“Marek.”

“Mm?”

He opened his eyes. It was still nighttime. Jesop had turned the air conditioning down, and the windshield showed a neon-green version of the landscape up ahead. The man wasn’t driving as fast as Marek himself would be doing, but with him being unfamiliar with both the car and the landscape that was probably for the best.

“I saw something in the distance a couple of minutes ago.”

The man was steering with one hand and holding the binoculars with the other, gazing out the left-side window. Marek took a quick glance at the radar to see if he ought to scold the man, but they were on a bit of a flat stretch.

“And I think I just saw another one like it, for a moment,” Jesop continued.

“Another what?”

“I don’t… know. I just saw it in the distance, via the windshield. I think it might have been man-made. And I think it’s…”

He visibly perked up.

“Yes. It’s back into view, up on… the… ridge…”

His face slackened as he trailed off. Marek’s alertness sharpened.

“What?”

“It’s a… body,” Jesop said, still staring through the binoculars. “I… yes. Up on a pair of pipes, or sticks, or something. It’s… there’s… mutilation. It’s all opened up and… and… oh, this is twisted.”

Marek reached over and engaged the autodriver.

“Switch seats,” he said, and his tense tone put Jesop in a further state of agitation.

“What is it?” he asked as they squeezed past one another.

“A ritual,” Marek said grimly. “One of their rituals.”

He sat down and sped up.

“Who?” Jesop asked. He readied his rifle.

“The Night People,” Marek muttered. “The Deep People. The Haunters.”

“The natives?” Jesop replied. “From… from before the Big Flash, I mean? They’re real? Zezka said-”

“Oh, they’re real,” Marek assured him. “Down in the caves and deepest gorges. Under the mountains, where water still runs free.” He clenched his jaw. “They’re real.”

Jesop detached the scope on his rifle, set it to night vision, and started looking out the right side and their rear.

“Don’t bother,” Marek told him. “You don’t see them until they slit your throat.”

The man looked his way.

“You’re being… different,” Jesop told him.

“Well, that’s because now I’m afraid, Jesop,” Marek replied. “Put on your harness. They’re very good at laying traps.”

Jesop hurriedly complied. Clearly Marek’s manner was affecting him.

“Traps?”

He examined the view through the windshield.

“So what do we do?”

“What we don’t do is take the obvious route,” Marek explained.

He checked the radar, and added the available information to his prior knowledge of the area.

“See? Here. That nasty ridge, and a great big canyon. A fairly narrow strip between them. That’s where we don’t go.”

He steered to the left and started an ascension of the rocky ridge. It quickly became a very wobbly ride, but the car had the suspension and the wheels for it. Marek operated on a combination of the radar and what he could see with his own eyes. There was no road across the ridge itself, not even in the loosest sense of the word, but he thought he had a usable route in sight.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

They were just at the steeper, rockier part when an alarm sounded.

“Heat signature!” Jesop said. “A good distance behind us!”

It was indeed; the kind that could only belong to a vehicle. Marek had just estimated it to be about twice the size of his own car when a small explosion hit the rocks a few metres away.

“Hello, Hannoer,” Marek said as he sped the car up. The problem with his route was that it was rather narrow for evasive driving. There was no time to be coy, or cautious. They needed to crest the ridge fast.

“I can’t shoot!” Jesop said. “Too bumpy!”

“I know.”

The radar let out a shrill warning and Marek hit a button. From the side of the driver’s area a burst of hot gas launched a cylinder skywards. Hannoer’s homing shot hit that instead of the car, and exploded in the air above.

“Shit!” Jesop shouted.

“Yep.”

Marek did his best to not go in a simple straight line, but a sharp left turn sent them screeching down a steep slope. The tires squealed for a heart-stopping moment, and the right-side ones lifted from the rock. Then they slammed back down and Marek again had a grip on the ground. They went back up, at an angle, and he continued up the route.

Hannoer was closing in fast and the radar shouted another unpleasant warning. Marek launched another hot cylinder, but the incoming shot simply exploded a stone’s throw ahead.

Well, how many homing shots was Hannoer going to have at the ready, anyway?

The top beckoned and the final few metres felt near-vertical. The ground threatened to pull them down, but a steady hand on the wheel and a steady foot on the acceleration launched them over it. Beyond was a nasty drop that ended in a body-shaking blow, but the car kept on moving.

“I think he’s still coming!” Jesop stated, his voice high from stress while Marek took them down a route that was only slightly better than before.

“He’s definitely coming,” Marek told him.

“Do you think his car can make it?”

“He’ll certainly try,” Marek replied. He took in the immediate landscape as the ground started evening out. “I… yeah, here he comes.”

Hannoer’s big, armed and armoured vehicle came over the top and slammed into the slopes with less grace than Marek’s had. It looked like they might flip and roll, but no such luck.

“Okay, now start shooting,” Marek said, and Jesop wasted no time in sticking himself halfway out the window again.

To the left was more ridge. Up ahead was relatively flat desert and the straight route to his goal. To the right was the canyon, with its sheer walls and drop that no amount of suspension could handle.

Marek went right.

Jesop fired slower than his weapon’s capacity, picking his shots for accuracy.

“I hit, but they’re armoured!” the man told Marek as the windshield started filling up with canyon.

“Well, give them something to think about, at least! Going left!”

Marek cut left to give Hannoer’s gunner a hard time. And then it was the canyon. No more messing around. He hit the turbo again.

“Get in!” he shouted. “Get in and hold on tight!”

Jesop got in but only had a second to react to the sight before him

“WHAT ARE-”

Just as they reached the edge Marek hit a button and activated the boost. His car shot off the ground. It was only by a few metres, but with the momentum he’d built up it stayed that way for a few seconds and they flew over the yawning depth of the chasm. Jesop’s limbs flailed around until they found purchase, then went stiff as steel beams.

Marek’s soul burned as the other side neared and they started losing altitude. Life or oblivion. A hair-fine difference between the two. What a death this would be.

But they slammed down in the sand beyond the gap. Jesop was thrown up from his seat and his head hit the ceiling with a thump. Another shot from Hannoer burst in the air, and sparks flew from a few places on the car. The engine readout started beeping a warning, but Marek ignored it and kept on driving. He zig-zagged wildly before spotting a promising cliff protruding from the desert, and dodged in its general direction before shifting into a straight line for the final stretch.

He put it between them and Hannoer, and then stopped the car.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jesop replied and rubbed the top of his head. “Oof.”

“He’s not coming across,” Marek said. Then he grinned. “Too heavy. Too focused on fighting power.”

“Are you going to scream again?”

“No. You do it.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“Suit yourself,” Marek said.

“The… the engine,” Jesop pointed out.

“Flechettes,” Marek told him, and looked around to check for damage. “Normally used for capturing vehicles in relatively good condition, and… oh, burning balls, he’s hit our cooling system!”

The rush of blood in his ears quieted enough that he could hear a rapid dripping.

“And we’re losing water! Come on, help me!”

They opened their respective doors, and as always it felt a bit strange to walk on unmoving ground again after a non-stop drive. He snatched a repair kit from the inside of the door and crawled under the car.

It was awkward work, in darkness and wet, sticky sand. The water tank was one of the most protected parts of the entire car; a flechette making it through had been a total fluke. But that also meant that reaching it for repairs wasn’t a quick process.

“We’ve lost almost half,” Marek said as he finally began glueing the bottom hole shut.

“And that’s bad for us, right?” Jesop said from where he lay, holding a plate out of the way.

“It’s bad for us if we don’t make it to that caravan in time. And I’m not willing to bet it all on something like that.”

“So then what?”

“Well…” Marek cleared some water from his eyes. “We stop in a water village.”