and marble and geometry. This place? This is the drain, Rainy. This is the Purgatory between the floorboards. Things fall out of the Vale, and they land here. Things fall out of Earth, and they land here. The Weald eats the mistakes of the multiverse."
He looked back at her, his expression grim.
"Most people who fall here die within the hour," he added. "We need to be the statistical anomaly."
Raina dropped the branch. It wasn't enough. A club wasn't going to stop a squad of armed pig-men. She looked at the terrain. It was a choke point. The trees grew dense here, forcing any large creature to funnel through a narrow, muddy path lined with those violet ferns.
"First Blood," Raina muttered to herself.
"I beg your pardon?" Nix asked.
"Sylvester Stallone," Raina said, her eyes narrowing. The engineer in her was waking up, suppressing the terrified victim. She looked at the resources available: tension, gravity, friction. "We don't fight them. We hunt them. Nix, come here."
She pointed to a cluster of young, flexible trees that looked somewhat like palms but had trunks made of a rubbery, fibrous muscle.
"Can you bend that?" Raina asked. "All the way to the ground?"
Nix walked over to the tree. It was thick as a man's thigh. On Earth, bending it would have required a winch and a truck.
The Glimmuck didn't hesitate. He reached up, grabbing the trunk with his small, calloused hands. He didn't grunt. He didn't strain. He simply planted his feet in the mud and pulled.
Raina watched in stunned silence as the tree groaned and bent. Nix's muscles didn't bulge, but the tree folded under his grip as if it were made of wet cardboard.
"My strength is... contextual," Nix grunted, holding the massive tension of the tree with one hand while he adjusted his glasses with the other. "On Earth, my density gives me a significant advantage. Here, against the native fauna, I am merely average. But for construction? Yes. I can assist."
"Hold it there," Raina ordered, her mind racing. "I need vines. I need sharp rocks. We're building a spear sling."
For the next twenty minutes, they worked with a frantic, silent intensity. Raina became the architect of pain. She directed Nix to drag heavy, rotting logs across the secondary paths, creating barricades that would force the Boar-Kin into their kill zone.
Nix moved with a speed and strength that defied physics. He uprooted sharp, calcified spikes from the ground and drove them into the mud at Raina's direction, covering them with layers of the sticky moss.
"Punji sticks," Raina explained as she sharpened the tips of the bone-wood with a rock. "They step in the hole, the spike goes through the hoof. Infection sets in immediately, but the pain stops them now."
"Vicious," Nix noted with approval. "You have a dark mind, Rainy. It is a survival trait."
"I've dealt with contractors," Raina said dryly. "Same principle."
They moved to the main trap. Raina used the tough, fibrous vines of the Weald to create a catch-mechanism for the bent palm tree. She fashioned a cradle at the end of the trunk and loaded it with three spears they had whittled from the hardened branches.
It was a ballista, primitive and ugly, but the tension stored in that bent tree was enough to punch a hole through a brick wall.
"We need a trigger," Raina said, wiping sweat from her eyes. "Something they trip."
"Tripwire," Nix said. He pulled a spool of fine copper wire from his pocket—one of the few tools he had had on him when they fell. "I usually use this for circuitry repairs. It has high conductivity but low visibility."
He strung the wire across the path, connecting it to the catch-release knot Raina had tied.
They stepped back, admiring their work. The path looked empty, save for a few disturbed patches of moss. But it was a gauntlet of death.
"They are close," Nix whispered, his ears swiveling. "I can hear the hooves. Six of them. Maybe seven."
Back in Texas…
In the cool, artificial climate of the Slipgate Diner, the search for the missing crew members had reached a fever pitch of frustration.
Marcus shoved a heavy stainless-steel prep table aside with a screech of metal on tile, revealing nothing but the stained linoleum floor beneath. He was sweating, his jaw set in a hard line.
"Nothing," he growled. "No residue. No heat signature. The floor is solid."
Pearl was on her hands and knees near the trapdoor, her nose pressed almost to the floorboards. The Glimmuck, inhaled deeply, her nostrils flaring.
"The scent is gone," Pearl said, sitting back on her heels. She looked uncharacteristically somber. "The door closed, Marcus. It tasted like wet dirt and now it just tastes like lemon pledge."
Eira stood by the back exit, her sword drawn, watching the parking lot as if expecting an invasion. She turned, her blue eyes cold and calculating.
"We are wasting time," the High Elf stated. "The aperture was a localized instability. It will not reopen in the same location. We need to force a breach."
"We can't just blow a hole in reality, Eira," Marcus snapped, running a hand through his hair. "If we destabilize the Slipgate housing, we could flatten Weedfield. We need a key, not a hammer."
"We usually use a hammer," Pearl pointed out helpfully. "Or teeth."
Marcus looked at them. He saw the tension radiating off Eira. He saw the worry hidden behind Pearl's wide eyes. And beneath it all, he felt the simmering undercurrent of the complex dynamic they were building.
Pearl looked at Marcus, a sudden, mischievous glint returning to her eye despite the gravity of the situation.
"You smell like Liri," Pearl noted, wrinkling her nose. "You smell like... a lot of Liri. Did you fix her fever, Marcus? Or did you just catch it?"
Eira turned her gaze on him, sharp as a laser.
"My sister is resting," Eira said, her tone icy but with a hint of possessiveness that hadn't been there yesterday. "Her biological imperatives were critical. Marcus performed his duty as the Sky-Bond."
"Duty," Pearl giggled. "Is that what we're calling it now? I want a duty."
"Enough," Marcus said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of command. It snapped through the room, cutting off the bickering instantly.
He walked to the center of the kitchen, looking at both of them.
"We are missing two people," Marcus said, his voice low and hard. "Nix and Raina are in the wind. We don't have time for jealousy, and we don't have time for games. If you two want to be part of this unit, you fall in line."
He looked at Pearl.
"You are hungry," Marcus stated. "I know. But you wait."
He looked at Eira.
"You are protective. You want to assert dominance. You wait."
"I am not," Eira began.
"You wait," Marcus repeated, closer. He didn't back down from the High Elf's intense glare. "If we are going to survive this, and if I am going to keep all of you safe, I need discipline. Liri is down. That means you two are my right and left hands. Can you handle that? Or do I need to do this alone?"
Eira held his gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, she sheathed her sword. A look of grudging respect crossed her features.
"We wait," Eira agreed softly. "But do not think this conversation is over, Gatekeeper. When the danger is passed, the pack order will be established."
"Fine," Marcus said. "Survive first. Pack order later."
Pearl hopped up, dusting off her knees. "Okay, Boss. But if we find a Pig Man, I get the tenderloin."
"Deal," Marcus said. "Now, help me move the Slipgate console. Maybe there's a frequency leak we can track."
Back in the suffocating gloom of the Shadow Weald, the enemy had arrived.
Raina lay flat on her belly behind a rotting log, barely breathing. Nix was ten feet away, hidden in the hollow of a dead tree.
Through the mist, the shapes emerged.
They were grotesque. Nix had been right these weren't animals. They were humanoid, standing nearly six feet tall on thick, digitigrade legs ending in cloven hooves that were shod in crude iron. Their bodies were massive slabs of fat and muscle, covered in coarse, wiry black hair. They wore piecemeal armor made of boiled leather and scavenged metal signs.
One of them wore a hubcap as a chest plate. Another had a stop sign bent over its shoulder.
But it was their faces that froze Raina's blood. They were porcine, with wet, upturned snouts and yellow tusks that curved up toward small, beady red eyes. They grunted to each other in a language that sounded like wet rocks grinding together.
And in their hands, they held weapons. Not spears or clubs, but heavy, rusted firearms that looked like blunderbusses held together with wire and duct tape.
"Six," Raina counted silently. "Six of them."
She looked at Nix.
The Glimmuck was holding two pieces of metal he had scavenged from the debris field where they landed. One looked like a piece of a transformed engine block; the other was a jagged strip of unknown alloy.
He caught Raina's eye. He nodded.
Nix stepped out from the hollow tree. He stood in the middle of the path, looking tiny and defenseless.
"Hey!" Nix shouted. His voice was high and clear. "You ugly bacon-slabs! Over here!"
The Boar-Kin froze. Six massive heads snapped toward the small mechanic.
They snorted, a collective sound of surprise and hunger. The leader, a massive brute with a scar running down his snout, raised his weapon.
"Fresh meat," the leader grunted in a guttural, distorted English.
"Now, Nix!" Raina screamed.
Nix slammed the two pieces of metal together.
He didn't just bang them; he ground them against each other with a specific, calculated friction speed.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
The sound was impossible. It wasn't just a noise; it was a physical needle drilled directly into the eardrum. It was a high-frequency shriek, hovering right around 18,000 hertz—a pitch that human ears found annoying, but for the Boar-Kin, whose hearing was tuned to the low frequencies of the forest, it was agony.
The effect was instantaneous.
The Boar-Kin dropped their weapons. They clutched their heads, squealing in pain. The leader fell to his knees, vomiting onto the moss. They were disoriented, blinded by the sonic assault.
"Pull!" Nix yelled, dropping the metal and diving for cover.
Raina didn't hesitate. She grabbed the vine that acted as the safety release for the spear sling. She yanked it with both hands.
THWACK.
The sound of the bent palm tree snapping back to its upright position was like a thunderclap. The cradle whipped forward, launching the three sharpened wooden spears with terrifying velocity.
The lead Boar-Kin never saw it coming.
Two of the spears went wide, disappearing into the jungle, but the center one struck true. It caught the leader in the center of his hubcap chest armor. The wood shattered the rusted metal and drove through the creature's chest, lifting him off his knees and pinning him to the tree behind him.
He didn't even scream. He just gurgled, thrashing once before going still.
The other five Boar-Kin were still reeling from the noise, but the death of their leader snapped them out of it. Rage replaced the pain.
"Kill the small one!" one of them roared, pointing a rusted pistol at Nix.
"Phase Two!" Raina shouted.
Nix scrambled backward, leading them toward the secondary trap. The Boar-Kin charged, their hooves churning up the mud, their eyes burning with red fury.
They hit the patch of moss Raina had carefully arranged.
The first boar stepped on the hidden punji stick.
CRUNCH.
The creature shrieked, a high-pitched sound of pure animal misery. The sharpened bone-wood punched through the soft frog of his hoof, impaling the foot. He stumbled, falling face-first into the mud.
The Boar-Kin behind him tripped over his fallen comrade.
Raina broke from her cover. She wasn't an observer anymore. She was a combatant.
She had the heavy branch in her hand. She sprinted toward the one who had fallen, the one Nix had lured into the tripwire.
The creature was tangling itself, the copper wire digging into its legs. It looked up, snarling, reaching for a knife at its belt.
Raina didn't give it the chance. She swung the club with every ounce of frustration, fear, and anger she had stored up over the last hour.
The wood connected with the side of the boar's head with a sickening, wet thud. The creature collapsed, unconscious or worse.
"Fall back!" Nix screamed. "They are regrouping!"
Raina scrambled back, her chest heaving. Three were down. Three were still standing, and they were mad.
One of the remaining Boar-Kin raised his blunderbuss. He didn't aim; he just pointed it at Raina and pulled the trigger.
BOOM.
The gun fired a cloud of black smoke and a spray of jagged metal shrapnel.
Raina dove behind the calcified root of a tree. The bark above her head exploded, showering her with razor-sharp splinters. Her ears rang.
"Nix!" she yelled. "The decapitation trap! Is it ready?"
"It is tight!" Nix yelled back. He was hiding behind a rock, holding the release rope for the sapling they had bent across the path at neck-height.
The three remaining Boar-Kin charged. They ignored the traps now, driven by bloodlust. They were coming for Raina.
"Wait for it," Raina whispered to herself, watching their approach. "Wait for it..."
They were ten feet away. She could smell their breath. She could see the madness in their eyes.
"NOW!"
Nix let go of the rope.
The sapling, pulled taut like a giant whip, lashed out across the path.
It caught the first two Boar-Kin squarely across the throat. The force of the impact lifted them off their feet, flipping them backward in a spray of blood and broken cartilage. They hit the ground and didn't move.
The last one—the biggest of the remaining group—managed to duck. The tree whipped over his head, missing him by inches.
He straightened up, letting out a roar of triumph. He leveled his weapon at Nix, who was exposed and unarmed.
"Nix!" Raina screamed.
She scrambled out from behind the root, but she was too far away. She had no weapon. The spear sling was empty.
The Boar-Kin's finger tightened on the trigger.
Suddenly, the air behind the Boar-Kin shimmered. It wasn't the grey mist of the Weald. It was a distortion, a ripple of heat and light.
A small, spherical object dropped out of the thin air, bouncing off the Boar-Kin's shoulder.
It looked like a grenade.
Or... a partially eaten apple?
The Boar-Kin looked down, confused.
Before he could fire, the air ripple expanded, and a sound echoed through the clearing—not the sound of the Weald, but a sound from home.
It was the distinct, unmistakable sound of a shotgun racking a shell.
CH-CHKT.
The Boar-Kin spun around.
But the mist was already closing.
"Hold the line, Rainy," a voice whispered, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere. It was Marcus.
The Boar-Kin fired blindly at the voice, blowing a hole in a fern.
Raina stared at the spot where the apple had fallen. A rift? A window?
She scrambled over to Nix, grabbing him and hauling him to his feet.
"We aren't alone," she gasped, pointing at the apple in the mud. "They're looking for us."
Nix looked at the apple. He picked it up.
"Granny Smith," Nix said, a manic grin spreading across his face. "Pearl's favorite."
The surviving Boar-Kin, now the only one left standing, looked around at his fallen squad. He looked at Raina and Nix, who were now armed with the weapons of the dead pigs.
He snorted once, turned tail, and ran into the fog.
Raina slumped against the tree, sliding down until she hit the mud. She was covered in slime, sweat, and blood that wasn't hers. Her hands were raw.
"We survived," she whispered.
"Phase One complete," Nix agreed, adjusting his glasses, which were miraculously still intact. "But Rainy... that was just a scouting party."
Raina looked at the apple in Nix's hand. She took it from him and took a bite. It was crisp, sour, and tasted like Earth.
"Let them come," Raina said, chewing slowly. "We're digging in."