The other side of the anomaly was not as bad as I expected. For a start, it was a damn sight cooler. We entered a stone-built hall that had a few other men in there, mercenaries with the same uniform as the bloke I’d shot. All bloody, all depressed, but all still alive. Some people just didn’t know when to count their fucking blessings.

  At the other end of the world stood a creature like nothing I’d ever seen before. Massive, with dirty white skin and a gray beard styled into spikes. He spoke to the metal mass carrying me, and though I didn’t have a clue what he’d said, my carrier tensed up.

  The big guy at the end of the hall seemed satisfied and beckoned another creature that was actually kinda hot into the room. She basically looked like a human, but smaller, with pointed ears, and purple-colored skin. I was a connoisseur of all skin colors, but I’d never had purple before. Nor with yellow eyes. Of all the options in the room though, she was definitely the most promising.

  I reconsidered my stance when her hands glowed and another anomaly opened up.

  Suddenly, all the other creatures in the hall were shouting, herding the mercs into the swirling light. I was carried over too, and while part of me wanted to fight, another part of me was intrigued by what was on the other side, and I let myself be thrown through.

  Maybe Adam would be there.

  Adam wasn’t there. There was plenty of pain, though. The knife in my pocket cut a deep gash in my thigh that got worse as I half-bounced, half-rolled into the corner of a cell. As the anomaly disappeared, we were left alone. The purple woman never came through after us, which was disappointing, but not my most pressing concern. Blood was pissing out of my leg, and I gave myself half an hour at best to live. It was a purely made up amount of time, but I definitely needed to do something.

  My first move was to hide the knife underneath me, the next move was to put pressure on the wound. The others ignored me, whispering amongst themselves. I heard Semtex mentioned and cover.

  Why was whispering so bloody annoying? I tried to shout at them to shut up, but only a tired moan came out.

  “Shut the fuck up, or talk normal,” someone replied.

  Another suggested that they just slash my throat. They were vetoed which came as a disappointment. I was definitely dying, but while I still had blood in my body, I reckoned I could still take one of them out with me. Denied a last moment of glory, I lamented.

  Seemed they’d lost interest in me again, and a minute later, I heard them rustling around like little rats.

  A shout of, “Ready!” was followed by the ground trembling. Dust spread across the cell.

  “Didn’t bloody touch the bars,” someone complained.

  I figured the explosive not working was the least of their problems as two of the ugliest motherfuckers I’d ever laid eyes on appeared at the bars. Not as tall as the things that had taken us from Earth, but twice as wide and their faces weren’t covered by helmets.

  They had deep furrowed brows, and their mouths had uncomfortable looking tusks jutting out. Their skin was a blotchy, grayish-green and rough like a rhino or some shit. My first thought was that Be-bob and Rocksteady had had a love child and gave us a Be-Steady. There was a chance I was delirious from blood loss.

  When one of them stepped through the bars as if they weren’t even there, I was further convinced I was losing my grip on reality.

  He leveled a spear and spoke in horrible English. “No silly weapons. One chance only. We kill all ones in here.”

  “What do you want from us?” someone asked again.

  My vision had gone blurry, my hearing fuzzy, and if the question was answered I missed it. I must have blacked out because the next instant found my head on the hard stone and the guards nowhere to be seen.

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  The others were sitting around the edges of the cell looking dejected and… I spasmed in a weak fit of shock. One of them was standing above me. How the hell had I missed that?

  With a growl, I lashed out with a fist, but my arm felt like a hundred-pound plate was strapped to it. My effort landed on the ground next to my head.

  A gentle voice spoke close by, “I don’t think we’ll last long here from the sounds of it. But I can’t just watch you bleed-out and not do anything to help.”

  I couldn’t reply, even though I wanted to. Especially when he started pulling my trousers down.

  No! Not like this, I raged. Rage didn’t help. My body was as flat as a pancake, and I had nothing left to give.

  “Shit. This is bad,” were the last words I heard.

  I was all bandaged up and weak as a newborn kitten when I returned to the land of the living. The voices of the mercenaries talked quietly amongst themselves. One of them rushed over.

  “How’re you doing, Earl?”

  “Urgh.”

  He chuckled lightly. “I bet. I got you stitched up good, and given time, it should heal well. Nasty scar is all.”

  I grunted.

  “You think you could take a drink of this?”

  “Just leave the wanker, Nick. Don’t waste supplies on him, he’s done.”

  Nick ignored the voice and raised a bottle to my lips. My mouth wasn’t working too well, and some sloshed over my face and dribbled down my chin. I still tried to gulp what I could and felt better immediately.

  Evidently not that much better. The next thing I knew was the sounds of shouting waking me.

  “Up, Up, Up,” the massive Be-Steady shouted.

  There were four of them this time, already in the cell and repeating the command to get up.

  My vision had cleared. I was weak, but I could just about push myself into a sitting position. The others had all lined up as instructed by the guards.

  One of them clomped over to me, and a fat, gray finger poked my chest. “You not good to fight. Waste of units. Stand or die.”

  Nick spoke up from their line, “He’s recovering fast. Give him a chance. I can get him on his feet in a day.”

  “You got till end of line. He go last.” His chest heaved a few times, and a weird gasping sound came from his tusked mouth. Apparently, he was laughing. “You go second last. Live a little longer?”

  I saw the scowls of the others at Nick, as if he’d somehow sent them to their deaths himself.

  One of the other guards prodded the last in the line on the far side of the cell. He was a tall, wiry merc with a scraggly beard.

  “You first. Come.”

  A chunky, gray hand landed on his shoulder, and Scraggly Beard was taken from the cell.

  Once we were alone, Nick came over to me again. He had a pouch of rations which he thrust in my face. “You need to eat. It might not help but… you should eat.”

  I took the pouch and pulled out a small, brown bar. “The hell is this?” I asked, taking a whiff. It wasn’t great.

  “Pemmican,” he said with a little pride. “Eat it. It has what you need.”

  He obviously wasn’t trying to kill me, so I started nibbling at the bar. A few seconds later, it was gone. I looked into the man’s face. I hadn’t really took it in before. Nothing special. Medium height and build. Short, brown hair and brown eyes. Looked fit and healthy, but not dangerous.

  “Damn, that was way nicer than it had any right to be. I don’t like many people, but you’re all right, Nick.”

  “Ex-army medic. Just doing my job.”

  The mention of the army soured the conversation, and I prodded tenderly at my leg to change the subject.

  “It’s a mess for sure. Clean wound but deep, and thankfully just missed the big artery, or you’d have been toast.”

  “Lucky me, eh?” I said, looking around the cell.

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he looked around the cell with me, then looked back to my leg. “You want to test standing? See if you’ll be able to walk when they come for you?”

  I shook my head, thinking about the knife and unveiling it too early. “Nah, I’ll give it till the last possible minute. I’ll rest up till it’s my turn to do whatever we’re being taken to do.”

  As if on cue, the heavy footfalls of the guards echoed down the stone corridor. They stopped at our cell, and one of the four stepped through and pointed at another of the men. Shorter than me, but wider than a barn door. Never nice to fight. Little brick shithouses were always awkward. The combination of speed and limbs that seemed to hold more power because of their smaller leverage points. Looked like a mean piece of shit as well.

  One of the other mercs stepped forward, getting in his face. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He looked tough apart from the silver hair. It didn’t look right. He couldn’t have been more than forty. “Where’s Caleb, you bastards?”

  The guard backhanded him. The power of the blow should have killed the fella, but he moved fast, and while he was never avoiding the blow, he took some of the deadly power out of the attack with his reactions. He landed in a pile, but without broken bones.

  By the time he got back up, raging at the injustice, the little shithouse had already been led off. I took the silver-haired guy for the leader, and his outrage was a bonus as I used the distraction to rake about for the knife.

  Grim satisfaction flooded me as my hand landed on the blade. Carefully, I finger-danced along it until I reached the hilt, managing to avoid the horribly sharp edge.

  Once I had a decent grip on the hilt, I tried to slide it up the sleeve of my hoody. Possibly a mistake after the absolute cock up I had made of having it in my pocket, but if I was going to survive whatever came next, I reckoned I’d need it.